Why Epstein Survivors Aren’t Impressed With Blanche’s Olive Branch

Welcome to The TNR Blue Book. Today, read about the postponed Blanche vote, gas stoves, and more ...

Editor’s Note: Welcome to The TNR Blue Book. It’s our new daily newsletter that covers Congress and much more, but with a distinctly TNR twist: Our focus will be strictly on Democrats, liberal and progressive groups, and the fight to take back power and save democracy. Every morning, you’ll get a rundown of late-breaking news, what Democrats on Capitol Hill are thinking, quick hits on what you need to know nationally, the latest on what’s coming out of the think tanks and activist groups, short interviews with progressive newsmakers and authors, and more (including some humor and political trivia!). There’s nothing else out there like it.Sign up and get this newsletter for free. 

Epstein survivors ask senators to vote “no” on Blanche 

Republican holdouts on Todd Blanche’s confirmation to the position of attorney general are mostly focused on stopping Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund for alleged victims of government overreach. But survivors of sexual abuse at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein are fighting against Blanche for an entirely different reason.

“My message would be that if you have a daughter, or you have a son, or you have grandchildren, put them first because Todd Blanche isn’t gonna put them first. He puts himself and the president first. That’s it,” Sharlene Rochard, a survivor of Epstein’s sex trafficking, said about senators who will vote for Blanche’s nomination. 

Survivors have heavily criticized Blanche’s handling of the Justice Department’s Epstein investigation—in particular, releasing files that included the names of Epstein’s victims, not investigating and prosecuting perpetrators, and giving preferential treatment to Epstein’s collaborator, Ghislaine Maxwell, they say. On Wednesday, survivors and advocates railed against Blanche’s nomination at the launch event for the “Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Bookmobile,” a mobile exhibit of the Epstein files created by Defiance.org and the Institute for Primary Facts. The bookmobile is intended to bring the Epstein files to voters, particularly those in red states, as it travels across the country. After the morning event, the group decamped to Capitol Hill and went office to office to hand out copies of the Epstein files to senators.

The Senate Judiciary Committee was scheduled to vote on Blanche Thursday morning, but Republican committee Chair Chuck Grassley announced at the end of the day Wednesday that it would be postponed. Blanche has a razor-thin margin; just one “no” vote would sink his nomination. GOP Senators Thom Tillis and John Cornyn, the main holdouts on Blanche, have said they’re more concerned about his position on President Trump’s $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” than on his attitude toward the Epstein files.

“I’m focused on other issues,” Cornyn said Wednesday when I asked if he had a message for the Epstein survivors. “It’s a terrible tragedy, but that’s between them and the attorney general.” 

Cornyn and Tillis have asked to see Blanche confirm, in writing, that the slush fund is dead in the water. Without that written confirmation, Cornyn said Wednesday, he is “not prepared to vote ‘yes.’”

Some Democrats are optimistic that their Republican colleagues’ opposition could end Blanche’s chance to be attorney general. “But I’ve seen this movie before,” Senator Richard Blumenthal told me. “I have no great optimism that they will act to do the right thing.” Senator Ron Wyden, at least publicly, was more hopeful. “We think we’ve got a real shot at winning,” he said after the bookmobile launch, at which he spoke. “I think [Republicans] are really rattled. They ought to be!”

When asked about the Epstein survivors’ opposition to Blanche, Tillis tried to paint a positive picture: “I just talked to some of the Epstein survivors,” he said. Alongside Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, Tillis had pushed for Blanche to meet with survivors, which Blanche then did on July 16. “Keep in mind: Blanche is the first person, official, senior official from the DOJ since 2007 that’s met with them. That’s something to build on.” 

Jena-Lisa Jones, who grew up in Palm Beach County, Florida, and was abused by Epstein when she was 14 years old, wasn’t impressed by the meeting. “He asked to speak to the survivors, and it was a very last-minute thing, which I think was to cover his own—pardon my French—ass,” she said. “I think it was a waste of our time and, unfortunately, a joke.”

Rochard, for her part, had no interest in attending the meeting with Blanche. “The reason I chose not to go is because it felt forced,” she said, as though Blanche just wanted “to check a box.” She also pointed out that the meeting was just one hour long, while last year, as deputy attorney general, Blanche spent nine hours over two days with Maxwell, Epstein’s accomplice and convicted sex offender. Shortly after that meeting, Maxwell was transferred to a minimum security prison.

As for Cornyn and Tillis, Jones told me: “We hope that they stand with us and vote ‘no,’ but the way things have played out and how our government runs, anything can happen.”—Emma Janssen  

About those gas stoves … 

Remember the gas stove war of 2023? Studies had been steadily emerging for years showing that gas stoves were leaking harmful substances into homes, and in January of that year, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s Richard Trumka Jr. told Bloomberg that the government could potentially regulate the devices. Conservatives immediately lost it, falsely claimed the Biden administration was going to “ban all gas ovens,” and started tweeting out “Don’t Tread on Me” and gun rights memes with stove images subbed in.

Now, an update on all that: The Washington Post on Wednesday reported the striking results from a pioneering study led by a Case Western professor: Replacing the gas stoves of people suffering from asthma quickly reduced the number of asthma attacks. The finding comes after the Trump administration canceled the study’s $18 million grant, torpedoing the intended sample size: Researchers could only replace 85 stoves instead of the intended 1,200. Nevertheless, the Post’s Jake Spring reports, “removing the gas stoves relieved the participants’ asthma so much that the results were clear even with only 85 of them, according to two scientists who reviewed the methodology but were not involved in the study.”

The gas stove culture wars are far from over. Last month, a conservative group succeeded in getting a constitutional amendment guaranteeing a “right to natural gas” on the ballot in Colorado—voters will decide on that in November. (Also notable: Back in 2023, 29 House Democrats joined Republicans in a bit of political theater, passing a bill to block a federal gas stove ban that was not in fact being proposed.)

The incident revealed last week, in which OpenAI’s large language model “agent” broke out of its “sandbox” to hack a random company, was worse than initially reported: The agent actually targeted four other companies, too.

Across the country, budget shortages, driver shortages, and declining public school enrollment are threatening the iconic yellow school bus, The Guardian’s Eric Berger reports. Related, in case you missed it: The Washington Post’s report last week on the rising number of public school closures in recent years. 

—Heather Souvaine Horn

KFF finds Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) enrollment numbers down after “several years of rapid enrollment growth.” The likely culprit: expiring subsidies, which dramatically raised people’s premiums. The GOP decided in late 2025 to let the subsidies expire rather than renew them.

The Center for American Progress releases a report by Gréta Bedekovics and Devon Ombres on the status of state laws resembling the currently stalled federal SAVE Act. These laws require “Americans to provide proof of their citizenship, chiefly a passport or birth certificate, to register to vote or stay registered.” Fourteen states already have laws like this, and more are considering bills or ballot measures. 

Data for Progress crunches the numbers and finds that, perhaps contrary to prevailing wisdom, “compared with a Democratic candidate who rejects outside PAC money, Democratic candidates who take money from AIPAC, AI companies, cryptocurrency companies, and pharmaceutical companies perform significantly worse against a Republican candidate averaged across all funding sources.”

In case you missed it: The Groundwork Collaborative and the Century Foundation find that back-to-school supplies and “lunchbox essentials” are set to cost families “close to $400 more per kid” this year, due to rising prices. “Nearly half of all parents report cutting back on other expenses to make room in the budget for back-to-school expenses, or worse, taking on debt.”—Heather Souvaine Horn

Here’s Why That’s B.S.  

What’s the deal with Mitch McConnell’s health?

Political Trivia Question of the Day

The Senate continues to weigh Todd Blanche’s fate. It’s rare indeed that the Senate has voted down a president’s attorney general nominee. It last happened nearly a century ago. Who was it? (If you know the answer to that, we’ll be impressed!) 

 Meanwhile, an easier question: A fairly recent president nominated two people in a row who were forced to withdraw their nominations. Who were they, and why did they withdraw? The reason was the same in both instances. (Sign up for The Blue Book to find the answer in tomorrow’s newsletter.)

The Wildfire Fighter Who Just Might Flip Montana

Welcome to The TNR Blue Book. Today, read about Sam Forstag’s race in Montana, AI deepfakes in Connecticut, and more ...

Editor’s Note: Welcome to The TNR Blue Book. It’s our new daily newsletter that covers Congress and much more, but with a distinctly TNR twist: Our focus will be strictly on Democrats, liberal and progressive groups, and the fight to take back power and save democracy. Every morning, you’ll get a rundown of late-breaking news, what Democrats on Capitol Hill are thinking, quick hits on what you need to know nationally, the latest on what’s coming out of the think tanks and activist groups, short interviews with progressive newsmakers and authors, and more (including some humor and political trivia!). There’s nothing else out there like it.Sign up and get this newsletter for free. 

The wildfire fighter who just might flip Montana 

Smoke jumper and union organizer Sam Forstag, running in a shocking dead heat against Republican Aaron Flint in the fight for Montana’s 1st district according to the latest poll, just became one of the most progressive candidates in the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s Red to Blue program. On Tuesday, the DCCC added Forstag along with four other candidates to the program, which lends support to Democratic candidates in competitive districts.

Forstag, DCCC chair Suzan DelBene said in a statement, “puts his life on the line to protect his neighbors and community from wildfires. Deeply committed to Western Montana, Sam is the kind of authentic, dynamic leader that working people want fighting for them in Washington.” Forstag became the official Democratic candidate after winning the primary on June 2.

The other candidates added to Red to Blue on Tuesday include Arizona state Representative Amish Shah in Arizona’s 1st congressional district, Pia Dandiya in Florida’s new 22nd congressional district, Iowa state Representative Lindsay James in the 2nd congressional district, and Jake Johnson for Minnesota’s 1st congressional district. That brings the number of Red to Blue candidates to 30.

Forstag now joins Randy Villegas, who is running in California’s 22nd congressional district, in representing the party’s insurgent left in the DCCC’s program. The DCCC originally endorsed Villegas’s moderate opponent, Jasmeet Bains, stirring up controversy and claims that the party was protecting moderates. A similar scene played out in Maine’s 2nd congressional district, where Matt Dunlap, the state auditor, won his June 9 primary over DCCC-backed State Senator Joe Baldacci, who was featured on the Red to Blue list. After his win, the DCCC added Villegas to the Red to Blue program. But the DCCC hasn’t yet done the same for Dunlap.

Forstag is backed by progressives like Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but also has the endorsement of a handful of Republican former electeds in Montana. He’s also supported by former Democratic Senator Jon Tester, who won the district in 2024 despite losing the state. The district, established in 2023, includes liberal college towns Bozeman and Missoula. In recent years, tens of thousands of Washington, California, Colorado, and Oregon residents have moved to Montana, which some think could make the state more liberal—although the jury’s still out.

In the general election, Forstag is facing Aaron Flint. Flint is 46, and Forstag is 32; whoever wins the election will be the first non–baby boomer to represent the state in Congress in three decades. Both Flint and........

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