Former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg was interviewed on Friday at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin. When asked by The Atlantic’s Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg whether he believed Vice President JD Vance to be a “fascist,” Buttigieg replied with a withering critique. x x YouTube Video Buttigieg: If it's convenient for him to be a fascist, he'll be a fascist. Maybe later on, he'll go back to being a Silicon Valley Democrat. He'll be whatever he needs to be. Right? I mean, this is a guy who went from Donald Trump is Hitler—that’s what he said—to I have seen the error of my ways. He’ll be something new later on, maybe. Related | It sure seems like JD Vance doesn't give a sh-t about his family

President Donald Trump is panicking about an impending House vote on releasing the Epstein files. In a Truth Social post Friday morning, Trump called the Republicans who plan to vote in support of the release «weak,» «soft,» and «foolish.»  And White House aides have suggested that any Republicans who vote to release the files can kiss goodbye to any future endorsements from the president. GOP Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, for example, was seeking Trump's endorsement in a crowded Republican gubernatorial primary. But given that she seems to support releasing the Epstein files, she likely won’t get it. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky speaks with fellow Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, both of whom support the release of the Epstein files. “Helping Democrats deflect from Republican success is not a good GOP primary election strategy,” an unnamed White House official told NOTUS. But Trump's threats don’t seem to be working. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky said that his fellow GOP lawmakers are telling him privately that they plan to vote in favor of the bill, which Massie co-authored with Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California. Massie and Khanna had to resort to a discharge petition to get the bill to the floor, as House Speaker Mike Johnson was running cover for Trump and refused to put it up for a vote.  The discharge petition reached a majority of signatures on Wednesday after Johnson finally swore in Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva of Arizona.  Massie also told Republicans that this is not the issue to cave to Trump on. “The deal for Republicans on this vote is that Trump will protect you if you vote the wrong way. In other words if you vote to cover up for pedophiles you've got cover in a Republican primary,« he told CNN. »But I would remind my colleagues that this vote is going to be on your record for  longer than Trump is going to be president. And what are you going to do in 2028 and 2030 when you’re in a debate either with a Republican or a Democrat and they say, ‘how can we trust you, you covered up for a pedophile back in 2025?’” It's unclear why Trump is so adamant on keeping the files hidden, especially since he insists that he is not implicated in them. However, a trove of emails released by House Democrats Wednesday show Epstein claiming that Trump knew about the girls he trafficked and even spent time with them at Epstein’s home. A cartoon by Pedro Molina. Indeed, Courier Newsroom released a searchable database Friday, providing access to the 20,000 documents in which Trump is mentioned in more than 1,600 of them. Perhaps that’s why Trump is doing everything in his power to not only stop the vote but to change the subject, like his Thursday announcement of new military action in South America. But that plan is unlikely to work, as Republicans who traditionally back Trump are breaking with him on the Epstein files and are even planning a media blitz with Epstein survivors next week. «Many of the victims of Jeffrey Epstein were abused as teenagers. And this information should have come out a long time ago! The American people deserve full transparency into who was involved in these horrific acts,” GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia wrote on X. “I believe the victims. They along with their attorneys have told me numerous times that President Trump is NOT implicated in this.”  She concluded, “I stand with these women and all victims of sexual abuse. It is a shame our government is working harder to protect pedophiles than they are fighting for the victims! These women deserve our fight!!»

Support my Patreon for early access and exclusives. Follow me on Mastodon, Bluesky, or at my website. Related | Enough Senate Democrats appear ready to cave on the shutdown—for nothing

A daily roundup of the best stories and cartoons by Daily Kos staff and contributors to keep you in the know. Trump suddenly declares military operation as Epstein scandal reignites Talk about a deadly distraction. How screwed is the GOP in 2026? One upcoming election may tell us. Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District could be a bellwether. Trump basically admits his tariffs are raising grocery prices Certain items will get exemptions from Trump's moronic tariffs in an effort to lower costs. Cartoon: On second thought ... Donald Trump is probably wishing the government was still shut down. Federal workers can kiss free speech goodbye in Trump's America Speaking up will get you a pink slip. DOJ gets green light on bogus case against ICE-protesting Democrat The Trump administration’s retaliatory prosecutions continue. Mike Johnson has run out of Epstein excuses The House speaker can’t delay a vote any longer. Click here to see more cartoons.

The latest sham investigation by Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte, based on sham invocations of mortgage fraud, just got referred to the Department of Justice so that Mr. Weaponization Working Group himself, Ed Martin, can likely kick off a sham prosecution. This time, it’s California Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell. Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell of California So weird that these totally neutral and fair investigations just happen to always converge on people Trump perceives as his enemies, right? What are the odds? It’s especially weird given that Pulte really needed to look no farther than his own father and stepmother to locate the kind of mortgage arrangements he insists are fraudulent.  Oh hello, Pulte’s daddy. It looks like you and your wife just happen to be claiming two homestead exemptions, one in Michigan, and one in Florida. Neat trick, really. Dad claimed one exemption, stepmom claimed the other, and that little bit of what Pulte says is prosecutable fraud when anyone else does it likely saved his parents an estimated $158,000 in taxes for 2025 alone.  But now, if Federal Reserve Board of Governor member Lisa Cook did that, it is for sure fraud, right? Federal Reserve Board of Governor member Lisa Cook Hmm. Well, that’s just his parents. They’re not part of the administration, and definitely no one in Trump’s administration would have any sort of untoward mortgage arrangements.  Well, except for Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has two primary residences, one in Bedford Hills, New York, and one in Provincetown, Massachusetts.  Oh, and except for Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who did two primary residence mortgages back to back in a hurry, including one for her second home in Arizona. Oh also, and except for Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who has a primary residence in New Jersey and another one in Washington, D.C. Sorry, wait, one more. Environmental Protection Agency Director Lee Zeldin has one primary residence in Long Island and another in D.C.  When faced with the fact that multiple Cabinet members have the same type of mortgage arrangements that Pulte says was criminal behavior when undertaken by anyone with a (D) after their name, the White House went with one of its blustery, fact-free denials. “This is just another hit piece from a left-wing dark money group that constantly attempts to smear President Trump’s incredible Cabinet members. Unlike [Fed Gov.] Lisa ‘Corrupt’ Cook who blatantly and intentionally committed mortgage fraud, Secretary DeRemer, Secretary Duffy, and Administrator Zeldin own multiple residences, and they have followed the law and they are fully compliant with all ethical obligations,” the White House said in a statement to ProPublica. Show your work. New York Attorney General Letitia James Oh hello again, Pulte’s daddy. Did you rent out one of your primary exemption homestead homes this year? Whoopsie, that’s super illegal, and is what your son determined was completely fraudtastic behavior on the part of New York Attorney General Letitia James.  Now, thanks to Interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, always the number one Florida insurance lawyer in our hearts, the DOJ did score an indictment against James, though it appears to be rapidly falling apart. James’ mortgage contract did not prohibit renting and it also looks like Halligan may have just withheld exculpatory evidence from the grand jury to get that indictment. There are no guardrails left to stop Pulte, however, as once the Fannie Mae watchdogs started looking into whether Pulte improperly obtained mortgage records of Democrats Trump hates, they referred it up to the Office of the Inspector General for FHFA, and then the acting inspector general sent it to the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Eastern District of Virginia and … we’re back to Halligan.  So, the ethics and internal investigation folks at Fannie Mae were fired and then Trump fired FHFA’s acting inspector general, just for good measure. That’s one way to solve it. Nothing is going to stand in the way of Pulte using his position improperly to gin up sham charges that just somehow happen to be things that are totally fine when Republicans—like his daddy—do them. 

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House Democrats on Wednesday released emails from Jeffrey Epstein, in which the deceased financier accused of child sex trafficking said that President Donald Trump «knew about the girls» and that Trump even “spent hours« at Epstein's house with one of the victims. The emails are the biggest proof yet that Trump—who has denied knowledge of Epstein's sex trafficking and called the scandal surrounding the files a “hoax”—is lying about his involvement in Epstein's crimes as he seeks to block the files the government has on his former friend from ever becoming public. Based on the emails released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, it’s easy to see why Trump doesn’t want the documents to be seen. In one email from 2011 that Epstein sent to convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein wrote: »i want you to realize that that dog that hasn't barked is trump.” x🚨BREAKING: Oversight Dems have received new emails from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate that raise serious questions about Donald Trump and his knowledge of Epstein’s horrific crimes. Read them for yourself. It’s time to end this cover-up and RELEASE THE FILES.— Oversight Dems (@oversightdemocrats.house.gov) 2025-11-12T13:31:14.921Z Epstein added that a victim, whose name the Oversight Committee redacted, “spent hours at my house with” Trump. In another email exchange from 2015—when Trump was first running for president—reporter Michael Wolff told Epstein that Trump could get a debate question about his relationship with Epstein.  When Epstein asked Wolff how Trump should respond to such a question, Wolff replied: «I think you should let him hang himself. If he says he hasn't been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency. You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you, or, if it really looks like he could win, you could save him, generating a debt. Of course, it is possible that, when asked, he'll say Jeffrey is a great guy and has gotten a raw deal and is a victim of political correctness, which is to be outlawed in a Trump regime.» And in a third email from 2019 to Wolff, Epstein wrote about a victim who was at Mar-a-Lago, saying of Trump, «of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop.» “Oversight Dems have released serious and disturbing emails today about the Trump and Epstein relationship,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), ranking member of the Oversight Committee, wrote in a post on X. “An email from Epstein alleges Trump ‘spent hours at my house’ with a victim. We won’t stop until we end this White House cover-up. Release the files, NOW.” Democrats released the emails on the same day that a discharge petition—which will force a vote on a bill that would require Trump to release the Epstein files—is set to gain the required number of signatures. That's because House Speaker Mike Johnson is finally going to swear in Arizona Democratic Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, who will be the 218th signature on the petition, giving it a majority. Johnson had refused to swear Grijalva in for nearly two months, keeping the House out of session in order to have an excuse to now seat the Arizona Democrat so that the discharge petition would not get a majority. But now that the House is returning after an insane eight-week-long recess, Johnson has to swear Grijalva in, and the discharge petition clock will begin. That means the House will vote on whether to release the files in the coming weeks, likely in early December. Republicans will have to decide whether to do what polls say voters want and vote to release the files, or instead vote to protect Trump, as Dear Leader demands.

A cartoon by Mike Luckovich. Related | Epstein files vote on the horizon as shutdown nears end

The Trump administration is really, really into offshore oil and gas drilling, but maybe not so much where Republicans have to actually see it. Hence the plan to force California to accept oil rigs dotting its shores and doing some cool oil spills while sparing states like Florida.  Surely it’s just a coincidence that this move targets a blue state with a governor who President Donald Trump hates while giving the red state where Trump lives a pass, right? Offshore drilling in state waters has been banned in California since 1969, after a huge oil spill near Santa Barbara. But state waters only extend three miles from shore, so anything after that is apparently fair game for federal drilling. No new leases have been issued since the mid-1980s, but Trump is here to change that.  Clean up crews remove oil-laden sand on the beach at Refugio State Beach, site of an oil spill, north of Goleta, Calif., on May 20, 2015. Part of how you know what a trash deal this is, just a way to target California while rewarding some pals, is that the company the administration is backing for this, Sable Offshore, is already an environmental nightmare in the state. Sable owns a pipeline in California, having purchased it from the previous owner.  Did we mention that before Sable bought it, the thing sprang a 140,000-gallon leak and trashed beaches from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles? Sable bought it and was apparently so eager to start that it overlooked obtaining permits, for which the California Coastal Commission fined it $18 million. The California state attorney general recently sued Sable on behalf of the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, thanks to Sable’s habit of discharging waste into state waterways. And the Santa Barbara district attorney filed felony criminal charges against the company in September for the harm it has caused to wildlife and the pollution of the state’s waterways.  It will surprise literally no one that Sable’s CEO, James Flores, has ties to Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. So, since Sable is being thwarted by California for state drilling, why not get the nod from the administration for federal drilling off California’s shores instead? Sable dropped them a line to see if they couldn’t pretty please get some expedited permitting so they can drill in federal waters. Trump with Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. Somehow all of this enthusiasm for drilling is more muted when it might happen along a red state coastline. South Carolina’s governor just wrote to the administration to ask to be exempt from Trump’s plan to open both the East and West Coasts up to offshore drilling, because their coastline is pristine.  Trump had already helpfully put a moratorium on drilling off of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina during his first term because Republicans in those states were concerned about oil spills hurting tourism and fishing. Florida’s GOP senators want a little more reassurance, though, so they’ve proposed a law banning offshore drilling for just Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina.  Environmental catastrophe for me, but not for thee.  The whole thing feels akin to the 2024 survey on the glorious return of manufacturing to American shores, in which 80% of Americans agreed with the statement that “America would be better off if more people worked in manufacturing.” Switch that to “I would be better off if I worked in a factory,” and that number plummets to 25%.  The administration’s enthusiastic embrace of fossil fuels keeps running into a big problem, which is that even fossil fuel companies are not as enamored of the whole thing as Trump is.  The L.A. Times spoke with Dan Pickering, head of a Houston-based investment firm, who said energy companies will likely be eager to pay for new drilling leases off Louisiana and Texas, where they already have infrastructure, but California gets a big meh. “California is going to have either no interest or very low interest, with a much smaller subset of players.”  Clark Williams-Derry, another energy industry analyst, told the L.A. Times that “Nobody really wants offshore oil, except for maybe Texas and Louisiana. In my mind, this is at least in part politically motivated rather than substantively motivated.” You don’t say.  Trump has the same problem with coal, which is that even coal companies don’t really want it. A recent attempt to get coal companies to bite at the opportunity to mine on public land in Montana drew a bid of a fraction of a penny per ton of coal. Companies that own coal-fired plants want to shut them down and phase them out, but instead, the administration is forcing them to stay open.  And now, perhaps, California gets forced to accept offshore rigs and all the risk of oil spills that they bring. But never the pristine shoreline of South Carolina or Georgia, and certainly never ever in Florida.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took time away from overseeing unjustified air strikes against alleged drug boats to revisit another of his battlefronts: the war on beards. "Whether you're an airborne ranger or a chair-borne ranger, a brand-new private or a four-star general in the Pentagon—you need to beat height and weight standards and pass the PT [physical training] test twice a year,” Hegseth said at the Northeast Indiana Defense Summit on Wednesday. “I also said we don't need to be in [a] military of beardos anymore.”  x x YouTube Video Hegseth wasn’t finished pushing his latest thinly veiled bit of racism.  “Do you know how many troops claim to be Nordic pagan?” he continued. “Suddenly, it's become like this real religious—fake religious—affiliation inside the Pentagon where troops claim to be Nordic pagan so they can grow a beard, and no one challenges them on it because no one's upheld standards for a long time. Now a quarter of the platoon’s sporting beards because they're now suddenly Nordic pagans. We're not doing that stuff anymore.”

Rep. Nancy Mace's unhinged ranting about an airport is nearing its third week, with the South Carolina Republican now alleging that she was the target of a conspiracy by airport staff to target her for extra surveillance.  For days, Mace has been seeking revenge on staff at the Charleston International Airport, in South Carolina, after an embarrassing news report dropped on Halloween about how she allegedly berated law enforcement officers and Transportation Security Administration staffers at the facility over an allegedly delayed security escort.  After an incident report filed by the officers was publicized, Mace threatened to file a lawsuit against the airport and others for defamation. But on Tuesday, she posted a new deranged conspiracy theory to her congressional website, claiming that she was «subjected to inappropriate surveillance and targeting by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Charleston International Airport security personnel (CHS)» and called for staff at the airport «to come forward with information» about her supposed mistreatment. Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, shown in February 2024. «I was allegedly 'randomly selected' by TSA and the Charleston Airport for extra surveillance. What are the odds? It gets better—I've been told I'm the ONLY elected official who got this special treatment. Totally random, I'm sure,» Mace wrote in a post on X late Tuesday night, along with an image of herself with the text «ESTABLISHMENT ENEMY #1» superimposed over it.  «To whoever greenlit this amateur-hour intimidation tactic: Did you think I'd be scared? Or flattered? Go ahead and make my day. Waste your time, waste taxpayer money, waste whatever credibility you had left,” she continued. “HOLD THE LINE.» I, too, was randomly selected for extra TSA screening on Saturday when my family and I traveled home from Florida. I do not think I was the subject of a conspiracy. Rather, I was randomly selected by the TSA staffers who are currently not being paid because the government remains shut down. Like a normal person, I allowed them to swab my hands and went about my travel day. But not Mace. She instead continued to harass airport staff, saying in posts on X that her selection for additional screening at the airport «is the stuff of the DEEP STATE and BIG BROTHER,» and that her lawsuit against the airport «may bring South Carolina's Attorney General down in flames with it, and several others.» Mace's bizarre, one-sided fight with an airport has members of her own party flummoxed. South Carolina Sens. Tim Scott and Lindsey Graham, both Republicans, have individually praised airport staff and criticized Mace's outbursts. «It is never acceptable to berate police officers, airport staff, and TSA agents who are simply doing their jobs, nor is it becoming of a Member of Congress to use such vulgar language when dealing with constituents,» Scott wrote in a Facebook post. «Not only are these officers sworn to protect us, but we also take an oath to represent them. We work for them, not vice versa.» “I concur with [Scott’s] statement when it comes to the men and women who provide security at the Charleston International Airport,” Graham wrote in a post on X. The editorial board of The Post and Courier, which is based in Charleston, also flamed Mace for her abhorrent behavior. Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, shown in June. The editorial board wrote: «Rep. Mace's foul language and her attitude toward security and other airport staff were out of bounds. Most people would have apologized after such an embarrassing display, perhaps explaining that they were understandably angry or even frightened and said things they now regret. Not Nancy Mace. Nancy Mace has built her public persona around using socially unacceptable language. If I cursed at these underlings, she told a news conference last week, I should have cursed more.» Even right-wing media personalities are raising questions about Mace's mental health in the wake of her public meltdowns. “There’s something wrong with Nancy Mace. And I’m not a fan of hers, and it’s increasingly because she’s not mentally well, and it’s really clear she’s not mentally well, and I don’t know if she has friends who can do an intervention with her, but Nancy Mace needs a real intervention, right-wing radio host Erick Erickson said on his program. Mace, for her part, is running for governor in South Carolina. She faces a crowded primary for the GOP nomination against fellow Rep. Ralph Norman, Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, and state Attorney General Alan Wilson. A recent poll shows Mace and Evette in a statistical tie, though it was conducted before the airport brouhaha.  Erickson said he doesn’t think Mace will win the primary, and that he worries for her if she loses. “She’s using her privilege in Congress to smear other people to advance her own career, which, in and of itself, is bad, but then her reactions to the blowback out of Congress is—I’m really worried about her mental well-being,” Erickson added. “That’s not the behavior of a normal person.”