Dear Everybody:
The big news today was that this morning Trump announced that he was going to make a major announcement today at 2 p.m. from the Oval Office, followed by a print interview:
–This led to lots of speculation about what it was he was going to announce.
–Melissa Byrne asked excitedly, “Is he resigning?” and others suggested he was going to announce an end to the Iran war or announce he was going to invade Cuba. Or slap his name on something. Justin Morales predicted that Trump would announce that “the midterms are canceled,” and that Trump would declare himself “king of America.”
–Others were pretty sure it was going to be a big nothing-burger. Jon Fleischmann posted “Doesn’t this president make announcements like every 30 minutes?”, which is true. He has done this before, everybody got all worked out, and then it turned out to be nothing.
–Which was the case today. It was, in fact, such a minor announcement that when I first went looking for it online, I couldn’t find any references to it. Huffington Post was talking about the Cornell gang rape case being reopened, Raw Story was talking about Trump being caught on an open mic at the golf tournament Sunday, saying plaintively, “I’d like to go home,” and Daily Kos was talking about Trump’s new propaganda ads (about which more later.)
–I finally found out what the big announcement was: Trump said that a Minnesota company was going to build a $15 billion dollar steel plant in Iowa, which would totally fix the economy, put an end to inflation, and bring prices down, then ranted on for awhile about how great the economy and China are and how terrible Canada is, and then fell asleep while other people talked and Natalie Harp looked on adoringly.
–Sam: “It’s so funny that people were like ‘OMG, a 2 PM Oval Office announcement, is Trump going to end the war in Iran or invade Cuba!?! And it turns out, no, he’s just going to rant about how good the economy is and how elections are rigged and then fall asleep.”
–Trump called the plant “the largest steel plant in American history” and said it would give 6000 Iowans construction jobs, 2000 manufacturing and mining jobs, and add another $95 billion to the US Economy. If it’s ever built–other plants which Trump has announced in the past, never came to fruition. And even if it is, it would not begin production until 2030, years after the midterms. He said it would run on iron ore mined in Minnesota, although there is no real way to get the iron ore to Iowa.
–Before Trump nodded off, he said a bunch of crazy stuff, like “We have the best murder.”
–Trump: “I absolutely won the election (in Minnesota) but they cheat like hell.” He claimed on mining, “we can supersede the state.” (I think he’s talking about bringing back strip mining, but who can tell?)
–Trump on Canada: “Lake Ontario is now Lake America. They’re gonna come in and they’re gonna say, ‘Sir, we are sorry.’”
–Trump on China: “We had a great meeting with President Xi. On the scale of 0 to 10, I would rate it a 12.”
–And did I mention he said, “We have the best murder”?
In economic news:
–At Trump’s big announcement today, he said, “Oil will come dropping down as soon as Iran gives up, as soon as the war is over, which will be soon. Prices for groceries have come way down for Biden. Almost every price has come way down. And remember one thing–oil is less expensive now than it was under the Biden administration.”
–Chuck Schumer: “He says this with a straight face as gas reaches $4.50 a gallon, mortgage rates soar over 7%, grocery costs are rising, and Americans’ sentiments toward the economy are the lowest they’ve been since the Great Recession.”
–And what does Trump mean, “Groceries have come way down for Biden?”
In Trump’s ads news:
–The ads clearly say “Paid for by the US government,” and the Trump administration is claiming they are “public safety ads,” but they did not say what the purpose of them was. PSA’s are supposed to be about stuff like, “Don’t do drugs,” or “Be sure to get your flu shot.”
–The Trump administration claims they are “educational and unapologetically patriotic,” and that Trump wasn’t running for anything so they couldn’t possibly be considered political. This would be a better argument if Trump didn’t keep saying, “Pretend I’m on the ballot this November.”
–Four senior Democrats wrote a joint letter calling the ads “the sort of government propaganda one might expect in North Korea, not the USA.”
–Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer lambasted the Trump administration for the ads, calling it an “absolute violation of what democracy is supposed to look like.” He said “only Trump would have the audacity to force Americans not only to watch his propaganda, but to pay for it…these ads are virtually indistinguishable from those made for Trump’s 2024 campaign, and yet you, the taxpayer, are funding them.”
–Ron Filipkowski: “Trump had $400 million in his PAC and he STILL decided that he needed to steal taxpayer money to pay for campaign ads for the midterms.”
–The first ad cost $430,000 and the second $362,000.
–New York Times reporter Bayliss Wagner: “We are paying for Trump to promote himself in campaign ads during the midterms. Another criminal act committed by a felon who has been given permission by a Supreme Court after they invented it for the first time.”
–GOP Senator Thomas Massie: “Don’t worry, using taxpayer dollars to run ominous campaign ads of the president has been done before and is completely legal…in banana republics.”
–GOP Senator Thom Tillis said the ads were something he would expect from Viktor Orban.
–Ron Filipkowski: “We need to get a full accounting of every dollar each media company accepted of our money stolen by Trump to run his partisan political ads on their channels. Companies who accept these ads are receiving property stolen from the American people and are a disgrace for accepting them.”
In Let Them Eat Cake news:
–Trump and his family just can’t seem to stop posting stuff with definite Versailles in the Last Days of Louis the XVI’s reign vibes.
–Eric Trump posted a photo of himself and wife Lara at the White House dressed in evening clothes, with Eric dipping his wife in a romantic pose.
–Ivanka Trump posted a video of herself riding her horse along a beach, arms outstretched.
–Trump’s granddaughter Kai posted a video of her expensive shopping spree.
–Eric Trump shared a video of himself and his kids getting a US military helicopter ride to see the countryside in Ireland.
–Wu Tang is for the Children: “Oh, cool…US military helicopters taking Eric Trump and his kids on a joyride over Ireland. Don’t worry. Taxpayers paid for it.”
–And Dan Scavino posted an AI video of him and his wife and Eric Trump and his wife Lara taking a joyride on a luggage carrier at a hotel while drinking champagne and spewing it from a bottle which looks like a still from the party scene in the movie THE GREAT GATSBY. (I read this was AI, so I wasn’t going to report on it at all, but then I found out the one who had posted it was Dan Scavino himself.)
–Ron Filipkowski: “Dan Scavino is actually appointed to the position where his primary job is to make sure that White House staffers don’t do dumb shit…Maybe if you don’t make your former golf caddie the Deputy White House Chief of Staff, then he wouldn’t be in a position to do dumb shit that can hurt your entire party right before the midterms. But hey, Caligula made his horse a senator.”
–olderwoman: “OMG! That picture of Dan Scavino and Lara and Eric Trump should be featured in EVERY Democratic ad. It is EPIC. This is an EPIC photograph. While so many Americans are suffering under these gas prices and inflation at the grocery store prices. LOOK AT THEM! For them it is one great party.”
And that was not the only Versailles-like event for Trumpers:
–Kash Patel went to Alina Habba’s lavish, over-the-top wedding. In case you’ve forgotten who Alina Habba is, she was one of Trump’s lawyers who had no experience except doing cases for her parking-garage-owner husband and who Trump promoted illegally to US Attorney, and then the judge said she was illegally appointed. (Note: This story frankly caught me by surprise because I thought she was still married to the parking-garage guy, but no, she divorced him and found herself somebody MUCH richer to marry.
–Kristy Greenberg? “When will this war be over? It’s gone on so long Alina Habba got divorced and married again.”
–Anyway, Kash Patel went to the wedding and apparently had a GREAT time. He posted a photo of him with Alina Habba, her new husband Turkish billionaire Turhan Mildor, and a couple of others that really raised eyebrows.
–One was Ali Abdelazis, a Russian double agent. Patel also was spotted partying with another US Attorney, Sigah Cheltah, who was also appointed illegally by Trump.
–Investigative journalist Michael D. Weiss: “These MAGA weddings are Mos Eisley cantinas for counter-intelligence.”
In Kimberly Guilfoyle in Exile news:
–When Don Jr. dumped Kimberley Guilfoyle and started dating Bettina Anderson (who he just married in a wedding financed by a Russian oligarch), Trump shipped Kimberley off to Greece as ambassador, which Susie Wiles probably thought was far enough away and harmless enough to keep her from ending up in the news (except for occasional pictures where she went to official ambassador-type functions wearing see-through dresses slit to the waist.) But, alas, no.
–First of all, she decided to cash in on her job by having a party for Greek officials where she would sell her own brand of vodka. (Can you say grift?) Luckily, it didn’t come off because all the bottles broke in transit. (Can you say sabotage?)
–Secondly, she has a new boyfriend, who is a lobbyist and the “Greeks for Trump” who she takes everywhere, including to official ambassador meetings with Greek officials and events and treats like her chief of staff, even though he has no official position and/or security clearance.
–But the biggest mess she’s gotten herself into was what she said at a diplomatic dinner with Greek officials. They were discussing the collapse of Romania’s government, and she said, “We can do that to any country we want. We can do that here.”
–The Greeks are VERY upset about this remark. They apparently pointed out to her at the time that since they are a democracy, the government is decided by the people, not the US, but the Greek government is saying that it will not be tolerated. Stay tuned…
–Ron Filipkowski: “US Ambassador to Greece has to be one of the greatest jobs you can get. You can represent your country in a beautiful place with great people and amazing food. But Guilfoyle had to go straight to plotting, scheming, and generating controversy. Because of course she did.”
In promising news:
–Axios’s headline today: “GOP election Outlook Goes From Bad to ‘Craptastic.’”
–Joe: “Trump: ‘Pretend I’m on the ballot this November.’ Voters: ‘Wish granted, mofo.’”
–A Texas voter: “The Trump Republican Party has given us nothing but the finger.”
–avsp: “We live in a pretty red city of Ohio…We stopped by the Democratic booth (at the street fair) to pick up a yard sign for Sherrod Brown and Amy Acton…then sat on a bench holding the signs. People walking by gave me thumbs up, smiled, and nodded. Some stopped and told me I made the right choice, talked about the races, hated on trump, etc., and one even said I gave her hope! Not one glowering, Trumpy scowl or snotty comment…this has never happened. The town has been full of MAGA assholes in the past, who were not shy about haranguing me in similar situations. It gives me hope!”
–Dan Pfeiffer: “A brand-new poll shows that voters aren’t just pissed about the economy, they are rejecting every element of the Trump agenda. They don’t like the man. They don’t like what he’s done, and they also hate his promising ideas.”
–A new American Research Poll has Trump at 29% in his approval rating. This is the second poll to have him this low. (Richard Nixon was at 24 per cent just days before he resigned.)
In UFO news:
–According to the New York Post, the Pentagon and the White House released new UFO footage, including a video of six mysterious “orbs” reportedly traveling at 480 miles an hour.
–The Post’s resident expert Steven Greenstreet took a closer look and spotted what appeared to be flapping wings on the “orbs.”
In other news:
–Trump signed an executive order terminating Biden’s electric vehicle mandate to build more electric vehicles.
–In 2026, the bodies of four black people were found hanging from trees. The police ruled all of them suicides.
–Target was forced to stop selling a blackface clown costume that looked exactly like racist portrayals of blacks during the 1800s. They said it was an accident.
In good news:
–A district judge ordered the Washington Post to rehire the columnist fired over a Charlie Kirk post and compensate with back pay. (And just in case you wondered what the post was that was so bad it got the columnist fired in the first place, here it is: “Refusing to tear my clothes and smear ashes on my face in performative mourning for a white man that espoused violence is…not the same as violence.”)
–A federal judge rejected a request from Trump’s DOJ to dismiss Steve Bannon’s contempt of Congress conviction.
–After the Washington Sun sued, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to turn over thousands of internal USAID records.
Cutest thing you will see all week (and I know it’s only Monday)–Cookie Monster and Harrison Ford:
Worst comment of the day, from GOP Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton: “The criticism has been that I let a child predator out after one day. Well, guess what? They served sixty days.”
Best comment of the day, from Robert Reich: “Trump has become mad as a hatter. Loonier than Looney Tunes. Totally nuts. An enraged, engorged child who’s frightened to death of being seen as a loser…Trump’s carefully cultivated aura of invincibility has just about disappeared. The would-be emperor has no clothes. Almost everybody now sees the thin-skinned, peevish, petty, incompetent, corrupt, naked infant who’s been parading around in presidential garb. And they’re not going to obey him any more.”
Keep calm and carry on,
Connie Willis
