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‘It’s scary’: Dem candidate speaks out after Trump admin’s ‘surreal’ prosecution of her
Progressive Democratic congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh spoke out against President Donald Trump's administration for prosecuting her after she participated in a protest against an immigration raid in her home state of Illinois.
The indictment, which was filed on Oct. 23, accuses Abughazaleh of one count of conspiracy and one count of forcibly impeding an officer. Abughazaleh told NBC News that she plans to self-surrender to authorities next Wednesday and described the incident as "political prosecution."
Abughazaleh joined Jon Lovett, a former Obama administration staffer, on a new episode of the "Pod Save America" podcast on Thursday, and further discussed the prosecution.
"It's scary. It's surreal, and it's also totally expected," she said. "This is what this administration does. They go after people who disagree with them, and this case is an attempt to criminalize protest, to criminalize freedom of speech, and to criminalize freedom of association."
"This is what authoritarians do," she added. "They try to find any excuse to punish their political enemies, to punish populations they deem as enemies. We've seen that a lot in how ICE is functioning."
Abughazaleh noted that the Trump administration has admitted to catching very few criminals during its immigration raids. She suggested that reveals something more sinister about the raids.
"That is one of the best examples to show that this has never been about crime," she said. "This has never even been about immigration. This is about securing and cementing power for the Trump administration."
Ex-GOP spokesperson rails that red states are suffering due to Trump’s cuts
Former Republican Tim Miller, who hosts a podcast for the conservative anti-Trump news outlet The Bulwark, discussed with MSNBC host and former Republican Nicolle Wallace that the GOP is stiffing its own voters with slashes to food stamp benefits.
"I know food stamps is like a 90s era right-wing racist smear, but SNAP, which is sort of the new EBT — this is food assistance. [It] knows no partisan affiliation. If anything, it disproportionately benefits households in Trump voting counties and districts," said Wallace. "And it feeds a whole lot of kids who don't have any responsibility for any of the political decisions that adults make."
Miller noted that the GOP's rhetoric has clearly shifted from the days of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Mitt Romney (R-UT).
"But the policies are harmful to them. And this ... the expiration of SNAP — or the fact that they're not going to continue funding SNAP during this shutdown, beginning this weekend, I think is the most acute example of this, where, you know, if the party had fully switched to being a multiracial, multiethnic, working class party like they pay lip service to, this would be an emergency right now," said Miller.
The situation would involve Republican lawmakers fearful "our own voters are literally going to go hungry beginning this weekend. You know, we need to serve to service them. And meanwhile, Donald Trump's in China or in Korea getting a, you know, Burger King happy meal crown from the head of South Korea. And Congress isn't even in session, right? Like they're not doing anything."
He called it a catastrophe and a tragedy if the problem isn't fixed in the coming days.
"But it's also a very stark demonstration of just how this kind of MAGA populism is a lot of lip service and not a lot of action," Miller continued. "And you're seeing it in real time also in the states where, you know, in Colorado, Jared Polis and some other states, governors, mostly Democratic governors, are working to try to patch this right now. And in some of the red states, it's not going to get patched."
Charlie Kirk statues would be mandated on every campus with red state’s new legislation
One Republican state lawmaker in Oklahoma now wants to require every public university in the state to erect statues to slain far-right activist Charlie Kirk.
On Friday, Jeffrey Sachs — an assistant professor at Nova Scotia's Acadia University — called attention to a bill by Oklahoma state senators Shane Jett (R) and Dana Prieto (R) that would mandate every public university in the Sooner State build a "Charlie Kirk Memorial Plaza." The bill, which has been filed as Senate Bill 1187 and does not yet have a formal name, would force universities to set aside a portion of real estate in a visible public location — like the quad, the student union or main entrance pathways — "to maximize public awareness and utilization."
Senate Bill 1187 would also make it a requirement for schools to erect a statue of both Kirk and his family, and to include a plaque honoring Kirk as "a voice of a generation, modern civil rights leader, vocal Christian, martyr for truth and faith, and free speech advocate."
"Square or plaza plans shall include a statue of Charlie Kirk sitting at a table with an empty seat across from him or a statue of Charlie Kirk and his wife standing and holding their children in their arms as a central element of the square or plaza design. The statue design and size shall be approved by the Legislature as part of the overall design review and approval process," the bill reads.
Universities would be authorized to accept donations to fund the cost of the monuments "from the National Endowment for the Arts and any private, corporate, or public source to fund the development, maintenance, and enhancement of the squares or plazas and any associated statues." It also stipulated that the state legislature may appropriate tax dollars as a "donation matching funds" as a way of showing "broad-based support for the squares or plazas."
Additionally, the bill makes it clear that any "student, employee or faculty member" who vandalizes or defaces statues of Kirk on their campuses could face steep punishment, including immediate termination of their enrollment or employment. And the legislation even includes an emergency declaration it deems "necessary for the preservation of the public peace, health or safety," in order to immediately have the legislation go into effect.
In July, WalletHub found Oklahoma ranked 50th out of 51 states (when including Washington D.C.) in public education. Only New Mexico ranked further behind the Sooner State. Criteria used to determine rankings included "test scores, graduation rates, school safety and bullying rates."
‘Unbelievable’: Senator scorches Trump for firing prosecutor who couldn’t charge adversary
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) responded with outrage on Friday evening to the news that President Donald Trump strong-armed his own hand-picked U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Erik Siebert, into resigning — out of anger that Siebert couldn't muster the evidence to charge New York Attorney General Letitia James with mortgage fraud.
"Unbelievable," Warner posted to X. "Trump has now announced he is pushing out a U.S. Attorney because he refused to prosecute Trump’s political enemies."
"The message is clear: Trump will punish anyone who has the independence to challenge his baseless vendettas," he added.
James, who has launched multiple investigations into the Trump family and won a half-billion-dollar civil fraud judgment against them, is one of a number of Trump adversaries that the president's controversial Federal Housing Finance Agency director, Bill Pulte, has accused of fraud by hunting through old real estate paperwork — in this case, claiming that she improperly classified a residence in Virginia as a primary home. James has denied any wrongdoing.
So far, none of the criminal complaints lodged by Pulte have resulted in actual charges against Trump's rivals, and Reuters cast serious doubt on the validity of his allegation against Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook.
Many legal experts are horrified by Trump's effort to oust a prosecutor in retaliation for not finding the evidence to bring a criminal case the administration wanted to bring against a political opponent, with some outright calling it an impeachable offense.
‘Do you believe in free speech or not?’: CNN anchor clashes with GOP panelists over Kimmel
CNN anchor Abby Phillip clashed with her GOP colleagues on Wednesday over the decision to suspend "Jimmy Kimmel Live" on network television.
Phillip discussed the move with former Republican Governor of Wisconsin Scott Walker and GOP strategist Scott Jennings. It occurred just hours after Nexstar Media Group, which owns several local ABC affiliates, announced that it is suspending Kimmel's show "indefinitely" because of comments the comedian made about conservative activist Charlie Kirk's slaying.
Phillip questioned the timeline of Kimmel's suspension and the involvement of FCC chairman Brendan Carr in the deal. On Tuesday, Carr gave a threatening interview with MAGA podcaster Benny Johnson, where he claimed that the FCC would be taking active measures to ensure broadcast companies abide by the public interest standard.
Within 24 hours, Kimmel was pulled off the air, Phillip noted.
"Nexstar has a very clear financial interest in not getting on the wrong side of that guy," Phillip said to Walker, talking about Carr. "You don't see the problem with that?"
Both Walker and Jennings argued that Nexstar was making a "business decision" by taking Kimmel off the air.
"Do you believe in free speech or not?" Phillip asked pointedly.
"I do, but you can't expect us to sit with our hands tied behind our backs," Walker said.
‘They didn’t stand with Charlie’: Nancy Mace lashes out after effort to silence Dem fails
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) lashed out at her GOP colleagues on Wednesday night after a resolution she filed to censure Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and strip Omar of her committee assignments failed to pass.
Mace filed the resolution a few days after Omar made comments about conservative activist Charlie Kirk's death in an interview with Mehdi Hasan of Zeteo News. In the interview, Omar called Kirk's death "tragic" and discussed reasons why she disagreed with some of Kirk's ideas.
Mace and several other MAGA figures called for Omar to be removed from Congress and deported to her home country of Somalia after the interview was released.
"Tonight, 210 Democrats and 4 Republicans sold out and chose to protect Ilhan Omar, a woman who mocked the cold-blooded assassination of an innocent American husband and father, who has openly supported ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood, and who has repeatedly incited political violence," Mace posted on her official X account.
"They didn’t stand with Charlie Kirk," she continued. "They didn’t stand with the millions of Americans mourning his death. They stood with the one who mocked his legacy. They showed us exactly who they are, and we won’t forget."
‘Got his wish’: WSJ warns Trump he ‘owns’ the interest rate drop ‘for good or ill’
The Wall Street Journal's conservative editorial board issued a stark warning to President Donald Trump on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve voted to lower interest rates by 0.25%.
The vote happened after Trump applied months of public pressure on the central bank to lower interest rates. The president has moved to install multiple new governors who would vote to reduce rates, with the newest Trump-aligned governor, Stephen Miran, joining the board this week.
"President Trump wants lower interest rates, and on Wednesday, he got his wish as the Federal Open Market Committee cut the overnight rate by a quarter point," the editors argued in a new op-ed. "The FOMC also delivered an implicit warning about what this might mean for the economy. Mr. Trump now owns that, too."
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said on Wednesday that there are still some risks the U.S. economy needs to navigate. For instance, inflation and unemployment have trickled upwards. Powell said those factors have the central bank torn between two mandates: stabilizing prices and maximizing employment.
The Journal's editorial board also wished Trump "good luck" as his administration addresses these economic conditions.
"It may be that everything works out fine: inflation drifts downward after a brief price bump from tariffs, the economy booms despite tariffs and a looming labor shortage, the housing market enters a new golden age, and financial markets gallop happily off into the artificial-intelligence sunset," the editors wrote.
"But if Mr. Trump is wrong, voters will notice sustained inflation and the lack of gains in real wages. Having staked so much on his political assault on the Fed, Mr. Trump owns the outcome now for good or ill," they added.
Trump official hits Disney with threat over comedian’s remarks: ‘Easy way or hard way?’
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr issued a stern threat Wednesday over comedian Jimmy Kimmel's remarks that Charlie Kirk’s assassin was a MAGA conservative.
"This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney," Carr said in an interview with conservative podcaster Benny Johnson on the Benny Show. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead."
Carr threatened immediate action against Kimmel, ABC and Disney over the comments, claiming he deliberately misled the public and said "it appears to be some of the sickest conduct possible" in the wake of Kirk's killing. He also said that Kimmel should be suspended and that ABC should lose its broadcast license.
"They have a license granted by us at the FCC, and that comes with it an obligation to operate in the public interest," he said.
He said it was time for licensed broadcasters to push back on Kimmel, claiming that they should be aware that they could face fines from the FCC.
Carr, who was appointed by President Donald Trump in January, says the agency has a “strong case” to hold Kimmel, ABC, and Disney accountable over "spreading dangerous, politically motivated misinformation."
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‘It’s scary’: Dem candidate speaks out after Trump admin’s ‘surreal’ prosecution of her
Progressive Democratic congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh spoke out against President Donald Trump's administration for prosecuting her after she participated in a protest against an immigration raid in her home state of Illinois.
The indictment, which was filed on Oct. 23, accuses Abughazaleh of one count of conspiracy and one count of forcibly impeding an officer. Abughazaleh told NBC News that she plans to self-surrender to authorities next Wednesday and described the incident as "political prosecution."
Abughazaleh joined Jon Lovett, a former Obama administration staffer, on a new episode of the "Pod Save America" podcast on Thursday, and further discussed the prosecution.
"It's scary. It's surreal, and it's also totally expected," she said. "This is what this administration does. They go after people who disagree with them, and this case is an attempt to criminalize protest, to criminalize freedom of speech, and to criminalize freedom of association."
"This is what authoritarians do," she added. "They try to find any excuse to punish their political enemies, to punish populations they deem as enemies. We've seen that a lot in how ICE is functioning."
Abughazaleh noted that the Trump administration has admitted to catching very few criminals during its immigration raids. She suggested that reveals something more sinister about the raids.
"That is one of the best examples to show that this has never been about crime," she said. "This has never even been about immigration. This is about securing and cementing power for the Trump administration."
Ex-GOP spokesperson rails that red states are suffering due to Trump’s cuts
Former Republican Tim Miller, who hosts a podcast for the conservative anti-Trump news outlet The Bulwark, discussed with MSNBC host and former Republican Nicolle Wallace that the GOP is stiffing its own voters with slashes to food stamp benefits.
"I know food stamps is like a 90s era right-wing racist smear, but SNAP, which is sort of the new EBT — this is food assistance. [It] knows no partisan affiliation. If anything, it disproportionately benefits households in Trump voting counties and districts," said Wallace. "And it feeds a whole lot of kids who don't have any responsibility for any of the political decisions that adults make."
Miller noted that the GOP's rhetoric has clearly shifted from the days of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Mitt Romney (R-UT).
"But the policies are harmful to them. And this ... the expiration of SNAP — or the fact that they're not going to continue funding SNAP during this shutdown, beginning this weekend, I think is the most acute example of this, where, you know, if the party had fully switched to being a multiracial, multiethnic, working class party like they pay lip service to, this would be an emergency right now," said Miller.
The situation would involve Republican lawmakers fearful "our own voters are literally going to go hungry beginning this weekend. You know, we need to serve to service them. And meanwhile, Donald Trump's in China or in Korea getting a, you know, Burger King happy meal crown from the head of South Korea. And Congress isn't even in session, right? Like they're not doing anything."
He called it a catastrophe and a tragedy if the problem isn't fixed in the coming days.
"But it's also a very stark demonstration of just how this kind of MAGA populism is a lot of lip service and not a lot of action," Miller continued. "And you're seeing it in real time also in the states where, you know, in Colorado, Jared Polis and some other states, governors, mostly Democratic governors, are working to try to patch this right now. And in some of the red states, it's not going to get patched."
ICE sent into frenzy to return longtime Trump golf employee mistakenly deported to Mexico
A longtime former employee at one of President Donald Trump's golf clubs was mistakenly deported to Mexico, The New York Times reported — sending U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement into a mad scramble to correct the error and bring him home.
"Alejandro Juarez stepped off a plane in Texas and stood on a bridge over the Rio Grande, staring at the same border that he had crossed illegally from Mexico 22 years earlier," reported Luis Ferré-Sadurní and Hamed Aleaziz. "As U.S. immigration officials unshackled restraints bound to his arms and legs, Mr. Juarez, 39, pleaded with them. He told them he was never given a chance to contest his deportation in front of an immigration judge after being detained in New York City five days before."
As it turned out, the Department of Homeland Security had mistakenly put him on a deportation flight instead of sending him to a detention facility in Arizona ahead of his immigration hearing, to which he was entitled.
"Their actions probably violated federal immigration laws, which entitle most immigrants facing deportation to a hearing before a judge — a hearing Mr. Juarez never had," said the report. "ICE officials raced to decipher his whereabouts, exchanging bewildered emails and contacting detention facilities to pinpoint his location, according to internal ICE documents obtained by The New York Times. It is unclear how many other immigrants like Mr. Juarez have been erroneously removed, in part because ICE has not in the past tracked such cases."
Juarez "had worked for more than a decade at a Trump Organization golf club in New York," noted the report, and suddenly found himself expelled from the United States.
Similar administrative mistakes have happened on other occasions, most notably with Salvadoran migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was deported from his family in Maryland to the infamous CECOT megaprison in his home country, despite a court order prohibiting his removal there. After months of denying they had jurisdiction to repatriate him, the Trump administration finally did so, but then immediately hit him with flimsy gang charges, and started shopping around for any other country that would accept him, including several in Africa.
