The Common Ills

Friday, July 17, 2026

Cher - Silver Dollar / More Of Her On The Chair (Tony Randall) (The Cher Show, 11/23/1975)

The Snapshot

Friday, July 17, 2026. Chump takes his crazy for a walk in front of the nation, Todd Blanche finally meets with some Epstein survivors, Miss Sassy does on Joe Rogan what he promised he'd do in the Situation Room back in July, and much more.

Looking fatter and ruddier than ever, Convicted Felon Donald Chump ranted last night.

He sounded like a crazy man. And he was an embarrassment. A crazy on stage, a morbidly obese, elderly man ranting and raving like a tin-foil hat crazy.

Julian E. Barnes and Maggie Haberman (NEW YORK TIMES) explain:

President Trump said his address on Thursday night was about building public confidence in American elections, but he spent much of his speech undermining them.

A broken election system is one of Mr. Trump’s most common refrains, dating to early 2016.

“Great damage has been done to our country,” the president said. “Our elections were left vulnerable to being rigged and stolen, and the trust of the American people was lost. This cannot be allowed to continue.”

But documents Mr. Trump released to support his claims — and previous assessments from the intelligence community — do not back up his most aggressive statements about election security. In fact, some of the documents reach the opposite conclusion.

They also do not contain significant new revelations about vulnerabilities in election systems. One of the documents posted on the White House website was blunt: “We assess that vote tabulation systems would be difficult to manipulate on a wide enough scale to compromise election results.”

Shannon Bond (NPR) notes:

In a 25-minute primetime address from the White House's East Room that included many baseless claims, Trump said he was declassifying intelligence documents that he said reveal "shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure." Those include allegations of Chinese efforts to influence American elections, concerns over voting machine security, and that noncitizens are found on certain states' voter rolls.

However, many of the documents the White House posted online during the speech did not appear to fully support sweeping claims the president made.

Trump said during the address that his goal was "not to weaken confidence in elections." However, he has long contended that he won the 2020 election — a lie that still comes up often in his speeches and social media posts. Numerous reviews have debunked his claims about that election.

"Tonight, Americans heard the president once again repeat claims about our elections that have been investigated for years and repeatedly rejected," Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement. "The greatest danger to our elections right now is false narratives seized upon here at home as a pretext to convince Americans their elections cannot be trusted — or worse, to justify unprecedented federal intervention in elections that the Constitution entrusts to the states."

David E. Sanger and Dustin Volz (NEW YORK TIMES) reveal:

For years, President Trump has offered a hodgepodge of conspiracy theories and baseless charges to support his falsehood that the 2020 election was stolen from him, and that America’s election system was hijacked by a combination of outside powers and “deep state” insiders.

But when he declassified a raft of intelligence reports, hastily drafted emails between officials at the F.B.I. and other agencies, and formal “assessments” late Thursday, he was unable to prove his case.

An examination of the more than 270 pages of evidence released by the White House supports the broad conclusions already announced in 2020 and 2021, albeit with some finer details. For example, China considered modest attempts to influence opinion in the United States, and downloaded publicly available voter rolls from several states, but never manipulated a single voting machine or ballot.

Even new assertions, such as a document from the Department of Homeland Security claiming to have found more than 250,000 noncitizens registered in California, New Jersey, Nevada and Pennsylvania, came devoid of supporting evidence and immediately was met with pushback from state officials.

In the end, the documentary evidence that Mr. Trump promised appeared bound to disappoint those who expected bombshell revelations, not unlike the Pentagon’s release of “never-before-seen” reports of unidentified flying objects and the last government documents about the Kennedy assassination.

President Trump used a lot of alarming words on Thursday night as he addressed the American people about threats to the integrity of elections in the United States: “Deep state.” “Rigged and stolen.” “Conspiring.” “Manipulation.” “Corrupt.” “Fraud.” “Cover up.”

But the bottom-line message he clearly wanted to leave with the public was this: He is not a loser, regardless of the result of the 2020 election. There were dark forces at work to thwart him. And if his party loses this fall’s midterm election, he intimated, that may not be an honest outcome either.

Mr. Trump’s prime-time speech from the East Room of the White House was an astonishing spectacle featuring a president intent on persuading the country that its elections cannot be trusted, at least not the ones where he or his allies fall short. He cited selectively declassified documents to make sensational claims about vulnerabilities of the election system, although nothing he revealed proved any outcomes were actually changed.

The exercise underscored how much Mr. Trump in his second term has come to be obsessed with relitigating the 2020 election and finding ways to cast doubt on the 2026 election. In the 18 months since he returned to office, he has installed election deniers in key positions, sought to change the rules to make it harder to cast ballots, seized voting records in a bid to prove his conspiracy theories and purged officials who investigated his efforts to overturn his election defeat six years ago.

It was just more lies from Chump. And the American people have caught on to his lies.

Take the Iran War. They've caught on to how he keeps repeating lies and that the war continues despite his 'cease-fires' and threats. Harry Fletcher (INDY 100) notes:

The more things change, the more they stay the same… Donald Trump has sparked more criticism on social media after yet again claiming that Iran is ready to make a deal to end the war.

Trump launched the US into a war with Iran without a plan or clear objective for when it would end. It is a war which has cost thousands of lives and seen the price of fuel and other goods surge thanks to blockades of the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping channel.

With talks continually in the works, some previously accused Trump of coming up with promises that are not accurate – a recent example came when Trump suggested the unfrozen, previously sanctioned oil money Iran will be getting back would be used to purchase food “exclusively through the United States from our farmers”.

[. . .]

The continuing conflict led to CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins asking the 80-year-old in the Oval Office on Monday whether the situation in Iran is a “new normal” for Americans.

And as the Iran War drags on, Chump loses more and more support. Sam Stevenson (NEWSWEEK) notes:

President Donald Trump’s approval rating among urban Americans has fallen sharply, according to new polling, underscoring a deepening divide between the president and voters in the nation’s cities.

A July 2026 Echelon Insights poll found Trump’s approval rating among urban voters has collapsed, with disapproval surging to more than three-quarters of city residents.

[. . .]

Results:

Overall voters: 38 percent approve, 61 percent disapprove (net minus 23)

Urban voters: 23 percent approve, 76 percent disapprove (net minus 53)

[. . .]

Urban voters have historically been among Trump’s weakest constituencies, but the latest data suggests conditions have worsened further.

Trump’s approval in cities is often in the low 20s, reflecting entrenched opposition in major metropolitan areas.

Leigh Kimmins (DAILY BEAST) notes that he's also losing some of his MAGA base:

President Donald Trump’s approval rating is plummeting, even among his most loyal bloc.

A new Washington Post-Ipsos poll spells trouble for the party ahead of the midterms, showing Trump is stuck at 37 percent. Even more damning, though, is that a growing share of his own Republican base is losing enthusiasm for him.

The erosion runs deepest among his most committed backers. A new low of just 15 percent of Americans say they “approve strongly” of Trump, down from 19 percent in February, while 22 percent “approve somewhat.” It marks the first Post-Ipsos poll in which a majority of Trump’s approvers back him only “somewhat” rather than strongly, a sharp reversal from his first term, when roughly two-thirds of his supporters approved strongly.

Dan Balz and Scott Clement (WASHINGTON POST) note of the poll:

Americans give President Donald Trump broadly negative reviews for his handling of key issues, say they are strained by the cost of living and are pessimistic that the administration’s start-and-stop negotiations with Iran will lower gas prices or prevent the Iranians from developing a nuclear weapon, according to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll.

Strikingly, Trump has lost enthusiasm among many fellow Republicans, a core source of his power for more than a decade. Reduced enthusiasm among those base supporters jeopardizes his party’s hopes of retaining control of Congress in November’s midterm elections.

Trump’s inability to shake these negative perceptions of his presidency within the broader public — especially on the economy and the war in Iran — further clouds prospects for Republicans this fall. Republican majorities in the House and Senate are both at risk, and a Democratic takeover of either chamber or both would hamper the president and dramatically change the governing dynamics in the capital for the last two years of Trump’s term.

Trump’s overall approval rating stands at 37 percent, identical to what it was in February. His disapproval is 61 percent, statistically unchanged from the previous poll. Among registered voters, Trump’s approval is 40 percent, little different than in the spring.

Yesterday's snapshot noted Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. A few e-mailed saying Republican senators weren't noted. We don't have time for everything. I reported on what stood out to me. And that was the issues that were raised. I did not note all the Democrats and that's because there wasn't time or space. I had a huge chunk of an exchange Senator Cory Booker handled but there wasn't time or space in the snapshot for it. Republicans as a whole were doing very little -- very little to probe serious issues, very little of consequence. But for those who needed coverage of the Republicans, let's note David Edwards (RAW STORY) report on Senator Charles Grassley who, for reasons unknown, chairs the Committee:

"As sure as sunrise, today, some of my Democart colleagues will tell us that Mr. Branch is a uniquely terrible nominee," Grassley said at the hearing. "I urge them to remember the boy who cried wolf and take a long look in the mayor before lecturing anyone about partisanship at the Justice Department."

Grassley likely intended to say "Mr. Blanche," "Democrat," and "the mirror."

Who knows what the 92 year old intended to say? Who knows why Iowa voted to re-elect him in 2022? He was 88 then. If he makes it to the end of his term, he'll be 94. Hopefully, if he does make it to that age, he'll have the good sense not to run for re-election.

Republican Thom Thillis was at the hearing. Didn't mention him. Didn't need to. Paige Masten (CHARLOTTE OBSERVER) covered him:

Gone was the newer version of Tillis who boldly voices his concerns and stands by them. In his place was the Tillis that we’re used to, who talks about principles but abandons them when it actually matters.

During the roughly five-hour hearing, Blanche refused to criticize Trump’s decision to pardon Jan. 6 rioters and called it “generous.” He made a damning Freudian slip when asked about his relationship with Trump, saying “I’m his lawyer” before quickly correcting it to the past tense. He refused to commit to meeting with Epstein survivors and downplayed the settlement he made that gave Trump immunity from tax audits. All of that should still raise bright red flags for Tillis, but he seems all too willing to overlook them. He’s provided no satisfactory answer as to why his position changed, or why he doesn’t believe that the red lines he laid out have been crossed. After the hearing, Tillis said he still has concerns about the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, but reiterated that he’s leaning toward supporting him.

Of course, we’ve seen Tillis do this enough times that it should no longer be surprising. He acts concerned about something, only to bend the knee at the first opportunity. But what makes it especially frustrating now is that we know he can be better. Since announcing his retirement from the Senate, he’s shown glimpses of it repeatedly, and has taken bold stances that other Republicans are still too cowardly to take. In one particularly poignant moment of reflection, Tillis said recently that he regrets his last-minute decision to support Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. But his backtracking on Blanche suggests he learned little from that experience.

That was Wednesday. Thursday, Tillis provided a stipulation for Blanche receiving his support. Devlin Barrett (NEW YORK TIMES) notes:

A Republican lawmaker whose vote will be crucial in advancing Todd Blanche’s nomination as attorney general demanded that the nominee meet with survivors of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse to win his support.

Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina made the stipulation during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday for witnesses to discuss Mr. Blanche’s nomination. For months, a group of Epstein survivors have tried unsuccessfully to meet with Mr. Blanche, who is now serving as the acting attorney general.

That resulted in Blanche meeting with some survivors yesterday. It did not go well.

Back to Wednesday's hearing, we had enough to cover without wasting our time on senators who made idiots of themselves. If I was going to cover one of them, it would have been Texas Senator John Cornyn. Arthur Delaney (HUFFINGTON POST) covers him:

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) didn’t seem too impressed by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s answers to his questions during Blanche’s confirmation hearing on Wednesday.

Cornyn asked Blanche about the $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” he created for President Donald Trump as part of a sham “settlement agreement” stemming from a Trump lawsuit against his own government.

Blanche repeated his past statements about the fund “not moving forward” even though, as Cornyn noted, the document states that it can be modified “only with the written agreement” of the parties involved. Blanche has steadfastly refused to put his statements about the fund’s demise in writing.

“We needed to set the record straight there because I think some people are under the impression that just because he says, ‘Well, we’re not going to pursue the weaponization fund,’ that it couldn’t be revived at a later time,” Cornyn told reporters after the hearing.

Erin Mansfield, Aysha Bagchi and Zachary Schermele (USA TODAY) reported:

In other words, Cornyn is refusing to take Blanche’s word that the fund is dead.

“He’s putting the best spin on it he can, but I can read and so can you, and I think his interpretation is not necessarily the only one,” Cornyn said.

Cornyn asked Blanche, who is now serving as the acting attorney general, multiple questions about the DOJ agreeing in May to settle a lawsuit brought by Trump, his two eldest sons and his business.

In exchange for them dropping their suit, the agreement attempted to clear them of past tax liability and create an "anti-weaponization" fund that might have benefited Trump supporters who attacked Capitol police on Jan. 6, 2021.

Cornyn noted that the DOJ settled the case even though there was an argument that the Trump family had missed the deadline to file suit, which would have meant the case couldn't go anywhere in court.

"There's so much that's unusual about this," Cornyn said.

Florida federal Judge Kathleen Williams, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, wrote in a July 13 court order that the settlement was an attempt to legitimize the government's effort under Trump "to confer immunity to people and entities affiliated with the President" and to "earmark billions of dollars from American taxpayers" to address unclear grievances.

Quinta Jurecic (THE ATLANTIC) sums up Wednesday's hearing, "Blanche’s day job may no longer involve working as President Trump’s private attorney, but his conduct at the top of the Justice Department has left little doubt that his primary loyalty is not to the United States or the Constitution but to the man in the White House. Blanche’s willingness to twist the law to Trump’s advantage has unnerved even some usually quiescent Senate Republicans, and he may face a tight confirmation vote in the weeks ahead. But whether or not Blanche secures the top job, yesterday’s hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee made clear that Trump has demolished everything but the occasional pretense of an independent Justice Department."

Wednesday also saw Chump DNI nominee Jay Clayton appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Tom Boggioni (RAW STORY) notes that Senator Mark Warner (Democrat) was thought to be a yes-vote before the hearing but that might have changed:

But that vote may now be gone after Clayton refused to admit that President Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential elections, he said.

MS NOW’s David Rohde said Warner was “ in shock” after Clayton's non-answers and Dilanian agreed.

“This is, once again, a situation where it was shocking, but not all that surprising that Jay Clayton answered the way he did," said Dilanian. "We've all now become familiar with the brief that these people have been given, about what they're allowed to say and what they aren't allowed to say in these hearings.”

Then Dilanian explained the source of Warner's surprise.

“Jay Clayton led the SEC in the first Trump Administration, and he emerged relatively unscathed,” he said. “He was seen by some Democrats, including Mark Warner... as a much better alternative than, obviously, than Bill Pulte, who is the acting Director of National Intelligence now.”

Alex Bollinger (LGBTQ NATION) adds:

Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) pressed Jay Clayton, Donald Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, a Cabinet-level position that would put him in charge of U.S. intelligence, on a simple question: Who won the 2020 presidential election?

At his confirmation hearing on Wednesday, Clayton, like all of Trump’s nominees, refused to answer that Joe Biden won.

“I’m not going to get into that with you,” Clayton said several times in lieu of answering the question. Clayton also said that he had already answered the question multiple times instead of answering it.

“You refuse to answer a basic question about who won a presidential election, but you ask to lead America’s intelligence community?” Ossoff asked Clayton.

“Isn’t it humiliating to be unable to answer this question, to have to indulge the president’s delusions?” Ossoff continued. He was referring to how Trump still claims that he won the 2020 election despite there being no evidence after dozens of lawsuits to show that Biden won because of widespread voter fraud. But Trump is unable to admit that he lost.

Let's move over to the annoying JD Vance. Miss Sassy appeared on Joe Rogan's program. To be clear, the left media doesn't know Joe. I think too much time is given to noting Joe. "He's against Chump!" "He told Chump off!" And then he slinks back every time. Back to kissing Chump's ass. We're ignoring Vance's comments except on one topic. I also know Joe and I'll just say I'm so very delighted -- shocked even -- that he managed to make it work with his wife.

Anna Commander (NEWSWEEK) notes:

Vice President JD Vance acknowledged that the Trump administration “absolutely screwed up” its handling of communications surrounding the files on sex offender Jeffrey Epstein—conceding that the public rollout created confusion and fueled speculation—prompting an Epstein survivor to later say Vance’s remarks are “pretty hollow if there’s not follow-up.”

Speaking on Wednesday’s episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, Vance said the administration’s messaging was poorly executed but rejected claims that officials were attempting to conceal evidence.

They are hollow. And there's a problem with follow-up on Joe's part, by the way. Erkki Forster (DAILY BEAST) covers the exchange this way:

“If people want to say we mishandled the Epstein release—guilty,” the 41-year-old vice president admitted bluntly. “We did mishandle it, especially the communications of it.”

“What do you think should have been done?” asked Rogan, who had earlier noted that “there was a tremendous amount of resistance to those files being released” inside the administration.

“I think that we should have just dropped everything at the very beginning and, like obviously, it takes a little time to review the stuff, to find the stuff, to redact things where you have victims and so forth, but we should have just done it as quickly as possible,” Vance said.

The vice president passed the blame for the administration’s mishandling of the files on fired Attorney General Pam Bondi.

“I think she overstated what we had and what we didn’t have,” he said, citing Bondi’s fateful claim in February 2025 of the convicted sex trafficker’s client list “sitting on my desk.”

Dani Anguiano (GUARDIAN) reports on the exchange:

“We absolutely screwed up the comms of the Epstein files. Like, we just did,” Vance said. “But do I think the reason we screwed up the comms is because we were trying to hide something? No.”

Miss Sassy was largely just repeating what he'd said he would say before. This was his plan back in July of last year. Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan (NEW YORK TIMES) reported June 10th:

On July 17, 2025, at around 6 o’clock in the evening, President Trump’s top officials filed into the White House Situation Room — the secure bunker where classified and high-stakes national security matters are discussed and decided. This was where President Barack Obama, along with Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the president’s national security team, watched the raid that ended with the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011.

Now, however, Trump’s most senior advisers had gathered — without him — to figure out how to gain some measure of control over a very different kind of crisis threatening to engulf the presidency: the Epstein files.

Ten days earlier, the Justice Department and the F.B.I. had jointly released a memo that bluntly stated that their review had found no “client list” of powerful men for whom the notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein had allegedly procured underage girls and young women. Intended to put to rest years of speculation and end the pressure campaign to release the voluminous material in the department’s possession, the memo instead had the opposite effect, setting off a backlash that was notably loud among the MAGA base.

And it was about to get worse: The Wall Street Journal was preparing a damaging article about Trump’s relationship with Epstein. The president’s desperate attempts to kill the story had failed. His team now had to get everyone onto the same page about how to counter the growing swarm of attention. They needed a gesture of transparency to appease an increasingly angry base, but also a way to convey the message that the president was sympathetic to his supporters’ concerns. Which itself was a problem, because he clearly wasn’t.

Vice President JD Vance took a seat at the head of the table in the John F. Kennedy Conference Room of the Situation Room complex. “This is a huge problem,” he told the group. Arrayed around him were the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles; the White House counsel, David Warrington; the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt; the deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich; the communications director, Steven Cheung; the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche; the associate attorney general, Stanley Woodward Jr.; and the deputy chief of staff James Blair. Attorney General Pam Bondi and the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, joined on speakerphone.

The vice president appeared panicked to others in the room about the way the subject of Epstein was already dividing the MAGA coalition. Some senior officials had the impression that Vance had bought into the darkest theories about Epstein and a cabal of predators hidden within the country’s ruling class. Wiles would tell others that the vice president had proved himself to be a major conspiracy theorist. Another top official said later that Vance had been pounding on the Epstein issue since the release of the memo. He was privately pressing for the administration to release all the Epstein files, everything in the Justice Department’s possession, even encouraging a congressional investigation.

Vance had also floated to colleagues an extraordinary P.R. gambit — that the White House enlist Tucker Carlson to interview Epstein’s longtime girlfriend and co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, in prison. It might help the president if Maxwell was willing to state that Trump had not been part of any wrongdoing with Epstein.

Vance told the group he believed all the files should be released as soon as possible. He argued that Congress was going to force the release of the files eventually. It was already clear that a bipartisan coalition in favor of such action was forming on Capitol Hill, and the momentum was going in one direction. If the administration got out ahead of this and released everything voluntarily — including whatever material existed about the president — it would at least get credit for transparency. The alternative was to let the story drag on for months as information dripped out, each new revelation renewing the cycle of suspicion and fury. Better to rip the bandage off and move on.

Even the unsubstantiated allegations and anecdotes about Trump should go out, Vance argued. They were going to surface regardless, and if the administration published them first, it would demonstrate good faith and take the oxygen out of the conspiracy theories. His arguments fell on skeptical ears, but some advisers thought it would be a good idea to have Justice Department officials call a news conference to explain their position on the Epstein affair — going beyond the memo that precipitated the crisis.

Vance made clear to colleagues that he feared losing some of the so-called low-propensity voters, the young men who were not traditional Republicans but who had voted for the Trump-Vance ticket in 2024. This was an audience tuned in to the “manosphere” podcasters like Joe Rogan, and it was worrisome that the podcast hosts themselves were now rebelling.

But there was one major obstacle in the path of a solution: The president himself still had no interest in transparency. He wanted the whole Epstein issue buried, and he was snapping at anyone who mentioned it.

[. . .]

The vice president once again pushed to release as much of the Epstein files as possible. And with an eye on the public messaging, he proposed that he should be the one to appear on Rogan’s influential podcast. Vance had just gotten off the phone with Rogan, and he later told others that Rogan said he wouldn’t have Blanche on his show but would take Vance.

Vance argued that if he were the one to appear on Rogan’s show, then only a part of the conversation would be about Epstein. The rest of the interview, he told the group, could be about the president’s recently passed legislation and what it would do for working families.

So that's how it goes with Miss Sassy and Joe. That's why there were no follow up or serious questions from Joe this week. It's the same easy access I-won't-ask-difficult-questions-or-dwell-on-Epstein arrangement. Joe dismissed and didn't probe. He didn't defend the survivors. He didn't ask why Todd Blanche refuses to meet with them. He didn't ask why Blanche lies that he can't meet with them. Blanche knows the law and supposedly Vance does as well. But Rogan didn't want to ask questions that would make his friend Vance uncomfortable. On conspiracy theories, they could and did wax on. The realities of the Epstein case -- the moving of Ghislaine Maxwell to a cushy Club Fed, the failure of Blanche to meet with the survivors, the failure of Blanche to obey the Congressional act and release all the documents, the failure of Blanche to find anyone who could be charged and his failure to help others? Not a word.

On the refusal to assist others, ALJAZEERA reports:

The United States Department of Justice (USDOJ) has said it cannot provide the state of New Mexico with unredacted files pertaining to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

In a social media post on Wednesday, it argued that doing so would violate existing law.

“Federal law, court orders, and privacy protections for victims and witnesses do not allow us to release millions of unredacted documents,” the department wrote.

Bennito L. Kelty (RAW STORY) notes:

While speaking with CNN anchor Erin Burnett, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) reacted to comments that Vance made while he was on The Joe Rogan Experience earlier this week.

"I say this with all candor. Like, we absolutely screwed up the comms of the Epstein files," Vance told Rogan. "We just did. But do I think the reason we screwed up the comms is that we were trying to hide something? No."

Before Burnett could finish asking whether Vance's claims were believable, Garcia shouted, "That's laughable," as he shook his head.

"That's laughable," Garcia repeated. "The Vice President was holding essentially classified meetings in the Situation Room with the entire top level of the administration, including the AG, the Chief of Staff, the FBI director, trying to actually manage the release of the files."

Garcia was referring to details that emerged from reporting by New York Times journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan in their book Regime Change.

Garcia explained that in the meetings, Vance was trying to "basically take the heat off Donald Trump," and dismissed Vance's description of those scenes as simply a communications problem.

"The vice president was in the situation room trying to manage the Epstein files, and he's saying it was a comms problem?" Garcia said. "He clearly knew that this was much bigger than a comms issue, which is why he's trying to have these secret meetings in the situation room."

Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:

***WATCH: Senator Murray’s full opening remarks***

Washington, D.C. — Today—at a Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) hearing to consider Keith Sonderling’s nomination to be Secretary of Labor—U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), delivered the following opening remarks on the Department of Labor’s mission to support and protect workers, and how Sonderling’s record at the Department of Labor makes him grossly unqualified for the job.

Senator Murray’s remarks, as delivered, are below:

“Thank you, Chair Cassidy. Thank you Acting Secretary Sonderling for being here today.

“I am going to be straight where I stand here. The Department of Labor has a straightforward mission. It is right there in the name—it’s not called the Department of big business and billionaires. It is called the Department of Labor. DOL exists to protect the people who do the work in this country. It exists to make sure an honest day’s work means a fair wage, a safe workplace, and a voice on the job.

“That mission is more important than ever since this President and this Republican Congress decided that their policy priorities would be trillions in deficit-busting tax cuts for billionaires and giant corporations, and starting new wars in the Middle East. That agenda has worked for the very richest and for defense contractors. Elon Musk became a trillionaire!

“But the basics? Groceries, health care, gas? All of that has gotten more and more expensive for regular working people. All while millions of Americans lose their health care, inflation is sky-high, and there is no end in sight to Trump’s costly war.

“That’s the state of our economy for working families thanks to this President—that’s the reality for everyone who doesn’t get a tax write-off for their private jet.

“So, now you are here, asking this committee for a promotion since your predecessor apparently created such a hostile and scandal plagued work environment, she was pushed out. But let’s clear: you are not a bystander to this administration’s anti-worker policies and agenda.

“You were confirmed as Deputy Secretary in March of last year. You have run it as Acting Secretary since April. I just talked about the harm this Republican majority has done to our economy—but you’ve built your own anti-worker record at DOL. You rescinded the overtime rule in May—slamming the door on time-and-a-half pay for more than 4 million workers who already aren’t making much to begin with.

“At the same time, you’re working to rescind the independent contractor rule. You want to let giant corporations classify workers as contractors so that they don’t have to pay them minimum wage and overtime—a conservative estimate finds this rule would rob workers of $3.7 billion a year—that is an outright grift. You are also pushing a joint-employer rule to let giant corporations take advantage of employment structures, so they aren’t liable when people like janitors or nurses get a paycheck stolen, or when there are child labor violations or other workers’ rights violations.

“But here is what every worker watching needs to understand: this Department treats its own employees exactly the way it is letting the worst employers treat theirs.

“For example, Trump’s Department of Labor fired ninety percent of the office that worked to protect workers from discrimination by federal contractors since 1965! And when they did that, they ignored the four months’ notice its own union contract required. The Department of Labor—violating a labor contract. You can’t make that up!

“Then, this Department of Labor stood by while this administration stripped collective bargaining rights from more than a million federal workers. And you actually helped this administration pressure the federal agency that helps protects our civil servants! And when the Bureau of Labor Statistics did its job and reported honest employment numbers the President didn’t like, its commissioner—was fired with no cause.

“Who should workers call when this administration has been nothing short of outright hostile toward workers—in its policies and towards its own employees?

“I don’t even have time to really get into how you have undercut this agency’s capacity to crack down on wage theft and child labor violations. But needless to say, it will not be easy to rebuild what you broke.

“Finally, I have to raise something I never imagined addressing at a hearing for a Secretary of Labor. In January, this Department’s official account posted a video captioned: ‘One Homeland. One People. One Heritage. Remember who you are, American.’ Historians immediately recognized the echo of the Nazi slogan: ‘one people, one realm, one leader.’ Nobody had to really squint to make that connection. Union leaders condemned that. Your own career employees called it disturbing.

“And that was not a one off. It has been a pattern. Under your leadership, this Department posts constant propaganda about ‘Americanism,’ you decry ‘globalism,’ and make misleading comments about ‘native-born’ workers. It is so apparent this Department is posting this kind of garbage as a wink and a nod to extremists and to get a rise out of everyone else who is paying attention.

“But you need to hear it from somebody: this kind of language and imagery is a disgrace.

“Mr. Sonderling, Frances Perkins—the woman who we can thank for the minimum wage, for the forty-hour work week, for Social Security—she built this Department to stop employers with records like yours.

“So, I’ll close with this: the four million workers whose overtime you shut the door on didn’t get a vote on that policy.

“But I have a vote here in the Senate. And I fear any vote to confirm you is for more of the same: to strip overtime protections for our workers, to undercut our unions, and to let giant corporations get away with robbery—literally.

“America does need a Labor Secretary who understands our workers who should not be denied overtime pay, who will prosecute wage theft and child labor violations, who believes we should increase the minimum wage, who understands America is way overdue for a national paid leave program, and who will stand up every minute for every worker’s right to form a union.

“That’s just where I stand.”

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And let's note this from THE BLACK COMMENTATOR:

BlackCommentator.com

July 16, 2026 Issue 1094