Hi all, Ben here. First off, I want to wish a very Merry Christmas Eve to all. I hope that you have a chance to relax and spend time with family. I’m going to do best to keep you updated as we head into the holiday. On that note, I just finished my mid-day report on today’s breaking news, which you can watch above. Here’s a quick summary.
Christmas Eve is typically a moment of pause in American public life. But no day under Trump is typical. For Trump, Christmas Eve has been catastrophic with so many threads of failure, cruelty, and dishonesty converging at once.
Let me start with the numbers. New national polling from Susquehanna Polling & Research shows Trump’s approval at 38%, with disapproval at 56%, a net negative of 18%. Asked what matters most heading into the midterms, voters are clear that they want accountability and balance against Trump’s overreach.
Now let’s take a look behind the numbers. What has truly defined the day, at least so far, was the conduct of the Trump administration itself. On Christmas Eve, the official White House account posted a meme urging migrants to “self-deport before Christmas,” mocking human suffering. ICE amplified similar messaging. Because cruelty is the point.
At the same time, the Department of Justice, a once-esteemed institution, continued its public meltdown over the Epstein files. After the MeidasTouch Network reported on troubling inconsistencies and apparent fabrications in recently released documents, the DOJ’s official social media account responded with with insults. When reporter Jamie Dupree asked why the department would release a document it now claims is fake, the DOJ replied by calling him a “dope” and mocking critics who dare to accuse it of breaking the law. Following these bizarre exchanges, we learned from Axios reporting that the Trump White House has assumed control over the DOJ’s social media accounts. Now it all makes sense.
These unprofessional exchanges would have been unthinkable in any prior administration. This simple question remains unanswered: if the administration claims certain Epstein documents are fabricated, why prioritize their release over FBI interview reports, survivor statements, draft indictments, or the forensic handwriting analysis ordered in 2020? That analysis has never been produced. Instead, the public was offered social media attacks that looks as if Trump wrote them himself.
Side note: remember the infamous 2016 tarmac meeting between Obama AG Loretta Lynch and Bill Clinton, who briefly spoke for a few minutes when they happened to be in the same location at the same time? Remember the media outrage? The headlines slamming the meeting as violating the independence of the DOJ, because Hillary Clinton’s emails had been leaked? Once upon a time, we all agreed that the Justice Department was supposed to keep its investigations independent of the White House. Even a whiff of violating that sacred notion was viewed as blasphemous. Now, the Trump DOJ is acting as Trump’s personal public relations crisis management firm, and they’re not even hiding it. Where is the outrage?
The rot is so deep that even members of Trump’s own party are saying so. Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) publicly accused the administration of violating the Epstein Files Transparency Act. On X, Massie wrote: “DOJ did break the law by making illegal redactions and by missing the deadline. By the way, who’s controlling the DOJ X account on Christmas Eve and using words like “dope” to refer to reporters?”
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) echoed claims of a cover-up and, in a separate post, highlighted the exploding cost of health insurance as Trump refuses to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies.
Trump promised he would fix everything within 24 hours. The war in Ukraine would end. Prices would fall. Prosperity would return. “The Golden Age!!!”
Instead, the United States now faces a world in which a senior French military official has described America as a potential strategic adversary to Europe. The administration has eased pressure on Russian elites while sanctioning European officials who enforce consumer protection and anti-disinformation laws. Alliances built over generations are being squandered.
Now let’s talk economy. Senior Trump adviser Peter Navarro, recently released from prison for contempt of Congress related to January 6, now speaks openly about a future in which artificial intelligence wipes out white-collar jobs while tariffs somehow save the economy. This, of course, as Trump works to block all AI regulation.
Manufacturing gains under the previous administration have reversed. More than a million jobs have been lost. Unemployment is rising. The administration’s response is to lie and tell everyone that everything is amazing.
Everywhere you look with this administration, it’s some strange alternate reality. Officials insist that massive data centers will lower electricity costs, even as prices have risen roughly 15 percent nationwide. Gas prices may fluctuate modestly, lowering recently, but health care costs are exploding by double and triple digits. Communities across the political spectrum are mobilizing against environmentally destructive data center projects that benefit corporations while harming residents. Because no matter what Trump or his officials say, people feel the pain. They don’t need an economic report to know what prices are like. They have receipts. Literally!
In addition, newly reported ICE documents describe plans to detain up to 80,000 immigrants in warehouse-like facilities. The agency’s acting director compared the system to Amazon Prime, except with human beings. Where is the humanity?
Here are some other stories I’m tracking today:
CBS’s Kennedy Center Honors just hit an all-time ratings low. Preliminary Nielsen data shows only ~2.65M viewers tuned in to the Trump-hosted show, down from 4.1M in 2024. A stunning 35% year-over-year collapse. Yikes!
The DOJ says they have now just “uncovered” the existence of a million more documents related to the Epstein case, and that the process going through them will take weeks. This DOJ statement came hours after I reported this morning that there were millions of documents missing. I also called this out yesterday on social media. I discovered this by simply reading through the files. Why didn’t they?
Former Special Counsel Jack Smith has asked House Judiciary Committee to promptly release “the full videotape” of his deposition with a Republican-led panel this month. Republicans have rejected all calls for transparency.
As the year closes, I feel more optimistic than I have in a long time. Last year, with Trump’s inauguration just weeks ahead, there was an impending sense of doom. Now, thanks to your resilience, there is hope. The Trump regime is spiraling. More and more Americans are seeing the truth. Now’s the time we must uplift rather than degrade, inform rather than deceive, and defend democratic principles with courage and persistence.
Thanks to all who subscribe to the Meidas+ Substack, and look for more reports on our YouTube channel and podcast throughout the day.
