Governor Hochul Delivers Remarks at the American Jewish Committee Board of Governors Meeting

President Donald Trump said he pardoned Changpeng Zhao, a billionaire who boosted a crypto company owned by the Trump family, because "a lot of people" said he was innocent.

During a Thursday Oval Office event, a reporter asked whether Zhao's pardon had anything to do with his family's World Liberty Financial crypto venture.

"I do pardon a lot of people," Trump replied. "A lot of people say that he wasn't guilty of anything. He served four months in jail, and they say that he was not guilty of anything."

"That what he did, well, you don't know much about crypto," he told the reporter. "You know nothing about nothing, you know, fake news. But let me just tell you that he was somebody that, as I was told, I don't know him. I don't believe I've ever met him. But I've been told by — a lot of support, he had a lot of support. And they said that what he did is not even a crime."

Trump claimed that Zhao had been "persecuted by the Biden administration," even though he pleaded guilty to violating U.S. anti-money-laundering requirements.

"So I gave him a pardon at the request of a lot of very good people," Trump concluded.

MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell derided Trump's claim that he has "the best numbers for any president in many years" — and submitted decades worth of receipts

The post MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell Derides Trump’s ‘Best Numbers’ Claim With Gleeful Pile of Receipts first appeared on Mediaite.

Calling the North Carolina Republican Party’s new congressional district map “surgical racism with surgical precision,” Bishop William J. Barber II of Repairers of the Breach was in Raleigh Thursday, announcing a lawsuit challenging the redistricting effort—pledging that the state’s voters will “challenge gerrymandering in the courts, in the streets, and at the ballot box.”

“This is a direct attack on the state’s Black Belt district and marginalized communities,” said Barber at a news conference announcing the legal challenge, a day after the state House of Representatives approved the new map in a party-line vote.

The new map, which was passed by the state Senate earlier this week and cannot be vetoed by Democratic Gov. Josh Stein under state law, will likely give the GOP an additional seat in the US House after the 2026 midterm elections.

President Donald Trump has called for mid-decade redistricting efforts by the GOP in states including Missouri and Texas, as well as North Carolina, with state Republicans heeding his demands.

North Carolina’s new map will likely give Republicans 11 of the state’s 14 districts by moving some Black voters out of the 1st District and into the 3rd District. Had the new map been in place in 2024, Trump would likely have won 55% of the vote in the new 1st District in 2024, up from the 51% he won.

Barber denounced the redistricting efforts across the country as “political robbery” by a party that wants “to rob people of their rights through this racially based gerrymandering... so that they can give power or keep power in the US Congress to engage in political violence,” including by cutting healthcare and blocking the passage of living wages.

“We’ve seen this pattern before—the use of redistricting and voting laws to divide, diminish, and deny,” said Barber. “But the truth is simple: When you steal people’s representation, you steal their healthcare, their wages, and their future. That’s why we will fight back... to make clear that in North Carolina, and across America, the people’s will cannot be gerrymandered out of existence.”

Barber said Republicans in the state Legislature are “gambling” to win another seat, instead of trying to win over voters.

“They’re saying, ‘Let’s move this county over here, let’s move this county over here,’ he said at the press conference. ”Black voters in Congressional District 1 make up approximately 40% of the population, and there’s a growing Latino population that makes up 7%... Black communities, Latino communities, and rural, working-class, poor white voters, if the districts are fair, have the power to build a fusion electorate that can overcome the greedy oligarchs’ will to control elections in our state.“

Along with filing a legal action against state lawmakers to challenge the legality of the map, Barber said Repairers of the Breach will hold a ”Mass Moral Fusion Meeting“ and public hearing on November 2.

”If they won’t hold public hearings, we will,“ said Barber. ”This is our Edmund Pettus Bridge moment... Black, white, and brown together—because our democracy is not for sale.“

President Donald Trump sought to target Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) after the lawmaker served on the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6 probe and worked on both impeachment cases. That effort has reportedly hit a brick wall, however.

Last week, MSNBC revealed that the Maryland prosecutor who went after former National Security Advisor John Bolton was stuck on the Schiff case, so she pivoted to focus more on Bolton. Now it appears the Schiff case has stalled entirely.

Writing Thursday, Ryan J. Reilly, Kristen Welker, Michael Kosnar and Carol E. Lee wrote for NBC News that the investigation “came to a standstill," according to a federal law enforcement official.

U.S. Attorney Kelly Hayes reportedly met with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche earlier this week to ask how to move forward without the goods on Schiff.

"The decision out of that meeting was for Hayes to pursue more evidence, and the case remains ongoing," reported NBC, citing one of the sources.

Schiff has retained former Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara as his counsel.

In a statement to NBC News, Bharara said: “It seems pretty clear that a team of career prosecutors have thoroughly reviewed the politically-motivated allegations against Senator Schiff and found they are unsupported by any evidence and are baseless.”

“The transparently vindictive effort to pursue the Senator has no merit, and if there is any justice left in the Justice Department, this should be the end of the matter,” he added.

Read the full report here.