Month: November 2025

Need some upbeat news?

I do. Over at The New Republic, Adam Bonica and Jake Grumbach report findings that reports of Gen Z bro-ification are greatly exaggerated.

Gen Z registrants this month voted “overwhelmingly for Zohran Mamdani for mayor of New York City, as well as for other Democrats, such as Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey and Abigail Spanberger in Virginia.” A recent “gold standard’ survey shows that racial resentment is vanishing among this demographic cohort.

 “Racial resentment” as defined by political scientists is not belief about racial characteristics or biology but measures attitudes that attribute racial inequality to “cultural failings of minority groups rather than to systemic barriers or discrimination.” As in a late Asheville acquaintance’s “bunch of lazy blacks” comment to “The Daily Show” in 2013. That term is pretty finely tuned but what does it mean?

Importantly, it is more predictive of how someone votes “than income, gender, education, geography, or attitudes about economic policy, gender, or religious traditionalism.” And Gen Z scores the lowest for any generation yet measured.

Bonica and Grumbach write:

This finding demolishes a central assumption of contemporary political analysis. Those young working-class whites, as well as young Latino and Asian men, that everyone assumes are driving reactionary politics? They’re more progressive on race than boomers, Gen X, and even college-educated elder millennials. Many commentators have highlighted “educational polarization,” the growing gap between college and non-college voters on partisanship and attitudes about race and culture. But the generational gap completely overwhelms this education divide that supposedly defines modern American politics.

The progressive shift appears across every demographic slice you can imagine. Young men and women are moving together, becoming less racially resentful over time. The pattern holds across regions, religions, and urban-rural divides. Despite endless discourse about young men being “lost to the manosphere,” the data shows them progressing alongside their female peers.

There is one way in which young, white men can’t catch a break:

Republicans spent years attacking them as “woke” snowflakes who needed safe spaces. Now Democrats dismiss them as “red-pilled” misogynists. Both narratives are wrong. They’re simply more progressive on race than their fathers and grandfathers, continuing a pattern that has held for generations.

Unsurprisingly, “Young Republicans remain nearly as racially resentful as older Republicans.” It’s Democrats and independents who have shifted left. Massively, in the case of independents. The upside is the Republican base is shrinking. The rest of Gen Z is comfortable with both economic populism and politics that acknowledges people’s identities. So beware, Democrats:

… our findings show that a Democratic Party that defensively retreats on racial justice—especially backtracking on commitments to racial justice that Democratic leaders have already made—isn’t making a hard strategic choice. Instead, it’s awkwardly alienating its future base to chase voters who are literally dying off. Republicans’ Southern Strategy delivered temporary victories by activating racial resentment, but that strategy is approaching its expiration date.

So are plenty among Democrats’ gerontocracy.

Horse-race commentary tends to mistake normal electoral swings for broader cultural trends that aren’t there, Bonica and Grumbach argue. “We mistake turnout fluctuations for ideological transformation.” And mistake unrepresentative loud voices out there for generational spokesmen. And of course, there’s motivated reasoning: “Everyone finds anecdotes that confirm their assumptions while ignoring mountains of contradictory data.”

The pair conclude:

The story of Gen Z isn’t one of racist backlash or “red-pilled” young men. It’s the story of the most racially progressive generation in American history. Democrats who think they need to retreat on racial justice aren’t being hard-headed realists—they’re fighting the last war while the terrain has fundamentally shifted beneath their feet.

Same as it ever was.

Now if we can do more to improve their turnout.

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despite standing, Trump seems to be having trouble keeping his eyes open while Melania speaks pic.twitter.com/CU1AHQRAR7

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 13, 2025

Is Trump speaking Continental or Analytic Philosophy? https://t.co/5jkqC4Il53

— Randal Hendrickson (@RandalHendrick9) November 14, 2025

Hi’s fine. Everything is fine.

1) Ethics officials at Fannie Mae investigate how Bill Pulte got Letitia James mortgage docs
2) They send findings to Inspector Gen. of FHFA, which Pulte heads
3) IG sends it to Lindsay Halligan, new USA prosecuting James
4) IG and ethics officials are all fired.

Here’s the WSJ article:

Fannie Mae watchdogs who were removed from their jobs had been probing if Trump appointee Bill Pulte had improperly obtained mortgage records of key Democratic officials, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, according to people familiar with the matter.

Fannie’s ethics and investigations group had received internal complaints alleging senior officials had improperly directed staff to access the mortgage documents of James and others, according to the people. The Fannie investigators were probing to find out who had made the orders, whether Pulte had the authority to seek the documents and whether or not they had followed proper procedure, the people said.

That group elevated the probe about the James documents to the more senior Office of Inspector General for the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the agency that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and that Pulte heads, the people said. The acting inspector general then passed the report to the U.S. attorney’s office in eastern Virginia, some of the people said. 

That office, under the leadership of a Trump-appointed interim U.S. attorney, Lindsey Halligan, had brought a criminal case alleging mortgage fraud against James. A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office hasn’t responded to a request for comment.

[…]

The FHFA acting inspector general sent the office the report at least in part because it could be considered material information for James’s defense in the case, one of the people said.

In the wake of the probes, and other investigations inside Fannie, about a dozen members of the ethics and internal investigations unit of Fannie were fired, The Wall Street Journal has reported. Suzanne Libby, Fannie Mae’s chief ethics officer, was removed and Danielle McCoy, who served as general counsel, also stepped down after being pressured by leadership, the Journal reported.

The FHFA’s acting inspector general, Joe Allen, who sent the internal investigation to the prosecutors, was asked to step down from his role shortly after, the people said.

The rule o’ law presidency.

The word is that Pulte is detested by virtually everyone but Trump. So there’s no stopping him. They are now investigating Eric Swalwell. I’m going to guess that eventually everyone on Trump’s enemies list will have a mortgage fraud investigation.

You may have heard that Trump is cutting off all refugees from coming into the country except white South Africans who are being oppressed. Would you like to know where he’s getting his information?

Elon Musk’s father on the prospect of the U.S. becoming a minority-white country:

“This will be very very bad. You want to see the U.S. go dark? You don’t like electric cars and technology? Do you want to go back to the jungle?”
pic.twitter.com/ly1BQABpQc

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) November 13, 2025

The latest:

U.S. President Donald Trump says that the United States government will boycott the Group of 20 summit this month in South Africa over his claims that a white minority group in that country is being violently persecuted.

Trump announced Friday on Truth Social that no U.S. government official will attend the Nov. 22-23 summit in Johannesburg “as long as these Human Rights abuses continue.” It was his latest criticism of the Black-led South African government, which has been a regular target for Trump since he returned to office.

In February, Trump issued an executive order stopping U.S. financial assistance to South Africa, citing its treatment of the Afrikaner white minority. The administration has also prioritized Afrikaners for refugee status in the U.S. and says they will be given most of the 7,500 places available this fiscal year.

The South African government — and some Afrikaners themselves — say Trump’s claims of persecution are baseless. Afrikaners are South Africans who are descended mainly from Dutch but also French and German colonial settlers who first came to the country in the 17th century.

Afrikaners were at the heart of the apartheid system of white minority rule from 1948-1994, leading to decades of hostility between them and South Africa’s Black majority. But Afrikaners are not a homogenous group, and some fought against apartheid. There are an estimated 2.7 million Afrikaners in South Africa’s population of 62 million.

[…]

Afrikaners’ Dutch-derived language is widely spoken in South Africa and is an official language, while Afrikaners are represented in every aspect of society. Afrikaners are some of South Africa’s richest entrepreneurs, some of its most successful sports stars, and also serve in government and are largely committed to South Africa’s multiracial democracy.

Trump said on Truth Social that Afrikaners “are being killed and slaughtered, and their land and farms are being illegally confiscated.” The president’s comments are in reference to a relatively small number of attacks on Afrikaner farmers that he and others claim are racially motivated.

Elon’s daddy represents the dark heart of MAGA.

Annie Lowrey at The Atlantic goes over the economic consequences of Trump’s tariff policy but suggests that if the Supreme Court rules against Trump that it may right the ship a bit.

But I thought this was actually the most important political observation:

Imagine what the economy would look like right now if Trump had never started the trade war. The Yale Budget Lab estimates that the tariffs have depressed real GDP growth by 0.5 percentage points this year, lifted the unemployment rate by 0.3 percentage points, and cost the economy close to half a million jobs. Moody’s Analytics estimates the hit to real GDP growth to be 0.8 percentage points.

In other words, the Trump administration has likely cut the country’s expansion by a third or more and its annual employment gains in half—for nothing.

Katy Tur asked Rep. Don Bacon why the Republicans have been so willing to let Trump usurp their powers and he said they just wanted to give him running room to fulfill his agenda. Most of them knew it was nonsense but they went along with it anyway. And look what happened.

Axios can usually be counted on to convey the DC conventional wisdom at any given moment. Here’s their take on the Epstein emails:

Four months ago, President Trump blocked the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Wednesday’s disclosure of thousands of Epstein emails showed why.

The emails contained no real smoking gun. But they shed new light on the relationship between the two men, with gossipy, unflattering descriptions of Trump by Epstein.

• Trump was put into a defensive crouch as the news dominated conversation on Capitol Hill, television and social media.

The tranche of emails released by the House Oversight Committee all but ensured the GOP-run chamber would bend to public pressure and vote for a measure to release the investigative records Trump has tried to keep hidden.

• The White House lobbied two key Republicans on Wednesday to drop their support for the effort, to no avail.

 Trump’s reaction to the Epstein scandal is a window into how he handles major controversies that invite criticism about his leadership.

• Whether it’s a question about the current affordability crisis, COVID in 2020 or the Russia probe in 2017, he has a penchant for pushing back against attacks by calling them Democratic hoaxes or con jobs.
• He then tries to kill the controversy with such a heavy hand that it helps keep the story alive.

Trump has started calling the recent attacks “the Epstein hoax.” He sued The Wall Street Journal for publishing a story in July about a racy drawing and poem he allegedly wrote to Epstein for his birthday in 2003. Trump said the drawing and message weren’t his.

• “The minute he thinks it’s unfair to him and it’s a personal attack, he just goes into fight mode,” said one confidant. “No one wants to ask him what’s going on here [with Epstein] because he just gets angry.”

They point out that Trump had promised to release the files but in July he “abruptly reversed course” and forbade it. “‘He told Pam [Bondi] not to release the files. We don’t exactly know why,’ said another Trump insider.”

Axios continues:

Trump, a former friend of Epstein’s, is frequently mentioned in the files but has never been linked to any crimes. Even so, just being mentioned in the files has appeared to aggravate Trump.

Of course he is linked to crimes. There are women associated with Epstein who say he groped them and the top accuser was an employee at Mar-a-lago. They all go to such great lengths to exonerate him when it’s obvious that he has been lying about this stuff all along.

As Dan Pfeiffer wrote this morning:

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released incredibly damning emails from the Epstein files. Here’s how the New York Times described the revelations:

House Democrats on Wednesday released emails in which Jeffrey Epstein wrote that President Trump had “spent hours at my house” with one of Mr. Epstein’s victims, among other messages that suggested that the convicted sex offender believed Mr. Trump knew more about his abuse than he has acknowledged.

And just so you have it, here’s the email itself:

Let me be crystal clear, we now have an email from Jeffrey Epstein that says Trump knew about what Epstein was up to and that he spent time with one of the victims.

This isn’t a smoking gun; it’s the gun still in his hand.

There are many more emails that show how close the president was to Epstein and how deeply entrenched he had been in Epstein’s life. And everybody knows it:

Nobody is buying what Trump is selling on Epstein. His net approval on it is an absolutely dreadful -39 pts… Far worse than any other major issue.

It isn't improving over time.

Even among the GOP, just 45% (!) approve of the job the Trump admin is doing on the Epstein case. pic.twitter.com/P4sffrAT6F

— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) November 13, 2025

Trump doesn’t understand much but he does have a lizard brain instinct about what his cult cares about. That’s why he is “angry” and wanted to shut this scandal down. He knows this is something his followers are interested in — because if he were one of them he would be all over it.

The DC establishment can try to cover for him all they want but it won’t work. People know a cover up when they see one — and there are years and years and years of footage of him talking trash about being a player.

This alone has a totally different sound one you put him in the context of his sex trafficking buddy — who he was still hanging around with at the time of this recording:

The world breaks up with America

Trump says the U.S. is the “hottest” country in the world (apparently seeing it as one of those dancing babes at Mar-a-lago) but the world is running away as fast as it can. It’s no longer willing to put its security in the hands of the freak show run by a couple of looks-obsessed TV celebrities who are just popping off the top of their heads about global security and now they’re seeking ways to protect themselves from America’s economic leadership:

European financial stability officials are debating whether to create an alternative to Federal Reserve funding backstops by pooling dollars held by non-U.S. central banks in a bid to reduce their reliance on the U.S. under the Trump administration, five officials familiar with the matter said.

The talks, reported here for the first time, are a reaction to policies under U.S. President Donald Trump that have upended long-standing ties, put the Fed’s independence in doubt and underlined the dominant role the U.S. plays in global finance.

They have no choice. He’s going to replace the Fed chairman with a toady and do everything in his power to crash the world economy. The U.S. is becoming a hostile power.

The Fed’s facilities lend dollars to other central banks and function as a lifeline during bouts of market stress, ensuring global financial stability is maintained. Interviews with more than a dozen European central banking and supervisory officials show that they worry the facilities could be weaponized by the Trump administration.

They most certainly will be weaponized by the Trump administration. He is very stupid and has no idea what he’s doing but he loves to use whatever tools at hand to punish and manipulate countries without understanding the consequences. If he has a toady Fed Chair and the Supremes allow him to fire others, all bets are off.

In case anyone wonders if there’s any point in taking a stand only to be forced to capitulate down the road, I would invite you to consider an episode from last summer. 

When Republican members of the Texas legislature passed a bill to redraw the state’s congressional map — and give the GOP five additional seats in the House of Representatives — at the behest of President Donald Trump, Democratic lawmakers fled the state to deny the GOP a quorum and delay the vote. They were threatened with arrest and handed massive fines. But in the end, they returned. The GOP not only passed the legislation, but they also exacted retribution against the Democrats.

Was it worth it? They would say yes without hesitation. 

Although the Texas Democrats didn’t succeed in stopping the Republicans, their doomed strategy achieved something just as important: It brought national attention to the Machiavellian tactics the GOP was employing to maintain its congressional majority in 2026. And that has resulted in a state-by-state battle across the country that just may end up backfiring on the Republicans.

As Trump and Republicans were celebrating their great win last summer, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, was testing the ground to see how his state might do the same to offset what Texas had done. According to POLITICO, Newsom’s proposal was first conceived as a bluff to try to dissuade Texas legislators from going through with their plan. But once it was a fait accompli, Newsom’s administration immediately started looking at how California voters would receive the plan — and it wasn’t good. The first internal polling four months ago showed that only 38% supported it. 

Like the Texas Democrats, Newsom decided to go ahead and call a special election, and then set out to sell the idea. On Nov. 4, after four months of elevating the issue, Prop 50 passed with nearly 65% of California voters in favor. The risk paid off — California’s new map will effectively cancel out the five seats Texas added, and instead of being engineered in a backroom, it was done with the explicit approval of Californians.

Last weekend, Newsom traveled to Texas to give credit where it’s due. In thanking the state’s Democrats for what they did, he said, “You woke us up. You didn’t just have your back here, you had our back in the state of California.” 

Other states are now following their lead. Just before the election, Virginia Democrats signaled they are ready to redraw their congressional map, and after they decimated the GOP in the Nov. 4 election, they will soon be in a position to do it. Illinois and Maryland could soon do the same.

Republican-led states had been expected to immediately follow Texas’ lead. But it’s been a rockier road than they had hoped. Ohio drew a new map that Democrats believe could favor them instead of the GOP. After seeing the recent election results, Kansas decided not to follow through on their redistricting plan. Missouri faces a statewide referendum on a map giving one new seat to Republicans. 

Despite massive pressure from the White House, including personal visits from Vice President JD Vance, Indiana Republicans are resisting their entreaties to draw new districts. In Utah on Monday, a judge rejected the state’s all-GOP map, stating that it “unduly favors Republicans and disfavors Democrats” and ruling that the state constitution requires an alternate proposal that creates a Democratic-leaning district. North Carolina’s gerrymander has been one of the few uncomplicated successes, giving the Republicans one more seat. 

According to NBC News, some Republicans are getting nervous about the administration’s redistricting strategy. But Trump, who believes it to be a magic bullet, remains fully onboard. A strategist explained, “[T]he president understands intuitively, in a way that other Republicans don’t…that Democrats are always assaulting us, always, and mostly much of the Republican Party never fights back. The redistricting fight is proof that they are not that way. So this is in his DNA in a way that is not in other Republicans’ DNA.” 

Daddy, then, knows best. But he may be in for a surprise.

Dave Wasserman, an electoral expert at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, noted on X that “[b]etween OH, KS, CA, VA and now this huge win in UT, Democrats have quietly strung together an impressive streak of victories over the past few weeks that have, surprisingly, pushed the mid-decade redistricting war closer to a draw.” 

And Wasserman’s analysis isn’t accounting for a problem Republicans have heading into the midterms: The Texas redistricting that took place in Texas was largely based on the idea that Trump’s 2024 win marked a massive, permanent shift of Latino voters to the GOP column. 

Latino voters are not a monolith; there are regional and cultural differences. But the recent elections indicated large numbers in New York, New Jersey and Virginia had returned to the Democratic camp, a swing that could very well be equally reflected in Texas and any other state with a large Latino population. Trump, after all, has pretty much declared war on the community, and his administration is racially profiling, brutalizing and harassing undocumented immigrants, green card holders and citizens alike. And as with every other part of the electorate, his empty promises to fix the economy have also helped to sour many on his presidency. 

Even more problematic, Texas Republicans were so sure of themselves that they indulged in what the political types call “dummymandering”— diluting some of their safe seats where Trump won by large margins to ones where he would have won by less, leaving themselves vulnerable, in a wave election, to losing seats instead of gaining five. We have a long way to go, but after Nov. 4, you can be sure Republicans are starting to see that a Democratic wave next fall isn’t out of the realm of possibility.

John Eakin, a Republican consultant and data scientist, told NBC News that some Republicans are regretting their overconfidence after Trump’s 2024 victory, pointing to a recent result in a special election for a state Senate seat representing Dallas, where the Democrat was the top vote-getter — and significantly over-performed the 2024 results. “Nobody wants to go against Trump in this district map because they fear him,” Eakin said. “They’ve pushed the envelope and it’s going to come back to bite them in the a*s.”

Those Texas Democrats could have the last laugh after all. 

Salon

MAGA wanted it. Trump promised it. They fell for it.

Jonathan Chait spotlights the Trump con now in play:

Some of Trump’s most devoted worshippers chose the very issue of Epstein’s misdeeds and supposed cabal of elite backers as the fantasy onto which they projected a valiant role for their hero. Trump was meant to courageously release all of the available evidence for public scrutiny. 

MAGA wanted it. Trump promised it during his 2024 campaign. They fell for it.

With the House back in session, Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) provided the final signature needed on the discharge petition filed in September by Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and backed by Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California.

Having failed to coerce GOP Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Lauren Boebert of Colorado into removing their names, Trump is lobbying furiously to strip Republican votes in the House and Senate from the bill ordering full release of the Epstein investigation records.

Tokyo Rose Garden claims the Epstein emails released on Wednesday “prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong.”

Weija: Did the president ever spend hours at Jeffrey Epstein's house with a victim? 

Leavitt: These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that president trump did nothing wrong. pic.twitter.com/7iXl9PwUt6

— Acyn (@Acyn) November 12, 2025

Someone in the White House Press Office needs to coordinate better with the Oval Office. Trump later in the day claimed once again that the Epstein matter is a hoax. Presumably, including the emails that “prove” his innocence.

Chait offers:

Are the Epstein files suddenly real? Or are some of them real (and vindicating) and some of them fake (and incriminating)? All we know is that Trump wants us to stop talking about the subject. That’s usually what you want when the subject includes evidence that you have behaved in a manner beyond reproach.

The more President Flop Sweat and his team of propagandists struggle to cover up the Epstein investigation documents, the more public interest in seeing them will swell. Whatever it is he’s desperate to conceal — whether sexual exploitation of teens or money laundering with Russians — Trump is spinning like a dervish:

“The Democrats are trying to bring up the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax again because they’ll do anything at all to deflect on how badly they’ve done on the Shutdown, and so many other subjects,” Trump posted on Truth Social. 

“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,” Trump continued. “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!”

Raw Story:

But despite President Donald Trump lobbying hard to try to crush the vote, as more and more embarrassing details about his relationship with the deceased financier and sexual predator continue to trickle out, he is probably unable to stop it in the Senate either, analyst John Heilemann told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Thursday.

“No Republican is going to want to be seen covering up for the most vilified pedophile in recent American history,” said anchor Joe Scarborough. “Then what are these Republican senators going to do when the White House starts saying, hey, kill the Epstein files? We want to keep them away from your voters, your constituents, the people that are going to vote for you in 2026. I don’t think it’s as open and closed of a political situation as some people are suggesting right now.”

“13 Republican senators, sitting Republican senators up for reelection,” said Heilemann. “You’ve got, in addition to that, a bunch of female Republican senators who aren’t up for reelection right now … the words of the Epstein survivors will be ringing in their ears. You have people like Joni Ernst and Thom Tillis, who both are retiring. It doesn’t take that much work to to get to even if … as Ali is reporting, if the threshold on this vote is going to be 60, it doesn’t take that much work to get you to the number.”

“If you start to put together the relatively moderate establishment Republicans, the female Republican senators, and Republican senators who are retiring and may not be totally in love with Donald Trump and kind of are looking for some way to, as they walk out the door, reclaim some of the reputation that they lost by by being overly loyal to him over the course of the first and second terms,” said Heilemann. “I don’t know, I might — maybe I’m a dreamer and obviously things are, It always turns out to be tough to get anything through the Senate on a 60-vote threshold.”

I’m still not confident that the White House won’t respond to a congressional demand to release all the Epstein documents with “the dog ate my homework.” Why should Trump start complying with the law now?

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The most corrupt administration in U.S. history

Headlines across the country declare the end of the longest government shutdown in history: 43 days. Donald Trump signed the spending package bill late Wednesday night. The deal releases funding for whatever of the government is left after MAGA Republicans had their way with it. The White House is once again open for griftness.

NBC News summarizes:

The legislative package includes a “minibus” of three appropriations bills providing funding through next September and keeps the rest of the government open at current levels through Jan. 30.

It includes full funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, which will keep the program afloat through September. More than 40 million Americans rely on SNAP. Some people told NBC News that they ran out of food as the shutdown cut off money for the program, and the Trump administration fought in the courts against having to shift money around to fully fund it for the month of November.

The legislation also provides limited protections for federal workers who’ve been under assault since Trump’s inauguration. It reinstates thousands of government employees who were laid off during the shutdown and ensures there are no more reductions in force (known as “RIFs”), at least through the end of January. And it provides back pay for workers who were furloughed or working without pay these past six weeks.

But in a major concession from Democrats, the bill does not include an extension of enhanced subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, after Republicans held firm against extending those funds beyond 2025. That means more than 20 million Americans could see their premiums spike next year.

Spike is putting it mildly. A friend of mine, 29, reports that her ACA premiums will skyrocket from “about $88/month” to “over $750/month” beginning next year, over eight and a half times. “That’s not just unaffordable, that’s cruelty,” she writes. She’ll likely go uninsured. People much older and with the greater medical needs that come with age will be put at even greater risk.

That’s not a problem for Trump and his cronies. Nor, Sen. Cory Booker reminds us, for the money men and businesses dropping contributions into the coffers of “the most corrupt administration in U.S. history.”

This is the most corrupt administration in U.S. history. pic.twitter.com/XkkWasQm7r

— Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) November 12, 2025

A Financial Times team reported back in October:

At least 30 individuals or companies that have collectively donated more than $116mn to Trump’s causes have received benefits or advantages from White House moves, according to FT analysis. Sometimes, the administration acted just days after donations were made.

The donors range from crypto and tech billionaires who have developed close ties to the first family and been granted access to the president, to big insurance firms, tobacco companies and even a manufacturer of bandages from human tissue. Funds were given both before and after his inauguration.

There is no evidence of bribery or illegal conduct, but the volume of favourable outcomes for donors raises the question of whether a culture of quid pro quo exists at the heart of the administration.

It’s not as if pay-for-play is not a Beltway tradition. It’s just that in Trumpish “like you’ve never seen” tradition, the grift is out in the open.

“Past administrations have confronted accusations that money buys favours,” says Bob Bauer, former White House counsel under Barack Obama. “What is unique about this presidency is the open transactionalism that characterises Donald Trump’s governance style.”

FT provides “a number of cases” where Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigations ended where “owners or backers have donated to Trump’s interests, sometimes soon after making their gifts.” Crypto businesses feature prominently in cases dropped by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Then there are the Trump pardons. Many of those pardoned for violence against the Capitol or against the 2020 election process are not rich. In The Godfather fashion, Trump may call on them to do him a service again in 2026 or 2028. Others got their pardons after large donations to Trump’s interests. FT has a long list of those and policy favors benefiting Trump donors.

FT does not even mention the $400 million jet gifted to Trump from Qatar or the Trump Organization’s business ties with the emirate.

He’s demanding $230 million in compensation from the government he heads for alleged harms done to him by legitimately predicated investigations into his wrongdoing. The bill Trump just signed provides for payouts of as much as $1 million to eight Republican senators over their having their phone records (not phone taps) swept up in the January 6 investigation (Salon):

House Republicans are going after GOP senators who stand to collect millions of dollars courtesy of a veiled provision within a bill seeking to end the government shutdown.

The provision would give members of the Senate the ability to sue the government for obtaining their phone records without notification by the Justice Department. In 2023, the department obtained the records of several senators as part of its investigation into President Donald Trump‘s actions on Jan. 6. The provision said that those affected could receive $500,000 per violation.

House Republicans may have complained. But they still voted for the bill including the provision. Sen. Adam Schiff clarified Wednesday evening that the floor is actually $1 million and maybe more. Republican senators could be “swimming in millions of dollars” based on how the provision is written. See above as MSNBC’s Chris Hayes’s mouth hangs open at that revelation.

AOC: "It is unconscionable that what we are debating right now is legislation that will give 8 senators over $1 million a piece and we are robbing people of their food assistance and of their healthcare to pay for it. How is this even on the floor? How can we vote to enrich… pic.twitter.com/eYCJKLlJx6

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 12, 2025

Tokyo Rose Garden

But it’s not just Trump and his family. In September, a reporter asked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt if Trump had asked the Department of Justice to quash an investigation into border csar Tom Homan’s accepting a $50,000 payoff allegedly received from undercover FBI agents.

“Well, Mr. Homan never took the $50,000 that you’re referring to, so you should get your facts straight, number one,” Leavitt replied. We still don’t know what happened to the $50,000 in the bag.

Leavitt’s failed congressional campaign reportedly has skeletons in its own closet (from January):

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt revealed in amended campaign filings on Thursday that her unsuccessful 2022 congressional campaign owes more than $300,000 in unpaid debts, with Leavitt failing to disclose for years that her campaign took in hundreds of thousands of dollars in inappropriate donations and never paid the money back.

The vast majority of that debt, about $200,000, is owed as refunds to contributors who appear to have donated above the legal limits. Those excessive contributions went unreported for years — until Thursday — when Leavitt’s campaign amended every campaign filing she had ever made with the Federal Election Commission.

As of last month:

Leavitt’s campaign reported $326,370.50 in debt as of Sept. 30 — a balance that hasn’t changed since her campaign first disclosed the debt in January after years of failing to disclose any debt, as first reported by NOTUS.

Racketeer roll call count off now.

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