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.
For the past week, official Washington has talked
constantly about the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, except for the
agency that has custody of the Epstein files.
The Justice Department has been silent.
On Tuesday, the House and Senate agreed to pass a bill
calling on Attorney General Pam Bondi to release all unclassified
information and files related to the sprawling sex trafficking
investigation into the onetime powerful financier.
The Justice Department so far has continued to say nothing about how
it would respond to that demand. There are many reasons to doubt that a
bulk release of the files is imminent.
If President Donald Trump wanted Bondi to release all of the Epstein
files, he could have ordered her to do so at any point in the past six
months. He didn’t.
On Sunday, when Trump did an about-face
and said House Republicans should vote in favor of releasing the
Epstein files, he notably did not say he favored releasing them.
Instead, he said in a social media post that the House “can have
whatever they are legally entitled to, I DON’T CARE!”
What Congress is “legally entitled to” is a more complicated question than the rhetoric from Capitol Hill might imply.
The legislation that Congress agreed to pass Tuesday gives the
Justice Department a few exceptions under which it can refuse to release
material. Among them: if release “would jeopardize an active federal
investigation or ongoing prosecution.”
On Friday, Trump ordered Bondi to launch a new federal investigation
related to Epstein — this one aimed at his ties to several prominent
Democrats, including former president Bill Clinton, megadonor Reid
Hoffman and former treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers. Bondi said
the top federal prosecutor in New York City would take on the task.
That investigation could become a reason for the Justice Department
to block release of many files. Bondi and her deputies have previously
said they cannot release information about active investigations.
Other information could be covered by grand jury secrecy rules. The
bill Congress agreed to pass does not explicitly waive those.
Bondi has also said many of the files cannot be released because they
contain sensitive victim information and pornographic material. The
legislation contains another exception allowing the Justice Department
to withhold material that “would constitute a clearly unwarranted
invasion of personal privacy” or “depicts or contains child sexual
abuse.”
There would not be much recourse for Congress if the Justice
Department refused to hand over the files since the bill does not have
any enforcement teeth.
If the House decided to issue a subpoena demanding the materials, and
the Justice Department refused, the chamber’s leaders could refer
officials for criminal prosecution. But it would fall to Bondi to decide
whether to prosecute herself or her deputies, rendering that threat
potentially empty.
On Tuesday, some Republican lawmakers said they were confident that
given the legislation, the administration would release the files. Sen.
Rand Paul of Kentucky said he hoped the vote in the House was so
overwhelming that it would persuade the administration not to block the
release of the files.
“I think it’d be a mistake,” Paul said. “If they really try to play
games and obscure some of that, I think it’ll really backfire on them.”
Some Democrats were more pessimistic. Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont
said he would not be surprised if Bondi refused to release documents
because of the investigation she announced last week.
“It would be naive of any of us to think that Trump has really had a
conversion,” Welch said, referring to the president’s call for House
Republicans to vote for the bill after months of trying to block it. “He
does not want the information out.”
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York said he met
with 10 other Senate Democrats on Tuesday evening to discuss ways to
press the administration to release the files.
Democrats will do “everything we can to make sure all of it, all of
it comes to light and they don’t hide evidence against anyone who might
be incriminated by these documents,” Schumer told reporters.
That subpoena, in theory, is still in play, and Congress could attempt to enforce it.
For months, Trump has struggled to contain backlash from within his own party
over the Justice Department’s decision this summer not to release the
bulk of its investigative file on Epstein. Democrats have accused the
president of attempting to hide embarrassing material documenting his
years-long friendship with the disgraced financier.
Trump has said that he knew Epstein socially in Palm Beach, Florida,
and that they had a falling-out in the mid-2000s. Trump’s name appears
several times in previously released documents from Epstein’s estate,
but the president has maintained that he had “no idea” about Epstein’s
criminal behavior. The documents have produced no evidence of wrongdoing
by Trump.
Some within the Republican Party have demanded further disclosures,
believing the Justice Department is covering up information that could
be damaging to the prominent and powerful friends with whom Epstein
surrounded himself. Others have questioned the circumstances of
Epstein’s 2019 death while in custody awaiting a federal sex trafficking
trial. He was found hanged in his cell, and the death was ruled a
suicide.
The questions surrounding Trump’s relationship with Epstein reached a
fever pitch last week when the House Oversight Committee released
thousands of pages of Epstein’s emails, including several in which he referenced his relationship to Trump.
Epstein, Bondi and Trump go way back to the halcyon days of molesting young girls. Wonder if Bondi's name comes up in the Epstein files?
How does a country burst? To answer this
questions, it helps to see matters as do the president and the
vice-president: from inside a grift bubble.
As I traveled around the United States these last few weeks --
Columbus, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, DC, Boston,
Chicago -- , I tried to explain that I worry more about the
disintegration of the United States than about a regime change in which
Donald Trump exercises autocratic power from coast to coast.
The effort to create authoritarianism is more likely to lead to a breakup of the state than to a total regime change.
This end of the United States is possible, in part, because our
president and vice-president think that it is impossible. Because they
are inside a grift bubble, they push for authoritarianism in their own
interest, without reckoning with the possibility that their actions can
wreck the country. For them, America is a limitless passive resource.
Your perspective is probably different than theirs. To help us
understand this risk, it helps to try to see the world from inside a
grift bubble.
Imagine that you are a first-rate grifter: the president of the
United States, say. Your grift is that you pretend to be a successful
businessman, and use that supposed expertise to make your case for the
presidency, which office you then use to make money.
Or imagine instead
that you are the vice-president. Your grift is that you claim to
understand poor people, whose problems, you say, are the fault of gays,
immigrants, and billionaires; and then you rise to power thanks to the
money and support of a gay immigrant billionaire.
Given that these are their shticks, and that they have worked, you
can see how Trump and Vance might conclude that Americans are gullible
and that all things are possible.
The initial claim, the wild lie, is like the air the gets a balloon
started: Trump is a rich person; Vance cares about the poor people. The
big lies work! And then there is more lying, more hot air, a growing
space, a sense of comfort, a safe space for fascist oligarchy.
You grift on and you grift on, and the bubble just gets bigger. It
seems like you know everything that you need to know, and that the
grift, the graft, and the gruffety-gruff can go on forever. When you
have lived for a long time inside a grift bubble, you think you have
seen it all, but this is not the case. From inside a grift bubble, you
do not see the outside.
You do not grasp that your grift actually depends upon something
larger, something better, which it is sapping, weakening, bringing to
ruin.
You have fooled the world, and so you think that you understand it.
Indeed, as a grifter, you become contemptuous of how other people make
their living and live their lives. And yet your knowledge is actually
limited. You know things that those outside the grift bubble do not
know; but they also know things that you do not know.
You can take away what belongs to people without knowing how they
achieved or attained it. The guy who cheats the farmer at the county
fair does not know how to farm. The guy who profits from curated crypto
scams does not understand the world economy.
Trump and Vance imagine, because it has worked thus far, that they
can grift endlessly. They do not understand that their grift depends
upon what I will unashamedly call the honest labor and decent
convictions of millions of Americans. Were there not Americans who
actually worked and cared and tried to live right, there would be
nothing and no one to grift.
In an instructive article that he wrote in 1990, the American
novelist David Foster Wallace said that cynicism is a form of naïveté.
When you dismiss everything, you feel like you can do anything; but then
you don’t believe in some things that are real: like love, or law, or
patriotism. For you, such things are just tools of the trade,
manipulable handles, just the way to enlarge the grift. That they have
some other sense, that they are the building blocks of some other
reality -- this you do not see. And in that way you are naïve.
Trump and Vance are indeed naïve, in the precise way that corresponds
to their cynicism. They think that the United States will continue to
exist, for their sake, no matter what they do. From inside the grift
bubble, they see only grift, and think they see the whole country. As
the bubble grows bigger, they confuse their own profit with the
well-being of the whole.
The fact that Trump and Vance do not believe in real things such as
love and law and patriotism makes them strong in one way; it makes them
weak in another. They cannot foresee the larger consequences, because
they do not understand how the world works or how a country is
constructed. And as they break things, their naïveté prevents them from
seeing what is happening, and indeed forces them to snarl harder -- I
suspect that this is why, in some social media thing somewhere, the
vice-president lashed out at me on this very point.
And so here we are. The bigger the grift bubble grows, the less
healthy material remains beyond it. It sucks away what is productive. As
personal connections become the basis of business, the economy slows.
It sucks away what is ethical. As corruption comes to seem normal,
citizens lose trust in one another. As basic institutions are scorned
and destroyed, people cease to believe in the law. The material which
builds a nation -- moral, institutional, economic -- starts to give way.
I am worried about the disintegration of the republic for other reasons, of course.
The goal of this administration seems to be to show that government
does not work. The appointment of utter incompetents to positions of
high authority, the firings of qualified civil servants, and the
elimination of crucial agencies -- all this will likely bring epidemics
and terror attacks and other disasters. At some point amidst the federal
dysfunction the states will have to take on more responsibilities. But
why then should their citizens pay taxes to a useless -- but oppressive
-- federal government? ICE provoke people who live in cities; that does
not mean that cities will concede. The threat to use soldiers against
cities will likely create rifts inside the armed forces and the federal
government more broadly. We are not so far away, I fear, from some
branches of the federal government turning against other branches of the
federal government.
Trump also seems to be contemplating a war against Venezuela (or
whomever) to distract attention from his activities inside the grift
bubble. But any land war, which is what it would take to generate such a
distraction, will be difficult and unpredictable. He and Secretary of
Defense Pete Hegseth are unfathomably ignorant about modern warfare.
Such a move could lead not just to a lot of pointless death but to
unpredictable chaos.
All of these factors are connected with the grift bubble. Indeed,
they prove its existence. Some of these actions, like the destruction of
government agencies, are meant to make grifting easier. Others are
designed to generate cover for profiteering and corruption. None of
these policies, not one, was made with an eye to something outside the
grift bubble. Such actions only make sense to people who are inside the
grift and confuse their own position with reality.
The president and vice-president do not know the history of people
like themselves, or that of other republics that were needlessly brought
down by men of their particular sort. They think that the magic of words
will always save them, that there will always be a next grift, that no
crisis is so great that it cannot be turned to personal profit. This is
true right up until the moment when it is not.
The republic can break, but it need not. Those who work against the
grifters, who reinforce the reality beyond the bubble, are doing right.
They are not only holding back authoritarianism, but giving the republic
a chance. They may be acting from love, or from law, because they know
that these things are real. And so they should also know, in acting
thus, that they are the patriots.
Bob Bauer (right) served as White House counsel
under Democratic President Barack Obama. He joined Jack Goldsmith, who
worked for Republican President George W. Bush, in arguing that Trump
could dispute the 2026 midterms. (photo: Getty)
‘This prospect must be taken seriously,’ the lawyers for both former Democrat and Republican presidents warn
Brendan Rascius/The Independent
14 November 25
Government lawyers, who served the Bush and Obama
administrations, have warned that President Donald Trump may not take
midterm election losses lying down.
Bob Bauer, who served under former President Barack Obama, and Jack
Goldsmith, who worked for President George W. Bush, argued that Trump
could dispute next year’s election results, which will determine whether
or not the Republican party maintains control of Congress.
“His words and actions strongly suggest he may use the formidable powers of the presidency — and possibly even the armed forces — to resist 2026 electoral results he dislikes,” the lawyers wrote in The Economist Wednesday. “This prospect must be taken seriously.”
Bauer and Goldsmith noted that Trump has a history of questioning the
legitimacy of election results, pointing to the 2020 win of President
Joe Biden, which Trump has frequently described as “stolen” and
“rigged.”
And now — less than one year into his second term — Trump seems to be
preparing to contest the midterms, which historically have resulted in
losses for the president’s party.
As evidence, Bauer and Goldsmith pointed to an August Truth Social post
from Trump, in which he promised to “bring HONESTY to the 2026 Midterm
Elections” by eliminating mail-in ballots and voting machines.
States, “must do what the Federal Government…tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY…” Trump added.
Trump has also issued an executive order claiming presidential power
to impose voting regulations on states, including by mandating proof of
citizenship to vote.
This proposed federal takeover of elections “flies in the face of the
constitution, which expressly allocates authority over the ‘Times,
Places and Manner’ of congressional elections to the states and to
Congress,” Bauer and Goldsmith wrote.
So, what could Trump actually do when the midterms roll around? Bauer
and Goldsmith argue the president “could order many kinds of federal
intervention.”
“As he did in 2020, but with a stronger hand, he could push officials
to intervene in states, potentially seizing voting machines,” the
lawyers wrote. “He could use federal agencies to demand that states
co-operate with his administration’s efforts to detect election fraud.
He could intimidate election officials by ordering investigations of
claimed irregularities.”
But, the lawyers’ most serious concern is that Trump would invoke the
Insurrection Act — which allows the president to suppress unlawful
violence — and deploy the military across the country.
“Trump could claim his opponents are obstructing election laws and
call in troops to enforce those laws in accordance with his wishes,”
they wrote. “Such deployments could occur before, during or after voting
begins.
“The integrity of the 2026 election could thus, as in 2020, also
depend on the fortitude of state and local officials who administer
elections.”
The lawyers did not address the current redistricting effort
taking place in a number of states, including Texas and California,
which could dramatically alter the balance of power in Congress.
Other commentators have expressed similar concerns about Trump and the midterms, including Democratic strategist James Carville.
“I don’t put anything past him — nothing — to try to call the
election off, to do anything he can,” Carville said on a podcast in
July.
A White House spokesperson shot back a fiery retort to Fox Digital.
“Trump has taken more action to restore the integrity
of our elections on behalf of the American people than any president in
modern history,” the spokesperson said. “According to the Democrats,
voter fraud doesn’t exist – but clearly they are already searching for
copouts preparing to lose big again in the midterms.”
Donald Trump spent hours with same girl Prince Andrew enjoyed. (photo: Miami Herald)
'Victim' Trump Spent Hours With at Epstein's House Was Virginia Giuffre
Farrah Tomazin/The Daily Beast
13 November 25
Donald
Trump spent hours with a sex trafficking victim that Jeffrey Epstein
and Ghislaine Maxwell recruited from his Mar-a-Lago club and abused for
years.
Moments after explosive new emails suggested the president
may have known more about Epstein’s conduct than he has previously
acknowledged, MAGA Republicans identified the victim at the heart of the
documents as the late Virginia Giuffre, Epstein’s most high-profile
survivor.
In one email to Maxwell, which was dated April 2, 2011,
Epstein refers to Trump as “the dog that hasn’t barked” and reveals
that a certain victim—whose name was redacted in the files—“spent hours
at my house with him.”
The emails form part of a cache of documents provided by Epstein’s estate to Democrats on the House Oversight Committee.
However,
soon after they were released on Wednesday morning, Republicans on the
committee posted on X: “Why did Democrats cover up the name when the
Estate didn’t redact it in the redacted documents provided to the
committee? It’s because this victim, Virginia Giuffre, publicly said
that she never witnessed wrongdoing by President Trump.
“Democrats are trying to create a fake narrative to slander President Trump,” they added. “Shame on them.”
Giuffre,
born Virginia Roberts, was one of the earliest and loudest voices
calling for criminal charges against Epstein and his enablers.
She
lit a fire under the Epstein scandal in 2011, bringing it into the
international spotlight when she alleged that she had been sexually
assaulted by Prince Andrew as part of Epstein’s sex trafficking
operation.
Her astonishing revelations turned the now-ex prince
into Britain’s most tarnished royal, and contributed to him losing his
royal titles last month.
Before she died by suicide earlier this
year, Giuffre had testified that Maxwell hired her as a masseuse for
Epstein after meeting her at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, where she worked
as a 16-year-old locker room attendant at the resort spa.
Maxwell,
a British socialite, spotted Giuffre as she was reading a book about
massage therapy. She then offered her a job interview to be a private,
traveling masseuse, suggesting it would be a potentially life-changing
opportunity.
Giuffre attended the interview at Epstein’s Palm
Beach home, where she was introduced to Epstein naked and instructed by
Maxwell on how to massage him.
The depraved couple soon made her
their sex slave, pressuring her into gratifying not only the disgraced
financier but also his friends and associates.
As the firestorm
surrounding the Epstein files escalated this year, Trump acknowledged in
July that he knew Giuffre from Mar-a-Lago and lamented how Epstein
“stole her” from him.
“I think she worked at the spa,” he told reporters at the time. “I think that was one of the people. He stole her.”
“Other people would come and complain, this guy is taking people from the spa,” he added.
“I
didn’t know that. And then when I heard about it, I told him, I said:
‘Listen, we don’t want you taking our people—whether it was spa or not
spa—I don’t want you to take our people. And he was fine, and then not
too long after that, he did it again. And I said: out of here!”
But
while the president has long described the Epstein files as a
“Democratic hoax,” the new emails raise questions about what he knew and
when in relation to Epstein’s sexual conduct.
The documents suggest that Epstein mentioned Trump by name multiple times in private correspondence over the last 15 years.
In
another email, written to author Michael Wolff on January 31, 2019,
Epstein seems to address Trump’s earlier claim that he asked the sex
offender to resign his membership at the president’s Mar-a-Lago Club.
“trump
said he asked me to resign,” Epstein wrote, adding, “never a member
ever. . of course he knew about the girls as he asked to Ghislaine to
stop.”
The president did not receive or send any of the messages,
nor has he been accused of any criminal wrongdoing in connection with
Epstein or Maxwell.
However, the latest revelations are certain
to inflame tensions about the administration’s handling of the Epstein
files and the decision by Trump’s Department of Justice to renege on a
pledge to fully release them.
House Oversight Committee ranking
member Robert Garcia said the emails formed part of about 23,000
documents they received from Epstein’s estate in the last few days, and
more would be released later today.
Britt Jacovich, spokesperson
for progressive group MoveOn Civic Action, said: “It’s no wonder why
Trump and Republicans have spent weeks hiding the Epstein emails and
files from the public. This is textbook corruption.
“Just as
Trump promised on the campaign trail, the American people deserve to
know who enabled Jeffrey Epstein’s abuses and his victims deserve
justice. Release the Epstein files.”
White House press secretary
Karoline Leavitt described the latest Esptein firestorm as a “hoax”
designed to distract from the president’s achievements.
“The
Democrats selec tively leaked emails to the liberal media to create a
fake narrative to smear President Trump. The ‘unnamed victim’ referenced
in these emails is the late Virginia Giuffre, who repeatedly said
President Trump was not involved in any wrongdoing whatsoever and
“couldn’t have been friendlier” to her in their limited interactions,”
she said.
National Guard members near the White House. (photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
'This
is just not what any of us signed up for'
'I swore an oath to the Constitution, not a person.'
Kat Lonsdorf/NPR
10 November 25
As President Trump calls for National Guard deployments across the U.S., a small contingent of Ohio guard members has been quietly expressing concern in an encrypted group chat.
The administration started sending troops into several Democratic-led
cities this summer, citing the need to crack down on violent crime and
protect federal immigration facilities.
The Ohio guard members now say
they're alarmed at the turn the country is taking. They're even
questioning their potential role in it.
"I really went to a dark place when they sent the troops to [Los
Angeles], and then eventually [Washington, D.C.], and now, Chicago. This
is just not what any of us signed up for, and it's so out of the scope
of normal operations," says J, a member of the Ohio National Guard who
spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity.
In the summer, Trump sent troops
into Los Angeles as anti-ICE protests escalated. He then deployed guard
troops into D.C., where around 2,300 still regularly patrol streets.
Then a torrent of plans for deployments came — Chicago, Portland, Memphis, cities in Louisiana and Missouri. Many of them remain embroiled in legal limbo.
In Ohio, J and several other members have taken to that group chat to
discuss the deployments and the accompanying anxiety they've felt. J,
as well as members C and A — all part of the same unit — agreed to talk
to NPR on the condition that they are only identified by their first
initials, because they are not authorized to talk to the press and fear
retribution for expressing their opinions.
"I have been on two humanitarian-esque missions with the guard, which
were awesome, doing the things you see on the commercial, helping these
communities," says J. "And then you want me to go pick up trash and
dissuade homeless people in D.C. at gunpoint. Like, no dude. It's so
disheartening every time I see another city — and I just wonder, 'who's
going to stand up to this?'"
It's a sentiment that's building with guard members elsewhere.
In recent weeks, more than 100 active military members have reached out to About Face,
a nonpartisan nonprofit made up of current service members and
post-9/11 veterans to be a resource for those who might be questioning
their deployments, according to the organization.
"In the military culture, it's really easy to feel like if you have
questions or dissent, you're the only person who thinks that," says
director Brittany Ramos DeBarros, a combat veteran who served in
Afghanistan.
The group has started an information campaign, specifically targeting
members of the National Guard around the country — using flyers,
posters, even billboards — encouraging them to reach out if they're
having doubts.
"We take very seriously making sure that people do understand what
they could be facing if they follow their conscience," says DeBarros.
"But the thing we also help people think through is, what is the cost of
not following your conscience? Because as Iraq and Afghanistan vets in
particular, many of us are living with that cost every day."
NPR reached out to both the White House and the Pentagon for this story.
"Our great National Guardsmen signed up to defend the nation and
serve the American people," wrote Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley
Wilson in a statement. "We are proud of the work they have accomplished
this year, and we are confident in their collective ability to carry out
any and all orders by President Trump, the Department of War, and state
leaders."
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson defended the deployments,
saying Trump was using his "lawful authority to protect federal assets
and personnel." Jackson lashed out at Democratic leaders, saying they'd
failed to stop violent attacks on law enforcement.
The group chat
The group chat with the Ohio National Guard members — set up on the encrypted messaging app Signal — began amid the flurry of executive orders
President Trump signed as he took office. Some of them affected the
military. The members say they needed a space to process it.
"It's not even necessarily expressing opinions or anything. It's just expressing questions about things that come out," says A.
They say the chat is active every day, with members sharing
information and news articles they come across. In recent months, that
chat has grown to a dozen members of their unit, and it's become largely
focused on Trump's rhetoric around the National Guard and his
deployments of troops to several cities.
Ohio's Republican Gov. Mike DeWine has agreed to send troops to
support the administration's efforts; there are about 150 in DC right
now.
That voluntary directive has come to this unit. None of the three
took it. They say the orders themselves were uncharacteristically vague.
"What exactly are we going to be doing? Are we going to have leave?
And those answers aren't very clear — but in the past, it's always been
very clear," says A. "Anywhere that we go, there's crucial information
that we get about the why behind it. And whenever we don't get that,
especially for these city moves, members ask questions."
Growing anti-guard sentiment
A joined the guard to pay for college. J was looking for direction in
life. And C felt the pull of the benefits that the guard offers and to
serve her country. All three have served for years, even decades.
The three say they are grappling with whether to leave the guard, and end their military careers.
"The only reason I want to finish my current contract is just because
I feel like there's weight to what I do and say right now, and I just
want to use that to do some good," says J.
C says she has been proud of her military career and how she has
served — noting that she's served on missions that she didn't
necessarily agree with before. But she worries these deployments could
change that. She says she's spent a lot of time thinking about what line
she won't cross.
"I've been in therapy. Lots of therapy has taken me to the point
where at least I can be okay if I have to say goodbye. That sucks. Is
this tarnishing my service? Is it undoing everything I thought I was
fighting for?" she says.
The three say they've felt anti-guard sentiment from some of their community and in their civilian lives.
"Everything that has been happening is so counter to doctrine, and so counter to what we've been taught," C says.
"There is no way I would participate in that," says J. "I just think
when everything is said and done, people are going to have to answer for
what we're seeing now, and I don't want to be any part of it."
A also says he's been wrestling with what he'd do if made to participate.
"I think, like, establishing those boundaries with yourself: What am I
willing to do? What am I willing to give up? And where do I draw those
lines?" he says.
The idea of troops patrolling U.S. streets — even if they're only
picking up trash — is also problematic for the Ohio guard members.
"It's kind of like fearmongering. People who don't see people in
uniform every day, you send 50 of them out to walk their street, it's
going to send a message," J says.
DeBarros, the director of About Face, says she knows the tactic well.
"In Afghanistan, we used to regularly carry out what are called
presence patrols, where there was no purpose or mission other than to be
present in the space and normalizing that we were there," she said.
"Letting people know, oh, if you act up, we are here, and we're
watching."
C has been thinking a lot about what she's willing to give up and the potential consequences.
"I swore an oath to the Constitution, not a person," she says. "I
just really, really implore my peers and everybody outside looking in,
to just think about that. Really think about that, and think about what
that means. And if there are questions, ask them. Keep talking."
California Gov. Gavin Newsom positions the Alliance as protection against “political
interference” and a counter to “extremists [who] try to weaponize the
CDC and spread misinformation.”
Alliance responds to wacky Trump/RFK Jr. health
policies
Fifteen governors announced the
Governors Public Health Alliance, a coalition designed to coordinate
public health policy across states. The Alliance positions itself as a
response to what its members call a lack of science-based leadership
from Washington under the second Trump administration.
All
founding members are Democrats. They say the group is nonpartisan
because it follows scientific guidance. Critics call it a partisan
operation that will fragment the nation’s public health system.
What the Alliance Does
The
GPHA describes itself as a “nonpartisan coordinating hub for governors
and their public health leaders.” The organization connects member
states on health surveillance, emergency response, and policy
coordination.
Core Functions
Health threat detection: The Alliance creates channels for states to share data on emerging health threats.
Emergency preparedness: Member states pool resources and best practices for crisis response.
Public health guidance: The group aims to align policies on issues like vaccine recommendations across state lines.
Global health liaison: The GPHA plans to engage directly with international health organizations, a role typically held by the federal government.
The
Alliance connects with existing regional groups like the West Coast
Health Alliance and the Northeast Public Health Collaborative, creating a
national platform for their work.
Member States and Leadership
The
coalition includes 14 states and Guam, representing roughly one-third
of the U.S. population. All founding governors are Democrats.
State/Territory
Founding Governor
California
Gavin Newsom
Colorado
Jared Polis
Connecticut
Ned Lamont
Delaware
Matt Meyer
Guam
Lou Leon Guerrero
Hawaii
Josh Green
Illinois
JB Pritzker
Maryland
Wes Moore
Massachusetts
Maura Healey
New Jersey
Phil Murphy
New York
Kathy Hochul
North Carolina
Josh Stein
Oregon
Tina Kotek
Rhode Island
Dan McKee
Washington
Bob Ferguson
GovAct and Advisory Structure
The
nonprofit GovAct (Governors Action Alliance), founded by Julia Spiegel,
incubated the GPHA. GovAct describes itself as a “centralized platform
for collaboration across governors’ offices” to help them “champion
fundamental freedoms and improve people’s lives.”
The Alliance uses two advisory groups to claim bipartisan legitimacy:
GovAct’s Bipartisan Advisory Board
includes former Republican governors Arne Carlson (Minnesota), Marc
Racicot (Montana), and Bill Weld (Massachusetts), along with Democrats
Jim Doyle (Wisconsin), Deval Patrick (Massachusetts), and Kathleen
Sebelius (Kansas). Former federal officials Sally Yates and Larry
Thompson also serve.
Public Health Expert Advisors
include Dr. Mandy Cohen (former CDC Director), Dr. Anne Zink (former
Alaska Chief Medical Officer), and Dr. Raj Panjabi (former White House
Senior Director for Global Health Security and Biodefense). Dr. Zink has
said she joined only because the initiative is nonpartisan.
This
structure separates the Democratic governors who run the Alliance from
the bipartisan and expert advisors who guide it, creating a defense
against partisanship accusations.
Why the Alliance Was Formed
The
GPHA launched as a direct response to Trump administration health
policies, particularly those of Health and Human Services Secretary
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker accused the federal government of “abandoning science for conspiracy theories.”
New
York Governor Kathy Hochul said the administration was “wreaking havoc
on public health” by undermining vaccine access, attacking abortion
rights, and slashing Medicaid funding.
Maryland Governor Wes Moore
stated that when the federal government tells states “you’re on your
own,” governors must work together.
California Governor Gavin
Newsom positioned the Alliance as protection against “political
interference” and a counter to “extremists [who] try to weaponize the
CDC and spread misinformation.”
These governors believe federal
health agencies, particularly the CDC, have been compromised through
leadership changes, reduced transparency, and the sidelining of
scientific advisory bodies.
The Science vs. Politics Frame
The
Alliance pledges to ensure public health decisions are “driven by data,
facts, and the health of the American people” rather than political
ideology. This positions member states as defenders of evidence-based
policy against what they see as federal hostility to scientific
consensus, especially on vaccines.
Lessons from COVID-19
Several
governors, including Connecticut’s Ned Lamont, have compared the GPHA
to regional pacts formed during the COVID-19 pandemic. When federal
guidance seemed inconsistent, states collaborated on messaging, travel
restrictions, and medical supply procurement. The GPHA formalizes this
state-led approach.
The Alliance’s creation opens a fight over who
controls the public health narrative in America. GPHA governors argue
the administration politicized federal agencies like the CDC, requiring a
new source of authority. The administration counters that these
governors destroyed public trust during COVID-19 with mask mandates and
school closures.
This
reflects competing definitions of public health. For GPHA states, it’s a
collective good protected by expert-guided government action. For the
administration, it’s about individual liberty and freedom from
government overreach.
How the Alliance Operates
The GPHA moved quickly to demonstrate its operational capacity beyond political statements.
Initial Actions
Coordinated executive action:
Member states share strategies for preserving COVID-19 vaccine access,
including standing orders to counteract federal guidance changes.
Expert briefings:
Governors and their public health teams receive regular updates from
Alliance advisors, providing scientific information independent of
federal channels.
Policy toolkits:
The GPHA develops resources for responding to major events like
sporting competitions or political conventions, and for managing
emerging health threats with coordinated cross-state communication.
The
Alliance serves as a national umbrella connecting regional groups. It
links the West Coast Health Alliance and Northeast Public Health
Collaborative, amplifying their work on issues like bulk vaccine
procurement and supply chain resilience.
The GPHA mirrors core CDC
and HHS functions: expert briefings, policy guidance, and national
strategy coordination on vaccine distribution and pandemic response. For
member states, it operates as a parallel CDC providing services and
scientific validation they no longer trust federal agencies to deliver.
This
raises questions about resource duplication and whether a
nonprofit-backed state coalition can replicate the scale, funding, and
research capacity of federal public health agencies.
The Nonpartisan Claim
The gap between the GPHA’s “nonpartisan” branding and its all-Democratic membership generates the sharpest criticism.
Supporters
argue the Alliance’s nonpartisanship comes from its mission to follow
science, not from member party affiliation. They point to the bipartisan
advisory board with Republican former governors and the independent
health experts. Dr. Mandy Cohen notes that staff from Republican-led
states have attended GPHA briefings.
Critics
say an organization of only Democratic governors is partisan by
definition. Several founding governors—Gavin Newsom, JB Pritzker, and
Wes Moore—are potential 2028 presidential candidates, suggesting
political positioning may drive their participation. GovAct has also
coordinated Democratic-led alliances on abortion access, reinforcing
perceptions that it advances partisan policy rather than nonpartisan
governance.
The Federal Response
The
Trump administration rejects the GPHA’s premise. HHS spokesman Andrew
Nixon argues that GPHA governors “destroyed public trust” during
COVID-19 through “unscientific school closures, toddler mask mandates,
and vaccine passports.” He calls these the “failed politics of the
pandemic.”
The administration claims it’s working to “rebuild that
trust by grounding every policy in rigorous evidence and Gold Standard
Science.” This rhetoric mirrors the Alliance’s language about science
and evidence, framing the GPHA as a continuation of failed policies by
discredited actors.
Risk of a Fragmented System
Policy
experts warn the GPHA could create a “two-track system of public health
protection.” GPHA states would follow one set of guidelines while
non-member states follow different federal guidance or their own
policies.
Stanford law and health policy professor Michelle M.
Mello says this could create dramatic variations in public health
protection by zip code. Because infectious diseases cross state borders,
this fragmentation could undermine national pandemic response.
Politically
defined health blocs operating with different facts and recommendations
could increase public confusion and erode trust in all public health
institutions.
The GPHA shifts American federalism. The traditional
model features federal agencies setting national standards that states
implement and adapt. The Alliance creates parallel guidance competing
with the federal government for legitimacy, resources, and public trust.
States
are no longer just “laboratories of democracy” testing policies.
They’re building rival power centers on national security issues like
pandemic preparedness. This competitive federalism could make the public
increasingly cynical about all official health advice, regardless of
source. Creating an alternative system to “rebuild trust” may further
erode the concept of a single, reliable source of scientific truth.
How the GPHA Differs from Existing Groups
The GPHA’s structure and mission contrast sharply with traditional interstate collaboration.
The National Governors Association
Founded
in 1908, the National Governors Association represents all 55 states,
territories, and commonwealths. It provides a forum for sharing best
practices, developing bipartisan policy solutions, and speaking with
unified voice on national policy.
The NGA maintains substantial
public health infrastructure. Its Center for Best Practices and Public
Health and Emergency Management Task Force support governors on health
issues. The NGA provides policy analysis, technical assistance, and
learning networks on Medicaid, the opioid crisis, chronic disease
prevention, and epidemic preparedness. Task forces are typically
co-chaired by one Democrat and one Republican.
Key differences:
Partisanship:
The NGA is structurally bipartisan. The GPHA, despite its bipartisan
advisory board, operates through an exclusively Democratic membership.
Federal relationship:
The NGA collaborates with and influences the administration and
Congress on behalf of all states. The GPHA was created to counter the
federal government.
Scope and speed:
The NGA is comprehensive and consensus-driven. The GPHA is focused and
designed for quick action on specific public health threats.
The
GPHA’s existence suggests its founding members believe traditional
bipartisan mechanisms like the NGA can’t address their concerns in a
hyper-partisan environment. If the NGA’s consensus model could resolve
disputes between GPHA states and the Trump administration over science
and public health, the Alliance likely wouldn’t exist.
The NGA
seeks common ground. The GPHA defends what its members consider a
non-negotiable position: the integrity of science-based policy.
The
GPHA’s formation criticizes the NGA’s effectiveness when common ground
on fundamental issues has vanished. When one side views the other as
operating outside accepted bounds of facts and reason, polite bipartisan
negotiation breaks down.
If governors feel they must create
partisan alliances because traditional bipartisan forums are inadequate,
it signals decay in collaborative structures managing state-federal
relations. The GPHA isn’t just a new organization. It’s a symptom of
declining influence among the old ones.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (holding dog) and family: two very special reasons to believe in vaccines.
