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But while Biden works to shore up his support among these key groups, he retains a notable advantage among seniors — or voters aged 65 and older.

It’s an edge that Trump enjoyed in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center, when the then-president won seniors by a 4-point margin (52%-48%) even as he lost the election to Biden.

In the latest Wall Street Journal survey of the top battleground states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin), Biden trailed Trump in six of the seven states.

However, in the Journal’s most recent national and swing-state polling, Biden’s support among seniors has sat at roughly 48%, a rare bloc of stability for the president.

Biden, who’ll be 82 at the start of a second term, may be in a better position with seniors than Trump given his focus on issues like cutting the price of insulin and prescription drug costs.

And while Biden’s age has been a concern among many voters, it hasn’t contributed to any deterioration in support among seniors.

Here’s how Biden’s relatively solid standing with seniors could help him secure a second term:

Older voters show up at the polls

The Wall Street Journal reported that voters aged 65 and older make up roughly 28% of the electorate.

In the 2020 election, voters in this group made up about 22% of all voters, according to exit polling conducted by Edison Research.

And they’re some of the most consistent voters in primary races, where the results generally set the ideological direction of the major political parties.

But it’s their high-propensity voting patterns that could be an underrated benefit for Biden in November.

In the 2020 presidential election, 74% of voters aged 65 and older went on to cast a ballot, according to the US Census Bureau.

If Biden can build on his existing support with seniors, it could go a long way for him in Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, which all have a sizable share of older voters and retirees and are poised to be decided by razor-thin margins this fall.

The Israel-Hamas war isn’t hurting Biden with seniors

Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war is one of the most pressing issues among young voters — with many Americans aged 18 to 29 demanding that the president change course in Gaza by calling for a permanent cease-fire.

It’s an issue that has hurt Biden’s standing among young voters, who backed him by 24 points (59% to 35%) in 2020, according to Pew Research, but are backing him by narrower margins in recent polling.

He remains under immense pressure from antiwar groups and liberal politicians who are pressing him on the issue and have called on Democratic primary voters to select “uncommitted” in protest.

But in a Pew survey from February, 30% of voters aged 65 and older believed Biden was “striking the right balance” on the war, while 23% of respondents believed that he favored Palestinians too much, and 13% of respondents felt that he favored Israelis too much. (About a third of voters aged 65 and older were unsure of their opinion.)

A greater proportion of seniors felt that Biden had a more balanced approach to the war than any other age group. For instance, only 12% of respondents aged 18 to 29 felt that Biden had struck the “right balance” on the issue. (Nearly 4-in-10 young voters felt that Biden’s war policies were too slanted toward Israel, a percentage higher than any other age group.)

This isn’t to say that seniors are a monolith — there are certainly plenty of older Americans calling for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza.

But the long-standing geopolitical alliance between the United States and Israel is likely to be a more defining attribute for older voters, with them perhaps giving Biden more deference on the issue given his foreign policy background that has spanned decades.

And remember that unlike YouTube, which gives up 55% of every ad dollar it generates to content owners who upload videos to the site, Instagram (and most other social apps) spends much, much less. It still expects most users to give it photos and videos for free.

The Instagram revenue numbers come out of a filing Meta made this week, in an attempt to get a judge to dismiss a federal antitrust suit.

We have no idea if that legal maneuver will be successful. But the documents do an excellent job of showing how fast Instagram has grown under Meta’s ownership. Recall that Meta — then Facebook — paid $1 billion for Instagram back in 2012, when it was a revenue-free photo-sharing startup with a handful of employees. It’s now run by former Facebook product executive Adam Mosseri.

From the filing: “Instagram generated advertising revenues of $11.3 billion in 2018, $17.9 billion in 2019, $22 billion in 2020, $32.4 billion in 2021, and $16.5 billion in the first half of 2022.” Zoom!

One last thing: Last month we noted that analysts now suggest that YouTube could be worth $400 billion. These new numbers suggest that Instagram could very well be worth something similar.

One crude way of getting there would be to assume that Instagram’s growth spurt has continued, and that it now accounts for something close to a third of Meta’s overall revenue. If we apply that ratio to the company’s current market cap of $1.34 trillion, that gets us to $440 billion. Maybe worth thinking about the next time you post a photo.

• Barry Diller thinks employees should come into the office — but he’ll settle for four days a week.
• Diller told CNBC different hybrid work models are causing chaos, and advocated for a standard model.
• On Fridays, Diller sees a future where people “can work from home or work at your own schedule.”

Barry Diller believes all the hybrid work models adopted by different companies in the wake of the pandemic are spawning “chaos.”

And while he’s adamant that most employees should come into the office, he thinks four days could soon be enough — with flexibility on Fridays, the IAC and Expedia chairman said in an interview Thursday on CNBC.

On Fridays, Diller foresees a future where employees “can work from home or work at your own schedule,” he said. “I think that is going to be the sensible evolution of all this — but it has to be standardized. You can’t have 17,000 different programs.”

Diller told CNBC he believes most employees should have gone back to the office after the pandemic subsided.

“If you have to talk to anyone else, you cannot work from home,” he said. “Come into an office and be part of an environment … that betters your life, your career, and betters the business.”

Diller was responding to comments made Wednesday by New York Mets owner Steve Cohen, who told CNBC he believes a four-day workweek is inevitable, fueled by the rise of AI.

The billionaire hedge fund manager said one of the reasons he invested in golf is because he anticipates people will have more leisure time.

“We hear from people that Fridays are just not — people are not as productive on Fridays,” Cohen told CNBC, “and so I just think it’s an eventuality.”

In his appearance on CNBC, Diller also issued an urgent warning about AI and called Trump Media “a scam.”

The GOP frontrunner had hoped to delay the hush money trial start date until after the US Supreme Court decides on whether presidential immunity protects him in his federal election interference case; oral arguments in that case are set for April 25.

But Trump failed to explain why he waited until early last month to raise presidential immunity in a pre-trial motion in his hush money case, according to Wednesday’s ruling by state Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan.

State law generally requires such motions be filed within 45 days after arraignment, Merchan noted, calling Trump’s excuses for the late motion “inadequate and not convincing.”

Trump had blamed the timing of his motion on prosecutors, and on the US Supreme Court’s February 28 decision to hear his federal presidential immunity claims.

Even so, Trump has been on notice for months that the hush-money case prosecutors intended to use statements he made while president, Merchan wrote.

“The Defendant had ample notice that the People were in possession of, and intended to use, the various statements allegedly made by Defendant on social media, in public, and in various interviews,” Merchan wrote.

“He was also well aware that the defense of presidential immunity, even if unsuccessful, might be available to him,” the judge wrote.

“This Court finds that Defendant had myriad opportunities to raise the claim of presidential immunity well before March 7, 2024,” when Trump’s lawyers raised the matter, the judge wrote.

“Defendant’s motion is DENIED in its entirety as untimely,” the judge’s ruling concluded.

“The Court declines to consider whether the doctrine of presidential immunity precludes the introduction of evidence of purported official presidential acts in a criminal proceeding,” the ruling said.

Trump had specifically sought to preclude jurors from hearing about what prosecutors are calling his “pressure campaign” to keep his personal attorney at the time, Michael Cohen, from cooperating with a federal probe of the payments.

The defense had also claimed Trump was acting in his role as president on April 5, 2018, when he denied knowing about the hush-money payment while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One.

“Then why did Michael Cohen make those if there was no truth to her allegations?” a reporter asked.

“Well, you’ll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael is my attorney,” Trump said.

When asked if he knew where Michael Cohen got the money to make that payment, Trump responded, “No, I don’t know.”

Trump was acting “in his official capacity as the nation’s chief executive,” when he made the statements, Trump attorneys Susan Necheles and Todd Blanche had argued.

“Therefore, President Trump respectfully submits that an adjournment of the trial is appropriate to await further guidance from the Supreme Court, which should facilitate the appropriate application of the presidential immunity doctrine in this case to the evidence the People intend to offer at trial,” their filing said.

The hush money trial remains on track for jury selection on April 15.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg alleges that Trump falsified 34 business documents in order to disguise the payment to Daniels as legal expenses. The falsifications violated campaign finance regulations and tax laws, Bragg has alleged.

Trump has pleaded not guilty and says the allegations are part of a politically-motivated “witch hunt.” He has also denied that he had a sexual relationship with Daniels.

He faces anywhere from no jail to four years in prison if convicted, though legal experts have called imprisonment unlikely.

Trump has one last hush-money delay card up his sleeve. Merchan has yet to rule on defense arguments that Trump cannot get a fair trial in Manhattan anytime in April due to “prejudicial pre-trial publicity.

• An expanded hush-money gag bars attacks on the judge’s daughter, a Democratic campaign consultant.
• On Tuesday, Trump found a way around the gag, attacking the daughter in a legal filing instead.
• She is “making money” through “campaign advocacy for President Trump’s opponent,” the filing says.

Donald Trump has found a work-around for a newly-expanded gag order that bars him from attacking the Democratic campaign-consultant daughter of his hush-money judge: attacking the daughter through legal filings instead.

Trump himself has refrained from attacking Loren Merchan, daughter of New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, at least since the judge expanded the gag order on Monday night.

But by Tuesday night, Trump’s lawyers took up the attack.

In a new filing, they demanded that the judge recuse himself from the case, which is scheduled to begin jury selection in Manhattan on April 15.

Their proposed reason for recusal? Loren Merchan’s work on behalf of such A-list Democrats as Joe Biden and Kamala Harris creates a conflict of interest for her father the judge, the defense argued.

The daughter, through her left-leaning political consultancy, Authentic Campaigns, is “making money” off of Trump’s legal travails — and her father the judge, they argued, is somehow complicit.

“Authentic has received millions of dollars in disbursements from entities associated with President Trump’s political rivals since the Indictment was returned,” read Tuesday night’s letter to judge, signed by defense attorneys Susan Necheles and Todd Blanche.

“Some of those funds were paid to Authentic by entities associated with legislators and PACs that have used email and/or social media to solicit contributions specifically based on this case,” the letter continued.

“Thus, there is strong evidence that Authentic has used this case to make money,” the letter argued.

“There is an unacceptable risk that the Court’s family relationships will influence judicial conduct,” the letter concludes.

The letter requests Merchan’s permission to expand on their recusal request by filing “a motion in support of these arguments that includes briefing and evidence on Wednesday, April 3, 2024.”

Loren Merchan has not responded to repeated requests for comment. Manhattan prosecutors did not immediately respond to the recusal request, but have called Trump’s attacks on the judge’s family members “dangerous” and “reprehensible.”

Prosecutors argued Monday that Trump’s personal attacks on people related to the case “threatens the integrity of these proceedings and is intended to intimidate witnesses and trial participants alike — including this Court,” meaning the judge.

In August, the judge rejected a similar defense request that he recuse himself.

The judge did not immediately rule on Tuesday’s request, but he has rejected all defense claims that his daughter’s consultant work presents a conflict of interest.

The judge has also repeatedly warned the defense against mounting frivolous delay tactics — on penalty of finding Trump’s lawyers in contempt of court.

Despite past warnings and last week’s gag order, Trump has “refused to refrain from his disruptive and terrifying speech,” prosecutors for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg complained to the trial judge, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan.

Instead, Trump has launched attacks “not only on this Court but also on a member of the Court’s family — including by posting a photo of the family member,” prosecutors said.

They are asking the judge to “clarify” that last Tuesday’s gag order bars Trump from making public statements about the judge’s family members.

Trump’s Truth Social attacks on the judge’s progressive, political-consultant daughter, Loren Merchan, included false claims that her “X” account had a profile picture that depicted Trump behind bars, prosecutors said.

Loren Merchan helps run the Chicago-based, progressive political consulting firm Authentic Campaigns, which has worked on campaigns for key Trump rivals, including Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

“There is no constitutional right to target the family of this Court, let alone on the blatant falsehoods that have served as the flimsiest pretexts for defendant’s attacks,” said Monday’s filing, which was signed on Bragg’s behalf by Matthew Colangelo, an assistant district attorney.

“Defendant knows what he is doing, and everyone else does too,” the DA filing continued.

“He has said for decades that he attacks his perceived opponents ‘viciously’ and ‘violently’ both ‘because it is a good feeling and because other people will see you doing it.’

“And he promised very recently that ‘IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!’” the filing added. “He is carrying out that promise right now.”

Minutes after the DA filing was made public, the defense returned fire.

“Contrary to the People’s argument, the gag order — which President Trump reserves all right to appeal — plainly does not apply to ‘family members of the Court [and] the District Attorney,” the defense said in a filing signed by attorneys Susan Necheles and Todd Blanche.

Last week’s gag order bars Trump from making statements about “court staff” and the family members of court staff, but does not specifically bar Trump from statements about the judge himself or the judge’s family members.

In seeking to expand the gag order, prosecutors are trying “to further restrict President Trump’s constitutionally protected speech,” the defense wrote.

“Your Honor’s daughter and her company, Authentic Campaigns, Inc., profited from offering strategic advice; preparing text for emails and social media posts, as well as other consulting services regarding campaign advocacy; and fundraising for President Trump’s political rivals — including advertisements that specifically referenced, and solicited funds based on, this case,” the defense wrote.

Monday’s defense filing went on to suggest Trump’s team will continue to seek to remove the judge from the case, a request the judge declined in August.

Because of her consultancy job, the judge’s daughter had “a financial interest in all ongoing attacks on President Trump, including this case, by virtue of her senior role at Authentic,” the defense wrote.

“President Trump’s comments concerning Your Honor’s daughter are, properly understood, a criticism of the Court’s prior decision not to recuse itself,” the defense filing said.

Merchan has yet to say if he will weigh revising or clarifying the gag order. The judge’s daughter did not immediately return a request for comment.

• The road to the House majority will play out in a set of highly-competitive California contests.
• The GOP has faltered in statewide races in California, but they found success with House races in 2020 and 2022.
• Democrats are looking to flip several GOP-held seats that are much bluer at the presidential level.

California Republicans are often thought as of an endangered species.

But largely through the efforts of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy — a Bakersfield native who stepped down from the House last December — the GOP in recent years has been able to claw back some power in the Golden State by winning a set of highly-competitive swing districts in areas where the party still retains a sizable base of support.

And it is in these districts, from the Central Valley to the outskirts of Los Angeles and down to Orange County, where the House majority will likely be won or lost in 2024.

Republicans currently hold a slim 218-seat majority, a precarious position for the party as the 213-member House Democratic Caucus works to flip the chamber this year.

Here’s a look at the six California congressional districts held by Republicans — five of which were won by President Joe Biden in 2020 — which will have an outsized role in which party holds the speaker’s gavel in 2025:

Young Kim, 40th District

First elected to the House: 2020

Kim, a former member of the California State Assembly and onetime aide to former congressman Ed Royce, first ran for Congress in 2018 in hopes of succeeding her longtime boss. But she lost to Gil Cisneros in what was a banner year for Democrats, especially in the suburbs.

With the strong backing of McCarthy and other GOP leaders, Kim ran again in 2020 and defeated Cisneros in a rematch, becoming one of the first Korean-American women to serve in the House. After the 2020 Census, her congressional district, which now includes parts of Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino counties, was reconfigured into one that would have narrowly backed Biden.

Kim won reelection by nearly 14 points in 2022, but Democrats see the contest as winnable. She’ll now take on retired Orange County fire captain Joe Kerr in November.

Michelle Steel, 45th District

First elected to the House: 2020

In 2020, Steel, a former Orange County supervisor, narrowly defeated then-Democratic Rep. Harley Rouda in a district that had long favored Republicans. (Two years earlier, Rouda flipped the district by defeating then-Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a conservative fixture in Congress.)

Steel has staked out socially-conservative positions on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage, and in 2022, she won reelection over Democratic nominee Jay Chen by nearly 5 points.

But Biden would have won the current configuration of Steel’s district, which includes parts of Orange and Los Angeles counties, by 6 points.

In the November election, Steel will face Democrat Derek Tran, a consumer rights attorney.

Mike Garcia, 27th District

First elected to the House: 2020 special election

Garcia, a former Navy fighter pilot, has proven to be an adept candidate in his northern Los Angeles County-anchored district. In all three of Garcia’s races, including the May 2020 special election triggered by the resignation of Democrat Katie Hill, he defeated former Democratic state lawmaker Christy Smith.

In November 2020, Garcia narrowly defeated Smith by 333 votes out of nearly 340,000 ballots cast (a 0.1% edge), but in 2022 he won by a much more decisive 6 points.

So the district, which would have voted for Biden by 12 points under its new lines, remains a top priority for both parties headed into the 2024 elections. Republicans need to retain a foothold in suburban districts like the 27th to have any shot of retaining their majority, while Democrats see the district as a key pickup opportunity given its bluer lean at the presidential level.

Democrats — including early-endorser Smith — are lined up behind George Whitesides, a former NASA chief of staff and onetime Virgin Galactic chief executive.

Ken Calvert, 41st District

First elected to the House: 1992

Calvert is the longest-serving California Republican in Congress. A former local GOP county party chair, he’s represented parts of Riverside County in Congress since 1993. His seat spans several Coachella Valley cities, along with parts of the Inland Empire, including Corona.

The 15-term incumbent has been a mostly reliable vote for GOP leadership. Calvert was among the 147 Republicans who voted to overturn at least one state’s election results after the 2020 presidential election.

Calvert won most of his races by large margins before redistricting, and he last faced a truly competitive reelection fight in 2008. But in 2022, Calvert defeated Democrat Will Rollins, a former federal prosecutor, by just under 5 points.

Calvert and Rollins will face off in a rematch this fall.

John Duarte, 13th District

First elected to the House: 2022

Duarte isn’t just a Republican in what would have been a Biden-won district in 2020. The businessman and pistachio farmer holds a Central Valley seat in one of the most pro-Biden districts that is currently held by a Republican.

House Democrats have been eager to take shots at Duarte, including his decision to support House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan’s onetime bid for the speakership. Jordan failed to win the speakership, eventually paving the way for Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana.

In 2022, Duarte defeated Democrat Adam Gray, a former state assembly member, by just 564 votes, in what was one of the closest congressional races in the nation that year.

Duarte and Gray will face each other again in November.

David Valadao, 22nd District

House tenure: 2013-2019, 2021-present

Valadao was narrowly booted from Congress during the anti-Trump 2018 wave. Two years later, the wealthy dairy farmer defeated Democratic Rep. TJ Cox in a rematch.

Valadao’s return to Congress was overshadowed by his decision to become one of 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach President Donald Trump in the aftermath of the Capitol riot. Unlike his colleagues, Valadao grew largely silent after the vote. As a result, Trump didn’t train his ire on the Californian to the extent that he targeted the other nine GOP lawmakers.

In 2022, Valadao bested Democrat Rudy Salas, a former state assembly member, by 3 points.

The congressman will face Salas again in the general election.

Attorney Aliza Shatzman knows exactly how it feels, and she’s made it her mission to help prevent anyone else from having the same experience. That’s why, after sharing her story in congressional testimony to lobby for more protections for clerks and other judiciary employees, she started the Legal Accountability Project.

This month, LAP launched a new database for law clerks to leave reviews of their experiences working for their powerful bosses: state and federal judges.

Judges gone wild

From local jurisdictions to the Supreme Court, judges nationwide conduct their business with little regulatory oversight. They are supervisors of both their courtrooms and the clerks they manage. Still, despite their tremendous authority and a long history of abuses of power in the judiciary, judges are all but immune from disciplinary action due to misconduct.

“I wanted to formalize some of the informal resources and networks out there that exist,” Shatzman told Business Insider, who said clerks — who are usually law students and recent graduates at the beginning of their careers — often rely on word-of-mouth referrals and warnings about their prospective bosses to decide where to work. “There’s a lot of fear surrounding the judiciary, there’s a real culture of silence, and so our resources and our work are aimed at combating that.”

The database collects both positive and negative evaluations from clerks, and it is protected from liability issues stemming from the reviews by a law known as Section 230, which prevents sites like Yelp and Glassdoor from being held liable for the user-generated content hosted on their platforms.

“There could be two sides to any of these stories,” Judge Douglas Nazarian, a state appellate judge in Maryland who sits on LAP’s board, told The Washington Post about the database. “The purpose is to democratize and improve the clerkship experience, not to find ways to get judges in trouble.”

Accountability born from congressional testimony

Shatzman said LAP’s review database is the resource she wished existed when she was a student at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law applying for a clerkship and later, as a law clerk experiencing mistreatment and unsure where to turn for help.

In her 2022 congressional testimony about the need for statutory change to protect federal judiciary employees, Shatzman said the judge she clerked for from August 2019 until May 2020 would call her names, describing her as “aggressive,” “nasty,” and a “disappointment,” and berate her for what he described as her “personality issues” when no one was around. Shatzman said the judge gave her unfavorable work assignments, regularly made her stay late in the office after her colleagues had left to yell at her, and ultimately terminated her clerkship early, saying she “lacked respect” for him.

The judge Shatzman clerked for has not made any public statement regarding her clerkship or complaint or his subsequent retirement. Emails from Business Insider seeking comment sent to accounts associated with the judge bounced back, and phone calls went unreturned.

But it didn’t stop there. She testified to Congress that the judge she worked for later gave a prospective employer a negative reference despite assuring Shatzman he’d be neutral if contacted about her in the future.

The job offer was revoked.

“I could not believe that one person could have such enormous power and influence over my career and reputation,” Shatzman testified, adding that the US Attorney’s Office, where she’d been hired, would not disclose what the judge had said about her, even after she told them that she had been the victim of gender discrimination and harassment. The office refused to reconsider its position, and, she said, “the damage had been done.”

Human resources for the courts told her nothing could be done because “HR doesn’t regulate judges,” Shatzman testified. The federal judiciary is exempt from protections offered by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act — which means employees like clerks can’t sue if they experience employment discrimination based on race or sex.

While Shatzman submitted a complaint with the District of Columbia Commission on Judicial Disabilities and Tenure about the judge’s conduct toward her, the complaint was ultimately dismissed. According to disciplinary records reviewed by BI, the judge was later removed from the bench for unrelated conduct violations and health reasons in an “uncontested order of involuntary retirement.”

A whisper network legitimized

Since beginning to collect reviews in 2022, LAP has gathered over 800 surveys from former law clerks about their experiences working for state and federal judges nationwide.

Shatzman personally vets each review. While reviews can be published to the database anonymously, she confirms the identity of each reviewer via their verified law school email addresses and work history before adding the reviews to the index.

The database collects information about the overall clerkship experience, as well as how each judge performs as a manager, gathering information about their overall conduct as well as what Shatzman calls the “mundane stuff” like hours and assigned tasks, which helps potential clerks identify the right work environment for them.

“We’re getting the full range of clerkship experiences because there is a full range of clerkship experiences,” Shatzman told BI, adding that the database is not intended to be a list of judicial misconduct incidents but encourages positive reviews as well.

“Anybody who wants to say that clerkships are universally positive is untruthful or deluded at this point,” she continued, adding, “I think many clerkships are actually pretty neutral and nuanced. And that’s why our survey elucidates a lot of that great nuance.”

Current law school students and recent alumni can access the database for $20 — with no judges, circuit executives, or reporters allowed in. Shatzman plans to partner with law schools to bolster participation and said she has already seen a higher rate of involvement in the project than students can typically expect from their alumni networks.

“I hope that judges will take this to heart. I know I have spoken with judges who’ve heard about the project and gone back to their clerks and said, ‘So, how do you feel about the chamber’s culture? How am I as a manager? How can I do better?’” Shatzman said. “And that’s important because absolutely everybody can improve. And this is a really important relationship, so it’s important to get it right.”

• Target offers one-year returns on own-brand items, including Cat & Jack children’s clothing.
• Some parents use the policy to get cash back or new outfits when their kids outgrow their clothes.
• While some retailers are introducing limits on returns, Target is trying to make the process easier.

Kids can grow fast, and the cost of keeping them well-dressed can add up quickly.

Some parents have taken advantage of Target’s apparent version of the infinite-money glitch to save money.

“Attention all moms,” Jazmine Valdivia, a Target shopper and TikTok user, said in a video posted on TikTok in 2022. “If you guys buy Cat & Jack for your kids, there is a one-year warranty that Cat & Jack offers if your kid outgrows the clothes, whether it’s stained, ripped, whatever it is, they’ll refund you.”

In the video — which has racked up 1.2 million views, almost 85,000 likes, and 26,000 shares — Valdivia shows receipts from returning a large bag of clothing used by her three children for a total of $537.80.

TikTok

“Didn’t spend a single dollar for back-to-school clothes,” she added in an overlay.

Valdivia declined a request for an interview.

Other TikTok users have uploaded similar — albeit smaller — refund journeys in which they test out the company’s policy for themselves.

“Reason number 16293836286 why we love Target!” the user JMS_Steph captioned on a video showing return receipts worth $164.21.

Target

While some videos and comments suggest the company is cracking down on the practice, Target’s return policy for Cat & Jack products remains the same as for its more than 45 private-label brands. Workers told Business Insider they continue to process returns on large batches of used children’s clothing.

The employees requested anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media.

A hugely popular brand with an unusually generous policy

Target says its Cat & Jack label is the biggest kids’ clothing brand in the US.

“We sell well over 300 million units of Cat & Jack a year, which comes out to about eight Cat & Jack items for every child in America under the age of 12,” said Jill Sando, Target’s head of apparel merchandising, during the company’s annual meeting in March.

Like all of Target’s private label offerings, the brand is backed by an unusually generous one-year return policy.

“If you’re not satisfied with any Target Owned Brand item, return it within one year with a receipt for an exchange or a refund,” the policy states.

A Target spokesperson said the return policy reflects the company’s confidence in the value of its private-label offerings.

Chief Growth Officer Christina Hennington highlighted the brand on an earnings call last year, emphasizing the policy of “one full year with free returns should anything not meet our guests’ expectations.”

Some returns are unwashed or in ‘terrible condition.’

A worker in Illinois said the largest receipt she processed was about $300. “Absolutely used and in terrible condition.”

A lot of the clothing is returned without being washed, she added, and those products get tossed straight into the trash.

A worker in California said she had seen the trend increasing this year as parents returned for another year, and their friends decided to try it for the first time.

The largest receipt she processed was about $417 — higher than normal because it included a lot of shoes. She said the thing that bothered her wasn’t the monetary value; it was the slow process of manually typing in item codes on the computer. Even working quickly, the return took nearly 20 minutes to complete.

Returns without proof of purchase are capped at $100 a year per customer, but items with a receipt or purchased with a Target Circle membership are basically unrestricted.

Some shoppers say on social media their locations have begun taking a somewhat stricter stance in response to the TikTok trend, including requiring more specific documentation of purchases. Others focus more on the “satisfaction” angle of the guarantee, with heavy use indicating that a customer was satisfied with the product.

TikTok

Still, the California worker said many people were disappointed by the value of their returns, which tended to be smaller than they expected due to various discounts at the time of purchase.

Either way, the total value of Cat & Jack returns is almost certainly a small percentage of the total revenue generated by the brand, which now pulls in more than $3 billion a year for Target.

Besides, what do many shoppers do right after returning a batch of Cat & Jack? Buy more Cat & Jack.

If you are a Target worker who wants to share your perspective, please contact Dominick via email or call/text/Signal at 646.768.4750. Responses will be kept confidential, and Insider strongly recommends using a personal email and a non-work device when reaching out.

Bankman-Fried appeared more subdued than he did during his trial in October. He spoke cautiously, pausing occasionally as he addressed US District Judge Lewis Kaplan.

“My useful life is probably over. It’s probably been over for a while now, from before my arrest,” Bankman-Fried said.

Prior to making his statements, Bankman-Fried listened to impact statements from two people – former FTX customer Sunil Kavuri and Adam M. Moskowitz, an attorney involved in a class action case against Bankman-Fried and other former executives.

“I lived the FTX nightmare every day for two years,” Kavuri said.

Moskowitz, meanwhile, asked the judge to consider Bankman-Fried’s cooperation in the recovery case.

The 32-year-old cofounder of the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX was found guilty on seven counts of wire fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy charges in November after a six-week criminal trial.

“I failed everyone I care about and everything I cared about,” Bankman-Fried told the court before Kaplan sentenced him for what prosecutors described as one of the biggest financial frauds in US history.

Bankman-Fried said his colleagues “watched me throw away everything they had built.”

“They were very let down. I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry about what happened at every stage,” he said.

He added that his pain is less important than that of customers and creditors, noting that it has been “excruciating to watch all of this unfold in slow motion.”

Even so, he said he did not think the story of why customers suffered “has been told or told correctly.”

He again tried to shift the blame for how and why the crypto exchange collapsed, insisting that there are “enough assets” to make customers whole. His attorneys argued that customers suffered “zero” losses.

Customers “could have been paid back” at 2022 prices or current prices, including inflation, Bankman-Fried claimed.

“I’m hopeful and optimistic that that’s finally going to happen,” Bankman-Fried said. “They deserve that… There are enough assets for that. There always have been.”

Kaplan didn’t buy the argument, calling it “speculative” and “misleading.”

He went on to enumerate three instances where Bankman-Fried perjured himself on the stand: when Bankman-Fried said he didn’t know his company was spending FTX customer funds; when he said he didn’t know about the $8 billion liability in the company’s balance sheets; and when he claimed not to have known that repaying customers would require borrowing additional funds.

That list was not exhaustive, Kaplan said, adding that it would not be a “good use of time to articulate” all of Bankman-Fried’s lies on the stand. Bankman-Fried admitted to making mistakes but didn’t show remorse, Kaplan said.

Before handing down Bankman-Fried sentence, Kaplan said he wanted to prevent him from committing more harm, noting that he has previously marketed himself to the media to rebrand his image and version of events at FTX.

“There is a risk that this man will be in a position to do something very bad in the future, and it’s not a trivial risk, not a trivial risk at all,” the judge said, noting that the judgment had to “reflect the seriousness of the crime.”

Kaplan said that the sentence would be “for the purpose of disabling” Bankman-Fried “to the extent that can appropriately be done for a significant period of time.”

Bankman-Fried faced a maximum of 110 years in prison following the collapse of FTX. Prosecutors had asked for a sentence between 40 and 50 years behind bars, comparing him to the notorious late Wall Street Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff.

Damian Williams, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement after the sentencing that Bankman-Fried “orchestrated one of the largest financial frauds in history, stealing over $8 billion of his customers’ money.”

“His deliberate and ongoing lies demonstrated a brazen disregard for his customers’ expectations and disrespect for the rule of law, all so that he could secretly use his customers’ money to expand his own power and influence,” Williams said.

The sentence given to Bankman-Fried will prevent him from “ever again committing fraud” and also sends an “important message to others who might be tempted to engage in financial crimes that justice will be swift, and the consequences will be severe,” said Williams.

This story has been updated.