Beyond Tuesday's politics as usual, Epstein vote offers real change, new direction away from Trump
A bunch of things happened on Tuesday.
Though none occurred in Oklahoma, one might affect Oklahoma and still that’s not what the day was about.
Let’s go through the things. A bigger point awaits.
That which may affect us?
The Trump administration took further steps toward dismantling the U.S. Department of Education.
Writes Zachary Schermele of USA Today, “The agency finalized six agreements to outsource aspects of its workload to four other parts of the federal government, according to copies of the plans.”
What could possibly go wrong?
“Cutting through layers of red tape in Washington is one essential piece of our final mission,” said education secretary Linda McMahon, who once ran World Wrestling Entertainment because of course she did.
Perhaps, but isn’t maintaining a single cabinet department to support, enhance and fund public education the more efficient path?
Also, President Donald Trump welcomed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — MBS — into the White House, the man U.S. intelligence concluded to be responsible for the 2018 murder of U.S. resident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
ABC White House Correspondent Mary Bruce, in the Oval Office as Trump and MBS held court, offered a two-part question.
She asked Trump if it was right his family to do business in Saudi Arabia while he’s president. She asked MBS why Americans should trust him given his implicated role in Khashoggi’s murder.
In response, Trump, among other things, suggested ABC have its broadcast license “taken away.”
It could have been worse. On Friday, aboard Air Force One, he referred to Bloomberg News’ Catherine Lucey as “Piggy” when she asked about Jeffrey Epstein.
Also, a Texas three-judge panel — each an appointee of a different president: Trump, Obama, Reagan — struck down the state’s newly gerrymandered map, the one designed to give Republicans five more House seats in the 2026 midterms, the one that fueled a California referendum to counter it, which passed and remains in effect.
“To be sure, politics played a role in drawing the 2025 Map [for the 2026 midterms]. But it was much more than just politics,” wrote U.S. Judge Jeffrey Brown, the Trump appointee. “Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map.”
How about that?
In one case, the Trump administration continues to enact Project 2025 measures, about which the man himself claimed ignorance during his campaign.
In another, Trump can’t help but to be the worst-behaved president imaginable, threatening to take away a broadcast license because a reporter dared do her job.
It’s always a woman, isn’t it?
In the last, the judicial branch stood up to Republican overreach and, given Texas’ filing deadline is Dec. 8, it might just stand.
Still, all three have one thing in common.
Whether it’s Trump living up to his bullying brand; his administration undermining the executive branch from the inside out; or a map drawn to shape future elections, it’s all …
Politics.
But there was one other thing, too.
Tuesday morning, outside the U.S. Capitol, several victims of Jeffrey Epstein addressed Trump, U.S. House members and the world.
It turned out they were talking to Senators, too.
“I beg you, President Trump, please stop making this political. It is not about you, President Trump,” Jena-Lisa Jones said. “You are our president. Please start acting like it. Show some class, show some real leadership, show that you actually care about people other than yourself.
“I voted for you, but your behavior on this issue has been a national embarrassment.”
Beyond victims and their attorneys, House members Ro Khanna, Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene stood alongside in support.
Khanna’s a Democrat. Massie and Greene are Republicans.
Later, the vote Trump and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson sought to avoid forever — to the point Johnson sent House members home during the shutdown to avoid it — finally took place.
By a 427-1 count, the House voted to release the Epstein files in all of their forms.
Soon after, though Johnson believed he had assurances the bill would be amended in the Senate, it wasn’t. Instead, minority leader Chuck Schumer received unanimous consent to push what the House passed straight through the Senate and to the president’s desk for signing.
All in one day.
Though it doesn’t happen often, it’s a reminder the most powerful politics occur when the cause is not political.
Because what’s political about hundreds of women, many underage when Jeffrey Epstein first entered their lives, demanding to be heard and reckoned with, demanding justice and accountability?
And look at what their efforts have wrought.
A president turning a 180 to maintain influence within his party, yet so clumsily and nakedly he may have lost it anyway.
Republicans — all but one in the House and Senate combined — joining Democrats to release the files.
In the wake of it all, even the flamethrower formerly known as Marjorie Taylor Greene has disavowed her former self.
“Humbly, I’m sorry for taking part in the toxic politics,” she said on Sunday. “It’s very bad for our country … I’m committed, and I’ve been working on this a lot lately, to put down the knives in politics. I really just want to see people be kind to one another, and we need to figure out a new path forward.”
Powerful.
It’s why no president in our lifetime has ever been as popular as George W. Bush right after 9/11 before blowing it when Republicans made everything personal and political in the 2002 midterms.
It’s why Gentner Drummond was never more distinguished as Oklahoma’s attorney general than when applying statute and constitutional law, unconcerned about who it disappointed, as opposed to now, portraying himself as best friend to the guy who called one reporter “Piggy” and threatened an entire network’s very existence.
When the cause is righteous, beyond politics, real change can occur.
Tuesday felt like a big day in this country.
I can’t be the only one.