July 25, 2025

Good Friday evening. In this edition: Trump denies being briefed on name being in Epstein files, says he hasn't considered pardoning Maxwell.

• Plus, Gaza, education, Paramount, Santos, AOC, Norman and Agriculture Department.

Epstein Scandal

President Trump departed Washington for a five-day trip to Scotland, leaving a town that's become consumed with the Jeffrey Epstein scandal amid bipartisan calls for his administration to release more information.

• The House was embroiled in the issue all week, leading Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to scrap his legislative agenda and send lawmakers home early for the August recess.

The president has tried to move on from the saga, which he's referred to as a "hoax" and "witch hunt," but several moves this week have ensured the issue will continue to stay in the news for some time to come.

• Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the House Oversight Committee chair, issued a subpoena Wednesday for the testimony of Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime Epstein associate who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for child sex trafficking crimes.
  
  
• The same day, a House Oversight subcommittee voted 8–2 to subpoena the Justice Department for records related to Mr. Epstein. Three Republicans joined all Democrats on the subpoena, and Rep. Comer plans to sign it.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the president's former personal attorney, also conducted a second day of interviews with Ms. Maxwell in Florida.

• "The Department of Justice will share additional information about what we learned at the appropriate time," the deputy AG said on social media.

Democrats have raised concerns the Trump administration may dangle a pardon or commutation to Ms. Maxwell for testimony favorable to the president.

• "There is every reason to fear that Donald Trump could offer Ghislane Maxwell a pardon in exchange for silence, or even worse, phony exoneration," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Thursday on the floor.

Multiple outlets reported earlier this week that Attorney General Pam Bondi briefed President Trump in May that his name appears multiple times in the Epstein files — something he denied ever happened.

• "No, I was never briefed, no," he told reporters upon landing in Glasgow.

The president said he had not thought about pardoning Ms. Maxwell but notably did not rule it out.

• "I'm allowed to do it, but it's something I have not thought about," he told reporters as he departed the White House.
  
  
• "A lot of people are asking me about pardons," he later told reporters in Scotland. "Obviously, this is no time to be talking about pardons."

The president has repeatedly urged the media to focus on other things, like a report recently released by his administration that purports to show President Obama engaged in "treason" with respect to the Russia investigation.

• "People should really focus on how well the country is doing, or they should focus on the fact that Barack Hussein Obama led a coup," he told reporters on the South Lawn.

President Trump said he has "nothing to do with the guy," and that people "should focus on the fact that" Mr. Epstein's "really close friends" included former President Bill Clinton and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers.

• "They don't talk about them. They talk about me. I have nothing to do with the guy," he said.

While in Scotland, the president is expected to meet with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and visit his properties in Turnberry and Aberdeen.

• He's also planning to meet with Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, about a possible trade deal with the European Union.

Watch the president's departure and arrival remarks.

In other news…

• President Trump said Hamas "didn't really want to make a deal" one day after the U.S. and Israel pulled out of ceasefire and hostage negotiations with the militant group. "I think they want to die, and it's very bad. It got to be to a point where you're going to have to finish the job," he told reporters, adding that he always thought Hamas wouldn't want to release the remaining hostages because it didn't want to lose its "bargaining chip."
  
  

• The Trump administration said it will release more than $5 billion in funding to public schools that it had withheld for nearly a month. Lawmakers from both parties had lobbied the administration to release the funding, which supports English-language learning, teacher training and after school programs, among others. The Education Department placed the funding under review on June 30, saying it was investigating whether any of the grant money had in the past been used for a "radical left-wing agenda."
  
  

• The FCC approved an $8 billion merger between Paramount and Skydance, paving the way for the heavily scrutinized media deal to go through. FCC Chair Brendan Carr said the agency gave its approval after receiving assurances the new company would "root out" media bias and scrap diversity, equity and inclusion programs. The move comes shortly after Paramount paid $16 million to settle a lawsuit with President Trump over his complaints about a "60 Minutes" interview with Kamala Harris, which critics, including CBS "Late Night" host Stephen Colbert, said amounted to a payoff. Mr. Colbert's show was subsequently canceled, which Paramount said was done for financial reasons.
  
  

• George Santos, the former GOP New York congressman, reported to prison to begin an 87-month sentence after pleading guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. The ex-lawmaker, who in his first year in office became the first Republican to be expelled from Congress in 2023, will serve his sentence at a medium-security facility in New Jersey. "I don't know that I survive it," he recently told former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. "I'm not a streetwise guy. I don't know how to fight."
  
  

• The House Ethics Committee directed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) to pay an additional $2,700 for the famous "Tax the Rich" dress and accessories she wore to the 2021 Met Gala, saying her underpayment of fair market value violated House rules. "While the Committee did not find that Representative Ocasio-Cortez's violations were knowing and willful, she nonetheless received impermissible gifts and must bear responsibility for the other conduct that occurred with respect to the delays in payment," the bipartisan committee said in a report.
  
  

• Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) plans to announce his bid for governor on Sunday, entering a competitive primary in the Palmetto State to succeed term-limited Gov. Henry McMaster (R). He will face Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and state Attorney General Alan Wilson in the primary. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) has previously said she is "seriously considering" entering the race as well.
  
  

• The Agriculture Department is set to move more than half of its 4,600 employees out of Washington, DC, and into five regional hubs across the country. The memo from Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins also outlined plans to eliminate or consolidate local offices focused on nutrition, forestry and conservation, including shuttering all nine regional offices of the U.S. Forest Service.

For your radar…

• Govs. Kevin Stitt (R-OK) and Wes Moore (D-MD) sit down Saturday for a discussion on the American Dream at the National Governors Association's summer meeting in Colorado Springs. Watch LIVE online at 3:45pm ET.

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