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The Epstein Saga Continues

We're back to the good old days—when we led with an Epstein-themed item every day. The House is going to vote tomorrow on H.R. 4405, the "Epstein Files Transparency Act" to force the DoJ to release all the "Epstein files." While the discharge petition forcing the vote got only 218 signatures, it is expected that the actual bill will have at least 250 votes, maybe even 300 votes for it. Republican representatives are caught between a rock and a hard place on this. If they vote for the bill, Donald Trump could come after them and arrange a primary opponent. If they vote against the bill, Democrats will campaign against them using the slogan: "Congressman [X] tried to protect pedophiles." It's bad either way, which is why Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) didn't want to bring the bill up for a vote until his hand was forced.

Assuming the bill passes, it will go to the Senate, where Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has the same problem as Johnson, only the Senate doesn't have a discharge procedure, so he can simply refuse to hold a vote. However, then he will take the flak for "protecting pedophiles," when in truth, he is simply protecting Donald Trump. If the public outcry gets loud enough, Thune could possibly cave, fearing the Democrats using this issue as a cudgel in 2026 to capture the Senate. It is worth noting that the larger the number of Republicans who "betray" Trump, the harder it is for him to make any one of them feel the pain.

A group of Epstein survivors is now calling on Congress to pass the House bill. They wrote an open letter, signed by two dozen victims, reminding the members of the unimaginable suffering of over 1,000 other victims of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell's sex trafficking operation.

On Friday, Donald Trump responded to their call by calling any connection between himself and Epstein a hoax, despite dozens of photos and videos of them together and his card in Epstein's 50th birthday book. On Friday, he urged the DoJ to investigate any connections between Epstein and Bill Clinton and JP Morgan Chase. Trump should be very careful about the latter, though. Chase earlier warned the FBI about 4,700 suspicious transactions in and out of Epstein's account at Chase. If the Democrats win either chamber of Congress in 2026, they are likely to subpoena Chase for the records of all those transactions, to see where the money came from and where it went.

Once again, we note that many media outlets refer to Epstein as a "financier," for example, here, here, and here. What exactly did he finance? Inquiring minds want to know. We know of no factories, shopping malls, condo towers, start-ups, movies, hostile takeovers or other projects he financed. The Chase records could shed a lot of light on this question.

Also in the news is the way Ghislaine Maxwell is being pampered in the minimum-security Club-Fed-type prison she was sent to after talking to deputy AG Todd Blanche. Normally sex offenders are not treated lightly, but Maxwell has special privileges there. She gets custom meals, snacks and refreshments. Visitors are allowed to bring computers into her cell, so she has unauthorized contact with the outside world. She can use the prison exercise room alone, after hours. She can use certain staff-only areas of the prison. She even has access to a puppy to play with. Even prisoners in for minor crimes—for example, anyone actually convicted of throwing a sandwich at a federal agent—don't get their own puppy. What did Maxwell tell Blanche, and is any of it true?

Last week, the lawyers for Epstein's estate gave the House Oversight Committee 23,000 pages of documents, some of which are at least moderately incriminating for Trump, and there could well be more. How have right-wing media outlets covered this (if at all)? Jon Herald on Badlands Media's Rumble said: "To me, these are nothingburgers. If they are even real." So, knowing about Epstein's "girls" and not even bothering to alert the FBI is fine with him? Mike Rothschild, a journalist who has written extensively about conspiracy theories, says that the right is claiming that Trump did no wrong. He also said that many outlets are simply ignoring the document dump. The only story we could find on foxnews.com is about how Democrats cherry-picked which documents to release. Which is true; they did cherry-pick. That doesn't make Trump not guilty however.

As time goes on, more reporters will be going through the document dump and finding choice nuggets to report. Politico has made a start at it, with these revelations.

At the very least, Epstein had contact with a large number of famous people, many of whom probably agree with a quote (falsely) attributed to Mark Twain: "I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure." No doubt many more prominent people will have their interactions with Epstein exposed before this is over.

After Watergate, it was said that the coverup is worse than the crime. That was probably true of Watergate but is not true of Epsteingate. Clearly there is something so damaging in the Epstein files that Trump has to tolerate this drip drip drip of leaks every day, with no end in sight. Well, unless the Democrats win the House or Senate, followed by everything coming out at once. It is very doubtful that Trump's strategy is deny, deny, deny just to protect Bill Clinton, or anyone except Donald J. Trump. The well-known fact that Trump cares only about himself is strong evidence that there is something in there very damaging to him in some way. If releasing everything (including the thousand DVDs Epstein secretly recorded on his private island) implicated a lot of famous Republicans but not himself, Trump would throw them all under the bus in a flash and make this story go away. But there is clearly something in there that he does not want coming out, ever.

Trump is clearly worried about the vote in the House tomorrow. He lashed out at Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) for getting married again 16 months after his wife died. But he also recognized that the House bill could pass with 300 votes so he made a gigantic U turn late yesterday and urged Republicans to vote to compel him to release the Epstein files. He posted this: "House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide, and it's time to move on from this Democrat Hoax." WTF? He wants the House to force him to release the files when all he has to do is call AG Pam Bondi and say: "Release all the Epstein files except those that are damaging to me, other Republicans, and my cronies." Switching sides just before the vote might also give him some cover if 100 or more Republicans vote for the bill. Then he can say they did it on his orders. Needless to say, everything released will have been vetted in advance and anything that incriminates him personally will either not be released or edited to remove the bad stuff. (V)

Is MTG Running for Vice President?

Probably the second biggest news story now (after Epsteingate) is about Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). She has had a falling out with Donald Trump and it is getting messier by the day. Greene has long been a staunch ally of Trump's but something has changed now and the two are taking potshots at each other.

Greene has accused Trump of drifting away from his "America First" agenda that supports "the forgotten man and woman of America." She claims she represents them and Trump no longer does. She has at least five issues where they are far apart:

In short, they have plenty of actual issues where they are miles apart. Has Trump tried to say she is wrong on all these issues? Of course not. Instead, he sent out a long post on his boutique social media site withdrawing his endorsement of "Wacky Marjorie" and calling her a "ranting lunatic." She responded with a tweet of her own, saying among other things: "It's astonishing really how hard he's fighting to stop the Epstein files from coming out that he actually goes to this level." She could be on to something.

Since he can't beat Greene on the issues, Trump is going nuclear and reverting to being a fifth-grade schoolyard bully, posting this about her: "Lightweight Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Brown (Green grass turns Brown when it begins to ROT!), betrayed the entire Republican Party when she turned Left, performed poorly on the pathetic View, and became the RINO that we all know she always was." He also called her "Marjorie Traitor Green." Surely he will soon combine his brilliant thoughts and call her Marjorie Traitor Brown. Why not go whole hog and use Marginal Traitor Brown?

Greene is not taking this lying down. She went on CNN yesterday to make a plea for Americans to come together to solve our problems—which is rich coming from her. Here is her interview with Dana Bash. In it, she seems perfectly normal and rational. She even toned it down a bit and said she supports Trump and his administration. She is also afraid that someone even crazier than she is might come after her and put her life in danger.



Greene is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but she is a clever politician. She knows that opposing Trump on so many points was sure to draw his wrath. She is very good at manipulating him. But why? We don't know, of course, but maybe she dreams of being on the GOP ticket in 2028. She probably realizes that if even Democrats have trouble voting for a woman as president (see Clinton, Hillary and Harris, Kamala), Republicans are certainly not going to. But her being #2 is probably acceptable to Republicans, so a Vance/Greene or Rubio/Greene ticket might fly. Carlson/Greene would be heaven.

But one of the unwritten rules in politics is that you can't run for vice president. You run for president, do well, and then get picked by the winner. Suppose in 2028, the MAGAts think Trump has lost his way and they want someone to get the movement back on course. She could run for president and possibly get enough votes to impress Republicans with her MAGA beliefs. To make a serious run, she needs to stay in the news and have her name on everyone's tongue. Opposing Trump for not being MAGA enough might just keep her in the news every day. It makes some sense. (V)

Latinos Are Back--to the Democrats

As we and others have pointed out multiple times, many of the Black and Latino voters who supported Donald Trump in 2024 are starting to regret it big-time. The elections earlier this month are showing this clearly, as more data are being analyzed. Here is a comparison of election results in New Jersey showing the shift in 2024 (Biden to Trump voters) and 2025 (Trump to Mikie Sherrill voters).

Shift in partisan voting in New Jersey 2024 vs 2025

The majority-nonwhite townships are highlighted in yellow. Union City, in particular, is very heavily Latino. As you can see on the left, it swung very heavily from Biden to Trump in 2024. And it swung equally hard from Trump to Sherrill in 2025. That is true of the whole state, but especially the areas with many Latino voters. In 2024, they were either voting specifically for Trump or specifically against Kamala Harris. Perth Amboy is another heavily-Latino city that also swung sharply back toward Sherrill in 2025.

Democratic strategists saw the 2024 swing not only in New Jersey, but in the Bronx, South Texas, and other locations with large Latino populations. They feared a major realignment was happening. The elections earlier this month were the first test of whether Latinos are now Republicans. The evidence shows they are not. They just liked Trump (or disliked Harris). The results for New Jersey in 2025 are much closer to what they were in the 2021 gubernatorial election than what they were in 2024.

Some townships shifted to the right in 2025. None of the top 25 townships that shifted to the right had a Latino population over 10%. These townships were largely white with residents having college degrees. They are largely Republican areas, but the residents just don't think Trump is a very good Republican, so they will vote for a normal Republican, just not for Trump.

Mike Madrid, an anti-Trump Republican strategist, had a different explanation for the shift. He said it is not Democrat vs. Republican, it is incumbent vs. nonincumbent. The vote was a protest against the incumbent party for not making their lives better. In 2024, the incumbent president was a Democrat, so Latinos voted for the Republican. In 2025, the incumbent president was a Republican, so Latinos voted for the Democrats. (V)

Independents Are Souring on Trump

YouGov runs approval polls of the president weekly. These provide lots of data for comparison purposes. One analysis, by G. Elliott Morris, is of Donald Trump's approval in Trump v.2.0 vs. Trump v1.0 among independents, the only group that could swing substantially in an election. Here are the data:

Trump's approval rating first term vs. second term among independents

The difference is enormous. First, Trump largely held steady among independents all of his first term. This time the dropoff has been almost continuous, from net -5% at the start to net -35% now. Second, at this point in his first term, Trump was at -19%. That is -35% now.

While the graph above is the national average, Trump's approval is under water in every state, although it is much less under water in the reddest of states. Still, under water even in red states is not good.

Could the president's approval affect other elections? A lot of data says it does. When people are unhappy, they tend to blame the president and his party. The YouGov poll on the generic House ballot has the Democrats ahead at D+7. Ahead of the 2018 midterms, at this point the generic House poll was D+8. Democrats flipped 41 seats in the 2018 midterm elections. Due to increased gerrymandering, pulling off that kind of victory will be more difficult now, but the generic House polling does look encouraging for the Democrats at the moment. (V)

Ruben Gallego Tries Out His Stump Speech

Of the various potential Democratic candidates for president in 2028, one interesting one is Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ). He has a number of things going for him. He is a Latino at a moment when Latinos are swarming back to the Democrats. He is a Marine Corps veteran who served in heavy combat in Iraq. He has a degree from Harvard. He is from a swing state (Arizona) that is next to another swing state (Nevada), together good for 17 electoral votes (more than Wisconsin or Michigan). He is progressive enough that progressives could accept him if their first choice doesn't make it, but without being scary to moderates. He is fairly young (45), looks good on television, and is a good public speaker. He has a beard, which would cancel out J.D. Vance's if he is the Republican nominee.

Gallego is starting to practice a potential stump speech should he decide to get into the presidential race after the midterms, even though he is currently saying he is leaning against a run (which is what they all say, pretty much). His pitch is to blame the looming health care premium increases and Medicaid cuts squarely on the Republicans. This is the kind of kitchen-table issue that many voters respond to.

At a recent town hall in Tucson, Gallego was well received. He voted against the surrender in the Senate last week and no one challenged him on that. What people wanted to know is what Democrats should do. He said they needed a Plan 2029 that focuses on making sure every American has a chance, including access to affordable housing and health care. He also kept emphasizing that the Republicans' strategy is not working for many people. He said of the Republicans: "They want to divide the poor versus not-so-poor, in order for them to be able to get these tax cuts. They want to kick people off Medicaid. It is a very easy thing for a lot of us to be divided right now. The most important thing we can do is to be united." It went over well and could be the blueprint for Democrats in 2026 and Gallego in 2028. (V)

The Next Special Election Could Give a Hint about the Midterms

The elections earlier this month gave the Democrats a lot to cheer about. The next test will be in December, when a special election will be held in Tennessee in the district TN-07. It will be for the seat of former representative Mark Green (R), who quit Congress in June because it kinda sucks. The district is R+10, so a Democratic win is unlikely, but if the race is even close, that would be a sign that the results in Virginia and New Jersey indicate a trend toward the Democrats.

The district has a piece of Nashville but also a large piece of rural Tennessee west of Nashville. It is 69% white and 16% Black. The Democratic candidate is state Rep. Aftyn Behn. The Republican is Matt Van Epps. Donald Trump won the district by 22 points last year. One problem is that Behn is a liberal activist. That worked in her tiny state House district but might be a big problem in the much larger congressional district. Still, a close finish would be interpreted as a sign, even if she loses. The election is the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, which could reduce turnout. (V)

Democrats Have Their Boogeyman for 2026: RFK Jr.

It is an old trick in politics to run against someone who is not even on the ballot. For years, many Republicans thousands of miles from San Francisco ran as if Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) were their opponent. Democrats have caught on and now seem to have their own boogeyman: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He is sufficiently unpopular nationwide that they can try to tar every Republican with everything he has done.

Democrats know that his views on vaccines are largely unpopular, so they are going to blame him for all disease outbreaks anywhere. He has also gone after Tylenol, which millions of people have used with no problems. They will label him a complete kook. Even 40% of parents who like his MAHA movement don't trust him and 75% of non-MAHA parents certainly don't trust him.

His firing of thousands of health workers is also going to be a problem. Democrats are going to blame every health problem on Kennedy's incompetence. Democrats are already running ads in selected areas tying Republicans to Kennedy, especially to his view of vaccines. Depending on how aggressive they want to be, they could run ads saying: "If Robert Kennedy Jr. gets his way, he could ban all vaccines, allowing children to die from polio, and my opponent supports him."

Separate from any specific race, going after Kennedy could reinforce the notion that Republicans care only about tax cuts for rich people, not the health of ordinary Americans. For example, they could highlight the cuts he has made to cancer research and the thousands of people at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention he has fired. Ads already running slam Kennedy for believing wacko conspiracy theories. Democrats generally avoid "boogeyman" campaigns, but Kennedy is sufficiently well known and has supported enough crazy things that it could work this time. (V)

Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis Will Be Replaced by a Veteran Prosecutor

Remember Fani Willis, the Fulton County D.A. who foolishly appointed her then-boyfriend to prosecute 19 people accused of trying to steal the Georgia presidential election? She was eventually kicked off the case and the state's prosecutor council was directed by a judge to find a replacement. Now that council has appointed Pete Skandalakis, a veteran prosecutor and executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia, to take over the case. He wasn't his own first choice, but he couldn't find anyone else willing to do it, so he decided this would be one of those do-it-yourself jobs. Unlike Willis' choice, he has plenty of experience as a prosecutor.

He has the same discretion as any other prosecutor. He can strike plea deals, drop charges, or go to trial. He does have to obey Georgia law, though, which states if there is a probable case for prosecution, he has to make a judgment about proceeding, but if there is no case, he must drop it. Because this is a state case, Donald Trump has no authority to pardon any of the defendants.

The case is very complex, with racketeering charges against 19 people, including Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Ken Chesebro, John Eastman, Mark Meadows, Jenna Ellis, Jeffrey Clark, and others. There are multiple charges in play, and not every defendant has been charged in every crime. Here is a detailed description of the people and charges. Below is a diagram showing who is charged with what.

Defendants in the Georgia RICO case

It is very unlikely that Trump will be prosecuted now, although his prosecution could theoretically be delayed until after he is no longer president. But the other 18 can be prosecuted now, although some have switched sides and are working with the prosecution. Still there are enough big fish here to make the case newsworthy. So far, Skandalakis has given no indication how he plans to proceed. (V)

Loomer Strikes Again

Laura Loomer thinks she works for the Trump administration as special assistant for personnel. Actually, she doesn't work for the administration at all, but she goes around looking for people she doesn't like and then tells Trump to fire them or not hire them in the first place. He generally complies. Her most recent target is Donald Korb, the nominee for chief counsel to the IRS. On Friday, Trump yanked the nomination, even though Korb had already cleared the Senate Finance Committee. Passage by the full Senate was thus very likely. Loomer triumphantly reposted his announcement along with the hashtag #LOOMERED.

Korb was expected to play a major role in implementing all the tax provisions of the BBB, a very complex law. His job would have been to figure out how IRS should actually carry out the many provisions of the new law. He was IRS' chief counsel during the George W. Bush administration, so he knows the ropes and could have hit the ground running.

Having an experienced hand on board would have helped IRS greatly. The agency has had seven different (acting) commissioners this year alone. The current one is Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who apparently thinks running Treasury is a part-time job. (V)


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