‘It’s time to bring the secrets out of the shadows’: Epstein survivors’ video message urges release of files
In a video from World Without Exploitation, Jeffrey Epstein survivors are seen holding photos of their younger selves, as some of them recite their ages when they met him. (World Without Exploitation)
(NEW YORK) — The anti-trafficking group World Without Exploitation released a video PSA featuring a group of Epstein survivors advocating for the release of all Epstein files.
In the video released Sunday, the women are seen holding photos of their younger selves, as some of them recite their ages when they first met sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Some of the eleven women featured in the video cry or grow emotional as they speak.
“It’s time to bring the secrets out of the shadows. It’s time to shine a light into the darkness,” the women say.
The video concludes with on-screen text that reads, “Five administrations and we’re still in the dark.” Following the message is a plea to call Congress and demand the release of the Epstein files.
The House is set to vote this week on a bill to compel the release of the full Justice Department files related to Jeffrey Epstein. Over the weekend, President Donald Trump marked a sudden shift in his stance on the topic — calling for Republicans to vote in favor of the files’ release.
Trump had previously called the release of the emails a Democratic “hoax” and added “some stupid” and “foolish” Republicans had fallen for it.
None of the documents previously made public contain allegations of wrongdoing by Trump.
Groups of Epstein survivors have called on Congress to make the files public in the past.
In September, a group of Epstein survivors shared their stories on Capitol Hill and called on lawmakers to support the release of the files. One of the women, Anouska De Georgiou, said the survivors want their voices to be heard.
“The days of sweeping this under the rug are over. We the survivors say ‘no more,'” she said.
A group of Epstein survivors plan to be in D.C. for a press conference on Capitol Hill on Tuesday morning with Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna and Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who sparred with Trump over the handling of the Epstein investigation.
Erika Kirk, widow of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, and U.S. Vice President JD Vance embrace on stage during a Turning Point USA event at the Pavilion at Ole Miss at the University of Mississippi, on October 29, 2025 in Oxford, Mississippi. Jonathan Ernst-Pool/Getty Images
(PHOENIX) — Erika Kirk endorsed Vice President JD Vance for president during a Turning Point USA conference in Arizona, vowing to throw one of the most influential conservative organizations in the country behind Vance in 2028.
“We are going to get my husband’s friend JD Vance elected for 48 in the most resounding way possible,” she said during her speech on Thursday night at AmericaFest, the first major Turning Point event since her husband’s assassination.
While the endorsement is not a major surprise given Vance’s close relationship with Charlie Kirk, Erika Kirk and Turning Point, it is significant given the group’s prominence on the right.
Turning Point, founded by Charlie Kirk in 2012, played a key role in helping elect President Donald Trump and shaping the modern conservative movement, particularly among younger voters.
Vance has not yet officially said whether he will run in 2028. In an interview last month with Fox News, Vance said he was focused on the vice presidency and the 2026 midterms but would have a conversation with President Trump after next year’s elections about 2028 .
“We’re going to win the midterms, we’re going to do everything that we can to win the midterms, and then after that, I’m going to sit down with the president of the United States and talk to him about it,” Vance said. “But let’s focus on the now.”
In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death, Vance credited the Turning Point founder for his own political rise and for building out President Trump’s second administration.
“So much of the success we’ve had in this administration traces directly to Charlie’s ability to organize and convene. He didn’t just help us win in 2024, he helped us staff the entire government,” Vance said in the days after Kirk was fatally shot on Sept. 10 during a campus event at Utah Valley University.
Erika Kirk’s endorsement follows Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying in an interview with Vanity Fair published this week that if the vice president were to run for president in 2028, he would support him.
“If JD Vance runs for president, he’s going to be our nominee, and I’ll be one of the first people to support him,” Rubio told Vanity Fair’s Chris Whipple.
Trump himself has said Vance and Rubio would be “great” options for presidential candidates.
“I’m not sure if anybody would run against those two,” Trump said in late October. “I think if they ever formed a group, it would be unstoppable.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump ended his Cabinet meeting on Tuesday by unleashing criticism on Somali immigrants, whom he described as “garbage,” saying he doesn’t want them in the United States.
“You know, our country’s at a tipping point. We could go bad. We’re at a tipping point. I don’t know if people mind me saying that, but I’m saying it,” Trump said. “We could go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country.”
He ascribed the same description to Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Somali American who represents Minnesota, who replied on social media that Trump’s “obsession with me is creepy.”
“I hope he gets the help he desperately needs,” she added.
Trump’s attacks on the American Somali community come as a major contrast to last year when he was campaigning for reelection and gained support from that voting bloc.
Trump was asked about why the Minnesota Somali community should support him during an interview with podcast host Liz Collin in July 2024.
“Because they want safety, they want security … they want security just like everybody else,” he said in the interview, which took place prior to a rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota, which also has a sizable Somali population.
Salman Fiqy, a Somali American in Minnesota who emerged as one of Trump’s most vocal supporters within the community, spoke to the Sahan Journal in July 2024, about how he squared Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric, including the 2017 “Muslim ban.”
“He rubbed us the wrong way,” Fiqy said in 2024, referring to Trump’s statements on Somali refugees at the time. “But I think the majority realize it was a political statement to rally his base.”
The president’s rebuke on the Somalian community, specifically those in Minnesota, came amid a back-and-forth between the chief executive and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who Trump called on to resign amid a reported welfare “scandal.”
The New York Times published an investigation last week on fraud allegedly perpetrated by Somali immigrants against Minnesota’s social services system. The Times’ account detailed law enforcement officials’ claims that over the past five years, “fraud took root in pockets of Minnesota’s Somali diaspora.”
Critics reportedly said that some of that alleged fraud continued because state officials under Walz didn’t want to alienate the Somali population.
In response to The New York Times’ investigation, Walz said in a social media post Tuesday that he welcomes “support in investigating and prosecuting crime. But pulling a PR stunt and indiscriminately targeting immigrants is not a real solution to a problem.”
Trump has seized on the ballooning controversy in recent days as he also linked Omar, a longtime political foe, to the welfare dissension — something he’s also repeated in recent weeks.
Most Somalis initially arrived in the U.S. as refugees following the civil war in the 1990s with over 260,000 people of Somali decent living across the country, according to the U.S. census.
Approximately 73% of Somali Immigrants are naturalized citizens, according to the census.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told reporters that the city is home to more than 80,000 Somali immigrants and most are U.S. citizens.
He pushed back against the administration’s rhetoric Tuesday afternoon and said the city would stand by the Somali community.
“It will be a practical inevitability that when people are arrested by federal immigration agents, they’re going to get the wrong people. They’re going to make mistakes,” he said. “They’re going to screw it up so badly that they’re not just violating habeas corpus, but they are taking away the rights of American citizens.”
Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric has also increased following the alleged shooting last week of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., by an Afghan national. Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, was charged on Tuesday with murder.
Tom Homan, the federal border czar, said on Tuesday that there will be an “increase” in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in Minnesota, but declined to give any insight into when that may happen.
“Yes, there’s going to be an increase of activity up there,” Homan told FOX News. “We’re going to hold people accountable. We are going to enforce the laws of this country without apology.”
Minneapolis City Council Member Jamal Osman criticized the Trump administration for “othering” a population.
“Our Somali American neighbors — the vast majority of them U.S. citizens — deserve to feel safe in their own country,” he said on social media. “Why are some ‘othering’ Americans? Have we learned nothing?”
ABC News’ Sabina Ghebremedhin and Christine Cordero contributed to this report.
A poll worker helps a voter cast their ballot for Tennessee’s 7th district election at Charlotte Park Elementary School on December 2, 2025 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Brett Carlsen/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — As candidates and political parties gear up for the 2026 midterm election campaign, the Supreme Court on Tuesday will consider whether long-standing legal limits on coordinated spending — enacted to prevent corruption — violate the First Amendment.
The case was brought by Republican senatorial and congressional campaign committees along with then-Sen. JD Vance and former Rep. Steve Chabot, both Ohio Republicans, against the Federal Election Commission, which is tasked with enforcing the rules.
The coalition seeks to eliminate limits on the ability of parties, which often have a fundraising advantage over individual candidates, to more freely and directly finance TV ads and organizing efforts of candidates they favor. The practice is known as coordinated spending.
Oral arguments will take place before a Supreme Court that has been consistently skeptical of campaign finance regulations on free speech grounds, narrowing the scope of contribution limits and in 2014 famously rolling back caps on corporate campaign spending with the Citizens United decision.
The Trump administration, which controls the FEC, is declining to enforce or defend coordinated spending limits. In its place, the Democratic National Committee and a Supreme Court-appointed attorney will argue for why they should be preserved.
“This has been held constitutional at least twice before by the Supreme Court and more times by lower courts,” said Marc Elias, the Democratic attorney defending the law. “The entire campaign finance system is built upon these limits.”
Congress in 1974 set limits on the amount of money American individuals, organizations and political parties can give directly to candidates, and the Supreme Court has upheld them as permissible protections against bribery in the electoral process.
In 2025, the political contribution limits are $3,500 per person to an individual candidate and $44,300 per person to a national party committee per year, according to the FEC.
At issue in this case are added limits set by Congress on the amount of money a political party can spend in direct coordination with a candidate.
The FEC’s coordinated spending limits are computed based on each state’s voting-age population and the number of members of Congress. For Senate nominees, the cap is between $127,200 and $3.9 million in 2025; for House nominees, the limit is $63,300 in most states, according to the FEC.
Advocates say the spending limits prevent quid pro quo corruption between a candidate and party, and prevent individuals from attempting to circumvent contribution rules by essentially funneling donations to a candidate through the party, which is subject to the higher caps.
“If those contributions, which dwarf the base limits on [individual] contributions to candidates, are effectively placed at a candidate’s disposal through coordinated spending, they become potent sources of actual or apparent corruption,” argue attorneys for Public Citizen, a nonprofit voter advocacy group, in a brief to the high court.
More than a dozen states and independent election watchdog groups have also urged the court to leave campaign-finance rules to legislators, arguing they are better positioned to establish policies for elections than judges are.
The defenders of the limits also contend that the Republican plaintiffs lack legal standing to bring the case. They say that because the Trump FEC is not going to enforce the rules, there is no injury to the parties involved and that Vance and Chabot are not even active candidates for office who would be affected by the coordinated spending limits.
Republicans insist coordinated spending limits are unconstitutional suppression of free speech and that they are ineffective in the purported goal of curbing corruption.
“One of the key functions of a political party is to make sure that its candidates will vote for the party’s platform once in office,” the Republican committees tell the Supreme Court.
The case — National Republican Senatorial Committee, et al. v. Federal Election Commission — is expected to be decided by the end of June 2026 when the Supreme Court’s term concludes.
