Trump Claims He’d Give His $230 Million Justice Department Grift to Charity. Yeah, Right.

On Tuesday, shortly after the New York Times reported that President Donald Trump is demanding $230 million from the Department of Justice (DOJ) to reimburse him for legal costs related to earlier federal investigations against him, the president claimed he would donate any such funds to charity. “I’m not looking for money,” he told reporters. “I’d give it to charity or something. I would give it to charity, any money.”

Trump, almost as if unable to resist, then framed the demand as satisfying a personal grudge. “But look what they did,” he said, referring to the federal investigations against him. “They rigged the election.”

Does Trump grasp the impropriety at play? Hisbid to appear magnanimous suggests that he knows it doesn’t look good for a president to shake down the Justice Department for taxpayer money, particularly amid a shutdown, and especially as his administration slashes Medicaid and food stamps.

His effort to put a generous spin on this blatant grift—there is no compelling evidence that the DOJ’s investigations were launched improperly—belies Trump’s long, sordid history of stiffing contractors, and, even more notoriously, the court-ordered dissolution of his namesake charitable arm over a “shocking pattern of illegality.”

Let’s revisit some of that history, starting with the Trump Foundation, his tax-exempt nonprofit.

In 2019, a New York judge ordered the foundation to pay $2 million to an array of charities—and then shut itself down—after determining that Trump, along his children Don Jr., Eric, and Ivanka, misused the foundation to further their political and business interests.

That ruling came after various indications that Trump was misusing the organization. In January 2016, while running for president, he claimed during a fundraiser for veterans’ causes that he had personally donated $1 million via the foundation. After reporters revealed that no record of such a donation existed, Trump belatedly ponied up that amount to a foundation supporting fallen Marines and police officers.

Subsequent reporting by the Washington Post found that Trump had pledged more than $8.5 million to various charities over the previous 15 years, but had only delivered on a third of it.

In 2022, Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee, another nonprofit controlled by the president, along with his business, the Trump Organization, agreed to pay $750,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by the DC attorney general charging that the committee illegally misused funds to enrich the Trump family by “grossly overpaying” his companies “for use of event space at the Trump Hotel for certain inaugural events.”

Trump’s latest nonprofit, a foundation supposedly set up to oversee his planned presidential library, is already flashing warning signs. Trump and his aides have claimed that various donations he has received while president—including funds left over from the record $250 million his 2025 inaugural committee raised from corporations; proceeds from $1 million-a-plate fundraising dinners and $5 million one-on-one meetings with the president; and the large settlements that Meta, Disney, and Paramount have paid to settle seemingly extortionary Trump lawsuits—will go to the library.

Trump even claimed the $400 million plane that Qatar gifted him, and which the Air Force is spending heavily to upgrade, will go to the library when he leaves office.

But it isn’t clear as yet which, if any, funds or other valuables have been transferred to the library foundation. The organization was incorporated in May with the president’s son Eric; Michael Boulos, the husband of Trump’s daughter Tiffany; and a lawyer who works for the president in New York serving as trustees. This suggest the foundation will be controlled by Trump’s family, not independent outsiders.

Already, the State of Florida has attempted to transfer valuable property in Miami to the foundation for a library site that also could host a hotel, condos, or other commercial ventures that could benefit the president and his family financially. (A judge temporarily halted the transfer last week in response to a lawsuit challenging its legality. ) Any assets that do make it into the foundation’s coffers can be used, legally in most cases, to pay salaries to Trump family members, provide them with free office space, and fund certain travel, experts told Mother Jones.

Trump’s abysmal track record extends to his commercial activities as well. In 2016, hundreds of contractors—from carpenters, painters, and plumbers to corporate law firms—accused the then-presidential candidate of failing to pay bills he owed. Even his former personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has publicly complained that the president barely paid him for his legal work.

If Trump does manage to coerce a settlement out of his loyal DOJ appointees—a prospect made more likely by the fact that one of them, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, uset to be his personal lawyer—there’s nothing to indicate it’ll be used to pay anyone but himself.

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As Trump Plans to Steal $230 Million From Taxpayers, You Can Thank John Roberts

President Donald Trump is demanding that the Justice Department transfer $230 million in taxpayer dollars into his own personal bank account. He can do this, because thanks to the Supreme Court’s recent decisions, the executive branch could accurately be described by King Louis XIV—L’état, c’est Trump.

When Trump says this is his decision to make, he’s probably right.

At first you might think, ‘Can he do that? Can he just shakedown the DOJ for roughly a quarter of a billion dollars?’ And then you think about the Supreme Court opinions under Chief Justice John Roberts, in which the court has shifted the fundamental structure of American government such that federal agencies, including the Justice Department, are mere extensions of the president’s will. Trump, always on the lookout for the next grift, understands the immense power this bestows on him.

The colossal cash transfer he is demanding is being described ascompensation for investigations the department launched into Russia’s interventions in the 2016 election and Trump’s absconding with classified documents after his first term. Now that he’s back in the White House, Trump plans to make the government pay for its appropriate use of its ability to investigate and prosecute to safeguard our democracy. And he grasps the fact that he has the absolute power to do that.

“With the country, it’s interesting, because I’m the one that makes the decision,” Trump said Tuesday, responding to news of the impending payments. “That decision would have to go across my desk. And it’s awfully strange to make a decision where I’m paying myself.”

Trump: "It's awfully strange to make a decision where I'm paying myself. But I was damaged very greatly and any money I would get I would give to charity."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-10-21T21:17:21.012Z

Strange indeed—especially since, technically, it is senior Justice Department officials who would officially sign off on the payments, not the president: Breaking the story on Tuesday, the New York Times framed the ethical conflict around the fact that several of the DOJ officials who could sign off on the payments were formerly Trump’s personal lawyers.

That’s corruption, of course, but in the old school way of putting cronies in a position to help you. But we’re in a new world now, and Trump himself gets this: He decides, because he effectivelycontrols every decision made at every agency (with the possible exception of the Federal Reserve). If he doesn’t like a decision, he can fire the person responsible. Their desk is now his desk.

Don’t just take it from him: the Supreme Court said so. In a series of opinions, Chief Justice John Roberts has reinterpreted the Constitution to give Trump this power. This warping of our constitutional order is known as the unitary executive theory, and it posits that the framers gave the president complete control over the executive branch. Last summer, Roberts authored the infamous immunity decision, Trump’s forever Get Out of Jail Free card, which protected presidents from virtually all prosecution for official acts. That decision not only permitted Trump to break the law, it also gave him unfettered control over the investigative and prosecutorial functions of the DOJ—which presumably includes issuing payments to those he claims should be compensated for investigations gone awry. Which all is to say that when Trump says this is his decision to make, he’s probably right.

As Roberts has handed the presidency more and more power over every inch of the government, he has never copped to the fact that he was enabling corruption, theft, or autocracy. Absurdly, he claimed to be increasing democratic accountability. “The framers made the president the most democratic and politically accountable official in government,” he wrote in a 2020 decision, because “only the president (along with the vice president) is elected by the entire nation.” It’s hard to take this with a straight face; the electoral college allows a president to win fewer votes and still assume office, and a president in his second term will not face voters again. (Although Trump may try.)

Undeterred by these facts, Roberts wrote in a 2021 case that all executive branch decisions are ultimately the president’s to make: The executive power “acquires its legitimacy and accountability to the public through ‘a clear and effective chain of command’ down from the President, on whom all the people vote.”

The absurdity of Roberts’ decision was laid bare Tuesday: The president gets to pay himself hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars, because he controls all executive branch personnel and all of their decisions, and there’s probably nothing anyone can do about it. It sure doesn’t feel like our democratic accountability has increased. Of course, Congress could and should pass a law prohibiting such payments, and dare the Supreme Court to strike it down—but this Congress is unlikely to do even that bare minimum in response.

What’s to stop Trump from paying allies the same way? Have them file a complaint with DOJ over some legal skirmish, and then order the department to pay them their reward. If Trump gains control of the Federal Reserve—as he is asking the Supreme Court to give him—he could similarly transform the country’s central bank into his own “bottomless slush fund,” as the Atlantic’s Rogé Karma reported last month. He could use the Fed to pay his businesses, his friends, and his donors. He could even keep ICE’s operations active by hiring private contractors during a government shutdown, Karma points out, circumventing Congress’ power of the purse.

If Trump will transfer a quarter billion dollars from the taxpayers to himself, it’s clear that he wouldn’t shy away from any of these uses—and probably find more ways to profit that we haven’t even dreamt.

Roberts can claim that he’s expanding democratic accountability. But at this point, we can all see the mess he’s created. A man who takes from the voters to line his pockets is not feeling all that accountable to anyone.

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Trump’s Minions Aim to Cut More Than 2,000 Interior Jobs During the Shutdown

This story was originally published by High Country News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

More than 2,000 employees could be cut from the Department of Interior during the ongoing federal government shutdown if the Trump administration gets its way.

In a court filing on Monday, the administration listed plans that would target roles in research, conservation, national park management, water policy, grant and budget planning, communication staff, and wildlife management. The biggest hits would come to the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, and US Geological Survey.

The filing does not include any plans that outline a total clearing of any agency or bureau. It also does not show any plans for cuts at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a possibly emerging pattern of relief for Indigenous nations under this administration.

“The administration’s move to fire thousands of federal employees who are already going without pay…is not only cruel but unlawful.”

Last week, US District Court Judge Susan Illston issued a temporary restraining order to stop the termination plans, and ordered the US Office of Management and Budget to provide an account of positions it wants to eliminate from the federal government through a process called reduction in force.

Rachel Barra, chief human capital officer at the Interior Department, filed the plans and stated that Ilston’s order has stopped reduction in force at the Interior, “absent an order from a higher court providing relief.”

Unions representing affected federal workers have pushed back against the plans to reduce the federal workforce, including the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

“The administration’s move to fire thousands of federal employees who are already going without pay during the government shutdown is not only cruel but unlawful,” AFGE President Everett Kelley said in a press release.

The court filing offers insight into the administration’s priorities for slashing the federal government; the cuts are in line with what President Donald Trump has advocated since taking office in January.

Still, Interior’s plans don’t give a total view of all federal agencies or programs, and it may not even be a complete picture of Interior Department cuts, whether planned, or already executed. Barra stated that the roles in the disclosure were targeted before the government shutdown on October 1, although she only started working in the human resources role at Interior just two days before the shutdown.

In the filing, Barra outlines 89 “competitive areas” in the Interior Department that put 14,212 employees up for termination review. The five unions in the case represent 4,833 of those workers, according to the court filing.

Out of the 2,050 positions proposed for elimination at Interior, 474 in total are at the Bureau of Land Management. That includes the following cuts at Bureau of Land Management state offices: 76 in California, 33 in Colorado, 48 in Idaho, 41 in Arizona, 95 in Oregon and 93 in Utah. The federal government has plans to abolish 87 of the 177 employee positions at the BLM’s National Operation Center in Denver.

At the US Fish and Wildlife Service, planned cuts include 35 positions out of the 269 that operate research and conservation at the Migratory Bird Program, an area Trump has criticized in the past.

The National Park Service could see at least 272 roles cut. That includes 57 in the Pacific Northwest and 122 in the Intermountain region. Right now, more than 9,000 out of the 14,500 parks employees are furloughed under the government shutdown. According to the National Parks Conservation Association, at least 24 percent of staff were already cut at the National Park Service since Trump took office in January.

The US Geological Survey, which had previously suffered large-scale layoffs, would also see drastic cuts nationwide to services in science research if the reduction-in-force orders go forward.

Over half the employees of the Fort Collins Science Center in Colorado—39 of 69—are targeted to be cut by the federal government. Similar or more drastic cuts are proposed at the Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center in North Dakota, the Columbia Environmental Research Center in Missouri and the Great Lakes Science Center in Ohio.

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Al Letson at No Kings: Hope, Fury, and Inflatables

On October 18, roughly 2,700 No Kings demonstrations took place around the US. Organizers estimated that 7 million protesters came out to denounce what they described as America’s slide toward authoritarianism under President Donald Trump. One of the largest protests occurred right in the nation’s capital, where National Guard troops are patrolling the streets and many furloughed and fired federal workers are angry about the ongoing government shutdown.

That’s right where More To The Story’sAl Letson found himself this weekend. Al spoke with a handful of the thousands of protesters who attended to get a better sense of why they came out. Some had creative posters. Others wore inflatable costumes. But all of them told Al that they were concerned about the direction of the country in a second Trump term.

“I’m here for my neighbors who are furloughed and aren’t getting paid even though they’re still working for the federal government,” said a protester named Sarah. “I’m here for the LGBTQ+ community whose rights are being stripped away. I’m here for my children and the future I want for them in this world. I want a country where we are back to kindness and love and treating our neighbor with respect and dignity.”

On a special episode of More To The Story, Al speaks with No Kings protesters about Trump’s immigration raids, threats to free speech, federal workers being fired, and fears about the future of democracy in America.

Find More To The Story on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Pandora, or your favorite podcast app, and don’t forget to subscribe.

This following interview was edited for length and clarity. More To The Story transcripts are produced by a third-party transcription service and may contain errors.

Al Letson: We are doing something a little different this week because these are extraordinary times. I’m reporting from the National Mall in Washington, D.C. for the October 18th No Kings Rally. I’m standing outside the Capitol building surrounded by thousands of protesters. They all have their own motivation for being here, but the common thread is to push back against Trump and the administration. Organizers call it a movement rising against his authoritarian power grabs.

Sarah, what brought you out here today?

Sarah: I want to stop the cruelty in our country. I’m here for my neighbors who are being terrorized by ICE, families getting ripped apart. I’m here for my neighbors who are furloughed and aren’t getting paid, even though they’re still working for the federal government. I’m here for the LGBTQ+ community whose rights are being stripped away. I’m here for my children and the future I want for them in this world. I want a country where we’re back to kindness and love and treating our neighbor with respect and dignity, and I believe that we are taught to love all our neighbors, no exceptions.

I want to go back in time a little bit. When January 6th happened with the insurrection that happened at the Capitol. I’m curious, when you were watching that, when did you think the trajectory of the country was from that point? Did you think we were going to end up here or do you think we would trample down on that sentiment?

Oh, I thought it was finally the end. I thought we had reached a climax where people would realize the insanity and that we had an armed insurrection against the United States government trying to overthrow the will of the people who had voted in a free and fair election. And we had plenty of leaders on both sides of the aisle at that time who spoke up against that treason who have now walked it back. People who were brutalizing, police officers who were defending the capitol are now pardoned and I feel like things have gotten a lot worse, so it’s pretty devastating.

When you think about the Democratic Party, what do you think they should be doing or are you happy with what the Democratic Party is doing?

I don’t know. I want as much action as possible. I want as much resistance. I feel like somehow Democrats struggle to control the narrative and we allow the conservative right and their media to dictate the narrative. And I wish we found a more successful way to show people that the Democratic Party is on their side. They’re here for working people, they’re here to protect our healthcare. Millions of people are going to be suffering very soon when their healthcare costs go way up. I like opportunities like today where we can mobilize and show our dissent and our unhappiness.

Last question for you, and this is just speaking to where we are as a country right now. You were hesitant to give your name and I’m wondering if it’s because you are fearful of the government. People are out here protesting, but I feel like there’s also a little bit of fear of what the government and what right-wing provocateurs might do.

Absolutely. I believe we have the right to peaceful protest, I believe a hundred percent in our mission today. I also believe there’s a lot of bad actors both in political power and just on media out in the world who are looking to target peaceful Americans exercising their vote. We have the Speaker of the House calling this a We Hate America rally and accusing us of being all sorts of hateful causes and people. And I do worry about people here being targeted.
And I think that’s really why we have to be here though, is because our civil rights, our right to free speech is under attack and we need to continue to exercise it. And I take a lot of inspiration from the people of Ukraine and the people all over the world who have fought and resisted and risked everything they have to protect their rights, their homes, and their families.

Hey guys, how you doing?

Protester 1: Hello.

All right, so my name is Al. I’m with Mother Jones and Reveal. And so we’re just asking people, I love this shirt. Just asking people what brings them out there.

I want to come out here, show support for all of us trying to fight back against the tyrannical government.

You have a pin on that says Statehood for D.C.

Absolutely.

I think here’s the thing about statehood for D.C. is that the states that are not close to D.C. I think that most people don’t even think about the fact-they don’t. That D.C. does not have statehood and basically that you are not equally represented in Congress because of it. Can you speak to that a little bit?

So that necessarily constitutes 700,000 people not having rights. And if we think about that in any other context, that’s actually literally crazy to really conceptualize.

So when we’re talking about D.C. statehood and especially addressing people from different states, I’m somebody who’s not from D.C. I came here so that I could go to Howard. I also graduated from American University for my master’s degree, and being in D.C. is special to me.

And living here all of this time and understanding what statehood means, especially given the occupation and also what’s happening in Chicago, what’s happening in LA, Portland, Memphis, all of these different places that are seeing what it looks like for a government to impose their right or their will upon the people without their consent. D.C., I’m sorry. D.C. is the starting ground for all of that. We were essentially here for them to be able to test that out.

So when we’re talking about state rights, when we’re talking about statehood for D.C. that’s why it’s important. We are not a full protected democracy if people in our country are not represented. If not everybody is represented, we are not a full and free democracy at all.

So are you concerned with the federal government cutting off funds to HBCUs?

I’m incredibly concerned. I think that it puts a lot of HBCUs in a bind to potentially feel that they can’t represent or speak to the issues that are going on in a public way because they don’t want to jeopardize their funding, which to a degree is understandable given everything that’s going on.

It puts them in a real complicated spot, right?

Yeah.

Because it’s like all of your students are being affected by what’s happening, but also if you want to keep educating those students, you kind of got to shut up.

You have to. But what I will say is that there are ways around it. There are ways for students individually to get involved. That’s something that I absolutely encourage. If you’re on an HBCU campus, you are in a community with organizations around you that do want to get active. So if you find that your institution itself can’t do anything, then you yourself can say something.
That’s something that I practiced when I was at Howard. I was a part of Cascade. That was a lot of where I did my activism and things like that. It really provided me a space for me to speak freely about how I feel about especially LGBTQ+ rights and all things concerning marginalized groups.

Absolutely. Talk to me, what brought you out here?

And so I’m Black, I’m queer, I’m a civil rights attorney, and I’ve dedicated my life both personally and professionally to the idea that we all are entitled to equal rights under the law. And part of that is being able to express our right to free speech. And if we don’t use that right, especially now, we will lose it.
And I think it’s really important to show up and to show that there’s strength in numbers and that this country still belongs to us and to not, we’ve talked about organizations and universities capitulating to the administration. It’s also important that we don’t capitulate to the administration within ourselves. And so the country is not theirs yet. We have not lost democracy yet. And it starts on a personal level of telling yourself that and then showing up and doing what you can.

Thank you guys. You guys were great. Thank you.

Let me ask you a question. I’m just curious, in the grand arc of time and what you’ve seen in this country, does this feel familiar to you?

Protester 2: Well, it’s familiar to the extent that I was born in the forties and grew up in the sixties. And so certainly in that era we had a lot of protests that were necessary. So that’s similar, but this is different because we don’t have, for example, I was alive when Nixon was forced to resign. He was forced to resign because people in his own party who believed in the law, who believed in the Constitution, said to him, “You got to go.” We don’t have that now. And so all of us have to stand up and force all of us, all us to face the reality of the loss of rights that are happening and to say that we will not be moved.

Yeah. Are you fearful for this country?

Yes, I am. But it’s not just this country. I’m fearful for all countries or all people in the world who looks to the United States. I’m not saying that we’ve been perfect, we’ve done some bad things, but what I’m saying is our ideals were worth fighting for and they’re still worth fighting for and for those in this country and in the world who believe that, this is a fearful time.

Yeah. Thank you so much for taking time to talk to us.

You’re welcome.

We are standing right now at the, pretty much the entrance of the protest. They have a stage set up. I couldn’t tell you how many people here, but it’s a lot. I mean, this place is packed. You’ve got to move slowly through the crowd to get through.

And right where the stage is, over the stage, is the building of the National Gallery. And if you look really carefully at the top of the building, it looks like three snipers standing, or at least from my vantage point right now, I can see two rifles, maybe three and three people moving around on the roof up there. And I’m pretty sure they’re government employees, but it’s a little bit surreal to be out here with all these people. There are American flags. There are flags that say, “Resist.” There are Palestinian flags. There are people with signs saying all sorts of things. Families out here. It’s definitely a peaceful protest and looming above it all are snipers, so it’s a little surreal.

Do you mind if I stick a microphone in your face while you hold the sign? So your sign says, “Hands off science. Stop the cuts to research and global vaccinations. Trump is making America sicker.” Can you talk a little bit about that?

Blanca: Yeah. Well, he’s firing employees from NOAA and NIH and just other agencies and also cutting funding for cancer research and other research areas, which really needed just to give tax cuts to his billionaire friends so we can’t stand for that.

Yeah, I was about to say, why do you think he’s doing it?

Yeah, just to give cuts and breaks to his billionaire friends and cutting social programs that we need. So no, that’s not okay and we can’t stand for it.

Do you think that this protest is going to be impactful in making that type of change, or is it more about just showing up and being seen?

I mean, I hope it doesn’t impact. I think still more people need to come out, but there’s power in numbers I think, and we need to reach a certain level so that there’s change. So I hope more people come out. I know people is afraid because that’s also what they’re trying to do, intimidate people with all his tactics of putting military people on the streets. That’s all for intimidation. So he has to do better. We’re not going to be just silent with all this happening. Also, the mass deportations. Yeah, no, not okay.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

Yeah. They’re just targeting people based on the color of their skin, based off if they hear an accent, they don’t know if it’s an American or not, which regardless, people are humans. They need to have some dignity. That is not okay. And not just immigrants. He’s also targeting students. Just for writing an article you’re targeted. So our freedom of speech is also not just immigrants, but also students, also law firms that are not doing his bidding, universities that don’t want to do his bidding. He’s just trying to silence everyone that is dissenting and that is not okay. We have freedom of speech in this country.

Thank you so much. What’s your name?

Blanca.

And where are you from?

Well, I’m Puerto Rican, but I live in Queens, New York.

So tell me what brought you out here today?

Protester 3: Well, I’m an American and I feel proud to protest as my right. And I love America, and I feel like these are dangerous times that we’re living in. And yeah, I’m here for my children. I’m here for the future of this country.

Are you fearful for your children for the way this country is heading?

I am, yes, very much so. I’m a proud immigrant. I teach them about world cultures. I’ve told them about how despots and dictators are overseas and seeing them here in their own home because we literally live in D.C. in their literal backyard. These are very dark times, and I hope that the dark times pass.

Being an immigrant, I mean, it must feel, and I think I definitely can relate being a Black man in America, but definitely it feels like we’re in a time where anybody who is not a white male definitely feels like you have a little bit of a target on your back.

Absolutely, yes. Being a Muslim immigrant, that target is especially bigger. My name is very different. So even though if my appearance may look different, my name is different. So yes, I do feel like that it’s a big target, especially being a person of color in this day and age.

Thank you very much.

So your sign says, “Free Palestine. Free-“

Isabel: “Free D.C., Free us all.”

Yes, yes, yes. Please talk to me a little bit about, well, A, you’ve been obviously following the situation in Palestine.

Yeah.

Tell me, how do you feel this administration has been handling it?

I mean not well, to put it simply. I think that there’s a blatant disregard of some of the greatest failures of humanity and humankind and being able to treat one another with respect and not commit genocides. And I think that’s a problem.

Before the election, did you ever imagine we would be in this place?

Yes and no. I don’t think I would’ve hoped that it would’ve been as scary as it is now, but I think unfortunately, it’s like a continuation of trends of overall leadership in the country where, sorry, I’m probably not being as eloquent as I could be about this, but where this is consistent bad policy throughout different administrations in this country that have gotten to this place of complacency and allowing something as bad as what’s happening in Gaza to happen.

Where do you think all this goes? I mean, I think that ultimately protesting is an act of hope, but if I’m reading the tea leaves, I don’t have a whole lot of hope that things will change.

Yeah. I mean, it’s just an interesting time because there’s been a lot of discourse right now about the point of No Kings. I’ve seen some people on the internet kind of adamantly against these kinds of rallies is not having clear feedback or clear policy points or next steps coming out of it.

But I think with this particular administration where the ego is so outsized, these kinds of demonstrations are still productive in a sense that they are, I think, outsize and outpace the rallies that we see in favor of a Donald Trump. And so even if there’s a lot of, we’ve got people from all different walks of life, even disagreeing perspectives at times here president at the rally, but I think it’s about showing the force in terms of numbers that are not okay with what’s happening right now. And so I think it’s still important to do that even if we’re not walking away with clear demands being met.

I think a lot about, obviously people compare where we are to what happened in Germany as it moved forward into Nazism. I think there are definitely some things that compare very well and other things that don’t.

I was just in a Lyft ride last night actually coming back from the airport, and I was kind of making the point that a lot of the ingredients that we see, and not only authoritarian Germany during World War II, in authoritarian Italy, during the Spanish Civil War, were all this, these ingredients that were happening then are happening now. And the Lyft driver was like, “No, no, I’m not worried. It’s not like that.” But I think a common narrative that we hear is, “How could anybody have known about what was happening in 1945 and not been absolutely outraged?” It’s like, “No, people get complacent.

It is a very weird thing in the sense that people are complacent, but they’re also scared. And they also think that if I keep my mouth shut, this will not affect me. And it always does.

It’s hard, and I’ll say this as someone who has also been scared in the past of coming to different rallies, I think this in some senses is very affirming because you see people, you see people with their children. You’re seeing people walking with canes at these like this No Kings rally in particular. And I think that is hopefully how people see that, no, this is a space for everyone to feel safe and comfortable. But then at the same time, you look over on that rooftop over there and they’ve got snipers somehow.

Yeah. The sniper thing is a little weird. It’s a little weird. Do you mind giving us your name and where you’re from?

Yeah. So I am originally from Houston, Texas, and my first name is Isabel.

Isabel, thank you so much for talking to me.

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ICE’s Spending on Weaponry Is Up More Than 700 Percent Over Last Year

This story was originally published by Popular Information, a substack publication to which you can subscribe here.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has sharply increased its spending on weapons in 2025, according to an analysis of federal government contracting data by Popular Information. Records from the Federal Procurement Data System reveal that ICE has increased spending on “small arms, ordnance, and ordnance accessories manufacturing” by more than 700 percent compared to 2024 levels.

New spending in the small arms category from January 20, 2025, the day Trump was inaugurated, through October 18, totaled $71,515,762. Most of the spending was on guns and armor, but there have also been significant purchases of chemical weapons and “guided missile warheads and explosive components.”

On September 29, 2025, ICE made a $9,098,590 purchase from Geissele Automatics, which sells semi-automatic and automatic rifles. The total spending by ICE in the small arms category between January 20 and October 18 last year was $9,715,843.

Spending by ICE on guns and other weapons so far this year not only dwarfs its spending during the Biden administration but also during Trump’s first term. In 2019, for example, ICE spent $5.7 million on small arms through October 18. Average ICE spending on small arms during Trump’s first four years was about $8.4 million.

The data likely understates new spending on weaponry deployed in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, since many other federal agencies beyond ICE have been involved. But it provides a window into how ICE and other agencies are bringing an unprecedented number of high-powered weapons into American cities.

The surge in spending on ICE weaponry has coincided with a wave of violent incidents by ICE officers. Several dangerous situations have been captured on video.

Last month in Illinois, a pastor, Reverend David Black, was shot in the face with a pepper ball by an ICE officer. In another September incident, an ICE officer dropped his gun while violently making an arrest and then pointed it at bystanders.

An ICE officer also allegedly shot a pepper ball at the vehicle of a CBS News Chicago reporter in September. The reporter’s window was open, allowing chemical agents “to engulf the inside of her truck,” which “caused her to vomit.”

In August, US Marine Corps veteran Daryn Herzberg was hospitalized “after being tackled from behind by ICE agents while protesting outside a federal facility in Portland.”

At the time he was attacked, Herzberg was criticizing ICE officers “for firing down on unarmed protesters.” A video shows “an agent grabbing Herzberg by the hair and slamming his face into the ground multiple times while saying, ‘You’re not talking shit anymore are you?’”

An unarmed veteran was attacked from behind, sustaining injuries and being dragged into a Portland ice building.

— Raider (@iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social) 2025-08-15T15:27:49.197Z

In July, an aggressive ICE raid of a California cannabis farm left several workers injured and one dead. Jaime Alanís Garcia, who was not a target of the raid, climbed onto a greenhouse roof to escape the chaos and fell 30 feet to his death.

“What we’re seeing is a general escalation of violence and the use of excessive force by ICE officers,” Ed Yohnka of ACLU Illinois told NPR. Yohnka has filed a lawsuit on behalf of protesters, including Pastor Black, arguing that ICE’s tactics violate their constitutional rights.

“All over the country, federal agents have shot, gassed, and detained individuals engaged in cherished and protected activities,” the lawsuit says. It accuses ICE and other federal agencies of “the dangerous and indiscriminate use of near-lethal weapons such as tear gas, rubber bullets, pepper-balls, flash grenades, and other unwarranted and disproportionate tactics.”

ICE is stockpiling arms, including chemical weapons, guided missile warheads and explosive components. The spending dwarfs anything we've ever seen in the agency – a 700% increase.The President is building an army to attack his own country.

— Senator Chris Larson (@senchrislarson.bsky.social) 2025-10-21T14:45:57.844Z

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Report: Trump Demands Taxpayers Hand Him $230 Million

Earlier this year, Mother Jones published an article headlined “10 Ways to Enrich the Trumps and the MAGA Movement.”

Examples included buying crypto with the proceeds filling Trump family pockets, paying up to a million dollars to a Trump PAC for access to the president, shelling out excessive settlements to end dubious lawsuits filed by the president, paying Melania Trump $40 million for a film about her—and ponying up funds, or a plane, supposedly for Trump’s presidential library, that could benefit Trump himself.

We failed, though, to consider that the president might simply force the US government, i.e. us taxpayers, to straight-up pay him hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation for the offense of investigating him for crimes.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that Trump “is demanding that the Justice Department pay him about $230 million in compensation for the federal investigations into him.” Those are DOJ probes into connections between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russian intelligence activities intended to help him win that election, and Trump’s alleged violation of the Espionage Act, and other laws, by evading Justice Department efforts to recover highly classified documents that Trump lifted from the White House when he left office in 2021, some of which he apparently stored in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom.

The Mar-a-Lago case, which included a 2022 FBI raid of that property that Trump takes particular exception to, resulted in Trump’s 2023 indictment on dozens of counts. The case was later thrown out on a technicality by infamously pro-Trump Judge Aileen Cannon, a ruling that DOJ was appealing when Trump’s election effectively ended the case.

Whether Trump will get his payout is officially up to DOJ’s Deputy Attorney General, or the Associate Attorney General who oversees the agency’s civil division. Those jobs are held respectively by Todd Blanche, a former Trump lawyer who represented Trump on the Mar-a-Lago case, and Stanley Woodward, who represented a Trump co-defendant in that case, along with various current Trump aides.

The Times story requires little elaboration. It quotes an ethics professor, Bennett Gershman, of Pace University, who said, “The ethical conflict is just so basic and fundamental, you don’t need a law professor to explain it.”

But it’s worth noting that Trump is reportedly demanding a massive personal payment from the government he oversees after enacting legislation that slashed funding for Medicaid benefits and food stamps that benefit the poorest Americans. Meanwhile his administration is imposing legally questionable reductions in congressionally-approved funding for medical research and various other federal programs.

This year, amid a steady stream of reports on Trump and his family’s efforts to profit from his presidency, the White House has affected indignation, asserting that the presidency is actually costing Trump money.

“I think it’s frankly ridiculous that anyone in this room would even suggest that President Trump is doing anything for his own benefit,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a May 9 media briefing. “He left a life of luxury and a life of running a very successful real estate empire for public service, not just once but twice.”

Asked Tuesday if Leavitt stood by that statement, the White House press office referred questions to the Justice Department and Trump’s personal attorneys, adding: “This is not a request for the WH.”

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Republicans Are Making One of the Most Gerrymandered States in the Nation Even More Rigged

The GOP-controlled North Carolina legislature, which has already gone to extreme lengths to undermine the will of the voters, is set to pass a new Trump-inspired gerrymandered congressional map this week that is expected to give Republicans one additional seat heading into the midterms. It will make one of the most gerrymandered states in the country even more gerrymandered, likely giving Republicans nearly 80 percent of US House seats in an otherwise closely divided swing state where Trump won 51 percent of the vote in 2024. The state senate passed the bill on Tuesday in near record time, with the state house to follow shortly thereafter.

The map targets the district of Democratic US House Rep. Don Davis, which has been represented by a Black member of Congress for more than three decades, shifting it from a district that Trump won by 3 points in 2024 to 12 points under the new lines. To make the district more Republican, majority-Black counties in eastern North Carolina’s Black Belt, including Davis’ home county, would be moved out of the district and replaced with majority-white counties that favor Trump.

“In the 2024 election with record voter turnout, NC’s First Congressional District elected both President Trump and me,” Davis said in a statement on Tuesday. “Since the start of this new term, my office has received 46,616 messages from constituents of different political parties, including those unaffiliated, expressing a range of opinions, views, and requests. Not a single one of them included a request for a new congressional map redrawing eastern North Carolina. Clearly, this new congressional map is beyond the pale.”

“Instead of nibbling at the margins of participation, today’s strategies are about cheating outright.”

The new map continues the trend of Republicans eliminating the seats of Democrats of color in their unprecedented bid to redraw districts in as many controlled states as possible in advance of the midterms; Missouri’s congressional gerrymanderer dismantled the district of Black Democrat Emanuel Cleaver while Texas’ map, which launched the GOP’s mid-decade redistricting frenzy, seeks to remove three Hispanic Democrats and one Black Democrat from office.

“Instead of nibbling at the margins of participation, today’s strategies are about cheating outright,” said Melissa Price Kromm, executive director of the pro-democracy group North Carolina For the People Action.

Republican leaders in North Carolina have openly admitted that they drew the new map to placate Trump, with reports alleging that Senate Majority Leader Phil Berger spearheaded the effort in exchange for Trump’s endorsement in his contested primary. “We are doing everything we can to protect President Trump’s agenda, which means safeguarding Republican control of Congress,” Berger said.

North Carolina has been ground zero for Republican gerrymandering schemes for more than a decade. The maps passed by North Carolina Republicans after the 2020 census were struck down by the Democratic majority on the North Carolina Supreme Court, leading to an even split in the state’s congressional delegation for the 2022 elections. But after Republicans won a majority on the state supreme court in that election, they overturned the court ruling blocking the gerrymandered map, allowing Republicans to pass a new gerrymander that gave the party three new seats in the 2024 election, which helped the GOP retain control of the US House.

“We would have been in the majority if North Carolina hadn’t egregiously redistricted and eliminated three Democratic seats,” House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) said after the election.

That map, which earned an F from the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, attempted to oust Davis, a former Air Force captain and member of the state senate from 2013 to 2023, shifting his district from a Democratic advantage to narrowly favoring Republicans, but he survived in 2024, winning by two points even as Trump carried his district. A federal lawsuit alleges that his current district, which has been represented by a Black member of Congress since 1992, was drawn by Republicans to dilute Black voting strength.

But now Republicans are redoubling their efforts to oust Davis, turning an F map into an F-. “Racist maps make racist reps!” protesters at the North Carolina capitol chanted before the state senate passed the bill. (In 2023, the legislature snuck in a provision to the state budget shielding redistricting records from public view, which could make it harder to challenge the new gerrymander in court.)

“They want to lock in that no Democrat, especially no Black Democrat, can ever win again,” former Democratic Rep. Eva Clayton, who represented the first district from 1992 to 2003, as the first Black woman elected to Congress from North Carolina, said on Tuesday.

It was a case originating in North Carolina that led to the Supreme Court effectively greenlighting extreme partisan gerrymandering in 2019, which has allowed Trump and his Republican allies to redraw districts for partisan advantage in state after state this year.

In 2016, a federal court ruled that two of the state’s congressional districts were illegally racially gerrymandered. When Republicans, under the guidance of the late GOP redistricting godfather Tom Hofeller, redrew the congressional maps, legislative leaders openly admitted their top goal was to maintain a partisan advantage. “I propose that we draw the maps to give a partisan advantage to 10 Republicans and three Democrats, because I do not believe it’s possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and two Democrats,” said GOP state Rep. David Lewis, who oversaw the redistricting process. He conceded: “I acknowledge freely that this would be a political gerrymander, which is not against the law.”

The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, with Chief Justice John Roberts holding in Rucho v. Common Cause that partisan gerrymandered claims couldn’t be brought in federal court—a decision that turbocharged gerrymandering across the country.

Roberts claimed that the Rucho decision did not bar efforts to outlaw racial gerrymandering. But the Supreme Court just heard arguments in a case that could end the Voting Rights Act’s ability to stop racial gerrymandering as well, which would kill the last remaining protection of the landmark civil rights law. Such a ruling could jeopardize majority-minority districts across the country, shifting up to 19 seats to the GOP.

North Carolina Republicans have long been at the forefront of GOP efforts to undermine democracy. The legislature convened a lame-duck session after the 2024 election that was supposed to focus on hurricane relief but instead stripped the state’s Democratic governor, Josh Stein, of the power to appoint a majority of members to the state and county election boards. The new state board is now controlled by Republicans with a long history of limiting access to the ballot who could use their authority to close polling places, cut early voting hours, and contest election outcomes. Already, a North Carolina Republican state supreme court justice, Jefferson Griffin, spent seven months trying to overturn the victory of his Democratic opponent Allison Riggs following the 2024 election.

“They’re abusing their power to take away the people’s power, the voters’ power, because they’re trying to decide for the voters who their congressperson is,” said Stein, who does not have the power to veto the redistricting bill.

Now, the GOP’s toxic attempt to oust a Black Democrat in North Carolina is a disturbing preview of what a post-Voting Rights Act America will look like.

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Portland Feds Are Escalating Chaos at ICE Protests

In another dizzying plot point around President Donald Trump’s attempts to federalize the National Guard, three judges on the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a 2–1 decision on Monday that Trump has the authority to deploy the Guard in Portland.

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The ruling represents another turning point in legal battles taking place across the country, from Chicago to Washington, DC, and Los Angeles—all of which have been involved in lawsuits related to Trump’s troop deployments.

While Oregon leaders continue to fight the Ninth Circuit’s decision, demanding a review by the full court, protesters have consistently shown up to the ICE facility in South Portland—driving the Trump administration’s ire and claims of a war-ravaged city underantifa siege.

But here’s the kicker: The ICE facility is just one block in a 145-square-mile city. Given that—and that even there, protests have been led by an army of inflatable animals—many question the validity of deploying the National Guard. After the No Kings protest on Saturday, hundreds flocked to the facility for a nonviolent protest, but federal agents had other plans.

“I’m a veteran who fought for my country,” Daryn Herzberg, 35, said. “I swore an oath to uphold the Constitution from enemies, foreign and domestic. And what I’m seeing right now is a terrorist in the White House trying to call us terrorists while we are out here trying to stop our friends and neighbors from getting kidnapped.”

In an intense confrontation, agents fired tear gas, flashbang grenades, and pepper balls for over five minutes straight. For many protesters, that aggression is nothing new—just another night at the facility.

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What Shutdown?

Mass federal layoffs that could soon become permanent. Food aid programs facing imminent disaster. Mounting recession indicators in an already stalling economy. The effects of the government shutdown, now in its fourth week, are becoming more pronounced with each day.

But while previous shutdowns saw late-night efforts at the White House to try and break the impasse, several high-profile Trump administration officials, including the president himself, are spending lavishly on self-serving priorities.

Consider the shocking images that emerged on Monday of demolition crews tearing down parts of the East Wing despite President Trump’s repeated assurances that he would not interfere with the White House’s existing facade as he pursues construction for his long-desired $250 million state ballroom. It was a broken promise, perhaps the most visceral, literal kind, that evinced a president ever preoccupied with gilded priorities, even as economic pain swells around him.

The same wildly out-of-touch priorities were again on display last week at a related White House dinner where Trump hosted dozens of wealthy donors to recognize their support for the 9,000 square-foot ballroom. (Trump has said that he and other “patriot donors” are footing the bill for the project, prompting warnings from ethics experts that the arrangement runs a high risk of ~~potential~~ corruption.) At the same dinner, the president unveiled models for a decadent triumphal arch he ostensibily wants built to commemorate the country’s 250th birthday next year. It’s unclear how the proposed arch will be paid for. Meanwhile, Trump has yet to meet with top Democrats in Congress again after their first meeting in September failed to avert the shutdown, yielding only in the president posting a racist, vulgar video mocking Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries.

“Construction has always been a part of the evolution of the White House,” White House communications director Steven Cheung posted on X. “Losers who are quick to criticize need to stop their pearl-clutching and understand the building needs to be modernized. Otherwise you’re just living in the past.”

But the president isn’t alone in the curious opulence coursing throughout the administration these days. The New York Times reported this weekend that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has purchased not one, but two new Gulfstream private jets, billed at $172 million in taxpayer dollars. The contract, which was signed on Friday, comes against wider concerns over Noem’s penchant for maximizing the perks of her powerful position as head of DHS. Those include living rent-free in a residence normally reserved for the US Coast Guard’s top admiral and using taxpayer money for trips to Las Vegas—Noem claimed “death threats” prompted her to retreat to the waterfront home—while instituting an onerous rule at the Department of Homeland Security that all spending over $100,000 requires her approval.

“In addition to raising serious questions about your ability to effectively lead an agency whose procurement strategies appear to vary on a whim, the procurement of new luxury jets for your use suggests that the [Coast Guard] has been directed to prioritize your own comfort above the [Coast Guard’s] operational needs, even during a government shutdown,” Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee wrote in a letter.

“We are deeply concerned about your judgment, leadership priorities, and responsibility as a steward of taxpayer dollars.”

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The Most Dangerous Man in the US Senate?

A version of the below article first appeared in David Corn’s newsletter, Our Land_. The newsletter comes out twice a week (most of the time) and provides behind-the-scenes stories and articles about politics, media, and culture. Subscribing costs just $5 a month—but you can sign up for a free 30-day trial._

It’s hard to define Trumpism without Donald Trump. So much of what Trump does arises from demagogic political self-interest, not ideology or well-formed policy.

He assaults elites and decries politicians for having screwed over middle America, while gold-plating the White House, grifting his way to billions, and pushing legislation that tosses big tax cuts to the well-heeled and raises the cost of health insurance for millions. He proclaims that politicians have betrayed the citizenry, but he guts safeguards that protect consumers, workers, investors, and retirees, allowing powerful corporations to run wild. He boasts he’s pursuing an America First policy, yet he’s spending up to $40 billion to bail out his pal in Argentina. Trumpism, as practiced and presented by Trump, is a hodgepodge—a mélange of impulses, insults, contradictions, and half-baked ideas, far from a coherent set of principles.

He signed an amicus brief that contended LGBTQ people were not protected by workplace discrimination bans. He filed lawsuits to kill the Affordable Care Act. He sued the Biden administration, alleging it was censoring anti-vaccine activism. He’s full MAGA.

But there are others who do a better job than Trump of shaping Trumpism into a coherent ideology that melds nativism and oligarchism. And they present as much danger—possibly more?—to American society as the undisciplined, erratic wannabe-autocrat who leads the MAGA cult. One of these Trumpers is Eric Schmitt.

Never heard of him? He’s the junior US senator from Missouri, a Republican, naturally. He was elected in the 2022 election. Prior to that he was the Show Me State’s attorney general. In that position, he championed Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 election and supported failed lawsuits that tried to overturn the election results. He signed an amicus brief that contended LGBTQ people were not protected by workplace discrimination bans. He filed lawsuits to kill the Affordable Care Act. He sued the Biden administration, alleging it was censoring anti-vaccine activism. He’s full MAGA.

In the Senate, he has not yet become a national figure. But it’s clear this 50-year-old career politician has supersize ambitions. He demonstrated his ability to be a post-Trump leader of Trumpism with a speech he gave in September at the National Conservative Conference held in Washington, DC. It’s worth considering it in detail.

Proclaiming himself a champion of “national conservatism,” Schmitt defined this ideology as a “revolt,” within a “culture war,” against “the elites who rule everywhere but are not truly from anywhere.” Before explaining precisely what he meant by that, he assailed traditional (pre-Trump) conservatism for having gone along with the “Washington consensus” of foreign interventions, free trade, and pro-immigration policies that “undercut American wages, replace American workers, and transfer entire industries into the hands of foreign lobbies.”

This is standard fare for Trump acolytes who have tried to bend conservatism to fit into Trump’s mold. But Schmitt devoted much of his speech to the question of who is a true American. He derided those on the right and the left who have depicted America as an “idea,” noting:

For decades, the mainstream consensus on the left and the right alike seemed to be that America itself was just an “idea”—a vehicle for global liberalism. We were told that the entire meaning of America boiled down to a few lines in a poem on the Statue of Liberty, and five words about equality in the Declaration of Independence. Any other aspect of American identity was deemed to be illegitimate and immoral, poisoned by the evils of our ancestors. The true meaning of America, they said, was liberalism, multiculturalism, and endless immigration. In a speech in 1998, Bill Clinton said that the continuous influx of immigrants was—and I quote—a “reminder that our America is not so much a place as a promise.”

Real Americans, he asserted, have been betrayed: “Their true adversary did not live in the faraway sands of some foreign nation, but in the halls of their own government.”

Not really, Schmitt insisted. The foundational principles are critical to the nation, he said, but America was not “a universal proposition” available to just anyone. He told his audience, “That’s what set Donald Trump apart from the old conservatism and the old liberalism alike: He knows that America is not just an abstract ‘proposition,’ but a nation and a people, with its own distinct history and heritage and interests.” You see where he’s heading with this?

Real Americans, he asserted, have been betrayed: “Their true adversary did not live in the faraway sands of some foreign nation, but in the halls of their own government.” These Americans were heirs to a particular history:

The Continental Army soldiers dying of frostbite at Valley Forge, the Pilgrims struggling to survive in the hard winter soil of Plymouth, the pioneers striking out from Missouri for the wild and dangerous frontier, the outnumbered Kentucky settlers repelling wave after wave of Indian war band attacks from behind their stockade walls—all of them would be astonished to hear that they were only fighting for a “proposition.”

They believed they were forging a nation—a homeland for themselves and their descendants. They fought, they bled, they struggled, they died for us. They built this country for us.

The key word here is “descendants.” Schmitt was suggesting America belongs more to some than others. (In Animal Farm, the fascist regime declares, “Some animals are more equal than others.”) America, the senator said, is not a “universal nation” open to anyone who wishes to join.

After referring to the United States as “the most essentially Western nation,” he hammered this point: “We Americans are the sons and daughters of the Christian pilgrims that poured out from Europe’s shores to baptize a new world in their ancient faith. Our ancestors were driven here by destiny, possessed by urgent and fiery conviction, by burning belief, devoted to their cause and their God.” He celebrated the waves of European settlers in the 1800s, noting his own ancestors arrived in Missouri from Germany in the 1840s, and that it was the brave Christian souls who headed West “to build a home at the edge of the known world” who made America and—most important—bequeathed it to future Americans.

“We’re not sorry,” Schmitt said. “Why would we be sorry? America is the proudest and most magnificent heritage ever known to man.”

Schmitt denounced those who would dare take notice of the genocide of Indigenous people or other ills of America’s past:

For some time now, we’ve been taught to be ashamed of these things that defined us—to treat our curiosity, adventurousness, and ambition as a stain on our moral conscience. We’ve been taught that, by settling this continent and building our home here, we committed a world-historical sin, and that we should rue the day that our forefathers arrived in North America, and condemn their vision, their strength, and their will as an expression of something perverse and evil.

He added: “The American heritage is not a narrative of oppression and evil, but the unfolding story of our people’s pioneer spirit—a spirit that drives us to expand beyond limits, to assert ourselves upon the world…We’re not sorry. Why would we be sorry? America is the proudest and most magnificent heritage ever known to man.”

As for those who would raise questions about America’s glorious past—including those Americans who joined protests after George Floyd’s murder in 2020—Schmitt said, “America does not belong to them. It belongs to us. It’s our home. It’s a heritage entrusted to us by our ancestors. It is a way of life that is ours, and only ours, and if we disappear, then America, too, will cease to exist.” Who is the “we” in that declaration? The descendants of the European Christians who claimed the West.

The fight at hand, Schmitt contended, “is about whether our children will still have a country to call their own. It’s about whether America will remain what she was meant to be: the apex and the vanguard of Western civilization.”

Schmitt’s speech was an articulate and sophisticated embrace of blood and soil. His message was that America is a land not for those who have come here drawn by its ideals and promises but for those whose ancestors were on the wagon trains and who conquered the frontier. American greatness is derived from the legacy of those people, not whatever values and principles a diverse and pluralistic society shares and honors. (“If you imposed a carbon copy of the US Constitution on Kazakhstan tomorrow,” he said, “Kazakhstan wouldn’t magically become America. Because Kazakhstan isn’t filled with Americans. It’s filled with Kazakhstanis!”)

In his celebration of American history, Schmitt fixates on a particular set of ancestors who helped form this nation. His story does not include the contributions of enslaved people whose free labor generated much of its wealth, or the Chinese workers who laid the tracks for railroads that transformed the country, or the Mexican workers whose toil and sweat turned California into an agricultural powerhouse. Nor does his narrative include immigrants who arrived later from non-European countries. He is focused on—shall we say it?—white people.

Schmitt aptly combines explicit nativism, implied white supremacy, purported economic populism, and anti-elitism into a neat package, and he’s a damn good salesman for this noxious brew.

Schmitt deftly ties his skewed history lesson to the grievances held by white voters of today, arguing that those who don’t accept this particular view of American greatness are the same folks responsible for the economic policies and decisions that have hollowed out middle America and left many Main Streets in tatters. He is integrating racial and economic resentments, with a dash of Christian nationalism, into a coherent and divisive strategy for prosecuting the culture war against them: unidentified elites, critics of American society, and…well, fill in the blanks.

All of this is present in the Trumpism espoused by Dear Leader. But Schmitt more aptly combines explicit nativism, implied white supremacy, purported economic populism, and anti-elitism into a neat package, and he’s a damn good salesman for this noxious brew.

He’s a crafty and disingenuous fellow who’s skilled at performative politics. Two weeks after this speech and six days after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing where FBI Director Kash Patel was the witness, Schmitt used the occasion to describe America as in the grips of a titanic battle between good and evil, with the latter being a left that encourages political violence. He cited instances of violence committed by people with left-leaning agendas, but absent from his list were shootings and massacres perpetrated by those motivated by conservative beliefs, such as the killing of Democrats in Minnesota by a Trump supporter. He also ignored January 6, the largest act of insurrectionist violence since the Civil War.

Don’t give me this both-sides bullshit,” Schmitt angrily exclaimed. He claimed that political violence in the United States is happening on a “mass scale” and is “not organic.” It is part of a nefarious and orchestrated plot, he insisted,

the offspring of a dark clandestine system funded in part with our own tax dollars with a large network of foundations, NGOs, activist organizations, and front groups. This system lurks behind every radical leftist movement in our nation today. The George Soros empire has financed a vast ecosystem of radicals, all working together, dropping off bricks at riots, to unleash a tidal wave of violent anarchists on our streets and to prop it up in an army of researchers, experts, and journalists, and propagandists who downplay the political violence.

Schmitt’s fact-twisting—the claim that Soros’ organization supplies bricks to violent protesters has been debunked repeatedly but remains a right-wing article of faith—and his amnesia about January 6 and other horrific violence from the right show that he is yet just another MAGA fabulist willing to lie and misrepresent to exploit hate, paranoia, and distrust to score political points. Like you-know-who. But he is much better able than Trump to convey the ideology that animates Trump’s own political movement and that is the foundation for Trump’s march toward authoritarianism. That’s quite a talent, and Schmitt intends to put it to good use—that is, good for himself.

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Devastated by Israel, Gaza Faces an Environmental Crisis “Above Imagination”

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Over two years of nearly incessant bombardment, Israeli forces have killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, at least a third of whom are children. The human toll has been called genocide by human rights organizations around the world and by a UN commission, but a new report from an Israeli research center also points to environmental devastation: Gaza’s soil is polluted after the destruction of wastewater treatment plants, sewage contamination is widespread, and particulate matter left by exploded bombs is increasing rates of respiratory illness.

According to a new report by the Arava Institute, an environmental research institute based in Israel, Gaza is covered with an estimated 61 million tons of rubble, much of which contains asbestos, unexploded munitions, and unburied human remains. “The environmental situation in Gaza before October 7 was a disaster,” said Tareq Abuhamed, who leads the Arava Institute and is Palestinian. Rebuilding even to that prior state of disaster is likely to take decades.

A report from the UN, published in late September, estimated that nearly $70 billion in damage has been done to Gaza’s roads, buildings, and infrastructure over the past two years, while more than 80 percent of cropland has been destroyed. Less than 10 percent of all hazardous waste is being safely disposed of, and most, by necessity, is being burned or piled in open-air landfills. Untreated wastewater, meanwhile, is dumped directly on the land or into the sea.

“The garbage becomes mountains, and the mountains are a breeding site for mosquitos and rodents, which spread malaria,” said Yasser El-Nahhal, an environmental chemist and eco-toxicologist with the Islamic University of Gaza.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt in anybody’s mind that [Israel’s actions in Gaza have been] ecocidal.”

Long before Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023, Israeli blockades prevented easy access to water, electricity, and food. Rolling blackouts have been common in Palestine for the last 20 years, and many residents relied on small-scale desalination units, plants that make seawater drinkable, and private water tankers to purchase potable water. Now, the aid organization Doctors Without Borders says that only 1 out of every 10 of their requests for water to be imported are approved by Israeli authorities.

“The environment [was] destroyed before the war,” said El-Nahhal. “But since the war, it has been destroyed several times above imagination.”

Palestinian researcher Mazin Qumsiyeh of Bethlehem University’s Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability calls what is happening now ecocide: a term broadly defined as the severe, long-term, and widespread destruction of the environment. A growing coalition of countries hopes to legally define ecocide as a crime the International Criminal Court might prosecute.

“Gaza, of course, was a functioning society, even though it was subjected to significant sanctions in the past 16 years that limited supplies,” Qumsiyeh said. “They had a functioning society. They had schools, universities, sewage treatment facilities, and a desalination plant. All of this was destroyed in this genocidal, ecocidal war.”

Earlier this month, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the world’s largest conservation congress, signed a resolution asserting that ecocide should be treated as a criminal offense. Jojo Mehta, founder of the legal advocacy group Stop Ecocide International, said that while the resolution defines ecocide quite broadly, it could certainly be applied to Israel’s conduct in Gaza. “What’s been happening in terms of the environment in Gaza is horrific,” Mehta said. “I don’t think there’s any doubt in anybody’s mind that it’s ecocidal.”

Israeli officials did not return multiple requests for comment on this story.

The Arava report calls for unimpeded aid to Gaza, as well as potable water systems and personal hygiene kits to mitigate disease. The UN, in its September report, wrote that to make Gaza’s environment livable again “will require a cessation of hostilities. The first phase of recovery will focus on saving lives, through restoration of essential services and removal of debris.”

Nonetheless, Qumsiyeh of Bethlehem University said that Palestinians will continue to rebuild—even if, as he believes is likely, the current ceasefire falls apart. “I don’t claim we have a huge success rate,” he said, “But imagine your community being destroyed dozens of times, and you continue to rebuild. That shows an incredible amount of hopefulness.”

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The Secret Campaign to Silence Critics of a Hospital Real Estate Empire

By the spring of 2022, Ed Aldag was fed up. The 61-year-old CEO of a multibillion-dollar real estate company called Medical Properties Trust, Aldag is a high-society fixture in the company’s hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, where MPT has donated millions to local nonprofits and where he’s regularly listed as one of the city’s most influential businessmen. But for years, Aldag had watched as MPT faced tough questions from the federal government, investors, and, most recently, a series of articles in the Wall Street Journal.

MPT makes money by acting as a landlord: It buys hospitals and then rents the facilities back to providers. Over the previous year, the Journal had published several stories that focused on the company’s finances, including reporting that dug into MPT’s biggest tenant—Steward Health Care, then one of the largest for-profit hospital operators in the nation—and the unusually close financial relationship between the two companies.

The Journal’s pieces raised concerns about whether Steward was struggling—and whether MPT was engaging in secret transactions to keep it afloat. Mother Jones and others would later report howSteward’s financial mismanagement harmed hundreds of people: We found 83 deaths across its 39 hospitals, hundreds of malpractice lawsuits, and more than 700 patient care problems documented in federal hospital inspections. The Journal, meanwhile, was the first to notice this mismanagement at work, revealing that Steward hospitals owed nearly $1 billion to medical supply companies and other vendors.

In one tense email exchange in March 2022, Aldag wrote to a PR firm, “We cannot let a deranged pretend journalist tell a false story of MPT.”

That reporting was the beginning of years of intense scrutiny of MPT in the world of finance that hurt the company’s stock price and eventually led, earlier this month, to a trio of Democratic US senators proposing the “Stop Medical Profiteering and Theft (MPT) Act” to impose limits on the company’s business. But it was also the apparent start of an aggressive, previously unreported campaign by Steward, MPT, and other still-unknown actors to silence their critics. Internal documents obtained by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and shared with Mother Jones show that MPT amassed an army of crisis management professionals to protect its reputation, eventually working alongside three different crisis public relations firms, five law firms, and two private intelligence firms. The documents, along with information from sources close to this effort, show a major effort to control the narrative: In one tense email exchange in March 2022, Aldag wrote to a PR firm, “We cannot let a deranged pretend journalist tell a false story of MPT.”

As part of a social media push that used anonymous accounts to discredit and intimidate the growing chorus of journalists, investment analysts, and short sellers who questioned the company, an intelligence firm baitedMPT’s detractors online.And while the Boston Globe and OCCRP reported last year that Steward paid the British firm Audere International to surveil one particularly provocative MPT critic, new documents show a much broader tracking campaign, funded in part by Steward and other shadowy actors but focused on MPT, targeting a half dozen of the company’s skeptics.

“They were always looking for something explosive that would make things go away,” a source close to Audere wrote in messages reviewed by Mother Jones that were confirmed with the source directly. “Although Steward was the customer, it was clear that MPT was what Audere was protecting.”

An MPT spokesperson did not respond to a detailed list of questions but made clear in an emailed statement that the company disagrees with the many critics questioning its business practices. The company, the spokesperson said, “has unfailingly disclosed each of its transactions as and when required under applicable securities laws.”

The spokesperson also said that as criticism of MPT has mounted, its executives and their families have been harassed, including receiving death threats: “As any responsible company in that position would do, we have periodically engaged advisors to help navigate this situation.” The spokesperson added: “It is critical to note that MPT has never directly or indirectly engaged with detractors on social media, nor have we paid any third-party to do so.”

The company’s damage control started in earnest with the lead reporter behind the Journal’s stories, Brian Spegele. His reporting on MPT began in 2021, when a number of its tenant hospitals across the country—a Steward hospital in Pennsylvania, and ones owned by other for-profit operators in Wyoming and Rhode Island—all seemed to be running into financial issues. While these facilities struggled, MPT was hitting its highest stock price ever.

MPT leaders asked their PR firm to suss out the angle of Spegele’s upcoming article and questioned whether the Journal was working to short their stock.

Spegele emailed MPT with questions about how it was running its business—and how it might be affecting hospitals. He’d heard from insiders that MPT was overpaying for hospitals because higher sale values meant they could charge higher rents. Did the company want to comment? Why had one of their hospitals in Ohio shut down not long after it started renting from MPT? Did the company really have three corporate jets?

In dozens of leaked emails, Aldag strategized with other leaders over how to respond. They brought in the crisis PR firm Joele Frank to help, as well as a law firm that specializes in filing defamation cases against journalists, Clare Locke. They asked their PR firm to speak with Spegele and suss out the angle of his upcoming article and questioned whether the Journal was working to short their stock. Was the paper hinting to investors that MPT was going to fail?

In December 2021, Clare Locke sent a letter to the Journal’s legal team and top editors, threatening to sue the paper before Spegele had even published his next story and demanding that he reveal his sources. The following month, MPT’s stock hit a new high: about $24 per share. Not long after, the paper’s lawyer sent an email to Clare Locke, noting that Spegele had experienced “some security concerns,” and he wanted to discuss them on the phone. (Spegele declined to comment; a Wall Street Journal spokesperson did not answer specific questions but noted, “The safety and security of our reporters is of paramount importance. While we won’t discuss the details of the protective measures we take, we stand by the Journal’s in-depth and consequential reporting on Medical Properties Trust.” Clare Locke and Joele Frank also did not respond to questions.)

The Journal published Spegele’s piece in February 2022. It claimed that MPT was quietly infusing hundreds of millions into Steward through complex loans and other means, enabling its hospitals to continue to pay rent. This meant that MPT’s largest tenant was actually struggling, which boded poorly for MPT, as well. Yet the article also pointed out executives’ excessive spending on things like Aldag’s multimillion-dollar salary and the regular use of the company’s private jets. Investors started emailing and calling MPT, and its stock price began to slide.

“We already know what he is going to say and I refuse to let him tell the story…” Aldag wrote. “We need to devise a plan to be proactive in our storytelling.”

Spegele soon started working on another story, about an MPT-owned hospital in California. His continued requests for comment angered Aldag.

“I’m tired of this guy,” Aldag wrote, adding that the former employees Spegele had cited anonymously were “absolutely fake.” Then he called his team to action: “We already know what he is going to say and I refuse to let him tell the story…We need to devise a plan to be proactive in our storytelling outside of the WSJ.” He told his PR advisers that if this wasn’t a project they could take on, he imagined they could find other companies to help.

“Ladies,” he wrote, “it’s time we go on the offensive.”

Investment analyst Rob Simone thought there was something to the Journal’sstories. He worked at a research firm called Hedgeye, and soon he started digging into whatever public information he could find about MPT.

He was struck by the fact that MPT seemed to be at the root of Steward’s financial issues—and its hospitals’ increasing problems paying their bills. According to our own analysis, by 2022, at least four health care companies that had lease agreements with MPT had gone bankrupt, shutting down hospitals or throwing them into uncertainty.

Simone told Hedgeye’s paid subscribers in April 2022 that MPT was sinking hospitals instead of helping them, by saddling their operations with leases they couldn’t afford. He claimed that beneath its veneer of success, Steward “appears to be insolvent” and that its dwindling finances likely meant future trouble for MPT, which he suggested was quietly infusing money into Steward to help it pay rent. And he wondered about the compensation that MPT’s board of directors (which includes Aldag and the company’s CFO) had green-lit for executives, while Steward and some of their other tenants were financially struggling. He recommended shorting the stock.

“I just started doing work on this and became fascinated and thought it was a real problem—and that problem kept getting worse, and so I kept writing about it,” Simone told us when we spoke last year. “It never, never, ever improved.”

MPT leadership pilloried Simone’s research on the company’s next earnings call. But Simone’s reports about MPT continued to gain traction on Twitter and investing websites, especially as the company’s stock price started to dip, from around $20 to $15 in the summer of 2022.

But as more investors began to short MPT and drag down its stock price, Audere’s work increasingly focused on those critical of the publicly traded landlord.

And Simone wasn’t alone. A writer who called himself @BigRiverCapita1 was making similar claims on social media and Wall Street blogs. The account was anonymous but clearly well versed in finance, pointing out past bankruptcies of MPT’s tenants and questioning whether these hospitals were struggling, shutting down, or cutting back patient care due to their pricey leases with MPT.

Around then is when Audere, the British private intelligence firm, got involved. According to OCCRP and the Boston Globe, Steward had already been paying to surveil its critics for a few years—eventually spending more than $7 million on these operations. But as Big River’s posts and Simone’s research spread, and more investors began to short MPT and drag down its stock price, Audere’s work increasingly focused on those critical of the publicly traded landlord, even as its tenant Steward remained Audere’s client, according to leaked documents and sources close to Audere. (An Audere spokesperson told Mother Jones that the company cannot answer questions about its confidential work, but that Audere “takes its legal and regulatory compliance obligations seriously and acts in accordance with the same.”)

In June 2022, Audere hired a contractor to start looking into these critics, leaked emails show. They named the operation “Project Morden.” They told the contractor they had two main goals: Dig into why Rob Simone was writing about MPW (they referred to MPT by its stock ticker symbol), and identify the person behind @BigRiverCapita1:

![An email with redacted senders and recipients that reads:

Hi XXXX, Great to see you earlier.

As discussed, please find attached: (1) Rob Simone background and (2) WS' article, featuring Apollo Global Management Inc.

To reiterate, our aim is to:

1. Understand Rob Simone's: (1) intentions regarding MPW, (2) whether this is a long-term investigation project for him or just temporarily, (3) what else is he planning to publish on MPW and (4) whether this is his own interest or past to him from his boss?
2. Identify who is behind the Twitter account: @BigRiverCapita 1 Linked to the above, please let me know what time on Wednesday you would like to speak.

Many thanks and all the best, XXXX [There is an Audere email signature at the bottom]](https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/project-morden-redacted-email_20251020.jpg?w=642)

Leaked email regarding Project Morden

A strategy memo noted that “multiple financial professionals believe that RS [Rob Simone] does not have the capacity to drive MPW downward.” Still, the firm demanded an aggressive approach to Big River and Simone, whom they deemed Target 1 and Target 2.

“Uncover the subjects (sic) vulnerabilities and pressure points,” the memo urged, suggesting the contractor unearth details about “career, integrity, personal life and identify any potential misconduct.”

Anonymous Twitter accounts started to follow and harass Simone, asking if he had security and even tweeting, “his life [was] in danger.”

And that, Simone said, is when the trouble started.

Anonymous Twitter accounts started to follow and harass him, asking if he had security and even tweeting that “his life [was] in danger.” Simone’s company, Hedgeye, grew concerned about this safety and provided him with enhanced security, but neither they nor Simone ever figured out who was behind the accounts. One tweet even warned that if he didn’t stop reporting and tweeting about MPT, “he could end up like Daphne,” an allusion to the murder of the Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was killed after reporting on a Steward hospital deal in Malta in 2017.

MPT’s leaders also began to meticulously track their detractors. By October 2022, they were keeping tabs on all the skeptics dialing in to their public earnings calls and even discussed not taking their questions: “Please make us a list of all the bad actors that listened in,” Aldag wrote to top executives in an email. They sent back a lengthy list that included nearly 20 professional financial analysts, including Simone.

Related

Wall Street Gutted Steward Health Care. Patients Paid the Price.

The following month, MPT received Audere’s intelligence reports over email. And soon, Audere further ramped up its campaign against Simone, even hiring a contractor to create a fake blog written from the perspective of a woman trying to hold investment analysts to account. But its true goal was to criticize just one player: Hedgeye. It was called “Hedge Spy.” (After Mother Jones and Reveal mentioned this contractor’s work in previous reporting, the blog was taken down from the internet.)

Initially the blog was populated with stories that cast doubt on a variety of firms, as the contract writer explained to Audere in emails reviewed by Mother Jones. “The more general content will disguise the blog’s objective,” wrote the contractor.

The contractor also launched a Reddit account, Loud-Peanut-7716, whose goal was “to actively engage in discussions and facilitate the conversations concerning Hedgeye.” In an email to Audere, the contractor listed some of the Reddit posts trying to discredit Simone’s firm:

“Can you recommend any research platforms? I tried Hedgeye but I don’t trust them after their recent dirty tricks stalking and intimidating their competitors”

“They don’t care about making us rich, they want to make THEMSELVES rich! DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH!”

At the start of 2023, a new critic took on MPT, publishing a series of reports with cheeky titles and provocative tweets that alleged MPT was committing a brazen financial fraud.

That voice was a British investor named Fraser Perring. Perring runs a short-selling firm called Viceroy Research that makes big financial bets on companies it thinks will fail, digging deep into their financials to see if they might be hiding something. He has tens of thousands of followers on social media, where he often posts his findings and claims of corporate wrongdoing.

Management soon would help fuel a conspiracy theory that was already growing at MPT: that their critics were working together to short their stock.

In January of that year, Viceroy published the first of what would be several reports on MPT. Titled “Medical Properties (dis)Trust,” the report arrived at many of the same conclusions that had been swirling around Wall Street: Steward was going belly up, and MPT seemed to be secretly funneling it money to stave off bankruptcy. And perhaps more clearly than anyone before, Viceroy accused MPT of “round-tripping”: Not only was it loaning money to help Steward pay rent, but it was then recording this rent as new earnings and not disclosing it, all to maintain the illusion that it was a healthy landlord.

Viceroy’s report sent MPT executives into a tizzy. Leaked documents show the company was scrutinizing Perring’s tweets alleging round-tripping, with executives furiously sharing them with one another and one of their PR firms compiling them all.

Management soon would help fuel a conspiracy theory that was already growing at MPT: that their critics—from Simone to the Wall Street Journal—were working together to short their stock and bring them down.

Around that time, social media trolling of Simone and Perring ramped up. On top of that, reporting from the Boston Globe and OCCRP shows that a security firm contracted by Audere videotaped Perring at his home and watched him around his neighborhood—even following him and his daughter on their way back from school. When MPT sued Viceroy the following month for defamation, it denied all of Perring’s findings, writing that they were “malicious fiction” and had “caused serious harm to MPT.” But during litigation, according to court documents, Viceroy’s lawyers said an impostor had called Perring’s bank in the weeks leading up to MPT’s suit and pretended to be him. It’s unclear who was behind the impostor, who was able to gain access to Perring’s financial transactions; soon those details were included in a report sent to Audere. No money was stolen, but in reports to Audere the impersonator tried to figure out what Perring was spending his money on. (MPT, which agreed to settle the defamation case last December, said in a statement that it hired Audere in late 2022 for work unrelated to Perring.)

They wondered if anyone in their “army of advisors” had an in with regulators. Included on that email chain was exactly that kind of connection: Mick Mulvaney.

A few months later, when JP Morgan recommended that investors view the company’s stock with caution, emails show that MPT’s top executives circulated a lengthy list of analysts they believed were somehow connected to each other. They named five different investment funds and investors, and the many possible ways they were “connected”—to each other, to a Journal reporter, to Hedgeye, to Viceroy, even to liberal megadonor George Soros. And they wondered if anyone in their “army of advisors” had an in with regulators. Included on that email chain was exactly that kind of connection, someone who used to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: Mick Mulvaney.

Mulvaney, who also had been President Donald Trump’s acting chief of staff, was helping to run a consulting firm called Actum. Leaked emails show that MPT brought Actum on to help it “combat” what they saw as people conspiring to target the company. To counter their criticisms, Actum drafted a white paper praising MPT, calling it a company “investing in the future of health care and communities.” (Actum did not respond to questions from Mother Jones.)

Reputation management is common among publicly traded companies, notes Jo-Ellen Pozner, a professor of business at Santa Clara University who studies corporate conduct and ethics. But the scale and expense of the effort to manage MPT’s PR crises is “unequivocally not normal,” she says.

After years of high rents to MPT, hospitals had failed to pay on-call doctors, nurse staffing agencies, repairmen, and suppliers of everything from blood to hospital beds.

“The fact that these folks were so willing to waste company resources—spend significant amounts of money that could have been diverted to more productive uses—to investigate journalists, to investigate investment analysts, it suggests to me that they are spying, and think that everybody else is doing the same,” Pozner said.

While MPT focused on its value and reputation, patient care issues at its Steward hospitals began to reach crisis levels. Under the weight of years of high rents to MPT, these facilities had failed to pay on-call doctors, nurse staffing agencies, repairmen, and suppliers of everything from blood to hospital beds. Eventually, some Steward hospitals couldn’t afford to keep paying MPT rent and closed.

These troubles further drove MPT’s stock price down. In October 2023, when it dipped below $5, Aldag recorded a message to shareholders, telling them he remained confident in “MPT’s proven business model” for investing in and improving hospitals.

At one of them, St. Elizabeth’s in Massachusetts, a crisis had begun to unfold. The hospital owed more than $500,000 to a company that made devices used to stem internal bleeding called embolism coils; the supplier recently had come to repossess the coils.

Two weeks after Aldag posted the video reassuring shareholders, a first-time mom named Sungida Rashid delivered a baby girl at St. Elizabeth’s. Hours later, Rashid began to bleed severely, doctors discovered they didn’t have the embolism coil needed to treat her, and she died. Her family’s tragedy would set in motion articles and hearings and subpoenas trying to understand the financial dealings of MPT and Steward. It had taken years—and a mother’s life—for the story to finally come to light.

Video

Watch: Inside One of the Largest Hospital Scandals in US History

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Top Republicans Stand by President’s Poop Video

Late Saturday, as “No Kings” protests across the country came to a close, President Donald Trump emerged with what appeared to be his official response to the resoundingly peaceful demonstrations opposing his presidency: He posted a video of himself, as king, manning a fighter jet as it released shit-laden sludge onto his detractors.

The clip, which was reposted to his Truth Social account, was seemingly created via artificial intelligence. Its apparent aim—to mock protesters with self-regarding, intentionally asinine content—was nauseatingly obvious. But ask the top Republican in Congress about the president’s feces-dumping video, and one could easily mistake the remarks for a discussion of high art.

“The president uses social media to make a point,” Johnson told reporters Monday. “You can argue he’s probably the most effective person who has ever used social media for that. He is using satire to make a point.”

Q: What does it say that president released a video of him pooping on the American people?MIKE JOHNSON: You can argue he's probably the most effective person who has ever used social media. He's using satire to make a point. He's not calling for the murder of his political opponents.

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-10-20T14:28:51.420Z

Johnson continued by using the foul clip to, once again, falsely brand “No Kings” participants as murderous, America-hating degenerates. “He is not calling for the murder of his political opponents,” he said, “and that’s what these people are doing.”

In the same press conference, Texas Rep. Chip Roy went further, labeling Trump’s critics as “Marxists, radicals, and Islamists” who could not handle what he called the truth of “Jesus Christ as king.” (It’s unclear if the Texas Republican had seen Saturday’s clip of Trump, not anyone’s god, as a shit-soaring king.) Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance responded to his boss’s shit-posting with a variation of the same rancid behavior.

Together, Johnson’s absurd defense, Roy’s “Jesus is King” line, and our ever-online vice president crystallized what my colleague Anna Merlan accurately described as the official voice of the US government: cruel, gross, and weird. It’s 2025 agitprop as Trump imagines the world under his shit-dumping rule.

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Black Lung Keeps Killing America’s Coal Miners. Does Donald Trump Even Care?

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Coal miners, their family members, and union representatives rallied outside of the US Department of Labor’s headquarters in Washington one morning early last week, urging the Trump administration to enforce a rule that was meant to protect miners from serious health complications but has been on hold for months.

The rally, which included members of the National Black Lung Association and the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), sought to highlight how lax industry standards for exposure to dangerous substances have impacted workers, and demand the government move forward with stricter protections.

A new Biden-era rule, which went into effect in June 2024, was meant to limit miners’ exposure to silica dust, which is released during the mining process. Those tiny silica particles can cause dangerous and irreversible damage to miners’ health, including black lung, silicosis, lung cancer and other diseases.

“If we don’t [enforce the rule], this is just going to be an earlier death sentence for our miners,” said Vonda Robinson, vice president of the National Black Lung Association. “Twenty-eight years old, 30, 35 years old and passing away—that shouldn’t be.”

“Put a pillow over your face, and that’s how these coal miners breathe. They smother every day.”

The rule requires mining companies to lower exposure limits for silica to half the previously permitted amount. It also requires mine operators to monitor workers’ exposures to silica dust, compel them to provide periodic health examinations at no cost to miners and update standards for respiratory protection.

For Robinson and many of the attendees, the fight is personal. Robinson’s husband was diagnosed with black lung at 47 years old and is now “totally disabled,” she said. Some attendees at the rally carried portable oxygen machines, while others held up pictures of loved ones who had died from the disease.

Black lung has been on the rise in the past 20 years, despite previously having been on the decline since the 1970s. In central Appalachia, the disease now affects one in five miners with 25 years of mining experience, according to the UMWA.

Coal mines were originally required to comply with the new rule by April 14, 2025. However, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) pushed back that deadline by four months just days before it was set to be implemented, citing the administration’s restructuring of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health as the reason for the pause.

“Given the unforeseen NIOSH restructuring, and other technical reasons, MSHA offers this four-month temporary pause to provide time for operators to secure necessary equipment and otherwise come into compliance,” MSHA said at the time.

Legal challenges filed by industry groups, including the National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association (NSSGA) and the National Mining Association (NMA), prompted the Eighth US Circuit Court of Appeals to issue a temporary stay halting enforcement of the rule.

In a statement, NMA spokesperson Ashley Burke said that the association is “absolutely supportive of the new lower levels,” but that the rule “needs to allow for the use of administrative controls and personal protective equipment for compliance with the standard to supplement and enhance engineering controls.”

“The MSHA rule must align with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s silica rule on methods of compliance,” Burke said, adding that OSHA “has adopted a strict but workable approach to achieve these same silica levels; we are asking for consistency across government.”

Critics have said that those measures—such as rotating shifts and the use of respirators—are insufficient, arguing the practices would only increase the number of workers exposed to the dust and don’t sufficiently protect miners. The rule instead requires mining companies to implement engineering controls, such as ventilation and water sprays, as the primary method to meet lower exposure limits.

“President Trump loves to use coal miners as political props. But when the cameras are turned off, he couldn’t care less.”

MSHA chose not to defend the rule in court, instead asking the Eighth Circuit in August to keep the case on hold as it discusses a potential settlement with the industry groups.

The agency also successfully urged the court to reject attempts by the American Thoracic Society, UMWA and United Steelworkers to intervene in the case in defense of the rule.

The administration has now requested a third delay from the court due to the federal government shutdown.

To some of those present at Tuesday’s rally, those moves represented a backslide on Trump’s promises to support coal workers.

Trump is a vocal ally of the coal industry and has taken steps to boost production of the fuel in his first months in office. The president’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act mandated that millions of acres of federal lands be made available for mining, and his administration has consistently sought to prop up the industry in executive and regulatory actions.

“President Trump said we’re going to dig, baby dig,” said Robinson. “OK, we can do that, but let’s take care of the health and safety of our miners.”

“I would ask him—put a pillow over your face, and that’s how these coal miners breathe. They smother every day,” Robinson said.

In an emailed statement, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said that “President Trump cares deeply about unleashing America’s energy potential, as well as standing up for those who fuel our country, such as hardworking coal miners.”

“Blue collar Americans played a key role in sending President Trump back to the White House because they know he has their back, and with the help of great leaders across the administration…he is working tirelessly to deliver policies that improve the livelihoods of working families across the nation,” Kelly said.

But Jason Walsh, a former Obama administration official and executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance, a coalition of labor unions and environmental organizations, said that Trump’s pro-coal rhetoric represented empty promises to the workers underpinning the industry.

“President Trump loves to use coal miners as political props. But when the cameras are turned off, he couldn’t care less whether they’re sick or healthy,” Walsh said.

“This is a guy who digs coal, loves coal, calls it beautiful. But what he really digs is coal industry profits. He really digs PAC checks from coal company CEOs. He couldn’t care less about miners or the communities they live in.”

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George Santos Is Already Back on Network TV

In a ridiculous social media post the day before he headed off to federal prison for what was supposed to be a more than seven-year sentence, disgraced ex-congressman and known fabulist George Santos wrote, “I may be leaving the stage (for now), but trust me legends never truly exit.”

Less than three months later, Santos is back, following President Donald Trump’s announcement Friday night that he was commuting Santos’ sentence for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. And less than 48 hours after that, Santos is alreadyback in the limelight of the Sunday morning interview circuit.

He sat down with CNN’s Dana Bash on State of the Union to address questions about his pardon and his post-prison plans. Santos alternated between claiming prison humbled him and insisting his sentence was unfair.

He claimed he had “no expectations” for a pardon and that he only found out about it when fellow inmates told him they saw the news announced on TV. (Joseph Murray, Santos’ lawyer, told my colleague Noah Lanard that he was in “constant communication” with lawyers at the Justice Department’s pardon office.) He told Bash that his seven-year sentence—for participating in a credit card fraud scheme to boost his campaign finances and using some of those funds for personal purchases like designer clothing and OnlyFans content—was “disproportionate,” and called for a pardon for his former staffer Sam Miele, who was sentenced to a year in prison for wire fraud for his role in Santos’ scheme.

Santos essentially admitted to Bash he would not pay $370,000 in restitution to his victims, given that Trump’s pardon wipes out that obligation. “If it’s required of me by the law, yes, if it’s not, then no,” he said. “I will do whatever the law requires me to do.”

Santos described his time in prison “a great equalizer” and “very sobering.” And like many formerly incarcerated celebrities, Santos said he now wants to work on prison reform that he’s free. “I told this to the President, that I’d love to be involved with prison reform, and not in a partisan way, in a real human way, in a way that we effect it, that it helps society, it helps these individuals rebuild their lives, and we have a better system with less incarcerated people.”

Santos: “I told this to the president, that I'd love to be involved with prison reform, and not in a partisan way, in real human ways, in a way that we effect it, that it helps society, it helps these individuals rebuild their lives and we have a better system with less… pic.twitter.com/6qXkS9c3z3

— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) October 19, 2025

He apologized to his constituents, supporters, and ex-colleagues, and said that he has no plans to run for office within the next decade.

Meanwhile, some of Santos’ fellow New York Republicans have been vocal about their opposition to Santos’ pardon.

Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) wrote on X: “George Santos didn’t merely lie—he stole millions, defrauded an election, and his crimes (for which he pled guilty) warrant more than a three-month sentence. He should devote the rest of his life to demonstrating remorse and making restitution to those he wronged.” Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.), an Ethics Committee member who voted for Santos’ expulsion, said Santos “has shown no remorse,” adding, “The less than three months that he spent in prison is not justice.” In a statement provided to the New York Times, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) called Santos “a convicted con artist,” adding, “That will forever be his legacy, and I disagree with the commutation.” On CNN Sunday, Malliotakis said she thought Santos’ sentence was too long but that the time he served was “not sufficient.”

New York Republican Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis on Trump commuting George Santos’ prison sentence:

“I will give him the benefit of the doubt, and I hope he is a changed person who's going to focus on his second chance on doing good. I do not agree with the commutation. I… pic.twitter.com/I77ZfKoMw7

— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) October 19, 2025

Asked by Bash about LaLota’s and Garbarino’s comments, Santos replied, “They’re entitled to their opinion.” He added that he is focused on the future. “I’ve learned a great deal and a very large slice of humble pie, if not the entire pie, for the experience I had [in prison].”

“I don’t know how much more humbled I can get before people believe I’m humbled or remorseful, but I can just do the best in my actions moving forward,” he added.

But later in the interview, Santos seemed to dismiss the critiques of his pardon, pointing to former President Joe Biden’s pardoning of his family members before leaving office. “Pardon me if I’m not paying too much attention to the pearl-clutching of the outrage of my of my critics and of the people, predominantly on the left, who are going to go out there and try to make a big deal out of something like this,” he said.

“I’m pretty confident if President Trump had pardoned Jesus Christ off the cross,” he added, “he would have had critics.”

George Santos shrugs off criticism of Trump commuting his prison sentence: “I'm pretty confident if President Trump had pardoned Jesus Christ off the cross, he would have had critics.” pic.twitter.com/YxjwjV5F6u

— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) October 19, 2025

For all his talk about humility, though, Santos is already back to hawking direct-to-camera personalized videos on Cameo for $300 a pop. (He once tried to get me to buy one.) As of press time, he last recorded one just after 9 a.m. Sunday morning—likely just before, or after, he appeared on CNN.

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Trump and Johnson Are Melting Down Over The Success of “No Kings”

Saturday’s “No Kings” protests were, as my colleagues chronicled, about as wholesome as you could imagine.

There were inflatable animals. There were American flags galore. Even the New York Police Department admitted that the 100,000 protesters were peaceful and that cops made no arrests; police in Washington, DC and Austin, Texas said the same. But that hasn’t stopped top Republicans from thoroughly melting down over its success.

Case in point: On his Truth Social platform on Saturday night, President Donald Trump posted a Top Gun-style AI video of himself dropping raw sewage on the protesters from a military plane. (Yes, you read that right.) One of the targets appears to be Gen Z Democratic influencer Harry Sisson. Spokespeople for the White House did not immediately respond to questions about the video from Mother Jones on Sunday morning.

The President of the United States has posted an AI video of himself unloading tons of raw sewage on American cities.

One of the targets in the AI video is Harry Sisson. pic.twitter.com/wMTzGp3scY

— Yashar Ali (@yashar) October 19, 2025

Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) doubled down on his prior assessment of the gatherings as “hate America” rallies. On ABC’s This Week on Sunday morning, Johnson claimed the protests included “hateful messages” and “violent rhetoric” against Trump. He also dismissed the protests—which took place in thousands of cities and towns both in the US and across the world—as a “stunt” orchestrated by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). “He’s closed the government down because he needs political cover and this was a part of it,” Johnson said. (The protests were not organized by Schumer.)

“If President Trump was a king, the government would be open right now. If President Trump was a king, they would not have been able to engage in that free speech exercise,” Speaker Johnson tells @JonKarl following the nationwide “No Kings” protests. https://t.co/wiTLxsYRmW pic.twitter.com/AIDORW7u64

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) October 19, 2025

Official government social media accounts have been trolling the protest theme. The White House posted a photo of Trump and Vice President JD Vance wearing crowns, contrasted with Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) wearing sombreros. On Bluesky, Vance posted an AI video of Trump wearing a king’s crown and pulling out a sword as Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) bows down to him, set to the song “Hail to the King.” The Department of Transportation, very bizarrely, posted illustrations of Schumer and Jeffries dressed as Disney princesses, alongside the caption, “No Kings!!”

As Max Madame, a protester in Oakland, Calif., told Mother Jones on Saturday of Johnson and other Republicans’ attacks: “They’re delusional. We all know that… they know they’re lying, we know they’re lying.”

Republicans have been calling the “No Kings” protests a “Hate America rally.” So, we asked protestors what they thought about it. Here are their responses. pic.twitter.com/DjS9FoEbWv

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) October 19, 2025

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This Data Scientist Sees Progress in the Climate Change Fight

This story was originally published by Yale e360 and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

It has been 10 years since countries signed on to the Paris Agreement, and emissions and temperatures continue to reach new highs, fueling unprecedented weather disasters around the globe. Meanwhile, the shift to clean energy is facing powerful headwinds in the United States, where climate policies are being reversed and support for clean energy is withdrawn.

Yet, while the headlines paint a dismal picture of efforts to rein in climate change, the numbers often tell a different story. That is the assessment of data scientist Hannah Ritchie, a researcher at the University of Oxford and deputy editor of the publication Our World in Data. Analyzing the broader trends on global development, she sees a world making unheralded progress in the fight to stem warming.

Ritchie is the author of a new book Clearing the Air, which uses data to tackle common misconceptions about climate change. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, she explains why she isn’t worried about China’s coal-building spree, why she believes the impact of AI on electricity demand is largely overstated, and why the US reversal on clean energy may do little to slow global progress on climate.

In the past few months, the US has slashed support for renewable energy. How do you think that will impact the global energy transition?

Obviously at a national level, I think the US transition will slow down. I think people’s assumption would be, of course, that it will also slow down the global transition. I’m not fully convinced of that. I think that often you get a scenario where a large, powerful country like the US leans back, it often creates room for others to lean forward.

I think you’re very much seeing this, even if you just look at China. They’re not just deploying clean energy very quickly domestically. They’re also really dominating global markets and really seeing this as an opportunity. And I think the US pulling back on this is probably giving China even more motivation to move faster.

How is China able to produce so much cheap clean energy?

If you compare the cost of solar or batteries between China and the US, people always point to labor costs. They say the only reason China can make cheap batteries is because they have really cheap labor. I think even more important is they’ve heavily invested in automation. The number of workers per [battery produced] is about six times lower than it is in the US.

What impact do you think the US putting tariffs on Chinese goods will have?

Often the argument for putting tariffs on is to protect domestic jobs, but it’s only protecting domestic manufacturing jobs. And when you look at jobs in clean energy, a relatively small share come from manufacturing. Most jobs in clean energy are in procurement or development or the installation or repair. They’re in other parts of the supply chain beyond manufacturing.

If you put the price up of these technologies, and the deployment slows down, that means that you have fewer jobs in other parts of the clean energy supply chain. If your sole goal is to stimulate manufacturing jobs, then of course you should put a high tariff on. But if you want to optimize clean energy jobs as a whole, tariffs actually work in a negative direction.

US automakers are now backing off from building EVs, and sales are expected to slow. What does that mean for the shift to electric cars?

I think if you look outside of the US, EVs are growing pretty quickly. The share of new sales that are electric in the US is far below most of the rest of the world. In Norway, you’re talking about 80-plus percent of new cars being electric. Over half of new sales in China are electric. And that’s a really fast evolution. In 2020, it was around 6 percent.

And I think you’re going to increasingly start to see this in other low- to middle- income countries. For many countries, they will just get cheap EVs or cheap scooters from China, and they will be independent from oil markets.

China is building more clean energy, but it is also building more coal plants. How do you think about that?

I don’t actually care how many coal plants China builds. I care how much coal China burns. And it is possible to build more coal plants that burn less coal and have coal plants that are running less often. And that’s the general trend that we’re starting to see in China.

In the US or in the UK, we use gas plants to fill in when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing. China is basically trying to do the same, but with coal instead of gas. Which means that it is either retrofitting existing plants to be able to do that—ramping up and down when you need to fill in the gaps—or it is building new plants with that capability.

Is the proliferation of AI and the electricity it demands going to be a lifeline for fossil power?

Potentially in the short term. It’s obviously very hard to predict these trends, but when I look at projections, I don’t see it as a dramatically different challenge from any of the other electrification challenges that we have.

If you look at projections of the growth in electricity demand by 2030 [from data centers], it’s actually lower than the increase from air conditioning or EVs or industry. I think in people’s heads they often think about AI as much, much bigger than that.

I think the key challenge is not necessarily about total electricity demand. [AI] is moving extremely quickly, and it just takes time to build [new power plants], unfortunately, which means that you just go for what is available, which often is a gas plant that’s not running at full capacity. And the other challenge is that data centers are very highly geographically concentrated, which means that there is a lot of local pressure on the grid.

A lot of tech companies are looking at nuclear plants to power data centers. Do you see risks there?

Burning fossil fuels, through air pollution, kills millions of people every single year. And you compare that to the biggest nuclear disasters we’ve had. No one died in Three Mile Island. No one died directly from Fukushima, even though a tsunami hit the nuclear power plant. And the estimates for Chernobyl vary, but they’re maybe in the low thousands. You’re talking about thousands of deaths over decades, relative to millions of deaths from fossil fuels every single year.

I think for me the safety component is just not an obvious deal breaker. The key challenge is, one, cost and, two, construction time. And I think they’re very much interlinked. Often these very large time overruns inevitably lead to extremely high costs. And the reality is that in a country like the US or many countries across Europe, it now is pretty expensive to build a nuclear plant.

In the event that warming does reach unmanageable levels, some scientists say we should be looking into solar geoengineering to cool the planet. Others say that we shouldn’t even be researching the technology because knowing more about it would tempt its use. What’s your view?

I think the challenge is that we currently have insufficient information on the potential impacts of solar geoengineering. I think my main point on this is that I don’t think the odds are that low that over the next 50 years a country, or even a small group of countries, decides on their own that they’re going to do this. They have had a really large heat wave that has killed a lot of people, and they don’t want to see any more warming.

You can do this relatively cheaply. It will be accessible to many countries across the world to do this on their own. And if we are in that scenario, I would really like us to understand what we might be dealing with, what the consequences might be.

There’s a debate among people who work on climate change as to whether we should be thinking about individual action or focusing solely on systemic change. How do you think about that?

In general, I think these debates create a false dichotomy. To me, neither extreme makes any sense. I think it’s wrong to say that as individuals we can fix this, and if we all just do our little part, it’ll be solved, because that’s obviously not true. At the same time, I don’t like this narrative that this is purely a systemic problem, and it’s completely on a few companies and governments to solve this.

Take the transition to electric cars. You can say that this is a systemic problem. In order for us to make this transition, governments need to make sure there is a large charging network everywhere. Companies need to make sure that electric cars have a really good range and are affordable for people, and there needs to be finance behind that. And I think they should be doing that. But they’re never going to do that if, as individuals, we vow to never give up a gasoline or petrol car.

So yes, governments and financial institutions and companies need to take action and make this change at a systemic level. But you also need individuals who are willing to play their part, whether that’s in their purchasing decisions, or whether that’s in support of governments that want to take those actions.

Do you consider yourself an optimist on climate?

My work is generally quite positive, and I’m relatively optimistic, and I think some people take that the wrong way. I don’t want people to walk away thinking that [solving climate change is] easy or it’s inevitable. We still have a ton of work to do. I often try to present opportunities or visions of what we can build, but by no means is that transition inevitable. We have to actually work to make it happen.

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There Sure Were a Lot of American Flags at the “Hate America Rally”

The first protester I noticed as I approached the No Kings rally Saturday was dressed as a giant yellow duck. All around, demonstrators were converging on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC—one wore a Lincoln-style stovepipe hat and carried a sign that read, “Protect Constitutional Rights” and “I America.”

Animal costumes have become an ever-present symbol of the anti-Trump movement—a way to mock the administration’s assertions that protests are overrun with dangerous radicals. In DC, the duck was joined by a smattering of other fauna: a chicken here, a few dinosaurs there. But what struck me most about the event—which House Speaker Mike Johnson predicted would be a “hate America rally”—was how earnestly patriotic the demonstrators were.

Jeremy Schulman/Mother Jones

American flags were everywhere, carried by people of all races and ages. A few flew upside-down, symbolizing—Alito-style—a nation in distress. Most were waved proudly. Signs declared protesters’ allegiance to the country, the Constitution, democracy, and the rule of law.

Robin, a DC resident whose flag-adorned sign included the full text of the First Amendment, said she wanted to make clear that “just because we’re liberals doesn’t mean we hate America.”

Robin told me she brought her flag today to show that “just because we’re liberals doesn’t mean we hate America.” She says her beliefs are closer to the founding ideals than Trump’s are. Her sign suggests that’s true.

— Jeremy Schulman (@jeremyschulman.bsky.social) 2025-10-18T16:48:41.497Z

There were other flags, too: A lot of Pride flags; some Palestinian, Mexican, and Ukrainian flags; an Irish flag. There were a ton of DC flags—they’ve popped up everywhere in the city since Trump’s militarized takeover.

But those were all out numbered, by far, by American flags. The protest organizers made sure of that. Many marchers had clearly brought their own from home, but volunteers were on hand to pass out flags to anyone who wanted one. “I’m trying to protect democracy in this country,” said Neshama, one of those volunteers. “We need to show that the people at the rally are pro-America.”

Neshama is a volunteer with No Kings. She’s passing out free American flags purchased by the organizers (though many protesters clearly came with their own). “I’m trying to protect democracy in this country,” she told me.

— Jeremy Schulman (@jeremyschulman.bsky.social) 2025-10-18T17:09:10.840Z

I talked to a trio of older protesters sitting on a wall, together holding an American flag as marchers streamed endlessly past. They didn’t want to give their names or have their photo taken; they said they were afraid of being doxxed. “I support democracy and our country,” one of them told me. “It’s not about ideology.” He said that growing up, he’d never imagined that all three branches of government would be “supporting autocracy.”

A woman chimed in; she wanted to share what another member of the group had said to her earlier: “I’ve never bought an American flag before, and this is what it’s come to.” We all laughed, and one of them added that “it was important to show that we love America, too.”

On my way out, I walked past the Department of Labor, which has been draped since this summer with an enormous image of Donald Trump’s face. In front, a party was going on. Icona Pop’s “I love it” blared as protesters danced with a stegosaurus, a unicorn, and a revolutionary in a tricorne hat.

When the music paused, a voice came over the loudspeaker. “We are all American,” he said. “It’s our constitutional right to be here.”

Jeremy Schulman/Mother Jones

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Here’s What “No Kings” Looked Like Across the World

On Saturday, countless people gathered at “No Kings” protests in thousands of cities and towns across the United States and the world. Their focus was on President Donald Trump and his administration’s increasing turn towards authoritarianism.

In the lead up to the protests, top Republicans had tried to portray demonstrators as a mix of left-wing extremists, paid agitators, and Hamas supporters. House Speaker Mike Johnson called it the “Hate America Rally.”

The absurdity of these claims became even more obvious on Saturday. Protesters frequently flew the American flag, or dressed as the Statue of Liberty and Revolutionary War era Americans. Others wore inflatable animal costumes that made a mockery of the administration’s sinister claims about its critics. Below are photos from events from Wisconsin to Paris.

Demonstrators carry a signed banner representing the US Constitution before marching to the national Mall in Washington.Jose Luis Magana/AP

Demonstrators in inflatable costumes rally on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington.Jose Luis Magana/AP

A protester holds a sign during a No Kings protest in Saint Petersburg, Florida.Daniel Powell/ZUMA

A No Kings protest in Paris, France./ZUMA

Linda McClenahan, a veteran, protesting at the No Kings event in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin.Mark Hertzberg/ZUMA

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speaking at the No Kings protest in Washington.Allison Robbert/AP

People hold signs and flags during the No Kings protest in Chicago.Nam Y. Huh/AP

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Frogs, Axolotls, and a Hippo Take Manhattan to Deflate Trump’s “Antifa” Slur

A joyous, mocking menagerie of frogs, axolotls, and at least one giant pink hippo made its way down Seventh Avenue in Manhattan on Saturday, alongside thousands of others, in a defiant protest that formed part of the nationwide “No Kings” rallies.

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With limited visibility inside hot inflatable suits, the marchers’ steps were sometimes ginger. Amphibious, reptilian, and fantastical alike were repeatedly stopped by fellow protesters, photographers, and journalists like me—making progress slow and a bit hapless, adding to the general air of absurd exuberance.

“Solidarity with Portland!” said Denise Cohen, a 59-year-old dog groomer and podcaster from upstate New York who was peering out from inside a unicorn costume, alongside her husband Marty (in a dinosaur outfit.) “I wanted frogs, but nobody had frogs,” she said, referencing the original protesters who donned the inflatables in Portland in recent months.

“I tried to get a Portland frog outfit and they were sold out until November,” said Oscar Hernandez, 58, from Weehawken, New Jersey, dressed in a giant pink rhino costume and shuffling (or perhaps dancing—hard to tell) down the street. “You know, this is fun! This is, this is America. This is not a hate America rally,” he said, referring to how Trump and his team have been representing the mass gatherings.

Rather than wearing an inflatable, financial analyst Christopher Hardwick, 46, appeared in hastily constructed drag, clutching a McDonald’s coffee, and adorned with black and yellow accessories “to make it look a little Proud Boy-y.” His goal was to reclaim the word “antifa” from the Trump administration. “I’m a big antifa girl now!”

Keith Whitmer, 70, wanted to do the same. “I really don’t want the right-wing Republican Party to take antifa—the word antifa—and make it mean something bad, because it’s actually what we’ve been doing since the 1940s.”

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I Returned to the Site of the Original No Kings Protest

Of the 2,500 No Kings gatherings across America, few were more saturated in American history—in flags and historical costumes—than the one on the Battle Green in Lexington, where the Minutemen fought another king 250 years ago. People streamed by the thousands on to the Green, under a bright sky; they listened cheerfully to speech upon speech, including one from Senator Ed Markey. I had the honor of the last word, and here is what I said:

As Sam Adams remarked on the occasion of the Battle of Lexington in 1775, so we can say today: “What a glorious morning for America.”

I have spent a lot of time on the Battle Green over the years. Growing up, I was a tour guide here—I passed a strenuous history test, and so was awarded a tricorne hat, and the license to tell the stories of the people who gave their lives in what might well be called the first No Kings protest—men who answered the midnight tolling of the bell in the belfry, and repaired to this Green in the cold and dark to wait for the British to arrive, knowing that they faced the greatest military force in the world. Eight of them died, and in the fashion of our time, let us say those names: John Brown, Samuel Hadley, Caleb Harrington, Isaac Muzzy, Robert Munroe, Asahel Porter, Jonas Parker. And young Jonathan Harrington who—at least as legend had it—was mortally wounded and crawled across the green towards his wife to die in her arms on the stoop of their house.

They believed that they were able to govern themselves. Their King did not, and he dispatched yet more troops to occupy our cities after the events of April 1775. But eventually, with much more sacrifice, their point was made, and democracy gained a foothold on this continent and this earth.

Two generations later, just down the road in Concord, Henry David Thoreau began his explorations of nonviolence, the first experiments with a tool the Minutemen did not possess. The development of that tool across the 20th century, from India to Selma, stands alongside the solar cell as last century’s greatest invention. And it too has been used on this Green. In May of 1971, the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, led by a young John Kerry, asked permission to bivouac on this Green during a march from Concord to Boston. When permission was denied by the Selectboard, they went ahead anyway, with the support of many Lexingtonians. I was here that night, and I remember it well—small huddles of people illuminated by the blue and red lights on the tops of the police cars. Since I was ten I eventually had to go home; my father stayed, and was arrested, with 457 others; it remains the largest arrest in Massachusetts history.

And that was a small part of a successful movement that ended a war that had killed millions in the jungles of Southeast Asia—a nonviolent victory.

Now we stand here at another remarkable turning point in American history. We have a president who, though duly elected, has decided to govern as a ruler. With the aid of a cowed Congress and a corrupted Supreme Court, he has ordered troops into peaceful cities, used masked secret police to arrest our neighbors on pretexts, upended the orderly work of Congress by cancelling projects they had funded, favored cronies and their businesses to line his pockets, reduced our standing in the community of nations by imposing scattershot tariffs, and all but ended the scientific progress that has marked this nation since Benjamin Franklin.

When our forebears rose against King George, they presented their list of complaints to the world, and too many of them sound familiar. In the words of the Declaration, the colonies arose to rebuke the crown for, among other things:

“affect(ing) to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.”

“Cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world”:

And for “taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments.”

We can add new ones: our new king has decided that half his subjects are worthless. As his spokeswoman declared on Thursday, the opposition party in this country’s “main constituency are made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens and violent criminals.” As his lickspittle speaker of the House said earlier this week, our gathering today is part of a “Hate America Rally.” “Let’s see who will show up for that,” he said. “I bet you you’ll see Hamas supporters, I bet you’ll see antifa types, I bet you’ll see the Marxists on full display, the people who don’t want to stand and defend the foundational truths of this republic.”

Sadly, for Mike Johnson and Karoline Leavitt and Donald Trump, what we actually have here today are people who believe far more deeply than they in the “foundational truths of this republic.”

We believe that the president is not a monarch, but instead a person elected to protect the constitutional arrangements under which we live. We believe he has no more business dispatching troops to Portland or Chicago or Los Angeles than King George had dispatching troops to Lexington—less, in fact, for at least King George was working under the established rules of his day, rules overturned by the Revolution. We believe that the racism and xenophobia lurking in every pronouncement of this president goes against the work of Americans across 250 years to broaden our democracy past its stunted beginnings.

“If our ancestors could do without tea, then we can do without a new Tesla. We might even be able to do without Amazon Prime.”

And so we will fight—nonviolently, but without cease. We will continue to gather in the streets and on the town commons. We will do what we can to protect the right to vote, and we will exercise that franchise as long as it is granted us, and we will seize it back if it is taken away. We will come to the aid of our great colleges and universities—some of them just at the other end of Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge—as long as they stand up to the regime. We will favor those companies and institutions that defy this new monarch, and we will boycott those who don’t—if our ancestors could do without tea, then we can do without a new Tesla. We might even be able to do without Amazon Prime. We will try to raise each other’s courage, and to support the families of those who are sent to jail, and we will honor those who lead us in this work. And we will do it in the best humor we can muster: Inflatable Frogs to the fore!

We do not know how this fight will come out. Donald Trump has seized vast powers, and clearly he has no hesitation in using them. His ego, badly bruised by having to sit in court to answer for his crimes, demands retribution, and he is now hunting down the enemies of his lawless rule. He and his rooster of a Defense Secretary are attempting to remake the military—descendants of the Minutemen—in their own pathetic image. So this could be a long battle.

But then the colonials had no idea how their fight would wind up either. They could not have foreseen Bunker Hill and Breeds Hill, Saratoga and Valley Forge, Brandywine and Yorktown. They could not have imagined the Articles of Confederation or the Constitution. They just knew some basic truths that we also know. For instance, they knew that humans are able to govern ourselves; they don’t need a ruler who declares, “Only I can fix it.” And they knew that with too much power comes corruption, which we’re now seeing on a scale that America has never known before. And above all they knew that those who would divide our people instead of unite them are not fit to take part in our government.

The British came this way on April 19 in 1775 to seize arms at Concord, but they wouldn’t have minded capturing John Hancock and Sam Adams, who had been spending the night at the parsonage on the Green. And so perhaps we should let Sam Adams—absolutely resolute patriot—have the final words. He understood the kind of people who have now seized power in our country, and those who enable them. “If you love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”

And he understood the task before us all:

“The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation – enlightened as it is – if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men.”

Let us act with the courage of our forebears, peacefully but resolutely. We did not ask for this moment to come upon us, but we must rise to the occasion. This hallowed ground is as good a place as any to make that pledge.

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George Santos Leaves Prison After Trump Commutes Sentence

Perhaps the most notable thing about President Donald Trump’s Friday decision to commute the prison sentence of former Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) is how unsurprising it is. In the end, one felon from Queens has come to the aid of another felon from Queens.

The president hasn’t done so because he believes Santos was falsely accused—not even Trump could convince himself of that—but because Santos stayed loyal. As Trump put it in his post announcing the commutation, Santos was “somewhat of a ‘rogue,’” but he “had the Courage, Conviction, and Intelligence to ALWAYS VOTE REPUBLICAN!”

Joseph Murray, Santos’ lawyer, told me he learned that Trump was commuting his client’s sentence when the president posted about it on Truth Social Friday evening. Hours later, Santos was released from a prison in South Jersey after serving less than three months of a more than seven-year sentence.

The commutation did not come totally out of the blue for Murray, who said he had been in “constant communication” with lawyers at the Justice Department’s pardon office. That office is now led by Ed Martin, a former Stop the Steal organizer, who posed for photographs in a trench coat outside the home of New York Attorney General Letitia James this August.

Good morning, America. How are ya’? pic.twitter.com/qb9Byy8rli

— Ed Martin (@EdMartinDOJ) August 20, 2025

Two months later, James was indicted on flimsy charges filed in the Eastern District of Virginia, which is overseen by Lindsey Halligan, a former insurance lawyer and personal attorney for Trump, who the president installed after his previous pick for the job declined to bring charges against James and James Comey. Martin was seen as playing a significant role in both indictments—just as he appears to have worked to free Santos and participants in the January 6 insurrection.

The lesson is clear: There is one set of laws for the president’s supporters, and another one for those who have run afoul of him.

In August 2024, Santos pled guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. As part of the plea, he admitted to participating in a credit card fraud scheme in which his campaign stole “the personal identity and financial information of contributors” then “charged [those] contributors’ credit cards repeatedly.” As part of the scheme, the Justice Department said “Santos sought out victims he knew were elderly persons suffering from cognitive impairment or decline.”

Santos was ordered to pay more than $373,000 of restitution to his victims when he was sentenced in April. Trump’s commutation wipes out those restitution payments.

Santos also admitted to a fake donor scheme first exposed by me and my colleague David Corn. That scheme involved listing more than $45,000 of donations from relatives of his in Queens who had never actually donated. The motive was to make his campaign seem like it was in a better financial position than it actually was.

In January 2023, I visited the Queens home of one of those relatives, whom Santos’ campaign claimed had donated $2,900 on two occasions. “I’m dumbfounded,” the relative said about the fake donations. They added, “I don’t have that money to throw around!”

We also exposed what appeared to be an even more brazen fake donation scheme conducted during Santos’ first run for Congress in 2020. In those cases, Santos’ campaign listed donations from people who did not exist and people who reportedly lived at nonexistent addresses.

Many of Santos’ other lies were not criminal in nature. Some of them were comical; others were abhorrent. As we wrote in 2023:

Santos falsely claimed that he wrecked his knees playing on a college volleyball team that “slayed” Harvard and Yale; that he had helped produce Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, a musical that lost tens of millions of dollars; that he was Jewish and that his ancestors had fled the Holocaust; that four of his employees died in the Pulse nightclub shooting; and that the attacks on 9/11 had taken his mother’s life.

There was also the misappropriation of campaign funds exposed by a congressional investigation before Santos was expelled from the House of Representatives in December 2023. That included spending campaign funds on OnlyFans, Botox, and a skincare spa.

Santos had published a personal plea to Trump in the South Shore Press, a Long Island publication, on Monday. The former Congressman wrote that he was in solitary confinement, while the FBI investigated what he claimed was an alleged death threat made against him. He made a point of stressing his loyalty to Trump as he asked for the president’s aid.

When Murray and I spoke on Saturday morning he was on his way to meet Santos. He reported having received tremendous support for his client from both strangers and former colleagues of Santos’ like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), whom he aid had been “leading the charge” in Congress to get Santos out of prison. “The American people are the most generous, forgiving, compassionate people in the world,” Murray reflected. “And this is just more proof of it.”

I asked Murray whether Santos was sorry for the crimes he committed and is now seeking a second chance, or if he would be contesting the things to which he pled guilty. “That’s something that he should respond to because you’re trying to get inside his head,” Murray responded. “So, I’m going to leave that for him.”

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Exposing a Global Surveillance Empire

In June, a sharp-suited Austrian executive from a global surveillance company told a prospective client that he could “go to prison” for organizing the deal they were discussing. But the conversation did not end there.

The executive, Guenther Rudolph, was seated at a booth at ISS World in Prague, a secretive trade fair for police and intelligence agencies and advanced surveillance technology companies. Rudolph went on to explain how his firm, First Wap, could provide sophisticated phone-tracking software capable of pinpointing any person in the world. The potential buyer? A private mining company, owned by an individual under sanction, who intended to use it to surveil environmental protesters. “I think we’re the only one who can deliver,” Rudolph said.

What Rudolph did not know: He was talking to an undercover journalist from Lighthouse Reports, an investigative newsroom based in the Netherlands.

The road to that conference room in Prague began with the discovery of a vast archive of data by reporter Gabriel Geiger. The archive contained more than a million tracking operations: efforts to grab real-time locations of thousands of people worldwide. What emerged is one of the most complete pictures to date of the modern surveillance industry.

This week on Reveal, we join 13 other news outlets to expose the secrets of a global surveillance empire.

Listen in the player above or read our investigation: The Surveillance Empire That Tracked World Leaders, a Vatican Enemy, and Maybe You.

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Watch how we uncovered a secret surveillance empire:

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Julian Brave NoiseCat’s New Book Explores Indigenous Life, Death, and Survival

In May 2021, ground-penetrating radar detected more than 200 unmarked graves of Indian children near the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia, Canada. The discovery prompted US Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland toannounce the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, an investigative review of the legacy of Indian boarding schools in the United States.

While both countries attempted to grapple with this era in their histories, Indigenous families continued grieving the loved ones, culture, and tradition lost to Indian residential schools. In We Survived the Night, the writer and filmmaker Julian Brave NoiseCat grapples, in part, with this legacy and its impact in his own family and community. NoiseCat previously explored this territory in Sugarcane, the 2024 Oscar-nominated documentary, which follows the Williams Lake First Nation’s investigation into the abuse at St Joseph’s Mission and the resulting intergenerational trauma.

We Survived the Night begins with the story of NoiseCat’s father, Ed, who was found hours after birth in the trash incinerator at St. Joseph’s Mission, an Indian residential school in British Columbia, Canada, perhaps moments from death. Ed grew up on the Canim Lake Indian Reserve and was part of the first generation there not sent to residential schools. But growing up on the reserve was hard, and NoiseCat writes that his father is “an Indian who barely knows how to live in this world. Just how to survive.”

This book started as a way for NoiseCat to understand and reconnect with his father, who he writes was always “coming and going” from his life. But the memoir also goes beyond his family story, weaving in reporting about Indigenous communities through North America with mythology and oral histories through the story of Coyote, a trickster whose antics are legendary among the Salish people. These Coyote stories were told for generations among NoiseCat’s people, but were largely lost to colonization.

In his reporting, NoiseCat told me he wanted to tell stories about Native people and communities that have been overlooked, but also that say something about the different roles of Indigenous people across North America. He travels to visit the Tlingit in southeast Alaska as they navigate a conflict over herring eggs in the Sitka Sound; ~~to~~ the Lumbee in southeastern North Carolina, who are seeking federal recognition despite pushback from other Native nations; and ~~to~~ a Diné medicine man in Arizona who endured through the Covid-19 pandemic. “Looking out at that big, diverse Indian world is one of my ways of looking within—just as looking within is a way for me to look out,” NoiseCat writes.

I talked with NoiseCat recently about writing We Survived the Night, which he describes as a book dealing with questions of life, death, and survival. “I do believe that there are spiritual dimensions to asking those sorts of questions,” he said. To write it, he told me that he took on more ceremonial commitments in his community.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Can you start by talking about what motivated you to write We Survived the Night ?

I’m the son of a noted Native artist and an Irish Jewish New Yorker. My dad left when I was pretty young, and I had a really Indian name—Julian Brave NoiseCat is about as Indian a name as you can have—and I looked the way I looked, yet the father who connected me to my family, my community, and my culture was gone. I was always trying to understand him and why he left, and what it was to be Native, and even more specifically, what it was to be a Native man—a Secwépemc man, a St’at’imc man—and I think that reading and writing was kind of always one of the core ways that I was trying to sort that out—devouring the work of Sherman Alexie and other Native writers: Leslie Marmon Silko, N. Scott Momaday, Louis Erdrich.

One of the things that I found most striking about this book is how much grace you give so many different people in your life. You don’t really vilify anyone, when you certainly could.

I definitely feel some pain about my experience in relationship to my father and other figures in the book. I also think about what my grandfather did—having all those kids and womanizing in the way that he did—and I can see the way that that still hurts my grandmother. Yet I also see the beautiful ways that those men helped make my complicated world and I can’t separate them out.

Some of the same reasons my dad didn’t know how to be a dad and wasn’t present were the same reasons that he’s a survivor and he’s still here. Some of the same reasons he struggles to be a present, empathic father is that he had to look out for himself. That also has led him to be hyperfixated on his art as his way to survive.

I wanted to capture that truth and the way that I see it as honestly as I can. I don’t think that I could spend a lot of time writing about people who I didn’t love. To me, to tell a story about someone is to say, “I have spent so much time with this person or thinking about this person and their story and their life and this is a story that only I could tell you about them.” I see myself in that tradition.

Something that you write about is this idea of feeling like you have to earn the right to your indigeneity. Tell me about this idea of what it means to be Indigenous and how working on this book challenged or changed the way you understand it.

Almost every single Native person I know doesn’t feel, in some particular way, Native enough. We all wish that we spoke our language a little bit better, or were better about spending time in our family or community, or that we were more present in our ceremonial or cultural life. Maybe we wish we had better hair or darker skin—the list goes on.

There’s something about being Native wherein we all feel like we’re not necessarily Indian enough and that’s because the history of being Native—which is a term that only makes sense in the context of colonization—is one of just immense, immeasurable, unfathomable loss. Two continents were stolen from us. We’re having this conversation in a language that was imposed upon us by colonizers and that makes so much of our life as Native people often an act of reclamation and recovery.

In the writing of the book—and especially while I was working on _Sugarcane—_I was thinking very purposefully about what traditions as a storyteller I had a responsibility to try to recover and bring back to life. This is what ultimately led me to the Coyote stories, which are these trickster narratives from my people’s culture. As I was reading them, I just kept seeing so much of the stories in my own life, in the Native world, and in the world.

Broadly, it’s hard for me not to look out at the world right now and the news cycle and just be like, this is a world that is deeply shaped by tricksters and their tricks.

I hope that more broadly, people recognize that Indigenous peoples are core to the story of this land, and always have been.

I’m glad you mentioned Coyote. I love him as this character and as a guide through the narrative. Can you talk about how you wove him into these stories?

I moved in with my dad for two years while I made Sugarcane and wrote, We Survived the Night. After not living with the guy for 22 years, suddenly we were across the hallway from each other, hanging out every evening, and I would turn on my recorder and ask him to tell me different stories. We’d laugh, hang out, smoke a little weed, and play board games and stuff. During the day, I’d be working on my writing while he’d be out in the studio carving. I was reading all these oral histories about Coyote and I was just really struck by the parallels between him and Coyote and the stories that I was reporting. Then it just sort of clicked: What if I took that notion—that the Coyote stories are nonfiction—seriously?

I was also honoring what is, to the Salish peoples, probably our most celebrated art form: weaving. My great grandmother and my great-great grandmother were basket weavers. We don’t have any weavers in our family really anymore, but their work is still considered our most prized possessions. So, it also felt kind of appropriate to be telling a story that was itself kind of a woven story and an acknowledgement of the fact that to my people, weaving is the highest art form.

What do you most hope readers take away from We Survived the Night?

I take seriously the notion that a book is also supposed to make you feel things and entertain you, so I hope that the universal aspects of the story—our relationship to our parents, our relationship to tradition, questions of life and death, spirituality, and survival—do that.

You could argue that the system that I’m describing—one that takes away Native kids from their parents and deprives an entire race of people from the right to parent—is an authoritarian system, which is obviously relevant in the present moment. But at its core, the extent to which it is still possible to be a serious intellectual, a serious commentator, a serious historian of North America—someone who supposedly knows this land and its people—and to not know anything really about Indigenous people really irks me. I hope that more broadly, people recognize that Indigenous peoples are core to the story of this land, and always have been. Because we are the first people of it, by understanding us and our stories, you can actually understand this place and this society and this world and what it is to be human, in deeper ways. I do really believe that, and I hope that people get some sense for that.

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Portland’s Inflatable Costumes Deflate Trump’s Narrative

It’s much more difficult, in fact, wellnigh impossible, to call Portland, Oregon, a war zone when ICE agents are forced to stare down an inflatable bunny rabbit. Portlanders have deployed a new tactic to address the Trump administration’s attempted takeover and its false and inflammatory claims about their city: don’t fight, but mock, anddress up in ridiculous, adorable, instantly recognizable inflatable costumes.

It’s not the first time we’ve seen something like this. Kristi Noem’s photo-op at the Portland ICE facility, during which she stood atop the facility’s roof leering at protesters below, was awkwardly interrupted by the appearance of a person wearing a chicken suit. Apparently outraged by the insubordination, she then appeared at the White House and accused elected leaders of “covering up terrorism,” an accusation that has been denied by both Portland’s Mayor Keith Wilson and Oregon Governor Tina Kotek, both of whom happen to be Democrats.

As the Antifa terrorist allegations escalate and fail to make any impression, federal agents have stepped up their use of force against protesters outside of the Portland ICE facility. While inflatable chickens, dogs, and frogs have a dance party, agents respond with tear gas, shooting pepper balls, anddragging people into the ICEfacility. Often, they film these violent encounters as they are taking place.

Saturday, October 11, marked another major escalation of force by the feds on peaceful protesters in Portland. At least ten arrests were made, and hundreds of less-lethal munitions were fired. Nonetheless, the ever-more creative Portland demonstrators were undeterred. From the Portland Frog Brigade to an emergency naked bike ride—which Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson found threatening—Portland is determined to put Trump on his heels by keeping Portland weird.

“I’ve just never been more proud of Portland,” the SpongeBob Squarepants inflatable told me. “There is power in mockery…It’s a pretty effective tool to combat, I mean, overt fascism.”

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They’re Teachers, Nurses, Mennonites, and Marines. The Trump Administration Calls Them Antifa.

This Saturday’s “No Kings” protests, at thousands of sites around the country, are expected to draw huge numbers of demonstrators fed up with the constitutional overreach and autocratic drift of President Donald Trump’s administration. But according to some of the most powerful Republicans in Washington, something more nefarious is at work.

“This is part of antifa, paid protesters,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told Fox News. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson called it the “Hate America Rally” and claimed that it would feature “pro-Hamas” and “antifa people.” It was a “small but very violent and vocal group,” said Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota. Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall warned that “Soros-paid…professional protestors” would be taking to the streets. “Hopefully it will be peaceful—I doubt it.”

No Kings organizers and participants I spoke with this week, from leaders of major national organizations to retired volunteers at small local groups, have responded to the intensifying rhetoric from the right-wing with a mix of incredulity and resolve.

“The initial reaction was visceral laughter, when I first saw it, and the second reaction was, gosh Mike, thanks for the free publicity,” said Ezra Levin, a co-founder of Indivisible, a lead organizer of the weekend event, of Johnson’s comments. “It’s funny that he knows that the phrase ‘No Kings’ is so unobjectionable that if you watch him talk now he just twists himself into knots to not say that.”

But Levin’s third reaction, he said, was more serious. This was, after all, a ruling political party attempting to undercut the freedom of assembly because it feared the imagery such peaceful assemblies might produce. At the last No Kings rally in June, Levin noted, he and his wife—Indivisible’s co-founder, Leah Greenberg—led a crowd of 100,000 in Philadelphia in the Pledge of Allegiance.

“Any authoritarian regime is scared of one thing more than anything else, which is peaceful mass people power,” he said, because it challenges the idea “that they are entirely in control and hold the cards.”

For Republican officials, it’s easier to assert that the resistance they’re facing is coming from a shadowy fifth column, than to grapple with the fact that millions of ordinary people are so fed up. But it’s still a deeply strange assertion to anyone with a passing familiarity with Indivisible, an organization that began after the 2016 election as a simple Google Doc on how Trump opponents could pressure their elected representatives. (A 2020 Atlantic story on one group of suburban activists who had made use of Indivisible’s guide was titled “Revenge of the Wine Moms.”) But of course Levin was going to say this wasn’t all part of a plot to burn down American cities. So I called up some other organizers.

Demonstrators participate in the nationwide ”No Kings Good Trouble” protest against Donald Trump, his policies, and continued ICE raids in Cincinnati, Ohio, on July 17, 2025, at Veterans Park. Jason Whitman/NurPhoto

“We have 1.8 million members in the AFT—I’m sure somebody’s gonna say to me that someone of the 1.8 million members subscribes to that philosophy but there is no organizing within the AFT on behalf of anything that’s called ‘Antifa’ that I’ve ever seen,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers—which, not to belabor the point, is a union consisting of teachers.

A volunteer for another partner organization, Mennonite Action—“a movement of Mennonites, Christians, and friends”—said in an email that the group was holding 40 training sessions around the country this month on subjects such as “Nonviolent Action 101,” and “faith based non-cooperation in the authoritarian moment.”

“I suppose if that makes us anti-fascist, the label applies,” the volunteer said. It might—but if your definition of a violent mob includes well-organized Mennonites, that says more about you.

Other partner organizations include the Center for Biological Diversity, which is currently running a petition to save sea turtles, and National Nurses United, a union representing, you guessed it, nurses. “You are clearly seeing people resisting what’s happening and how it’s affecting them in their everyday lives,” said Cathy Kennedy, NNU’s president.

When I spoke with Greg Broyles, a member of an Indivisible group in Roanoke, Virginia, which is listed as one of more than 200 partners for No Kings, he seemed mystified by the way Republicans were characterizing protestors.

“To compare Indivisible to antifa is going to make antifa just laugh their bellies off,” he said. “We have people in our group who don’t want to use offensive wording on our signage.”

Broyles is a 63-year-old former Marine and a semi-retired real-estate investor. And a disproportionate number of his group’s members are older residents like him.

“To say that there’s some sort of conspiracy of left-wing groups is absurd—it just means you haven’t operated in a left-wing space,” he said Just like people say, well, academics all conspire together. You obviously never sat in a room with a room full of professors! It’s just a ridiculous aspersion that’s being cast by the right on the left. All we are are people who want to raise our families and also enjoy the welfare state that we agreed to participate in.”

Thousands of demonstrators take part in the “No Kings, Free DC” protest calling for statehood and voting rights for residents of the District of Columbia in Washington, DC.Robyn Stevens Brody/Sipa USA/AP

Other local leaders who are partnering on the protests said their groups skewed older too. “We have time, we can meet—that’s kind of how it is with a lot of things in this town,” said Lisa Swanson, who retired from the US Postal Service and now volunteers with Morgan County Indivisible in the West Virginia panhandle town of Berkeley Springs. Mary Beth Furman, who retired to Scottsdale four years ago after a career in marketing and who now writes the newsletter for her group Stand Indivisible Arizona, said that “If you come to any of our protests, it’s a bunch of old grandmas and grandpas and dogs.”

Furman’s group describes itself as non-partisan and engages in a lot of activities that aren’t political at all. They hold food drives and collect shoes. One of the group’s next events is a letter-writing campaign. “We’re gonna write thank-you notes to the institutions that are doing a good job, that we support, that are doing good things—we want them to know we recognize you, keep it up” she said. (She wasn’t sure yet who would fit the bill—naturally, another committee was planning the meetup.)

But these are the sorts of people the Speaker of the House and other prominent Washington Republicans are accusing of being affiliated with “antifa”—which the White House, in turn, has accused of domestic terrorism.

For Indivisible groups and other organizations participating in big protests, de-escalation is the name of the game, as they push to pro-actively avoid anything that would even give a passing resemblance to disorder. Hunter Dunn, a national spokesperson for another No Kings partner, 50501, said organizers have been “training tens of thousands of volunteers in de-escalation and community care,” both through online and in-person sessions. Levin noted that all No Kings events are required to have a safety plan in place.

Furman, whose group has held de-escalation trainings and promoted similar events from the ACLU (another No Kings partner which is, again, not antifa), preaches a zen-like mantra to her fellow group members when a driver of truck flips them off: “If nobody sees the finger does the finger really exist?”

Still, organizers view the rhetoric as a clear act of intimidation, from a movement helmed by a man who once sicced a mob against Congress itself. They’re on guard for right-wing agitators attempting to create a scene, and are conscious of the fact that some of the cities they’ll be marching in—including Chicago and Portland—are currently crawling with federal agents.

“They want to take us off our message, and they want to take us off what the point is, which is that there are millions of people in America that do not like what’s going on right now,” Weingarten said. “They may have really different policies, differences from me or my union or other educators or other people in the labor movement, but where we come together is that we should all have a right to govern ourselves through a democracy—not through this push to disappear people, to militarize our streets, to hate someone’s opponents to the point that they would abuse the power of the government to go against people who they disagree with.”

To organizers, these accusations of violence and sinister conspiracies are cause for caution and planning, but they’re also sort of the point. It’s not called the No Mild-Mannered Republicans protest, after all. If they weren’t so concerned about lawlessness and intimidation and extra-constitutional methods, they wouldn’t be marching at all.

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Trump Could Soon Make America’s Refugee Program a Tool for White Nationalism

After bringing white South Africans to the United States as refugees earlier this year, the Trump administration is now reportedly considering granting protection to members of far-right European parties.

According to the New York Times, the proposal that PresidentDonald Trump is now weighing would prioritize Europeans who are allegedly “targeted for peaceful expression of views online such as opposition to mass migration or support for ‘populist’ political parties.” The program would also give preference to English speakers and more white South Africans. The paper reports that officials from the Departments of State and Homeland Security presented the plans, which are still under consideration, to the White House in April and July.

The Trump administration is not only considering offering refuge to right-wing Europeans; it is looking to them for inspiration.

There is nothing subtle about this combined effort: Trump administration officials are trying to turn the United States’ long-celebrated refugee program—which has provided a safe haven to millions of people from across the world—into a tool of white nationalism.

Trump suspended refugee admissions entirely on his first day back in office. The main exception came in May, when the United States took in about 50 white Afrikaners from South Africa. For next year, the administration is planning to cap refugees at a record low of 7,500, the Times reported earlier this month. That is down from the 125,000-person cap set by President Joe Biden’s administration in September 2024. And it is half of the then record-low 15,000-person cap set by Trump during his first term.

There are already more than 120,000 refugees from around the world who are conditionally approved to resettle in the United States. Instead of being resettled here, they may soon be passed over in favor of right-wing whites.

At the same time, DHS is calling on social media for people to “Remigrate,” a far-right, anti-immigrant term popularized in Europe that the Associated Press has described as a “chilling notion of returning immigrants to their native lands in what amounts to a soft-style ethnic cleansing.” The Trump administration is not only considering offering refuge to right-wing Europeans; it is looking to them for inspiration.

The Times reported that the language about granting refugee status to Europeans “targeted” for supporting “populist” parties appears to refer to members of Alternative for Germany, the hard-right German political party known as the AfD. Vice President JD Vance has defended the party and met with its leader while in Europe earlier this year.

The AfD is so extreme that even Marine Le Pen’s right-wing French National Rally party cut ties with it in the European parliament last year. The split happened after Maximilian Krah, the AfD’s leading candidate in European parliamentary elections, claimed that “not all” members of the Nazi SS were “criminals.” (After resigning from the AfD’s executive board before the election, Krah was welcomed back into the party earlier this year.)

Björn Höcke, another senior AfD official, was found guilty last year of beginning a call and response to the Nazi slogan, “Everything for Germany.” Höcke had previously been fined for using the same slogan at a 2021 event. In 2019, a German court held that it was not libelous to call Höcke a “fascist” because there is a “verifiable, factual basis” for the claim.

In February, the AfD received more than 20 percent of the vote in the country’s election—up from 10 percent in 2021.

Höcke, despite his multiple fines for dredging up a Nazi slogan, is unlikely to want to leave Germany for the United States anytime soon. He is currently a member of a state parliament in which the AfD now holds more seats than any other party.

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Gov. Gavin Newsom Vetoes Bill to Ban Cookware With “Forever Chemicals”

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Gavin Newsom vetoed a California bill that was set to ban the sale of cookware and other consumer goods manufactured with PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals,” human-made compounds linked to a range of health issues.

The governor’s decision on Monday followed months of debate and advocacy, including from high-profile celebrity chefs such as Thomas Keller and Rachael Ray, who argued that nonstick cookware made with PFAS, when manufactured responsibly, can be safe and effective and urged lawmakers to vote against the proposal.

Newsom said in a statement that the legislation was “well-intentioned” but would affect too broad a swath of products and would result in a “sizable and rapid shift” of cooking products available in the state.

“I am deeply concerned about the impact this bill would have on the availability of affordable options in cooking products,” Newsom wrote, adding that the state “must carefully consider” the consequences of a dramatic shift in available products.

Concerns over the use of PFAS, chemicals used to make cookware and other items non-stick and water-resistant, have grown significantly in recent years. Called “forever chemicals,” because they do not break down naturally, PFAS are used in non-stick cookware, waterproof mascara and dental floss, among other items.

They have been linked to a number of health issues, with some linked to high cholesterol, reproductive issues and cancer. A United States Geological Survey study in 2023 detected the chemicals in almost half the country’s tap water.

Under the bill approved by California’s legislature, the state by 2030 would have banned the sale or distribution of goods, including cleaning products, cookware, floss, food packaging and ski wax, with “intentionally added” PFAS.

The bill had the support of major environmental groups, as well as opposition from influential figures, such as Ray and Keller, and high-profile chefs who argued it would place an unfair burden on restaurants. Ray argued the focus should be on educating consumers rather than eliminating the products.

“Removing access to these products without providing fact-based context could hurt the very people we’re trying to protect,” Ray said.

Ben Allen, the state senator who introduced the legislation, told the Los Angeles Times he planned to keep working on the issue.

“We are obviously disappointed,” he told the newspaper. “We know there are safer alternatives—[but] I understand there were strong voices on both sides on this topic.”

Over the weekend, Newsom also vetoed legislation focused on racial justice, including a bill that would allowed universities to give the descendants of enslaved people preference in admissions preference, while approving funding for a reparations study. He also signed a bill allowing a wide range of family members to care for children if the federal government deports their parents.

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It Sure Looks Like Trump Is About to Weaponize the IRS

In an exclusive story on Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported on the Trump administration’s plans to weaponize the IRS, much as he has weaponized the Department of Justice, against his perceived enemies.

“Sweeping changes” are planned, the Journal reported, citing anonymous sources, “that would allow the agency to pursue criminal inquiries of left-leaning groups more easily.”

A senior IRS official involved in the effort has drawn up a list of potential targets that includes major Democratic donors, some of the people said.

A key aspect of the changes is giving President Donald Trump’s political appointees control over the IRS’s criminal investigations division. Gary Shapley, an adviser to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, will take the reins, per the Journal. In April, Shapley, a former IRS agent, was named acting commissioner at the behest of Elon Musk, and then fired days later after Bessent objected. He will now reportedly work to weaken the role of career IRS lawyers in investigations, paving the way for politically motivated probes of people and groups Trump and his allies dislike.

Shapley is already collecting a target list of progressive donors and groups, the paper reported, including, not surprisingly, billionaire George Soros, that bogeyman of right-wing conservatives, and groups with ties to his Open Society Foundations.

“I’ve been speaking to friends…who are just absolutely appalled at at this, and in shock that this would materialize.”

“This is, without doubt, a very troubling development,” John Koskinen, who served as IRS commissioner under President Barack Obama and at the beginning of Trump’s first administration, told me in an email.

Such investigations could be used not only in pursuit of criminal cases, but also as a rationale for yanking a progressive organization’s tax-exempt status, eliminating the ability of its donors to take a tax deduction—a potential death knell for any nonprofit group’s ability to survive and support its mission. (During the 1980s, the Reagan administration tried doing this to Mother Jones. Spoiler alert: We won.)

Partisan IRS enforcement also happens to be illegal. “Section 7217 of the US Criminal Code prohibits the president or anyone in the White House from suggesting or ordering an IRS audit,” Koskinen says. “Putting administration loyalists in charge of the IRS generally and the criminal division in particular with the expressed aim of auditing individual taxpayers or trying to eliminate the tax exemption of nonprofits the administration does not approve of certainly violates the spirit if not the letter of the Criminal Code.”

“We’ve been talking about this a lot,” says a corporate lawyer who specializes in criminal tax defense and asked for anonymity to protect his clients from potential retribution by the administration. “I’ve been speaking to friends of mine who used to work in the government, who believed in the system, and who are just absolutely appalled at at this, and in shock that this would materialize.”

If that lawyer were defending one of these liberal entities—especially one that Trump and his minions have threatened in the past, like the Ford Foundation—he would make the case that the government was practicing selective prosecution: “There is a slim line of authority a defendant could use to argue here, and of course, the danger here is that the government will forum shop.” That is, the Justice Department would file the case in a judicial circuit whose judges were more likely to side with the administration.

“But this seems like a situation,” the attorney adds, “where a lot of juries might rebel at what might be perceived as an overreach of government authority,” even if they believe the defendant is guilty: We’re going to find this person not guilty, and F you for bringing this case!

Even if the group or individual prevails in court, however, the time and money required to defend against such actions is a major drain on resources—and a distraction from a group’s charitable mission. So even if a vindictive government loses in the courtroom, it still wins by harassing its foes.

This whole episode, assuming the administration moves ahead with its plans, represents a wild about-face. After taking over the House in 2010, congressional Republicans were so incensed by the IRS’s investigation of sketchy tea party groups under Obama that they set about gutting the IRS’s enforcement budget, and launched a series of dog-and-pony House hearings to justify further cuts. Representing the government at one 2015 hearing was Koskinen, who had described the evisceration of his budget as “a tax cut for tax cheats.”

Indeed, those cuts decimated the taxman’s ability to conduct audits of wealthy, sophisticated individuals and businesses. A Democratic-led Congress finally restored ample funding under President Joe Biden—an effort Republicans tried to defeat by spreading disinformation. But the GOP has since succeeded in rescinding the lion’s share, not to mention the Trump administration’s layoffs of virtually all IRS employees hired under Biden, which included lawyers capable of tackling those high-level audits.

If the IRS goes after liberal groups as promised, another former agency higher-up told me, it would fall upon the Treasury Department’s Office of the Inspector General (TOIG) to investigate complaints and determine whether there was, in fact, improper politicization of tax enforcement. But in this era of rampant abnormality, it’s unclear that the normal oversight process will stand.

Soon after taking office, Trump unceremoniously fired inspectors general throughout the government. On the list for dismissal was Loren Sciurba, a career deputy inspector general then standing in at TOIG, which didn’t have a confirmed chief. When that office reached out to the White House for clarification on its intent, noting that Sciurba wasn’t even in an “acting” role, it got no reply, and Sciurba apparently stayed on—he’s still listed as IG on the office’s website. (Sciurba did not respond to a message left for him at home.)

Regardless of the outcome, the mere appearance that the IRS is willing to do the administration’s bidding “will undermine the average taxpayer’s confidence that the IRS is acting solely on the merits of the case rather than pursuing a political vendetta when they are contacted by the IRS,” Koskinen says.

“The fear generated by this action is totally inconsistent with the goal of having a government that follows the law rather than doing whatever it pleases or is asked to do by the president,” he continues. And the administration’s goal, per the Wall Street Journal, of trying “to remove to the extent possible the Chief Counsel’s office from criminal enforcement indicates that following the law is not a goal.”

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So Much for Trump’s Promise of Free IVF

In the Oval Office on Thursday, several Cabinet members and advocates for in vitro fertilization (IVF) gathered to claim that President Donald Trump was delivering on his campaign trail pledge to radically expand access to the popular but expensive process for getting pregnant. In reality, Thursday’s announcement falls far short of Trump’s prior promise to make IVF free.

Trump announced two steps that the government will take to try to bring down the costs of the treatment, which can reach up to $20,000 per cycle. The first is entering a cost-cutting agreement with EMD Serono, a leading fertility medication manufacturer, to slash prices on Gonal-f, an injectable drug involved in the IVF process. The second is creating a new fertility insurance benefit that employers could voluntarily adopt to offer to employees, just like they do with dental or vision insurance.

Officials in the Oval Office cast the news as ahistoric precursor to the baby boom that Republicans so desperately want. Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), who Trump credits with teaching him what IVF actually is, called the president’s actions the“most pro-IVF thing a president has ever done.” Mehmet Oz, the ex-TV doctor and current administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) at the Department of Health and Human Services, chillingly predicted: “I know what you’re all thinking, and you’re probably right: There are going to be a lot of Trump babies. I think that’s probably a good thing.”

Dr Oz: "Now I know what you're all thinking, and you're probably right — there's going to be a lot of Trump babies. And I think that's a good thing." pic.twitter.com/A9XYUlbf1h

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 16, 2025

These moves could, indeed, have some benefits to Americans seeking to get pregnant using IVF. Oz’s CMS estimates the drug agreement will save users of the fertility medications, which can cost several thousand dollars, up to $2,200 per cycle, the White House says. The drugs will be available directly to consumers on the (subtly-named) trumprx.gov, with additional discounts available to low-income women.Only a quarter of companies with 200 or more employees currently offer IVF coverage, according to KFF, and more than 40 percent of American adults say they or someone they know have used fertility treatments, according to Pew Research. The Labor, Treasury, and HHS departments issued guidance on Thursday for how employers can offer the benefits, and will propose additional pathways in the future, officials said.

It’s unclear how many employers will actually provide the fertility benefit—especially since the government will not subsidize it.

But all in all, the Thursday White House announcement is no substitute for Trump’s campaign trail promise that he would force the government or private insurance companies to fund IVF—a move that would reportedly have cost an estimated $8 billion, or about 40 percent of the price tag on Trump’s recent bailout of Argentina.

While campaigning last year, in the midst of concerns about whether mounting abortion restrictions would imperil IVF access, which often involves discarding embryos, Trump told NBC News: “We are going to be, under the Trump administration, we are going to be paying for that treatment,” he said, adding, “We’re going to be mandating that the insurance company pay.” Thursday’s announcement does not do any of this.

Former President Trump tells NBC News that if he’s re-elected, his administration would not only protect access to IVF, but would have either the government or insurance companies cover the cost of it.

More: https://t.co/AzV45GBhFd pic.twitter.com/rZZdejDGXX

— NBC News (@NBCNews) August 29, 2024

Back in August, anonymous officials told the Washington Post that they had dropped hopes for those plans because it would require an act of Congress to make IVF an essential benefit that insurance companies must cover—a surprising rationale from a White Housethat seems to be otherwise unconcernedwith securing congressional approval. (A bill last year, the HOPE with Fertility Services Act, introduced by then-Rep. and current Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, would have done just that. The bill has not yet been re-introduced in this session of Congress.) And as the New York Times pointed out earlier Thursday, when it first reported news of the IVF announcement, it is unclear how many employers will actually provide the fertility benefit—especially since the government will not subsidize it.

Sean Tipton, chief advocacy and policy officer at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, a research and advocacy organization, told me that “there’s still a lot of details to grapple with before we can really say how beneficial” the new actions will be. But he added: “I do think it’s important that a Republican White House got all the relevant Cabinet secretaries together to say a lot of positive things about IVF.”

Sen. Britt, Tipton said, “was not exaggerating” when she praised Trump’s efforts as historic—”but that also shows what a low bar it is,” he added.

Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) praised Trump’s efforts to expand access to IVF as historic.Alex Brandon/AP

Tipton also reiterated a couple of other ways that, as he previously told me, Trump could have dramatically expanded IVF access: Requiring fertility coverage for federal workers through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Programand mandating IVF coverage by TRICARE, the military health insurance program used by more than 9 million active service members, retirees, and their families. “As the CEO of a big employer, the president should make sure all his employees have access to care,” Tipton said.

Spokespeople for the White House did not immediately respond to questions from Mother Jones on Thursday.

Trump has a lengthy history of unfulfilled promises on IVF. Back in February, Trump signed an executive order that the White House claimed was “expanding access” to fertility treatments—but all that it actually did was deputize a government official to deliver to Trump, within 90 days “a list of policy recommendations on protecting IVF access and aggressively reducing out-of-pocket and health plan costs for IVF treatment,” as I wrote at the time.

And even after that 90-day deadline, which fell in May, came and went, the White House failed to release that report publicly. In the middle of that period, in April, mass firings at HHS led to the elimination of a six-person team working on expanding access to assisted reproductive technology, including IVF, at the Division of Reproductive Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as I reported.

Mini Timmaraju, president and CEO of the advocacy organization Reproductive Freedom for all, called Trump’s announcement an effort “to gaslight the American public into believing he’ll deliver on empty campaign promises.”

Danielle Melfi, CEO of RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association, struck a different tone, calling Trump’s announcement “an important step forward on the road to ensuring all Americans can access the care they need to build the families of their dreams.”

But as Tipton put it: “There is a lot of work for the President to do to make good on his campaign promise to make sure that every American who needs help building their families can get that help.”

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