DOJ Admits to Republicans That Epstein Files Are Even Worse for Trump

Rumors about Donald Trump’s connection to Jeffrey Epstein have gripped the Republican Party.

A few conservative representatives with ties to the FBI and the Justice Department have spilled that the true details of the Epstein files are “worse” for Trump than previously reported, according to journalist David Schuster.

Michael Wolff, a longtime chronicler of Trump’s White House who conducted extensive interviews with Epstein prior to his death, told The Daily Beast last month that Epstein had shown him photos of Trump with half-naked “young girls” in his lap.

These rumors have galvanized into a legitimate movement among Republicans, who are now, Schuster wrote on X Wednesday night, clamoring for the files’ full release.

For months, just four Republicans had penned their signatures on a discharge petition demanding transparency into the investigation of the pedophilic sex trafficker and his potential associates. Those conservative lawmakers include Representatives Thomas Massie, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nancy Mace, and Lauren Boebert.

Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva, who won the special election in Arizona in September, has also vowed to sign the bipartisan petition. She’s the last signature that the House needs to force a vote on the issue—and Speaker Mike Johnson has conveniently refused to swear her in for more than a month.

But the disturbing new rumor has dredged up far more support, with “more than 100 Republicans” planning to vote alongside Democrats in an effort to “get in front of what’s coming,” reported Schuster.

The Trump administration has failed at every turn to mitigate anxieties about the president’s longtime friendship with the child sex criminal. The typically bombastic Attorney General Pam Bondi was silent when asked about the photos during a Senate hearing last month, a choice that further “spooked” several GOP lawmakers, with many interpreting her nonresponse as a very vocal “yes.”

“The question is, did the FBI find those photographs that have been discussed publicly by a witness who claimed that Jeffrey Epstein showed them to him?” asked Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse in early October.

But Bondi could only blink with her mouth agape.

“You don’t know anything about that?” Whitehouse said. “OK.”

Donald Trump’s Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy announced Wednesday that flights would be cut 10 percent at 40 U.S. airports due to the government shutdown beginning this week, complicating Thanksgiving travel later this month.

“We had a gut check of what is our job,” Duffy said, adding that a confidential document showed that the impact of the shutdown was hurting air traffic controllers’ ability to perform safely. “Our job is to make sure we make the hard decisions to continue to keep the airspace safe.”

The FAA told major carriers that cuts would start at 4 percent on Friday and go up to 5 percent Saturday and 6 percent Sunday before reaching 10 percent next week, sources in the air industry told Reuters. International flights are exempted from the cuts.

While the 40 airports were not named, CBS News reported the expected list of airports:

1. Anchorage International (ANC)
2. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL)
3. Boston Logan International (BOS)
4. Baltimore/Washington International (BWI)
5. Charlotte Douglas International (CLT)
6. Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International (CVG)
7. Dallas Love (DAL)
8. Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA)
9. Denver International (DEN)
10. Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW)
11. Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW)
12. Newark Liberty International (EWR)
13. Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International (FLL)
14. Honolulu International (HNL)
15. Houston Hobby (HOU)
16. Washington Dulles International (IAD)
17. George Bush Houston Intercontinental (IAH)
18. Indianapolis International (IND)
19. New York John F Kennedy International (JFK)
20. Las Vegas Harry Reid International (LAS)
21. Los Angeles International (LAX)
22. New York LaGuardia (LGA)
23. Orlando International (MCO)
24. Chicago Midway (MDW)
25. Memphis International (MEM)
26. Miami International (MIA)
27. Minneapolis/St Paul International (MSP)
28. Oakland International (OAK)
29. Ontario International (ONT)
30. Chicago O`Hare International (ORD)
31. Portland International (PDX)
32. Philadelphia International (PHL)
33. Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX)
34. San Diego International (SAN)
35. Louisville International (SDF)
36. Seattle/Tacoma International (SEA)
37. San Francisco International (SFO)
38. Salt Lake City International (SLC)
39. Teterboro (TEB)
40. Tampa International (TPA)

The cuts come as a result of 13,000 air traffic controllers and 50,000 TSA agents having to work without pay, and Duffy blamed Democrats, saying that flights would be fully restored if Democrats reopened the government. Already, 3.2 million air travelers have had to deal with flight delays and cancellations.

Duffy is echoing the same Republican line throughout the 36-day record shutdown to blame the other party. Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson has refused to reopen the House or swear in Democratic Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva, who won a special election more than a month ago.

The GOP refuses to budge on extending health care subsidies, and instead of coming to a deal that gets Senate Democrats on board, Trump wants to ram through a government funding bill by getting rid of the filibuster, which would hurt Republicans in the long term. Tuesday’s election results show that the American public blames the GOP not just for the shutdown but for everything else wrong in the country, and maybe Republicans ought to change their behavior.

President Donald Trump won’t stop threatening to invade Nigeria “guns a-blazin’.”

In a video posted to Truth Social Wednesday evening, the president doubled down on a warning to the Nigerian government—by reading his own Truth Social post from earlier this week practically verbatim.

“If the Nigerian government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria. We’re gonna do things to Nigeria that Nigeria’s not gonna be happy about, and may very well go into that now-disgraced country guns a-blazin’ to completely wipe out the Islamic terrorists who are committing these horrible, horrible atrocities,” Trump said.

“I’m hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our cherished Christians. These are cherished people, these are great people.”

The supposed peacemaker president seems to be trying to double-dip on his warmongering content, as he already posted this exact sentiment over the weekend. Only then, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had jumped into the comments to deliver a “Yes sir.”

Last week, the president designated Nigeria a “country of particular concern” after watching a Fox News segment about the killing of Christians by Boko Haram and the Islamic State’s branch in West Africa. But experts on the violence in Nigeria have suggested that Christians aren’t specifically being targeted at all and that far more jihadists have been killed by terror groups there.

On Sunday, Trump told reporters on Air Force One that responding to the mass killings in Nigeria “could” involve sending U.S. troops. “I envisage a lot of things,” he said.

Bayo Onanuga, a spokesperson for Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, told CNN Monday that the government was “shocked” by Trump’s apparent plan to invade.

Marjorie Taylor Greene—and her boyfriend—are trying to set the record straight about whether she’s running for president in 2028.

D.C.-based outlet NOTUS, citing four anonymous sources, reported Wednesday that the controversial MAGA congresswoman was “telling people she wants to run for president in 2028” and that she has a donor network capable of pushing her through the primary.

MTG clarified on X, calling NOTUS a gossip blog and sharing a text she sent to the reporter: “Who is your source? Laura Loomer? … Once again, you publish baseless gossip.”

Her boyfriend, Brian Glenn, a correspondent with right-wing media network Real America’s Voice, corroborated her account. “MTG has NO plans to run for President in 2028. I AM YOUR SOURCE,” he wrote.

Recently, MTG has been charting her own course—one that, in a shock to her usual MAGA bedfellows and her detractors alike, has been very critical of Republican Party dogma. She’s been on a bit of a national media tour, going on mainstream programs like The View and Real Time With Bill Maher to express her disappointment with current Republican policy.

Greene has been a vocal supporter of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, and unlike many of her colleagues, didn’t drop the issue after the GOP had successfully regained power by using trafficked girls as a talking point. She’s also spoken in favor of extending Affordable Care Act subsidies, and laid the blame on her own team for the shutdown.

“Let’s just say as nicely as possible, I’m not a fan,” Greene wrote on X about the ACA last month. “But I’m going to go against everyone on this issue because when the tax credits expire this year my own adult children’s insurance premiums for 2026 are going to DOUBLE, along with all the wonderful families and hard-working people in my district.”

Senator Ted Cruz is not handling Tuesday’s election results well, complaining to Sean Hannity that the results were “an electoral blowout.”

“The results in New Jersey were disastrous. The results in Virginia were terrible. The results in New York—comrade Mamdani is the face of the Democrat Party,” Cruz said Wednesday evening, calling New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani “an actual Communist jihadist.”

Late Monday night, as voters prepared to go to the polls, Cruz had used those exact words in a meme posted to his X profile, calling the election choice for New Yorkers “an easy one.” Since then, he seems to have been caught off guard by the results in the Big Apple, but at least he’s acknowledging what happened, unlike some of his fellow Republicans.

Vice President JD Vance tried to pretend that Republicans didn’t lose in some of the reddest districts in the country, President Trump refused to take responsibility, and House Speaker Mike Johnson dismissed Republican losses as blue states and blue cities voting blue. Two days after the elections, there’s very little to suggest that Trump or the GOP will try to change their policies to avoid bigger losses next year or in 2028.

It’s month 10 of President Trump’s second term, and layoffs are the highest they’ve been in more than 20 years.

A Thursday report from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas shows job cuts last month increased by more than 153,000, up 175 percent from October of last year. In total, companies have announced more than one million job cuts in 2025, up 65 percent from the same time period last year. This was the worst October since 2003.

“This is the highest total for October in over 20 years, and the highest total for a single month in the fourth quarter since 2008. Like in 2003, a disruptive technology is changing the landscape,” the report said. “Technology continues to lead in private-sector job cuts as companies restructure amid AI integration, slower demand, and efficiency pressures.” Retail, warehousing, media, and nonprofits have also been impacted sectors.

These numbers come from an independent source as the Labor Department’s September and October jobs reports will remain unreleased in the midst of the ongoing government shutdown.

Yet while workers across the country deal with rising costs and struggle to find new work, President Trump and the GOP tout affordability and the return of the domestic economy.

The government shutdown has entered day 36, making it the longest shutdown in U.S. history—but Congress seems further than ever from coming to a resolution to end it.

That’s in large part thanks to Donald Trump’s public panicking over the blue wave that swept elections across the country Tuesday night.

PBS NewsHour correspondent Lisa Desjardins reported Wednesday that Democrats had been considering a “vague deal” with Republicans until the president began to buckle. So far, symptoms of his desperation include: threatening to close U.S. airspace, directing Republicans to kill the Senate’s long-cherished filibuster, and openly suggesting that Republicans’ nationwide election losses were the result of the ongoing shutdown.

“If you read the pollsters, the shutdown was a big factor, negative for the Republicans,” Trump told Senate Republicans at the White House Wednesday morning. “Last night, it was not expected to be a victory, it was very Democrat areas. I don’t think it was good for Republicans. I don’t think it was good for anybody.”

Congress’s failure to extend funding has crumbled SNAP benefits for millions of Americans and lapsed Obamacare subsidies, forcing tens of thousands of Americans to forgo their health insurance as their premiums skyrocket.

Yet Trump is continuing to live his billionaire lifestyle at taxpayers’ expense. While low-income Americans starve, Trump has opted to remodel the White House, transforming historic spaces such as the Lincoln bathroom into a gaudy, marble-plastered, Mar-a-Lago lookalike. The president is also pushing forward with plans to erect a $300 million ballroom on the fresh grave of the White House East Wing. But he’s not the only one blowing cash: FBI Director Kash Patel was caught last week using the bureau’s multimillion-dollar jet to ferry his girlfriend from state to state.

Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy told NewsHour that there’s an “unmistakable consensus” among Democrats that lawmakers should use this moment to stand up to Trump.

“I think last night’s results are having an impact,” Murphy said.

The Heritage Foundation’s Kevin Roberts is walking back his defense of Tucker Carlson.

Carlson caused a major stir on the right last week when he decided to interview Nick Fuentes, a known white supremacist and Hitler fan. The interview was immediately flamed by conservative Jews, who condemned the ex–Fox News host’s decision to elevate Fuentes’s talking points.

Despite the opposition, Roberts released a video on X Thursday in support of Carlson and Fuentes, noting that while he disagreed with Fuentes’s beliefs, he did not believe that the “venomous” coalition “cancelling” the Christian nationalist Holocaust-denier had an appropriate reaction to the interview.

Since then, the Heritage Foundation has been embroiled in internal controversy, with at least one staffer exiting the institution over the mess. Roberts addressed the schism Wednesday.

“I made a mistake and I let you down and I let down this institution. Period. Full Stop,” the conservative think tank’s president told employees at an all-staff meeting, according to The Washington Free Beacon.

Roberts called the assembly to explain how his response to Carlson’s interview came to be in a moment when he felt the Heritage Foundation was under pressure to “make a statement” that would cast Carlson out from the conservative movement.

“This is an explanation, not an excuse,” he said, apologizing for his use of the phrase “venomous coalition,” calling it a “terrible choice of words, especially for our Jewish colleagues and friends.”

Carlson’s interview with Fuentes gave the fringe influencer a chance to swim in the MAGA mainstream. The interview has since come under fire from several corners of the Republican Party, highlighting that the former primetime TV host threw the antisemite a string of softball questions while failing to challenge Fuentes’s radical and violent beliefs.

Interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan’s case against former FBI Director James Comey is coming apart at the seams.

During a hearing Wednesday, Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick raised concerns about the Department of Justice’s handling of evidence against Comey, Politico reported Wednesday. Specifically, Fitzpatrick took issue with how prosecutors handled materials via warrants initially issued in 2019 and 2020 against Comey associate Daniel Richman. The FBI probe into Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election first came under scrutiny in those years.

Comey’s attorneys had argued that because Richman was previously Comey’s lawyer, some of the material Halligan used to personally secure his two-count criminal indictment may have potentially been subject to attorney-client privilege.

Fitzpatrick warned the DOJ that using privileged information could have dire consequences for the prosecution’s “highly unusual” case, but said they could continue to use materials they believed were fair game “at their own risk,” Politico reported.

Fitzpatrick ordered the DOJ to hand over all of its search warrant materials to Comey’s attorneys by Thursday, along with the complete records of the grand jury proceedings that led to his indictment, for the purpose of determining if any privileged information was used to secure the charges.

“They’re entitled to this information quickly,” Fitzpatrick said, according to Politico.

Tyler Lemons, an assistant U.S. attorney from North Carolina who is assisting Halligan with the case, said that his investigators had come to a screeching halt when they came across materials that appeared to be privileged, and that the files were now “isolated on a desk in FBI headquarters.”

Fitzpatrick’s request for the full grand jury proceedings to be turned over to Comey comes just one day after another order, issued by U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie, for Halligan to turn over a complete record of grand jury proceedings. She had initially submitted only a partial report that did not include her jury instructions or presentation.

Crucially, Halligan’s jury instructions could be of interest to Comey’s legal team. While a prosecutor doesn’t have to dazzle in their delivery of jury instructions, they can’t present claims that are factually incorrect. If Halligan—a first-time U.S. attorney with no prior prosecutorial experience who presented the government’s case seemingly without the help of any assistant U.S. attorneys—elided the truth in her jury instructions, the case could be dismissed. Her failure to promptly turn over a record of her instructions, when paired with warnings from prosecutors that she did not have the evidence necessary to indict Comey, leaves open the possibility that this could be the case.