Trump Team’s “Anti-Fraud” Announcement Gets Derailed With One Question
https://newrepublic.com/post/217413/trump-team-anti-fraud-announcement-derailed-minnesota
Trump Team’s “Anti-Fraud” Announcement Gets Derailed With One Question
“Uh, yeah, I don’t know anything about that,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent replied when asked about a strange purchase by the federal government.
The Trump administration’s big anti-fraud announcement in Minnesota didn’t go as planned Friday.
First of all, Vice President JD Vance canceled his appearance at the event in St. Cloud without giving a reason—leaving other Trump officials to stand in front of a giant banner reading “The Vice President’s Fraud Task Force,” with the vice president nowhere in sight.
But things only went south from there. Shortly after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a federal crackdown in the state, with coordinated searches and a $25 million whistleblower incentive program, a reporter pointed out that the Trump administration has an issue of its own: The Department of Homeland Security paid $495 million for a prison in Appleton, Minnesota, in August, despite its owner, CoreCivic, Inc., offering it to the state for just $75 million last year. Bessent didn’t want to answer that question.
“Uh, yeah, I don’t know anything about that, what we are here to do is prosecute criminal fraud and any question like that that deflects away from it I think is a waste of our time, thanks,” Bessent said.
Minnesota TV station KARE 11 reported on the massive overpayment Thursday, citing records filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission confirming the $420 million price difference. It’s the largest real estate purchase in Minnesota history, and it’s a 34-year-old vacant prison that’s been closed for 16 years.
“It’s unexplainable!” Minnesota Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell told KARE 11 when he was asked about the sale.
“Obviously, I was stunned given the reality of the offer that had been made to us just a little over a year prior to that,” Schnell said. “I still can’t figure it out.”
That purchase price doesn’t include any necessary improvements the government will have to make on the facility, which will likely be numerous considering it has been defunct for 16 years and is located in a small town about a three hour drive from Minneapolis and St. Paul. The company in question, CoreCivic, has profited immensely from Trump’s mass deportation policies, and donated $500,000 to President Trump and Vance’s inauguration. But don’t expect that to be the subject of a big federal fraud investigation.
Republican Senator Sued by His Former Patient
Roger Marshall has been hit with a class-action lawsuit from a former patient.
Republican Senator Roger Marshall, who is in the middle of a tight reelection campaign, was sued Friday for allegedly charging illegal interest rates to his patients in his former career as a doctor.
Marshall’s former patient Meischa Zimmerman filed the class-action lawsuit Thursday in Kansas state court against both Marshall and his former medical practice on behalf of herself and several other patients. Last month, The New York Times broke the story that Marshall sued hundreds of his patients for medical debts in rural Barton County, Kansas, where many residents live in poverty and don’t have health insurance.
Zimmerman, an obstetrics patient of Marshall’s in 2009, said the practice sued her over a $3,596 bill for the delivery of her child, plus an 18 percent annual interest rate. According to the court filing, debt collection efforts linked to the usurious debt led to her arrest on three separate occasions.
Under Kansas law, doctors and other businesses can only charge 15 percent interest rates, with some exceptions allowing higher rates if they specify them in a preexisting contract. Marshall and his practice, Heartland Regional OBGYN, charged an 18 percent rate to his patients, mostly mothers from low-income, uninsured, or underinsured backgrounds. The lawsuit calls those rates illegal, and part of a “callous and predatory” debt-collection scheme.
The revelations over Marshall’s past have helped put his seat in play in normally solidly Republican Kansas. That has led to President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance jetting off to Kansas to campaign for him, but it hasn’t gone so well: Marshall’s Democratic challenger, pastor Adam Hamilton, has a slight advantage in recent polling.
This lawsuit is not going to help. Hamilton has called out Marshall’s high interest rates and propensity to sue his patients for as little as $101, saying in a debate last month that “there are 2,000 verses in the Bible that speak to caring for the poor. This is not happening under this man.”
The news of Marshall being sued just days before Election Day on Tuesday will ensure that his medical practice will be in the news through the weekend. It’ll pile on the fact that another damaging story broke about him earlier this week: He made a suspiciously timed pharmaceutical stock purchase when he was a congressional representative on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee eight years ago. Come Tuesday, voters in Kansas might have an easy decision to make.
ICE Agent Charged With Intentionally Hitting Someone With His Car
A Texas grand jury has indicted an ICE officer for running over a man with his SUV.
A Texas grand jury indicted an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent on Friday for intentionally running a man over with his vehicle earlier this month.
Officer Mario Alberto Morales is facing a charge of assault with a deadly weapon after running over Miguel Parra Hernandez, who was on foot, with a black unmarked SUV. Hernandez broke his leg and also injured his hip and ankle, according to his family. He is currently undergoing rehab in ICE custody, and Morales was placed on administrative leave.
Hernandez, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, was driving to his construction job when immigration agents tried to pull him over. Hernandez and another passenger fled from the vehicle. According to street camera and body cam footage, Morales then turned his vehicle and accelerated over Hernandez. Hernandez can be heard screaming “You ran over me,” while Morales replies, “You got hit with the car, bro.” ICE backed Morales’s version of events, saying in an official statement that Hernandez “ran in front of an ICE vehicle and was struck.”
ICE still maintains that story, saying that Morales’s indictment “is nothing more than a political stunt by Houston sanctuary politicians.” It also argues that the local government doesn’t have jurisdiction to try and investigate Morales in the first place, a claim Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare says is “false.”
“An ICE badge does not give you free rein to injure, kill, or violate the constitutional rights of anyone,” Teare said.
Morales is only the second ICE officer to face any legal consequences for their actions since the beginning of President Trump’s immigration crackdown. ICE officer Christian Castro was charged with four counts of assault for shooting Venezuelan immigrant Julio Sosa-Celis in Minnesota in January.
Why Are Moderate Dems Bashing Abdul El-Sayed Right Before Election?
Nancy Pelosi and Representative Haley Stevens both released statements targeting El-Sayed.
With just days until the midterm elections, moderate Democrats are still finding ways to undermine Michigan’s Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.
House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi criticized El-Sayed on a recent episode of the On Brand podcast. Host Donny Deutsch claimed El-Sayed had made “concerning” comments opposing the existence of a Jewish state. “That’s antisemitic as far as I’m concerned,” he said.
“No, it’s more than concerning. It’s wrong,” Pelosi said. “It’s wrong, and it isn’t a reflection of the Democrats in the Congress of the United States. This new person in Michigan, we’ll see if he gets elected to the Congress.”
Since launching his campaign, El-Sayed, who is Muslim, has been bombarded by baseless claims of antisemitism. The Democrat has stated that he opposes any state’s right to be organized around an ethnic or religious group, and has been clear that his issue is with the Israeli government, not Jewish people. “An ally that takes your money to push you into wars you shouldn’t be fighting is not an ally,” he said during one interview on ABC News.
But Pelosi appeared more interested in defending Israel than a Democrat on the eve of an important election. (Her spokesperson said Friday that she was urging people to support El-Sayed.)
Representative Haley Stevens, whom El-Sayed defeated in the Democratic primary, also took an eleventh-hour shot at her party’s only hope to keep control of the state’s Senate seat. Stevens issued a statement Friday suggesting that her support for El-Sayed was contingent on whether he condemned a political advertisement that was not even produced by his campaign.
The video was made by Rebellion PAC, a left-wing fundraising group led by Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks—who Stevens wants everyone to know is also “Hasan Piker’s uncle.” The video, which originally aired in February 2024, blamed the rising price of groceries on America’s continued support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
“Why does Mike Rogers care so much about what Israelis want, and so little about what you want?” the ad asks, claiming that pro-Israel PACs had poured $228,808 into Rogers’s campaign.
Stevens said she had agreed to appear at an event with El-Sayed and Representative Jim Clyburn, expecting that El-Sayed would formally condemn the ad. “A disclaimer is not condemnation, and everyone in my community knows the difference,” Stevens said in the statement.
But that wasn’t all she was expecting. Stevens called for El-Sayed to apologize for his own statements tying Israel to Michiganders’ affordability crisis, though it wasn’t immediately clear that he actually had made any such claims. She also asked him to take down another campaign advertisement that included a clip of Tucker Carlson, among a montage of right-wing media figures.
Again, with Stevens, we see Democrats placing continued support for Israel before the success of their own party and their own constituents. Is it any wonder that Stevens lost?
Judge Orders Investigation Into Whether Trump Officials Lied to Her
Trump officials are refusing to answer basic questions about Trump’s takeover of a Washington, D.C., golf course. Judge Anna Reyes has had enough.
A federal judge on Friday announced the appointment of a special master to investigate whether Trump officials repeatedly lied to her about the president’s attempted takeover of the East Potomac Park golf course in Washington, D.C. The investigation will begin in a matter of days.
In court Friday, a Justice Department lawyer tried to play dumb about what’s going on in the park, what Trump has publicly said about the park, and how the administration has flouted court orders. When U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes asked the lawyer if he “made any false statements of material fact that you’d like to correct,” the attorney said “not to my knowledge,” drawing Reyes’s ire.
The lawyer claimed that he was new to the case, saying, “We have lots of binders.” Reyes tried to remedy the situation by calling an Interior Department official and asking them the same question, only to get the same answer: “Not to my knowledge.” When Reyes asked if the official’s boss, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, was involved in the park project, the official asked, “What do you mean by ‘involved?’” This prompted Reyes to pull out a dictionary to read the definition of “involved.”
The official then said that Burgum was aware of the renovation project, but wasn’t involved, to which Reyes noted that he toured the golf course. “He doesn’t have a body double, does he?” Reyes quipped.
After Reyes asked when the Department of Interior became aware of plans to close the park on November 15, the official seemed ignorant, prompting Reyes to ask if she needed to look up “plan” in the dictionary.
Reyes noted that Trump wrote on Truth Social October 18 that the park was closing on November 15, and that the DOJ “swore up and down” the next day that park wasn’t closing then, only to later change its story and confirm the November 15 closure date. At that point, assistant Attorney General Stanley Woodward, the number three person at the DOJ, intervened and tried to halt the questioning of the Interior Department official.
“It sounds like you don’t want him to answer a very straightforward question,” Reyes said, before allowing the official to step away. Woodward then started answering Reyes’s questions, saying that the closure plan was “noticed” on October 28. He tried to claim that Trump’s post said the park “should” be closed, only for Reyes to correct him and point out that Trump wrote “will be” closed.
The hearing didn’t get any better from there, as Woodward attempted to explain away Trump’s posts by claiming there were no plans to close the golf course, questioning whether those words constitute “plans” or “orders.” Woodward went as far as to try to claim “executive privilege” over Trump’s social media posts, frustrating Reyes, who said, “That’s quite an extraordinary view of executive privilege.”
The entire hearing continued on in this absurdity, with the DOJ letting slip that a new seawall at the park would cost between $150 million and a whopping $400 million. Trump administration lawyers became noticeably cagey about questions regarding the renovation’s costs after that.
Trump is insisting on this project despite court orders and the law, and openly admits he’s ignoring Reyes’s rulings. Friday’s drama in court is an indication that Trump’s lawyers can’t come up with believable justifications for his haphazard decisions.
Trump Media Filings Reveal Payout From America’s 250th Celebration
It sure looks like Donald Trump is using taxpayer money to fund his own social media company.
Trump Media & Technology Group, the company that owns Truth Social, has earned $175,000 for running ads about America’s 250th birthday celebrations.
The 250th celebrations, a series of very disappointing events over the summer, were led by Freedom 250, a Trump-created group that took over a bipartisan committee commissioned by Congress to plan the anniversary. Freedom 250 was officially housed under the National Park Foundation, a nonprofit that is supposed to raise money for the National Park Service—on whose board Trump Media board member Meredith O’Rourke also happens to sit.
Trump still owns a 41 percent stake in Trump Media, raising further alarm about Trump essentially paying himself for ads on the social media company he owns.
A Thursday merger filing first reported by Wendy Siegelman at NewsTRACS reveals that Trump Media, or TMTG, reported $175,000 in revenue from Freedom 250, plus another $175,000 in “outstanding receivables”—money owed for services already rendered—from the organization.
“TMTG performed advertising services to Freedom 250 LLC, an entity created by, and administered by the National Park Foundation, the official charity of the National Park Service. Meredith O’Rourke, a member of TMTG’s Board of Directors, also serves on the Board of Directors of the National Parks Foundation,” the filing reads. For the three and nine months ended September 30, 2026, TMTG earned revenue of $175.0 related to the advertisement of Freedom 250 events. As of September 30, 2026, TMTG had $175.0 of outstanding receivables from Freedom 250 LLC.”
Freedom 250 relies mostly on taxpayer money, as National Park Foundation CEO Jeff Reinbold told the House Natural Resources Committee in February. “The majority of Freedom 250’s operating funds come from federal funds appropriated by Congress specifically for the 250th anniversary commemorations,” he said.
It appears that Trump went out of his way to create lackluster, cheap, and gaudy events, all to funnel more money into his own pockets. It is yet another example of just how committed to corruption this administration is, wringing out every penny they can get from their time in power.
This article was updated to account for an update made by NewsTRACS.
U.S. Oil Industry Reports Blowout Profit as Trump Brags About It
The U.S. oil industry is raking in billions thanks to the Iran war.
The U.S. oil industry has made more than $130 billion in profit during the Iran war—while normal Americans continue to pay exorbitant prices at the gas pump.
The New York Times reported that the country’s 50 largest oil and gas companies raked in a massive profit from April to September. The $130 billion profit margin eclipses the $47 billion that these companies made during the same six-month period last year. The last comparable economic windfall was after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when the oil and gas industry made slightly higher profits.
American households have spent $1,100 on fuel alone since the war began. That’s an extra $147 billion all together, according to Brown University’s Climate Solutions Lab.
Once again, it is massive corporations that stand to gain the most from violence and conflict.
President Trump said it himself a few days ago.
“And while oil prices are temporarily high … the United States oil and gas business is making hundreds of billions of dollars.... Our country is making hundreds of billions of dollars ‘cause of what’s happened in the Middle East … trillions of dollars,” he told a rally crowd in Georgia on Saturday. “My people said, ‘Please don’t mention that sir, because people are paying a little higher’ ... I said, ‘I don’t give a damn, I’m gonna say it: We’re making a freaking fortune.’”
When the president says “we,” he means Exxon, Chevron, and Valero. Not you.
Trump Allies Abruptly Cancel Multiple Huge Events Days Before Election
Vice President JD Vance, Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio all suddenly pulled the plug on major events.
President Donald Trump’s allies won’t stop canceling public appearances, sending an ominous message to voters ahead of the midterm elections.
After Trump canceled—and then rescheduled—two rallies in Kansas and Iowa over the weekend, it appears that the rest of the president’s team is still tapped out. Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton all canceled upcoming appearances.
Vance canceled a Friday afternoon appearance in St. Cloud, Minnesota, where he was expected to make an announcement related to his war on fraud. It wasn’t immediately clear what the announcement was regarding, but Vance previously referred Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and state Attorney General Keith Ellison to the Department of Justice for a criminal investigation based on the vice president’s wild accusations that they allowed sweeping social services fraud.
Other federal officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, FBI Director Kash Patel, and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, were still scheduled to appear in St. Cloud on Friday. Oz, the daytime television host Trump picked to run the CMS, has previously spread faulty claims of health care fraud in other blue states.
Rubio, who will chair the G20 meeting in Atlanta this weekend, canceled plans for a group photo with foreign ministers after several European diplomats refused to pose with Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov.
And Paxton, who is running for U.S. Senate in Texas, also canceled a campaign rally scheduled for Sunday in El Paso. The Texas attorney general held a sparsely attended campaign event in Abilene on Thursday. The latest polls show Democratic candidate James Talarico with a slight edge over Paxton.
Russia’s Lavrov Lands in U.S. for G20 Meeting—Enraging Everyone
European allies and even some Republicans at home are outraged by Trump’s decision to invite the Russian foreign minister.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrived in Atlanta Friday for a G20 foreign minister’s meeting in Atlanta, and it’s drawing backlash from U.S. lawmakers and allies alike.
Lavrov is the highest profile Russian official to visit the U.S since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. His arrival upset other assembled diplomats, who didn’t want anything to do with him. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was forced to scrap the traditional photo with all of the foreign ministers after European leaders refused to stand next to Lavrov and threatened to walk out. Usually, the summit begins with the photograph.
At home, Republicans too are outraged by the decision to invite Lavrov. Representative Don Bacon condemned the visit on X, saying, “Lavrov should not be allowed in the country.
“As long as Putin is waging war against Ukraine and bombing cities, Russian leaders should not be welcomed in any of these forums. They lead a pariah state,” Bacon posted on Wednesday.
Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee also condemned the visit in a joint letter last month. The group was made up of Republicans Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn, Roger Wicker, Jerry Moran, Thom Tillis, John Curtis, and Alan Armstrong, in addition to Democrats Sheldon Whitehouse, Michael Bennet, Chris Coons, Richard Blumenthal, Tim Kaine, and Ruben Gallego.
“President Putin bears sole responsibility for launching Russia’s full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine. Allowing him to participate in a G20 Summit in the United States raises serious concerns about legitimizing and normalizing a government that continues to attack Ukrainian civilian targets every day,” the senators wrote.
Meanwhile, another key player in the G20 is missing. South Africa, which is part of the international forum, did not attend amid various disputes with the Trump administration, and representatives from the country said their absence wasn’t by choice.
“We have consistently maintained that our nonparticipation is not voluntary,” Phindile Kunene, spokesperson for South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola, told the Associated Press.
It’s pretty clear that the Trump administration is trying to force other countries to deal with Russia even as Russian President Vladimir Putin refuses to make any concessions in the war with Ukraine. Excluding South Africa, which is actually a founding member of the G20, this also suggests that the White House is ignoring international concerns.
“You Are Disgusting”: Trump Snaps at Reporter Over Canceled Rallies
Donald Trump then suddenly rescheduled the two rallies.
President Donald Trump completely lost it Thursday when asked about canceling multiple rallies ahead of the midterm elections.
Speaking to reporters, Trump exploded when one asked him why he’d canceled rallies in Kansas and Iowa over the weekend.
“So, you not going to Kansas has nothing to do with being sick of travel?” the reporter asked.
“Oh you’re sick to ask that question. You are sick. Who are you with?” Trump snapped.
“I’m with Reuters,” the reporter said.
“You are a sick guy, Reuters is terrible, by the way,” Trump said. “Look at this guy, he’s way out of shape. Look at how badly—he comes to me, ‘Sir you’re not gonna go to Kansas.’ No, I’m not going to Kansas because he’s doing very well. I’m gonna do a tele-rally. Tomorrow I’m doing Florida.
“He says ‘What’s the reason’—after doing, what, 28? He says, ‘What’s the reason for this, sir, that you’re not going to Kansas?’ You know what the reason is? I don’t feel I have to go to Kansas,” Trump raged. “I’m going to do Florida tomorrow, and I’ll do—if something else comes up—but he said, ‘You’re not going to Kansas, sir, are you feeling well?’ You’ve been following me for two weeks. I feel perfect. You are disgusting. Put yourself in shape. You look like hell.”
Trump’s outburst seemed to come out of nowhere, especially considering that the reporter’s question hadn’t been about the president’s health at all. Moments earlier, when a reporter had asked Trump about his health, the president had simply responded that he felt “good.” It seems that it was the word “sick” that sent him over the edge.
Questions about cancellations may have gotten under the president’s skin—by Friday morning, the rallies in Kansas and Iowa were back on.
