Trump Suffers Supreme Court Blow in Quest to Control Copyright Office

The Supreme Court on Wednesday barred Donald Trump from firing the director of the U.S. Copyright Office for the time being.

Shira Pulmutter will stay in her job, part of the Library of Congress, while the court rules on two related cases. Trump had made an emergency appeal to the court to get her removed immediately, which has worked in the past for the administration with other officials.

This time, though, Perlmutter’s position has the word “Congress” in it, and she argued in court that this meant she was part of the legislative branch of government and thus couldn’t be fired from the executive branch. Perlmutter’s lawsuit also noted that Trump disagreed with a report she authored, in which she said that tech companies would likely have to pay licensing fees to access copyrighted materials for artificial intelligence models.

“Today, the administration’s unlawful executive overreach was not greenlit by the U.S. Supreme Court,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which represented Perlmutter. “We are pleased that the Court deferred the government’s motion to stay our court order in a case that is critically important for rule of law, the separation of powers, and the independence of the Library of Congress.”

The other cases the court is reviewing involve Trump’s removals of Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. Slaughter is challenging her firing, saying that Congress requires the president to show cause when firing members of independent agencies, but the court allowed Trump to remove Slaughter until the case is decided next month. Cook was allowed to remain in her position, and her case will be heard by the court in January.

In May, a number of Trump appointees showed up at the Library of Congress with a letter from Trump claiming that they were now in charge, only to be rebuffed by library officials who filed a lawsuit. For now, the president has been rebuffed from his attempt to take control of an independent library. But with the conservative bent of the current Supreme Court, it may only be a speed bump.

A Democrat is on the brink of winning a special election in Tennessee’s deep-red 7th congressional district—leading GOP Republicans and even President Trump into a frantic last-minute attack. 

An Emerson College Polling/The Hill survey released Wednesday has Democrat Aftyn Behn nearly tied with Republican Matt Van Epps, 46 percent to 48 percent—with 2 percent voting elsewhere and 5 percent undecided. 

A victory here would continue an upward trend for Democrats on the local level, as Behn would be yet another Democrat to win on the state level this fall. Both Behn and Van Epps are vying to replace former Republican Representative Mark Green, who resigned from Congress in July.

Van Epps is the Trump-endorsed former commissioner of the Tennessee Department of General Services and an Army helicopter pilot running on issues like “the woke left’s push for gender surgeries and mutilation on minors,” making sure America “never abandons” Israel, and “advancing President Trump’s America First agenda: keeping our borders secure, rebuilding our military strength, protecting American workers, and restoring the values that make our nation great.”

Behn is a Tennessee state representative and former community organizer who is endorsed by the Knoxville Democratic Socialists of America. Her campaign has focused on a policy-minded, anti-corporate approach to the affordability crisis.   

Behn’s surge has the right exhausting all efforts. Conservative super PACs have already spent $3.3 million against her. And the social media attacks have been constant. The RNC Research X page spent all day Wednesday posting and reposting weak shots at Behn, and sharing old screenshots of her saying things like “cops do not keep us safe.”  

“She gets more demonic with each video that resurfaces,” anti-transgender activist Riley Gaine commented on a recording of Behn very calmly explaining how she disapproves of religions being “at the core of everything we do in the legislature.” 

Trump also began his day Wednesday morning offering his support for Van Epps, and was perhaps the only person on the right not to bombard Behn. 

“I am asking all America First Patriots in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District, who haven’t voted yet, to please GET OUT AND VOTE for MAGA Warrior Matt Van Epps, tomorrow, November 26th, the last day to vote early in person,” he wrote. “You can win this Election for Matt! PLEASE VOTE FOR MATT VAN EPPS, who has my Complete and Total Endorsement.” Polls close at 12 P.M. NOON in most of TN-07, and every vote counts. IF YOU ARE IN LINE BY 12 P.M., STAY IN LINE, AND THEY MUST LET YOU VOTE! TN-07: Early Voting ends November 26th, and Election Day is December 2nd. GET OUT AND VOTE FOR MATT VAN EPPS—HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!” 

It’s obvious that Republicans see this race as a five-alarm fire, especially as they come off one of their worst weeks to date, with Marjorie Taylor Greene predicting a midterm loss in 2026 and more resignations on her way out, and other Republicans complaining about feeling walked all over by the Trump administration. 

Former Trump White House strategist turned podcaster Steve Bannon is facing fire and fury from his listeners after new details emerged about his cozy relationship with child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Bannon was a vocal proponent earlier this year for the release of the federal government’s Epstein files—before the extent of his relationship with Epstein became public knowledge, reported Media Matters Wednesday.

Bannon assisted Epstein in navigating the political and legal quagmire that was the last year of his life. As part of that, Bannon conducted a series of interviews with Epstein between 2018 and early 2019, totaling about 15 hours of unreleased footage.

The strategist was reportedly working on a pro-Epstein documentary up until the day of Epstein’s arrest, according to a trove of emails released by the House Oversight Committee two weeks ago.

Since then, Bannon has gone quiet on the issue, allowing the high drama of the Epstein files to fall into the background of his noisy War Room podcast. But the silent treatment has not played well with his audience, who claim they were betrayed by the far-right conspiracist.

“So Steve advising Epstein how to sugarcoat his depravities. I’ve been watching Steve for 6 hours per day since 2020, I’m so done with the ‘MAGA’ whisperer! Hypocrisy is not only Democrats disease!” wrote one user on X the day the emails were released.

Another X user condemned Bannon as a “fat pedo lover.”

Critics on Bannon’s Rumble page mocked him as “Epstein’s PR guy” and implored the far-right personality to “explain his relationship with Epstein.”

“PLEASE RELEASE THE OTHER 15 HOURS OF EPSTEIN INTERVIEW YOU HAVE IT’LL SHOW WHO YOU REALLY ARE WHICH IS WHY YOU HAVEN’T RELEASED IT,” commented one Rumble user.

Epstein, a New York socialite who orchestrated an international child sex trafficking ring to service the sick desires of the ultrawealthy, is believed to have abused hundreds of young girls.

His network included an array of high-profile, powerful individuals, including former treasury secretary and ex–Harvard University president Larry Summers, Victoria’s Secret chief executive Les Wexner, Wall Street titan Leon Black, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (formerly Prince Andrew), and President Donald Trump.

After months of dragging their feet, Republicans in both chambers of Congress passed a bill to release the investigation files related to Epstein and his potential associates. Trump signed the bill on November 19, starting a 30-day timer on the documents’ release.

It seems that bulldozing the White House wasn’t enough for Donald Trump.

The builder in chief declared his intention Wednesday to “fix” the 100-year-old Reflecting Pool on the National Mall in Washington. Fix what, exactly? Your guess is as good as ours.

“Study it hard because you won’t be seeing this Biden filth and incompetence much longer!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

This is just the latest ridiculous renovation project that has pulled Trump attention away from, well, actually governing.

Trump is reportedly battling with his handpicked architect, who has warned that the new $300 million ballroom will dwarf the White House. In October, the president had completely razed the White House’s East Wing after promising just months earlier that his ballroom would not touch the existing structure. Trump plowed forward without prerequisite congressional approval, having conveniently begun demolition during the government shutdown.

It’s still unlikely that Trump plans to seek permission before making any changes to the Reflecting Pool. Last month, Trump fired all six members of the Commission on Fine Arts, which is charged with advising the federal government on the art, design, and architectural development of Washington. An official said the members would be replaced by those who were “more aligned with President Trump’s ‘America First’ policies,” but a month later, the seats still remain empty.

At the same time, Trump has redone the Oval Office in the gaudy gold style of Mar-a-Lago, added stupid signs and white marble bathrooms to the White House, paved over the Rose Garden, and even pitched an “Arc de Trump” monument.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is sick and tired of hearing her former MAGA allies complain about her early retirement.

The Georgia lawmaker shocked her constituents just as much as the American public last week when she announced that she will be exiting her post early, capping a tumultuous tenure in Congress by January 5.

The news came on the heels of a fierce battle between Greene and her political idol, Donald Trump, over the release of the Epstein files. Greene fought vehemently to make the documents public, eventually splitting with the president as he tried to convince Republican lawmakers to vote against the effort.

Greene may be entirely washing her hands of the conservative ecosphere. Responding Wednesday to criticisms by her ex-allies over her decision to leave early, rather than at least complete her current term, Greene asked on X if she hadn’t “suffered enough” while they “post all day behind a screen.”

“Do I have to stay until I’m assassinated like our friend Charlie Kirk. Will that be good enough for you then?” Greene wrote. “Shit posting on the internet all day isn’t fighting.

“Get off YOUR ass and run for Congress,” she continued. “I fought harder than anyone in the real arena, not social media. Put down your little pebbles and put your money where your mouth is.”

But right-wing influencers weren’t moved.

“This is pathetic,” responded Nick Fuentes, a known white supremacist and Hitler fan.

Greene, who won her district in 2020 without the president’s endorsement, has publicly broken with Trump several times since his inauguration in January. She has differed from her “favorite president” on issues ranging from artificial intelligence to the government shutdown, was one of the few Republicans to describe Israel’s actions in Palestine as a “genocide,” and also has sparred with the White House over its handling of the Russia-Ukraine war.

Donald Trump has already spent $70 million of taxpayer money on golfing in less than a year as president. If this pace keeps up, he will spend $300 million playing golf by the time his second term ends. 

HuffPost reports that the president on Wednesday made his sixteenth trip this year to his Mar-a-Lago estate and went golfing. Each trip carries a $3.4 million bill in travel and security costs. If Trump decides to go to Mar-a-Lago twice more before the end of the year, he will have spent a total of $75 million on golf, which, repeated each of the following three years, would result in $300 million spent on the trips.

That’s nearly double the $151.5 million in tax dollars Trump spent golfing in his first term as president. Trump spent a third of 2017, his first year as president, hanging out at his private clubs. This time, Trump has also made nine trips to his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, spending $1.1 million on each trip. He also went to Aberdeen, Scotland, in July to promote a new golf course at his resort there, spending close to $10 million on the trip.  

The security costs Trump incurs on his Florida trips can get pretty high, with machine gun–mounted patrol boats manning the nearby Intracoastal Waterway and the Coast Guard patrolling in the vicinity in the Atlantic Ocean. Using Air Force One costs $273,063 per hour to fly to Palm Beach International Airport, meaning that one four-hour round trip to Mar-a-Lago costs the taxpayer $1.1 million. 

In 2016, before Trump was elected, he mocked President Obama’s work ethic, claiming that he was “worse than Carter” for how often he golfed. In the end, Obama only spent $85 million of taxpayer dollars in his eight years as president on golf. 

Meanwhile, Trump has not only eclipsed that in his nearly five years as president, he’s shaped his presidency around golf. He has promoted his golf business on the White House social platform and even decided to deploy the National Guard in Washington, D.C., because he hated seeing homeless people on his way to play golf. 

Last month, Trump took dirt from his White House demolition and sent it to a golf course he’s taking over in Washington. It’s a fitting act for his presidency: taking something from the taxpayer and putting it toward playing an expensive game that he appears to cheat at. 

President Trump has finally released the names of 46 wealthy donors who bankrolled his transition into office. The list predictably consists of billionaires, lobbyists, and people Trump appointed into his Cabinet.

The donors raised just over $14 million, although the Trump administration didn’t clarify who donated what.

“President Trump greatly appreciates his supporters and donors; however, unlike politicians of the past, he is not bought by anyone and does what’s in the best interest of the country,” Trump transition spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez told The New York Times. “Any suggestion otherwise is simply false.”

That statement is dubious, at best.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff—all of whom are at least millionaires (McMahon and Lutnick are billionaires)—are listed as donors. So are Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodard Jr. and U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio Dominick Gerace II.

Billionaire businessmen Jeff Yass and Paul Singer are also listed.

This list was delayed because the Trump transition team refused to sign the General Services Administration agreement requiring them to disclose the names of their donors and the amounts donated within 30 days of the inauguration.

Here are the donors:

Linda McMahon

Howard Lutnick

Robert Johnson

Suzanne Johnson

Marlene Ricketts

Robert Bishop

Samantha George

Stephen Plaster

Adam Clampitt

Jeff Yass

Paul Singer

Steve Witkoff

Robert Bigelow

Stanley Woodward

Gene Ventura

Andrew Cuff

Elias Levy

Jeff Littlejohn

Stephen Dewey

Robert Turley

James Tuell

Michael Desmond

Susan Silverie

Jonathan Slemrod

Thomas Schiavone

Marcel Kaminstein

Conor Sheehey

Wade Eyerly

Robert Foran

Kenneth Bridger Roy

Dominick Gerace

Kameel Ali

Matthew Iager

Robert Newton

Anita Winsor

Jeremy Isenberg

Scott Pillath

Harry Jackson

Douglas deWysocki

Jesus Cuartas

Thomas Griffy

Frederick Wilson

Charles Mccarthy

Hector Wong

Brigette Frantz

Catalina Lamontain

It looks like Donald Trump and Alina Habba won’t be getting out of that pesky nearly $1 million fine for filing a particularly petty lawsuit against the president’s political foes.

In a 36-page ruling Wednesday, an Atlanta-based federal appeals court panel unanimously affirmed that Trump and his lawyer had committed “sanctionable conduct” in filing a “frivolous” lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and former FBI Director James Comey.

“Many of Trump’s and Habba’s legal arguments were indeed frivolous,” wrote Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge William Pryor Jr., meaning that the claims were fictitious and likely intended to harass, delay, or embarrass the defendants. Pryor was joined by Trump appointee Andrew Brasher and Biden appointee Embry Kidd.

Trump had sued Clinton, Comey, and others in 2022, accusing them of a racketeering conspiracy to invent false claims that his first presidential campaign had collaborated with Russia. A district court dismissed the case in January 2023 and jointly fined Habba and Trump $932,989.39.

Pryor referred to a district court’s previous findings that Trump had made a “malicious prosecution claim without a prosecution” and a “trade secret claim without a trade secret,” among others. “Trump and Habba give us no reason to reverse the district court’s ruling that these claims were frivolous,” he wrote.

The judge also wrote that the district court “did not clearly err” in determining that Trump had shown a “pattern of misusing the courts.”

Last week, a different federal appeals court panel affirmed the dismissal of Trump’s $475 million defamation lawsuit against CNN for using the term “the Big Lie,” calling the president’s claims “unpersuasive” and “meritless.” In September, a federal judge dismissed the president’s $15 billion defamation lawsuit against The New York Times, stating it was chock full of “tedious and burdensome” language that had nothing to do with the case itself.

The president’s ballroom obsession has put him at odds with the project’s architect, who doesn’t see eye to eye with him on the ballroom’s proposed size.

Donald Trump handpicked James McCrery II for the job. But several insiders that spoke with The Washington Post said that the two have not agreed on the scope of the project, with McCrery reportedly arguing that the 90,000-square-foot blueprint would overshadow the 55,000-square-foot White House mansion, violating basic architectural principles.

A White House official acknowledged that the pair has disagreed but would not provide specifics.

“As with any building, there is a conversation between the principal and the architect,” the unidentified official told the Post. “All parties are excited to execute on the president’s vision on what will be the greatest addition to the White House since the Oval Office.”

After promising Americans in July that his ballroom proposal would “be near but not touching” the White House East Wing, Trump completely razed the FDR-era extension in October, plowing forward without prerequisite approval from the National Capital Planning Commission or the express permission of Congress. Conveniently, Trump started demolition during the government shutdown, when the NCPC was consequently closed.

The Trump administration said that the forthcoming 90,000-square-foot event space will be capable of hosting 650 people, a 200-person bump from current maximum seating at the White House East Wing. But real estate experts have since pointed out that the possibilities of that square footage should be much broader, considering that a space of that size will be roughly equivalent to two football fields.

The project’s price tag also inexplicably grew by 50 percent after Trump began tearing down the East Wing. What Trump had originally pitched as a $200 million project was instead referred to in late October as a $300 million development plan. The White House suggested that the project would be funded, in part, by some of the country’s wealthiest families and biggest corporations, including the likes of Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta.

Some major players in the defense industry with massive federal contracts, including Lockheed Martin and Palantir, have also forked over significant cash to develop the ballroom, though it’s unclear what they might get out of a venue designed for dancing.

The White House’s partial destruction is, ultimately, another illustration that the country’s constitutional system of checks and balances has eroded. The international real estate mogul’s desire to destroy the government—and with it, the architectural face of American democracy—has received practically zero pushback from his allies in Congress, who appear all too willing to sit back as Trump courts billionaires to fund his golden banquet hall.

Administration officials close to the project told the Post that Trump has, at times, micromanaged his eponymously styled ballroom, spearheading frequent meetings about its design. Other reports indicate that he has become so fixated on his renovation project that he has literally wandered away from his presidential duties in order to admire its progress.

MAGA Republicans accused a Democrat running against Vivek Ramawamy for Ohio governor of posting an AI-generated video of the DOGE czar-for-a-day pitching a truly terrible policy idea. Too bad for them, because the video was actually real.

Former Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Amy Acton, a Democratic primary candidate for governor in Ohio, shared a clip on X Monday that showed Ramaswamy pitching an outrageous idea to lower the cost of childcare.

“Make parenting more affordable by making school year-round and going to four o’clock instead of three o’clock, so you don’t have to pay for childcare,” Ramaswamy said in the video.

That proposal was so blatantly bad that Republicans immediately started to accuse Acton of sharing a fake video. Far-right commentator Tim Pool claimed on his show Tuesday that the video Acton shared was AI and that the audio had been “replaced.” He aired an edited version of the video pulled from Ramaswamy’s social media that appeared not to include the Republican’s proposal to extend school hours. “If we are playing this game, we are done,” Pool said, arguing that Ramaswamy ought to sue his opponent.

MAGA influencer Austin Padgett claimed in a post on X that the video was “probably the most successful example of a political deepfake I’ve seen so far.”

And Gabe Guidarini, chairman of the Ohio College Republicans Federation, also railed against candidates sharing manipulated videos. “If you’re a candidate and you share AI-altered videos of another candidate and pass it off as reality, you should be fined a lot of money,” Guidarini wrote on X.

But they couldn’t have been more wrong—as Acton noted in a reply to Guidarini. “Agreed. The bad news for Vivek Ramaswamy is that his plans for Ohio are so backwards, his own party is convinced they’re AI,” she wrote on X. “Spoiler alert: they’re not.”

It turns out, the only one manipulating the video was Ramaswamy. The full video was originally posted to Ramaswamy’s social media accounts before being removed. Another version of the video was later reposted without the Republican’s plan to extend school hours, according to The Columbus Dispatch.

Some MAGA accounts backed off their claims that Acton’s video was fake. “Never mind, this does not appear to be AI. It seems Vivek did post this, then reposted it with the year-round school part removed. However, he forgot to re-edit it on his Threads account (forgot that site existed),” America First Insights wrote on X. “Year round school is such ‘only GDP going up matters’ thinking.”