Victims of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein said Wednesday they plan to release their own client list after the Justice Department in July announced it found no evidence of one.
At a rally on Capitol Hill, Epstein victim Lisa Phillips said she and other survivors of Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell plan to release a list of those involved in the abuse.
“Epstein was not just a serial predator; he was an international human trafficker,” Phillips said. “And many around him knew this, many participated, and many profited, and yet, he was protected. I know what it’s like to be trafficked to others, and I know the files contain the names of powerful men who have been shielded because of their fame or fortune.”
“And let me announce now, several of us Epstein survivors have been discussing creating our own list of names,” she added to the cheers of the crowd. “We know the names. Many of us were abused by them. Now together as survivors, we will confidentially compile the names we all know were regularly in the Epstein world, and it will be done by survivors and for survivors.”
After the rally, the Epstein victims and their supporters joined some Republican and Democratic lawmakers for a press conference just outside the Capitol Building. Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA), Thomas Massie (R-KY), and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) spoke, calling on the federal government to release more information on the Epstein investigation.
“[The] Washington establishment is asking the American public to believe something that is not believable,” Massie said. “They’re asking you to believe that two individuals created hundreds of victims and they acted alone and that the DOJ has no idea of who else might have been involved that nobody else did anything that rose to a criminal enterprise. The American people know that’s not true.”
The DOJ said that it did not find evidence that Epstein had a client list or that powerful co-conspirators were involved in his child sex crimes. The DOJ also noted that the evidence showed that Epstein committed suicide in his jail cell in August 2019. President Donald Trump has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-says-epstein-story-is-kept-alive-by-pretty-bad-people-including-fake-news">blasted</a> those focusing on the Epstein files, arguing that the issue is being pushed by the “Fake News” and “success-starved Dems.”
During the press conference, Epstein accuser Jena-Lisa Jones said, “I remembered crying the entire way home, thinking about how I couldn’t ever tell anyone about what actually happened in that house. This guy was so rich and had so many pictures with so many famous people and no one would have ever believed me if I told them.” Jones told <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/02/us/jeffrey-epstein-survivors-interview">CNN</a> that she met Epstein when she was just 14, and that he was her first sexual experience.
The Republican-led House Oversight Committee <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/republican-led-oversight-committee-drops-massive-trove-of-over-33000-epstein-docs?author=Tim+Pearce&amp;category=undefined&amp;elementPosition=1&amp;row=3&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+News&amp;rowType=Vertical+Carousel&amp;title=Republican-Led+Oversight+Committee+Drops+Massive+Trove+Of+Over+33%2C000+Epstein+Docs">released</a> more than 33,000 pages of Epstein documents, but critics blasted the heavily redacted document trove.
“What people are waking up and discovering right now is — the folks who stayed up all night to go through the 34,000 individual pages have found that they’re so redacted as to be useless,” Massie said.
Khanna said during the press conference that less than 1% of the Epstein files had been released.
“A nation that allows rich and powerful men to traffic and abuse young girls without consequence is a nation that has lost its moral and spiritual core,” he said.
Wednesday’s rally and press conference was the largest gathering of Epstein’s accusers since a 2019 court hearing following the sex abuser’s death, The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/09/03/house-epstein-files-victims-news-conference/#link-QMGSRWQ7GJFM3F6G2WVO222RZE">reported</a>. House lawmakers met with Epstein victims on Tuesday to discuss releasing more documents.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), who supports a limited release of Epstein documents, praised the Tuesday document dump, saying, “There’s 33,000 documents that were released because of this administration. When we met with victims yesterday, they said that they don’t want their personal information to be out there, and they actually asked us to not put it out there, so obviously that was information that was withheld from that document release.”
Massie also <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/thomas-massie-epstein-files-discharge-petition-house-vote/">filed</a> a discharge petition on Tuesday in an attempt to force a House vote on releasing the Epstein files. The discharge petition must receive 218 votes, a majority of the House, to move a vote forward.
Khanna believes that all House Democrats would sign the petition, and is hopeful that at least six Republicans would also sign. Massie said he is two Republicans away from passing the discharge petition, along with Massie and Greene, Reps. Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Lauren Boebert of Colorado are the only Republicans to sign the petition.

House Members Introduce Epstein Files Transparency Act

‘We Know The Names’: Epstein Victims Say They Will Release Their Own Client List

Congress

Democrats

Jeffrey Epstein

Marjorie Taylor Greene

Politics

Republicans

Thomas Massie

Trump Administration

The Republican-led House Oversight Committee released tens of thousands of documents related to the late, disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein on Tuesday.
The Department of Justice provided the <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/release/oversight-committee-releases-epstein-records-provided-by-the-department-of-justice/">records</a> under subpoena from committee chairman James Comer of Kentucky. The document dump consisted of 33,295 pages.
Speaking to reporters following the release, Comer <a href="https://x.com/Breaking911/status/1963011925358608801">said</a> that the committee continues to expand its investigation into notable figures, such as former Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, who, as a prosecutor, negotiated a controversial plea deal with Epstein in 2008. The committee is working on releasing other records, as well.
“We&#8217;re gonna continue to bring in more people. We learned of some additional names today,” said Comer. “We&#8217;re gonna do everything we can to give the American public the transparency they seek, as well as provide accountability in memory of the victims who have already passed away, as well as those that were in the room, and many others who haven&#8217;t come forward.”
Comer thanked the White House for working with House lawmakers to make the documents available for release.
“The White House is working with us. I wanna publicly thank the White House for turning over so many documents thus far,” said Comer.
The committee has subpoenaed a number of high-profile figures already, including former President Bill Clinton and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Comer <a href="https://x.com/DailyCaller/status/1962989269351309574">added</a> that the committee plans to subpoena Epstein’s madam Ghislaine Maxwell, as well.
The Department of Justice <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ghislaine-maxwell-reveals-whether-she-believes-epstein-committed-suicide">interviewed</a> Maxwell and released the tapes of that interview last month. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche conducted the interview, and Maxwell’s testimony backs up some of what the Justice Department has said about Epstein’s case, such as the lack of an Epstein “client list.”
Maxwell also told Blanche that she never saw any man, including President Donald Trump nor Clinton, behave inappropriately around Epstein.
“I never, ever saw any man doing something inappropriate with a woman of any age. I never saw inappropriate habits,” Maxwell told Blanche. “Now somebody’s inappropriate and mine may be different.”
“Trump was always very cordial and very kind to me,” she added. “And I just want to say that I find — I — I admire his extraordinary achievement in becoming the president now. And I like him, and I’ve always liked him. So that is the sum and substance of my entire relationship with him.”

James Comer

Republican-Led Oversight Committee Drops Massive Trove Of Over 33,000 Epstein Docs

Ghislaine Maxwell

House Oversight Committee

There are various types of what I call “scavengers.”
There are “leeches,” people who seek to tear down the institutions of free markets because they believe that they are entitled to the gains of others.
There are the “lechers,” people who believe that the traditional family, the church, have to be torn asunder because those things are an imposition from the outside.
And then there are the “barbarians.”
The barbarians are people who emanate from places outside the United States, outside the West. And they see themselves as representatives of civilizations that have been laid low by the West. They believe that all of their failures are the fault of Western civilizations.
As I write in my new book “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lions-Scavengers-Story-America-Critics/dp/1668097885/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.tHy4SBp_hHF-vHhtJtJe1QIrxRz7s0Aj13eFEmYaXMkg9SrRHykHV_NHWW6XhQWoxW_rAOTa8CabDdBGhR-hiGxPlwULwtB0j0lCq6HTT435WCOIrExCNI18TVrbTwSf7166CTZarphzcNjpZCtlTA.3BzLBNx3TKfvkr_UgYlzL5F_NdZR1DsGAEXY3t63SrE&amp;qid=1756846409&amp;sr=1-1">Lions and Scavengers</a>”:
<blockquote>The barbarian is an outsider to Western civilization who believes that all of his own maladies and ills can be laid at the feet of the colonizers of the West. In fact, the barbarian argues, only violence against his purported victimizers can free him of the servile mentality that these very colonizers have instilled in him. The barbarian speaks in the language of mass-murdering communist monster Che Guevara —whose visage still graces the T-shirts of thousands of misbegotten American college students — championing the power of hatred: “Hatred is an element of struggle, unbending hatred for the enemy which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine.</blockquote>
The barbarians never posit a moral justification for how the destruction of the Western order ought to operate at their hands. They never explain just how, for example, a Palestinian state is somehow a burgeoning wellspring of human rights, or how an America without American values would make the world a better place. The only thing that matters is the destruction of the West, for in that destruction lies the supposed reclamation of the barbarian identity.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2271-the-ben-shapiro-show?elementPosition=3&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
Last Friday, there was a big gathering of barbarians over in Detroit, Michigan, called the People&#8217;s Conference for Palestine. It was attended by a sitting member of Congress, Rashida Tlaib along with a wide variety of people who talked about the evils of America. They talked about how the country they were sitting in, this place that has given them prosperity, that has given them freedom, was an awful place. All of its core values are evil and terrible and need to be destroyed because America is a bad place, and Western civilization is responsible for all the ills of the rest of the world.
If you&#8217;re wondering why there are so many people in the West right are now moving toward right-wing parties, it is because those right-wing parties are saying, “We don&#8217;t need more of these people in our civilization.”
We don&#8217;t.
One speaker quoted someone saying that “the average American will never understand the plight of the Palestinian person, because the State of Israel is a carbon copy of the United States, and therefore the thing to do is to destroy the idea of America in American&#8217;s heads so that they can see the humanity of everybody outside of the warping of American exceptionalism and imperialism and all these evil things. We have to dismantle this idea of American exceptionalism, of supremacy, of being beyond reproach.”
He continued, “We live in an evil country.”
So get out. You can leave any time now.
Remember, the people who are being defended here by this person are the terrorist group Hamas.
There was not a single speaker at this event who said that Hamas should surrender, go into exile, and disarm, thus ending the war in Gaza and simultaneously ending the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
That was never mentioned by any of these people, because, of course, the fault always lies with America. It lies with the West. It lies with Israel. Anyone successful in the world is supposed to be a repository of exploitation.
Another speaker intoned, “We wanted to globalize the intifada, to expose to the world that Israel&#8217;s policies have nothing to do with security, that Israel tries to tell the world, and that our governments also regurgitate gaslighting us. We thought that if we could get this message out, the world would wake up and not allow Israel to do this, to do what it&#8217;s doing. And I must admit, that was a bit of naiveté on our part. But we have and we will continue to globalize the intifada, and we will force our government to listen to us, because they want us to accept a world that is inacceptable.”
“Inacceptable?” You mean unacceptable.
In any case, putting aside the grammar, the bigger problem here is the fact that “globalize the intifada” is a phrase that calls for widespread violence. That is what an intifada is, a violent uprising. Anybody who claims otherwise is lying to you.
<div id="attachment_967927" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lions-Scavengers-Story-America-Critics/dp/1668097885/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.tHy4SBp_hHF-vHhtJtJe1QIrxRz7s0Aj13eFEmYaXMkg9SrRHykHV_NHWW6XhQWoxW_rAOTa8CabDdBGhR-hiGxPlwULwtB0j0lCq6HTT435WCOIrExCNI18TVrbTwSf7166CTZarphzcNjpZCtlTA.3BzLBNx3TKfvkr_UgYlzL5F_NdZR1DsGAEXY3t63SrE&amp;qid=1756846409&amp;sr=1-1"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-967927" class="wp-image-967927 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MixCollage-02-Sep-2025-03-58-PM-6584-1024x576.jpg" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MixCollage-02-Sep-2025-03-58-PM-6584-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MixCollage-02-Sep-2025-03-58-PM-6584-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MixCollage-02-Sep-2025-03-58-PM-6584-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MixCollage-02-Sep-2025-03-58-PM-6584-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MixCollage-02-Sep-2025-03-58-PM-6584-2048x1152.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>DailyWire+</div>
This is happening on the soil of America, as I write about in “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lions-Scavengers-Story-America-Critics/dp/1668097885/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.tHy4SBp_hHF-vHhtJtJe1QIrxRz7s0Aj13eFEmYaXMkg9SrRHykHV_NHWW6XhQWoxW_rAOTa8CabDdBGhR-hiGxPlwULwtB0j0lCq6HTT435WCOIrExCNI18TVrbTwSf7166CTZarphzcNjpZCtlTA.3BzLBNx3TKfvkr_UgYlzL5F_NdZR1DsGAEXY3t63SrE&amp;qid=1756846409&amp;sr=1-1">Lions and Scavengers</a>.” It&#8217;s not just that barbarians come from abroad and they enter our gates because we are soft-headed and soft-hearted. It&#8217;s also the enormous number of Americans who then side with the barbarians, because they don&#8217;t have confidence in their own civilization. They don&#8217;t have the belief in their own ideas to actually stand up to this garbage.
Lions are reflexively self-critical. What I mean by that is that in the West, there is actual moral merit to admitting your mistakes, to exposing yourself to the shame and ridicule of acknowledging guilt. That is something that good people tend to do.
Lions tend to do that because, after all, we live in a civilization, a Judeo-Christian biblically-based civilization, in which repentance is part of life. You&#8217;re supposed to acknowledge your sins so you can get stronger and get better.
The problem is that the barbarians and their allies are not interested in your proclamations of guilt. They&#8217;re not interested except to use it as a way to destroy you. They are interested in you shaming yourself. They want you to shame yourself and kneel before them so they can claim dominance. That&#8217;s the entire goal.
The co-founder of Doctors Against Genocide, last seen being ushered out of Congress after yelling at Marco Rubio during his confirmation hearings, called for the “taking out” of anyone who opposes his pro-terrorism agenda, saying they “need to be neutralized.”
This was in Detroit. Not in Qatar, or Iran.
This culminated with Rashida Tlaib, a sitting congresswoman from Michigan, ripping America and saying, “We are in your Congress.”
We know. We understand that the barbarian mentality is quite prevalent in our Congress.
“They thought they could kill us, rape us, and imprison us, violently, uproot us from our olive tree farms, starve our children to death, and we would disappear. Well, guess what? Now we&#8217;re in Congress and we&#8217;re in every corner of the United States,” she threatened. “We are just getting started.”
Yes, we understand that you have infiltrated Congress. We understand that. We understand there is a wide variety of people who have decided to stand in solidarity with all of this.
What is going to tear down the West is not just a West not confronted by the scavengers, but a West that allows the scavengers in; that somehow believes it is an aspect of its own greatness to allow the supremacy of people who wish to destroy its civilization.
That is the danger that lies within.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib Speaks To Press On Gaza Food Shortages

The Hate-America Barbarians Inside The Gates

Anti-Semitism

Ben Shapiro

Books

Detroit

Israel

Opinion

Palestinians

Pro-Hamas

Western Civilization

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) faced a wave of backlash over her speech pattern and mannerisms in a recent video — mannerisms that prompted at least one critic to respond by declaring, &#8220;Her code-switch is broken.&#8221;
The comments arose after Crockett — who attended several prestigious schools and earned a law degree — was seen on the video adopting speech patterns that were more commonly seen among those who were far less educated than the Texas Congresswoman.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
“Baby, deez people, day are crazy because they always talking bout how Christian they is…”
Jasmine Crockett, US House Representative <a href="https://t.co/eYLsnAPGVv">pic.twitter.com/eYLsnAPGVv</a>
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) <a href="https://twitter.com/bonchieredstate/status/1962669869704392809?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 2, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;Baby, cuz deez people, day are crazy, because they always talking bout how Christian they is, yet I don&#8217;t know how many dem on dat side are getting divorced cuz they gettin&#8217; caught up sleepin&#8217; with they coworkers, staffers, interns, all the things,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Yeah, you ain&#8217;t gotta believe me, just go Google, you&#8217;ll find some of it. I&#8217;m telling&#8217; you, and the wives is bein&#8217; messy and petty &#8230;&#8221;
&#8220;Her code switch is broken,&#8221; Joe DeVito commented. Code switching, as he mentioned, is an active effort to modify one&#8217;s appearance, behavior, or speech in order to fit in with a particular group of people.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Her code switch is broken <a href="https://t.co/d1vPZVwtBx">https://t.co/d1vPZVwtBx</a>
— Joe DeVito (@JoeDeVitoComedy) <a href="https://twitter.com/JoeDeVitoComedy/status/1962715393027420247?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 2, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;When I was doing theater, I knew a few actors, not many, who got so swept up in a given character they played on stage, that they basically became that person in real life. Forever. I think Crockett has passed this point. This is who she is now,&#8221; David Marcus added.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
When I was doing theater, I knew a few actors, not many, who got so swept up in a given character they played on stage, that they basically became that person in real life. Forever. I think Crockett has passed this point. This is who she is now. <a href="https://t.co/En4XhXwPwl">https://t.co/En4XhXwPwl</a>
— David Marcus (@BlueBoxDave) <a href="https://twitter.com/BlueBoxDave/status/1962698612892192876?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 2, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;It’s okay to expect your political representatives to speak basic English. And she can,&#8221; Red State&#8217;s Bonchie posted. &#8220;She’s actually very well spoken. This is all an act. She’s a rich kid who went to finest private schools. She’s not from the streets.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
It’s okay to expect your political representatives to speak basic English.
And she can. She’s actually very well spoken. This is all an act. She’s a rich kid who went to finest private schools. She’s not from the streets. <a href="https://t.co/dM0KW5WgWR">https://t.co/dM0KW5WgWR</a>
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) <a href="https://twitter.com/bonchieredstate/status/1962671363522527671?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 2, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Matt Whitlock shared a video of Crockett before the &#8220;code-switch,&#8221; in which her speech was much more measured and articulate.
&#8220;Compare that bizarre bit of theater to Jasmine Crockett BEFORE she got to Congress. There’s &#8216;code switching&#8217; then there’s &#8216;playing a character from TV,'&#8221; he said.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Compare that bizarre bit of theater to Jasmine Crockett BEFORE she got to Congress.
There’s “code switching” then there’s “playing a character from TV.” <a href="https://t.co/lJYvZuj3Z2">https://t.co/lJYvZuj3Z2</a> <a href="https://t.co/7GaUCbU3dm">pic.twitter.com/7GaUCbU3dm</a>
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) <a href="https://twitter.com/mattdizwhitlock/status/1962689089464914083?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 2, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;Jasmine Crockett is the Jussie Smollett of AOCs,&#8221; another added.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Jasmine Crockett is the Jussie Smollett of AOCs. <a href="https://t.co/nN5JnI26la">https://t.co/nN5JnI26la</a>
— ForAmerica (@ForAmerica) <a href="https://twitter.com/ForAmerica/status/1962872801150316873?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 2, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

House Oversight And Accountability Members And Watchdog Group Court Accountability Focus On Supreme Court Ethics

‘Her Code-Switch Is Broken’: Jasmine Crockett Mocked Over Dramatic Change In Speech

Donald Trump

Jasmine Crockett

Media

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), 78, has declared that he will not seek reelection next year — and that he plans to step aside in an effort to allow for younger Democrats to step into leadership positions.
As reported on Monday by The New York Times, Nadler said that watching former President Joe Biden over the last several years had moved him to consider making way for the next generation of leaders.
“Watching the Biden thing really said something about the necessity for generational change in the party, and I think I want to respect that,” Nadler explained, saying that he hoped the next person to fill his seat “can maybe do better, can maybe help us more.”
With 34 years in Congress, Nadler is both the longest-serving New Yorker and the longest-serving Jewish member of the U.S. House — and he claimed that he was a bit uncertain about bowing out at first because he believed he still needed to fight against President Donald Trump — but the writing may have been on the wall long before Nadler was willing to read it.
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The New York Rep. recently lost his leadership position in the House Judiciary Committee at the beginning of the current Congress when the party shifted its focus toward younger leaders — and he was expected to face a primary in his home district, likely from a number of candidates who are younger and more progressive than he is.
Nadler was involved in both Trump impeachment attempts &#8212; in 2019 and 2021 &#8212; <a href="https://time.com/5743613/jerry-nadler-trump-impeachment-probe/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">helping to lead</a> the former.
The news of Nadler’s retirement comes in the wake of a new congressional map in Texas that may net Republicans as many as five additional seats — and as several other states move to change their maps as well, either in retaliation to or in an effort to supplement Texas’ actions.
Nadler’s exit will not likely change the balance in Congress, however, since his district covers a large swath of Manhattan and is considered to be a safely blue district.

Representative Jerry Nadler

Dem Who Led Trump Impeachment Effort To Bow Out Of Congress

Jerrold Nadler

Joe Biden

New York

President Donald Trump moved to cut another $4.9 billion in foreign aid spending through an executive maneuver last used nearly 50 years ago. 
In a Thursday letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), which was posted on social media on Friday, Trump stated that he is clawing back funding from programs run by the State Department, the United States Agency for International Development, and International Assistance Programs. Much of the funding is related to programs pushing climate and gender activism. 
The cuts will be carried out through a pocket rescission—a process allowing the president to revoke previously approved spending just before the fiscal year ends, leaving Congress no time to reauthorize the funds under federal law. Any future funding would require separate congressional approval.
On a background call with The Daily Wire, a White House official said a pocket rescission was a tool that the Trump administration had “dusted off.”
“Last night, President Trump CANCELLED $4.9 billion in America Last foreign aid using a pocket rescission,” the Office of Management and Budget posted on X on Friday. “[President Trump] will always put AMERICA FIRST!”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
🚨 Last night, President Trump CANCELLED $4.9 billion in America Last foreign aid using a pocket rescission.<a href="https://twitter.com/POTUS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@POTUS</a> will always put AMERICA FIRST! <a href="https://t.co/1DvXYGdy3B">pic.twitter.com/1DvXYGdy3B</a>
— Office of Management and Budget (@WHOMB) <a href="https://twitter.com/WHOMB/status/1961410044907458780?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 29, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Secretary of State Marco Rubio applauded the move from Trump. 
“Since assuming office, President Trump has been committed to rooting out fraud, waste, and abuse from the U.S. government, saving American workers billions of dollars,” Rubio said. “Now, for the first time in 50 years, the President is using his authority under the Impoundment Control Act to deploy a pocket rescission, cancelling $5 billion in foreign aid and international organization funding that violates the President’s America First priorities.”
Rubio said that some of the programs that were cancelled included $2.7 million for “inclusive democracy” in South Africa and $4 million for “global LGBTQI+ awareness” 
“None of these programs are in America’s interest, which is why the President is taking decisive action to put America and Americans first,” Rubio said. 
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A White House official added that the cuts also included hundreds of millions of dollars in climate projects, such as building a greenhouse gas calculator, promoting vegan food in Zambia, developing insect powder for children in Madagascar, and purchasing electric buses in Rwanda.
There is an ongoing legal battle over the use of “pocket recissions,” and some lawmakers have argued that the move is unconstitutional. 
“Given that this package was sent to Congress very close to the end of the fiscal year when the funds are scheduled to expire, this is an apparent attempt to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval,” Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) said, joining Senate Democrats who spoke out against the move. &#8220;Any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law.&#8221;
A White House official said Friday afternoon that they believed it had &#8220;a very firm legal footing&#8221; to make the cuts, and that “we will be making that case.”

President Trump Holds Cabinet Meeting

Trump Slashes $5 Billion In Foreign Spending Using Rare Executive Maneuver

Budget

Executive

Marco Rubio

spending

State Department

USAID

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Republican Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa has told confidants she will not run for re-election next year, CBS News reported, which could complicate her party&#8217;s efforts to retain control of the chamber.
Ernst&#8217;s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ernst, 55, was first elected to the Senate in 2014. Before that she served as an officer in the U.S. Army Reserves and was deployed to Iraq.
Republicans currently control the Senate by a 53-47 margin and nonpartisan analysts say they are favored to retain control of the chamber in next year&#8217;s midterm elections at this point.
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_campaign=summer&amp;utm_content=editorialsummersale&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial" target="_blank" rel="noopener">End of Summer Sale – Get 40% off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships</a>
Iowa, once a competitive state in presidential elections, has trended increasingly Republican over the past decade. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates Ernst&#8217;s seat &#8220;Likely Republican,&#8221; making it less competitive than several other Senate races next year.
At least five Democratic candidates have announced they will run for the seat.
(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Nolan D. McCaskill and Andy Sullivan in Washington; Editing by Mark Porter and Matthew Lewis)

Weekly Senate caucus luncheons on Capitol Hill in Washington

Veteran Republican Senator Will Not Seek Re-Election: Report

Iowa

Joni Ernst

GOP Rep. Tom Emmer on Thursday called for his home state of Minnesota to repeal its “trans refuge” law in the wake of the deadly shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis by a transgender-identifying man.
Emmer <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/08/28/us-news/house-gop-whip-tom-emmer-calls-for-repeal-of-minnesotas-trans-refuge-law/">told</a> the New York Post that the law, which was passed back in 2023 and signed by Democratic Governor Tim Walz, was encouraging mental distress. The law made Minnesota a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/leftist-minnesota-just-gave-state-power-to-take-kids-away-if-parents-dont-approve-gender-surgery">safe haven</a> for parents to take their children to undergo transgender procedures if their home states had banned such practices. 
“We got to respect everyone. We got to have compassion for everyone. But we got to understand that we’ve got some serious mental health issues that are being exacerbated by these types of messages by people like Tim Walz and everybody who supported that law,” Emmer, the House GOP whip, told The Post. 
Emmer made the comments just one day after Robin Westman, a 23-year-old man who identified as a woman and previously went by Robert, opened fire during a school Mass held at Annunciation Catholic School. Two children, ages 8 and 10, were killed in the attack, and 18 other people were injured. 
“They should immediately repeal it, but they won’t,” Emmer said of the 2023 law. “They have been encouraging this type of confusion. This poor young man was tortured. He clearly had serious mental health issues and rather than actually helping him, they were actually exacerbating it.”
“You look at the sadness of these tortured human beings — because they do have regrets later — and no, we should have never started it. It should not be allowed,” he said. 
Portions of writings Westman left behind <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/wish-i-never-brain-washed-myself-minnesota-school-shooter-said-he-was-tired-of-being-trans?author=Zach+Jewell&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=3&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=‘Wish+I+Never+Brain-Washed+Myself’%3A+Minnesota+School+Shooter+Said+He+Was+‘Tired+Of+Being+Trans’">indicate</a> he had regrets about identifying as transgender. 
“I only keep [long hair] because it is pretty much my last shred of being trans. I am tired of being trans, I wish I never brain-washed myself,” Westman reportedly wrote in a journal entry. 
In another section of his journal, Westman reportedly wrote, “I don’t want to dress girly all the time but I guess sometimes I really like it. I know I am not a woman but I definitely don’t feel like a man.”
Police have said that Westman’s writings were “full of hate,” and published portions reveal that he had disliked Jews, Catholics, and considered attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump. 
Emmer said that someone must have failed to intervene in Westman&#8217;s life because there had to have been warning signs about his mental state.  
“Somebody had to know,” he told the Post. “Somebody in his neighborhood, somebody in his family, somebody in his network, somebody had to know that he had these serious mental health issues and why didn’t someone speak up? Why didn’t somebody offer him some help?”

House Passes Crypto Market Structure Bill

Top House Republican Demands Minnesota ‘Immediately’ Repeal ‘Trans Refuge’ Law

Annunciation Catholic School

Minneapolis

Minnesota

School Shooting

Tim Walz

transgender surgery

Joe Biden didn’t just create a border crisis — he deliberately rigged the system in which millions of illegal aliens are now being counted among American citizens in the U.S. Census. 
America faces a constitutional crisis unlike any in modern times.
To understand the magnitude of the situation we are in, consider the enormity of what’s at stake. For over two centuries, America’s decennial census has served as the constitutional foundation for fair representation in Congress, the accurate distribution of federal resources, and the determination of our President through the Electoral College. The 2020 census shattered that tradition with brazen manipulation, inaccurate data, and a refusal to ensure illegal immigrants aren’t counted when determining each state’s number of Congressional seats. Meaning states that harbored illegal immigrants and ignored federal law shortchanged law-abiding states.
That’s why I am introducing the <a href="https://mcusercontent.com/d4254037a343b683d142111e0/files/aae8dae1-a65f-58d1-a37e-2293fd46880f/PFLUGE_104_xml.pdf">COUNT Act</a> to codify <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/DCPD-201900466/pdf/DCPD-201900466.pdf">Executive Order 13880</a> into law, which ensures the U.S. Census Bureau conducts accurate census counts based on citizenship and prohibits the bureau from manipulating data. The need for this legislation has never been greater.
When Biden took office, he immediately moved to ensure that future censuses would perpetuate these problems, dismantling Trump’s efforts to collect citizenship data. This was a blatant attempt to orchestrate the most sophisticated attack on future census integrity since Reconstruction. The same regime that demolished border security and flooded America with millions of illegal immigrants then systematically destroyed the tools needed to exclude them from congressional representation. They killed the citizenship data collection project and deployed “differential privacy,” a euphemism for data manipulation, to scramble future census numbers. 
This was a calculated preparation for electoral manipulation disguised as statistical innovation.
The Democrats figured out the perfect con: transform illegal immigration into political power while American citizens pay the price. Every illegal immigrant counted toward congressional representation dilutes the voice of our own American citizens. States that enforce immigration law lose representation to sanctuary states that harbor criminals. The message couldn’t be clearer: break America’s laws, gain political power; follow America’s laws, lose your voice.
Consider this: a district in California packed with illegal immigrants wields the same congressional power as a district of law-abiding citizens in Kansas. The result is that American citizens’ votes carry different weights depending on how many lawbreakers their state harbors.
This is taxation without representation in reverse — representation without citizenship.
The political ramifications are staggering and immediate. In 2022, the Census Bureau was finally forced to acknowledge the extent of this scandal: Republican states lost at least three congressional seats while Democratic strongholds gained seats they didn’t deserve. Florida should have gained two additional seats. Texas was shortchanged by at least one seat. Meanwhile, states like New York and California — which openly defy federal immigration laws — were rewarded with extra representation. This isn’t just about numbers; it’s about raw political power redistributed through census inaccuracies.
The Electoral College implications alone should terrify every American who believes in a legitimate election process. States that gained unearned congressional seats also gained unearned electoral votes, potentially swinging presidential elections for decades. The 2020 census problems didn’t just distort one count — they skewed the next decade of American politics. Every close congressional race, every tight Electoral College count, every razor-thin Senate battle now carries the taint of inaccurate representation built into the system.
Federal funding follows the same corrupted formula, meaning billions in taxpayer dollars flow to sanctuary states and cities based on their inflated illegal populations. Law-abiding states subsidize the very lawlessness that steals their political representation. It’s the perfect Democrat scheme: reward illegal immigration with congressional seats, electoral votes, and federal cash, while punishing states that enforce American law.
The <a href="https://mcusercontent.com/d4254037a343b683d142111e0/files/aae8dae1-a65f-58d1-a37e-2293fd46880f/PFLUGE_104_xml.pdf">COUNT Act</a> (Citizen Only Updated National Tally Act) will create a block-level citizenship database, implementing a mandate that will require the Census Bureau to collect legitimate, verifiable citizenship data. This ensures, for the first time, that the bureau has the necessary information to ensure that only American citizens are counted in future censuses for the purpose of determining access to federal grant money and congressional apportionment. And while President Trump’s executive order in his first term was a critical step to ensure an accurate and legitimate decennial census, codification through my legislation is essential to prevent the census from being weaponized against Republicans in the future.
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The stakes extend far beyond statistics — this is about American citizens, and only American citizens, having the ability to decide who represents them in Washington. Federal funding formulas distribute hundreds of billions of dollars annually based on census data, creating a Democrat money-laundering operation that transforms illegal immigration into political slush funds. When sanctuary states inflate their counts through illegal residents, they don’t just steal congressional seats — they steal federal education dollars, healthcare funding, and infrastructure investments that should flow to states with actual American citizens.
The Republican Party faces an existential crisis: how do you win elections when Democrats can manufacture congressional districts through illegal immigration? Every new illegal immigrant isn’t just a border security problem — they’re a potential representation diluter, reducing Republican influence even when they can’t legally vote. Democrats have discovered the ultimate redistricting scheme: import your population, count them in the census, and let illegal immigration redraw congressional maps in your favor.
My bill eliminates this loophole once and for all.
We will not allow another census to be corrupted by political agendas and flawed processes. The Democrats turned our own census into a weapon against us. It’s time to disarm them permanently.
* * *
August Pfluger represents Texas’s 11th Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives. He is the Chairman of the Republican Study Committee, the largest conservative caucus on Capitol Hill, and sits on the House Committee on Energy &amp; Commerce.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Border Crossings

Heads We Lose, Tails They Win: America’s Rigged Census

Heads We Lose, Tails They Win: America's Rigged Census

Border Crisis

Census Bureau

Illegal Immigration

Texas

U.S. House of Representatives

A week ago, President Donald Trump <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/dariosabaghi/2025/08/11/trump-says-marijuana-rescheduling-will-be-decided-within-weeks/">said</a> that he would soon decide whether to move cannabis from Schedule I to III for purposes of the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 (CSA), which would take marijuana out of the category of drugs that cannot be used for any purpose. Doing so would be a huge mistake. Huge.
Congress placed cannabis in Schedule I — the category for drugs that have no legitimate medical use, that are potentially addictive, and have no safe use even under a physician’s supervision — when it passed the CSA 55 years ago. While Congress empowered the U.S. Attorney General, after consultation with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, to reschedule cannabis, in the ensuing half-century, no Republican or Democratic attorney general has done so, and no court has ruled that they must do so.
In 2023, however, cannabis advocates finally found a friend. Admiral Rachel L. Levine, HHS Assistant Secretary for Health under President Biden, <a href="http://www.jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/2834954">recommended</a> that Attorney General Merrick Garland transfer cannabis into Schedule III. To justify that conclusion, Levine invented a newfangled test that relied heavily on the fact that multiple states have adopted medical cannabis programs. As a matter of law, that rationale is wrong for multiple reasons.
First, Congress could not have been clearer that it is the exclusive responsibility of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), not the states, to decide whether a drug is safe, effective, and uniform. Levine’s rationale effectively and unlawfully transfers decision-making authority from the FDA to the states.
Second, the FDA has never approved the botanical form of cannabis as a safe, effective, and uniformly made drug. The FDA has approved the synthesis of compounds found in the plant by legitimate pharmaceutical companies, but has not approved the interstate distribution of the cannabis plant enjoyed by Cheech and Chong and Harold and Kumar fans.
Third, the FDA could not find that the cannabis plant is safe, effective, and uniformly made.
Start with its safety. The cannabis sold today is <a href="https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/110381/witnesses/HHRG-116-IF14-Wstate-VolkowN-20200115.pdf">far more powerful</a> than the version smoked at Woodstock. At that time, the tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content — the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis — was 3-6%. Now, some concentrated cannabis products can have a 90% THC content. That difference is like comparing near beer to grain alcohol.
Growing evidence also links cannabis use to a host of <a href="https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/110381/witnesses/HHRG-116-IF14-Wstate-VolkowN-20200115.pdf">adverse physical outcomes</a>, such as oral, head, and neck cancers; cardiovascular disorders; pulmonary disease; and numerous adverse psychological effects, such earlier onset of psychosis; reduced IQ; childhood poisonings; amotivational syndrome; increased school absenteeism; and a reduced likelihood of graduating high school, enrolling in a university, or completing higher degree requirements. Heavy cannabis users and people who begin its use as minors and continue into adulthood are particularly <a href="https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/110381/witnesses/HHRG-116-IF14-Wstate-VolkowN-20200115.pdf">susceptible</a> to these harms.
Plus, botanical cannabis can be adulterated with a host of dangerous, unhealthy, or downright disgusting contaminants. Dr. Nora Volkow, Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, told Congress in 2020 that “individuals across the country are using cannabis strains and extracts that have not undergone the rigorous clinical trials required to show that they are safe and effective for medical use, and are not regulated for consistency or quality.”
As I explained in an <a href="https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2023-08/SR275.pdf">earlier article</a>, among the “hodgepodge” of dangerous contaminants found in the cannabis sold today are E. coli, fungi, mold, toxins, hazardous chemical solvents such as butane and propane, pesticides, heavy metals (such as arsenic, lead, and mercury), and other harmful and disgusting substances such as formaldehyde and insects. The FDA would never allow such contaminants to be present in any drug sold to the public.
Cannabis can also lead to physical dependence in users. Heavy or long-term use can lead a person to develop a tolerance to THC, requiring ever greater quantities of the chemical to experience the same euphoria. As drug policy experts Wayne Hall and Rosalie Pacula have explained, there is a 10% risk of addiction for people who have ever used cannabis, a 20-33% for people who use it more frequently, and a 50% risk — &#8220;<a href="https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2023-08/SR275.pdf">a coin flip</a>” — for people who use it daily. Driving while stoned can, of course, lead to motor vehicle accidents that maim or kill pedestrians or other drivers and their passengers.
Keep in mind that the FDA has <a href="http://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2023-08/SR275.pdf">never</a> given approval for a drug to be smoked. Why? There is no uniform depth or length of any one inhalation, and no uniform number of inhalations that users follow. Moreover, the nation concluded over 60 years ago that smoking burnt carbon products damages a smoker’s health, which explains why major medical institutions such as the American Medical Association, the U.S. National Institutes of Health, and the Royal College of Physicians have <a href="http://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2023-08/SR275.pdf">not</a> recommended smoking as a legitimate drug delivery system.
The raw cannabis plant also is not “effective” for purposes of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Only a handful of controlled studies have examined whether pot can be used as a legitimate treatment for disease or injury; the results are <a href="https://www.law.georgetown.edu/public-policy-journal/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2019/09/17-2-Larkin-Madras.pdf">inadequate</a> to draw any scientific conclusion.
The most common justification offered is that its psychoactive calming effect makes it a legitimate analgesic alternative for pain. But that argument is medically <a href="https://www.law.georgetown.edu/public-policy-journal/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2019/09/17-2-Larkin-Madras.pdf">unsound</a>. Cannabis is too weak to substitute for opioids as a treatment for severe pain — indeed, it hinders cessation of opioid use by anyone trying to kick an opioid <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4127123/pdf/nihms609765.pdf">dependency</a> — and scientific proof that THC is a valid treatment for lower levels of pain is also lacking.
To be sure, smoking a joint can get you “high,” but that is not the test for a medicine’s effectiveness. As Dr. Peter Bach, Director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/if-weed-is-medicine-so-is-budweiser-11547770981?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=ASWzDAh7LaDEYv_vcqs-izvRtTLHvE4_TMMU_qu3NyDxy9OXughPlX3zaBL-&amp;gaa_ts=689c8e99&amp;gaa_sig=tzI2Ti78lH5zRhqIjd3w0ZVcT308pAa8r1GA3Re1URauoN8dYXnoBs5EqZYAmoitDwKaFsuYPpeZooGzKZ9AwA%3D%3D">explained</a>, “[E]very intoxicant would pass that sort of test because you don’t experience pain as acutely when you are high. If weed is a pain reliever, so is Budweiser.”
Finally, the cannabis plant is not a <a href="http://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2023-08/SR275.pdf">uniformly made product</a>. As Brian Thomas and Mahmoud ElSohly <a href="http://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2023-08/SR275.pdf">explained</a> in their book The Analytical Chemistry of Cannabis, “The number of parameters on which cannabis can vary is enormous,” and differs according to “strain, growing conditions, harvesting methods and handling,” to “storage and processing of the raw material to combining them with a wide variety of foods and other excipients in manufacturing, and to “methods of administration (eating, smoking, ‘vaping,’ applying to mucous membranes)” and so forth.
Botanical cannabis also varies according to potency and the presence of cannabinoids (i.e., biochemically active compounds), which tends to <a href="http://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2023-08/SR275.pdf">offset or moderate</a> the potential adverse effects of high THC consumption, such as anxiety, cognitive impairment, amotivational syndrome, dependence or addiction, and psychosis.
In sum, the Levine recommendation from 2023 is wrong as a matter of law and medically unsound, indeed dangerous. If the President truly wants to Make America Healthy Again, he should reject that recommendation.
* * *
Paul J. Larkin is the John, Barbara &amp; Victoria Rumpel Senior Legal Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Trump Administration Considers Reclassifying Marijuana As A Less Dangerous Drug

Dude, Rescheduling Cannabis Downwards Would Be A Huge Mistake. Huge.

addiction

Drugs

Federal Government

Marijuana

The following is a portion of an edited transcript from a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mrn-250824-member-exclusive?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+Show+Episodes+Carousel">Weekend Edition of Morning Wire</a> where Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley sat down with Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for Responsible Federal Budget.
* * *
JOHN: Joining us now is Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for Responsible Federal Budget. Maya, thanks so much for coming on. First, tell us, what exactly is the <a href="https://www.crfb.org/">Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget</a>?
MAYA: Thanks for having me. Other than a mouthful of a name, it&#8217;s a bipartisan nonprofit watchdog group. Basically, we&#8217;re very concerned about fiscal policy, meaning how big our debt and deficits are and we don&#8217;t have a political agenda at all. I&#8217;m a political independent. Our board and our staff are from across the political spectrum. But we are deeply concerned that our political environment now focuses on borrowing when we shouldn&#8217;t be because of the political benefits of not actually dealing with trade-offs. And that concern has been growing over time.
JOHN: I wanted to ask you exactly about that. You&#8217;ve been warning about borrowing. Why is the growing debt so dangerous for the U.S. economy? What specific ways will it actually impact Americans?
MAYA: I think that&#8217;s one of the biggest challenges about this whole issue. It&#8217;s really not something that feels directly related to us as individuals, but it&#8217;s directly related to everything we care about. The fiscal health of the country is really the underpinning of both our economic and our national security strength. So, if your debt is too high — and ours without question is — every warning sign that there is is blinking bright, bright red right now. But if your debt is too high, it actually means that the government borrows so much money, it squeezes out the investment possibility and the private sector. It slows growth and slows productivity, it pushes up inflation, pushes up interest rates, all sorts of things that slow economic growth, which translates into lower wages, lower standard of living, and less job security. Nothing good on the economic front. That&#8217;s one. 
Two, it means that our budget has huge pressure because interest payments start to absorb more and more of our resources. Whether you want huge tax cuts or huge growth in spending, we can fight about those things, but interest payments get the first claim on the dollar in the budget. Right now it&#8217;s our second largest item in the budget and the single fastest growing item. It also means that when we have national emergencies where you should be borrowing, it&#8217;s more difficult to do so. And it means that, if you&#8217;re trying to fight a recession or a pandemic or a national emergency, you may have high pressure on upward interest rates when you&#8217;re trying to borrow. Whereas, if your debt&#8217;s lower, that doesn&#8217;t happen. 
But it&#8217;s also expanded now where it&#8217;s not just an economic issue, it is a national security issue. We are borrowing from countries with whom we are not aligned. We are not able to make our own national security decisions just from a strategic and security perspective, we have to think about budget resources and you don&#8217;t want to be in that position. So it weakens our ability to respond to emergencies, take advantage of opportunities. But bottom line, we can do fewer things and we become poor as a nation.
And finally, for those people who worry about the next generation, it&#8217;s really, really [hosing] a generation that&#8217;s already facing so many challenges. They are facing a much more difficult, fast-paced, changing world and we have tied up their budget with interest payments and promises to seniors. They don&#8217;t have the fiscal flexibility to respond and they owe a whole lot of debt because of the borrowing we took on.
&nbsp;
<iframe style="width: 100%; max-width: 660px; overflow: hidden; border-radius: 10px;" src="https://embed.podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/debt-deficits-disaster-can-washington-change-course/id1576594336?i=1000723297012" height="175" frameborder="0" sandbox="allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation"></iframe>
JOHN: Like you said, it&#8217;s insidious because you don&#8217;t feel a lot of the effects. There are a lot of things that we can&#8217;t do now, things that we could have done if we had more money available. And then, kicking the can down the road. We&#8217;re not feeling it now – but our kids will feel it, and their kids will feel it. Is there any progress on this in Washington? Anyone paying attention to this?
MAYA: Yes, it&#8217;s so discouraging, honestly, because the situation is getting worse. Our debt to GDP is getting worse. Our annual deficits are getting worse, and this is outside of emergencies. And, frankly, our political environment and willingness to talk about this is much, much worse. We&#8217;re so polarized. You have both parties basically fighting with each other by giving away more things. &#8220;I&#8217;ll give you tax cuts, no taxes on this.&#8221; &#8220;Well, I&#8217;ll give you bigger tax cuts, and I&#8217;ll increase the spending.&#8221; &#8220;I&#8217;ll also increase the spending.&#8221; It used to be that you thought of Republicans as wanting tax cuts and Democrats as wanting spending increases. It&#8217;s literally both now. So, they fight for these huge giveaways. 
So, no, the situation is frankly very troubling both from an economic, national security, but also a political perspective. And internally, because it&#8217;s frustrating to work on an issue where you know we&#8217;re not going to have the big debt deal that we really need to have this year, for instance, a lot of times the best we can do and sort of why we&#8217;re able to pat ourselves on the back for some work is when things would have been worse without the kind of fiscal pressure we put on. But it&#8217;s really frustrating to say, &#8220;Well, we borrowed a trillion dollars, but we might have borrowed a trillion and a half if it weren&#8217;t for our pushing against this issue.&#8221; We&#8217;ve got to do better than that. We&#8217;ve got to start actually turning the ship around and bringing the debt as a share of GDP trajectory down instead of continuing to grow it&#8230;
* * *
<h3><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/debt-deficits-disaster-can-washington-change-course/id1576594336?i=1000723297012">Catch the full interview with Maya MacGuineas on Morning Wire.</a></h3>

National Debt

‘Blinking Bright, Bright Red’: Maya MacGuineas On America’s Debt, Deficits, And Disaster

'Blinking Bright, Bright Red': Maya MacGuineas On America’s Debt, Deficits, And Disaster

finance

Morning Wire

Spending Bill

The Department of Justice (DOJ) will begin handing over documents regarding deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to Congress by the end of the week, House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) announced on Monday.
Comer shared the development one day before the deadline listed in the <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/2025.08.05-Subpoena-and-Schedule-to-DOJ.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">subpoena</a> he issued to the DOJ.
“Officials with the Department of Justice have informed us that the Department will begin to provide Epstein-related records to the Oversight Committee this week on Friday,&#8221; Comer said in a statement.
&#8220;There are many records in DOJ’s custody, and it will take the Department time to produce all the records and ensure the identification of victims and any child sexual abuse material are redacted,&#8221; he added. &#8220;I appreciate the Trump Administration’s commitment to transparency and efforts to provide the American people with information about this matter.&#8221;
A spokesperson for the DOJ declined to comment.
Comer <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/congress-subpoenas-clintons-doj-records-and-former-officials-in-sweeping-epstein-investigation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">subpoenaed</a> the DOJ on August 5, the same day he issued subpoenas demanding Epstein-related testimony from former President Bill Clinton, his wife and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and several ex-law enforcement leaders on dates ranging from mid-August to mid-October.
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_campaign=summer&amp;utm_content=editorialsummersale&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial" target="_blank" rel="noopener">End of Summer Sale – Get 40% off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships</a>
The Oversight Committee also issued a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/house-subpoenas-epstein-associate-ghislaine-maxwell">subpoena</a> to Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/ghislaine-maxwell-sentenced-20-years-prison-conspiring-jeffrey-epstein-sexually-abuse">a 20-year prison sentence</a> after being found guilty of conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse underage girls, but has yet to finalize details for a deposition after she <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ghislaine-maxwell-sends-congress-list-of-demands-for-deposition" target="_blank" rel="noopener">demanded</a> immunity and other &#8220;conditions.&#8221;
All of the subpoenas were approved by members of the Oversight Committee before Comer sent them out.
Epstein, a wealthy financier and convicted sex offender, was found dead at the age of 66 in his New York City jail cell in 2019 — after being arrested on sex trafficking charges involving young girls. In addition to the Clintons, Epstein had connections to a variety of high-profile people, including President Donald Trump. The Clintons and Trump have sought to distance themselves from Epstein over the years.
In his <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/2025.08.05-Subpoena-Cover-Letters.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cover letters</a>, Comer explained how the Clinton family &#8220;appears to have had a close relationship&#8221; with Epstein and Maxwell. To the former law enforcement heads, the chairman noted the various ways the FBI and DOJ were involved in investigations, litigation, and other matters related to Epstein and Maxwell during their tenures.
The first deposition took place on Monday with former Attorney General William Barr, who was cooperative while answering questions from both Republican and Democratic staff and members, a source familiar with the matter told The Daily Wire.
Barr made clear that Trump never provided any views or instructions related to the criminal case against Epstein or his death, and that he never saw any evidence suggesting Trump committed a crime, according to the source, who added that Barr further stated that he believed the Biden DOJ would have released any incriminating evidence against Trump if such evidence existed.
The Daily Wire confirmed with a House Oversight Committee aide that the panel intends to withdraw its subpoena to former FBI Director Robert Mueller, who also served as special counsel of the Trump-Russia investigation from 2017 to 2019, because it learned that health issues preclude him from being able to testify. The Daily Caller was the first to <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2025/08/18/robert-mueller-house-oversight-committee-subpoena-james-comer-jeffrey-epstein-fbi/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> the development.
Lawmakers have increasingly pushed for transparency after the DOJ claimed it had no evidence that Epstein had a client list, blackmailed powerful people, or was murdered — despite earlier <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/shes-great-trump-backs-bondi-wants-top-officials-to-end-conflict-over-epstein" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hints</a> from Attorney General Pam Bondi that major bombshells would be revealed.
At the behest of Trump, who has argued that people are falling for a “hoax” spun by the Democrats, Bondi asked multiple judges to unseal grand jury testimony from the cases against Epstein and Maxwell. So far, those requests have been denied.
The DOJ held a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/justice-department-meets-with-ghislaine-maxwell" target="_blank" rel="noopener">meeting</a> with Maxwell in July.

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DOJ To Start Giving Congress Epstein Docs By Week’s End, House Oversight Chair Says

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