Lazy Caturday Reads: Trump’s Racism and Epstein Fallout

Good Afternoon!!

Yesterday, Dakinikat wrote about Trump’s disgusting Truth Social post of a video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes. Trump left it up for at least 12 hours before someone at  the White House finally deleted it. Of course Trump, who is a hateful and repulsive racist, won’t apologize.

The Washington Post: Trump refuses to apologize over video showing the Obamas as apes.

We’ll see. I think Trump expects to be able to rig the 2026 election anyway.

Hanna Kiros at The Atlantic (gift link): The Obama Meme on Trump’s Truth Social Was Exactly What It Looked Like.

Donald Trump supercharged his political career by claiming that Barack Obama wasn’t American. Yesterday, 16 minutes before midnight, the president’s account on Truth Social posted a video that suggests Obama isn’t even human. It briefly shows the head of the first Black president and that of his wife superimposed onto the bodies of apes. They dance along to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”

The video, which Trump’s account shared twice, seems to be a screen recording. Its first minute shows a clip promoting the lie that voting-machine tampering handed Joe Biden the presidency in 2020. Then, someone seems to swipe up, and the clip depicting the Obamas as apes flashes into focus. [The post was removed after about 12 hours.]….

In the interim, hundreds if not thousands of people responded to the clip with enthusiasm.  Immediately after the video was first posted on Truth Social, the memecoin $APEBAMA was minted. Within 12 hours, more than $4 million worth of $APEBAMA had been traded back and forth. In an X group with the same name that now has hundreds of members, the pinned tweet implies that the meme stock will succeed because of how outrageous the video is: “this is pretty much on par with him calling Obama a nigga.” Some members posted their own depictions of Obama as a monkey or ape. The ape video’s apparent creator, the X user @xerias_x, reposted the full video to their X account early this morning. Besides the Obamas, the video shows a menagerie of Democratic politicians as animals, bowing down to Trump, who appears as a lion. It now has more than 1 million views. (@xerias_x also seems to be the originator of an AI-generated video Trump reposted in October that shows the president raining down what appears to be excrement on protesters from the sky.)

The “joke” that Trump’s account spread is plainly sinister. The idea that Black people sit somewhere between white people and apes has long been used to justify cruelty. In 1377, a historian wrote that Africans “have attributes that are quite similar to those of dumb animals,” meaning they “are, as a whole, submissive to slavery.” Cartoons circulated during the Civil War were printed with images similar to the one Trump posted: One labels a monkey holding a book upside down as a NEGRO-MAN; another depicts a Black man on all fours, accompanied by the words WHAR’S JEFF DAVIS. In 1906, a man born in what was then the Belgian Congo, Ota Benga, was displayed at the Bronx Zoo in a cage with an orangutan. In 1975, white teenagers harassed Black students desegregating a Boston public school with the chant “Two, four, six, eight, assassinate the nigger apes.”

The ape caricature still colors how Black people are received in America. But this morning, the administration played the video off for laughs. “This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote in response to a comment request before the Truth Social posts were removed. (The Lion King features a monkey named Rafiki, but no apes appear in the film.)

There is absolutely no question that Trump is a vicious racist.

In other news, there are so many fascinating revelations coming out of the latest release from the FBI’s Epstein files. I haven’t had the patience to actually try searching through them myself, but I’ve been following what reporters are finding. Some of the latest examples:

Allison Quinn at The Daily Beast: Epstein’s Top Secret Relationship With Trained Russian Spy Revealed.

Jeffrey Epstein had a years-long relationship with an FSB-trained Russian official who sought his help connecting with a well-known hacker in 2016.

The late sex trafficker’s corresponJeffrdence with Sergei Belyakov is among the strangest revelations in the millions of case files released by the Justice Department last month.

Belyakov, a former deputy economic minister, helped Epstein secure visas to visit Russia, provided him with a dossier on a Russian woman Epstein had complained was trying to blackmail “a group of powerful businessmen,” and reported to Epstein about his work for the Russian government.

Epstein’s frequent bids to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov feature heavily in the newly released files—his assistant reminds him in one September 2011 email that he’d told his bodyguard he “had an appointment with Putin” coming up—but he appears to have had Belyakov at his beck and call.

In one January 2016 email under the subject, “My new position,” Belyakov told Epstein he’d started working at the Russian Direct Investment Fund–now led by Kirill Dmitriev, one of Vladimir Putin’s most trusted envoys, and a key player in ongoing peace talks with the Trump administration to end Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Much of their correspondence focused on investment opportunities and potential investors, though it’s unclear to what extent Belyakov involved Epstein in his work beyond the emails documented in the latest files.

The pair met several times in person over the years. In numerous email exchanges from 2014 through 2018, they reference personal meetings they had together, along with sporadic phone calls.

Epstein described Belyakov as a “very good friend” in a 2015 email to billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel as he tried to arrange for the pair to meet. Belyakov also apparently put Epstein in touch with other Russian officials, with emails showing he helped Epstein apply for a Russian visa in 2014 to meet with then-Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak and Alexei Simanovsky, the deputy head of Russia’s Central Bank at the time.

There’s more interesting stuff at the link.

J Oliver Conroy at The Guardian: The Epstein files reveal that a vast global conspiracy actually exists – sort of.

The millions of Jeffrey Epstein files dumped last Friday by the US Department of Justice will provide journalists, conspiracy theorists and interested members of the public with months of reading. And what they will read is enraging.

What makes these files so infuriating, however, is not just Epstein’s horrific predatory behavior, which is well-known, but the more mundane examples of elite conduct that the documents continue to expose. They vividly illustrate a world whose existence many everyday people, whether fevered with visions of the Illuminati or just jaundiced by banal anti-establishment cynicism, already suspected exists: an informal global club of powerful, ultra-rich people who all seemingly know each other, help one another out, and protect each other from the consequences of their depravity.

The new files will probably not provide satisfying answers to questions about, say, whether any of Epstein’s famous friends participated in his sex trafficking, or if his death in custody in 2019 was truly a suicide, as authorities have said. But conspiracy theorists may still feel vindicated – and to some extent they should, Matthew Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University, said.

Although the documents may not expose an actual criminal conspiracy, he said, they confirm the belief behind most conspiracy theories: that elites “get special treatment, that they’re shielded from the rules that are supposed to apply to everyone equally, and that there is a kind of corruption in the broadest sense of the word”.

The new material is the largest, and possibly last, tranche of the so-called Epstein files, though the government is keeping as many as 3m more pages under wraps. Yet even the initial revelations of these files deepen the astonishing constellation of ties between Epstein and members of the global elite – including tech billionaires; a former US president; British, Norwegian and Saudi royalty or royal courtiers; current and former US cabinet secretaries and governors; and prominent business executives and academics….

[T]he files, especially Epstein’s typo-filled email and text-message correspondences, are fascinating – and ultimately grim – in what they show of how elites act in private, among themselves. At the least, many of Epstein’s powerful acquaintances remained friendly with him years after the notoriously lenient sweetheart bargain, in 2008, in which he pleaded guilty to soliciting an underage girl for prostitution, and as survivors continued to accuse Epstein of further crimes.

Again, there is lots more enraging material at the link.

AP: Epstein revelations have toppled top figures in Europe while US fallout is more muted.

LONDON (AP) — A prince, an ambassador, senior diplomats, top politicians. All brought down by the Jeffrey Epstein files. And all in Europe, rather than the United States.

The huge trove of Epstein documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice has sent shock waves through Europe’s political, economic and social elites — dominating headlines, ending careers and spurring political and criminal investigations.

Former U.K. Ambassador to Washington Peter Mandelson was fired and could go to prison. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces a leadership crisis over the Mandelson appointment. Senior figures have fallen in Norway, Sweden and Slovakia. And, even before the latest batch of files, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, brother of King Charles III, lost his honors, princely title and taxpayer-funded mansion.

Apart from the former Prince Andrew, none of them faces claims of sexual wrongdoing. They have been toppled for maintaining friendly relationships with Epstein after he became a convicted sex offender.

“Epstein collected powerful people the way others collect frequent flyer points,” said Mark Stephens, a specialist in international and human rights law at Howard Kennedy in London. “But the receipts are now in public, and some might wish they’d traveled less.”

The documents were published after a public frenzy over Epstein became a crisis for President Donald Trump’s administration and led to a rare bipartisan effort to force the government to open its investigative files. But in the U.S., the long-sought publication has not brought the same public reckoning with Epstein’s associates — at least so far.

Rob Ford, a professor of political science at the University of Manchester, said that in Britain, “if you’re in those files, it’s immediately a big story.”

“It suggests to me we have a more functional media, we have a more functional accountability structure, that there is still a degree of shame in politics, in terms of people will say: ‘This is just not acceptable, this is just not done,’” he said.

In other words, our media sucks and many of our politicians are shameless. I can’t argue with that.

A couple of Trump cabinet members captured in the files:

CBS News: Lutnick and Epstein were in business together, Epstein files show.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said he had “limited interactions” with Jeffrey Epstein, but documents show they were in business together as recently as 2014.

Lutnick and Epstein each signed on behalf of limited liability companies that agreed on Dec. 28, 2012, to acquire stakes in a now-shuttered advertising technology company called Adfin, documents released among the so-called Epstein files show.

Epstein and Lutnick’s signatures appear on neighboring pages in the contract, with Epstein signing for his Southern Trust Company, Inc. and Lutnick for a limited liability company called CVAFH I. The documents list nine shareholders in total.

Lutnick, the former chairman of the financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald who at one point lived next door to Epstein, told the New York Post in October that he and his wife Allison had cut ties with Epstein in 2005, deciding after taking a tour of Epstein’s New York townhouse, “I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again.”

However, it appears Epstein and Lutnick continued to maintain contact and emails show they arranged calls and planned to have drinks in 2011.

The following year, the couple and their four children planned a visit to Epstein’s island, Little St. James, emails show. Lutnick was invited for lunch on Dec. 24, 2012, and later, Epstein’s assistant wrote on behalf of Epstein, “it was nice seeing you.”

Their Adfin deal was signed four days later.

Lutnick is such a fucking liar.

Farah Tomazin at The Daily Beast: RFK Jr.’s Bizarre Trip With Epstein and Ghislaine Exposed in Files.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. went hunting for dinosaur bones in the Dakotas with child sex traffickers Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, according to the latest tranche of documents released by the Justice Department.

As the fallout over the Epstein files continues, an email exchange between the two sex predators centers on the now-Trump Cabinet secretary, one of the many prominent people whose friendship the pair cultivated over the years.

The exchange took place in 2012, seven years before Epstein died in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial.

In one email, Epstein writes to Maxwell about a trip involving “dinosaur and fossill hunitng (sic) with jack horner on the ranch, found 90 million year old clams and fossils.”

“Right up your alley,” he adds.

The following day, Maxwell replies: “Love that – didn’t we go fossil hunting with him and Bobby Kennedy in N Dakota?”

“Yes,” Epstein replies.

Maxwell, a former British socialite now serving 20 years for her crimes, also disclosed the fossil hunt during an interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche last year, apparently catching him off guard when she said of Epstein: “Bobby Kennedy knew him.”

One more from Amelia Gentleman at The Guardian on women in the Epstein files: Sex and snacks, but no seat at the table: the role of women in Epstein’s sordid men’s club.

Pluck an email at random from the millions in the Department of Justice’s Epstein Library. It is a Saturday evening in February 2013, and Jeffrey Epstein is messaging Bill Gates’s assistant about guests for a dinner he wants to organise.’

“People for Bill,” the email begins. Epstein starts listing possible candidates: the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, the film director Woody Allen, the prime minister of Qatar, a couple of Harvard academics, the billionaire CEO of Hyatt hotels, a White House communications director, a former US secretary of defence.

He names 10 powerful men, before suggesting “Anne Hathaway (really)”. Epstein has to make it clear, with the bracketed word, that he is not joking when he proposes that a woman might join them at the table. The lists ends tentatively: “victoria secret models?” Epstein wonders: “Who on the list do you think he would enjoy the most?”

The Epstein files reveal a patriarchy in action. This is a world where the men are rich and powerful, and the women are not. The emails showcase the private behaviour of a male ruling class, as they network, joke and trade information. Women exist at the periphery, tolerated because they organise the diaries of the busy men, they arrange food, they grace a table, they provide sex.

A typical email from Epstein to a woman might say: “Take a selfie of your pussy and send.”

Spend three days rummaging through the chaotic, sprawling, sordid pit of information contained in the Epstein files, and you learn valuable lessons about how this modern global patriarchy operates: through flattery, the exchange of favours and occasional curt reminders of who owes what to whom.

For women, these files offer an unprecedented chance to eavesdrop on conversations from which they are usually excluded. They provide salutary insights into what a set of distinguished global figures think and say about women when they assume the women aren’t listening.

Read the rest at The Guardian.

I’ll end with a few tales of Trump idiocy:

Jonathan Karl at ABC News: Trump wants Penn Station, Dulles Airport named after him in funding deal with Schumer, sources say.

President Donald Trump last month told Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., that he would be willing to unfreeze $16 billion in funding for a major infrastructure project in New York if Schumer would agree to rename New York’s Penn Station and Washington’s Dulles Airport after him, two sources familiar with the conversation told ABC News.

The Hudson Tunnel Project — which would connect New York City and New Jersey — had already started. The project includes building nine miles of new passenger rail track and rehabilitating the North River Tunnel, according to the commission responsible for it.

Officials in New York and New Jersey said if the money isn’t freed-up by Friday, the project would stop, leaving approximately 1,000 construction jobs in jeopardy.

Sources told ABC that Schumer rejected Trump’s offer.

Daniel Dale at CNN: ‘I did that’: Trump takes credit for a prisoner release that happened before he even ran for president.

At the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, President Donald Trump spoke from prepared remarks as he discussed the persecution of Mariam Ibrahim. Ibrahim was unjustly imprisoned and sentenced to death in Sudan in 2014, in a case centered on her Christian faith, until she was released that same year following a global outcry.

Trump correctly said: “Believers all over the planet rallied to Mariam’s cause, prayed for her protection, and successfully pressured for her release.”

But then the president appeared to ad-lib – and claimed that he was the one who got Ibrahim freed.

“I did that. I did that. I did that with one phone call, actually,” he said. “And she had such support, it was so easy. And when I explained it to the powers that be: ‘Yes, sir, we will do it right away.’ I just wish I knew earlier. But it’s a big world with a lot of people.”

For years, Trump has told fictional stories that feature unnamed people referring to him as “sir.” This was another one.

Ibrahim was released in 2014, during the Obama administration. Trump did not become president until January 2017. He was not even a presidential candidate until June 2015. There has never been the slightest indication that a private citizen in the US, a businessman and celebrity at the time, was the person who convinced Sudanese authorities to let her out of prison.

A former Obama administration official who served on the National Security Council in 2014 told CNN on Friday: “I neither had at the time nor have now any knowledge of Trump’s involvement whatsoever. It’d be very surprising if he were.”

Jack Jenkins, a reporter for Religion News Service, first raised skepticism about Trump’s story on Thursday.

Robert P. George, a Princeton University professor who is a prominent conservative legal scholar, said in a Friday email: “As Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in 2014, I advocated for Mariam Ibrahim. I do not recall Donald Trump being involved in the case or assisting our Commission’s efforts. Of course, he was not President at the time.

Jack Revell at The Daily Beast: Military Pressured to See ‘Melania’ Against Their Will.

Thousands of active-duty military personnel may have been “pressured” into seeing the Melania documentary at cinemas around the country, a watchdog has warned.

The $75 million Amazon film opened last week to $7 million at the box office—despite universally terrible reviews.

According to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, those numbers have been artificially inflated by pressure from MAGA-aligned officers leaning on their troops to buy tickets.

“People are scared,” Mikey Weinstein, president and founder of the MRFF, said. Weinstein said he has received letters from members of the U.S. military at eight facilities worldwide, complaining that their superiors encouraged or pressured them to see the film.

He told Business Insider. “They were pressured to see the movie. Your military superior, that’s not your shift manager at Taco Bell or Starbucks. They have complete and total control over you.”

The MRFF, a non-profit founded in 2005 to promote the separation of church and state within the military, has roughly 100,000 members.

“Nobody that I know wanted to go except for those that did not want to get jacked up by our unit commander for not attending,” one of those members told Weinstein in a letter seen by journalist Jonathan Larsen.