The Blue Country Gazette is the successor to the Rim Country Gazette, reflecting our evolution to a nationwide political blog for readers who identify as "blue," liberals, progressives, and/or Democrats. Our mission is to provide distinctive coverage of issues during a time of extreme polarization in the U.S. We strive to provide side-stories and back-stories that provide additional insights and perspectives conventional coverage often doesn't include.
Trump
delivers remarks on the "Farmers to Families Food Box Program" at Flavor
First Growers and Packers, on Aug. 24, 2020, in Mills River, North
Carolina.BEEF FROM ARGENTINA: Goes from promising them they'll "have fun" to "throwing them under the tractor"
President Donald Trump posts on Truth Social in March:
To the Great Farmers of the United States: Get ready to start
making a lot of agricultural product to be sold INSIDE of the United
States. Tariffs will go on external product on April 2nd. Have fun!
ACT II
Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins says in April:
There's no one that's going to fight harder or smarter or more
strategically than @POTUS—for ALL Americans ... we are going to put
America FIRST; not China, not India, not beef from Argentina, not dairy
products from Canada — but America first.
The only price we have that's high is beef, and we'll get that
down. And one of the things we're thinking about doing is beef from
Argentina.
Weirdly, American farmers don’t like this play. The people who
most strongly supported Trump in all three of his elections are now
crying about it.
“NCBA’s family farmers and ranchers have numerous concerns with
importing more Argentinian beef to lower prices for consumers. This
plan only creates chaos at a critical time of the year for American
cattle producers, while doing nothing to lower grocery store prices,” said Colin Woodall, CEO of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, a strongly pro-Trump organization.
“Field of bad dreams” by Tim Campbell
Actually, this self-interested industry hack is wrong. Importing Argentinian beef will lower prices. It’s basic Econ 101: more supply means lower prices.
And that’s exactly the problem for America’s farmers—they’re
not essential. If food can be produced cheaper elsewhere, we’ll buy it
elsewhere.
For decades, blue America and blue cities in red states have subsidizedrural America’s inefficiency—funding
hospitals, schools, postal service, broadband, and other infrastructure
in places with more cows than people. And for that generosity, we’ve
been repaid with resentment, bigotry, division, and the election of the
man who embodies all of it.
So to hell
with all their precious subsidies. There’s a certain poetic justice in
watching Trump’s most loyal supporters become his latest victims. Just
months after his agriculture secretary promised to protect them from
Argentinian beef in the name of “America First,” Trump threw them under
the tractor.
That’s the story of Trumpism, really—betrayal dressed up as populism—as he works to help his friends (in this case, Argentina’s right-wing president Javier Milei) at the expense of his country.
Now, the people who cheered him the loudest are finally learning what the rest of us already knew.
Screwing farmers might be Trump's biggest faux pas since slapping tariffs on penguins. Wonder if penguins taste anything like beef?
"Devout Christian" and Trump Suck-Up House Speaker Mike Johnson attempts to 'splain why Republican congresspeople are on a month-long vacation during the government shutdown. Where in the bible does it say that's OK? Meanwhile, Democrats await their return to DC.Release of Epstein files among reasons Johnson won't let the house resume its work
House Speaker Mike Johnson is still defending his asinine decision to keep the House in recess for more than a month.
"House Republicans are doing some of the most meaningful work of their careers,” he said
during a news conference Monday. “They are in their districts working
around the clock with their constituents, helping them not only to
negotiate the crisis that's been created by this Democrat shutdown, but
all the other matters that they need to attend to. And I am hearing from
them individually. They are having some of the most meaningful
interactions at a time of great crisis with their constituents that
they've ever had, and that's really, really important. So I don't want
to pull them away from that work.”
Johnson
also claimed that there’s "plenty of time" left in the year for
Republicans to do the legislative work that they were elected to do—even
though that’s not at all true.
Not a single individual spending bill
needed to fund government functions for the entire fiscal year has made
it to President Donald Trump’s desk for a signature. In fact, the
stopgap continuing resolution that Republicans passed in September is set to expire
on Nov. 21. So even if the government reopened today, that would give
Congress less than a month to pass the longer-term spending bills needed
to keep the government open.
Republicans are also not working on legislation to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies to prevent millions
of Americans’ health insurance premiums from doubling, which is why the
government has shut down in the first place. Though a number of GOP
lawmakers are now privately fretting that not taking action will hurt their party in the 2026 midterms.
A closed sign stands in front of the National Archives on the first day of a government shutdown on Oct. 1.
As for the "meaningful" work that Johnson says Republicans are
doing in their districts, it certainly can’t be town hall meetings to
hear constituents' concerns.
Johnson told Republicans not to hold town halls, since voters are showing up to yell at them for cutting Medicaid and food stamps and for allowing Trump to wreck the economy with his idiotic tariffs.
In fact, Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa—one of the most vulnerable Republicans up for reelection in 2026—said that she'll hold a town hall "when hell freezes over.”
Perhaps
the "meaningful" work includes virulently racist Rep. Randy Fine of
Florida trying to "denaturalize and deport" New York City Democratic
mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.
“I just think we need to take a hard look at how these folks
became citizens, and if there is any fraud or any violation of the rules
we need to denaturalize and deport,” Fine told the New York Post Saturday.
Then there’s Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, who met with the leader of Russia's sovereign wealth fund during his visit to the United States to try to convince Trump and the GOP not to impose sanctions on Russia for targeting innocent civilians in its evil war on Ukraine.
And we can’t forget Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, who’s been continuing his investigations into the Biden administration in an attempt to gin up anger among the right. What a "meaningful” use of his time.
Other Republicans are merely using their time off to defend
Trump from whatever new scandal is plaguing his administration, whether
it be his demolition of the White House, his demonization of the massive “No Kings” protests, or his $230 million shakedown of U.S. taxpayers.
Despite his many excuses, the reason that Johnson doesn't want to bring the House back from recess is because it would force him to swear in Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva, who would be the final signature to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files—which Trump doesn’t want made public.
It would also allow congressional reporters better access to
GOP lawmakers to ask questions about the shutdown and Trump's other
lawless actions, which could cause bad news cycles for Republicans who
are already struggling to deflect blame for their shutdown.
At the end of the day, voters are unlikely to buy Johnson’s
spin that it’s more “meaningful” for Republicans to be on vacation than
it is for them to be doing their jobs.
This statue of Trump and Epstein skipping merrily along currently adorns the Washington Mall. Where have all the little girls gone?
President Donald Trump stands in front of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.Trump's 2017 health care pledge still hasn't happened causing government shutdown
Explaining the Rightis
a weekly series that looks at what the right wing is currently
obsessing over, how it influences politics—and why you need to know.
In response to Democrats highlighting GOP opposition
to Affordable Care Act subsidies on which millions of Americans rely,
Republicans have once again been forced to revisit their approach to
health care.
The current crisis
GOP Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin argued that losing critical health care subsidies is not a serious issue, even as families have been experiencing sticker shock as their premiums increase.
“I don't think this is going to be any kind of gut-wrenching
problem if these enhanced subsidies just go away. We'll probably have
to weather the lies told by the Democrats. Democrats say all sorts of
things that are untrue,”he told CNBC.
GOP Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin
Meanwhile, failed presidential candidate and current Florida Gov. Ron DeSantisquestioned whether people even need comprehensive coverage.
“Most people, particularly under 50, what they really need is a
catastrophic plan that’s affordable, where then they can pay whatever
they’re doing out of a health savings account,” he argued.
DeSantis is a Navy veteran and has access to comprehensive coverage for himself and his family, by the way.
In Congress, the subsidies have become a pivotal issue in the ongoing government shutdown. Republicanshave refused to pass legislation that would fund the vital program, forcing a shutdown that has rippled through the economy.
The right always hated health care
Opposition to health care legislation runs deep within the
Republican Party, which has opposed efforts to help families for
decades.
Back in the early 1960s, when he was transitioning from actor to politician, Ronald Reagan made a recording that was sent out across the country warning about the dangers of “socialized medicine.”
Before President Lyndon B. Johnson signed popular programs like
Medicaid and Medicare into law as part of his “Great Society” policies,
Reagan and company said that health care would be used to open the door
to communism.
Of course, that never happened.
A little more than 30 years later, the Clinton administration made a push for health care reform. The rightrailed against the plan, which was shepherded by first lady Hillary Clinton, ultimately killing reform for more than a decade.
Still fighting in the 21st century
It took the crisis of the Great Recession and the overwhelming
victory of President Barack Obama to make health care reform a
possibility in 2009. The right mounted what was arguably its biggest
smear campaign to frame the plan—which was modeled after Republican
ideas executed in Massachusetts—as a socialist takeover of the health
care system.
People supporting the Affordable Care Act hold signs that read, “We [love] Obamacare,” and, “Protect the law.”
The right-wing talking point that the legislation would create “death panels” of bureaucrats cutting off health carewas dubbed
“lie of the year” by PolitiFact that year. Ultimately, the campaign was
unsuccessful, and Obama signed the Affordable Care Act—which the right
mocked as “Obamacare,” in 2010.
After that, the right failed to challenge the legislation all the way to the Supreme Court, spending many of the following years voting over and over again in Congress to repeal the bill.
In
the heat of the fight over the ACA, conservative voters showed where
they stood. In a 2011 Tea Party debate with presidential candidates,audience members cheered
on the notion that, instead of providing government-funded health care
to a sick patient, it would be preferable to just “let him die.”
But when the right wasn’t fighting against insurance reform and
comprehensive coverage, they were attacking health care in other
venues.
For example, the late Sen. John McCain of Arizona slammed Democrats
for supporting abortion care when the “life of the mother” is at risk,
using air quotes to sarcastically repeat the phrase during a debate
against Obama in 2008.
More recently, the Trump administration haspursued
numerous cuts and changes to health care for veterans. And ahead of the
passage of health care cuts in the GOP’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill,”
Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowaargued in May that it didn’t matter if people lose their health care because “we all are going to die.”
Conservatives have no health care plans
Right-wing figures like Trump have spent nearly a decade promising a policy solution to health care issues. Trump first promised a health care plan that would provide “insurance for everybody” back in January 2017. It still hasn’t happened.
What the right refuses to acknowledge is that the
public—including many Republicans—backs government-supported health
care. Programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and now Obamacare have significant support.
It turns out that people would prefer to see doctors and have access to medicationinstead of relying on the “free” market and the profit-driven whims of the insurance industry.
Conservatives have devoted themselves to destroying and
undermining government assistance on health care while failing to
provide any real alternative.
The right supports a world where health care is so nonexistent
that the alternative is sickness, suffering, and death—and the quicker
the better.
Virginia Roberts Giuffre poses with a photo of herself as a teen. (Emily Michot/Miami Herald via ZUMA Press Wire)
She
is a former Epstein victim who said she was trafficked to Prince Andrew
when she was 17. Her posthumous memoir, completed shortly before her
suicide in April, recounts the full, revolting story.
Book reviews, cultural critiques, essays on the zeitgeist, and profiles of the avant-garde.
How could Buckingham Palace somehow signal to the public that the priapic dunce Prince Andrew is even more deplorable than was previously thought? That was the creative task King Charles faced last week, after the release of a mortifyingly chummy email
from Prince Andrew to Jeffrey Epstein (“We’re in this
together. . . . We’ll play some more soon!!!”) in 2011 that proved
Andrew’s well-creased pants were on fire when he asserted in the
calamitous Emily Maitlis BBC interview that he had “honorably” cut off contact with the convicted pedophile in 2010.
The release this week of a posthumous memoir
by Virginia Giuffre, the former Epstein sex slave who said she was
trafficked to Andrew when she was 17, promised to make this hot mess
even hotter. Throw in yet another incident of bad judgment in his eager meetings with an alleged Chinese spymaster and it’s clear Andrew requires the equivalent of house arrest without the anklet.
But
how do you disappear a 6-foot-tall, 190-pound, 65-year-old man in
robust good health who has an ironclad contract to live in the Queen
Mother’s former mansion,
a short neigh from Windsor Castle and just four miles from the new
“forever” home of Prince William and Kate, who can’t abide him? His
mother, Queen Elizabeth, had already, in 2022,
reluctantly stripped him of his military honors, his HRH title, and his
royal duties. So this time, he lost the cherished title of Duke of
York, plus a few remaining grand honorifics. Now, there is nothing left
to deprive him of but his electric toothbrush.
(Knopf)
The trouble is that most people think being a prince (a title Andrew retains) is a bigger deal than being a duke. While there are ships, schools, peninsulas, and even a nursery rhyme
named for the Grand Old Duke of York, the title throws off neither an
income nor a stately home of his own. The erstwhile Duke of Dross also
relinquished the oldest chivalric medal, of Most Noble Order of the Garter, which is marked by a procession at which creaking establishment honorees wear full ceremonial rig, including huge feathery Lady Bracknell hats—an odd sight, for instance, on Tony Blair.
But
that occasion has zero relevance to the British public, who mostly
think of the garter ceremony, if they think about it at all, as some
poncey royal excuse for dressing up. (William, who hates any kind of
costume change, is looking forward, I am told, to getting rid of the
garter flummery when he is calling the shots.)
So, in lieu of a Tower of London solution, unless Andrew can be persuaded to banish himself to a cottage on the Balmoral estate
or a cushy villa on a Dubai golf course, his scowly, jowly visage will
keep seeping back into the national consciousness. The untenable hazard
of banning him from public events but allowing him to still show up at
family occasions was writ large at the September funeral
of the Duchess of Kent, the late queen’s cousin. As the mourning royal
party paused respectfully in the door of Westminster Cathedral when the
duchess’s funeral cortege passed, Andrew loomed like a great white shark
at the shoulder
of a stone-faced Prince William. It was impossible for William, staring
implacably in the other direction, to get his uncle’s baleful mug out
of the shot.
No
chance of that happening again. Andrew is now not even permitted to
come to Sandringham to partake of the family Christmas pudding and
instead faces a Scrooge-like fate of bitter seasonal reflection. (At
least, he will share it with his loyal ex-wife, the erstwhile duchess,
Sarah Ferguson, who arguably took an even more bitter hit, losing all
her charities and rising social acceptance. Her demotion followed the release of an email
calling Epstein her “steadfast, generous and supreme friend,” after she
publicly denounced him with pious protestations of abhorring
pedophilia.)
On Friday, The Times reported that Andrew will not be invited to William’s coronation, whenever that occurs. The thornier question, perhaps approaching faster
than anyone is indelicate enough to discuss, is whether, in the
fullness of time, Andrew will be allowed to attend his brother, the
king’s, funeral.
House of Shame
Virginia Giuffre’s long-awaited memoir, completed shortly before her suicide
at the age of 41 in April, does not, in fact, offer anything new about
Andrew’s alleged sexual predations. But just being reminded again in
full, revolting detail of Giuffre’s 25 months in the clutches of Epstein
and Ghislaine Maxwell, whom Giuffre describes as “less as boyfriend and
girlfriend, and more as two halves of a wicked whole,” redoubles
disgust for anyone who continued to consort with them.
I
found it especially poignant that Giuffre tried to delude herself that
the chillingly detached Epstein actually cared about her, a
self-deception banished after he handed her over to service a “former
prime minister” who raped her so brutally she was bleeding profusely
when she emerged from his cabana on Epstein’s private Caribbean island.
Though Epstein knew about this assault—“you’ll get that sometimes,” he
told her insouciantly—he nonetheless instructed her to board a private
plane a few weeks later for sex with an unnamed friend, who turned out
to be that same savage former prime minister.
Virginia Giuffre at Naomi Campbell’s birthday party in 2001. (Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)
And
anyone who supports Trump pardoning Maxwell, Epstein’s imperious,
Oxford-educated adjutant, who cruised high school exits and upscale spas
(she first spotted Virginia working at the Mar-a-Lago spa),
looking for fresh teenage targets, should consider that Epstein could
never have groomed so many hundreds of young victims without Maxwell’s
reassuring, pedigreed feminine overtures.
In her book,
Giuffre observes Ghislaine’s insecurity when she turns 40 and starts to
resent the nubile Virginia, whom Epstein, like a perverse child, always
demanded to be tucked in by at night. Maxwell “began lashing out at me
during our threesomes. . .she would grab a larger-than-life dildo and
use it to hurt me. If I complained, she hurt me more.” Giuffre finally
resolved to escape Epstein and Maxwell’s “house of shame” when they
pressured her to have Epstein’s baby and sign over all parental rights
to him. “What if the baby were female?” Giuffre wonders. “Was the plan
for Epstein and Maxwell to have me bring that little girl up until she
reached puberty, then hand her over for them to abuse?”
Stolen Childhood
Horror.
Horror. Horror. And yet it’s not the most upsetting aspect of this
harrowing memoir. Until now, Giuffre had acknowledged she was abused
from the age of 7 by a “family friend.” Now, we learn that the “family
friend” was her own father, who today strenuously denies the claim.
Giuffre says he also passed her on to his muscly, tattooed buddy “Uncle
Forrest,” later convicted for molesting another young victim.
Giuffre
is convinced her mother knew what was going on but, instead of
intervening to stop it, began to coldly turn away from her, and beat her
with a thorny switch when she acted up. No wonder Virginia was a serial
runaway. Dumped into a Lord of the Flies juvie
center, she was picked up at age 15 by a creepy 63-year-old predator who
called himself her “new daddy,” groomed her with the purchase of
G-strings and lacy lingerie, and pimped her out to others. In the
scented luxury spa of Mar-a-Lago, where she thought she had at last
landed a real job, it’s easy to see why Giuffre’s emotional damage made
her susceptible to Maxwell’s soothing blandishments to come and give
massages to a rich guy she knew in Palm Beach.
The
unconvincing hero of the book is Virginia’s husband, Robbie, father of
her three children, who rescued her in Thailand when she fled Epstein,
and took her back with him to Australia as his wife, just 10 days after
they met. In these pages, Robbie is her supportive white knight. But the
sad truth, according to her brothers, is that he’d long been abusing
her. To People magazine, in April of this year, Virginia finally admitted,
“I was unable to escape the domestic violence in my marriage until
recently.” It was a final cruel betrayal by someone she had again
thought of as a protector.
Prince Andrew appears with Virginia Giuffre and Ghislaine Maxwell. (U.S. Department of Justice via Alamy)
In
the last years of her life, as she told her traumatic story over and
over in courtrooms and in interviews, Virginia’s health collapsed as if,
she says, her body was “staging a revolt.” She had endured threats,
harassment, and reputation-bashing from the lawyers of high-powered men
who feared what she knew. (London’s Metropolitan Police are now “actively” investigating
whether Prince Andrew tried to obtain damaging information about her.)
Her suicide this year, alone in her bleak farmhouse in Western
Australia, was evidence she believed she would never escape the pain of
her past.
See No Evil
The title of Giuffre’s book is Nobody’s Girl, but perhaps a more fitting title would be Blind Eye.
Her tragic story is one long indictment of people who looked the other
way. Her mother, who allowed her husband to take Virginia’s innocence.
The stream of affluent, powerful people who never asked why this stray
teenager was part of Epstein’s depraved entourage.
Even the sainted Queen Elizabeth, who, in 2011, bestowed on
Andrew her highest personal honor of the Knight Grand Cross of the
Royal Victorian Order as a decoy strategy to protect him—and the sunny
karma of the impending storybook wedding of William and Kate—from
mounting threats of bad press about his disgraceful abiding friendship
with Jeffrey Epstein.
Perhaps the most telling record of collective callousness is the snap of Virginia
taken at supermodel Naomi Campbell’s 31st birthday party in
Saint-Tropez in 2001, where she had been dragged along by Epstein and
Maxwell. Lost amid the sea of adult partiers, the waiflike Virginia
looks even younger and more vulnerable than her age. Years later, in
2020, when she had become a vocal campaigner against sex trafficking,
Giuffre posted on Twitter,
“You saw me at your parties, you saw me in Epstein’s homes, you saw me
on the plane. . . . You saw me on the streets, you watched me be abused.
You saw me!”
California
Governor Gavin Newsom’s one-liner about the White House demolition
photos exploded online Tuesday, as fresh images showed crews tearing
into the East Wing to make way for President Donald Trump’s planned $250
million ballroom.
“Ripping apart the White House just like he’s ripping
apart the Constitution,” Newsom posted, a jab that quickly racked up more than 3.4 million views as the clip and screenshots spread across social media.
Demolition
began this week despite earlier assurances from the White House that
the project would not “interfere” with the existing structure. Heavy
equipment was seen dismantling portions of the East Wing facade,
confirming that construction is not limited to minor renovations or
temporary additions.
The planned addition is enormous; the designs
describe a 90,000-square-foot venue capable of hosting nearly a thousand
guests, far exceeding the capacity of the existing East Room.
The
Trump administration has maintained that the new ballroom will be
privately funded, with the president boasting that “no taxpayer dollars”
will be used and that “patriotic donors” are footing the bill.
Officials argue the expansion will modernize White House entertaining
and reduce reliance on temporary event spaces.
Critics, however, have
blasted it as a personal vanity project that damages one of the nation’s
most historic buildings.
Public
reaction has been fierce and divided. News footage of bulldozers and
scaffolding outside the East Wing quickly flooded social media, sparking
both outrage and disbelief. Some White House staff have reportedly been
warned not to share unauthorized images of the work zone after earlier
leaks fueled a public backlash.
The
East Wing, traditionally home to the First Lady’s offices and
ceremonial entrances, now looks like a construction site. The contrast
between the classical limestone facade and the raw exposed framework has
only amplified the criticism.
The sight of heavy machinery tearing into
the executive mansion after repeated claims that no demolition would be
needed has turned the project into a viral spectacle.
Trump’s
team insists the ballroom will be a “legacy project,” a grand,
state-of-the-art space for official events, summits, and fundraisers.
Supporters say the project’s private funding makes it cost-free to
taxpayers and argue that the president is simply modernizing an outdated
structure. Trump himself has described the addition as a “world-class
ballroom” and “the finest venue in Washington.”
Opponents
argue the project symbolizes the president’s disregard for tradition
and transparency. Editorials have noted that the administration’s
earlier statements about limited construction were misleading, and
watchdogs are demanding more information about the private donors
financing the project.
Meanwhile,
Newsom’s viral comment captured the political mood in real time. His
sharp line, comparing the construction to Trump’s treatment of the
Constitution, struck a chord with critics and dominated political
chatter throughout the day.
While
the ballroom continues to rise, so does the controversy around it. What
began as a construction story has become a political flashpoint, and
Newsom’s zinger may end up being the line that defines it.
I've seen photos of "topless girls of an uncertain age sitting on Trump's lap," says biographer
(Gazette Blog Editor's Note: Following are two articles about allegations by biographer Michael Wolff that he has actually seen the photos referenced in the headline above. The first is a background article by Ellsworth Toohey about the Wolff allegations. Following that is the actual article by Julia Ornedo containing the allegations. In researching this matter, the Gazette Blog has found no credible rebuttals. We leave it to our readers to draw their own conclusions.)
Wolff's allegations came during an "emergency" episode
of The Daily Beast Podcast after Musk escalated his feud with Trump by
posting on X: "Time to drop the really big bomb. Trump is in the Epstein
files and that is the real reason they have not been made public."
Most
shocking is Wolff's claim that he has personally seen compromising
images of Trump with Epstein. In the podcast, Wolff stated:
I
have seen the pictures of Donald Trump's and Jeffrey Epstein's girls
together… I have seen these pictures. I know that these pictures exist
and I can describe them. There are about a dozen of them. The ones I
specifically remember is the two of them with topless girls of an
uncertain age sitting on Trump's lap. And then Trump standing there with
a stain on the front of his pants and three or four girls kind of bent
over in laughter - they're topless, too - pointing at Trump's pants.
Wolff
described Trump and Epstein as the "best of friends" for 15 years,
claiming "They shared girlfriends, they shared airplanes, [and] business
strategy… they were inseparable."
These claims build on previous reporting about Trump's relationship with Epstein. Trump once told New York
magazine that Epstein was "a terrific guy" who is "a lot of fun to be
with," adding ominously, "It is even said that he likes beautiful women
as much as I do,and many of them are on the younger side."
Of
course, in our era of increasingly sophisticated AI deepfakes, even if
such photos were to surface, Trump would likely dismiss them as
fabricated "fake news" - a defense his most devoted supporters would
readily accept regardless of authenticity. This technological reality
creates a convenient shield against potentially damaging visual
evidence.
It's
worth noting that the White House press secretary responded to Musk's
post but not to Wolff's specific allegations about photos. The Trump
camp has previously dismissed Wolff's Epstein recordings as "false
smears" and "election interference."
Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump. (photo: NBC)
Trump biographer Michael Wolff reveals he was shown the lewd photos by Jeffrey Epstein himself.
Julia Ornedo/The Daily Beast
11 October 25
Jeffrey Epstein once dug into his safe to take out
photos of Donald Trump posing with topless girls on his lap, author
Michael Wolff revealed on a Thursday episode of Inside Trump’s Head.
The photos became the subject of controversy earlier this week when Attorney General Pam Bondi dodged Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s questions about whether the FBI found the images during a search of Epstein’s belongings.
Wolff, who Epstein once asked to write a book about him, recalled how
the convicted sex offender took those photos out of his safe and spread
them out on his massive dining room table during one encounter about 10
years ago.
“I am one of the people who has seen these pictures,” Wolff told host
Joanna Coles. “And these are pictures that Jeffrey Epstein would take
out of his safe and kind of display on his dining room table almost as
you would playing cards. This amused him to have these pictures.”
Wolff said Epstein once stepped out of the room during a discussion
about Trump and came back holding about a dozen snapshots that resembled
Polaroids.
“There were specifically three that I remember—and this is now almost
10 years ago—but the three that I remember are two in which topless
young women, and I don’t know the ages of these women, but they are
young, are sitting in Trump’s lap. And this is outside Jeffrey Epstein’s
house in Palm Beach, around the swimming pool,” he said.
“In the third picture, he’s wearing light pants and there’s a stain
on the front of his trousers,” Wolff added. “And the girls—three, four,
four or five as I remember—are pointing at the stain and laughing. And
that is what I remember.”
Wolff said he encouraged Epstein “to do something with these pictures” after Trump was elected president.
“And he said, ’I can’t now. I may be such and such, but I’m not
crazy,’ implying that he had some reason to fear the wrath of Donald
Trump,” the author said.
Sought for comment, White House Communications Director Steven Cheung offered up his boilerplate criticism of Wolff.
“Michael Wolff is a lying sack of s--t and has been proven to be a
fraud. He routinely fabricates stories originating from his sick and
warped imagination, only possible because he has a severe and
debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his
peanut-sized brain,” Cheung told the Daily Beast.
Bondi got grilled by lawmakers on Tuesday amid growing concerns about
Trump’s political influence over the Justice Department. At one point,
Whitehouse pressed the Attorney General on whether the FBI found the
lewd photos among Epstein’s possessions.
Rather than provide a straightforward answer, a pugnacious Bondi
launched into an attack on the Democratic senator from Rhode Island.
“You know, Senator Whitehouse, you sit here and make salacious
remarks, once again trying to slander President Trump left and right
when you’re the one who was taking money from one of Epstein’s closest
confidants,” she said, proceeding to falsely accuse Whitehouse of taking
money from Democratic Party mega-donor and LinkedIn co-founder Reid
Hoffman.
Hoffman met with Epstein multiple times even after the disgraced financier’s 2008 conviction. The tech billionaire told Axios in 2019 that he regretted the interactions.
Whitehouse later denied accepting donations from Hoffman: “This isn’t
the ’gotcha’ moment the AG was hoping for. Campaign donations are
public records — I haven’t received a single contribution from the
person AG Bondi names here. (Some fact-checker!)”
An estimated seven millions protestors rallied as part of “No
Kings Day” across the United States on Saturday to protest President
Donald Trump’s administration, marking the second round of rallies
following an estimated 5-million-person turnout in June during Trump’s
birthday military parade.
The rallies took place in some 2,600 locations across the 50 states — from small towns to big cities — which the coalition says are peaceful demonstrations against Trump’s “authoritarian power grabs,” including his military-style immigration raids.
Thousands of people took to the streets of what organizers deemed
anchor cities, such as New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago,
Philadelphia, Boston, and Atlanta.
New York City was quickly flooded with 100,000 protestors on Saturday
morning, with thousands taking over Times Square holding signs that call
on officials to “stop the deportations” and “save our democracy.”
7th
Avenue was shut down as drivers were asked to avoid the street,
according to the New York Police Department, who added that the
department made zero protest-related arrests.
Tens of thousands descended on Chicago, kicking off near Lake
Michigan. Protestors held colorful signs condemning the increase in ICE
raids across the city following the launch of “Operation Midway Blitz”
in September.
The Department of Homeland Security said over 1,500 people have been arrested as part of the Trump Administration’s immigration crackdown in the city.
Over 30 separate rallies are taking place across Los Angeles County, comprised of thousands of protestors.
Organizers anticipated
over 100,000 people to turn out in the nation’s capital. Top Democrats,
such as Senate Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Bernie Sanders, also
joined in on the rallies.
“We’re here because we love America,” Sanders said, addressing the crowd from a stage in Washington.
Thousands of protestors arrived
at Independence Mall in Philadelphia, beating drums and displaying
videos. Officials announced road closures and parking restrictions from
Independence Mall to City Hall, telling attendees they should expect
delays.
Demonstrators wore inflatable animal costumes, including a unicorn, as a symbol of solidarity with protests in Portland.
These costumes were worn to protest Trump’s deportation efforts and the National Guard deployment in the city.
Ahead of Saturday’s protests, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson labeled the demonstrations as “Hate America” rallies.
Several governors have activated the National Guard ahead of the
protests, and President Trump, who’s in Mar-a-Lago for the day, has
expanded deployment in Democrat-led cities.
Ahead of the protests, Trump said in a clip aired Friday on Mornings With Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business, that he is “not a king,” also rejecting claims the government shutdown was timed to coincide with the rallies.
“No. I mean, some people say they want to delay it for that,” Trump
said. “A king... this is not a king. You know, they’re saying, they’re
referring to me as a king. I’m not a king.”
“No Kings” is a coalition of left-leaning groups meant to emphasize that the U.S. does not have an absolute ruler.
