Schumer Begged 2028 Dem Contenders Not to Criticize Shutdown Deal

Senator Chuck Schumer reached out to leading Democratic presidential contenders to try and mute criticism of the deal to end the government shutdown.

The Senate minority leader called Governors Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, and JB Pritzker of Illinois and asked them not to attack or criticize the deal eight Democratic senators made with Senate Republicans, Puck reports. His efforts had mixed results, with Pritzker still disparaging the deal, along with California Governor Gavin Newsom.

The final deal didn’t include the key demand by Democrats: for Affordable Care Act subsidies, which are expiring this year, to be extended. Instead, Republicans promised to hold a future vote on extending those subsidies, leading to backlash within the Democratic Party against the deal.

While Schumer voted against it, the eight Democrats who voted in support said that the minority leader was aware of their plan the whole time. Some Democrats thought that extending the subsidies would help Republicans in the midterms, and opted to put electoral prospects over their own constituents.

Several Democratic organizations, political candidates, and members of the House have called for Schumer’s resignation since the deal was announced Sunday. House Speaker Mike Johnson has not committed to a vote on the subsidies, and a Democratic attempt to raise the issue was voted down Tuesday by House Republicans. It seems that Schumer knew that the deal was bad, but instead of scrapping it and negotiating a better one, sought to minimize dissent.

Community organizer Katie Wilson is projected to defeat Seattle Mayor and Democratic incumbent Bruce Harrell, in another big-city victory for the progressive left against the Democratic establishment.

Local news outlets called the race for Wilson on Wednesday evening.

“We’re thrilled with the latest drop, which continues to trend in our direction. Ahead by almost 2,000 votes, we now believe that we’re in an insurmountable position,” Wilson wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday. “We’re so grateful to all the volunteers who have powered this grassroots campaign to victory. We look forward to hearing the mayor’s address to the city tomorrow.”

Wilson, 43, who has said she is fine being called a Democrat, a socialist, or both, had never run for office before but focused her campaign on affordability, proposed improvements to mass transit, and increased housing for Seattle’s homeless population.

“I think that the affordability crisis of the last few years has kind of brought that to a fever pitch where people have not felt that their elected leaders are actually fighting for them, actually fighting for affordable housing, for affordable childcare, for the things that are affecting them day to day,” Wilson told The New Republic’s Monica Potts in October. “And the failure of a certain brand of Democratic Party politics to stop Trump’s election.... It’s like, OK, now we see that the government can move fast. It can do some really bad things really fast. So why can’t it be some good things?”

Harrell, her opponent, has not conceded, although Wilson is likely to eclipse the 2,000-vote margin that triggers an automatic recount.

Jeffrey Epstein, the man who orchestrated an international child sex trafficking ring to service the sick desires of the ultra-wealthy, believed that he was morally superior to Donald Trump.

The House Oversight Committee released more than 20,000 documents Wednesday that they had obtained from Epstein’s estate. The real estate mogul was a frequent topic in correspondence between Epstein and his pen pals, including former Treasury Secretary and ex-Harvard University President Larry Summers.

“Recall ive told you „ i have met some very bad people „ none as bad as trump. not one decent cell in his body,” Epstein emailed Summers in February 2017, affirming that Trump is “dangerous.”

In a 2018 exchange with Obama-era White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler about Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen, Epstein remarked that he was well aware of “how dirty Donald is.”

That same year, Epstein began deriding his former “pal” with myriad insults, largely attacking Trump’s finances. In exchanges with Trump chronicler Michael Wolff, Epstein referred to the president as “dopey Donald” and “demented Donald.” He also claimed that Trump’s financial situation was “all a sham.”

In a December 2018 message to Summers, Epstein wrote: “Trump—borderline insane.”

When queried by Wolff in 2019 about the extent of Trump’s knowledge about Epstein’s operation abducting young girls, the imprisoned trafficker remarked: “Of course he knew about the girls he asked Ghislaine [Maxwell] to stop.”

Another detail that emerged in the recently publicized cache was an offer by Epstein circa 2015 to share pictures of Trump posing with “girls in bikinis” in Epstein’s kitchen. The recipient of the offer was New York Times reporter Landon Thomas Jr., who had written the New York magazine profile on Epstein in which Trump praised the disgraced financier as a “terrific guy.”

Thomas, who left the Times in 2019, told his former paper that Epstein never provided the images, and it was unclear whether they really existed.

One of Jeffrey Epstein’s newly released private emails implicates Tom Barrack, an old friend of President Trump and the current U.S. ambassador to Turkey.

Barrack sent an email to Epstein on March 9, 2016, saying, “Hope ur good. Let’s catch up.” Epstein’s reply is chilling in hindsight.

“Send photos of you and child.  -- make me smile,” the wealthy financier and child sex offender wrote. If anyone else wrote this email, one could say that this was an innocent request to see pictures of someone’s kids or grandkids. But knowing what we know about Epstein, it possibly takes a sinister connotation that Epstein wanted to see something disgusting and illegal.

The emails released on Wednesday by House Oversight Republicans and Democrats heavily implicate Trump in being closely associated with Epstein even while president, and are also implicating his confidants like Barrack. The president has responded by referring to the whole thing as a hoax, even as his staff and other Republicans have confirmed that the emails are real and identified one of the mentioned victims.

Now that there are 218 members of the House who have signed a discharge petition to make all of the Epstein files public, more damaging information about the president, as well as other powerful Americans, could soon come to light. Trump could be in the politically damaging position of having to veto their disclosure.

Convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein wrote in a private email that he “gave” his then 20-year-old girlfriend to President Donald Trump in 1993.

“My 20 year old girlfriend in 93, , that after two years i gave to donald,” Epstein wrote in an email to New York Times finance journalist Landon Thomas, Jr. in 2015. Attached was a link to photos of Norwegian businesswoman and cosmetics heiress Celina Midelfart, who would have been 20 years old in 1993—insinuating that Epstein (who would have been 40 in 1993) dated her, and then passed her on to Trump.

“Hawaiian tropic girl Lauren Patrella [redacted],” Epstein wrote earlier in the same email chain. “would you like to see photos of donald and girls in bikinis in my kitchen.”

These are just some of many damning email exchanges that the sex predator had with various rich and powerful people while he was actively trafficking and abusing young women and girls with the help of Ghislaine Maxwell. House Democrats and Republicans on the Oversight Committee released a slew of these messages on Thursday, with more likely to come. Notable messages show Epstein writing that Trump “knew about the girls” and that one of Epstein’s victims “spent hours at my house with [Trump].”

“There’s a total of about 23,000 documents.… We obviously released some today, we’ll be releasing additional documents likely later today,” House Democrat Robert Garcia said Wednesday on MSNBC. “The important thing here is that we know, and we’ve been demanding that Donald Trump and the DOJ release the full Epstein files.”

Trump, of course, has called it all a hoax.

“Only a very bad, or stupid, Republican would fall into that trap. The Democrats cost our Country $1.5 Trillion Dollars with their recent antics of viciously closing our Country, while at the same time putting many at risk—and they should pay a fair price,” he wrote Wednesday afternoon on Truth Social. “There should be no deflections to Epstein or anything else, and any Republicans involved should be focused only on opening up our Country, and fixing the massive damage caused by the Democrats!”