Deeply ambivalent about starting out this morning with ongoing Iranian attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and retaliatory strikes on Iran by the United States (with attendant rises in oil prices). On the one hand, it’s important information about the world that will affect American politics and Americans’ lives. On the other hand, this is supposed to be a newsletter. Happy Monday.
Join Will Sommer and Sam Stein at 10:00 a.m. EDT today for MAGA Mondays on Substack and YouTube.
Give Blanche’s Hearing to the Epstein Survivors
by William Kristol
A year ago, on July 17, 2025, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche hurried to an emergency evening meeting in the White House Situation Room with his fellow Trump administration apparatchiks. Its location might suggest it had to do with national security. It didn’t. It was about the political security of Donald Trump.
Ten days earlier, the Trump administration had tried to close the door on the Jeffrey Epstein matter. The Justice Department and the FBI had announced that the Epstein investigation was complete, that nothing further could or should be done, and no new documents would be made public. But that effort to stonewall was already falling apart. Now it had to be replaced with a more elaborate coverup.
Orchestrating that coverup was the point of the Situation Room meeting. A week later, Blanche flew to Florida to meet with Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell and ensure she continued not to talk. A week after that, Maxwell was transferred to a cushy federal prison. Since then, Blanche has since presided over the Justice Department’s non-compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, as well as the botching of the legally required redactions of names of and details concerning several Epstein survivors. In short, Blanche has been central to the Epstein coverup.
This week Blanche will be appearing before the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, making the case for his confirmation as attorney general.
There are, needless to say, many important issues to raise with Blanche, who has been shameless in turning the United States Justice Department into Trump’s personal law firm. But if Democratic senators want to stop him—or if, failing that, they at least want to weaken him and the Trump administration’s assault on the rule of law—the Epstein coverup should be their focus.
As we saw after the failed attempt to stonewall the Epstein case, and as we have seen since in the none-too-successful coverup, the Epstein case matters to the public. And the public isn’t pleased with what they’ve seen from the Trump administration.
For example, a poll last month showed that seventy-five percent of Americans—including sixty-six percent of Republicans—believe that the federal government is continuing to hide information about Epstein and his clients. And just ten percent of Americans—and just twenty-one percent of Republicans—think the Trump administration has helped deliver justice in cases connected to Epstein.
And our colleague Sarah Longwell reports that “voters still bring up the files, often unprompted, in many of the focus groups we conduct. And it’s not just partisan Democrats; we hear it from all kinds of groups—men, women, young, old, Republicans of all stripes, from three-time Trump voters to Biden-to-Trump flippers.”
Here are a couple of examples from Sarah’s focus groups:
“Obviously it’s all a coverup from Trump originally being like he didn’t want it to be released,” said Allison, a 2024 Trump voter who now disapproves of the job the president is doing. “He was very dismissive about it. A reporter was mentioning Epstein, he’s like, ‘Why are we still talking about this guy?’ It’s like, why would we stop talking about him?”
And,
A 2024 Trump voter named Wednesday offered the most damning critique: “I watched the dozens of women victims go on TV, go on interviews, and beg this administration and this president for help. . . . Trump got on TV and called what they were saying and the Epstein files a ‘Democratic hoax.’”
Democratic senators can highlight Blanche’s leadership of the coverup and make him try to defend it. As Sarah puts it, “When voters scroll through their social media feeds after the hearing, Democrats should ensure that they get clip after clip of Blanche squirming to justify his handling of the Epstein files.”
It’s also likely that when Blanche testifies on Wednesday, Epstein survivors will be present. Will Blanche, who has refused to meet with them, acknowledge them? Will he apologize for the botched redaction process over which he presided that exposed them to further pain and harassment? Will he repudiate Trump’s dismissal of them?
On Thursday, Democrats intend to use their limited ability to call witnesses to have at least one courageous Epstein survivor appear. That testimony could be the highlight of the hearing.
Recent experience suggests that it will be difficult to persuade Republican senators to break with Trump—though Epstein is the one issue on which Republicans in Congress have notably done so. But if Republicans do stick with Trump and Blanche is confirmed, this will dramatically make the case for why Republicans need to be deprived of continued control of the Senate. If Susan Collins in Maine and Dan Sullivan in Alaska and Jon Husted in Ohio and Ashley Moody in Florida and Roger Marshall in Kansas vote for Blanche, voters in their states will have a chance this November to hold them accountable, and to ensure greater accountability over the next two years for the Trump administration.
And by the way, do John Cornyn and Thom Tillis and Bill Cassidy want to end their last terms in the Senate voting to enable the ongoing Epstein coverup?
It’s worth noting that defeating Blanche—and/or removing Republicans who would prevent serious oversight and legislation in 2027 and 2028—would not only mean a chance at justice for Epstein survivors and for the truth about Epstein. It would also weaken the Trump administration’s ability to continue its project of what NYU law professor Ryan Goodman calls “radical lawlessness,” which is intensifying and, if unchecked by Congress, will continue to intensify.
Democrats in Congress often lament their inability to affect the course of events in the era of Trump. This week’s confirmation hearing provides them a chance to act.
LINDSEY GRAHAM, R.I.P.
by Benjamin Parker
There will be more to say in the coming days about the life and career of South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who died unexpectedly late Saturday night. One thing that’s hard not to notice, though, is the way in which his career arc so directly mirrors that of the modern Republican party. Even in an abbreviated life, he outlived the version of the GOP he worked in for so long.
Graham was elected to Congress in the “Republican Revolution” year of 1994, when the mainstream of the party were conscience conservatives, somewhat overlapping with but not yet dominated by the radically religious wing of the party. Graham rose quickly in this environment, becoming one of the House managers of Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial in just his second term in Congress.
But it was in the Senate that Graham made his real reputation. Joining the chamber in 2003, just months before the invasion of Iraq, he made his name as a neoconservative foreign policy hawk, especially regarding Middle Eastern issues. He was, famously, a consistent wingman for John McCain until the latter’s death in 2018.
Graham’s campaign for president in 2016 was pretty transparently just a gambit to win support for his style of foreign policy, in opposition to both Obama-era, lead-from-behind retrenchment in the Democratic party and Rand Paul-style libertarian isolationism then rising in the Republican party.
Graham was at that time a frequent, cogent, pointed, and sound critic of Donald Trump—so much so that Trump, in a pique of annoyance, gave out his cell phone number at a rally.
Throughout his Senate career, he was also a frequent exponent of bipartisan, comprehensive immigration reform—though never to much avail.
Graham’s most dogged pursuit, however, wasn’t any policy. It was electoral victory: both his own and his party’s. He went from Trump critic to Trump ally as soon as it was politically advantageous—then seemed to sour on Trump after January 6th before going right back to him. He once talked about Joe Biden as the kindest soul in politics, then participated in the savaging of the Biden family when it served Trump’s interest.
The full story of how Graham thought he could use Trump and Trumpism to his own ends—but was in turn used by Trump and his movement—has been told by Will Saletan. Will wrote that piece in 2023. But the end of Graham’s story is not much different from where he left off, except it’s now more certain.
Comprehensive immigration reform has never seemed less likely. Instead, the Republican party—Graham very much included—either cheered or meekly piped down as Trump’s mass deportations sent innocent people to foreign torture chambers and killed people—some American citizens, others trying to become American citizens—in the streets.
And this Republican president—whom Graham did so much to support, to legitimize, to try to influence—started a war in the Middle East that has resulted in the strengthening of a terroristic, tyrannical Islamist regime, a heavier burden on the people living under that regime, a rebalance of power in the region against the United States, a major rift between the United States and Israel, and a weaker American military posture around the world.
Graham tried, over a three-decade career in Washington, to be always at the center of his party. In that, at least, he never failed.
AROUND THE BULWARK
One Weird Trick for Torpedoing Todd Blanche’s Hearing… Trump voters tell me again and again they’re disappointed with the president over one thing. It could complicate his hopes for a new attorney general, writes SARAH LONGWELL.
Susan Collins Is Beatable No Matter Who Replaces Platner… Her old formula—express concern but side with Trump—is facing its toughest test yet, argues JILL LAWRENCE.
NATO’s Annual Circus Comes to Turkey… On Shield of the Republic, ERIC EDELMAN and ELIOT COHEN survey the latest geopolitical absurdities, from Erdoğan gifting revolvers and live, gold-plated ammunition at the NATO summit to the fine print behind Trump’s Ukraine policy—and, because no week is complete without it, Graham Platner’s latest self-inflicted disaster.
Quick Hits
LIFE’S A MITCH: Turns out Sen. Mitch McConnell was basically fine this whole time! At least, that’s the report the senator gave. McConnell (really, some aide) posted a photo of himself and his wife, former Secretary of Labor/Transportation Elaine Chao, along with a statement Sunday, explaining his recent weeks of hospitalization:
Last month, I took a fall which landed me in the hospital.
My doctors have confirmed that I didn’t break any bones or suffer a concussion. I didn’t have a heart attack or a stroke. I don’t have any tumors or hemorrhages. But I was briefly unconscious and was taken to the hospital. While receiving excellent care over the past several weeks, I’ve also had to deal with a mild case of pneumonia.
I can assure you that I’ve been a good patient. At my age, I tend to do what my doctors tell me to do. I’ve submitted to every test they can think of to help figure out what caused this incident. And I’m continuing to do everything they ask to speed my recovery. In fact, with signs of continued progress, I’ve been able to move from hospital care to a rehabilitation center where I’ll keep regaining my strength.
Usually it’s not a good sign when you have to list the diseases you don’t have—or when you find it appropriate to hold a copy of the latest issue of a newspaper to prove you’re still alive to this very day.
The tone of McConnell’s statement clearly suggests that, after this rough patch, everything will be just fine in no time. The photo—accompanied by no video or audio recording and quickly dissected by every wanna-be internet sleuth on X—probably won’t cut it.
CRIME AND ASTONISHMENT: Was January 6th an insurrection? The answer, up till the past two years, was obviously yes. It certainly was when federal prosecutors presented evidence to a jury, resulting in lengthy prison terms for several leaders of the Proud Boys, who led the storming of the Capitol that day.
But then Trump took office for the second time. And his Justice Department decided that, akshually, it wanted to drop the case post-conviction. Judge Timothy J. Kelly, while finding that he had no power to oppose the government’s motion, made it painstakingly clear that he thought it was—to use the legal jargon—horseshit:
First, there is little mystery about why the Government is moving to dismiss this case, or whether dismissal is in fact what the Executive seeks. President Trump’s views about the prosecution of those who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6—whether those views are based on fact or fiction—are well known, as is his intention to extend clemency to them . . .
All that said, because the decisions to issue the Executive Order and to abandon this prosecution—even after the Government secured convictions for serious crimes relating to the attack on the Capitol on January 6—are solely the Executive’s, no one should mistake the Court’s granting of the Government’s motion for its agreement with those decisions.
As the Court has said many times, the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 was a perilous event. It was an attack on people, including police officers, many of whom were injured. It was an attack on a coordinate branch of government—Congress—that [the] Founders saw fit to give a place of primacy in Article I of the Constitution. And it was an attack on the Constitution’s mechanism to facilitate the peaceful transfer of power from one president to the next, what President Reagan called “nothing less than a miracle.” President Ronald W. Reagan, Inaugural Address (Jan. 20, 1981). Moving forward, if this Nation’s experiment in self-government is to last another 250 years, the American people—no matter their partisan preferences—will have to act together to preserve, protect and defend that miracle through our constitutional framework.
I know it feels like we do this every week, but it’s worth repeating, so say it with us: Judge Kelly was nominated by Donald Trump.
KYIV CABINET RECAST: Almost exactly one year after he last reshuffled his cabinet and senior advisors, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has announced another series of senior personnel changes. So far, the only specific move is that Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko is set to step down, but Zelensky signaled other changes are following soon.
Svyrydenko was Ukraine’s second prime minister since the Russian full-scale invasion in 2022, and its fifth since the Russian–Ukrainian war first started in 2014. During that time, the country has had two presidents (two since 2022), four foreign ministers (two since 2022), three chiefs of staff to the president/heads of the presidential administration (two since 2022), and six chiefs of the general staff (three since 2022).
So it is possible to change personnel in the middle of a war. Just in case someone wanted to tell the White House.
Cheap Shots
Kristen Welker reported yesterday that Trump was "devastated" by Lindsay Graham's death. Don't mind her reporting what he said, but phrasing it as if she is vouching for Trump's sincerity is just idiotic. Personally, I think Trump would be more devastated if he dropped a quarter on the street and it rolled into the storm drain at the curb.
Call me crazy, but if GOP Senators didn't care that Donald Trump sent a mob to kill them on January 6 2021, why would they that the same Donald Trump is, in all likelihood, a pedophile? The only thing that matters to GOP Senators is staying in the Senate. The only thing that matters is power.
Want proof? Look how Lindsey Graham reinvented himself the past 9+ years of his life.