Background Briefing: July 17, 2025
After Feeding Them Lies and Delusions For Years, Trump Now Calls His MAGA Cultists “Stupid” and “Weaklings”
We begin with a reporter who I spoke with live on January 6, 2021 from the scene as the US Capitol was being stormed by Trump’s insurrectionists. We discuss how Trump is now castigating his followers for being “stupid” and “weaklings” after having fed them lies and delusions in line with Q-Anon for years which now are inconvenient as Trump tries to shut down all talk about his former best friend Jeffrey Epstein. Joining us is Will Sommer, a Senior Reporter at The Bulwark where he authors the False Flag bi-weekly newsletter. The author of Trust the Plan: The Rise of QAnon and the Conspiracy That Unhinged America, he previously worked as a politics reporter for the Daily Beast and as a host of the podcast Fever Dreams. His work covering QAnon and other conspiracy theories has been featured in multiple documentaries, including HBO’s Q: Into the Storm, and his latest articles at The Bulwark we discuss are “The Five MAGA Factions Waging an Epstein Civil War: A taxonomy of truculent Trumpists” and “Trump’s Right-Wing Media Machine Turns on Him.”
AG Bondi’s Firing of Maurene Comey Whose Father is High Up on Trump’s Enemies List
Then we look into the firing by AG Bondi of Maurene Comey who was a SDNY prosecutor in the Epstein, Maxwell and Sean Combs cases whose father, the former Director of the FBI James Comey is high up on Trump and Patel’s enemies list. Joining us to discuss this and other matters is Scott Horton, a former lecturer at Columbia Law School and is a contributing editor at Harper’s in legal affairs and national security. He serves on the American branch of the International Law Association, and has represented a variety of journalists and whistleblowers.
Today’s Walkout by Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee
Then finally we examine the walkout by Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee today in protest to the thuggish behavior of Chairman Grassley who, with craven fealty to his “dear leader” Trump, is trying to ram through the appointment of the odious Emil Bove to the Court and Appeals then onto the Supreme Court .Joining us is Lisa Graves, the Founder of the corporate watchdog group True North Research and the managing director of Court Accountability. She has served as a senior advisor in all three branches of the federal government–as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department, as Chief Counsel for Nominations on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and as a Deputy Chief of the article 3 judges division for the U.S. Courts.