A scandal is simmering as NPR breaks story of Donald Trump's DOJ withholding Epstein files in apparent effort at a cover-up designed to protect the president

(NPR)

A major scandal appears to be brewing, one that involves release of the Epstein files and failure to include  certain documents involving Donald Trump. In short, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) appears to be conducting a cover-up to protect the president. Members of both parties in Congress are calling for an investigation into the missing files.

This is from National Public Radio (NPR), which broke the story under the headline "Justice Department removed, withheld Epstein files related to accusations about Trump." Stephen Fowler writes for Morning Edition:

The Justice Department has withheld some Epstein files related to allegations that President Trump sexually abused a minor, an NPR investigation finds. It also removed some documents from the public database where accusations against Jeffrey Epstein also mention Trump.

Some files have not been made public despite a law mandating their release. These include what appear to be more than 50 pages of FBI interviews, as well as notes from conversations with a woman who accused Trump of sexual abuse decades ago when she was a minor.

Methodical research produced evidence that files involving Trump, Epstein, or both were missing, Fowler reports:. A spokeswoman for the administration did not appear to be pleased when asked to comment on NPR's findings:

NPR reviewed multiple sets of unique serial numbers appearing before and after the pages in question, stamped onto documents in the Epstein files database, FBI case records, emails and discovery document logs in the latest tranche of documents published at the end of January. NPR's investigation found dozens of pages that appear to be catalogued by the Justice Department but not shared publicly.

The Justice Department declined to answer NPR's questions on the record about these specific files, what's in them and why they are not published. After publication, the Justice Department reached out to NPR, taking issue with how its responses to questions were framed. Department of Justice spokeswoman Natalie Baldassarre reiterated DOJ's stance that any documents not published are privileged, are duplicates or relate to an ongoing federal investigation.

Did the Trump DOJ refuse to address questions because it did not have answers? The words of a prominent Democrat in Congress suggests that might be the case. From the NPR report:

Following NPR's reporting, the House Oversight Committee's ranking member, Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., released a statement about the missing files.

"Yesterday, I reviewed unredacted evidence logs at the Department of Justice. Oversight Democrats can confirm that the DOJ appears to have illegally withheld FBI interviews with this survivor who accused President Trump of heinous crimes," Garcia stated.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have already been investigating this allegation against the president and will now open a parallel investigation into the DOJ's decision not to release these particular documents.

Failure to release files, as required by the Epstein Files Transparency Act  (EFTA), which was passed by Congress and signed by Trump, involve statements from more than one Epstein victim. Fowler writes:

Other files scrubbed from public view pertain to a separate woman who was a key witness for the prosecution in the criminal trial of Epstein's co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking. Maxwell is seeking clemency from Trump.

Some of those documents were briefly taken down and put back online last week, while others remain hidden, according to NPR's comparison of the initial dataset from Jan. 30 with document metadata of those files currently on the Justice Department's website. NPR does not name victims of sexual abuse.

Given Trump's well-documented penchant for subterfuge, perhaps no one should be surprised that his DOJ would be less than forthcoming on this matter. Fowler writes:

When asked for comment about the missing pages and the accusations against the president, a White House spokeswoman told NPR that Trump "has done more for Epstein's victims than anyone before him."

"Just as President Trump has said, he's been totally exonerated on anything relating to Epstein," White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told NPR in a statement. "And by releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with the House Oversight Committee's subpoena request, signing the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and calling for more investigations into Epstein's Democrat friends, President Trump has done more for Epstein's victims than anyone before him. Meanwhile, Democrats like Hakeem Jeffries and Stacey Plaskett have yet to explain why they were soliciting money and meetings from Epstein after he was a convicted sex offender."

It's interesting to note that the White House spokeswoman put forth quite a few words, but none of them addressed the question put to her. Also, the White House earlier presented an argument that appears to have no basis in fact. Fowler reports:

The White House has previously pointed to a statement from the Justice Department that says the Epstein files contain "untrue and sensationalist claims" about the president.

In a Feb. 14 letter to members of Congress first reported by Politico, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche insist that no records were withheld or redacted "on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary."

Again, this goes to the issue of subterfuge. How could anyone at the DOJ point to "untrue and sensationalist claims" when there is no sign that anyone at the agency has investigated such claims? As for the letter from Bondi and Blanche, does that represent an act of lying to Congress? That question almost certainly needs to jump in line for issues awaiting investigation. Fowler writes:

According to the newly released files, the FBI internally circulated Epstein-related allegations that mention Trump in late July and early August 2025. The list, collected from the FBI's National Threat Operations Center, included numerous salacious allegations. Agents marked most of the accusations as unverifiable or not credible.

But one lead was sent to the FBI's Washington office with the purpose of setting up an interview with the accuser. The lead was included in an internal PowerPoint slide deck detailing "prominent names" in the Epstein and Maxwell investigations last fall.

Evidence was clear that investigators took the victim's story seriously:

The woman who directly named Trump in her abuse allegation claimed that in about 1983, when she was around 13 years old, Epstein introduced her to Trump, "who subsequently forced her head down to his exposed penis which she subsequently bit. In response, Trump punched her in the head and kicked her out."

Out of more than 3 million pages of files released by the Justice Department in recent months, this specific allegation against Trump appears only in copies of the FBI list of claims and the DOJ slideshow.

But a review of FBI case file logs and discovery documents turned over to Maxwell and her attorneys in the criminal case against her point to one place the claim could have come from — and how serious investigators took it.

The FBI interviewed this Trump and Epstein accuser four times. That is according to an FBI "Serial Report" and a list of Non-Testifying Witness Material in the Maxwell case that were also released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. 

Only the first interview, conducted July 24, 2019, is in the public database. That interview does not mention Trump.

Of 15 documents listed in a log of the Maxwell discovery material for this first accuser, only seven are in the Epstein files database. Those missing also include notes that accompany three of the interviews. The discrepancy in the file for the Trump accuser was first reported by independent journalist Roger Sollenberger.

According to NPR's review of three different sets of serial numbers stamped onto the files, there appear to be 53 pages of interview documents and notes missing from the public Epstein database.

Donald Trump, as a pitchman and generator of theatrics at the SOTU, is ill-equipped to clean up the mess he and his band of incompetents have created

Susan Glasser, of The New Yorker (Nieman Reports) 

Donald Trump's State of the Union (SOTU) address was an exercise in braggadocio, executed by a showman who has very little to brag about. It was a tedious speech of historic length, and no one summarized its shortcomings better than Susan Glasser of The New Yorker. Under the headline "Donald Trump's State of the Union was long and wrong; But at least the president thinks everything is going great," Glasser writes:

You can’t say we weren’t warned. Donald Trump himself forecast the epic length of the State of the Union address that he planned to deliver to Congress on Tuesday evening. “It’s gonna be a long speech because we have so much to talk about,” he said beforehand. When it was all over, he was right about that: at a hundred and eight minutes, the speech easily beat the modern record, which had been set by Trump himself a year ago, for the longest Presidential address to Congress ever. Before Trump began talking, the historian Michael Beschloss noted that the Gettysburg Address was only two hundred and seventy-two words; the President’s speech on Tuesday night clocked in at more than ten thousand.

None of them was memorable. For all the blather, it was not only long but incredibly news-free. What we learned on Tuesday night is that Trump may or may not go to war with Iran—to stop a nuclear program that he claimed, once again, to have already “obliterated”—and also that, despite the Supreme Court’s “very unfortunate ruling” rebuking his overreach in imposing sweeping international tariffs, Trump wants to keep them anyway, by invoking other executive authorities that he may or may not legally have.

But Trump is all about superlatives. Everything he does has to be the biggest, the strongest, the mostest. Who cares that he managed to say almost nothing with all those words? He made history.

For Trump to offer up superlatives when his poll numbers are crashing, and Americans seem increasingly weary of his clownish administration -- complete with an FBI director boozing it up with the men's U.S. hockey team at the Winter Olympics in Italy -- seems like a wild miscalculation by a president who apparently does not grasp optics in a highly visual age. Those around Trump also seem clueless about the starkness of the moment they face. Glasser writes:

In the hours before the speech, the White House made it seem as though Trump were about to deliver a completely normal address to the nation, in which he would lay out a focused, coherent “case for why he and Republicans are better suited to tackle—continue tackling—the affordability crisis that was created by the Biden Administration and Democrats on Capitol Hill,” as the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, put it.

But, if Tuesday’s speech proved anything, it’s that it’s hard to explain how you are going to get America out of a mess that you do not believe exists. A year ago, a mere six weeks into his second term, Trump opened his address to Congress by claiming that he had done more in that time than any president ever did, George Washington included; this time, he boasted that “our nation is back, bigger, better, richer, and stronger than ever before.” He said prices were down and that “affordability” was “a word—they just used it.” All those complaints about the high cost of living in Trump’s America were just “a dirty, rotten lie.” Prices are not really too high, he said. But, even if they were, everything was fine, because “soon you will see numbers that few people would think it possible to achieve just a short time ago.” That’s some case, Madam Press Secretary.

The problem is that Trump is good at creating messes, but he is not inclined to clean them up-- because, as Glasser says, he does not believe they exist. A clear-eyed president who understood his own weaknesses would have surrounded himself with advisers who know how to prevent messes in the first place. But Trump does not have such a support system because he went out of his way to appoint a cavalcade of incompetents and grifters. Trump probably did not see the need for a competent cabinet because he did not plan to listen to them anyway. Now they are stuck with each other, and America is stuck with a floundering administration that seems incapable of analyzing the situation it has created for itself. Glasser writes:

The problem for Trump at such a moment is that he’s not a persuader; he’s a pitchman, the kind of salesman who transmits in exclamation points all the fantastic, terrific, unbelievable features of the new car that he wants you to buy. “A short time ago, we were a dead country; now we are the hottest country anywhere in the world!” Trump said on Tuesday night. But the salesman is not who you want to talk to when you have the broken-down old jalopy towed back to the lot and demand a refund.

Based on the polls, it’s pretty apparent that America wants its money back. CNN’s latest survey had Trump at a sixty-three-per-cent disapproval rating, and just a thirty-six-per-cent approval one; other surveys show similarly brutal numbers. Trump, in other words, has sunk close to post-January 6th territory with the public—not exactly the moment for a speech that leaned hard into the President’s Panglossian conviction that a country with him as its leader must be doing pretty damn great.

And yet the message could not have been otherwise. Trump’s default setting is triumphalism. He is never more animated than when he’s touting his own accomplishments, even if they are not actually his accomplishments. His eyes positively glowed as he launched into a long riff with an imagined interlocutor about how “our country is winning so much” under his leadership “that we really don’t know what to do about it.” A few seconds later, the doors to the visitor’s gallery above the House floor opened and the American men’s Olympic hockey team, wearing matching U.S.A. sweaters and gold medals, marched in. Chants of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” rang through the hall. 

It was both the most theatrical moment in Trump’s speech and the most revealing. Did he think that he personally was responsible for winning that gold? Probably. 

Glasser is describing an empty shell of a president. There is "no there there." He can use the U.S. hockey team's gold-medal performance to push his supporters' emotional hot buttons. But the play he has staged has no depth, it doesn't challenge, or enlighten, or offer hope. In other words, Trump is not up for the job -- and polls show that even right-leaning Americans are beginning to realize that. Trump is all about flash and bang, anger and accusations, personal slights and vows for revenge. But that adds up to empty calories for a nation sorely in need of leadership. The chants of "USA, USA" might be inspiring in a hockey arena, but they soon ring hollow in the halls of government. One problem with Trump's speech, Glasser notes, is that he did not know how to quit when he was ahead, relatively speaking:

If only he had ended his speech there. The rest of the address turned out to be a reprise of Trump’s “American carnage” greatest hits: a bloody mess of murderous illegal aliens (“And we’re getting them the hell out of here fast”), “Somali pirates who ransacked Minnesota,” and all the “stolen and rigged” bad things that Democrats had done to the country. This was Trump in dark mode, his only other setting for one of these speeches, which made a certain amount of sense. Who else but Trump’s most fervent supporters were still listening by this point, long into his speech? The President seemed almost relieved that there were enough Democrats who had not walked out of the room in disgust for him to taunt. “These people are crazy,” he said. “I’m telling you, they’re crazy.”

Trump had been hemorrhaging public support, for himself and his policies, in the weeks leading up to the speech. After a public outcry over the heavy-handed tactics of federal agents, which led to the deaths of two American citizens in Minneapolis, he was forced to back away from a major immigration crackdown in Minnesota. He threatened to use military force to seize Greenland, causing a serious rift with America’s NATO allies, before insisting that he had no intention of starting a war of imperial conquest for the Danish territory. On the morning of the speech, NPR reported that Trump’s Department of Justice had removed dozens of pages of the Epstein files related to allegations that Trump sexually abused a minor. (In a statement, the White House said that the President has been “totally exonerated on anything related to Epstein.”)

Despite Trump’s many, many words on Tuesday night, none of this was mentioned, even by way of rebuttal. As for the troubled American economy, aside from the magical power of tariffs to transform the world, the President’s new program consisted of a vague suggestion to Congress that it should pass still more tax cuts, but for what and for whom was not clear. Forget the predictions and all the pregame hype. There was no resetting of the narrative, no course correction or even a meaningful explanation of what the course is—though, to be fair, Trump did hand out six medals to various guests he’d invited for the occasion, including two Purple Hearts, two Medals of Honor, one Legion of Merit, and one Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In the end, there were signs that some of Trump's most ardent supporters still were buying his spin. But there were few signs that anyone else had followed suit, Glasser notes:

Before the start of the address, Jon Favreau, the former speechwriter for Barack Obama, argued that these State of the Union addresses have become little more than a pointless ritual, “a relic of a speech that barely matters for even the twenty-four hours anyone is paying attention.” As the ordeal dragged on Tuesday evening, I wondered if this might be, finally, the year that broke this ever more annoying tradition. Not all Democrats in Congress boycotted, but more than ever did. Actual news was scarce. Trump couldn’t shut up. No minds were changed.

“I think this could have been the best speech he has ever delivered,” Laura Ingraham said on Fox News, soon after the address ended. And, for all I know, maybe she meant it.

Latest polls show Trump's supporters are deserting him, but he still "flooded the zone with s--t" in SOTU, weaving a trail of deceit that could trip up Americans

Trump gives the longest SOTU in modern history (NPR)

If you took yesterday's advice from Robert Reich, you chose to ignore Donald Trump's State of the Union (SOTU) address. That should have you feeling pretty good right now. After all, Reich helped ensure that you did not waste your valuable time listening to the worst president in American history -- and that poll of presidential historians was taken before Trump's nightmarish second term began.

Now, we have more nuggets of hope for those who yearn to see the reins of American government return to the hands of a relatively sane person. That good news comes to us courtesy of Bill Kristol, a one-time Republican who decided around 2016 that the thought of Donald Trump in the White House was more than he could stomach. Kristol now writes opinion pieces for The Bulwark, a center-right news site that caters to "politically homeless" conservatives, those who reject the GOP's current direction and regularly criticize Trump and his allies.

In the lead-up to last night's SOTU, The Bulwark published a Kristol op-ed that offered soothing numbers for those of us who dream of the day America escapes Trump's authoritarian clutches. Let's take a look at Kristol's insights from a piece he wrote before Trump's speech :

Let’s be honest: Tonight will be depressing. When the sergeant at arms proclaims in a stentorian voice to the House chamber, “Mr. Speaker, the president of the United States,” we will be reminded, vividly and unavoidably, that Donald Trump is the president of the United States.

Which is depressing.

But there is a silver lining to that undeniably dark cloud. When President Trump spoke to a joint session of Congress almost a year ago, on March 4, 2025, he was in decent shape politically. Four months before, he’d won the presidency with 49.8 percent of the vote to Kamala Harris’s 48.3 percent. Six weeks into his second term, his support was holding steady: The New York Times polling average had him at 49 percent approval, 48 percent disapproval.

That is only the beginning of the grim statistical picture facing Trump. Kristol writes:

Today, almost a year later, the Times average has Trump at 41 percent approval, 56 percent disapproval. Trump has lost about one sixth of his approval in the last year. A new poll from CNN is even more dramatic, showing Trump at 36 percent approval today, down from 48 percent in that same poll a year ago. That suggests one in four of his original supporters deserting him. And this morning G. Elliott Morris reports on his new poll, which has Trump at 37 percent approval, 59 percent disapproval.

So Trump has lost considerable ground. One of course wishes that even more of the public had changed its mind even more quickly. But as our Declaration of Independence reminds us, the people are often slow to move: “Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves.” The people tend to be characterized more by “patient sufferance” than quick rethinking.

But eventually the people can be brought to see what is happening. Eventually they come to notice “a long train of abuses and usurpations” and the “repeated injuries” of their rulers. Eventually they can say, “Enough.” There’s lots of evidence they’re en route to decisively saying “Enough” at the polls this November. (The new G. Elliott Morris poll has the Democrats up ten points on the congressional generic ballot.) And it’s more likely that public opinion will continue to move in the direction it’s been going than that it will reverse course.

Now it’s true that the public might conceivably reverse course if Trump changed course. But he seems to have no interest in doing so. As was the case with "Mad King George III" of England, when the public has “petitioned for redress in the most humble terms,” those petitions “have been answered only by repeated injury.”

Like Kristol, I struggle to understand how a substantial number of Americans ever came to believe that a man convicted on 34 felony counts in a criminal trial, adjudicated a rapist in a civil trial, and caught on tape admitting to being a sexual abuser should serve as president. Heck, I'm not sure a person with such a record would even be allowed to tour the White House, much less Occupy the Oval Office. Consider this information from AI Overview:

Mandatory Background Check: All visitors over the age of 18 must submit to a background check, which requires a full legal name, date of birth, and Social Security Number.

• Automatic Denials: The system likely flags individuals with active warrants, pending felony charges, or multiple convictions for violent crimes or serious drug offenses.
• Prior Convictions: Generally, past non-violent convictions do not guarantee a denial, but they are reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

It is tempting to write off Trump supporters as ignorant rubes. But I, for one, have a slight problem with that: Over the years, especially during my days in Alabama (although Missouri isn't much different; I call it "Alabama with snowballs"), I've come to know a large number of people -- people I like and respect -- that I feel certain have voted for Trump. And I know terms such as "ignorant," "stupid," "unethical," or any similar pejorative do not apply to these folks.

On top of that, my wife Carol and I might be the only liberals on my side of our family. My niece, Dr. Erin Gerhardt, is a physician in St. Louis, and she seems to have progressive sensibilities. She and I have never had any political discussions -- I learned a long time ago that is a subject best avoided on family occasions -- so I'm not sure where she stands on the right/left divide. But I'm confident she is a fine doctor and a swell citizen -- and she tends to get five-star ratings from her patients, so I think that's pretty cool. In fact, I have a number of nieces and nephews that I think either are -- or will turn out to be -- swell citizens. And whether they agree with me or not, I find it hard to put political labels on them. 

As for Trump, I will admit my feelings toward him fall into the "hatred" range. And I will further admit that probably isn't terribly healthy. But I also don't think it's healthy to stay silent regarding someone who slings insults at my family's heritage -- and the heritage of many other American families -- who have seen loved ones put their lives on the line for U.S. democracy. 

I've written before about my father, William J. Shuler, who was part of a squadron that arrived at Normandy Beach three days after D-Day. My late father-in-law, Mark Tovich, served in the South-East Asia Theatre in World War II, especially in India and Burma, contracting a near fatal case of malaria or yellow fever. My late aunt Imogene Stamps, my late uncle Carl Stamps (both of Arkansas), and my late uncle Henry Shuler (of Aldrich, Missouri) all served in WWII. 

To have Trump refer to my relatives, and millions of people like my relatives who served as "suckers" and "losers" is hard to forgive in my mind -- especially when Trump has never acknowledged that he was in the wrong.

Did last night's SOTU help Trump? It might, but only if Americans allow themselves to be conned by a president who lies with impunity. NBC News conducted a fact check that showed Trump's claims related to tariffs, drug prices, inflation, global investments, tax cuts, mail voting, and election fraud were false. Claims related to Trump ending wars, fraud in Minnesota, new construction jobs, and crime in D.C. were exaggerated or lacked evidence.

For closing thoughts on Trump, let's give the last word to Bill Kristol:

Tonight, we’ll see a president who will speak—at length!—making the case for the path he’s chosen. But this speech is no more likely to help Trump than his address a year ago, which helped him not at all. It was a week after his appearance before Congress that Trump’s approval and disapproval lines crossed for the first time since he returned to the presidency. Since then his approval has steadily continued down, and his disapproval has steadily gone up. Those trends are likely to continue.

It’s worth noting that this public rejection has happened without war and without a recession, two common proximate causes of a decline in presidential popularity—though we may be teetering close to both. On the economy in particular, it turns out not to be always true that it’s the economy, stupid. After all, it doesn’t seem to have mostly been the economy in 1776. Almost none of the charges in the Declaration is about the material well-being of the colonists. The indictment there is that “a prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.” 

That’s surely the case today.

But it’s also worth noting that unfit rulers can sometimes hold on to power. The publication of the Declaration of Independence didn’t achieve independence. That took years of war. And like Mad King George, Trump will not give up easily. He has many levers of power in the executive branch at his disposal. He and his supporters have tons of money to spend on the coming elections. They have the acquiescence of many elites outside of government. They will not go gently into their well-deserved night.

Tonight Trump will, as Steve Bannon memorably put it, “flood the zone with shit.” The good news is that the American people seem increasingly sickened by the odor. But we have a long struggle ahead to get rid of it.

Robert Reich already knows the state of our union -- and it's abysmal; so he is tuning out on Donald Trump's address and encourages you to tune it out, too

(imgflip)

Robert Reich, former labor secretary under Bill Clinton and longtime professor of public policy at the University of California Berkeley, is one of our most astute political observers. In fact, Reich is so astute that he already knows our state of the union, and he confesses that he has no intention of listening to Donald Trump bloviate in tonight's State of the Union address, which is expected to be heavy on no-shows in the midst of a blizzard that has hit D.C. (plus possible Democrat boycotts) and surely will be light on facts as Trump seeks to provide cover for his failing presidency. Reich recommends that we all follow his lead by ignoring the address, perhaps giving Trump record low viewership that is likely to blow his increasingly demented mind.

Reich spells out his plan for tonight in an opinion piece at AlterNet titled "I already know the state of the union -- it's abysmal." I like the way Reich gets right to the point -- and he is a straight shooter, one who is disinclined to play softball when Trump deserves to have hard balls zinging by his head -- so let's follow along as Reich encourages us not to show Trump the kind of respect we would offer most any relatively normal president in  modern history:

I’m not going to watch the State of the Union address Tuesday night. I urge you not to, either.

I hope Nielsen (or whoever makes such estimates these days) will find that far fewer Americans watched Trump’s State of the Union than have watched any other State of the Union in recent memory. It will drive Trump nuts.

There are plenty of other reasons for not watching.

First, he doesn’t deserve our attention. He’s abused and defiled the American presidency, even worse than he did in his first term.

He’s openly taken bribes. He’s blatantly usurped the powers of Congress. He has overtly used the Justice Department to punish people he considers his enemies and pardon people loyal to him. He has willfully rejected the rule of law, broken treaties, literally destroyed part of the White House, thumbed his nose at our allies (including our closest and heretofore loyal neighbors), and utterly failed his constitutional duty to take care that the laws are faithfully executed. He lies like most people breathe. He’s a fraud and a traitor.

See, I told you Reich would not play softball with a charlatan like Trump. Reich also has little patience for Trump's fractured relationship with the truth -- and the impact his incessant lies have on our democracy. Reich writes:

Second, we already know what he’s going to say because he’s already stated and restated his lies every chance he gets. He says the economy is in wonderful shape, that he’s settled six wars, that he’s brought peace to the Middle East, that he’s made America safer and more secure, that the 2020 election was stolen from him, ad nauseam.

He assumes that if he repeats these lies often enough, people will believe them. Why should we give him more of an audience for his lies?

The answer, of course, is "we shouldn't." The tube will be off in the Legal Schnauzer household tonight, and we hope it's off in yours, too. Reich is a shrewd analyst, one who makes one good point after another -- but this might be my favorite of all his insights regarding Trump:

Third, [Trump] refuses to be president of the United States, [instead focusing] only on the people who voted for him in 2024.

Reich is making a profound point here -- that Donald Trump is not qualified to be president and never should have sought the job or been elected to serve. In short, Trump's view of the presidency is directly at odds with language embedded in our founding documents.

Here is how the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History (GLIAH) describes the ideas behind the Declaration of Independence: "The Second Continental Congress declared that all human beings shared natural rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Legitimate governments were founded through consent of the governed, and a people retained the right to resist tyrannical governments that threatened natural rights. The Declaration helped justify separation from Britain and the establishment of a new government. Its concepts were drawn from the pages of philosophical, political, and legal books and shaped by conditions in the colonies. No concept, however, was more potentially transformative, or more consequential to later generations, than the idea that “all men are created equal.” 

Note that our government receives its authority through consent of the governed -- that's all those governed, not just the ones who voted Republican or declared fealty to the MAGA movement. Robert Reich's words make it clear that Trump never intended to respect consent of the governed.

As for the U.S. Constitution, consider these words from the League of Women Voters, which compared Trump's actions to the oath of office he has taken twice: "[Trump] has sworn—twice—to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. Yet, during an interview with Kristen Welker of Meet the Press, when asked whether he would uphold the Constitution, he said, “I don’t know.” Let that sink in: the president of the United States publicly admitted he doesn't know whether he would uphold the Constitution. It isn’t optional. It isn’t a choice. It is a mandate. He promised. He swore. He affirmed. He lied. Trump’s response? That his “brilliant” lawyers will “obviously follow what the Supreme Court says” (but not necessarily the Constitution itself)—but that he didn’t know whether he would. His oath wasn’t to his lawyers. His oath was to the Constitution.

This is a lawless man, a lawless administration, and a lawless movement.

This also is a deeply unserious man, one who never intended to do the job he was sworn to fulfill. Is it any wonder that Robert Reich holds Trump in such contempt? Here is more from Reich's opinion piece:

[Trump] talks in glowing terms about “my” people while denigrating “them” — those of us who didn’t vote for him, who still disapprove of him, or who refuse to give him whatever he wants.

He won’t even fund so-called blue states. So far this year he’s axed over $1.5 billion in blue-state grants, contrary to the wishes of Congress.

If he doesn’t believe he’s my president, why should I treat him as my president and watch his State of the Union?

Reich concludes with a zinger aimed directly at Trump and the soul of the MAGA movement (assuming MAGAs have souls):

Fourth and finally, I already know the real state of the union. It is s----

The economy has been good for big business and wealthy Americans but s----- for small businesses and average working Americans.

Although Trump repeatedly promised that his tariffs would reduce U.S. imports, shrink the trade deficit, and lead to a revival in American manufacturing, the opposite has happened. The annual trade deficit in goods last year hit a record high. And U.S. manufacturers cut 108,000 jobs.

In the 2024 election, Trump also promised to bring down prices, but inflation is still steaming ahead. Prices grew at an annual rate of 3 percent in December. He’s so out of touch with what most Americans are enduring that he calls the crisis of affordability “fake news.”

He promised to control immigration, but 6 out of 10 Americans think he’s gone “too far” by sending federal agents into American cities, causing mayhem and murder.

He promised to avoid foreign entanglements, but he abducted the president of Venezuela, killed more than 150 Venezuelans, and is now planning to attack Iran.

His menacing the Middle East has created another inflation risk: The possibility that a key oil export route will be disrupted has caused the price of Brent crude to soar.

For all these reasons, I’m not going to watch Trump’s State of the Union. I recommend that you don’t, either.

Your senators and representatives in Congress should boycott it, too. You might call their offices to suggest this. (Some Democrats are already planning to skip it, opting instead for a counter-programming event on the National Mall dubbed “The People’s State of the Union.” Good!)

And why the hell should justices of the Supreme Court show up, especially after [Trump] says he’s “ashamed” of the six who decided his tariffs exceeded his authority — calling the three Democratic appointees a “disgrace to our nation” and the three conservatives who voted against him “fools and lapdogs for the RINOs and the radical left Democrats,” “very unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution,” “swayed by foreign interests,” and “an embarrassment to their families”? 

Boycott the State of the Union. It's the least we can do.

Austin Tucker Martin, fatally shot by Secret Service at Mar-a-Lago, was a one-time Trump supporter who became obsessed about an Epstein files cover-up

Austin Tucker Martin (far right), with family members (NY Post)

The 21-year-old man Secret Service agents fatally shot at President Donald Trump's Florida estate early Sunday had become deeply concerned about the administration's handling of the Epstein files and expressed fear of elites "getting away with it,"  an apparent reference to wealthy and powerful men not being held  accountable for using the Jeffrey Epstein network to commit sex crimes against women and under-age girls. That's from a report at the UK Daily Mail under the headline "Gunman shot dead at Mar-a-Lago was 'obsessed with Epstein 'cover-up,' came from family of 'avid Trump supporters.'  U.S. Senior Reporter Stephen M. Lepore writes:

The man who entered Trump's Mar-a-Lago property with a shotgun and gas canister comes from a family of Trump supporters and became 'obsessed' by the administration's handling of the Epstein files. 

Austin Tucker Martin, 21, was shot and killed on Sunday morning after entering President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. 

Braeden Fields, Martin's cousin, reacted with disbelief, calling Martin 'quiet' and saying his family was almost entirely in favor of Trump.

'We are big Trump supporters, all of us. Everybody,' Fields said, but his cousin was 'real quiet, never really talked about anything.'

Martin hardly fits the profile of someone who might appear on Trump's property, with the apparent intent of harming the president. The Daily Mail's Lepore writes:

Martin himself also was allegedly a Trump supporter, expressing his belief in Trump as recently as late last year, anonymous co-workers told TMZ.

However, a text message uncovered by the outlet shows that Martin may have been influenced by the Department of Justice's release of the files related to dead pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

On February 15, just a week before he was killed by law enforcement, Martin texted a co-worker at Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club in North Carolina about the files.

'I don't know if you read up on the Epstein Files, but evil is real and unmistakable,' Martin said.

Did increasingly detailed and disturbing reports about Trump's connections to Epstein -- including DOJ  documents tying the president's name to reports of child rape and murder -- cause scales to fall from the eyes of one young Trump supporter? For now, that appears to be the case. From the Daily Mail:

"The best people like you and I can do is use what little influence we have. Tell other people about what you hear about the Epstein files and what the government is doing about it. Raise awareness."

President Trump has never been charged with any involvement in any wrongdoing involving Epstein and has long said he cut ties with the financier over 20 years ago. 

Co-workers said that Martin - who was open about his Christian faith - was fixated on the Epstein saga and said he would talk about "the elites 'getting away with it.'"