Revealed: Trump Decision Helped Poison 24,000 Americans

Ellison whines about the “needless costs” of the empire he’s buying, Melania tops the Epstein subpoena list, and Ivanka can’t buy her way into Miami’s most exclusive club

Good morning. Happy Saturday! I’m John Byrne.

David Ellison, the MAGA billionaire buying Warner Bros., is having a temper tantrum about the “needless costs” of the antitrust suit standing between him and CNN. A cyclospora outbreak that poisoned more than 24,000 Americans was worsened by a food-safety rule Trump delayed. Melania Trump just landed at the top of a Democratic subpoena list as House investigators circle the Epstein files. And here in Miami, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner still can’t buy their way into the island club where money, for once, isn’t enough.

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Exposed: How Trump Made Cyclospora Outbreak Worse

Here’s what Trump’s budget cuts mean when it hits your lunch. More than 24,500 Americans have been sickened this year by cyclospora, a parasite that causes explosive diarrhea, cramps, and dehydration. The bug killed two people in Michigan. The source: iceberg lettuce from a Taylor Farms plant in Mexico, served at Taco Bell.

It took nearly two weeks to nail that down: two weeks during which Michigan health officials wrote Taco Bell’s parent company three separate times begging for supply-chain records.

Here’s why: a federal rule, drafted under the 2011 Food Safety Modernization Act and set to take effect this past January, that would have forced the company to hand those records over in 24 hours. But the Trump administration delayed it until mid-2028, saying companies needed “more time to prepare.” Then Republicans in Congress went further; they barred the FDA from spending a dime to enforce it.

“Time translates into illnesses and lives,” one food-policy expert told the New York Times.

And there’s more. The delay wasn’t the only cut. Trump’s FDA also fired staff who supported food inspectors and coordinated with foreign governments. In addition, Trump killed a program that specifically tracked cyclospora. Foreign food inspections last year hit a 15-year low.

This is what happens when you treat the agencies that keep food safe as waste to be trimmed: people eat lunch, and some of them die.

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Melania Tops the Epstein Subpoena List

No matter how hard Trump’s White House works to bury them, the Epstein files aren’t going away. Katie Phang, the lawyer and journalist suing Attorney General Todd Blanche to force the release of remaining records, said this week that if Democrats retake the House in the midterms, one name sits at the very top of the subpoena list: Melania Trump.

Rep. Robert Garcia, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, explained it this way. Republicans set a precedent, he said, when they subpoenaed and questioned first ladies, former first ladies, and presidential family members going after the Clintons and Hunter Biden. Garcia intends to use that same precedent.

“Does anyone here across the country think that the first lady doesn’t have additional information?” he asked. Melania and Epstein were photographed together with Trump and Ghislaine Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago in February 2000.

Melania’s strange April press conference where she denied being Epstein’s friend while at the same time calling on Congress to let survivors testify only sharpened investigators’ interest.

“If Melania Trump wants real justice for the survivors, then she would work with us to try to get the truth,” Garcia said. The midterms will decide whether he gets to ask.

The One Thing the Trumps Can’t Buy

For all the corruption that money greases open in this administration, here’s a small, delicious exception. And it’s happening a few miles from my desk, here in Miami Beach.

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner have spent years trying to break into the Indian Creek Country Club, a century-old Miami institution on the 300-acre island known as the “Billionaire Bunker.” The members still won’t have them.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the couple owns a lot on the island and got sponsored for membership by the widow of legendary Dolphins coach Don Shula, and still only about half the club’s board bothered to show up to their own housewarming party. When the message is that blunt, you’re not getting in.

They’re not the only rejects. Jeff Bezos recently spent $234 million to buy three properties on the island and still hasn’t landed an invite. This comes six months after personally working the room at a February dock party. Even the CEO of Goldman Sachs had to survive an organized petition against his membership before he got in.

Kushner, ever the player, has hit on a novel angle: fix the sewage. The president’s son-in-law took a seat on the Indian Creek Village governing board and helped broker a deal to repair the island’s aging septic system, which has been leaking waste into Biscayne Bay for years. A new pump station is conveniently going in across from his own house.

Ivanka, meanwhile, is playing golf with members and turning up at events. There’s something hilarious about the family that bent the entire federal government to its will reduced to handling everyone’s raw sewage.

Ellison Complains About the Cost of the Empire He’s Buying

Speaking of money: there’s a special kind of nerve required to spend $111 billion swallowing American media and then complaining it costs too much.

On Friday, Paramount announced that Mexico had approved its acquisition of Warner Bros., joining the European Union, the UK, and Trump’s own Justice Department. The only thing left in Ellison’s way is a coalition of 12 Democratic state attorneys general, led by California, which sued in July to block the deal.

Trump lackey David Ellison — the buyer — is furious. In a Friday news dump, Paramount whined that the states are inflicting “needless costs from penalty fees, litigation expenses and business disruption.”

Ellison’s problem? A $7 million-a-day “ticking fee” owed to Warner Bros. shareholders that kicks in October 1. Ellison would like the states out of his way before then. He’s even threatened to yank Paramount out of California, to Texas, Tennessee, or Georgia, if Sacramento won’t play ball.

California’s Attorney General isn’t blinking. His office says the merger means “higher costs, less competition, lower wages, job cuts, and fewer movies and TV shows.” A judge has already found the states likely to win at trial, and Ellison has conceded that the deal may take a year.

This is the same David Ellison whose family circled CNN and now controls CBS. When we tell you a handful of MAGA billionaires are vacuuming up the outlets that control what Americans see and hear, this is the man we mean. And he’s mad the law is slowing him down.

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I’m John Byrne. Thanks for reading, and thanks for supporting independent media. I’ll see you tomorrow.