"Piggy Gets Polite" by Maureen Dowd

 

Step by slimy step, President Trump has made us numb to his crudeness and cruelty. The solipsistic Trump, with the parasitic tech emperors and the internet itself, is degrading American values, making honor and integrity seem anachronistic. Still, some moments shock as beyond the pale. Whatever the pale is anymore.

On Air Force One recently, Trump cut off Catherine Lucey, a Bloomberg News journalist pressing him about the release of Epstein files that could further implicate Trump in the lurid mess. Stabbing his finger at her face, the President of the United States snapped at Lucey: “Quiet! Quiet, piggy.”

The press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, later preposterously explained, “The president being frank and open and honest to your faces, rather than hiding behind your backs, is, frankly, a lot more respectful than what you saw in the last administration.”

It was nauseating, if not surprising. Trump loves to call people who annoy him “pigs” and “dogs,” and in the case of his inamorata Stormy Daniels, “horseface.” It was misogynistic, but Trump bullies both men and women, attacking their looks and character and hurling nasty, intensely personal epithets and nicknames. He mocked Chris Christie, once an ally, as “a fat pig,” “a slob” and “sloppy.”

When I interviewed him decades ago in his more appropriate incarnation as a flashy developer hogging attention in New York, he would rate the looks of supermodels and actresses, dropping snap judgments like, “Sadly, Heidi Klum is no longer a 10.” Sometimes, he sent me pictures of female journalists from newspapers, commenting with a Sharpie scrawl on who he thought looked good or bad.

Politicians were never insult comics before Trump. But in the 2016 primaries he learned sneering deflected from substance.

Trump followed up his “Quiet, piggy” moment by berating another female journalist, Mary Bruce of ABC News, who asked Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, during his appearance with the president, about his culpability in the dismemberment of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. U.S. intelligence concluded the prince gave the order.

“You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that,” Trump chided Bruce. When she later asked why Trump was waiting for Congress to release the Epstein files when he could do it unilaterally, he called her question “a horrible, insubordinate, and just a terrible question.” He added that Brendan Carr, the chairman of the F.C.C., should look into revoking ABC’s broadcast license.

Trump even defamed Khashoggi, saying that a lot of people didn’t like him and noting cavalierly that “things happen.” Yes, Things Happen when you have no morals and your family is doing lucrative business deals with the Saudis.

By contrast, Trump was his most charming self on Friday in his “fascist vs. socialist” meeting with Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani of New York. He had blasted Mamdani earlier as a “Communist” and “JEW HATER” and threatened to withhold federal funding for New York and send in troops.

But by the end of their Oval news conference, the two were so lovey-dovey, a Fox News anchor warned that JD Vance might have to move over for Mamdani. And Trump, who once warned that wealthy New Yorkers and businesses would flee if the democratic socialist were elected, dramatically flipped, saying he would feel very comfortable moving back to Gotham under this mayor.

(“It was a Great Honor meeting Zohran Mamdani, the new Mayor of New York City!” Trump gushed in a bromance-y Truth Social post featuring pictures of the pair on a colonnade and posing in front of F.D.R.’s portrait.)

It just proved that Trump admires charismatic winners more than he cares about ideology — or consistency. Mamdani was prepared, focusing on their common ground while flattering Trump by noting his election statistics and hometown roots, and avoiding Dear Leader fawning. He strategically embraced Trump as he touted the affordability issue, which the billionaire president loved. Seeing Americans restive at his fixation on foreign conflicts, Trump is feigning a newfound interest in grocery prices.

The president was so taken with Mamdani, he even jovially told him, in response to a Fox News reporter’s question, to go ahead and repeat his campaign claim that Trump is “a fascist.” The president also defended Mamdani from the incendiary falsehood of Elise Stefanik, the Republican who’s running for governor of New York, that the Muslim mayor-elect is a “jihadist.”

Stefanik, a Trump henchwoman, broke away from the president on this issue, doubling down and posting Friday evening that Mamdani is “Kathy Hochul’s jihadist.”

Unfortunately, we don’t get to see this genial Trump very much these days. He’s mean when he’s cornered, like the snapping turtle I had as a pet when I was a child. Republicans got creamed in the recent elections. To extend the porcine metaphor, Trump’s polls are dropping, to use a Dave Barry phrase, “like a pig out of a helicopter.”

The president, ordinarily a master at recasting reality, had to give up his ludicrous attempt to paint the Epstein files as a Democratic hoax. Labeling Marjorie Taylor Greene, his former acolyte who now says she identifies with the Epstein victims, a “traitor” backfired.

Friday night Greene announced in a social media post that she was leaving Congress and said she didn’t want to face a “hateful” primary stirred by Trump. “Standing up for American women who were raped at 14, trafficked and used by rich powerful men,” she wrote, “should not result in me being called a traitor and threatened by the President of the United States, whom I fought for.” She added, “I refuse to be a ‘battered wife’ hoping it all goes away and gets better.”

And Trump’s jeering post about Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, the Republican cosponsor of the bill to get the files released, wasn’t well received. Trump mocked Massie, a widower, for marrying again 16 months after his wife died. “Boy, that was quick!” This coming from the man who went straight from cheating with Marla Maples during his Ivana marriage to marrying her at the Plaza a year later.

Maligning members of his own party raised questions about why he was so desperate to hide the files of a child molester who was once his pal; the two bonded over their leering predilection for young women.

In a rare show of rebellion, Republicans refused to bend the knee and pretend that it was OK to shield a sexual pervert and give his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, treats in prison and pardon dreams just because Trump didn’t want the details of his involvement with Epstein to surface.

In emails Democrats released, Epstein wrote that “Trump had spent hours at my house” with one of the victims and that he believed Trump knew more than he had acknowledged, and called Trump “evil beyond belief.” You know you’re in trouble when someone evil beyond belief calls you evil beyond belief.

Maureen Dowd is an Opinion columnist for The New York Times. She won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary. She is the author, most recently, of “Notorious.” @MaureenDowd • Facebook

 

Meanwhile, Craziness Continues

 

— Marjorie Taylor Greene, after being attacked by the man-child in the White House, pulls the plug on her congressional career saying she refuses to be a “battered wife.” In a long statement that reveals both her distorted Fox “News” style understanding of America’s traditional values and her genuine and honorable horror at how five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court have allowed big corporations and the morbidly rich to paralyze any positive actions by Congress (my words and interpretation, not hers), she wrote, in part:

“No matter which way the political pendulum swings, Republican or Democrat, nothing ever gets better for the common American man or woman. The debt goes higher. Corporate and global interests remain Washington’s sweethearts.

“American jobs continue to be replaced—whether it’s by illegal labor, legal labor by visas, or just shipped overseas. Small businesses continue to be swallowed by big corporations. …

“Many common Americans are no longer easily convinced by paid political propaganda spokespersons and consultants on TV and paid shills on social media obediently serving with cult-like conviction to force others to swallow the political party talking points.

“Because they know how much credit card debt they have. They know how much their own bills have gone up over the past 5 years. They actually do their own grocery shopping and know food costs too much. Their rent has increasingly gone up. They have been outbid by corporate asset managers too many times when they put in an offer to buy a house. They have been laid off after being forced to train their visa-holding replacement. The college degree they were told to earn only left them in debt with no big six-figure salary. They see more homeless people than ever on their own community streets. They can’t afford health insurance or practically any insurance. And they just aren’t stupid. …

“It’s all so absurd and completely unserious. I refuse to be a ‘battered wife’ hoping it all goes away and gets better. … There is no ‘plan to save the world’ or insane 4D chess game being played.”

— After Trump called for the death of military and CIA veterans now serving in Congress who defended the Constitution in a video, they’re predictably getting death threats. This behavior by the president — along with siccing his masked secret police on Americans, taking billions in bribes and graft, and killing fishermen off the coast of Venezuela — isn’t just unprecedented and obscene, it’s also impeachable. And Vance’s support of Trump means he should be included in the impeachment resolution. What’s it going to take for Republicans to wake the hell up?

— Shocking Gallup Poll: 80% of Americans want what Democrats are working for. An astonishing 80% of voters questioned in a recent Kettering Foundation/Gallup Democracy for All Project poll said that political violence is unacceptable, compromise in Congress is necessary, the morbidly rich have too much power, there’s a difference between facts and opinions, and having a mixture of races, religions, and cultures strengthens and benefits America. Getting eighty percent of Americans to agree on anything is generally impossible, and this poll is such a clear repudiation of the un-American crap rightwing media like Fox “News” is constantly shoveling out that a Drudge headline labeled it “Shocking!” Not only is this good news for the future of the Democratic Party and the elections next year, it’s also very, very good news for our efforts to rescue American democracy from the rightwing clutches of cynical billionaires like Trump, the 13 billionaires in his cabinet who’re trying to tear our government agencies apart, and the rightwing goons constantly threatening a second civil war. It doesn’t mean we can rest on our laurels; if anything, it shows how important it is that we all show up now and get engaged in the political process…

— A rightwing billionaire reportedly considering buying CNN was reportedly in discussions with Trump’s people about firing Erin Burnett and Brianna Keilar. This is how Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán eliminated all the real news in Russia and Hungary and turned every TV and radio network and newspaper in those nations into sycophantic versions of Fox “News,” destroying freedom, democracy, and accountability. Over a period of a few years, both men had friendly billionaires buy up pretty much every media property in the country. And now it’s happening here: news articles suggest the potential buyer for CNN is the Ellison family, who also now own CBS and have turned that network into an administration mouthpiece. Are they also thinking about buying MSNOW? Is The New York Times next? We already have 1,500 rightwing radio stations, four rightwing TV networks, and hundreds of local newspapers now owned by private equity outfits run by rightwing billionaires. This is how democracies die…

— Hegseth hearts the swastika? The Washington Post is reporting, “The U.S. Coast Guard will no longer classify the swastika, an emblem of fascism and white supremacy inextricably linked to the murder of millions of Jews and that more than 400,000 U.S. troops who died fighting against in World War II, as a hate symbol, according to a new policy that takes effect next month.” This was apparently Whiskey Pete’s idea, as you can read in his memo for the so-called “Department of War” (something that doesn’t legally exist). He argues, according to the Post, that not being able to hang nooses in the quarters of Black soldiers, display Confederate flags, and scrawl Swastikas everywhere “jeopardize(s) U.S. troops’ combat readiness.” Right…. It’s getting harder and harder for Republicans to pretend to “harumph” when people call them Nazis. At least they’re now owning up to what we’ve all known since Reagan kicked off his first presidential campaign with a “states’ rights” speech near the sight of the murder of three civil rights workers.

— Another Texas woman has died because of that state’s abortion ban; this is becoming shockingly routine in Republican-controlled formerly Confederate Red States. ProPublica is reporting that Tierra Walker, the 37-year-old pregnant mother of a teenage son, was experiencing severe preeclampsia and begged doctors to terminate her pregnancy to prevent her death, but they were afraid of going to prison so, on her son’s 14th birthday, she died in the hospital. Congresswoman Judy Chu was blunt: “Her death was preventable, and it was caused by a law written by Republicans to control women’s bodies, no matter the consequences. This is the disgraceful reality of Republican abortion bans that criminalize care and sacrifice women’s lives.” But, hey, pro-life, right? At least until they’re born. And so long as they’re not pregnant women.

— Trump is preparing to give Putin everything he wants in Ukraine; is it because Putin has the Epstein files, as we learned from the recent email release? Or just because he hates democracy? Or is he still hoping for a billion-dollar Trump hotel in Moscow? The Guardian is reporting: “According to reports, the sweeping 28-point proposal closely resembles demands made by Moscow soon after its full-scale invasion in early 2022. It was reportedly drawn up by Russian and US officials, with support from Trump. Kyiv was not consulted. One European diplomat said they learned of the plan only when they turned on the news.” So, why are Trump, Vance, and Rubio preparing to sell out our ally, the largest democratic country in Europe? Inquiring minds want to know…

— Crazy Alert! Who’s “Piggy?” Trump-humping MAGA cult members are desperately trying to spin the orange adjudicated rapist’s “Quiet, Piggy” comment. They’re now trying to find a reporter — any reporter — named Peggy, so they can say he was talking to her, instead of what we all could see on camera with our lying eyes: that he was insulting reporter Catherine Lucey. Trump has a long history of insulting women, particularly female reporters; why do his followers even bother to try to clean it up? We all heard the Access Hollywood tape and saw the jury verdict in the E. Jean Carroll case. Not to mention Jeffrey Epstein writing that he had “the dirt on Trump” that could bring him down just before Epstein mysteriously “died” under Trump’s supervision in jail…

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"A Courageous White House Reporter"

ABC's Mary Bruce was the only White House reporter with the courage to ask what other reporters were afraid to ask, to call out Trump's red-carpet welcome of Saudi king Muhammad bin Salman, aka Mr. Bone Saw. 

Muhammad bin Salman had the US journalist Jamal Khashoggi dismembered alive with a bone saw to punish him for revealing Jared Kushner's dirty dealings (The Saudis poured $2 billion into his business.) Khashoggi was documenting how Kushner turned over classified information to Muhammad bin Salman, who used it to hunt down, arrest, and murder his opponents. 

"When [Mary Bruce] asked about the assassination... Trump dismissively said that ‘things happen’ and that Khashoggi was an ‘extremely controversial’ man who a ‘lot of people didn't like’” (Washington Post). 

Trump reviled the reporter who deserves utmost respect for doing real journalism.

-FB

"Surrender document may herald biggest transatlantic crisis since WWII"

 

It's an old cliche that you're probably on the menu if you're not at the table, says military analyst Michael Clarke in his analysis of the 28-point peace plan. "And there it is, Ukraine's on the menu." 

His verdict on the plan is that it's "so amateur, apart from being politically outrageous, because it's basically a surrender document", Clarke said. Russia has given nothing and not changed its demands vis-a-vis the early days of the war, he noted.

Ukraine has to give "more or less everything" in what appears like a "diminution of its sovereignty" and leaves it "completely insecure", Clarke added. Regarding the future of the plan, Clarke said it looks like the Americans will "slap this on the table and say to Ukraine: sign it."

Meanwhile, the Europeans will be trying to "put some professional diplomacy into it to tighten up some of this extremely vague language", he estimated.

Trump and Putin as 'Mafioso bosses':

Clarke sees a "big message" beyond Ukraine in the document: "Because if you just look at item four... it says that the United States will mediate between NATO and Russia to create a European security arrangement... The United States in this document is talking as if it's not part of NATO, that when the US, a founding member, talks about NATO, it means the Europeans."

Clarke said this is giving Russia what it wanted before the full-scale invasion: control over the sovereignty of some eastern European states while NATO is pulling back.

What this means for Europe is that "we're on the road to a major transatlantic rift, where the Americans say: you're on your own, Europe", he added. 

"This is Trump and Putin as a pair of big Mafioso bosses. It may all fade away. But on paper this is the biggest crisis in transatlantic relations since 1949."

Key points:

·       Trump's 28-point peace plan for Ukraine revealed   View post

·       As Russia warns Zelenskyy his 'room for man oeuvre' is shrinking   View post

·       And US sets hopeful deadline for Kyiv's approval  View post

·       Trump says that's an 'appropriate' date  View post

·       But Zelenskyy says he won't betray national interests  View post

·       Zelenskyy-Trump call to take place, Sky News understands  View post

            Sky News presenter Leah Boleto

            Live reporting by Harry Stedman 

"Trump’s vicious assault on Charlotte and other North Carolina cities"

North Carolina was Donald Trump’s past week’s site for a violent, chaotic, wasteful, and abusive invasion of Custom and Border Patrol agents. Beginning in Charlotte and quickly spreading to other cities, the operations have not focused on the “worst of the worst” as Donald Trump and his Homeland Security thugs falsely claim.

Once again, horrifying scenes have played out of immigrants and U.S. citizens alike being snared by masked agents in unmarked cars. “Eyewitness accounts and video circulated online show federal agents in tactical gear detaining people at locations across the city, including storefronts and public spaces,” Newsweek reported. “In one incident, members of a church congregation in east Charlotte said masked agents entered a yard where congregants were working and detained a man.”

The video is of an arrest of a Honduran-born U.S. citizen, Willy Aceituno, during which his car window was smashed and he was shoved to the ground, went viral. Aceituno said he voted for Trump but now concedes, “It was the worst decision of my life.” He was later released.

In response to the mayhem, state and city officials—as did those in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Portland—have risen to the occasion. In concert with magnificent displays of peaceful protest and community solidarity, state and local officials have been sending a powerful message that they are prepared to defend their neighbors against the predation of an unhinged, racist autocrat and his underlings.

“Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles on Monday, Nov. 17 expressed concern about how Border Patrol officers were carrying out an immigration enforcement operation in the city. Federal officers have been seen throughout Charlotte since Saturday, Nov. 15, when agents began detaining people,” WBTV reported. Faced with roving, violent squads of CBP agents indiscriminately seizing Latinos, both Lyles and Gov. Josh Stein (D) insisted constitutional rights be upheld and signaled that they stood in solidarity with their people.

Lyle urged that “all agencies operating here to conduct their work with respect for those values.” She continued: “We also recognize the emotional and economic impact these operations can have on families, neighborhoods, and local businesses. Charlotte is a diverse, vibrant city, and when any part of our community feels threatened or destabilized, it affects us all.”

Meanwhile, Stein’s video statement released on Sunday excoriated federal agents for racially profiling Charlotte residents, rounding up hard-working laborers, and even entering churches. He also called on Congress to fix immigration laws and create a pathway for citizenship. Finally, as JB Pritzker did in Chicago, Stein called on local residents to document abuses.

Charlotte residents evidently looked to Chicago for inspiration as well. As CNN reported, “People throughout Charlotte were seen Monday using many of the tactics employed in Chicago—including watching for raids, blowing warning whistles and carrying signs advising people of their rights.” Some businesses closed their doors to prevent CBP from targeting customers and employees; one laundromat owner took to locking the doors “while customers are inside in an attempt to keep them safe.”

Most impressively, tens of thousands of students stayed out of class to register their objections to the federal invasion. Instead, they protested peacefully. “High school students in the district staged a walkout Tuesday morning to protest immigration enforcement in the city,” CNN reported. “Several hundred students gathered around the edge of a football field at East Mecklenburg High School, many wearing black and holding flags,” an aerial photo of the demonstration showed.

On Wednesday, hundreds of residents protested outside a Home Depot demanding the chain store not participate in the random raids. (The company quickly put out a statement denying it was cooperating with CBP.)

The Charlotte Observer captured the reaction of locals, both heartfelt and whimsical: Norm Perreault, of Matthews, said he was protesting because he was angry with President Donald Trump’s administration sending Border Patrol and ICE to Charlotte. “It centers from the fact that they say they’re deporting the worst of the worst,” Perreault said. “But day laborers are the best of the best.”

A woman who lives in a neighborhood behind the Home Depot, dressed as a frog, said her name was “Froggy Frog.” It was the first time she was able to wear the blow up costume, which has become a symbol of anti-ICE and anti-Border Patrol protests in other cities.

The woman in the frog costume compared Border Patrol’s presence to that of the Gestapo, the secret police force in Nazi Germany. “I’m 64 and have never, in my life, been confronted by what my parents were confronted with in World War II,” she said. “We have to stop that from happening here.”

Frances Platock, who also lives near the Home Depot, said Border Patrol was bypassing due process and kidnapping people off the street, including citizens, to stoke fear. “We need to get back to humanity,” Platock said. “We need to get back to decency.”

Just as immigration dragnets and racial profiling in Los Angeles emptied workplaces, Charlotte’s construction sites were soon deserted. Wherever Trump attacks the lifeblood of cities—hardworking immigrants—economic chaos and deprivation follow.

If Trump’s vicious assault on Charlotte and other North Carolina cities was meant to intimidate locals or alienate them from migrant neighbors, his operation backfired spectacularly. Charlotte coalesced around immigrants and vigorously protested the lawless regime. The cameras again captured rogue agents abusing their power.

Each arrest, assault, detention, and deportation of a hard-working, law abiding resident who poses no threat to anyone is a tragedy for the immigrants, their loved ones, their co-workers, their religious communities, the local economy, and the moral and emotional climate of the cities where immigrants have lived and worked (in some cases) for decades.

However, when undaunted local and state officials, neighbors, business owners, and civic organizations stand together, as they did in Charlotte, they deprive Trump of the aura of invincibility he seeks, and instead reassert our national belief in democracy, the rule of law, and decency. Trump and CBP agents look small and mean; ordinary Americans and local and state officials appear strong, brave, and principled. We salute Charlotte and all those who answer the call when our democracy and humanity are under siege.

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 Photo by Brendon Schaumburg

 

"When your company supports Trump, we don’t support you"

 

Donald Trump is wildly grasping for power that doesn’t belong to him -- and greedy corporations seem more than happy to give it up. They’re donating millions to curry Trump's favor, standing aside as his regime attacks workers and shoppers, and meekly caving to even the weakest, most dubious threats. Our cowardly corporate leaders need a reminder that real power belongs to the people. And next week, during the biggest shopping weekend of the year, we’re sending them a message. From Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, we’re asking you not to shop from three major corporations enabling Trump’s fascist agenda. Our Targets HOME DEPOT enables ICE terrorism by allowing Trump’s jackboots to violently detain and kidnap workers on its properties. TARGET caved to MAGA backlash by pulling Pride merch off the shelves, and canceled DEI programs that support Black workers and businesses. AMAZON provides technology to power ICE deportations while Jeff Bezos spends a fortune kissing up to Trump -- funding both his MAGA agenda and vanity projects like his ballroom. These aren’t the only companies complicit in Trump's attacks on democracy -- far from it! -- but economic pressure is most effective when it’s concentrated and easy to join in on. We’re focusing our fire on three ubiquitous brands that are among the biggest corporations trying to profit by enabling Trump. By withholding our support during one of the most important weekends of their year, we’ll make it clear that there’s a price to pay for enabling authoritarianism. How to take action: To send a strong message, we need not just you, but your family, friends, and community, to commit to supporting mutual aid or small businesses instead of Home Depot, Target, and Amazon next weekend. Here are three steps to take right now: Learn more: Make a plan to join the economic blackout from November 27 – December 1. Understand what we’re asking, why we’re doing this, and how to spend your dollars where they’ll do good. Let us know you’re with us: Pledge to pause shopping at Home Depot, Target, and Amazon. Don’t give any money to the companies undermining democracy. Support local businesses or mutual aid efforts instead. Spread the word: Use our graphics and customizable social posts to get others involved. Try to triple your impact by getting three other people to join the blackout. This holiday season let’s make our dollars count. Join us to tell Home Depot, Target, Amazon, and the whole corporate world: When you support Trump, we don’t support you. In solidarity, Indivisible Team

"Seditious Behavior Punishable by Death"

 

President Donald Trump on Thursday called for the arrest of Democratic lawmakers who urged service members and intelligence officials to disobey illegal orders that might be issued by the administration, calling it “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”

“It’s called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

He was referring to half a dozen members of Congress who previously served in the military or intelligence community who posted a video on X earlier this week urging the military and intelligence community to “refuse illegal orders.”

“Their words cannot be allowed to stand - We won’t have a Country anymore!!! An example MUST BE SET,” Trump wrote, going on to add in a subsequent Truth Social post: “LOCK THEM UP???”

He added “punishable by DEATH!” in yet another post later Thursday morning, after reposting another user’s post that read: “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!”

CNN has reached out to the White House and to the lawmakers who appeared in the video. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his leadership team released a sharply worded statement against what they described as death threats from Trump against the lawmakers.

“We have been in contact with the House Sergeant at Arms and the United States Capitol Police to ensure the safety of these Members and their families. Donald Trump must immediately delete these unhinged social media posts and recant his violent rhetoric before he gets someone killed,” they said in part.

In the video, the lawmakers said, “No one has to carry out orders that violate the law, or our Constitution,” adding, “Know that we have your back. … Don’t give up the ship.” The lawmakers don’t specify which orders service members have received, or might receive, that could be illegal.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Wednesday that the Justice Department will be taking a “very close look” at those lawmakers’ actions, calling it a “disgusting and inappropriate display of supposed leadership from the Democrat Party.”

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