The ICE Campaign: Bruce Blakeman’s Long Shot for Governor of New York

A heated interview with a New York Republican betting his long-shot campaign on enforcement

Welcome back to The Red Letter.

We’ve been living inside the Epstein files for days now. My team has been combing through them, survivors have been sending key excerpts, and online sleuths have surfaced small but telling details that, taken together, sketch a far darker and more expansive picture of Epstein’s world.

What’s becoming clear isn’t just the scale of the depravity. It’s how many people in Donald Trump’s inner circle—figures who have publicly claimed distance or ignorance—are prominently featured throughout the material.

So many of these documents would have dominated news cycles for days. But we’re desensitized now. Overwhelmed. And that’s not an accident.

That may explain why the Trump administration’s strategic leak to the Daily Mail—timed as Todd Blanche held a press conference on the file release—barely registered. The email in question had Epstein gossiping about Bill Gates’s alleged STD from a Russian prostitute and speculating about how to secretly administer antibiotics to his wife, Melinda. Whoever leaked it likely hoped the salaciousness would bury the real atrocities deeper in the files.

Instead, the outrage cycle lasted about 15 minutes.

What’s emerging now is far more damning: a portrait of Epstein’s world and the powerful people around him, stitched together over three decades, across multiple administrations. It helps explain not only how Epstein was protected for so long, but why so many of his powerful friends remain shielded today. I’m working on a deep dive that pulls those threads together, which I hope to bring you tomorrow.

What’s getting lost in this chaotic rollout is the toll it’s taking on survivors, who are once again being reminded how easily their experiences can be sidelined.

“This feels like government-mandated institutional betrayal,” survivor Marijke Chartouni texted me this morning. “The institutions within the government that we look up to and depend on have violated and continue to violate our trust.”

In the meantime, I sat down Friday with Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman to discuss his long-shot bid for New York governor on the GOP ticket. Remarkably, he’s running on a pro-ICE platform, pushing for more aggressive enforcement even as the White House pulls back. To say the interview got heated would be an understatement.

An incumbent hasn’t lost a New York gubernatorial race since 1994. Kathy Hochul has raised $20 million for reelection. Blakeman has raised just $1.2 million. Still, I wanted to hear his defense of ICE’s actions—and whether he would bring a Minneapolis-style operation to Buffalo, Rochester, or New York City. Most of all, I wanted to hear whether he could defend the killing of Alex Pretti, something even the White House now finds itself struggling to justify.

I hope you’re all having a restful Sunday and staying warm. I’ll be back tomorrow, and you’ll also see me on MSNBC, CNN, and Piers Morgan discussing my latest reporting on the Epstein files.

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