Dear Everybody:
Just when you thought you couldn’t get more outraged, the big news today was that Trump now wants his name put on Ford’s Theater:
–Trump’s aides thought adding his name to Ford’s Theater might create less controversy than adding it to the Kennedy Center might create less controversy, since the theater is one of the most sacred (and tragic) sites in Washington, DC. The theater was where John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln as he sat watching a play.
–Trump was apparently impressed by the theater when he visited. He said, “What a place. that’s history at its highest.”
–Trump’s aides apparently have a whole list of potential buildings to put Trump’s name on that might not face the legal barriers that the Kennedy Center and the Institute of Peace pose. (Anybody else find the fact that he has a whole list of targeted buildings scary? And deranged?)
–Ford’s Theater and the Peterson House across the street, where Lincoln later died, are owned by the Interior Department and maintained by the National Park Service as the Ford’s Theatre National Historic Site. The site’s name is set by a federal statute signed by former President Richard Nixon, which means a formal renaming would almost certainly require an act of Congress.
–Trump’s attitude is “Why would I say no? Everybody’s trying to please me. They know flattery gets them everything.”
–It’s also not clear what rationale Trump could use to justify putting his name on the building. He hasn’t renovated it (it’s a working theater) and has no real connection to it. (Is he going to claim that he was ALMOST assassinated? Or is he going to claim it’s somehow connected to national security and that he’s going to put drones and snipers on the roof?)
–White House spokesman Davis Ingle: “This story is completely false. The reality is that failing MS NOW continues to push false and baseless claims from anonymous sources who have no clue what they’re talking about, which is exactly why their credibility is in the toilet.” (Translation: It’s true.)
–A spokesman for the Interior Department said in an email, “This is not true.” (Translation: It’s totally true.”)
–The theater is currently staging “Come from Away,” a musical about the Americans who were stranded in a tiny town in Canada when 9-11 happened and the Canadians who welcomed them and took them in.
–George Conway: “Honestly, when someone first sent me this story this morning, I thought it was from The Onion.”
–MuellerSheWrote: “Lincoln. Kennedy. It’s a pattern now. He’s fascinated by assassinations. Makes you wonder how far a narcissistic megalomaniac would go to muscle in on that club.”
–John M: “I’m all for it if he promises to attend a play there.”
The other big news today was the press ban, which went to court today:
–A hearing was held today to determine whether Trump’s ban on CNN, MS NOW, and Politico is legal. The outlets were asking for a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction to restore their press passes immediately. The judge seemed skeptical of Trump’s arguments. He said he would rule very soon.
–When Trump yelled at Kaitlin Collins at the UN, telling her she shouldn’t be there, the outlets immediately added that to their case.
–The DOJ justified Trump’s ban by citing stories like the story about the US having depleted munitions, the Iran war, the ballroom, and “bad vibes” at the GOP convention.
–One of the stories the White House claims they banned Politico for was based on a background briefing given them by JD Vance. In other words, they’re banning Politico for reporting what the White House told them.
–Trump had argued the “fake news” coverage had endangered national security. The judge concluded that there is no national security argument in this case.
–Others have joined the boycotted outlets. CNN, MS NOW, Politico, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, PBS, NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Huffington Post, the AP, Reuters, Getty Images, and the AFP are all participating in the boycott.
–NPR announced it won’t air sound bites from the Trump White House until further notice.
–The New York Times’ Peter Baker: “Mr. Trump, for whom TV is better than any narcotic, finds himself for the first time at least partially deprived of the major networks that have covered nearly every movement and utterance he has made for more than a decade.”
–Today Aaron Rupar’s feed (he covers Trump non-stop) and many of the other sources I usually go to were curiously quiet, with no photos of Trump or quotes from him.
–So Trump compensated by posting: “All of the SLEAZEBAGS, like 3rd rate ‘Reporter’ Kaitlin Collins of Fake News CNN, a truly unhappy person, said they weren’t going to be covering me. Then why were they ranting and raving like Lunatics in the Press Area at the UN? Why was she there? She’s got a TRUMP addiction, and does CNN and MSDNC. They’re all sick, treasonous, and demented! The ‘good news’ is that they have a great, for them, and totally disloyal Judge.”
–Daily Kos: “The press is banned because Chump is a walking temper tantrum with delusions of grandeur who doesn’t know how to act.”
–Rick Wilson: “this isn’t a media strategy. this is a tantrum engineered by Odd Job Cheung and First Lady Natalie Harp, and it hands the American press the single best story they’ll get all year…he’s been at war with a free press an damn near won it, but this is his Stalingrad, his bridge too far…”
And there’s news today about Trump’s ballroom:
–The architect who famously quit the project back in 2025, James McCrery II, kept the blueprints and the dozens of handwritten notes that Trump had scrawled all over with his Sharpie, and today those came to light.
–Trump completely ignored the architect’s safety concerns and insisted on designs that violated fire and safety codes. The ballroom didn’t meet requirements for sufficient safety exits and there were not enough backup exits or emergency routes either. The architect called “life safety a big concern.” He said the design Trump proposed wouldn’t keep a kitchen fire from spreading into the event space.”
–There also weren’t enough toilets, especially for the women, and Trump insisted on Corinthian columns everywhere.
–When the architect tried to talk to him about the zoning and safety codes, Trump told him they didn’t apply to the White House. He said, “I am the code.”
–One document superimposed a planned data center over Manhattan to show how enormous it was. The note at the top read, “James, and you think we are big.”
–Daily Kos’s headline was: “Trump’s death-trap ballroom.”
–The White House responded that all of this was “factually false” and that it was “totally unacceptable to tie McCrery’s exit to code issues.” (Translation: It’s all true. Though my theory is that McCrery left because he realized Trump was batshit crazy.)
In Iran War news:
–A new poll asking about the Iran War showed support for it in total collapse. 70% said the Iran War hurt the United States. 75% said Trump had no plan for ending the war. 76% said the war was not worth the costs.
–In a CNN poll on Trump’s handling of the war, 26% approved of Trump’s handling and 73% disapproved.
–Former GOP Rep and now candidate Mike Rogers: “The war in Iran needs to end–and end quickly.”
–The only one who hasn’t gotten the message is JD Vance. When asked by a reporter, “Just hoping to get a response about a growing number of Republicans in battleground states calling for an end to the Iran War?” JD Vance: “I haven’t seen what you’re talking about. What I’ve seen is people are really excited about what we’ve done.” (Natalie must have been showing him the same printouts she shows Trump.)
In oil and gas prices news:
–Regular gas is now at $4.48 a gallon. Diesel is at $6.53.
–Trump is thinking of putting a ban on exporting oil to try to bring down the cost of oil before the midterms (it would only be a temporary fix.)
–Oil company executives and lobbyists are violently opposed to this move.
–So, amazingly, is Trump’s Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, who said, “The blunt tool of banning diesel exports doesn’t work.”
–The Republicans are still trying to spin it. GOP Senator Tommy Tuberville: “Obviously gas prices are high. They’ve been high before. People will deal with that. They know it’s going to go up and down. But you know, our people in Alabama know that. They voted for President Trump. They are willing to pay higher gas prices.”
In Greenland news:
–Yesterday at the UN, Trump made a big show of signing an agreement with Denmark and Greenland, an agreement which Trump believes gives him total control of Greenland.
–The agreement is actually the same agreement the countries signed in 1951, repackaged to make Trump think it was a new agreement. But that’s not the best part.
–The best part is that the agreement is only valid as long as the US stays in NATO. (I’m sure Trump has no idea that’s in there.) This either means Trump will have to stop threatening to leave NATO, or, if he did, it stops Trump from having ANY control over Greenland, including the bases we currently have there.
In Don, Jr’s wedding news:
–Four GOP Senators want an investigation into Don, Jr.’s wedding. Two of them are on the Judiciary Committee. The senators are John Curtis, Thom Tillis, John Cornyn, and Lisa Murkowski.
–GOP Senator John Curtis: “The country should not have to accept one standard for the family of a Republican president and another for the family of a Democratic president. Nor should Congress oversight begin and end when control of the White House changes hands.”
–Also Senator Curtis: “A toaster is a wedding gift. A private island party paid for by a Putin-connected oligarch is something else.”
–GOP Senate Judiciary Committee chair Chuck Grassley brushed off calls from Republicans to subpoena Don, Jr.’s conflicts of interest.
In They’re All Perverts news:
–Former GOP Senator Justin Eichorn was just sentenced to 16 months in prison after being caught in a child sex trafficking sting.
In promising signs:
–Trump just lost a lawsuit brought by Washington state, which refused to turn over its voter registration database. This marks the 25th voter registration case Trump has lost.
–I told you yesterday about that big MAGA Festival in Kentucky that was called off because nobody bought the VIP $1000 tickets. Today I found out how many of those tickets were actually sold: six.
–The early vote tracker says that 100,000 votes are in. Of those, 63% are Democrats and 19% are Republicans (the rest independents.) At the same point during the last midterms there were 31,000 votes in. The turnout is already 3 times higher.
–Virginia has started early voting. Three times more people have voted than had by this time in the last midterms (34,512 so far.) Most of the satellite polls aren’t open yet, so these people all had to go to the main polling stations. Virginia is considered a bellwether.
–Polls showing the generic Congressional ballot: IPSOS +8, Morning Consult +7, Quantus +9, Fifty Plus One (an aggregate poll) +8, Rasmussen +8, Marist +12, and YouGov/Economist +14!
–Born to Run the Numbers: “We now believe for the first time that Democrats have a better than 50-50 chance of flipping the Senate, and that there is virtually no way they can fail to flip the House.”
–A GOP House Representative; “The bottom’s beginning to fall out. We have money that we’ve neer had before, but they have every strategic advantage in their direction and the President’s made it worse–nobody in my district cares about the Kennedy Center, arches, or the Reflecting Pool, all this nonsense.”
–Laura Loomer: “Anyway, November is going to be a bust. We tried. But there’s only so much you can do.” (When you’ve lost Laura Loomer…)
–David 54: “Something incredible is happening right now–a major shift is occurring in the course of history. A sea change. A sharp inflection point.”
–Oh, and I have another reason for you to vote as early as you can–the minute your vote is recorded, the junk mail you’ve been getting stops.
In historical news:
–The White House claimed for more than a year that Washington Post journalists Woodward and Bernsein were making up “fake news” and creating fictional sources. It turned out they weren’t doing either of those things, and that Nixon was up to his neck in the cover-up of the break-in to the Democratic headquarters and other crimes.
In other news:
–Harvey Weinstein has been convicted of rape and sentenced to 15 years, six of which he has already served. (He’s 74 years old, so he won’t get out till he’s 83.)
–Pete Hegseth is now recruiting new troops using a well-known Bible verse: Isaiah 6:8, in which God asks, “Whom shall I send?” and the prophet Isaiah responds, “Here am I. Send me.” The tour is called the SEND ME Tour and the Bible verse is directly referenced in the recruitment ads.
–The measles outbreak is growing. There are now 792 measles cases in Pennsylvania, and 155 people have been hospitalized for it. (There are 3471 cases in the US.) Three people have died in the current outbreak, but the CDC has STILL not added their names to its totals.
In good news:
–The 2025 RFK Human Rights Award will go to Stephen Colbert for his advocating for free speech and speaking truth to power.
–A federal judge dismissed a defamation lawsuit brought by Cassidy Hutchinson’s lawyer against commentator and lawyer Andrew Weissman.
–An 8-state coalition filed lawsuits demanding the Trump administration’s payments to private companies to cancel offshore wind leases be stopped and the money returned.
And just for fun:
This week is Forensics Week, dear to my heart both because my daughter is a forensic scientist and because I am an obsessive fan of Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, the OJ Simpson trial, (he SO did it!) and the Lizzie Borden case (and so did she!) Forensics is one of the newer sciences and one of the most fascinating–it’s simply amazing what information criminalists can obtain from a footprint or a spatter of blood. Holmes would be amazed!
–They are also solving crimes long over and long thought unsolvable, and giving (finally!) justice to the victims, closure to families of the victims, and protection to the public from criminals who thought they’d gotten away with it–and were likely to do it again. Thanks, all you criminalists and criminal pathologists and criminal anthropologists and DNA experts!
Best comment of the day from musician Dave Matthews at a concert: “I said it last night, but I’ll say it again–man, I’m so tired of this fuckin’ President.”
Keep calm and carry on,
Connie Willis
