Trump Secretary Totally Undercuts Kash Patel’s Epstein Claim

Donald Trump’s commerce secretary completely contradicted the Trump administration’s official story on Jeffrey Epstein during an appearance on a New York Post podcast published Wednesday.

The late notorious sex criminal was “the greatest blackmailer ever,” Howard Lutnick told the Post, after detailing a skin-crawling experience in 2005, when he moved in next to Epstein and was shown the disgraced financier’s “massage room.”

Lutnick expressed his belief that Epstein blackmailed powerful individuals in his social circle by videotaping them during massages: “They get a massage, that’s what his MO was. ‘Get a massage, get a massage,’ and what happened in that massage room, I assume, was on video. This guy was the greatest blackmailer ever, blackmailed people. That’s how he had money.”

The commerce secretary speculated that Epstein used blackmail to secure a controversial 18-month sentence in 2008 (which he notably got in a plea deal negotiated by then–U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta, who eventually served as labor secretary in Trump’s first term).

“How could he get 18 months and be able to go to his office during the day and have visitors and stuff? There must have been a trade,” Lutnick speculated. “So, my assumption, I have no knowledge, but my assumption is there was a trade for the videos, because there were people on those videos.”

Lutnick’s remarks are at odds with the administration’s official narrative on Epstein. Last month, FBI Director Kash Patel told a Senate committee “there is no credible information” that Epstein trafficked victims “to other individuals.”

In a July memo, the FBI and Justice Department also said their investigation into Epstein yielded “no credible evidence … that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions.” Nor did they uncover a “client list” or “evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”

The memo challenged what had become an article of faith among Epstein conspiracy theorists (many of them Trump supporters) and thus ignited a still-simmering scandal for Trump. The rest is history: The president disowned his Epstein-concerned supporters, news reports have revealed additional details about his former relationship with Epstein, and his allies are still fighting against pressure from the public and Congress to release the “Epstein files” in full.

Pro-Israel MAGA conservatives are fuming as the Trump administration offers protections to longtime U.S. ally Qatar in the wake of Israel’s bombing of their capital, Doha, last month. 

“Over the years, the United States and the State of Qatar have been bound together by close cooperation, shared interests, and the close relationship between our armed forces,” the administration said in an executive order. “In recognition of this history, and in light of the continuing threats to the State of Qatar posed by foreign aggression, it is the policy of the United States to guarantee the security and territorial integrity of the State of Qatar against external attack.

“The United States shall regard any armed attack on the territory, sovereignty, or critical infrastructure of the State of Qatar as a threat to the peace and security of the United States,” it stated further. 

This set off a very interesting group of people on the online far right. 

“What about assuring our own safety from Qatar?” wrote the raving far-right commentator Laura Loomer. “Every single day, Qatar floods our country with billions of $ of funding for radical left, communist, & Islamist causes on college campuses and major institutions. Qatar also financed Iran before they tried to assassinate Trump.

“Terror-funding Qatar, which has been running an elaborate anti-Israel and pro-Qatar disinformation campaign in the United States, has now succeeded at being the most effective investment in foreign influence history,” said January 6 insurrectionist defense attorney Marina Medvin. “The White House just pledged American lives to protect Qatar.” 

“Our new protectorate, Qatar,” Fox News host (and hard-core Zionist) Mark Levin opined dramatically. “If the leadership of Hamas in Qatar is killed by Israel, are we going to war with Israel?  Wouldn’t it have been better to condition any military defense of Qatar on some basic requirements? For example: Turnover the Hamas leaders; no more funding of terrorists worldwide: no more funding of Marxist-Islamist groups in the United States. This is the bare minimum.”

The United States is showing protection (for whatever reasons Trump has) to an ally that just got unilaterally bombed by Israel, and the initial reaction of these people is fear for Israel instead.

“By the way, there is no similar guarantee for Israel. American troops have never died for Israel,” another right-winger posted on X. “Are you ready to die for Qatar?”

Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday refused to explain President Trump’s seeming threat that federal firings during the government shutdown would be based on political affiliation.

A day earlier, CBS’s Weijia Jiang had asked the president why he’d said government employees would have to be let go during a shutdown, given the massive reductions to the federal workforce enacted earlier in the year by his so-called “Department of Government Efficiency.”

In response, the president said many people will be laid off, and “they’re going to be Democrats,” leading Jiang on Wednesday—the first day of the shutdown—to ask Vance whether terminations would be ideologically motivated.

“Has the administration asked agencies to target federal workers who they believe to be Democrats in these reductions of forces?” Jiang asked.

Vance denied that the administration is “targeting federal agencies based on politics,” and said federal workers would be fired only if the shutdown “drags on” long enough.

“So what did he mean by, ‘They are going to be Democrats’?” Jiang asked, quoting Trump. Vance, taking the next question, did not answer.

Whether or not possible layoffs will be explicitly politicized, the Trump administration has already used the shutdown as a cudgel against Democrats.

On Wednesday, White House budget director Russell Vought said he was freezing $18 billion earmarked for infrastructure projects in New York—the state represented by both of the top-ranking Democrats in Congress. Shortly after, Vought announced the cancellation of nearly $8 billion in climate projects across 16 states, each of which just happen to be blue states that did not vote for Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

In doing so, the budget director was simply following through on Trump’s threat to punish Democrats during the shutdown by “cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like.”

Vice President JD Vance struggled to defend Donald Trump’s racist AI slop about House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries by saying he thought it was “funny.”

The president posted videos on Truth Social both Monday and Tuesday that showed Jeffries wearing a sombrero, with an exaggerated handlebar mustache, while mariachi music played in the background—a stunt the New York Democrat called “racist.”

Speaking at a White House press briefing Wednesday, Vance was asked how he squared the president’s pathetic posting with claims that the Trump administration had attempted to engage in “good faith” negotiations with Democratic leaders.

“Oh, I think it’s funny! The president’s joking and we’re having a good time. You can negotiate in good faith while poking a little bit of fun at some of the absurdities [in] some of the Democrats’ positions. And even poking some fun at the absurdity of the Democrats themselves,” Vance said.

“I mean I’ll tell Hakeem Jeffries right now: I make this solemn promise to you, that if you help us reopen the government the sombrero memes will stop. And I’ve talked to the president of the United States about that,” he continued.

Shortly after, Vance circled back to “the sombrero thing,” saying, “Hakeem Jeffries said it was racist. And I know that he said that, and I honestly don’t even honestly know what that means. Like, is he a Mexican American that is offended by having, like, a sombrero meme?”

Jeffries is African American, and the first Black man to lead a major party in either chamber of the U.S. Congress. And Jeffries isn’t the only Black politician to be targeted with the racist sombrero meme: The Trump War Room X account also posted an AI-generated photo of Democratic Representative Maxine Waters, who is also not Mexican. But you don’t need to be of a specific ethnicity to recognize that using stereotypes from that ethnicity’s culture to imply someone is weak or stupid is, inherently, racist.

The set-dressing was in reference to Republicans’ claims that Democrats shut down the government because they want to extend health care benefits to undocumented immigrants. In fact, Democrats shut down the government because they want Americans to keep theirs.

Vance is no stranger to defending racist remarks. On the campaign trail, he elevated the false conspiracy that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating their white neighbors’ pets.

In February, he argued that a DOGE employee should be reinstated after he quit over racist comments online. “I obviously disagree with some of [Marko] Elez’s posts, but I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life,” Vance wrote on X. “We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever. So I say bring him back.”

Meanwhile, Vance has cheered on a doxing campaign for people making jokes about the death of right-wing podcaster Charlie Kirk.

Vance has often used offensive gestures at comedy to appeal to the culture warriors in Trump’s base. There are those of us who still remember his weak attempt to rib cancel culture over his choice of Diet Mountain Dew, or his sexist “childless cat lady” comment. Recently, Vance has attempted to make light of extrajudicial killings of Venezuelans. Trump’s caricatures of Jeffries are blatantly racist, and exactly the kind of shitposting his troll-laden base feeds on.

The Trump administration is yanking green energy and infrastructure funding away from blue states on day one of the Republican-led government shutdown. 

“Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being cancelled. More info to come from @ENERGY,” Office of Management and Budget Director and Project 2025 author Russ Vought announced on X on Wednesday. “The projects are in the following states: CA, CO, CT, DE, HI, IL, MD, MA, MN, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OR, VT, WA.” 

Each of these states voted against President Trump in 2024 and is represented by two Democrats in the Senate (where the shutdown fight just happens to be stuck). Not only that, but they also make up a massive bulk of the U.S. gross domestic product. This appears to be yet another petty, retributive move against states and senators that Trump considers to be his enemy. 

The Department of Energy has yet to follow up on Vought’s statement.  

This also comes as the Trump administration freezes a whopping $18 billion in infrastructure and transportation funding to New York City, another massive middle finger to a blue region. Vought announced a cut to those funds earlier Wednesday, claiming the projects are using “unconstitutional DEI principles.” 

Targeting blue states and cities isn’t very “America First” of the Trump administration. But it has become increasingly obvious that it never really cared about that, especially when revenge is on the table.

Federal employees can expect layoffs by the end of the week, according to senior Trump administration officials.

In a private call Wednesday with members of the GOP, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought announced that “consequential” layoffs will begin in “a day or two,” reported NOTUS’s Reese Gorman.

That timeline was confirmed by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who informed journalists later Wednesday that layoffs were “imminent.”

“They are, unfortunately, a consequence of this government shutdown,” she said.

She did not elaborate on the scope of the layoffs, which agencies would be targeted, or what percentage of the workforce was at risk of losing their jobs. But one demographic is in danger of getting axed: Democrats, according to Donald Trump.

Hours before the government shutdown over a bipartisan disagreement on funding Trump’s agenda, the president warned that it would be Democrats who would face the consequences for the congressional failure—even though it is Republicans who currently control every branch of the federal government.

“The Democrats want to shut it down,” Trump commented during a news conference at the White House Tuesday afternoon. “So, when you shut it down, you have to do layoffs. So, we’d be laying off a lot of people that are going to be very affected. And the Democrats, they are going to be Democrats.”

Vice President JD Vance brushed off Trump’s threats when he joined the press conference Wednesday, suggesting that the president should not be taken at his word.

“Has the administration asked agencies to target federal workers whom they believe to be Democrats in these reduction in workforce—” asked a reporter.

“We’re not targeting federal agencies based on politics,” Vance insisted in a sprawling answer that continued to point blame at Democratic leadership.

“We’re targeting the people’s government so that as much as possible of the essential services can continue to function,” he continued. “That is the question the president has asked the entire government is—fundamentally—okay we’re going to shut down. That causes some problems: The troops aren’t getting paid, there’s nothing we can do about that while the government is shut down, but there are some essential services that we want to make sure—as much as possible—they still continue to function. That is the principle that is driving us forward during this shutdown.”

“He said, ‘They are going to be Democrats,’” a reporter reiterated.

The divisive and partisan language espoused thus far by the Trump administration during this shutdown not only defies longstanding presidential tradition, but is also in violation of the Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch, according to ethics experts. It could also be in potential violation of the Hatch Act, which is designed to limit partisan messaging from federal employees.

President Donald Trump intends to shield his sweeping immigration enforcement operations from the effects of the government shutdown, as well as other key facets of his policy agenda, Politico reported Wednesday.

Through a series of interviews with former and current White House officials and analysis of agency documents, Politico learned what programs and offices Trump plans to keep intact—and spoiler alert, they’re not the essential government programs that Americans rely on. 

The Department of Homeland Security expanded the number of employees it is permitted to retain during a shutdown by 2,300, and has plans to keep 95 percent of its total employees in the office during the shutdown. Two years ago, it was only allowed to keep 88 percent. 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, charged with carrying out Trump’s sweeping raids for undocumented immigrants and extrajudicial deportations, will continue to operate without interruption, two administration officials told Politico. 

“ICE will be fine during a shutdown,” one of the administration officials told Politico. “Most of what ICE does will continue.” Border Control would also remain mostly operational. 

In previous shutdowns, the Commerce Department and U.S. Trade Representative’s office were deemed non-essential—but this time, both have announced their intention to continue working on Trump’s economic policy agenda. 

Commerce has indicated that it will continue to allow import licensing for steel and aluminum, which was not a protected activity under the agency’s 2023 shutdown plan. The USTR will keep administration tariff programs running using 60 percent of its workforce, compared to the 40 percent it would have retained under its 2024 plan. 

NASA’s Artemis moonshot program will also continue to receive funding, as will the Department of the Interior’s processing of applications for drilling permits.  

Meanwhile, Trump intends to target Democrats—and punish Americans—by stripping federal programs that actually help people.

That means hundreds of thousands of federal workers will be sent home from the Social Security Administration, the Health and Human Services Department, the Department of Education, and other federal agencies. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has suspended operations, and the Federal Drug Administration has halted its long-term food safety initiatives and pre-market safety reviews of novel animal food ingredients. 

Additionally, if you are one of the estimated 200,000 Americans who filed for an extension on filing your tax returns, the deadline is still October 15—but if you have any questions about that, you may struggle to get a hold of an actual IRS employee in their office. 

On the first day of the government shutdown, Vice President JD Vance tried to claim that it’s all the fault of Democrats for wanting to give free health care to undocumented immigrants. 

“This is a Democrat talking point. They say we’re not actually trying to give health care benefits to illegal aliens. And here’s why it’s not true,” Vance said on Fox News on Wednesday. “There are two Biden-era programs that explicitly gave the taxpayer health care money to illegal aliens that we turned off when President Trump took over in January.… The Democrats want to turn it back on. And in their initial proposal, the first thing that they put out to reopen the government, they actually turned that money for health care benefits for illegal aliens back on. So it’s not something that we made up. It’s not a talking point. It is in the text of the bill that they initially gave to us to reopen the government.” 

In reality, Democrats are fighting to reverse Trump’s Medicaid cuts and extend Affordable Care Act tax subsidies, which are set to expire at the end of this year and would cause health care premiums to rise for millions of Americans.

And the text of Democrats’ proposal doesn’t say at all what Vance claims it does, as American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick pointed out. 

“That is an outright lie. You can read the text for yourself; the Medicaid section starts on page 55,” he wrote on X. “There is nothing in there AT ALL about ‘free healthcare’ for undocumented immigrants. Vance is just making that up COMPLETELY.”

Some on the right responded to Reichlin-Melnick by bringing up the fact that undocumented people would get treatment in an emergency room, cruelly conflating Medicare and Medicaid with the emergency medical services every Medicare-participating hospital is required to give under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1986. 

“If you get hit by a car, they don’t check your papers before saving your life. That’s not going to change,” Melnick continued. “Again, absolutely nothing in either the GOP Medicaid cuts passed earlier this year or the Democrats’ demand to reverse those cuts has anything at all to do with EMTALA, the law which requires hospitals to treat people who arrive with emergency medical needs.”

And yet the vice president’s rhetoric went unchallenged live, as the GOP continues to spread misinformation to justify its slash-and-burn funding bill while pointing the blame for the shutdown at Democrats.  

On Tuesday evening, the Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV spoke out against anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States, as well as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s bellicose rhetoric.

At an unusual gathering of military leaders earlier that day, Hegseth had told the top brass to be “prepared for war, not for defense,” while espousing the use of “overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy” and promising to “untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country.”

Speaking to reporters in Italian, Leo called Hegseth’s rhetoric “worrying,” per the Catholic News Agency, “because it shows each time an increase in tensions.” Citing Hegseth’s change in job title from “secretary of defense” to “secretary of war,” the pope said, “Let’s hope it is only a way of speaking.”

The pontiff also discussed Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich’s decision to present a lifetime achievement award to outgoing Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, who represents Illinois and is a Catholic, but whose support of legal abortion stirred conservative backlash against his announced honor. (Durbin ultimately opted to decline the award.)

“I’m not terribly familiar with the particular case,” Leo said in English when asked about the controversy. “I think that it’s very important to look at the overall work that a senator has done during, if I’m not mistaken, 40 years of service in the United States Senate.”

The pope noted that some people claim to be “pro-life” while failing to extend that sentiment to other issues.

“Someone who says, ‘I am against abortion,’ but says, ‘I am in favor of the death penalty’ is not really pro-life,” he observed. “Someone who says that, ‘I am against abortion, but I am in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants who are in the United States,’ I don’t know if that’s pro-life.”

While Leo didn’t name names, President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance fall squarely into this category, as professed pro-lifers whose administration’s policies on the death penalty and immigration are anything but Christian.

Ethics be damned, the Trump administration is blatantly pinning the government shutdown on Democrats.

An email issued to federal workers Tuesday left little room for doubt about how the executive branch wanted to frame the congressional failure.

“President [Donald] Trump opposes a government shutdown, and strongly supports the enactment of H.R. 5371, which is a clean Continuing Resolution to fund the government through November 21,” the email, which was obtained by HuffPost, stated. “Unfortunately, Democrats are blocking this Continuing Resolution in the U.S. Senate due to unrelated policy demands.”

The email was received by employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Social Security Administration, reported HuffPost. Leaders of those same agencies sent out the email.

That kind of language is in violation of the Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch, according to ethics experts. It could also violate the Hatch Act, which is designed to limit partisan messaging from federal employees.

But it hasn’t been the only instance in which the Trump administration has ignored long-standing presidential principles in order for Donald Trump to get his way.

The official White House website featured similar messages Wednesday. A banner atop the page reads: “Democrats have shut down the government,” followed by a timer tracking the amount of time it’s been since both parties failed to reach an agreement to continue funding the country.

Above that, an animated banner reads, “Democrat Shutdown: Democrats in Their Own Words.” That banner links out to another White House page titled “Live News” that features a running feed of edited comments from top Democratic lawmakers about the continuing resolution. (To be clear, the feed is not live, and it does not feature news.)

The Department of Housing and Urban Development showed a similar banner on its web page Tuesday, attacking the “radical left” for refusing a funding plan that would advance Trump’s agenda.

“The Radical Left are going to shut down the government and inflict massive pain on the American people unless they get their $1.5 trillion wish list of demands,” the notice read. “The Trump administration wants to keep the government open for the American people.”

Donald Sherman, the executive director and chief counsel of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told HuffPost Tuesday that it was “hard to imagine a worse message from a government agency” than the one delivered by HUD.

“But this is certainly consistent with an administration that makes enemies lists,” Sherman told the outlet.