House Democrats share Trump ‘birthday note’ to Jeffrey Epstein – live updates | Trump administration

Per my final publish, Robert Garcia, a consultant who serves because the rating member on the Home oversight committee, stated that Donald Trump is mendacity concerning the existence of his birthday word to Jeffrey Epstein.

In a video, posted to X, Garcia stated that the president is “main a White Home cover-up”. The lawmaker from California added that committee members plan to evaluation the paperwork that they acquired from the Epstein property right this moment.

Democrats on the Home oversight committee have launched a scanned copy of a “birthday word” that Donald Trump allegedly despatched to Jeffrey Epstein, that was ultimately compiled into an album of messages to rejoice Epstein’s fiftieth birthday in 2003.

The sexually suggestive word to Epstein features a dialog between Trump and the late intercourse offender, with a unadorned feminine silhouette drawn round it. The president’s signature is on the backside of the word.

“Blissful birthday – and will each day be one other fantastic secret,” the word reads.

The committee lately subpoenaed the Epstein property for extra paperwork as a part of their investigation into the dealing with of the Epstein case. Trump has denied writing a letter for the birthday e-book, and even sued the Wall Avenue Journal for defamation once they first reported his contribution.

Senate Democratic whip Dick Durbin, of Illinois, known as the “Operation Halfway Blitz” in Chicago “a waste of cash” and “one other failed try at a distraction” in an announcement right this moment.

Durbin, who additionally serves because the rating Member of the Senate judiciary committee, stated that the surge in immigration enforcement within the metropolis is a part of Donald Trump’s “marketing campaign to arrest hardworking immigrants with no prison convictions”.

He added:

To the hardworking immigrant households who at the moment are scared to ship your youngsters to highschool, go to the hospital, or report crimes to the police: we stand with you … Whereas the President reveals disdain for immigrants, Chicago embraces them as household who assist make our financial system thrive and our metropolis sturdy.”

• There have been a flurry of rulings right this moment, with two notably essential selections from the supreme courtroom, in response to emergency requests from the Trump administration.

• First, the courtroom allowed federal brokers to proceed with raids in southern California concentrating on individuals for deportation based mostly on their race or language – a victory for the administration’s hardline immigration agenda. Lawyer common Pam Bondi praised the decision on social media, and stated that immigration enforcement officers can “proceed finishing up roving patrols in California with out judicial micromanagement”.

• The supreme courtroom additionally allowed Donald Trump to fireplace a commissioner on the Federal Commerce Fee (FTC) right this moment. It’s the newest determination in a spate of high-profile firings of Senate-confirmed officers in current months. Chief justice John Roberts issued the ruling, which blocks a decrease courtroom’s ruling for the president to reinstate Rebecca Slaughter whereas the case performs out. A federal district courtroom choose stated final week that the administration had violated a federal regulation which prevents FTC members from removing with out trigger. Slaughter was one in all solely two Democratic appointees on the five-member board.

• In the meantime, a federal appeals courtroom in New York did uphold the defamation lawsuit filed by author E Jean Carroll, and the $83.3m award, after Trump denied her declare that he raped her. The panel of judges additionally rejected the administration’s argument that the president is protected by the supreme courtroom’s immunity ruling final 12 months.

• The administration additionally filed an emergency request to the supreme courtroom on Monday to dam a decrease courtroom’s ruling, which stopped the administration from withholding billions of {dollars} in congressionally appropriated international support. An appeals courtroom ordered the administration to spend the cash, upholding the federal choose’s ruling final week, which in the end prompted the request to the supreme courtroom.

• Past DC, Trump has pledged extra federal drive in Chicago. It comes after weeks of deriding the town’s mayor, Brandon Johnson, and Illinois governor, JB Pritzker. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) posted on social media that an operation was beneath method to take away “harmful public security threats from American communities”.

• Trump goaded Pritzker on Fact Social earlier, and stated that he needed to “straighten” Chicago out whereas delivering remarks on the Museum of the Bible in DC. He additionally used the looks to tout that DC was now a “secure zone”, because the federal takeover of the DC police and elevated federal exercise, citing Muriel Bowser’s compliance with the administration.

Lawyer common Pam Bondi known as the supreme court’s decision to permit federal brokers to proceed with raids in southern California concentrating on individuals for deportation based mostly on their race or language a “huge victory”.

She wrote on social media that immigration enforcement officers now can “proceed finishing up roving patrols in California with out judicial micromanagement”.

US protection secretary Pete Hegseth and air drive common Dan Caine, chair of the joint chiefs of employees, arrived in Puerto Rico right this moment because the Trump administration steps up its army operations towards drug cartels within the Caribbean.

The arrival comes greater than per week after ships carrying lots of of US marines deployed to Puerto Rico for a coaching train.

Puerto Rico’s governor, Jenniffer González, stated Hegseth and Caine visited the US territory to help these taking part within the coaching.

“We thank President Trump and his administration for recognizing the strategic significance of Puerto Rico to U.S. nationwide safety and for his or her battle towards drug cartels and the narco-dictator Nicolás Maduro,” González stated in feedback reported by the Related Press.

Hegseth and Caine met with officers on the 156th Wing Muñiz Air nationwide guard base in Carolina, a metropolis simply east of the capital, San Juan.

González stated Hegseth spoke to just about 300 troopers on the base and thanked these he described as “American warriors” for his or her work.

The go to comes because the US prepares to deploy 10 F-35 fighter jets to Puerto Rico for operations concentrating on drug cartels, an individual conversant in the planning instructed AP on Saturday.

Seemingly confirming earlier reports of incoming federal exercise in Chicago, Ice has posted the next on X:

CHICAGO: a sanctuary metropolis that pulls and protects prison unlawful aliens to the detriment of regulation abiding residents. In an ICE-led operation, we’re right here to take away these harmful public security threats from American communities.

It comes as Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened an immigration enforcement crackdown and nationwide guard deployment within the nation’s third largest metropolis.

Evaluation: Will Republicans in Congress lastly stand as much as Trump?

David Smith

Democrat Chuck Schumer returned to the Senate ground final week with some pressing questions. “Will Senate Republicans proceed to kowtow to a pacesetter they know is dragging the nation down?” he demanded. “That they know is a pathological liar? Or will they, because the Founding Fathers supposed, stand as much as him? Will they assist us battle America’s slide into authoritarianism?”

It was a recognition of how Donald Trump has spent eight months searching for to develop presidential energy on the expense of Congress and others. He has signed 200 govt orders – greater than Joe Biden in 4 years – unleashed squadrons of national guard troops in Washington, turned investigators on his political foes and sought to deliver educational, cultural, monetary and authorized establishments to heel.

The capitulation has moved quicker and additional than even a lot of Trump’s critics anticipated and has left them in search of democratic guardrails that may but constrain him. However as members of Congress returned to Washington this week, there have been solely glints of hope that they could heed Schumer and reassert their usurped authority.

Trump’s Republican occasion holds slim majorities in each the Home of Representatives and Senate and stays overwhelmingly loyal to him. In Might, throughout a debate on their signature tax and spending invoice, the Home speaker, Mike Johnson, called him “arguably essentially the most highly effective, essentially the most profitable, and essentially the most revered president within the trendy period of america”. Congress has in impact grow to be his rubber stamp.

But in current days small fractures appeared within the edifice. Congressman Thomas Massie gained the help of fellow Republicans Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace on a discharge petition to drive a vote on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein recordsdata. Hours after Trump described the difficulty as a “Democratic hoax”, Greene shot back: “It’s not a hoax as a result of Jeffrey Epstein is a convicted pedophile.”

Some Republicans’ endurance can also be carrying skinny with Trump’s well being secretary, Robert Kennedy Jr, over his strikes to undermine vaccines and purge management on the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC). Senator John Barrasso, a health care provider, instructed Kennedy that he was “deeply involved” about his management on vaccines.

As well as, a number of Republicans have confronted blowback from voters throughout city halls of their district over the summer season. Opinion polls present that Trump’s tax and spending megabill is the most unpopular main piece of laws in a era. And Friday’s dismal jobs reviews mirrored uncertainty round his financial agenda.

If the pattern continues, swing-state Republicans is perhaps tempted to distance themselves from him in subsequent 12 months’s midterm elections after which deal with him as a lame duck because the race for 2028 heats up.

Thom Hartmann, a political analyst and writer of the upcoming e-book The Final American President: A Damaged Man, a Corrupt Occasion, and a World on the Brink, means that Trump’s sway over Congress is perhaps extra fragile than it seems.

The easy actuality is that 5 or 6 Republicans within the Home and two or three or 4 Republicans within the Senate might cease Trump in his tracks. They’ll put an finish to this madness.

More and more, as public opinion is popping towards him – he’s polling very negatively in just about each facet of his presidency, from the financial system to the troops within the streets to destroying federal companies – in some unspecified time in the future a few of these Republicans are going to go searching and say, , perhaps the way in which to make sure my very own political survival is to problem this man. That day can’t come quickly sufficient for me.

Marina Dunbar

Donald Trump launched a vitriolic assault towards Tom Hanks for supposedly being “harmful” and “woke” after one in all America’s most beloved actors was snubbed with out a lot clarification by West Level final week.

On his social media site on Monday, the US president applauded the alumni affiliation of the US Navy Academy (or West Level) for abruptly calling off a ceremony honoring Hanks, twice an Academy award winner who has performed quite a few army characters and likewise has a protracted historical past of advocating for veterans.

Trump wrote: “Our nice West Level (getting larger on a regular basis!) has neatly cancelled the Award Ceremony for actor Tom Hanks. Vital transfer! We don’t want harmful, WOKE recipients getting our cherished American Awards!!! Hopefully the Academy Awards, and different Faux Award Exhibits, will evaluation their Requirements and Practices within the title of Equity and Justice. Watch their DEAD RATINGS SURGE!”

Hanks had been scheduled to obtain the 2025 Sylvanus Thayer Award later this month for his “service and accomplishments within the nationwide curiosity”.

Sam Levine

Legislation enforcement officers on Sunday dismantled a peace vigil that had stood in entrance of the White Home for greater than 4 many years, an motion taken on orders issued by Donald Trump two days earlier.

The vigil focused by the president was began in 1981 by William Thomas to advertise nuclear disarmament and an finish to international conflicts, and it’s believed to be the longest steady anti-war protest in america. For many years, volunteers would man the positioning, simply in entrance of the White Home gates in Lafayette Sq., to forestall it from being taken down.

A correspondent for the conservative community Actual America’s Voice, Brian Glenn, requested Trump concerning the vigil on Friday. “Simply out entrance of the White Home is a blue tent that initially was put there to be an anti-nuclear tent for nuclear arms – it’s sort of morphed into an anti-America typically, anti-Trump at many instances,” he stated. Trump replied that he didn’t know concerning the tent after which turned to employees to say: “Take it down, proper now.”

Will Roosien, a 24-year-old who had been volunteering on the vigil on Sunday, told the Washington Post that officers arrived at 6.30am on Sunday and instructed him he had half-hour to take away a tarp beneath which he had been sheltering from the rain. He refused and instructed the Publish he was detained whereas the officers dismantled the tent.

“It is a shame, and it’s best to all really feel ashamed,” Roosien instructed the officers, in response to video obtained by the Publish. “Twenty-four hours a day, seven days per week, for 44 years, somebody has sat right here, advocating for individuals around the globe who we don’t know. Advocating for human rights. Advocating for peace.”

Concurring with the choice, conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh stated that “obvious ethnicity alone can not furnish affordable suspicion” however it may be a “‘related issue’ when thought of together with different salient components”.

He added: “If the officers be taught that the person they stopped is a US citizen or in any other case lawfully in america, they promptly let the person go.”

Per my final publish, the supreme courtroom’s three liberal justices publicly dissented from the choice, directing pointed criticism at its conservative majority.

The administration “has all however declared that all Latinos, US residents or not, who work low-wage jobs are truthful sport to be seized at any time, taken away from work, and held till they supply proof of their authorized standing to the brokers’ satisfaction”, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote within the dissenting opinion.

“Fairly than stand idly by whereas our constitutional freedoms are misplaced, I dissent,” Sotomayor added.