“You Protected Pedophiles!”: Protester Interrupts JD Vance Speech

Just two days after calling a protester demanding the release of the Epstein files an “illegal immigrant,” Vice President JD Vance claimed that the man who interrupted his rally for Ohio House candidate Eric Conroy on Wednesday hadn’t “showered in three months.”

“If Greg Landsman had his way, he would take our country right back to where we were four years ago,” Vance said of Conroy’s Democratic opponent. “He would raise your taxes, he would bring us back to the highest inflation in 40 years. He would invite—”

“You protected pedophiles!” a young man in a suit and a MAGA hat right behind Vance shouted. He threw the hat to the ground as the crowd began to drown him out with boos and that classic “USA” chant. He was quickly removed from the rally.

“Now that guy, he was trying to pretend to be MAGA. Do you notice how he took off his ‘Make America Great Again’ hat and threw it down? Here’s the problem, ladies and gentlemen—he told on himself. Because when he took that hat off it was very obvious that he has not washed his hair in about three months,” Vance joked, to mild applause. “And we all know that the people who haven’t washed their hair in three months, they vote for Democrats, not Republicans.”

What an odd response to someone for bringing up perhaps one of the biggest failures of Donald Trump’s second term: the botched, obscured, and incomplete rollout of the Epstein files. And does Vance really want to argue that MAGA supporters are across the board more hygienic than Democrats?

This interaction was similar to Vance’s weak North Carolina clapback on Monday, when another protester shouted, “God bless our children!” and “Release the Epstein files!”

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m gonna have to amend something I said earlier. I said that we have had zero illegal border crossings in the United States of America,” Vance said with a smile, implying that the protester was not a U.S. citizen. “But one isn’t bad, right?”

Attorney General Todd Blanche’s understanding of the Justice Department is a stark departure from the law enforcement agency’s historic position within the federal government.

Speaking with the New York Post podcast Wednesday, Blanche boldly declared that he works “for President Trump.”

“There was this misperception that there’s this separation and independence between the Department of Justice and the White House, and everybody likes to champion that, and they accused me of not suffering from independence,” Blanche said. “I don’t.”

Contrary to Blanche’s opinion, the Justice Department is supposed to be independent and free from presidential interference. That’s been true since at least Watergate, after which the agency established interdepartmental policies and new political norms to distance its operations from the White House.

But that started to shift in 2024, when the Supreme Court sided with Donald Trump to expand his presidential immunity. At the time, Chief Justice John Roberts penned a majority decision that effectively transformed the Justice Department into an arm to be leveraged by the Oval Office, opening communication channels between the federal law enforcement agency and the presidency for all future investigations.

“The president may discuss potential investigations and prosecutions with his Attorney General and other Justice Department officials to carry out his constitutional duty to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed,’” Roberts wrote in his majority opinion.

Since then, Trump has repeatedly used the Justice Department for his own personal gain, directing prosecutors to lead his retribution campaign, to investigate election records, and to strong-arm other federal institutions.

Under Blanche’s supervision, the agency has also brushed off potential investigations into dubious activity by Trump and his family members. Last month, Blanche said he had no interest in examining the Russian ties to Donald Trump Jr., even after a Putin-connected Russian oligarch spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Trump Jr.’s wedding.

The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission is openly attacking media outlets for what he describes as “entirely Fake Polls and Suppression Polls.”

“During this election season, there has been a significant surge in entirely Fake Polls and Suppression Polls designed to do nothing more than interfere with the regular functioning of the electoral process and alter the normal patterns of voter turnout and enthusiasm,” Brendan Carr posted on X Wednesday morning. “Many journalists and broadcasters have been amplifying or airing these Polls without regard to basic journalistic ethics and without informing the public that those Polls lack a scientific, accurate, or even real basis.”

Carr didn’t mention any polls or coverage in particular, but multiple broadcast outlets have reported and continue to report on President Trump’s historically low poll numbers, including conservative outlet Fox News. Carr went on to give an ominous warning to broadcasters who run afoul of his and Trump’s opinions. 

“The FCC takes these issues seriously. Broadcasters are prohibited by the terms of their federal licenses from engaging in News Distortion or promoting Broadcast Hoaxes.  It is important that broadcasters comply with their public interest obligations,” the post continued. “Broadcasters are advised to avoid engaging in News Distortions or running Broadcast Hoaxes by airing Polls that would violate their regulatory obligations.” 

It’s an alarming, but not altogether surprising attack on the free press from Carr, who co-authored the archconservative Project 2025 manifesto and has waged unprecedented attacks on broadcast outlets on Trump’s behalf since his return to office. Carr has ordered the review of the broadcast licenses for eight ABC TV stations, which the network claimed in a regulatory lawsuit was because of “the content and viewpoints expressed on ABC network programs.” The threat to ABC’s licenses came days after Jimmy Kimmel made a joke about Trump and Melania.

Carr’s new warning, less than two weeks before November’s midterm elections, is intended to send a chilling message to broadcast outlets about their coverage. It also hints that Trump and his henchman might blame a poor showing by Republicans on the media—and then attempt unconstitutional actions. 

The Trump administration’s crackdown on supposed noncitizen voting led to 11 people being arrested in California, one of whom was a 72-year-old man who says he has never voted in a U.S. election.

Omar Muñoz, who was born in Belize, told Fox 11 Los Angeles that he is a legal permanent resident of the U.S. and has never registered to vote. Federal prosecutors, however, claim that he illegally registered to vote in Los Angeles County in 2019 and voted in four elections.

“No, I didn’t register to vote,” Muñoz told the TV station. He was not expecting to be arrested for anything. “I looked around and said, ‘I’m not a killer.’”

Muñoz said he could be a victim of identity theft, as someone once used his name and Social Security number to work in a chocolate factory. But the Department of Justice’s lists of noncitizen voters have been full of errors, particularly in Los Angeles County.

Last week, the DOJ sent a list of 20,000 purported noncitizens who are registered to vote to county election officials as well as California’s secretary of state. But in a court filing, county officials attested that the list was inaccurate, with only 7,000 people on it actually having Los Angeles County addresses. On top of that, it appeared to contain a lot of U.S.-born citizens.

The Trump administration is clearly sowing chaos and fear ahead of November’s midterm elections. The president’s underlings have demanded voter rolls from every state, taking legal action when states refuse. Acting on MAGA’s conspiracy theories, they’ve seized voting machines and ballots. Muñoz appears to be an innocent bystander in their efforts.

“Politics is a nice chess game if you know how to play. Unfortunately, they used me as one of their props,” Muñoz told Fox 11.

Armed federal agents are spending the days leading up to midterms going door to door asking people their immigration and voter registration status.

CBS News reported Wednesday that the draconian crackdown—a combination of President Trump’s mass deportation effort and his desperate attempt to manufacture proof of election fraud—was already underway in multiple states, having accelerated last month.

“HSI is actively rooting out and investigating election fraud wherever it can be found,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told CBS, using an acronym for Immigration and Custom Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations arm. “Under President Trump, HSI is committed to restoring integrity to our election systems and ensuring that American citizens and only American citizens are electing American leaders.”

This effort can be traced back to June, when DHS ordered ICE to specifically target noncitizens who were allegedly voting in elections. The department has claimed that there could be as many as 250,000 fraudulent voters—even though only 156 people have been charged thus far. And that 250,000 number is widely debated, as states say the federal government gave them lists of noncitizen voters riddled with inaccuracies.

The home visits have increased regardless. On Monday, DHS announced that they arrested 11 people in Los Angeles, all of them green card holders. One of those arrested, a 72-year-old Belizean man, said he had never voted and couldn’t remember having registered to vote.

This gestapo-level action was part of the plan all along, especially as Trump grasps for any possible way to suppress votes against him and his party in November. This will not only lead to unlawful arrests, but it will also have a chilling effect on legal voters who may be naturalized citizens, or who just happen to not be white.

“Once again, this has nothing to do with immigration enforcement. Trump has turned DHS into his own federal police force,” former Biden immigration adviser Andrea R. Flores wrote on X. “Whether he deploys them to find fraud, harass nonprofits, or question naturalized citizens, he keeps expanding the scope of their duties.”