Trump Secretary Totally Undercuts Kash Patel’s Epstein Claim

Donald Trump’s commerce secretary completely contradicted the Trump administration’s official story on Jeffrey Epstein during an appearance on a New York Post podcast published Wednesday.

The late notorious sex criminal was “the greatest blackmailer ever,” Howard Lutnick told the Post, after detailing a skin-crawling experience in 2005, when he moved in next to Epstein and was shown the disgraced financier’s “massage room.”

Lutnick expressed his belief that Epstein blackmailed powerful individuals in his social circle by videotaping them during massages: “They get a massage, that’s what his MO was. ‘Get a massage, get a massage,’ and what happened in that massage room, I assume, was on video. This guy was the greatest blackmailer ever, blackmailed people. That’s how he had money.”

The commerce secretary speculated that Epstein used blackmail to secure a controversial 18-month sentence in 2008 (which he notably got in a plea deal negotiated by then–U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta, who eventually served as labor secretary in Trump’s first term).

“How could he get 18 months and be able to go to his office during the day and have visitors and stuff? There must have been a trade,” Lutnick speculated. “So, my assumption, I have no knowledge, but my assumption is there was a trade for the videos, because there were people on those videos.”

Lutnick’s remarks are at odds with the administration’s official narrative on Epstein. Last month, FBI Director Kash Patel told a Senate committee “there is no credible information” that Epstein trafficked victims “to other individuals.”

In a July memo, the FBI and Justice Department also said their investigation into Epstein yielded “no credible evidence … that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions.” Nor did they uncover a “client list” or “evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”

The memo challenged what had become an article of faith among Epstein conspiracy theorists (many of them Trump supporters) and thus ignited a still-simmering scandal for Trump. The rest is history: The president disowned his Epstein-concerned supporters, news reports have revealed additional details about his former relationship with Epstein, and his allies are still fighting against pressure from the public and Congress to release the “Epstein files” in full.

Pro-Israel MAGA conservatives are fuming as the Trump administration offers protections to longtime U.S. ally Qatar in the wake of Israel’s bombing of their capital, Doha, last month. 

“Over the years, the United States and the State of Qatar have been bound together by close cooperation, shared interests, and the close relationship between our armed forces,” the administration said in an executive order. “In recognition of this history, and in light of the continuing threats to the State of Qatar posed by foreign aggression, it is the policy of the United States to guarantee the security and territorial integrity of the State of Qatar against external attack.

“The United States shall regard any armed attack on the territory, sovereignty, or critical infrastructure of the State of Qatar as a threat to the peace and security of the United States,” it stated further. 

This set off a very interesting group of people on the online far right. 

“What about assuring our own safety from Qatar?” wrote the raving far-right commentator Laura Loomer. “Every single day, Qatar floods our country with billions of $ of funding for radical left, communist, & Islamist causes on college campuses and major institutions. Qatar also financed Iran before they tried to assassinate Trump.

“Terror-funding Qatar, which has been running an elaborate anti-Israel and pro-Qatar disinformation campaign in the United States, has now succeeded at being the most effective investment in foreign influence history,” said January 6 insurrectionist defense attorney Marina Medvin. “The White House just pledged American lives to protect Qatar.” 

“Our new protectorate, Qatar,” Fox News host (and hard-core Zionist) Mark Levin opined dramatically. “If the leadership of Hamas in Qatar is killed by Israel, are we going to war with Israel?  Wouldn’t it have been better to condition any military defense of Qatar on some basic requirements? For example: Turnover the Hamas leaders; no more funding of terrorists worldwide: no more funding of Marxist-Islamist groups in the United States. This is the bare minimum.”

The United States is showing protection (for whatever reasons Trump has) to an ally that just got unilaterally bombed by Israel, and the initial reaction of these people is fear for Israel instead.

“By the way, there is no similar guarantee for Israel. American troops have never died for Israel,” another right-winger posted on X. “Are you ready to die for Qatar?”

Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday refused to explain President Trump’s seeming threat that federal firings during the government shutdown would be based on political affiliation.

A day earlier, CBS’s Weijia Jiang had asked the president why he’d said government employees would have to be let go during a shutdown, given the massive reductions to the federal workforce enacted earlier in the year by his so-called “Department of Government Efficiency.”

In response, the president said many people will be laid off, and “they’re going to be Democrats,” leading Jiang on Wednesday—the first day of the shutdown—to ask Vance whether terminations would be ideologically motivated.

“Has the administration asked agencies to target federal workers who they believe to be Democrats in these reductions of forces?” Jiang asked.

Vance denied that the administration is “targeting federal agencies based on politics,” and said federal workers would be fired only if the shutdown “drags on” long enough.

“So what did he mean by, ‘They are going to be Democrats’?” Jiang asked, quoting Trump. Vance, taking the next question, did not answer.

Whether or not possible layoffs will be explicitly politicized, the Trump administration has already used the shutdown as a cudgel against Democrats.

On Wednesday, White House budget director Russell Vought said he was freezing $18 billion earmarked for infrastructure projects in New York—the state represented by both of the top-ranking Democrats in Congress. Shortly after, Vought announced the cancellation of nearly $8 billion in climate projects across 16 states, each of which just happen to be blue states that did not vote for Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

In doing so, the budget director was simply following through on Trump’s threat to punish Democrats during the shutdown by “cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like.”

Vice President JD Vance struggled to defend Donald Trump’s racist AI slop about House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries by saying he thought it was “funny.”

The president posted videos on Truth Social both Monday and Tuesday that showed Jeffries wearing a sombrero, with an exaggerated handlebar mustache, while mariachi music played in the background—a stunt the New York Democrat called “racist.”

Speaking at a White House press briefing Wednesday, Vance was asked how he squared the president’s pathetic posting with claims that the Trump administration had attempted to engage in “good faith” negotiations with Democratic leaders.

“Oh, I think it’s funny! The president’s joking and we’re having a good time. You can negotiate in good faith while poking a little bit of fun at some of the absurdities [in] some of the Democrats’ positions. And even poking some fun at the absurdity of the Democrats themselves,” Vance said.

“I mean I’ll tell Hakeem Jeffries right now: I make this solemn promise to you, that if you help us reopen the government the sombrero memes will stop. And I’ve talked to the president of the United States about that,” he continued.

Shortly after, Vance circled back to “the sombrero thing,” saying, “Hakeem Jeffries said it was racist. And I know that he said that, and I honestly don’t even honestly know what that means. Like, is he a Mexican American that is offended by having, like, a sombrero meme?”

Jeffries is African American, and the first Black man to lead a major party in either chamber of the U.S. Congress. And Jeffries isn’t the only Black politician to be targeted with the racist sombrero meme: The Trump War Room X account also posted an AI-generated photo of Democratic Representative Maxine Waters, who is also not Mexican. But you don’t need to be of a specific ethnicity to recognize that using stereotypes from that ethnicity’s culture to imply someone is weak or stupid is, inherently, racist.

The set-dressing was in reference to Republicans’ claims that Democrats shut down the government because they want to extend health care benefits to undocumented immigrants. In fact, Democrats shut down the government because they want Americans to keep theirs.

Vance is no stranger to defending racist remarks. On the campaign trail, he elevated the false conspiracy that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating their white neighbors’ pets.

In February, he argued that a DOGE employee should be reinstated after he quit over racist comments online. “I obviously disagree with some of [Marko] Elez’s posts, but I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life,” Vance wrote on X. “We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever. So I say bring him back.”

Meanwhile, Vance has cheered on a doxing campaign for people making jokes about the death of right-wing podcaster Charlie Kirk.

Vance has often used offensive gestures at comedy to appeal to the culture warriors in Trump’s base. There are those of us who still remember his weak attempt to rib cancel culture over his choice of Diet Mountain Dew, or his sexist “childless cat lady” comment. Recently, Vance has attempted to make light of extrajudicial killings of Venezuelans. Trump’s caricatures of Jeffries are blatantly racist, and exactly the kind of shitposting his troll-laden base feeds on.

The Trump administration is yanking green energy and infrastructure funding away from blue states on day one of the Republican-led government shutdown. 

“Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being cancelled. More info to come from @ENERGY,” Office of Management and Budget Director and Project 2025 author Russ Vought announced on X on Wednesday. “The projects are in the following states: CA, CO, CT, DE, HI, IL, MD, MA, MN, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OR, VT, WA.” 

Each of these states voted against President Trump in 2024 and is represented by two Democrats in the Senate (where the shutdown fight just happens to be stuck). Not only that, but they also make up a massive bulk of the U.S. gross domestic product. This appears to be yet another petty, retributive move against states and senators that Trump considers to be his enemy. 

The Department of Energy has yet to follow up on Vought’s statement.  

This also comes as the Trump administration freezes a whopping $18 billion in infrastructure and transportation funding to New York City, another massive middle finger to a blue region. Vought announced a cut to those funds earlier Wednesday, claiming the projects are using “unconstitutional DEI principles.” 

Targeting blue states and cities isn’t very “America First” of the Trump administration. But it has become increasingly obvious that it never really cared about that, especially when revenge is on the table.