After months of MAGA infighting and an unusual Republican break with President Donald Trump, the GOP-controlled House is expected to overwhelmingly pass a bill seeking to force the Justice Department to release a huge trove of files related to Jeffrey Epstein. (It may have already passed, depending on when you’ve opened this newsletter.)
However, before the legislation heads to the Senate, I feel compelled to highlight a particularly egregious moment from our president amid his efforts to convey a chill, copacetic vibe with the Epstein vote. Here’s how he responded to a question about his name appearing in last week’s email dump.
“Quiet! Quiet, piggy!”
As I note here, the White House appears to have tinkered with the transcript, conveniently omitting both the reporter’s question and “piggy” from Trump’s response to it. But I’m here to report on the deeply misogynistic remark, as well as the clear rage Trump still holds over House Republicans defying his opposition to today’s discharge petition. No, this simply is not a man at peace. The same frustration was also seen in House Speaker Mike Johnson today, as he too attempts to feign support for a bill he has vehemently opposed.
After months of MAGA infighting and an unusual Republican break with President Donald Trump, the GOP-controlled House on Tuesday is expected to overwhelmingly pass a bill seeking to force the Justice Department to release a huge trove of files related to Jeffrey Epstein.
The bill’s passage—now seen as a foregone conclusion—appears to mark a rare legislative loss for Trump, who, after months of efforts to kill the measure, reversed course this weekend. Faced with certain defeat, he attempted to save face by directing House Republicans to back the bill after all. “Sure,” he even said when asked if he’d sign the legislation should it pass both chambers of Congress.
But Trump’s sudden acquiescence, as he stares down yet another humiliating news cycle tying him to a notorious pedophile, seems little more than a facade. The president’s own comments, just hours before the vote, betrayed significant anger.
“Quiet! Quiet, piggy,” Trump snapped at a female reporter on Monday when asked about the Epstein files. (The official White House transcript, which does not appear auto-generated, appears to skip the Epstein question, while leaving out “piggy” in Trump’s response.) Trump’s rage, wrapped in characteristic cruelty after failing to convince even his most loyal House supporters not to back the bill, was clear; this was not a man at peace.
A similar frustration animated Mike Johnson this morning, when the House speaker announced that he, too, would support the Epstein bill. “The move is a remarkable pivot for Johnson, who had urged Republicans to reject the effort,” is how Axios characterized it. That’s true, from one angle. But the hostility with which Johnson announced his reversal reveals, like Trump, a man still seething. Hours before the vote, Johnson once again blamed Democrats for “forcing a political show vote” that his own caucus overwhelmingly backs. He also released a memo outlining the alleged legal problems with the discharge petition, including privacy concerns for Epstein’s victims, even though the bill explicitly addresses such concerns.
With the bill likely careening toward the Senate, Johnson’s comments could be seen as a potential blueprint should Majority Leader John Thune wish to prevent the files from being released. As for Trump’s “piggy” remarks, they once again reveal the anger of a man on the eve of a vote that could potentially reveal more ties to the notorious pedophile who was once Trump’s close friend.
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“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.
No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.
This story was originally published bybioGraphicand is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
Alpine pennycress is a charming little plant. Its low-growing rosette of green leaves is topped by leggy stalks bearing clusters of pinkish-white flowers. As they develop, these flowers transform into beautiful flattened seedpods that, in the words of botanist Liz Rylott from the United Kingdom’s University of York, “resemble a British old penny.”
But alpine pennycress (Noccaea caerulescens) is notable for far more than its penny disguise. The plant is one of a select group—representing just 0.2 percent of the world’s known vascular plant species—that have evolved the ability to pull impressive amounts of valuable metals out of the soil. Known to scientists as hyperaccumulators, these plants undergird a developing industry that is looking to help secure the vital metals we want without wrecking the planet in the process.
Hyperaccumulators come in all shapes and sizes. Petite alpine pennycress accumulates zinc and cadmium, while shrubby, moth-pollinated Phyllanthus rufuschaneyi—a plant so obscure and narrowly distributed that it doesn’t have a common name—targets nickel. Pycnandra acuminata, a tree native to New Caledonia, has sap so nickel-rich that it “bleeds” a vibrant blue-green and is known as sève bleue, or blue sap, in French. Meanwhile, common buckler-mustard (Biscutella laevigata) collects thallium, and the cobalt wisemany (Haumaniastrum robertii), a plant in the mint family native to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, pulls up copper and cobalt.
In all, researchers have identified plants that hyperaccumulate arsenic, cadmium, cerium, copper, cobalt, lanthanum, manganese, neodymium, nickel, selenium, thallium, and zinc. Many of these are among the so-called critical minerals that are needed to build batteries and other components for electric vehicles, wind turbines, solar panels, and other facets of the green energy transition. They also include the metals that scientists warn could run short and derail global decarbonization efforts.
What I learned about rich people, conspiracy, Ghislaine, stand-up comedy, and evil from 2,000 phone calls.
BY LELAND NALLY
MOTHER JONES MEMBERSHIP UPDATE
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