BY MATT BERG & CROOKED MEDIA |
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And now, the end is near. And so I face the final curtain.”
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The Trump team’s secretive outreach to Jeffrey Epstein’s closest confidant looks shady as hell — and could blow up in Trump’s face, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) exclusively told What A Day.
- Most convicted felons serving 20 years for their part in an infamous sex trafficking conspiracy don’t spend their afternoons receiving special emissaries from the president. In fact, it’s likely none ever has before — until today, when President Donald Trump dispatched his former personal criminal defense lawyer, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, to meet in person (and in private) with Ghislaine Maxwell, the former right-hand woman to deceased child sex predator Jeffrey Epstein, in Tallahassee, Florida.
- The decision to send someone so senior, and so close to Trump, struck many as both highly unusual and downright suspicious. Ghislaine is attempting a longshot appeal to the Supreme Court and was just subpoenaed to testify before Congress about what she knows. And she just took a meeting orchestrated by the only person in America with the unique presidential authority to pardon her out of prison, whenever he wants.
- “This just smells bad,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), a former prosecutor and longtime Trump critic, told What A Day. “They’re gonna have this secret meeting with Epstein's closest confidant, and then we're supposed to believe what comes out of it?… It's just going to raise so many more questions than it answers.”
- Trump has good reason to want a sneak-peak of Ghislaine’s testimony. Trump’s name appears in the mysterious Epstein files, according to multiple outlets. The timing of her planned August 11 appearance in Congress couldn’t be worse for Trump, who suspiciously wants to keep all the records sealed. Is it possible Blanche might offer Maxwell a sweetheart deal in exchange for her shutting up?
- Blanche tweeted earlier this week that he wanted to ask Maxwell: “What do you know?” After the meeting today, Maxwell’s lawyer said she answered all Blanche’s questions without invoking her Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.
- “This is so strange,” Schiff told What A Day. “I’ve never seen anything like it … [Blanche] is acting now like he’s the president’s criminal defense lawyer. A top Justice Department official doesn’t go to prison to talk to some convict about their case. That just doesn't happen. But he's going to represent Donald Trump.”
The problem isn’t going away for Trump, especially now that it has officially entered mainstream culture.
- “South Park” aired a new episode last night that included a scene of Trump laying in bed… with Satan. “It’s weird that whenever [the Epstein case] comes up, you just tell everyone to relax,” cartoon Satan tells the cartoon Trump.
- That episode struck a nerve at the White House — showing how fraught this scandal has become. “The Left’s hypocrisy truly has no end — for years they have come after South Park for what they labeled as ‘offense’ [sic] content, but suddenly they are praising the show,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in a statement to What A Day. “Just like the creators of South Park, the Left has no authentic or original content, which is why their popularity continues to hit record lows.”
- I don’t typically include the entirety of long, rambling denunciations that I receive from the Trump administration. But this statement is so hilariously unhinged that, I think, you’d wanna see this: “This show hasn’t been relevant for over 20 years and is hanging on by a thread with uninspired ideas in a desperate attempt for attention,” Rogers continued. “President Trump has delivered on more promises in just six months than any other president in our country’s history — and no fourth-rate show can derail President Trump’s hot streak.”
Everyone knows that Trump cares soooo much about how he’s portrayed on television. Props to “South Park” for not pulling punches — just hours after Paramount paid $1.25 billion for the show’s streaming rights!
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Israel and the U.S. pulled out of Israel-Hamas ceasefire talks. “Hamas does not appear to be coordinated or acting in good faith,” special envoy Steve Witkoff told reporters today. “We will now consider alternative options to bring the hostages home and try to create a more stable environment for the people of Gaza.” Whatever that means!
On that note, humanitarian groups have stacked up in warehouses 420,000 pallets of aid intended to help starving Palestinians in Gaza, because Israel won’t allow the supplies inside the territory, according to the Oxfam aid organization. That’s enough to cover 101 football fields, the group estimates. “Despite the false claims that are being spread, the State of Israel does not limit the number of humanitarian aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip,” an Israeli security official told What A Day.
ICE is ramping up efforts to shackle more than 180,000 migrants with GPS ankle monitors, according to the Washington Post. That applies to people enrolled in the agency’s Alternatives to Detention program, who had consented to monitoring while they wait for their cases to be resolved. Only 24,000 people in the program currently wear ankle monitors.
The White House denied Gov. Wes Moore’s (D-MD) request for $16 million in FEMA assistance after floods ripped through Maryland earlier in May, with no explanation. A day earlier, Trump officials approved disaster relief for Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan and West Virginia.
Former President Joe Biden secured a roughly $10 million advance for his memoir, the Wall Street Journal reports. For comparison, books by Barack and Michelle Obama were reportedly sold for around $60 million as a package deal, and Bill Clinton’s memoir sold for $15 million.
French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, are suing right-wing influencer Candance Owens for defamation over her repeated accusations that Brigitte is a man. “She mocked our efforts to set the record straight,” the Macron’s lawyer said. “Enough is enough, it was time to hold her accountable.”
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FRIEND (OF THE POD) ZONE
What’s it really like to be a lawyer in the White House Counsel’s Office? On the latest episode of Inside 2025, Strict Scrutiny host Kate Shaw and Protect Democracy’s Ian Bassin pull back the curtain on the challenges government lawyers face — including inheriting legal and ethical messes from prior administrations. They also unpack how Trump shattered long-standing DOJ norms and what it’ll take to rebuild the department’s independence. To hear the full conversation, get bonus content, and support progressive media, head to crooked.com/friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts.
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France will recognize Palestine as a state, Macron announced today. That’s a massive development: France becomes the only member of the Group of Seven (which also includes the U.S., Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the U.K.) to do so — even though the vast majority of other countries around the world have recognized Palestine for years.
A federal appeals court ruled that the Trump administration’s attempt to end birthright citizenship is unconstitutional, affirming a lower court’s ruling. It’s possible that the Supreme Court might again consider the birthright citizenship issue if courts continue striking down Trump’s actions.
The internet is getting a kick out of a picture of a Chuck E. Cheese employee — dressed in the head-to-toe mouse costume — getting arrested in Tallahassee. The man-mouse was charged with credit card theft and criminal use of personal ID information. Fingers crossed that this wasn’t in the middle of a birthday party!!
The internet is also laughing at a little-known government program… which allows Americans to Venmo the Treasury Department to help pay off the U.S. debt. It’s funny because the U.S. debt is over $36 trillion — and grows around $55,000 every second, according to Axios. It took the outlet 1 minute and 20 seconds to Venmo the government, during which the debt would’ve grown $4.4 million. Every little bit helps, I guess?
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