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    What to know about the US Senate vote on releasing the Epstein files

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    The intensively discussed files related to the disgraced former financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein passed a significant milestone on Tuesday when Congress voted overwhelmingly in favor of releasing them.After months of deliberate delays and manoeuvres, the House of Representatives voted by 427 to one in favor of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, legislation which would, if enacted, require the justice department to release all unclassified materials on Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. The Senate has unanimously agreed to swiftly pass the bill, which would then head to the White House for Donald Trump’s signature.Tuesday’s sweeping passage was rendered all but inevitable after the president on Sunday reversed himself and called for the release of the files, declaring “we have nothing to hide” and labelling the controversy over the files a “Democrat hoax”.Trump’s volte-face followed the failure of intense White House efforts to persuade two female Republican members of Congress, Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace, to withdraw their names from a discharge petition to force the House speaker, Mike Johnson, to hold a floor vote on releasing the files.Faced with the prospect of numerous Republicans defying his wishes by voting with Democrats in favor of releasing the files, the president decided to cut his losses by bowing to the inevitable. Before Trump changed his tune on the files, Thomas Massie, the maverick Republican representative from Kentucky – who had co-sponsored the bill along with Democrat Ro Khanna – had predicted that 100 Republicans would vote for release.In the event, Trump’s green light appeared to have the effect of freeing even more GOP representatives of their previous inhibitions against joining all 214 House Democrats. Clay Higgins of Louisiana, a close Trump ally, was the sole member of the House to vote against the measure; five representatives did not vote.How did it fly through the Senate so fast? The bill appeared headed for at least some resistance in the Senate as of this weekend. John Barrasso, the Republican majority whip, had said he would “take a look” at the bill if it passed the House, but also told NBC’s Meet The Press that he thought Democrats were more interested in turning Trump into “a lame duck president than achieving accountability and transparency” .But that resistance faded in the face of the overwhelming vote in the House. The lopsided vote helped Democrats push the measure through by expedited procedure of unanimous consent, which does not require a formal roll call vote. “The American people have waited long enough. Jeffrey Epstein’s victims have waited long enough,” Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat, said in a floor speech on Tuesday. “Let the truth come out. Let transparency reign.” Will Trump sign it?Trump told reporters on Monday that he would sign the bill if it arrives on his desk. Yet despite this pledge and his late U-turn on releasing the files, Trump could still use his presidential veto power to block passage – though doing so at such a late stage would surely fan suspicions that he has something to hide.Could such a veto be overcome?Yes. A presidential veto can be overridden if both chambers vote to do so by a two-thirds majority. Both chambers already surpassed that in spectacular fashion. The only member of Congress to vote against the bill was Clay Higgons, a Lousiana Republican representative.What cards can Trump play if overwhelming congressional votes compel the justice department to make the files public?Even if Trump signs the bill – whether of his own volition or by force because House and Senate majorities override his veto – his recent announcement of a justice department investigation into prominent figures (other than himself) mentioned in last week’s trove of Epstein emails released by the House oversight committee have fueled fears that any version of the files released could be incomplete or selective.Last Friday, Trump instructed the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, to open an investigation into links between Epstein and former president Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, a former US treasury secretary and ex-president of Harvard University, Reid Hoffman, a venture capitalist noted for funding Democrats and liberal causes, and the bank JPMorgan Chase. The investigation could enable the justice department to withhold certain documents on the argument that releasing them would be prejudicial.In the final analysis, Trump could have ended all uncertainty by ordering the files to be released without waiting for Congress to force his hand. More

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      WHO to lose nearly a quarter of its workforce – 2,000 jobs – due to US withdrawing funding

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      The World Health Organization has said its workforce will shrink by nearly a quarter – or over 2,000 jobs – by the middle of next year as it seeks to implement reforms after its top donor, the United States, announced its departure.US President Donald Trump’s administration withdrew from the body upon taking office in January, prompting the agency to scale back its work and cut its management team by half.Washington is by far the UN health agency’s biggest financial backer, contributing about 18% of its overall funding.The Geneva-based WHO projects that its workforce will shrink by 2,371 posts by June 2026 from 9,401 in January 2025 due to job cuts as well as retirements and departures, according to a presentation set to be shown to its member states on Wednesday.It does not include the many temporary staff, or consultants, which UN sources say have been made redundant. A WHO spokesperson confirmed the total number of staff leaving the organisation and said the workforce would shrink by up to 22%, depending on how many vacant posts are filled.While the global health agency said in August that hundreds of staff had departed, this is the first time it has given the full scale of the expected change to its global staff.“This year has been one of the most difficult in WHO’s history, as we have navigated a painful but necessary process of prioritisation and realignment that has resulted in a significant reduction in our global workforce,” said Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a message to staff on Tuesday seen by Reuters, adding that the process was now nearing an end.“We are now preparing to move forward with our reshaped and renewed Organization,” he added.The slides also showed that the Geneva-based body has a $1.06bn hole in its 2026-2027 budget, or nearly a quarter of the total required, down from an estimated gap of $1.7bn in May.That excludes $1.1bn of expected funding that includes deals at various stages of negotiation, the slides showed, without giving details.The WHO spokesperson said that the portion of the two-year budget currently unfunded was lower than in previous years, attributing that to a smaller budget; the launch of a fundraising round; and an increase in member states’ mandatory fees. More

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      Trump news at a glance: Bill to release Epstein files approved by Senate and House

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      The Senate on Tuesday gave swift approval to legislation that will force the release of investigative files related to the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, following a near-unanimous vote in the US House of Representatives and a reversal by Donald Trump and his Republican allies. The administration relented after months of trying to forestall the bipartisan effort involving a scandal that has dogged the president since his return to the White House.The Senate acted by unanimous consent, which requires approval from each senator but does not require a formal roll call vote, expediting the process. Hours earlier, the House overwhelmingly approved the bill on a 427-1 tally.“The American people have waited long enough. Jeffrey Epstein’s victims have waited long enough,” Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat, said in a floor speech on Tuesday, before asking the chamber to pass it unanimously. “Let the truth come out. Let transparency reign.”Senate approves bill to release Epstein files after near-unanimous House voteThe bill next goes to Trump for his signature. The president indicated on Monday that he would sign the measure.Though Trump has for months dismissed the uproar over the government’s handling of the Epstein case as a “Democrat hoax”, he signalled his support for the House bill over the weekend, and said he would sign the measure if it reaches his desk.Democrats, along with survivors of Epstein and their advocates who were seated in a House gallery, broke into applause after the bill was passed. The sole “no” vote came from Clay Higgins, a Louisiana Republican who said he worried the measure would make public identifying details of witnesses, potential suspects and others caught up in the investigation.Read the full storyTrump shrugs off Khashoggi murder during Saudi prince’s White House visitDonald Trump has shrugged off the Saudi regime’s 2018 murder of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, saying the journalist was “extremely controversial” and unpopular, dismissing the killing by observing “things happen”.The US president made the remarks at the White House on Tuesday while welcoming Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the first time since Khashoggi’s murder and dismemberment in Istanbul by Saudi state operatives.Read the full storyJudge rejects ‘racially gerrymandered’ maps in Texas that gave Republicans extra districtsNew maps that added five Republican districts in Texas hit a legal roadblock on Tuesday, with a federal judge saying the state cannot use the 2025 maps because they are probably “racially gerrymandered”.The decision is likely to be appealed, given the push for more Republican-friendly congressional maps nationwide and Donald Trump’s full-court press on his party to make them. Some states have followed suit, and some Democratic states have retaliated, pushing to add more blue seats to counteract Republicans.Read the full storyTrump faces criticism for referring to female Bloomberg reporter as ‘piggy’Donald Trump, who has a history of making extremely personal attacks on female journalists, referred to a Bloomberg News correspondent as a “piggy” during a clash onboard Air Force One on Friday.While the remark did not initially get much attention, it picked up some traction on Tuesday and has drawn backlash from fellow journalists, including some who have previously been attacked by Trump themselves.Read the full storyMany of US education agency’s powers reassigned to other federal departmentsDonald Trump’s administration has taken new steps toward dismantling the US Department of Education by reassigning many of its responsibilities to other federal agencies.The move prompted a fresh wave of criticism, as prominent Democrats accused the administration of “slashing resources” for schools and students across the US.Read the full storyMass federal immigration sweeps expand to North Carolina capitalFederal authorities were conducing operations in Raleigh, North Carolina on Tuesday, local officials said, after a weekend where more than 100 people were arrested in Charlotte.The Democrat governor of the state, Josh Stein, a critic of the operations, posted on social media that his office was aware of the reports of the impending Raleigh operations. “To the people of Raleigh,” he wrote, “if you see something wrong, record it and report it to local law enforcement. Let’s keep each other safe.”Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      A New Jersey man whose lengthy prison sentence for fraud convictions was commuted by Donald Trump in 2021 is now headed back to federal prison for another fraud conviction.

      California farms applied an average of 2.5m lbs of Pfas “forever chemicals” per year on cropland from 2018 to 2023, or a total of about 15m lbs, a new review of state records shows.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened Monday 17 November. More

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      House votes 427-1 to release Epstein files; Senate majority leader says chamber will take up vote ‘fairly quickly’ – US politics live

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      The US House overwhelmingly approved a bill demanding that the Justice Department release all files related to its investigation into the convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. The finally tally was 427-1, with five members not voting.Cheers rang out in the chamber, when the gavel banged the vote closed.Congressman Clay Higgins of Louisiana, a staunch ally of Donald Trump, was the sole House member to vote against the measure.The near-unanimous vote was the culmination of a months-long effort led by a bipartisan group of House members that initially faced deep opposition from the president and House leadership. But as it became clear the Speaker’s manoeuvring to prevent a vote on the petition would not succeed, Trump reversed course and threw his support behind the effort.The bill next moves to the Senate. If it is approved by the upper chamber, it would then go to Trump for his signature. Trump told reporters on Monday he would sign the legislation if it reached his desk – still an if.Democrats, as well as the bill’s bipartisan sponsors, have called on Trump not to wait for Congress to act and instead to order the Justice Department to release the files, which he has the power to do.Marty Baron, the former executive editor of the Washington Post, called Donald Trump’s remarks on Tuesday, in which the president dismissed concerns about the Saudi regime’s 2018 murder of the Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, “a disgrace” in an email to TheWrap.As our colleague Julian Borger reports, when an ABC News reporter confronted Trump’s guest, Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, over the US intelligence assessment that he ordered the brutal murder of the dissident Saudi columnist, Trump stepped in to defend the Saudi leader, saying that “a lot of people didn’t like” the murder victim before pointing at bin Salman, and adding: “things happened, but he knew nothing about it”.Trump then attacked the reporter, Mary Bruce, and suggested that the FCC should strip ABC of its broadcast license because she asked what the president called “a horrible, insubordinate and just a terrible question” of the Saudi leader, a man the president said was “highly respected”.Trump’s comments were a disgrace,” Baron wrote to TheWrap, a media business outlet. “‘Things happen,’ he said. Actually, someone made them happen. And that was the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. He had Jamal Khashoggi assassinated, and then he and his government lied about what happened.”Trump couldn’t care less about the killing of a journalist unless he viewed that journalist as a supporter of his,” Baron continued. “In this instance, he suggests the killing was justified on the grounds that ‘a lot of people didn’t like’ Khashoggi. And then he ignores the facts of the brutal murder itself, suggesting MBS was clueless. Just when you think Trump has gone as low as possible, he goes still lower.”Three weeks after Trump left office in 2021, US intelligence agencies concluded that the crown prince, known as MBS, “approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi” and noted “the Crown Prince’s support for using violent measures to silence dissidents abroad”.

      The US House overwhelmingly approved a bill demanding that the Justice Department release all files related to its investigation into the convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. The finally tally was 427-1, with five members not voting. The near-unanimous vote was the culmination of a months-long effort led by a bipartisan group of House members that initially faced deep opposition from the president and House leadership. But as it became clear the Speaker’s manoeuvring to prevent a vote on the petition would not succeed, Trump reversed course and threw his support behind the effort.

      The bill next moves to the Senate. If it is approved by the upper chamber, it would then go to Trump for his signature. After the House voted today, the Senate’s top Republican, John Thune told reporters that a vote on the bill would happen “fairly quickly”. Thune added that it’s “not likely” the legislation will have any further amendments. This, despite calls from House speaker Mike Johnson and several GOP lawmakers, to make changes to further protect victims’ identities. A reminder, provisions to redact names and child abuse materials are already part of the legislation. For his part, Donald Trump has signaled he would sign the bill if it reached his desk.

      A panel of federal judges has ruled that Texas cannot use the 2025 congressional map for the midterms. Instead, the state must use the 2021 boundaries in the upcoming election. The map, drawn by the GOP lawmakers in Texas at the behest of Donald Trump, was the catalyst of a nationwide redistricting battle. In response, California voters passed a ballot initiative to redraw their own maps, offsetting the five seats that Republicans gained in Texas in the process. In today’s ruling, the judges, which included a Trump appointee, said that the creation of a new map appeared unconstitutional and “racially gerrymandered”.

      Meanwhile, at the White House today, the president welcomed Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Mohammed bin Salman. It was the crown prince’s first visit to Washingtong since the 2018 killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in Istanbul. In the Oval Office, Trump brushed off questions from a reporter about MBS’s role in Khashoggi’s killing, saying “things happen”. The president added that bin Salman “knew nothing about it, and we can leave it at that”. In 2021 US intelligence concluded that bin Salman had approved the capture or killing of Khashoggi, a fierce critic of the Saudi regime.

      When it came to matters of business, MBS announced Saudi Arabia was raising its planned investments in the US to almost $1tn, up from $600bn that the Saudis said they planned to invest when Trump visited the kingdom in May. Trump also confirmed that he had agreed to sell the Saudis F-35 fighter jets despite some concerns within the administration that the sale could lead to China gaining access to the US technology behind the advanced weapon system.

      The Department of Education (ED) announced today that it is outsourcing a number of its functions to different agencies, in a move that is part of the administration’s wider plans to totally dismantle the department. The ED said that through six new interagency agreements, with the Department of Labor, Department of the Interior, and Department of Health and Human Services, it would “break up the federal education bureaucracy” and “move closer to fulfilling the President’s promise to return education to the states”.
      The Department of Education (ED) announced today that it is outsourcing a number of its functions to different agencies, in a move that is part of the administration’s wider plans to totally dismantle the department.The ED said that through six new interagency agreements, with the Department of Labor, Department of the Interior, and Department of Health and Human Services, it would “break up the federal education bureaucracy” and “move closer to fulfilling the President’s promise to return education to the states”.Trump ran on the promise that he would do away with the department responsible for the country’s education policy, and in March, he signed an executive order to dismantle the agency. Shuttering it outright requires congressional approval, but under the guise of education secretary, Linda McMahon, the scope of the department has diminished.The House of Representatives just voted to rebuke retiring Democratic congressman Chuy García for what his detractors said was a scheme to ensure that his chief of staff would be the only Democrat left on the ballot next year in his heavily blue district.The resolution, proposed by fellow Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, passed with almost all Republicans in favor, along with 23 Democrats. Three Democrats voted present.Perez accused Garcia of “election subversion” for announcing that he would not seek re-election next year, while, as the Chicago Sun-Times reported, quietly collecting signatures for his chief of staff, Patty Garcia, to be on the ballot. The two Garcias are not related.Democratic party leaders in the House had encouraged members to vote against the resolution, issuing a joint statement where they decried the “misguided resolution” and defending Chuy Garcia as “a good man who has always prioritized the people he represents, even while experiencing unthinkable family tragedy.” His wife is struggling with multiple sclerosis, and Garcia has said he is stepping down on the advice of his cardiologist. In 2023, his office announced the death of his daughter Rosa at the age of 28.Fabiola Rodriguez-Ciampoli, a spokesperson for the congressman, said, “he followed every rule and every filing requirement laid out by the state of Illinois. At a moment like this, he hopes his colleagues, especially those who speak about family values, can show the same compassion and respect that any family would want during a health crisis.”Others disagreed, with longtime Democratic strategist David Axelrod calling his actions “old-style, Chicago machine tactics to ensure his chief-of-staff would be the only name on the Dem ballot. It’s election denial of another kind!”Democratic senator Andy Kim said: “Chuy Garcia’s decision to end his re-election at the last second and plant his chief of staff as the only candidate to succeed him was undemocratic and should not be allowed. Standing against corruption means standing up no matter which political party violates.”John Thune, the majority leader and top Senate Republican, said that a vote on the full release of the Epstein files will happen “fairly quickly”.Speaking to reporters on the Hill after the House voted, almost unanimously, for the justice department to release their complete trove of documents relating to the disgraced financier, Thune said that it’s “not likely” the legislation will have any further amendments. This, despite calls from House speaker Mike Johnson and several GOP lawmakers, to make changes to further protect victims’ identities.A reminder, provisions to redact names and child abuse materials are already part of the legislation.As we mentioned earlier, the sole holdout in today’s vote to release the justice department files on Jeffrey Epstein was Republican congressman Clay Higgins. He said that the bill, in its current form, doesn’t adequately protect victims, survivors, and “thousands of innocent people”.The Louisiana lawmaker added:
      If the Senate amends the bill to properly address privacy of victims and other Americans, who are named but not criminally implicated, then I will vote for that bill when it comes back to the House.
      However, there are provisions in the legislation, as written, which redacts identities and examples of child abuse. If the upper chamber issues an amendment, the House will need to vote on the bill again. A move that the bipartisan co-sponsors say is a delay tactic and unnecessary.In a statement after Tuesday’s vote, congressman Robert Garcia, the ranking Democrat on the House oversight committee demanded that the Senate majority leader John Thune take up the bill “immediately”.“Donald Trump is panicking and trying to stop our investigation. We need to know what he’s hiding, and what powerful men are responsible for the rape and abuse of children and women,” Garcia said. “And let’s be clear – Donald Trump has the power to release the files today. But he chooses to delay and deflect.”He added: “No more lies. No more secrets. We will get justice for the survivors. Release the files, NOW.”The US House overwhelmingly approved a bill demanding that the Justice Department release all files related to its investigation into the convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. The finally tally was 427-1, with five members not voting.Cheers rang out in the chamber, when the gavel banged the vote closed.Congressman Clay Higgins of Louisiana, a staunch ally of Donald Trump, was the sole House member to vote against the measure.The near-unanimous vote was the culmination of a months-long effort led by a bipartisan group of House members that initially faced deep opposition from the president and House leadership. But as it became clear the Speaker’s manoeuvring to prevent a vote on the petition would not succeed, Trump reversed course and threw his support behind the effort.The bill next moves to the Senate. If it is approved by the upper chamber, it would then go to Trump for his signature. Trump told reporters on Monday he would sign the legislation if it reached his desk – still an if.Democrats, as well as the bill’s bipartisan sponsors, have called on Trump not to wait for Congress to act and instead to order the Justice Department to release the files, which he has the power to do.While the House votes, the Guardian’s congressional correspondent Chris Stein sends this dispatch from Capitol Hill.As the House debates the bill to require release of the government’s investigative files related to alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, survivors of his abuses clapped from the chamber’s gallery, prompting an admonition from the chair.“I rise today to acknowledge the survivors, family members and advocates who are here today and have never given up the legislation in front of us, at its core is about something very simple: The survivors deserve justice. The American people deserve the truth,” said Democratic congresswoman Adelita Grijlava.“Protecting women and children from pedophiles should not be a Democratic issue. Should not be a Republican issue. It should be a human rights issue and a matter of justice. I urge my colleagues to vote yes.”The group broke into applause after Grijalva — who, after a lengthy delay, provided the final signature on a discharge petition that forced a vote on this bill — finished her remarks.The Republican lawmaker presiding over the House then addressed the group, saying “the chair will remind all persons in the gallery that they are here as guests of the House, and that any manifestation of approval or disapproval of proceedings is in violation of the rules of the House.”Jamie Raskin, the Democratic congressman managing the party’s debate, chimed in, saying: “I’ll just add, they’re here as honored guests of the House, and we’re delighted they’re here.”Congressman Jamie Raskin, who has been leading the debate for Democrats on the House floor, issued a forceful rebuttal of the Speaker’s comments before the chamber moved to a vote.“We want the whole truth to come out,” Raskin said, arguing that it was Johnson and Republicans who have been dragging their feet on releasing the files, including delaying the swearing in of Adelita Grijalva, who provided the 218th signature to advance the petition.“Even the British Monarchy wouldn’t put up with this,” Raskin continued. “How about the American democracy? How about we say: ‘No way we’re not going to allow this cover up to go on for one day more.’” More

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      The Saudification of America is under way | Karen Attiah

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      The first time I ever used the words “alhumdulilah”, which translates to praise be to God in Arabic, was the night of 16 November 2018. A Friday night news alert came through on my phone: “CIA concludes Saudi crown prince ordered Jamal Khashoggi’s assassination.” I collapsed into my couch, repeating the words.I am not Muslim. But Jamal, in life and death, has taught me a lot about faith and looking for hope in all the wrong places. As a writer with a history of criticizing America’s meddling in weaker countries, in normal circumstances, I should have been loath to celebrate the CIA.But given that, a month before, a group of Saudi hitmen not only kidnapped my friend and writer from a consulate in Istanbul but allegedly cut his body into pieces, I might have been forgiven for looking for any hope that the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, would face consequences – cutting off leaders who think nothing of cutting up human beings should be a basic tenet of any healthy country’s foreign policy. (Prince Mohammed has denied any involvement or responsibility for Khashoggi’s killing.)This week, seven years almost to the day since the CIA announced the crown prince’s responsibility in the murder, Mohammed bin Salman returns to Washington, invited for an offical visit by America’s Temu pharaoh, Donald Trump. The reconciliation between Trump and MBS was perhaps inevitable, given that even before the first Trump presidency, Trump spoke often of his love for the Saudis and their wealth. (“I get along great with all of them; they buy apartments from me. They spend $40m, $50m,” he quipped in 2015. “Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much!”)In 2016 Saudi Arabia banned Jamal Khashoggi, a longtime editor, journalist and royal adviser from writing. His crime? He published an op-ed warning about the rise of Trump in 2016. He remained silent for a year, until Prince Mohammed unleashed a crackdown on businessmen, writers, and mild critics – imprisoning many of them. Jamal fled to the US in self-exile.In September 2017, while I was the editor of the Washington Post’s global opinion section, I asked Jamal to write for us. He published “Saudi Arabia was not always this repressive, but now it’s unbearable”, breaking his year-long silence. I hired him to continue to write for the Washington Post.A year later, Saudi Arabia had Jamal killed. In the aftermath of Jamal’s murder, Trump administration officials worked overtime to launder Saudi Arabia’s blood-stained image. Jared Kushner was advising Prince Mohammed on how to “weather the storm”. Last year, Kushner’s equity firm received $2bn from Saudi Arabia’s private equity firm.There’s much to say about the Saudification of western cultural spaces through the sheer sums of money the kingdom is so obviously throwing into what it sees as soft power. Writers and observers have commented for years about Saudi Arabia’s “sportswashing”, like the kingdom’s sponsorship of LIV golf tournament and the purchase of the Newcastle United soccer team.The kingdom invested heavily in tourism campaigns for Saudi Arabia, paying online influencers hefty sums to post pictures of their heavily curated trips to the country.Jamal warned about these hollow visions of Saudi Arabia. He warned that behind the glitz and glamour of the Saudi royal family, and promises of futuristic cities, there was poverty and discontent. He often told me how proud he was to have his words in the Washington Post, and he hoped the Post could be a model for voices like his to be heard. I still admire Jamal’s relentless optimism about media and America.In death, Jamal’s faith would prove to be misplaced. The Washington Post’s erasure of Jamal’s memory and the freedom he stood for has been brewing in the background.The global opinion section that Jamal wrote for was dismantled. The Jamal Khashoggi fellowship – which was offered to writers speaking out against authoritarian regimes – was left to fade away. Jamal used to tell me about his days as an editor chairing newspaper editorial meetings in Saudi Arabia, where editors were given marching orders from the top about the “red lines”, or what the royal regime wanted and did not want published.Today, the Washington Post opinion section is going through an increasing Saudification – imposing harsh red lines on who and what can publish. Under owner Jeff Bezos’s edict to write only about “free markets” and “personal liberties”, the Washington Post opinion section, the first major US paper to publicly impose such heavy censorship, purged nearly all its full-time voices that wrote against censorship, political violence and repression at home and abroad, myself included.To date, the Washington Post editorial board has not mentioned Jamal’s name ahead of Prince Mohammed’s visit. The Saudification of the mainstream news media means that other US media outlets and institutions are bending the knee to Trump, agreeing to multimillion-dollar shakedowns in exchange for eliminating diversity. He has sued outlets he claims were not fair to him. He has begun attempting to prosecute his political rivals. Pro-Saudi voices would argue that moralizing about chopped-up journalists does us no good, shouldn’t get in the way of the US-Saudi partnership, that there is too much money at stake, and that in order for the west’s colonial management of the Middle East, we need our friends in Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel. They are effectively asking Americans to believe that America and Saudi Arabia will make the world a better place, together.This narrative only helps the billionaires and the deal brokers. The average American gains next to nothing from these elite arrangements. Rather, Jamal’s plight and murder was a warning sign for America, of the impending loss of freedom and censorship that would sweep the country.

      Karen Attiah is a writer and educator whose work focuses on race, global culture and human rights More

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      Trump defends Saudi crown prince over Khashoggi killing, threatens ABC News in White House meeting – as it happened

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      Donald Trump welcomed crown prince Mohammed bin Salman to Washington on Tuesday, in the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia’s first White House visit since the 2018 killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in Istanbul. The shocking murder caused global outrage and appeared to set the Gulf kingdom on a path to international pariah status. In 2021 US intelligence concluded that bin Salman had approved the capture or killing of Khashoggi, a fierce critic of the Saudi regime. The crown prince has denied ordering the operation but acknowledged responsibility as the kingdom’s de facto ruler. Seven years on, that shocking murder seemed a distant memory, as MBS arrived to a lavish display including fanfare, a US Marine band and a military flyover as he stepped onto the South Lawn of the White House to meet Trump.

      Talking to reporters in the Oval Office, the US president brushed off questions from a reporter about MBS’s role in Khashoggi’s killing, saying “things happen”. “You’re mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial,” Trump said of the murdered columnist, before going on to contradict US intelligence on the Saudi crown prince’s role in the affair. “A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you like him, or didn’t like him, things happen. But he [bin Salman] knew nothing about it, and we can leave it at that.” While Trump castigated the reporter for the question, a calm MBS said:“It’s painful and it’s a huge mistake, and we are doing our best that this doesn’t happen again.”

      The crown prince announced Saudi Arabia was raising its planned investments in the US to almost $1tn, up from $600bn that the Saudis said they planned to invest when Trump visited the kingdom in May. MBS said the kingdom has “huge demand” for computing power and desires US AI chips. Trump also said he “can see” a deal happening to transfer American nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia, but didn’t specify a timeline. Against a backdrop of subdued oil prices and MBS’s high spending on megaprojects at home, that figure is likely very unrealistic, but Trump seemed thrilled nonetheless.

      Trump also pushed back on the notion that there was a conflict of interest, given his family’s strong personal interest in the kingdom. “I have nothing to do with the family business,” said Trump, adding that his family has relatively little interest in the kingdom. In September, London real estate developer Dar Global announced that it plans to launch Trump Plaza in the Red Sea city of Jeddah. It’s Dar Global’s second collaboration with the Trump Organization, the collection of companies controlled by Trump’s children, in Saudi Arabia. Last year, the two companies announced the launch of Trump Tower Jeddah.

      Trump confirmed that he had agreed to sell the Saudis F-35 fighter jets despite some concerns within the administration that the sale could lead to China gaining access to the US technology behind the advanced weapon system. The agreement will be similar to the one the US has with Israel, which is significant as until now Israel has been the only country in the Middle East to have the jets. The move has the potential to alter the military balance in the region. As Politico noted earlier: “A major arms deal would signal a sea change in the US approach to Saudi Arabia: No longer would deeper ties between the two countries be so dependent on Saudi Arabia normalising relations with Israel.”

      On that subject, MBS made clear that normalisation with Israel (i.e. Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords, which Trump really wants) could not happen without first securing a clear path towards a two-state solution. The crown prince said he wants Israelis and Palestinians “to coexist peacefully” in the region. Trump has been trying to nudge the Saudis to join the accords for some time and said today he felt he’d had a “positive response”. But it’s worth remembering that Israel, meanwhile, remains steadfastly opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state.

      Trump will return to the South Lawn later, with first lady Melania, to welcome the crown prince when he returns for the evening East Room dinner. In addition to today’s White House pomp, the two nations are also planning an investment summit at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday that will include the heads of Salesforce, Qualcomm, Pfizer, the Cleveland Clinic, Chevron and Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s national oil and natural gas company, where even more deals with the Saudis could be announced.
      And I’ll leave you with my colleague Julian Borger’s report on the visit:

      Donald Trump welcomed crown prince Mohammed bin Salman to Washington on Tuesday, in the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia’s first White House visit since the 2018 killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in Istanbul. The shocking murder caused global outrage and appeared to set the Gulf kingdom on a path to international pariah status. In 2021 US intelligence concluded that bin Salman had approved the capture or killing of Khashoggi, a fierce critic of the Saudi regime. The crown prince has denied ordering the operation but acknowledged responsibility as the kingdom’s de facto ruler. Seven years on, that shocking murder seemed a distant memory, as MBS arrived to a lavish display including fanfare, a US Marine band and a military flyover as he stepped onto the South Lawn of the White House to meet Trump.

      Talking to reporters in the Oval Office, the US president brushed off questions from a reporter about MBS’s role in Khashoggi’s killing, saying “things happen”. “You’re mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial,” Trump said of the murdered columnist, before going on to contradict US intelligence on the Saudi crown prince’s role in the affair. “A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you like him, or didn’t like him, things happen. But he [bin Salman] knew nothing about it, and we can leave it at that.” While Trump castigated the reporter for the question, a calm MBS said:“It’s painful and it’s a huge mistake, and we are doing our best that this doesn’t happen again.”

      The crown prince announced Saudi Arabia was raising its planned investments in the US to almost $1tn, up from $600bn that the Saudis said they planned to invest when Trump visited the kingdom in May. MBS said the kingdom has “huge demand” for computing power and desires US AI chips. Trump also said he “can see” a deal happening to transfer American nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia, but didn’t specify a timeline. Against a backdrop of subdued oil prices and MBS’s high spending on megaprojects at home, that figure is likely very unrealistic, but Trump seemed thrilled nonetheless.

      Trump also pushed back on the notion that there was a conflict of interest, given his family’s strong personal interest in the kingdom. “I have nothing to do with the family business,” said Trump, adding that his family has relatively little interest in the kingdom. In September, London real estate developer Dar Global announced that it plans to launch Trump Plaza in the Red Sea city of Jeddah. It’s Dar Global’s second collaboration with the Trump Organization, the collection of companies controlled by Trump’s children, in Saudi Arabia. Last year, the two companies announced the launch of Trump Tower Jeddah.

      Trump confirmed that he had agreed to sell the Saudis F-35 fighter jets despite some concerns within the administration that the sale could lead to China gaining access to the US technology behind the advanced weapon system. The agreement will be similar to the one the US has with Israel, which is significant as until now Israel has been the only country in the Middle East to have the jets. The move has the potential to alter the military balance in the region. As Politico noted earlier: “A major arms deal would signal a sea change in the US approach to Saudi Arabia: No longer would deeper ties between the two countries be so dependent on Saudi Arabia normalising relations with Israel.”

      On that subject, MBS made clear that normalisation with Israel (i.e. Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords, which Trump really wants) could not happen without first securing a clear path towards a two-state solution. The crown prince said he wants Israelis and Palestinians “to coexist peacefully” in the region. Trump has been trying to nudge the Saudis to join the accords for some time and said today he felt he’d had a “positive response”. But it’s worth remembering that Israel, meanwhile, remains steadfastly opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state.

      Trump will return to the South Lawn later, with first lady Melania, to welcome the crown prince when he returns for the evening East Room dinner. In addition to today’s White House pomp, the two nations are also planning an investment summit at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday that will include the heads of Salesforce, Qualcomm, Pfizer, the Cleveland Clinic, Chevron and Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s national oil and natural gas company, where even more deals with the Saudis could be announced.
      If you’re just joining us, Donald Trump has welcomed Mohammed bin Salman to Washington, as the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia seeks to rebrand himself as a global statesman in his first White House visit since the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents.Trump warmly received the crown prince when he arrived at the White House this morning for a pomp-filled ceremony that included a military flyover and a thundering greeting from the US Marine band.The US-Saudi relationship had been sent into a tailspin by the operation targeting Khashoggi, a fierce critic of the kingdom, that US intelligence agencies later determined MBS likely directed the agents to carry out.But seven years later, Khashoggi was an afterthought as the two leaders unveiled billions of dollars in deals and Trump brushed off questions to the crown prince about the journalist’s gruesome murder.“Whether you like [Khashoggi] or didn’t like him, things happen,” Trump said, referring to the murdered Washington Post columnist as “extremely controversial”. “But he [bin Salman] knew nothing about it,” he said of bin Salman.Trump chastised the reporter for “embarrassing our guest” with the question and went on to commended the Saudi leader for strides made by the kingdom on human rights without providing any specific detail.“I’m very proud of the job he’s done,” Trump said. “What’s he done is incredible in terms of human rights and everything else.”Trump lashes out once again at a reporter’s question, calling her a “terrible reporter” and saying he believes ABC News’s broadcasting license should be revoked.The reporter had asked him why he wouldn’t just release the Epstein files rather than wait for Congress to do it. He says.
      I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein.
      It’s worth noting that MBS, in comparison, has remained calm and confident in the face of tough questions.Trump says he “can see” a deal happening to transfer American nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia, but doesn’t specify any sort of timeline, adding it’s not urgent.Trump says he spoke with bin Salman about the Abraham Accords, adding that he believes he got a positive response.The crown prince adds that while Saudi Arabia wants to be part of the accords, which normalises ties with Israel, it also wants to make sure it secures a clear path for a two-state solution.He says he wants Israelis and Palestinians “to coexist peacefully” in the region.Trump says the US would sell F-35 stealth fighter jets to Saudi Arabia in a similar arrangement it has with Israel.“As far as I’m concerned, I think they are both at a level where they should get top of the line [F-35s],” he says, referring to Saudi and Israel as great allies. Israel and Saudi Arabia have never had formal diplomatic relations but have engaged in covert cooperation on issues such as Iran.Trump says the United States has reached a defense deal with Saudi Arabia.As the Trump Organization and a Saudi developer look to open the latest Trump hotel in the Maldives, Trump is asked about a possible conflict of interest for the Trump Organization to do business with Saudi Arabia while he is president. He replies:
      I have nothing to do with the family business. I have left, and I’ve devoted 100% of my energy. What my family does is fine. They do business all over.
      They’ve done very little with Saudi Arabia actually. I’m sure they could do a lot, and anything they’ve done has been very good.
      An ABC reporter then addresses the elephant in the room, asking whether why Americans should trust bin Salman given that US intelligence concluded that he orchestrated the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.Trump blasts ABC News as fake news, before contradicting US intelligence on the Saudi crown prince’s role in Khashoggi death:
      You’re mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman [Khashoggi] that you’re talking about. Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen. But he [bin Salman] knew nothing about it. And we can leave it at that. You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking something like that.
      As I noted earlier, US intelligence concluded in 2021 that bin Salman approved the capture or killing of Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. The crown prince denied ordering the operation but acknowledged responsibility as the kingdom’s de facto ruler. Here’s our report on that from the time:Asked by a reporter whether Saudi Arabia can really continue to invest as much as $1tn in the United States given the reality of lower oil prices, bin Salman says the kingdom was not “creating fake opportunities to please America or please Trump” and that Saudi Arabia has “huge demand” for computing power and desires US advanced chips.Trump says he is working to approve the sale of advanced US AI chips to Saudi Arabia, signalling a major shift in export policy and deepening tech ties with the kingdom.“We’ve been really good friends for a long period of time,” Trump says of the crown prince.“I want to thank you because you’ve agreed to invest $600bn into the United States, and because he’s my friend, he might make it a trillion, but I’m going to have to work on him,” Trump says, referring to bin Salman.Bin Salman then says in response that Saudi Arabia “believes in the future of America” and is going to increase its pledge to almost $1tn of investment in the United States.Talks in the Oval Office are underway, albeit somewhat behind schedule. I’ll bring you any key news lines here.Bearing in mind that, while this is not a state visit – Mohammed bin Salman is not technically the Saudi head of state, though he is the kingdom’s de facto leader – that ceremony was definitely more lavish than your average state visit arrival, including the Marine band and officers on horseback flying the Saudi and US flags.The two men have been speaking as they walk along the row of presidential portraits on the colonnade at the White House, which Trump recently unveiled as the “Presidential Walk of Fame”.Here are some more pictures capturing the pomp and circumstance Donald Trump has put on for MBS.Mohammed bin Salman arrived at the White House to fanfare and a jet flyover moments ago, as he seeks to further rehabilitate his global image after the brutal 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and deepen ties with Washington.Making his first White House visit in more than seven years, the crown prince was greeted with a lavish display of pomp and ceremony presided over by Donald Trump on the South Lawn, complete with a military honour guard, a cannon salute and a flyover by US warplanes. More

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      House passes bill to release Epstein files with near-unanimous support

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      The US House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a bill with nearly unanimous support that will force the release of investigative files related to the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, after Donald Trump and his Republican allies backed down from their opposition amid a scandal that has dogged the president since his return to the White House.The measure now awaits consideration by the Senate, where the Republican majority leader, John Thune, has not said if or when he will put it up for a vote. A spokesperson for Thune did not respond to a request for comment.Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat, announced after the bill’s House passage that he would later on Tuesday ask for the chamber to pass it unanimously.“We have an opportunity to get this bill done today and have it on the president’s desk to be signed into law tonight. We should seize that opportunity,” he said.Though Trump has for months dismissed the uproar over the government’s handling of the Epstein case as a “Democrat hoax”, he signaled his support for the House bill over the weekend, and said he would sign the measure if it reaches his desk. On Tuesday morning, the Republican speaker, Mike Johnson, announced he would vote for it, making its passage certain.Democrats, along with survivors of Epstein and their advocates who were seated in a House gallery, broke into applause after the bill was passed. The sole “no” vote came from Clay Higgins, a Louisiana Republican who said he worried the measure would make public identifying details of witnesses, potential suspects and others caught up in the investigation.Several of the president’s allies who voted for the bill did so only after criticizing it in floor speeches, arguing Democrats were being insincere but that the House could spend no more time on the matter.“As President Trump has stated, we have nothing to hide, nothing to hide here,” said Republican congressman Troy Nehls. “I’m voting to release the files so that we can move on from the [smear] campaign the Democrats have manufactured. God bless Donald J Trump.”Republican judiciary committee chair Jim Jordan argued that Democrats could have pushed for the files’ release during Joe Biden’s presidency. “Why now, after four years of doing nothing? Because going after President Trump is an obsession with these guys.”Even as he announced his support, Johnson criticized the measure for not doing enough to protect victims of Epstein, a financier who died in 2019 by what investigators determined was suicide while he was awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.“Everybody here, all the Republicans, want to go on record to show we’re for maximum transparency, but they also want to note that we’re demanding that this stuff get corrected before it is ever moves through the process and is complete,” Johnson said.Any changes to the bill made by the Senate would require it to be approved again by the House, probably delaying its enactment.Chuck Grassley, the Republican chair of the Senate judiciary committee, wrote on X that he had “been calling for full transparency in the Epstein case since 2019” and that the chamber should vote on the bill “ASAP”.The Epstein case returned dramatically to the public eye in July, when the justice department and FBI released a memo saying they had nothing further to disclose about the investigation. That flew in the face of statements made by Trump and his top officials that indicated they would release more information about Epstein’s offenses and ties to global elites once they took office.Shortly after, four dissident Republicans in the House and all Democrats banded together to force a vote on a bill to release the investigative files, over Johnson’s objections.The leaders of that effort cheered the imminent vote, with the Democratic congressman Ro Khanna calling Tuesday “the first day of real reckoning for the Epstein class”.“Because survivors spoke up, because of their courage, the truth is finally going to come out, and when it comes out, this country is really going to have a moral reckoning. How did we allow this to happen?” Khanna said at a press conference, adding that the case was “one of the most horrific and disgusting corruption scandals in our country’s history.”Trump’s friendship with Epstein has had staying power in American politics as the late disgraced financier had links to many other rich and powerful figures in the US and overseas. The president’s dramatic shift came after it became increasingly apparent that the bill would pass the GOP-controlled House, most likely with significant support from Republican lawmakers. Trump in recent days changed his approach from outright opposition to declarations of indifference.“I DON’T CARE!” the president wrote in a social media post on Sunday. “All I do care about is that Republicans get BACK ON POINT.”Speaking in the Oval Office on Monday, Trump said he did not want the Epstein scandal to “deflect” from the White House’s successes, and claimed it was a “hoax” and “a Democrat problem”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“We’ll give them everything,” he told reporters. “Let the Senate look at it, let anybody look at it, but don’t talk about it too much, because honestly, I don’t want to take it away from us.”Thomas Massie, an iconoclastic Republican congressman who frequently defies Trump and joined with Khanna to pursue the files’ release, noted the president’s reversal on the Epstein issue.“We fought the president, the attorney general, the FBI director, the speaker of the House and the vice-president to get this win,” he said. “But they’re on our side today, though, so let’s give them some credit as well.”In July, Khanna and Massie turned to a procedural tactic known as a discharge petition to circumvent House leadership and compel a vote on their bill, the Epstein Files Transparency Act, if a majority of the 435-member House signs on.Johnson went to extraordinary lengths to avoid a vote on the the measure, which splintered his conference. Democrats accused the speaker of delaying the swearing-in of the Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva to prevent her from becoming the decisive 218th signatory. She signed her name to the petition moments after officially taking office last week.As president, Trump has the authority to order the justice department to release the documents in its possession, as he has previously done with the government records related to the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and John F Kennedy.Emails made public last week by a House committee that has opened a separate inquiry into the scandal showed Epstein believed Trump “knew about the girls”, though it was not clear what that phrase meant. The White House said the released emails contained no proof of wrongdoing by Trump.Last week, the president instructed the justice department to investigate prominent Democrats’ ties to Epstein. The US attorney general, Pam Bondi, who earlier this year said a review of the files revealed no further investigative leads, replied to Trump that she would get on it right away and has appointed a prosecutor to lead the effort.The Epstein scandal is a core issue for a swathe of Trump’s rightwing base, some of whom believe in conspiracy theories that surround Epstein and his coterie of powerful friends and associates. Unlike many other issues, the Epstein files have prompted rebellions from Trump’s supporters in politics and the media, who have called on the president to follow through on his campaign promise to release them.Meanwhile, several Epstein survivors have ramped up pressure on Congress and Trump to advance the measure.“It’s time that we put the political agendas and party affiliations to the side. This is a human issue. This is about children,” survivor Haley Robson said at the press conference. “There is no place in society for exploitation, sexual crimes or exploitation of women.”She then addressed her comments to Trump, saying: “While I do understand that your position has changed on the Epstein files, and I’m grateful that you have pledged to sign this bill, I can’t help to be skeptical of what the agenda is.”On Monday night, activists projected an image of Trump and Epstein on to the justice department building, accompanied by the message: “Release the files now.” More

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      Plastic surgeons wrestle with requests for ‘Mar-a-Lago face’: ‘You’re going to look like Maleficent’

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      Picture a plastic surgeon’s office. You might imagine a sleek Los Angeles practice, with discreet entrances meant to conceal celebrities from the paparazzi. Maybe a Dallas high-rise, where monied housewives spend on postpartum “mommy makeovers”. Or a Miami location, where influencers and OnlyFans stars film TikToks of their BBLs. One city you might not think of is Washington DC. But its buttoned-up reputation belies a newly buzzing industry.Much has been made of the so-called “Mar-a-Lago face”, or the uncannily smooth and artificially voluminous features seen on the likes of Maga elite such as Kristi Noem, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Laura Loomer and Matt Gaetz. The bee-sting puffy lips, frozen brows and taut necks have been compared to Real Housewives stars, sleep paralysis demons and – ironically, considering the Republican party’s anti-LGBTQ+ culture war – drag queens (minus the campy fun).As of January, plastic surgeons in Washington DC have seen a “surge in ‘Mar-a-Lago face’ requests from Trump insiders”, Axios recently reported. Surgeons told the outlet that more Washingtonians want their procedures to be not unnoticed but obvious and overdone.Axios attributed the aesthetic shift to the influx of transplants from south Florida (where Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s gaudy private club, is located), who are no strangers to nip-tuck tune-ups. Others theorize that going through these procedures is a calculated act of political deference to Trump’s preferred (and unnatural) beauty standards.Dr Anita Kulkarni is a plastic surgeon who practices out of DC’s West End neighborhood and specializes in postpartum body contouring. Enter her office, and you will be greeted by staff who look good, but not worked on – and that is the effect most of her clients have gone for. “Before this second Trump term, I just didn’t see a lot of patients coming in making unreasonable requests,” Kulkarni says. But since the inauguration, she has fielded half a dozen or more – not a large sample size, but enough for the surgeon to take note.She says nobody comes in asking for Mar-a-Lago face by name; the most obvious clue is when a patient with visible lip filler comes in wanting more. “I have to say: ‘I cannot put any more in there safely.’” Or they will want more cheek or jawline filler. “‘To my eye, if I put any more in there, you’re going to cross over from looking like the best version of yourself to looking like Maleficent.’ I have to say no in a way that I have never seen before.” And still patients will try to talk their way into more. But placing fresh filler over an existing layer too soon can cause lumpiness, and Kulkarni does not want to risk being known for that look.“My aesthetic doesn’t necessarily have to be your aesthetic for me to give you what you want,” she says. “But when you go outside the range of what a normal human face should look like, that’s not a place I’m willing to go.”More still might shrug their shoulders and say Mar-a-Lago face is part of society’s wider embrace of body contouring. Kris Jenner’s ageless, 70th-birthday facelift may look less garish than Laura Loomer’s balloonish attributes, but both are just as fake. It comes at a time when the American Society of Plastic Surgeons reports there were more than 28.5m minimally invasive procedures done in 2024; lip augmentation, dermal fillers and neuromodulator treatments (such as Botox) cracked the top five.Dr Troy Pittman, a plastic surgeon based in DC, says that across the country, people are more willing to talk about the work they have had done. “That’s not a bad thing,” he sys. “But in a town like DC, there is this glamming up of Washington with this new administration, so it’s become more prevalent. They’re OK with looking enhanced.”Dr Kelly Bolden is also a DC-based plastic surgeon. Most of her clients are people of color – she is the medical director of Cultura Dermatology, a practice that specializes in cosmetic treatments for deeper skin tones – and she is not seeing a boom in Mar-a-Lago face requests. But she has noticed a shift, especially among her younger clients in their 20s and 30s.View image in fullscreen“They come in and actually tell me that they like the artificial look. A couple of my patients have said those exact words to me,” Bolden says. Some of the most visible Trump officials are young, such as press secretary Karoline Leavitt and her deputy Anna Kelly (both 28, and the latter is a former pageant queen), and they’re always camera-ready. “I think most of [Trump’s] administration is on the younger side compared to traditional ones, so that’s probably a little bit of where the trend comes from.”Those who want a Mar-a-Lago face have to be able to handle needles: Bolden says it is most often achieved via shots and injectables underneath the skin. “It’s overdone filler and Botox that gives them that mask-face type of appearance.”This is not a look Bolden is known for. Sometimes, she outright denies these requests. Or she will compromise. “Usually I’ll look at them and say: ‘Let’s balance you out, let’s make it more even.’ It’s almost like just as long as they get a little bit more, it will satisfy them,” she says.After the Duchess of Sussex announced her engagement to Prince Harry in 2017, Pittman said women would bring photos of Meghan to appointments and ask for her nose. “That’s a trap,” Pittman says. “We’re not trying to make people look like clones of each other.” He would similarly talk down someone who brought in a picture of Ivanka or Melania Trump. “Whenever people come in asking for a branded look, that can lead to either very unrealistic expectations or artificial results.”Other plastic surgeons advertise Mar-a-Lago face. A practice out of Boca Raton, Florida – less than an hour away from Mar-a-Lago – calls it a procedure that “doesn’t scream surgery. Instead, it whispers refinement.” Dr Shervin Naderi, based in the DC area, described the look as “a modern aristocratic mask” in his practice’s blog.When does a patient know it’s time to ease up on the procedures? Bolden says it’s common not to; the industry term is perception blindness. “The first time someone gets filler, the majority of the time, it looks good,” she said. “Then people get used to it, and they see a wrinkle come back or some sagging, and they’re like, ‘I need more.’ They’re chasing after something without realizing it. A little bit more, a little bit more, and you can’t really see the evolution.”The aesthetics of politics have long been an uneasy topic, especially as it relates to women. Nicole Russell, a columnist at USA Today, called jokes about Mar-a-Lago face “cruel attacks” on conservative women. To others, the face has come to symbolize an allegiance to Trump and his policies. See Noem wearing full glam to an ICE raid, beach waves tumbling over her bulletproof vest. Or Leavitt at the press podium, insisting Trump’s name in Jeffrey Epstein’s emails means nothing, as she purses overlined pink lips to match her shimmery eye shadow.Men are not spared the political aesthetic shift either. Ninety-two per cent of surgeons report treating male patients, with facelifts and sculpted jawlines being top picks. Pittman told Axios his male patients want to look “younger … more virile and masculine” like Pete Hegseth, via Botox, liposuction and eyelid rejuvenation. A fitting counter to Maga’s leading women.But, just like trends, administrations ebb and flow. Mar-a-Lago face won’t last forever – literally. “Nothing in plastic surgery is permanent,” Bolden says. “Filler goes away. Most people will say you get a good eight to 10 years out of a facelift. Everything has a lifespan.” More

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      Jon Stewart on Trump’s Epstein files flip-flop: ‘This dude is flailing’

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      Late-night hosts tore into the next chapter of Donald Trump’s never-ending Jeffrey Epstein scandal.Jon StewartJon Stewart ripped into Trump on Monday evening after the president abruptly changed tack and called on House Republicans to authorize the justice department’s release of files related to Epstein, a convicted sex offender – files which Trump himself could order to be released.“If he had nothing to hide, he could have declassified and released these files himself at any time,” the Daily Show host explained. “How do I know this? A legal expert named Donald Jurisprudence Trump said so.”Stewart then played footage of Trump from 2022 in which he insisted that the president can declassify anything, at any time, just by saying so or “even by thinking about it”.“Is it possible that Trump’s whole bullshit facade is crumbling?” Stewart wondered. “I mean, right now, all he can do is distract from one lie with what is clearly another lie.”Stewart then rolled a clip of Trump attempting that move, telling reporters: “All I want is I want for people to recognize a great job that I’ve done on pricing, on affordability.”“What planet do you live on?” Stewart responded. “Great job on affordability? My Taco Bell order is now $72!”“This dude is flailing,” he later added. “The normally reliable Trump is even struggling to deliver on his greatest gift: the cutting nickname.”Over the weekend, he took to Truth Social to call his former ally Marjorie Taylor Greene “Marjorie Taylor Brown”, explaining in parentheses that green grass turns brown when it rots.“You know, I’ve always said that the best nicknames are the ones you have to explain in parentheses,” Stewart joked.Jokes aside, Stewart concluded: “Epstein was a convicted sex offender at the time of these emails. And of course, mentioned in these emails more than anyone else, more than 1,600 times, is Donald Trump.”“Is that evidence of his guilt? No,” he continued. “But it shows that he’s a part of that world and certainly the circumstantial evidence points to his understanding of what was occurring.”Stephen ColbertOn the Late Show, Stephen Colbert homed in on one specific email from Epstein, in which the late pedophile claimed Trump “knew about the girls”. The line prompted Republicans to accuse Democrats of cherrypicking. “Let’s pause there,” said Colbert. “Guys, for this one, let’s maybe go with a different fruit.“So to prove that the Democrats were, let’s say, pineapple-choosing,” he continued, “House Republicans released 20,000-plus pages of other Epstein documents.“They did it to show that they were way more transparent than the Democrats, who they say released just enough to make Trump look bad,” said Colbert. “And they were right because the Republicans’ additional release of documents made him look awful.”In the new batch of documents, Trump’s named appeared more than 1,500 times.“These are not casual mentions, either,” Colbert noted. In one email, Epstein wrote: “i have met some very bad people ,, none as bad as trump. not one decent cell in his body.”“It’s gotta hurt when Jeffrey Epstein calls you a bad guy,” said Colbert. “That’s like an airport muffin accusing you of being dry.”Seth Meyers“This weekend, Trump sought to quell the Maga furor by ordering an investigation, but only into Democrats,” Seth Meyers explained on Monday’s Late Night. “Which even some Republicans fear could be another delay tactic.”As Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky put it: “If they have ongoing investigations in certain areas, those documents can’t be released. So this might be a big smokescreen, these investigations, to open up a bunch of them as a last-ditch effort to prevent the release of the Epstein files.”“How dare you accuse the president of setting up a smokescreen,” Meyers laughed. “For one thing, I don’t think he’s nimble enough for that. If Trump threw down a smoke pellet, he wouldn’t run away. He would just stand there coughing until the smoke cleared.”Reporters asked Trump about Massie’s statement on Sunday night, and “all Trump had to do was make clear that he was sincerely interested in getting to the truth”, said Meyers.Instead, Trump claimed “fake news” and said the media “kept bringing [Epstein] up to deflect from the tremendous success of the Trump administration”.“Nailed it!” Meyers joked. “Everyone knows the least suspicious thing you can do when someone asks you about a scandal is to say ‘I don’t want to talk about it’ and then immediately insult. Try that next time your spouse asks why you got home so late.”And then Trump flip-flopped again, telling House Republicans to vote for a discharge petition for the justice department’s release of the Epstein files, after he spent months opposing the measure. “But the whole point of the House vote was to force you to release the files, which you can do on your own. So if you’re in favor of releasing the files, then just do it,” said Meyers. “This new position makes even less sense.”Jimmy KimmelAnd in Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel looked ahead to a House vote, possibly as early as Tuesday, to authorize the release of the files, with dozens of Republicans expected to break ranks. “Which has forced Trump to now claim that he’s for the files being released,” Kimmel noted. “After almost a year of saying he didn’t want them released, after a year of stalling, hedging, browbeating members of his own party, last night, all of a sudden, Trump reversed course completely.”Trump posted on Truth Social: “As I said on Friday night aboard Air Force One to the Fake News Media, House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide.”“We have nothing to hide?” Kimmel laughed. “There’s no ‘we’. ‘We’ have nothing to hide. It’s just you.“If you have nothing hide, why even have the vote?” he added. “Why not just have the Department of Justice release the files now?“After 10 months of fighting tooth and nail, doing everything he could to keep the files secret, he’s now asking for a full release,” Kimmel continued, “which is what got all these guys in trouble in the first place.“So his plan now is hurry up and release the files so I can start saying they’re fake.”Trump also instructed Pam Bondi, his attorney general, to investigate prominent Democrats’ ties to Epstein. “Which is like Diddy ordering an investigation into why there were so many bottles of baby oil in his house,” Kimmel joked. More