The New Republic

Transcript: Trump Epstein Scandal Takes Damning Turn as MAGA Cracks Up

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The following is a lightly edited transcript of the June 1 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.On Friday, former Attorney General Pam Bondi testified to lawmakers behind closed doors about the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. What Democrats said afterwards strongly suggests that this mess is not going away for Donald Trump and very likely will get worse next year if Democrats take back the House. This comes amid other signs that the Republican lines of defense around Trump are crumbling on many fronts. And Trump himself may be to blame, because it’s his mounting unpopularity that’s driving it all. As one Republican put it, Trump is lame-ducking himself.We’re talking about all this with historian Nicole Hemmer, who’s one of our go-to people on Epstein and the right wing, a topic she’s written several books about. Nicole, always nice to have you on.Nicole Hemmer: Lovely to be back, Greg.Sargent: So Pam Bondi, the former AG, was on Capitol Hill as part of the House’s ongoing investigation into the Jeffrey Epstein files, which are the investigative materials gathered as part of DOJ’s probe of Epstein’s sex trafficking. One of the big things that happened in her testimony was that she essentially threw acting AG Todd Blanche under the bus. Listen to Representative Robert Garcia, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, recounting what Bondi said.Robert Garcia (voiceover): In that interview and what she’s saying here, in her words and remarks, is that it was Todd Blanche, the current acting AG, that was leading the Epstein investigation. And quite frankly, all of the mistakes that we saw—the redactions, not protecting survivors—she continues to push that back onto the acting AG Todd Blanche, who, by the way, was Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer.Sargent: So Bondi apparently blamed Blanche for just about everything that’s gone wrong—the lack of transparency, all of it. Nicole, what do you make of that?Hemmer: It’s an interesting move. Pam Bondi is in such a different position at this point than she was when she was first subpoenaed to give this testimony. She used to be the attorney general. Now she’s been forced out and she is shifting all the blame onto her presumed successor. Blanche is going to have to go through confirmation hearings soon, and she has just made that very difficult for him. Epstein is going to be the focus of conversation when Blanche goes up for confirmation.What’s interesting about it, and kind of surprising about it, is that Pam Bondi only has herself to blame for being the face of the Epstein scandal within the Trump administration. She is the one who said that she had the files on her desk. She called in all of those right-wing influencers to come parade around with their binders. And so it’s a little too little too late, but I think that it plays into her hand—and into Democrats’ hands—for her to push the blame on Blanche, who’s not only going up to be attorney general but also is Donald Trump’s personal lawyer. And so she’s making his life difficult, probably because she was forced out of her position.Sargent: Well, yes. And I think we should remind everybody, just sort of related to what you just said there, that MAGA for many, many years really wanted to know what was in the Epstein files. It was a huge obsession on the far right. It was a huge obsession among all these influencers, to the degree that she actually brought them in to say, hey, we’re going to really blow this thing open for you guys. You put us in charge and now we’re going to make it all right. And then of course, as soon as Pam Bondi and Kash Patel, the FBI director, got a look at what was in the Epstein files, they were just like, no, we’re not doing that anymore. Can you just sort of talk about that big history in context?Hemmer: Well, that history is really important because so many of the people who were put in place in this second Trump administration were put in place not only because they were Trump loyalists, but because they had a lot of support from the MAGA base that they built on this idea that the Epstein files needed to be released. This is huge for Kash Patel, for Dan Bongino, both in the FBI, and for Pam Bondi. And so I think Bondi thought early on that she could score a lot of points with the Trump base by pushing the Epstein story to the very front of her time as attorney general. This was going to be the thing that she was going to make her name on because it was so important to the base.And she immediately put herself between a rock and a hard place because the base really cares about these Epstein files. They really care about this scandal. And Donald Trump doesn’t want anyone talking about it. And so Bondi saw herself suddenly serving two masters—the MAGA base and Donald Trump—and there was no way to satisfy both of them.

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Trump is fast-tracking AI data centers as EPA ignores their potential 'forever chemicals'

Raw Story

41 minutes ago

Trump is fast-tracking AI data centers as EPA ignores their potential 'forever chemicals'

Data centers require a massive amount of water to cool their systems, which heat up as they process digital information through numerous computers and network servers. Systems that aren’t “closed loop” have to cycle out water that doesn’t evaporate.Most data centers in Virginia are permitted to discharge water into municipal wastewater systems, the same place household water goes to be treated and recycled for consumption. But there’s limited data tracking of potential chemicals in data centers’ discharge water.At least one data center is permitted to discharge directly into a natural water source in the state: Northeast Creek in Louisa County. Another is applying for a similar permit to discharge into nearby Sedges Creek which feeds into Lake Anna.That water is pretreated before being released into the creek and has limits to certain metals and temperature set by the Department of Environmental Quality. But the knowledge gaps about the chemical makeup of data centers’ water discharge poses major questions over whether “forever chemicals” could be contaminating water from the facilities, posing risks to human and environmental health.Cooling the watersAmazon’s Lake Anna Tech Park project will include an evaporative water cooling system, which is what they use in the Northeast Creek location. The H2O will come from well water until industrial systems are hooked up. At that point, the water will be run through a “membrane” that cools the air and fans will blow it onto the data halls containing the computers.Amazon – which operates dozens of data centers in the state – explained that at the two Louisa sites they are only using the evaporation method a small portion of the year; the rest of the time they pull in air from outside for cooling. Water sent through an evaporative cooling system is considered non-contact, meaning it does not directly touch the computer equipment.“In Louisa County, we rely on outside natural air-cooling for about 96% of the year and only use water-based cooling during the hottest periods, which is about 4% of annual operations,” Amazon said in a statement.After a few cycles the water has to be released. The system dechlorinates the water and manages pH balance before sending it into the creek.“As part of this process, cooling water needs to be periodically discharged; this cooling water is called ‘non-contact cooling water.’ It never touches IT equipment, and it’s treated before release in alignment with state environmental standards,” an Amazon representative said.Larger, newer data centers are more frequently designed with “closed loop” systems, meaning they don’t take in as much water on a daily basis. Initially, hundreds of gallons of water are pumped into this type of system, much of which evaporates, and then it’s topped off as needed.But they take more energy to operate.In an aerial view, an Amazon Web Services data center is shown situated near single-family homes on July 17, 2024 in Stone Ridge, Virginia. (Photo by Nathan Howard/Getty Images)Closed loop systems will often use what is described as mechanical cooling or liquid cooling, where the water is recycled through the system, cooled, and placed directly on chips to bring the temperature down. The heat from those systems still has to be expelled through an HVAC system.The water is pretreated before being released into the creek and has limits for certain metals and temperature set by DEQ. But with recent reports showing the ubiquitous nature of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in everything from water to soil to household products, community members are increasingly worried about whether the data center’s discharge water contains them, too.Residents have also cited concerns over PFAS being present in the equipment inside of data centers that is used to cool the heated systems and routinely replaced every few years.These chemicals can have serious health impacts when people are exposed to even small amounts, such as decreased fertility, higher risk of some cancers, and weakening of the immune system.Virginia currently does not have requirements for the testing of the discharge water of data centers for PFAS, nor does the federal Environmental Protection Agency.Because the water being discharged from data centers either into wastewater systems or into the creek are not explicitly required to be tested for PFAS, it is unclear whether they are present or not.“We know that they may be using, not only PFAS, but other toxic chemicals. We know that they released massive amounts of water, at least to treatment works, and some of them to surface waters,” said Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz with EarthJustice, a nonprofit that litigates environmental issues.  ”And beyond that, it’s just a void. There’s really a dangerous lack of information.”The Environmental and Energy Study Institute reports that PFAS can be present in the cooling systems that are liquid based – which is not what the Louisa Amazon data centers use.

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Ex-Republican flags 'underplayed' reason GOP lawmakers are about to walk away from Trump

Raw Story

55 minutes ago

Ex-Republican flags 'underplayed' reason GOP lawmakers are about to walk away from Trump

New York Times columnist David French told MS NOW Monday morning that Senate Republicans are quietly reaching a breaking point with Donald Trump — not because they have suddenly grown a spine, but because they are learning that no amount of loyalty is sufficient to protect them from his wrath.French, appearing on Morning Joe with anchor Jonathan Lemire, said the dynamic driving the frustration has been largely missed in the broader political coverage."There's a very important distinction that a lot of these senators are very aware of that has been sort of underplayed in the public," French said. "Trump turned on senators who had, in many ways, been doing everything that they could to signal their loyalty to Trump."He pointed to John Cornyn as the clearest example. Cornyn, who lost his Texas primary last week to Attorney General Ken Paxton after Trump endorsed Paxton, had been working repeatedly to demonstrate his loyalty to the president in the days before the endorsement. His sin, in Trump's eyes, was voting to certify the 2020 election — a single break in an otherwise unwavering record of support."You were not talking about senators who had defied Trump all over the place," French said. "Just very rarely, very selectively. And so they're now learning that to be with Trump, it's 100% or you're going to have a target on your back."French stopped well short of predicting a Republican revolt. But a small degree of independence — yes, he believes that's coming.The signs are already visible. Lemire noted that Senate Republicans cut their recess short last week, going home early after refusing to take up the anti-weaponization fund in the wake of the Cornyn news. They have also put roadblocks in front of funding for Trump's proposed White House ballroom.Lemire suggested the pattern could have lasting consequences, noting that Trump's primary purges may be undermining his own ability to govern and potentially jeopardizing Republican control of the Senate in November — adding to what he called Trump's "increasingly lame duck status."French agreed the frustration was real. "Loyalty is a moving target," he said. "And I do think that frustration is going to spill over in some important ways."

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Raw Story

2 hours ago

The Roberts-Trump feud is a distraction — Supreme Court already handed him the keys: Slate

While the public has been focused on the occasional high-profile clash between President Donald Trump and the Supreme Court, the court's conservative supermajority has been quietly using the shadow docket to hand Trump something far more consequential — effective control of the federal government — and legal analysts say that work is now largely complete.That is the central argument of a new piece by Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern in Slate, who say the popular narrative of a principled Chief Justice John Roberts standing up to Trump conceals a far more troubling reality."Trump's takeover of the federal government is largely complete," Stern writes. "So I just don't think the court needs to issue nearly as many shadow docket orders as it did during that shock-and-awe campaign — it has already achieved its objectives."The shadow docket refers to emergency orders and procedural rulings the court issues outside its normal merits docket, typically with little explanation and no oral argument. During the first year of Trump's second term, the conservative supermajority used it repeatedly and rapidly to clear the way for Trump to impound federal funds, fire executive officials, and rewrite immigration law — moves that would have been blocked under previous interpretations of the law.Lithwick and Stern argue that Roberts has a long-established pattern of using smaller decisions to prepare the ground for larger ones. "Do something small, get people accustomed to it, then do it big," Stern explains. "The shadow docket has become the way you do that now. You seed the ground on the shadow docket and say: 'Well, this is the law now.' This process used to take four or five years. Now, with the shadow docket, you can do it within the same term."The authors also push back on the idea that occasional Trump losses at the court represent meaningful resistance. The justices, they argue, only draw the line when Trump threatens the court's own power and supremacy — not when he threatens civil liberties, voting rights, or the separation of powers more broadly.That selective resistance, Lithwick warns, may ultimately backfire. The court has repeatedly rewarded Trump for defying lower court orders. "There is no clear reason why that should stop with the Supreme Court," she writes. "Eventually, the administration won't just say: It worked all these other times, it should work this time."If that happens, Stern argues, the court will have squandered whatever moral authority it had left. "They've made me a king," he writes of Trump's likely reasoning, "so I'm going to act like one."

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