GOP Rep. Desperately Tries to Dodge Questions About Hiring His Lover

Representative D’Esposito doesn’t want to answer questions about a report that he gave jobs in his office to his former lover and his fiancée’s daughter.

After a scoop from The New York Times, the Long Island politician is under fire for this possible nepotism, which could be grounds for a House ethics investigation. It’s a little ironic, given that D’Esposito led the charge and eventual expulsion of former fellow New York Republican George Santos from Congress.

After the news broke Monday evening, D’Esposito could be seen dodging reporters, hurrying away from even softball questions. His only answer came when he was asked if he believed the report was a “political attack”—to which he responded, “I do.”

As he gave reporters the silent treatment on Capitol Hill, he released a formal statement Monday night that did little to deny the accusation and instead attacked the media.

“The latest political tabloid garbage being peddled by The New York Times is nothing more than a slimy, partisan ‘hit piece’ designed to distract Long Islanders from Democrats’ failing record on border security, the economy, and foreign policy,” he wrote. “My personal life has never interfered with my ability to deliver results for New York’s 4th district, and I have upheld the highest ethical standards of personal conduct. Voters deserve better than the Times’ gutter politics.”

D’Esposito faces a tough race in New York’s 4th congressional district in a rematch against Democrat Laura Gillen. The Nassau County GOP has defended the Republican congressman against the reports, calling the Times piece “politically motivated and baseless mud-slinging.”

Santos, meanwhile, is celebrating his colleague’s downfall.

“Before anyone says anything, YES I’m petty!,” wrote Santos on X in response to the video of D’Esposito hustling away from reporters. “This is just the tip of the iceberg folks!”

House Republicans have a slim four-seat majority in the House, meaning the pressure is on for the New York congressmen to find a better answer, and quick.

Donald Trump is still escalating his anti-immigrant rhetoric.

In a thinly veiled threat on Truth Social, the Republican presidential nominee likened immigration to “the destruction of America” and promised that, if elected, he would end “migrant flights” to Pennsylvania immediately and send “those who do not belong… back home.”

“It takes centuries to build the unique character of each state. But reckless migration policy can change it quickly and permanently. Just like we’ve seen in London, and Paris, and Minneapolis,” Trump wrote early Tuesday (apparently lumping international capital cities in with states). “If Kamala Harris wins this election, she will flood Pennsylvania cities and towns with illegal migrants from all over the world—and Pennsylvania will not be Pennsylvania any longer.”

“When I am president, all migrant flights to Pennsylvania will STOP the moment I take the oath of office,” he continued. “Those who do not belong, will be sent back home. We will end the invasion of small-town Pennsylvania—and we will END the destruction of America.”

It’s the second such warning that Trump has made this week, and that comes in the wake of a bewildering and baseless conspiracy contrived by Trump and his vice presidential pick J.D. Vance accusing Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, of eating pets. Multiple city officials, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, and even Vance himself have stated in no uncertain terms that the conspiracy is false, but that hasn’t stopped a deluge of bomb threats from tying up the city, forcing it to evacuate and temporarily shutter several of its schools, colleges, festivals, and a significant portion of its government facilities.

In a weekend interview with Full Measure’s Sharyl Attkisson, Trump posited the idea of giving noncitizens “serial numbers” for the purposes of mass deportations, a mental image that echoes the identification numbers forcibly tattooed on concentration camp prisoners. In the same interview, Trump argued that the U.S.—which was founded by and has historically been a nation of immigrants—shouldn’t be a “dumping ground” for newcomers, and said that less U.S. media coverage of border issues and his proposed deportation programs could be a solution to allowing him to follow through on his extreme plans.

“If you take a young woman with two beautiful children, and you put her on a bus, and it ends up on the front page of every newspaper. It makes it a lot harder,” Trump told Full Measure. “You put one wrong person onto a bus or onto an airplane, and your radical left lunatics will try and make it sound like the worst thing that’s ever happened.”

Donald Trump has spent months trying to distance his campaign from Project 2025, but some of his comments during a campaign stop in Indiana, Pennsylvania, on Monday revealed that his platform is still nearly identical to the 920-page Christian nationalist manifesto.

Speaking before roughly 5,000 people at the Kovalchick Convention and Athletic Complex, Trump flatly promised to demolish the Department of Education, claiming that the federal authority was the reason for the country’s floundering education rates.

“We spend more money per pupil than any other country by far, and yet we’re at the bottom of the list,” Trump said. “Out of 40, we’re ranked about Number 40.”

“And I’m going to close the Department of Education and move education back to the states,” he continued. “And we’re going to do it fast.”

The United States actually ranks twenty-second out of 41 countries, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Better Life Index.

The Republican presidential nominee then continued to compare individual states to countries that consistently place high on international education rankings, such as Denmark or Norway, which use national socialist structures to fund their public schools. For Trump, those states include Idaho and Iowa—but not California, where Trump believes Governor “Gavin Newscum” would interfere with localized education systems.

“We’re going to have 35 like, different ones—Iowa will do good. A lot of the states will do very good. I can think of probably 30, 35 will be do—five will be OK, 10 will be OK. You’ll have four or five that will be terrible, but that’s OK, we have to control it,” Trump said. “But you’ll have, you’ll have Idaho, you’ll have Idaho will do a great job, no debt; they run a great state.”

Project 2025 has advanced seemingly outrageous policy positions, including dismantling, wholesale, staples of the executive branch such as the Department of Education. It also proposes revisiting federal approval of the abortion pill, banning pornography nationwide, placing the Justice Department under the control of the president, slashing federal funds for climate change research in an effort to sideline mitigation efforts, and increasing funding for the U.S.-Mexico border wall.

On July 5, Trump claimed that he “knew nothing about Project 2025” and had “no idea who is behind it.”

“I disagree with some of the things they’re saying, and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”

Representative Lindsey Graham flailed while trying to help Donald Trump distance himself from North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson.

Within 24 hours of the bombshell report last week alleging Robinson had left inflammatory and explicit comments on a pornography website’s message board, the Democratic National Committee launched a series of digital and billboard ads linking Trump to the North Carolina lieutenant governor.

Graham appeared on Fox News Monday night to try to separate the two and to bail out Trump’s slowly sinking campaign in the Tar Heel State.

“That’s literally their campaign in North Carolina, is trying to make people believe that Donald Trump somehow is involved with Mar—uh with the Robinson guy,” Graham said. He stumbled slightly, appearing to avoid saying Robinson’s first name.

“Donald Trump knew nothing about this. I knew nothing about it. They’re trying to guilt by association,” Graham whined. “If you’re Republican, you own Mark Robinson.”

Later, Graham tried to shame Democrats for going so low as to link Trump to a candidate he has openly endorsed and fawned over for more than a year. (In June 2023, Trump called Robinson “one of the great stars of the party, one of the great stars in politics.”)

“This is really a hit job, it’s unconscionable. And if we did this to them, it would be blowing up the entire mainstream media,” Graham said.

Unfortunately for Graham, Trump’s statements about Robinson are well documented, and that’s exactly what the advertisements are about. The billboard design will feature a photograph of Trump and Robinson standing together, with comments the former president has made about Robinson, according to NBC News.

The former president called Robinson “Martin Luther King on steroids” during a rally they both attended in Greensboro, North Carolina, in March—a particularly strange comment made even weirder by the fact that Robinson has allegedly called himself a “black NAZI.” During a rally as recently as August, Trump said that Robinson was “a very good man.” Trump has also called Robinson “outstanding” and an “incredible gentleman,” and said things like, “We have to cherish Mark.”

Now it seems that Graham, and by extension Trump, wants to sweep their whole relationship under the rug—but the Democrats aren’t willing to let anyone forget. Meanwhile, Robinson’s staffers are ditching him left and right, and Robinson, who has maintained that he is innocent, is strangely turning down offers from I.T. specialists to help him exonerate himself.

One of the architects of Project 2025, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, apparently killed a neighborhood dog with a shovel because its loud barking was bothering his family.

The Guardian reports that about two decades ago, Roberts was a history professor at New Mexico State University, and told his colleagues and dinner guests that he killed a pit bull belonging to one of his neighbors in 2004.

“My recollection of his account was that he was discussing in the hallway with various members of the faculty, including me, that a neighbor’s dog had been barking pretty relentlessly and was, you know, keeping the baby and probably the parents awake and that he kind of lost it and took a shovel and killed the dog. End of problem,” said Kenneth Hammond, who was chair of the university’s history department at the time.

Two other people who attended a dinner at Roberts’s home, a professor and her spouse, remember hearing a similar story, and three other professors told The Guardian that they remember hearing it from colleagues who heard it from Roberts. All of these people said they didn’t remember Roberts ever saying that the dog was directly threatening him or his family.

Roberts denied killing a dog with a shovel in a statement to the publication, and didn’t respond to questions as to why people said that he had.

“This is a patently untrue and baseless story backed by zero evidence. In 2004, a neighbor’s chained pit bull attempted to jump a fence into my backyard as I was gardening with my young daughter,” Roberts said. “Thankfully, the owner arrived in time to restrain the animal before it could get loose and attack us.”

At the time, the people who heard the story didn’t ask Roberts for any details, finding the story disturbing.

“I think that probably people were not eager to engage with him over this. It sounded like a pretty crazy thing to do and people didn’t want to get into it at that point,” Hammond said.

As the president of the Heritage Foundation, a giant in the conservative world, Roberts has been a major figure behind the Project 2025 manifesto, which provides a right-wing blueprint for a future Republican president. The project has become very unpopular, thanks to its recommended restrictions on the LGBTQ community, reproductive rights, and other conservative policy priorities.

Trump has tried in vain to distance himself from the project but has been unsuccessful thanks to the extensive ties between himself and the Heritage Foundation, especially Roberts. This canine revelation isn’t the first time something damaging has come about the foundation’s president: A disturbing book written by Roberts, Dawn’s Early Light, was delayed because of how bad it could be for Trump, particularly since his running mate, J.D. Vance, wrote its foreword. Roberts was also a member of Opus Dei, a secretive, ultraconservative Catholic organization.

Roberts is scheduled to speak at the New York Times Climate Forward event on Wednesday, where it’s possible that he’ll face questions about his thoughts on loud dogs in addition to Project 2025’s ideas on weakening environmental laws. Trump and Vance hope that their presidential campaign won’t come up.

Donald Trump has a new promise for America’s women. It’s not safeguarding against extreme abortion and reproductive health restrictions but instead a creepy, vague vow to be their “protector.”

“I am your protector, I want to be your protector. As president I have to be your protector,” Trump declared at a rally in Indiana, Pennsylvania, speaking to women voters on Monday. “I hope you don’t make too much of it,” he added, after perhaps hearing how strange he sounded.

There is a large gender divide in the polls, with Harris leading women voters by a net 21 percentage points, according to an NBC poll released Sunday. Still, Trump pushed back against claims from the “fake news media” that he has an issue getting half of the population to like him. “I always thought women liked me, I never thought I had a problem,” Trump said, as he promised to assure women they would “no longer be abandoned, lonely, or scared” and urged them not to worry about abortion rights.

On Saturday, in a post on Truth Social, the former president and convicted rapist posted a similar sentiment. “WOMEN WILL BE HAPPY, HEALTHY, CONFIDENT AND FREE! YOU WILL NO LONGER BE THINKING ABOUT ABORTION, BECAUSE IT IS NOW WHERE IT ALWAYS HAD TO BE, WITH THE STATES.”

Women, themselves, were less impressed.

“Seeing that line ‘I am your protector’ makes me think about the fact that he was found liable for sexual assault,” said Alecia Johnson, senior adviser to Joe Biden’s campaign, on CNN. “The tone was very patronizing to women, and I think there are a lot of women who will see right through it.”

Others on X echoed her sentiment.

It’s no surprise that the man who has dozens of sexual harassment allegations against him, and who called the #MeToo movement “a very scary time for young men in America,” can’t read the room.

Donald Trump pledged to unleash federal law enforcement on “failing” U.S. cities, after promising to end all sanctuary cities in a state where there actually are none.

During a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, Sunday, Trump promised to invade American cities with federal forces.

“Today I am announcing a new plan to end all sanctuary cities in North Carolina, and all across our country,” said Trump. “No more sanctuary cities.”

“As soon as I take office, we will immediately surge federal law enforcement to every city that is failing, which is a lot of them,” he continued. “To turn over criminal aliens, and we will hunt down, capture every single gang member, drug dealer, rapist, murderer, and migrant criminal that is being illegally harbored.

“I will ask Congress to pass a law outlawing sanctuary cities nationwide, and we demand the full weight of the federal government on any jurisdiction that refuses to cooperate with [Immigration and Customs Enforcement],” Trump added.

In sanctuary cities, there are policies in place that limit coordination and information sharing with federal immigration authorities about noncitizens. This allows noncitizens to be able to report crimes, acquire homes and jobs, and participate in society without fear of being deported.

ICE officials are still able to arrest undocumented immigrants in sanctuary cities, and if undocumented immigrants commit crimes, they are processed by local law enforcement similarly to how anyone else would be.

Trump has repeatedly and vastly overstated the threat of sanctuary cities. Case in point: North Carolina doesn’t have any sanctuary cities for Trump to get rid of, according to the Center for Immigration Studies, a conservative, anti-immigrant think tank. There are a few county-level institutions that have been deemed noncooperative with ICE, but no actual cities.

Trump has previously vowed to militarize U.S. law enforcement to “restore law and order to our cities,” which he claimed have become “cesspools of bloodshed and crime” under President Joe Biden. Trump has argued that additional federal funding and forces would help supplement supposedly defunded police departments—but that the extra help would only go to cities that complied with ICE.

Project 2025 would see Trump take over sanctuary cities and rebuild them to his liking by withholding FEMA funding from states and cities that refuse to cooperate with federal law and immigration enforcement.

Trump’s promise to end sanctuary cities is made even more chilling by his plan to round up and mass-deport noncitizens based on their “serial numbers.”

Donald Trump is demanding the FBI and the Justice Department turn over their investigation into the September assassination attempt at a golf course in Florida to local authorities—namely, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

“The Kamala Harris/Joe Biden Department of Justice and FBI are mishandling and downplaying the second assassination attempt on my life since July,” Trump said in an official campaign statement Monday. “The charges brought against the maniac assassin are a slap on the wrist. It’s no wonder, since the DOJ and FBI have been coming after me nonstop with Weaponized Lawfare since I announced my first Historic Campaign for the Presidency.”

Trump has worked to loop both agencies into a conspiracy, baselessly claiming that they haven’t taken the recent attempts on his life seriously. Meanwhile, at a court hearing on Monday, Justice Department Mark Dispoto told a federal judge that he has plans to bring more aggressive charges against Ryan Wesley Routh, the man who allegedly attempted to take Trump’s life earlier this month, including attempted assassination charges that could land Routh in prison for life.

“The TRUTH would be followed, wherever it leads,” Trump continued. “OUR JUSTICE SYSTEM IS CORRUPT AND DISCREDITED, especially as it pertains to the 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump. LET FLORIDA HANDLE THE CASE!”

Last week, DeSantis signed an executive order announcing the appointment of a statewide prosecutor to investigate the alleged attempt on Trump’s life. In a statement decrying Routh’s actions as “domestic terrorism,” DeSantis’s office tasked myriad state agencies to expedite their investigation into the attempted attack.

“This deranged would-be assassin broke Florida law, and we will not wait on the federal government to act,” said Attorney General Ashley Moody. “Florida is launching its own investigation, and I have directed my statewide prosecutors to assist FDLE and FHP, as we work quickly to uncover the facts behind this latest attempt on President Trump’s life and provide trust and transparency to the American people.”

North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson rejected multiple offers to connect him with I.T. specialists who could investigate a string of racist and disturbing messages posted on a porn website reportedly under his alias.

The rejection—which allegedly followed another denial for legal assistance—sowed seeds of doubt among his staffers, WRAL reported Monday. The mass exodus from Robinson’s campaign over the weekend, which included the exit of his campaign manager and finance director, could be related to Robinson’s decision to try to cover things up.

On Thursday, a bombshell CNN report revealed that Robinson had written on a pornography website’s message board about his desire to own slaves, peeping in womens’ locker rooms, and enjoying transgender porn.

The comments were made long before Robinson entered electoral politics. CNN connected the account to Robinson via a “litany” of common biographical details and a shared email address. He also used his full name on his site account.

In a meet-and-greet with voters in Wilkes County on Monday, Robinson warned that he’s considered “everything up to legal counsel to take CNN to task for what they have done to us.”

“We are going after them,” he said. “We are not gonna let CNN throw us off of our mission. Our mission is to win this race.”

Some of the former staffers on Robinson’s campaign doubted the veracity of the Hitler-quoting politico’s threat, according to WRAL. But Robinson’s campaign doubled down, insisting that the beleaguered North Carolinian would definitely follow through on suing the news media behemoth.

“That is entirely false,” Mike Lonergan, a spokesperson for the Robinson campaign, told WRAL. “Lieutenant Governor Robinson is in the process of retaining aggressive legal counsel to investigate who did this and how; we will leave no stone unturned, and will use every legal means to hold CNN and whomever else is involved accountable.”

On Friday, Senator Thom Tillis had urged Robinson to follow through on the legal action, fearing that political fallout over the investigative report could hurt Donald Trump’s chances in the battleground state.

“If the reporting on Mark Robinson is a total media fabrication, he needs to take immediate legal action,” Tillis posted on X. “If the reporting is true, he owes it to President Trump and every Republican to take accountability for his actions and put the future of NC & our party before himself.”

Melania Trump got a big check to speak at a political event—but whoever paid it isn’t known to the public.

CNN reported Monday that the former first lady received $237,500 to speak at an April event for the Log Cabin Republicans, a conservative LGBTQ group, according to her husband Donald Trump’s latest financial disclosure form. But the president of the group, Charles Moran, told the network that the Log Cabin Republicans didn’t pay her.

Melania Trump has rarely appeared publicly during her husband’s 2024 presidential campaign, but has spoken at two political fundraisers held by the Log Cabin Republicans. The other fundraiser was held in July, and an unnamed source told CNN that a request was made to a political donor about another payment. It’s not clear if Trump was paid for that appearance, and the former president has not released a financial disclosure covering that time frame.

Former ambassador to Germany and Trump ally Ric Grenell reportedly made the request on behalf of the former first lady, and has helped her with other business ventures in the past. This kind of payment to a presidential candidate’s spouse to appear at political events is not normal and ethically questionable. If the money came from somewhere other than where the disclosure form states, the former president may be in legal trouble.

The former first lady was paid $250,000 by the Log Cabin Republicans for an event in December 2022, one of three such payments she received that month for speaking appearances. Donald Trump’s disclosure forms show that she made $330,000 in the past year for a licensing agreement for NFT trading cards, and her book, Melania, is due to be released next month.

It seems that Melania isn’t missing any opportunities to make money, similar to her husband. The former president has also sold NFT trading cards, as well as his own branded Bibles and assassination-themed sneakers, and engaged in a cryptocurrency scam. Maybe the first lady wants to make sure she’s financially covered regardless of whether her husband returns to the White House. The question is how ethically questionable the source of her latest benefactor must be for it to be kept a secret.