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Sept. 22, 2025, 6:10 PM EDTBy Peter Nicholas and Matt DixonWASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s insistence that his attorney general bring charges against three perceived political opponents could backfire if any cases get to court, undermining his effort to see them punished, some legal experts said Monday.In a social media post Saturday, Trump pressed Attorney General Pam Bondi about three people who’ve raised his ire and who’ve not faced criminal charges to this point: Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.; New York state Attorney General Letitia James; and former FBI Director James Comey.He mentioned that he’d been impeached and indicted multiple times “OVER NOTHING!”“JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED NOW!!!” he wrote. He also cited unspecified “statements and posts” he’d read contending that the trio are “‘guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.’”Because of Trump’s exhortation, defense lawyers could argue in court that their clients were targets of selective prosecution and did not receive constitutionally required due process, said Bruce Green, a professor at Fordham Law School who specializes in ethics issues.“If they’re picking these people not because they’re guilty of something … but because the president is out to get them because they’re Democrats and they made his life miserable previously, that’s an impermissible basis,” Green said.Another issue is whether Schiff, James and Comey could ever get a fair trial if it were to come to that, said Stephen Gillers, a professor of legal ethics at New York University School of Law.“He is his own worst enemy,” Gillers said of Trump.“Sometimes people make statements, but this is the president of the United States telling the court and an eventual jury that the people on trial before them are guilty. I can’t imagine that a court would let that go to a verdict. The prejudice from that kind of statement is enormous,” Gillers said.John Walsh, who served as the U.S. attorney in Colorado for six years ending in 2016, said in an interview: “It certainly gives the defense an argument that the charges are politically motivated and not based on the merits and the evidence and the argument. Some judges might find that persuasive depending on the motions that take place prior to trial.” But he added that even if the Justice Department understands this reality, officials could be pursuing a strategy that he described as, “Investigation is the punishment.” Enduring a federal investigation is costly to the target and can bring significant harm to one’s reputation, he said. “An investigation is a very serious thing against professionals, yes, there is a cost to even just defend yourself,” he added.Trump’s extraordinary weekend message to Bondi — “Pam,” as he called her — put the attorney general in a tough spot, said Jill Wine-Banks, a former general counsel to the U.S. Army and an assistant special prosecutor in the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s.If Bondi accommodates the president and the Justice Department seeks indictments against Schiff, James and Comey, “who’s going to believe it wasn’t done for political purposes?” Wine-Banks asked rhetorically. “And if she doesn’t, she’s going to get fired. So, it’s a lose-lose, no matter what.”Trump tempered his message to Bondi later on Saturday.He posted that Bondi was doing a “GREAT job” while also later telling reporters in a press gaggle: “If they’re not guilty, that’s fine. If they are guilty, or if they should be judged, they should be judged. And we have to do it now.”All three of the people Trump singled out have rankled him for different reasons.Comey led an investigation into Trump’s possible ties to Russian leadership, which concluded that Trump’s campaign did not collude with Russian operatives. Trump fired Comey five months into his first term. Comey declined comment Monday.Schiff, then a House member, led the first impeachment of Trump during the president’s first term. Schiff posted a response to Trump on social media: “There’s no hiding the political retaliation and weaponization. It’s all out in the open.”James brought a successful civil suit against Trump in 2022 that accused him of overvaluing assets, including real estate, in loan applications. The suit’s financial penalty against Trump was later voided.James’ office declined a request for comment.At a press briefing Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt amplified Trump’s condemnation of the trio.“You look at people like Adam Schiff and like James Comey and like Letitia James,” she said, “who the president is rightfully frustrated.”She added that Trump “wants accountability for these corrupt fraudsters who abused their power, who abused their oath of office to target the former president and then candidate for the highest office in the land.”Trump has long contended that he was a victim of a weaponized judicial system when Joe Biden was in office. In his inauguration speech on Jan. 20, he pledged to end such practices. “Never again will the immense power of the state be weaponized to persecute political opponents — something I know something about,” he said. “We will not allow that to happen. It will not happen again.”Bondi made a similar promise during her confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate in January. “Under my watch, the partisan weaponization of the Department of Justice will end,” she said. “America must have one tier of justice for all.”Now, though, critics worry that Trump is erasing post-Watergate norms that were supposed to shield prosecutors from political interference.Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., told NBC News in a statement: “The president should not be directing the Attorney General to prosecute those who pursued him over the last six years. Lawfare is corrosive to a democracy and he is doing exactly what he has accused the Democrats of doing to him. We need to stop the cycle of lawfare and escalation. His public statements to the attorney general were not wise and they undermine the citizens’ confidence of our legal system.”A worrying development came last week, critics said, when the federal prosecutor tasked with investigating mortgage fraud allegations against James resigned after Trump said he no longer wanted him to serve in that position. (Trump said he fired the prosecutor, Erik Siebert.)Trump administration officials had been pressing Siebert to investigate potential mortgage fraud charges against James. Two federal law enforcement sources say prosecutors did not believe they had enough evidence to charge James with mortgage fraud over a Virginia home she purchased for her niece in 2023.Those same sources said prosecutors felt there was not enough evidence to charge Comey regarding allegations that he lied to Congress in 2020 about FBI investigations into the 2016 election.Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., a member of the Judiciary Committee, told NBC News: “‘Two wrongs don’t make it right but they do make it even’ is the sort of thing that happens in countries whose Powerball jackpot is 287 chickens and a goat. It’s not supposed to happen in America.”“President Biden’s administration started this ‘lawfare’, as the media calls it, and I worried then that they had unleashed spirits they would be unable to control,” he added. “I questioned Attorney General Bondi about this in her confirmation hearing, and she agreed with me. Any prosecution of a public official has to be based on objective, compelling evidence of criminal behavior, not based on that official’s political ideology.”Peter NicholasPeter Nicholas is a senior White House reporter for NBC News.Matt DixonMatt Dixon is a senior national politics reporter for NBC News, based in Florida.Katherine Doyle, Dennis Romero, Ryan J. Reilly, Michael Kosnar and Chloe Atkins contributed.

- Latest News - September 22, 2025

President Donald Trump’s insistence that his attorney general bring charges against three perceived political opponents could backfire if any cases get to court, undermining his effort to see them punished,.

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Trump on Tylenol use for pregnant women

- Latest News - September 22, 2025

President Trump said pregnant women should only take Tylenol for a fever if they can’t “tough it out.” The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and other major medical groups say acetaminophen,.

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By Berkeley Lovelace Jr., Aria Bendix and Erika EdwardsPresident Donald Trump said Monday the Food and Drug Administration approved a chemotherapy drug called leucovorin as a treatment to alleviate symptoms of autism, despite little evidence that the medication works.Trump also said the administration is issuing a warning to doctors not to recommend acetaminophen — the active ingredient in Tylenol and other widely used medications — for pregnant women, claiming it may be linked to autism in children. Trump had been teasing the announcement for days, as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other health officials have pledged to determine the cause of the developmental disorder by September.The administration had planned to release its long-awaited report on causes of autism around Sept. 29 or Sept. 30, a person familiar with the matter told NBC News. But Trump pre-empted the rollout over the weekend, and details soon appeared in The Washington Post.“We understood a lot more than a lot of people who studied it,” Trump said from the White House, referring to autism. He spoke alongside Kennedy, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary, National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya and Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. ”Taking Tylenol is not good,” Trump said. “I’ll say it. It’s not good.”Leucovorin is a drug approved by the FDA to counteract the side effects of certain chemotherapy drugs and sometimes used off-label to treat vitamin B9 deficiency. Leucovorin is a form of folinic acid, a B vitamin. It has shown promise in clinical trials with helping some children with autism improve their speech. But the Autism Science Foundation, which funds evidence-based autism research, does not recommend it as a treatment yet and says more studies are needed.Trump said the FDA updated the drug’s label Monday for the treatment of autism symptoms. Oz said Medicaid — in partnership with states — will cover it with a prescription.“We believe insurance companies will rapidly follow our lead,” he said.Kennedy also said the FDA will issue a letter advising health care providers that the over-the-counter medication should be used during pregnancy only in cases of high fever, when the fever itself may pose a health risk to the fetus. The FDA’s notice, sometimes called a “Dear Doctor” letter, is meant to alert physicians and other prescribers about urgent or clinically significant safety issues it has identified with a drug. Kennedy also said the FDA will begin the process to initiate a safety label change for the drug.Bhattacharya said at Monday’s briefing that the NIH will dedicate $50 million to 13 research projects focused on identifying root causes and treatments for autism, an effort known as the “autism data science initiative.” The research will focus on environmental and medical factors, nutrition, events during pregnancy, biology and genetics, he said.“Given this wide range of symptoms across the spectrum, it seems certain that there will be a wide range of biological contributors to explaining the cause,” he said.Researchers who’ve spent decades researching potential causes of autism say the administration hasn’t uncovered any new evidence — and the existing data still doesn’t support its claims.“This is not new,” Dr. Allison Bryant, a high-risk obstetrician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, said in an earlier interview. “It has bubbled up every now and again with studies that show maybe some kind of association but not clearly showing any cause and effect.”Experts say autism spectrum disorder, which is characterized by challenges with social and speech skills and by repetitive behaviors, most likely stems from multiple factors rather than a single cause. It affects 1 in 31 children in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The bulk of scientific research hasn’t identified a link between acetaminophen and autism.“The science hasn’t changed regardless of what comes out from the report,” said Brian K. Lee, a professor of epidemiology at Drexel University in Philadelphia, referring to the Trump administration’s finding. “I’m not sure what the administration is doing, but it looks like they’re just going back and reviewing the evidence and they’re coming to a different conclusion than many scientists would.”Acetaminophen was introduced in the United States in the 1950s as a prescription alternative to aspirin. By the 1970s, it had been made available over the counter and became one of the most commonly used pain and fever medications in the country. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and other major medical groups say acetaminophen is one of the only safe pain relievers for women during pregnancy, and studies have shown no clear evidence that use during pregnancy leads to developmental issues in kids. The drug is also found in name brands like Theraflu and Excedrin.Forty percent to 65% of women use acetaminophen at some point during pregnancy, according to a 2014 study published in the American Family Physician.Earlier Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt touted a “major announcement” from Trump, telling reporters at a briefing to go into the autism announcement with “some critical thinking skills and with some open ears.”“They are paying attention to studies, and the gold standard of science and research, that many in this city for far too long have turned a blind eye to,” she said.Trump administration officials are citing previous research, including a literature review Mount Sinai and Harvard researchers published last month in the journal BMC Environmental Health. The review concluded there was most likely an association between autism and acetaminophen exposure during pregnancy. Outside autism researchers, however, said that the review wasn’t rigorously conducted and that it cherry-picked studies that supported its conclusion. The review’s senior author, Andrea Baccarelli, served in 2023 as a paid expert in a class action lawsuit against acetaminophen manufacturers, in which he testified that there was a link between the medication and autism. A judge ultimately excluded his testimony for being scientifically unsound and last year dismissed the case, which is being appealed.Baccarelli said in a statement that he and his colleagues conducted a rigorous review and that the association with neurodevelopmental disorders was strongest when acetaminophen was taken for four weeks or longer. He said he discussed his findings with Kennedy and Bhattacharya in recent weeks.“Further research is needed to confirm the association and determine causality, but based on existing evidence, I believe that caution about acetaminophen use during pregnancy — especially heavy or prolonged use — is warranted,” Baccarelli said.However, other autism researchers have pointed to a large study last year published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which found no link between acetaminophen use in pregnancy and autism, ADHD or intellectual disability. The study, from Lee and his colleagues in Sweden, analyzed data from more than 2.4 million children. When the researchers looked solely at children with autism, there was a small increased risk possibly associated with acetaminophen. But when the researchers compared siblings within the same families — one exposed during pregnancy, the other not — the link disappeared. The comparison allowed them to control for variables that past studies couldn’t. Siblings share a large part of their genetic background and often have similar environmental exposures in utero and at home.“The biggest elephant in the room here is genetics,” Lee said. “We know that autism, ADHD and other neurodevelopmental disorders are highly heritable.”In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for Kenvue, the maker of Tylenol, said the drug is the safest pain reliever option for pregnant women.“Without it, women face dangerous choices: suffer through conditions like fever that are potentially harmful to both mom and baby or use riskier alternatives,” the spokesperson said. “We believe independent, sound science clearly shows that taking acetaminophen does not cause autism.”Bryant, of Massachusetts General Hospital, said, “The best science that we have available would still suggest that acetaminophen is a safe pain reliever and fever reducer in pregnancy.”Berkeley Lovelace Jr.Berkeley Lovelace Jr. is a health and medical reporter for NBC News. He covers the Food and Drug Administration, with a special focus on Covid vaccines, prescription drug pricing and health care. He previously covered the biotech and pharmaceutical industry with CNBC.Aria BendixAria Bendix is the breaking health reporter for NBC News Digital.Erika EdwardsErika Edwards is a health and medical news writer and reporter for NBC News and “TODAY.”

- Latest News - September 22, 2025

President Trump said Monday the FDA approved a chemotherapy drug called leucovorin as a treatment to alleviate symptoms of autism. The FDA also said it was warning that acetaminophen.

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