Trump’s Fed Pick Flails Under Liz Warren’s Brutal Line of Questioning

At his confirmation hearing, Stephen Miran, a Trump adviser nominated by the president to fill a vacancy on the Federal Reserve Board, refused to question any of Donald Trump’s main talking points when questioned by Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Warren began with an “easy yes or no”: Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?

Failing to activate his microphone, Miran began to answer circuitously (“Thank you Senator Warren. Let me begin by saying, although we didn’t have the chance to sit down—”) but was asked to turn on his mic as Warren repeated the question, saying, “It’s a yes or no.”

Miran took a swig of water, then prevaricated: “Joe Biden was certified by Congress as the president of the United States.” Pressed again, he again evaded, simply saying Biden “was certified by the Congress.”

“Can you say the words Donald Trump lost that election?” Warren asked. “Are you independent enough to say that?”

“The Congress certified Joe Biden,” Miran repeated, leading Warren to change the subject to Trump’s firing of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ commissioner last month after a poor July job report.

Asked whether he agrees with Trump’s baseless claim that the BLS faked job numbers to rig the 2024 election for Kamala Harris, Miran began to answer another question entirely: “Look, the data quality from the Bureau of Labor—”

“That’s not the question, about the data quality,” Warren cut in, repeating her question. Miran replied that BLS data quality has deteriorated, to which Warren observed that Miran was mum on the issue until “the numbers started showing that Trump’s economy was headed in the wrong direction.”

Warren repeated the question for the third time, and Miran replied that the BLS failed to “take corrective action” to improve data. Asked pointedly whether the agency had “faked” numbers, Miran accused it of complacency. Asked whether he had any evidence of fake numbers, Miran again just harped on declining data quality.

“In other words, just two straightforward questions about your independence, and you’ve blown both of them,” Warren said, later adding, “Dr. Miran, you have made clear that you will do or say whatever Donald Trump wants you to do or say, and that may work in a political position, but it takes an ax to Fed independence and will make life far more expensive for American families.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed that Susan Monarez, the ousted head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was lying about being threatened into rubber-stamping policies she didn’t agree with.

Testifying before the Senate Finance Committee Thursday, Kennedy was asked by Senator Rob Wyden to respond to allegations that he had told Monarez to “just go along with vaccine recommendations,” even though “she didn’t think such recommendations aligned with scientific evidence.”

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed Thursday, Monarez claimed that Kennedy had directed her to preapprove recommendations made by a “vaccine advisory panel newly filled with people who have publicly expressed antivaccine rhetoric.” She wrote that she’d refused, and in a meeting on August 25, Kennedy had pressured her to resign or “face termination.” Days later, she was removed. 

Kennedy, who has lied before Congress multiple times, claimed that this time, Monarez was lying. 

“No, I did not say that to her,” Kennedy said. “And I never had a private meeting with her. There are witnesses to every meeting that we have, and all of those witnesses will say that I never said that.” 

“So she’s lying today to the American people, The Wall Street Journal?” Wyden pressed. 

“Yes, sir,” Kennedy replied. 

But Monarez’s allegations don’t exactly sound outlandish. Kennedy has spent much of his career peddling dangerous misinformation about vaccines. On Wednesday, more than 1,000 current and former HHS employees wrote a letter demanding that he step down, citing his appointment of “political ideologues who pose as scientific experts,” his refusal to be briefed by CDC experts, and his rescinding of the FDA’s emergency use authorization for the Covid vaccine. 

In her op-ed, Monarez claimed that she had attempted to defend scientific review in the face of Kennedy’s overhaul of the nation’s vaccine policy.

“Those seeking to undermine vaccines use a familiar playbook: discredit research, weaken advisory committees, and use manipulated outcomes to unravel protections that generations of families have relied on to keep deadly diseases at bay,” Monarez wrote.  

“Once trusted experts are removed and advisory bodies are stacked, the results are predetermined. That isn’t reform,” she added. “It’s sabotage.”  

President Trump’s Justice Department is opening a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook in an attempt to pressure her into dropping her lawsuit against the administration, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The department has already issued grand jury subpoenas in Georgia and Michigan, according to officials familiar with the matter.

Last month, Trump fired Cook, claiming she committed mortgage fraud by listing two of her homes as primary residences. In reality, it’s most likely that Trump was upset at her for maintaining the Fed’s independence and refusing to raise interest rates to the level Trump requested.

Cook in turn sued Trump for trying to fire her, and a judge is considering her emergency request to stop her dismissal while her lawsuit continues. The Fed’s next meeting is September 16. Her lawsuit noted that the allegations against her are “pretextual, in order to effectuate her prompt removal and vacate a seat for President Trump to fill and forward his agenda to undermine the independence of the Federal Reserve.”

“President Trump has no authority to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook,” her lawyer Abbe Lowell said in a statement. “His attempt to fire her, based solely on a referral letter, lacks any factual or legal basis. We will be filing a lawsuit challenging this illegal action.”

The DOJ’s criminal probe is a clear intimidation campaign that reflects Trump’s greater takeover of federal agencies, turning them from politically neutral entities that transcend politics to faceless organizations that do his bidding and his bidding only. Cook and some of her colleagues—like CDC Director Susan Monarez—haven’t caved yet. We’ll see if the criminal investigation changes that.

As President Donald Trump escalates his threats to take over Chicago, Senator Ted Cruz, ever the president’s loyal attack dog, has joined in.

The senator spoke on Newsmax Wednesday, calling Chicago Governor JB Pritzker a “disgusting, racist bigot” in response to comments Pritzker made about ICE targeting Latino Chicagoans.

Not content to merely smear the governor’s policies, Cruz turned his ire to Pritzker’s body.

“I don’t wanna get between JB Pritzker and the Domino’s pizza line, but I’ll tell you what I am willing to get between, it is him and his open doors for every human trafficker …”

Pritzker then fired back on X: “And I would never want to get between Ted and a trip to Cancun when there’s an emergency in Texas,” referencing the infamous Cancún vacation that Cruz took while his state was battered by a winter storm that killed hundreds.

Unfortunately for Cruz, the internet took Pritzker’s side and piled more insults onto the Texas senator.

Pritzker has loudly opposed Trump’s authoritarian proposals, especially as the president has continued to drag Chicago’s crime rates through the mud—despite a “historic drop in homicides” in the city that mirrors nationwide trends.

Thomas Massie, a libertarian Republican representative from Kentucky, says he is facing an “immense pressure campaign” for spearheading a bipartisan bill for transparency on the notorious late sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein.

Massie has garnered 11 other Republican co-sponsors on his and Democratic Representative Ro Khanna’s bill to force the DOJ to release the so-called Epstein files in full. They have garnered just three Republicans, plus Massie, on a discharge petition to force the bill to a vote—which President Donald Trump deemed a “hostile act.”

Meanwhile, Massie has vowed to use immunity afforded to members of Congress under the speech and debate clause to publicly read a list of Epstein’s clients being privately compiled by his victims.

Appearing on CNN Wednesday evening, the Kentucky Republican described the pressure he and the handful of other GOP lawmakers are facing by taking Trump to task on Epstein.

“There’s an immense pressure campaign from the White House on Republican members right now,” he said. In his own district, he explained, “there’s been $2.5 million of ads run against me by three billionaires who are mega-donors to the Republican Party. And one of them is actually, I’m not going to say on Epstein’s list, but he’s in Epstein’s black book.”

Massie believes the powers that be are hoping to make an example of him to dissuade any other potential Republican dissenters on Epstein.

“I think what’s being run against me is a threat to other Republicans to try to keep them from doing what I’m doing,” he said.

But he remains unfazed—citing his resounding win in his 2020 Republican primary despite Trump then calling to “throw Massie out of Republican Party!” during one of their many spats. “So in some sense, I have the Trump antibodies,” Massie said. “But I’m definitely going to get a booster shot here.”

In a conversation with a White House official, Massie said, he confessed it was a mistake to announce there were 12 Republican co-sponsors on the bill to force DOJ disclosure of the files before seeking signatures on the discharge petition, “because I just telegraphed to you the 12 people that you needed to whip.” In response, Massie said, the official “kind of laughed, and he said, ‘Yeah.’”

But he expressed confidence that he and Khanna would secure the 218 votes to force a floor vote nonetheless.

President Donald Trump’s administration appears to be changing its story to help justify an unprecedented military strike on a boat officials claim was carrying drugs.

The New York Times reported Thursday that some officials at the Department of Defense had privately expressed concerns that the government had changed details of its story about the deadly strike earlier this week, which killed 11 people.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Tuesday that the ship was traveling to Trinidad, Tobago, or “some other country in the Caribbean.” But after President Donald Trump claimed the ship was on course for the United States, Rubio changed his tune.

International drug traffickers “pose an immediate threat to the United States, period,” Rubio said Wednesday at a joint press conference in Mexico City. “If you’re on a boat full of cocaine or fentanyl or whatever headed to the United States, you’re an immediate threat to the United States.”

Shifting the narrative to center the United States is particularly concerning, considering the fact that the Trump administration has yet to produce a legal authority for the use of military force against cartels.

Trump claimed Tuesday that the 11 crew members were “narco terrorists” who belonged to the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, which the executive branch has labeled a terrorist organization. But such a designation does not serve as any legal basis for a combat strike.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed Wednesday that administration officials “knew exactly who was in that boat” and “exactly what they were doing.” But the government has offered no evidence to support its claim that the individuals on the boat were in fact drug traffickers.

Despite Trump posting a video of the incident to Truth Social, the actual details still remain murky beneath the Trump administration’s shifting narratives, and the government has been anything but transparent about the military strike, which may prove to have been illegal.

Yet another Jeffrey Epstein survivor has expressed her disappointment in President Trump’s constant dismissal of their fight for justice as a “Democrat hoax.”

“I’m a Republican. I voted for him. I voted for Trump,” Jena-Lisa Jones, who was abused by Epstein in 2003 when she was just 14 years old, said on MSNBC Wednesday evening. “For him to say what he’s saying is beyond me. Because I put my hope in him, and he’s supposed to protect us. And for him to say that this is a joke, and that it’s sides? This is not sides. We will say it time and time again: None of us are up there accusing him of anything. There is no one that is accusing him of any wrongdoing, so for the fact that he is saying those things and saying it’s a hoax, who are you hiding for then? Because if it’s not you, then who is it?”

Trump has been framing the Epstein saga as one big lie that his supporters would be stupid to believe, despite years of his own Cabinet officials speaking about the issue.

“So this is a Democrat hoax that never ends,” Trump said earlier Wednesday, as Epstein survivors held a press conference outside the Capitol. “You know, it reminds me a little of the Kennedy situation; we gave ’em everything. Over and over again, more and more and more. And nobody’s ever satisfied. From what I understand—I could check—but from what I understand, thousands of pages of documents have been given. But it’s really a Democrat hoax. Because they’re trying to get people to talk about something that’s totally irrelevant to the success that we’ve had as a nation since I’ve been president.”

Trump is, of course, lying again. The “thousands of pages of documents” the Justice Department and House Republicans released Tuesday evening contained old, redacted information, and even duplicate pages to make it seem more significant than it was.

Jones isn’t the only Epstein survivor questioning her vote for Trump.

“Mr. President Donald J. Trump, I am a registered Republican, not that that matters because this is not political. However, I cordially invite you to the Capitol to meet me in person so you can understand this is not a hoax,” said survivor Haley Robson when asked about Trump’s hoax comments at the Wednesday press conference. “We are real human beings. This is real trauma.… We’re here in person. To say that it’s a hoax is just not … please humanize us. I would like Donald J. Trump and every person in America and around the world to humanize us, and to hear us for what we have to say.”

At this point it’s clear that whatever “hoax” there is is coming directly from the Trump administration, as they have done everything in their power to avoid holding any of their rich friends accountable and giving these abused women the basic justice they deserve.

The White House is apparently desperate to get Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene to stop pushing for the release of more files on Jeffrey Epstein—but she’s still not blaming Donald Trump.

Speaking on the Real America’s Voice show Bolling! Wednesday night, the Georgia Republican described the White House’s efforts to urge her not to support Representative Thomas Massie’s discharge petition to release all files on the alleged sex trafficker.

“Oh, I got a lot of pushback. I got phone call after phone call last night. They didn’t want me to sign the discharge petition. They want to focus on the oversight investigation,” Greene explained. “They hate Thomas Massie more than they can hate any Democrat, which makes no sense to me. And they don’t want to work with Democrats at all.”

But even as the target of a pressure campaign from the White House, Greene was still loath to blame Trump, and claimed that White House staffers were responsible.

“Eric, you and I both know any president is insulated and in a cone of information based on the people that work directly with him, and I don’t think they’ve informed him on what a big deal this really is,” she said.

Greene condemned a Wednesday statement from a “coward” White House official that had warned Massie’s discharge petition was a “hostile act” against the Trump administration.

“I take very big offense to that, because I put my life and my fortune on the line fighting to get that man elected,” Greene said.

Greene also pushed back gently on Trump’s disturbing dismissal of the survivors’ press conference Wednesday, calling their pleas to release the complete Epstein files a “Democratic hoax that never ends.”

“It’s not a hoax, because Jeffrey Epstein is a convicted pedophile. That takes away the whole hoax thing. It’s not a hoax. It’s not a lie,” Greene said.

The representative also said she hoped Trump would change his mind, and invite the survivors to the Oval Office. “I want him to be the hero and champion of this issue,” Greene said. “And I want him to fight for these women, because I know him to be a fighter.”

Greene is one of four Republicans supporting Massie’s discharge petition, and the second to offer her own baffling defense of Trump’s inaction. On Wednesday, Representative Nancy Mace claimed Trump was “committed to protecting women and children,” shortly after he had claimed that survivors of sexual abuse were lying.

A bipartisan group of U.S. representatives—ranging from progressives to MAGA true believers—unveiled legislation Wednesday to ban stock trading for members of Congress and their relatives.

The surprising group has united behind one bill dubbed the Restore Trust in Congress Act, which Democratic Representative Seth Magaziner and far-right Republican Chip Roy officially introduced.

At the bill’s announcement on Wednesday, progressive Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said any prospective members of Congress who are vexed by the proposal are probably not cut out to serve.

“If anyone says, ‘This isn’t fair. I’m going to have to divest all my stocks if I’m going to run for Congress,’ maybe you should stay home,” said Ocasio-Cortez. She added that it’s “outrageous” that some representatives see the proposed ban as “some undue burden.”

Ocasio-Cortez also observed the need for more working-class representation in a Congress where millionaires are overwhelmingly overrepresented. “I feel that actually banning the trade of individual stock can help even the playing field,” she said.

“This body has been enriching itself on the taxpayer’s dime, and, dadgummit, it’s got to stop,” added MAGA Representative Tim Burchett.

Progressive Democrat Pramila Jayapal spoke to the importance of voters knowing their representatives “are taking votes on issues where they’re not thinking about their own stock portfolio.”

“This is beyond an 80–20 issue,” said Republican Representative Brian Fitzpatrick. “This is a 95–5 issue, and the five that are against it are probably in this institution day trading.”

Asked why the bill is limited to the legislative branch, Magaziner suggested that a ban on stock trading for the president and vice president could be introduced down the line, as an amendment or a separate bill.

“Many of us, I think in both parties, support including the president and vice president,” he said. “We are working to see if we can get a critical mass of support to include them or not.”

Representative Nancy Mace offered a wild defense of President Donald Trump, who has dismissed calls for more transparency on Jeffrey Epstein, less than 24 hours after crying with survivors of the alleged sex trafficker.

Mace left a meeting with survivors of Epstein’s sexual abuse visibly upset on Tuesday afternoon, and later said she’d had a “full blown panic attack” in the face of their stories, having been a recent survivor of sexual assault herself.

“I feel the immense pain of how hard all victims are fighting for themselves because we know absolutely no one will fight for us. GOD BLESS ALL SURVIVORS,” she wrote in a post on X.

But on Wednesday, Mace went out of her way to defend Trump—who had just that day dismissed continuous calls to release Epstein’s list of clients as a “Democratic hoax that never ends.”

“President Trump is the one who banned Jeffrey Epstein from Mar-a-Lago. President Trump is the one who cooperated with the feds to get this guy. President Trump is the one who is COMMITTED to protecting women and kids,” Mace wrote in a post on X, linking an NBC News interview with some survivors who claimed they hadn’t witnessed any misconduct from Trump.

Mace’s claims stand in stark contrast to statements from survivor Chauntae Davies, who, while speaking Wednesday at a major press conference, said that Epstein’s longtime friendship with Trump was his “biggest brag,” and revealed that he had a framed picture of the two of them on his desk.

This is just the latest in a laundry list of revelations tying the president to the alleged sex trafficker.

Even though Trump has not been directly implicated in Epstein’s crimes, his attempts to discredit survivors and prevent the release of more information could easily be presented as efforts to sweep the whole thing under the rug.

Before the press conference, survivors of Epstein’s sexual abuse held a rally where they spoke about their experiences and condemned lawmakers who would fashion their trauma into political weaponry. Clearly, Mace’s solidarity with survivors of sexual assault only goes so far.

Mace did, however, lend her name to Representative Thomas Massie’s latest petition pushing for the House to release more files on Epstein, following the lackluster release of documents that were mostly already public, or duplicates of older reports.