The Rise of the Thielverse & of the Surveillance State (w/ Whitney Webb)
Oct 22, 2025
The Chris Hedges Report
Whitney Webb traces the Thielverse’s rise and the construction of the bipartisan modern surveillance state that Trump and his benefactors are deploying against dissidents and immigrants today.
Transcript
There were many, including some liberals, who mistakenly believed the Trump administration would dismantle the
deep state. In fact, as the investigative reporter Whitney Webb has documented, Trump is closely allied with
the most authoritarian figures in Silicon Valley, such as Peter Teal, who
envision a world where our habits, proclivities, opinions, and movements are minutely recorded and tracked. These
Trump allies do not intend to free us from the tyranny of intelligence agencies, militarized police, the
largest prison system in the world, predatory corporations, or the end of mass surveillance. They will not restore
the rule of law to hold the powerful and the wealthy accountable. Nor will they slash the bloated and unaccountable
spending, some $1 trillion by the Pentagon. They are rapidly purging the
civil service as well as law enforcement and the military not to eradicate the
deep state but ensure that those in charge of state machinery are exclusively loyal to the whims and
dictates of the Trump White House. What is being targeted is not the deep state
but the laws, resolutions, regulations, protocols and rules and the government
civil servants who enforce them which hinder absolute dictatorial control.
compromise, limited power, checks and balances, and accountability are slated to be abolished. Those who believe that
the government is designed to serve the common good rather than the dictates of a tiny cabal of billionaires will be
forced out. The deep state will be reconstituted to serve the leadership cult. Laws and the rights enshrined in
the constitution will become irrelevant. It is a coup d'eta by inches. One that
will be enforced in crude and brutal fashion by the Immigration and Customs
Enforcement Agency on the streets of our cities. Empowered by Teal's Palunteer
and the sophisticated forms of monitoring made possible by artificial intelligence and digital surveillance
pioneered by Silicon Valley. Joining me to discuss our emergent Orwellian state
is the investigative journalist and author of One Nation Under Blackmail, Whitney Webb. You can find her on her
website, Unlimited Hangout. Whitney, let's go back to uh the
beginning uh Po Dexter Iran Contra, which I covered actually when I was in
Nicaragua because that's really the origin of where we are today.
Yeah, it's definitely I would argue one of the best starting points and also thanks so much for having me on Chris. Um so John Po Dexter uh as of course you
know was one of um the national security advisers to Reagan and was the highest ranking member of his administration
that was indicted as part of Iran Contra. But he is also uh remembered as the quote unquote godfather of modern
surveillance. Um and this is in part because of his efforts in the immediate
post 911 era um pioneering the off uh an office within DARPA that housed a
program called total information awareness. Um so right after uh the Reagan administration um Po Dexter was
sort of um in various roles throughout these tech companies that were sort of a
a prototype to what Palunteer and total information awareness would later do uh
like Saffron Technology, Cintech Technologies that were defense contractors and trying to basically
create uh use uh sort of um you know predictive analytics um to determine uh
what terrorists would do next all before 9/11 even happened and of course there was a renewed demand for that type of
technology and these sort of innovative solutions in the immediate post 911 era
um and uh when this information you know uh was reported on total information
awareness there was a huge outcry um throughout uh you know US mainstream media um a lot of organizations
including the ACLU and organizations like that uh rightly noted that it would eliminate uh the constitutional right to
privacy uh and create this uh very disturbing era um of of mass
surveillance uh by you know it b I think one of the mainstream media reports on it said that it would uh fight terrorism
by terrifying US citizens basically and making everyone a suspect um in under
this this type of um this paradigm he was seeking to usher in. And so it was
eventually you know under pressure. It was I think first announced in February 2003 and by May they attempted to change
the name to terrorism information awareness uh trying to move away from uh
the idea that it would uh be total it would surveil absolutely everyone uh through a name change but obviously it
didn't change how the program actually worked. It would still uh be focused on everyday Americans um you know a total
drag net really. Um and in that same month where that name change happened uh Peter Teal incorporated uh Palunteer and
as Palanteer uh was developing as a company uh they you uh Peter Teal and
Alex Karp the Palunteer co-founders uh reached out to Point Dexter directly through Richard Pearl who's a well-known
neoconservative figure and was also one of the architects of the Iraq war at the uh Bush era Pentagon
and uh you know basically they hatched this plan to privat to privatize this
program. rightly calculating that if they turned it into a entirely private
sector enterprise uh the outrage uh would uh you know essentially dissipate
which it uh remarkably did because um you know originally it was a public private partnership housed within DARPA
and then by making it this private sector uh enterprise um you know a lot
of the concerns about it uh disappeared and bec and this is arguably because by moving into the private sector uh they
were able to accomplish a lot more than they than they could have uh by being affiliated directly with the public
sector even though they contract uh with the public sector. And so Palunteer uh
funding wise was set up with money from Peter Teal um himself and that the
algorithm for it had originally been developed at PayPal and um uh the other
funding source was the CIA's InQoutell. Um and one of the figures that helped create uh that helped make that funding
decision uh was the CIA's chief information officer at the time named Alan Wade. and Alan Wade had been one of
the top allies of the total information awareness with PO Dexter um you know in
the immediate post 911 um era and so um the CIA was the was
Palanteer's exclusive company sorry exclusive client for I believe the first six years of its existence as a company
um and its its engineers went to Langley uh you know CIA headquarters in Virginia every two weeks for several years as
well where the CIA was um developing their algorithm with them, you know, in
a very direct partnership. And Alex Karp has even said that the CIA was always the intended clients um of Palunteer.
So, I guess I'll I'll pause there and I'm happy to go in other any other direction. Explain what it does, what what the what
the goal what Po Dexter's goal was and and what they were able to establish. I
mean, the mechanics of it. So, Po Dexter's goal was extremely broad. I mean it really covered I mean
it's it's absolutely staggering when you think about it. So the way it was initially sold to the public was this is
a way to stop terrorism attacks before they happen um by coalating so much um
data um from all different sources and then using a some sort of analytic or AI
to determine um you know if u certain data points are flagging that a
terrorist attack will take place here um here or there. There's various different
aspects of this program that didn't really get enough coverage at the time. Uh so one is that they attempted to use
uh free market forces to determine if a terrorism attack would happen. Before it
happened, they created basically what's referred to as a terrorism futures market. It was really like a forerunner
to poly market and some of these predictive markets uh where people bet on things online. And it was basically
that but about whether a terrorist attack uh will happen in the Middle East or if there will be turmoil in the
Middle East if someone like Yaser Arafat would be overthrown. You know, these were the kinds of things they were going to have these unnamed uh investors bet
on. Um another one was focused entirely on health um under this program called bioserveillance
um which actually a lot of it Palunteer uh helped launch with HHS during the
COVID era. uh things like um analyzing American wastewater to determine if
there is going to be an outbreak of a disease before it happens. Uh with um
again with an algorithm or basically you know surveilling Americans uh health data uh and uh to determine if there
will be a pandemic before it happens or if there will be a bioteterror attack because remember this was also in the
aftermath um of the of the anthrax attacks. Um and so a lot of that particularly on the health front has
absolutely come under the portfolio of Palunteer in the years since. Um they now uh control basically all of the
health data at HHS and also the CDC under the HHS and also the NHS in
Britain as well and have continued to expand on on that front. Um but
Palanteer, you know, also uh works extensively now in the private sector as well. Um they're a major AI engine uh
for Wall Street banks for example. Um and they have different um you know
programs that are sold to different um entities. Um but ultimately they are a
massive contractor to essentially every US intelligence agency. Um and that
includes DHS and ICE which a lot of the reporting critical reporting on Palunteer focuses um on their contracts
with ICE specifically. But all of that is intended to also be used against people that are not illegal immigrants.
It's meant to be an entire drag net um of basically pre-rime. And Palanteer uh
in in concordance with Point Dexter's ambitions has been a major piloter of
pre-rime technology in the United States. Um I think they began doing that
um in New Orleans initially. Um but it was they call it predictive policing is
the term that that they use but a lot of other companies have attempted to also get in on this. Uh the one of the most
notorious being PRP pole uh that was um a partnership I believe with uh UCLA and
LAPD or something to that effect. Um, and they're notoriously inaccurate and they're almost always piloted in
low-income minority neighborhoods and basically are away um I mean in essence
what happens because the accuracy rate is so low is that you're creating this pipeline of people um be basically being
sent to to prison or you know uh being caught up in crimes uh that are that are
very petty but I mean you're just having sending police to all these areas um in
in in a relatively, you know, discriminatory way. I mean, the PR poll is really outrageous because it's like
accuracy was found to be like ex insanely low and they didn't um they
didn't phase it out despite the extreme um inaccuracy. I mean, it was worse than a coin toss um essentially and and
departments around the uh uh the country continued to use it. And then in in in
some of these areas where Palanteer ended up leaving, another Peter Tealbacked um uh entity uh called
Carbine uh also has a predictive policing component but has been sort of taking over 9 uh 911 emergency call
systems uh you know throughout the United States um which is you know generally at the county level. Uh but
this is a company that that wasn't just found uh you know uh funded by Peter Teal. It was funded by Jeffrey Epstein
and was led for a significant amount of time by Ahud Barack uh you know the former Israeli prime minister um as as
well and has uh sort of expanded um outward. So um yeah uh a lot of uh
point Dexter's ambitions unfortunately have been uh uh becoming true at a really rapid pace. Um and part of this
was done under the con uh the guise of you know combating the co 19 uh uh
situation with uh with data that we needed data to solve uh those problems.
Um are you are you are you are you in essence just creating profiles? I mean
these are just creating profiles for every American citizen. Well ultimately I mean that's been
acknowledged now. Um I think there was a um a report on that a few months ago. the Trump administration was explicitly
using Palunteer to make databases on every American, but that has been done in a way that has been more covert um
through something called the main core database. That was again something that goes back to Iran Contra um and and
persists into the present. Um but it uh this is sort of a way to make it a more
uh overt program that can be used openly by law enforcement arguably. Um and I
would say if you look back to how the Trump administration behaved around the end of 2019, uh there were a spate of
mass shootings and basically their response to those was to create the legal infrastructure for pre-rime. So
after the El Paso Walmart shooting and some of these shootings that happened during that time, uh William Bar uh then
attorney general uh created this program at the DOJ called Deep that was uh basically created the legal
infrastructure uh for pre-rime. And you had Trump come out and say that the way to combat these shootings was to have
social media develop algorithms that flag posts to predict shooters uh before
they can act. target some of these anonymous online message boards. Um, and
uh he was also considering this program uh that where they were uh he was being pitched creating a DARPA for health
which was actually created under Biden under the name ARPAH. They just moved the H to the back. Um and the pilot
program for that that was being pitched during the Trump era was called Safe Homes. It's an acronym. Um, and
basically that was about using AI to scans uh, American social media posts in mass to determine what they called early
warning signs of neurossychiatric violence and that people that were flagged by that al algorithm could then
be sent to, you know, a court-ordered physician or put under house arrest or all sorts of uh, possibilities were
fielded and it ultimately wasn't adopted by Trump, but these are the types of things that they were considering. And
so now, you know, given the current climate, um, how extremely entangled Palunteer has become with the current
administration expanding even into the IRS and and, uh, Treasury and mortgages
in addition to just the national security components and health components. Um, it is it is rather um,
unsettling. But a lot of as I mentioned earlier, a lot of this profiling of Americans has been going on for a long
time uh under the guise of you know what were developed in by the Iran Contra
crowd uh covertly uh the continuity of government protocols in this effort by
parts of the quote unquote deep state or the national security state uh to basically profile people they deemed
unfriendly for whatever reason, people that could be uh you know potentially incarcerated in a time of political
upheaval. they said. But the Reagan administration's examples of political upheaval in these cases were uh one
example given was widespread uh mass protests that were nonviolent against US
military intervention in Latin America like in Nicaragua for example um with
something that could um you know have have them uh use these these profiles they had developed on Americans then
back in the 1980s um and incarcerate them at a time deemed uh you know
convenient. or necessary by the by the Reagan administration and they claimed then at the 1980s to be able to locate
these so-called uh dissident uh almost immediately based on the data they had compiled on them at that point. So
imagine uh what it's become you know uh over the past 25 years when we've seen a
lot of these um extreme surveillance capabilities and also the development of the associated technology uh just take
off in the aftermath of of 911 2001. Let me ask about uh the what you call
the PayPal mafia. Uh Palmer Lucky uh who uh he uh he was a teal fellow who
founded Oracle 2012 before it was purchased by Meta uh Zuckerberg, Sam Alman, JD Vance, Elon
Musk. Talk about that little cabal. Yeah, well they are quite the cabal. So
first of all, PayPal mafia. It's important to point out what PayPal is. So PayPal is most uh widely known,
right, to have been a project of Peter Teal and Elon Musk, but uh it was originally a combination of Peter Teal's
Confinity and Elon Musk X.com. And when Peter Teal was setting up this proto
PayPal, he and his co-founders openly uh they've admitted this consulted with every three-letter agency in the US
government that would talk to them about developing their product before they launched it. And then they team up with
Elon Musk Musk and X and create you know this um uh some I mean it basically
dollarized the internet um made the dollar the de facto currency
of the internet um and uh had a very huge uh reverberations for the early uh
fintech space but of course as I just said uh they did this hand inand uh with
the US government and then it you know it's really no surprise that you see you know when it's sold when they sell
PayPal to Pierro Midiar um of eBay you know Peter Teal moves into the you know
moves into this effort to privatize total information awareness the algorithm for Palunteer having started
as PayPal's anti-fraud algorithm uh initially and then being developed to
become what it is uh today and so since then uh you have a whole uh network of
people that have uh either been uh proteges of these figures or worked at
one point for PayPal for example the current AI and crypto uh Zar at the White House, David Saxs of former uh top
executive at PayPal with Teal um and and all of these other people um and of of
course JD Vance the current vice president um is intimately connected uh to Peter Teal. whole uh career in VC is
entirely responsible uh uh you know Peter Teal's entirely responsible for
that. Um and also uh Teal was uh the main donor to a lot of his political
campaigns and he would not be the vice president if it wasn't for uh Peter Teal. He wouldn't even be a politician
probably. So um Teal's influence is incredibly significant. It was also arguably significant during the first
Trump administration. Uh but um you know I think now it's quite clear that this
is uh you know the PayPal mafia's uh moment. Um you've had um these
particular figures have an extremely significant influence on US government
policy uh over you know since January. Um including the um extreme distribution
of AI throughout the US government. Um, and this includes not just well-known
figures of the PayPal mafia, but people, you know, a lot of uh former uh people employees for Palunteer um have been
placed uh throughout uh you know, maybe positions throughout the US government that you don't think a lot about or most
people don't think a lot about. Um you know, chief information officers of various departments and things like
that. Um you know, there's a considerable very considerable amount of influence.
And what I find particularly troubling about this is that a lot of these PayPal mafia figures um Teal Musk and and Vance
among others are extremely close uh to or acolytes really of the philosophy
advocated uh by a fellow named Curtis Yarvin who's a political philosophy is
essentially that um you know the the way to solve uh the uh problems of our
current current system and current bureaucracy uh is to basically completely privatize
the state and install a CEO in place of the president who would rule essentially
as a dictator. Um which is uh completely
uh bonkers and it's amazing that people um you know have allowed uh people like Peter Teal or even Yarvin himself to
masquerade as so-called libertarians when uh they're very in favor of the authoritarian uh abilities of the state.
they just want to uh sufficiently privatize it uh before allowing you that
authoritarianism to to continue and expand. And you can uh also see how a
lot of these people are also, you know, war proeteers, a palunteer of course. Not only is this tool of mass
surveillance, it's a tool of mass murder used by uh the US army and also by the IDF to decide who lives and who dies in
Gaza. Um and a lot of these other um people that have been teal proteges for
example like Palmer Lucky um in in Anderil which he co- which Lucky co-founded with Trey Stevens who's also
affiliated with uh the aforementioned Epsteinf funded uh carbine 911. Um you
know Anderil is uh ushering in this era of autonomous warfare uh and bankrolled
of course by Peter Teal. Um and they're also uh developing the so-called smart
wall on the US Mexico border. Um and really, you know, these people are
developing very Orwellian uh disturbing systems with not just domestic implications, but also very significant
um implications to how the US uh military and other militaries uh operate
um abroad. And it's extremely disturbing um to say the very least. And a lot of
their branding is, you know, we're America first and so we should replace the old, uh, you know, defense
contractor giants like Loheed Martin, um, uh, for example, or General Dynamics
and these and these entities and framing that as a good thing. This is how we're going to defeat the deep state, right?
Uh, we're going to remove these, it's correct that they're corrupt and and and terrible uh, companies that have enabled
terrible things. Uh, but it's not like Anderil won't enable the same sort of
thing. it'll just enable it more efficiently and at greater scale and with less humans involved. And is that
necessarily better? Uh, I don't really think so. And when you consider too that
you have, you know, the current Secretary of War since it's been recently renamed and Pete Haggsith
coming out and basically saying the massacre of Wounded Knee, the soldiers that did that should have their, you
know, medals restored and and all of this, you know, it's basically trying to
be anti-woke by saying, you know, conflating American culture with war crimes at the same time that we're
developing all of this autonomous technology uh that allows that would allow these people to conduct more war
crimes than ever before. So, you know, under this guise of we're making the government more efficient, what aspects
of the government are these people in the PayPal mafia actually making more efficient? Well, one of them is mass
murder. And uh unfortunately, you don't hear enough uh about this and presumably
a lot of people that wanted the destruction of the so-called deep state under Trump didn't want these things to
expand and continue. But they absolutely are. Let's talk a little bit about you
mentioned privatization. Let's talk about SpaceX uh cryptocurrency
uh uh and uh Musk's early involvement with Doge in the
administration, what they were doing, what they're doing. Um
and explain for people who don't understand the smart wall, what the smart wall is. So I'll start with that. So the because
you asked a couple different things there. So basically the this the goal of the uh smart wall there is it's not a
physical wall. It's meant to be basically an invisible wall uh that uses a combination of of surveillance and
drone technology to basically intercept anyone uh crossing the border in a
nonauthorized way. So that presumably includes both people crossing from Mexico into the US and people crossing
from the US uh to Mexico. And again, it's framed in terms of efficiency and all of that. You don't have to have
necessarily uh border agents there. You can have drones that are currently not lethal, but could be made lethal at any
point. And that is basically um what they envision as the future of the of
the wall. And obviously a lot of Trump supporters I think originally had envisioned a physical wall and not this
uh you know combo of uh you know non-lethal potentially in in the future
lethal uh drone technology and mass surveillance but also um as I I I as you
may be aware um a the US government defines the border as going much more inland than a lot of people would
imagine. um and I forget exactly how long it is, but a significant um amount of the country actually lives in what is
considered a border zone uh that have sometimes in the past been referred to as constitutionfree zones um where
they're allowed to basically extend this type of technology deep into uh the US domestically as well as presumably into
Mexico to some extent as well, especially now that um the military and intelligence agencies say they have to
go be more active in Mexico to uh presumably fight Mexican drug cartels
and things of that nature. So, they'll certainly be taking liberties um there as well. So, um I'm not sure exactly
what you'd like to talk about as it relates to Space X, but um it it is worth pointing out that um you know,
they're a massive military contractor specifically for Space Force created under the first Trump administration.
They really are the main contractor for Space Force and also um you know they ha
they are directly affiliated with Starlink, the satellite internet company that also arguably has some kind of
covert uses with Elon Musk for example saying he was going to help uh sneak uh
Starlinks into Iran for example. I wonder who that would benefit. And also, you know, its use by Ukraine and the
Ukrainian military and then them coming back saying, "We didn't know they would use it for offensive purposes." Um, I I
think that was them sort of trying to cover their tracks uh afterwards because it's obviously affiliated with a major
US military contractor. So, I mean, can't be that surprising. Um and also
what's important in that context as well is that uh you know he's an a major military contractor uh that wants the US
government to go in a particular direction particularly a highly automated future and uh through the
department of government deficiency uh a government efficiency uh doge a lot was
made to facilitate that uh by laying off a lot of uh government workers and in
their place putting uh you know basically replacing them with uh AI algorithms. And those algorithms are of
course patented and controlled by Silicon Valley companies. And the vast majority of major Silicon Valley
companies double as either intelligence or military contractors or both or have
for a very long time. And a lot of the biggest companies in Silicon Valley arguably started um because of national
security involvement. Uh one that's often overlooked a lot is Oracle. Uh Larry Ellison's Oracle. and Larry
Ellison before creating Oracle worked on project Oracle at the CIA. Um and then
created Oracle the company uh which then took on the CIA as one of its earliest main clients uh similar in a way to what
happened uh with Palunteer as I uh noted a moment ago and now um you know Larry
Ellison is becoming uh you know basically taking over the a large swath of American media now. So you're seeing
a lot of these silicon uh billionaires that contract for the military uh are
also becoming major owners of mass media. So you see that with Ellison for example and it's also true with Elon
Musk after his purchase of Twitter um and his ambition to basically turn uh
what is now X formerly Twitter into the everything app uh with a major financial
component. So, as I noted earlier, this effort that there have been these efforts going around previously
considered by the Trump administration to have AI algorithms go over social media posts and flag people. But they
also are pushing to have you tie your finances to those same apps. And presumably X will also be using some
form of cryptocurrency, most likely a stable coin, uh, which has been the major focus of the Trump administration
being a major pro- crypto administration. A lot of people thought they would be more pro- Bitcoin than
anything else. It's how they sort of touted themselves on the campaign trail, but they've been overtly most overtly
supportive of uh stable coins and stable coin issuers of course uh buy lots of
treasuries and serve help service the US debt. So it's a way for them to continue to spend um more than they are bringing
in um and uh to basically service that debt so they can you know obviously I
would say uh increase the Pentagon budget which is the budget that you in the national security budget in general
DHS and these things uh that continue to grow and grow and grow and grow um at
the expense of other departments that actually you know benefit the American people significantly more.
Can you talk about Oracle's relationship with AI? Um, so I'm not an expert on what Oracle
does specifically. Um, as as far as I'm aware, they mostly focus on database
management. Um, but I do know that they've had a significant influence um over the Trump administration previously
as well. So Saffra Katz is a major top executive at Oracle in addition to uh
Larry Ellison and she along with Shel Shell and Aden coordinated the uh firing
of HR McMaster who was previously a Trump national security adviser um and
had I believe John Bolton put in his place. Uh so Oracle has been sort of um
uh very influential particularly on the Trump administration behind the scenes before this administration, but now
we're sort of seeing uh Larry Ellison come out more into uh himself. But my
understanding is that they contract widely throughout the national security uh community and beyond and that a lot
of it is uh you know infra data management and digital infrastructure.
Uh but I'm not exactly sure on the specifics there. Sorry about that. Um I want I want to ask you about Israel
because the there are many tentacles uh uh you know I guess running each way
between uh military the 82000 unit the
um and Silicon Valley there. It's a incestuous relationship which you've
written about. Yeah. So um there's a couple different things here. So I would say that a major
pillar not just of Netanyahu but really going back to the early 90s in Israel has been to empower their venture
capital ecosystem. Um and it began with state backing really uh significantly in
the early 90s. Uh but Netanyahu um throughout his lengthy time as as prime
minister um has made that a major priority. And back in 2012, it actually
became Israeli policy uh to have um basically some of these startups that
are incubated by veterans of Unit 8200 and some of these other Israeli um intelligence agencies uh that involve uh
technology to a significant degree to have them conduct operations that were previously done inhouse uh by MSAD or
unit 8200. So basically to use them as fronts is essentially what the policy
admitted policy began. And in the Israeli media report that documents this they note that uh a firm like Black Cube
for example which has been called to privatized MSAD was one of the companies that was developed under this policy.
But presumably there's a lot of other companies uh that also operate this way.
And it um and it's important to note that in the same period of time uh you had a uh neoconservative and Zionist
mega donor to the GOP uh Paul Singer team up with people from Netanyahu's
office uh to develop something called Startup Nation Central which was framed
as a way to prevent uh the United States from ever meaningfully adopting uh the
boycott divest sanctions movement or BDS uh by uh basically marketing Israeli
startups particularly in technology to American companies and also to the US government and of course the US
government contracts with significant unit to 8200 companies. Um for example
the NSA in the mid 2000s uh had an Israeli unit 8200 link company develop
uh its backd doors into popular software programs. Um and uh uh unit I mean
carbon 911 that I brought up earlier. Also unit 8200 uh created and now
controlling a litany of 911 emergency call centers throughout the US. Uh there's a lot of companies that have uh
that have popped up to do so. And also uh you've seen uh you know a lot of these Silicon Valley giants uh Google,
Microsoft um uh Intel uh recruit heavily from unit 8200 and also open uh you know
offices in in in Israel. Of course some of those in the case of Microsoft significantly precede this 2012 point.
But basically, you know, the the goal uh was to prevent the US from ever uh
adopt, you know, boycott allowing boycots of Israel at any meaningful level um by uh integrating companies at
the same time that Netanyahu made it a deliberate policy to use a lot of these companies as fronts for either the
Israeli military or for Israeli intelligence. Um so um unfortunately uh
in addition to that we also have you know a significant overlap of some of these Silicon Valley billionaires and
the IDF uh rather overtly. So, Larry Ellison, who I brought up a moment ago, uh is I believe uh if not the leading
donor, one of the uh most major private donors to the IDF and is also uh as we
noted a moment ago, a major contractor uh to the US national security state and is, you know, um uh building a a quite
quite a massive uh you know, US domestic media empire. And I believe he's going to be one of the figures involved in the
uh takeover of Tik Tok uh that was just signed off on by uh by Trump not that
long ago. And he's just taken CBS. Yeah. And I think Paramount and um I
think a few others are are uh I think CNN is uh about to be acquired by them
as well. So we'll see. But it's definitely a rapid consolidation.
I want to you speculate what this world is going to look like. It is the fusion
of corporate and governmental power. In some ways, of course, these corporations
will have even more power than uh government institutions.
Uh we just had the presidential memo that came out a couple days ago uh which
essentially criminalizes uh it's quite an amazing memo the the
criminalizes uh people who criticize capitalism
uh support gender equality um or really anyone who's anti-fascist in
any capacity. But of Yeah. And um and of course all of
these tools will be employed uh against these people who are being targeted.
What what what kind of a world will it create? Will it kind of look like China's totalitarian capitalism or will
it be different? You know, I think it's really hard to know because of course the future is unwritten and a lot of it depends on us
and there's an unprecedented effort of course to uh propagandize the American people to have us willingly walk in and
uh uh support and consent to these systems being installed. um because a
lot of people forget, but um the the uh ban on uh propaganda being used
domestically against Americans was lifted under the Obama administration. And now with all of this extreme media
consolidation by the specific cabal of billionaires and oligarchs, um the the
propaganda is already bad, I would argue, but is going to get even worse to get people to consent to these systems
specifically. And I think a lot of what we're going to see is going to be sort of the a repeated trope of what we saw
on the war on terror. We have to give up all of our uh all of these new freedoms um or all of these freedoms and things
like that because we have to go after al-Qaeda and get them at all costs. But now, you know, 20 plus years later, uh
you have uh you know, the head of al-Qaeda in Syria being given a diplomat, you know, a
I don't even know what to call it. It's so ridiculous. um like a red carpet welcome to shake hands with David
Petraeus and all of this. So, we lost all of our freedoms, but now al-Qaeda is just, you know, uh let's let's shake
hands and uh and let them come to the UN while we don't let anyone from Palestine come. I mean, it's totally insane. And
so I I think it's um quite possible that given that we're seeing this effort to jin up a war on domestic terrorism yet
again, uh we're going to be uh given another invisible enemy uh and told that
we need to give up all of these uh you remaining freedoms and civil liberties to go after the domestic terrorists. um
and that it's going to be you know uh unfortunately a lot of the the depravity
that we witnessed during the war on terror but directed domestically hence the name domestic terrorism and I think
you can argue that was uh always the plan post 911 a lot of the stuff was focused domestically uh before 911 there
were efforts to pass DHS as the national homeland security agency it stalled in Congress of course after 911 uh no
longer stalled um and so DHS was created um and a lot of these um you know
security agencies and the expansion of the national security state in general has also you know had a lot of tentacles
domestically and I think um Americans have been naive that a lot of the evil
uh that that national security state has done abroad would never be used against them. Um and I think that
um you know we need to be very aware of what is going on here and that the deep state if you whatever you want to call
it um is expanding and it's expanding in the hands of private oligarchs that have
a very dangerous political vision that is rarely talked about. Um and um you
know a lot of people on the right for example uh during the co era were up in arms about the world economic forum and
the public private partnership stakeholder capitalist model um and and you know some of the ideas promoted by
um uh you know it's its former chairman Klaus Schwab and the fourth industrial revolution and transhumanism but somehow
are lining up behind these figures like Peter Teal and Elon Musk who are also overtly uh transhumanist and have, you
know, back someone like Curtis Yarvin who has a very similar uh political vision in many ways uh to Klaus Schwab.
Um and somehow it's bad when one group does it but not bad when the other I
mean the other group backs it. Um and it's it's just you know change a couple terms around and uh you know try and
make it edgy but ultimately at the same day it's uh very uh it's essentially fascism. Um and PE but I mean they
obviously want to market it under different names uh to get people to consent to it which I think is um you
know efforts are being done to do that now under the guise of of fighting the corruption in the national security
state. Um but unfortunately you know this has always been a a cancer on American society that has been
distinctly bipartisan. Um, and I think a lot of um, what's going to be done here
is it's going to be, you know, if we allow it, you know, political opposition
could be labeled terrorism, quote unquote. And to think that this wouldn't come back on people on the
right as well, I think is naive. uh you know the the the definition the definition of domestic terrorist under
the Biden administration concluded people that were uh outraged by perceived government overreach for
example which could easily include people on the right as well. I mean a lot of the things in the definitions of
these things are incredibly vague and just meant you know to sort of be a catch-all for people who don't agree
with the government for whatever reason and who won't just put their head down and be obedient when when prodded to do
so. Um, so you know, I think there's a potentially dark future, but there's
still time for um awareness about these agendas and uh for people to uh develop
parallel systems uh to to to escape this. And I think it's very important
too that um people start really seriously considering how to uh wean
themselves off of these Silicon Valley giants that are building these systems and contracting with these military and
intelligence agencies. Um you know getting off of Microsoft or Google products. I mean there there's still
time to do all of that. uh you can look up online different guides to use different operating systems um whether
it's on your computer or your phone or use alternatives to to Google or any of these other things um to because I mean
ultimately you know if they they may try and move to make it illegal to boycott
Israel but we can boycott uh the other enablers enablers of of their of the
system that are based in the United States and it you know maybe it's inconvenient at the time to to change uh
these things, but I think it's much more inconvenient to, you know, just walk into this world that they're trying to
usher us into uh without offering any sort of meaningful push back. And, you know, if they're going to try and censor
speech or criminalize speech, uh you know, there's other things we can do um
uh to stop this from happening. Great. Thank you, Whitney. And I want to
thank Diego, uh, Victor, Sophia, Thomas, and Max who produced the show. You can
find me at chrisedges.substack.com.
[Music]
Part 2 Anti-Anti-Nazi Barbarian Hordes are Knocking Down ...
Re: Part 2 Anti-Anti-Nazi Barbarian Hordes are Knocking Down
by admin » Thu Oct 23, 2025 12:44 am
- admin
- Site Admin
- Posts: 38376
- Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am
Re: Part 2 Anti-Anti-Nazi Barbarian Hordes are Knocking Down
by admin » Thu Oct 23, 2025 6:16 am
Trump SCREWS Mike Johnson with INSANE move
by Brian Tyler Cohen
Oct 22, 2025
Trump puts Republicans in DISASTROUS position | Another Day
Transcript
Donald Trump shows Americans just how
willing he is to fight for himself. This
is just another day.
Each and every one of us has a favorite
line from a movie. Maybe it's Shaw
Shanks, get busy living or get busy
dying or the one from K-pop Demon
Hunters, "Hey demons, we're hunting
you." I haven't seen the movie. But
based on every single move Donald Trump
makes, I think it's safe to assume that
this line,
greed, for lack of a better word, is
good, is at the top of Trump's list.
President Trump is now pushing the
Justice Department to pay him $230
million in taxpayer money for past
investigations involving Trump,
including the Russia election
interference investigation and the
classified documents case involving what
was found at Mara Lago. The US taxpayers
would foot the bill here.
The Justice Department officials who
would likely have to sign off on the
settlement were once President Trump's
own personal lawyers. Attorney General
Pam Bondi and her deputy Todd Blanch.
Wow. You'd have to be some kind of
otherworldly fortune teller to guess how
this one is going to shake out between
Trump and these two. I mean, that's like
guessing the winning Powerball numbers
when the only clue you have to go on is
that the number is between zero and two.
Just for a second, put aside the insane
conflict of interest here. What Trump is
doing is also not okay according to the
constitution. Article 2 section 1 clause
7 says the president shall at stated
times receive for his services a
compensation which shall neither be
increased nor diminish during the period
for which he shall have been elected and
he shall not receive within that period
any other amalgument from the United
States. Now, maybe if the founding
fathers had written that in a slightly
less pretentious manner, it'd be clear
that outside of his salary, Trump isn't
allowed to enrich himself from the
presidency. And constitutional scholars
like Speaker Mike Johnson are well aware
of this, too.
Uh I I don't know the details about
that. I I'm I've just read it. I didn't
talk with him about that. Um I I know
that he believes he's owed uh that
reimbursement. What what I heard
yesterday was if he receives it, he was
going to consider giving it to charity.
I mean, he doesn't he doesn't need those
proceeds, but we're for the rule of law.
We're for what is just and right. And
it's just absurd that I mean, as was
noted here several times this morning,
they attack him for everything he does.
It doesn't matter what it is.
You know, these jaded liberals, all they
do is attack, attack, attack. When the
president of the United States wants to
use the Treasury as his own piggy bank,
they attack him. When he wants to send
the military into American cities, they
attack him. And when he's asked if he'll
pardon sex trafficking afficionado Gain
Maxwell,
well, I'm allowed to give her a pardon.
They attack him for that. You just can't
win with these people. But when the
leader of your party is trying to hustle
the nation at the same time that
hundreds of thousands of government
workers are furled or working without
pay, you know, you're going to get asked
about it.
Well, it seems odd. Um, and I think uh
he's in the difficult position where
he's asking for something that he would
approve. I think it's terrible optics.
That's right. Whether or not it is
actually bad, Tom Tillis is not sure,
but it definitely looks bad. Anybody
else in the GOP want to try?
Did you have any issues with the $230
million ask that Trump had to the
Justice Department for his legal bills?
I I want to find out more about it. Um
cuz I'm I don't know what the details
are.
The president had asked the Justice
Department to pay for his legal bills
with taxpayer money, $230 million.
Are you okay with that?
Uh, can I You're telling me this right
now. Can I kind of track it down? Uh, so
let me before I comment, let me let me
let me read that on my own.
Okay. Now that I've read that on my own,
I still have no comment. At a time when
Americans across the country are
struggling to afford, frankly, all the
things Trump promised to make cheaper,
conservatives are running away from
reporters, playing dumb, or simply
trying to gaslight the hell out of us.
One trend in True Brand is making a big
comeback as consumers tighten their
wallets. And here it is. Hamburger
Helper. The mix of mac and cheese and
ground beef is seeing a surge in sales.
Hey, uh, any economists out there know
what it signals for the broader economy
when sales of ultrarocessed chemically
laden food start skyrocketing? Good
news, America. Stations, taking the bus,
and using coffee filters as toilet paper
are all the rage right now. Like, I
don't think this was really the
expectation when Trump said,
"We're going to win so much you may even
get tired of winning."
People are tired because they're
consuming ungodly amounts of diabetes in
a box. This is so depressing even the
hamburger helper mascot wants to kill
himself. I can't wait until things get
even worse in this country and Kaylee
Mcini is still spinning it as a win.
Well, now that people are stretching
their dollar even further, another
product seeing a fun increase in sales
is dog food. M I'm getting hungry
already. Why should our pets get all the
joy of eating gelatinous beef in a can,
right? Count me in for seconds. By the
way, this is a very real story about
Americans trying to provide for their
families.
Now, with the price of beef at an
all-time high, families are reaching for
Hamburger Helper to help stretch their
dollars. Sales have soared nearly 15% in
the past year as the price of ground
beef has gone up 11%.
So what people are looking to do is
they're looking to stretch their budget
and frankly to stretch the meat.
That's right. In homes all across the
country, people are hard at work
stretching their meat. It's not
something they're necessarily proud of,
which is why they usually make up
excuses for other things they were
doing, like taking a long shower, hiding
in the bedroom with a door locked while
they were looking at hardcore
recipes. The reality is, as Trump shakes
down American taxpayers for close to a
quarter of a billion dollars, it's worth
remembering what Americans have gotten
from this president in his second term
versus what he's received. If you
recall, during his campaign, Trump
promised that our food would be cheaper.
the groceries, when you buy apples, when
you buy bacon, when you buy eggs, they
would double and triple the price over a
short period of time. And I won an
election based on that. We're going to
bring those prices way down.
And yet now cooking one of his famous
bacon apple omelets is more expensive.
Trump also promised he'd be a hero to
farmers.
Nobody in history did more for the
farmers of our country than I did.
Nobody's going to win with the farmers,
but Donald J. Trump. And yes, farmers
are winning. It's just that those
farmers are in Argentina.
Cattle ranchers are not happy with
President Donald Trump's idea to buy
more beef from Argentina. The president
floated the idea as a way to bring down
grocery costs, but a farmer in Bates
County says that's not a good idea.
Disagrees with the president's idea to
outsource more beef and feels quality
will be impacted, affecting your
selection at the store. They can bring
it all in they want, but if you lay it
lay a steak from Argentina
and compare it to a steak from the sake
Missouri,
hands down there's no comparison.
That's right. I mean, first of all, when
you slaughter an American cow, it says,
"Wait, please no." While a cow from
Argentina says, "Easper, poravore, no."
But I assume there's other differences,
too. Trump also made some pretty bold
promises on healthcare.
You said during the campaign you had
concepts of a plan. Do you have an
actual plan at this point for
healthcare?
Yes, we have concepts of a plan that
would be better. I want the prices to go
down. I want to have better health care
for less money.
Wait, better health care for less money?
I mean, who could argue with that?
Except maybe for the people who are
about to get worse healthcare for more
money.
Recent changes made by Senate
Republicans to President Trump's budget
bill would cut roughly $1.1 trillion in
healthc care spending over the next
decade. Now, that Congressional Budget
Office estimate also found the bill
would result in 11.8 million people
losing health insurance by 2034.
2034? Who can think that far ahead? I
mean, according to Trump, that'll be
still his problem. And yet, while Trump
has made it harder for everyday
Americans to afford groceries, beef, and
healthcare in his second term, he's
doing just fine financially. Trump has
used the White House to double his net
worth in the past year. He's used the
office of the presidency to promote his
golf resorts abroad. He's squeezed
foreign leaders to get himself a Qatari
jet with a billion-dollar retrofit paid
for by American taxpayers. He's taken a
gold spewing fire host to the Oval
Office. And while Americans are
struggling, he's got the balls to make
building a new $200 million ballroom.
President Trump's new $250 million
ballroom.
Sorry, $250 million ballroom.
It's about 300 million.
me. Anybody else? Over and over
again, this president has shown our
nation who he is. While Americans suffer
under the weight of rising costs, Donald
Trump is more than happy to sit back and
rich himself. And one can only assume,
stretch the meat.
Ew.
by Brian Tyler Cohen
Oct 22, 2025
Trump puts Republicans in DISASTROUS position | Another Day
Transcript
Donald Trump shows Americans just how
willing he is to fight for himself. This
is just another day.
Each and every one of us has a favorite
line from a movie. Maybe it's Shaw
Shanks, get busy living or get busy
dying or the one from K-pop Demon
Hunters, "Hey demons, we're hunting
you." I haven't seen the movie. But
based on every single move Donald Trump
makes, I think it's safe to assume that
this line,
greed, for lack of a better word, is
good, is at the top of Trump's list.
President Trump is now pushing the
Justice Department to pay him $230
million in taxpayer money for past
investigations involving Trump,
including the Russia election
interference investigation and the
classified documents case involving what
was found at Mara Lago. The US taxpayers
would foot the bill here.
The Justice Department officials who
would likely have to sign off on the
settlement were once President Trump's
own personal lawyers. Attorney General
Pam Bondi and her deputy Todd Blanch.
Wow. You'd have to be some kind of
otherworldly fortune teller to guess how
this one is going to shake out between
Trump and these two. I mean, that's like
guessing the winning Powerball numbers
when the only clue you have to go on is
that the number is between zero and two.
Just for a second, put aside the insane
conflict of interest here. What Trump is
doing is also not okay according to the
constitution. Article 2 section 1 clause
7 says the president shall at stated
times receive for his services a
compensation which shall neither be
increased nor diminish during the period
for which he shall have been elected and
he shall not receive within that period
any other amalgument from the United
States. Now, maybe if the founding
fathers had written that in a slightly
less pretentious manner, it'd be clear
that outside of his salary, Trump isn't
allowed to enrich himself from the
presidency. And constitutional scholars
like Speaker Mike Johnson are well aware
of this, too.
Uh I I don't know the details about
that. I I'm I've just read it. I didn't
talk with him about that. Um I I know
that he believes he's owed uh that
reimbursement. What what I heard
yesterday was if he receives it, he was
going to consider giving it to charity.
I mean, he doesn't he doesn't need those
proceeds, but we're for the rule of law.
We're for what is just and right. And
it's just absurd that I mean, as was
noted here several times this morning,
they attack him for everything he does.
It doesn't matter what it is.
You know, these jaded liberals, all they
do is attack, attack, attack. When the
president of the United States wants to
use the Treasury as his own piggy bank,
they attack him. When he wants to send
the military into American cities, they
attack him. And when he's asked if he'll
pardon sex trafficking afficionado Gain
Maxwell,
well, I'm allowed to give her a pardon.
They attack him for that. You just can't
win with these people. But when the
leader of your party is trying to hustle
the nation at the same time that
hundreds of thousands of government
workers are furled or working without
pay, you know, you're going to get asked
about it.
Well, it seems odd. Um, and I think uh
he's in the difficult position where
he's asking for something that he would
approve. I think it's terrible optics.
That's right. Whether or not it is
actually bad, Tom Tillis is not sure,
but it definitely looks bad. Anybody
else in the GOP want to try?
Did you have any issues with the $230
million ask that Trump had to the
Justice Department for his legal bills?
I I want to find out more about it. Um
cuz I'm I don't know what the details
are.
The president had asked the Justice
Department to pay for his legal bills
with taxpayer money, $230 million.
Are you okay with that?
Uh, can I You're telling me this right
now. Can I kind of track it down? Uh, so
let me before I comment, let me let me
let me read that on my own.
Okay. Now that I've read that on my own,
I still have no comment. At a time when
Americans across the country are
struggling to afford, frankly, all the
things Trump promised to make cheaper,
conservatives are running away from
reporters, playing dumb, or simply
trying to gaslight the hell out of us.
One trend in True Brand is making a big
comeback as consumers tighten their
wallets. And here it is. Hamburger
Helper. The mix of mac and cheese and
ground beef is seeing a surge in sales.
Hey, uh, any economists out there know
what it signals for the broader economy
when sales of ultrarocessed chemically
laden food start skyrocketing? Good
news, America. Stations, taking the bus,
and using coffee filters as toilet paper
are all the rage right now. Like, I
don't think this was really the
expectation when Trump said,
"We're going to win so much you may even
get tired of winning."
People are tired because they're
consuming ungodly amounts of diabetes in
a box. This is so depressing even the
hamburger helper mascot wants to kill
himself. I can't wait until things get
even worse in this country and Kaylee
Mcini is still spinning it as a win.
Well, now that people are stretching
their dollar even further, another
product seeing a fun increase in sales
is dog food. M I'm getting hungry
already. Why should our pets get all the
joy of eating gelatinous beef in a can,
right? Count me in for seconds. By the
way, this is a very real story about
Americans trying to provide for their
families.
Now, with the price of beef at an
all-time high, families are reaching for
Hamburger Helper to help stretch their
dollars. Sales have soared nearly 15% in
the past year as the price of ground
beef has gone up 11%.
So what people are looking to do is
they're looking to stretch their budget
and frankly to stretch the meat.
That's right. In homes all across the
country, people are hard at work
stretching their meat. It's not
something they're necessarily proud of,
which is why they usually make up
excuses for other things they were
doing, like taking a long shower, hiding
in the bedroom with a door locked while
they were looking at hardcore
recipes. The reality is, as Trump shakes
down American taxpayers for close to a
quarter of a billion dollars, it's worth
remembering what Americans have gotten
from this president in his second term
versus what he's received. If you
recall, during his campaign, Trump
promised that our food would be cheaper.
the groceries, when you buy apples, when
you buy bacon, when you buy eggs, they
would double and triple the price over a
short period of time. And I won an
election based on that. We're going to
bring those prices way down.
And yet now cooking one of his famous
bacon apple omelets is more expensive.
Trump also promised he'd be a hero to
farmers.
Nobody in history did more for the
farmers of our country than I did.
Nobody's going to win with the farmers,
but Donald J. Trump. And yes, farmers
are winning. It's just that those
farmers are in Argentina.
Cattle ranchers are not happy with
President Donald Trump's idea to buy
more beef from Argentina. The president
floated the idea as a way to bring down
grocery costs, but a farmer in Bates
County says that's not a good idea.
Disagrees with the president's idea to
outsource more beef and feels quality
will be impacted, affecting your
selection at the store. They can bring
it all in they want, but if you lay it
lay a steak from Argentina
and compare it to a steak from the sake
Missouri,
hands down there's no comparison.
That's right. I mean, first of all, when
you slaughter an American cow, it says,
"Wait, please no." While a cow from
Argentina says, "Easper, poravore, no."
But I assume there's other differences,
too. Trump also made some pretty bold
promises on healthcare.
You said during the campaign you had
concepts of a plan. Do you have an
actual plan at this point for
healthcare?
Yes, we have concepts of a plan that
would be better. I want the prices to go
down. I want to have better health care
for less money.
Wait, better health care for less money?
I mean, who could argue with that?
Except maybe for the people who are
about to get worse healthcare for more
money.
Recent changes made by Senate
Republicans to President Trump's budget
bill would cut roughly $1.1 trillion in
healthc care spending over the next
decade. Now, that Congressional Budget
Office estimate also found the bill
would result in 11.8 million people
losing health insurance by 2034.
2034? Who can think that far ahead? I
mean, according to Trump, that'll be
still his problem. And yet, while Trump
has made it harder for everyday
Americans to afford groceries, beef, and
healthcare in his second term, he's
doing just fine financially. Trump has
used the White House to double his net
worth in the past year. He's used the
office of the presidency to promote his
golf resorts abroad. He's squeezed
foreign leaders to get himself a Qatari
jet with a billion-dollar retrofit paid
for by American taxpayers. He's taken a
gold spewing fire host to the Oval
Office. And while Americans are
struggling, he's got the balls to make
building a new $200 million ballroom.
President Trump's new $250 million
ballroom.
Sorry, $250 million ballroom.
It's about 300 million.
me. Anybody else? Over and over
again, this president has shown our
nation who he is. While Americans suffer
under the weight of rising costs, Donald
Trump is more than happy to sit back and
rich himself. And one can only assume,
stretch the meat.
Ew.
- admin
- Site Admin
- Posts: 38376
- Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am
Re: Part 2 Anti-Anti-Nazi Barbarian Hordes are Knocking Down
by admin » Fri Oct 24, 2025 6:34 am
Officials Urge Trump to Stop White House Demolition Amid Shocking Ballroom Project
A Closer Look
Late Night with Seth Meyers
Oct 23, 2025 A Closer Look - Late Night with Seth Meyers
Seth takes a closer look at Trump demolishing the White House to build himself a ballroom instead of delivering on the biggest promise of his campaign of making life more affordable.
Transcript
-Donald Trump has finally delivered
on the biggest promise of his campaign.
He's destroyed the east wing of the White House.
Wait. That's what he promised? No. Okay.
Well, for more on that, it's time for "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
During the campaign,
polls repeatedly showed that there was one issue
that was far and away the most important to voters.
-According to exit polling,
many voters named the economy as a top issue,
citing concerns over high prices and inflation.
People are so upset about inflation,
I feel like they took inflation with them
into the, uh, into the voting booth.
When we asked them, "Has inflation caused you
and your family a severe hardship
or a moderate hardship?"
75% said it was a hardship, inflation was.
The American psyche is just really scarred
by what happened a couple of years ago,
when prices were going up so much
that it was kind of coming out of your --
you know, you just couldn't even keep track of it.
-I mean, yeah, remember when eggs were super expensive
and it was like the only news story?
You couldn't even get down the aisle at Trader Joe's
without being interviewed by all three networks.
It was cheaper to buy those plastic eggs
with little toys inside.
There was no protein, but on the bright side,
I had a pretty sick collection of plastic rings.
[ Laughter ]
Inflation was such a big deal
that Trump attributed his victory to that one issue.
-I won on groceries.
It's a very simple word, groceries.
Like almost -- You know, who uses the word?
I started using the word the groceries --
when you buy apples, when you buy bacon, when you buy eggs.
They were double and triple the price
over a short period of time.
And I won an election based on that.
-Those are the only three foods he knows.
Everything...
Everything else he eats comes in a wrapper or a bucket.
Also, whenever Trump feels like
he has to explain something to us,
"I started using the word groceries,"
that's the telltale sign, he just learned about it.
[ Laughter ]
It's like when a kid learns about a new dinosaur
and then immediately rushes home to tell you about it.
Did you know a Brachiosaurus has a neck that's 30 feet long?
And you go, Yeah, kid, everybody [bleep] knows that.
[ Laughter ]
You think we didn't have dinosaurs when I was little?
Grow up.
Remember, Trump is a guy
who has clearly never stepped foot inside a grocery store.
Not too long ago, he didn't even know how to buy bread.
-You have voter I.D. to buy a loaf of bread?
You have -- You have I.D. to buy a loaf of bread?
-Yeah.
[ Laughter ]
Everyone knows you need voter I.D. to buy bread.
[ Laughter and applause ]
Then you get, no.
Then you get the correct type of bread
based on your political affiliation.
You get Wonder bread if you're a Republican,
sprouted grain if you're a Democrat,
and cinnamon swirl if you're a [bleep] anarchist.
Hey, by the way, how come that cocaine in loaf form
hasn't been banned by RFK yet?
I'll take the COVID shot any day,
but I sure as hell don't trust
what's in that [bleep] cinnamon bread.
The point is, Trump made groceries his big thing.
In fact, he talked relentlessly about it on the campaign trail.
-I hear about groceries.
They're so expensive.
I get more complaints about groceries.
Everything from hot dogs to, uh,
to bacon and eggs and everything.
Bacon hasn't come down. Apples haven't come down.
Lettuce, nothing's come down.
Your prices weren't quadrupled for a -- for a sausage,
for a piece of lettuce, for an apple.
Now the prices have gone so high.
Everyone tells me about the word groceries.
They call it groceries --
bacon, lettuce, tomato.
[ Laughter ]
-The man is clearly hungry. He's dressed like --
[ Laughter ]
He's dressed like a garbage man
and listing off foods
like he's telling the other guys on the truck
what he found in the trash.
[ As Trump ] I'm telling you, fellas,
don't rush to throw the bags in the back.
There's full meals in there.
I found bacon, lettuce, tomato, loaf of bread.
Usually you need ID to buy that.
[ Laughter ]
Also, tell me you don't go to the grocery store.
[ As Trump ] I'll take one piece of lettuce.
[ Laughter ]
So that was the biggest issue of the campaign.
You heard it from Trump himself.
That's how he got elected, inflation.
By the way, whatever happened with that?
-We fixed inflation.
-Oh!
[ Laughter ]
Did you hear that?!
He fixed inflation.
Sound the trumpets!
[ Trumpet plays ]
You there, boy?
Go! [ Coins clinking ]
fetch the biggest goose in the grocery store!
But remember to bring your voter ID!
What a blessed day!
Inflation has been fixed! Hooray!
-Consumer goods are getting more expensive as well.
The latest consumer price index shows overall prices rose
by nearly 3% on an annual basis last month.
-Most of the increase was driven
by the basic necessities for Americans.
Groceries and energy prices,
those are the need to have things.
That was significantly higher.
-Oh man, I don't think I gave that boy enough money
to buy that goose then.
[ Laughter ]
Definitely a couple farthings short.
Also, of course prices are higher.
Of course they are.
Trump never cared about the price of groceries
or as they used to be known, apple bacon, eggs.
And I can't believe anyone thought that he did.
During the election, it felt like the whole country
was watching a horror movie
where a young woman answers the door on a rainy night
and there's a guy there saying, "My car just broke down.
Can I come in and use your phone?"
And half of us were saying,
"Don't let him in. He's gonna kill you."
And the other half were saying, "You gotta let him in.
He needs the phone."
[ Laughter ]
"Plus, he's gonna lower grocery prices."
So groceries are actually getting more expensive,
but probably not the important ones, right?
-If you feel like your coffee beans are more expensive,
they are.
Compared to a year ago,
coffee bean prices in the United States up 21%.
Bananas, buying those every week at our house,
up 6.6%.
-Coffee and bananas.
Well, thankfully not many people buy those.
Of course, Trump doesn't care about either.
He would just tell people instead of coffee,
drink Diet Coke and instead bananas,
just use the phone on your desk.
There's one other non-food item on that list
that surprised me,
and is especially damning for the president,
who spent so much of his time doing interviews
with professional wrestlers and comedians.
-Audio equipment.
Say you're buying a mic or a little,
you know, something or the other, up 12%.
-Oh, my God, Donald Trump has raised the price of...
[echoing] podcasts, podcasts, podcast.
[ Thunder clapping ]
[ Maniacal laughter ]
-Lock the gates!
[ Laughter and applause ]
-So inflation is actually getting worse,
thanks in large part to Trump's tariffs.
But he declared it fixed and moved on to a topic,
that much like his beloved bacon,
is closer to his heart.
-We are going to make and build a ballroom,
which they've wanted for probably 100 years
at the White House.
Yeah, we start pretty soon.
We have a beautiful ballroom.
I'm going to build a ballroom,
beautiful ballroom for the White House.
There's never been a president that was good at ballrooms.
I'm really good.
I've never seen a crowd like this.
I think we need a ballroom.
They've just started construction
of the new ballroom.
They've wanted a ballroom,
and now they're going to finally have it.
And it's going to knock your socks off.
That's a knock out panel,
and that goes right into the ballroom.
It's going to be one of the most beautiful ballrooms
anywhere in the world.
The ballroom is under construction.
I think it's going to be fantastic.
I think it will be one of the great ballrooms
anywhere in the world.
This is a plan.
It, it's got tables.
Right now, we have a space with tables, holds about 79 people.
-Oh my God, well, if it has tables!
[ Laughter ]
You didn't mention the tables before.
If you had talked about tables
on the campaign trail instead of groceries,
I'm sure you would have won every state and Guam.
[ Laughter ]
Also, tables is such a great word.
Did you start that one the way you started groceries?
And here, this whole time I've been calling them
wood boards on stick legs.
[ Laughter ]
Trump is so obsessed with this ballroom,
he brings it up every chance he gets.
He loves everything about it, even the noise.
-We're building a world-class ballroom.
You probably hear the beautiful sound
of construction to the back.
You hear that sound? Oh, that's music to my ears.
I love that sound.
Other people don't like it, I love it.
-That's how you know Donald Trump
was never a real New Yorker.
Real New Yorkers [bleep] hate the sound of construction.
What else does he love about New York
that everybody else hates?
[ As Trump ] I love the sound of construction,
the guy who takes the dump on the subway,
and the New York Jets offense.
That's my New York.
[ Laughter and applause ]
Donald Trump is the only New Yorker
who'd lift up his window and yell,
"Hey, keep that noise up!
I love the sound of construction."
The rest of us hate it.
I'd rather hear my neighbor's trumpet practice
through the wall at 3:00 a.m.
than the sound of a jackhammer
and a bunch of guys yelling, Hey, Tony, where's the cement?
Hey, which Tony you talking to?
That Tony? Hey, we're all named Tony!
By the way...
By the way, my neighbor is great at the trumpet.
That's where we got the sound effect from earlier.
That is not recorded.
He's playing live through the wall.
Isn't that right, Mickey?
[ Trumpet plays ]
[ Laughter ]
Love that guy.
Now, I do wish
he could have sex a little quieter!
[ Laughter ]
One thing I've learned from living next door to Mickey.
Trumpeters do very well with the ladies.
[ Laughter ]
Now, it would be bad enough
if Trump's biggest priority was building
a gilded vanity project for himself.
But it's so much worse because to do it,
he's tearing down a somewhat well-known
and beloved piece of property.
You may have heard of it the White House.
-This morning, sources tell ABC News
the entire east wing of the White House
could be demolished by this weekend,
making room for President Trump's
90,000 square foot ballroom.
[ Machinery whirring ]
The demolition of the East Wing,
which has stood for more than 120 years,
shocking many on Capitol Hill.
Preservation group questions the scale,
saying the ballroom will dwarf the White House residence,
disrupting its classical design.
-That's right, he's tearing down the entire East Wing
to build his stupid ballroom.
I mean, look at this.
This is like a sequel to "Fixer Upper"
called "[Bleep] Upper."
[ Laughter ]
And of course, Trump also lied about this project
because when he first announced it,
he promised us no demolition would be required.
-It won't interfere with the current building.
It won't be. It'll be near it. But not touching it.
-It'll be near it, but not touching it.
So he basically promised to treat it like his marriage.
[ Trumpet plays "Wah, wah" ]
Thank you, Mickey.
Right on cue, Mickey!
Trump explained yesterday
that it wasn't his idea to change the plans.
It came from unnamed architects.
-Well, certain areas are -- -What happened?
Yeah. Certain -- Certain areas are being left.
We determined that after really a tremendous amount of study
with some of the best architects in the world.
-Oh, yeah, who was the architect you talked to?
Godzilla?
[ Laughter ]
And it's important to note no one asked for this.
In fact, officials are begging Trump to stop.
-In a new letter to the Trump administration,
the National Trust for Historic Preservation
wrote that the addition will overwhelm the White House itself
and urged officials to pause the demolition
until the plans have been reviewed
by the National Capital Planning Commission,
which approves plans for federal buildings.
-One -- I couldn't agree more
with the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
And two -- Good luck with your letter.
[ Laughter ]
[ As Trump ] You know, we're very excited
about the ballroom.
Oh. Excuse me. Mail's here.
"Dear Mr. Trump, da-da-da,
overwhelm the building,
da-da-da, pause the demolition."
Oh, dear God, someone get Godzilla on the phone.
[ Laughter ]
We're about to make a terrible mistake.
Now, I'm sure you can imagine
that if any other president did something like this,
all hell would break loose.
But on cue,
Republicans are defending the project by comparing it
to a much smaller White House edition from the past.
-In 2009, President Obama upgraded
the tennis court into a full basketball court.
-Barack Obama built that basketball court.
-Barack Obama built his basketball court.
-Obama got a basketball court.
-Barack Obama added a basketball court.
In 2009, outside President Obama added a basketball court.
-Yeah, he did it outside.
He didn't tear down the White House
or any other historically significant structure.
Can you imagine if Obama had put a rim
at the top of the Washington Monument?
[ Laughter ]
I mean, sure, that'd be [bleep] awesome.
That would have been cool.
This couldn't be any more of a bait and switch.
Trump got elected by claiming he was going to make
life more affordable for hard-working Americans,
and now he's demolishing the White House
to build himself a gilded vanity project.
If you voted for Trump,
thinking he'd bring down your grocery bills,
tough luck, but on the bright side,
you can think about how nice his new ballroom will be
next time you're spending 50 bucks on...
-Bacon, lettuce, tomato.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
A Closer Look
Late Night with Seth Meyers
Oct 23, 2025 A Closer Look - Late Night with Seth Meyers
Seth takes a closer look at Trump demolishing the White House to build himself a ballroom instead of delivering on the biggest promise of his campaign of making life more affordable.
Transcript
-Donald Trump has finally delivered
on the biggest promise of his campaign.
He's destroyed the east wing of the White House.
Wait. That's what he promised? No. Okay.
Well, for more on that, it's time for "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
During the campaign,
polls repeatedly showed that there was one issue
that was far and away the most important to voters.
-According to exit polling,
many voters named the economy as a top issue,
citing concerns over high prices and inflation.
People are so upset about inflation,
I feel like they took inflation with them
into the, uh, into the voting booth.
When we asked them, "Has inflation caused you
and your family a severe hardship
or a moderate hardship?"
75% said it was a hardship, inflation was.
The American psyche is just really scarred
by what happened a couple of years ago,
when prices were going up so much
that it was kind of coming out of your --
you know, you just couldn't even keep track of it.
-I mean, yeah, remember when eggs were super expensive
and it was like the only news story?
You couldn't even get down the aisle at Trader Joe's
without being interviewed by all three networks.
It was cheaper to buy those plastic eggs
with little toys inside.
There was no protein, but on the bright side,
I had a pretty sick collection of plastic rings.
[ Laughter ]
Inflation was such a big deal
that Trump attributed his victory to that one issue.
-I won on groceries.
It's a very simple word, groceries.
Like almost -- You know, who uses the word?
I started using the word the groceries --
when you buy apples, when you buy bacon, when you buy eggs.
They were double and triple the price
over a short period of time.
And I won an election based on that.
-Those are the only three foods he knows.
Everything...
Everything else he eats comes in a wrapper or a bucket.
Also, whenever Trump feels like
he has to explain something to us,
"I started using the word groceries,"
that's the telltale sign, he just learned about it.
[ Laughter ]
It's like when a kid learns about a new dinosaur
and then immediately rushes home to tell you about it.
Did you know a Brachiosaurus has a neck that's 30 feet long?
And you go, Yeah, kid, everybody [bleep] knows that.
[ Laughter ]
You think we didn't have dinosaurs when I was little?
Grow up.
Remember, Trump is a guy
who has clearly never stepped foot inside a grocery store.
Not too long ago, he didn't even know how to buy bread.
-You have voter I.D. to buy a loaf of bread?
You have -- You have I.D. to buy a loaf of bread?
-Yeah.
[ Laughter ]
Everyone knows you need voter I.D. to buy bread.
[ Laughter and applause ]
Then you get, no.
Then you get the correct type of bread
based on your political affiliation.
You get Wonder bread if you're a Republican,
sprouted grain if you're a Democrat,
and cinnamon swirl if you're a [bleep] anarchist.
Hey, by the way, how come that cocaine in loaf form
hasn't been banned by RFK yet?
I'll take the COVID shot any day,
but I sure as hell don't trust
what's in that [bleep] cinnamon bread.
The point is, Trump made groceries his big thing.
In fact, he talked relentlessly about it on the campaign trail.
-I hear about groceries.
They're so expensive.
I get more complaints about groceries.
Everything from hot dogs to, uh,
to bacon and eggs and everything.
Bacon hasn't come down. Apples haven't come down.
Lettuce, nothing's come down.
Your prices weren't quadrupled for a -- for a sausage,
for a piece of lettuce, for an apple.
Now the prices have gone so high.
Everyone tells me about the word groceries.
They call it groceries --
bacon, lettuce, tomato.
[ Laughter ]
-The man is clearly hungry. He's dressed like --
[ Laughter ]
He's dressed like a garbage man
and listing off foods
like he's telling the other guys on the truck
what he found in the trash.
[ As Trump ] I'm telling you, fellas,
don't rush to throw the bags in the back.
There's full meals in there.
I found bacon, lettuce, tomato, loaf of bread.
Usually you need ID to buy that.
[ Laughter ]
Also, tell me you don't go to the grocery store.
[ As Trump ] I'll take one piece of lettuce.
[ Laughter ]
So that was the biggest issue of the campaign.
You heard it from Trump himself.
That's how he got elected, inflation.
By the way, whatever happened with that?
-We fixed inflation.
-Oh!
[ Laughter ]
Did you hear that?!
He fixed inflation.
Sound the trumpets!
[ Trumpet plays ]
You there, boy?
Go! [ Coins clinking ]
fetch the biggest goose in the grocery store!
But remember to bring your voter ID!
What a blessed day!
Inflation has been fixed! Hooray!
-Consumer goods are getting more expensive as well.
The latest consumer price index shows overall prices rose
by nearly 3% on an annual basis last month.
-Most of the increase was driven
by the basic necessities for Americans.
Groceries and energy prices,
those are the need to have things.
That was significantly higher.
-Oh man, I don't think I gave that boy enough money
to buy that goose then.
[ Laughter ]
Definitely a couple farthings short.
Also, of course prices are higher.
Of course they are.
Trump never cared about the price of groceries
or as they used to be known, apple bacon, eggs.
And I can't believe anyone thought that he did.
During the election, it felt like the whole country
was watching a horror movie
where a young woman answers the door on a rainy night
and there's a guy there saying, "My car just broke down.
Can I come in and use your phone?"
And half of us were saying,
"Don't let him in. He's gonna kill you."
And the other half were saying, "You gotta let him in.
He needs the phone."
[ Laughter ]
"Plus, he's gonna lower grocery prices."
So groceries are actually getting more expensive,
but probably not the important ones, right?
-If you feel like your coffee beans are more expensive,
they are.
Compared to a year ago,
coffee bean prices in the United States up 21%.
Bananas, buying those every week at our house,
up 6.6%.
-Coffee and bananas.
Well, thankfully not many people buy those.
Of course, Trump doesn't care about either.
He would just tell people instead of coffee,
drink Diet Coke and instead bananas,
just use the phone on your desk.
There's one other non-food item on that list
that surprised me,
and is especially damning for the president,
who spent so much of his time doing interviews
with professional wrestlers and comedians.
-Audio equipment.
Say you're buying a mic or a little,
you know, something or the other, up 12%.
-Oh, my God, Donald Trump has raised the price of...
[echoing] podcasts, podcasts, podcast.
[ Thunder clapping ]
[ Maniacal laughter ]
-Lock the gates!
[ Laughter and applause ]
-So inflation is actually getting worse,
thanks in large part to Trump's tariffs.
But he declared it fixed and moved on to a topic,
that much like his beloved bacon,
is closer to his heart.
-We are going to make and build a ballroom,
which they've wanted for probably 100 years
at the White House.
Yeah, we start pretty soon.
We have a beautiful ballroom.
I'm going to build a ballroom,
beautiful ballroom for the White House.
There's never been a president that was good at ballrooms.
I'm really good.
I've never seen a crowd like this.
I think we need a ballroom.
They've just started construction
of the new ballroom.
They've wanted a ballroom,
and now they're going to finally have it.
And it's going to knock your socks off.
That's a knock out panel,
and that goes right into the ballroom.
It's going to be one of the most beautiful ballrooms
anywhere in the world.
The ballroom is under construction.
I think it's going to be fantastic.
I think it will be one of the great ballrooms
anywhere in the world.
This is a plan.
It, it's got tables.
Right now, we have a space with tables, holds about 79 people.
-Oh my God, well, if it has tables!
[ Laughter ]
You didn't mention the tables before.
If you had talked about tables
on the campaign trail instead of groceries,
I'm sure you would have won every state and Guam.
[ Laughter ]
Also, tables is such a great word.
Did you start that one the way you started groceries?
And here, this whole time I've been calling them
wood boards on stick legs.
[ Laughter ]
Trump is so obsessed with this ballroom,
he brings it up every chance he gets.
He loves everything about it, even the noise.
-We're building a world-class ballroom.
You probably hear the beautiful sound
of construction to the back.
You hear that sound? Oh, that's music to my ears.
I love that sound.
Other people don't like it, I love it.
-That's how you know Donald Trump
was never a real New Yorker.
Real New Yorkers [bleep] hate the sound of construction.
What else does he love about New York
that everybody else hates?
[ As Trump ] I love the sound of construction,
the guy who takes the dump on the subway,
and the New York Jets offense.
That's my New York.
[ Laughter and applause ]
Donald Trump is the only New Yorker
who'd lift up his window and yell,
"Hey, keep that noise up!
I love the sound of construction."
The rest of us hate it.
I'd rather hear my neighbor's trumpet practice
through the wall at 3:00 a.m.
than the sound of a jackhammer
and a bunch of guys yelling, Hey, Tony, where's the cement?
Hey, which Tony you talking to?
That Tony? Hey, we're all named Tony!
By the way...
By the way, my neighbor is great at the trumpet.
That's where we got the sound effect from earlier.
That is not recorded.
He's playing live through the wall.
Isn't that right, Mickey?
[ Trumpet plays ]
[ Laughter ]
Love that guy.
Now, I do wish
he could have sex a little quieter!
[ Laughter ]
One thing I've learned from living next door to Mickey.
Trumpeters do very well with the ladies.
[ Laughter ]
Now, it would be bad enough
if Trump's biggest priority was building
a gilded vanity project for himself.
But it's so much worse because to do it,
he's tearing down a somewhat well-known
and beloved piece of property.
You may have heard of it the White House.
-This morning, sources tell ABC News
the entire east wing of the White House
could be demolished by this weekend,
making room for President Trump's
90,000 square foot ballroom.
[ Machinery whirring ]
The demolition of the East Wing,
which has stood for more than 120 years,
shocking many on Capitol Hill.
Preservation group questions the scale,
saying the ballroom will dwarf the White House residence,
disrupting its classical design.
-That's right, he's tearing down the entire East Wing
to build his stupid ballroom.
I mean, look at this.
This is like a sequel to "Fixer Upper"
called "[Bleep] Upper."
[ Laughter ]
And of course, Trump also lied about this project
because when he first announced it,
he promised us no demolition would be required.
-It won't interfere with the current building.
It won't be. It'll be near it. But not touching it.
-It'll be near it, but not touching it.
So he basically promised to treat it like his marriage.
[ Trumpet plays "Wah, wah" ]
Thank you, Mickey.
Right on cue, Mickey!
Trump explained yesterday
that it wasn't his idea to change the plans.
It came from unnamed architects.
-Well, certain areas are -- -What happened?
Yeah. Certain -- Certain areas are being left.
We determined that after really a tremendous amount of study
with some of the best architects in the world.
-Oh, yeah, who was the architect you talked to?
Godzilla?
[ Laughter ]
And it's important to note no one asked for this.
In fact, officials are begging Trump to stop.
-In a new letter to the Trump administration,
the National Trust for Historic Preservation
wrote that the addition will overwhelm the White House itself
and urged officials to pause the demolition
until the plans have been reviewed
by the National Capital Planning Commission,
which approves plans for federal buildings.
-One -- I couldn't agree more
with the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
And two -- Good luck with your letter.
[ Laughter ]
[ As Trump ] You know, we're very excited
about the ballroom.
Oh. Excuse me. Mail's here.
"Dear Mr. Trump, da-da-da,
overwhelm the building,
da-da-da, pause the demolition."
Oh, dear God, someone get Godzilla on the phone.
[ Laughter ]
We're about to make a terrible mistake.
Now, I'm sure you can imagine
that if any other president did something like this,
all hell would break loose.
But on cue,
Republicans are defending the project by comparing it
to a much smaller White House edition from the past.
-In 2009, President Obama upgraded
the tennis court into a full basketball court.
-Barack Obama built that basketball court.
-Barack Obama built his basketball court.
-Obama got a basketball court.
-Barack Obama added a basketball court.
In 2009, outside President Obama added a basketball court.
-Yeah, he did it outside.
He didn't tear down the White House
or any other historically significant structure.
Can you imagine if Obama had put a rim
at the top of the Washington Monument?
[ Laughter ]
I mean, sure, that'd be [bleep] awesome.
That would have been cool.
This couldn't be any more of a bait and switch.
Trump got elected by claiming he was going to make
life more affordable for hard-working Americans,
and now he's demolishing the White House
to build himself a gilded vanity project.
If you voted for Trump,
thinking he'd bring down your grocery bills,
tough luck, but on the bright side,
you can think about how nice his new ballroom will be
next time you're spending 50 bucks on...
-Bacon, lettuce, tomato.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
- admin
- Site Admin
- Posts: 38376
- Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am
Re: Part 2 Anti-Anti-Nazi Barbarian Hordes are Knocking Down
by admin » Sun Oct 26, 2025 6:52 am
Trump’s Embarrassing Fox Freakout Over Poll Disaster
The Young Turks
Oct 25, 2025
President Trump was stunned on Fox News when confronted about bad poll numbers. Michael Shure, Wosny Lambre and John Fugelsang discuss on The Young Turks. Do you agree with TYT's take? Tell us what you think in the comments below.
Transcript
We do see polling that doesn't pull well
in the economy. The the recent Fox
polling said 52% say the economy is
worse under this administration. You've
got unemployment at the highest rate in
four years. Um groceries made a big jump
in the last term. So how is that you're
looking forward with these plans that
you just talked about? When will people
feel that Mr. Well, when the factories
start opening, I mean, right now we're
building them. And you know, Fox
polling, I have to tell you, I've told
you before, it's the worst polling I've
ever had. Fox polling, I I've told
Rupert Murdoch, go get yourself a new
pollster because he stinks. And this is
for years now, right? When you don't
like the numbers, what do you do? Fire
them. We saw that with the jobs. Trump
returned to his triedand-true excuses
yesterday when Martha McCllum confronted
him with those less than flattering poll
numbers. According to him, the issue is
not his handling of the economy. The
real issue is Fox News's polling
ability. So he says they got to fire
him. I told Rup Rupert they got to fire
him. Unfortunately for Donald Trump, Fox
News is far from the only outlet with
pretty terrible numbers for the
president. A Washington Post Ipsos poll
just found that 64% of Americans
disapprove of how Trump is handling
tariffs, while 59% disapprove of how he
is handling the economy. Those inherent
bakedin numbers of about 40% are always
remarkable uh to me. Do you approve or
disapprove of the way Trump is handling
each of the following tariffs on
important goods? 34 uh approved. 64
disapproved. The situation involving
Russia and Ukraine 38 to 60. I don't
know where the 38 is. What are you
approving of? And then the economy 40 to
59 as we see there. Additionally, more
than 23 of Americans describe the state
of the economy as not so good or poor.
An AP an APNC poll found that 60% of
adults think Trump has gone too far in
imposing new tariffs on other countries.
So you see there gone too far 60 about
right 34 and not far enough five. So
that again, 34 and five, you have that
39 that's pretty uh thinks things are
fine. But Trump of course has an excuse
for everything and this is no different.
It basically boils down to the fact that
he thinks Americans are too dumb to
understand his genius. Listen
with regard to people's feeling about
the economy and and the tariffs and uh
you know some polls show that people are
concerned about the tariffs as well.
That's only because they don't
understand the word tariff. I mean,
look, again, we have all this money,
trillions of dollars pouring into our
country only because of the tariffs. I
mean, I'd like to say because of
November 5th, the election,
but it's really it's really because of
the tariffs we have right now, when you
look at our numbers, the the investment
that's being made in our country is
again, Biden's at 250 billion,
and we're at 17 trillion.
Yeah, that's a big number. No, nobody's
ever heard of a number like that.
Well, no one's ever heard of a number
like that because it isn't really the
number. It's that $17 trillion figure or
17 trillion figure is a wild
overestimate. But it's not just economic
issues that people aren't happy with.
The Washington Post Ipso survey finds
that Americans disapprove of Trump's
performance on crime by a 10 percentage
point margin and oppose him ordering the
National Guard to other cities by a
four-point margin. And overall, Trump is
what they say, underwater. 56% of
Americans disapprove of the way he's
handling his job, while 43% approve, a
negative 13 point margin. So, you can
see it right there. September, 43% to
56%. Uh, those numbers have stayed
relatively solid uh throughout his
presidency. Hard to believe he only took
office in February. We are, what is it?
Uh, do some math for me, John. about 8%
uh into this uh 8 months into this. It's
what it sounds like.
We're we're nine we're nine months in.
So uh children that were conceived by
drunk depressed couples on inauguration
night are being born into a hellscape
around this week.
Well, we w we look forward to welcoming
those babies. I'm going to get to you
guys in one second. Let me just give you
one more poll. The APNRC numbers were
even more bleak for these poor babies.
Uh overall 39% of adults approve of the
way Trump is handling his job as
president and 60% disapprove. Those are
pretty hard consistent numbers. Those
are numbers that haven't really wavered.
Was what do you make of all of this and
what the president's options are? Um,
it's kind of remarkable honestly how
similar the Trump situation is to Biden
in terms of the messaging out of the
White House is, "Oh, you guys are just
too dumb to realize how great the
economy is. Look at our GDP growth. Look
at our stock market. Look how great the
economy is going for everyone." When the
reality is most Americans don't own
stock, don't have a 401k. They're not
realizing those gains in our economy.
And yet, they still go to the pump and
see a gas situation that's hard for
them. They go to the grocery store, go
try to buy a steak. I promise you, the
numbers will shock you at the grocery
store. They know that housing prices
steadily continue to go up. And the same
if you want to go go out and buy a car,
if you want to go out and rent an
apartment, you name it. Like the cost of
living, child care, you name it. It's
not getting better. So it doesn't matter
what Joe Biden says out of his economic
people say, "Oh, you guys just don't get
how great and hot the economy is.
Doesn't matter what Trump says when he
fires the jobs reports guy or he goes on
Fox News and he gaslights the country.
It doesn't matter. Like people are going
to go out and notice that materially
their lives are getting worse." And then
that's before we even talk about wage
stagnation, which is a 50-year problem
in this country. So Trump can go out and
do his normal bluster, but it's not
going to work.
Well, here's here's the thing, John, in
in listening to W and what he's saying
about this and this bluster that we
know. W says it's not going to work. It
did work. Uh in in LA last November, it
worked. And I was standing next to
people who said to me, "My eggs are too
expensive." Mind you, people who just
spent like $300 at the tents behind them
to buy MAGA scarves and hats and buttons
and all of that, but their egg prices
were too high and and they felt like
they were paying too much in gas.
So, I believe I think W is right. It the
bluster is not going to work. It doesn't
have to. He's not running for reelection
again, but there is an election next
year. How does how do we how does this
square for Trump? How is he able to
change this narrative when you know he
telling people they don't understand the
economy? This is what it is right now.
You know what happens now?
Joe Biden had the same problem Barack
Obama had. Uh a recovery that was real
on paper, but it didn't translate into
the pocketbooks of normal people. And
America for 30 years has been turning
into this reality show I call food,
medicine, rent. Pick two. But the
reality was under Biden who did massive
investment the first two years of Joe
Biden's presidency we'll study someday
to see how you actually you know do it
FDR style. We got to have the lowest
rate of childhood poverty in history in
2021 which shows we can do that if we
want to. Government policies got us
there. But Donald Trump has blown
everything he inherited from Fred Trump,
Barack Obama, and now Joe Biden. That's
three inheritances in a row. Don't
forget, as unsatisfying as it was,
America was handling inflation better
than every other capitalist society in
the G8. I mean, we really were the envy
of the world, as crappy as it was. And
now twothirds of the Americans say the
economy is poor. It's only 9 months or
not so good, which is how Melania
describes the marriage. 70% Mr. for sure
say Donald Trump's ma tariffs make
things more expensive and and the other
30% are still trying to figure out why
Big Max cost $19 now. He can't do
anything. It's too locked in. And these
Republicans like brave little Ted Cruz
are beginning to do the dance they're
going to have to do of putting space
between themselves and this guy just
enough because they all know that the
tariff problem is not going to get
better. The Fed has reported that
consumer spending has flatlined or
dropped and prices have gone up in every
single sector. Add on to that that uh
Epstein's not going away. So, if I was
Jimmy Fallon, I I you know, I'd lock the
doors right now because this guy's going
to need a lot of scapegoating and Hunter
Biden will pay.
Yeah, there's there's no question. I I
couldn't
But the Republicans are Sorry, Mike.
Well, the Republicans are terrified
because they know that Trump's not going
to be on the ballot this year. And
there's folks that come in from the
mountains or in from the woods or down
from the hills or in from the swamp when
Mr. Trump from the TV is on the ballot.
Those folks didn't come in 2018. Of
course, they didn't come in 2022. And
the midterm is not going to have the
risk to get those people. The ones who
think climate change is fake, but pro
wrestling is real and vaccines make you
gay. A lot of them are not going to
bother showing up.
Right. That that's true. And even if the
maxim is, well, Trump is always on the
ballot. he's not on the ballot unless
he's on the ballot. So, some of his
ideas maybe and some of his passions
maybe and some of the people that came
out to see him maybe, you know, I've
said it before, I feel like that there's
a part of Donald Trump which is like
Tiger Woods. I'll watch golf if Tiger
Woods is golfing. I will not watch golf
if Tiger Woods isn't golfing. And and I
it's not because I I I have other things
to do with my day and I'll watch, you
know, other sports. I just, you know,
he's the star that gets me out and
Donald Trump is the star that gets a lot
of his voters and supporters out. John,
I want to ask you this. The one of the
numbers that was kind of a a back number
here that we didn't talk about so much
because we talked about the economy and
those and those uh favorable and
unfavorable numbers was 10%. Uh he's
underwater 10% on crime, right? This
whole
crime on crime. His favorite issue was
it's like his best subject at school was
detention. underwater on crime.
Exactly. But this is what I'm saying.
Black people did this guy have to abuse
to satisfy
his policy though, all these policies of
going to the cities and flexing the
muscle of the military and our cities
and picking up immigrants. That's to
deflect in my estimation from really
poor economic numbers and saying, "All
right, th this is the winning. This is
the winning strategy. Crime's the
winning strategy." He's not even winning
with that, is he?
Yeah. But look how look how Pritskar
made him back down from Chicago and now
he's going to go pick on Memphis because
it's actually a blacker city. But they
do have a Republican attorney general
who will let him do this cosplay and let
him take Marines and National Guard
troopers like away from their jobs and
their families and their local economies
so they can be like the troops in DC and
do yard work while wearing camouflage
with orange vests. The camouflage with
orange vests on top really is the
metaphor for this this strategy of this
entire administration. What we saw in
DC, it's not even that good a look. It's
not even that good a look.
33% disapproves. This whole
administration is like Jaggermeister
already. They're regretting it the next
morning. And and and these idiots, he's
going to be doing everything he can do.
But look how scared they are. They're
cheating in Texas 15 months early.
That's how scared they are. And the
prices are going up in Walmart. And
Donald Trump is tap dancing to keep the
32% that brought him happy. He's not
even trying to reach beyond his original
base.
No, he's not. And what he's trying to do
to keep the Congress obviously is to
change the rules and he's got his his
deputies to do it in Texas. Was I want
to talk about something that John
brought brought up very quickly because
we've got a lot to cover today. But he
said uh John was talking about how on
paper this economy was great. Biden's
economy is great. You were saying paper
doesn't matter.
It matters what's at home, right? Um,
yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. The Biden economy
is great and and and
recovering from CO is all I'm saying.
Yeah. No, no. Understood. But I I'm
talking about I I agree with what you're
saying, John. I I think it's absolutely
true. I mean, it's actually irrefutable.
It's true. But how do you drive that
home? How do you drive that home in an
election and what W is saying that all
the prices are too high. I don't own
stocks. Most people don't own stocks,
etc., etc. Where's the where's the the
way out of that?
Well, I mean, it would be uh wealth
redistribution. it'd be a radical change
to the status quo. Um, but that's not on
the table for either party. And and
that's what I meant honestly by it's not
going to work. Um, my guy Daniel Bessner
has a theory about, you know, our
current political moment and that like
if nobody's willing to actually tackle
the paradigm that exists head on, we're
just going to have these fluctuations
where incumbents just keep getting
kicked out. I don't think in 2028 Trump
is going to create some fantastic
economy and some fantastic new American
century that everybody's so happy and a
JD goofy ass Vance is going to come in
and ride that wave to the presidency. I
just don't see that happening for them.
And and I think for all of the credit
that Trump gets for dominating the last
10 years of American politics, he's just
dominating discourse. Nothing's changed,
right? Like Wall Street still owns the
economy. You know, the tech sector still
owns the economy. We're still beholden
to the same people we're beholding to.
Like the people who run and own the
country still own it even more so. Um,
and and I don't think that's going to
produce some results where even, you
know, people that are on the fringes of
loving or supporting uh Trump to the
point that they'll go out and vote for
him are going to be super enthusiastic
about him throughout his presidency.
Yeah, I I agree. And you brought up, you
know, John brought up Ted Cruz and and
you're starting to see the fissures that
naturally happen. You brought up JD
Vance. I think the passing of Charlie
Kirk really I mean tragic and and and
all on the political side hurts JD Vance
immensely because it emboldens others uh
to go against MAGA in whatever ways they
want to because if JD Vance is the
standard bearer of MAGA. I can promise
you that Ted Cruz and Josh Holly and
Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton and any other
uh Republican who wants to be president
will take that in in any day of the
week. They would love to run against JD
Vance, especially if he is weakened
without having all of what Charlie Kirk
brought to the table there. So, I I
think it's interesting.
Tucker Carlson is Tucker Carlson's going
to do more against them right now on
this issue than Charlie Kirk's murder.
I I I don't disagree with you. I I don't
disagree, but I it really takes a lot of
it takes a lot of infrastructure out of
uh out of J. D. Vance's uh background.
Um, so anyway, we have
Well, it's going to be Isn't it going to
be joyful watching Magga tear that guy
apart with his little eyeliner, his
fudgy fingers? Oh, they can't wait. They
can't wait to tell him, "No, you're not
captain now."
I'm so glad I didn't wear eyeliner
today. This guy is so hated. I heard the
couch made him go sleep on the bed.
That's how hated he is.
That's what's so great about John. It's
like your face hurts when you're done
with the show.
The Young Turks
Oct 25, 2025
President Trump was stunned on Fox News when confronted about bad poll numbers. Michael Shure, Wosny Lambre and John Fugelsang discuss on The Young Turks. Do you agree with TYT's take? Tell us what you think in the comments below.
Transcript
We do see polling that doesn't pull well
in the economy. The the recent Fox
polling said 52% say the economy is
worse under this administration. You've
got unemployment at the highest rate in
four years. Um groceries made a big jump
in the last term. So how is that you're
looking forward with these plans that
you just talked about? When will people
feel that Mr. Well, when the factories
start opening, I mean, right now we're
building them. And you know, Fox
polling, I have to tell you, I've told
you before, it's the worst polling I've
ever had. Fox polling, I I've told
Rupert Murdoch, go get yourself a new
pollster because he stinks. And this is
for years now, right? When you don't
like the numbers, what do you do? Fire
them. We saw that with the jobs. Trump
returned to his triedand-true excuses
yesterday when Martha McCllum confronted
him with those less than flattering poll
numbers. According to him, the issue is
not his handling of the economy. The
real issue is Fox News's polling
ability. So he says they got to fire
him. I told Rup Rupert they got to fire
him. Unfortunately for Donald Trump, Fox
News is far from the only outlet with
pretty terrible numbers for the
president. A Washington Post Ipsos poll
just found that 64% of Americans
disapprove of how Trump is handling
tariffs, while 59% disapprove of how he
is handling the economy. Those inherent
bakedin numbers of about 40% are always
remarkable uh to me. Do you approve or
disapprove of the way Trump is handling
each of the following tariffs on
important goods? 34 uh approved. 64
disapproved. The situation involving
Russia and Ukraine 38 to 60. I don't
know where the 38 is. What are you
approving of? And then the economy 40 to
59 as we see there. Additionally, more
than 23 of Americans describe the state
of the economy as not so good or poor.
An AP an APNC poll found that 60% of
adults think Trump has gone too far in
imposing new tariffs on other countries.
So you see there gone too far 60 about
right 34 and not far enough five. So
that again, 34 and five, you have that
39 that's pretty uh thinks things are
fine. But Trump of course has an excuse
for everything and this is no different.
It basically boils down to the fact that
he thinks Americans are too dumb to
understand his genius. Listen
with regard to people's feeling about
the economy and and the tariffs and uh
you know some polls show that people are
concerned about the tariffs as well.
That's only because they don't
understand the word tariff. I mean,
look, again, we have all this money,
trillions of dollars pouring into our
country only because of the tariffs. I
mean, I'd like to say because of
November 5th, the election,
but it's really it's really because of
the tariffs we have right now, when you
look at our numbers, the the investment
that's being made in our country is
again, Biden's at 250 billion,
and we're at 17 trillion.
Yeah, that's a big number. No, nobody's
ever heard of a number like that.
Well, no one's ever heard of a number
like that because it isn't really the
number. It's that $17 trillion figure or
17 trillion figure is a wild
overestimate. But it's not just economic
issues that people aren't happy with.
The Washington Post Ipso survey finds
that Americans disapprove of Trump's
performance on crime by a 10 percentage
point margin and oppose him ordering the
National Guard to other cities by a
four-point margin. And overall, Trump is
what they say, underwater. 56% of
Americans disapprove of the way he's
handling his job, while 43% approve, a
negative 13 point margin. So, you can
see it right there. September, 43% to
56%. Uh, those numbers have stayed
relatively solid uh throughout his
presidency. Hard to believe he only took
office in February. We are, what is it?
Uh, do some math for me, John. about 8%
uh into this uh 8 months into this. It's
what it sounds like.
We're we're nine we're nine months in.
So uh children that were conceived by
drunk depressed couples on inauguration
night are being born into a hellscape
around this week.
Well, we w we look forward to welcoming
those babies. I'm going to get to you
guys in one second. Let me just give you
one more poll. The APNRC numbers were
even more bleak for these poor babies.
Uh overall 39% of adults approve of the
way Trump is handling his job as
president and 60% disapprove. Those are
pretty hard consistent numbers. Those
are numbers that haven't really wavered.
Was what do you make of all of this and
what the president's options are? Um,
it's kind of remarkable honestly how
similar the Trump situation is to Biden
in terms of the messaging out of the
White House is, "Oh, you guys are just
too dumb to realize how great the
economy is. Look at our GDP growth. Look
at our stock market. Look how great the
economy is going for everyone." When the
reality is most Americans don't own
stock, don't have a 401k. They're not
realizing those gains in our economy.
And yet, they still go to the pump and
see a gas situation that's hard for
them. They go to the grocery store, go
try to buy a steak. I promise you, the
numbers will shock you at the grocery
store. They know that housing prices
steadily continue to go up. And the same
if you want to go go out and buy a car,
if you want to go out and rent an
apartment, you name it. Like the cost of
living, child care, you name it. It's
not getting better. So it doesn't matter
what Joe Biden says out of his economic
people say, "Oh, you guys just don't get
how great and hot the economy is.
Doesn't matter what Trump says when he
fires the jobs reports guy or he goes on
Fox News and he gaslights the country.
It doesn't matter. Like people are going
to go out and notice that materially
their lives are getting worse." And then
that's before we even talk about wage
stagnation, which is a 50-year problem
in this country. So Trump can go out and
do his normal bluster, but it's not
going to work.
Well, here's here's the thing, John, in
in listening to W and what he's saying
about this and this bluster that we
know. W says it's not going to work. It
did work. Uh in in LA last November, it
worked. And I was standing next to
people who said to me, "My eggs are too
expensive." Mind you, people who just
spent like $300 at the tents behind them
to buy MAGA scarves and hats and buttons
and all of that, but their egg prices
were too high and and they felt like
they were paying too much in gas.
So, I believe I think W is right. It the
bluster is not going to work. It doesn't
have to. He's not running for reelection
again, but there is an election next
year. How does how do we how does this
square for Trump? How is he able to
change this narrative when you know he
telling people they don't understand the
economy? This is what it is right now.
You know what happens now?
Joe Biden had the same problem Barack
Obama had. Uh a recovery that was real
on paper, but it didn't translate into
the pocketbooks of normal people. And
America for 30 years has been turning
into this reality show I call food,
medicine, rent. Pick two. But the
reality was under Biden who did massive
investment the first two years of Joe
Biden's presidency we'll study someday
to see how you actually you know do it
FDR style. We got to have the lowest
rate of childhood poverty in history in
2021 which shows we can do that if we
want to. Government policies got us
there. But Donald Trump has blown
everything he inherited from Fred Trump,
Barack Obama, and now Joe Biden. That's
three inheritances in a row. Don't
forget, as unsatisfying as it was,
America was handling inflation better
than every other capitalist society in
the G8. I mean, we really were the envy
of the world, as crappy as it was. And
now twothirds of the Americans say the
economy is poor. It's only 9 months or
not so good, which is how Melania
describes the marriage. 70% Mr. for sure
say Donald Trump's ma tariffs make
things more expensive and and the other
30% are still trying to figure out why
Big Max cost $19 now. He can't do
anything. It's too locked in. And these
Republicans like brave little Ted Cruz
are beginning to do the dance they're
going to have to do of putting space
between themselves and this guy just
enough because they all know that the
tariff problem is not going to get
better. The Fed has reported that
consumer spending has flatlined or
dropped and prices have gone up in every
single sector. Add on to that that uh
Epstein's not going away. So, if I was
Jimmy Fallon, I I you know, I'd lock the
doors right now because this guy's going
to need a lot of scapegoating and Hunter
Biden will pay.
Yeah, there's there's no question. I I
couldn't
But the Republicans are Sorry, Mike.
Well, the Republicans are terrified
because they know that Trump's not going
to be on the ballot this year. And
there's folks that come in from the
mountains or in from the woods or down
from the hills or in from the swamp when
Mr. Trump from the TV is on the ballot.
Those folks didn't come in 2018. Of
course, they didn't come in 2022. And
the midterm is not going to have the
risk to get those people. The ones who
think climate change is fake, but pro
wrestling is real and vaccines make you
gay. A lot of them are not going to
bother showing up.
Right. That that's true. And even if the
maxim is, well, Trump is always on the
ballot. he's not on the ballot unless
he's on the ballot. So, some of his
ideas maybe and some of his passions
maybe and some of the people that came
out to see him maybe, you know, I've
said it before, I feel like that there's
a part of Donald Trump which is like
Tiger Woods. I'll watch golf if Tiger
Woods is golfing. I will not watch golf
if Tiger Woods isn't golfing. And and I
it's not because I I I have other things
to do with my day and I'll watch, you
know, other sports. I just, you know,
he's the star that gets me out and
Donald Trump is the star that gets a lot
of his voters and supporters out. John,
I want to ask you this. The one of the
numbers that was kind of a a back number
here that we didn't talk about so much
because we talked about the economy and
those and those uh favorable and
unfavorable numbers was 10%. Uh he's
underwater 10% on crime, right? This
whole
crime on crime. His favorite issue was
it's like his best subject at school was
detention. underwater on crime.
Exactly. But this is what I'm saying.
Black people did this guy have to abuse
to satisfy
his policy though, all these policies of
going to the cities and flexing the
muscle of the military and our cities
and picking up immigrants. That's to
deflect in my estimation from really
poor economic numbers and saying, "All
right, th this is the winning. This is
the winning strategy. Crime's the
winning strategy." He's not even winning
with that, is he?
Yeah. But look how look how Pritskar
made him back down from Chicago and now
he's going to go pick on Memphis because
it's actually a blacker city. But they
do have a Republican attorney general
who will let him do this cosplay and let
him take Marines and National Guard
troopers like away from their jobs and
their families and their local economies
so they can be like the troops in DC and
do yard work while wearing camouflage
with orange vests. The camouflage with
orange vests on top really is the
metaphor for this this strategy of this
entire administration. What we saw in
DC, it's not even that good a look. It's
not even that good a look.
33% disapproves. This whole
administration is like Jaggermeister
already. They're regretting it the next
morning. And and and these idiots, he's
going to be doing everything he can do.
But look how scared they are. They're
cheating in Texas 15 months early.
That's how scared they are. And the
prices are going up in Walmart. And
Donald Trump is tap dancing to keep the
32% that brought him happy. He's not
even trying to reach beyond his original
base.
No, he's not. And what he's trying to do
to keep the Congress obviously is to
change the rules and he's got his his
deputies to do it in Texas. Was I want
to talk about something that John
brought brought up very quickly because
we've got a lot to cover today. But he
said uh John was talking about how on
paper this economy was great. Biden's
economy is great. You were saying paper
doesn't matter.
It matters what's at home, right? Um,
yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. The Biden economy
is great and and and
recovering from CO is all I'm saying.
Yeah. No, no. Understood. But I I'm
talking about I I agree with what you're
saying, John. I I think it's absolutely
true. I mean, it's actually irrefutable.
It's true. But how do you drive that
home? How do you drive that home in an
election and what W is saying that all
the prices are too high. I don't own
stocks. Most people don't own stocks,
etc., etc. Where's the where's the the
way out of that?
Well, I mean, it would be uh wealth
redistribution. it'd be a radical change
to the status quo. Um, but that's not on
the table for either party. And and
that's what I meant honestly by it's not
going to work. Um, my guy Daniel Bessner
has a theory about, you know, our
current political moment and that like
if nobody's willing to actually tackle
the paradigm that exists head on, we're
just going to have these fluctuations
where incumbents just keep getting
kicked out. I don't think in 2028 Trump
is going to create some fantastic
economy and some fantastic new American
century that everybody's so happy and a
JD goofy ass Vance is going to come in
and ride that wave to the presidency. I
just don't see that happening for them.
And and I think for all of the credit
that Trump gets for dominating the last
10 years of American politics, he's just
dominating discourse. Nothing's changed,
right? Like Wall Street still owns the
economy. You know, the tech sector still
owns the economy. We're still beholden
to the same people we're beholding to.
Like the people who run and own the
country still own it even more so. Um,
and and I don't think that's going to
produce some results where even, you
know, people that are on the fringes of
loving or supporting uh Trump to the
point that they'll go out and vote for
him are going to be super enthusiastic
about him throughout his presidency.
Yeah, I I agree. And you brought up, you
know, John brought up Ted Cruz and and
you're starting to see the fissures that
naturally happen. You brought up JD
Vance. I think the passing of Charlie
Kirk really I mean tragic and and and
all on the political side hurts JD Vance
immensely because it emboldens others uh
to go against MAGA in whatever ways they
want to because if JD Vance is the
standard bearer of MAGA. I can promise
you that Ted Cruz and Josh Holly and
Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton and any other
uh Republican who wants to be president
will take that in in any day of the
week. They would love to run against JD
Vance, especially if he is weakened
without having all of what Charlie Kirk
brought to the table there. So, I I
think it's interesting.
Tucker Carlson is Tucker Carlson's going
to do more against them right now on
this issue than Charlie Kirk's murder.
I I I don't disagree with you. I I don't
disagree, but I it really takes a lot of
it takes a lot of infrastructure out of
uh out of J. D. Vance's uh background.
Um, so anyway, we have
Well, it's going to be Isn't it going to
be joyful watching Magga tear that guy
apart with his little eyeliner, his
fudgy fingers? Oh, they can't wait. They
can't wait to tell him, "No, you're not
captain now."
I'm so glad I didn't wear eyeliner
today. This guy is so hated. I heard the
couch made him go sleep on the bed.
That's how hated he is.
That's what's so great about John. It's
like your face hurts when you're done
with the show.
- admin
- Site Admin
- Posts: 38376
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Re: Part 2 Anti-Anti-Nazi Barbarian Hordes are Knocking Down
by admin » Mon Oct 27, 2025 6:13 am
Weird' Stephen Miller Is Trump's Biggest Suck-Up
by Michael Wolff and Joanna Coles
Inside Trump's Head
The Daily Beast
Oct 25, 2025
Stephen Miller is the ultimate suck-up, a master of shameless flattery whose influence keeps him at the center of Trump’s orbit. Michael Wolff joins Joanna Coles to unpack how Miller’s relentless devotion to Trump reflects the chaos and destruction in the East Wing. The two also touch on how Wolff’s countersuit against Melania has spurred a bizarre AI-generated TMZ story that falsely claimed he was writing a tell-all about the first lady. They preview their first live ‘Inside Trump’s Head’ event at the Museum of the City of New York, where Wolff promises more revelations about Trump, Epstein, and the ecosystem that enables them.
Transcript
Introduction
We've gone around to several white House people. I said, explain Stephen Miller to me.
What, because, as we talked the other day, he's a weirdo.
Even Trump acknowledges that he's a weirdo. So I said, explain this to me.
Explain this rise. How does he keep rising? And across the board,
there's one explanation, and everybody rushes to it. They say he's the most incredible suck up.
You have never seen this. I mean, the flattery, the oohs.
You know, when he is in the room with the president, with Trump, he just can't stop.
And several people are reporting this to me.
It's one of the few things that makes Trump shut up. He just likes to listen, this whole effort to to remake The Color of America
is really comes down to Stephen Miller's ability to flatter the president even more than Hegseth.
He sucks up. Stephen Miller is the winner of the suck up contest.
Michael. Oh my God, Joanna. Oh my God, Michael. We are going so deep inside Trump's head.
Trump Is Now 'Head Bunglingly Off His Rocker'
But I'm worried that it's just a kind of I think it might just be a lot of electrical fuzes.
I love our design here of of inside Trump. So you can't say I love, white.
Can you see it? There we go. I love the design of it inside, Trump said. That's literally what it feels like.
It must be going on right there. What? What are we going to find? I can't even explain the succession
of things that have happened virtually in the last day or slightly longer.
I mean, it is from the, from breaking up, the blowing up, the relationship
with Canada over a fit of pique over some ad on television
to, pardoning this crypto billionaire kingpin.
Does does he think no one will notice his own family is in the crypto business?
To demanding this is this is like, extraordinary that this $230 million that the government,
the government that he runs should pay him over perceived injustices.
Well, his own Justice Department right. To of course, bulldozing the white House.
Did you leave out blowing up roundabouts in what started as the Caribbean is now spread to the Pacific?
It's actually even even broader than that. It's like a new kind of kind of, a policy.
The I, the military can kill anyone on my orders.
And then there's some statement, I mean, an extraordinary. My God, we are going to kill
anybody who brings drugs into our country. We're going to kill them. They will be, like, dead.
Now, what explains that? Except that the person. This person must be,
head banging Lee off his rocker. Well, and he's surrounded by people that are
not having any sense of restraint around him. Pete Hegseth says, well, hold on, we haven't even mentioned the Pete Hegseth
telling members of the military they're not allowed to talk to Congress in case they inadvertently give something away.
But that is I mean, it's not to forgive these people, but, but it's certainly can be explained.
They cannot do that. They cannot they do not have any portfolio
to criticize him to. Certainly not to criticize him.
And certainly not even to advise him on a better path. It just it just you're out if you're going to do that.
Well. And also what he's also created is this sort of constant presence in the public with his endless press conferences.
I mean, it's so fascinating. The juxtaposition against Biden, who I think did six press conferences
in his last year. Now, obviously we know why, but Trump all the time, I mean, you keep making the point that he just talks all the time.
All the time. Yeah. No, that's I mean, he talks in private. If you're with him, it's a, it's a monologue in, in public.
And they're not different. By the way, I mean, he, he says, oh, I mean, the man is remarkably consistent.
He says the same thing to everyone. I mean, it's actually it's actually why it's relatively easy to write about him
because you can you can sort of you can track what, what he's saying from from person to person to person to person.
White House Insiders Worried Trump's Decisions Are Damaging
So when you're talking to people in the white House, which I know you do all the time, what are they saying about this particular moment?
You know, I talk to them. It's not particularly exceptional. This is what this is what he does.
This is, you know, he goes deeper into being Donald Trump, which is which is the threat and which is the danger.
Now, you know, there's I mean, I've had some conversations about about with, with them about what's, you know, the motivation here
of, of pushing forward in ways that are, yeah, you know, can very easily backfire.
I mean, very easily I mean, $230 million pardoning, pardoning this crypto guy, bulldozing the white House.
Why would you do this on any logical from from the view of any political logic, this can be
and likely is going to be very damaging to you. So why would you do that?
And, you know, pressing people, it's, I mean, it first thing, it's Trump.
I mean, that's always the explanation. It's Trump. Don't try to question it because there's no reason.
There's no it's not going to get you any place to question it. And and you know and it's Trump does these things.
And yet he survives and flourishes. So don't question it. But the other aspect is, is people do feel he's in a rush.
Now is the moment. And the moment could reverse almost at any time.
I mean, if in the, if in the midterms, the Democrats were to win Congress, well, that that would be a serious impediment.
Or, at the end of these four years, he probably will be, despite Steve Bannon in his third term,
despite my late at night fears. The logic is that he would still be out of office and he's doing this.
This is it. He's this is, the man in the moment.
Well, it it does almost feel like he's been told he's got a terminal disease. And so he's being as disruptive as he possibly can be.
I mean, the idea that we are on day, I think we're recording this on a Friday morning.
Trump's Government Shutdown Now Affecting Millions Of Americans
I think we're on day 24 of the government shutdown. We have hundreds of thousands of government employees
who are not being paid. We have TSA workers who like, let me finish. I have a point here, that we have hundreds of decent
TSA people who are turning up to make sure that regular Americans get their flights to go off and do those sales calls and, and go on family trips.
And he has his hand in the government to for a quarter of $1
billion, is appalling. It's appalling. May I. You may,
you may. I think it's an interesting moment because only now at this, at this like
today or yesterday are our checks failing to arrive for government employees.
So, the, the, the squeeze is now on people. And this is, this is literally hundreds of thousands of people
are going to start to feel this. So what's the effect of that that going to be?
I mean, it's going to be pressure on both the Democrats and the Republicans. But it's a new phase of pressure and a new phase of of the shutdown.
All right. I want to come back to some of these points. But I also wanted to say how struck
Audience Reaction To Wolff's Countersuit Against Melania 'Incredible'
I have been on your behalf. So the outpouring of support
with your decision to sue Melania Trump and I will say, I've known you for 25 years.
We've joked about the UPS and downs in our relationships. We've had feuds. We've had a couple of years where we didn't speak.
That was largely over one of us canceling too many lunches. But, I think I've that's not me.
I was not the one canceling this. I think this is the nearest I've ever seen
to seeing you being moved. Is that fair? I mean, I've seen you through some major emotional moments in your life,
and I have seen you moved by the support that people have had for you. The offering of financial support.
I mean, I think it's I think it's it's I think it's totally incredible. And I think it, you know, I while I'm grateful for the support for me
individually, I think it's also a sign that everybody is looking for something to do here.
How do you push back, how do you stop this? I mean, this is this is up till today, up till now and continuing now.
Unstoppable. We something has to be done. I mean, you know, I mean, people pour into the streets when there's an opportunity, when
almost at any opportunity, I mean, but there are few. I mean, no kings twice a year or whatever, whatever.
That's that's that schedule is people want to be able
to stand up. So, so yes, so I am, but I am, I am,
I am certainly personally, personally, grateful. Stunned. Relieved to.
Yeah. Relieved I think. All right, so we were talking in our last episode about Stephen Miller,
Stephen Miller's Immigrant Animus Drafts Off American History
lots of very enthusiastic comments trying to get at who is this man that's been so responsible for the policy against immigrants
and these awful ice raids on people with masked men jumping out and wrestling people and zip tying them?
I mean, it's quite shocking. I still don't think I understand
where his so-called philosophy is, if one can even call it that.
Comes from in terms of hating people that very clearly work at the top of the American food chain
in tech in California, and also literally till the fields and pick the plants
and pick the vegetables and fruits that that keep Americans fed. You know, I mean, I think, I think explaining the roots of racism,
which this fundamentally is, and the, the, the roots of this kind of resentment
against the whole a whole class of people is,
you know, I mean. The immigration issue is a complicated one.
Immigration. And the Democrats have failed on this issue. And I think we can acknowledge that.
I think the Democrats would acknowledge that, them immigrate
when you don't pay attention to immigration, when there isn't some logic to it, when you close your eyes to it
and suddenly, suddenly it becomes a, an unstoppable force is destabilizes governments.
It's throughout Europe. That's that's the effect. And here it's the effect. But this is, that's is ultimately a structural question.
How do you manage this, this process, this in inevitable process.
People want to come to this, to this, to this country. That's a that's a sign of health rather than the than than the opposite it.
But so how do you manage that then you take so but that has to be
has to be juxtaposed to this other thing, this which Stephen Miller represents,
which is a kind of pure hatred, revulsion.
Enmity. That for him to take this in a personal
in such a clearly personal way,
and yet, you know, I mean, I think it's, I think it's layer, and the interesting thing is, it's so glaringly obvious there's no,
there's no, even pretense to make this something else, to find a way
to find a reasonable rationalization for this. So,
you know, I mean, it becomes, and, and, and, you know,
I, I think, I think at this, at this point, at this point, you
will, you know, why one hesitates to go there for a lot of reasons.
You know, this is a round up of the Jews, but they're not Jews. They're they're brown immigrants.
Can you remind people again? Because I was struck that I didn't fully realize this.
Stephen Miller's Support For White Supremacy Bid To Facilitate MAGA Vision
Why is it specifically, Mexicans and South Americans
that Stephen Miller seems to be going after? I don't think that that's true.
I think it's anybody who's who's Brown Indians are in this.
It's just clearly not not people who are white.
And, and and that's in this goes to, to something that is at the heart of heart of MAGA.
I think it's at the heart of a of a of a, the Trump thing that this, this idea that we are losing
that, that and that within you know, we're in the process of, of,
of, of white Americans becoming a minority to brown Americans.
And so there's the effort to exclude the people who Stephen Miller believes
are not Americans, Brown, brown people. So so this is this is a, you know, a fundamental to this,
to this, to the Trump administration is this rollback. How do we make America look like it looked in 1965?
And that's a rollback of of and we've discussed this before. And I think these are the pillars of what of the
of the MAGA vision to rollback civil rights to roll back rollback.
The the, the progress of, of of equity for women
and for to change the, the
to rollback what has happened with a fairly large amount of immigration, massive immigration over the last generation, the brown, Brown immigration.
Trump Calls Stephen Miller A Weirdo Despite Miller's Brown Nosing
So how does this work when Stephen Miller is in the room with JD Vance?
And of course, JD Vance is married to a woman whose parents came from India, who's very clearly Brown.
How do they even begin a conversation? I've gone around several white House people.
I said, explain Stephen Miller to me. What? Because he's, you know, I mean, as a as we we talked
the other the other day, he's a weirdo. Even Trump acknowledges that he's a he's a weirdo.
So I said, explain this to me. Explain this rise. How does he keep rising?
And and across the board, there's there's one explanation.
And everybody rushes to it. They say he's the most incredible suck up. You have never seen this?
I mean, the flattery, the oohs. You know, when he is in the room with with
with the president, with with with Trump, it just can't stop. And it's one of the few things.
And as I say, several people are reporting this to me. It's one of the few things that makes Trump shut up.
He just likes to listen. How does his career continue to flourish when everybody knows he's a weirdo?
Even the president, even Trump acknowledges he's a weirdo. He's not really somebody anybody is comfortable with who
you really want, want to be around in, who and who you might trust on any matter.
Because he's so weird, looking at you with those, with that, with those weird eyes.
But anyway, everybody responds the same way and they rush to say it.
He survives and thrives because he's such an amazing suck up. So of course he likes to listen to this.
So this is what all of this, this, you know, I picking up people,
masks sweeping people off the street. This whole effort to to remake The Color of America
is really comes down to Stephen Miller's ability to flatter the president.
But but, Michael, we are in a cabinet of suck ups. Nobody sucks up as well as Pete Hegseth is always sucking up.
Marco Rubio sucking up. No, no. Well, that's what I'm saying. Even more than Hegseth, he sucks up.
So. So he is the he is the the winner. Stephen Miller is the winner of the suck up contest.
Even more than the labor secretary who said, Mr. President, we have hung a huge, you know, great tapestry of your face
on the side of the Labor Department, even more than that person. Yes, even more, I mean, and everybody has to do this.
This is the price. These are the table stakes. How much you can you can,
you can be, absolutely prostrate in your flattery of the president.
Those are the table stakes. And then you have to raise them who can do it even more. And that apparently is Stephen Miller.
Miller Unmatched In His Ability To Prostrate Himself For Donald Trump
So can you give us any elements of Miller suck up, Ari? I mean, how does he go above Pete Hegseth or the labor secretary?
What are the words or is it something in the tone of his voice? Does he bring him gifts? What is the.
It is just the these kinds of these kinds of statements. You and I mean, you have to I mean, the the, the
the essence of flattery is in flattery to, to to a, a degree beyond logic is shamelessness.
How shameless are you? Your ability to say this, this, this shit that nobody else was nobody in their right mind.
Nobody who has a degree of of of,
of objectivity or integrity or or, you know, all, all, all, all of the attributes that make
for some level of skepticism and independence. So putting all that aside, and if you can put all that aside
and it's, it's, it's, it's it's hard. Then you produce a kind of thing
that you would not know. One anyone else outside of this would who,
who might listen to it, would understand that you're a,
that you're just you you've given up yourself, you've given up, you have no, no inner self anymore.
And it's all directed to this goal of what you want, which then comes
through the, this one man who needs to be,
needs, needs to be flattered. Not just flattered, but more than the last person who flattered.
Him needs to be massaged. And, it's. Anyway, let's also talk about
Stephen Miller's Wife Equally As Politically Ambitious As Miller
Stephen Miller's domestic life, because several people have said, well, wait a minute, didn't Stephen Miller's wife go off to work for Elon Musk?
And this was around the same time that Elon Musk appeared to the right of the president.
As the president sat swinging his legs from behind the resolute desk, Elon Musk had a black eye.
What can you tell us about Mrs. Miller, who I don't think lasted very long working for Elon Musk.
And she was apparently devoted to him until until not. So what is Mrs.
Miller doing now? I think she has a podcast. Well, that's a safe, safe bet. Doesn't everybody? But yes.
Perhaps we should invite her as a guest on our podcast to explain. Okay, let's let's do it. Should we do that?
We can. I I'm not sure if there's a crossover in audience, but, Mrs. Miller, if you're listening, we would love to invite you on our podcast.
Who knows? I think they're an interesting I mean, they're a power couple. What does it mean to be a power couple?
They, you know, they are. They are, two people who met each other in Washington with, with with,
you know, I mean, clearly enormously, both of them enormously ambitious,
and I think both of them with a clarity about what that what realizing that ambition
would involve in, in the Trump years. And then the other aspect of this is to realize, and I think
and a lot of people around Trump have, have, have realized this, that they would not have that opportunity, the opportunity with, with,
with anyone else there in, in, in most of the people, in, in the administration from Hegseth to Kennedy to to bond.
They are not people who would have, would have had success
in any kind of more traditional, administration and traditional,
evaluation of of experience and accomplishment and skills
so that, that, that, that, that creates this,
that creates this really interesting kind of kind of,
kind of pressure. I mean, this is your opportunity. You are not going to have an opportunity like, like this
this again, I mean, I think Trump himself feels that. But people around Trump feel feel that too.
That, that, that now now is the time in their lives and in history
which they might uniquely prosper. So, they better do everything possible
to take advantage of that right now. And, and I'm sure that this has felt that way in other in other authoritarian
and despotic regimes, which are all in there in, in a sense, in a sense for their product of, of, of a moment's circumstance.
I mean, in often a terrible moments circumstance, but kind of everyone in that situation then realizes that,
that in a normal world, they, they, they, they would be excluded from a normal world.
So therefore they, they, they find themselves doubling down on their own abnormality.
Well, and also what's curious is that, as you say, Donald Trump gives them an opportunity
they wouldn't have in a normal or a more normal era. And so not only, does he enable them,
but they enable him with their extremes. So, as you say, Donald Trump isn't even that
particularly invested in what Stephen Miller is doing. But Stephen Miller turns out to be useful for Donald Trump.
Yeah. No, no, definitely. And there is this idea in other, more normal
that let's continue to use use that word in other in more normal circumstances, the premium is on being normal.
And I actually you kind of you kind of, you thrive on being the person
who is the most normal, the most regular, the most showing up on time, the most doing it the most conservative way.
The, the people who, people who, who create the least amount of friction, all of those kinds of things.
I mean, you've seen it many time and in, in, in many offices.
But this goes the, the, the, the other way, the people who, the people who thrive are the people who,
who are more extreme, who, who, who are more disruptive, who are more,
who more lend themselves to the Trump ethos of, of of we got to break something every day.
All right. So there's one, final point I wanted to, to talk to you about. And that is the sending in or the not sending in,
Trump Likes To Please Billionaires, Especially Tech Billionaires
which was the latest, update on sending in troops to San Francisco.
So this was something that Trump has been threatening. Marc Benioff, the CEO and founder of Salesforce,
had pleaded for Trump to do, had said, yes, please send in troops. You know, and his hypocrisy was pointed out by Ron
Conway, the VC investor who resigned from the board of Salesforce and pointed out that Marc Benioff, in fact, lives and votes in Hawaii.
But in fact, apparently Mark Zuckerberg had reached out and said to Donald Trump, please don't send in troops to San Francisco.
It's not going to be helpful. Donald Trump had spoken to Daniel Lurie, the new mayor of San Francisco,
who appears to be introducing all sorts of schemes which are improving. Certainly the center of San Francisco.
Last time I was there, it was notably improved on people who live and work in the city are saying, it's so much better than it was.
And so Donald Trump said, okay, I'm not going to send in troops. What are your thoughts on that?
Oh, I think it's, you know, like in so much around Donald Trump, it's it's it's obvious,
you know, the billionaires called him up and he likes billionaires. He even listens to billionaires.
And likes to please billionaires. So I mean, we're just we're just in this,
you know, in a, in a world in so much in the, in the Trump administration has been oriented to pleasing billionaires,
especially tech billionaires who flatter him. And that and, and this was a moment in which they, you know, they, they,
they called in, they, they monetize their flattery, I guess you might say.
They monetized their flattery and justice. Stephen Miller prostrate himself before Trump,
so Trump prostrate himself before the tech billionaires. There you go.
Michael will be back on Tuesday with more inside Trump's head. Wait a minute.
So I you know, this this suit against Melania Trump has generated a lot of a lot of press.
Wolff's Countersuit Against Melania Generates TMZ Fake AI News Slop
And but one of the things and one of the first pieces of press that it generated, actually came
from, from the entertainment site TMZ. And, and it was, I would say
this not only not only off, but staggeringly off, it kind of had invented a whole,
a whole narrative about me that, that I didn't recognize, including including a book that I was in the middle
of writing and, and the title for this book, I mean, was a book that I was right. It's writing a book about Melania, which I have no interest in doing,
had never occurred to me to do and would never do, but complete, complete with a title and a subtitle.
And then this this went out. It was, you know, propagated throughout throughout the, I mean, the internet.
So anyway, we called TMZ on it and, and this turns out to be an entirely a written story, which TMZ immediately
apologized for and corrected and, and all that. But then having gone out and now that story has been picked up
by actual human reporters who have just cribbed from that phony story.
So in this this is just my first,
glaring encounter with, with, and personal encounter with I news.
This must go on then. I'm assuming all of the time I just a pure invention.
And this is not. This is not bias or it's not. It's not anything else that we've that we've said is,
is a problem with with with news. It's not fake news as in a bias. It's just literally fake news.
It's just a just, a which no one is responsible for.
Well, and what was also strange about the story, which I read and I was like, what? Michael's been writing a book about Melania, and he didn't tell me.
People in my family said, how come? How come we don't know that you're writing this book? I was like, But it also took the title of a book, the Art of Her Deal,
which is a book that already exists about Melania by the author Nina Birley. So it was a sort of weird mishmash of, yes, they understood you were an author.
Yes. They understood you were suing Melania. Yes, they understood there was a book about Melania, nothing to do with you, but they sort of put the the two together
and it created this third monster like story. Totally. So, so it's it's just sad, you know?
And no one is at fault here. No one is trying to trying to, you know, get me nobody is trying to what.
Whatever. It's just I in the invention of reality. It's AI and the invention of reality.
Well, also, I thought you were going to go somewhere else, which is? You've launched a Substack?
Yes, I have launched a Substack. So you want to tell people about it? Oh, thank. Thank you Janet. Well, it's a it's,
Wolff Launches New Substack Called 'Howl'
it is more Trump and more Epstein. Epstein, Epstein.
And in, in longer versions, more daily versions and and yes,
I'd love to have everybody, everybody come over everybody. Everybody join me.
It's it's, on another, another chapter.
I also think that might be the first time we've got through an entire episode of Inside Trump's Head without mentioning Jeffrey Epstein,
Click 'Join' Link Below, Get Perks Of Daily Beast YouTube Membership
but we are going to be mentioning him when we get together for our first live event at the Museum of the City of New York.
So it's MK, ny.org. You can buy tickets and come with questions.
It will be the day after the New York mayoral election, but we'll be talking about Donald Trump. We'll be talking about Stephen Miller.
We'll be talking about all of it. But come with questions. Come with your friends. Come for a group outing planner dinner afterwards.
We're kicking off at 630. We'll be through by eight. By which point you will definitely need a cocktail.
And there are plenty of bars around the Museum of the City of New York. Yeah, and anything you want to know about about that I can answer about Jeffrey
Epstein there. I'm. I'm delighted to answer. And and Melania.
Just ask. Just ask. So, don't forget November the 5th, the date for your diaries.
If you're in the Tri-State area or if you feel like flying in, to support us for our first actual physical
manifestation of inside Trump's head. Thank you for joining us. If you have been, don't forget to subscribe to The Daily Beast.
You can subscribe to Michael's Substack, which is called howl. Based on the Allen Ginsberg, poem, I'm assuming.
But. And my last name. Oh, wolves howl. I never even thought of that howling at the moon, Michael.
Howling at the moon. There is the Allen Ginsberg poem because Allen Ginsberg is from Paterson,
new Jersey, where I am, where I am from. Of course he is. What what happened in Paterson, new Jersey?
It produced you produced Allen Ginsberg, it produced, William Carlos Williams, Esther Williams. Yes.
Alexander Hamilton. Hurricane Carter. Hurricane Carter. I don't even know who Hurricane Carter is. He sounds like a rapper.
Was he a boxer? He was a boxer. Famous Bob Dylan song. Okay. All right, well, that one passed me by.
But don't forget to subscribe. Leave us a comment. And, share the show, the podcast
with your friends, share it with colleagues at work if you need something to discuss with them. You know those weird people that you have nothing in common with
you can share this podcast and then say, what do you think of these strange people? The woman with the white hair and the man who's got no hair at all?
If you click the link in the description of this podcast below, you can buy tickets.
And somewhere in this you can also press something and join.
I think join the Daily Beast community Michaels, where we will be giving sneak updates on what's going on.
And if you haven't been this week, don't forget us. Our first lady would have a say when she's not busy answering
Michael Wolff's deposition requests. Beast, and a shout out to our top tier beast members Karen White,
Heidi Riley, Connie Rutherford, Sharon Shipley, Andrea Hodel and Free DC.
Thanks to our production team Devin Roger Reno and Yvonne Ersan and Jesse Millwood.
by Michael Wolff and Joanna Coles
Inside Trump's Head
The Daily Beast
Oct 25, 2025
Stephen Miller is the ultimate suck-up, a master of shameless flattery whose influence keeps him at the center of Trump’s orbit. Michael Wolff joins Joanna Coles to unpack how Miller’s relentless devotion to Trump reflects the chaos and destruction in the East Wing. The two also touch on how Wolff’s countersuit against Melania has spurred a bizarre AI-generated TMZ story that falsely claimed he was writing a tell-all about the first lady. They preview their first live ‘Inside Trump’s Head’ event at the Museum of the City of New York, where Wolff promises more revelations about Trump, Epstein, and the ecosystem that enables them.
Transcript
Introduction
We've gone around to several white House people. I said, explain Stephen Miller to me.
What, because, as we talked the other day, he's a weirdo.
Even Trump acknowledges that he's a weirdo. So I said, explain this to me.
Explain this rise. How does he keep rising? And across the board,
there's one explanation, and everybody rushes to it. They say he's the most incredible suck up.
You have never seen this. I mean, the flattery, the oohs.
You know, when he is in the room with the president, with Trump, he just can't stop.
And several people are reporting this to me.
It's one of the few things that makes Trump shut up. He just likes to listen, this whole effort to to remake The Color of America
is really comes down to Stephen Miller's ability to flatter the president even more than Hegseth.
He sucks up. Stephen Miller is the winner of the suck up contest.
Michael. Oh my God, Joanna. Oh my God, Michael. We are going so deep inside Trump's head.
Trump Is Now 'Head Bunglingly Off His Rocker'
But I'm worried that it's just a kind of I think it might just be a lot of electrical fuzes.
I love our design here of of inside Trump. So you can't say I love, white.
Can you see it? There we go. I love the design of it inside, Trump said. That's literally what it feels like.
It must be going on right there. What? What are we going to find? I can't even explain the succession
of things that have happened virtually in the last day or slightly longer.
I mean, it is from the, from breaking up, the blowing up, the relationship
with Canada over a fit of pique over some ad on television
to, pardoning this crypto billionaire kingpin.
Does does he think no one will notice his own family is in the crypto business?
To demanding this is this is like, extraordinary that this $230 million that the government,
the government that he runs should pay him over perceived injustices.
Well, his own Justice Department right. To of course, bulldozing the white House.
Did you leave out blowing up roundabouts in what started as the Caribbean is now spread to the Pacific?
It's actually even even broader than that. It's like a new kind of kind of, a policy.
The I, the military can kill anyone on my orders.
And then there's some statement, I mean, an extraordinary. My God, we are going to kill
anybody who brings drugs into our country. We're going to kill them. They will be, like, dead.
Now, what explains that? Except that the person. This person must be,
head banging Lee off his rocker. Well, and he's surrounded by people that are
not having any sense of restraint around him. Pete Hegseth says, well, hold on, we haven't even mentioned the Pete Hegseth
telling members of the military they're not allowed to talk to Congress in case they inadvertently give something away.
But that is I mean, it's not to forgive these people, but, but it's certainly can be explained.
They cannot do that. They cannot they do not have any portfolio
to criticize him to. Certainly not to criticize him.
And certainly not even to advise him on a better path. It just it just you're out if you're going to do that.
Well. And also what he's also created is this sort of constant presence in the public with his endless press conferences.
I mean, it's so fascinating. The juxtaposition against Biden, who I think did six press conferences
in his last year. Now, obviously we know why, but Trump all the time, I mean, you keep making the point that he just talks all the time.
All the time. Yeah. No, that's I mean, he talks in private. If you're with him, it's a, it's a monologue in, in public.
And they're not different. By the way, I mean, he, he says, oh, I mean, the man is remarkably consistent.
He says the same thing to everyone. I mean, it's actually it's actually why it's relatively easy to write about him
because you can you can sort of you can track what, what he's saying from from person to person to person to person.
White House Insiders Worried Trump's Decisions Are Damaging
So when you're talking to people in the white House, which I know you do all the time, what are they saying about this particular moment?
You know, I talk to them. It's not particularly exceptional. This is what this is what he does.
This is, you know, he goes deeper into being Donald Trump, which is which is the threat and which is the danger.
Now, you know, there's I mean, I've had some conversations about about with, with them about what's, you know, the motivation here
of, of pushing forward in ways that are, yeah, you know, can very easily backfire.
I mean, very easily I mean, $230 million pardoning, pardoning this crypto guy, bulldozing the white House.
Why would you do this on any logical from from the view of any political logic, this can be
and likely is going to be very damaging to you. So why would you do that?
And, you know, pressing people, it's, I mean, it first thing, it's Trump.
I mean, that's always the explanation. It's Trump. Don't try to question it because there's no reason.
There's no it's not going to get you any place to question it. And and you know and it's Trump does these things.
And yet he survives and flourishes. So don't question it. But the other aspect is, is people do feel he's in a rush.
Now is the moment. And the moment could reverse almost at any time.
I mean, if in the, if in the midterms, the Democrats were to win Congress, well, that that would be a serious impediment.
Or, at the end of these four years, he probably will be, despite Steve Bannon in his third term,
despite my late at night fears. The logic is that he would still be out of office and he's doing this.
This is it. He's this is, the man in the moment.
Well, it it does almost feel like he's been told he's got a terminal disease. And so he's being as disruptive as he possibly can be.
I mean, the idea that we are on day, I think we're recording this on a Friday morning.
Trump's Government Shutdown Now Affecting Millions Of Americans
I think we're on day 24 of the government shutdown. We have hundreds of thousands of government employees
who are not being paid. We have TSA workers who like, let me finish. I have a point here, that we have hundreds of decent
TSA people who are turning up to make sure that regular Americans get their flights to go off and do those sales calls and, and go on family trips.
And he has his hand in the government to for a quarter of $1
billion, is appalling. It's appalling. May I. You may,
you may. I think it's an interesting moment because only now at this, at this like
today or yesterday are our checks failing to arrive for government employees.
So, the, the, the squeeze is now on people. And this is, this is literally hundreds of thousands of people
are going to start to feel this. So what's the effect of that that going to be?
I mean, it's going to be pressure on both the Democrats and the Republicans. But it's a new phase of pressure and a new phase of of the shutdown.
All right. I want to come back to some of these points. But I also wanted to say how struck
Audience Reaction To Wolff's Countersuit Against Melania 'Incredible'
I have been on your behalf. So the outpouring of support
with your decision to sue Melania Trump and I will say, I've known you for 25 years.
We've joked about the UPS and downs in our relationships. We've had feuds. We've had a couple of years where we didn't speak.
That was largely over one of us canceling too many lunches. But, I think I've that's not me.
I was not the one canceling this. I think this is the nearest I've ever seen
to seeing you being moved. Is that fair? I mean, I've seen you through some major emotional moments in your life,
and I have seen you moved by the support that people have had for you. The offering of financial support.
I mean, I think it's I think it's it's I think it's totally incredible. And I think it, you know, I while I'm grateful for the support for me
individually, I think it's also a sign that everybody is looking for something to do here.
How do you push back, how do you stop this? I mean, this is this is up till today, up till now and continuing now.
Unstoppable. We something has to be done. I mean, you know, I mean, people pour into the streets when there's an opportunity, when
almost at any opportunity, I mean, but there are few. I mean, no kings twice a year or whatever, whatever.
That's that's that schedule is people want to be able
to stand up. So, so yes, so I am, but I am, I am,
I am certainly personally, personally, grateful. Stunned. Relieved to.
Yeah. Relieved I think. All right, so we were talking in our last episode about Stephen Miller,
Stephen Miller's Immigrant Animus Drafts Off American History
lots of very enthusiastic comments trying to get at who is this man that's been so responsible for the policy against immigrants
and these awful ice raids on people with masked men jumping out and wrestling people and zip tying them?
I mean, it's quite shocking. I still don't think I understand
where his so-called philosophy is, if one can even call it that.
Comes from in terms of hating people that very clearly work at the top of the American food chain
in tech in California, and also literally till the fields and pick the plants
and pick the vegetables and fruits that that keep Americans fed. You know, I mean, I think, I think explaining the roots of racism,
which this fundamentally is, and the, the, the roots of this kind of resentment
against the whole a whole class of people is,
you know, I mean. The immigration issue is a complicated one.
Immigration. And the Democrats have failed on this issue. And I think we can acknowledge that.
I think the Democrats would acknowledge that, them immigrate
when you don't pay attention to immigration, when there isn't some logic to it, when you close your eyes to it
and suddenly, suddenly it becomes a, an unstoppable force is destabilizes governments.
It's throughout Europe. That's that's the effect. And here it's the effect. But this is, that's is ultimately a structural question.
How do you manage this, this process, this in inevitable process.
People want to come to this, to this, to this country. That's a that's a sign of health rather than the than than the opposite it.
But so how do you manage that then you take so but that has to be
has to be juxtaposed to this other thing, this which Stephen Miller represents,
which is a kind of pure hatred, revulsion.
Enmity. That for him to take this in a personal
in such a clearly personal way,
and yet, you know, I mean, I think it's, I think it's layer, and the interesting thing is, it's so glaringly obvious there's no,
there's no, even pretense to make this something else, to find a way
to find a reasonable rationalization for this. So,
you know, I mean, it becomes, and, and, and, you know,
I, I think, I think at this, at this point, at this point, you
will, you know, why one hesitates to go there for a lot of reasons.
You know, this is a round up of the Jews, but they're not Jews. They're they're brown immigrants.
Can you remind people again? Because I was struck that I didn't fully realize this.
Stephen Miller's Support For White Supremacy Bid To Facilitate MAGA Vision
Why is it specifically, Mexicans and South Americans
that Stephen Miller seems to be going after? I don't think that that's true.
I think it's anybody who's who's Brown Indians are in this.
It's just clearly not not people who are white.
And, and and that's in this goes to, to something that is at the heart of heart of MAGA.
I think it's at the heart of a of a of a, the Trump thing that this, this idea that we are losing
that, that and that within you know, we're in the process of, of,
of, of white Americans becoming a minority to brown Americans.
And so there's the effort to exclude the people who Stephen Miller believes
are not Americans, Brown, brown people. So so this is this is a, you know, a fundamental to this,
to this, to the Trump administration is this rollback. How do we make America look like it looked in 1965?
And that's a rollback of of and we've discussed this before. And I think these are the pillars of what of the
of the MAGA vision to rollback civil rights to roll back rollback.
The the, the progress of, of of equity for women
and for to change the, the
to rollback what has happened with a fairly large amount of immigration, massive immigration over the last generation, the brown, Brown immigration.
Trump Calls Stephen Miller A Weirdo Despite Miller's Brown Nosing
So how does this work when Stephen Miller is in the room with JD Vance?
And of course, JD Vance is married to a woman whose parents came from India, who's very clearly Brown.
How do they even begin a conversation? I've gone around several white House people.
I said, explain Stephen Miller to me. What? Because he's, you know, I mean, as a as we we talked
the other the other day, he's a weirdo. Even Trump acknowledges that he's a he's a weirdo.
So I said, explain this to me. Explain this rise. How does he keep rising?
And and across the board, there's there's one explanation.
And everybody rushes to it. They say he's the most incredible suck up. You have never seen this?
I mean, the flattery, the oohs. You know, when he is in the room with with
with the president, with with with Trump, it just can't stop. And it's one of the few things.
And as I say, several people are reporting this to me. It's one of the few things that makes Trump shut up.
He just likes to listen. How does his career continue to flourish when everybody knows he's a weirdo?
Even the president, even Trump acknowledges he's a weirdo. He's not really somebody anybody is comfortable with who
you really want, want to be around in, who and who you might trust on any matter.
Because he's so weird, looking at you with those, with that, with those weird eyes.
But anyway, everybody responds the same way and they rush to say it.
He survives and thrives because he's such an amazing suck up. So of course he likes to listen to this.
So this is what all of this, this, you know, I picking up people,
masks sweeping people off the street. This whole effort to to remake The Color of America
is really comes down to Stephen Miller's ability to flatter the president.
But but, Michael, we are in a cabinet of suck ups. Nobody sucks up as well as Pete Hegseth is always sucking up.
Marco Rubio sucking up. No, no. Well, that's what I'm saying. Even more than Hegseth, he sucks up.
So. So he is the he is the the winner. Stephen Miller is the winner of the suck up contest.
Even more than the labor secretary who said, Mr. President, we have hung a huge, you know, great tapestry of your face
on the side of the Labor Department, even more than that person. Yes, even more, I mean, and everybody has to do this.
This is the price. These are the table stakes. How much you can you can,
you can be, absolutely prostrate in your flattery of the president.
Those are the table stakes. And then you have to raise them who can do it even more. And that apparently is Stephen Miller.
Miller Unmatched In His Ability To Prostrate Himself For Donald Trump
So can you give us any elements of Miller suck up, Ari? I mean, how does he go above Pete Hegseth or the labor secretary?
What are the words or is it something in the tone of his voice? Does he bring him gifts? What is the.
It is just the these kinds of these kinds of statements. You and I mean, you have to I mean, the the, the
the essence of flattery is in flattery to, to to a, a degree beyond logic is shamelessness.
How shameless are you? Your ability to say this, this, this shit that nobody else was nobody in their right mind.
Nobody who has a degree of of of,
of objectivity or integrity or or, you know, all, all, all, all of the attributes that make
for some level of skepticism and independence. So putting all that aside, and if you can put all that aside
and it's, it's, it's, it's it's hard. Then you produce a kind of thing
that you would not know. One anyone else outside of this would who,
who might listen to it, would understand that you're a,
that you're just you you've given up yourself, you've given up, you have no, no inner self anymore.
And it's all directed to this goal of what you want, which then comes
through the, this one man who needs to be,
needs, needs to be flattered. Not just flattered, but more than the last person who flattered.
Him needs to be massaged. And, it's. Anyway, let's also talk about
Stephen Miller's Wife Equally As Politically Ambitious As Miller
Stephen Miller's domestic life, because several people have said, well, wait a minute, didn't Stephen Miller's wife go off to work for Elon Musk?
And this was around the same time that Elon Musk appeared to the right of the president.
As the president sat swinging his legs from behind the resolute desk, Elon Musk had a black eye.
What can you tell us about Mrs. Miller, who I don't think lasted very long working for Elon Musk.
And she was apparently devoted to him until until not. So what is Mrs.
Miller doing now? I think she has a podcast. Well, that's a safe, safe bet. Doesn't everybody? But yes.
Perhaps we should invite her as a guest on our podcast to explain. Okay, let's let's do it. Should we do that?
We can. I I'm not sure if there's a crossover in audience, but, Mrs. Miller, if you're listening, we would love to invite you on our podcast.
Who knows? I think they're an interesting I mean, they're a power couple. What does it mean to be a power couple?
They, you know, they are. They are, two people who met each other in Washington with, with with,
you know, I mean, clearly enormously, both of them enormously ambitious,
and I think both of them with a clarity about what that what realizing that ambition
would involve in, in the Trump years. And then the other aspect of this is to realize, and I think
and a lot of people around Trump have, have, have realized this, that they would not have that opportunity, the opportunity with, with,
with anyone else there in, in, in most of the people, in, in the administration from Hegseth to Kennedy to to bond.
They are not people who would have, would have had success
in any kind of more traditional, administration and traditional,
evaluation of of experience and accomplishment and skills
so that, that, that, that, that creates this,
that creates this really interesting kind of kind of,
kind of pressure. I mean, this is your opportunity. You are not going to have an opportunity like, like this
this again, I mean, I think Trump himself feels that. But people around Trump feel feel that too.
That, that, that now now is the time in their lives and in history
which they might uniquely prosper. So, they better do everything possible
to take advantage of that right now. And, and I'm sure that this has felt that way in other in other authoritarian
and despotic regimes, which are all in there in, in a sense, in a sense for their product of, of, of a moment's circumstance.
I mean, in often a terrible moments circumstance, but kind of everyone in that situation then realizes that,
that in a normal world, they, they, they, they would be excluded from a normal world.
So therefore they, they, they find themselves doubling down on their own abnormality.
Well, and also what's curious is that, as you say, Donald Trump gives them an opportunity
they wouldn't have in a normal or a more normal era. And so not only, does he enable them,
but they enable him with their extremes. So, as you say, Donald Trump isn't even that
particularly invested in what Stephen Miller is doing. But Stephen Miller turns out to be useful for Donald Trump.
Yeah. No, no, definitely. And there is this idea in other, more normal
that let's continue to use use that word in other in more normal circumstances, the premium is on being normal.
And I actually you kind of you kind of, you thrive on being the person
who is the most normal, the most regular, the most showing up on time, the most doing it the most conservative way.
The, the people who, people who, who create the least amount of friction, all of those kinds of things.
I mean, you've seen it many time and in, in, in many offices.
But this goes the, the, the, the other way, the people who, the people who thrive are the people who,
who are more extreme, who, who, who are more disruptive, who are more,
who more lend themselves to the Trump ethos of, of of we got to break something every day.
All right. So there's one, final point I wanted to, to talk to you about. And that is the sending in or the not sending in,
Trump Likes To Please Billionaires, Especially Tech Billionaires
which was the latest, update on sending in troops to San Francisco.
So this was something that Trump has been threatening. Marc Benioff, the CEO and founder of Salesforce,
had pleaded for Trump to do, had said, yes, please send in troops. You know, and his hypocrisy was pointed out by Ron
Conway, the VC investor who resigned from the board of Salesforce and pointed out that Marc Benioff, in fact, lives and votes in Hawaii.
But in fact, apparently Mark Zuckerberg had reached out and said to Donald Trump, please don't send in troops to San Francisco.
It's not going to be helpful. Donald Trump had spoken to Daniel Lurie, the new mayor of San Francisco,
who appears to be introducing all sorts of schemes which are improving. Certainly the center of San Francisco.
Last time I was there, it was notably improved on people who live and work in the city are saying, it's so much better than it was.
And so Donald Trump said, okay, I'm not going to send in troops. What are your thoughts on that?
Oh, I think it's, you know, like in so much around Donald Trump, it's it's it's obvious,
you know, the billionaires called him up and he likes billionaires. He even listens to billionaires.
And likes to please billionaires. So I mean, we're just we're just in this,
you know, in a, in a world in so much in the, in the Trump administration has been oriented to pleasing billionaires,
especially tech billionaires who flatter him. And that and, and this was a moment in which they, you know, they, they,
they called in, they, they monetize their flattery, I guess you might say.
They monetized their flattery and justice. Stephen Miller prostrate himself before Trump,
so Trump prostrate himself before the tech billionaires. There you go.
Michael will be back on Tuesday with more inside Trump's head. Wait a minute.
So I you know, this this suit against Melania Trump has generated a lot of a lot of press.
Wolff's Countersuit Against Melania Generates TMZ Fake AI News Slop
And but one of the things and one of the first pieces of press that it generated, actually came
from, from the entertainment site TMZ. And, and it was, I would say
this not only not only off, but staggeringly off, it kind of had invented a whole,
a whole narrative about me that, that I didn't recognize, including including a book that I was in the middle
of writing and, and the title for this book, I mean, was a book that I was right. It's writing a book about Melania, which I have no interest in doing,
had never occurred to me to do and would never do, but complete, complete with a title and a subtitle.
And then this this went out. It was, you know, propagated throughout throughout the, I mean, the internet.
So anyway, we called TMZ on it and, and this turns out to be an entirely a written story, which TMZ immediately
apologized for and corrected and, and all that. But then having gone out and now that story has been picked up
by actual human reporters who have just cribbed from that phony story.
So in this this is just my first,
glaring encounter with, with, and personal encounter with I news.
This must go on then. I'm assuming all of the time I just a pure invention.
And this is not. This is not bias or it's not. It's not anything else that we've that we've said is,
is a problem with with with news. It's not fake news as in a bias. It's just literally fake news.
It's just a just, a which no one is responsible for.
Well, and what was also strange about the story, which I read and I was like, what? Michael's been writing a book about Melania, and he didn't tell me.
People in my family said, how come? How come we don't know that you're writing this book? I was like, But it also took the title of a book, the Art of Her Deal,
which is a book that already exists about Melania by the author Nina Birley. So it was a sort of weird mishmash of, yes, they understood you were an author.
Yes. They understood you were suing Melania. Yes, they understood there was a book about Melania, nothing to do with you, but they sort of put the the two together
and it created this third monster like story. Totally. So, so it's it's just sad, you know?
And no one is at fault here. No one is trying to trying to, you know, get me nobody is trying to what.
Whatever. It's just I in the invention of reality. It's AI and the invention of reality.
Well, also, I thought you were going to go somewhere else, which is? You've launched a Substack?
Yes, I have launched a Substack. So you want to tell people about it? Oh, thank. Thank you Janet. Well, it's a it's,
Wolff Launches New Substack Called 'Howl'
it is more Trump and more Epstein. Epstein, Epstein.
And in, in longer versions, more daily versions and and yes,
I'd love to have everybody, everybody come over everybody. Everybody join me.
It's it's, on another, another chapter.
I also think that might be the first time we've got through an entire episode of Inside Trump's Head without mentioning Jeffrey Epstein,
Click 'Join' Link Below, Get Perks Of Daily Beast YouTube Membership
but we are going to be mentioning him when we get together for our first live event at the Museum of the City of New York.
So it's MK, ny.org. You can buy tickets and come with questions.
It will be the day after the New York mayoral election, but we'll be talking about Donald Trump. We'll be talking about Stephen Miller.
We'll be talking about all of it. But come with questions. Come with your friends. Come for a group outing planner dinner afterwards.
We're kicking off at 630. We'll be through by eight. By which point you will definitely need a cocktail.
And there are plenty of bars around the Museum of the City of New York. Yeah, and anything you want to know about about that I can answer about Jeffrey
Epstein there. I'm. I'm delighted to answer. And and Melania.
Just ask. Just ask. So, don't forget November the 5th, the date for your diaries.
If you're in the Tri-State area or if you feel like flying in, to support us for our first actual physical
manifestation of inside Trump's head. Thank you for joining us. If you have been, don't forget to subscribe to The Daily Beast.
You can subscribe to Michael's Substack, which is called howl. Based on the Allen Ginsberg, poem, I'm assuming.
But. And my last name. Oh, wolves howl. I never even thought of that howling at the moon, Michael.
Howling at the moon. There is the Allen Ginsberg poem because Allen Ginsberg is from Paterson,
new Jersey, where I am, where I am from. Of course he is. What what happened in Paterson, new Jersey?
It produced you produced Allen Ginsberg, it produced, William Carlos Williams, Esther Williams. Yes.
Alexander Hamilton. Hurricane Carter. Hurricane Carter. I don't even know who Hurricane Carter is. He sounds like a rapper.
Was he a boxer? He was a boxer. Famous Bob Dylan song. Okay. All right, well, that one passed me by.
But don't forget to subscribe. Leave us a comment. And, share the show, the podcast
with your friends, share it with colleagues at work if you need something to discuss with them. You know those weird people that you have nothing in common with
you can share this podcast and then say, what do you think of these strange people? The woman with the white hair and the man who's got no hair at all?
If you click the link in the description of this podcast below, you can buy tickets.
And somewhere in this you can also press something and join.
I think join the Daily Beast community Michaels, where we will be giving sneak updates on what's going on.
And if you haven't been this week, don't forget us. Our first lady would have a say when she's not busy answering
Michael Wolff's deposition requests. Beast, and a shout out to our top tier beast members Karen White,
Heidi Riley, Connie Rutherford, Sharon Shipley, Andrea Hodel and Free DC.
Thanks to our production team Devin Roger Reno and Yvonne Ersan and Jesse Millwood.
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Re: Part 2 Anti-Anti-Nazi Barbarian Hordes are Knocking Down
by admin » Tue Oct 28, 2025 1:15 am
Trump's DARK PAST Surfaces as Vought SCANDAL ERUPTS at Mar-a-Lago
Legal AF
Oct 27, 2025
The Court of History’s Sidney Blumenthal is joined by journalist and author Nina Burleigh to discuss her latest Substack piece titled “Russ Vought Gets Some — White Christian Nationalists at Play.” They explore how the article takes aim at Russ Vought, his antics in the Trump era, the intersection of religious-right politics and insider power, and what it reveals about the broader culture of white Christian nationalist influence.
Transcript
Welcome to the Court of History. The
court is now in session. I am Sydney
Blumenthal.
Uh there's so much going on, it's hard
to keep track. um you know with Trump uh
between tearing down the East Wing um
bombing who god knows who in the
Caribbean
uh granting pardons to um money
laundering crypto kings who have
invested in his son's firm.
Uh you can't keep track of what it is.
But
Trump can keep track of something else.
There's always something else on his
mind. It's right in the front of his
mind. And Mehdi Hassan uh in Zeteo
published a report um that pointed out
Donald Trump's great interest in the
love life of the Project 2025
architect Russell Vought.
uh and who is now the head of the OMB,
the Office of Management and Budget, in
charge of as Vought says,
uh forcing trauma on government
employees, especially in the shutdown.
Um apparently they they've been talking
since mid-2024 during the campaign fairly
regularly and Trump but not about the
budget, strangely enough. Um, according
to this report with two knowledgeable
sources,
Trump spoke to Vought about the gorgeous
and beautiful ladies who roam Trump's
club Mar-a-Lago so often that it weirded
out some of his advisers.
Trump offered to be Vought's wingman.
Boydhead was recently divorced and Trump
said he was his favorite bachelor and
was spoke rather crudely. I won't repeat
what Trump said about what he wanted to
get Russell Vought, but you can imagine.
Um I don't think he's been so successful
recently. Uh Russ seems to be interested
in
uh inflicting trauma on others as it's
been inflicted on himself. Um I think
the person I'd like to talk about this
with is a person who's written an
incredible article and about
Russ's wife and her recent career. It is
Nina Burleigh. She is an incredible
journalist, historian, author. She's
written really a book you have to read
called The Trump Women, Part of the
Deal. Certain many books. Her Substack,
American Freak Show,
Piece by Piece, just covers the, you
know, the Fantasia that we're subjected
to. and lately she has a piece on it
about Mary Vought, little known until her
piece appeared. Nina, welcome to the
court of history. Thank you and thank
you for that very generous description
of my work. Um, I do hope that people
will take a look at my Substack. Um, we
have a lot of fun with it and I think
it's the the purpose of the Substack
American Freak Show is really to
remind people
uh that this is not normal and and that
these people are not normal. Um and and
we forget that because as you said the
avalanche
of um
of weirdness and and and aberration
um and aarent personalities and
aberrent psychology or psychiatry that
we've been
subjected to since really since the you
know first administration but now with
the full um power of all levers um on in
their grip that we've been subjected to
that we we tend to start to forget
um and normalize and um so that's the
purpose of the freak show and and we
have uh never had a shortage of material
since I started it three years ago.
Yeah. Well, on on American Freak Show,
your Substack, which people should go
to, uh, you have in an incredible
article about actually an important
person in the Trump universe, the wife,
divorced wife of Russell Vought and Mary
Grace Vought. And you also have another
article that we're going to discuss
after this in the New Republic about
probably the most in one of the most
influential women in today's Washington,
Trump's Washington, a complete lunatic,
Laura Loomer. So let's start with Mary
Grace Vought. Who is Mary Grace Vought? Where
did she come from?
Well, she's um like you know many of if
you if you looked at Project 2025 and
you studied some of the 900 pages and
you looked at the writers of those
uh the many chapters of um of
suggestions for um the building of a
white nationalist autocracy which we're
now seeing. Um you would find that a lot
of the names a lot of the people
involved at the Heritage Foundation are
couples. They're married couples. So you
had Carrie Severino, let's say, married
to I forget his name. I'm sorry right
now, but um you know, a Leonard a
Leonard Leo connected um you know her
his number two um married to somebody
who's one of these you know just just
kind of like really batshit crazy
right-wing stuff. And and it's like it's
like Katie and Steven Miller. um you
know these married couples who somehow
found each other at I don't know what
megaurch or in the um you know in the in
the DC right-wing
uh circles and so Mary Grace Vought is um
the now ex-wife of Russell Vought as you
mentioned Russell Vought a very uh prominent
person in the creation of the project
2025 but Russell Vought um and you know this
because you've been in DC for a while is
one of those I hate DC, I hate civil
service people who's basically a
complete and utter inside the beltway
creature and who's been there for a very
long time plotting and scheming and
increasingly seething with um a very
personal and strange kind of rage at the
progressive uh and not just progressive
but you know any work
itself and government itself, people
taking money for doing, you know, doing
things that government is supposed to
do. And um anyway, he we're interested
in in her uh in his wife because
um well, because he's Mr. Family Values
and and when I first he first came onto
my radar, I did notice that he had just
gotten divorced and uh looked into the
uh divorce record at in Arlington. They
have two children. Um and and he um she
divorced him, no fault, and it was a
very quick divorce. Took 20 days in
August of I believe 23. Um, and it right
about that time is when he gets snapped
on um by a by a captured on a um I guess
ProPublica uh had a hidden camera or
somebody in one of the donor right-wing
donor meetings that where he was selling
his project 2025 vision of the future
for money. Um he said these words that
you've just quoted which is you
repeatedly used the word trauma. I want
to put the workers in trauma. I want
them to be afraid to come to the office.
And and and that the viciousness and the
vitriol of this supposed, you know, he
starts his meetings off, we know this
from another hidden camera situation. He
starts his meetings off with prayer. Um,
you know, he he he purports to be a
Christian and and yet he's just seething
with rage at his at his at his reported
enemies on the other side. He wants to
hurt people and he expresses
wants to hurt people and he wants
hostility to any sympathy or empathy.
Empathy, no compassion.
Very angry guy, isn't he?
And very angry. And so you what you have
to look at when you're looking at that.
I mean, we're not psychologists, but
when you look at that, you wonder what's
going on home at home. Like what is what
made this person this way? And then, of
course, you find out, well, he's
divorced. Well, now comes more
information about Mary Grace Vought. Um,
a Mary and Mary and Russ were working
together, weren't they at Heritage?
They surely were. They Well, she has a
job at the uh still holds a job at uh as
the vice president of communications for
the Heritage Foundation. Um he he had
left and gone to or he left the Trump
administration and went to um start the
um what is it? Center for the
Restoration of America or something. I
can't remember the full name, but one of
the right-wing actually competitors kind
of to Heritage, but he's very mobbed up
in the writing of the project 2025. He's
in it. Okay. Um he's actually written, I
think, one of the articles or an early
piece of it, the the sort of overview,
right? Um anyway, come to find out that
um he's divor she divorced him or they
got divorced um right around the time
that he starts pontificating in this
thing way about uh government employees
and and causing trauma. Well, what did
what did Mary Grace what did Mary Grace
go on and do? Mary Grace bought around
the time of the divorce
um bagged a very lucrative contract from
the uh inspector of wait sorry the the
leader of public supervision basically
the public
superintendent of public
Ryan Walters um of Oklahoma and if any
anybody who's been paying attention to
kind of the stunts that these
right-wingers are pulling um to get
national attention would would this guy
would be on their radar because he was
doing things like uh announcing that
every school, every classroom in the
state of Oklahoma would have to have a
Trump Bible, not just a Bible. He'd
already been pushing Bible education
into the schools, but a Trump Bible. And
he was um he had taken uh Ry, what's her
name? the libs of Tik Tok woman um you
know who's the notorious um book burner
type and he put her in charge of the
library system for the state for the
school children of Oklahoma and um he
was looking for a national profile and
he hired Mary Grace Vought and Mary Grace Vought
was making a rather nice tidy sum up to
$5,000 a week according to the contract
well didn't she had asked for $5,000 a
week. She had a three-year contract and
it only got through the first year
because the whole thing blew up in their
faces uh earlier this year when it mega
Republicans control the legislature of
Oklahoma. So, the fact that the MAGA
Republicans who run Oklahoma politics
got annoyed enough to to get rid of this
situation is is telling you something.
Yeah. Mr. Mr. Christian nationalist Ryan
Walters, the superintendent of public
construction, was found in his office
doing what?
Well, okay. He was found in his office
with um porn on the um on the TV. He he
was he was lecturing. He had a he had
some kind of a Zoom call or a um a
PowerPoint that he was putting up and
and and v and porn video went up on the
screen. Um, of course he pretended he
didn't he pretended that that was some
kind of a hack. Uh, but that happened.
But that I don't think that was what
provoked them to start looking into the
contract. It's always follow the money.
And what they found out was Ryan Walters
has this uh, out-of-state Texas
right-winger uh, strategist who worked
on his on his political campaign had
appointed him his his basically his top
policy adviser, his chief of staff.
What's his what's his name?
Uh, Langston. Matt Langston. And Matt
Langston
relationship to Mary,
that's what I'm getting to. Matt
Langston, it turns out, is a long time
personal and business friend of Mary
Grace Vought. So, putting the pieces
together, just timeline-wise, she
divorces her husband right around the
time that she and Matt Langston get
these rather lucrative and one of them
at least off the books contracts with
taxpayer money from the people of
Oklahoma through a crazy right-wing
stunt master young man looking for a
national profile, Ryan Walters. So, um,
can we say anything about the
relationship between Matt Langston and
Mary Grace Vought? Well, what we can say
about the about Mer about Matt Langston
is that his ex-wife wrote a screed about
him um that is it is on the internet.
It's it's been tweeted by a lawyer in
Oklahoma City in which she accuses him
of serial infidelity, of being a
deadbeat dad, cheating on his taxes. um
pulling real estate fast uh fast ones
and and in general just painting him as
a terrible CAD and and somebody who
again, you know, holier than thou, this
holier than thou community, all you have
to do is start to scratch the surface
and the kink oozes out and the and the
infidelity and the cheating and the
grifting. And so what happened was the
state legislators
um basically demanded an investigation
into this off-the-books contract with Matt
Langston, Mary Grace Vought's close
personal friend, and um it all fell
apart. Maybe the um porn the porn uh uh
PowerPoint at uh at you know Bible Ryan
Walters's office uh had something to do
with it but I think actually it had to
do mostly with the money which is always
what what it is you know follow the
money and there you go. So that's the
story.
That's the story as as best we know it
of the ex-wife of um of our grim reaper
uh you know who gets his you know the
incelss who make those stupid AI um
videos of Trump you know uh as as king
on America. also made a really
cool AI video of Russ Vought as the grim
reaper at the beginning of the
government shutdown and and you know
he's salivating to see more and more I
mean there already hundreds of thousands
of out of work um federal employees he
doesn't get full credit for it he would
like to I'm sure but Doge and Musk get
some credit but he's he's he's he's
delighting in the suffering of others
which is as somebody who purports to be
a Christian that is a follower of Jesus.
He clearly has not recently read uh the
sayings of his uh of the Messiah that he
follows because uh that delighting in
the in the misery of other people is um
is clearly not what the um what the
Christians that uh purport our actual
Christians would would be doing. Well,
we can only hope that he's
um less interested and bitter in and in
in imposing his uh anger and hostility
and trauma on others and that Trump
succeeds in helping him find just the
appropriate person at Mar-a-Lago to date.
Well,
Harry, meanwhile, the wife has back at
the Heritage Foundation in Washington,
but she still has her her side gig at Vo
Strategies looking for another
grift. And it's it's all an episode of
Trump's Magaland
and Maga and she's made quite a bit of
money off of the Senate packs and so on.
I mean, she's not this is just one of
her jobs. um she's not going to miss it
that much.
And you know, is her reputation dinged?
Maybe a little bit. But I mean, in that
in that world, and we're going to talk
about one of the more significant
grifters and influencers, it it's which
it's it's a minor. It's it only amuses
us because in these times we really like
to uh we we enjoy the um spectacle of um
white Christian
nationalist hypocrisy, which is what
this is a small bit of.
Well, um let's let's do a part two on
Laura Loomer. Um and uh stay tuned for
that. Uh, the Court of History is now
adjourned and we're going to have a part
two with Nina Burleigh.
*******************************
Russ Vought Gets Some. White Christian Nationalists at Play
by Nina Burleigh
Oct 22, 2025
In dark times, is there anything more cheering than a little white Christian nationalist hypocrisy scandal? Performative sanctimony is so embedded in American political culture that these moments come around with the seasons: Jerry Falwell Jr. and the poolboy, Robert Morris of megachurch Gateway going to jail for pedo sex abuse, American Conservative Union leader Matt Schlapp repeatedly accused of sexual transgressions with men.
Now comes Russ Vought, Trump’s little white nationalist budget manager, a barely-there but relentlessly scheming lifetime conservative Washington insider. Vought’s piety is matched only by his passionate loathing for government employees, who he famously promised to put “in trauma.” Given the power to do exactly that by Trump, he now gets some credit – though maybe not as much as Elon Musk – for putting hundreds of thousands of workers on the street.
In his strangely personal craving for vengeance, Vought (who we featured in a Freak of the Week earlier this year) has traveled far from the “love thy enemy” message of the messiah he claims to follow. But what made him so mad?
Around the time he told political donors that he wanted to put federal employees into trauma, he was experiencing a major trauma of his own: In August 2023, Vought was divorced by his wife, the mother of his two daughters. Details are buried in the Arlington County case record, but it took only 20 days from filing to decree.
Ex-wife Mary Grace Vought is at least as crazily right wing as Russ. She cut her teeth working for white supremacy-sympathizer Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, runs her own consulting company, Vought Strategies, and double-dips in MAGAland as vice president of communications at the Heritage Foundation.
Her longtime “personal and professional relationship” with a Texas political strategist is at the heart of a little mini-scandal out in Oklahoma that appears to have ended the political career of that state’s notorious Superintendent of Public Instruction, baby-faced Bible banger Ryan Walters. Starting in fall 2023, not long after her divorce, Walters was wildly overpaying Vought Strategies on a de facto no-bid contract, a situation that eventually came to the attention of the Oklahoma legislature.
Vought was granted a contract, apparently without any competitive bids, to arrange “national media appearances” for Walters. Walters would soon rocket into lib-baiting stardom on the national scene with stunts including forcing all Oklahoma teachers to have Trump-branded Bibles in their classrooms, initiating a statewide public school curriculum partnership with right-wing PragerU, and creating a library book review committee headed by controversial “LibsofTikTok” influencer Chaya Raichik.
For a while, LibsofTikTok and other MAGA influencers even pushed Ryan for Trump’s education secretary – a role that went, more appropriately given the administration’s stance on books and experts, to the World Wrestling Entertainment founder’s wife.
A local Oklahoma Fox affiliate tallied more than 400 national media appearances over two years by Walters as he sought to raise his national profile. The attention wasn’t cheap: Walters hired Vought Strategies to book media interviews and write op-eds for $200 per hour. The initial contract was for four months with three one-year extensions possible, for a potential total of at least $210,000 in taxpayer funds. And Vought’s bid for $5,000 per month was attached to the contract, along with an even more detailed pricing proposal totaling $5,000 per week.
The contract caught the attention of Oklahoma state representatives who were looking into another deal Walters had struck with his campaign manager turned chief policy advisor, Matt Langston. Langston runs a Texas-based consulting firm, Engage Right, LLC. After working on Walters’ campaign, he took a position as his chief policy advisor – making six figures.
By March 2024, state legislators discovered that Ryan Walters had never bothered to create a formal Oklahoma state employment agreement for Langston. In fact, Langston didn’t even live in the state of Oklahoma – he hung his hat in Texas. But his influence crossed the panhandle. “Matt Langston is the puppeteer,” Oklahoma Republican State Rep. McBride said. “He’s the guy that pulls Ryan Walters’ strings.”
It turns out the Vought and Langston contracts were connected. While investigating last year, Oklahoma City-based news station KFOR obtained thousands of emails between Mary Grace Vought and Matt Langston spanning more than a decade, indicating they had a personal relationship and had done business together for years.
A few months before the Vought divorce, Oklahoma City attorney Cameron Spradling tweeted the full text of a scathing email Langston’s ex-wife sent to a reporter. She called him a sociopath, accused him of tax evasion, serial infidelity including with a woman in Wisconsin, and failing to pay child support for their five children.
Meanwhile, earlier this year, Walters accidentally put up a porn video from his office computer while giving a staff talk.
By this fall, the game was up. Walters was forced to send Langston packing. And last month, Walters himself quit. He announced that he was moving on to run Teacher Freedom Alliance, an outfit that, according to its website, aims to assist educators in developing “free, moral and upright” American citizens. The organization of a few thousand members is dwarfed by the nationwide teachers’ union, American Federation of Teachers, with 1.8 million members, but Walters promised to tilt at that great Marxist windmill. Announcing his new job on Fox, Walters promised: “We’re going to destroy the teachers’ unions.”
Mary Grace Vought’s name made the Oklahoma news. But her DC reputation remains intact.
As a member in good standing of a clan of men who make fake uxoriousness a brand enhancer, the fact that Mr. Family Values Russ Vought was cut loose by his wife like Steve Carell in Crazy, Stupid Love has always amused the Freakshow. It turns out Vought’s personal life fascinates his boss as much as it does us!
Donald Trump has been trying to play wingman for the newly-minted middle aged DC stud with the Palm Beach ladies.
Here’s the nauseating report from Mehdi Hasan’s Zeteo news correspondent Asawin “Swin” Suebsang:
By mid-2024, Donald Trump and Project 2025 architect Russell Vought were talking on the phone fairly regularly. But it often wasn’t about policy. Trump – when he had downtime from campaigning and plotting his fascist presidency – appeared preoccupied with getting the recently divorced Vought laid, two knowledgeable sources tell me. Trump spoke to Vought… about the ‘gorgeous’ and ‘beautiful ladies’ who roam Trump’s club, Mar-a-Lago, so often that it ‘weirded out’ some of his advisers, in one source’s words. Trump offered to be Vought’s wingman. And Trump spoke crudely of all the ‘p——’ that Vought would surely get as the president’s favorite ‘bachelor.’
The executive branch incel dipshits who craft AI clips of Trump shitting on America made a cartoon hero of Vought set to Blue Öyster Cult’s (Don’t Fear) The Reaper.
Russ is suddenly cool, maybe for the first time in his life. Look sharp, ladies. To update Jane Austen for Mar-a-Lago 2025: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single white man in possession of a White House job must be in want of a plastic-enhanced Florida femme.
Legal AF
Oct 27, 2025
The Court of History’s Sidney Blumenthal is joined by journalist and author Nina Burleigh to discuss her latest Substack piece titled “Russ Vought Gets Some — White Christian Nationalists at Play.” They explore how the article takes aim at Russ Vought, his antics in the Trump era, the intersection of religious-right politics and insider power, and what it reveals about the broader culture of white Christian nationalist influence.
Transcript
Welcome to the Court of History. The
court is now in session. I am Sydney
Blumenthal.
Uh there's so much going on, it's hard
to keep track. um you know with Trump uh
between tearing down the East Wing um
bombing who god knows who in the
Caribbean
uh granting pardons to um money
laundering crypto kings who have
invested in his son's firm.
Uh you can't keep track of what it is.
But
Trump can keep track of something else.
There's always something else on his
mind. It's right in the front of his
mind. And Mehdi Hassan uh in Zeteo
published a report um that pointed out
Donald Trump's great interest in the
love life of the Project 2025
architect Russell Vought.
uh and who is now the head of the OMB,
the Office of Management and Budget, in
charge of as Vought says,
uh forcing trauma on government
employees, especially in the shutdown.
Um apparently they they've been talking
since mid-2024 during the campaign fairly
regularly and Trump but not about the
budget, strangely enough. Um, according
to this report with two knowledgeable
sources,
Trump spoke to Vought about the gorgeous
and beautiful ladies who roam Trump's
club Mar-a-Lago so often that it weirded
out some of his advisers.
Trump offered to be Vought's wingman.
Boydhead was recently divorced and Trump
said he was his favorite bachelor and
was spoke rather crudely. I won't repeat
what Trump said about what he wanted to
get Russell Vought, but you can imagine.
Um I don't think he's been so successful
recently. Uh Russ seems to be interested
in
uh inflicting trauma on others as it's
been inflicted on himself. Um I think
the person I'd like to talk about this
with is a person who's written an
incredible article and about
Russ's wife and her recent career. It is
Nina Burleigh. She is an incredible
journalist, historian, author. She's
written really a book you have to read
called The Trump Women, Part of the
Deal. Certain many books. Her Substack,
American Freak Show,
Piece by Piece, just covers the, you
know, the Fantasia that we're subjected
to. and lately she has a piece on it
about Mary Vought, little known until her
piece appeared. Nina, welcome to the
court of history. Thank you and thank
you for that very generous description
of my work. Um, I do hope that people
will take a look at my Substack. Um, we
have a lot of fun with it and I think
it's the the purpose of the Substack
American Freak Show is really to
remind people
uh that this is not normal and and that
these people are not normal. Um and and
we forget that because as you said the
avalanche
of um
of weirdness and and and aberration
um and aarent personalities and
aberrent psychology or psychiatry that
we've been
subjected to since really since the you
know first administration but now with
the full um power of all levers um on in
their grip that we've been subjected to
that we we tend to start to forget
um and normalize and um so that's the
purpose of the freak show and and we
have uh never had a shortage of material
since I started it three years ago.
Yeah. Well, on on American Freak Show,
your Substack, which people should go
to, uh, you have in an incredible
article about actually an important
person in the Trump universe, the wife,
divorced wife of Russell Vought and Mary
Grace Vought. And you also have another
article that we're going to discuss
after this in the New Republic about
probably the most in one of the most
influential women in today's Washington,
Trump's Washington, a complete lunatic,
Laura Loomer. So let's start with Mary
Grace Vought. Who is Mary Grace Vought? Where
did she come from?
Well, she's um like you know many of if
you if you looked at Project 2025 and
you studied some of the 900 pages and
you looked at the writers of those
uh the many chapters of um of
suggestions for um the building of a
white nationalist autocracy which we're
now seeing. Um you would find that a lot
of the names a lot of the people
involved at the Heritage Foundation are
couples. They're married couples. So you
had Carrie Severino, let's say, married
to I forget his name. I'm sorry right
now, but um you know, a Leonard a
Leonard Leo connected um you know her
his number two um married to somebody
who's one of these you know just just
kind of like really batshit crazy
right-wing stuff. And and it's like it's
like Katie and Steven Miller. um you
know these married couples who somehow
found each other at I don't know what
megaurch or in the um you know in the in
the DC right-wing
uh circles and so Mary Grace Vought is um
the now ex-wife of Russell Vought as you
mentioned Russell Vought a very uh prominent
person in the creation of the project
2025 but Russell Vought um and you know this
because you've been in DC for a while is
one of those I hate DC, I hate civil
service people who's basically a
complete and utter inside the beltway
creature and who's been there for a very
long time plotting and scheming and
increasingly seething with um a very
personal and strange kind of rage at the
progressive uh and not just progressive
but you know any work
itself and government itself, people
taking money for doing, you know, doing
things that government is supposed to
do. And um anyway, he we're interested
in in her uh in his wife because
um well, because he's Mr. Family Values
and and when I first he first came onto
my radar, I did notice that he had just
gotten divorced and uh looked into the
uh divorce record at in Arlington. They
have two children. Um and and he um she
divorced him, no fault, and it was a
very quick divorce. Took 20 days in
August of I believe 23. Um, and it right
about that time is when he gets snapped
on um by a by a captured on a um I guess
ProPublica uh had a hidden camera or
somebody in one of the donor right-wing
donor meetings that where he was selling
his project 2025 vision of the future
for money. Um he said these words that
you've just quoted which is you
repeatedly used the word trauma. I want
to put the workers in trauma. I want
them to be afraid to come to the office.
And and and that the viciousness and the
vitriol of this supposed, you know, he
starts his meetings off, we know this
from another hidden camera situation. He
starts his meetings off with prayer. Um,
you know, he he he purports to be a
Christian and and yet he's just seething
with rage at his at his at his reported
enemies on the other side. He wants to
hurt people and he expresses
wants to hurt people and he wants
hostility to any sympathy or empathy.
Empathy, no compassion.
Very angry guy, isn't he?
And very angry. And so you what you have
to look at when you're looking at that.
I mean, we're not psychologists, but
when you look at that, you wonder what's
going on home at home. Like what is what
made this person this way? And then, of
course, you find out, well, he's
divorced. Well, now comes more
information about Mary Grace Vought. Um,
a Mary and Mary and Russ were working
together, weren't they at Heritage?
They surely were. They Well, she has a
job at the uh still holds a job at uh as
the vice president of communications for
the Heritage Foundation. Um he he had
left and gone to or he left the Trump
administration and went to um start the
um what is it? Center for the
Restoration of America or something. I
can't remember the full name, but one of
the right-wing actually competitors kind
of to Heritage, but he's very mobbed up
in the writing of the project 2025. He's
in it. Okay. Um he's actually written, I
think, one of the articles or an early
piece of it, the the sort of overview,
right? Um anyway, come to find out that
um he's divor she divorced him or they
got divorced um right around the time
that he starts pontificating in this
thing way about uh government employees
and and causing trauma. Well, what did
what did Mary Grace what did Mary Grace
go on and do? Mary Grace bought around
the time of the divorce
um bagged a very lucrative contract from
the uh inspector of wait sorry the the
leader of public supervision basically
the public
superintendent of public
Ryan Walters um of Oklahoma and if any
anybody who's been paying attention to
kind of the stunts that these
right-wingers are pulling um to get
national attention would would this guy
would be on their radar because he was
doing things like uh announcing that
every school, every classroom in the
state of Oklahoma would have to have a
Trump Bible, not just a Bible. He'd
already been pushing Bible education
into the schools, but a Trump Bible. And
he was um he had taken uh Ry, what's her
name? the libs of Tik Tok woman um you
know who's the notorious um book burner
type and he put her in charge of the
library system for the state for the
school children of Oklahoma and um he
was looking for a national profile and
he hired Mary Grace Vought and Mary Grace Vought
was making a rather nice tidy sum up to
$5,000 a week according to the contract
well didn't she had asked for $5,000 a
week. She had a three-year contract and
it only got through the first year
because the whole thing blew up in their
faces uh earlier this year when it mega
Republicans control the legislature of
Oklahoma. So, the fact that the MAGA
Republicans who run Oklahoma politics
got annoyed enough to to get rid of this
situation is is telling you something.
Yeah. Mr. Mr. Christian nationalist Ryan
Walters, the superintendent of public
construction, was found in his office
doing what?
Well, okay. He was found in his office
with um porn on the um on the TV. He he
was he was lecturing. He had a he had
some kind of a Zoom call or a um a
PowerPoint that he was putting up and
and and v and porn video went up on the
screen. Um, of course he pretended he
didn't he pretended that that was some
kind of a hack. Uh, but that happened.
But that I don't think that was what
provoked them to start looking into the
contract. It's always follow the money.
And what they found out was Ryan Walters
has this uh, out-of-state Texas
right-winger uh, strategist who worked
on his on his political campaign had
appointed him his his basically his top
policy adviser, his chief of staff.
What's his what's his name?
Uh, Langston. Matt Langston. And Matt
Langston
relationship to Mary,
that's what I'm getting to. Matt
Langston, it turns out, is a long time
personal and business friend of Mary
Grace Vought. So, putting the pieces
together, just timeline-wise, she
divorces her husband right around the
time that she and Matt Langston get
these rather lucrative and one of them
at least off the books contracts with
taxpayer money from the people of
Oklahoma through a crazy right-wing
stunt master young man looking for a
national profile, Ryan Walters. So, um,
can we say anything about the
relationship between Matt Langston and
Mary Grace Vought? Well, what we can say
about the about Mer about Matt Langston
is that his ex-wife wrote a screed about
him um that is it is on the internet.
It's it's been tweeted by a lawyer in
Oklahoma City in which she accuses him
of serial infidelity, of being a
deadbeat dad, cheating on his taxes. um
pulling real estate fast uh fast ones
and and in general just painting him as
a terrible CAD and and somebody who
again, you know, holier than thou, this
holier than thou community, all you have
to do is start to scratch the surface
and the kink oozes out and the and the
infidelity and the cheating and the
grifting. And so what happened was the
state legislators
um basically demanded an investigation
into this off-the-books contract with Matt
Langston, Mary Grace Vought's close
personal friend, and um it all fell
apart. Maybe the um porn the porn uh uh
PowerPoint at uh at you know Bible Ryan
Walters's office uh had something to do
with it but I think actually it had to
do mostly with the money which is always
what what it is you know follow the
money and there you go. So that's the
story.
That's the story as as best we know it
of the ex-wife of um of our grim reaper
uh you know who gets his you know the
incelss who make those stupid AI um
videos of Trump you know uh as as king
on America. also made a really
cool AI video of Russ Vought as the grim
reaper at the beginning of the
government shutdown and and you know
he's salivating to see more and more I
mean there already hundreds of thousands
of out of work um federal employees he
doesn't get full credit for it he would
like to I'm sure but Doge and Musk get
some credit but he's he's he's he's
delighting in the suffering of others
which is as somebody who purports to be
a Christian that is a follower of Jesus.
He clearly has not recently read uh the
sayings of his uh of the Messiah that he
follows because uh that delighting in
the in the misery of other people is um
is clearly not what the um what the
Christians that uh purport our actual
Christians would would be doing. Well,
we can only hope that he's
um less interested and bitter in and in
in imposing his uh anger and hostility
and trauma on others and that Trump
succeeds in helping him find just the
appropriate person at Mar-a-Lago to date.
Well,
Harry, meanwhile, the wife has back at
the Heritage Foundation in Washington,
but she still has her her side gig at Vo
Strategies looking for another
grift. And it's it's all an episode of
Trump's Magaland
and Maga and she's made quite a bit of
money off of the Senate packs and so on.
I mean, she's not this is just one of
her jobs. um she's not going to miss it
that much.
And you know, is her reputation dinged?
Maybe a little bit. But I mean, in that
in that world, and we're going to talk
about one of the more significant
grifters and influencers, it it's which
it's it's a minor. It's it only amuses
us because in these times we really like
to uh we we enjoy the um spectacle of um
white Christian
nationalist hypocrisy, which is what
this is a small bit of.
Well, um let's let's do a part two on
Laura Loomer. Um and uh stay tuned for
that. Uh, the Court of History is now
adjourned and we're going to have a part
two with Nina Burleigh.
*******************************
Russ Vought Gets Some. White Christian Nationalists at Play
by Nina Burleigh
Oct 22, 2025
In dark times, is there anything more cheering than a little white Christian nationalist hypocrisy scandal? Performative sanctimony is so embedded in American political culture that these moments come around with the seasons: Jerry Falwell Jr. and the poolboy, Robert Morris of megachurch Gateway going to jail for pedo sex abuse, American Conservative Union leader Matt Schlapp repeatedly accused of sexual transgressions with men.
Now comes Russ Vought, Trump’s little white nationalist budget manager, a barely-there but relentlessly scheming lifetime conservative Washington insider. Vought’s piety is matched only by his passionate loathing for government employees, who he famously promised to put “in trauma.” Given the power to do exactly that by Trump, he now gets some credit – though maybe not as much as Elon Musk – for putting hundreds of thousands of workers on the street.
In his strangely personal craving for vengeance, Vought (who we featured in a Freak of the Week earlier this year) has traveled far from the “love thy enemy” message of the messiah he claims to follow. But what made him so mad?
Around the time he told political donors that he wanted to put federal employees into trauma, he was experiencing a major trauma of his own: In August 2023, Vought was divorced by his wife, the mother of his two daughters. Details are buried in the Arlington County case record, but it took only 20 days from filing to decree.
Ex-wife Mary Grace Vought is at least as crazily right wing as Russ. She cut her teeth working for white supremacy-sympathizer Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, runs her own consulting company, Vought Strategies, and double-dips in MAGAland as vice president of communications at the Heritage Foundation.
Her longtime “personal and professional relationship” with a Texas political strategist is at the heart of a little mini-scandal out in Oklahoma that appears to have ended the political career of that state’s notorious Superintendent of Public Instruction, baby-faced Bible banger Ryan Walters. Starting in fall 2023, not long after her divorce, Walters was wildly overpaying Vought Strategies on a de facto no-bid contract, a situation that eventually came to the attention of the Oklahoma legislature.
Vought was granted a contract, apparently without any competitive bids, to arrange “national media appearances” for Walters. Walters would soon rocket into lib-baiting stardom on the national scene with stunts including forcing all Oklahoma teachers to have Trump-branded Bibles in their classrooms, initiating a statewide public school curriculum partnership with right-wing PragerU, and creating a library book review committee headed by controversial “LibsofTikTok” influencer Chaya Raichik.
For a while, LibsofTikTok and other MAGA influencers even pushed Ryan for Trump’s education secretary – a role that went, more appropriately given the administration’s stance on books and experts, to the World Wrestling Entertainment founder’s wife.
A local Oklahoma Fox affiliate tallied more than 400 national media appearances over two years by Walters as he sought to raise his national profile. The attention wasn’t cheap: Walters hired Vought Strategies to book media interviews and write op-eds for $200 per hour. The initial contract was for four months with three one-year extensions possible, for a potential total of at least $210,000 in taxpayer funds. And Vought’s bid for $5,000 per month was attached to the contract, along with an even more detailed pricing proposal totaling $5,000 per week.
The contract caught the attention of Oklahoma state representatives who were looking into another deal Walters had struck with his campaign manager turned chief policy advisor, Matt Langston. Langston runs a Texas-based consulting firm, Engage Right, LLC. After working on Walters’ campaign, he took a position as his chief policy advisor – making six figures.
By March 2024, state legislators discovered that Ryan Walters had never bothered to create a formal Oklahoma state employment agreement for Langston. In fact, Langston didn’t even live in the state of Oklahoma – he hung his hat in Texas. But his influence crossed the panhandle. “Matt Langston is the puppeteer,” Oklahoma Republican State Rep. McBride said. “He’s the guy that pulls Ryan Walters’ strings.”
It turns out the Vought and Langston contracts were connected. While investigating last year, Oklahoma City-based news station KFOR obtained thousands of emails between Mary Grace Vought and Matt Langston spanning more than a decade, indicating they had a personal relationship and had done business together for years.
A few months before the Vought divorce, Oklahoma City attorney Cameron Spradling tweeted the full text of a scathing email Langston’s ex-wife sent to a reporter. She called him a sociopath, accused him of tax evasion, serial infidelity including with a woman in Wisconsin, and failing to pay child support for their five children.
Meanwhile, earlier this year, Walters accidentally put up a porn video from his office computer while giving a staff talk.
By this fall, the game was up. Walters was forced to send Langston packing. And last month, Walters himself quit. He announced that he was moving on to run Teacher Freedom Alliance, an outfit that, according to its website, aims to assist educators in developing “free, moral and upright” American citizens. The organization of a few thousand members is dwarfed by the nationwide teachers’ union, American Federation of Teachers, with 1.8 million members, but Walters promised to tilt at that great Marxist windmill. Announcing his new job on Fox, Walters promised: “We’re going to destroy the teachers’ unions.”
Mary Grace Vought’s name made the Oklahoma news. But her DC reputation remains intact.
As a member in good standing of a clan of men who make fake uxoriousness a brand enhancer, the fact that Mr. Family Values Russ Vought was cut loose by his wife like Steve Carell in Crazy, Stupid Love has always amused the Freakshow. It turns out Vought’s personal life fascinates his boss as much as it does us!
Donald Trump has been trying to play wingman for the newly-minted middle aged DC stud with the Palm Beach ladies.
Here’s the nauseating report from Mehdi Hasan’s Zeteo news correspondent Asawin “Swin” Suebsang:
By mid-2024, Donald Trump and Project 2025 architect Russell Vought were talking on the phone fairly regularly. But it often wasn’t about policy. Trump – when he had downtime from campaigning and plotting his fascist presidency – appeared preoccupied with getting the recently divorced Vought laid, two knowledgeable sources tell me. Trump spoke to Vought… about the ‘gorgeous’ and ‘beautiful ladies’ who roam Trump’s club, Mar-a-Lago, so often that it ‘weirded out’ some of his advisers, in one source’s words. Trump offered to be Vought’s wingman. And Trump spoke crudely of all the ‘p——’ that Vought would surely get as the president’s favorite ‘bachelor.’
The executive branch incel dipshits who craft AI clips of Trump shitting on America made a cartoon hero of Vought set to Blue Öyster Cult’s (Don’t Fear) The Reaper.
Russ is suddenly cool, maybe for the first time in his life. Look sharp, ladies. To update Jane Austen for Mar-a-Lago 2025: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single white man in possession of a White House job must be in want of a plastic-enhanced Florida femme.
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Re: Part 2 Anti-Anti-Nazi Barbarian Hordes are Knocking Down
by admin » Wed Oct 29, 2025 7:57 am
Israel frets over int'l journalists entering Gaza
by Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate
The Grayzone
Oct 28, 2025
The Grayzone's Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate on the Israeli army's desperate preparations for the entry of international journalists into the ruins of Gaza, and their absurd plans to spin the suffering of the population.
Find more reporting at https://thegrayzone.com
Transcript
The media is going to go into Gaza
for the first time. I didn't include
this element in our notes. Um, but it's
up on my Twitter feed. But, uh, Yediot
Aronote Wet, the Israeli tabloid,
published a piece
reporting that the Israeli military is
meeting about what to do about the
international media going into Gaza. And
they're actually uh concerned about the
level of destruction. And so, they're
going to pass outformational materials
to the media and take them on tours with
influencers and so-called experts. And
we can imagine who those will be.
Uh to blame the destruction firmly on
Hamas and to tell them, well, here was a
tunnel and here was a uh terrorist
family and this is why we had to destroy
and this is the the the
um
children you see being extracted from
the rubble who couldn't be reached for
months. Well, those are Hamas children.
So this is another
this is another coming phase of the
Israeli information war.
And there you do you remember the day
after Trump's uh peace 2025 initiative
when all the Zionist influencers it felt
like they were instructed to mock
everyone who was still horrified by what
was taking place and say why are you
still horrified? Trump just made peace.
The occupation's over. What? Guys, just
go home.
Trump's press secretary,
uh, it she said that Trump freed
Palestine,
right?
She said Trump's freed Palestine.
Palestine's free. They freed, uh, what,
65,000 people according to uh, United
Nations from being alive.
And that's a vast undercount. Of course,
you know, that's the official toll, but
the actual toll is of course far far
higher. How many people who have been
liberated from life by Israel uh and the
US are still buried um under the rubble?
We don't even know. Um so that's about
but but here's the here's the article
you talked about. Israel is preparing a
coordinated media strategy ahead of
global journalist arrival in Gaza,
including IDF escorted tours and visual
evidence to show how Hamas built terror
infrastructure within civilian areas and
used residents as shields. By the way,
you know, I wonder on this whole on this
talking point about like tunnels and
stuff. First of all, a lot of those
tunnels were built by Israel a while
ago, right? Remember like I hood Barack
talked about, yeah, we know where some
of these tunnels are because we built
them, including the tunnel that was near
Ashifa Hospital. So, I wonder even about
this whole thing about the tunnels and
this like 500 miles of tunnels. That to
me strikes me that strikes me as like a
lot of husb
Okay. Well, they're
they're resistance tunnels.
And whenever you hear the Hazbor brigade
ask, "Why does why don't why doesn't
Hamas build bomb shelters instead of
tunnels?"
Like, what do you think the tunnels are?
I mean, who who goes into the bomb
shelters
in Israel that actually are effective?
It's Netanyahu in his Fortress of Zion.
He goes into a luxury tunnel in Hakiraa.
Uh Bedawins,
non-Jews in the negv, they don't get any
bomb shelters. The bomb shelters that
are built in Israel,
uh that's uh a function of Israel being
a westernbacked colony, but they're
they're building tunnels
to turn siege into strategy. It doesn't
does it justify blowing up entire
apartment blocks? No. I mean, there's
just no justification that Israel is
going to cook up. That's going to work
at this point. And the question is, how
much will does international media have
to show the reality that we all know to
be true, which is that there are still
thousands and thousands of people buried
under the rubble and stories we haven't
heard yet from the Holocaust survivors.
Yeah. Yeah. And also uh Gaza was under
total Israeli siege for two decades. You
think that if Hamas was building massive
bomb shelters, Israel would have let in
the infra like the material needed
Israel was blocking everything from
coming in? Uh
they were blocking concrete for sure.
Concrete. So So you think if ever Hamas
tried to build a bomb shelter to protect
people from regular Israeli bombardments
that Israel would Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. after blocking everything
one could possibly need to build an
actual bomb shelter. It's just such a
joke.
It's over. I mean, the PR war is over.
They've lost that one. That's one of the
outcomes, the most decisive outcomes,
and it's never coming back. There's
nothing Israel can do. There's nothing
Israel can do be also because of the
nature of Israeli society and who they
see as their allies. They see Steven
Yaxley Lenon as their ally. Tommy
Robinson,
anti-Muslim hooligan who came out of the
fascist gangs in the UK that used to
actually be anti-Semitic.
And then Israel pumps a ton of money
into creating the English Defense
League, the EDL. Tommy Robinson emerges
as one of the leaders, waving Israeli
flags, menacing Muslims, and they decide
he's such an ally that the Ministry of
Diaspora Affairs brings him on a Hosbbor
tour. That's Israel today. Those are
their allies. There's never going to be
a Hosboro tour featuring
uh figures who are respected in the
progressive left or even any respected
figures from from the center to the left
in the West ever again. Israel's just so
far gone and the PR war has been
completely lost. all they have left is
some ability to bomb their way out of
the inevitable.
There's a quote attributed to uh David
Bengurion, the founding prime minister
of Israel, and I'm not sure if he
actually said it, but it's it's
attributed to him. You know, the old
will die, the young will forget. And
that's I think to the extent Israel
cares or thinks anymore about global
opinion, I think that's what they're
counting on. People are going to move
on. They'll forget. But younger
generations, you know, raised on seeing
um, you know, who like who who came to
political awareness,
seeing shredded babies in Gaza every
single day in their social media feeds
before, you know, Tik Tok was stolen and
uh, handed over to uh, Zionist
billionaires. They're not going to
forget that. And people are not going to
forget what Israel is and the in the
face Israel projects to the public of
this um self victimizing uh chauvinist
supremacist state. I mean people are
just not going to forget that because
you can't you know Israel can't help but
let you see it cuz that's just who they
are and they can't hide it no matter how
much they try to whitewash themselves.
by Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate
The Grayzone
Oct 28, 2025
The Grayzone's Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate on the Israeli army's desperate preparations for the entry of international journalists into the ruins of Gaza, and their absurd plans to spin the suffering of the population.
Find more reporting at https://thegrayzone.com
Transcript
The media is going to go into Gaza
for the first time. I didn't include
this element in our notes. Um, but it's
up on my Twitter feed. But, uh, Yediot
Aronote Wet, the Israeli tabloid,
published a piece
reporting that the Israeli military is
meeting about what to do about the
international media going into Gaza. And
they're actually uh concerned about the
level of destruction. And so, they're
going to pass outformational materials
to the media and take them on tours with
influencers and so-called experts. And
we can imagine who those will be.
Uh to blame the destruction firmly on
Hamas and to tell them, well, here was a
tunnel and here was a uh terrorist
family and this is why we had to destroy
and this is the the the
um
children you see being extracted from
the rubble who couldn't be reached for
months. Well, those are Hamas children.
So this is another
this is another coming phase of the
Israeli information war.
And there you do you remember the day
after Trump's uh peace 2025 initiative
when all the Zionist influencers it felt
like they were instructed to mock
everyone who was still horrified by what
was taking place and say why are you
still horrified? Trump just made peace.
The occupation's over. What? Guys, just
go home.
Trump's press secretary,
uh, it she said that Trump freed
Palestine,
right?
She said Trump's freed Palestine.
Palestine's free. They freed, uh, what,
65,000 people according to uh, United
Nations from being alive.
And that's a vast undercount. Of course,
you know, that's the official toll, but
the actual toll is of course far far
higher. How many people who have been
liberated from life by Israel uh and the
US are still buried um under the rubble?
We don't even know. Um so that's about
but but here's the here's the article
you talked about. Israel is preparing a
coordinated media strategy ahead of
global journalist arrival in Gaza,
including IDF escorted tours and visual
evidence to show how Hamas built terror
infrastructure within civilian areas and
used residents as shields. By the way,
you know, I wonder on this whole on this
talking point about like tunnels and
stuff. First of all, a lot of those
tunnels were built by Israel a while
ago, right? Remember like I hood Barack
talked about, yeah, we know where some
of these tunnels are because we built
them, including the tunnel that was near
Ashifa Hospital. So, I wonder even about
this whole thing about the tunnels and
this like 500 miles of tunnels. That to
me strikes me that strikes me as like a
lot of husb
Okay. Well, they're
they're resistance tunnels.
And whenever you hear the Hazbor brigade
ask, "Why does why don't why doesn't
Hamas build bomb shelters instead of
tunnels?"
Like, what do you think the tunnels are?
I mean, who who goes into the bomb
shelters
in Israel that actually are effective?
It's Netanyahu in his Fortress of Zion.
He goes into a luxury tunnel in Hakiraa.
Uh Bedawins,
non-Jews in the negv, they don't get any
bomb shelters. The bomb shelters that
are built in Israel,
uh that's uh a function of Israel being
a westernbacked colony, but they're
they're building tunnels
to turn siege into strategy. It doesn't
does it justify blowing up entire
apartment blocks? No. I mean, there's
just no justification that Israel is
going to cook up. That's going to work
at this point. And the question is, how
much will does international media have
to show the reality that we all know to
be true, which is that there are still
thousands and thousands of people buried
under the rubble and stories we haven't
heard yet from the Holocaust survivors.
Yeah. Yeah. And also uh Gaza was under
total Israeli siege for two decades. You
think that if Hamas was building massive
bomb shelters, Israel would have let in
the infra like the material needed
Israel was blocking everything from
coming in? Uh
they were blocking concrete for sure.
Concrete. So So you think if ever Hamas
tried to build a bomb shelter to protect
people from regular Israeli bombardments
that Israel would Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. after blocking everything
one could possibly need to build an
actual bomb shelter. It's just such a
joke.
It's over. I mean, the PR war is over.
They've lost that one. That's one of the
outcomes, the most decisive outcomes,
and it's never coming back. There's
nothing Israel can do. There's nothing
Israel can do be also because of the
nature of Israeli society and who they
see as their allies. They see Steven
Yaxley Lenon as their ally. Tommy
Robinson,
anti-Muslim hooligan who came out of the
fascist gangs in the UK that used to
actually be anti-Semitic.
And then Israel pumps a ton of money
into creating the English Defense
League, the EDL. Tommy Robinson emerges
as one of the leaders, waving Israeli
flags, menacing Muslims, and they decide
he's such an ally that the Ministry of
Diaspora Affairs brings him on a Hosbbor
tour. That's Israel today. Those are
their allies. There's never going to be
a Hosboro tour featuring
uh figures who are respected in the
progressive left or even any respected
figures from from the center to the left
in the West ever again. Israel's just so
far gone and the PR war has been
completely lost. all they have left is
some ability to bomb their way out of
the inevitable.
There's a quote attributed to uh David
Bengurion, the founding prime minister
of Israel, and I'm not sure if he
actually said it, but it's it's
attributed to him. You know, the old
will die, the young will forget. And
that's I think to the extent Israel
cares or thinks anymore about global
opinion, I think that's what they're
counting on. People are going to move
on. They'll forget. But younger
generations, you know, raised on seeing
um, you know, who like who who came to
political awareness,
seeing shredded babies in Gaza every
single day in their social media feeds
before, you know, Tik Tok was stolen and
uh, handed over to uh, Zionist
billionaires. They're not going to
forget that. And people are not going to
forget what Israel is and the in the
face Israel projects to the public of
this um self victimizing uh chauvinist
supremacist state. I mean people are
just not going to forget that because
you can't you know Israel can't help but
let you see it cuz that's just who they
are and they can't hide it no matter how
much they try to whitewash themselves.
- admin
- Site Admin
- Posts: 38376
- Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am
Re: Part 2 Anti-Anti-Nazi Barbarian Hordes are Knocking Down
by admin » Thu Oct 30, 2025 2:47 am
SMACKDOWN: Trump slammed with SURPRISE bad news in court
Brian Tyler Cohen
Oct 29, 2025
Interview: Ninth Circuit reverses pro-Trump panel, rules against Trump’s troop deployment
Transcript
I'm joined now by All Rise News's Adam
Klasfeld. Adam, we have some major news
out of the Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals. The last news that we had was
that a three judge panel, including two
Trump appointed judges, had overruled a
lower court judge in Oregon, Judge
Imrat, who by the way, Trump himself
appointed, allowing for Trump's troop
deployment. We now have a major update
in that case. Can you explain what just
happened?
Absolutely. Well, the Ninth Circuit's
full bench has overturned that three
judge panel's order, effectively
reinstating Judge Immigr's order,
blocking the troop deployment of the
National Guard to Portland, right in
time for a trial in Portland to extend
that order permanently blocking Trump's
troop deployment. Now, in terms of in
terms of the trial here, that's going to
give us our decision on the merits. So,
all of these decisions that we've had
thus far are really just on on temporary
restraining orders so that we could get
to trials on the merit. But now that now
that issue is finally going to be
decided. Is that correct?
That's correct. And as we speak, Brian,
there are people on the witness stand.
There's a commander of the Portland uh
police force who is testifying right now
saying essentially that the situation
was under control since June when this
was happening. Um the testimony is
ongoing. So we'll see where it goes. But
what we've seen so far is that in the
days leading up to Trump's activation of
the National Guard, it was quiet in
Portland. They're sending people in uh
to the witness stand. The state of
Oregon is sending people to the witness
stand to testify to the scene to get the
long-term uh injunction that will
permanently block uh Trump from sending
in the troops based on that record.
Adam, importantly, how does the fact
that the full Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals agreed to overturn the three
judge panel on this issue um and
continue to block Trump from being able
to send in the troops? What does that
suggest when they rule on the merits?
Clearly, it's not going to help them,
but how much of an impact is something
like that have?
Well, it's a extraordinary action that
you said even earlier, uh, Brian, that
we're in the preliminary stages. For the
full court, for an onbank court to
intervene at this stage means that they
think that the original panel was so
misguided that they had to intervene at
this stage. And it comes right after
Trump's DOJ had to admit in an
embarrassing two-page letter that the
statistic that they cited in order to
justify sending the troops to Portland
was entirely bogus. They had claimed
that about a quarter 25% of the federal
protective services had to be diverted
to Portland because the scene was so
chaotic there that everything in order
to maintain the peace they had to send
about a quarter of the federal
protective services. Well, in a letter
just before the onb court's ruling, they
had to admit that was wrong. It wasn't
115 officers. Actually, they were double
counting officers in some instances. and
they were more like 86. And then they go
farther and said, well, it's not even 86
because some of the 86 officers weren't
inspectors. Inspectors being the type of
people who are there on the ground
actually protecting the property. So,
it's not 25%, it's more like 13.1%.
Courts don't like to be misled. And here
the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the
entire unbank bench intervened
immediately and said, "We're going to
reinstate the federal judge's order."
And that's probably why we're at the
stage we are right now.
Well, you know, you say that courts
don't like to be lied to, but really the
Trump administration, this whole case is
predicated in a bad faith argument. I
mean, anybody with eyes could look at
this and see that none of the planks,
none of the conditions for a domestic
troop deployment were met. like there is
no foreign invasion, there is no
rebellion, there is no failure of the
local government to affffectuate its
laws. These protests are like 12 people
outside of an ICE facility in Portland.
Half of these people are wearing frog
costumes and unicorn costumes. And so
when you say that the court doesn't like
to be lied to, I mean, the whole case
feels like the court is being lied to,
right? Like like can you can you give
your thought on that? I I think there's
the one proposition of a ridiculous
argument, right, that the the facts on
the ground are so chaotic that you have
to uh you you have to your your honor
send in the troops to maintain the
regular order uh because we can't handle
this with regular forces. That's an
argument to put numbers to it to say we
needed to send 115
federal protective services officers and
to put that in a sworn declaration by
one of your officers saying this was our
staffing decision and to go back later
and say actually that number was way
off. We were double counting the
officers that we were sending there.
It's more like 86 and oops by the way
it's not actually 86. It's less than
that because not all of them were
inspectors and it's more like 13.1
within a month's long period. That's a
different level of deception. That's not
just a bad faith argument. That is
getting the wrong facts before the
court. And we'll see if they take any
further action if they think any of that
uh misinformation was a willing lie. If
they do that, again, this is a sworn
declaration by a government official.
It's a different order of magnitude than
a bad faith argument. This is flatout
wrong information before the court and
they took action a couple of days after
that admission. So this is the same
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that's
also hearing the Los Angeles case and in
fact the full Ninth Circuit just refused
to overturn a three judge panel's
decision as it relates to LA. So there's
kind of analogous situations in Portland
and Los Angeles is the same circuit
court of appeals and and so do you think
that the fact that they have found the
Trump administration to be lying to them
in court will have any impact on the Los
Angeles case because they can recognize
that these are not this is not a party
that is acting in good faith. In fact,
it's not a party that even deserves the
presumption of regularity that they're
being given. So, do you presume that
what we're seeing in Portland is going
to have some impact on how the same
judges and the same circuit court
perceive the Los Angeles case?
It very well might. And you said the
words that matter here, the presumption
of regularity. We're seeing around the
country and this has been observed by uh
legal observers around the country
finding judges saying this presumption
of regularity that we usually give the
federal government because the DOJ when
they tell us these are the staffing
decisions we can trust that we can't
trust that anymore. It happened in the
case of Kilmargo Garcia where you had
Judge Zeni saying that you have
destroyed the presumption of regularity
because they keep sending people that
are misleading to the misleading the
court and lying to the court. Um, we're
seeing judges saying that time and
again. And the fact that they gave the
wrong numbers to the same Ninth Circuit
panel that ruled in their favor, um,
could absolutely blow back in the Los
Angeles case because these are the
judges that will eventually decide that
case. Um the fact that that this
happened that the DOJ, the Trump DOJ had
to give the corrected numbers that
happened after the Ninth Circuit gave a
very very highly differential decision
uh in the Trump administration's favor
in the Los Angeles case. They'll
probably be looking at all of those
numbers and all those stats much more
skeptically going forward. You know,
there are a lot of cases in a lot of
different courts in a lot of different
cities happening right now. And I'm sure
a lot of people who are watching are
having trouble remembering what the
updates are in each city, where
everybody stands, what the rulings have
been, who's up, who's down. So, can you
give a very simple explainer of what's
happening in the cities right now as it
relates to troop deployments and the
judge's decisions in those cases?
Well, in Los Angeles, the the National
Guard are still allowed to be deployed.
There was a ruling that have barred the
troops from violating the posi
commitatus act. Basically saying you
cannot engage in civilian law
enforcement. That too is under review.
But as things stand now, Trump cannot
deploy the troops into Portland. Trump
cannot deploy the troops into Chicago.
and all of this live controversies
before the Supreme Court, which still
hasn't released a decision on their
review of the Chicago ruling. So, that's
where things stand. Trump is on a losing
streak on his deployment of the National
Guard into US cities. There is one
victory that he's barely holding on to
in Los Angeles, and he's hoping that the
Supreme Court will rescue him once
again. In in all of these cases, Los
Angeles, Chicago, and Portland, have
they only ruled thus far on on allowing
or staying, meaning blocking the
temporary restraining orders? Me? The
broader question I'm asking, have any of
these courts ruled on the merits of
these case, or are we just in the
beginning stages where they're just
ruling on initial temporary restraining
orders?
It's the latter. This is opening stages.
We are now as we speak as I mentioned
they're in the middle of a trial uh in
Oregon that will go into that order that
has gone to a speedy trial in part
thanks to this onbunk ruling in the
9inth circuit that has reinstated the
judge's temporary restraining order. the
evidence is being gathered for a more uh
full and and final ruling uh that will
resolve the issue there and then that
case that record can keep going up all
the way to the Supreme Court. And
finally, last question here, Adam, in
terms of the Supreme Court, because
there obviously the presence looming
above all of this. As you'd mentioned,
the Chicago case was already appealed up
to the Supreme Court, but as we also
just spoke about, none of these
decisions have been made on the merits.
Do you have any reason to believe that
the Supreme Court might already just
jump in and and kind of Bigfoot all of
these cases and issue their ruling based
on just the preliminary stages of the
Chicago uh uh case? Or do you think that
the Supreme Court is going to wait and
see what happens when these trials on
the merits take place and get decided on
in Chicago, in Portland, in Los Angeles?
In a usual case, you would say it should
obviously be the latter path, but this
is this Supreme Court. We've seen dozens
of emergency docket rulings, shadow
docket rulings, interim docket rulings,
whatever you call it, where the Supreme
Court intervenes and without explanation
gives Trump what he wants. We'll see if
that happens again here. But what we
have seen in the kind of record being
percolated right now is you're seeing
Trump appointed judges from multiple
courts saying that Trump has gone too
far. You're seeing the Ninth Circuit
giving detailed consideration. This
isn't uh a court that has found entirely
for or entirely against Trump. the
Supreme Court can take a look at this
and say and say, you know, the local
courts, the courts that are looking at
this on the ground are trying to sort
this out. Let's get this case when it is
finally ready for our review and not
intervene and not just hand Trump what
he wants when he has us on speed dial in
the words of Justice uh Sodtoayor in
describing how they've used that
emergency docket. Well, Adam, as always,
thank you so much for for the wealth of
information here. For those who are
watching, if you'd like to support
Adam's work, a small step that we can
all take to support him and to support
independent media more broadly is to
sign up for All Rise News. That's the
independent outlet that Adam himself
started. He's not part of some
multinational media conglomerate. He's
he's, you know, on his own dime going to
different courouses across the country
follow covering all of this news. And so
again, if you're looking to support
independent, fearless journalism, I
could not recommend Adam highly enough.
So I'm going to put that link again to
All Rise News right here on the screen
and also in the post description of this
video. Adam, as always, thanks for the
time.
Brian Tyler Cohen
Oct 29, 2025
Interview: Ninth Circuit reverses pro-Trump panel, rules against Trump’s troop deployment
Transcript
I'm joined now by All Rise News's Adam
Klasfeld. Adam, we have some major news
out of the Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals. The last news that we had was
that a three judge panel, including two
Trump appointed judges, had overruled a
lower court judge in Oregon, Judge
Imrat, who by the way, Trump himself
appointed, allowing for Trump's troop
deployment. We now have a major update
in that case. Can you explain what just
happened?
Absolutely. Well, the Ninth Circuit's
full bench has overturned that three
judge panel's order, effectively
reinstating Judge Immigr's order,
blocking the troop deployment of the
National Guard to Portland, right in
time for a trial in Portland to extend
that order permanently blocking Trump's
troop deployment. Now, in terms of in
terms of the trial here, that's going to
give us our decision on the merits. So,
all of these decisions that we've had
thus far are really just on on temporary
restraining orders so that we could get
to trials on the merit. But now that now
that issue is finally going to be
decided. Is that correct?
That's correct. And as we speak, Brian,
there are people on the witness stand.
There's a commander of the Portland uh
police force who is testifying right now
saying essentially that the situation
was under control since June when this
was happening. Um the testimony is
ongoing. So we'll see where it goes. But
what we've seen so far is that in the
days leading up to Trump's activation of
the National Guard, it was quiet in
Portland. They're sending people in uh
to the witness stand. The state of
Oregon is sending people to the witness
stand to testify to the scene to get the
long-term uh injunction that will
permanently block uh Trump from sending
in the troops based on that record.
Adam, importantly, how does the fact
that the full Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals agreed to overturn the three
judge panel on this issue um and
continue to block Trump from being able
to send in the troops? What does that
suggest when they rule on the merits?
Clearly, it's not going to help them,
but how much of an impact is something
like that have?
Well, it's a extraordinary action that
you said even earlier, uh, Brian, that
we're in the preliminary stages. For the
full court, for an onbank court to
intervene at this stage means that they
think that the original panel was so
misguided that they had to intervene at
this stage. And it comes right after
Trump's DOJ had to admit in an
embarrassing two-page letter that the
statistic that they cited in order to
justify sending the troops to Portland
was entirely bogus. They had claimed
that about a quarter 25% of the federal
protective services had to be diverted
to Portland because the scene was so
chaotic there that everything in order
to maintain the peace they had to send
about a quarter of the federal
protective services. Well, in a letter
just before the onb court's ruling, they
had to admit that was wrong. It wasn't
115 officers. Actually, they were double
counting officers in some instances. and
they were more like 86. And then they go
farther and said, well, it's not even 86
because some of the 86 officers weren't
inspectors. Inspectors being the type of
people who are there on the ground
actually protecting the property. So,
it's not 25%, it's more like 13.1%.
Courts don't like to be misled. And here
the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the
entire unbank bench intervened
immediately and said, "We're going to
reinstate the federal judge's order."
And that's probably why we're at the
stage we are right now.
Well, you know, you say that courts
don't like to be lied to, but really the
Trump administration, this whole case is
predicated in a bad faith argument. I
mean, anybody with eyes could look at
this and see that none of the planks,
none of the conditions for a domestic
troop deployment were met. like there is
no foreign invasion, there is no
rebellion, there is no failure of the
local government to affffectuate its
laws. These protests are like 12 people
outside of an ICE facility in Portland.
Half of these people are wearing frog
costumes and unicorn costumes. And so
when you say that the court doesn't like
to be lied to, I mean, the whole case
feels like the court is being lied to,
right? Like like can you can you give
your thought on that? I I think there's
the one proposition of a ridiculous
argument, right, that the the facts on
the ground are so chaotic that you have
to uh you you have to your your honor
send in the troops to maintain the
regular order uh because we can't handle
this with regular forces. That's an
argument to put numbers to it to say we
needed to send 115
federal protective services officers and
to put that in a sworn declaration by
one of your officers saying this was our
staffing decision and to go back later
and say actually that number was way
off. We were double counting the
officers that we were sending there.
It's more like 86 and oops by the way
it's not actually 86. It's less than
that because not all of them were
inspectors and it's more like 13.1
within a month's long period. That's a
different level of deception. That's not
just a bad faith argument. That is
getting the wrong facts before the
court. And we'll see if they take any
further action if they think any of that
uh misinformation was a willing lie. If
they do that, again, this is a sworn
declaration by a government official.
It's a different order of magnitude than
a bad faith argument. This is flatout
wrong information before the court and
they took action a couple of days after
that admission. So this is the same
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that's
also hearing the Los Angeles case and in
fact the full Ninth Circuit just refused
to overturn a three judge panel's
decision as it relates to LA. So there's
kind of analogous situations in Portland
and Los Angeles is the same circuit
court of appeals and and so do you think
that the fact that they have found the
Trump administration to be lying to them
in court will have any impact on the Los
Angeles case because they can recognize
that these are not this is not a party
that is acting in good faith. In fact,
it's not a party that even deserves the
presumption of regularity that they're
being given. So, do you presume that
what we're seeing in Portland is going
to have some impact on how the same
judges and the same circuit court
perceive the Los Angeles case?
It very well might. And you said the
words that matter here, the presumption
of regularity. We're seeing around the
country and this has been observed by uh
legal observers around the country
finding judges saying this presumption
of regularity that we usually give the
federal government because the DOJ when
they tell us these are the staffing
decisions we can trust that we can't
trust that anymore. It happened in the
case of Kilmargo Garcia where you had
Judge Zeni saying that you have
destroyed the presumption of regularity
because they keep sending people that
are misleading to the misleading the
court and lying to the court. Um, we're
seeing judges saying that time and
again. And the fact that they gave the
wrong numbers to the same Ninth Circuit
panel that ruled in their favor, um,
could absolutely blow back in the Los
Angeles case because these are the
judges that will eventually decide that
case. Um the fact that that this
happened that the DOJ, the Trump DOJ had
to give the corrected numbers that
happened after the Ninth Circuit gave a
very very highly differential decision
uh in the Trump administration's favor
in the Los Angeles case. They'll
probably be looking at all of those
numbers and all those stats much more
skeptically going forward. You know,
there are a lot of cases in a lot of
different courts in a lot of different
cities happening right now. And I'm sure
a lot of people who are watching are
having trouble remembering what the
updates are in each city, where
everybody stands, what the rulings have
been, who's up, who's down. So, can you
give a very simple explainer of what's
happening in the cities right now as it
relates to troop deployments and the
judge's decisions in those cases?
Well, in Los Angeles, the the National
Guard are still allowed to be deployed.
There was a ruling that have barred the
troops from violating the posi
commitatus act. Basically saying you
cannot engage in civilian law
enforcement. That too is under review.
But as things stand now, Trump cannot
deploy the troops into Portland. Trump
cannot deploy the troops into Chicago.
and all of this live controversies
before the Supreme Court, which still
hasn't released a decision on their
review of the Chicago ruling. So, that's
where things stand. Trump is on a losing
streak on his deployment of the National
Guard into US cities. There is one
victory that he's barely holding on to
in Los Angeles, and he's hoping that the
Supreme Court will rescue him once
again. In in all of these cases, Los
Angeles, Chicago, and Portland, have
they only ruled thus far on on allowing
or staying, meaning blocking the
temporary restraining orders? Me? The
broader question I'm asking, have any of
these courts ruled on the merits of
these case, or are we just in the
beginning stages where they're just
ruling on initial temporary restraining
orders?
It's the latter. This is opening stages.
We are now as we speak as I mentioned
they're in the middle of a trial uh in
Oregon that will go into that order that
has gone to a speedy trial in part
thanks to this onbunk ruling in the
9inth circuit that has reinstated the
judge's temporary restraining order. the
evidence is being gathered for a more uh
full and and final ruling uh that will
resolve the issue there and then that
case that record can keep going up all
the way to the Supreme Court. And
finally, last question here, Adam, in
terms of the Supreme Court, because
there obviously the presence looming
above all of this. As you'd mentioned,
the Chicago case was already appealed up
to the Supreme Court, but as we also
just spoke about, none of these
decisions have been made on the merits.
Do you have any reason to believe that
the Supreme Court might already just
jump in and and kind of Bigfoot all of
these cases and issue their ruling based
on just the preliminary stages of the
Chicago uh uh case? Or do you think that
the Supreme Court is going to wait and
see what happens when these trials on
the merits take place and get decided on
in Chicago, in Portland, in Los Angeles?
In a usual case, you would say it should
obviously be the latter path, but this
is this Supreme Court. We've seen dozens
of emergency docket rulings, shadow
docket rulings, interim docket rulings,
whatever you call it, where the Supreme
Court intervenes and without explanation
gives Trump what he wants. We'll see if
that happens again here. But what we
have seen in the kind of record being
percolated right now is you're seeing
Trump appointed judges from multiple
courts saying that Trump has gone too
far. You're seeing the Ninth Circuit
giving detailed consideration. This
isn't uh a court that has found entirely
for or entirely against Trump. the
Supreme Court can take a look at this
and say and say, you know, the local
courts, the courts that are looking at
this on the ground are trying to sort
this out. Let's get this case when it is
finally ready for our review and not
intervene and not just hand Trump what
he wants when he has us on speed dial in
the words of Justice uh Sodtoayor in
describing how they've used that
emergency docket. Well, Adam, as always,
thank you so much for for the wealth of
information here. For those who are
watching, if you'd like to support
Adam's work, a small step that we can
all take to support him and to support
independent media more broadly is to
sign up for All Rise News. That's the
independent outlet that Adam himself
started. He's not part of some
multinational media conglomerate. He's
he's, you know, on his own dime going to
different courouses across the country
follow covering all of this news. And so
again, if you're looking to support
independent, fearless journalism, I
could not recommend Adam highly enough.
So I'm going to put that link again to
All Rise News right here on the screen
and also in the post description of this
video. Adam, as always, thanks for the
time.
- admin
- Site Admin
- Posts: 38376
- Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am
Re: Part 2 Anti-Anti-Nazi Barbarian Hordes are Knocking Down
by admin » Fri Oct 31, 2025 6:51 am
Kristi Noem pulls SHOCKING Halloween stunt
by Brian Tyler Cohen
Another Day
Oct 30, 2025
Transcript
Kristi Noem refuses to relent on her
illegal deportation tactics. The way she
sees it, why wait until Halloween to
scare the crap out of kids? This is just
another day.
Halloween, our annual holiday where
parents get to parade their children
around the neighborhood and encounter
some of our cultures scariest creatures.
Vampires, zombies, blood sucking demons
from the ninth circle of hell. But in
Chicago this year, Halloween is feeling
just a little bit different. Governor
Pritzkar sent a letter to Secretary
Gnome last night requesting a pause in
ICE enforcement this weekend so children
can safely celebrate Halloween.
Well, that seems like a reasonable
enough ask, right? I mean, it's
inevitable that kids are going to
encounter some jump scares on Halloween,
but there's no reason they should come
from masked and armed ICE agents, right?
No, we're absolutely not willing to put
on pause any work that we will do to
keep communities safe.
Yes. Apparently, Christine Gnome's view
of ICE operations in Chicago is the same
as my girlfriend's when I try to go to
the bathroom during the Love is Blind
reunion. No pause.
The fact that Governor Pritsker is
asking for that is um
shameful and I think unfortunate that he
doesn't recognize how important the work
is that we do to make sure we're
bringing criminals to justice and
getting them off our streets.
Right. Important work. Laying down the
law for America, protecting our nation
from the worst of the worst. How about
we take a look at some of what Christine
Gnome calls critical justice.
Video surfaced of federal agents
descending on a Halloween parade in
Chicago over the weekend.
Trick-or-treaters watch as masked agents
load people into white SUVs.
A Halloween parade for kids canled after
agents deployed what appeared to be tear
gas.
We were supposed to be standing on this
corner with hundreds of families walking
around and um we're just being
terrorized by ICE. Okay, you want to
know how I know that none of these ICE
agents were in any imminent danger? One
of the people they claimed to fear is in
a snacks costume. Yeah. When I saw the
asalent approaching with her prop bag of
Fritos in one hand and a fake pack of
Orbit gum in the other, that's when I
knew that we were under attack. Like,
I'm sorry, but what the is going
on? Teargassing a Halloween parade? I
can't wait until the real war on
Christmas gets here when kids get to
watch Santa take a mouthful of rubber
bullets. Why was this level of force
even necessary?
DHS says the agents were acting in
self-defense after a crowd started
gathering during the arrest of a
construction worker who was in the
country illegally.
I'm sorry, but that is not a good enough
answer to the question, why did you tear
gas a local Halloween parade? The
neighborhood looks 1% more threatening
than Mayberry. Under the direction of
Christ, gun toing, zip tie carrying,
body armor wearing ICE agents are
infiltrating small suburban communities
all over America like they're storming
ISIS compounds in Fallujah. And that
notorious kingpin of construction worker
they arrested, yeah, he's 35 and has
lived in the Chicago area since the age
of four after coming from Mexico. And
yet that didn't stop them from unloading
an Infinity and Beyond's worth of
whoopass on a bunch of kids dressed as
Buzz Lightyear. But surely surely there
was some rationale for the feds to
barrel ahead with this amount of force,
right? You had folks who were literally
out on the street taking their kids to
this Halloween parade when this
happened. Um, and I didn't see anybody
with a weapon. I didn't see anybody make
physical contact with these agents. I
didn't see anybody do anything that
justified, for example, taking my
7-year-old neighbor to the ground.
A seven-year-old. Sorry, but that age
feels a little off from this
description.
Every day we're on the streets of
Chicago arresting people who have
committed murders, rapists, those who
are trafficking drugs and have been, you
know, victimizing that city for years.
Yeah. Seven years, apparently. First,
they started by making a mess in our
communities. Then, they moved on to
vandalism. And these days, they've
graduated to grand theft lararseny. But
according to Gnome and DHS, things are
actually much worse out there than
anyone would believe.
ICE agents, CBP agents are increasingly
under threat. And now we get a statistic
from DHS that death threats against ICE
operatives are up 8,000%.
Now, that's true. not the actual
statistic, but that DHS did put out a
press release with absolutely zero data
on how they arrived at that number. And
I'm sorry, but it's just a little hard
to trust the facts from an
administration which also expects us to
believe this.
Now, as you know, groceries are down.
The elections are so rigged, and we
proved that in 2020. Now, we have the
hottest country anywhere in the world.
There's nobody even close.
That's right. Not even close to being
true. It is so far beyond the pale that
this administration believes showing a
modicum of decency to any family looking
to trickor treat with their kids is a
sign of weakness. And just for a little
point of reference here, calling a truce
during wartime has happened before. In
World War I, British and German soldiers
chose to lay down their arms and take a
break from shooting each other because
it was Christmas. Even they could afford
the other side some modicum of decency.
So that's where we are in Trump's
America, slightly behind the decorum of
1914.
And by the way, if the Trump
administration's stated goal has been
that all of these harsh tactics are
being done as part of a necessary effort
to preserve American culture, then what
on earth is more pure Americana than
Halloween? Like, what's next? Ice raids
at the Baseball and Apple Pie Festival?
You really don't get to claim protecting
American culture while simultaneously
destroying American culture by
teargassing trick-or-treaters. The
reality is this is so much bigger than
one individual holiday. This is about an
administration that is hellbent on
intimidation, on controlling citizens
through power and dominance. I'm
surprised Christine Gnome doesn't end
every press conference by saying the
beatings will continue until morale
improves. Christine Nome will use any
moment that is supposed to unite
Americans as an opportunity to divide
us.
And your message to the NFL with this
decision, it seems like they were trying
to send a message to the Trump
administration.
Well, they suck and we'll win and God
will bless us.
Wow. Really? Given it your all there,
Christy, I'm surprised you weren't cast
as Braveheart. Our enemies may take our
lives, but they'll never take our
freedom.
This administration is on a mission to
do whatever they can to strike fear in
the hearts of every single American by
using whatever tactics they see fit in
an effort to implement their corrupt and
offensive agenda. And that is something
to be scared of. Yes, even more than a
mom in a snack costume.
[Music]
by Brian Tyler Cohen
Another Day
Oct 30, 2025
Transcript
Kristi Noem refuses to relent on her
illegal deportation tactics. The way she
sees it, why wait until Halloween to
scare the crap out of kids? This is just
another day.
Halloween, our annual holiday where
parents get to parade their children
around the neighborhood and encounter
some of our cultures scariest creatures.
Vampires, zombies, blood sucking demons
from the ninth circle of hell. But in
Chicago this year, Halloween is feeling
just a little bit different. Governor
Pritzkar sent a letter to Secretary
Gnome last night requesting a pause in
ICE enforcement this weekend so children
can safely celebrate Halloween.
Well, that seems like a reasonable
enough ask, right? I mean, it's
inevitable that kids are going to
encounter some jump scares on Halloween,
but there's no reason they should come
from masked and armed ICE agents, right?
No, we're absolutely not willing to put
on pause any work that we will do to
keep communities safe.
Yes. Apparently, Christine Gnome's view
of ICE operations in Chicago is the same
as my girlfriend's when I try to go to
the bathroom during the Love is Blind
reunion. No pause.
The fact that Governor Pritsker is
asking for that is um
shameful and I think unfortunate that he
doesn't recognize how important the work
is that we do to make sure we're
bringing criminals to justice and
getting them off our streets.
Right. Important work. Laying down the
law for America, protecting our nation
from the worst of the worst. How about
we take a look at some of what Christine
Gnome calls critical justice.
Video surfaced of federal agents
descending on a Halloween parade in
Chicago over the weekend.
Trick-or-treaters watch as masked agents
load people into white SUVs.
A Halloween parade for kids canled after
agents deployed what appeared to be tear
gas.
We were supposed to be standing on this
corner with hundreds of families walking
around and um we're just being
terrorized by ICE. Okay, you want to
know how I know that none of these ICE
agents were in any imminent danger? One
of the people they claimed to fear is in
a snacks costume. Yeah. When I saw the
asalent approaching with her prop bag of
Fritos in one hand and a fake pack of
Orbit gum in the other, that's when I
knew that we were under attack. Like,
I'm sorry, but what the is going
on? Teargassing a Halloween parade? I
can't wait until the real war on
Christmas gets here when kids get to
watch Santa take a mouthful of rubber
bullets. Why was this level of force
even necessary?
DHS says the agents were acting in
self-defense after a crowd started
gathering during the arrest of a
construction worker who was in the
country illegally.
I'm sorry, but that is not a good enough
answer to the question, why did you tear
gas a local Halloween parade? The
neighborhood looks 1% more threatening
than Mayberry. Under the direction of
Christ, gun toing, zip tie carrying,
body armor wearing ICE agents are
infiltrating small suburban communities
all over America like they're storming
ISIS compounds in Fallujah. And that
notorious kingpin of construction worker
they arrested, yeah, he's 35 and has
lived in the Chicago area since the age
of four after coming from Mexico. And
yet that didn't stop them from unloading
an Infinity and Beyond's worth of
whoopass on a bunch of kids dressed as
Buzz Lightyear. But surely surely there
was some rationale for the feds to
barrel ahead with this amount of force,
right? You had folks who were literally
out on the street taking their kids to
this Halloween parade when this
happened. Um, and I didn't see anybody
with a weapon. I didn't see anybody make
physical contact with these agents. I
didn't see anybody do anything that
justified, for example, taking my
7-year-old neighbor to the ground.
A seven-year-old. Sorry, but that age
feels a little off from this
description.
Every day we're on the streets of
Chicago arresting people who have
committed murders, rapists, those who
are trafficking drugs and have been, you
know, victimizing that city for years.
Yeah. Seven years, apparently. First,
they started by making a mess in our
communities. Then, they moved on to
vandalism. And these days, they've
graduated to grand theft lararseny. But
according to Gnome and DHS, things are
actually much worse out there than
anyone would believe.
ICE agents, CBP agents are increasingly
under threat. And now we get a statistic
from DHS that death threats against ICE
operatives are up 8,000%.
Now, that's true. not the actual
statistic, but that DHS did put out a
press release with absolutely zero data
on how they arrived at that number. And
I'm sorry, but it's just a little hard
to trust the facts from an
administration which also expects us to
believe this.
Now, as you know, groceries are down.
The elections are so rigged, and we
proved that in 2020. Now, we have the
hottest country anywhere in the world.
There's nobody even close.
That's right. Not even close to being
true. It is so far beyond the pale that
this administration believes showing a
modicum of decency to any family looking
to trickor treat with their kids is a
sign of weakness. And just for a little
point of reference here, calling a truce
during wartime has happened before. In
World War I, British and German soldiers
chose to lay down their arms and take a
break from shooting each other because
it was Christmas. Even they could afford
the other side some modicum of decency.
So that's where we are in Trump's
America, slightly behind the decorum of
1914.
And by the way, if the Trump
administration's stated goal has been
that all of these harsh tactics are
being done as part of a necessary effort
to preserve American culture, then what
on earth is more pure Americana than
Halloween? Like, what's next? Ice raids
at the Baseball and Apple Pie Festival?
You really don't get to claim protecting
American culture while simultaneously
destroying American culture by
teargassing trick-or-treaters. The
reality is this is so much bigger than
one individual holiday. This is about an
administration that is hellbent on
intimidation, on controlling citizens
through power and dominance. I'm
surprised Christine Gnome doesn't end
every press conference by saying the
beatings will continue until morale
improves. Christine Nome will use any
moment that is supposed to unite
Americans as an opportunity to divide
us.
And your message to the NFL with this
decision, it seems like they were trying
to send a message to the Trump
administration.
Well, they suck and we'll win and God
will bless us.
Wow. Really? Given it your all there,
Christy, I'm surprised you weren't cast
as Braveheart. Our enemies may take our
lives, but they'll never take our
freedom.
This administration is on a mission to
do whatever they can to strike fear in
the hearts of every single American by
using whatever tactics they see fit in
an effort to implement their corrupt and
offensive agenda. And that is something
to be scared of. Yes, even more than a
mom in a snack costume.
[Music]
- admin
- Site Admin
- Posts: 38376
- Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am
Re: Part 2 Anti-Anti-Nazi Barbarian Hordes are Knocking Down
by admin » Fri Oct 31, 2025 7:07 pm
BREAKING: Federal Judge OUTMANUEVERS SCOTUS and TRAPS Trump on SNAP
Legal AF
Oct 31, 2025
In breaking news, a Boston Federal Judge found away to avoid a bad Supreme Court ruling, by instructing the Trump Administration to come up with a plan by Monday to use Congress' 6 billion in congress contingency funds to avoid 40 million Americans from starving to death by cutting off their SNAP/food stamp payments, as she warns that she may issue an injunction if she doesn't like their response. Popok explains why the Judge chose this smart path and how it avoids a Supreme Court problem.
Transcript
In breaking news, we've got an order out
of Judge Talwani in Massachusetts. About
44 million people whose SNAP
malnutrition and nourishment and food
stamp payments are at risk starting
November 1. And she's giving the
government one more chance by Monday to
now use the $6 billion worth of
contingency reserve funding, a rainy day
fund that was set up to start paying
SNAP payments. So she's found that it's
likely that the states who brought this
case, 23 states including California,
Massachusetts, will prevail on the
merits. But as to irreparable harm,
meaning the harm to the 44 million
children, babies, disabled, and seniors,
she said that harm can be avoided if by
Monday the government, now having been
given the clarifying instruction by this
judge that they can and must use the
rainy day contingency fund of $6 billion
that Congress set aside in September to
make at least partial payments on SNAP.
She wants to know that by Monday. um and
she's holding the temporary restraining
order um on hold or on ICE through
Monday. Now, look, until then, I think
we already have the answer because the
government the the um United States uh
uh Department of Agriculture Secretary
Rollins has already has already said
effectively he's not going to roll out
the payments or at least he's going to
drag his feet. They're going to drag
their feet rolling out the payments. I'm
Michael Popac. We're not dragging our
feet. you're on Legal AF Friday with
this breaking news and I'm going to post
this order and explain it to you. It's a
little bit confusing because it's a
temporary restraining order that's put
on ice, but it's an order by a judge to
try to solve a problem in a very in a
very good and practical way without
necessarily granting the temporary
restraining order, but it could be
granted on Monday. People's lives are at
risk. Thank you for being here. Hit the
free subscribe button. Let's talk about
Judge Talwani up in Massachusetts. The
case was filed on the 28th of October
after a series of letters that were
issued by the Department of Agriculture,
which is the regulator for these types
of payments. Think food stamps. Think
funding that goes to stop people from
starving or being malnourished. 44
million people are at risk. The blue
state's attorneys general, 23 of them
ran into court after a series of letters
issued by the Department of Agriculture
said, "We're not going to be making the
payments." Now, we know there's a $6
billion contingency fund because
Congress told us so in September. And we
know that the Department of Agriculture
knows about it because they posted a a
contingency plan for the shutdown saying
that there was $6 billion. They plan to
use it. And that's what Congress wants.
Now, you see Congress playing games with
people's lives. We've got Senator Thun
saying, "I'm not going to hold another
another uh hearing in the Senate about
about authorizing the SNAP payments for
these children and disabled um until the
Democrats come to the table to open the
government as people die." So that's
what was before Judge Talwani. She held
a hearing yesterday. She said during the
hearing, "People are going to die. I'm
not going to allow that." when the
agency stood up and its lawyers stood up
about payment and some double talk about
whether they were or were not. She said,
"I don't want to hear lawyering. I want
I want to hear agency action." She said,
"My interpretation," which is reflected
in the order I'm about to read you, is
that you don't need to suspend the
program. You just need to partially fund
the program using the $6 billion that
you have with staggered payments. In
particular, here's what the judge says
starting on page nine of her order,
which again I'll post on Substack Live.
At core defendants conclusion, that's
the Trump administration, that the US
Department of Agriculture is statutoily
prohibited from funding SNAP, that's
this food stamp malnutrition program,
because Congress has not enacted new
appropriations for the current fiscal
year is erroneous. To the contrary,
defendants are statutoily mandated to
use the previously appropriated SNAP
contingency reserve. That's the 6
billion when necessary and also have
discretion to use other previously
appropriated funds as detailed below.
Like you as an agency, go grab the
contingency fund, go find other money
and avoid this problem. This is the
judge signaling to the government, I'm
going to come to down hard on you on
Monday if you don't take the right
agency action here and protect people.
Now, you know, it was a little bit of um
bargaining by the judge, right? Judge
judges are normally this commercial,
this practical. They'll just say
temporary restraining order issued. Now,
she's been reversed a couple of times on
some issues related to the Trump
administration. She's a a Clinton an
Obama appointee.
Um, and she's had some issues where
where the Supreme Court has ruled
against her. I'm sure she's also mindful
of a body of case law coming out of the
United States Supreme Court from this
spring in which they have slapped the
hands of federal district judges by
saying you can't force funding to
happen. So there's a whole funding
problem at the United States Supreme
Court. It's a quagmire she's trying to
avoid by So she's not ordering funding.
Get it? which would put her in the
crosshairs of the United States Supreme
Court and certain of their orders where
they're like, "Federal judges, you
shouldn't be ordering funding of
anything under the Trump
administration." And this isn't about
Donald Trump trying to cut funding. This
is about funding appropriated by
Congress that's being held up by what
she sees as an improper interpretation
of the statute and Congress's will by
the agency. This is why she's focused on
the agency. See how she's so eloquently
threading the needle here, trying to
avoid the funding decision-making of the
Supreme Court. So, I'm not ordering
funding. I'm ordering the government to
re-evaluate their position. Go find the
money now that I've told you you don't
have to suspend the program. You can
partially pay using the contingency
funds and tell me on Monday what you're
going to do. Now, if they screw up on
Monday, I think she enters this
temporary restraining order and then
compels it. But, I think it was a very
smart decision. Here's why I think that
we know the answer in advance of Monday.
Today, Secretary Rollins, who runs the
US Department of Agriculture, said he
would not commit to releasing SNAP
funds, even if ordered to do so by by
Judge Talwani. Now, she didn't order him
to release it. She ordered him to
re-evaluate their position based on her
clarification that they have the power
to release the funds. Um he said when uh
a reporter asked if if if she uh it's a
female secretary will agree to release
the funds in order to do so. We're
looking at all options.
So that may already that should already
give the judge some concern. But here's
the final ruling by the judge.
Um she says on page 13 of her order, "As
a matter of law, defendants aired in
concluding that the USDA, the Department
of Agriculture, is statutoily prohibited
from using the contingency funds and
plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the
merits, which is one of the factors for
issuing an injunction or a temporary
restraining order. However, this is
where, you know, this is where the art
of the deal comes in, if you will, by
the judge. She says in concluding on
page 15, "The motion for temporary
restraining order remains under
advisement." In other words, I'm going
to keep it for now. No later than
Monday, defendant shall advise the court
whether they will authorize the the
reduced benefits, let's say three
quarter payments, or come up with a plan
to make payments using the six billion
um in for November. and if so, the
timeline for determining whether to
authorize only reduced payments using
the contingency funds and she wants to
know that on Monday. Then she's going to
re-evaluate the temporary restraining
order. So, it's a clarification and a
instruction
and again I think she's doing this
because she's gotten reversed a couple
of times frankly about immigration and
some other funding issues. And there's
this body of emergency application
funding law by the United States Supreme
Court that is not favorable to the
district court judges. And I think this
is why she's trying to thread that
needle and I think she's done it well.
We'll continue to follow it. The updates
including on Monday. There's another
case I'm following up in Rhode Island in
which a Rhode Island judge is holding a
hearing today on Friday about food
stamps and about again an emergency
application to stop cutting off food
stamps during the shutdown. This is the
shutdown litigation chapter of Donald
Trump's uh uh depraved administration
and how federal judges are handling it.
And I'll follow up on that case as well.
Hit the Legal AF YouTube subscribe
button. We're going to cross 900,000
subscribers in the next day or so
because of you on our march to a
million. It's all for free. It's all
because of you. And to continue to
support our honest commentary and our
reporting and to fund it, come over to
Legal AF Substack.
*****************************************
Trump administration blocked from suspending Snap benefits for millions of Americans. One judge issues temporary restraining order while another judge rules the government must continue to fund program that helps low-income households
By Lauren Gambino
Fri 31 Oct 2025 15.11 EDT
First published on Fri 31 Oct 2025 14.25 EDT
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... suspension
Two federal judges issued back-to-back rulings on Friday in separate cases ordering the Trump administration to use contingency funds to continue paying for food stamps during the government shutdown.
A federal judge in Rhode Island on Friday afternoon blocked the Trump administration from suspending all food aid for millions of Americans, in a case brought by a group of US cities, non-profit organizations and a trade union.
At almost the same time, in a separate but similar case, a federal judge in Massachusetts ruled that the government must continue to fund the program that helps low-income households stave off food insecurity, in a case brought by the Democratic attorneys general from 22 states and the District of Columbia and three governors who sued the administration.
Without intervention, the US Department of Agriculture said it planned to suspend payments for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as Snap or food stamps, on Saturday, 1 November, putting millions of low-income households who rely on the benefits at risk of food insecurity and financial hardship.
John McConnell, a US district judge in Providence, issued a temporary restraining order in the Rhode Island case at the behest of those plaintiffs. They had argued that the US Department of Agriculture’s suspension of Snap benefits that was due to kick in on Saturday was unlawful.
Snap, the nation’s largest anti-hunger initiative, provides assistance to nearly 42 million – one in eight – low-income Americans each month. The USDA has said insufficient funds exist to pay full benefits, as issuing food stamps costs the public purse between $8.5bn and $9bn every month.
The Trump administration contends the agency lacks authority to pay them until Congress passes a spending bill that will ending the enduring government shutdown that began on 1 October.
The plaintiffs in the civil case being heard in Rhode Island are represented by the liberal legal advocacy group Democracy Forward. The group argued that the federal government’s decision to suspend the nutritional benefits was wrong and unlawful, as the USDA still had funds available to fulfill its obligation to fund the Snap program.
Such available funding includes $5.25bn in contingency funds that Congress has previously provided for the USDA to use when “necessary to carry out program operations”, the plaintiffs said.
Aside from the contingency funds, the plaintiffs argued that a separate fund with around $23bn in it could also be utilized to avoid what would be an unprecedented suspension of Snap benefits.
In the Massachusetts case, US district Judge Indira Talwani in Boston gave the administration until Monday to say whether it would partially pay for the benefits for November with contingency money or fund them fully with additional funds.
It wasn’t immediately clear how quickly the debit cards that beneficiaries use to buy groceries could be reloaded after the ruling. That process often takes one to two weeks.
The rulings are likely to face appeals.
In their challenge, the Democratic-led states argued that the agriculture department has the legal authority – and available funds – to at least partially maintain the program during the shutdown.
“Because of [the] USDA’s actions, Snap benefits will be delayed for the first time since the program’s inception,” the states said in their complaint. “Worse still, [the] USDA suspended Snap benefits even though, on information and belief, it has funds available to it that are sufficient to fund all, or at least a substantial portion, of November Snap benefits.”
The Trump administration has maintained that the department’s contingency fund is intended for natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods, not government shutdowns. The government has acknowledged that it has billions of federal dollars left, including emergency funds especially marked for Snap, but top officials have maintained they are unable to tap into those reserve funds.
The administration warned that a court order requiring it to use emergency reserves to fund Snap would be “operationally fraught”, arguing it could take weeks to deliver benefits and might leave families with less than half their normal monthly allotment. In court filings, officials noted that such a partial payment “has never been made – and for good reason”.
The argument appears to contradict the department’s lapsed funding plan, released in late September, which stated that Congress’s “evident” intent was for Snap operations to continue during a government shutdown and pointed to “multi-year contingency funds” that could be tapped in the event the closures dragged on. The plan has been removed from the department’s website.
The USDA’s website now carries a strikingly partisan notice, accusing Senate Democrats, incorrectly, of shutting down the government to provide healthcare to undocumented immigrants and trans Americans. “Bottom line, the well has run dry,” the notice says. “At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 01.”
The administration’s refusal to intervene underscored a broader strategy during the shutdown, now the second-longest in US history. Throughout the impasse, Trump has selectively reprogrammed federal funds to protect priorities central to his political agenda – such as paying troops and law enforcement officers, including those involved in immigration enforcement – while allowing other programs like Snap to starve.
Bracing for the loss of federal nutrition assistance, food banks and pantries, already stretched thin amid rising food prices, were bracing for a surge in demand. Officials in states such as Virginia, Maryland, Louisiana, Hawaii and Minnesota have announced plans to tap state and local funds to provide food aid and assist food banks in the interim.
Governors in states such as New York, Delaware, Oregon and Virginia have declared the looming crisis a state of emergency, while states set aside millions to help offset the lapse of federal benefits.
“Unlike Washington Republicans, I won’t sit idly by as families struggle to put food on the table,” New York governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, announced on Thursday.
In California, Democratic governor Gavin Newsom said he would deploy the California national guard under his command to support food banks and announced $80m in state support to fill the Snap gap.
Legal AF
Oct 31, 2025
In breaking news, a Boston Federal Judge found away to avoid a bad Supreme Court ruling, by instructing the Trump Administration to come up with a plan by Monday to use Congress' 6 billion in congress contingency funds to avoid 40 million Americans from starving to death by cutting off their SNAP/food stamp payments, as she warns that she may issue an injunction if she doesn't like their response. Popok explains why the Judge chose this smart path and how it avoids a Supreme Court problem.
Transcript
In breaking news, we've got an order out
of Judge Talwani in Massachusetts. About
44 million people whose SNAP
malnutrition and nourishment and food
stamp payments are at risk starting
November 1. And she's giving the
government one more chance by Monday to
now use the $6 billion worth of
contingency reserve funding, a rainy day
fund that was set up to start paying
SNAP payments. So she's found that it's
likely that the states who brought this
case, 23 states including California,
Massachusetts, will prevail on the
merits. But as to irreparable harm,
meaning the harm to the 44 million
children, babies, disabled, and seniors,
she said that harm can be avoided if by
Monday the government, now having been
given the clarifying instruction by this
judge that they can and must use the
rainy day contingency fund of $6 billion
that Congress set aside in September to
make at least partial payments on SNAP.
She wants to know that by Monday. um and
she's holding the temporary restraining
order um on hold or on ICE through
Monday. Now, look, until then, I think
we already have the answer because the
government the the um United States uh
uh Department of Agriculture Secretary
Rollins has already has already said
effectively he's not going to roll out
the payments or at least he's going to
drag his feet. They're going to drag
their feet rolling out the payments. I'm
Michael Popac. We're not dragging our
feet. you're on Legal AF Friday with
this breaking news and I'm going to post
this order and explain it to you. It's a
little bit confusing because it's a
temporary restraining order that's put
on ice, but it's an order by a judge to
try to solve a problem in a very in a
very good and practical way without
necessarily granting the temporary
restraining order, but it could be
granted on Monday. People's lives are at
risk. Thank you for being here. Hit the
free subscribe button. Let's talk about
Judge Talwani up in Massachusetts. The
case was filed on the 28th of October
after a series of letters that were
issued by the Department of Agriculture,
which is the regulator for these types
of payments. Think food stamps. Think
funding that goes to stop people from
starving or being malnourished. 44
million people are at risk. The blue
state's attorneys general, 23 of them
ran into court after a series of letters
issued by the Department of Agriculture
said, "We're not going to be making the
payments." Now, we know there's a $6
billion contingency fund because
Congress told us so in September. And we
know that the Department of Agriculture
knows about it because they posted a a
contingency plan for the shutdown saying
that there was $6 billion. They plan to
use it. And that's what Congress wants.
Now, you see Congress playing games with
people's lives. We've got Senator Thun
saying, "I'm not going to hold another
another uh hearing in the Senate about
about authorizing the SNAP payments for
these children and disabled um until the
Democrats come to the table to open the
government as people die." So that's
what was before Judge Talwani. She held
a hearing yesterday. She said during the
hearing, "People are going to die. I'm
not going to allow that." when the
agency stood up and its lawyers stood up
about payment and some double talk about
whether they were or were not. She said,
"I don't want to hear lawyering. I want
I want to hear agency action." She said,
"My interpretation," which is reflected
in the order I'm about to read you, is
that you don't need to suspend the
program. You just need to partially fund
the program using the $6 billion that
you have with staggered payments. In
particular, here's what the judge says
starting on page nine of her order,
which again I'll post on Substack Live.
At core defendants conclusion, that's
the Trump administration, that the US
Department of Agriculture is statutoily
prohibited from funding SNAP, that's
this food stamp malnutrition program,
because Congress has not enacted new
appropriations for the current fiscal
year is erroneous. To the contrary,
defendants are statutoily mandated to
use the previously appropriated SNAP
contingency reserve. That's the 6
billion when necessary and also have
discretion to use other previously
appropriated funds as detailed below.
Like you as an agency, go grab the
contingency fund, go find other money
and avoid this problem. This is the
judge signaling to the government, I'm
going to come to down hard on you on
Monday if you don't take the right
agency action here and protect people.
Now, you know, it was a little bit of um
bargaining by the judge, right? Judge
judges are normally this commercial,
this practical. They'll just say
temporary restraining order issued. Now,
she's been reversed a couple of times on
some issues related to the Trump
administration. She's a a Clinton an
Obama appointee.
Um, and she's had some issues where
where the Supreme Court has ruled
against her. I'm sure she's also mindful
of a body of case law coming out of the
United States Supreme Court from this
spring in which they have slapped the
hands of federal district judges by
saying you can't force funding to
happen. So there's a whole funding
problem at the United States Supreme
Court. It's a quagmire she's trying to
avoid by So she's not ordering funding.
Get it? which would put her in the
crosshairs of the United States Supreme
Court and certain of their orders where
they're like, "Federal judges, you
shouldn't be ordering funding of
anything under the Trump
administration." And this isn't about
Donald Trump trying to cut funding. This
is about funding appropriated by
Congress that's being held up by what
she sees as an improper interpretation
of the statute and Congress's will by
the agency. This is why she's focused on
the agency. See how she's so eloquently
threading the needle here, trying to
avoid the funding decision-making of the
Supreme Court. So, I'm not ordering
funding. I'm ordering the government to
re-evaluate their position. Go find the
money now that I've told you you don't
have to suspend the program. You can
partially pay using the contingency
funds and tell me on Monday what you're
going to do. Now, if they screw up on
Monday, I think she enters this
temporary restraining order and then
compels it. But, I think it was a very
smart decision. Here's why I think that
we know the answer in advance of Monday.
Today, Secretary Rollins, who runs the
US Department of Agriculture, said he
would not commit to releasing SNAP
funds, even if ordered to do so by by
Judge Talwani. Now, she didn't order him
to release it. She ordered him to
re-evaluate their position based on her
clarification that they have the power
to release the funds. Um he said when uh
a reporter asked if if if she uh it's a
female secretary will agree to release
the funds in order to do so. We're
looking at all options.
So that may already that should already
give the judge some concern. But here's
the final ruling by the judge.
Um she says on page 13 of her order, "As
a matter of law, defendants aired in
concluding that the USDA, the Department
of Agriculture, is statutoily prohibited
from using the contingency funds and
plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the
merits, which is one of the factors for
issuing an injunction or a temporary
restraining order. However, this is
where, you know, this is where the art
of the deal comes in, if you will, by
the judge. She says in concluding on
page 15, "The motion for temporary
restraining order remains under
advisement." In other words, I'm going
to keep it for now. No later than
Monday, defendant shall advise the court
whether they will authorize the the
reduced benefits, let's say three
quarter payments, or come up with a plan
to make payments using the six billion
um in for November. and if so, the
timeline for determining whether to
authorize only reduced payments using
the contingency funds and she wants to
know that on Monday. Then she's going to
re-evaluate the temporary restraining
order. So, it's a clarification and a
instruction
and again I think she's doing this
because she's gotten reversed a couple
of times frankly about immigration and
some other funding issues. And there's
this body of emergency application
funding law by the United States Supreme
Court that is not favorable to the
district court judges. And I think this
is why she's trying to thread that
needle and I think she's done it well.
We'll continue to follow it. The updates
including on Monday. There's another
case I'm following up in Rhode Island in
which a Rhode Island judge is holding a
hearing today on Friday about food
stamps and about again an emergency
application to stop cutting off food
stamps during the shutdown. This is the
shutdown litigation chapter of Donald
Trump's uh uh depraved administration
and how federal judges are handling it.
And I'll follow up on that case as well.
Hit the Legal AF YouTube subscribe
button. We're going to cross 900,000
subscribers in the next day or so
because of you on our march to a
million. It's all for free. It's all
because of you. And to continue to
support our honest commentary and our
reporting and to fund it, come over to
Legal AF Substack.
*****************************************
Trump administration blocked from suspending Snap benefits for millions of Americans. One judge issues temporary restraining order while another judge rules the government must continue to fund program that helps low-income households
By Lauren Gambino
Fri 31 Oct 2025 15.11 EDT
First published on Fri 31 Oct 2025 14.25 EDT
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... suspension
Two federal judges issued back-to-back rulings on Friday in separate cases ordering the Trump administration to use contingency funds to continue paying for food stamps during the government shutdown.
A federal judge in Rhode Island on Friday afternoon blocked the Trump administration from suspending all food aid for millions of Americans, in a case brought by a group of US cities, non-profit organizations and a trade union.
At almost the same time, in a separate but similar case, a federal judge in Massachusetts ruled that the government must continue to fund the program that helps low-income households stave off food insecurity, in a case brought by the Democratic attorneys general from 22 states and the District of Columbia and three governors who sued the administration.
Without intervention, the US Department of Agriculture said it planned to suspend payments for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as Snap or food stamps, on Saturday, 1 November, putting millions of low-income households who rely on the benefits at risk of food insecurity and financial hardship.
John McConnell, a US district judge in Providence, issued a temporary restraining order in the Rhode Island case at the behest of those plaintiffs. They had argued that the US Department of Agriculture’s suspension of Snap benefits that was due to kick in on Saturday was unlawful.
Snap, the nation’s largest anti-hunger initiative, provides assistance to nearly 42 million – one in eight – low-income Americans each month. The USDA has said insufficient funds exist to pay full benefits, as issuing food stamps costs the public purse between $8.5bn and $9bn every month.
The Trump administration contends the agency lacks authority to pay them until Congress passes a spending bill that will ending the enduring government shutdown that began on 1 October.
The plaintiffs in the civil case being heard in Rhode Island are represented by the liberal legal advocacy group Democracy Forward. The group argued that the federal government’s decision to suspend the nutritional benefits was wrong and unlawful, as the USDA still had funds available to fulfill its obligation to fund the Snap program.
Such available funding includes $5.25bn in contingency funds that Congress has previously provided for the USDA to use when “necessary to carry out program operations”, the plaintiffs said.
Aside from the contingency funds, the plaintiffs argued that a separate fund with around $23bn in it could also be utilized to avoid what would be an unprecedented suspension of Snap benefits.
In the Massachusetts case, US district Judge Indira Talwani in Boston gave the administration until Monday to say whether it would partially pay for the benefits for November with contingency money or fund them fully with additional funds.
It wasn’t immediately clear how quickly the debit cards that beneficiaries use to buy groceries could be reloaded after the ruling. That process often takes one to two weeks.
The rulings are likely to face appeals.
In their challenge, the Democratic-led states argued that the agriculture department has the legal authority – and available funds – to at least partially maintain the program during the shutdown.
“Because of [the] USDA’s actions, Snap benefits will be delayed for the first time since the program’s inception,” the states said in their complaint. “Worse still, [the] USDA suspended Snap benefits even though, on information and belief, it has funds available to it that are sufficient to fund all, or at least a substantial portion, of November Snap benefits.”
The Trump administration has maintained that the department’s contingency fund is intended for natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods, not government shutdowns. The government has acknowledged that it has billions of federal dollars left, including emergency funds especially marked for Snap, but top officials have maintained they are unable to tap into those reserve funds.
The administration warned that a court order requiring it to use emergency reserves to fund Snap would be “operationally fraught”, arguing it could take weeks to deliver benefits and might leave families with less than half their normal monthly allotment. In court filings, officials noted that such a partial payment “has never been made – and for good reason”.
The argument appears to contradict the department’s lapsed funding plan, released in late September, which stated that Congress’s “evident” intent was for Snap operations to continue during a government shutdown and pointed to “multi-year contingency funds” that could be tapped in the event the closures dragged on. The plan has been removed from the department’s website.
The USDA’s website now carries a strikingly partisan notice, accusing Senate Democrats, incorrectly, of shutting down the government to provide healthcare to undocumented immigrants and trans Americans. “Bottom line, the well has run dry,” the notice says. “At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 01.”
The administration’s refusal to intervene underscored a broader strategy during the shutdown, now the second-longest in US history. Throughout the impasse, Trump has selectively reprogrammed federal funds to protect priorities central to his political agenda – such as paying troops and law enforcement officers, including those involved in immigration enforcement – while allowing other programs like Snap to starve.
Bracing for the loss of federal nutrition assistance, food banks and pantries, already stretched thin amid rising food prices, were bracing for a surge in demand. Officials in states such as Virginia, Maryland, Louisiana, Hawaii and Minnesota have announced plans to tap state and local funds to provide food aid and assist food banks in the interim.
Governors in states such as New York, Delaware, Oregon and Virginia have declared the looming crisis a state of emergency, while states set aside millions to help offset the lapse of federal benefits.
“Unlike Washington Republicans, I won’t sit idly by as families struggle to put food on the table,” New York governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, announced on Thursday.
In California, Democratic governor Gavin Newsom said he would deploy the California national guard under his command to support food banks and announced $80m in state support to fill the Snap gap.
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