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Rep. Thomas Massie read the names of 14 alleged Epstein co-conspirators out loud on the House floor. A USPS whistleblower said the mail ballot verification system the Trump administration ordered could prevent millions of people from voting in November. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigned after months of being undermined by Pete Hegseth. And the Trump administration cut down all 40 weeping willow trees outside the Kennedy Center, which were planted to symbolize the nation mourning JFK’s assassination.
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Normally when a congressman reads a list of 14 names on the House floor, it is because he is thanking donors.
GOP Rep. Thomas Massie took the House floor Monday night and read the names of 14 Epstein co-conspirators. The names included Prince Andrew; billionaire retail mogul Les Wexner; financiers Leon Black and Jes Staley; illusionist David Copperfield; and modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, who died in 2022 in a French jail while awaiting trial on sexual assault charges.
The government has refused to release millions of files under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which Massie co-led with Rep. Ro Khanna last year. Massie said he has gathered 218 signatures for a discharge petition to force a vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act II, which would give state attorneys general access to the files and make it easier to prosecute perpetrators under state law.
Massie, who lost his own primary this year to a candidate Trump backed, said Speaker Mike Johnson could try to recess the House before the midterms to avoid the vote. He said he is optimistic the bill will eventually pass, either before November or in the lame-duck session.
Though none of the people named have been charged with anything, Massie’s remarks are protected by the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause, which shields lawmakers from liability for statements made on the floor of the House or Senate during legislative business. That’s a handy little trick when you’re accusing a prince and a handful of billionaires of being accessories to sex trafficking.
The Postal Service’s motto promises delivery through rain, snow, and gloom of night. It does not mention the president.
A federal whistleblower told Sen. Richard Blumenthal this week that the new system the USPS is using to process mail ballots is a disaster. The Postal Service did not begin work on the verification portal until June, giving itself less than three months to complete a project that normally would take nine to 12 months, they say. USPS officials referred repeatedly to a phrase that rhymes with “spit show” to describe the final testing period.
The system runs on what the whistleblower called a zero percent failure policy. If a single barcode on a single ballot in a batch cannot be verified, the entire batch is rejected. That means one bad scan could prevent states from mailing them out altogether.
Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia are suing to stop the executive order. A judge blocked its mandates last week but the administration already is appealing. The case could eventually reach the Supreme Court in time to affect the November vote, leaving the fate of mail-in voting to the same court that just ruled that presidents are above the law.
Pete Hegseth has removed more officers from the Pentagon than from any battlefield.
Dan Driscoll, the youngest Army Secretary in U.S. history and one of Vice President Vance’s closest allies from Yale Law, submitted his resignation on Sunday after months of conflict with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Hegseth had removed four officers from a promotions list after Driscoll refused to do so, two Black men and two women. In his resignation, Driscoll raised concerns about Hegseth blocking Army modernization and firing the generals responsible for it.
The breaking point appears to have been Hegseth’s dismissal of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George this spring. Driscoll worked closely with George and told Congress in April that he was not aware of any reason for the firing. After George left, the acting chief of staff began breaking up a drone-modernization battalion Driscoll had championed, which had been studying how Ukraine uses commercial drones on the battlefield.
Hegseth has now driven out the Navy Secretary, the Army Chief of Staff, and the Army Secretary in a single calendar year. The military’s largest branch now has no Senate-confirmed leadership six months into the Iran war.
If you are looking for a metaphor for this presidency, you will find 40 of them reduced to stumps along the Potomac.
The Trump administration removed all 40 weeping willow trees that lined both sides of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The trees were planted to symbolize the nation’s mourning after President Kennedy’s assassination in 1963.
The removal comes after the president quietly cleared trees from the East Potomac Golf Links to make way for his golf course renovation, reportedly before permission was granted. As of late August, the administration had not released any design plans, construction schedule, or budget for the golf course project.
The Kennedy Center has been a target of the administration since Trump replaced the board, installed himself as chair, and renamed the building after himself last year. A federal judge ordered his name removed in June, after which Trump announced a two-year closure.
The last president famous for cutting down trees in Washington at least had the decency to tell the truth about it.
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MapQuest Surges to No. 1 Navigation App After Refusing to Rename Lake Ontario. Despite Trump’s executive order, MapQuest said it would not rename Lake Ontario to Lake America on its maps, and the internet responded by downloading the app hundreds of thousands of times. The 30-year-old brand rocketed to No. 1 in the Navigation category on the U.S. App Store and hit No. 2 overall in Canada, with usage soaring to 50 times its normal levels. Meanwhile, Google Maps faced immediate backlash after it announced Saturday that it would honor the name change, but only for U.S. users.
Mary Peltola’s Path Clears in Alaska Senate Race. Former Congresswoman Mary Peltola’s path to flipping Alaska’s Senate seat just got a lot clearer with the exit of her fellow Democrat David Leslie from the race. Her opponents in the general election in November are three Republicans, giving her a clear advantage. VoteHub shifted its forecast from Toss Up to Tilt Democrat after Peltola won nearly 50 percent in the August primary, finishing more than eight points ahead of Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan. Prediction markets give about a two-in-three shot.
Trump EPA Sued Over Approval of Cancer-Causing “Forever Chemical” Herbicide. The Center for Food Safety, Center for Biological Diversity and Pesticide Action Network North America sued the Trump administration Friday over its re-approval of trifludimoxazin, a PFAS herbicide which the EPA itself has conceded has the potential to cause cancer and is likely to seriously harm endangered fish populations. The chemical was first approved in 2021, pulled from the market after the latest lawsuit, and then re-approved by Trump’s EPA in June 2026, becoming the fifth PFAS pesticide approved during this administration.
** Oklahoma Attorney General Tells City It Cannot Charge $17,125 for a Records Request.** A farmer in Claremore, Oklahoma was arrested in February for going 30 seconds over his three-minute speaking limit at a public meeting about a proposed 225-acre data center. When he filed a public records request for bodycam footage as part of his defense, the city told him it would cost $17,125.44, with $16,540 of that going to a legal review of the documents. The state attorney general has since ordered the city to hand them over, noting that Oklahoma law only allows cities to charge the direct cost of copying records and that Claremore had never posted a public fee schedule as required.
