Bill Gates tells Congress relationship with Epstein ‘error in judgement’: House Oversight Democrat
Source: NBC News Politics · Bias: Center Left
Summary
Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.), a member of the House Oversight Committee, joins Meet the Press NOW to discuss what he heard from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates during a congressional hearing over his relationship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Bill Gates tells Congress relationship with Epstein ‘error in judgement’: House Oversight Democrat
Center Left
Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.), a member of the House Oversight Committee, joins Meet the Press NOW to discuss what he heard from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates during a congressional hearing over his relationship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune appeared doubtful on Monday that cancelling the Senate August recess to debate and vote on the SAVE America Act would serve any […]
Two outgoing GOP senators previously burned by President Donald Trump are threatening to sink a White House priority as a critical committee vote nears Thursday, Punchbowl News reported Tuesday.Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, whom Trump nominated last month for the permanent role after firing Pam Bondi, is scheduled to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday for his confirmation vote, just 48 hours away as of Tuesday morning. But Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) – both leaving Congress after pressure from Trump – are “holding firm” against confirming Blanche without getting something in return.“Both senators, whose votes are needed for Blanche to advance to the Senate floor, are demanding that the Justice Department formally eliminate the ‘anti-weaponization’ fund and curtail an audit immunity deal for President Donald Trump,” Punchbowl News’ report reads.“Both senators seem comfortable holding out to force DOJ’s hand, threatening a delay of Blanche’s committee vote that could stifle GOP leaders’ plans to confirm Blanche on the floor before the August recess.”Tillis told Punchbowl News that an agreement had yet to be reached on eliminating the Justice Department’s anti-weaponization fund, a taxpayer-funded $1.7 billion fund dedicated to awarding payouts to those who’ve claimed to have been unfairly targeted by the Biden Administration. He also said no deal had been reached on curtailing Trump and his family’s newfound immunity from tax audits.Tillis warned that, unless his and Cornyn’s demands were met, they’d “just have to delay” Blanche's confirmation.Both senators are part of a growing list of GOP “apostates” – Republican lawmakers ousted by Trump for various reasons – who’ve gone on to become well-positioned to undercut the White House’s agenda without fear of repercussions. Others include Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who lost his primary race after voting to rein in the president’s war powers, and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), defeated by a Trump-backed opponent after spearheading the Epstein Files Transparency Act, much to the chagrin of the president.
In an interview posted on Monday, conservative host Ryan Girdusky spoke with Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan about their latest book, Regime Change. Girdusky argued that as people age and particularly as they reach 80, those "around them start dying.""What effect did that have on Trump's just opinion of legacy and his overarching idea of, like, what his life would be?" Girdusky asked the reporters."I mean, look, it's not like Donald Trump sits around doing sort of therapy sessions with people, but he makes — he makes comments to advisors that — and to various people and associates and confidants that they all interpret as him thinking about his own mortality," said Haberman.She said that they didn't include it in the book but that Trump was seeing the late President Jimmy Carter lying in state and commented, "about how that would be him in, you know, twenty years or something like that." "Obviously that would be a very long lifespan for him," she added, as Trump would be 100 at that age. She said that Trump claims to have a "longevity gene in his family." Still, it's something he's been thinking about "for a while." "When Ivana Trump died, it affected him pretty deeply, according to everybody around him," Haberman continued. "His sister was a complicated relationship. But he is talking about it a lot. You even heard him talk about it with Lindsay Graham the other day, just sort of drifting into it at a defense industry event with Dave McCormick and Pennsylvania. So getting things done and how limited his time on this Earth is, let alone in office and in power, is significant."Girdusky said that Trump has "scaled back public appearances" since the 2024 assassination attempt, but even prior to the shooting in Pennsylvania, Trump's public events had shrunk from multiple times a week to at most once a week. Axios reported that in 2016, Trump held a whopping 72 rallies, and in 2024, during the same period, that number shrank to 24. There were just a few months left in the election after the assassination attempt. They went on to describe just how small Trump's world has become. Girdusky said he remembered the first term in which Trump would respond to people's comments on Twitter and now he hardly has contact with anyone outside of a very small group of advisors. Swan described Trump playing music on his iPad while eating at the patio at Mar-a-Lago with a steady stream of elderly, mostly Florida, residents coming up to him to tell him how amazing he is. Even as he was making decisions about the Iran war, Swan said that having people in the room like the secretary of energy or Treasury secretary would likely have been helpful in warning him of what could happen with gas prices and the economy if he went to war with Iran. Another point they didn't detail in the book is how many people are using their relationship with Trump for financial gain. "And you're right, we didn't get into that specific area of money-making in Trump 2.0 because, frankly, if we spent everything we included on the ways everybody is making money around him, the book would have been two thousand pages long," Haberman said. She noted that he talked about "draining the swamp" in 2017, but never did it then anyway. Now it's far worse. "Lobbyists had a lot of access to him. A lot of people who had, you know, clients facing any number of issues had access to him. You know, we had — there was a whole controversy around vaping, and I think it was twenty nineteen, and that was people hiring various folks who were close to Trump, perceived as close to Trump on this. Now, it is there are so many different ways to either get close to Trump or to put money directly into the Trump family's bank accounts," Haberman added. Meanwhile, the Trump Library is becoming another source of donations to Trump. The influencer culture, she said, is another matter because a lot of that surrounds the crypto industry, which Trump once said he didn't believe in. "But just the scale of moneymaking and the way in which you can get to the president and see a specific outcome is unlike anything that we have seen," Haberman said. "Which is not to say that other presidents have not had donors who you know, bring specific policy matters to them and so forth. But it's what you were saying about the gatekeeping piece."Swan said that he sees many conservatives in the Trump circle who are making more money than they've ever made while their credibility erodes. When it comes to people like Stephen Miller, Swan said that he's very good about disappearing when things are going badly. So, Trump naturally never associates Miller with positivity over negativity.
On MSNOW's Morning Joe show today, host Joe Scarborough lost his mind going off on DNC chair Ken Martin over the party's financial troubles.
The post Joe Scarborough Goes Off on DNC Chair Over Democrat Party’s Cash Crunch: ‘How Does This Guy Still Have His Job?’ (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Last Friday, Joe Biden gave up the fight and declined to seek further review of an appeals court ruling on the release of 70 hours of conversations with his ghostwriter.
The post BREAKING: Oversight Project Releases Recordings of Biden Interviews with Ghostwriter…”Some of This May Be Classified… So Be Careful” (AUDIO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Apparently, Joe Biden revealed massive amounts of classified intelligence during a series of roughly three hours of recording done for his ghostwriter and biographer. The recordings are dated from November 2016 to April 2017. The Oversight Project filed a lawsuit to gain the audio files and has uploaded them to YouTube. They are in reverse […]
The post Oversight Project Releases 3 Hours of Biden Biographer Audio Tapes Recorded Between November 2015 and April 2016 appeared first on The Last Refuge.
Sen. Rand Paul has released a tranche of Dr. Anthony Fauci's diary entries from the COVID-19 pandemic. Fauci is set to appear before a Senate committee Wednesday on the origins of the coronavirus.
President Trump will meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House on Tuesday, a White House official confirmed to Axios.The big picture: The visit gives Zelensky a chance to shore up support in Washington after the death of one of Ukraine's congressional champions.It also comes as Russia intensifies its missile campaign.Trump and Zelensky last met earlier this month at the NATO summit in Turkey, where they discussed strengthening Ukraine's air defenses and diplomatic efforts to end the war.Driving the news: ABC News first reported Saturday that Zelensky would meet Trump this week. A White House official independently confirmed the meeting Sunday to Axios.Zelensky will be in Washington for Sen. Lindsey Graham's funeral, ABC reported, citing a Ukrainian official.Graham, one of Ukraine's most forceful supporters in Congress, met Zelensky in Kyiv shortly before his death.The intrigue: The visit also comes amid a sudden and surprise shift by two prominent MAGA voices in favor of Kyiv.Laura Loomer, a far-right activist and close Trump ally, met Zelensky in Kyiv last week after years of minimizing Russia's invasion and opposing U.S. support for Ukraine.Loomer said she had been "bamboozled by Russian propaganda." Trump shared her interview with Zelensky on Truth Social, writing, "Very good!!!"What to watch: Russia has stepped up its use of ballistic missiles, striking Kyiv again Sunday.Ukraine, meanwhile, has intensified long-range drone attacks against Russian targets.
