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Trump’s Horrific Joke to Jewish Staff Says Everything You Need to Know

Donald Trump joked about Nazi “ovens” in front of his organization’s Jewish executives.

Donald Trump speaks
Hannah Beier/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Donald Trump reportedly cracked jokes to his Jewish employees about Nazi “ovens,” according to a former executive at his organization.

Former Trump Organization Executive Vice President Barbara Res claimed Sunday that she and other employees had been mistreated by Trump, years before he’d become a belligerent politician. Res, an attorney and now author, worked at the Trump Organization for 18 years before leaving in 1998.

In an interview with MSNBC’s Ali Velshi, Res said that Trump’s recent rants reminded her of a time when he made a blatantly antisemitic comment to a group of Jewish employees.

Res said that Trump had recently hired a new German executive, and “was bragging to us executives about how great the guy was and he was a real German, and he was so neat and clean. And then he looked at a couple of our executives who happen to be Jewish, and he said, ‘You better watch out for this guy, he sort of remembers the ovens,’ and then smiled.

“Everybody was shocked,” she continued. “I couldn’t believe he said that, but he was making a joke about the Nazi ovens and killing people. And that’s the way he was.”

Velshi also asked Res what she made of Trump’s recent “embrace of religion” as he has continued to co-opt religious rhetoric on the campaign trail.

“His embrace of religion is absolute nonsense,” she said, adding that the Trump she knew “mocked religious people.”

It seems that in many ways, Trump is still the same. Trump has repeatedly said that any Jewish person who votes for President Joe Biden in November should be “ashamed,” have their “head examined,” and “does not love Israel.” Instead, Trump thinks people should vote for a guy who makes jokes about Nazi ovens and whose team is chock full of Christian nationalists and white supremacists.

Trump’s criticism of Biden on Israel is a sharp departure from reality, as the Biden administration has continued to fund weapons to Israel as it wages its brutal military campaign in Gaza, in the face of a crashing approval rate over Biden’s steadfast support of the mass killing and displacement of Palestinians.

What Trump’s Secret Trip Means for His Classified Documents Case

The former president snuck down to Mar-a-Lago just weeks before the FBI raided the property.

Donald Trump looks forward
Hannah Beier/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Donald Trump reportedly took a “highly unusual” trip to Mar-a-Lago, just weeks before the FBI raided the Florida estate, to repossess thousands of sensitive documents.

But the “discreet,” previously unreported trip—which occurred between July 10 and 12 in the summer of 2022—has caught the interest of investigators, who believe it may have been another attempt to conceal the documents after being served a subpoena for their swift return, ABC News reported Monday.

Several witnesses who spoke with federal investigators explained that Trump’s visit to Mar-a-Lago was unexpected for a couple reasons: first, because Trump typically spends the entirety of his summers at his New Jersey residence in Bedminster; and second, because his private living quarters in Mar-a-Lago were under construction at the time of his visit. Staff were reportedly confused as to where the former president would even stay.

But behind the scenes, former Trump aide Walt Nauta was working to keep the Florida drop-in as covert as possible.

“I’m pretty sure [Trump] wants minimal people around on Monday,” Nauta texted one Trump employee the day before the former president arrived, reported ABC.

In another message, sent on July 8, Nauta told a Trump Organization employee to remain “discreet,” adding an emoji with a zipper over its mouth.

“They were keeping this one quiet … nobody knew about this trip,” one witness with direct knowledge of the trip told investigators, according to ABC News.

But some witnesses who spoke with special counsel Jack Smith’s team did have details on the purpose of the conveniently timed trip. At least one witness who worked closely with Trump told investigators that they believed Trump was “checking on the boxes.”

Trump faces 42 felony charges in the case related to willful retention of national security information, corruptly concealing documents, and conspiracy to obstruct justice. Smith’s case hinges on proving that Trump knew he was not allowed to keep the classified material. The revelation of his secret trip adds more fuel to Smith’s allegation—if the case ever makes it to trial.

The Trump-appointed judge overseeing the case has slow-walked the trial so aggressively that she has been accused by legal experts of attempting to postpone it indefinitely. Last week, Judge Aileen Cannon began hearing arguments not related to Trump’s actions—but instead on whether Smith’s appointment to the case was constitutional.

“The Judge Got It Wrong”: Trump’s Fake Electors Just Got a Lucky Break

A judge has dismissed the fake electors case in Nevada.

Donald Trump holds up his fist
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Nevada’s case against fake electors in Donald Trump’s alleged scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election results just took a massive hit.

A Nevada state judge dismissed an indictment Friday against six Republicans accused of submitting certificates to Congress that falsely declared Trump triumphant over President Joe Biden, in a move that could potentially kill prosecutors’ bid to convict fake electors on criminal charges.

Lawyers for the fake electors insisted that the case should have been brought to a court further north, closer to where the alleged crime took place, as opposed to the court in Las Vegas. The phony certificates were signed outside of the state Capitol building in Carson City, while the real ones were being signed inside.

Clark County District Court Judge Mary Kay Holthus granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss the case on the grounds that it had been brought to the wrong venue. As a result of Friday’s ruling, the trial date set for January was subsequently vacated.

“The judge got it wrong and we’ll be appealing immediately,” Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford told reporters at the courtroom. He declined to comment further.

Meanwhile, the defense attorneys declared the case dead on arrival, as the three-year statute of limitations for filing new charges against their clients had passed months ago.

In November, it was reported that Ford was investigating a fake elector scheme in the key battleground state, a plot that was intended to flood Congress with election irregularities so the states’ votes could potentially be flipped for Trump.

The six people in Nevada who signed up to be fake electors included Michael McDonald, the chairman of the Nevada Republican Party; Jim DeGraffenreid, a committee member of the Republican National Committee; and Shawn Meehan, a Douglas County committee member. McDonald and DeGraffenreid testified for special counsel Jack Smith in return for protection from federal charges but were still subject to state-level proceedings.

Each of the six fake electors was charged with offering a false instrument for filing and uttering a forged instrument, both of which are felonies that carry sentences of up to five years in prison. All but Meehan are set to appear as delegates for Nevada at Lara Trump’s Republican National Convention next month.

Nevada is among the seven battleground states with cases against fake electors who sought to flip the outcome of the democratic process for Trump. The others are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Trump’s Surprising Promise to Immigrants Quickly Retracted by Campaign

Donald Trump made a shocking pledge to help international students—only for his campaign to immediately add some caveats.

Donald Trump wears a Make America Great Again cap and speaks at a lectern
Scott Olson/Getty Images

Donald Trump made a very interesting immigration proposal on a podcast released Thursday: giving green cards to all foreign college graduates in the United States. But hours later, his campaign said the plan would not be so clear-cut.

Appearing with right-wing tech baron David Sacks on the All-In podcast, Trump said he would implement the proposal helping international students if he returns to the White House. It’s a departure from Trump’s usual anti-immigrant rhetoric, and the statement came after one of the other podcast hosts, investor Jason Calcanis, asked him to “promise us you will give us more ability to import the best and brightest around the world to America.”

“I do promise, but I happen to agree,” Trump said, and added that “what I will do is—you graduate from a college, I think you should get automatically, as part of your diploma, a green card to be able to stay in this country, and that includes junior colleges.”

If Trump was serious, it would open up citizenship possibilities to a large number of foreigners—there were about one million international students in the United States in 2022, for example. But Trump’s campaign press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, walked back the plan hours later, issuing a statement to The New York Times that it would include an “aggressive vetting process,” excluding “all communists, radical Islamists, Hamas supporters, America haters and public charges.” She added that the plan would only include the “most skilled graduates who can make significant contributions to America.”

This would seem to bring the college plan in line with Trump’s previous immigration policies, which have been long criticized as xenophobic, racist, and cruel. The mention of “aggressive vetting” seems very similar to “extreme vetting,” which was the language used to describe Trump’s travel ban, frequently referred to as a “Muslim ban” for its targeting of nationals from several Muslim-majority countries. Indeed, Trump’s new proposal for international students came shortly after he claimed that high levels of immigration constitute an “invasion of our country.”

Trump’s recent rhetoric also makes clear his views on immigration haven’t improved: He’s discussed a mass deportation plan involving police, continues to smear immigrants as criminals, and makes crazy rants at the southern U.S. border. Even before his campaign walked back his college plan, it should have been taken with a big grain of salt.

Samuel Alito’s Mysterious Absence From Supreme Court Raises Questions

Why is the Supreme Court justice missing from the bench two days in a row?

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito
Erin Schaff/Pool/Getty Images

Samuel Alito was again absent from the Supreme Court on Friday after skipping out on Thursday. No information has yet been provided by the court for Alito’s mysterious absence, which comes as the court is issuing decisions before the end of its term and leaves nothing but questions on his whereabouts.

Is he combating a hangover from a particularly raucous flag day with Martha-Ann? Is he ducking out to delay the decision on Trump’s presidential immunity case?

Alito’s absence poses the possibility that the Supreme Court will have to extend its term into July to complete its decisions for the term. One major case waiting in the wings is a decision on presidential immunity, which will decide if former presidents can extend immunity protections after they leave office—a determination that would greatly benefit Trump in his federal election interference case, currently still on hold.

The most conservative justice on the bench, Alito’s absence hasn’t stopped his name from appearing on Supreme Court decisions. This week, he helped ensure that U.S. citizens can’t sue over their spouses’ visa denials, or in the case of Smith v. Arizona,
declared the court had dealt a “crippling wound on modern evidence law.” Wherever he is, he’s still turning in his homework and is as dramatic as ever.

Why the Hell Is Teamsters’ President Attending Trump’s RNC?

Teamsters President Sean O’Brien will speak at the Republican National Convention—even as the party tries to destroy workers’ rights.

Teamsters President Sean O’Brien stands in front of a sign that reads “Teamsters Local 25”
Nancy Lane/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald/Getty Images

On Friday, Donald Trump boasted that Teamsters President Sean O’Brien was personally invited by Trump to speak at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in mid-July, and had, to the confusion of many, accepted the invitation.

“Our GREAT convention will unify Americans and demonstrate to the nation’s working families they come first,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, announcing O’Brien’s attendance. “When I am back in the White House, the hardworking Teamsters, and all working Americans, will once again have a country they can afford to live in and be respected around the world.”

The news initially provoked skepticism, as the Teamsters have never spoken at the RNC before, and Trump’s pro-billionaire politicking and history of being a scab don’t really align with the blue-collar union, or any union for that matter. The Teamsters released a statement confirming the booking—adding they were waiting on an invite by the Democratic National Convention to do the same.

“General President Sean O’Brien asked to speak at both the RNC and DNC, and we are very happy former President Trump has extended this invitation,” a statement from a Teamsters spokesperson read. “Our 1.3 million members represent every political background, and their message needs to be heard by as wide an audience as possible, and that includes all political candidates running for office.”

Twitter screenshot Dave Jamieson: Teamsters spox says union prez O'Brien asked to appear at both the RNC and DNC, and was grateful for Trump's "openness to inviting a labor leader to speak." Full statement: Screenshot: General President Sean O'Brien asked to speak at both the RNC and DNC, and we are very happy former President Trump has extended his invitation. This is truly unprecedented since it will be the very first time a Teamsters General President has addressed the RNC. Our 1.3 million members represent every political background, and their message needs to be heard by as wide an audience as possible, and that includes all political candidates running for elected office. We appreciate former President Trump’s oppenness to inviting a labor leader to speak on behalf of working families.

O’Brien was elected general president of the Teamsters in 2022. Throughout the 2024 election cycle, O’Brien’s Teamsters have made a series of moves that have provoked upset and confusion among its traditionally Democrat-leaning ranks. The Teamsters met with five candidates for president in December—none major contenders—before donating $45,000 to both the DNC and RNC in December 2023 and January of this year, respectively. In early January, O’Brien met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. Later that month, the Teamsters executive board held a roundtable with Trump in D.C., which sparked a cascade of backlash. Executive board member John Palmer, who was invited to attend the meeting and rejected the invitation, issued a letter to O’Brien calling Trump a “known union buster, scab, and insurrectionist.” The Teamsters reportedly invited Biden to a similar meeting to take place the same day, but that meeting didn’t take place until mid-March.

The Teamsters have traditionally endorsed Democratic candidates for president, according to AP’s VoteCast. Teamsters endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020, who has touted himself as “the most pro-labor president in American history.”

“There’s always a threat to organized labor, so we want to be proactive and make certain every candidate—not just President Biden—understands how important our issues are,” O’Brien said, after meeting with Biden in March. With Trump’s personal invitation for O’Brien to speak at the RNC, it’s now up to Biden whether O’Brien will be invited to speak at the DNC.

Judge Cannon’s Upcoming Decision Could Spell Disaster for Trump Case

In his next move, Donald Trump will ask his favorite judge to toss out evidence central to the whole classified documents case.

Donald Trump smiles weirdly and claps. You can see the outline of his spray tan on his face.
Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

Donald Trump is trying to get the strongest evidence against him in his classified documents case thrown out: the memos written by his former lawyer Evan Corcoran.

The former president and convicted felon’s legal team is expected to ask Judge Aileen Cannon next week to remove the prosecution’s access to memos made by Corcoran, according to The Guardian. The memos note what Trump and his lawyer discussed regarding Trump complying with a court order to search his Mar-a-Lago estate for the missing classified documents.

According to the memos, after Trump received the court’s subpoena, he said to Corcoran, “Well, what if we, what happens if we just don’t respond at all or don’t play ball with them?” and “Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?” and “Well, look, isn’t it better if there are no documents?”

Trump’s federal indictment alleged that Trump had his employees (and now co-defendants) Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira move 64 boxes from a storage room to his residence so he could go through them, but only return 30 boxes back to the room where Corcoran would conduct his search. Corcoran would find 38 classified documents there, and Trump reportedly asked him, “Did you find anything? ... Is it bad? Good?” and then made a plucking motion to suggest “if there’s anything really bad in there, like, pluck it out.”

Trump’s lawyers are expected to argue that the memos don’t fit under the crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege and that chief U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington, D.C., should not have allowed them as evidence. And Cannon has been particularly receptive to Trump requests, agreeing to hear pretrial motions that have slowed down proceedings, throwing out parts of the case, and postponing the trial indefinitely.

The Trump-appointed judge, who had minimal trial experience prior to taking the classified documents case, turned down offers from more senior and experienced judges to take over the case. Her actions have drawn criticism, even from one of Trump’s former lawyers, who has called her a “partisan prima donna.” And that’s exactly what Trump wants.

Struggling Lauren Boebert Dragged for Beetlejuice Drama in New Ad

The Colorado Republican remains haunted by her disastrous date.

Lauren Boebert looks to the side
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Lauren Boebert has not yet won the Republican nomination in Colorado’s 4th district, but that hasn’t stopped a Democratic challenger from blasting her for her infamous behavior at a performance of Beetlejuice in Denver.

John Padora, a Democrat running to replace Republican Representative Ken Buck in the district, has wasted no time going after Boebert, the best-known candidate in next week’s Republican primary. His new advertisement, recorded at a similar angle to the security camera that captured her vaping and groping her date in the middle of the musical, is going viral.

“I’m sitting in the very same seat Lauren Boebert got kicked out of, the same way she got kicked out of Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District. Now she’s picked up her bags and fled to eastern Colorado,” Padora says in the fundraising spot.

Boebert announced she would not run for reelection in the 3rd district after eking out a reelection victory in 2022 and then being outraised by a Democratic challenger and losing the endorsement of several prominent district Republicans for the upcoming election. She fled to the redder 4th district—but her date-night hijinks seem to have followed her, and Padora is taking full advantage.

“Boebert’s an opportunistic carpetbagger, and we deserve real leadership here in Colorado’s 4th,” Padora says.

Of all of Boebert’s transgressions that Padora might have seized on—promoting the QAnon conspiracy, engaging in election denialism, giving customers at her open-carry restaurant diarrhea by serving them tainted pork—accusing her of carpetbagging seems, if anything, tame.

Missouri A.G. Wants to Sue New York Over Trump. There’s One Problem.

Andrew Bailey made one obvious error in his threat to sue New York over Donald Trump’s hush-money trial.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey stands outside at a lectern with several mics
Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced Thursday night that he plans to sue the state of New York in retaliation for Donald Trump’s criminal conviction. The conservative AG vowed to “restore the rule of law”—but not the ones that found Trump guilty, of course—and deemed Trump’s hush-money trial “unconstitutional lawfare.”

Twitter Screenshot Attorney General Andrew Bailey: 🚨BREAKING: I will be filing suit against the State of New York for their direct attack on our democratic process through unconstitutional lawfare against President Trump.

But it doesn’t seem like Bailey understands the law in New York at all, and it doesn’t look like he’s paid much attention to the details of Trump’s hush-money trial. According to Axios, Bailey is pursuing his lawsuit against New York on the basis that the statute of limitations for misdemeanor business records falsification expired in 2019.

There’s just two big hiccups with Bailey’s argument: Trump was indicted on 34 felony counts, not misdemeanors, and the statute of limitations for those felonies is five years after the start of criminal proceedings—not two like with misdemeanors. It’s also unclear where Bailey is getting 2019 as a statute of limitations from: The federal criminal proceedings against Trump kicked off in 2018 after an explosive Wall Street Journal story stated Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen paid off Stormy Daniels in 2016. The FBI soon raided Cohen, who that same year pleaded guilty to giving hush-money payments to Daniels and another woman, claiming he did so on Trump’s behalf. State criminal proceedings based on Cohen’s testimony formally began in August 2019, four years before Trump was indicted and five years before he was convicted, all of which fall well within New York’s five-year statute of limitations.

Whether Bailey is just bad at math, the law, or keeping up to date on Trump trial chaos ultimately matters little. His lawsuit represents a new wave of attacks that can be best described as, to use Bailey’s wording, “unconstitutional lawfare” being carried out in retaliation for Trump’s conviction. In his rush to preen himself as the ultimate pro-Trump attorney general (during an election year where he’s running against a member of Trump’s legal team), Bailey may soon find himself falling flat on his face: It doesn’t seem Bailey bothered to look into New York’s extremely strong anti-SLAPP laws, which prohibit against retaliatory lawsuits attempting to impede against public participation of matters of public interest. And convicting a former president certainly constitutes a matter of public interest.

Matt Schlapp Attempts to Mock Reporter—and Regrets It Immediately

The head of CPAC got called out for even more unreported shady behavior.

Matt Schlapp is seen in profile
Alex Wong/Getty Images

Trump ally Matt Schlapp is poking the bear—or should we say, the Beast.

Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union, took to social media Friday to taunt the Daily Beast over the reported exit of its new D.C. bureau chief, Martin Pengelly, who joined the embattled outlet only recently.

In his post, Schlapp tagged the Beast’s senior political reporter Roger Sollenberger, who in January 2023 was the first to publish anonymous allegations that Schlapp had sexually assaulted Carlton Huffman, a former campaign staffer for Herschel Walker.

Schlapp and his wife, Mercedes, have since crusaded against the Beast, calling it “Satan’s publication to persecute Christians and their families.”

Sollenberger has continued to rigorously document the subsequent sexual battery and defamation lawsuit against Schlapp, and when it was dropped earlier this year, the reporter revealed that it was because Schlapp had paid Huffman $480,000 to do so, through the ACU’s insurer.

And Friday was no exception, with Sollenberger hitting back hard at Schlapp’s post on X, formerly Twitter, toasting Pengelly’s exit.

“Life’s a real bitch,” Schlapp wrote, tagging Sollenberger. He may yet live to regret the popcorn bucket emoji he added, as Sollenberger was quick to respond.

“Heard about your wedding. Heard about the DC parties in the 90s. Heard about the Meatpacking District,” Sollenberger wrote. “Why didn’t you run for Senate in 2020?”

“I can keep going,” he continued in a separate post.

“Matt is saying this knowing full well what was in our first comment request and apparently does not give a damn about the restraint we’ve shown him,” Sollenberger wrote in another tweet.

It seems that Sollenberger has plenty of dirt to drop, and the disgraced conservative lobbyist might do well to remember that.