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Jeet Heer On this episode of The Time of Monsters, Justin Logan on the factional battles that have bedevilled the White House. The post The Roots of Trump’s Foreign Policy Instability appeared first on The Nation.

Jeet Heer From the Cold War till Donald Trump, there’s always been a special dispensation for hawkish bigots. The post Militarism Has Long Worked to Shield Antisemitism appeared first on The Nation.

President Donald Trump spent the weekend trying to get his most ardent supporters to stop complaining about how his administration has handled its probe of convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, but it doesn’t seem to be working. In a nearly 400-word rant on his Truth Social platform, Trump complained that his “‘boys’ and, in some cases, ‘gals’” were going after Attorney General Pam Bondi on the issue. Instead, he falsely claimed that files related to Epstein’s crimes were “written by” former President Barack Obama, former Secretary of state Hillary Clinton, former FBI Director James Comey, former CIA Director John Brennan, and “and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration.” “They created the Epstein Files,” he said, adding, “The Left is imploding! Kash Patel, and the FBI, must be focused on investigating Voter Fraud, Political Corruption, ActBlue, The Rigged and Stolen Election of 2020, and arresting Thugs and Criminals, instead of spending month after month looking at nothing but the same old, Radical Left inspired Documents on Jeffrey Epstein.”  Trump then advocated for several debunked conspiracies, including the fantasy that he didn’t lose the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden. This photo provided by the New York State Sex Offender Registry shows Jeffrey Epstein in March 2017. Trump implored his followers to “not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.” The Trump administration is under fire after the Department of Justice said there was no “client list” for Epstein, who died in prison in 2019. For years, Trump supporters have promoted the existence of a purported list, floating conspiracies and fantasies that prominent figures—particularly on the left and in the Democratic Party—were implicated in sexual crimes. Now that the story has apparently imploded, the MAGA world is up in arms. Trump’s call for people to settle down led to a storm of negative responses on Truth Social, usually a safe space for Trump and his apologists. As one supporter wrote, “We want the ELITE PEDOS exposed! You promised us that. Pam promised us that. Kash promised us that. Now it’s OUR fault bc we want that promise fulfilled and call Pam out every time she lies? What else has she lied to us about?” According to a Newsweek analysis, the post represents the first time Trump has been “ratioed” on Truth Social, where responses—largely negative—to the post outweighed the number of its likes and shares. The fallout has been intense, especially given that Bondi originally claimed her office had secured information on Epstein and even distributed document binders labeled “The Epstein Files: Phase 1” to right-wing influencers. Most of the information contained in those binders was already public, however. On Friday, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, a former right-wing podcaster and long-time conspiracy theorist, took the day off of work, and reports have indicated that it was in protest of the DOJ’s handling of the Epstein issue. Right-wing media, including figures on Fox News, have been openly complaining about the issue. Some have described the DOJ response as “bullshit” and said Bondi was “incompetent.” Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, shown in June 2024. Trump does have some defenders who are buying his spin: Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, for instance. “President Trump now claims the Epstein list is real, but the Democrats have doctored it. This is the mother of all scandals,” Jones wrote on X. For context, Jones is on the hook for millions after claiming that the Sandy Hook mass shooting was faked, a false conspiracy that led to the harassment of bereaving families. Jones has also claimed that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job, and that the Obama administration used a “weather weapon.” Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California took a jab at the administration, writing on X on Saturday, “Why are the Epstein files still hidden? Who are the rich & powerful being protected?”  Khanna said he intends to force a House vote demanding a “FULL” release of the Epstein files. Republicans have embraced conspiracy culture for decades, and in choosing Trump as their leader, they have put a conspiracy theorist in the most important leadership position in the country—and world. Now their support of unsubstantiated nonsense is coming back to bite them.

In a rare interview since leaving office in January, former President Joe Biden dismissed one of the right’s more bizarre conspiracies: that his aides were secretly running the country using an autopen. The right, including President Donald Trump and his allies, have claimed that during Biden’s final months in office, his alleged cognitive decline made him unfit to make clemency decisions, and that staff exploited the autopen—a device to automatically sign documents—to issue pardons without his knowledge. “I made every single one of those,” Biden told The New York Times. “I understand why Trump would think that, because obviously, I guess, he doesn’t focus much. Anyway, so—yes, I made every decision.” While Biden didn’t personally sign each clemency order, the Times reports he was heavily involved in the process—reviewing recommendations, setting criteria, and giving oral approval after aides walked him through the names one by one. “I was deeply involved,” he said. “I laid out a strategy how I want to go about these, dealing with pardons and commutations. I was—and I pulled the team in to say this is how I want to get it done generically and then specifically.”  Then-candidate Donald Trump speaks during a rally in December 2023 in Reno, Nevada. Still, Trump keeps spinning the story. In a March post on his Truth Social platform, he claimed Biden had no “knowledge or consent” of the clemency decisions, some of which benefited Trump’s perceived political enemies.  “Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them!” Trump wrote, suggesting the people who did “may have committed a crime.” Biden’s explanation is much simpler. He told the Times the reason he didn’t sign them personally was “because there were a lot of them.” In his final weeks, Biden issued commutations for death row inmates and protected public servants, like former top public health adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci and retired Gen. Mark Milley, from political retribution. Biden also shielded family members from Trump’s promised campaign of vengeance. “I know how vindictive he is,” Biden said of Trump. “Everybody knows how vindictive he is. So we knew that they’d do what they’re doing now. … [A]ll it would do is, if they, if he went after them, would be, is run up legal bills. I just, I just know how he operates.” The autopen has been used by several past presidents, including Trump himself, but Biden’s use of it is now at the center of a GOP-led investigation. House Oversight Chair James Comer has called the supposed cover-up of Biden’s alleged decline a “historic scandal,” and has asserted that Republicans are determined to “prevent such an abuse from happening again.” Conservatives have even questioned the legality of autopen-signed orders. But that argument is unlikely to hold up. The Justice Department approved the practice in 2005. Former President Barack Obama was the first to use it on legislation in 2011. Trump followed suit, though he first lied about having used it. House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer speaks during hearing on Capitol Hill in February 2023. “The autopen is, you know, is legal,” Biden told the Times. “As you know, other presidents used it, including Trump. But the point is that, you know, we’re talking about a whole lot of people.” Even so, Republicans aren’t letting it go. Trump’s Justice Department is reportedly investigating whether Biden was mentally fit to issue those pardons. Meanwhile, Republicans on the House Oversight Committee are probing his health. Biden’s physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, recently declined to testify, citing patient confidentiality and his Fifth Amendment rights. More aides are expected to be questioned in the coming weeks. Comer condemned O’Connor’s silence as proof of a cover-up. “It’s clear there was a conspiracy to cover up President Biden’s cognitive decline,” he said. But Biden isn’t buying the sincerity of Republicans’ outrage. “They’re liars. They know it,” he told the Times. “They’ve done so badly. They’ve lied so consistently about almost everything they’re doing. The best thing they can do is try to change the focus and focus on something else. … I think that’s what this is about.”  So while Republicans focus on signatures and conspiracies, Biden is betting the public won’t be fooled. The documents were signed. The decisions were his. And if Trump wants to argue otherwise, Biden seems ready to defend himself.

Honestly, is it really such a big deal if you inject children with saline and hawk fake vaccine cards to net yourself cash and destroy COVID-19 vaccines? At least according to this administration, that is totes cool. So Attorney General Pam Bondi just threw out charges against Utah plastic surgeon Michael Kirk Moore, making sure no pesky prosecutors can further hurt this champion of medical freedom.  Bondi admitted that her zeal to free Moore came about at the behest of Georgia GOP House Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Yes, the lady who believes in chemtrails and that the government is manipulating the weather. Oh, and also Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been banging this drum for a while, saying in April that Moore should get “a medal for his courage.” Always nice to have conspiracy theorist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on your side. Dropping the charges against Moore is actually a twofer, combining the administration’s desire to reward anti-COVID vaccine conspiracy theorists with their desire to show that if Republicans do it, it’s never fraud. That latter view is pretty necessary in a world where the president himself has a history of grifting, fraud, and felonies and continues to sell access to the presidency.  From May 2021 to September 2022, according to the now-obsolete charges from 2023, Moore destroyed at least $28,000 worth of COVID-19 vaccines given to him by the government. Instead, he sold at least 1,937 fake vaccination cards and, if parents asked nicely, he’d shoot their kids full of saline so the children would believe they’d been vaccinated.  No matter how you want to slice it, Moore’s actions defrauded the government. He took $28,000 worth of government property, destroyed it, and profited off that destruction. This should be a slam-dunk prosecution for an administration that let Elon Musk and the bigoted moppets of the pretend Department of Government Efficiency trash the government in search of fraud, but we all know how fake that ultimately was.  Nevada Republican Michele Fiore This is, of course, not the first time the administration has rewarded fraudulent behavior. In April, Trump pardoned Michele Fiore, a Nevada Republican state lawmaker who skimmed money from donations intended for a memorial for a slain police officer to use for things like plastic surgery. Or how about the pardon of Scott Jenkins, a Virginia sheriff who took bribes from people who wanted to have their charges dropped, naming them deputy sheriffs despite them not having any actual law enforcement experience.  Yes, when it comes to letting right-wingers get away with crimes, the administration won’t even pretend to back the blue.  But all of these folks are small-time fraudsters compared to crypto bro Justin Sun, who was facing a massive fraud prosecution, including market manipulation. Sun invested $30 million into World Liberty Financial, which is controlled by the Trump family. Sun is continuing to spend big, saying he’ll drop another $100 million on Trump’s dumb meme coin. Those actions don’t just help insulate Sun from prosecution—they also help steer money directly to Trump. When you have a president who engages in massive fraud and doesn’t believe in conflicts of interest, when you have an attorney general in thrall to Trump, and when you have a pardons attorney who sees his role as threatening the past administration, you have an entire administration primed to excuse and reward actual criminals, even small-timers like Moore. Expect Bondi to continue wiping out prosecutions for whatever petty GOP criminal comes her way so that she can keep sending the message that IOKIYAR. 

A cartoon by Clay Jones. Related | You won’t believe how badly Kristi Noem bungled Texas flood response