ICE Agents Raid a Church With No Explanation

The arrival of masked federal agents at a church in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Saturday sent some worshippers fleeing into the woods while children sobbed inside, witnesses told The Charlotte Observer. 

The ICE agents, who mobbed a group of church members doing yard work, did not ask any questions or make any attempt to identify themselves before arresting one man. The Observer did not report the name of the church.

The church’s pastor, who told The Observer he did not want to identify himself, said that agents threatened to arrest other church members, and were physically aggressive. “Right now, everybody is scared. Everybody,” he said. “One of these guys with immigration, he say he was going to arrest one of the other guys in the church. He pushed him.”

Fifteen-year-old Miguel Vazquez was one of the people who took off running when federal agents arrived. “I thought, ‘Wait, why am I running? I’m a citizen,’” Vazquez said. 

As some of the men outside fled, the women and children inside the church reportedly cried out of fear that their loved ones had been arrested.

The Department of Homeland Security claimed that the U.S. Border Patrol, which has been favored over Immigration and Customs Enforcement by the Trump administration for its more aggressive law enforcement tactics, made 130 arrests in Charlotte on Saturday and Sunday. The DHS claimed that detainees had criminal records, including a variety of infractions, but they have not released the names or paperwork relating to the arrests.  

As part of its tactlessly named Operation “Charlotte’s Web,” masked agents in paramilitary gear have kidnapped people from a number of public locations in Charlotte, including restaurants, grocery stores, Home Depot parking lots, and now churches. In January, Trump directed ICE to target immigrants in previously protected areas considered “sensitive locations,” including churches, and in April, a federal judge gave him the greenlight.

On Saturday, Charlotte residents took to the streets to protest the presence of federal law enforcement. 

Acting Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator David Richardson abruptly resigned from his post on Monday, according to sources familiar with the situation. His resignation comes after months of being AWOL, particularly during deadly flooding in Texas over Fourth of July weekend.

FEMA employees told The Washington Post that Richardson spent as little time as possible in daily operations meetings and shied away from leadership, even telling his own employees that he expected to be gone by Thanksgiving.

Richardson became acting head of FEMA after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ousted his predecessor, Cameron Hamilton. During his first meeting as the new head of FEMA, Richardson told his employees, “Don’t get in my way … because I will run right over you.”

When flooding hit Texas in July, Richardson was unable to be reached “for hours and hours,” one senior official said. Richardson claimed to be in “constant contact” with FEMA officials but was actually missing from disaster response while on vacation with his two sons. At least 130 people died in the floods.

“Staff say Richardson is basically useless—absent from the office, unreachable in a disaster, and powerless because Secretary Noem has sidelined him,” New Jersey Democratic Representative Frank Pallone Jr. said in September, calling on Richardson to resign. “This level of bureaucratic incompetence from the Trump administration is putting lives at risk when the next natural disaster hits.”

In November, Richardson was muzzled by the Department of Homeland Security, banned from giving interviews or responding to media requests.

President Trump has yet to comment on Richardson’s resignation.

The Trump administration seems to be screwing up its attempt to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey.

On Monday, U.S. Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick ordered the Department of Justice to turn over all grand jury materials, including minutes and recordings, to Comey’s defense team because he thinks there is merit to Comey’s claim that government misconduct may have tainted legal proceedings.

In his ruling, Fitzpatrick said that an FBI agent who may have had access to attorney-client information, which is privileged, was allowed to testify to the gran d jury, which the judge noted was “highly irregular and a radical departure from past DOJ practice.” Also, the judge said that Lindsey Halligan, the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, made two “fundamental misstatements of law” to the grand jury, jeopardizing the case.

Fizpatrick also said he thinks the DOJ is not being transparent on all of the grand jury proceedings because jurors approved a second indictment after rejecting the government’s first one, which does not show up in transcripts. All of this bolsters Comey’s attempt to have the false-statement and obstruction-of-Congress charges against him dismissed and validates his claims that they are politically motivated.

Halligan was chosen by President Trump after her predecessor refused to charge Comey due to a lack of evidence. She has no prosecutorial experience, sent a legal reporter multiple texts about grand jury matters, and is having her appointment legally challenged. With each day, Halligan looks more out of her depth and her attempt to carry out Trump’s baseless case against Comey seems closer to failing.

On Sunday, the Department of Homeland Security posted the latest installment in its running series of outrageous social media posts that seem like they could be cited at the Nuremberg trials. 

“This week, it’s important to dispel a lie that has permeated American political thought for some time. America is not a nation of immigrants,”  said DHS Deputy Assistant Secretary Micah Bock, in a video posted to X. “We are a nation of citizens. And it is because of those citizens that we are an exceptional nation.”

The United States, of course, is a “nation of immigrants.” That’s not a lie. No American citizen, with the exception of Native Americans, has a family history that does not involve some form of immigration to the United States. 

The phrase “a nation of immigrants” was popularized as the title of President John F. Kennedy’s 1958 book that argued the nation was strengthened by the steady flow of immigrants from around the world. Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio previously called this book a reminder “of our shared dreams, goals, and destiny as a nation,” writing that Americans “must remain mindful that there is much more that unites us than divides us.” 

Bock, on the other hand, insists that immigration system had been “molested and abused by previous administrations without concern for preserving our country’s traditions, customs, or quality of life.” In the text accompanying the video, DHS attempted to refashion the U.S. motto to be a slogan about homogenizing American citizenry. “Our national motto is E Pluribus Unum. Out of many, one. One Nation. One Culture. One Shared Heritage,” the post read. 

This is a pretty questionable compression of the history of the “E Pluribus Unum” slogan, which was originally supposed to symbolize the Thirteen Colonies: It makes no claim about a common culture or heritage—language with strong fascist overtones. But this is par for the course for DHS, which seemingly shitposts specifically to excite far-right internet trolls. 

Maryland Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin is facing some backlash for extending party membership to hard-line MAGA Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene—once again raising the issue of just how big the Democratic tent should be.

“We are a big tent. We must be a huge, vast tent. I say this is a party that’s got room for Marjorie Taylor Greene if she wants to come over!” Raskin said on Sunday while speaking to a group of Florida Democrats. “We got room for anybody who wants to stand up for the Constitution, and for the Bill of Rights today.… You’re damn right I’m a liberal, the heart of that word is ‘liberty.’ And I’m a progressive because the heart of that word is ‘progress.’ But my favorite thing to call myself today is a conservative, because I wanna conserve the land, the air, the water, the climate system, the Constition.”

Raskin’s comment is certainly eyebrow-raising. Greene has been making headlines in recent weeks due to her surprising break from Trump on Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, his decision to bail out Javier Milei in Argentina, and his insistence that the economy is great and there is no inflation. Just this weekend, Trump called her a “traitor” to the country, leading her to fear for her safety.

But this is also the same woman who has supported Trump on nearly every other issue, spreading racist, antisemitic, and generally unhinged rhetoric that has made her one of the most radical members of Congress.

“Fuck no. Stop trying to rehabilitate terrible people just because they said one bad thing about Trump,” one frustrated X user wrote.

“I’m an admirer of @RepRaskin & I think the Dems should be a ‘big tent’ too BUT as @AdamKinzinger has pointed out, MTG still supports election denial & the Big Lie and, I would add, the ICE cruelty & violence against people, including Americans, of color,” journalist Medhi Hasan said. “Let’s not whitewash her.”

Hours after Donald Trump targeted an Indiana Republican, that same state senator became victim to a swatting incident. 

On Sunday,  Trump accused Greg Goode and fellow Republican state Senator Rod Bray of going against his idea to redraw Indiana’s congressional districts. The president called the pair “RINO senators” on Truth Social and said he was “very disappointed” in them. 

That same night, Goode’s home was swatted, meaning that a false emergency call was made to law enforcement in Vigo County, Indiana, that people were in danger inside the residence. Officers from the Vigo County Sheriff’s Office responded, and initially couldn’t make contact with anyone at the house before they finally spoke to people there. 

Goode and others “were secure, safe, and unharmed. Investigation showed that this was a prank or false email (also known as ‘swatting’),” Vigo County Sheriff Derek Fell said in a statement. 

“While this entire incident is unfortunate and reflective of the volatile nature of our current political environment, I give thanks to God that my family and I are ok,” Goode said in his own statement Sunday. 

Swatting incidents go well beyond pranks, and can cause injury or even death, not to mention trauma and wrongful arrests. They are a tool of intimidation designed to threaten people. Trump bears responsibility for his post inspiring stochastic terrorism, and Goode has not even made a public statement on redistricting. 

Trump’s post also claimed that every Indiana Republican senator against redistricting would have their names released to the public later on Sunday, which did not seem to happen. If it had, Goode might not have been the only victim of Trump’s worst supporters. All of this goes to show that Trump is demanding total obedience and authority, and his supporters see any defiance as worthy of violence. 

Iconic and recently troubled rapper Nicki Minaj will address the United Nations on Tuesday to speak up against what the Trump administration describes as “atrocities against Christians” in Nigeria.

“.@NICKIMINAJ is not only arguably the greatest female recording artist, but also a principled individual who refuses to remain silent in the face of injustice,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz wrote on X on Sunday. “I’m grateful she’s leveraging her massive platform to spotlight the atrocities against Christians in Nigeria, and I look forward to standing with her as we discuss the steps the President and his administration are taking to end the persecution of our Christian brothers and sisters.”

Minaj responded to the right-wing Christian Zionist graciously.

“Ambassador, I am so grateful to be entrusted with an opportunity of this magnitude. I do not take it for granted. It means more than you know,” she wrote. “The Barbz & I will never stand down in the face of injustice. We’ve been given our influence by God. There must be a bigger purpose.”

Minaj has never been that politically inclined, aside from a few Obama endorsements, and her music wouldn’t suggest that she feels strongly enough about the persecution of Christians to speak on behalf of the Trump administration at the U.N. But her flailing career—marked by her incessant use of Grok and nasty, manic beefs with younger female rappers—and the sex offense and rape charges of her husband and brother certainly would. Earlier this month, Minaj also reposted Trump’s Truth Social message from earlier in which he pledged to “stand ready, willing, and able” to step in and aid Nigerian Christians.

“Reading this made me feel a deep sense of gratitude. We live in a country where we can freely worship God. No group should ever be persecuted for practicing their religion. We don’t have to share the same beliefs in order for us to respect each other,” she said at the time. “Numerous countries all around the world are being affected by this horror & it’s dangerous to pretend we don’t notice. Thank you to The President & his team for taking this seriously. God bless every persecuted Christian. Let’s remember to lift them up in prayer.” She also reposted a pro-Trump TikTok around the same time she started talking about Nigerian Christians.

The claim that Christians in Nigeria are being targeted for their faith is as contentious as Minaj’s expertise on the matter. Trump has threatened to invade the “now disgraced country guns-a-blazing” to stop Islamic extremist groups.

Nigerians and their government have pushed back on assertions of anti-Christian prosecution.

The Nigerian government wrote in a statement in September, “Nigeria’s security challenge is not a war of religion.” The statement continued:

‘Portraying Nigeria’s security challenges as a targeted campaign against a single religious group is a gross misrepresentation of reality.’ Terrorists attack all who reject their murderous ideology—Muslims, Christians, and those of no faith alike.

Between May 2023 and Feb 2025, over 13,500 terrorists were neutralized and nearly 10,000 hostages rescued. Just last month, the top leaders of ANSARU, Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Nigeria, were captured.

‘The Nigerian story is not one of genocide or persecution, but of resilience, diversity, and a globally acknowledged commitment to peaceful coexistence.’

Christianity is neither endangered nor marginalized in Nigeria. Our nation is home to some of the world’s largest Pentecostal churches, the largest Anglican congregation, and one of the biggest Muslim communities anywhere.

Anyone should be skeptical of Trump’s plans to invade a West African country under the guise of religious freedom—especially when it comes after what The Guardian described as “weeks of lobbying by U.S. lawmakers and conservative Christian groups urging him to designate Nigeria as a ‘country of particular concern.’”

Kash Patel has reportedly assigned a security detail of SWAT agents to guard his country singer girlfriend, in the latest chapter of the FBI director’s blatant misappropriation of bureau resources.

A group of elite agents from the FBI Field Office in Nashville have been assigned to protect Patel’s girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins, two sources told MS NOW, formerly MSNBC. The sources added that those agents, who are typically charged with responding to high-risk situations, would likely be unable to respond in the event of a crisis in the Nashville area. People familiar with FBI security protocols told MS NOW that they’d never heard of a top FBI official’s girlfriend receiving a security detail staffed by government agents.

Patel’s efforts to heighten his girlfriend’s security come after he was caught using a $60 million government jet to visit Wilkins at a wrestling event at Penn State and then fly her back to Nashville. Patel responded to the scandal by making it harder to track his jet and arguing that people were wrong for “attacking” Wilkins, though it seems that most people were just criticizing him.

“Attacking her isn’t just wrong—it’s cowardly and jeopardizes our safety. My love of family will always be my cornerstone, and you will never tear that down or keep me from them,” he wrote in a post on X earlier this month.

Patel’s commute to work in Washington, while he keeps a legal residence in Las Vegas, has sparked concern from lawmakers over whether Patel reimbursed the government for personal trips. The leaks to MS NOW suggest Patel’s unorthodox use of government resources hasn’t won him any friends at the bureau, either.

* An earlier version of this post gave the incorrect age of Alexis Wilkins.

Donald Trump has changed his mind and now wants House Republicans to vote to release the Jeffrey Epstein files.

The president announced his reversal on Truth Social Sunday night, saying, “We have nothing to hide, and it’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party, including our recent Victory on the Democrat ‘Shutdown.’”

Why the sudden flip-flop, especially since House Republicans have been trying to delay a vote to force the release of the Epstein files for months? Well, after the House Oversight Committee released pages and pages of damaging correspondence from the Epstein estate, Trump feels as though he’s going to lose anyway. House GOP leadership was already projecting that as many as 100 Republicans could vote to release the files.

By agreeing now, Trump is trying to get ahead of the release and placate his fellow Republicans, who have no defensible reason to keep blocking the files with their base clamoring for their release. Over the past week, emails and text messages have revealed that Trump was very close to Epstein in recent years, despite his many denials. Trump is eager for the stories to end and the issue to fade out of news coverage, and now he wants to rip off the Band-Aid.

“The House Oversight Committee can have whatever they are legally entitled to, I DON’T CARE! All I do care about is that Republicans get BACK ON POINT,” his Truth Social post said.

It’s a rare instance that the president has caved to pressure from Congress, and shows some cracks in his control over the GOP. What happens now? Will Senate Republicans also vote to release the files? And what is in the files that the president has fought so hard to keep hidden?

Outspoken GOP Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene says she has received multiple threats of doxing and violence, and she directly blames President Trump and his “dog whistle” rhetorical attacks for endangering the lives of her and her family. 

The jabs became more serious  last Friday, as Trump announced that he’d be “withdrawing” his support from Greene after she pressed for the Jeffrey Epstein files to be released in full, broke with Trump on inflation and affordability, and criticized his foreign policy decisions on bailing out Argentina and bankrolling Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. 

“All I see ‘Wacky’ Marjorie do is COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN!” Trump wrote Friday, claiming that Greene was only publicly disagreeing with him because he told her not to run for senate or governor in her home state of Georgia, which Greene denies. 

Over the next few days, Trump went on to say that Greene (who he called “Marjorie Taylor Brown” because of green turning brown when it rots) “betrayed the entire Republican Party when she turned Left” and that she was a fake Republican, a “traitor,” and a “disgrace” to the “great Republican party.” 

Greene was quick to respond. 

“I stood with President Trump when almost no one else would. I campaigned for him all over this country and spent millions of my own dollars helping him get elected,” she said Sunday on CNN. “That’s why being called a ‘traitor’ isn’t just hurtful, it puts a target on my back and puts my life in danger.”

Greene elaborated on that danger in a post on X later that same evening. 

“The hoax pizza deliveries have started now, to my house and my family members. Update: we also received a pipe bomb threat on my construction companies office building. President Trump’s unwarranted and vicious attacks against me were a dog whistle to dangerous radicals that could lead to serious attacks on me and my family,” Greene wrote. “Unfortunately, I’ve been down this road before. As a matter of fact, as I campaigned all over the country and defended President Trump, I received dozens of swatting calls on my house and my family members homes along with these hoax pizza deliveries, but even more severely I have received some of the most death threats of any Member of Congress that led to multiple men being convicted and serving time in prison. And all of that came from the left.

“Now that President Trump has called me a traitor, which is absolutely untrue and horrific. Mark Levin has been calling me a traitor. And so have other prominent likely paid social medial activists. This puts blood in the water and creates a feeding frenzy. And it could ultimately lead to a harmful or even deadly outcome.”

The president had no regard for Greene’s fear. 

“Wacky Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown (Remember, Green turns to Brown where there is ROT involved!) is working overtime to try and portray herself as a victim when, in actuality, she is the cause of all of her own problems,” he wrote on Truth Social. “The fact is, nobody cares about this Traitor to our Country!”

Trump is no stranger to inciting violence through rhetoric, but this is a significant shift given how loyal Greene was to Trump and the MAGA agenda. Still, she has no intention of dropping her push for the release of the Epstein files.

“I stand with these women, I stand with rape victims, I stand with children who are in terrible sex abuse situations, and I stand with survivors of trafficking,” Greene said on CNN. “I will not apologize for that. I believe the country deserves transparency in these files. And I don’t believe that rich powerful people should be protected if they have done anything wrong.”