BOBBY ALLYN, BYLINE: He's standing in front of his house in Los Angeles, talking on the phone with one hand, Starbucks coffee cup in the other. This is Ben Meiselas.
What's up, man? Good to meet you.
BEN MEISELAS: Good to see you. How's it going?
ALLYN: Good, good.
MEISELAS: Come inside.
ALLYN: He's caffeinated and thinking about his YouTube schedule.
MEISELAS: We will have already had a video up at 4 a.m., 5:30 a.m., 7 and 8:30's coming.
ALLYN: As three Maltese terriers run around me...
(SOUNDBITE OF DOGS BARKING)
ALLYN: ...He takes me to his office behind glass doors - an elevated laptop on a desk, a camera on a tripod and bright lights on either side. This is where he does his daily dissections of President Trump's actions and words. It's all off the cuff, a talent he says he honed as a trial lawyer.
MEISELAS: The best opening statements that I've ever given were not scripted. The best closing arguments were never scripted.
ALLYN: He knocks out a 14-minute video of Trump-bashing commentary, sends it to his team to edit, then grabs his phone to workshop a title for the latest video from his media company MeidasTouch. They publish minutes after news happens, faster than most news organizations, and it's all planned in his group chats.
So you're in your group chat.
MEISELAS: I'm in the group chat right now.
ALLYN: This is the title that's going be on YouTube.
MEISELAS: This will be the YouTube title.
ALLYN: All right, what's title? What did you go with?
MEISELAS: I think I'm going with, seems like it's a disaster Thursday as the walls are closing in.
ALLYN: Disaster Thursday and walls closing in are in all caps, which he says adds to some urgency. And it's also like how someone else posts to social media, Donald Trump. They both look like they're screaming. Soon after, the video is up.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MEISELAS: Donald Trump is having an awful Thursday morning. He is panic posting.
ALLYN: It gets more than half a million views. Meiselas, his two brothers and other contributors are publishing videos like this about every 90 minutes as part of MeidasTouch.
A failed political candidate was sentenced to 80 years in federal prison Wednesday for his convictions in a series of drive-by shootings at the homes of state and local lawmakers in the aftermath of the 2020 election.
A jury convicted former Republican candidate Solomon Peña earlier this year of conspiracy, weapons and other charges in the shootings in December 2022 and January 2023 on the homes of four Democratic officials in Albuquerque, including the current state House speaker.
Prosecutors, who had sought a 90-year sentence, said Peña has shown no remorse and had hoped to cause political change by terrorizing people who held contrary views to him into being too afraid to take part in political life.
The White House told NBC: “These pictures show EJ Antoni, a bystander to the events of January 6th, observing and then leaving the Capitol area. EJ was in town for meetings, and it is wrong and defamatory to suggest EJ engaged in anything inappropriate or illegal.”
Donald Trump’s former friendship with Ghislaine Maxwell has Americans concerned over whether or not the president will issue a pardon for Maxwell and her 20-year prison sentence.
According to The Daily Beast, representatives from the publication submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney (OPA), where direct correspondence is made with the president about the mitigation of prisoners.
During the last week of July, Maxwell was relocated to Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Texas after serving three years at Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Tallahassee in Florida.
Maxwell was transferred after she met with the deputy attorney general for two days of questioning about Epstein and his clientele. After her relocation, Trump claimed he had nothing to do with it.
During the last week of July, Maxwell was relocated to Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Texas after serving three years at Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Tallahassee in Florida.
Maxwell was transferred after she met with the deputy attorney general for two days of questioning about Epstein and his clientele. After her relocation, Trump claimed he had nothing to do with it.
The administration's attempts to bury the story have been complicated by some of Epstein's victims, and their families, speaking out as scandal has intensified. Trump hasn't engaged with them, but just because the president is publicly keeping his mouth shut about Epstein's victims and their family members doesn't mean he isn't annoyed by them.
In recent weeks, according to two sources familiar with his private remarks, Trump has repeatedly critiqued the string of media appearances by Epstein accusers and their families, arguing that some of them are just trying to make him look bad, or implying that he did something wrong during his time as one of Epstein's friends and party companions. At times, Trump has said that some of these people and family members speaking out are, in his words, clearly of a "Democrat" political affiliation, while wondering aloud if some of them are coordinating with prominent liberal attorneys or groups.
Days after the Blanche meeting, and without any explanation, Maxwell was surprisingly moved from her Florida prison to a minimum-security federal prison “camp” in Texas that is also known as “Club Fed.” This is a prison camp that does not house sex offenders, nor those with the 20-year sentence Maxwell has.
The unexplained move to this prison “camp” is extremely suspicious and has raised the appearance of a deal being made by Blanche and Maxwell’s attorney, a friend of Blanche. Sex offenders are basically barred from minimum‑security camps. Bureau of Prisons policy requires inmates convicted of sex offenses to be housed in low-security facilities at minimum, unless a waiver is approved. Such waivers for sex offenders are extraordinarily unusual.
On top of all this, public reports, video, and other evidence document that Trump was a longtime friend of Epstein. Trump reportedly took at least eight trips on Epstein’s private jet between 1993 and 1997. In 2002, Trump told New York magazine that Epstein was “a terrific guy” and “a lot of fun to be with.” Epstein has said that “I was Donald’s closest friend for 10 years.”
Trump was also a friend of Maxwell. Following her arrest and jailing, Trump said “I just wish her well, frankly.” Trump recently refused to rule out a pardon for Maxwell, and made sure to say that he has the power to grant a pardon.
Maxwell reportedly told Blanche that Trump had never done anything in her presence that would have caused concern. Assuming that this is all Maxwell said, it is a very limited statement. It does not extend to a myriad of things Maxwell might have known about what Trump did but that were not done in her presence. This statement certainly does not rule out the possibility that Maxwell may have some leverage over Trump. The DOJ is certainly acting as though she does.
Ultimately, Trump and the Justice Department have entirely ignored the victims of Maxwell and Epstein, showing no interest in or concern about the women who as minors were subject to horrific and traumatic sexual abuse crimes. It is hard to escape the conclusion that President Trump just wants the Epstein controversy to go away. Even if it takes a pardon of Maxwell or other actions, he appears ready and willing.
Kremlin officials have also indicated that Putin hopes to broaden the talks to include trade, sanctions relief and other issues related to “economic cooperation” and opportunities for Putin to revive the failing Russian economy. Such negotiations would dilute the urgency of the crisis in Ukraine and should be rejected outright as long as Russia continues to point literal guns, rockets and missiles at our ally. Anything less is a moral disgrace and a strategic blunder.
Of course, none of this bothers Trump. He’s only concerned about shifting the political conversation away from his continued refusal to release the Epstein files and his Justice Department coddling convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. Without those files (assuming they haven’t been altered by now), it’s difficult to draw conclusions about Trump’s possible role in Epstein’s child sex trafficking scheme. But what is clear is that Trump appears more concerned with keeping his “special” friendship with the convicted pedophile out of the spotlight than he is with protecting the lives of innocent people in Ukraine and beyond.
Whatever he may or may not have done, Donald Trump and his minions in the Department of Justice are clearly so spooked by what is in the Epstein Files and what Ghislaine Maxwell knows, that they are willing to attempt an absurd and obvious dual cover-up: document suppression to prevent the release of the full files, and what seems to be an astonishingly transparent clemency-for-favors scheme with Maxwell.
The simple truth is that Donald Trump is a convicted sexual abuser. He has been multiply accused of sexual misconduct by over two dozen women. He is also the longtime associate and friend of the world’s most notorious criminal pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein. And no wonder: Donald Trump is a man who bought the Miss Universe organization (really?), is credibly accused of walking in on Miss Teen USA contestants while they were changing clothes. He later bragged to shock jock Howard Stern generally about beauty pageant contestants that he would often walk in on them naked and “sort of got away with things like that.” And, of course, we all know what he said on the Access Hollywood Tape. He has even said incredibly creepy things about his own daughter Ivanka, including when she herself was a child.
Trump’s involvement with Epstein goes back for decades. Trump liked to joke about Epstein’s having predilections for women “on the younger side,” with hints of jocular admiration rather than disgust. He said that Epstein was a “terrific guy” and “fun to be with.” When Trump was recently asked why he and Epstein fell out, it wasn’t because Trump was offended by Epstein’s rape and abuse of children, but rather because Epstein “stole” underage female staff from Trump’s employ at Mar-A-Lago. Such conflicts over control of underage women seem to have been common between the two men: one victim, Maria Farmer, said that once when Trump and Epstein were together with her Trump was staring uncomfortably at her legs when Epstein said “no, she’s not here for you.”
And now, of course, The Wall Street Journal has published a stunning story alleging that Donald Trump sent Epstein a letter on his birthday with a drawn line form of a naked woman and his own signature in the place of pubic hair, a number of suggestive comments and the sign-off “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.” Trump has furiously denied writing the letter and levied a lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch and the newspaper, but the Wall Street Journal stands by its reporting.
There is understandably an environment of fear around the story, and a lawsuit-happy regime wants to intimidate everyone into silence. But all of these stories, while contested, are a matter of public record. And it certainly smells like one of the biggest cover-ups of one of the greatest crimes in American presidential history.
U.S. Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino led agents in arresting at least one person Thursday outside a news conference held by top California Democrats today at the Democracy Center of the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo.
About the event: The news conference was held by Gov. Gavin Newsom to call for a Nov. 4 special election to decide whether the state will redraw Congressional maps before the 2026 election. Newsom was joined by U.S. Senators Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla.
From the Border Patrol: Bovino spoke to reporters after the operation, calling it a “roving patrol.” When asked if the location of the patrol was a coincidence, Bovino replied that “breaking the law is not coincidental. Breaking the law is breaking the law.” Bovino said at least one undocumented person was detained during the patrol.
“BORDER PATROL HAS SHOWED UP AT OUR BIG BEAUTIFUL PRESS CONFERENCE! WE WILL NOT BE INTIMIDATED!” Newsom’s press team posted, purposely mocking Trump’s social media syntax as they have been for days now. The post also included a video showing mostly masked Border Patrol agents milling about in full tactical gear.
Newsom also acknowledged the raid during his speech.
“Right outside, at this exact moment, are dozens of dozens of ICE agents,” Newsom said, the crowd booing in response. “Donald Trump … you think it’s coincidental?”
“No!” the crowd fired back.
“We know what Donald Trump knows: He’s going to lose the midterms. He knows, de facto, his presidency ends in seventeen months, when Speaker [Hakeem] Jeffries is back in the House,” Newsom continued. “He’s a failed president. Who else sends ICE at the same time we’re having a conversation like this? Someone who’s weak. Someone who’s broken. Someone whose weakness is masquerading as strength. The most unpopular president in modern history.”
On Monday, a 15-year-old boy with disabilities was detained by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement outside a Los Angeles Unified School District high school at 9:30 a.m., when he was registering for classes.
KTLA 5 reported that the boy was placed in handcuffs; he was only released after both school staff and the Los Angeles Police Department intervened. Latino students, who are more likely to be profiled by ICE, make up close to 75 percent of the student body at LAUSD.
“The release will not release him from what he experienced,” LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said during a press conference. “The trauma will linger. It will not cease. It is unacceptable, not only in our community, but anywhere in America.”
California State Superintendent Tony Thurmond also said in a press release, referring to the actions of ICE agents, “these military-style actions against innocent children and their families on and near school campuses must stop now. Our children deserve to be protected and cared for at school, not terrified and traumatized.”
Shame on Chump and his jack-booted Storm Troopers. This is not how adults treat children. But, hey, it's how Chump does -- Chump who hangs around with pedophiles. Ali Bauman (CBS NEWS) reports:
New York City leaders are demanding the release of another New York City public school student who was detained by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The student, a 20-year-old immigrant from Guinea known as Mouctar, is now in ICE custody at a Pennsylvania correctional facility.
City Comptroller Brad Lander, who was arrested at federal immigration court in June, and Council Member Lincoln Restler are expected to be at a rally Thursday.
Mouctar attends Brooklyn Frontiers High School, a transfer school "serving students who are over-age and under-credited," according to its website.
Chump has brought so much shame on our country. As Ruth observed earlier today, "He has brought so much shame to the office of president. Sullied is too light of a term to apply to what he has done to the office." The whole world sees this, they see how he attacks immigrants and, worst of all, immigrant children. There is no excuse for it. His actions are the actions we in the US call out when they happen in other countries. But his corruption and his hatred and his criminal ways have dragged this inhumanity into the US government.
This is why the cowards of ICE hide. What they do is inhumane and inexcusable. They know that. The guilt eats at them -- and will destroy them in the coming years. They can lie to themselves right now but their future is self-medication and/or suicide. The lying NEW YORK POST -- you don't link to garbage, you drop it in the trash can -- offers, "Immigration agents who have long gone undercover to make arrests across the country will soon be rolling in vehicles boldly emblazoned with the agency’s logo -- leaving agents furious and scared for their lives." They're scared all right, they're consumed with guilt which is killing them. They know what they do is wrong. They know what they do is evil. Those ICE agents who pose as Christian certainly know there actions are against the teachings of Jesus Christ. They live in fear of having to drive marked cars.
Lives are being destroyed over and over. Eric Adler (KANSAS CITY STAR) notes what was done to Luis Diaz Inestroza and his family:
What started as a discussion on the various arms of immigration enforcement nearly spiraled into a shouting match Thursday as advocates and some elected officials pleaded with a federal agent to “be kinder” when interacting with the immigration community.
“Your agents are terrorizing our communities,” said Baltimore City Councilmember Odette Ramos, “What you are doing is racial profiling.”
Ramos was addressing Nikita Baker, director of the Baltimore Field Office with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who was part of a panel on immigration and deportation policy at the Maryland Association of Counties conference in Ocean City.
[. . .]
Ramos’ question lasted four minutes and raised concerns about how ICE agents were conducting business in her jurisdiction, including conditions in ICE detention facilities, frustrations about ICE agents wearing masks and detaining people from common community spaces such as grocery stores.
“Why is it that the agents are operating in this manner, very violent, picking up our people … masked and not identifying yourself?” she asked. “It is really abhorrent that this is happening.”
“I am asking you to resist. I am asking you to stop doing this,” Ramos said, to applause from the audience.
Gabrielle Canon (GUARDIAN) notes a horror story:
A man was hit by a vehicle and killed as he attempted to get away from federal immigration officers who were raiding a Home Depot in Los Angeles county on Thursday morning, according to authorities.
Little has been disclosed about the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) operation that led to the incident, but officials in Monrovia, a diverse LA suburb tucked into the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains, confirmed agents had been seen at the store by city police officers shortly before 10am local time. Shortly after, Monrovia fire & rescue responded to reports of a pedestrian struck on the 210 freeway, a large interstate with four lanes in each direction.
The man, who has not been identified, was transported to a local hospital, where he died from his injuries.
It is the most vulnerable that bullies like Chump target which explains his attacks on homeless people. From last night's THE NEWSHOUR (PBS).
Amna Nawaz:
Federalizing the D.C. police force carries a 30-day legal limit. The president said yesterday he may extend that.
And this morning, blocks from the White House, another part of the president's plan went into action, homeless encampments toppled, and the people who once sheltered there nowhere in sight. More visible in D.C., National Guard troops activated by the president as part of what he calls an anti-crime agenda.
For more on the D.C. takeover, we're joined now by Juliette Kayyem, former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security. She's now at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Juliette, welcome back. Thanks for joining us.
Juliette Kayyem, Former U.S. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary: Thanks for having me.
Amna Nawaz:
I just want to ask you to react to some of those scenes we just showed. You have federal agents wearing Homeland Security gear running a traffic stop with Metropolitan Police, National Guard troops patrolling high-tourist areas like the National Mall.
I mean, from your experience, is it clear what the intention and strategy is here?
Juliette Kayyem:
So there's two different pieces of this.
One is, federal law enforcement agencies, FBI, HSI, Homeland Security Investigations, working with, in tandem Washington, D.C., police. This is — it's unique. It is not clear what their — what the federal agents' authority is. It is not clear whether they have — they can arrest for a petty crime, since that's not a federal crime.
And I think there's a lot of confusion about what their authority is. Right now, we just see them walking around. The second is what we call presence patrols that is being done by the National Guard. Presence patrols are, we are here. We're an army or a unit that is making its presence known.
It is not generally used in the military because there's really no task or purpose for it. There's no mission for it. It's just simply that we are present. And, in both cases, the concern is, because the mission isn't clear — ending crime, getting rid of poverty, all of those things are sort of nebulous in terms of what are the tactics that would justify federal involvement — it is not at all clear whether the mission will maintain or you're going to get mission creep over the next couple of days and weeks.
Amna Nawaz:
Juliette, when the president launched this effort, he talked about ramping up the use of force, right? He said that the D.C. police are now allowed to do, in his words, whatever the hell they want, promising forces would hit harder now.
Does the presence of federal forces, federal agents somehow allow for more force in these interactions?
Juliette Kayyem:
It doesn't.
I mean, and, to be clear, there's nothing — there's no change in the laws of what engagement is. If someone spits at a police officer, they're not allowed to shoot them. That is not — that's not permissible. That is not an appropriate response.
The president talks like this as a signal of authority, aggressiveness, and some would even say totalitarianism, or at least the usurpation of local control by the executive branch.
Where I worry is, of course, with a undefined mission and unclear integration of these forces with these forces with now the National Guard, you will get mistakes. You will get people working and acting outside their authority. You will get responses to First Amendment activities, including lawful protests, that violate the First Amendment and undermines people's rights to free speech. You're allowed to criticize this activity.
And let's just be honest here. This is a lot of people who are now not looking and not investigating fentanyl and domestic violence and terrorism.
On the 26-mile motorcade ride from the White House to his private golf club in Northern Virginia (one of 18 in his collection), President Donald Trump observed a few tents on public land and some garbage under an overpass. Perturbed by the imagery, he issued a sweeping demand via his social media site, Truth Social: “The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY.”
“We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital,” Trump continued in his Sunday post. “Be prepared!”
The command came as he made plans to deploy 800 National Guard members to DC and temporarily federalize the city’s police department, which he announced in a rambling 79-minute press conference the next day.
Advocates for homeless people immediately pointed to a fundamental problem (one of many) with Trump’s order: There aren’t enough shelter beds in the nation’s capital. Accordingly, how can homeless people prepare if they have nowhere to go?
“We really don’t know what that looks like,” Andy Wassenich, the policy director of the local nonprofit Miriam’s Kitchen, which provides free food and social services in DC, tells me.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
As part of President Trump's renewed focus on what he sees as disorder and lawlessness in the nation's capital, he has said he wants to remove homeless encampments and force unhoused people out of the city, or at least out of sight. This is what he said at a press briefing Monday.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: There are many places that they can go, and we're going to help them as much as you can help. But they'll not be allowed to turn our capital into a wasteland for the world to see.
MARTIN: We've been trying to understand more about what such an operation would actually look like, so we've called Amber Harding. She's executive director of The Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless. That's a nonprofit here in the district that provides legal services to people affected by homelessness and works on policy reform. And she's with us now. Amber Harding, thanks so much for joining us.
AMBER HARDING: Thank you for having me.
MARTIN: So how many people are we talking about, and where do they tend to be?
HARDING: I think we have around 800 or 900 people who are unsheltered, who are living outside. We do not have any large tent cities. We do not have large groups of homeless people in any sort of concentrated way. We have people who, you know, haven't been able to access shelter housing resources making do where they can.
MARTIN: White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told our correspondent Tamara Keith that people will be given the option to leave their encampment, taken to homeless shelters or offered addiction or mental health services. And that if they refuse, quote, "they will be susceptible to fines or jail time," unquote. And she cited what she said were preexisting laws that haven't been enforced. First of all, what's your understanding of this?
HARDING: If I say to you, Michel, you have to go to shelter or take these services or, you know, some sort of involuntary treatment even though you don't qualify for involuntary commitment, and you say no, there's nothing in the law that says I get to arrest you. That is not something that exists in our law.
MARTIN: Does the District of Columbia have shelter space for 800 people at the moment?
HARDING: No, they do not. When this increased federal enforcement notice came out, there was not a single shelter bed available. But D.C. government opened 60 additional beds and are looking now to try to find even more beds.
