Catholic Bishops Say Trump “Exploited” Them in White House Meeting

Two Catholic bishops have expressed intense regret at their recent photo op with President Trump, calling the widely-circulated images of their White House meeting an exploitative act that was “publicized by the administration without the consent of the participants.”“The meeting was in no way an endorsement of the president, his policies, or his party.... We were told the meeting was to be a private discussion, that several Catholic members of the cabinet might make an appearance, and that there could be an opportunity to pray privately with the president,” Milwaukee Archbishop Jeffrey Grob wrote Sunday in a statement titled “A Public Apology.”“We were then directed to stand behind him and pray. After which several photos were taken and we were ushered out. Unbeknownst to the group of bishops a video was also taken. But permission for the public distribution or posting of either the video or photos was not given by the bishops,” Grob continued. “It did not take long thereafter for the White House to post a video and photos of the prayer. I soon began receiving messages of serious concern over the possibility that I had inadvertently participated in a political event less than two weeks before a national election. I also heard from some who felt wounded because of the ways they or their family had been harmed by the president’s policies.”Iowa Bishop William Joensen expressed similar sentiments.“I wish I had been more shrewd and less simple, like those who exploited our meeting for partisan political purpose,” he wrote. “I pray I am more prudent and wise going forward, even as I remain resolute in my openness to engaging and praying for political leaders at all levels.”Catholic Archbishops and Bishops pray with President Trump in the Oval Office ❤️ https://t.co/facV5wTGQQ— Margo Martin (@MargoMartin47) October 22, 2026 The White House meeting was organized by the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation. And Trump is about as pious as his policies (not very). This made the images from the meeting and the shady nature in which it unfolded all the more questionable—and regrettable—for some of the clergymen involved.“I feel a heavy sadness, not only over the pain I caused, but also for the fact that something so sacred to a group of religious leaders, prayer to our Heavenly Father, would be manipulated in that way,” Grob continued. “We came in good faith to try to work for the betterment of our fellow human beings, to ease their suffering, to build up the common good, and to pray with a president, not to pose for a political photo opportunity to benefit the few. We should never have been put in that position by the White House.”Anthropic’s Claude got around a paywall to access Georgia voters’ data without human authorization.Anthropic confirmed to Axios Sunday that the company’s artificial intelligence model had, without prompting, requested a digital entry pass, or “access token,” to collect aggregate vote counts for a statistics project.“Claude did not access the state’s voter registration system, change any voting records, or pull any individual voter records,” Anthropic said, adding that it had placed guardrails to prevent the chatbot from taking these sorts of actions in the future. The company first notified the Georgia secretary of state’s office and the White House three weeks ago about the spontaneous access. Trump administration officials urged the state office to disclose the incident, but those calls went unheeded, a source told Axios. This revelation comes as Anthropic unveiled its Initial Public Offering filing Monday, ahead of what is expected to be one of the largest stock debuts in history at an estimated value of more than $2 trillion. It also comes weeks after one of its researchers warned that the company’s product could cause a mass extinction event.This is just the latest instance of an AI company being forced to disclose its model’s unauthorized behavior. Democrats just dropped a heavy hammer on the president, eight days out from Election Day.House Judiciary Committee Democrats released a 50-page report Monday morning accusing Donald Trump of participating in Jeffrey Epstein’s criminal sex schemes. The caucus also accused the Trump administration of a broad cover-up, designed to shield the president from blowback as it tried to roll out the release of the Epstein files to the general public.The report cites the experiences of 11 women, FBI records, and documents released through the Epstein Files Transparency Act. At least five women accused Trump of rape or sexual assault in Epstein’s company, according to interviews conducted by the committee. Others said there were “apparent attempts” by Epstein and his longtime girlfriend and associate Ghislaine Maxwell to traffic them to the real estate magnate.Beatrice Keul told lawmakers that Trump “violently raped” her at a November 1993 pageant at the Plaza Hotel. She further described the beauty pageants as a “hunting ground” that Epstein and Trump would use to find and “prey” on young women and girls. Jill Harth also shared an account of a party at Mar-a-Lago in 1994, where she said Trump aggressively pursued and sexually assaulted her. Trump and Epstein were the only men present, Harth told lawmakers.In total, at least 28 women have accused Trump of rape or sexual misconduct.The report concludes that Trump and Paolo Zampolli, a former modeling agent and longtime friend of the president as well as a former senior Trump administration official, “may have been co-conspirators” in Epstein’s sex trafficking ring in the 1990s.The report also claims that Trump’s Justice Department deliberately or prematurely shut down investigations into Trump-related allegations made by some Epstein survivors. It also accuses Attorney General Todd Blanche of specifically instructing Maxwell not to discuss a survivor whose account implicated the president.“Trump’s Justice Department appears to be covering up these crimes to protect the President,” said Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin in a statement. “The women who survived Epstein deserve to be heard, Congress must have the complete files required by law, and an independent special counsel must investigate Epstein’s co-conspirators and DOJ’s cover-up and ensure that state and foreign prosecutors have the evidence they need to pursue justice.”Last week, reports emerged that White House officials were involved in drafting the infamous July 2025 FBI-DOJ memo that effectively shut down future Epstein-related investigations. The memo created explosive public backlash even among MAGA supporters for declaring at the time that there was no Epstein “client list,” no punishable co-conspirators to the pedophile’s crimes, and no grounds for further investigation.Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth thinks a Senate seat would help him avoid impeachment or President Trump giving him the axe.Puck reports that Hegseth is hoping that Tennessee’s incumbent Senator Marsha Blackburn wins her election for governor next week and appoints him to fill her vacant seat. Hegseth lived in Tennessee for three years before Trump appointed him to the Cabinet. On October 17, Hegseth was spotted at a University of Tennessee football game seated next to Blackburn and Republican Representative Tim Burchett.Hegseth’s tenure has earned him both Republican and Democratic critics. He has fired or pushed out multiple senior military leaders, endangered U.S. troops with the “Signalgate” group chat scandal, and burned through missile stockpiles in the war with Iran. Outgoing Republican Representative Thomas Massie has led calls for his impeachment, which forced House Speaker Mike Johnson to dismiss the House early to avoid embarrassment.Last week, The Telegraph reported that current and former Pentagon officials are ready and willing to “spill their guts” if Congress moves to investigate and impeach Hegseth.“There’s going to be a lot of people that are going to very quietly go to the chair of the Armed [Services] Committee and are going to spill their guts, provide them with everything they can and leak everything they can,” an anonymous source told the British newspaper. “It’ll be horrendous. It’ll be consistent embarrassment.”The Pentagon denies that Hegseth is seeking such an escape.“Under President Trump’s leadership, Secretary Hegseth’s singular priority is leading the War Department and delivering on the President’s America First agenda,” Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson told The Independent.Hegseth’s plan might run into resistance, as Burchett is also eyeing the seat, and has spent much of the year campaigning for Blackburn. With Trump’s unpopularity shattering presidential records and next week’s midterm results looking worse and worse, it’s only natural that the rats will want to start fleeing the ship. Will Republicans look to protect Hegseth, or leave him to his fate? President Trump doesn’t give a damn how much it costs to fill your gas tank—as long as he and his friends are making a fortune.The president literally admitted this to thousands of people at a Georgia rally on Saturday.“And while oil prices are temporarily high, and will be falling dramatically in a short period of time as soon as that war is over—because there’s so much oil,” he said to the crowd, “The United States oil and gas business is making hundreds of billions of dollars.... Our country is making hundreds of billions of dollars ‘cause of what’s happened in the Middle East.… trillions of dollars.”Trump went on to tell the crowd that his team advised him to avoid talking about gas prices in that manner due to how incredibly tone deaf it sounds. “My people said ‘please don’t mention that sir, because people are paying a little higher,’” he said in a whiny little voice. “That number’s gonna come way down, but what we’ve done for this country, we’re making money like this country has never made before. So I said let me say it gingerly.... I can just see the fake headlines: ‘President Trump is talking about all the money they’re making while people are suffering at the pump.’ That’ll be the headline. I said I don’t give a damn I’m gonna say it: We’re making a freaking fortune.”TRUMP on HIGH GAS PRICES: We’re making money like we’ve never made before. They’ll say: President Trump is bragging about all the money they're making while people are suffering at the pump. I don’t give a damn. We’re making a freaking fortune. https://t.co/KZ2pYsTPyR— Acyn (@Acyn) October 25, 2026 Trump and his Big Oil friends are making a “freaking fortune,” not the normal Americans he’s trying to convince to vote Republican next month. But of course the most corrupt president of the century would have no issue conflating the profit margins of billionaires with the financial status of the average American—even as there is a negative correlation between the two. His comment was lambasted far and wide.“Trump just said the quiet part out loud: He doesn’t ‘give a damn’ about higher gas prices, as long as his billionaire friends are making a fortune,” independent democratic socialist Senator Bernie Sanders wrote online. “Trump doesn’t tell the truth very often, but he did last night!”“Donald Trump has made $2.2 billion off the presidency—and counting,” Illinois Democratic Governor and 2028 presidential hopeful JB Pritzker wrote. “The only person making a ‘fortune’ is him.”“Give @POTUS credit for leveling with the American people. HE’s making money like he’s never made before,” CNN analyst David Axelrod added. “And he doesn’t give a damn about high gas prices. (Not a great closing message, though.)”This is such a “let them eat cake moment” for the president, blatantly expressing his giddiness at his own personal financial windfall during a rally that was supposed to convince voters to support the same rich friends he bragged about. And when is that war on Iran actually going to end?