Trump Ramblings on Epstein Take Revealing Turn as MAGA Fury Boils Over SCUTUS TARIFF RULING

 

Today: "Podcast: Trump Ramblings on Epstein Take Revealing Turn as MAGA Fury Boils Over" Plus, Supreme Court hands Trump loss over tariffs; red states’ fascist campaign against colleges; Britain’s floundering labor party is a warning to U.S Dems; and more... Judges Have One Defense Against Trump They (Mostly) Haven’t Used Yet Judicial contempt is a tool few jurists have reached for to curb the administration’s misrule—and for good reason. But that may be about to change. By Felipe De La Hoz

Rank-and-File Dems to Leaders: It’s Time to Take the Gloves Off In TNR’s exclusive new poll, loyal Democratic voters make it plain: They want a party that goes after the people making their lives harder. By Emily Cooke Read now

Red States’ Fascist Campaign Against Colleges and Professors Trump and his hench people get all the attention, but red-state governors and legislators are waging a largely under-the-radar war on liberal education. By Perry Bacon Supreme Court Hands Trump Stunning Loss Over Tariffs The Supreme Court has struck down Donald Trump’s tariffs. By Edith Olmsted The Supreme Court ruled Friday to undo Donald Trump’s illegal Liberation Day tariffs, taking away the president’s favorite toy after he used it to hit his allies. In the court’s 6-3 majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that Trump’s invocation of an emergency in order to impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act was a massive overreach of Congress’s authority and flew in the face of decades of precedent. “There is no exception to the major questions doctrine for emergency statutes. Nor does the fact that tariffs implicate foreign affairs render the doctrine inapplicable. The Framers gave ‘Congress alone’ the power to impose tariffs during peacetime,” Roberts wrote. “And the foreign affairs implications of tariffs do not make it any more likely that Congress would relinquish its tariff power through vague language, or without careful limits.” “Accordingly, the President must ‘point to clear congressional authorization’ to justify his extraordinary assertion of that power,” Roberts wrote. “He cannot.” Roberts was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, Kentanji Brown Jackson, and Amy Coney Barrett. In his concurring opinion, Gorsuch wrote, “Whatever else might be said about Congress’s work in IEEPA, it did not clearly surrender to the President the sweeping tariff power he seeks to wield.” Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh both wrote dissenting opinions, and Justice Samuel Alito and Thomas joined Kavanaugh’s. Trump imposed his so-called “reciprocal tariffs” in April 2025 using the IEEPA, a rule that allows the president to regulate commerce in case of a national emergency—but doesn’t actually include the word “tariff.” The Trump administration initially claimed that the “reciprocal tariffs” were simply a tool to negotiate improved trade deals with other countries in order to promote domestic manufacturing and thwart drug trafficking. But it quickly became clear that the deals were neither binding nor permanent. In reality, Trump’s tariffs were intended to be ever-changing, a whip to extend across the world at his whim. The results? Trump has hurt U.S. manufacturing, driven up prices, and strained relationships with U.S. allies. Trump claimed in mid-January that should the Supreme Court rule against his tariff policy, the U.S. would be forced to “pay back … Hundreds of Billions of Dollars” in investments made by companies and countries hoping to avoid his steep tariffs. “When these Investments are added, we are talking about Trillions of Dollars!” Trump wrote. “It would be a complete mess, and almost impossible for our country to pay.” Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told The New York Times on January 19 that in the case of an unfavorable decision, Trump planned to simply ignore the ruling. He would impose a new set of tariffs that will “start the next day” in order “to respond to the problems the president has identified.” This story has been updated. Andrew Should Consider Himself Lucky That It Was Only an Arrest The former prince faces permanent disgrace and possible life imprisonment. But 300 years ago, it would’ve been a lot worse than that. By Geoffrey Wheatcroft Podcast: Britain’s Floundering Labor Party Is a Warning to U.S Democrats Writer Toby Buckle says moving to the right on social issues has failed for Britain’s liberals and would also be a disaster for U.S. Democrats. Read the transcript here. Right Now With Perry Bacon The Revolutionary Crappiness of Darren Aronofsky’s On This Day … 1776 The generative AI series is tailored to a viewer with radically lowered expectations. By Phillip Maciak

Join us: What’s Next for the Democrats? Tuesday, February 24 · 4–5 p.m. EST To complement The New Republic’s March 2026 issue, "What Should the Democrats Do?" our writers examine how the Democrats can reestablish themselves as the party of and for the people, hone their messaging, and push the electorate to be more progressive. RSVP now

Coming This Fall: Disputed Elections—and a New Supreme Court Nominee? Samuel Alito has a book coming out in early October. A little weird that he’s doing a book tour right after the court’s new session kicks off? By David Daley Why Did DOJ Give Ghislaine Maxwell These Epstein Files on Trump? Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplice has Epstein files that the rest of us don’t have. By Malcolm Ferguson What subscribers are reading: Trump Reveals He’s Taking $10 Billion From Taxpayers for His New Board By Edith Olmsted Trump Bored to Sleep During Board of Peace Launch By Malcolm Ferguson Trump Reveals Ominous Plot for 50 Years of Rigged Elections By Malcolm Ferguson Trump Labor Sec.’s Husband Banned From Building for Alleged Assaults At least two female Labor Department staffers have accused Lori Chavez-DeRemer’s husband, Shawn DeRemer, of sexual assault. By Edith Olmsted Podcast: Trump Ramblings on Epstein Take Revealing Turn as MAGA Fury Boils Over The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent After British police arrested the former Prince Andrew in connection with revelations involving Jeffrey Epstein, a reporter asked Donald Trump directly if anyone will face accountability in the United States. Trump rambled and rambled, insisting he had been "totally exonerated." That’s not true, but regardless, Trump could not explain why  accountability is happening in other countries but not in ours. He also had nothing whatsoever to say about whether his Justice Department will ever seek accountability for any elites implicated in the scandal. Meanwhile, MAGA figures are raging over the latest Epstein file revelations and demanding exactly the accountability that is not forthcoming from DOJ. We talked to Nicole Hemmer, author of good books about the conservative movement and about the right-wing media. She explains why Trump has not been exonerated, how the latest in this scandal is causing MAGA to crack up, what all this reveals about supposed Trump-MAGA hatred of "elites," and what the prospects are for genuine accountability.  Listen to the episode here.   Read the transcript here.

Angry Trump Humiliated as Effort to Prosecute Dems Backfires Again A grand jury laughed Trump’s prosecutors out of court—but new details about these nakedly political prosecutions reveal serious abuses of power that are no laughing matter. By Greg Sargent Read now

Let’s start with some good news: Donald Trump’s efforts to jail his Democratic enemies have thus far mostly been marked by ham-fisted, buffoonish failure. The targeting of people like Senator Adam Schiff, former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and six Democratic lawmakers who produced a video that displeased the angry, ailing despot have, for now at least, largely faltered. Yet—after all, there’s always bad news in the Trump era—a dynamic has kicked in that is oddly helpful to him. Thanks to the knee-slapping, comic-relief-inducing nature of these failures, the authoritarian abuses underlying them risk being seen as less threatening than they actually are. That could potentially disarm us for the next round, which will surely come. Case in point: Trump’s efforts to indict those six Democrats, who all spoke in a video posted late last year that warned military service members and officials against carrying out illegal orders. After that video was posted, Trump raged that they were “traitors” who should be “ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL,” leading the FBI to reach out to the lawmakers to set up interviews. But last week, federal prosecutors failed to secure an indictment against the lawmakers, who include Senators Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin and four House members. Indeed, the grand jury unanimously rejected the indictment—a major embarrassment for Trump and Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., a central player in Trump’s efforts to prosecute his enemies. As NBC News’s Ryan Reilly notes, it’s rare for grand juries not to indict, so the inability to persuade even one juror represents a remarkable implosion. Yet details of how this indictment came together should caution us against letting Trump and Pirro’s pie-in-the-face antics distract from how grave an abuse of power this truly was—and continues to be. Here’s what happened: After the FBI communicated with the Democratic lawmakers, prosecutors in Pirro’s office reached out to them to follow up. Slotkin’s attorney, Preet Bharara, directly asked prosecutors what statute the Democrats had allegedly violated to prompt the criminal inquiry, according to sources familiar with these discussions. The prosecutors could not name any statute, the sources told me. “What is the theory of criminal liability?” is the question that was posed to the prosecutors, one source said, adding that “no answer was forthcoming.” And so, when the news broke that Pirro had tried—and failed—to secure an indictment, this was particularly shocking to the lawyers, the sources said. That’s because her prosecutors had failed to name any violated statute, yet they forged ahead with the effort to indict anyway. It has not been definitively confirmed what statute they used in that failed effort. Bharara hinted at all this in a letter to Pirro in early February. “The prosecutors we spoke to in your office, though courteous, could not articulate any theory of possible criminal liability or any statute that they were relying on or that could have been violated,” Bharara wrote. Yet this whole process appears to have been considerably more corrupted than this letter’s lawyerly language suggests, as the sources recount. But last week, federal prosecutors failed to secure an indictment against the lawmakers, who include Senators Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin and four House members. Indeed, the grand jury unanimously rejected the indictment—a major embarrassment for Trump and Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., a central player in Trump’s efforts to prosecute his enemies. As NBC News’s Ryan Reilly notes, it’s rare for grand juries not to indict, so the inability to persuade even one juror represents a remarkable implosion.

Here’s what happened: After the FBI communicated with the Democratic lawmakers, prosecutors in Pirro’s office reached out to them to follow up. Slotkin’s attorney, Preet Bharara, directly asked prosecutors what statute the Democrats had allegedly violated to prompt the criminal inquiry, according to sources familiar with these discussions. The prosecutors could not name any statute, the sources told me.

“What is the theory of criminal liability?” is the question that was posed to the prosecutors, one source said, adding that “no answer was forthcoming.”

And so, when the news broke that Pirro had tried—and failed—to secure an indictment, this was particularly shocking to the lawyers, the sources said. That’s because her prosecutors had failed to name any violated statute, yet they forged ahead with the effort to indict anyway. It has not been definitively confirmed what statute they used in that failed effort.

Bharara hinted at all this in a letter to Pirro in early February. “The prosecutors we spoke to in your office, though courteous, could not articulate any theory of possible criminal liability or any statute that they were relying on or that could have been violated,” Bharara wrote.

Yet this whole process appears to have been considerably more corrupted than this letter’s lawyerly language suggests, as the sources recount.

First, the failure to name a relevant statute when directly asked to do so by the lawyers for the accused suggests prosecutors didn’t think a criminal prosecution was warranted or doubted there was probable cause to think the Democrats had committed a crime. In fact, one source familiar with these discussions tells me the prosecutors’ general tone in them suggested they were making the sort of inquiry that normally comes at the very outset of the investigative process.

“They characterized the state of play as very preliminary—as very, very early,” one of the sources told me, speaking about the prosecutors. The U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment on these claims.

For the Justice Department to seek an indictment so soon after conversations like those suggests something or other prompted the rush to indict, perhaps a word from on high that—let’s go way out on a limb here—had little to do with facts and law. Legal experts tell me it’s odd for prosecutors to fail to state any theory of criminal liability and then attempt an indictment anyway so quickly.

“That is irregular,” Kristy Parker, counsel at Protect Democracy and a former federal prosecutor, told me. “Typically, when someone is the target of a criminal investigation, it’s unusual to dissemble with the target’s lawyer about what the charges might be that close to an indictment. It’s not how federal prosecutors are supposed to conduct themselves.”

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that Pirro brought in two outsiders to prosecute the case against the Democrats, one of whom is a dance photographer who worked for Pirro decades ago. Together they have very little DOJ experience, suggesting they may have been tapped to carry out cases that career prosecutors might be reluctant to attempt—special projects, as it were, for the benefit of the Audience of One.

The sum total of all this is jarring. “It seems at least to suggest that the prosecutors were not the ones calling the shots, and that what they thought they were doing got run over by their bosses,” Georgetown law professor Stephen Vladeck told me. “DOJ’s credibility depends on public faith that prosecutions are brought when the law justifies it, not when the political leadership of the administration demands it.”

Trump’s case against these lawmakers is absurdly weak. In declaring that members of the military are not obliged to follow illegal orders, the Democrats were merely stating what the law says. Despite Trump’s suggestion that this constituted an effort to foment military rebellion against the commander in chief, the Democrats didn’t even name any particular order that was supposed to be illegal. Also, the video is constitutionally protected speech to begin with.

In a hard-hitting assessment of the DOJ’s targeting of Trump’s enemies, Politico columnist Ankush Khardori notes that it has produced a string of embarrassing pratfalls. Those include the stalling-out efforts aimed at James, Comey, and Schiff, and even a baseless effort to prosecute Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, essentially for making Trump angry, which has backfired, sparking widespread criticism. The failed prosecution of Democratic lawmakers, Khardori writes, is Pirro’s “highest-profile flop to date.”

Yet the stakes here remain extraordinarily high. Anyone targeted in this way must sink enormous time and money into self-defense. This threatens to stifle dissent among lawmakers, institutions, and prominent individual critics who might muzzle themselves rather than face investigation and potential prosecution. Indeed, it probably already has.

It’s easy to get seduced by the Keystone Kops vibe to all this. But these Keystone Kops continue to wield the enormous power of the federal criminal justice bureaucracy, and they have tethered it to the chaotic whims of a Mad King who thinks that being a Democrat who criticizes him is a prosecutable crime. That they’ve failed so far is heartening. But all indications are that Trump will continue demanding these prosecutions until one of them succeeds—or, possibly, until many more than one does.

Greg Sargent is a staff writer at The New Republic and the host of the podcast The Daily Blast. A seasoned political commentator with over two decades of experience, he was a prominent columnist and blogger at The Washington Post from 2010 to 2023 and has worked at Talking Points Memo, New York magazine, and the New York Observer. Greg is also the author of the critically acclaimed book An Uncivil War: Taking Back Our Democracy in an Age of Disinformation and Thunderdome Politics.  

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Politics, Donald Trump, Jeanine Pirro, Mark Kelly, Elissa Slotkin, Law, Military

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