Latest news with #DineshDSouza
Yahoo
20-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump officials ‘discussing' release of ‘some sort' of additional Epstein material: Haberman
CNN political analyst Maggie Haberman said late Tuesday that Trump administration officials are considering the release of 'some sort of additional material' tied to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. 'There is a discussion about releasing some sort of additional material. We will see what that looks like,' said Haberman, a New York Times political correspondent, during an appearance on CNN's 'AC360.' 'The problem they've created for themselves … is whatever partial information they release, it will never be seen as enough. It will never be believed,' she added. The battle over releasing the Epstein files has roiled President Trump's MAGA base and divided GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill. In July, the Justice Department and FBI said in a joint memo that Epstein did not keep a client list, and evidence supports the suicide ruling in the disgraced financier's death. 'I think this has been a real lesson to top officials in this government that if you say something over and over again, your own followers are not necessarily going to stick with you if you say something different later,' Haberman said. Her remarks come as conservative voices have begun urging Trump's MAGA base to stop focusing on the controversy. 'I think that right now it seems pretty clear we're not going to get more information out of the government. They have closed the case,' right-wing podcaster Dinesh D'Souza said on the matter. 'Unless Ghislaine Maxwell, who's in prison, speaks out, and she's free to speak out.' He encouraged the public to 'move on' from the controversy and accept the information published after the official investigation. 'How can people be expected to have faith in Trump if he won't release the Epstein files?' Elon Musk asked last week in a post on social platform X, which the billionaire former White House aide owns. Another former White House aide, Steve Bannon, said the controversy could cost the GOP approximately 40 House seats in the midterm elections and potentially the White House in 2028. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Independent
02-07-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Asia rallies behind Zohran Mamdani over MAGA criticism for eating rice with his hand
A Texan Congressman's criticism of New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani for eating rice with his bare hands has sparked a backlash, with people across Asia standing up for the common practice. The 33-year-old Democratic candidate is seen in a resurfaced interview tucking into a bowl of biryani with his hands while answering questions about his campaign. 'The holy grail of taboos in American politics, which include socialism, Islam and Palestine. You are really going for the trifecta. Tell me why is Palestine a part of your politics?" Mr Mamdani is asked in a 2023 interview with Uncivilised Media. 'When you grow up as someone especially in the third world you have a very different understanding of the Palestinian struggle,' he says in the resurfaced clip. But the seemingly simple, everyday habit of millions of people across rice-eating nations chafed GOP Congressman Brandon Gill who asked Mr Mamdani to 'go back to the Third World' if he wished to eat rice by hand. Mr Gill shared the clip on X on Monday with a comment that suggested that eating rice with anything but a spoon or a fork went against the grain of American civilisation. 'Civilised people in America don't eat like this. If you refuse to adopt Western customs, go back to the Third World,' he wrote. Mr Gill was immediately called out by X users, some of whom referenced his Indian-origin wife Danielle D'Souza, the daughter of conservative political commentator Dinesh D'Souza. But Mr Gill's father-in-law joined in, posting an image of him eating out, saying: 'My culture lesson for Mamdani: Eating with your hands is acceptable when it's bread, naan or pizza. Not when it's soup, meatloaf or mashed potatoes. Indians sometimes eat rice with their hands in India, but it's much more common in rural areas. In America, it's considered gross.' Ms Gill also posted in her husband's support, saying, "I did not grow up eating rice with my hands and have always used a fork. I was born in America. I'm a Christian MAGA patriot. My father's extended family lives in India and they are also Christian and they use forks too. Thank you for your attention to this matter." MAGA activist Laura Loomer said: 'Disgusting. My dogs are cleaner and more civilised when they eat than little Muhammad.' Mr Mamdani, born in Uganda to Indian parents, if elected, would be the city's first Muslim and Indian American mayor. On Tuesday, the New York City Election board confirmed his victory in the Democratic primary, clearing the way for him to be the party's nominee for the November mayoral election. Several people suggested there was an inherent 'hypocrisy' in critiquing the rice-eating custom when Americans eat burgers, tacos, french fries and pizza the same way. 'Many countries in the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, and parts of Southeast Asia practice eating with hands as a traditional custom,' wrote one user. 'She ate dog food at a live show for some $ but she is calling Mamdani uncivilized for eating rice with his hands. The hypocrisy is almost impressive. Billions eat with their hands daily. To call it 'uncivilized' is pure racism,' one user posted in criticism of Ms Loomer's comment on Mr Mamdani. The user was referring to the right-wing political activist posting a video tasting a dog food product that she claimed came from 'an amazing company' – one that has pushed MAGA ideals and is a favourite on the conservative-favoured platform Rumble. The day after Mr Mamdani's victory, president while the Republican party's congressional campaign arm promised to tie him to every vulnerable Democrat in next year's midterm elections. Mr Mamdani has said that his objective was "to win people back to the Democratic party".
Gizmodo
06-06-2025
- Politics
- Gizmodo
Conspiracy Theorists Think the Elon-Trump Feud Is Just a Ruse to Expose the Real Pedophiles
Elon Musk dropped a bombshell in his new feud with Donald Trump on Thursday, claiming the president is 'in the Epstein files,' a reference to the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. The billionaire claimed it was why the files hadn't yet been released, despite ongoing and increasingly desperate promises from Attorney General Pam Bondi. But conspiracy theorists are too smart to believe Trump was actually in cahoots with Epstein. In fact, they believe the entire war of words between the president and the Tesla CEO is all a ruse to finally expose the real pedophiles. Or something. Conspiracy theorist Dinesh D'Souza, the director of the discredited 'documentary' 2000 Mules, posted to X on Thursday that perhaps the fight between these two men was actually the start of something much bigger. 'Is this some sort of perverse scheme to force the release of the Epstein files?' D'Souza wrote. 'How great it would be to have a horde of bad guys publicly exposed. Then Trump and Elon break out the champagne. Elon says, 'Told you I could get Democrats to scream for that list.' Laughter!' Obviously, D'Souza's logic here doesn't make any sense. The Trump administration doesn't need Democrats to get upset for any files to be released. The attorney general said they would be released, and instead, she invited a bunch of far-right weirdos to the White House back in February to hold up binders with no new information in them. D'Souza was granted a pardon by Trump in 2018 after he was convicted for illegal campaign contributions, but he's one of the relatively mainstream pundits who all think Musk and Trump are playing 10D chess. There's also an army of absolute dipshits who believe in the QAnon conspiracy theory currently insisting on social media that it's all a ruse. And they're pointing to tweets from Democrats as proof that it's the other side who should be worried. The Democratic Party's X account seized on the dispute Thursday, writing, 'What is Trump hiding? Release the Epstein files.' And that caused people like Liz Crokin, a journalist-turned-QAnon lunatic, to insist, 'They already took the bait hook line & sinker!' In another tweet, Crokin called it the 'fake Trump-Elon feud' referring to it as kayfabe, the wrestling term for portraying staged events as real. Crokin joined the likes of fellow conspiracy theorist Alex Jones in arguing that there's no evidence Trump was doing anything nefarious with Epstein: 'I've also been investigating President @realDonaldTrump ties to Jeffrey Epstein for the past decade and came to the same conclusion @AlexJones has. There's zero evidence implicating Trump in any crimes!' Jones initially seemed open to the idea that Trump was doing something sketchy with Epstein on Thursday but later framed his tweets as just asking questions. By Friday, Jones was on his show InfoWars putting his finger to the wind trying to defend both men, while insisting the Democrats were the real criminals. 'Almost everybody was asking are you on Trump's side or Musk's side and I said I'm on neither side. I'm on team humanity, which means I'm on the side of truth,' Jones said on his show Friday. 'If the Democrats had any real proof of Trump involved with underage girls with Epstein you'd heard about it nine years ago.' The people who believe in conspiracy theories like QAnon are firmly planted in the MAGA camp and need to accomplish some incredible feats of mental gymnastics to hold the beliefs that they do. Jeffrey Epstein was well known as a friend of Trump's when the two lived in Palm Beach. And Epstein told a journalist over the course of 100 hours of discussion that he had photos of Trump with 'young girls' who were 'topless.' The way Trump supporters rationalize all of this is they insist Trump distanced himself from Epstein because the late pedophile tried to hit on the daughter of a club member at Mar-a-Lago. But other reports suggest their friendship actually ended over a real estate deal that went south. Whatever happened, there's no question that Trump and Epstein were very close, something the president has previously acknowledged in a 2002 interview that he was 'fun' and a 'terrific guy.' Conservative media has long tried to distance Trump from Epstein, with a Fox News segment in 2020 even editing the president out of a photo with the notorious sex criminal. And Fox News was clearly off balance on Thursday night, unsure who to root for. Musk also has his connections to Epstein, even if they're not quite so direct as an open friendship. Business Insider reported back in 2020 that Epstein set up Musk's brother Kimball with a girlfriend. And, of course, there's that infamous picture of Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell with Musk at a party in 2014. The billionaire has tried to say she just photobombed him but it's not clear what was actually happening there, since other reports have come out that they talked. For his part, Trump said in 2020 that he 'wished her well' when Maxwell was found guilty of sex trafficking. But people who have previously celebrated both Musk and Trump seem to be forced into choosing a side. One of the things that's getting lost in the fight between Trump and Musk is that Musk seems to be admitting he somehow had access to tightly held files at the U.S. Department of Justice. And that's certainly believable, given Musk's access to the private data of American citizens over recent months. Among all the conspiracy theories online, there were also jokes. So many jokes. As social media's most legendary account @dril put it, 'the president wont see your cheap dunks against jeffery epstein. But your friends who have ties to state sponsored pedophilia will.' And then there were the memes. Just endless memes. It remains to be seen what impact this fight may have on the real world, from Musk's contracts with the federal government to all those DOGE staffers who've wedged themselves into the nooks and crannies of the federal government. As Wired reported this week, guys like 19-year-old Edward 'Big Balls' Coristine went from Special Government Employees to full-time government staff raking in some of the highest possible salaries. There are plenty of people who are insisting Trump and Musk could quickly reconcile and all of this could be old news by next week. And that's entirely possible. But it's really hard to just go back to being best friends after you play the pedo card, something that Musk likes to do frequently. Remember when Musk got upset at the cave diver in Thailand after that soccer team got stuck in a cave? The diver said Musk's idea for a rescue submarine wouldn't work, which incensed the billionaire. Incredibly, Musk won a defamation suit filed by the diver after the Tesla CEO said he didn't literally mean to call him a pedophile. It doesn't seem like either man is going to file any lawsuits over their current spat, but they're both extremely litigious. And if Trump makes good on his threats to pull NASA contracts from SpaceX, you can bet Musk will try to retaliate in any way he can. These guys love their retribution, which is good for them when they're working together on the same team. But aiming that hatred at each other could get messy very quickly.
New York Times
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
The Virtues of Ideological Art
What is successful right-wing art? I posed that question to Jonathan Keeperman, who runs the far-right publisher Passage Press, on my podcast a couple of weeks ago, and you can tell that it's a tricky question because he took two separate bites at answering it, offering one response in our conversation and a revised one in a subsequent post on his Substack. In the first answer he suggested that we should understand 'right-wing art' as any art that tells the whole truth about the world, free from the ideological strictures and sensitivity reads imposed by contemporary progressivism. To me that seemed conveniently circular — reality has a well-known conservative bias, therefore any truthtelling art is inherently right-wing — and he tacitly acknowledged as much in his follow-up; there he suggested that the very concept of 'right-wing art' might be a category error, since art can't be circumscribed by politics and the artist's job is to be a truthteller and let the political implications take care of themselves. The second answer is the more attractive one for creators and critics, but I don't find it quite satisfying either. Certainly it doesn't resolve the tension inherent in Keeperman's own publishing project, which is trying to break away from the agitprop that often defines right-wing culture in modern America (think Dinesh D'Souza documentaries and Christian message movies), while also trading on the idea that there is special aesthetic value in the forbidden territory of far-right prose, among writers (from H.P. Lovecraft down to Curtis Yarvin) deemed dangerous because of their racism or sexism or authoritarianism. The same tension shows up in more mainstream quests to fix conservatism's broken relationship to the higher forms of culture. In his new book, '13 Novels Conservatives Will Love (but Probably Haven't Read),' Christopher Scalia is self-consciously trying to educate conservative readers into a deeper appreciation of literary culture — to add more literary fiction to the works of political theory and history that many right-wing readers favor, and to expand the familiar list of novelists beloved by conservatives beyond 'Lord of the Rings,' 'Atlas Shrugged' and maybe 'Brideshead Revisited.' In doing this he's aware of the risk of instrumentalizing the works he's celebrating, and so he cautions that 'any artist who elevates his political point above the techniques and elements of his craft is creating propaganda, not art.' But he's still urging people to read Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walter Scott and P.D. James because they illuminate a particular philosophical or ideological perspective on the world, not for the sake of their artfulness alone. Which leaves open the question of whether conscious philosophical or ideological motivations can themselves create particular artistic value, rather than yielding inevitably to propaganda. I think the answer has to be yes — that the concepts of 'successful right-wing art' and 'successful left-wing art' are both meaningful descriptions, not just category errors or excuses for agitprop, insofar as both 'right' and 'left' perspectives on the world capture aspects of reality that can be non-propagandistically portrayed. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Time of India
03-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Beyond the White House: What the American President pays for out of pocket
Image credits: Getty Images Former first lady of America, Michelle Obama recently appeared on " The Diary of a CEO " podcast and shared a bit about her life in the White House. One of the most viral comments in the interview is where she shared that many might not be aware of the fact that living in the White House is "expensive." "You're paying for every bit of food that you eat. If you're not travelling with the President if your kids are coming on the Bright Star, which is the first lady's plane. We had to pay for their travel to be on the plane. It is expensive" said the 61-year-old former first lady. — DineshDSouza (@DineshDSouza) But how much does the President of America have to pay out of his own pocket while residing in the White House? Find out below! Personal food and groceries Image credits: iStock On various occasions, Obama has revealed that the first family is billed for their food items and groceries. She has mentioned it in her memoir 'Becoming' and even explained a bit about it in a 2018 interview with Jimmy Kimmel, saying, 'If you say you want some exotic fruit, 'Yes, ma'am, we'll get that right away,' and then you get the bill for a peach and it's like, that was a $500 peach!?' Staff for non-official duties Image credits: iStock While the president does not have to pay for the staff in the White House, they do have to pay for non-official staff such as personal trainers, stylists, hairstylists and more. Designer clothes and dry cleaning Image credits: Getty Images All the designer garments worn by the President and the First Lady have to be paid for by them. And if a designer gifts them outfits, they have to be donated after one wear. 'I was amazed by the sheer number of designer clothes that I was expected to buy, like the women before me, to meet the expectations for a first lady," wrote former First Lady Laura Bush in her memoir 'Spoken From the Heart' Additionally, the first family has to pay for their own dry cleaning, according to the CNN. Vacation expenses Image credits: Getty Images When the president and family go on a vacation, they have to pay out of pocket for their accommodation, food and incidentals during the getaway. However, the security and the expenses to and fro are paid for. Gifts and personal items Image credits: Getty Images When the president receives an official gift, it becomes government property. If they wish to retain the gift they have to purchase it at the appraised value. Additionally, according to Jennifer Capps, curator and historian at the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site in Indianapolis, when they give a dignitary a gift, they have to pay for it out of their own pocket.
