Ousted Staffer Claims There’s a Coup Against RFK Jr.

A doctor who played a crucial role in Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s brash decision to cancel millions of dollars in mRNA vaccine funding was fired this weekend from the Department of Health and Human Services.

Dr. Steven J. Hatfill claims that his ouster as a senior adviser is part of a “coup” against Kennedy, adding that he believes that he is the first duck to fall as part of a “coup to overthrow Mr. Kennedy” led by the secretary’s current chief of staff, Matt Buckham. Hatfill hasn’t provided any evidence of a coup outside of his contentious ouster, and HHS dismisses his claims.

Hatfill’s hardcore MAHA alignment makes his ouster from RFK Jr.’s staff somewhat of a surprise. A department official told The New York Times that he was asked to resign for wrongly referring to himself as a chief medical officer and “not coordinating policy-making with leadership.” When he refused to resign, he was fired.

“Firing a staff member for cause does not add up to a coup,” the department official told the Times.

Hatfill, a bioweapons expert skeptical of Covid-19 vaccines, told Steve Bannon in an August interview that “it was more dangerous to take a vaccine than it was to contract Covid-19 and be hospitalized with it.” Hatfill also touted the use of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment option for Covid-19 despite Food and Drug Administration warnings against it.

The MAGA-led legal effort to punish New York Attorney General Letitia James has another glaring hole.

The fragile mortgage fraud indictment against James accuses her of lying about her financial situation in order to get a better loan rate when she purchased a home in Virginia in 2023. Prosecutors’ main gotcha accuses James of violating that loan agreement by renting the property out.

Except she actually was allowed to rent it out, according to legal and real estate experts that spoke Wednesday with Politico, which noted that “the key language in the contract expressly allows renting under certain conditions.”

James is charged with two counts of financial fraud in connection to the Norfolk home. She pleaded not guilty Friday to the federal charges.

The case has been fraught from the beginning: The last attorney tasked with leading the legal effort against James was given the boot in September after his team was unable to find incriminating evidence that she had knowingly committed fraud.

New York’s top cop has become one of Donald Trump’s chief legal adversaries since she bested him in his bank fraud case in 2024. Trump’s revenge began to take form in April, when his administration launched an investigation into James’s personal finances, accusing her of lying on her bank statements in order to obtain better mortgage rates.

At the time, Trump referred to her as a “totally corrupt politician,” a “wacky crook,” and accused James—the first woman of color to hold statewide office in New York—of being “racist.”

James has since been a star against Trump’s political retribution tour, as she has repeatedly promised to hold him to account, regardless of his presidential status. Since Trump returned to the White House in January, James has filed dozens of lawsuits against his administration. They range from legal rejections of Trump’s tariffs to fighting his “big, beautiful” budget’s attempt to strip Medicaid funding from Planned Parenthood clinics.

It looks like President Donald Trump forgot about Armenia … again.

Speaking at a CEO lunch Tuesday night during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea, Trump touted his efforts as a peacemaker, but didn’t appear to remember whom he’d actually brokered peace deals with.

“We saved millions and millions of lives with all of them. Azerbaijan … if you look at, if you look at.... Just take a look at that one. That was going on for, I think, 38 years,” Trump said.

“The two countries came in, and they were in the White House and they started off here, and they got closer and closer and closer,” Trump said, holding his fists out, before inching them back together.

“After an hour they were hugging each other and peace—it was amazing actually, it was beautiful to see,” he added.

This is at least the fourth time the 79-year-old has appeared to forget Armenia’s name.

During a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer last month, Trump repeatedly confused Armenia and Albania when speaking about the peace deal, and was subsequently mocked by world leaders. He had already made the same mistake while speaking on Fox News just a week before, and a conservative radio show the previous month.

The president also claimed Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin, the local autocrat who had been involved in prior ceasefire agreements, had lauded Trump’s efforts in ending the conflict.

You should take the Trump administration’s most recent immigration numbers with a grain of salt. 

On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it had deported more than 527,000 people as of Monday, and an additional 1.6 million people had voluntarily self-deported. DHS declared it was a “record-breaking” statistic.   

“This is just the beginning. President Trump and Secretary Noem have jumpstarted an agency that was hamstrung and barred from doing its job for the last four years,” a statement from DHS read. “In the face of a historic number of injunctions from activist judges and threats to law enforcement, DHS, ICE and CBP, have not just closed the border, but made historic strides to carry out President Trump’s promise of arresting and deporting illegal aliens who have invaded our country.”

But this number is unverifiable, and almost certainly inaccurate, given that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has not updated its arrest statistics since January. 

“Has DHS ‘deported’ or ‘removed’ 527,000 ‘illegal aliens’? No. Definitely not. How do we know this, even though DHS has STOPPED publishing the underlying data which would let us verify it (see below)?” wrote Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick. “There are two main sources of removals/deportations: those carried out by @ICEgov and those carried out by @CBP (usually Border Patrol). As of 8/28/25, ICE had recorded just under 200,000 deportations. By the end of October, that figure is probably closer to 260,000.” 

As Reichlin-Melnick noted, DHS is likely claiming the much higher figure of 527,000  by including people who were turned away at ports of entry for paperwork and visa issues—which is not a deportation. An estimated 147,961 people were turned away in this manner from February to September. 

“The 527,000 figure (which again CANNOT be verified since DHS stopped publishing granular data) is likely only about 50-60% actual ‘deportations,’ not all of which are of ‘illegal aliens,’ and the rest is mostly people with VISAS turned away at ports of entry,” Reichlin-Melnick concluded. 

This posturing from the Trump administration comes as DHS plans to replace multiple ICE agents with Border Patrol agents in an effort to crack down even more brutally in its deportation campaign. Its aggression, desperation, and lack of transparency is what produces violence, not the immigrants it’s going after indiscriminately. 

The Trump administration can’t fire federal workers while the government is shut down, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled Tuesday afternoon. 

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston’s ruling grants a preliminary injunction preventing firings while a lawsuit challenging their legality continues, and indefinitely extends an earlier temporary restraining order that would have expired Wednesday. Labor unions representing federal workers, including the American Federation of Government Employees, have sued to block President Trump’s mass layoffs, calling them an abuse of power. 

Illston’s ruling does not bode well for the White House. The judge, appointed by President Clinton, has said she believes the evidence will demonstrate the illegality of the mass firings. In hearings earlier this month, Illson said that layoff notices sent out by the government on October 10 appeared to be politically motivated and ill thought out. 

So far, about 4,100 layoff notices have gone out to federal employees, some arriving in inboxes that workers aren’t legally allowed to check. Meanwhile, the government shutdown is entering its fifth week, with House Speaker Mike Johnson refusing to bring Congress back into session and SNAP benefits set to expire within days. 

Democrats are refusing to vote on a funding bill that leaves out extending health care subsidies, a sticking point from which Republicans are refusing to budge. Republicans are not offering a health care plan of their own, either. Federal workers may have a momentary reprieve, but the shutdown is still continuing with no new developments.  

This story has been updated.

Nearly two dozen states are suing the Trump administration for failing to salvage SNAP benefits amid the ongoing government shutdown.

Approximately 42 million Americans—about one in eight people—who participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program stand to go hungry after November 1, when benefits are scheduled to expire.

“Bottom line, the well has run dry,” reads a message explicitly blaming Democrats on the Department of Agriculture’s website.

Two options remain to save the critical welfare program: a quick (if unlikely and, apparently, politically undesirable) resolution to the gridlock in Congress or a chunk of change to keep the program chugging along until the next month.

A coalition of 23 attorneys general and three governors are fighting for the latter. They argue that the USDA not only has the funds to continue feeding Americans via SNAP through the month of November, it also has “both the authority and legal duty” to do so.

“Let’s be clear about what’s happening: For the first time ever, SNAP benefits will not be available to the millions of low-income individuals who depend on them to put food on the table,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta, one of four attorneys general co-leading the lawsuit. “With the holidays around the corner, we are seeing costs for groceries continue to increase and food banks facing unprecedented demand. We are taking a stand because families will experience hunger and malnutrition if the Trump Administration gets its way.”

The agency held roughly $6 billion in contingency funds as of September 30, according to a USDA Lapse of Funding Plan that acknowledged Congress’s intent to keep SNAP benefits fully operational through the government shutdown. Days later, USDA officials directed states to put an indefinite hold on the rollout of November benefits as the federal branch researched the potential reality of distributing its emergency funds.

When states demanded an answer following weeks of silence, the USDA announced that it would be suspending SNAP benefits indefinitely. In a separate memo, USDA officials reversed course on their Lapse of Funding Plan, claiming that they actually were not authorized to use the $6 billion contingency fund to provide SNAP benefits, lest the agency need the cash to tackle a major natural disaster such as a hurricane or a tornado.

The government has been shut down for more than 27 days as of Tuesday, making it the second-longest federal closure in U.S. history. It’s only bested by a 35-day shutdown between 2018 and 2019 that occurred during Donald Trump’s first term.

President Donald Trump’s administration is about to ruin a lot of people’s credit.

A new interpretative rule set published Tuesday by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will force people to include their medical debt and non-conviction criminal records on their consumer credit reports.

The CFPB had previously issued guidance allowing states to pass laws nixing the inclusion of medical debt, but that rule was revoked in May 2025. The CFPB published the latest interpretive rule to “clarify that the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) generally preempts State laws that touch on broad areas of credit reporting.”

The new rule could pose serious problems for American consumers, who owe a collective $220 million in medical debt, and could prevent them from securing loans, buying homes, or obtaining lines of credit. The CFPB said that courts ought to overturn rules protecting consumers from including this potentially damaging information from their credit reports, which have been implemented in 15 states, including New York, Maryland, Maine, California, and Colorado.

This latest guidance comes at a difficult time, as health insurance premiums are expected to spike by thousands of dollars a year unless Congress can agree to extend Obamacare subsidies. Should those tax credits expire, the number of Americans drowning in medical bills is likely to increase.

Chi Chi Wu, an attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, told Bloomberg Law that requiring medical debt to appear on credit reports would add “salt to the wound” for consumers already facing a hostile economic environment.

The CFPB is currently being run by Russell Vought, the White House budget director whom Trump previously compared to the Grim Reaper. Earlier this month, Vought said he hopes to “close down” the consumer watchdog soon. Meanwhile, the administration has argued in court that no such plan exists.

The Department of Justice has begun reviewing all of former President Biden’s pardons, in an effort to delegitimize anything he did as president and make Donald Trump’s previously pardoned political enemies more vulnerable. 

“My team has already initiated a review of the Biden administration’s reported use of autopen for pardons,” Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote Tuesday on X. “@RepJamesComer’s new information is extremely helpful, and his leadership on this issue is invaluable. We’ll continue working with @GOPoversight to deliver accountability for the American people.”

This move from the Justice Department comes as Comer and House Oversight Committee Republicans released a 93-page report earlier in the day alleging without evidence that there was a “cover-up of [Biden’s] cognitive decline,” and that his aides were making decisions for him. Using an autopen is commonplace among modern presidents, and Trump himself has admitted he has used one. 

This baseless, useless accusation against a former president comes on day 28 of the government shutdown.  

“What’s important about an autopen investigation is that the government is still shut down, Trump is still out of the country and Mike Johnson still hasn’t sworn in Rep-elect Grijalva, who would be the 218th signature on a petition to force a vote on the Epstein files,” HuffPost’s Jennifer Bendery wrote on X. 

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is taking shots at Republicans’ lack of action in reopening the government, directing her ire at White House staff and House Speaker Mike Johnson.

Greene expressed her frustrations on a House Republican conference call Tuesday, saying that she was tired of people listening to White House political staff, Jake Sherman of Punchbowl News reported. She also said Senate Majority John Thune should abolish the filibuster to pass a funding bill and reopen the government.

In a post on X, Greene confirmed Sherman’s reporting, and added that she said “I have no respect for the House not being in session passing our bills and the President’s executive orders.” Greene also once again attacked Johnson for failing to produce a single health care plan that would keep costs down for Americans. Democrats have demanded that tax credits for the Affordable Care Act be extended in order to vote to reopen the government, the primary sticking point in the shutdown.

“Johnson said he’s got ideas and pages of policy ideas and committees of jurisdiction are working on it, but he refused to give one policy proposal to our GOP conference on our own conference call,” Greene wrote.

Later, Greene told The Washington Post’s Kadia Goba that she was muted on the call, and then reprimanded by Johnson, who said, “Stop attacking your own party, Marjorie.” A source close to Republican leadership didn’t deny the incident, saying it was standard practice for a third party to mute the line after questions to give leadership a chance to respond.

In recent months, Greene has not hesitated to criticize her own party, calling out Republicans and Donald Trump on everything from the Epstein files to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Trump has been dumbfounded by the Georgia congresswoman’s turn, asking other Republicans what happened to her. Johnson doesn’t seem to have an answer to her or any of his other critics as the government shutdown stretches to nearly a month.

A federal judge slammed Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino Tuesday for agents terrorizing children at a Halloween parade over the weekend, according to Jon Seidal of the Chicago Sun Times.

U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis was kind enough to walk Bovino through each point of the temporary restraining order he’d allegedly violated. Ellis issued the order restricting federal officials’ use of force against protesters and journalists earlier this month. Bovino was summoned to federal court last week after he was recorded throwing what appeared to be tear gas canisters at protesters.

Referring to videos of multiple incidents with federal law enforcement in Chicago, the judge said that Border Patrol’s use of force did not appear to be justified. “It is difficult for me to see that the force being used is necessary to stop an immediate and serious threat of physical harm to a person,” she said.

This was particularly clear in an incident Saturday, when federal agents tear-gassed multiple costumed school-age children en route to a Halloween parade, Ellis said.

“These kids, you can imagine, their sense of safety was shattered on Saturday. And it’s gonna take a long time for that to come back, if ever,” Ellis said.

It seemed that Ellis tried to give the Border Patrol chief the benefit of the doubt when discussing the multiple blatant violations of her order, claiming that the order was either unclear, not read, or read and ignored. “Given the fact that you and I took essentially the same oath, I know Option 3 is not something—that just wouldn’t happen,” she said.

Ellis spoke directly to Bovino about his own alleged infraction, insisting that he needed to give a clear warning before deploying crowd control tactics. “Again, a warning has to be, ‘I’m going to deploy tear gas, if you do not do’ whatever it is,” she explained.

Bovino refused to answer affirmatively when asked whether he believed the allegations against other agents suggested that they’d violated Ellis’s TRO. “Well, your honor, I believe that each situation is dependent on the situation. And, you know, I’d like to know more about what happened,” Bovino replied.

Ellis asked Bovino to ensure that officers display identifiers in one of two “conspicuous” locations on their person and that all officers, including Bovino, wear a body camera. She also gave Bovino until Friday to procure all use-of-force reports since the beginning of September. Ellis asked that he return to meet her every day until a preliminary injunction hearing next month.