Politics

A cartoon by Pedro Molina. Related | Get ready for Trump to whine about the judge in his dumb Epstein lawsuit

On Wednesday, the Department of Education announced it is investigating five universities over their scholarship programs for receipts of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program that allows people illegally brought into the U.S. as children to remain without fear of deportation. According to the Education Department, scholarships for Dreamers violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because they discriminate on the basis of national origin.  The logic here is that if scholarships are reserved for individuals not born in the U.S., it discriminates against people who are born in the U.S.. It’s a new front in the Education Department’s war on higher education, one that also manages to attack immigrants in the process.  The universities in the administration’s crosshairs are the University of Louisville, the University of Nebraska Omaha, the University of Miami, the University of Michigan, and Western Michigan University. That’s thanks to the Legal Insurrection Foundation’s Equal Protection Project, which teed up this round of harassment by complaining to the Education Department. Legal Insurrection has a very narrow view of “equal protection,” one that protects primarily white people, despite pretending the group is a warrior against discrimination. Warriors for discrimination, maybe.  Education Secretary Linda McMahon, shown in April. Unfortunately, the Department of Justice has already successfully pursued this theory. In a sham lawsuit clearly done in concert with Texas, the DOJ sued that state over its law allowing undocumented students to get in-state tuition rates. The idea was that giving any benefit to undocumented students discriminates against good old American-born students. The case’s swift settlement led to Texas declaring its own law unconstitutional and wiping it off the books.  The investigations announced on Wednesday are predicated on the same nativist nonsense.  The Department of Education has plenty of time to harass schools because it has stopped doing any other work. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court gave President Donald Trump the go-ahead to fire nearly 1,400 employees. The civil rights branch has been decimated by firings, and investigations into civil rights complaints have slowed to a pathetic crawl.  In June, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon bragged to Congress about how great they were doing, with the standard Trumpy language that is now required of all Cabinet secretaries: “Not only are we reducing the backlog, but we are keeping up with the current amount with a reduced staff because we are doing it efficiently.” This is flatly false. An investigation by the Associated Press found that the department has resolved only 65 complaints thus far, which is significantly behind the pace of prior years. The database shows that eight of those 65 were resolved before Trump took office on Jan. 20, as well. Plus, complaints have increased by 9%, and the department is currently facing a backlog of 25,000 complaints. The administration has also abolished multiple civil rights offices. Instead of protecting the rights of students, the department is devoting itself to attacking schools. The department has threatened universities with loss of accreditation based on their ostensible concerns over the treatment of Jewish students. McMahon has launched over 50 “investigations” into universities to eradicate every last shred of diversity, inclusion, and equity.  Of course, the Department of Education can’t destroy education alone. It takes a village.  In May, the Department of Homeland Security got in on the action, attempting to block Harvard University from admitting international students. That move would also have required current international students to transfer or lose their legal immigration status. A federal judge quickly ruled against the administration, but that won’t stop them from continuing to target Harvard and international students.  People walk on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, this past December. On Wednesday, the State Department announced it would be investigating Harvard’s compliance with the J-1 visa program, which lets international students do exchange programs here. It’s just another way to try to block Harvard from enrolling international students.  The Department of Energy, oddly, is leading the charge to ban transgender girls from playing sports. Why? Who knows!  While the departments of Homeland Security, State, Energy, and Education are indeed helpful for attacking schools, nothing beats the fervor of the DOJ. The DOJ keeps “investigating” schools for allegedly discriminating against white students. They’re attacking the entire University of California system, alleging race- and sex-based discrimination in a vague notice that doesn’t explain what, exactly, they are investigating. They’re going after the University of Chicago over international students. And so on.  It isn’t yet clear what will happen to the five universities targeted on Wednesday. However, it’s exceedingly clear that the Trump administration will never stop attacking schools or immigrants. Here, it’s so convenient for the administration that it gets to do both at the same time. There’s some government efficiency for you.

House Speaker Mike Johnson seems rather anxious in defending his decision to block any votes related to the Epstein files scandal before the chamber departs for its summer break. On Wednesday, Johnson quickly cut off NOTUS reporter Reese Gorman, who suggested that he abruptly ended the House session on Tuesday for “fear of Epstein votes.” ”—No, we don’t have any fear. No, no. Hold on. No Reese. No. There’s no fear here. No, there’s no fear. There’s no fear,” Johnson said, before accusing Democrats of “political gamesmanship,” and dismissing the long-promised release of the files as a “political cudgel.” YouTube Video The scandal continues to plague the Trump administration, and GOP lawmakers like Johnson have struggled mightily in their attempts to downplay the public’s growing concern. Meanwhile, Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee were far more direct in their response to Johnson’s spin. “Mike Johnson: Getting justice for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein = political gamesmanship. Trumpworld is ALL OVER those files,” the committee Democrats wrote on their official X account. The speaker doth protest too much, methinks.

President Donald Trump was reportedly told in May that his name appears multiple times in the trove of documents the Department of Justice possesses about accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein—a bombshell revelation that sheds light into why Trump is so desperate to keep the files under wraps. According to the Wall Street Journal’s report on Wednesday, Attorney General Pam Bondi personally told Trump at a meeting that his name is among the files. From the report:  [Bondi and her deputy] told the president at the meeting that the files contained what officials felt was unverified hearsay about many people, including Trump, who had socialized with Epstein in the past, some of the officials said. One of the officials familiar with the documents said they contain hundreds of other names. The WSJ report shows Trump lied just a few days ago, when reporters asked him point blank if he was told that his name appears in the documents. “No, no,” Trump said when asked if Bondi told him his name was in the files.  Trump added, “I would say that these files were made up by [former FBI Director James] Comey, they were made up by [former President Barack] Obama, they were made up by the Biden …,” before trailing off. YouTube Video It’s not just Bondi who has reportedly acknowledged that Trump’s name is in the files. According to the WSJ: FBI Director Kash Patel has privately told other government officials that Trump’s name appeared in the files, according to people close to the administration. Trump, for his part, has been going berserk in the weeks since his administration announced that there are no more major Epstein files to be released.  That announcement has roiled the MAGA base, which has been told for years that the government was in possession of information that implicated powerful people in crimes involving the underage girls Epstein was accused of trafficking. An enraged Trump even called his own supporters, who are demanding the government make all of the files public, “weaklings” whose support he no longer wants. Polling shows the scandal is taking a toll on Trump, with large majorities of Americans believing the government is hiding information about Epstein. Because of that, Trump is desperately trying to change the subject, dangling red meat to his base—including a baseless allegation that Obama committed “treason.” On July 17, an activist in London puts up a poster showing President Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. But even Trump’s biggest supporters say that’s not enough, and that the files must be released. “Dangling bits of red meat no longer satisfies,” Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia wrote in a post Monday on X. “They want the whole steak dinner and will accept nothing else.” However, congressional GOP leadership has taken Trump’s side in the matter, refusing to pass legislation that compels the administration to release its files on Epstein.  In fact, House Speaker Mike Johnson is sending the House home unexpectedly early, to avoid being forced to vote on legislation that forces the files into public. But Johnson’s efforts have not quelled dissent in the GOP ranks. The House Oversight Committee on Wednesday issued a subpoena for convicted Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell to testify before the committee.  Ultimately, the WSJ report makes clear that leadership is trying to protect Trump from being implicated. You won’t catch us saying this much, but turns out, Elon Musk seems to have been right.

To make sure that you can read every word of every post, and support our work, please subscribe to PoliticusUSA. Subscribe now The Wall Street Journal demonstrated how to respond to a frivolous Trump lawsuit that is intended to intimidate the press. Instead of backing down and entering into settlement negotiations, The Wall Street Journal has responded to Trump’s lawsuit by publishing a devastating story that the president has known that he is in the Epstein files since May. The Wall Street Journal reported: When Justice Department officials reviewed what Attorney General Pam Bondi called a “truckload” of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein earlier this year, they discovered that Donald Trump’s name appeared multiple times, according to senior administration officials. In May, Bondi and her deputy informed the president at a meeting in the White House that his name was in the Epstein files, the officials said. Many other high-profile figures were also named, Trump was told. Being mentioned in the records isn’t a sign of wrongdoing. … They told the president at the meeting that the files contained what officials felt was unverified hearsay about many people, including Trump, who had socialized with Epstein in the past, some of the officials said. One of the officials familiar with the documents said they contain hundreds of other names. As The Journal pointed out, being mentioned in the files isn’t the same as committing a crime. However, it is definitely not a good thing that Trump is mentioned numerous times in the Epstein files, and with this report, we now have our answer as to why Trump is trying to bury the release of more information. Read more

How the Courts Blocked ICE’s Racial Profiling—Plus, How Organizers Succeed The post How the Courts Blocked ICE’s Racial Profiling—Plus, How Organizers Succeed appeared first on The Nation.

President Donald Trump announced late on Tuesday that he and Japan reached a trade agreement, which will slap a 15% tariff on Japanese imports in exchange for Japan investing $550 billion in the U.S. The so-called deal is another shit sandwich for Americans, especially U.S. car manufacturers. That’s because Japanese cars imported into the U.S. will face a 15% tariff rate—lower than the 25% tariff American car companies currently face for imported auto parts. And that 15% rate is less than the shocking 25% tariff Trump had threatened against Japan if a deal wasn’t struck. That’s why Japanese car stocks rose on Wednesday, with Toyota up about 13%. “Toyota is up +8% on the news of a 15% tariff. Why? It’s simple,” Spencer Hakimian, founder of  the hedge fund Tolou Capital Management, wrote in a post on X. “Ford, GM, Tesla, and all the other American manufacturers are going to be paying 50% more for their steel, 50% more for their copper, 25% more for their Canadian production, 25% more for their Mexican production, and 55% on their Chinese production. Toyota only has to pay 15% more and they’re done with all the shenanigans. Ford has to pay much more than that. A lot more in fact.  The General Motors logo is seen on the company’s headquarters in Detroit, in April 2024. “We’ve given a Japanese car company an advantage over American car companies. All in hope of bringing auto jobs back to America,” he added. The American Automotive Policy Council—which represents General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis—said on Wednesday that the Japanese trade agreement is a “bad deal for U.S. industry and U.S. auto workers.” American automakers have already said Trump’s tariffs have dealt a massive blow to their companies. General Motors reported Tuesday that it lost $1 billion from April to June ,attributing the losses to Trump’s tariffs. And Stellantis, which manufactures American brands like Chrysler, Jeep, and Dodge, said it lost a whopping $2.7 billion in the first half of 2025 because of Trump’s trade levies. But Trump’s trade policy is not hurting just automakers. Goldman Sachs on Tuesday said that U.S. economic growth will slow in 2025 because of Trump’s tariffs. The bank’s chief economist, Jan Hatzius, wrote in a memo to clients that the tariffs “will eat into real income, at a time when consumer spending trends already look shaky.” Hatzius added that consumer spending appears to have slowed in the first half of the year, which he said “rarely happens outside of recession.” Indeed, prices are on the rise for American consumers for everything from beef and chocolate to household products sold on retail giant Amazon. Meanwhile, the Aug. 1 deadline Trump put on other countries to make trade deals is rapidly approaching. And if deals aren’t reached, tariffs will soar to 30% for imports from major American trading partners, including Mexico and the European Union. And if the deals are as crappy as the one just announced with Japan, Americans are in for a world of hurt.

A newly uncovered memo from the Department of Homeland Security reportedly reveals that President Donald Trump is diverting manpower from securing U.S. borders and ports to help him achieve his goals of mass deportation. HuffPost reported on Tuesday that the memo shows that roughly 2,000 officers and agents have been diverted to provide more manpower for deportation operations. By doing so, the administration makes it easier for traffickers to smuggle illicit materials, such as fentanyl, through ports of entry. Gil Kerlikowske, who headed up U.S. Customs and Border Protection under former President Barack Obama, told the outlet, “The ports of entry―that’s where the fentanyl comes in.” He added, “If you’ve taken 800 agents off of the ports of entry, that can cause a significant problem.” Data from 2018 to 2024 showed that most of those apprehended for smuggling fentanyl into the U.S. did so through lawful ports of entry. About 4 in 5 apprehended smugglers through the U.S.-Mexico border were U.S. citizens as well. This stands in contrast to Republican leaders who have blamed this problem on migrants. A Trump supporter holds a “Secure our Border” at a rally in Aurora, Colorado. Wonder how this memo would make them feel … Trump repeatedly campaigned on the promise that he would crack down on fentanyl trafficking, but drug overdose deaths have been steadily falling since late 2023, when Joe Biden was president. Another problem with diverting resources from port operations is that those officers are generally not trained to handle immigration enforcement. Agencies like ICE have generated a torrent of headlines involving abuse and manhandling of both migrants and citizens, including children—and many of those incidents involve officials whose primary job is enforcement. The Trump administration has set up a system ripe for abuse. It has used deportation procedures to send migrants to facilities like El Salvador’s brutal CECOT prison. Detainees at those facilities have revealed scenes they compared to a “horror movie,” including repeated beatings and denial of basic medical treatment. The memo reportedly reveals another dysfunctional link in the immigration system being put in place under the Trump administration, one which could easily lead to more crime and increased danger for Americans and their families.

GOP Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who is no longer facing reelection, is standing strong in his conviction that the Trump administration should release the long-promised Epstein files. “Release the damn files,” he told Axios’ Stef Kight on Wednesday. “One of two things is true … the promise to release the files during the campaign was either overplayed and we got a nothing burger—if the files get released—or it’s something really disturbing, and that’s actually even a more compelling reason to release it.” President Donald Trump with Jeffrey Epstein, who was charged with sex trafficking in 2019. Tillis also called the administration’s excuses “nonsense,” noting that sensitive materials are routinely released with redactions.  “That’s sort of a fake—or a bad—reason for trying to stop something that you don’t want to happen,” he said, adding a warning to fellow Republicans who are seeking reelection not to underestimate the staying power of this scandal.  “If anybody thinks that this is going to go away because the House left a day earlier or something, that’s going to be like those zombies in ‘The Walking Dead,’” Tillis said. “Every time you think you’ve killed it, another one’s just going to come running out of the closet after you. This is going to be an issue all the way through next year’s election.” YouTube Video Democrats have justifiably seized on Trump and other GOP lawmakers’ disturbing refusal to release the Epstein files, and Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow has successfully incorporated it into her campaign for fellow Democratic Sen. Gary Peters’ seat.  Tillis has been willing to take—mostly toothless—shots at the Trump administration on his way out the door. But at this point, any meaningful criticism of President Donald Trump from the right has some worth.

Tina Peters simply will not go away. The onetime clerk for Mesa County, Colorado, is currently incarcerated while appealing her 2024 conviction for helming a massive election security breach. Peters remains a steadfast warrior for Donald Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen, but she can’t keep pursuing her mission while sitting in a Colorado jail. The problem for Peters is that her conviction was in state court, so while she remains a true believer in the Big Lie, Trump can’t wave a wand and pardon her.  But she’s not going to stop trying.  Donald Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen led to an insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. On Tuesday, Peters asked a federal magistrate to let her out of jail on bond while she pursues her state appeal. Peters had already requested that the Colorado Court of Appeals release her on bond, and after they ruled against her, she filed a federal habeas petition. Peters is desperate to wedge this case into federal court somehow so that Trump can make it go away.  Now, you might be agog at the notion that a federal magistrate can just roll into a state court case and functionally overrule the Colorado Court of Appeals, and guess what? The federal magistrate was equally perplexed, because federal magistrates have no authority to intervene in a state case. Indeed, Chief Magistrate Judge Scott Varholak said, “I don’t think petitioner has cited a single case in the history of the United States where a federal court granted an appeal bond in a state case.” Varholak was just as baffled about how things would work logistically if he were to grant the bond.  “What if petitioner violates the bond?” the magistrate said. “Does the state revoke bond? Do I revoke bond?” Hey, it was worth a shot.  Trump is already in Peters’ corner. In May, he directed the Department of Justice to secure her release. On Truth Social, Trump called Peters an “innocent Political Prisoner” and said that she was being “horribly and unjustly punished in the form of Cruel and Unusual Punishment.” Also, she is a hostage who is being imprisoned by Democrats for “political reasons.” Like Peters, her attorney, Peter Ticktin, is absolutely full-on MAGA. He wrote a fawning book about Trump, detailing their time together in high school at a military academy. He’s also one of Trump’s endless series of personal attorneys, having represented him in his suit against Hillary Clinton and James Comey. Ticktin is also a pal of Ed Martin, the Department of Justice’s very shady pardon attorney, and personally delivered 11 applications to Martin.  Related | Why Trump can’t quit Ed Martin Ticktin’s argument to the federal magistrate was essentially that Peters shouldn’t be in jail with actual criminals, because she is not one. Instead, she’s being imprisoned for her speech.  “In this particular case, we have a person in prison because of a fear that she’s a danger to society because of what she might say,” he claimed. Buddy, she’s in prison because she was convicted by a jury of her peers for giving a Big Lie conspiracy theorist rando complete access to election machines and allowing him to copy the hard drives, which later popped up on election conspiracy sites. This is a crime, period.  But wait! What about her mattress? Yes, part of Ticktin’s plea to the federal magistrate was that Peters is sleeping on a hard, thin mattress. During her sentencing hearing, Peters bemoaned the fact that she would not be able to get her special magnetic mattress if she were sent to prison.  Meanwhile, the Trump administration is laser-focused on screwing with elections in Colorado in retaliation for the state’s prosecution of Peters. She is a martyr for the election denial cause, so how dare the state imprison her! Peters is Trump writ small—a person who believes that she is on a mission and is therefore entitled to do whatever she wants to prove the 2020 election was stolen, and refuses to admit there are consequences for her actions. No wonder she’s trying to get this to the federal courts so Trump can do her a solid. Her failure to do so should be a slam dunk because it’s unprecedented to have the federal government intervene in a state criminal court case. But this administration doesn’t believe in federalism, so it will keep trying to find a way to free Peters—rules and laws be damned.