(Mediaite) President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick sat down with the New York Post’s Miranda Devine for the latest episode of her Pod Force One podcast, out Wednesday. The hour-long conversation covered a wide range of topics, including Jeffrey Epstein – who was once Lutnick’s neighbor. Lutnick told Devine that Epstein was “gross” and added that after he and his wife left Epstein’s home on the “six to eight steps it takes to get from his house to my house, my wife and I decided that I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again.”

(AP) President Donald Trump has seized on the government shutdown as an opportunity to reshape the federal workforce and punish detractors, by threatening mass firings of workers and suggesting “irreversible” cuts to programs important to Democrats. Rather than simply furlough employees, as is usually done during any lapse of funds, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said layoffs were “imminent.” The Office of Management and Budget announced it was putting on hold roughly $18 billion of infrastructure funds for New York’s subway and Hudson Tunnel projects — in the hometown of the Democratic leaders of the U.S. House and Senate.

(Spectrum News) Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller on Wednesday rallied members of a federal law enforcement task force that has begun operating in Memphis as part of President Donald Trump's crime-fighting plan for the city. The officials met with Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican who has supported the project, before touring a staging area for the Memphis Safe Task Force and then speaking to a group of federal, state and local law enforcement officers and Tennessee National Guard members.

(Daily Beast) Stephen Miller issued a shocking directive to police officials in a fiery speech in Memphis. The White House deputy chief of staff joined Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Attorney General Pam Bondi in Tennessee on Wednesday to promote Donald Trump’s so-called “Memphis Safe Task Force.” In a rant aimed at motivating the federal law enforcement agencies operating in the state as part of Trump’s crackdown on a claimed crime wave, Miller told Memphis police officers they were now “unleashed” to fight crime by order of the president.

(CBS News) Since President Trump returned to the White House in January, his administration has mounted an aggressive effort to crack down on cities, counties and states that aren't participating in its mass deportation campaign, threatening these so-called "sanctuary" jurisdictions with lawsuits, funding cuts and other penalties. But eight months into Mr. Trump's second administration, the effort to exert pressure on these jurisdictions has yielded few tangible results, with most lawsuits still unresolved and local Democratic leaders doubling down on policies that limit or bar cooperation with federal immigration officials.

(The Guardian) As the Trump administration insists it is serious about negotiating an end to the government shutdown, a pair of racist deepfake videos mocking Democratic leaders played on a loop in the White House briefing room for hours on Wednesday. The videos, posted by Trump on his social media platform on Monday, use fabricated audio to make it seem as if the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, called Democrats “woke pieces of shit”, and showed the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, with a fake mustache and sombrero.

(New York Times) The White House on Wednesday sent letters to nine of the nation’s top public and private universities, urging campus leaders to pledge support for President Trump’s political agenda to help ensure access to federal research funds. The letters came attached to a 10-page “compact” that serves as a sort of priority statement for the administration’s educational goals — the most comprehensive accounting to date of what Mr. Trump aims to achieve from an unparalleled, monthslong pressure campaign on academia.

(Public Notice) On Monday, Google paid a $24.5 million bribe to President Trump. The bag of cash was euphemistically described as a “legal settlement,” but in this dangerous political moment, we do ourselves no favors with polite obfuscation. Google, like Paramount and Disney, decided that it was better to pay off Donald Trump than beat him in court. As an economic calculation, it makes sense — a few million dollars is a small price to pay to keep sweet with a despot using the levers of government to punish his enemies.

(Political Wire) A new Emerson College survey of the Virginia Governor’s race finds Abigail Spanberger (D) leading Winsome Earle-Sears (R), 52% to 42%, with 5% of voters undecided. Those who have already voted early in Virginia report voting for Spanberger, 60% to 38%, while likely voters who have yet to cast a ballot support Spanberger 50% to 43%.

(CNN) The Trump administration fired the top national security prosecutor in the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia after a social media post by a right-wing activist and writer falsely tied him to the case of FBI Director James Comey, two people familiar with the matter said. Michael Ben’Ary was chief of the national security section in the Alexandria, Virginia-based office and previously worked at Justice Department headquarters.