Trump Vows Changes to History and Art at the Smithsonian; Actor Malik Yoba Speaks Out - First Of All with Victor Blackwell - Podcast on CNN Audio
The Trump Administration is fighting to detain and deport Cornell student activist Momodou Taal. Taal's attorneys, Eric Lee and Chris Godshall-Bennett, have a warning about other foreign students they say are being targeted across the country.
President Trump says he wants to remove "improper ideology" from our nation's top historical and cultural institution, the Smithsonian. Pulitzer-prize winning historian of African American history, David W. Blight, explains why he thinks this is 'a political declaration of war.'
Latino and Black voters could have a particularly important role to play in the upcoming Wisconsin Supreme Court race that's getting national attention. Victor speaks with Milwaukee County GOP Chairman Hilario Deleon and Angela Lang, the executive director of Black Leaders Organizing Communities in Milwaukee, about their respective outreach.
Plus, Actor Malik Yoba got a lot of attention for saying "I'm no longer a Black man." He joins Victor to explain why he thinks people missed his real goal of sparking a conversation about the ongoing purge of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
And later, Lisa France and Victor break out their fans to talk about line dancing and Black joy as an act of resistance.
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Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
Republicans and Democrats call for more information on Epstein case
Trump and many of his allies vowed to release a trove of files in the case, including a so-called 'client list' that many involved in the case insist never existed. But the release of some documents earlier this year offered no new revelations. And the Justice Department said this month that it had closed the case and would not release more documents, concluding that there was no client list. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up One of Epstein's former lawyers, Alan Dershowitz, said in an interview on 'Fox News Sunday' that the grand jury testimony was unlikely to contain the information that has most interested Trump's supporters. Advertisement Trump has encouraged his base to move on. But the backlash seemed to be on his mind Sunday morning, when he accused 'Radical Left Democrats' of exposing the 'Jeffrey Epstein Hoax.' Burchett also took up Trump's argument Sunday, saying that Democrats had the chance to release the materials when former president Joe Biden was in office. Advertisement At the same time, Burchett is one of 10 Republicans who have signed on to an effort to force a vote on whether the administration should release the files. The procedural maneuver would require a majority of House members, and Burchett said he was not sure if it would succeed. 'I have no earthly idea,' he said on CNN. 'You know this town buries secrets.' Democrats in Congress have seized on the divide that has opened up between Trump and his supporters, trying to force votes on measures that call for the release of Epstein-related files and pressing for hearings. They have rejected Trump's efforts to redirect the blame to them. 'The president blaming Democrats for this disaster, Jake, is like that CEO that got caught on camera blaming Coldplay,' said Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, to CNN's Jake Tapper, referring to a viral video that showed the married CEO of a tech company with his arms around a woman who is not his wife. Klobuchar, instead blamed the public's clamoring for the files on right-wing politicians, including Trump, who she said had sown distrust in federal prosecutors over the case. 'People have a reason that they want to know what's in there,' Klobuchar said. 'They believe the president when he said there's stuff in there that people should see.' Several former federal prosecutors told the Associated Press that the Justice Department request to unseal grand jury transcripts in the prosecutions of Epstein and his former girlfriend, imprisoned British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, is unlikely to produce much, if anything, to satisfy the public's appetite for new revelations about the financier's crimes. Advertisement Attorney Sarah Krissoff, an assistant US attorney in Manhattan from 2008 to 2021, called the request 'a distraction.' 'The president is trying to present himself as if he's doing something here and it really is nothing,' Krissoff told the Associated Press in a weekend interview. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche made the request Friday, asking judges to unseal transcripts from grand jury proceedings that resulted in indictments against Epstein and Maxwell, saying 'transparency to the American public is of the utmost importance to this Administration.' Krissoff and Joshua Naftalis, a Manhattan federal prosecutor for 11 years before entering private practice in 2023, said grand jury presentations are purposely brief. Naftalis said Southern District prosecutors present just enough to a grand jury to get an indictment but 'it's not going to be everything the FBI and investigators have figured out about Maxwell and Epstein.' 'People want the entire file from however long. That's just not what this is,' he said, estimating that the transcripts, at most, probably amount to a few hundred pages. 'It's not going to be much,' Krissoff said, estimating the length at as little as 60 pages 'because the Southern District of New York's practice is to put as little information as possible into the grand jury.' 'They basically spoon feed the indictment to the grand jury. That's what we're going to see,' she said. 'I just think it's not going to be that interesting. ... I don't think it's going to be anything new.' This article originally appeared in
Chicago Tribune
an hour ago
- Chicago Tribune
Chicago activists urge Pritzker to pass law to make polluters pay for climate change damages
Young climate activists from Chicago called on Gov. JB Pritzker to enact legislation that would make the fossil fuel industry — instead of taxpayers — responsible for funding green, resilient infrastructure and disaster response in the face of climate change, following similar bills recently passed in Vermont and New York. 'Illinois can and must do the same,' said Oscar Sanchez, co-executive director of the Southeast Environmental Task Force, at a Sunday rally. 'Kids get asthma before they learn to ride a bike. Cancer becomes a ZIP code issue. Our elders breathe toxic poison in their own home,' he said. 'It's not just the pollution, it's the climate crisis bearing down on us right now. We see streets turn into rivers after storms, basements flood, families lose everything. Meanwhile, oil and gas companies — the same ones fueling this crisis — are posting record-breaking profits.' The group, a coalition led by the local Sunrise Movement chapter, gathered across the University of Chicago's David Rubenstein event venue in Woodlawn, where the Aspen Ideas Climate Conference officially kicked off Sunday afternoon with hundreds of leaders from business, government, academia and other fields. Pritzker was set to discuss green tech and infrastructure investments; also invited were Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who were expected to talk about their approaches to energy and economic development. Some of the young activists praised Pritzker for his commitment to climate issues and said he has an opportunity to demonstrate that by standing with Illinoisans and holding corporate polluters accountable. Passing a 'Make Polluters Pay' law, they say, would make these companies responsible for the public health and climate change impacts in Illinois that are a direct result of their activities. In Chicago, for instance, such legislation would help address what activists have long protested as discriminatory zoning practices, which have pushed heavy industry into poor communities of color — exposing residents to toxic chemicals and pollutants and leading to a higher prevalence of negative health effects in the population, including cardiovascular and respiratory disease. 'We know what environmental racism looks like, because we live it every single day,' Sanchez said. Some primarily Black and Hispanic neighborhoods and suburbs, like Chatham, Austin, Cicero and Berwyn, also experience severe flooding during heavy rains. 'If I'm going to be honest with everyone, I don't like being here. Because this shouldn't have to be our reality — that polluters are polluting Black, Latino, working-class communities across Chicago and Illinois,' said Gianna Guiffra, a Sunrise Movement volunteer. 'We shouldn't have to be protesting simply to tell them that we are human beings too. These big oil and gas companies make it very clear to everyone that they are choosing profit over life, that they are choosing profit over human beings, that they are choosing profit over our planet.' In 2024, Vermont became the first state to require oil companies to pay for damages from extreme weather driven by climate change, after catastrophic flooding that summer. Later last year, New York also passed its own Climate Change Superfund Act, which would raise $75 billion over 25 years from the fossil fuel industry to fund climate change adaptation and mitigation projects in the state. 'These polluters should pay for the damage they have done to our communities,' Guiffra said. Following suit, the activists say, means Pritzker would be standing up to the Trump administration, which has made 250 million acres of federal public land eligible for sale to the highest bidder, led regulatory rollbacks on polluters, and cut tax incentive programs for renewable energy projects. 'This could be the ground zero of a mass movement that puts the billionaires in check, takes power back for the people and guarantees hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of good, clean energy jobs,' said Sage Hanson, a Sunrise Movement volunteer.
San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Kansas Republican senate president announces 2026 gubernatorial bid
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson entered the race for governor on Sunday as the 2026 Republican primary field gets more crowded. Republicans are keen to recapture the governor's office in GOP-leaning Kansas after Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly narrowly won a second four-year term in 2022. Kelly is term-limited and cannot run again. Masterson, a small-business owner, has been a state senator representing a district in eastern Kansas since 2009. He became Senate president in 2021. He previously served in the Kansas House of Representatives from 2005 to 2008. Other Republicans in the 2026 governor's race include Secretary of State Scott Schwab, who built his public profile pushing back against unfounded election conspiracy theories, and former Gov. Jeff Colyer. Colyer was elevated to the office for about a year in 2018 after former Gov. Sam Brownback resigned. He failed to get past the primary in that year's gubernatorial election, then entered the 2022 governor's race but dropped out early after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.
