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The National
a day ago
- Politics
- The National
Donald Trump has a Jeffrey Epstein problem and it's just getting started
US President Donald Trump, who likes to promote his peacemaker credentials, is facing a civil war within his own ranks. Fuelling the rebellion among his Make America Great Again loyalists is Mr Trump's response to developments in the case of Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced former financier who authorities say took his own life in a New York jail while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. Epstein in 2008 had pleaded guilty to solicitation of prostitution and solicitation of a child for prostitution, and his death in 2019 quickly became a cause celebre for Maga loyalists and the right-wing media world. They claimed, without evidence, that Epstein was murdered to keep him quiet about any wealthy and powerful clients he may have had. The theory was so widespread that it became received wisdom in the Maga universe. Last year, Vice President JD Vance said: 'We need to release the Epstein list, that is an important thing." But when the FBI and the Justice Department published a much-anticipated memo last week, it stated that no evidence supported the claim that Epstein had kept a 'client list', or that he had blackmailed prominent people. Investigators also reasserted 2019 findings that he had died by suicide. For many Maga supporters, the memo amounted to a betrayal, especially considering the source. For years before joining the Trump administration, FBI Director Kash Patel and his deputy, Dan Bongino, had pushed Epstein conspiracies in one form or another. Now that they are in office, they are saying there is nothing to see here and it's time to move on. In February, Attorney General Pam Bondi said she had an Epstein client list 'sitting on my desk right now to review". But when asked about it last week, she sought to withdraw the comment, saying she was referring to the overall Epstein file. For conservative influencers including Elon Musk and Laura Loomer, it all stinks. Ms Loomer, a staunch Trump loyalist, on Sunday told Politico that a special counsel should be appointed for an independent investigation of the handling of the Epstein files. Mr Musk, who fell out with Mr Trump last month, lobbed a 'really big bomb' at the President as he left the White House, claiming the reason the full Epstein investigation has not been made public is because Mr Trump is 'in the Epstein files'. He later deleted that post on X. We already knew that Mr Trump, Bill Clinton, Britain's Prince Andrew and other rich and powerful men had moved in Epstein's orbit, before he was known to be a sexual predator. But Mr Musk appeared to be hinting at something else. On Saturday, the tech billionaire posted on X that Mr Trump should 'just release the files as promised". Mr Trump's own reaction to the release of the memo has been disastrous. When asked about it at a Cabinet meeting last week, instead of addressing the terrible crimes Epstein was accused of, or telling supporters that he was committed to making sure justice is done, he snapped at a reporter who had the temerity to ask him about the case. 'Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?' Mr Trump said testily. 'This guy's been talked about for years … are people still talking about this? … That is unbelievable." It was a massively disingenuous answer as he knows only too well how important the Epstein case is to his supporters. He made things worse still on Saturday when he claimed that the Epstein file had been created by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and other 'losers and criminals of the Biden administration". Let's 'not waste time and energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about", he posted in a lengthy message on Truth Social. A look at comments underneath that post are instructive. Normally, Mr Trump's posts are greeted with a tsunami of seemingly bot-generated memes that adulate him. Now, angry supporters are alleging he is part of some sort of cover-up. 'This is going to cost you so many supporters. I being one of them. I have been to multiple rallies and even was there on [January 6, 2021, at the US Capitol],' one user wrote. Another said Mr Trump is 'losing too many in your base'. It all amounts to a huge headache for Mr Trump and a credibility crisis for his administration. Just last month, he was coming off perhaps the most successful period of his time as President. In less than two weeks, he announced an Israel-Iran ceasefire, sealed a peace accord between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and persuaded European allies to increase defence spending for Nato. But his handling of the Epstein case means cracks are forming in his foundational support. If he's not careful, the saga could start to undermine his broader agenda.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Vice president's rumored vacation visit to Disney resort sparks impromptu protest
A large crowd of protesters gathered outside Disneyland's Grand Californian Hotel & Spa on Friday afternoon after local officials rumored a possible vacation visit from Vice President JD Vance. Orange County officials received intel of the VP's visit to the area on Thursday. In an interview with KTLA 5, Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento said the VP's visit 'comes at a time when trust in government feels fragile.' 'I welcome any policymaker to visit, listen and witness the hard-working immigrant communities that make our county strong," Sarmiento, who represents the county's 2nd District, said in a post to social media. "I respect the office, but I can't respect policies that hurt our people." Sarmiento's district includes the city of Santa Ana, where immigrant communities have been hit with ICE raids since June. His jurisdiction stretches to parts of Anaheim, Garden Grove, Orange and Tustin, which have also suffered what some immigrant advocates describe as 'racial profiling,' targeted at Latinos. 'There's a huge contrast between the work we do on the ground — supporting families with food, resources, and hope — and an administration whose policies feel designed to crush the very communities we serve,' Sarmiento added. The Santanero, a local Santa Ana newspaper, reported that Air Force 2 landed at John Wayne Airport on Friday shortly after 5 p.m. It was not immediately confirmed whether Vance was on the aircraft on official business following his latest visit to California when he attended a $2,500-per-seat conservative event at a high-end sushi restaurant in San Diego. Neither a weekend schedule nor fundraising event were posted by the vice president's office, which has led to speculation that Vance might be on a family vacation. Online footage began to circulate of a C-17 motorcade entering the Disneyland Park in Anaheim. A crowd of protestors began to form near the park at 5:30 p.m. on Harbor Boulevard and Katella Avenue on Friday. Some individuals drove up to four hours to be at the protest, where many waved Mexican and California flags and carried handmade posters. 'I would tell [Vance] to go home,' one protestor told Fox 11. 'We don't want him here.' The Anaheim Police Department did not immediately respond to a Times request for comment as of Saturday, but online footage showed police presence at Friday's protest. No injuries or arrests were reported. YouTuber Matt Desmond posted a short video to his channel, DisneyScoopGuy, Saturday morning of Vance and two of his children at Disneyland walking through the park and riding Tiana's Bayou Adventure. The video showed security personnel roaming inside the park with explosive detective dogs. It was not clear if the agents are from the Secret Service, according to the City News Service. Disney officials declined to comment on individual plans out of respect for all guests. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Susan Collins' Re-Election Prospects Dim
Senator Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, speaks to members of the media outside a Senate Republican luncheon at the Capitol in Washington, on June 28, 2025. Credit - Aaron Schwartz—Bloomberg /Getty Images This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME's politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox. When someone crosses Donald Trump, the retribution tends to come fast and fierce. But when Sen. Susan Collins of Maine voted last week against his One Big Beautiful Bill, a tax- and safety net-cuts behemoth, the President was atypically silent. That may be the biggest indicator of just how much danger Collins is in as she faces re-election in Maine in 2026. Collins' opposition was not enough to kill the giant domestic bill that may be the lone legislative lift of the 119th Congress. She was the 50th nay, which forced Vice President J.D. Vance's to provide a tie breaking 51st vote. Collins is seldom the deciding factor; she did not sink Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court and voted for all but one of Trump's second-term Cabinet picks, while also voting against Kash Patel's nomination to lead the FBI. Her protest votes are as strategic as they are symbolic; FiveThirtyEight found she voted with Trump 67% of the time during his first term. Plus, on an early test vote on this bill, she let it proceed as she continued, unsuccessfully, to negotiate for carve-outs for rural hospitals. Collins is the lone Senator up for re-election next year in a state that Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris carried in 2024. Democrats have yet to settle on a favored candidate to become the nominee although all eyes are on Maine Gov. Janet Mills, the tough-minded former prosecutor who stared down Trump at the White House and refused to comply with his administration's anti-transgender athlete orders. State Democrats have other options at the ready if the 77-year-old Mills passes and are primed either way to make Collins own the Trump record, especially her votes for his Supreme Court nominees in his first term. While she was re-elected after those votes, the Justices have since overturned a half-century of precedent on abortion rights in Roe. Republicans in Washington, meanwhile, have seemingly endless patience with Collins and understand her savvy. Her tangles with Trump have been largely performative, not predictive. She is no John McCain, who with a single thumbs-down signal thwarted Trump's first-term effort to repeal Obamacare. Cynics say that Collins shows independence only when it doesn't really make a difference; no one on her side of the aisle really unloaded on her after the vote against the latest package. Most had her back, saying they understood her choice. Collins, a powerful player and chair of the all-important Appropriations panel, is not terribly difficult to understand, politically speaking. She has never won re-election by less than 8 points despite her home state's fickle politics. The last time the state's majority vote went for a Republican presidential candidate was in 1988, also the last year a Democrat won a Senate race in the state. But her net approval rating sank 12 percentage points—more than any other Senator's numbers—between the first and second quarters of this year, according to Morning Consult. Her disapproval number stood at 51%, up from a 44% average in the January-March window. And she is definitely viewed less warmly than when she was at a comparable point ahead of her 2020 bid. In 2019, 52% of Mainers had a favorable impression of Collins, according to Morning Consult polling. Today, the number is 42%. This suggests she's going to have a trickier time than when she was at the comparable point ahead of her last campaign. In 2019, ahead of her 2020 bid, her net positive numbers were 13 points. Today she's at a net negative of 9 points, according to the same pollsters. That means roughly 1-in-5 Maine voters have changed their minds about Collins in a state where her last victory was secured by less than 9 points. Collins' allies, meanwhile, offer a different read, noting that she enjoyed a net positive of 2 points in September of last year, and that has moved to a net positive of 4 points last month, according to an independent survey from Pan Atlantic Research. As a practical matter, about 34,000 Mainers stand to lose health coverage as the bill was drafted. Two solar projects in the state were put on hold even before the bill passed. Hospitals were already bracing for shifting services. Collins' no vote, in a rational world, made sense for her constituents. But that may not help her. Among voters in Maine, a majority—including a majority of Republicans—says she does not deserve to be re-elected, according to polling from neighboring University of New Hampshire. A striking 71% of all Maine voters say this should be her last term, and 57% of Republicans agree, according to a survey taken in April. That's a simply brutal number. Flipping ahead a few pages in the same UNH binder, things get even worse. Their survey finds Collins with a favorability number of just 12%, landing a 58% unfavorable number. Among Republicans, the gap is a 19% positive to a 43% negative. The University of New Hampshire Survey Center found the bill was deeply unpopular, according to a June poll. A 58% majority did not want to see the bill pass, including 72% of independent voters. Still, Democrats are realistic about what they face. While Collins has just $3 million in her account, she raised almost $31 million for her 2020 bid and won her 2014 campaign with less than $6 million in spending to notch 67% of the vote. Senate Republicans' campaign committee is, first and foremost, an incumbent-retention operation and will have her back. Senate Democrats, meanwhile, are going to be defending tricky seats in Georgia, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Michigan, and Colorado. They would need a net pick-up run of four seats to take a majority, and the path to that would require upsets in Trump-backing states like Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, Iowa, and Texas, plus holding every seat that is currently blue. So Collins is facing some pretty lousy poll numbers and is going to be dogged by her no vote that had no real upside. The vote against Trump is not going to be the salve that cures her dour numbers. She defied Republicans but is not going to get any love from Democrats. She's going to be hounded by a bill she did not support. Plus, the headwinds are historic—and that's before Trump decides whether he will launch his own revenge. Make sense of what matters in Washington. Sign up for the D.C. Brief newsletter. Write to Philip Elliott at
Yahoo
07-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Blue state sheriffs combine forces to fight back against sanctuary laws
A group of five Minnesota sheriff's offices inked cooperation agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs (ICE), taking a strikingly different approach to immigration enforcement in a state known for its widespread sanctuary policies. Minnesota's Cass, Crow Wing, Freeborn, Itasca and Jackson counties sheriffs' offices have all entered 287g agreements with ICE since President Donald Trump took office, allowing the federal immigration agency to delegate some authority to the offices to perform immigration enforcement functions, according to a report by the Sahan Journal. The agreements allow for increased cooperation between the local law enforcement agencies and ICE, including programs that focus on identifying and processing illegal immigrants that are already in custody and are eligible for deportation. Another program allows for a "task force model," which brings the local agencies in to serve as a "force multiplier" for ICE, the report said. Jd Vance Torches Media, Dems' 'Disgraceful Set Of Priorities' On Deportation Of Accused Ms-13 Gang Member Some local law enforcement officers will also have the opportunity to participate in 40-hour ICE training sessions under the agreements, the report notes, while agencies participating in the program are required to keep in regular contact with their nearest ICE field office when carrying out any immigration enforcement. The agreements come in a state that has seen widespread use of so-called "sanctuary" policies that limit or prohibit a local jurisdiction's ability to cooperate with federal immigration authorities, with the latest Center for Immigration Studies data showing 12 Minnesota counties that have passed rules limiting cooperation with ICE. Read On The Fox News App The five sheriff's offices inking agreements with ICE over the last few months brings the total number of offices participating in 287g in the state to seven, the Sahan Journal report notes, with the five new counties joining Sherburne and Kandiyohi counties, which have long had cooperation agreements with ICE. Iowa Ag Launches Investigation After Sheriff Refuses To Work With Ice Judge Orders Trump Administration To Return Man Maryland Mistakenly Deported To El Salvador Prison The agreements have already led to a growth in immigrant detentions, with a Freeborn County jail deputy telling the Sahan Journal that there has "definitely" been an "uptick" in immigration inmates since the county entered the agreement. However, the program is not without critics, with Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison's office cautioning local agencies to consider potential drawbacks. "While 287g agreements are sometimes touted as a tool for getting violent offenders off the street, studies have shown that large numbers of people detained through 287g-related enforcement have committed only misdemeanors or traffic violations," a spokesperson for Ellison's office told the Sahan Journal. Fox News Digital has reached out to Walz's office for article source: Blue state sheriffs combine forces to fight back against sanctuary laws
Yahoo
28-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump admin to pause financial assistance programs: report
The White House has reportedly issued a memo that broadly suspends federal grants, loans and other financial assistance programs for executive departments pending an assessment of the funding. The Wall Street Journal first reported the memo, saying it was sent out by the Office of Management and Budget around 5 p.m. on Monday. The memo, which takes effect Tuesday at 5 p.m., said agencies "must temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the Green New Deal," according to the Journal. The memo reportedly said the federal government spent more than $3 trillion on federal assistance, including grants and loans, in the 2024 fiscal year and that the pause allows "time to review agency programs and determine the best uses of the funding for those programs consistent with the law and the President's priorities." Jd Vance Condemns Fema's Response To Helene Devastation In 1St Trip As Vice President Each agency must "complete a comprehensive analysis of all their Federal financial assistance programs to identify programs, projects and activities that may be implicated by any of the President's executive orders," the memo continued, according to the Journal, adding that the pause must be applied "to the extent permissible under applicable law." Read On The Fox News App After Raucous First Week In Office, Donald Trump To Keep His Foot On The Gas Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., condemned the memo, telling the Journal that pausing the funding puts "billions upon billions of community grants and financial support that help millions of people across the country" at risk. "It will mean missed payrolls and rent payments and everything in between: chaos for everything from universities to non-profit charities, state disaster assistance, local law enforcement, aid to the elderly, and food for those in need," Schumer said, adding that Congress approved the funding for the federal assistance programs. The memo included a footnote that said Medicare, Social Security benefits and assistance provided directly to individuals were exempt from the pause, but its otherwise broad language caused confusion Monday night among some federal employees, as administrators requested advice from their internal counsel regarding which programs the pause applied to and how the departments should respond, one source told the Journal. The memo included a Feb. 10 deadline for agencies to submit a thorough summary of all paused programs, projects and activities to the Office of Management and article source: Trump admin to pause financial assistance programs: report
