For nearly two years, Donald Trump’s Justice Department has been unusually aggressive in pursuing the White House’s political opponents. Now, however, it appears that a presidential ally is the one facing scrutiny from federal law enforcement.
MS NOW has confirmed that the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general has sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department over allegations that Corey Lewandowski profited from his role at DHS.
A Lewandowski spokesperson issued a statement Thursday saying that the former DHS official hadn’t been contacted by the Justice Department, adding that Lewandowski “denies any wrongdoing when he was proudly serving his country in a voluntary capacity.”
For those who would benefit from a refresher on Lewandowski, around this time 10 years ago, it appeared that his role as a member of Trump’s team had run its course. The Republican operative was Trump’s campaign manager for several months in 2016, but after clashing with his colleagues and facing a criminal charge after a confrontation with a reporter, the future president ousted Lewandowski from his political operation.
Although it seemed implausible, the operative gradually worked his way back into Trump’s good graces, and when the president returned to power after the 2024 election, Lewandowski received a striking reward: Trump tapped him to serve as a “special government employee” to help run the Department of Homeland Security alongside then-Secretary Kristi Noem.
Predictably, Lewandowski’s tenure proved controversial — in part because of the policy agenda he championed; in part because he wanted to carry a gun (for reasons that were never fully explained), to the alarm of DHS officials; and in part because of the nature of his close relationship with Noem.
But it’s the corruption allegations that are of particular and ongoing significance.
In July, for example, The Wall Street Journal reported that federal investigators found evidence that Lewandowski “may have been involved in improperly awarding government contracts” during his time at DHS. Last month, the Journal published a separate report, alleging that the operative used his role in the department to pursue side deals for himself with officials in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. (Lewandowski slammed the reporting as “fiction.”)
Time will tell what, if anything, comes of the inquiry, though if it reaches a more serious stage, it will create a difficult test for the president and his political operation.
Indeed, if Trump’s former campaign manager faces a possible federal criminal indictment, it’s an open question as to whether the president will intervene and derail the case, or whether he’ll add Lewandowski to his list of close allies whom he pretends not to know.
Complicating matters further, it was just last week when Trump sat down with Newsmax for a lengthy interview, and when the discussion turned to pardons, the Republican said, “I can tell you this, I don’t want to see my people go through — because these people are lunatics on the, on the left — I don’t want to see people that work for me go through years of nonsense, hire lawyers and everything else, all for nothing.”
This came a few weeks after Trump also told Time magazine that he’s prepared to issue pardons to members of his administration. Watch this space.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
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Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr issued a threat this week that adds a sinister new dimension to the Trump Censorship Industrial Complex.
Without citing specifics, Carr decried what he called “a significant surge in entirely Fake Polls and Suppression Polls designed to do nothing more than interfere with the regular functioning of the electoral process and alter the normal patterns of voter turnout and enthusiasm.”
“Broadcasters are advised to avoid engaging in News Distortions or running Broadcast Hoaxes by airing Polls that would violate their regulatory obligations,” Carr warned Wednesday.
It’s possible Carr was referring to news this week that an obscure group called Wedgewood Polls had propagated fraudulent polling data that, despite news outlets’ due diligence, made its way into polling aggregations at several outlets, including The New York Times and MS NOW. The problem of apparently malevolent actors fudging poll numbers before an election is not something to take lightly, but responsible news organizations have been transparent with their audiences, appending corrections, editor’s notes and updating their aggregations as needed. (The commission’s lone Democratic appointee, Anna Gomez, posted to X on Wednesday, “FCC rules on news distortion or hoaxes do not apply to a station that reports this data in good faith.”)
This would hardly be the first time Carr has used his office to threaten broadcasters from airing bad news about his boss.
But Carr’s track record as an anti-free-speech warrior for Trump makes it hard to see his comments as an earnest effort to prevent the distribution of incorrect information before an election. In nearly two years as FCC chair, Carr has demonstrated that he’s an unprincipled, hyperpartisan hack who cosplays as an advocate of free speech and limited government. Examples abound of him using his office to try to silence Trump critics and strong-arm risk-averse media corporations that prioritize nothing more than their bottom lines.
More likely, Carr is helping lay the groundwork for Trump to — once again — falsely claim fraud in the event of a GOP wipeout in the midterm elections, lest Trump’s historic unpopularity be blamed for Republicans losing control of one or both houses of Congress or any number of statehouses.
In March, as it became evident that Trump’s war on Iran was destined to become an unwinnable quagmire, Carr threatened broadcasters from airing “hoaxes and news distortions” in war coverage. Those words, in MAGA-speak, typically translate to “reports that accurately reflect the president’s incompetence.”
Carr also effectively censored Jimmy Kimmel after the September 2025 assassination of Charlie Kirk by jawboning ABC’s corporate parent, The Walt Disney Company, into suspending the late-night comic, even boasting, “When we see stuff like this, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.” So egregious was this government gangsterism that no less a Trump lickspittle than Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, condemned it as “mafioso” behavior. When Carr wasn’t acting as the comedy police, he went after ABC’s daytime talk show “The View,” claiming the program violated the FCC’s antiquated “equal time” rules regarding political candidate interviews, despite the fact that talk shows had historically been considered exempt from that regulation.
Sadly, the FCC’s censorship campaign has been such a success that ABC’s lawyers claimed in court recently that the network’s news division has been tempering its election coverage to avoid further harassment by the Trump administration.
This spring, Carr himself bragged about how effective Trump’s authoritarian attacks on the free press have been: “Look at the results so far. PBS defunded. NPR defunded…[Stephen] Colbert is leaving. CBS is under new ownership. And soon enough, CNN is going to have new ownership as well.” (Skydance, the company controlled by the Trump-friendly billionaire trust fund baby David Ellison, now owns CBS and CNN.)
The FCC’s censorship campaign has been such a success that ABC’s lawyers claimed in court recently that the network’s news division has been tempering its election coverage to avoid further harassment by the Trump administration.
Thankfully for Carr, his efforts earned him a good-boy pat on the head from Trump at an Alaska campaign rally this month, when the president praised his FCC attack poodle as “the most-feared man in government.” If you were wondering, yes, it is bizarre that the head of the historically bipartisan FCC would be attending a partisan political rally. But then, Carr — who’s known for wearing a lapel pin in the shape of Trump’s head — broke decades of precedent when he told a Senate committee in December 2025 that the FCC is not an independent agency. References to “independent” have also been removed from the FCC’s website.
Twelve former FCC officials — who served in both Republican and Democratic administrations — issued a joint statement Wednesday condemning Carr’s “dangerous and unconstitutional” attempt to “censor and control the information available to Americans as they prepare to vote.” They added, “Make no mistake: this is a direct attack on free and fair elections, which is especially concerning in the days and weeks when Americans are heading to the polls.”
In an X post Wednesday, The Bulwark’s Will Saletan aptly summed up Carr’s pathology: “Stephen Miller might look the part, but Brendan Carr is actually Trump’s most dedicated authoritarian apparatchik. In a fascist regime, he would do anything the boss ordered.”
Trump’s recent claim that Carr is the “most feared” person in government is in keeping with the president’s flattery of thugs, and Carr no doubt appreciated the ego-stroking. That’s probably overstating the case a bit — the Trump administration does have high-ranking officials who brag about committing likely war crimes, after all — but Carr is most certainly a giddy soldier in Trump’s war on the Constitution.
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STERLING HEIGHTS, Michigan — President Donald Trump promised that his tariff policies would make the country richer and would bring in enough revenue to eliminate the need for income tax and to pay down the country’s debt. Instead, Trump voters in Michigan told MS NOW they feel poorer, as income tax is still on the books and the national debt has soared to $40 trillion.
Increased prices due to tariffs continue to pinch consumers across the country, and few are paying a higher price than Michiganders.
In September, a study for the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, a nonpartisan “small government” research group, estimated that the impact of tariffs on Michigan households since January 2025 has been somewhere between $23 billion and $26 billion, which breaks down to an estimated burden of about $6,000 per household.
“I hate them. They suck,” Dennis Walls, a three-time Trump voter who works in landscaping and is looking for a second job, said of tariffs.
Walls, who is from Imlay City, said the tariffs have made groceries more expensive and cost his landscaping business more for equipment.
“Our backpacks, leaf-blowing backpacks, stick edges, weed whackers, machines, even keep going up higher and higher,” he said.
Michigan’s exposure to Trump’s trade war is amplified by its proximity to Canada and the deep ties between their economies. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative estimated that Michigan exported $23.2 billion in goods to Canada in 2025. The Canadian government estimated it exported about $43.5 billion in goods to Michigan that same year.
This year, Trump imposed significant tariffs on Canada, drawing retaliation from Canada — which ended in a stalemate this September, when tariffs on billions of dollars of goods went into effect.
Kenneth Matthews, 57, is another three-time Trump voter who’s juggling work at a factory and his own lawn care business.
“I’m pissed off about them,” he said. “It’s even harder when you’re running your own business.”
Matthews said he regrets his support for Trump.
“He’s not making America great again. He’s putting us farther in the hole,” he said.
His message to the president is simple: “Knock the tariffs off. Get rid of them. We shouldn’t have them.”
Michigan’s historic automotive industry is on the front line of the trade wars Trump has picked with Canada and Mexico. But it’s the small businesses that keep the industry humming that are being hit hardest.
Andi Asliwa, 28, is an owner and mechanic at New Testament Auto Service in Sterling Heights. The entrepreneur told MS NOW that the tariffs are making his business untenable as he has to pass on higher prices for parts to his customers.
I think the richer people got richer, but the average person — no, it’s tearing us apart.”
“I used to get brake pads for $35, $25. Now they’re $70 and up,” said Asliwa, who voted for Trump in 2024. He said his brake pads are imported from China, and he’s sticking with them as they remain less expensive than domestically produced brake pads, which he said are worse quality.
Asked how the tariffs have affected the country, Asliwa said, “I think the richer people got richer, but the average person — no, it’s tearing us apart.”
Last month, Trump announced an import ban on select Canadian alcoholic beverages, and Canada retaliated, putting bars on both sides of the border on the rocks. But it’s not just the booze that’s drying up; it’s also the boycott by Canadian tourists, spurred by the escalating trade war, that’s making a dent on Michiganders’ bottom lines.
Bob Roberts owns McShane’s Irish Pub & Whiskey Bar in Detroit, which employs 32 people. Roberts, who voted for Trump in 2016, said Canadian tourists from just across the border in Windsor, Ontario, have stopped their patronage.
You would see Canadian plates everywhere. Now you walk around, you don’t see any Canadian plates at all.”
“We used to enjoy a pretty big crowd from Canada, because they have no sports teams there,” Roberts said. “You would see Canadian plates everywhere. Now you walk around, you don’t see any Canadian plates at all.”
Roberts put the damage to his revenue from the Canadian tourism boycott at about 15%, or about $30,000. He said the hospitality industry in Detroit right now is “fragile.”
“If you continue down the road that we’re on, there’s not going to be any way that I can survive as a restaurateur, and because of that, you know, I’ll go out of business,” Roberts said.
Roberts said he is still undecided on whether he will vote for Democrat Abdul El-Sayed or Republican Rep. Mike Rogers for Michigan’s Senate seat.
“If these tariffs don’t get cleared up, if the Republicans win either the House or the Senate — I mean, there needs to be a dramatic change in Washington,” he said.
“Otherwise, I mean, quite frankly, we’re screwed,” he added.
El-Sayed has opposed Trump’s tariff policy from the beginning of his campaign, in contrast to Rogers, who only came out against the president’s trade war with Canada with less than a month before Election Day.
“As a politician, he came out in support of Canada and against the trade wars; in my opinion, [he] came out a little late,” Roberts said of Rogers.
“It doesn’t pass the sniff test: It smells like politics, as opposed to being genuine,” he added.
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FORT MYERS, Fla. — Mercedes Price Harry drives a 4Runner, and with gas back above $4 a gallon in Florida, she says it hurts every time she fills up. But the chair of the Lee County Republican Party is not giving up on President Donald Trump.
“You don’t save the country giving up the ship because gas prices are high,” she said.
Not everyone here feels the same way. Trump won nearly 64% of the vote in Lee County in 2024, but Price Harry said there are “a lot of people that feel a lot of apathy and frustration right now” over the economy and the war with Iran. When the president arrives for a rally Friday, she is hoping he can reassure them.
“We’re hoping that he’s just going to remind us that he is doing all that he can to move us in that right direction,” she said. “Hopefully, he’ll make everybody feel good about the bumps that we’ve had in the last year, and that we can continue to put all of our faith in him because I think that most of us do, but not everybody is staying on the Trump train.”
Trump’s visit comes with early voting underway and Election Day less than two weeks away. Republicans are fighting to hold slim majorities in both chambers of Congress, and the president’s approval rating has fallen to a record low of 31%, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Monday. The question here is whether loyalty to Trump will carry over to the Republicans he is backing, and whether he can motivate enough of his voters to turn out.
Two of those Republicans are expected to join him at Friday afternoon’s rally: Byron Donalds, the party’s gubernatorial candidate, and Jim Schwartzel, its candidate in Florida’s 19th Congressional District. Donalds leads Democrat David Jolly by just 4 percentage points in the closely watched governor’s race, according to an MS NOW/Fifty Plus One polling average.
Democrats sense an opening. Former President Bill Clinton campaigned for Jolly in Florida earlier this week, his first campaign trip of the year.
Florida Republicans, for their part, have spent the year trying to make the state’s congressional delegation even more conservative. Led by outgoing Gov. Ron DeSantis, GOP leaders passed a new map this spring that could leave Democrats with just four of Florida’s 28 House seats, down from eight under the old lines.
But Republicans could fall short in at least three of the seats they redrew in their favor, including a coastal district where Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz is running. About $50 million has been spent on that race since the start of July, according to AdImpact, making it one of the year’s most expensive House contests.
Trump has repeatedly said gas prices will “drop like a rock” once the war with Iran is over. As the conflict enters its ninth month, the average price of gas in Florida has climbed back above $4 a gallon, according to AAA.
“I think what voters are hoping to hear from Trump is some sort of a promise for solutions for issues of affordability,” said Bethany Conrad, an assistant professor of political science at Florida Gulf Coast University.
Eight in 10 Americans rate the economy as fair or poor, according to the latest CNBC All-America Economic Survey, which also found Trump’s approval at an all-time low. Voters MS NOW interviewed at several of the president’s recent campaign stops echoed that sentiment, saying the economy is top of mind.
Among Florida Republicans, however, Trump’s approval rating remains high at 83%, according to an NBC6/Telemundo Station Group poll.
“I think what we’re looking for is that he’s just going to instill in us the confidence that we had in him when we voted for him in ’24,” Price Harry said.
Hunter Woodall contributed to this report.
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A new federal lawsuit looks to drive a stake through the heart of Donald Trump and his family’s questionable cryptocurrency empire.
The Trump family’s crypto ventures brought in more than $1.4 billion in 2025, as his administration has pressed for crypto-friendly policies. This is part of why polling shows that most Americans think Trump is profiting from the presidency in illegal or unethical ways.
And in a lawsuit filed Thursday, a shareholder of Circle Internet Group — a competitor of the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial crypto company — accuses the Trump business of “corruptly profiting” off crypto deals and says the president has violated the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause. (A spokesperson for Circle said the company “did not initiate, direct, authorize, or participate in the filing.”)
The lawsuit specifically cites the sale of a major stake in World Liberty to an entity involving the United Arab Emirates’ national security adviser — also known as the “Spy Sheikh” — four days before Trump’s inauguration. The suit also details how a UAE-backed firm led by that same official used World Liberty cryptocurrency to make a $2 billion investment in the crypto firm Binance.
The lawsuit comes as some crypto enthusiasts turn on Trump over his profiting off the industry while in office. The president and his representatives have always said his crypto investments are above board, with a White House spokesperson calling the new lawsuit “frivolous” and adding, “There are no conflicts of interest.” A World Liberty spokesperson called the lawsuit “without merit” and has previously said Trump had no role in the company.
Such claims are disputed by people like Protect Democracy’s executive director, Ian Bassin, who has argued that Trump’s crypto dealings are blatantly unconstitutional. And Matt Pelikan, a lawyer whose firm filed the lawsuit, said in a statement:
President Trump has turned his office into a source of private profit on a scale without precedent in American history. The President’s business dealings are not only corrupt, they are illegal.
This lawsuit only stands to fuel voters’ anger over government corruption: A recent Fox News poll showed nearly 9 in 10 voters as extremely or very concerned about corruption. So, with the midterms less than two weeks away, anything that stands to remind the public about Trump’s terrible track record on this issue seems like a threat to Republicans’ electoral hopes.
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Calley Means, a top aide to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., announced Thursday that he is resigning.
Means, who played a major role in pushing Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda, announced his departure from the Department of Health and Human Services on X, saying he is leaving “with tremendous respect” for President Donald Trump and Kennedy.
“They laid out a vision of combatting the entrenched, dark forces in DC that profit from Americans getting sick,” Means wrote. “More policy and cultural change has happened around these goals in the past 2 years than any time in history — and I know this movement is just getting started.”
I am resigning from the White House with tremendous respect for President Trump and Bobby Kennedy.
— Calley Means (@calleymeans) October 22, 2026
They laid out a vision of combatting the entrenched, dark forces in DC that profit from Americans getting sick.
More policy and cultural change has happened around these goals… pic.twitter.com/8vtSjgbmKx
Means did not say in his statement why he resigned. Neither Means nor the White House immediately responded to MS NOW’s requests for comment.
The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, reported Thursday that Means was unhappy about the White House dragging its feet on some of Kennedy’s policy ideas and blamed other administration officials for allowing special interests to have too much influence. The Journal was the first to report Means’ departure.
Means, a former lobbyist and longtime alternative health and wellness proponent, played a critical role in the Trump-Kennedy alliance during the 2024 election. He was a major driving force behind Kennedy’s MAHA policies in the Trump administration. As senior adviser supporting food and nutrition policy, he had a hand in the new U.S. dietary guidelines that encouraged Americans to eat more protein.
Means has long shared Kennedy’s skepticism toward established health policy. He has denigrated mandatory Covid-19 vaccines and the presence of fluoride in water. He has said that children should drink “more raw milk and less juice,” advice that conflicts with warnings from the Food and Drug Administration of the dangers of raw milk.
A 2024 book he published with his sister, Casey Means — Trump’s second failed choice for U.S. surgeon general — argues that the pharmaceutical and food industries have a stake in keeping people sick.
The post Calley Means, top aide to RFK Jr. and major MAHA proponent, quits appeared first on MS NOW.
In July several Democratic senators wrote to Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano with a specific concern. The agency he leads, they wrote, has sent “unsolicited” messages to Social Security recipients, pushing misleading statements about Donald Trump.
“You are misusing official resources to heap praise on him,” the letter said, adding that the Social Security Administration appeared to be “bombarding Americans with blatantly partisan emails” touting the president.
If Bisignano saw the letter, he apparently didn’t care.
On Thursday morning, with less than two weeks remaining in the election cycle and with early voting underway across much of the country, the Social Security Administration sent out yet another political message, which began:
Last year, President Donald J. Trump signed into law the Working Families Tax Cuts, which included a historic tax cut for America’s seniors. That law also created Trump Accounts, individual investment accounts for America’s children designed to grow with the U.S. economy and build long-term savings.
Today, nearly 70 million Trump Accounts are open for all American children. … Trump Accounts are one of the most significant investments in the next generation of Americans in our nation’s history, by giving every American child a stake in our country’s success and a strong financial foundation for the future.
The relatively brief email referenced the president’s surname 10 times.
It also misnamed the Republicans’ domestic policy megabill: At Trump’s insistence, the GOP package was named the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Republicans later decided that name wasn’t doing them any favors, so party officials were told to start referring to the package as the “Working Families Tax Cut Bill” or the “Working Families Tax Plan” as part of a clumsy rebranding, which the Social Security Administration has apparently embraced as part of its election-season messaging.
Making matters worse is the broader pattern. In early July the Social Security Administration sent out an unsolicited email celebrating Republican tax breaks — it referred to Trump, by name or title, six times in a five-paragraph email — which followed related political emails to Social Security beneficiaries in July 2025 and August 2025.
Americans need to be able to rely on ostensibly apolitical federal agencies for accurate information, free of partisan taint. When the public sees Trump rant online or during a media interview, most probably realize it’s best to approach his nonsense with skepticism.
But when people get unsolicited official statements from the Social Security Administration, they should be able to have some confidence that the agency isn’t trying to lobby them with political messaging.
And yet, here we are, watching the SSA join a list of politicized agencies, being used as partisan tools in the White House’s political toolbox, creating a dynamic in which many Americans are likely to approach the next message they receive from the government about Social Security with some skepticism.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
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At a distance, it’s tempting to think Donald Trump would want his defamation case against the BBC to move forward as quickly as possible. The president, however, has apparently been reluctant to sit down for a deposition in his own lawsuit.
Over the summer, attorneys for both sides negotiated a schedule, which included plans for an Oct. 16 deposition. That didn’t happen: The Republican’s lawyers recently canceled the session and said he was unavailable “due to other matters of national importance.”
Left unsaid was that the “matters of national importance” were campaign rallies in red states as the president tried to rescue the careers of Republicans struggling in their campaigns due to his historic unpopularity.
Lawyers for the British broadcaster, dissatisfied with this state of affairs, went back to court to ask the judge to force Trump to set a firm date to submit to questioning in the case. This proved effective, as U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett on Thursday morning ordered the plaintiff to sit for a deposition by Dec. 11.
An Associated Press report noted that Lett went on to say that if Trump failed to comply with the new deadline, the court could penalize him, possibly by dismissing the lawsuit altogether.
While Trump has earned a reputation as a president who loves to file outlandish lawsuits against major news organizations, this gambit against the BBC was weird even for him.
Late last year, Trump sued the British broadcaster for $10 billion over a news program that focused on the Jan. 6 attack. Defending the litigation, Trump told reporters that the network “literally put words in my mouth,” adding, “I guess they used AI. … They actually put terrible words in my mouth having to do with Jan. 6 that I didn’t say.”
That wasn’t quite right. For one thing, the BBC didn’t use artificial intelligence. For another, the network did air a program that edited Trump’s Jan. 6 speech, connecting two clips that were delivered roughly 50 minutes apart, but the news outlet didn’t manufacture words or phrases out of whole cloth.
Nevertheless, the editing sparked a controversy that led to an internal investigation, and the BBC ultimately fired some senior officials and issued a written apology.
Trump, however, apparently doesn’t want an apology. He wants $10 billion.
The president has filed a great many dubious lawsuits against independent news organizations, nearly all of which have ended in failure, and given what’s publicly known about his case against the BBC, there’s no reason to assume it will fare any better.
As for why Trump appears reluctant to be deposed, his lawyers haven’t offered any explanation, though it’s worth emphasizing that the president has a rather embarrassing track record when it comes to his performance in depositions in other, unrelated cases — a point one would expect his attorneys to be aware of.
Another point of contention in the BBC case is the network’s interest in speaking to former special counsel Jack Smith, whom Trump’s lawyers want to exclude. That matter has not yet been resolved. Watch this space.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
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On Wednesday’s broadcast of Newsmax TV’s “The Record,” Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy Sara Carter stated that while there has been “some progress” from China on narcotic exports, but “we need more progress. We need
The post White House: ‘Need More Progress’ from CCP, ‘Everyone Else’ on Narcotic Exports appeared first on Breitbart.
Many of Donald Trump’s recent campaign rallies have been interrupted by protesters, but as MS NOW reported, the president’s Wednesday night rally in South Carolina, intended to rescue appointed Republican Sen. Darline Graham, featured an unusually high number of disruptions. From the article:
The effort was an uphill battle from the start, and it didn’t get easier. … Roughly five minutes into Trump’s speech, security escorted at least four protesters out of the event, with that number rising to at least 11 by the end of the 93-minute remarks. About 20 minutes into the speech, an attendee appeared to punch a protester on the floor directly right in front of Trump. As those involved were escorted out, Trump remarked on the altercation.
“Wow, thank you, that was great, man,” Trump said. “I love — I watched that. Man. You know I watched that, I saw that. That was incredible. Wow.”
The president added, in apparent admiration, “Who was the guy that threw that punch? Who threw that punch?” After identifying the pugilist who hit a protester, Trump said, “You know, you reminded me of Evander ‘The Real Deal’ Holyfield,” referring to a retired professional boxer.
The Republican went on to celebrate the fact that the protester “got whacked.”
Trump effusively praises his supporters for punching a protester:Who's the guy that threw that punch? You reminded me of Evander "The Real Deal" Holyfield. That guy stood up and he just got whacked. Man! Evander, he wants your autograph! Don't fight him, Evander, don't fight him!
— FactPost (@factpostnews.bsky.social) 2026-10-21T23:53:16.857158105Z
If this sounded a bit familiar, it’s not your imagination. In June 2017, after then-White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders argued that the president had never “promoted or encouraged violence,” The Washington Post published an analysis that characterized the claim as “laughable,” adding, “Even if you don’t believe Trump has technically incited violence (which he has been sued for), he clearly nodded toward violence at his campaign rallies. Sometimes it was veiled; other times it was unmistakable. Sometimes he was talking about self-defense, but it was clear he was advocating for a ‘form of violence.’”
In February 2016, for example, Trump offered some advice to supporters in Iowa. “[I]f you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of him, would you? Seriously, OK, just knock the hell,” he said. “I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees; I promise, I promise.”
A month later, in response to a protester at a rally, the then-candidate said, “Get him out. Try not to hurt him. If you do, I’ll defend you in court, don’t worry about it.”
Around the same time, after one protester was punched by one of the future president’s supporters, Trump declared, “Maybe he deserved to get roughed up.”
To be sure, many Americans are probably familiar with Trump downplaying Jan. 6 violence, but this is qualitatively different: A decade ago, the Republican offered tacit support for his followers assaulting protesters, and Wednesday night in South Carolina, he did it again, reinforcing concerns that he sees political violence as a legitimate response to detractors.
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Over the past decade or so, Donald Trump hasn’t exactly been subtle about his support for Vladimir Putin, but in recent weeks, the American president has gone to almost cartoonish lengths to reward his Russian counterpart.
The list includes instances in which the Republican offered sanctions relief for Russian diesel fuel, echoed Kremlin talking points, pumped billions of dollars into the Russian economy, peddled false accusations against Ukraine, ignored existing U.S. laws that ban Russian oil imports, looked the other way on Russia aiding Iran during the ongoing U.S. war, and delivered diplomatic victories for Moscow — all in exchange for nothing except more deadly attacks.
On Wednesday morning, however, Trump finally claimed to have secured a concession of sorts from the Russian leader. In a statement published to his social media platform, the American president said Stephen Hubbard, a 74-year-old retired teacher who had been imprisoned by the Putin government, had been released from detention and was headed home.
After some pointless and gratuitous whining about the Biden administration, Trump wrote that Putin agreed to free Hubbard “out of respect” for the American president, adding that the United States “was not required to give anything in return — an unprecedented situation for Russia.”
Just 12 minutes later, the Republican published a follow-up item, which read, “Numerous people, who requested that sanctions be immediately imposed on Russia, have called to apologize to President Trump in that they didn’t know that he was negotiating the release of Stephen Hubbard, a truly big and important deal for the U.S. If sanctions would have been placed, certainly those negotiations would have come to a complete and total halt.”
Putting aside the fact that those calls of apology almost certainly didn’t happen in reality, the second message clearly contradicted the first. After saying his administration didn’t have to give Russia anything to secure Hubbard’s release, Trump effectively conceded that he had to waive sanctions on Russia in order to secure Hubbard’s release.
Hours later, at an unrelated White House event, he did it again.
TRUMP: We gave nothing in exchange for Stephen. We never give anything in exchange for hostages.TRUMP LITERALLY MOMENTS LATER: If I implemented sanctions on Russia, Steven wouldn't be coming out right now.
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-10-21T19:33:20.698Z
“We gave nothing in exchange, which is very rare,” the American president boasted. “We never give anything in exchange.” Moments later, he added that if he had implemented sanctions on Russia, as required by the U.S. law he recently signed, Hubbard “wouldn’t be coming out right now, he’d be in there for another 20 years.”
Trump seemed entirely oblivious to the obvious tension between claiming that he made no concessions, except for the concessions he made.
During a Wednesday afternoon Q&A with reporters, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins pressed him on this point, subtly trying to explain to Trump that, based on his own explanation, he obviously did give Putin something in return for Hubbard’s release.
Apparently frustrated by the cognitive dissonance, Trump decided to resolve the dispute by telling Collins, “You’re a low-IQ person. You’re a dummy.”
Hours later, Russia launched a new round of attacks on Ukraine’s capital, killing one person and wounding 22, as part of an assault that targeted civilians. A day earlier, Russia also unleashed another missile and drone blitz of civilian areas in Ukraine, killing at least four people.
As recently as Monday, Trump told reporters, “Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine, they haven’t been doing much.” The White House has not yet explained why the Republican routinely sounds like he’s reading from a script written by the Kremlin.
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President Donald Trump traveled to Iowa on Thursday, looking to energize his base as he touts a financial-support plan to reassure farmers, a key constituency that has been hit hard by rising prices.
It’s another campaign trip to a reliably red state that has become surprisingly competitive. Trump won Iowa three times — carrying it by 13 points in 2024 — but this year several Republicans are in tight races.
Returning to Iowa for the first time in nearly 10 months, Trump campaigned, in part, for Rep. Ashley Hinson, the GOP Senate hopeful who is running to fill retiring Republican Sen. Joni Ernst’s seat. Hinson and her Democratic rival, state Rep. Josh Turek, are almost neck and neck in polling averages from MS NOW/FiftyPlusOne.
“There are a number of Senate seats in play that we did not expect to be in play,” said Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster. “[Trump’s] record and his approach are likely to appeal much more to members of his base than they are to independent or swing voters.”
In Sioux City, Trump sought to appease Americans hurting from high fuel prices by announcing that his administration is using the Defense Production Act to release $150 million to increase U.S. refining capacity to produce more diesel and gas.
Trump spent the first few minutes of the rally railing against familiar political targets he has repeatedly invoked to rile up supporters at recent campaign stops, including Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. Speaking to Iowans, Trump claimed without providing evidence that Omar used a different name to get elected and sworn into Congress, a claim the congresswoman’s spokesperson has publicly denied.
As the president attacked Omar and argued she should resign, his supporters chanted, “Lock her up.”
The president also spoke at length about a controversial attack ad by Ohio GOP gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy targeting his rival, Democrat Amy Acton. The ad features Acton’s estranged mother saying her daughter lied about being sexually assaulted by her stepfather. Trump told supporters that he asked Ramaswamy to keep running the ad and to “look upstairs and say thank you, God, very much.”
And Trump, who frequently talks about running again in 2028 — despite the Constitution’s two-term limit — again bragged he would beat any opponent if he ran, but acknowledged that, after studying the law, he has learned that there was “not a lot of wiggle room” to allow him to seek another term.
“I think I have the right to run again because they cheated,” Trump said, repeating repeating his false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.
Thursday’s rally at Sioux Gateway Airport is the first of at least two planned visits to Iowa by the president in the final stretch of the midterms. The president’s campaign blitz in typically Republican strongholds reflects shifts in the political landscape in a midterm that initially favored the GOP.
“The problem right now is that people perceive that the economy is not better, and inflation has not only not come down, but it’s higher,” Ayres said.
A GOP strategist familiar with Republicans’ thinking in the midterms, granted anonymity to speak freely about internal strategies, told MS NOW the president’s visits to some of the reddest districts in states like Iowa in the final days of the campaign are part of a deliberate strategy to maximize turnout by loyal Trump voters in key races.
“Specifically, the 4th District, where we’re deploying him, is the heart of the base, the heart of Republican support,” the strategist said. “If we can churn out our base voters in that area, Democrats’ path to winning the state just shrinks dramatically.”
Seeking to address the financial hardships hitting major agricultural states like Iowa, the Trump administration has announced an $8 billion relief package for farmers and construction plans for a $15 billion steel plant in the state. The president himself has also touted new foreign trade deals to export American farm products and other efforts to boost farmers and ranchers.
But some farmers MS NOW spoke to say Trump’s trade deals have made little impact on their businesses as their operating costs have increased from rising diesel and fertilizer prices. And the president’s announcement that he would lower tariffs on ground beef from Argentina earlier this year came as a blow to the state’s cattle industry, with both Hinson and Turek calling the policy a bad idea.
Craig Moss, a fifth-generation cattle and hog farmer from Hull, about 50 miles north of Sioux City, told MS NOW the volatile cattle market had been “rough” in the past year, in part because of the president’s lifting of tariffs on Argentine ground beef.
“Trump makes a trade deal with Argentina, and then when he’s questioned about it by reporters, he says, ‘You don’t know anything about what’s going on over there,’” Moss said. “Well, sir, you don’t know anything about the cattle market.”
Moss said the current diesel price “kind of stinks,” adding that the ongoing Iran war was to blame. Still, Moss, who voted for Trump in the past, said he agreed with the president on most issues and did not regret voting for him before.
Julius Schaaf, a corn-and-soybean farmer of more than 40 years based in Fremont County, voted against Trump in past elections and said the current volatility in the farming industry was because of Trump’s trade policies. Schaaf criticized the administration as a “rude and difficult” trading partner.
“A lot of the people that supported him were farmers that have a lot of equity in their property, and they can weather a storm for a while,” Schaaf said. “But you talk to the young guys that are just getting started and trying to buy inputs and inputs have gone through the roof — they’re the ones that are really struggling.”
Vice President JD Vance addressed some of those concerns last month at a rally in the state, telling supporters that the Trump administration’s trade and tax policies have directly benefited farmers and blue-collar workers. He has also sought to show understanding of economic realities, acknowledging the high cost of gas and telling voters “we’re working on it.” Trump, for his part, has at times downplayed those concerns, calling the focus on affordability a “hoax” and insisting that prices would plummet once the Iran war ends.
Many Iowans across the political spectrum whom MS NOW spoke with agreed that their No. 1 concern was the cost of living. And while Trump’s performance got mixed reviews, they still had not decided how they would vote in the Senate and House races.
Tiffany, an Iowa voter who backed Trump in 2024, plans to vote in the midterm races but said she is currently undecided. Her top issue: the cost of living, she said, because “prices keep going up.”
“If you can’t afford to put gas in your car, how can you go to work to make money to put a roof over your head to put food on your table?” said Tiffany, who asked to go by her first name only. “You can only stretch your penny and your dollars so far until you can’t stretch it anymore.”
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WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump and cabinet officials held a roundtable at the White House on Wednesday to highlight the administration's progress in combating cybercrime, including preventing $1.6 billion in losses and cracking down on sexual extortion.
The post Trump at Roundtable Details Administration’s Crackdown on Cybercrime appeared first on Breitbart.
Rep. Ilhan Omar revealed new details about last week’s federal raid on her home in Washington, D.C., which she said was “designed” to intimidate her. The Minnesota Democrat sat down with MS NOW’s Chris Hayes on Wednesday for her first interview since federal agents searched her residence as part of an ongoing criminal investigation.
Omar, who is the first Somali American member of Congress, said she had returned home from traveling and was only asleep for 2 1/2 hours before she was awakened by agents “pounding on the doors” on Oct. 12. The congresswoman told Hayes her first thought was that “something was on fire.”
“You don’t show up to somebody’s house that early in the morning unless you’re trying to freak them out. And you know it obviously did freak all of us out,” Omar said.
“It sounded like an urgent evacuation sort-of situation,” she added. “So it took us a while to figure out what was actually happening.”
When her husband opened the door, Omar said she was presented with a warrant. She also said she was asked to sign a document waiving protections provided to her in the Constitution as a member of Congress. Omar declined.
“That was obnoxious. I couldn’t understand why they would think that I would sign such a thing,” she said.
During the raid, which Omar said lasted four to five hours and involved as many as 25 agents, the authorities “mostly conducted themselves in a decent way” as they searched the home for items in compliance with the warrant, the congresswoman said.
Omar said the federal agents seized her phone, an old phone, her youngest daughter’s old phone, her husband’s notebooks and a camera he had received from his uncle. She also said they took a Somali phrase book for children, which her husband was using to learn the language.
The Democrat said she was “surprised” when she was handed a receipt for the items.
“To walk away with 17 items of, like, 10 that were just notebooks and like old phones was such a bizarre, bizarre thing,” she said.
Asked about the raid on Omar’s house, the Justice Department told MS NOW in a statement last week that Homeland Security Investigations “executed a judicially authorized search warrant” and said it was “part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation.”
A source told MS NOW the warrant listed potential violations involving immigration fraud, false statements in immigration proceedings and conspiracy. According to CNN, which cites people familiar with the probe, investigators are looking into whether Omar or her late father made false statements about her age during the citizenship process.
Omar arrived in the United States in March 1995 at the age of 12 after fleeing the civil war in Somalia and spending four years in a refugee camp in Kenya. She later became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2000 at 17.
“The people who knocked on my door, searching for papers, literally have his papers,” Omar told Hayes of her father on Wednesday. “They are the ones who processed us to come to the United States.”
While she said she takes the matter “seriously,” she doesn’t believe the federal government has a case to prosecute her.
“It would be a huge undertaking to, I suppose, indict a 12-year-old for being so cleverly conspiring to defraud immigration services to come to the United States,” she said. “I’m sure there are a lot of smart 12-year-olds, but that seems like a leap.”
This isn’t the first time Omar’s immigration status has been scrutinized. The Washington Post reported that in 2019, during President Donald Trump’s first term, a political appointee asked immigration authorities to look into Omar’s records for any evidence of fraud. But Homeland Security Investigations, the investigative arm of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, found insufficient evidence of wrongdoing to open a full investigation, according to the report.
Omar also told Hayes she did not know about the 2019 probe until she “saw it in The Washington Post reporting a couple of days ago.”
“I did hear that they opened, that there was an opening of my immigration file, but I didn’t know to the extent of what the opening of my investigation meant and who opened it,” she said.
The Wall Street Journal reported the Biden administration also looked into Omar but declined to move forward due to lack of evidence.
When asked if she believes Trump has nothing to do with the ongoing investigation into her, Omar told Hayes, “Absolutely not.”
“He’s got everything to do with it,” she said of Trump, pointing to reported efforts by his first administration to investigate her.
Trump and Omar have had a long-standing, contentious relationship. In 2019, the president attacked Omar and three other Democratic congresswomen in a series of tweets telling them to “go back” to the countries they came from. At a rally days later, Trump criticized Omar by name as the crowd chanted “Send her back.”
Over the years, Trump has frequently repeated unproven rumors about the congresswoman’s personal life, including her immigration status and an unproven conspiracy theory that she had married her brother to bypass U.S. laws.
In 2025, Omar told The Guardian she believes Trump has an “unhealthy and creepy obsession” with her.
Omar told Hayes she suspects the raid was partly the president making good on his promise after years of threatening the congresswoman.
“They’ve done this sort of full press where they kept alluding to the fact that something was going to happen to me,” she said. “And I think a lot of their right-wing influencers, who seem to have direct connection to not just the president but his orbit, I think they were starting to lose faith that these were empty promises and they had to do something. I believe to say, ‘Hey, look, we raided her house.’”
The 44-year-old and mother of three has spoken openly about the surge of death threats she has received since taking office. She told Hayes that she and her family will have to move from their home due to the highly publicized raid.
“Obviously, I can’t continue to live there,” she said. “So we have to figure out where to move to because our address has been public, and with the death threats that I deal with, it’s no longer going to be feasible to be in that house and have my kids visiting off and on, having people track them.”
Despite the challenges, the congresswoman said she would not let the president’s efforts break her.
“In my faith teachings, we believe that God doesn’t give you more than you can handle,” she said. “I think I’m designed uniquely by God to withstand all of this.”
Omar said she was “confident” in her truth that she did nothing wrong and told Hayes she believed the justice system would prevail.
“If I continue to stand up to bullies and people who are carrying out ungodly corruption, I’m going to be okay,” she said.
This story has been updated to include additional information.
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Top Democrats and allied organizations filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against President Donald Trump and his administration over their attempts to stymie the midterm elections, including by removing voters from state rolls.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., were among the plaintiffs who filed the suit against Trump, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security in the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia. The 44-page complaint takes aim at recent demands from DHS — notably in Nevada and California — that states review lists compiled by federal officials of alleged noncitizen voters.
As the complaint notes, state officials have disputed the accuracy of those lists.
The lawsuit points to Trump’s Truth Social threat earlier this week threatening that election officials in LA County “will all go to jail for a long period of time!!!” if they count the votes of alleged noncitizens. It cites another from U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas Aaron Reitz, who said in a social media post on Monday that he would “hunt” and “prosecute” anyone who violates federal election law.
“DOJ’s recent actions confirm that Defendants have settled on a course of intimidating state election officials with threats of criminal prosecution for doing nothing more than adhering to state law and distributing ballots to registered voters,” states the complaint, filed 13 days before the midterms.
The filing alleges the administration’s efforts to wrest control of elections from the states, combined with federal officials’ threats toward local and state officials, violate the Voting Rights Act and constitutional principles that prevent the federal government from forcing states to enact, administer or enforce federal laws.
In addition to Schumer and Jeffries, the plaintiffs include the Democrats’ House and Senate campaign arms, the Democratic Governors Association, the Nevada Democratic Party and Erick Jose Jimenez, a registered California voter who the lawsuit says became a naturalized citizen 20 years ago but fears he could be falsely labeled as a noncitizen and “unlawfully targeted” as a result.
The defendants also include Attorney General Todd Blanche, who has said he would “absolutely” consider taking the issue to the Supreme Court; and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who has said his department will penalize states that do not cooperate with the federal government’s demands. The plaintiffs are asking the court to find the defendants in violation of the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act and to block them from continuing those actions.
“None of this is lawful,” the complaint states. “The Executive Branch enjoys no authority to superintend state voter list maintenance, to supplant state determinations of who is qualified to vote, or to dictate who gets a ballot or whose ballot gets segregated — Congress has kept that responsibility with the States, subject only to a narrow civil enforcement power the administration has declined to invoke during its recent efforts.”
The lawsuit represents the latest challenge to the administration’s efforts to compel states to hand over their voter rolls, which federal courts have also unanimously struck down. Democrats and elections experts have said these efforts could undermine trust in the upcoming elections. But federal officials have persisted, including by filing a lawsuit against California election officials last week.
Trump administration officials slammed the allegations included in the latest lawsuit.
White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said “Democrats and the media continue to dismiss concerns about voter fraud,“ adding, “The Trump Administration is taking decisive lawful action to protect our elections including prosecuting election crimes, strengthening election infrastructure security, and protecting vulnerable voters from fraud and coercion.”
DOJ spokesperson Kirsten Pels said “election integrity is a top priority” for the administration, adding, “Every action the Department has taken to protect the integrity of this year’s elections is grounded in the law and being litigated in open court. Ensuring that only eligible citizens vote and that every lawful ballot is counted a requirement of federal law.”
A spokesperson for DHS called the lawsuit “another political stunt by Democrats.”
The case has been assigned to Chief Judge James “Jeb” Boasberg, an Obama appointee who presided over the first lawsuit challenging the deportation and imprisonment of alleged Tren de Aragua gang members. During an emergency hearing in March 2025, Boasberg ordered that no additional flights to El Salvador could take off; Trump subsequently called him a “Radical Left Lunatic.”
Boasberg was also the subject of a judicial misconduct complaint filed by then-Attorney General Pam Bondi’s chief of staff in July 2025, based on his alleged comments during a panel conversation at the annual Judicial Conference. According to the complaint, Boasberg predicted that the administration “would ‘disregard rulings of federal courts’ and trigger ‘a constitutional crisis.’” The chief judge of the 6th Circuit, Jeffrey Sutton, dismissed that complaint earlier this year.
Lisa Rubin and Selena Kuznikov contributed to this report.
CORRECTION (Oct. 21, 2026, 10:31 p.m. ET):
A previous version of this article misrepresented a statement from White House spokesperson Lauren Bis. Bis claimed that “Democrats and the media” dismiss concerns about voter fraud, but she did not herself dismiss voter fraud concerns.
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Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito further distanced themselves from their Supreme Court colleagues on Wednesday when they were the only two jurists to note their objections to the court’s refusal to let the Trump administration immediately enforce its preferred policy on gender-affirming care in prison.
The court’s unsigned order contained no explanation from the majority or the dissenting duo. Still, it’s the latest data point showing Thomas and Alito backing the administration even when their fellow GOP appointees — including President Donald Trump’s own three appointees — decline to do so.
Wednesday’s order follows last month’s Supreme Court rejection of Trump’s desired mail-ballot restrictions for the midterm elections. That loss led the president to lash out at the court, including his own appointees, while calling Thomas and Alito “legends.”
Asked during a recently published CBS News interview about a Wall Street Journal study showing that Alito sided with Trump more than any of his colleagues, the justice said he’s “not trying to decide cases to help President Trump.”
Whatever his or Thomas’ intentions, their latest actions spotlight their dynamic of voting for the president’s position when other justices don’t. Their votes come ahead of the rapidly approaching Election Day in less than two weeks, with voters set to determine which party will control Senate confirmation of justices for the near future.
Alito said he’s staying on the court at least through this court term, even if Democrats win back Senate control. Thomas has likewise not signaled that he is stepping down imminently. If he stays on the court through the next term, he will become the longest-serving justice ever. In their late 70s, Thomas and Alito are the two eldest members of the current court, but they aren’t very old by the court’s historical standards.
Yet if Trump has an opportunity to appoint their successors or any other justices before he leaves office in 2029, their latest votes underscore why he will likely model his next selection(s) on them, rather than on the justices he has put on the bench thus far, who have backed him in a series of significant cases but not all of them.
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By any fair measure, Donald Trump’s second term has been brutal for the Federal Emergency Management Agency for a variety of reasons. At the heart of the problem is the president’s stated determination not merely to brazenly politicize federal disaster aid, but to destroy the agency altogether, for reasons he has struggled to explain.
In May 2025, then-acting FEMA chief Cameron Hamilton testified before Congress that it would be in the public’s interest if FEMA continued to exist. He was fired the next day, because Hamilton’s line was at odds with Trump’s stated position, which is that FEMA should be destroyed and states left to their own devices.
A year later, after quite a few acting FEMA administrators had come and gone, the president made an unexpected move: He brought Hamilton back for a second stint, and the Senate confirmed him soon after.
I can’t help but notice that Hamilton’s position is far more in line with the White House’s than it was early last year. Politico reported:
The Trump administration’s disaster chief told state officials Tuesday they must increase their financial reserves and emergency capabilities to handle most disasters on their own, without federal help.
Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Cameron Hamilton gave unprecedented detail at a conference in Little Rock, Arkansas, about the administration’s long-planned shift of disaster responsibilities to states.
“Every state must have the appropriate financial reserves” and other abilities “to ensure that recovery efforts can start immediately and not necessarily be held up simply because of the federal [disaster] declaration process,” Hamilton said, according to a recording of his remarks obtained by Politico.
“A future that I hope we would shoot for is one where we wouldn’t require as many disasters because the capability of states is so high and so substantial,” Hamilton added, referring to presidential authorizations of federal disaster aid.
Whether the current FEMA chief is allowed to say so or not, the Trump-backed model that Hamilton endorsed will not and cannot work. State and local governments simply do not have the wherewithal — financial resources, personnel, equipment, etc. — to respond to major disasters. It’s why FEMA was created in the first place: The federal government can marshal effective responses before and after a crisis in ways others cannot.
As Politico’s report added, Eric Holdeman, a longtime emergency management official, wrote on LinkedIn on Monday in response to Hamilton’s memo, “There are many states with [minuscule] emergency management offices and budgets. There are states with slim rainy-day funds and no capacity to make up for a lack of federal disaster recovery funds — without RAISING TAXES!”
Holdeman added, “Reducing the number of federal disaster declarations will be difficult and its implementation will be impossible! All Presidents, not just the one we have today, will ignore such a policy when it becomes politically expedient to do so.”
Nevertheless, in the leaked audio recording of Hamilton’s comments, the FEMA administrator said to expect changes to get underway in earnest “in the next six months.”
If there’s a Democratic Congress next year, it’s a safe bet that the administration will get meaningful pushback long before such plans are implemented. Watch this space.
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