The Candace Owens Charlie Kirk Situation Has Split MAGA as More Accusations Spill Out
PDS Published 09/17/2025
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It’s been one week since the assination of Charlie Kirk.
The alleged murderer has now appeared in court – and Donald Trump’s crackdown on the left is only just beginning.
But let’s start with the updates surrounding 22-year-old Tyler Robinson – the man accused of shooting and killing Kirk at Utah Valley University last Wednesday.
He had his first virtual court appearance yesterday, where we saw him saying his name, standing silently against the wall, and occasionally nodding along – wearing a vest designed to prevent self-harm (BROLL).
The exact charges filed against him include aggravated murder, felony discharge of a firearm, two counts of obstructing justice, two counts of witness tampering, and the commission of a violence offense in the presence of a child.
With prosecutors confirming yesterday that they will pursue the death penalty against him if he’s convicted.
And beyond that, as far as what we learned, you had Utah County Attorney Jeffrey Gray revealing that it was in fact Robinson’s own mother who kicked off the sequence of events leading to his arrest.
With Gray explaining that “The day after the shooting, [she] saw the photo of the shooter in the news and thought the shooter looked like her son.” (15:39-15:50)
She then reportedly called Robinson, who said he had been at home sick, and shared her concern with his father – with that eventually leading to Robinson turning himself in.
But with that, Gray also made it a point to say that, quote:
“...explained that over the last year or so, Robinson had become more political and had started to lean more to the left – becoming more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented.” (16:17-16:30)
He also said that the mother had said her son had started “to date” his roommate who she claimed was “a biological male…transitioning genders.”
With Gray saying: “This resulted in several discussions with family members, but especially between Robinson and his father, who have very different political views.” (16:40-16:50)
And with that, you also had Gray pointing to text messages between Robinson and this roommate as a key piece of evidence.
Right, we talked about it briefly yesterday, but to go into more detail now, the roommate allegedly received a text message from Robinson which said:
“Drop what you are doing, look under my keyboard.’”
The roommate then did as instructed and found a note that said: “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I’m going to take it.”
And then after reading the note, the roommate responded: “What? You’re joking, right?’”
And Robinson responded by saying he couldn’t leave the area because of police activity, also saying that he still had to grab his rifle, which he had stashed nearby.
With the roommate asking again whether or not he did it, and Robinson replying:
“I am, I’m sorry” – to which the roommate answered: “I thought they caught the person?”
With Robinson responding:
“No, they grabbed some crazy old dude, then interrogated someone in similar clothing. I had planned to grab my rifle from my drop point shortly after, but most of that side of town got locked down.”
And actually, with that, the “crazy old due” Robinson mentioned – who was briefly detained moments after Kirk was hit?
That’s reportedly 71-year-old George Zinn, and according to Utah County Sheriff Michael Smith, Zinn admitted to police that he had "yelled that he was the shooter to allow the actual suspect to flee.”
And specifically, he reportedly said: "I shot him - now shoot me."
With him now being held on obstruction of justice charges – although separately he’s reportedly been charged with possession of child sex abuse material.
And a key thing to know is that the sheriff said there’s currently no evidence that Zinn was working with Robinson in any way.
Right, apparently, the guy is well known among organisers of public events in Salt Lake City.
With the New York Times reporting that "He showed up frequently to public forums with the intention to disrupt the event or question a high-profile speaker."
But in any case, going back to Robinson and the text messages, you reportedly also had the roommate asking him why he did it – and he replied:
“I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out. If I am able to grab my rifle unseen, I will have left no evidence. Going to attempt to retrieve it again, hopefully they have moved on. I haven’t seen anything about them finding it.”
He also said he had been planning it for “a bit over a week” and that the messages engraved on the casings from the rifle were “mostly a big meme.”
Adding, “if I see "notices bulge uwu" on fox new I might have a stroke”
And then he told the roommate to “Delete this exchange” before saying he would turn himself in willingly, with his last message saying:
“You are all I worry about love. Don’t talk to the media please. Don’t take any interviews or make any comments … if any police ask you questions ask for a lawyer and stay silent.”
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Right now, what we've seen since that's been said and reported is just so many theories swirling around online, basically claiming that the messages
don't sound like a real conversation between two young people. Right. Are people saying that it just too conveniently lays out everything that authorities need
to make a case? even seeing some suggesting that the messages were written by the FBI. the, then at the same time, you have others arguing
that the suspect and his roommate might have staged this conversation to provide an alibi for the roommate. Or with those? In this case, I'm suggesting that the roommate
was actually involved or knew about the plan beforehand. and that being tied into the effort that we're seeing from some that uses against the transgender community.
And then in addition to all of that is the, the Israel of it because one of the big theories is
that Israel is involved or somehow behind Kirk's death. you also people like long time friend to Charlie Kirk, Candace Owens,
at the very least looking to counter the public narratives around Charlie Kirk having the best relationship with Israeli or Jewish leadership.
truth is that Charlie was under immense pressure and he was face facing financial threats,
over his shifting stance on Israel, over who he was hosting.
Over on from his podcast, two people that were on stage at America Fest, Dave Smith, Tucker Carlson.
That is reality. My friends again, want those people to know your money means nothing to me.
I already said no to it. it's really expanded from there. Right. Tucker Carlson saying that Charlie Kirk revealed to him that he really didn't like Bibi Netanyahu.
he felt that Bibi Netanyahu was a very destructive force. He was appalled by what was happening in Gaza.
and then also at one point, Tucker talked about the alleged pressure that Kirk was under around Israel before his assassination.
he was dependent to a great extent on his donors. Of course, it's a nonprofit, and they went after him and tormented him.
Not all, of course, many were supportive, but, the ones who were offended by my speech and there was a small, very intense group
who were tormented Charlie Kirk until the day he died. Two days before he died, he lost a $2 million donation because he had
publicly pledged to bring me to the next Turning Point conference in December. And he told me over the past couple of months
he was losing a lot of donations over that pledge. They put out a flier basically saying that I was going to be at this event
giving a speech. And so he would text me and say, man, I'm really taking a lot of heat for this. And people really mad.
The American Jewish Committee called in a statement, Charlie Kirk an anti-Semite and quote, Dangerous Charlie Kirk, an anti-Semite.
Yeah. He was not an anti-Semite. then at the same time people like Senator Ted Cruz tweeting.
getting really tired of Tucker and his cronies falsely claiming Charlie agreed with me, that Israel is terrible. And the problem in America is all the damn Jews.
saying I knew Charlie well. And indeed the very last conversation we had was how deeply concerned he was about the rising toxic wave of anti-Semitism on the right.
but that is also just a small taste of what's been happening on that front. at the same time. Well, that appears to have been happening organically.
You're also seeing reports that pro-Iranian groups have been pushing the conspiracy as well. with a number of people saying this is just one of the ways
that foreign powers may be spreading disinformation about Kirk's killing in order to sow even further division in the United States.
Right. And that is also we're seeing reports that Russian groups are actually trying to tie Kirk's death to US support for Ukraine,
some even spreading the lie that the Ukrainian government killed Kirk because of his criticism of that aid. again, a lot of this isn't about the creation of it's the amplification of.
you've got people out there like a senior research manager at the Institute for Strategic Dialog, noting that in many cases, the campaigns, they're not adding new claims,
but the recycling ones that just emerged naturally from American users they're picking up domestic actors and amplifying them.
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then with that, I'll say, brings us to another aspect of the situation. And that is a lot of people are talking about what this means about social media in general on multiple levels.
Records for one that suspects been described as someone that's chronically online, which is something that describes a lot of people nowadays, especially young people.
and it's also come to describe a growing number of people who have committed violent acts in the US with, for example, the Guardian reporting that, quote,
recent years, a growing number of shooters have left behind writings, whether full manifestos or single sentence posts online, that contain nihilistic
in-jokes and references that aim to differentiate their extremely online cohort from the normies who will struggle to understand them.
And with that, you have them pointing to perpetrators of mass shootings in Texas, New York, California and even New Zealand, just to name a few.
then connected to that, there's also the fact that conspiracy theories and divisive content are actually being pushed into social media feeds by design.
Because that's one of the big kinds of content that keeps people on the platforms for longer periods of time. which is also something you saw Utah Governor Spencer
Cox pointing out a few days ago, saying the most powerful companies in the history of the world have figured out how to hack our brains,
get us addicted to outrage, and get us to hate each other. and also I'll say regarding Governor Cox, he is kind of stood out for
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a number of reasons, but especially because he's someone that, on the Republican side, has not joined the chorus of people who have just blamed the entire left.
that is resulted in things like Obama praising Cox for his handling of the situation, that at the same time, Steve Bannon
has called Cox a national embarrassment and even said he should be investigated. and then all of that, of course, is Donald Trump.
Members of his administration and many Republican lawmakers have just kept turning up the temperature. right. Continuing to insist that political violence
and the rhetoric fueling it is just a problem on one side with Senator Eric Schmidt, for example, saying yesterday.
we've hurt years, years of the left. Their loudest voices calling anyone on the right extremist, extremist
MAGA Republicans, fascist Nazis and existential threat to democracy.
Check yourself it. Don't give me this. Both sides bullshit. with this, I'll start by saying Schmidt is not lying when he says that people,
including prominent Democrats, have used this type of language before. notably one they're experts on democracy and fascism who have said that language
isn't without reason. and even JD Vance once compared Trump to Hitler but also separately from that Trump literally called Kamala Harris fascist
multiple times on the campaign trail. and there's a long list of violent remarks that Trump has made, including, for example, suggesting that general Mark Milley should be executed.
right. The point of all that isn't to just keep playing the blame game and say it's all the Republicans. Well, but just to be very clear about the hypocrisy of what people like
this are saying. right. And that is also true if you're just looking at randos on social media, you can find people saying outrageous shit in every unique flavor you can think of.
but then also, of course, when it comes to actual political violence that is taken place, we should look at the data, Cause the economists, for example, pointed to an analysis of felony
criminal cases involving political violence done by researchers at the University of Cincinnati. and what you see there is that extreme is on
both the left and right, commit violence. But more incidents appear to come from right leaning attackers. also, another study looking at political violence
between 1990 and 2020 found that there were far more frequent and deadly attacks by the hard right than the hard left.
Although left wing violence increased throughout the study period. you also the Anti-Defamation League finding it from 2010 to 2019,
76% of extremist related murders were committed by those on the right. also the Cato Institute found that over the last
five years, 81 people have been killed by political violence in the United States and right wing terrorist account for over half of them,
the center for Strategic and International Studies analyzed almost a thousand terrorist plots between 1994 and 2020.
And they concluded right wing attacks and plots account for the majority of all terrorist incidents in the United States since 1994.
were also, as we're talking about data and studies, we should know that after Kirk's murder, the Justice Department actually removed a government
study based on three decades of research, which also found that far right extremists have killed far more Americans than any other domestic terrorist group.
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But of course, none of that means Trump is gonna back down on his vow to punish the “Radical left”
Right, his team is reportedly crafting an executive order nominally aimed at combatting political violence and hate speech that could come as soon as this week,
But we’ll see what that actually looks like – one thing we know is that they're talking about targeting the tax-exempt statuses of nonprofits – possibly by designating them as domestic terrorist organizations.
And you had Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche saying yesterday that even people noisily protesting Trump could face investigation if “it’s part of an organized effort to inflict harm and terror and damage to the United States.”
With this all being part of a defense of Trump’s comments earlier in the week that Attorney General Pam Bondi should prosecute people who loudly protested outside the restaurant where he had dinner last week.
And with that, you also had Blanche trying to do damage control on Bondi’s comments about prosecuting hate speech – which she herself had to walk back and say she was only talking about speech promoting violence.
But in any case, a key thing is that Trump said he asked Pam to look into prosecuting those protesters by bringing RICO cases against them.
And that’s something he’s been talking a lot about lately.
Right, he’s called for a RICO investigation of George Soros without providing any evidence of wrongdoing.
And he’s suggested it might be one of his ways of going after the left-wing groups he ‘s blaming for Kirk’s death.
Right, and RICO? It’s the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
It basically allows prosecutors to charge everyone involved in a criminal organization even if certain individuals weren’t directly involved in the crime.
And notably, Ted Cruz is already pushing a bill that would expand the law’s powers, mainly by adding rioting to the list of offenses that could be used to bring a case.
And that would potentially enable federal prosecutors to seek charges against and seize the assets of organizations and individuals who fund or coordinate protests that result in violence.
And of course, with any of this, even if they don’t win, the intimidation, the legal costs? It all has an impact.
So this is all definitely something that we’re going to be continuing to keep a very close eye on.
And in the meantime, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
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Right, he and Melania were greeted today by members of the Royal Family for a two day visit, where many events will take place at Windsor Castle, just outside of London.
And last night, right around when Trump was touching down in the country, protestors projected images of him and Jeffrey Epstein onto the castle.
They even played videos of the two together, projected the alleged letter from Epstein’s birthday book, and a quote where Epstein said, “I was Donald’s closest friend for 10 years.”
And four people were arrested over this, reportedly for “malicious communications.”
Those arrested ranged from 36 to 60 years old, and authorities said they stopped the projections swiftly and an investigation is underway.
But that was not the only major public stunt calling out Trump’s ties to Epstein.
A group called Everyone Hates Elon took credit for displaying a massive banner of Trump and Epstein outside of Windsor Castle.
In the town of Windsor, a truck was also seen driving around with an image of the two with the text “Welcome to the UK, Donald.”
And there is a history of protestors turning out in the U.K. when Trump visits, and there are many other demonstrations in the country against Trump right now focused more on his policy, not just the Epstein scandal.
But this does come as Epstein is a hot button issue over there, too.
First, there’s the Prince Andrew of it all, right,
But then, just last week, Prime Minister Keir Starmer fired the country’s ambassador to the U.S. over his ties to Epstein.
Multiple news outlets published emails the ambassador had sent to Epstein,
Including one where he suggested Epstein’s conviction was “wrongful and should be challenged.”
And Starmer said he would have never have appointed him if he knew about these links, claiming those emails:
"cut across the whole approach that I've taken on violence against women and girls for many years and this government's."
And Starmer is notably set to meet with Trump during this visit, discussing a tech deal, the war in Ukraine, and more. []
But reports have said that they both will likely face Epstein-related questions during this time as well.[]
And there are also other Epstein updates coming from the United States.
Because the House Oversight Committee just released the transcript of Attorney General Bill Barr’s deposition yesterday.
And in some standout moments, he shut down conspiracy theories about Epstein’s death, saying “it was undoubtedly suicide.”[]
Claiming there was evidence about his state of mind pointing to suicide, and he just did not think it was possible for someone to reach Epstein without being caught on camera.
With him even calling the video the “icing on the cake.”
Though he did acknowledge there did appear to be a “blind spot” in the footage, as well as other errors made in the prison.
As far as Trump, Barr said he had only discussed Epstein with the president on two occasions:
Once when Epstein came up as news of the day conversation, and Trump apparently said he had broken things off with Epstein a long time ago and “pushed him out of Mar-a-Lago.”
And then also when Barr informed Trump of Epstein’s death,
With Barr telling Trump something to the effect of: "You better brace for this.”
And according to Barr, Trump:
“Had the same reaction I did, which was, ‘How the hell did that happen, he's in Federal custody?’"
But the House committee is set to interview more people, and is seeking even more information from Epstein’s estate, so we will have to keep an eye out for all of that.
And I would love to know your thoughts on any of this so far.
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RFK Jr. just got called out on the Senate floor by the very person he fired.
Her name is Doctor Susan Monarez [Pronounce 00:02], she was the CDC director until she was forced out last month, and today she told her story publically for the first time. [Image]
Testifying before the Senate health committee alongside Doctor Deb Houry [Pronounce 00:11], one of the three top CDC officials who resigned in protest after Monarez’s firing.
And notably, the chairman of that committee, Bill Cassidy, was a crucial Republican holdout during Kennedy’s confirmation hearings.
With him finally voting for RFK only after getting a promise that the new health secretary wouldn’t threaten vaccine access.
Well clearly, that promise is now in tatters, as RFK, among other things, fired the entire vaccine advisory panel known as ACIP [A-sip] and filled it with people who have been described as anti-vaxxers.
Leading the Senate finance committee to haul him up for questioning last week, and he defended his purge as absolutely necessary. [Lead B roll into clip]
[Clip, 02:14 - 02:32] Caption: “If we don’t end this chronic disease, we are the sickest country in the world. That’s why we have to fire people at the CDC. They did not do their job. This was their job to keep us healthy, and I need to fire some of those people to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Well today, the health committee heard from two of those people themselves, starting with Monarez, who said that on August 19, RFK told her she would need prior approval from political leadership for policy and personnel decisions.
Then, on August 21, she said she was told to return from Atlanta to D.C. immediately.
Which she said she was unwilling to do because it would’ve meant missing the memorial for the police officer who died during the shooting by an anti-vaxx gunman at CDC headquarters that month.
Speaking of which, Monarez also testified that RFK never gave the agency so much as a courtesy call after that traumatic attack.
Anyway, everything seems to have come to a head on August 25, when she apparently had a very contentious meeting with Kennedy.
[Clip, 24:30 - 25:16] Caption: “Secretary Kennedy demanded two things of me that were inconsistent with my oath of office and the ethics required of a public official. He directed me to commit in advance to approving every ACIP recommendation regardless of the scientific evidence. He also directed me to dismiss career officials responsible for vaccine policy without cause. He said if I was unwilling to do both, I should resign. I responded that I could not preapprove recommendations without reviewing the evidence, and I had no basis to fire scientific experts.”
Or in other words, I’ll just let her anger translator, Bernie Sanders, put that a little more clearly.
[Same Clip, 14:20 - 14:29, 15:49 - 16:00] Caption: “She took the radical position that she wanted to examine the scientific facts before drawing conclusions. … It is absurd to have to say this in the year 2025, but vaccines are safe and effective!”
But continuing with Monarez, she said that when she resisted his demands, he just blew up.
[Same Clip, 01:40:10 - 01:40:19, 01:40:23 - 01:40:55] Caption: “He called in that context CDC the most corrupt federal agency in the world, emphasized that CDC employees were horrible people. He said that CDC employees were killing children and they don’t care. He said that CDC employees were bought by the pharmaceutical industry. He said CDC forced people to wear masks and social distance like a dictatorship. And the one I think that hurt me the most was a particularly vivid phrase. He said during the COVID outbreak CDC told hospitals to turn away sick COVID patients until they had blue lips before allowing them to get treatment.”
She also said that after her meeting with Kennedy, she informed the health committee that she was concerned she may not be able to keep the commitments to integrity and transparency that she made to it.
But reportedly the committee reached out to the White House for an explanation, and when RFK found out, he was not happy.
[Same Clip, 01:05:52 - 01:06:01] Caption: “He was very concerned that I had spoken to members of Congress, and he told me I was never to do it again.”
Which, if that’s true, is a seriously big deal.
Right, because the health committee is meant to oversee HHS, so ordering executive appointees not to speak to it arguably denies the legislative branch its power of oversight.
Not to mention breaking the Trump administration’s promise of “radical transparency” when it comes to health policy.
Anyway, after that exchange, both Monarez and Kennedy agree there was a discussion of her trustworthiness, but they disagree about what was said.
[Clip, 00:10 - 00:17] Caption: [RFK Jr.:] “I told her she had to resign because I asked her, ‘are you a trustworthy person?’, and she said no.”
[Clip, 27:02 - 27:05, 27:18 - 27:21] Caption: “Secretary Kennedy told me he could not trust me. … I told the secretary that if he believed he could not trust me, he could fire me.”
Either way, that’s exactly what Kennedy did just a couple days later, claiming it was because she admitted to being untrustworthy, while she says it was because she wouldn’t rubber stamp his panel’s decisions before knowing what those decisions even were or seeing the evidence.
[Same clip, 29:01 - 29:09] Caption: “I could have kept the office, the title, but I would have lost the one thing that cannot be replaced: my integrity.”
With Deb Houry, who, by the way, was the agency’s chief medical officer, saying much the same thing.
[Same clip, 30:48 - 30:58, 33:36 - 33:44] Caption: “I resigned because CDC leaders were reduced to rubber stamps supporting policies not based in science and putting American lives at risk. … I first learned that the secretary had changed our CDC COVID vaccine guidance on an X social media post.”
And illustrating just how cut off she and other scientists were from the political leadership, she said that neither she nor any center directors ever briefed Kennedy about anything.
[Same clip, 01:07:24 - 01:07:47] Caption: “We would have loved to have had the conversations with him. I offered to two different HHS leaders that we would like to brief the secretary. He never received that, and many times I would send emails to our leadership team to share with HHS when he did say things that weren’t scientifically correct so that we could help support him, but again, our requests were not received to brief him.”
Now just like the Democrats grilled RFK during his testimony, Republicans went after Monarez during this one.
Accusing her of being a political partisan, hiring anti-Trump lawyers, trying to humiliate Trump, that type of thing — it wasn’t really that interesting.
Though she and Rand Paul had this fun little back and forth during his five minutes.
[Same clip, 47:06 - 47:09, 47:17 - 47:26, 47:40 - 47:47, 48:17 - 48:28, 52:14 - 52:21] Caption: [Rand Paul:] “Does the COVID vaccine prevent transmission?” [Susan Monarez:] “When you have reduced viral load, you have reduced transmission.” [Rand Paul:] “But in other words, it doesn’t reduce transmission. You can still transmit the virus if you’ve had the vaccine. … Does the COVID vaccine reduce hospitalization for children under 18?” [Susan Monarez:] “It can.” [Rand Paul:] “It doesn’t. … Does the COVID vaccine reduce the rate of death for children under 18?” [Susan Monarez:] “It can.” [Rand Paul:] “Once again, ‘it can.’ That’s a ridiculous answer. No it doesn’t.” [Susan Monarez:] “I just would not precommit to approving all the ACIP recommendations without the science.” [Rand Paul:] “Untrue.”
But at least one Republican, chairman Bill Cassidy, has clearly had enough of what he’s seen from RFK.
[Same clip, 08:37 - 09:02] Caption: “If someone is fired 29 days after every Republican votes for her, the Senate confirms her, the secretary said in her swearing-in that she has ‘unimpeachable scientific credentials,’ and the president called her an incredible mother and dedicated public servant, what happened? Did we fail?”
And that question is a sensitive one, because for the past several months, he’s been walking a tightrope when it comes to this committee.
Right, on one side he himself is very pro-vaccine; I mean, he’s a licensed physician outside his political office.
But on the other side, he’s a Republican, and one who’s facing a primary challenge back in his home state of Louisiana.
So now that he’s already confirmed RFK, he has to balance his conviction that what the health secretary’s doing is wrong with the political pressure being put on him by the system.
Meanwhile, Kennedy’s people are still chugging along, with the newly stacked vaccine advisory panel set to hold its second meeting tomorrow.
And they’re expected to change the CDC’s childhood vaccine schedule, so we’re gonna keep an eye out for that when it happens.
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The Trump administration is cutting the federal government off at the knees regarding the fight against human trafficking.
That’s what the Guardian just revealed in this insane new investigation.
Right, according to the Guardian, Team Trump has cut key initiatives for fighting human trafficking in 5 different departments of the federal government - the State Department, the DOJ, the Labor Department, HHS, and Homeland Security.
Now, we’re not going to get into everything the Guardian’s investigation covered but we’ll try to hit the highlights.
Starting with Homeland Security - which has moved scores of agents who were formerly dedicated to investigating and arresting human traffickers to focusing on deporting immigrants.
With that move coming in response to an executive order from Trump back in January changing the primary mission of the department's investigations unit from pursuing crimes with an international nexus to investigating “illegal entry” and addressing the “unlawful presence of aliens,” in the US.
And according to the dozen current and former DHS agents, analysts, and officials interviewed by the Guardian, this change in directive has caused morale to tank for a lot of agents.
With one former investigations official who retired last year as the chief of the integrity investigations division at ICE saying,
“We were hired to stop major crimes. These are cases where there are real victims – child sexual exploitation and human trafficking victims. And then to now have to go out and basically comb the streets and look for folks [through immigration raids], it’s a bad use of resources.”
And another retired investigations official added that moving agents away from investigating major crimes makes it, quote, “easier for exploiters and traffickers to get away with their crimes.”
Saying,
“It’s impunity for traffickers.”
But in some cases, workers are just axed rather than shifted - with the State Department’s TIP office, meant to monitor and combat human trafficking, seeing a cut of more than 70% in their workforce.
Now, those cuts were subject to questioning earlier this year - with Representative Sarah McBride of Delaware pushing for explanations from Deputy Secretary of State Michael Rigas.
Who defended the cuts by saying there were redundancies in staffing and that most of the people fired, quote, “were actually writing reports” rather than working in the field as Foreign Service officers.
To which McBride responded at the time,
[1:21-1:32 “It boggles the mind and defies belief that 71% of this department was so dispensable amidst a global crisis of human trafficking.”]
And the mention of reports is important because another thing the Guardian points out is that we have yet to see the release of the annual Trafficking in Persons report.
Right, this report is meant to chart trends in human trafficking in the US and around the world and provide an assessment of each country’s work to combat human trafficking.
And it’s mandated by federal law to be presented to Congress no later than June 30th but we still haven’t seen it this year - with the release event for the report being canceled and never rescheduled.
And that’s despite the fact that multiple sources have confirmed that the report is complete.
Now, this is a huge deal - in the 14 years that this report has been produced, its release has never been delayed beyond July.
And the importance of this report really can’t be undersold - this is the metric by which countries are graded for receiving many forms of foreign aid.
Right, if your country gets poor marks on this report, you’re likely not getting much, if any, cash from the US.
On top of all of that, the Guardian also reports that Team Trump has held up grants for nonprofits fighting human trafficking around the world.
The State Department has historically awarded approximately $80 million a year to support research, training, and victim services.
But some of those grants have been withdrawn and the department hasn't issued a new call for anti-trafficking grant opportunities since January.
Meaning organizations are coming to the last dregs of their dollars from the last grant cycle and so they’re having to make changes - pause training or limiting services to victims.
Like Preble Street - a non-profit in Maine that relies on federal grants to support services for workers trafficked into massage parlors, teenage runaways, and victims of forced labor.
With its director of anti-trafficking services saying,
“We’re planning for the worst case scenario.”
“We’re still answering the phone. We’re trying to do our best, but we also believe in transparency. So we’re letting people know services may look different.”
And another researcher whose funding was frozen said that these blocks, quote, “are felt by so many in so many ways” - adding,
“You are taking away critical resources that protect survivors of trafficking and vulnerable communities across the world.”
Now, the Guardian did reach out to the Trump administration for a response to the findings they’re laying out here.
In fact, they said they sent a list of 23 questions and that a Trump spokesperson answered none of them.
Instead, the Guardian received a 3 sentence response calling their findings “total nonsense” and accusing the Biden administration of, quote, “coddling and apologizing for criminals and sexual predators.”
Before adding that Trump has, “totally secured our border to stop the trafficking of children” and “implemented tough-on-crime policies” that go after human traffickers and “hold these disgusting monsters accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”
Which lines up with what Team Trump has said in public statements regarding human trafficking.
Pointing to its immigration enforcement strategy as its way of fighting the problem and saying their method has led to the removal of “criminal illegals” - including gang-related traffickers.
And Team Trump has also pointed to its work protecting minors who have migrated without their parents.
But while they make that defense, it’s also worth noting they cut funding for legal services that help protect unaccompanied migrant children - leaving 25,000 plus kids in limbo.
And that cut reportedly led to kids as young as 5 years old showing up in immigration court without an attorney.
With anti-trafficking advocates saying,
“If it was about trafficking and kids … they would not be sending kids to court by themselves by cutting off funding for legal representation.”
Now, it’s important to note that Team Trump is backpedaling decades of bipartisan work in the government for the fight against human trafficking here.
Which shocks many because during his first term, Trump was applauded by advocates across the political spectrum for his administration’s work on these issues.
And some have chalked this change of heart up to the ripple effects of the Epstein scandal.
Because we all know how much criticism Trump’s gotten about that - from both Democrats and his own base.
But according to Representative Jaime Raskin, ranking member on the House judiciary committee, Epstein is just part of the calculation.
With a memo he and his staff shared with the Guardian accusing the Trump administration of “systematically dismantling” efforts to prosecute sex crimes and hunt down traffickers - saying,
“President Trump in office has repeatedly taken the side of criminal sex predators and violent abusers against their victims, and this pattern goes well beyond his strenuous efforts to bury the Epstein Files.”
From there, Raskin goes on to point out several key Trump policies that he believes have helped criminals and traffickers.
Including the dismantling of USAID, moving agents from criminal cases to immigration enforcement, and canceling grants to local law enforcement and nonprofits helping victims of human trafficking.
Before adding,
“These findings reveal the Trump Administration’s structural bias in favor of human traffickers, rapists, and sexual violators and against their victims, survivors, and opponents. The question of why this alignment exists cannot be answered in this memo, but the pattern is unmistakable.”
With that, I’m going to pass this whole thing off to you - what are your thoughts here?
Let me know in those comments down below.
