Wednesday Reads: Anxiety and Intense Sadness

Good Afternoon!!

I’m really struggling with my emotions about the state of our country these days. I used to feel enraged about Trump’s insane policies, but now I feel mostly anxiety and intense sadness. I have to admit that I haven’t even followed the news very carefully for the past week or so. I just can’t handle it.

I know this probably sounds silly, but I’ve been thinking back to when I was in 7th or 8th grade. My junior high school had an essay contest and I won with an essay called “A Letter to a Russian Student.” Of course this reflected some brainwashing from the cold war era, but in those days I did feel glad and even proud to be an American.

There have been times since then that I felt shame about my country–when Nixon was president, for example; and when George W. Bush was using torture. Obviously the U.S. has never been perfect–far from it. But I have never felt as ashamed to be an American as I do now under Trump’s horrific, chaotic rule. Trump is really, truly evil, and I fear for our future if the Democrats don’t take over Congress in the midterm elections.

It’s difficult to pick a “worst” Trump issue, but I guess it has to be mass deportations or the Epstein scandal. Of course there are also tariffs, his attack on universities, the skyrocketing cost of health insurance, and RFK Jr’s attack on vaccines, and other preventative health policies. Oh, and we can’t forget Trump’s horrendous attacks on the environment. No wonder I’m overcome with anxiety and sadness.

Anyway, here are some stories that captured my attention this morning.

On Immigration:

Jamelle Bouie at The New York Times (gift link): We Have to Look Right in the Face of What We Have Become.

On Oct. 4, Marimar Martinez, a teacher’s assistant at a Montessori school, was driving in Chicago when she observed federal immigration agents on patrol. She had begun to honk her horn to warn her neighbors about their presence when she collided with a Border Patrol vehicle. Moments later, the agent in the vehicle, Charles Exum, fired multiple shots into Martinez’s car, hitting her again and again. (Later, Exum would brag to colleagues that he had “fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes.”)

Prosecutors for the government charged Martinez with assaulting a federal officer and accused her of trying to ram Exum with her car. The Department of Homeland Security described her actions as domestic terrorism, a charge the agency would repeat after the death of Renee Good in January at the hands of another immigration agent.

Marimar Martinez

The government’s case unraveled, however, when it became clear that its story did not fit the evidence — evidence that officials with Customs and Border Protection tried to hide. The government dropped its case against Martinez a month later, and on Friday a federal judge authorized the release of the body camera footage so that the public could see the incident for itself.

Recently, Martinez joined with other Americans brutalized by federal immigration agents to tell their stories to a forum of congressional Democrats led by Representative Robert Garcia of California and Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, the top Democrats on the House Oversight Committee and the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Garcia and Blumenthal convened the event to collect testimony on — and highlight — “the violent tactics and disproportionate use of force by agents of the Department of Homeland Security.”

The people who testified spoke to the terror of their confrontations with masked, armed and often trigger-happy federal agents. “I will never forget the fear, and having to quickly duck my head as the shots were fired at the passenger side of the car. Any one of those bullets could have killed me or two people I love,” said Martin Daniel Rascon, who was stopped by agents who broke the windows of the vehicle he was in and began firing when the driver, frightened, tried to escape.

If democracy rests on mutual recognition, on our capacity to see one another as full and equal persons, then the power to speak and be heard lies at the foundation of democratic life. It is when we speak — when we argue, appeal, explain and testify — that we put into practice our belief in the ability of others to understand, reason and empathize. Or as Thomas Jefferson remarked in 1824, “In a republican nation whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance.”

Thus far, growing public opposition to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection has been a function of the power of the image — of videos of shootings and abuse — but the testimony of Martinez, Rascon and others should remind us of the power of words and personal experience to also move the public. Crucially, there is the power inherent in giving victims of wrongdoing a chance to tell their stories, not as one perspective among many but as part of the official record.

Use the gift link to read the rest.

The Washington Post: IRS improperly disclosed confidential immigrant tax data to DHS.

The Internal Revenue Service improperly shared confidential tax information of thousands of individuals with immigration enforcement officials, according to three people familiar with the situation, appearing to breach a legal fire wall intended to protect taxpayer data.

The erroneous disclosure was only recently discovered, the people said. The IRS is working with officials from the Treasury Department, Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security on the administration’s response.

Federal law mandates strict protections of the identities of taxpayers, including the sharing of data within the federal government. Undocumented immigrants have for years paid taxes with assurances from the federal government that doing so would not result in them being targeted by immigration enforcement.

But in a controversial decision, Treasury, which oversees the IRS, in April 2025 agreed to provide DHS with the names and addresses of individuals the Trump administration believed to be in the country illegally, pursuant to DHS requests.

Federal courts have since blocked the data-sharing arrangement, holding that it violates taxpayers’ rights, though the government appealed those rulings.

Before the agreement was struck down, DHS requested the addresses of 1.2 million individuals from the IRS. The tax agency responded with data on 47,000 individuals, according to court records.

When the IRS shared the addresses with DHS, it also inadvertently disclosed private information for thousands of taxpayers erroneously, a mistake only recently discovered, said the people familiar, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

The affected individuals could be entitled to financial compensation for each time their information was improperly shared. And government officials can personally face stiff civil and criminal penalties for sharing confidential tax information.

Semafor: ‘It’s despicable’: Republicans question how long Lutnick can survive his Epstein crisis.

Howard Lutnick’s Jeffrey Epstein problem may be getting worse.

Republicans on Capitol Hill are getting more unsettled about revelations that the Commerce Secretary’s ties to Epstein were closer than he acknowledged. And Trump administration allies are now actively debating his fate — even as the White House continues to proclaim his job is safe.

Howard Lutnick

Lutnick, a longtime friend of President Donald Trump, is facing political heat after the latest batch of documents released on Epstein’s case show significant interactions between Lutnick and the convicted sex offender, who lived nextdoor to him in New York. Emails show that the two men were in contact for years after Epstein’s 2008 conviction.

Lutnick has not been connected to any wrongdoing by the files. Yet there’s bipartisan concern in the Senate about Lutnick, with Democrats calling for his ouster and some Republicans queasy over the spiraling storyline.

Lutnick testified Tuesday to the Senate Appropriations Committee about dining with Epstein on his island in 2012 with family and other friends — contradicting his own October comments that he and his wife chose to “never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again” after the disgraced late financier showed the couple his massage room back in 2005.

One Republican senator told Semafor that Lutnick’s job would be in serious jeopardy “if it were anybody but President Trump” in charge.

NBC News: Justice Department releases names of 3 people the FBI once called Jeffrey Epstein ‘co-conspirators.’

The Justice Department has released the names of three people the FBI once called co-conspirators of Jeffrey Epstein after lawmakers complained that the names had been improperly withheld.

The Justice Department unredacted parts of an Aug. 15, 2019, FBI internal document from the bureau’s Criminal Investigative Division — which included a reference to billionaire Les Wexner as a co-conspirator — and reposted it after Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., complained that the department had violated the Epstein Files Transparency Act by redacting the names. Massie and Khanna co-authored the bill, which compelled the Justice Department to release all of its records on Epstein, and they have been vocally critical of the department’s handling of the release.

Les Wexner

“This is a well known retired CEO. DOJ should unredact this. Why did they redact this?” Massie wrote in a post on X linking to the version of the FBI document that was redacted. Massie posted the message after he and Khanna had gone to the Justice Department to review unredacted versions of the files.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche responded in a post of his own, saying: “The document you cite has numerous victim names. We have just unredacted Les Wexner’s name from this document, but his name already appears in the files thousands of times. DOJ is hiding nothing.”

The newly released version of the 2019 document shows eight people are listed as co-conspirators, including four whose names are not redacted: Wexner, the former CEO of Victoria’s Secret; Lesley Groff, Epstein’s longtime secretary; the late modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel; and Ghislaine Maxwell, the only person who was charged in connection with Epstein. She was convicted of sex trafficking charges and is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

Four other names on the document are still redacted. It is unclear who those people are; prosecutors have said Epstein used women he preyed on as recruiters. A separate document dated August 2019 indicated that some of the others were victims, as well, and had been cooperating with investigators.

The Guardian: Who are the six men named in the unredacted Epstein files?

Ro Khanna, the US congressman, publicly revealed the names of six men whose identities were redacted from the Jeffrey Epstein files, including Leslie Wexner, a billionaire retail magnate, whom the FBI appeared to have labeled as a co-conspirator.

Ro Khanna

The Democratic representative of California disclosed the names during a floor speech on Tuesday, following a visit to the Department of Justice, where he and Thomas Massie, a Republican congressman from Kentucky, spent two hours reviewing unredacted documents.

The six men named by Khanna are Wexner, the Victoria’s Secret founder; Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, CEO of DP World and an Emirati billionaire businessperson; and four others identified as Nicola Caputo, Salvatore Nuara, Zurab Mikeladze and Leonic Leonov.

Khanna did not provide evidence of wrongdoing against any of them nor have they been charged with a crime in connection with Epstein.

“If we found six men that they were hiding in two hours, imagine how many men they are covering up for in those 3m files,” Khanna said during his floor speech.

Trump Tariffs

CNBC: Tariff bills across U.S. states mount as affordability and Trump head for midterm elections showdown.

New analysis of U.S. Census data shows that states across the U.S. where key midterm elections will take place this year paid over $134 billion in tariffs in the period since President Donald Trump began implementing widespread trade duties in March 2025 through last November. In all, the U.S. Census data compiled by Trade Partnership Worldwide showed a total of $199 billion in tariffs paid by states during that time period.

Trump has called affordability a “Democratic hoax,” and in recent testimony before Congress, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the tariffs “do not cause inflation.”

Rep. Greg Meeks at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 5. Photo Tom Williams, CQ Roll Call via Getty Images

But Trump’s tariffs and affordability are expected to be factors in the upcoming midterm election cycle. Recent CNBC survey data from the American consumer and pricing data show that the affordability issues are real and many voters have soured on the economy. A January poll from The New York Times and Siena University found that 54% of voters oppose Trump’s tariffs. Some members of the GOP are starting to break with their leaders over the tariffs issue, joining Democrats on Tuesday in a vote to defeat a rule that would have prohibited the House from challenging tariffs issued by Trump. The House is expected to vote Wednesday on a measure to overturn Trump’s tariffs on Canada introduced by Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y.

“Americans struggling with affordability rightly blame tariffs for higher prices on many everyday purchases,” said Dan Anthony, executive director of the We Pay the Tariffs small business coalition and president of Trade Partnership Worldwide. “The president could eliminate tens of billions in taxes in the states that will determine the 2026 elections. He just doesn’t want to,” Anthony said.

More details at CNBC.

Axios: House Democrats plot barrage of anti-tariff votes.

House Democrats are already planning to force votes overturning at least two of President Trump’s tariffs, with more likely to follow, senior lawmakers tell Axios.

Why it matters: House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has repeatedly blocked these votes over the past year, but his attempt to do so on Tuesday was thwarted by a trio of Republican defectors in a late-night vote.

• Johnson’s procedural maneuver to stop Democrats from forcing votes to end Trump’s tariffs under the National Emergencies Act failed 214 to 217, with Reps. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) breaking away.

What they’re saying: “We are going to do Canada today and follow with Mexico,” House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member Greg Meeks (D-N.Y.) told Axios in a text message Wednesday morning.

• More are likely to follow, a senior House Democrat speaking on the condition of anonymity told Axios, but it is undecided which countries they will target.
• There are “lots of thoughts” on that, the lawmaker said.
• Still, a House Democratic leadership aide cautioned that Republicans may still try to maneuver to block the tariff votes from coming to the floor.