Today in Politics, Bulletin 223. 10/6/25

… Trump said he “will have to take a look at” a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell after the US Supreme Court rejected her appeal earlier today: Q - The supreme court rejected the appeal by Maxwell. Trump: Who are we talking about? Q - Ghislaine Maxwell. Trump: Haven’t heard the name in so long. I’ll take a look at it. I’ll speak to the DOJ. Q - But she’s convicted of sex trafficking. Trump: I’ll have to take a look at it.”

… This was a day of one batshit crazy statement by Trump after another - on Truth Social, in interviews, to the media in the Oval Office. He is really unraveling fast. Buckle up for this one.

… Immediately after a federal judge appointed by Trump in Oregon found there was no legal basis for him to federalize the Oregon National Guard, Pete Hegseth announced he was going to activate the Texas National Guard and send them to Portland and Chicago. CA AG Dan Bonta, who has been working on the case with the OR AG, came on the Meidas podcast to explain how this played out once the judge learned about the Trump admin’s latest move:

… “She was really miffed. Her first set of questions to the fed govt was: How does this not violate my order from yesterday? Just minutes before the hearing commenced, we got word through a memorandum from Hegseth that the TX National Guard has been federalized - 2,000 of them, with 400 being deployed to both Portland and Chicago. So it’s clear that this is a sort of whack-a-mole approach from the govt: You stop the OR National Guard from being federalized? Fine - we’ll bring in the CA National Guard. You stop the CA Guard? We’ll bring in the TX National Guard.”

… “So we asked the judge to issue a broad order - one that applies to every National Guard unit in every state - stating that none of them can be federalized and deployed to Oregon. She issued that order from the bench and will follow it up with a written order as well. The conditions haven’t changed in 24 hours. National Guard deployment in Oregon was unlawful yesterday - and it’s still unlawful today. It doesn’t matter where the Guard comes from - whether it’s OR, CA, or TX. And I think the judge nailed it. The Trump-appointed judge nailed it.”

… Trump was asked about the Portland decision: “It’s a burning hellhole and then you have a judge that lost her way that tries to pretend that, like, there’s no problem. Actually she’s not even saying that. There’s a huge problem.”

… Stephen Miller: “The admin will abide by the ruling insofar as it affects the covered parties, but there are also many options the president has to deploy federal resources under the US military to Portland.”

… IL Gov JB Pritzker: “Trump is ordering 400 members of the TX National Guard for deployments to IL, OR, and other locations within the US. No officials from the fed govt called me directly to discuss or coordinate. We must now start calling this what it is: Trump’s Invasion. It started with federal agents, it will soon include deploying federalized members of the IL National Guard against our wishes, and it will now involve sending in another state’s military troops.”

… “I call on TX Gov. Abbott to immediately withdraw any support for this decision and refuse to coordinate. There is no reason a President should send military troops into a sovereign state without their knowledge, consent, or cooperation. The brave men and women who serve in our national guards must not be used as political props. This is a moment where every American must speak up and help stop this madness.”

… Abbott responded: “I fully authorized the President to call up 400 members of the TX National Guard to ensure safety for federal officials. You can either fully enforce protection for fed employees or get out of the way and let TX Guard do it. No Guard can match the training, skill, and expertise of the TX National Guard. They defend our country with pride.”

… Trump: “I believe that Pritzker and this mayor of Chicago are scared. They’re scared for their lives.”

… Stephen Miller talked about Portland on CNN today: “ICE officers have to street battles against Antifa, hand to hand combat every night, to come and go from their building.”

… Here is the hand to hand combat outside the ICE building.

… Q - “Isn’t that hyperbolic to call protesters in Portland terrorists? Miller: No. If anything I’m understating the severity of the situation. This is a textbook example of domestic terrorism and it must be put down.”

… Gavin Newsom: “Stephen Miller is making things up again! A federal judge said it best when rejecting Trump’s illegal Guard deployment: ‘The president’s determination was simply untethered to the facts.’”

… Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt: “The financial backing of these groups, particularly Antifa, is certainly something the admin is looking into aggressively. We’re kind of kickstarting that into gear. The FBI is working on it alongside the WH’s homeland security task force. We have our intelligence community looking into it as well.”

… Q - “Do Democrats not have reason to be concerned that there are long-term plans by this admin to keep troops in American cities? Leavitt: Why should they be concerned about the federal govt offering help to make their cities a safer place?”

… Rep. Pat Harrigan (R-NC), who has probably never been in Portland or Chicago, on Fox: “I don’t think it’s wrong for members of the admin to characterize places like Chicago and Portland as war zones when they are putting up stats of about 50 murders a weekend.”

… There have been a total of 58 murders in Portland this year. Still too many, but not 50 a weekend and we are a country that uniquely has more guns than people.

… CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked Leavitt today about the Trump admin exaggerating crime in Portland by calling it a war zone: “I would encourage you, as a reporter, to go on the ground and to take a look for yourself. You’re probably talking to partisan Democrat officials who are opposed to everything this President does.”

… Collins responded: “I was quoting the Portland police chief.”

… From one of the protests:

… CBS: “Broadview (IL) Police Chief Thomas Mills said that ICE agents at the detention facility have called 911 to report several incidents that turned out to be false. Mills said ICE agents are draining the resources of his department and the community by making false 911 calls.”

… “Body camera video footage obtained by the CBS News Chicago shows several Broadview officers responding to a 911 call claiming someone was tampering with a gate at the ICE detention facility. The gate in question is where ICE takes detained immigrants for processing, but when police arrived, all they found was two people and a camera. A CBS News Chicago photographer was filming the exterior of the building, with a CBS security guard by his side.”

… “The 911 call from an ICE agent claimed someone was tampering with the gate. According to an incident report, an ICE agent called police for help. Mills believes it was a bogus call. An ICE agent claimed someone was trying to force their way into a door, but it was just a CBS News Chicago photographer filming the exterior of the building. Mills: “It’s disturbing. It’s ridiculous.”

… The chief said that was just one of several questionable 911 calls his police dept has received from the ICE facility recently. The same detention center has become the site of at least 3 other incidents involving fed agents, who are accused of hitting people with cars, shooting projectiles, and using chemical agents on journalists, including firing a pepper ball at CBS News Chicago reporter Asal Rezaei’s vehicle on Sunday.”

… “Rezaei said there was no active protest or protesters at the facility, and she was alone with no one around her at the time of the incident. Rezaei told police she was driving her truck with her driver’s side window down, while approaching the 25th Ave entrance to the ICE facility to see if anything was going on. That’s when she said a masked ICE agent shot a pepper ball from inside the fence, hitting the side of her truck, causing the chemical agents to engulf the inside of the vehicle.”

… “Rezaei said the pepper ball left white powder on her windshield, and her face had ‘been on fire for at least the last 10 minutes or so.’ The chemical also caused her to vomit once outside of her truck.”

… Stephen Miller outside the WH today: “If you can’t see that since we’ve taken office, there’s been an organized, systematized campaign to delegitimatize, dehumanize, threaten, impede, obstruct, and physically assault ICE officers in their duties, then I can’t persuade you of it, because you’re choosing not to see what’s right in front of your face.”

… CNN: “61% oppose Trump deploying active duty military in the US cities, 58% oppose deploying the National Guard. When you get 3 in 5 Americans agreeing on anything, you know it’s a political loser. And about two-thirds of independents oppose the deployment of either active duty military or National Guard into US cities.”

… The same poll showed 75% of Americans say Trump has not focused enough on lowering prices.

… CNN: “Since Trump took office, 139 immigration judges have been fired, taken an early-out offer, or been involuntarily transferred, according to data provided by the National Association of Immigration Judges. Sept had the highest number of terminations, with 24 people dismissed. In multiple cases of firings, the judges were not provided a reason for the termination. At least 30 of them had grant rates of 30% or higher - meaning they granted asylum claims.”

… Ashley Tabaddor, who served as an immigration judge for 15 years as well as president of the union 4 years during the first Trump admin, described terminations in the past as “exceedingly rare,” and usually based on performance: “You cannot look at this in a vacuum. This is part and parcel of a very, very grand scheme of creating a very frictionless deportation machine.”

… Trump gave an outrageously partisan political speech to Navy sailors and cadets to commemorate their 250th birthday, crossing a bright red line that no president before him has ever done so blatantly: “I was president in 2016. And then they rigged the election on me. And then we caught ‘em, didn’t we?”

… Trump later: “We have to take care of this little gnat on our shoulder called the Democrats. They want to give all of our money to illegal aliens who pour into the country.”

… CNN Senior National Security Analyst Juliette Kayyem: “‘Take care of’ is not subtle. This weekend the ground has shifted and no person can deny what the president, unpopular and unfit, intends. To remain silent is to welcome this. They can both sides or claim they didn’t hear, but there is no wiggle room about his plans now.”

… It is no coincidence that Trump, Hegseth, Miller, Noem and other members of the admin continue to make inflammatory partisan political speeches to military and law enforcement. They are conditioning them now to embrace the planned war to come - their war against other Americans.

… Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT): “What’s important is to understand the cumulative effect of it all. To not just see today’s outrage. See the silencing of Kimmel, the arrest of Comey, the harassment of Soros, the troops in our cities, the seizure of spending power, as all part of a plan to end our democracy.”

… CNN: “Trump likes to portray himself as a visionary, someone who sees important things before others. Trump has been claiming for the last decade that in a book he published the year before the terrorist attacks on 9/11, he warned the authorities that they needed to deal with Osama bin Laden. Trump’s claim is false. His 2000 book contained no warning at all about bin Laden. His tale about the book’s nonexistent warning was conclusively debunked in 2015.”

… “But the president repeated it once again to a crowd of sailors celebrating the 250th birthday of the US Navy. Trump added, in an apparent ad-lib, ‘And please remember, I wrote about Osama bin Laden exactly one year ago,’ then corrected himself and said, ‘One year before he blew up the World Trade Center. And I said, ‘You’ve got to watch Osama bin Laden.’ And the fake news would never let me get away with that statement unless it was true.’”

… “It’s not true, as news outlets have pointed out for years. But Trump continued: ‘In the book, I wrote – whatever the hell the title, I can’t tell you – but I can tell you there’s a page in there devoted to the fact that I saw somebody named Osama bin Laden, and I didn’t like it, and, ‘You gotta take care of him.’ They didn’t do it; a year later he blew up the World Trade Center. So, you gotta take a little credit, because nobody else is gonna give it to me.”

… “People don’t give Trump credit for his book’s warning about bin Laden because that warning doesn’t exist.”

… Time: “The home of SC Circuit Court judge Diane Goodstein was set on fire after she had reportedly received death threats. State law enforcement is investigating the house fire on Edisto Beach. Goodstein was reportedly not at home at the time of the fire, but at least 3 members of her family, including her husband, former Democratic state senator Arnold Goodstein, and their son, have been hospitalized with serious injuries. According to the St. Paul’s Fire District, which responded to the scene, the occupants had to be rescued via kayak.”

… The judge had received death threats in the weeks leading up to the fire. Last month, Goodstein had temporarily blocked the state’s election commission from releasing its voter files to DOJ, a decision that was openly criticized by Asst AG Harmeet Dhillon and later reversed by the state Supreme Court. The DOJ had sought the info, including names, addresses, driver’s license numbers, and social security numbers, of over 3 million registered voters as part of Trump’s executive order restricting non-citizens from registering to vote.”

… Dhillon posted this after Goodstein’s decision: “This Justice Department Civil Rights Division will not stand for a state court judge’s hasty nullification of our federal voting laws. I will allow nothing to stand in the way of our mandate to maintain clean voter rolls.”

… The same day as the fire, Stephen Miller posted this: “There is a large and growing movement of leftwing terrorism in this country. It is well organized and funded. And it is shielded by far-left Democrat judges, prosecutors and attorneys general.”

… Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY): “Trump, Stephen Miller and MAGA-world have been doxxing and threatening judges who rule against Trump, including Judge Goodstein. Today, someone committed arson on the Judge’s home, severely injuring her husband and son. Will Trump speak out against the extreme right that did this?”

This was one of those days where the news was coming in fast from a lot of different directions, and all of it too important to ignore. I did my best to keep up with it all and present it in an orderly fashion. All I can I say is we better turn out in big numbers at the next No Kings protest on Oct 18, because it’s really getting real now. Get the word out.

If you missed yesterday’s Bulletin, you can find it here.

… Gavin Newsom communications director Izzy Gardon posted Dhillon’s previous comment about the judge with this caption: “A few weeks ago, one of Trump’s top DOJ officials publicly targeted this judge. Today, the judge’s home is on fire.”

… Dhillon responded to Gardon: “Threats against me are referred to the US Marshals. There have been several tonight. We will tolerate no such threats by woke idiots, including those who work for Gavin Newsom. Govern yourselves accordingly. FAFO.”

… Trump admin fascists continue to call every criticism a “threat” and immediately go to federal law enforcement or the military as their first option to respond to it -