Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confronted Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in the White House Situation Room over the Commerce Department’s failure to crack down on a company tied to Nvidia’s widening spy scandal, according to a new report.

Axios reported that Bessent asked Lutnick last week why Megaspeed, an Nvidia customer accused of illegally diverting U.S. chips to China, hadn’t been added to the Commerce Department’s entity list of companies that pose national security concerns.

“How come Megaspeed isn’t on the entities list?” Bessent asked, according to a source briefed on the meeting.

Lutnick initially stammered, sources said, before replying, “I don’t know. I’ll look into it.”

One source with extensive experience in the chip controversy called that answer “b---s---.” The source said Lutnick had resisted acting on Megaspeed ever since he was personally handed a memo outlining the problems with the company.

The memo was drafted by Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio, and Lutnick received it in May, before a trip to China.

The company has come under intense scrutiny since revelations that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had an affair with Alice Huang, a Megaspeed employee and suspected Chinese spy.

Sources told Axios that White House and intelligence officials have pressed Lutnick and his top advisers to act against Megaspeed since fall 2025. Instead, Lutnick spent the past year “undoing” other officials’ efforts to hold the company accountable because he was worried about escalating the trade war with China, according to the sources.

Commerce Undersecretary Jeff Kessler was also repeatedly warned about Megaspeed in deputy-level meetings.

On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that Kessler abruptly halted an investigation into Megaspeed after Nvidia intervened. The Financial Times reported that the department had delayed blacklisting the company even though several U.S. agencies urged it to do so.

A month after President Donald Trump announced a controversial deal with Vladimir Putin to bring Russian diesel to the U.S., not a single barrel has arrived, the Wall Street Journal reported, as tankers headed for American ports turned around due to a lack of willing buyers.

Trump pitched the Russian fuel as a way to bring down soaring diesel prices, which pushed up consumer costs ahead of the midterm elections. But "U.S. oil companies are reluctant to handle the cargoes of Russian diesel because of the potential legal and reputational consequences," industry executives and lobbyists told the Journal.

Lawmakers from both parties have called Trump’s exemption of diesel from Russia sanctions illegal, the paper reported. Companies also worry about violating international sanctions, since the U.K., the European Union and Switzerland still ban Russian fuel imports.

“There are political, compliance and enforcement challenges,” Michelle Wiese Bockmann, a senior analyst at the maritime intelligence firm Windward, told the Journal.

Trump announced the deal on Oct. 9 in a Truth Social post, saying Moscow had agreed to “immediately” supply diesel to the U.S. and global markets after a “highly successful discussion” with Putin.

According to the report, Russia has since resumed some diesel exports it halted this summer after Ukrainian drones hit its refineries. According to the Journal, it is now selling to buyers in the Middle East, North Africa and South America, but not the U.S.

The latest sign of trouble came Monday, the paper reported. The Agioi Fanendes, a tanker carrying 300,000 barrels of Russian diesel and originally bound for New York, slowed off the East Coast and "started loitering in a zigzag pattern," the Journal reported The ship-tracking service Kpler now lists South America as its likely destination, and the ship’s manager told the Journal its “discharging port is not confirmed yet.”

Three other tankers turned back last week, according to Kpler data cited by the Journal. Two are headed to Brazil, and a third has arrived in Egypt. All three had listed U.S. East Coast destinations when they left Russia’s Primorsk port last month.

The U.S. doesn’t need the fuel, the Journal noted. Domestic refiners produce more diesel than the country uses and export more than 1.5 million barrels a day. Still, tight global supplies tied to the Middle East conflict have pushed the average price of diesel to $6.16 a gallon, up from $3.75 before the war.

After Democrats’ sweeping midterm wins, oil lobbyists told the Journal that companies now fear any involvement could make them targets of investigations by the new Congress.

Retiring MAGA congressman Troy Nehls lost it on his own colleagues Tuesday night after they were handed a midterm bloodbath.

Nehls slammed reporters as “knuckleheads” as they asked him if President Donald Trump was to blame for the historic election that handed Democrats a massive majority in the House, as well as control of the Senate.

“Donald Trump’s the greatest president of our lifetime,” he said while chomping on a cigar as he left Congress.

“We had an opportunity to follow his lead because he's the leader of our party. And what did we do? We squandered the time.”

Nehls, who announced his retirement after six years in the House, claiming he wanted to spend more time with his family, will be replaced by his twin brother, Trever Nehls.

But across Texas, and indeed the country, many of his party colleagues fell.

In fact, Texas became a blue state for the first time since the 1990s, winning a Senate seat and the governorship.

Nehls said it was because Republicans in Congress failed to achieve what Trump was trying to do.

“The American people said, I gave you 20 months,” he said.

“We elected you in 2024, unified government, go out there and do great, great for America.

“And what do we do? One Big, Beautiful Bill. That's about it.

“That's all we got done.”

Asked specifically if Trump’s role in the Texas races, particularly his strong endorsement of Ken Paxton, who lost his Senate race to Democrat James Talarico, he said, “Ken Paxton … they all got beat. Don't some of you knuckleheads read the news? The whole damn state got beat. The whole state.

“So what are you talking about, Ken Paxton? If John Cornyn would have been on the ballot, he'd have got his a– kicked. Be honest once. Just be honest, folks.”

He added, "I don't want to hear about blaming Donald Trump about this."

The CEO of Palantir, a controversial firm which supplies technology for immigration enforcement, says he agrees with President Donald Trump that the crackdown went too far.

Alex Karp made the remarks in an interview with Politico Playbook. He said he welcomed Trump’s recent admission of overreach, which he paraphrased loosely. “I’m glad he’s saying in public now what I’ve been saying in private,” Karp said.

According to Playbook, Palantir’s Immigration OS platform underpinned the administration’s enforcement push through a contract worth $30 million. The outlet says federal contracts brought the company billions of dollars in Trump’s second term, and that Karp gave money to MAGA Inc. and to the White House ballroom project.

Politico casts the interview as an about-face. Karp, a past critic of the Democratic Party, repeatedly described his outlook as progressive and said the party did enough this year to earn back his backing for 2028. He said he is a lifelong Democrat, that his donations go equally to both parties, and that voters punished Republicans over economic fairness.

Playbook reports the company brought on Jon Tester, the former Democratic senator from Montana, as an adviser as congressional investigations loom. Tester, who took part in the interview, told Karp to stay quiet about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Karp said he could support a Democrat for president in 2028, ruling out only members of the Democratic Socialists of America, and that competence would decide his vote.

Palantir was also founded by infamous, Antichrist-obsessed far-right billionaire Peter Thiel — though even Thiel in recent months has said he thinks Trump has made some blunders.

A federal judge rejected the Justice Department’s bid to limit or cancel a hearing on whether Chicago’s top federal prosecutor and three of his assistants misled her in a case arising from President Donald Trump's Chicago immigration crackdown.

U.S. District Judge April Perry denied the department’s “motion for clarification” Wednesday, according to court records.

U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros and Assistant U.S. Attorneys William Hogan, Matthew Skiba and Andres Almendarez must testify under oath on Nov. 16 about statements made to her in the collapsed case against the “Broadview Six” protesters.

Perry reminded Woodward of her "inherent authority," the power courts have to police the lawyers who appear before them.

“Ultimately, the Government’s professed lack of clarity about the Court’s inherent authority to ask lawyers who have made misstatements to or misled the Court to explain their actions is immaterial,” Perry wrote.

The motion, filed Tuesday by the office of Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, asked Perry to explain what law authorizes the hearing and to consider “limiting or forgoing entirely this inquiry.”

“In sum, the Court has presented the United States Attorney and his subordinates with a Catch-22. They can testify and risk prosecution, or they can assert their rights under the Fifth Amendment and risk antagonizing the Court,” the motion said.

“The Government does not represent at least 3/4 of the individuals who have been asked to testify, two of whom have expressed their willingness to do so,” Perry replied.

Almendarez’s lawyer wrote that he “is ready to testify truthfully,” and Skiba’s lawyer wrote that he “stands ready” to testify fully. Perry also wrote that there is “no indication on the docket” that the department represents Boutros.

So the witnesses the department said faced a Catch-22 are mostly not its clients, and two of them have chosen to testify anyway.

The hearing will also test the department’s changing account of whether anyone outside Chicago, including the White House, weighed in on the case.

In a March 30 filing, Hogan called the former defendants’ suspicion of “external political influence” on the charges “completely false” and said there were “no communications of any nature” with anyone outside the Chicago office about investigatory or charging decisions, apart from local FBI agents.

“To be crystal clear, this specifically includes anyone in the White House and all components and offices of Main Justice,” Hogan wrote, referring to department headquarters.

A September correction from the government acknowledged contacts with department headquarters after the charging decision but said there were none with the White House about the case.

Perry wrote in her Nov. 2 order that the government has since called Hogan’s statement “true as it relates to pre-charging decisions” while also arguing that “if any such communications did exist, they would be privileged.”

The department’s privilege log, its list of withheld records, names no author or recipient, Perry wrote Tuesday, calling it “noncompliant.”

The department has moved from denying any outside contact, including the White House, to claiming privilege over outside communications without saying who took part.

The Broadview Six case is one of many to fall apart from Operation Midway Blitz, Trump’s immigration crackdown in Chicago, and its fallout now reaches Boutros himself.

About 30 protesters faced federal charges during the operation, and many of those cases have since been dropped or dismissed, the Associated Press reported.

Of 33 known Midway Blitz defendants, grand jurors declined to indict at least three, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. U.S. Magistrate Judge Gabriel Fuentes wrote last year that such refusals were “virtually unheard of in this district until Operation Midway Blitz.”

Perry has said the inquiry could lead to sanctions or criminal contempt, a charge for obstructing a court. The department wrote Tuesday that it does not view any criminal referral as “necessary or proper.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has run up more than $1.2 million in taxpayer-funded flights to Gainesville, Florida, many of them to watch his son’s college football team play.

According to a Washington Post analysis of flight records, Rubio has flown to the University of Florida’s home at least 23 times on government aircraft since taking office last year. That includes at least 10 Gators games at the stadium known as The Swamp, and the State Department classified 15 of those trips as solely personal.

Rubio’s son Anthony is a walk-on running back for the Gators. In four years, he has played in four games and gained 75 yards.

The secretary of state is barred from flying commercially for security reasons, so he travels on military jets that the Defense Department bills at about $9,100 an hour. On three trips, he flew a larger Boeing C-32A, the type often used by the vice president, which costs about $18,600 an hour. Officials have to reimburse the government only the price of an economy ticket for personal travel.

The Post estimates Rubio’s reimbursements would come to roughly $18,000 to $33,000. Rubio and the State Department declined to say how much he actually paid back.

Just three years ago, he demanded an investigation into then-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s use of government aircraft and formally asked the department's inspector general to look into the matter.

“American taxpayers deserve assurances that their tax dollars are not wasted by the government’s highest officials,” Rubio wrote at the time.

The watchdog found Buttigieg had followed the rules. Government jets accounted for about 11 percent of his plane travel, at a total cost of $59,000, less than one-twentieth of Rubio’s estimated tab.

Former State Department officials told the Post that Rubio’s personal travel appears to significantly outpace his predecessors’. Antony Blinken, for example, used government planes for personal trips only a couple of times a year.

Rubio was unapologetic when asked for comment on his personal travel.

“I have and will continue to try and make it to as many events that are important to me personally and to my family as possible,” he said in a statement.

Ethics experts said the trips comply with federal rules but raise questions about the use of public money.

“If this travel becomes something that is undermining the integrity of your service, are you really taking care of taxpayer dollars the way that you’re obligated to as a public official?” asked Cynthia Brown of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Democrat Mary Peltola’s growing lead in Alaska’s Senate race has undercut one of President Donald Trump’s arguments about the contest. Her lead over Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan is now bigger than the vote total of the second Dan Sullivan on the ballot.

Trump demanded on Truth Social that votes for independent candidate Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., whom he called the “Fake Dan Sullivan,” be handed to the incumbent. “Dan Sullivan PLUS Dan Sullivan wins the Alaska Election by thousands of votes,” Trump wrote. He said the votes “should immediately be given to the Real Dan Sullivan (Senator!)” and called the contest a “Rigged Election.”

By Wednesday, the numbers no longer backed him up. With about 84 percent of ballots counted, Peltola had 118,926 votes, or 48.9 percent. Sullivan had 114,676 votes and Sullivan Jr. had 4,027, which adds up to 118,703. Even if the two Sullivans’ votes were combined, Peltola would lead.

“Peltola’s lead is now greater than the margin of votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan — so even if you took the Trump approach and added his ballots to Sen. Sullivan’s, it wouldn’t change the outcome,” wrote Politico’s Kyle Cheney.

“This means Peltola is already beating the combined Sullivan vote before any RCV takes place,” wrote John Samuelsen, international president of the Transport Workers Union.

Peltola now might not need ranked-choice voting at all, wrote self-described political junkie Russell Drew.

“We’re getting to the point where Mary Peltola might not even need rank choice voting to get to 50%,” Drew wrote. “In any case, she’s about to make some history.”

CNN’s Aaron Blake noted that Peltola has “gained 0.7 points in the last 10% of ballots,” and said “that puts her on pace to get close to 50%, which would negate the need for ranked-choice tabulations.”

Peltola’s campaign predicted victory. “Mary is on her way to a decisive victory, and there is not a viable path to reelection for Senator Sullivan,” the campaign said, according to Semafor’s Burgess Everett.

Trump has not let up. Forbes reported that he has called the race “voter fraud at the highest level” and said Peltola “should resign from the race” and be “prosecuted criminally.”

About 46,000 ballots are estimated to remain, and the Associated Press has not called the race.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer tied to a fatal Maine shooting was fast-tracked through vetting despite a troubled history, The New York Times reports.

The Times identifies David Brouillette, 38, as the officer who killed Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, 25, in Biddeford on July 13. His family recognized him in a photo from the scene, and his ex-wife and daughter said he told them he fired the shots. The Department of Homeland Security hasn’t confirmed his role. It says the driver tried to get away and the officer acted out of concern for the public, a version the Times says remains unsupported by evidence.

Brouillette got clearance to begin work Dec. 1 after an initial screening that had been loosened, a person familiar with his hiring told the paper. The hiring surge came under President Donald Trump’s administration. Two other people said he bypassed the agency’s full training course, in line with ICE’s practice of giving recruits with law enforcement experience a shorter online program. A backlog meant no one had examined his complete background report by the time of the shooting.

Drawing on court records and interviews, the Times says his two former wives alleged physical abuse in court filings, which he disputed. His mother said he’d been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and hospitalized. The paper also found he told a family court he’d been a police officer in a Maine town whose chief says he was never hired.

Frank Wozniak, a former fire chief who accepted Brouillette as a volunteer firefighter in 2021, told The Times, “He was a loose cannon.”

Brouillette’s sister gave the Times emails from 2021 in which he attacked her Colombian-born partner, who was in the country legally, and disparaged his bloodline.

DHS rejected suggestions that its training or vetting is deficient. Brouillette declined to speak with the Times.

Both Maine’s attorney general and the DHS inspector general are investigating. The attorney for Durán Guerrero's family, who is separately suing the government, said investigators told him the attorney general intends to announce his decisions before his term ends in December.

Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary is publicly accusing the White House of caving to industry lobbyists.

He is the latest former Trump health official to air grievances after Republicans’ losses in last week’s midterm elections, and he told Politico that his criticism was tied to the election results.

“A lot of pressure from White House and HHS aides was not on medical cures or healthy food but instead on getting more vapes approved and catering to lobbyists,” Makary told Politico on Tuesday. “Americans don’t want their kids smoking strawberry banana vapes — they want a government that stands up to corruption.”

“Every time I saw government corruption, I rejected it, just as voters did last week,” Makary said.

According to Politico, the comments appear to be the first time Makary has publicly addressed the pressure he faced from the White House while leading the FDA. He resigned in May, shortly after clashing with the White House over his opposition to authorizing fruit-flavored vape pods.

Makary’s remarks back up recent claims from Calley Means, a former senior adviser to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Days earlier, Means blamed several senior Trump officials, including former chief of staff Susie Wiles, for stalling food and pesticide policies backed by the Make America Healthy Again movement.

The White House has disputed Means’ claims, but he has kept amplifying them on social media.

Makary’s own tenure at the FDA was turbulent. He angered anti-abortion Republicans who wanted the agency to restrict online prescriptions of the abortion pill mifepristone, and drug companies complained about inconsistent product reviews. The agency also lost several longtime career leaders while staff complained about poor management.

The White House did not immediately respond to Politico’s request for comment.

An American furniture entrepreneur who voted for Donald Trump three times is at his wits’ end trying to keep up with the president’s unpredictable tariff moves, which have put his company in peril.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Bruce Krinsky has spent the better part of a decade chasing Washington’s trade policy. His company, TOV Furniture, has moved production from country to country and even tried manufacturing in the U.S., only to end up back where it started.

The Journal reported that Krinsky originally relied on Chinese factories to make his couches. When Trump imposed tariffs on China in his first term, Krinsky convinced a Chinese supplier to open a plant in Vietnam. When Vietnam came under threat as well, he bought a factory in High Point, North Carolina, a city Trump had promised to restore as a furniture powerhouse.

That plant opened in March 2025. According to the Journal, Krinsky believed he had finally escaped the tariff whiplash. Within weeks, Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs. Krinsky expected the additional 34% levy on Chinese goods, the Journal reported, but was caught off guard by a proposed 46% tariff on Vietnam.

His couch had already climbed from $900 to roughly $1,250 because of inflation and supply-chain costs, the paper reported. The new tariff would have pushed it near $2,000.

“At $2,000, there’s no reason for us to exist,” Krinsky told the Journal. “There are plenty of companies like Crate & Barrel that already do a great job selling those products.”

The North Carolina factory, which local officials had celebrated, shut down after 10 months, cutting about 45 jobs, according to the Journal. The couch is now made in Asia again and sells for $1,500. Krinsky told the paper he isn’t counting on the midterm results to help.

“Furniture tariffs are not going to be at the top of either party’s agenda,” he said.

Krinsky told the Journal he voted for Trump because he believed he was the strongest pro-business candidate.

“What exactly is an American business supposed to do?” he said. “We’re trying to do what the government wants. I came in really hoping that this administration would be really positive for business. I wish they were more in touch with the reality of what is happening on the ground and what people really want.”

An anti-abortion group is trying to obstruct the confirmation of a key Trump administration nominee, in order to get one of its major demands met.

President Donald Trump has nominated Heidi Overton to be commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration — but the Susan B. Anthony List is not satisfied she will implement the restrictions on abortion medication that they want to see.

In a written statement issued on Wednesday morning, SBA legal strategy vice president Erik Baptist vowed to hold up the nomination until this guarantee is given.

"Confirmation is not a coronation," stated Baptist. "Before Heidi Overton's nomination moves forward, senators must secure commitments from the administration that it will immediately restore the in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone and address the serious flaws with the FDA's mifepristone safety study."

'It is a tragedy that the Biden-era mail-order abortion drug regime remains in effect because the Trump administration has thus far chosen to defend and enforce it," Baptist continued. "The administration can still reverse course. As long as this policy remains in effect, any pregnant woman is vulnerable to a third party obtaining abortion drugs and using them against her wishes. Meanwhile, an estimated 15,000 unborn babies a month will die in pro-life states alone thanks to illegal mail-order abortion drugs."

Baptist concluded that Trump's administration "must fix those issues before the Senate can act on Overton's nomination."

Restriction of mifepristone has been a key policy goal of Republican groups for years. A Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas briefly ordered the FDA to decertify the medication under the Biden administration, but the Supreme Court later reversed this.

A major Trump donor helped his firm land one of the administration’s most lucrative Venezuela oil deals, even though his own company says he lacked the expertise to negotiate it, according to a new report.

Reuters reported that two days after U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January, Energy Secretary Chris Wright called John Addison, then a senior trader at commodities giant Vitol, and asked whether the firm wanted to sell Venezuela’s crude to global buyers.

“I thought that he was just going to call to get an update on the market,” Addison told Reuters. “The phone call went a different way.”

Within days, Vitol and its rival Trafigura had special licenses to market Venezuela’s oil without a competitive bidding process. A Texas Christian University energy finance expert estimates the traders are making $3 to $3.50 in profit on every barrel. With more than 200 million barrels exported so far this year, that adds up to hundreds of millions of dollars.

Addison was not an obvious choice. He wasn’t Vitol’s regional CEO, and his specialty was trading U.S. gasoline, not Latin American crude. Vitol told Reuters that Addison didn’t have the technical knowledge to negotiate an international crude contract and brought in the company’s crude team after Wright’s call.

What Addison did have was political connections. He and his wife gave $7 million to political action committees in 2024 to help elect Donald Trump, including $5 million to Make America Great Again. He also gave $300,000 to a super PAC that supported Vice President JD Vance’s 2022 Senate race.

Addison told Reuters that Vance had vouched for him to Wright, and a U.S. official confirmed it. According to a source, the two men met at Montana’s Yellowstone Club a week before the invasion, although both deny that meeting took place.

The Energy Department said it picked Vitol because it is the world’s largest energy trader.

Addison also has a complicated history. He was named as the most senior Vitol executive in an alleged gasoline price-manipulation scheme in California, which Vitol and SK Energy settled for $50 million in 2024 without admitting wrongdoing.

By Jan. 9, Addison was at the White House for a televised meeting with Trump and oil executives.

“We’re here to ensure that you are going to be able to move all of this oil all around the world at the best price possible so that the influence that you have over the Venezuelans will ensure that you get what you want,” he told the president.

Addison retired from Vitol in March and now chairs Wright’s energy policy advisory board.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), the incoming chair of the House Oversight Committee, said the new reporting “raises even more questions about who knew what and when.”

Senate Republicans can’t agree on whether to use their final weeks in power to pass a party-line Pentagon funding bill, Semafor reports.

The party’s remaining tool is budget reconciliation, which lets a bill clear the Senate without Democratic votes. Many Republicans want to use it to give President Donald Trump money to rebuild weapons stockpiles drained by nine months of war with Iran. But senators told Semafor they have no plan yet.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) predicted a plan would emerge, but said that for now he wouldn’t recognize it “if it jumped up and yodeled and bit me in the butt.”

Senate Budget Chair Ron Johnson (R-WI) said neither the White House nor leaders in either chamber have engaged with him, and that any push will have to come from rank-and-file members. Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), who was reelected to his post this week, has repeatedly voiced doubt that the votes exist in either chamber.

Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) are pressing for a bill. Banks said it’s meant to supply the military, not fund the war. Sen. Rand Paul promised to vote no and said the bill would defy the election results. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) questioned why Republicans would pursue it.

Meanwhile, Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), two senators known for occasionally breaking with the party, have reservations about using reconciliation.

Semafor reports many Republicans see the war as a leading cause of their midterm losses. It says frustration is also growing with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who survived a House impeachment effort on Tuesday.

Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND), who is close to Thune, said a party-line bill would give Republicans bargaining power with Democrats ahead of next month’s funding deadline. Other senators want to add provisions on living costs, elections and farm aid. Sen. Jim Justice (R-WV) said the party is trying to fit too many priorities into one bill, but that he may support it anyway.

Reporter Burgess Everett notes the Senate has just four weeks of session left on its calendar, though Thune is open to adding time, and argues Republicans are already behind.

The conservative blueprint that President Donald Trump disowned during his 2024 campaign could become one of Democrats’ most useful tools for investigating his administration, according to experts.

The Guardian conducted a new analysis analysis of all 900 pages of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s plan for a right-wing overhaul of the federal government, and found at least 92 proposals to delete government data, censor scientific information, repeal transparency laws or abolish offices that conduct taxpayer-funded research.

The Trump administration has already carried out most of them, and 42 more appear to be underway, but now that Democrats have retaken control of Congress, experts say that track record gives investigators a map to follow.

“Project 2025 will be a useful diagnostic tool for leading congressional oversight because it allows them to reverse engineer everything that’s transpired over the past two years,” said James Goodwin, policy director at the Center for Progressive Reform, who has closely tracked the plan’s implementation.

According to the Guardian, Democrats could use the document to examine exactly how the administration removed information and which gaps in data protections it exploited.

There’s a lot to examine. Project 2025 called for eliminating terms such as “sexual orientation,” “DEI” and “gender equality” from federal data, and Trump signed an executive order soon after taking office to remove that language from hundreds of datasets.

The blueprint also recommended ending data collection on who owns shell companies, which helps authorities crack down on money laundering. The Treasury Department ended that collection this summer.

The Environmental Protection Agency deleted its climate research website, and the administration dismissed hundreds of scientists working on the National Climate Assessment. The Transportation Department narrowed which self-driving car crashes must be reported to federal safety regulators. The administration is also trying to exclude some immigrants from the 2030 census and drop questions about race and ethnicity, as Project 2025 recommended.

“You can see so clearly the specificity with which a policy was recommended in Project 2025 and the specificity with which it was carried out,” said Amy Friedrich-Karnik, federal policy director at the Guttmacher Institute.

Experts say the administration’s campaign showed how much power a president has over government information.

“One of the horrifying realizations of the second Trump term is just how much unfettered control presidents have over the data resources and data infrastructure that are spread throughout the federal government,” Goodwin said.

Gretchen Gehrke, co-founder of the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative, said the pattern is deliberate.

“This administration is using information control as a means of achieving their agenda,” she said.

During the 2024 campaign, Trump insisted he knew nothing about Project 2025 and tried to distance himself from it as critics called it extreme.

Neither the White House nor the Heritage Foundation responded to the Guardian’s requests for comment.

A sit-down interview on “60 Minutes” with President Donald Trump after the Republican Party was humiliated in the midterm election failed to grab viewers.

Trump’s Sunday conversation with Ross Douthat pulled in 7.8 million viewers, according to Nielsen Big Data + Panel figures reported by The Wrap. Among “60 Minutes” episodes featuring Trump since 2015, only one drew a smaller crowd. Just 918,000 viewers were in the key 25-54 age group.

The interview was Trump’s first extended sit-down since voters handed Democrats both chambers of Congress. He acknowledged mistakes on immigration and on how his administration talked about the economy, but defended the Iran war and said he wouldn’t forgive his political enemies, The Wrap reported.

Audiences were far smaller than for his last big “60 Minutes” appearance. His November 2025 interview, which aired after a marquee Chiefs-Bills game, drew nearly 14 million viewers, so Sunday’s audience was down 44%. It edged out his April 2026 interview, which drew 7.4 million in the NFL offseason, by about 5%.

Even the previous week’s episode, which had no presidential interview, did better. The Nov. 1 broadcast reached 10.5 million viewers, about 26% more than Sunday’s, the report noted

Clips did better online, with The Wrap reporting 195 million views across the program’s social media accounts.

The weak TV showing comes during a difficult stretch for “60 Minutes” under CBS News chief Bari Weiss, whose overhaul of the program was supposed to boost its audience. Last month, the newsmagazine drew just 5.64 million viewers and 558,000 in the 25-54 demo, the first time since 2000 that the sixth episode of a season fell below 7 million total viewers and 1 million in the demo. In that key group, it was beaten by “America’s Funniest Home Videos” and “The Price Is Right.”

“Bari and Nick [Bilton] and team have shown it actually can get worse,” a veteran TV executive told Status at the time.

Responding to a new report that Stephen Miller, recently elevated to White House chief of staff, plans to reach out to young men and minorities as his first order of business, two analysts on MS NOW reacted with amusement and shock.

According to an Axios report, the highly controversial Miller “wants to use his new role as White House chief of staff to win back young and minority men who helped elect President Trump in 2024 but swung toward Democrats in the midterms."

The report added, “Young, working-class and minority men fled the GOP in droves in last week's elections, amid high prices fueled by Trump's tariffs, the war in Iran, and concerns about AI's impact on the job market,” and Miller reportedly thinks he can bring them back into the fold, while noting, “Latino men also swung sharply toward Democrats, as the administration's hard-line immigration crackdown became an increasingly contentious political issue.”

“Morning Joe” co-host Jonathan Lemire brought up the report on Wednesday morning while speaking with MS NOW regular John Heilemann.

"A preview here of what the Trump administration, what their game plan is going to be as they really hurtle into this lame duck session there, at least for now, [is to] double down on their worst instincts,” Lemire observed. “And then Stephen Miller, you know, his thinking was previewed. I believe in the story in Axios this morning that he's going to focus on young men and Latinos.”

“Stephen Miller! Latinos! I'm not quite sure I see that working,” Lemire exclaimed.

“Yeah. Good luck with that,” Heilemann dryly replied with a smirk.

“I'd say Jonathan. I'd say it's a triple down in a lot of ways," he continued. "You got a trifecta here in terms of the actions that Republicans have taken and the White House have taken in the aftermath of the midterm elections. So you've got on the other side, you've got what Donald Trump, you know, went on 60 Minutes and said various things, sounding a little conciliatory on the immigration front.”

- YouTube youtu.be

When two veterans traveled from the Minneapolis area to Washington, D.C., to protest Donald Trump’s plans for a triumphal arch outside of Arlington National Cemetery, they were struck by their colleagues from the armed services who showed up — and had been showing up — for vigils every weekday since September.

A woman who served in the Vietnam War protesting in a wheelchair.

Another woman holding a folded flag for her parents buried at Arlington.

“It's not Democrat or Republican. It's all veterans are not being treated correctly, and they just want to see somebody recognize them, see them, and take care of them and their families,” said Ed Higgins, 49, a Marine Corps veteran from Columbia Heights, Minnesota, who organized a Stop the Arch protest alongside Vietnam veteran Ronn Easton on October 27 and 28.

Higgins, who made headlines after being detained following a vehicle confrontation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during immigration raids in February, joined more than 100 other citizens to speak out against Trump's plan at the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) meeting on November 5.

“There were a lot of people who basically stepped up to the plate and told them that this is hallowed ground. This is sacred, and for [Trump] to build that is a travesty,” said Easton, who previously organized a petition signed by thousands of veterans and their families to push against the "monstrosity" of the arch, which would be built at Memorial Circle, located between Arlington Memorial Bridge and Arlington National Cemetery.

The NCPC granted final approval for Trump’s proposed 250-foot-tall Monumental Arch on November 5, but less than two hours later, U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan issued a 14-day temporary restraining order halting the Trump administration from starting construction on the arch.

“If it wasn't for the political aspect of eight people on that committee who were Trump people, it definitely wouldn't have passed. This is a political thing, and Trump has said that it's about him, that has nothing to do with the people. It has nothing to do with remembering veterans,” Higgins said.

Higgins protesting the arch (Photo courtesy of Ed Higgins/used with permission)

Gary Langston, 68, who served 29 years in the Army and whose parents are both buried at Arlington National Cemetery, has protested the arch through the group, Third Act DMV, which organizes demonstrations with citizens over 60 in D.C., Maryland and Virginia, and joined Higgns and Easton's protest.

“What you have now is something that's — it sounds trite, but — literally gaslighting the Kennedy gravesite at the same time when the Kennedy Center itself is under threat of being demolished. It’s ridiculous,” Langston said.

The Kennedy family made moves to join litigation blocking the Trump arch on Tuesday, arguing the monument would cast a shadow upon family graves and block the sightline from the eternal flame at President John F. Kennedy’s gravesite.

The arch has become an issue for veterans transcending political parties — with nearly all opponents agreeing on the arch representing Trump’s “vanity,” said Jonathan Hirsch, who served in the Army for 30 years and lives in Arlington, Virginia.

“I have not heard anybody say that this is not a vanity project for Trump. Everybody who I've spoken with has said, ‘Yeah, if it weren't for him and his vanity, we wouldn't be having this issue,'” Hirsch said.

“They oppose this expression of vanity on his part because he never served, so, why should there be anything involving him along that axis?”

Trump avoided the draft for the Vietnam War five times, and veterans have been outraged by his language disparaging veterans as "losers" and "suckers."

Dave Otto, 65, spent three years serving in the Army as military police and worked for 19 years as a federal employee in the Departments of Justice, Defense and Homeland Security.

Otto, who lives in Manassas, Virginia and is protesting the arch, said he’s historically voted for Republicans more than Democrats but has distanced himself from the Republican Party over the last 25 years.

“I read it as a personality cult trying to literally change the aesthetics and the architectural language of the Capitol, to try to leave their mark on democracy for 100 years,” Otto said.

Across the fellow veterans Otto has met protesting the arch, there was an agreement that the Democratic sweep of Congress was necessary to have a chance of actually stopping the arch.

“Certainly the people I was talking with, organizing with, we felt that the only prayer we had of stopping the arch was a wave type election,” Otto said.

“We think if this is going to be stopped, which would certainly be our aim, it would require getting this thing into the next Congress.”

Arch protestors (Photo by Dave Otto/used with permission)

Ralph Nix, 63, who served 20 years in the Navy and lives outside of Washington, D.C., called Trump “one of the most corrupt presidents in the United States of America, who has done nothing to support veterans.”

Nix has protested against the arch numerous times with Third Act DMV and has twice spoken against the plan in front of the NCPC.

He said veterans have come out to protest for a range of reasons from opposing the arch for disrupting the final resting place for service members who died, to standing up against the Trump administration's policies to speaking out “against all the money [Trump's] spending on vanity projects while taking money away from the general public.”

“This cemetery is where our troops that have paid the ultimate price is buried, and this monstrosity is going to block the view of Arlington Cemetery from the Lincoln Memorial and vice versa,” Nix said.

“I'm not out there for me. I am out there for my fellow service members who have paid the ultimate price and can't talk for themselves, and not only them, but their families … It's just an atrocity that this man is committing while in office.”

Otto said some vets he’s talked to are taking a stand “because it's Memorial Circle outside of Arlington, that is what is offensive to them.”

For others, it's about pushing against the MAGA movement and Trump, while some are "looking at more of the rule of law, stewardship, governance,” Otto said.

“This is the ideologues building a trophy to themselves,” Otto said.

“We're going to do everything in our power to stop this because they've not earned a trophy to their degenerate movement.”

Easton and Higgins are already planning their next protest for veterans in D.C., called “Defend the Capitol, Defend Democracy, Hold the Line at the Capitol” when the new Congress is sworn in on Jan. 3.

“We are there to make sure that the new representatives are able to walk into the Capitol building and be able to start their job,” Higgins said.

House Democrats are already lining up whistleblowers and tips for a wave of investigations into President Donald Trump, according to a top Democrat who will help lead the effort when the party takes control of the chamber in January.

Democrats are girding for a long-awaited constitutional clash with the 80-year-old president, and lawmakers have been huddling for weeks with lawyers who specialize in congressional power so they’ll be ready when the new Congress is seated on Jan. 3, reported Politico.

“We have already heard from a whole bunch of whistleblowers,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who is slated to chair the House Judiciary Committee. “We have lots of tips about things happening, everybody they’ve worked with in the private sector on various corrupt schemes, people who’ve been shaken down by them. We will be adamant about getting the information we need in order to legislate.”

A key piece of the plan is the selection of the House general counsel. Hakeem Jeffries, who is expected to become speaker, will choose the House’s top lawyer, who will lead the chamber’s court fights against the administration. According to a person familiar with the caucus deliberations, Jeffries hasn’t settled on a candidate but considers the choice a crucial priority, and he also wants to expand the counsel’s office.

“We need lawyers who are ready and willing to go and fight, people who have devoted their lives to the Constitution,” Raskin said. “We’re going to stand up for Congress against both the executive branch and the Supreme Court.”

Democrats have already signaled plans to investigate corruption allegations against Trump and his family, his use of the pardon power, ICE’s mass deportation campaign, the Justice Department’s targeting of Trump’s perceived enemies and the administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

Democrats expect Trump to try to run out the clock, so they plan to go around the administration. They’ll pursue third-party witnesses such as companies with ties to Trump or his family, along with whistleblowers who can give lawmakers leverage.

“Often the best tactics are to find and protect willing witnesses, like John Dean during Watergate, or private witnesses not within the executive branch,” said Charles Tiefer, a former top House lawyer.

Trump has already gone on the offensive. He has declared that House investigators should “go to jail” and ordered his Justice Department to “look into” lawmakers’ investigative letters, which he called a “criminal act.” On Sunday, Attorney General Todd Blanche told CNN that “there could be” investigations into Democrats who conduct oversight.

Blanche struck a softer tone at a press conference Monday. “Congress has oversight authority. It always has,” he said.

Even so, Raskin said he was still holding out hope for cooperation.

“I do want to presume, even against all evidence, that there will be some lawful compliance on the side of the Trump administration,” Raskin said.

The White House is warning House Democrats that some of their planned investigations could cross into criminal behavior. Critics say the claim is extraordinary, and that it is likely to backfire.

Punchbowl News founder Jake Sherman reported early Wednesday morning that White House counsel Will Scharf sent a letter Monday to Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), the incoming chair of the House Oversight Committee. The letter warned that “some of the new majority’s investigations could cross the line into criminal behavior.”

“It’s an audacious claim that signals the White House is taking an aggressive — and hugely controversial — stance toward Democratic oversight in the 120th Congress,” Sherman wrote.

According to Sherman, the letter argues that Congress can only investigate matters that serve a legislative purpose, “a position that Republicans have relied on and stretched in recent years.” Scharf’s letter also claims Democratic investigations are designed to “harass and aggrandize rather than to advance any legitimate legislative end.”

Politico legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney said the letter could hurt the White House’s own position.

“This plays right into Dems’ hands,” Cheney wrote. “Threatening criminal process for oversight gives them ammo to go straight to subpoenas and tell a court ‘what’s the point of lengthy negotiations w a White House trying to criminalize congressional scrutiny?’”

Ryan Goodman, an NYU law professor and co-editor-in-chief of Just Security, suggested the letter itself could run afoul of the law. He called it “legally repulsive” and said it “ignores Constitution (Speech or Debate Clause).” He added that it “may trigger law on ‘corruptly’ by ‘threatening letter or communication’ obstructing Congress.”

Washington, D.C., TV anchor Adam Longo called the letter “a seismic development.”

“It’s highly likely to evoke a strong response from @OversightDems,” Longo wrote, adding that he had contacted Virginia and Maryland congressional representatives for comment.

Dutch international law expert Kenneth Manusama questioned the White House’s legal argument.

“Confrontation? The White House is warning the new Democratic Congress right away that it shouldn’t go overboard with investigations,” Manusama wrote in Dutch, according to an online translation. “Investigations must indeed have a legislative purpose, but that’s something of a formality these days. For example, a corruption investigation into Trump (and family) can easily be justified with the aim of making legislation that tackles such corruption."

Melania Trump’s new networking forum for female business leaders closely resembles the kind of event her husband’s administration is fighting in court, according to a New York Times report.

In September, the first lady rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange to launch Imperia, surrounded by female business leaders from nearly 100 major companies, including Bank of America, IBM and Prudential. One of her advisers called the initiative “Davos for women.”

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has spent the year suing and investigating companies over programs aimed at helping women and minorities advance in their careers. Officials argue the programs discriminate against men and white people.

In February, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued a regional Coca-Cola bottler in the Northeast over a 2024 women’s networking event at the Mohegan Sun resort in Connecticut. About 250 women attended, stayed at the hotel, did team-building exercises and heard from female leaders. A male employee later complained to the agency that men hadn’t received the “associated benefits of attendance.”

“Excluding men from an employer-sponsored event is a Title VII violation that the E.E.O.C. will act to remedy through litigation when necessary,” the agency’s acting general counsel, Catherine Eschbach, said at the time. Last month, a federal judge declined to dismiss the case.

The Justice Department has also extracted major settlements from federal contractors over mentoring and leadership programs that took race and gender into account. That includes $17 million from IBM, one of the companies represented at Melania’s launch. Lockheed Martin paid $29.5 million, Accenture $25 million and Deloitte $21.5 million.

At the Imperia launch, the first lady urged women to lift each other up. “Do not simply advise another woman, invest in her. Do not merely open a door; create a real opportunity,” she said.

Asked on Fox Business whether Imperia was about merit rather than DEI quotas, the first lady insisted, “It’s all about the merit.” She added, “D.E.I., we’re not talking about that anymore.”

Experts told the Times the two efforts send conflicting signals to businesses.

“This is completely confusing for employers trying to navigate the administration’s civil rights priorities,” said compliance consultant David Cohen. “I support the first lady in her initiative but are employers going to run afoul of the administration if they follow it?”

A Justice Department spokeswoman said the first lady’s work is “in no way ‘at odds’ with administration priorities.” Marc Beckman, an adviser to Melania who co-produced her documentary, brushed off the questions in a text: “IMPERIA has nothing to do with the issues you raised.”

Neither the White House nor Beckman would say how Imperia is funded or structured.

A federal judge criticized the Department of Homeland Security for publicizing an asylum seeker’s claim on social media, but denied his request for emergency relief.

In an opinion filed Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb wrote that Moussa Diawara is in danger, partly because DHS, its general counsel, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement told millions of people online that he falsely claimed to fear persecution over his sexual orientation.

ICE wrote “Fake & Gay!” as it reposted what purported to be copies of his asylum application, the judge said, adding that the agency seemed to delight in mocking him.

The court said that conduct is difficult to reconcile with DHS’s long-standing commitment to keeping asylum information confidential, a protection meant to prevent new risks of retaliation and persecution.

Diawara sought a temporary restraining order under a federal regulation that shields asylum-related information. The dispute turned on an exception allowing confidentiality to be waived.

The judge concluded that the authority to waive it belongs to the Homeland Security secretary, and that on the limited record so far, Diawara hadn’t shown the disclosures were likely made without authorization.

The court also said it couldn’t decide whether the disclosures were arbitrary and capricious without the administrative record. It denied the motion while saying it was “deeply troubled” by Diawara’s allegations.

President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom may be his most visible project, but his most lucrative one is playing out through his golf courses, according to a new Forbes analysis.

Trump has been using a tax strategy known as "conservation easements," Forbes reported. An owner permanently gives up the right to develop a piece of land, then claims a charitable deduction based on what that land could have been worth if it were built on. The owner keeps the property. In Trump’s case, that means his courses stay open for business.

The payoff is enormous. Forbes estimates Trump "has already claimed about $1.2 billion in deductions, saving roughly $450 million in taxes." He may have another "estimated $3.2 billion in potential write-offs" still available, which could allow him "to dodge $1.2 billion of taxes," Forbes' Dan Alexander projected.

Some of the biggest potential deductions are tied to his course in Doral, Florida, where he already claimed $323 million on 184 acres and could claim about $1.1 billion more. Forbes also estimates potential write-offs of roughly $1.1 billion at his club near Washington, D.C., and about $765 million in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.

According to the report, "It’s a staggering figure, especially since Trump, whose spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment, already pays minimal taxes. From 2017 to 2020, the president generated an estimated $555 million in operating income but sent just $3.1 million to the federal government. Trump, who once boasted that avoiding taxes 'makes me smart,' takes advantage of the standard real-estate deductions, such as depreciation and interest expenses. In especially lucrative years, however, he can turn to the golf-course trick."

The deductions can wipe out up to half of a donor’s annual tax bill, and unused amounts can be carried forward. They can’t be passed to heirs, however, which gives Trump a reason to use as much as possible while he’s alive, the report points out.

The IRS has been challenging deductions like these for about two decades. But Forbes noted that Trump recently struck a controversial and disputed immunity deal with the agency covering himself and two of his sons.

Even inside his company, the approach has skeptics. “Not everybody in the Trump Organization thinks this is a good idea,” Edward Russo, the environmentalist who first pitched the idea to Trump in 2005, admitted.

A Supreme Court expert says Justice Samuel Alito flirted with retirement this fall, but Republicans are nearly out of time to confirm a replacement.

On Legal AF’s “Unprecedented” podcast, Lisa Graves told host Michael Popok she believes Alito was “playing footsie with the idea of retiring or not.” Her evidence was the timing of his book tour, which he set for the fall instead of around his 20th anniversary on the court early this year. She added that Alito also seems to relish his role, and that she is still preparing for a possible vacancy.

Alito has publicly said he has no plans to retire for the time being.

Graves said Democrats have no filibuster to stop a lame-duck nominee, since Republicans removed it for Supreme Court picks and can confirm with 51 votes or a tie broken by the vice president. The bigger obstacle, she said, is the clock. She noted Amy Coney Barrett went from nomination to a vote in roughly 35 days and said Alito would have to announce in the coming week. Once the Senate leaves for Thanksgiving, she said, a confirmation this year becomes very hard, though not impossible.

Popok floated a scenario in which Solicitor General John Sauer, President Donald Trump’s former criminal defense lawyer, takes Alito’s seat before Jan. 3. He said Graves has ranked Sauer at the top of the short list. Graves answered that justices tend to favor their own former clerks and Sauer never clerked for Alito, but that Trump mainly wants a loyalist. She said she worries Republicans will try to push someone through.

Popok called such a move “political suicide” for Senate Republicans and predicted Sens. Thom Tillis and John Cornyn would oppose it. Graves was more doubtful, saying Republicans made noise during Todd Blanche’s confirmation and then fell in line.

Graves said it sounds like Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas face some pressure to go now, because a Democratic presidency could delay a Republican-appointed successor until 2033. Her sense is that Thomas wants to stay through May 2028 to set the record for longest service.

Opponents of President Donald Trump’s planned 250-foot arch near Arlington National Cemetery are betting on a simple strategy – stall the project long enough for Democrats to take control of Congress.

The 80-year-old president is ready to start building the monument as soon as a federal court lifts its order pausing work, but the Washington Post reported that a coalition of local leaders, lawmakers and retired D.C. residents is trying to keep construction from starting before Jan. 3, when the new Congress is seated.

“We’re hoping we can just delay this to Jan. 3, when the new Congress is seated and it will be harder and harder for Trump,” said Joanne Vine, a retired D.C. resident who helped organize a local group dubbed the “anti-archers.”

Vine said she has been working with Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA), who is expected to chair the House Natural Resources Committee next year, and she said she’s optimistic that he and his colleagues will put new obstacles in the arch’s path.

Opponents won a key victory last Thursday. Minutes after a federal planning commission packed with Trump appointees approved the arch, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered a halt to all arch-related work. She sided with a lawsuit filed by the District of Columbia and Virginia, writing that both “face tangible economic harms from the construction of the Arch.” Her final ruling could come later this month.

Vine said her group coordinates over the encrypted messaging app Signal and had been ready to physically block construction crews if the judge hadn’t stepped in.

“If Chutkan hadn’t ruled, we were prepared to go [to] the circle,” she said. “About 20 or 30 of us were prepared to be arrested.”

Opposition is also building at City Hall. In a statement to the Post, Mayor-elect Janeese Lewis George said “the people of D.C. do not support this 250-foot arch.” She warned it could disrupt traffic and emergency evacuation routes and harm the “sacred” cemetery itself. Outgoing Mayor Muriel Bowser, by contrast, has stayed largely silent on the project and did not join the lawsuit.

Separately, nine members of the Kennedy family filed their own suit Tuesday. They cited a Post analysis that found the arch would cast shadows on John F. Kennedy’s grave.

The White House waved off Chutkan’s order as the work of an “activist district court.”

“We are confident we will be fully vindicated as this litigation proceeds and look forward to seeing the completion of this magnificent Arch,” spokesman Davis Ingle said.

The administration shows no sign of backing down. The day after Chutkan’s ruling, the White House promoted new renderings of the arch. They show it emblazoned with “Golden Age of America,” one of Trump’s favorite slogans, in place of the previously approved “Liberty and Justice for All.”

According to the Post, administration officials sometimes call the project “the Trump arch.”

President Donald Trump fired off two very angry Truth Social posts aimed at The New York Times, well after midnight and into early Wednesday morning.

The bigger target was a Times report on his former personal lawyer, Alina Habba Mildon, and a harassment settlement at his Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

According to a new complaint by New Jersey’s Office of Attorney Ethics, Habba Mildon befriended a 21-year-old club waitress who had accused a manager of sexual harassment. She then allegedly talked the young woman into dropping her lawyer and taking a $15,000 settlement on terms favorable to the club, where she was a member. Habba Mildon’s office also prepared a nondisclosure agreement, despite a New Jersey law banning NDAs in workplace harassment cases. She now faces discipline that could cost her her law license.

Trump insisted he had nothing to do with it despite his ownership of the club.

“The failing New York Times wrote about the ‘settling of a sexual harassment suit brought years ago by a waitress at President Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J,’” he posted at 1:47 a.m. “What they fail to say is that it did not involve President Trump, a rather important omission. FAKE NEWS!!!”

About 20 minutes earlier, he had gone after another Times piece cataloging his chaotic behavior since the midterms. He disputed its claim that he called into a C-SPAN show “APPARENTLY WITHOUT NOTICE.”

“It was a fully scheduled call, as a favor to C-Span, set up through White House Communications,” Trump wrote. “The Times knew this, but lied, in order to demean - But this is the least of their lies!”

Conservative radio host Mark Levin, a prominent ally of President Donald Trump, became the internet’s punchline Tuesday after he complained publicly that he’d spent a whole day locked out of his AOL email account.

“Folks, I have spent literally the entire day trying to get someone at AOL to unlock my email,” Levin wrote on X Tuesday afternoon. “For the last eight hours, I have been told that the issue has been escalated to supervisors who would contact me. I haven’t heard a thing.”

“You would think that, since I’m one of the last human beings on the face of the Earth still using AOL, they would take care of this. You’d be wrong,” he went on. “So, once this gets resolved, hopefully before the next presidential election, I’m dropping them. (I kept them this long out of convenience, but now I have no reason to keep them.)”

Levin said he would “address this further” on his radio show that evening.

The post had more than 2.3 million views by Wednesday, and much of the mockery came from his own side of the aisle.

“Your AOL email address was promised to someone else 3,000 years ago,” wrote former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL). In a separate reply, Gaetz added: “the antisemitism at AOL is unforgivable.”

“Probably an issue with your dial up connection,” wrote Daily Wire commentator Matt Walsh. “Was someone using the landline when you were trying to access the internet? Have you asked anyone on your Buddy List if they’re having similar issues?”

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) linked the outage to Levin’s foreign policy views: “The last man on Earth still using AOL is also the last man still arguing for endless Middle East wars. Coincidence?”

Conservative commentator Auron MacIntyre took a similar line, writing that “the man responsible for advising Trump and propagandizing your parents into supporting a disastrous war is crying about being locked out of his AOL email like it’s 1998.”

Critics on the left focused on Levin’s influence, too.

“This is one of the top 5 guys Trump listened to in making the decison to go to war with Iran,” wrote The Nation’s Jeet Heer.

“I’m not sure whether to laugh at the ridiculousness of this person, or cry that such a ridiculous person helped the president of the United States start a war in the Middle East that killed 120 kids on day one,” wrote journalist Mehdi Hasan.

Drop Site News co-founder Ryan Grim kept it short: “I refuse to believe this is real.”

Others went after the technology itself.

“It could be a problem with your browser. When was the last time you updated Netscape?” asked writer Charlotte Clymer.

“did you fax them about it,” asked economist Robert P. Murphy.

Not everyone joined in. Longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone replied: “This is crazy!”

Then-Senator John F. Kennedy gave a speech in 1959 in which he said:

“When written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’ is composed of two characters — one represents danger and one represents opportunity.”

While Kennedy’s generalization about Chinese calligraphy was slightly off, his description of “crisis” perfectly represents where we are right now:

— Dr. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who’s studied strongmen her entire career and wrote a brilliant book about them, calls this “late-stage radicalization,” the dangerous phase when a weakened autocrat purges wafflers from his regime, strengthens his loyalists, and lashes out at anybody who may oppose him.

— Obama advisor Robert Pape, who runs the University of Chicago’s project on political violence, just said that the next eight weeks until Democrats are sworn in will be the most dangerous weeks of our entire lives.

— Dr. Bandy Lee, a forensic psychiatrist who’s a regular guest on my program, made a similar warning based on Trump’s twisted psychology, telling The Independent newspaper about Trump’s affection for talking about using nuclear weapons:

“[Trump] is extremely attracted to them without understanding their ramifications: for him, they are just bigger bombs. However, there is no scenario in which the use of nuclear weapons would not lead to a catastrophic end to life as we know it. Unless he is contained, he could be driven to use them now, rageful as he is about his defeat against Iran, and desperate as he will be to salvage his image from being a ‘loser’.”

She added:

“We have a truly narrow window between his defenses being low and his ‘recovering’ himself to attack even more vehemently.”

She said that just before Trump had appointed Stephen Miller to be his Chief of Staff, the guy who essentially runs the presidency, indicating that Trump is now in the “recovery” mode of moving toward full-on tyranny.

I’m familiar with Dr. Lee’s “window” — when Louise and I started and ran a community and school for severely abused children in the late 1970s, we worked with numerous abusive families. The most deadly moment in the relationship is when the abused spouse (typically the wife) finally decides to leave; that’s when most spousal and even whole-family murders happen, and it is why shelters go to such lengths to remain anonymous.

Perhaps most ominously, this weekend Trump posted on his Nazi-infested social media site that Democratic members of Congress “are extortionists and they should be imprisoned” and ordered the Justice Department to investigate them. When CNN’s Dana Bash asked Blanche flat out if he’d go after members of Congress, he said, “It depends on what’s said, so yes, there could be [pursuit of criminal investigations].”

When Bash asked him about Trump and him throwing Democratic members of Congress in prison, he replied, “It depends on what the crime is and what they’ve done.”

The “crimes” they were discussing were Senator Elissa Slotkin telling college students they might want to think twice before going to work for this regime, and Congressman Robert Garcia telling Trump’s people to “lawyer up.”

That’s it. Our acting Attorney General is saying — like with Comey’s picture of seashells spelling out 8647 — that speech that offends the president is now a potential felony that can lead to years in brutal federal prisons or, at the least, “investigations” that can break an average person financially and destroy their retirement savings in legal fees.

I wrote about this moment at length in The Hidden History of American Oligarchy, noting that oligarchy — when the morbidly rich take control of government and turn its power toward enriching themselves and their buddies — is always a transitional form of governance that typically lasts less than a generation.

The reason why is simple, and we’re seeing it played out in this past election and the No Kings marches. When people realize that the government has been taken over by criminals and grifters, they rebel and demand a return to honesty and transparency.

At that point the ruler faces a stark binary choice: Either come down with an iron fist, as the Chinese did at Tiananmen Square and Putin did in the early 2000s, or back off and go back to running their businesses and let the people have their government back, as happened here in the U.S. after FDR came to power and called out the “economic royalists” who “hate me, and I welcome their hatred.”

Trump initially, on Tuesday night, told Fox “News” that he’d work with Democrats. But since then, he’s brought in Stephen Miller and started talking about imprisoning the Democrats who’ll be investigating his family’s criminal syndicate and his and Miller’s violent abuses of our Constitution and law.

In choosing Miller to be his alter ego and essentially run the Executive Branch, Trump’s clearly chosen the iron fist strategy.

As The New York Times reported Saturday, Miller:
— pushed the murderous war crimes of striking civilian boats in the Caribbean;
— helped turn the prosecutorial power of the federal government against political opponents and universities;
— oversaw the federal military occupation of Washington, D.C.;
— circulated Trump’s draft executive order to restrict mail-in voting;
— and openly discussed invoking the Insurrection Act when the people of Minneapolis came into the streets to protest the ICE murder of two of their citizens.

Miller called Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse at the local VA hospital, a “domestic terrorist” and “would-be assassin.” Pretti had been holding a phone.

If Trump decides to go full-Putin, the machinery for such a crackdown was put into place late last year with his National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), which directs the FBI, Treasury, and IRS to treat “anti-capitalism,” “anti-Christianity” and “extremism on migration, race, and gender” as “indicators of domestic terrorism.”

It’s already been used; in June, eight people who supported a 4th of July demonstration outside the Prarieland ICE facility in Texas were sentenced to a combined 450 years in federal prison.

The one guy who shot and wounded a police officer got 100 years in prison, but under the terrorism conspiracy rubric the other seven got 30 to 70 years in prison each; Daniel Estrada, who wasn’t even at the protest, got 30 years in prison for moving a box of zines.

This is Putin’s “iron fist” now carved into American law and already executed at least once, probably as a test case; Trump and Miller appear ready to push it as far as they can, meaning anybody who opposes this regime is at risk. Miller was reportedly pushing this weekend for journalists to be thrown in jail, just like in Russia.

The New Republic recently reported that Trump is pressing for the still-Republican-controlled House and Senate to jam through an appropriation of $166.1 million for 328 new positions, including 130 special agents, to more fully implement NSPM-7 through a new Joint Mission Center drawing in 10 federal agencies.

And acting Attorney General and Trump’s former personal criminal defense lawyer Todd Blanche said that Trump himself has a “right” and a “duty” to order federal investigations — including into politicians and writers who oppose him — and boasted on NewsNation that he’s installing “roadblocks” inside the DOJ so Trump himself can never be prosecuted after he leaves office.

That’s the “danger” aspect of Kennedy’s quote. The “opportunity” side is the power that House and Senate Democrats will have in another two months. A handful of Republicans may join them, as several called Miller’s appointment a “horrible decision” and one called him a “megalomaniac” on the record.

The margins in this election bring to mind the vote in April in Hungary, where Trump’s closest European ally and fellow Putin-suckup Viktor Orbán lost so badly that he had no choice but to step down and allow a democratic transition in that nation. As Ruth Ben-Ghiat notes, the strongman’s playbook has no chapter on how to lose.

So, here we are, presented with both great danger — Trump could do just about anything, including provoking a world war and declaring a national emergency to prevent Democrats from being seated in January — and great opportunity for a cleansing and democratic renewal like we last saw in the 1932-1981 New Deal era.

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty” is a probably apocryphal quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson, but it perfectly describes this moment and the next two years. And that vigilance is our job.

Stay updated, reach out to your elected officials (202-224-3121) and let them know you support accountability and the rule of law, and help keep friends and family awake. Share this message and others that promote the ideals of our democracy rather than Trump’s and Miller’s thuggish worldview.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) could soon face a rematch with an old rival as his own party grows increasingly fed up with him.

Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA) told Politico in an interview Tuesday that she is "considering" a 2028 Senate run, including a possible primary challenge to Fetterman.

"I'm going to be considering it," Dean told the outlet.

The congresswoman pointed to "really, two things, which is his family and his health," adding that she is "very disappointed in his activity as a senator and in his votes."

Dean and Fetterman both ran for lieutenant governor in 2018, a race Fetterman ultimately won, and Dean went on to win a House seat that same year. She told Politico she got to know and like both Fetterman and his wife during that campaign.

"When I say consider, nothing is lighthearted," she said of her decision-making. Dean did not give a timeline for a final call, according to Politico, saying she first needs to talk it through with her family.

A Senate bid would put Dean in a growing field of Democrats hoping to capitalize on Fetterman's slide in popularity with the party's base since he won his seat in 2022. The senator has been criticized for long stretches away from legislative work and for backing the Iran war, a position at odds with most of his party.

Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-PA) has said he is giving a run "serious thought," Politico reported. And on Monday, Philadelphia writer and businessman Ahmed Moor became the first Democrat to formally enter the race, The Hill reported. Moor, a Palestinian American and Democratic Socialists of America member, is campaigning on ending the Iran war and expanding access to health care, child care and affordable housing.

Fetterman also drew backlash in September after appearing by video at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, where he introduced Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA) as a "great friend."

Still, he has insisted he won't switch parties. "I've said I have no path as a Republican. That's a fact," Fetterman said at the Texas Tribune Festival that month.

He has not said publicly whether he will seek reelection.

A top Justice Department official delivered a blunt ultimatum to the nation's federal prosecutors as senior officials stream out of the agency.

Aakash Singh, a senior aide to Attorney General Todd Blanche, told U.S. attorneys on a Monday conference call that the department is now on a "wartime footing" for the final two years of President Donald Trump's term, and that prosecutors unwilling to aggressively chase the president's priorities should consider resigning, MS NOW reported Tuesday, citing two people with knowledge of the call.

Singh linked the new posture to Democrats' takeover of Congress in January, when the party will control the committees expected to scrutinize the Justice Department, according to the report.

Leah Foley, Trump's U.S. attorney in Massachusetts, told MS NOW she understood Singh's message as a call to tune out Democratic investigations and keep advancing Trump's agenda. She called it "a pep talk" and said Singh asked prosecutors to "reflect as to whether this is still the job that you want."

A DOJ spokesperson claimed the "wartime" remark was about public safety, arguing that newly elected state and local officials in several districts have lost interest in working with federal law enforcement. She added that Singh "never said anyone would be forced out."

The warning comes as top officials head for the exits in the days since Democrats swept the midterms. The department has announced the departures of three presidentially appointed assistant attorneys general who led the national security, civil rights and civil divisions, plus four other senior political appointees. Five sources told the outlet that while most left for private-sector jobs, some were forced out for falling short of what Trump and the White House demanded.

Two people familiar with the departures said Trump lost patience with Jason Reding Quiñones, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, after he never delivered charges in the "grand conspiracy" case aimed at Obama-era officials such as former CIA director John Brennan over the Russia probe. Another person disputed that account.

Former administration officials also pointed to Stephen Miller's elevation to White House chief of staff as a factor, with one saying Miller "routinely berates people at the department on conference calls." Two former officials faulted Blanche, with one describing "a culture of fear" under his leadership.

"People don't want to work in these conditions," one of them said.

The DOJ spokesperson rejected that portrayal, insisting Blanche is the most accessible and understanding attorney general the department ever had.

Susie Wiles has left President Donald Trump's White House, but his longtime biographer believes she is just getting started against him.

On Tuesday's episode of "Inside Trump's Head," Trump biographer Michael Wolff told co-host Joanna Coles that the ousted White House chief of staff will look for any opening to "put the knife in" while keeping up a respectful face in public.

Coles raised Wiles' departure on the show, noting that she stormed off after Trump "berated her yet another time" over the GOP's midterm performance, and asked whether she would remain loyal.

"Well, you know, loyalty is understood in different kind of ways," Wolff replied. "Does she remain publicly loyal or at least publicly respectful? Yes. Does she do everything possible? In private to undermine him? Yes."

Coles called it "so unpleasant" and suggested Wiles would also try to undermine Stephen Miller, the Trump loyalist who replaced her as chief of staff.

Wolff said Wiles would be "most mindful of her own interests" and singled out her daughter, Katie Wiles.

"One of the interests, by the way, is her daughter and her daughter's future career," he explained, adding that "part of the tension within the White House is that she kept promoting...her own daughter."

The biographer described Wiles as "intently focused on her own reputation" and her "coterie of people," adding that it was often pointed out "she wasn't really that concerned about Donald Trump" or the things he said that caused discomfort inside the administration.

"She could live with that," Wolff said. "And that's probably why she lasted as long as she did."

Now that she's out, Wolff predicted that self-interest will guide her next move.

"She's an adept political player. She has her self-interest to protect here," he warned. "She will look for all...options in which to put the knife in."

Wolff also argued that Trump didn't choose Miller as part of any plan, but because he was the "most loyal, most available person" when Wiles walked out.

He described Miller as "unable and uninterested in compromise of any sort," making him "exactly the kind of person you don't want in the chief of staff role."