What did Donald Trump do today?

He tried to sell his Venezuelan oil grab but left out the many reasons it won't ever lead to lower prices at the pump.

The Trump administration released some details of its supposed "deal" to secure access to Venezuela's 65 billion-barrel untapped oil reserves. Supposedly, the United States will form a joint partnership with an existing private Venezuelan oil company. That new joint company would have 100-year leases on various fields. Its profits would be shared with the Defense Department, and the State Department would have an option to buy a certain amount of oil at production cost. (When Trump isn't doing it himself, as he frequently does, he usually calls centralized state ownership and control of key industries like energy "communism.") 

Trump is painting this as a quick fix for the much larger oil price spike he's caused with his war on Iran. There are, to put it mildly, a few problems with this argument.

• The untapped Venezuelan reserves are just that—untapped. Nothing about putting a different name on the lease changes the fact that virtually all of those billions of gallons of oil will remain in the ground for decades, even if massive infrastructure is quickly built to extract it. 

• The massive infrastructure needed to extract it doesn't exist yet. Oil drilling infrastructure is incredibly complex, has to be carefully tailored to each new drill site, and costs an enormous amount of money to build even in areas near established power and road networks—which Venezuela's fields aren't. It's not impossible to build economically viable wells at the sites Trump has chosen to take, but it won't be easy or cheap either. That's why they haven't been exploited before now. 

•  Venezuelan oil is low-quality and not in high demand for gasoline. In oil industry terms, it's "sour," meaning it contains high sulfur levels, and "heavy," meaning it's sludgy in consistency and difficult to move via pipeline. It's mostly used for making asphalt or as the ultra-low-grade bunker fuel for ships. 

•  There isn't enough refinery capacity to use it. The one bit of good news for Trump's scheme is that the United States does have the highly specialized refineries that can make use of Venezuelan oil. They're 30 years old and in need of modern upgrades, which will cost a lot of money. But even fully modern refineries can only process so much, so even if Venezuelan oil eventually started flooding onto the US refinery market (after many years of building up the infrastructure to extract it), there still wouldn't be any place to refine it. To fix that problem, more US refineries would have to be built, and that would involve private businesses thinking it was worth the risk to spend the billions of dollars necessary. 

•  The political situation is much too unstable. For Trump's plan to come to fruition in the form of the first drop of "his" oil, both the United States and Venezuela would have to be in lockstep agreement for decades. Trump's direct control of the levers of American government isn't likely to survive the year, and his ability to coerce the acting President of Venezuela depends on her retaining power indefinitely too. Even routine legal challenges within Venezuela would add years more to the timeline, and that is assuming the mildest possible reaction from the multi-lateral outrage this "deal" is creating in Venezuela. 

•  Nothing stops a future Venezuelan government from re-nationalizing any oil infrastructure that American money and private investment builds now. Venezuela has already nationalized its oil production facilities twice, at first partially in 1976 and then a second time to seize the remaining facilities in 2007. The private companies involved were compensated, albeit less than they would have liked. Trump's claim that no American money would be spent on developing new infrastructure is obviously false—but that would make it much easier for the next government of Venezuela to claim that no harm would be done be taking back control of its own country's natural resources for a third time.

•  Every timeline gets longer if the price of oil drops. Right now, with oil at astronomically high prices due to Trump giving Iran a veto over a major shipping channel for it, Venezuelan oil makes economic sense. But there's no guarantee that will continue for the decades it will take to bring the reserves Trump claims online. A future US president will presumably be able to extricate the United States from Trump's quagmire in Iran, at which point oil prices will presumably fall, and that will make developing Venezuela's reserves cost-inefficient compared to lower-hanging fruit. That doesn't mean wells will never be drilled, but simple economics (which Trump claims to have studied at Penn) dictates that they won't be drilled while there are more profitable alternatives. 

•  Gasoline will never get cheaper in the United States because of this. In part that's because, as noted above, Venezuelan oil isn't really suited for gasoline or aviation fuel production. By the time it was profitable to extract gasoline directly from Venezuelan crude, the price would be so high that the global economy would probably have collapsed from an oil shock already.
  
  But it's also because oil is a globally traded commodity, and Venezuela's oil is still a drop in the bucket. Bringing more oil production online lowers prices for every market. That's why Trump's bungling of the Strait of Hormuz is raising prices even for countries that don't normally buy oil shipped through it: the laws of supply and demand are smoothed out in the global marketplace. More to the point, oil prices are set in large part by cartel action, and that routinely restricts output to keep prices high enough to be economically viable.
  
  

Trump clearly understands that his self-inflicted inflation is a major driver of his unpopularity, even among Americans who were strong supporters of his before he returned to office. It's less clear why he thinks that voters will confuse his announcement that prices are going down with the reality they face at the pump.

Why does this matter?

• American consumers are not nearly as stupid as Donald Trump thinks they are. 

• Bringing back 19th-century-style colonialism is bad; doing it for resources that are worthless without decades of development is stupid.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He pretended he already has the fascist powers he wants.

This morning, Trump—or someone posting as though they were him—threatened to have the FCC inflict "rebuke or punishment" on Meet the Press host Kristen Welker. Her offense, according to Trump, was pointing out that Trump had had "mixed results" in endorsing candidates.

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States specifically bars Trump or any other government official from trying to "punish" journalists, or anyone else, merely because they said something he interprets as criticism.

 

That said, Welker's observation is factually true. Trump is extremely sensitive about his ability to "win" primary elections with his endorsements. He's made a habit of "endorsing" candidates who are running unopposed or with no serious challenger to run up his score. And when his chosen candidate loses, Trump has a habit of attacking them for making him look bad, as he did recently with his "friend" Cory Mills.

He's so fixated on this that he once endorsed "Eric" in the 2022 Missouri Senate primary. (Eric Schmitt defeated Eric Greitens in that race; Trump never specified a last name until the election was safely over.)

But with Trump's brand absolutely toxic after 18 months back in office, more and more Republicans are willing to challenge him—and some who do are winning their primaries. Ten candidates for Congress or statewide office that he's endorsed so far have lost in the primaries. That's as many as in the last three election cycles combined.

Why does this matter?

• "Rebuke or punishment" for criticizing the leader only happens in dictatorships. 

• Making up things to throw tantrums about isn't a sign of great cognitive health.

What did Donald Trump do today?

We don't really know.

As is typical for a weekend day (and not uncommon for weekdays), Trump went to one of his luxury golf resorts today. The pool reporter was prevented from directly observing him, but there is at least some indirect "proof of life" because he reportedly attended a dinner for his political action committee. 

The Trump administration made no policy announcements today. There were no major developments in court cases involving Trump. If Trump signed any bills or orders, the White House hasn't told anyone about them yet.

To be clear, it was anything but a slow news day where the consequences of Trump's actions were concerned. Among other things, news broke that Trump had illegally destroyed cherry trees given as a diplomatic gift by Japan to renovate a golf course. Reports also surfaced that his supposed "deal" to give control of Venezuela's oil reserves to American companies he favored was likely to face legal and constitutional objections from, in effect, the entire political apparatus of the country. And there was more analysis of the lucrative stock trades Trump made in the oil and gas sector that just so happened to come directly before his public statements about the Iran war caused prices to change.

But in terms of events that could be directly attributed to Trump himself, the only evidence came from his social media feed—and that is no longer a reliable indicator. There were 20 posts to his microblogging website account today, including while he was supposedly golfing. But most of these were image posts—memes or the AI slop that is typical of most Trump administration comms these days. For example, there was an AI slop video of "Donald ducks"—ducks with Trump's hairpiece—carrying assault rifles to defend Lake Ontario. 

As a practical matter, it's long been clear that Trump is not personally posting most of what goes on his social media account. For one thing, it's extremely unlikely that Trump is capable of using a phone or laptop well enough to upload video or images. But recent revelations about the extent of his relationship with the aide who does much of his posting for him, Natalie Harp, strongly suggest Trump may not be aware from day to day what "he" is saying, and not just in the AI slop and memes. The emotionally raw letters that Harp sent Trump use the same idiosyncratic capitalization that appear in Trump's posts.

Harp isn't the first young junior aide that Trump has developed an emotionally intense relationship with that alarmed others close to him. Hope Hicks played a similar role during Trump's first term, as did his daughter Ivanka, both of whom were called on to help manage his outbursts of temper.

Why does this matter?

• It's bad if it's not clear who is actually exercising the powers of the presidency.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He remained a convicted felon.

U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein ruled today against Trump's latest attempt to have his 34 New York state felony convictions set aside.

The ruling was in one sense procedural: Hellerstein found that Trump waited too long to try to move the trial to federal court after his conviction in May of 2024. Trump would likely have been within his rights to ask that the trial be "removed" to federal court, in which a federal judge and jury would apply New York State law. But federal law requires that any such motion be made within 30 days of an accused criminal's arraignment, which for Trump would have been in April of 2023. Trump waited until after a jury had found him guilty and his sentencing was imminent, and did not show the required "good cause" for a later motion.

That rule exists, as Hellerstein wrote, so that defendants cannot "play one court off another," nullifying a state verdict in the hopes of another chance in federal court.

But there's another reason Trump wanted the case heard in federal court: his new argument that the crimes he committed were part of his official duties as president, and therefore subject to a special presidential immunity for official acts.

The "official presidential acts" Trump sought to sweep under the rug included:

• paying a tabloid publisher money in 2015, before he ever became president, to buy the rights to the story of his affair with a porn actress, among other stories
  
  
• using money from his chartered business for that personal matter and creating fraudulent business records to conceal it 

• lying to federal election officials about the nature of those expenditures 

• failing to disclose them as the illegal in-kind campaign contributions they were 

• falsifying other business records to make his bagman's work look like legitimate legal billing 

As Hellerstein wrote in his ruling, "There is no way that discussions regarding hush money payments to cover up the President's relations with Stormy Daniels could be an official act. An affair, or a cover-up of an affair, is not within the 'outer perimeter' of the President's official responsibilities."

Trump has already escaped all real consequences of his criminal actions. He was sentenced just days before returning to office, but a judge gave him the extremely rare sentence of an unconditional discharge, freeing him from any punishment, including even fines or probation. Under normal circumstances, Trump would likely have been on probation for the rest of his life, and would have been at genuine risk of being sentenced to a short prison term.

Trump remains the only president ever convicted of a felony, but those 34 counts are not the last ones he will necessarily face. Even setting aside illegal acts he's committed since returning to office, he is still liable for prosecution on state charges of election tampering and conspiracy in Georgia, and federal charges for his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and his theft of classified materials. Those cases were dismissed for various reasons before he returned to office, but could be refiled.
 

Why does this matter?

• In a democracy, no one is above the law. 

• Anywhere that the rule is "The leader can do whatever he wants and we'll find a way to make it legal" is a dictatorship.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He threatened China with economic sanctions as softly and unconvincingly as possible. 

Trump's recent attempt to find an off-ramp from the Iran war he started has focused on economic coercion. In large part that's because he has few if any military options left: the United States military is shockingly low on missiles and defensive interceptors after six months of use against cheap, low-tech attacks from Iran.  

One problem with that approach, as many have noted, is that it's not really possible to increase sanctions on Iran any higher than they already are, or have been for most of the last 50 years. Trump's promised "Economic D-Day," which would supposedly target any country doing business with Iran, is not meaningfully different from what is already in place.

The other problem is that Iran's largest trading partner is China, and sanctioning China would be inviting retaliation from the world's largest economy. China has paid lip service to international sanctions on Iran, but is Iran's largest customer for oil. China, which supplies weapons to Iran, also benefits from the ongoing economic havoc and degradation of military readiness that Trump's war is inflicting on the United States. 

Trump was asked today about why he hadn't sanctioned the Chinese banks involved in that trade, to which he responded, "Who says I'm not?"

The answer is that Trump's Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, says he isn't. Bessent was asked a similar question earlier this week, about why he hadn't simply ordered sanctions immediately against countries that traded with Iran. Clearly exasperated, Bessent snapped, "Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?" 

There's another reason Trump is unlikely to cross China on this issue. President Xi Jinping is expected to visit Washington in September. Xi, along with Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, is one of a number of authoritarian rulers that Trump treats with awe and respect he otherwise never shows anyone. He's openly praised Xi for engineering a lifetime dictatorship over the Chinese government. More recently, Trump went to extraordinary lengths—and taxpayer expense—to get an extremely ornate helipad constructed on White House grounds in time for Xi's visit. (Actually, he did that twice—one on an "emergency" basis, and then a second time even faster when the first attempt wasn't fancy enough for him and had to be demolished.) 

Trump's timid saber-rattling on China sanctions came on the same day that he demonstrated a more realistic example of his power to economically punish important US trading partners, by ceremonially "renaming" a lake to insult Canada.

Why does this matter?

• Making threats everyone knows are empty only advertises your weakness, and a competent president would have learned that by now.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He said it was no big deal that his CIA director got caught on a secret trip to Russia.

The Russian government confirmed today that CIA Director John Ratcliffe was aboard a mysterious flight that landed in Moscow yesterday. Ratcliffe's purpose, according to the Russian government, was to meet with his counterparts in Russian intelligence agencies. The meeting was not announced publicly and Ratcliffe apparently went to some trouble to conceal the fact that he was taking the trip: the Russian government initially claimed it had no idea why an American military plane had landed near Moscow.

Asked about it today, Trump insisted that it was "semi-routine" for the head of a US intelligence agency to meet with a hostile country. Trump appeared to be toeing the line set out by Russia's intelligence head, Dimitri Peskov, who characterized the meeting as a means of establishing good working relationships between the two agencies.

In reality, of course, Russia is the hostile power behind any number of intelligence operations against the United States. That's true even without addressing the question of how much direct influence the Putin regime has over Trump himself, who benefited from Russian intelligence operations to interfere in the 2016 election.

It's also not at all routine for the head of the CIA to visit Russia, or any openly hostile country. The last time it happened was in 2021, when then-Director Bill Burns went there to warn Russia that the United States was aware of its plans to invade Ukraine. That meeting was not kept a secret from the American public.

Reporting of that fact, and the contrast between Burns's and Ratcliffe's trips, seems to have convinced the Trump administration to change its story. Later today, and well after Russian state media had established the framing of the trip that Trump repeated, the official justification changed abruptly. The Trump administration's new line is that Ratcliffe was there to warn Russia not to attack NATO member states.

Trump has a long history of reaching out in secret to the Putin regime, and once tried to set up a secure private backchannel that the rest of the United States government wouldn't be able to monitor. This is also far from the first time that he's let Russian state media embarrass him by leaking news of those secret contacts to the American public before he has his story straight.

Why does this matter?

• A president who keeps falling for the same basic trick over and over again is either too stupid or too gullible to hold office. 

• It's a problem if the only thing Americans are allowed to know about their president's relationship with Russia is what Vladimir Putin decides to tell them.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He threatened to destroy the Kennedy Center if he couldn't chisel his name into it.

There is an ongoing lawsuit challenging Trump's decision to rename the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for himself and, now, his attempts to circumvent a judge's ruling preventing him from doing so. Today, the DOJ told a court that if he couldn't do that, he would tear down the entire complex and replace it with an "outdoor amphitheater" like those found at amusement parks.

Trump's theory of the case—as detailed in a legal filing mimicking the odd style of his social media posts—goes like this: if the Kennedy Center board he appointed can't literally chisel his name into buildings thanking him for his leadership, donations will dry up. That will cause the "decrepit" buildings to fall into ruin, necessitating their destruction.

In the real world, there are two problems with this argument. First, the Kennedy Center just underwent major renovations in 2023 and is in pristine condition. This is what its "decrepit" buildings currently look like:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Second, donations to the Center plummeted because Trump fired its original board and began inserting himself into its programming. This isn't speculation: its own internal reports show gifts and ticket sales dropped dramatically after Trump had his name put on the building.

In other words, Trump is threatening in writing to tear down one of the largest and best-appointed performance spaces in the world and replace it with a cheap outdoor auditorium if he's not allowed to put his name on it, even though courts have already ruled he can't under the law that established it.

Neither Trump as president nor the political loyalists he appointed to its board have any legal authority to destroy the center, but that hasn't stopped him in the past. If he carries out the threat, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts would be the second American cultural treasure associated with the Kennedys that Trump has demolished since returning to office. 

Why does this matter?

• This is how gangsters in movies from Trump's childhood acted.

• You'd think that Trump would know from experience what substandard building practices and dangerously shoddy construction looks like. 

• There's ego, and then there's throwing a temper tantrum over not being able to put your name on any building you like.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He tried to project strength as his personal and political problems got worse by the moment.

Trump is so incapable of admitting any kind of mistake or failure that he once told a group of evangelical Christian leaders that he'd never even asked God for forgiveness. (By Christian standards this is, to put it mildly, blasphemy.) Perhaps the only time he's ever even come close to apologizing in public was during the 2016 campaign, immediately after the infamous Access Hollywood video in which he talked about grabbing women "by the pussy" without consent—and even then, he tried to deflect blame onto others.

But over the past week, he's been uncharacteristically back on his heels. A casual reference to his aide Natalie Harp, sometimes referred to as the "human printer" for her habit of carrying around printouts of news articles meant to soothe Trump emotionally, blew up into a major scandal. Members of his own inner circle told reporters they were worried about the intensity of the hold the erratic Harp had over Trump and his agenda. Those letters showed that Harp shared Trump's unusual habit of incorrectly capitalizing random words in the middle of sentences, suggesting she was the author of far more of his social media announcements than previously suspected.  

Possibly related, Trump's wife Melania got into a public argument with him yesterday in full view of television cameras, which the White House unlawfully tried to get shut down as Melania stormed away.

Trump is also suffering defections from previously loyal constituencies as his approval rating has sunk to the low 30s—inches above where Nixon was when he was forced to resign. Congressional Republicans who can afford to are distancing themselves. One Republican voter in a swing Ohio district where Trump has backed an incumbent Congressman accused of child abuse, was asked about his message for Trump. His response: "Resign." Even beef ranchers are lashing out at Trump, furious for dropping protections on beef imports while herds recover from a screwworm infestation caused by Trump's killing a cheap eradication program.

This morning, Trump seemed to try to get back on his feet by lashing out at friends like Canada and foes like Iran in equal measure. Iran's response was predictable: mockery and threats to carry out assassination attempts in revenge for his assassination of regime leaders at the start of the war. But Canada's was much more serious. Trump had demanded that Canada "fall in line" or suffer "far worse" consequences than tariffs, an approach that couldn't possibly anger the Canadian public more than if that had been the intent. Prime Minister Mark Carney's government prepared to release details on the American industries it will attack with retaliatory tariffs, and Ontario premier Doug Ford threatened to cut off the billions of dollars worth of electricity that Canadian power plants provide to northeastern states. If that happened, it likely physically couldn't be replaced on the American side.

Trump responded by mocking Ford's dead brother. 

Why does this matter?

• The economy would be much, much stronger right now if the President of the United States had the emotional control of a toddler. 

• Nobody who can't keep their personal problems from affecting their work is fit to serve as president.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He went to bat for data centers, which infuriate most Americans but please the people most likely to give him money.

Trump gave an interview with his former fixer Michael Cohen that aired today, in which he made the politically dubious choice to go to bat for data centers. In those remarks, Trump claimed that data centers were "making their own power plants. They're building the most beautiful, you've never seen power plants like this."

It's true that some data centers aren't relying on existing grid electricity, especially where state regulators have been active in protecting American households from the price spikes that would cause. But the "power plants" that supply electricity to data centers instead are usually massive gas turbines: loud, inefficient, and polluting in ways that directly harm human health. Not only that, but Trump has declared off-the-grid polluting power sources to be exempt from the few environmental regulations his administration still enforces.

It's not at all clear what Trump, whose go-to solution for cybersecurity issues was to hire bike messengers, thinks data centers do. For that matter, he's never shown any real understanding of AI and what it can or can't do. But he does seem to understand that the people who bankroll him politically, or who simply put money in his pocket, are in favor of building data centers, and want him to make it harder for Americans to control where they're built. Trump has already paid off his end of the bargain, issuing executive orders that exempt data centers from normal regulations and open up publicly-owned land as building sites.

For everyone else, data centers are about as unpopular as Trump himself is, with seven in ten Americans saying they don't want them built where they live.

Why does this matter?

• Generally speaking, when the American public is this strongly opposed to something there are good reasons for it. 

• Presidents who want to change public opinion on something should probably know the first thing about what they're talking about.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He took two completely opposite positions on tariffs in the space of a single 24-hour period.

Trump has imposed new tariffs at an astronomical 50% rate on a range of Canadian goods. They went into effect at 12:01 AM today, and will raise the price for American consumers on auto parts, alcoholic beverages, medical supplies, and products made of essential raw materials like steel or wood. Canada is the United States' single largest and most economically integrated trading partner.

 

Predictably, Canada responded with dollar-for-dollar tariffs of its own, which will go into effect next month. These are targeted at products manufactured in critical swing states in the upcoming Senate elections. The Canadian economy is smaller than the United States', which would normally put them at a disadvantage in this kind of tit-for-tat response, but the Canadian public has rallied around the aggressive stance taken by Prime Minister Mark Carney, who has been working to decouple the economic links between the two countries in favor of more stable trading relationships overseas. In fact, in a very real sense, Carney owes his current job to Trump: his Liberal Party was widely expected to lose in to the Conservatives in the 2025 elections, until Trump's first round of tariffs and taunts about annexing Canada as the "51st state" rallied voters around Carney.

As with most of the import taxes Trump has imposed on American consumers, it's not immediately clear that he has any legal authority to do so. Most of the tariffs he's tried to impose have been overturned in court, although with the inflationary damage already done to Americans' bank accounts.

But less than 24 hours before raising prices on Americans who buy Canadian goods, Trump took exactly the opposite tack on another trade issue. He said he was temporarily cutting tariffs on beef, and said he was doing so explicitly to lower prices for Americans. The cut was tiny relative to overall consumption—about three week's worth, and then only if those savings actually trickle down the supply chain all the way to grocery stores—but for once, he was correctly framing tariffs as something that raise prices for Americans.

At least, that was what his social media post on the subject said, and Trump is very often not the author of policy pronouncements that go out under his name. In person, when asked about it by reporters, Trump was much hazier, and wouldn't (or couldn't) even say what countries he'd be lowering beef tariffs on.

Why does this matter?

• It never gets any less stupid to start a trade war with your largest and most important economic ally. 

• Nothing that raises costs American consumers while hurting American participation in the world economy going forward is a good idea.  

• A few weeks of slightly cheaper hamburger probably aren't going to make Americans forget about all the other reasons why they hate the Trump economy.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He said he could use the military to bring down interest rates, and he wasn't kidding.

The yields on US Treasuries have gone up sharply over the past few months. Some of that is a result of the soaring debt the country holds, spurred on by Trump's now-permanent tax cuts for the very wealthiest Americans and corporations. More debt means investors demand more of a risk premium to insure against default. Another major factor is rising inflation: fixed-income investments like government bonds are vulnerable to having their value eroded by the effects of Trump's tariff spree and his war with Iran, so investors expect a better yield to compensate. 

Trump was asked about this today, and his response was that he could "intervene" with the military. In the bond market.

Reporter on Bond Market: The yields have come back up since then. Have you talked to Bessent about another type of intervention.? Trump: The ultimate intervention is our military. And if we have to use that, we will.

[image or embed]

— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) August 21, 2026 at 4:26 PM

 

Q: Did you direct Secretary Bessent to intervene in the bond market?

TRUMP: No. Not at all. He's a very capable man, he wanted to do it. He's very good at it, good touch, very good natural touch for the bonds and the interest and, uh, he did that, yeah.

Q: The yields have come back up since then. Have you talked to him about another kind of intervention?

TRUMP: There are many types of intervention. That's one. The ultimate intervention is our military, and, uh, if we have to use that we will, yeah.

Some context here is important. The previous topic of discussion had been the ballroom he wants to build where the East Wing of the White House used to be. The trip he was departing for had nothing to do with the military. Trump kept a straight face the whole time he spoke. He did not give any indication at all that he understood why it would seem odd that he was talking about a military response to investors seeking higher premiums for US debt.

Why does this matter?

• Elderly people experiencing cognitive decline often engage in "masking" behavior by retreating to familiar words and phrases, even if they don't fit the situation. 

• Anyone else talking like this at Trump's age would be facing a competency hearing if they didn't agree to start letting other people handle their affairs. 

What did Donald Trump do today?

He got ten nuclear-capable missiles launched symbolically at him by the dictator he "fell in love" with.

For reasons that are not yet clear, Trump has recently been trying to reignite his charm offensive with North Korea. Earlier this week, he condemned South Korea for holding joint military exercises with the United States he'd already agreed to, and yesterday he declared that North Korea "would be fine" thanks to the 57 nuclear weapons they possessed. (The exact number of weapons that US intelligence had determined North Korea to possess has never been revealed before, and would have been an extremely sensitive secret before Trump blurted it out.)

It hasn't gone unnoticed that by cozying up to the Kim Jong-un regime, a rogue state that is a much greater international pariah that a stable Iran would be, Trump is making the strongest possible case for Iran to acquire a nuclear deterrent like North Korea's. Trump said he was angry with South Korea's president for not joining in his ill-fated war with Iran, which is supposedly about preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear deterrent. But he hasn't said why he doesn't seem to mind that North Korea has supplied Iran with weapons, and is continuing to prop up the Russian attacks on Ukraine.

Today, Trump got his reward: North Korea launched ten missiles in a "test" that was an unsubtle rebuke of Trump. Kim Yo-jong, who is Kim Jong-un's sister and chief spokesperson, blasted Trump's attempts to ingratiate himself as too little and too late. She also called Trump a liar for claiming that there was another meeting planned with Kim Jong-un. 

Trump's own history suggests that she is correct. He routinely insists that world leaders are desperate to talk with him even as those governments deny it. In some cases he may actually believe it, but he's also been caught trying to engineer scenarios that make him look like the one who is being courted when it's really the opposite. For example, last year his staff pleaded with China's president Xi Jinping to "ask" to talk to Trump about the tariffs he'd just imposed, so that Trump could magnanimously "grant" the request and convey strength. (Inevitably, China simply announced what Trump was doing.)

Trump seems to genuinely believe that Kim Jong-un, who has committed some of the most horrific crimes against humanity in the last century, is truly his friend and can be negotiated with on friendly terms. Kim, who has ruled since 2011, has

• ordered the murder of at least seven members of his own government, and in some cases, their families
• detained eleven American citizens to use as bargaining chips for a total of 3,941 days, in conditions that led to at least one death
• jailed approximately 120,000 of his own citizens for their political beliefs in prisons where prisoners are
• punitively raped
• starved
• tortured, sometimes to death
• forced approximately 2,640,000 of his own citizens to work under conditions of slavery in "re-education camps"
• sold slave labor outside the country to fund its government
• forced women to have abortions against their will
• conducted at least 26 long-range missile tests, including 16 during Trump's term in office, the most recent of which could likely strike the entire continental United States
• successfully completed testing of several working nuclear weapon designs, and stockpiled about 60 weapons
• got caught planning to hide those weapons while pretending to go along with the disarmament plan Trump believes to exist since his first summit
• got caught continuing to expand and develop the missile program, immediately after pledging not to at the previous Trump-Kim summit
• ransomed the remains of American soldiers killed or captured in the Korean War
• governed a country where, outside of a tiny elite class, citizens are frequently
• malnourished
• suffering from infection by parasitic worms
• constantly surveilled
• prohibited from contacting or learning about the outside world
• Threatened the United States with a nuclear attack if sanctions weren't dropped 
• called the United States "cancerous" and "gangster-like" 
   

Why does this matter?

• There is naïve, and then there is a sitting President of the United States thinking that Kim Jong-un likes him and will do him favors. 

• It's a problem for the United States if nobody, friend or foe, has any reason to believe anything its president says.
  
  
• If Donald Trump understood what had just happened, he'd be humiliated. 

What did Donald Trump do today?

He threatened Iran with the same economic consequences they've lived with for decades.

In a post to his private microblogging page today, Trump announced the "MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER" against Iran, adding that "ANY country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports, or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran will itself face TREMENDOUS Economic Consequences."

Presumably, Trump didn't mean the United States, although that is the only country to meaningfully relax its sanctions against Iran in the past year. Trump, who quickly became desperate to mitigate the economic consequences of starting a war in the Persian Gulf, was forced into the absurd situation of making it easier for Iran to sell oil in the middle of a war, thus effectively helping to fund its military response.

Trump's message didn't name individual countries, saying only that "You know who you are." That's true—who Iran does business with is something everyone knows. Its largest trading partner is China, which Trump cannot meaningfully threaten with sanctions. Iran also does considerable business with Russia, often in the form of trading oil for weapons that are then used against the United States. Trump has always been extremely reluctant to take action against Russia due to his personal entanglement with the Putin regime. 

Another major trading partner for Iran is North Korea, which has never obeyed international sanctions and is not likely to start now. Trump believes he has a personal friendship with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and effusively praises him in public. 

It's not clear whether there is even anything Trump can do to make sanctions more "CRUSHING" than they already were. Iran has been under extraordinary international sanctions for most of the last 40 years, with the only partial relief coming during the era of the JCPOA. That was the international agreement that successfully kept Iran from refining any weapons-grade nuclear fuel, until Trump pulled the United States out of it in 2018. Countries like China only ever paid lip service to those sanctions, while US allies were already complying with them.

Trump's saber-rattling comes immediately after the United Arab Emirates, Iran's second-largest trading partner, abruptly cut off trade in response to an apparent Iranian attack. That really will put some economic pressure on Iran, which has denied that it launched any attack at the UAE.

Why does this matter?

• Empty threats, whether or not they're tweeted in all caps, only show weakness.

• There's lack of leadership, and then there's letting a tiny oil kingdom do the hard work of managing world affairs for you.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He voted by mail, which he thinks other Americans shouldn't be allowed to do.

Trump's ballot in Florida primary elections was counted today. As he almost always does, he cast it by mail, like roughly one-third of Americans do. Voters in eight states plus the District of Columbia vote primarily by mail, which increases the number of Americans able to participate in elections and makes for more representative governments.

But Trump has lied over and over again about the possibility of fraudulent votes being cast by mail. In reality, it is incredibly rare, on the order of single-digit numbers of ballots per tens of millions of votes. 

One way of looking at it is that Donald Trump has personally been convicted of more felonies than there are hypothetical cases of mail voting fraud in any major election year according to exhaustive studies done by the Brookings Institute and the ultraconservative Heritage Foundation.

Reporters asked about the apparent contradiction, and were told by the White House communications team that it was a "non-story." A spokesperson said that Trump's anti-voting stance had "commonsense exceptions for Americans to use mail-in ballots for illness, disability, military, or travel."

But none of these exceptions apply clearly to Trump. As arguably the most famous draft-dodger of all time, he is certainly not in the military. He claims not to be ill or disabled, all evidence to the contrary. And while it is legal for Trump to spend most of his time in Washington but vote in Palm Springs, he's not really "traveling" when he's at the White House.

Of course, Trump never would have intended for any policy restricting voting to apply to him, even if he can't always remember who it is he supports in any given race. But the ones he wants to put in place through the so-called SAVE Act would instantly disenfranchise tens of millions of Americans nationwide who are legally entitled to vote—including many who had voted for him.

Why does this matter?

• In a democracy, voters choose the politicians, not the other way around.  

• More Americans being able to participate in elections is always a good thing, no matter what Donald Trump thinks.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He threatened to bomb Oman, which he did not appear to understand is an ally in his war on Iran.

Oman is a de facto military ally of the United States. Nominally neutral in Trump's war on Iran, it has been negotiating in parallel with the United States to convince Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has launched missile and drone attacks at Omani targets as a result of that relationship, but it's also offered to acknowledge joint sovereignty over the strait with Oman, which forms the southern shore of it.

Speaking to Fox News reporters today, Trump said that if Oman's negotiation "gets in the way, we'll bomb the shit out of them."

Oman is home to four airbases currently serving the US Air Force, and two critical naval bases used to supply and support US Navy ships operating in the region. In other words, Trump is not only threatening to bomb an ally actively involved in trying to provide him an escape from his war on Iran, but one that could easily attack US aircraft on the ground if provoked. Or—perhaps more immediately threatening to Trump—one of his luxury golf resorts.

Nothing in Trump's remarks to the reporters on the call indicated that he was aware of any of that.

Even by Trump's standards, this was a bizarre outburst. He's attempted to switch sides in the middle of a war: first with the Ukraine-Russia conflict, and more recently with his attempts to at least move towards neutrality between North Korea and South Korea. He's betrayed forces loyal to the US in Afghanistan and Syria, to the horror of American servicemembers who fought alongside them. And he's rattled his saber at NATO, less to promise an attack than to blow up the whole alliance—although he's refused to rule out an attack on Greenland. 

But this is the first time he's threatened to switch sides in a war the United States was actively fighting. As a near-infallible rule, nations simply don't do this, for obvious reasons. The closest historical parallel may be to Nazi Germany breaking the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and attacking the Soviet Union in 1941. That opened a second front in the war, which was disastrous for the Hitler regime.

Oman's government has, so far, ignored Trump's threat.
 

Why does this matter?

• Presidents who can't remember which side is which in a war aren't mentally fit for office. 

• The problem with making so blindingly stupid a threat is that your allies have to take it seriously while your enemies can laugh it off.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He took North Korea's side against South Korea's government—and the United States'. 

Trump posted this to his private microblogging site today:

Based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea, I am not happy with the fact that the United States has, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military Exercises with South Korea. These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!), but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful. Therefore, and based on the fact that it is too late to cancel, I have instructed Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to substantially reduce the Joint Military Exercises! While somewhat unrelated (?), I recently asked the President of South Korea if they would like to join us in the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and they said, "No thanks!" Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP

To be clear, this framing—that North Korea is a well-behaved part of the international community and South Korea is making aggressive moves towards it—is exactly the stance taken by the North Korean government. Just a few days ago, the DPRK called the exercises "a rehearsal for an aggressive war." It also threatened to escalate its "deterrence" towards South Korea.

Possibly that threat is what spooked Trump, although it shouldn't have. North Korea routinely uses the US-South Korea exercises as an excuse for weapons tests, and as an opportunity to rally support for the ruling regime.

The "unthreatening and respectful" North Korea has been supplying Russia with weapons used against Ukraine, although for several obvious reasons that bothers Trump less than it does the rest of the United States government. But it's certainly true that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un enjoys a warm relationship with Trump, who—in his own words—"fell in love" with Kim during his first term.

It's also true that Trump demanded that South Korea get involved in his disastrous war with Iran, but—as with all of the United States' allies except Israel—only after the fact, and only once it was clear that he had gotten the United States stuck in a quagmire. Its government declined for the same reason that other allies did: there is no workable military solution to the problem Trump has created for the United States and the rest of the world short of a full-scale invasion, which would be a bloodbath even if it succeeded and would completely destroy any stability in the Middle East for years to come.

There's one other reason, besides his friendship with Kim Jong-un (who impressed Trump by having an dissident uncle murdered with an anti-aircraft gun), that Trump might be taking North Korea's side. South Korea impeached and then criminally convicted its former president, Yoon Suk Yeol, for illegal military actions he took in an attempt to justify a declaration of martial law that he thought would help him stay in power.

Why does this matter?

• South Korea is an ally of the United States and North Korea is not, and no president who is confused about that is fit to serve. 

• The leader of a democracy should not so reliably and predictably side with authoritarian regimes.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He bragged about an article that credited President Biden with lowering drug prices.

Trump's White House communications team spent the day trumpeting a headline from yesterday's Washington Post that noted a drop in prescription drug prices. The PR blitz came a day after Trump waved a printout of the article at reporters, proudly asking, "Did you see it? Okay, got it? Everybody have it?"

 

But the actual article explicitly gives the credit for the drop in drug prices to former President Joe Biden, repeatedly and pointedly noting that Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, which required Medicare to negotiate for bulk discounts on drugs, was most likely the reason.

Trump is famous for his short attention span and unwillingness, if not inability, to read anything that's not about him. It's not clear if his press team had also failed to read the article either, or whether they knew what it contained and simply felt it was easier to pacify Trump by following his lead in bragging about "his" accomplishment.

But at least one person in the Trump White House seemed to know why he shouldn't be drawing attention to what the article actually said. Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, posted a screen shot of the headline only—with no link to the text that praised Biden's accomplishment.
 

Why does this matter?

• A president with achievements of his own wouldn't have to try to steal credit for things his predecessors had done.
   
• Presidents should be both willing and able to read a short newspaper article.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He called sailors and their families liars.

The USS Abraham Lincoln is a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier with a crew of over 5,000. It has been stationed near the Persian Gulf for over 240 days now. Under normal conditions, even during active operations, it would make a port call after 30-45 days. But the Navy is stretched thin in the region, in spite of two carrier groups operating there, and Trump has been reluctant to call attention to the operational strains of a war he's been claiming was already won for months.

Because of an Iranian attack early in the war took out the Bahraini base that would normally resupply the Abraham Lincoln, sailors have been coping with rotten food, ruined plumbing, shortages of basic supplies, and communications blackouts. This has led to a drastic morale crisis aboard, with multiple suicide attempts reported. Family members of US servicemembers have become increasingly alarmed at the reports they're able to receive.

Trump was asked about the crisis today, and said this:

Q: The family members of US servicemembers are concerned about the conditions on board the USS Lincoln—

TRUMP: No, they're not.  

Yes, they are. 

Trump, who dodged the Vietnam draft, added that he thought that the unbroken 240-day stretch at sea—the longest on record for a US carrier—was "not nearly long enough."

Why does this matter?

• Nobody who hates servicemembers as much as Donald Trump has openly said he does is fit to command them. 

• Lying about reality doesn't change it. 

What did Donald Trump do today?

He gave up listening to people trying to reason with him and ordered the Navy to downgrade its combat effectiveness.

Trump signed an order today requiring the Navy to scrap the modern electromagnetic catapults used on aircraft carrier flight decks and replace them with steam-powered catapults, the 1950s-era technology that preceded them. Returning to "goddamn steam" has been a fixation of his for almost a decade, and he's tried repeatedly without success to convince anyone who actually works in the Navy, or in engineering, to his point of view.

Today's order simply short-circuits the whole process and demands billions of dollars in changes to the next generation of Navy ships. 

Trump's comments about, for example, how he thinks magnets don't work underwater have been played for laughs in the past, but today's order has real consequences. Over and above the cost of redesigns and retrofits, and the years-long absence from the fleet that would require for each ship, the change would instantly reduce combat effectiveness. No matter how devoutly Trump believes otherwise, electric catapults are faster and more powerful, and can launch jets that steam catapults never could. They're also less likely to damage aircraft, require less maintenance, and are available for use instantly, whereas steam catapults require time to come up to operating pressure.

As a practical matter, Trump's order will never be followed—almost certainly, not even in a token fashion. What will likely happen is that the Navy will stall any work related to the affected systems and run out the clock of Trump's term of office. But that is likely to delay the arrival of new carriers altogether and increase the cost even further. Worse, it puts the Navy in the awkward position of having to pay lip service to orders—technically, lawful ones—that it knows will countermanded the moment anyone other than Trump is President.

What makes the situation particularly bizarre is that Trump is not subscribing to a minority viewpoint in naval engineering circles. He is, quite possibly, the only person at any level of government who believes this, and he appears to have come up with the idea all by himself.

China, the major threat to US naval dominance and the only world power building carriers that can compete with American ones, has not decided to downgrade its launch systems.

Why does this matter?

• A sane, cognitively fit commander-in-chief wouldn't ignore an entire service branch telling him he's wrong and doesn't know what he's talking about. 

• If a foreign power degraded American military capabilities this much in a single stroke, it would be the greatest act of sabotage ever.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He once again insisted he had total control over the Strait of Hormuz, which remains totally under Iranian control. 

Most of the last few news cycles have focused on Trump's decision last month to let journalists serve as unwilling decoys for an Iranian assassination threat, while he was whisked away to safety on an airport catering cart. He tried gamely to spin this today, saying that Iran would have been more likely to target the jet he was on, but that makes no sense: he was deliberately trying to trick Iran into thinking he was on the plane he boarded in full public view.

That may be why he tried to change the subject, declaring for the umpteenth time on social media that the United States had "total control" over the Strait of Hormuz. This remains completely, measurably untrue:

 
The effects of that closure continue to mount. The United States Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which Trump has been using to tamp down oil prices, is almost completely empty. It's fallen to its lowest level since 1983, and much of what little remains can't actually be physically removed from the caverns it's stored in. 

The effects can be seen in gas prices, which are currently at their highest-ever price levels for August. Normally, this is the month when seasonal effects start to lower prices at the pump, but the prices Americans are paying have gone up 10% in the last month and are once again trending towards all-time record highs.

Most of the few vessels that are trying to transit the Strait of Hormuz are obeying Iranian instructions and avoiding the US-approved lane that passes near Oman. Iran has been regularly attacking ships that deviate from its approved path, driving up risk premiums on insurance and making it a money-losing proposition for shippers.

Why does this matter?

• Lying about how strong and in control you are when literally everyone can see that you're not only emphasizes your weakness. 

• No president in history has ever made such an unforced error as blundering away free navigation through the most important waterway in the world.
  
  
  
  

What did Donald Trump do today?

He flirted with declaring an "emergency" over people being able to vote as they always have.

Today, a federal judge expanded her injunction against two executive orders that are part of Trump's attack on voting by mail. Nearly a third of all Americans vote by mail—notably including Trump himself—but he continues to insist without evidence that it's part of a conspiracy to rig elections against him. 

The injunction, which is now nationwide, bars the United States Post Office from complying with Trump's demand that it not deliver ballots in any state that hasn't agreed to purge voters who don't appear on a list curated by the Trump administration. (States keep their own voting rolls. There is no master database of citizens eligible to vote.)

There's growing concern that Trump won't stop with just unlawful orders to disrupt or defeat the 2026 midterm elections, and not only because he's already tried to overturn the will of voters once. He's been spinning conspiracy theories about American elections being "rigged" since before he was first elected, and in his second term he's turned the full mechanism of the federal government towards punishing "enemy" jurisdictions where a majority of Americans didn't vote for him.

In an interview with far-right podcaster Wayne Root today, Trump hinted that he'd be open to conducting the midterm elections under what amounts to martial law. Root suggested (incorrectly) that Trump had the power to declare a state of emergency and force elections to take place under the rules he wants to put in place, which would instantly disenfranchise millions of legally registered voters.

The Constitution explicitly gives states the power to set the rules for elections and conduct them. No emergency declaration could change that, and any attempt to impose Trump's rules by force would result in chaos—which, this cycle, would almost certainly work to his advantage. Trump winked at Root's suggestion, saying that "stranger things have happened."

Why does this matter?

• The only conspiracy to sabotage American elections was the one Donald Trump was indicted and impeached for.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He got caught using reporters as human shields.

Last month, Trump suffered a minor embarrassment when he was forced to use the "old" Air Force One on a return trip from Turkey, as opposed to the jet he now usually uses. That jet, of course, was a gift from the government of Qatar, and has generally been understood as a bribe to Trump.

Initially, the explanation for his use of the original jet was that Trump wanted to give American troops stationed at a British airbase a chance to see the new jet. That didn't make much sense, and a more plausible explanation was soon reported out: that in spite of a billion dollars in taxpayer-funded upgrades to the "free" new jet, it still didn't have all the security measures necessary to transport Trump in safety that close to a war zone.

 

Now, reporting from the Washington Post today reveals that Trump wasn't on either jet. Instead, he flew in secret on a third jet, while reporters and other civilians flew on the jet Trump was supposed to be on, without knowing he wasn't on board. The reason for the lie-inside-a-lie is that American security officials had learned of a credible threat by Iran to try to bring down Air Force One and kill Trump.

In other words, Trump sent a jet full of reporters and other civilians into a danger he was unwilling to face himself. (Passengers on the decoy jet were not told about Trump's absence, or the threat that caused him to sneak away incognito.) 

Presidents have traveled in secret before, for security reasons. For example, President Biden traveled unannounced on a secured train when visiting Ukraine in 2023 to avoid presenting a target for Russian attack. When President George W. Bush made a surprise visit to US troops stationed in Iraq in 2003, he left his vacation ranch in secret so as to keep his departure out of public view, and his Air Force One flew without the usual transponder identification. 

But in all such cases, the ruse was revealed as soon as it had accomplished its purpose—and without putting other Americans in harm's way, knowingly or otherwise.

Trump, whose experience staying safe at the expense of others goes back to his days dodging the Vietnam draft, has not commented publicly. But a statement from the White House did not deny any of the reported facts. It said only that "we use every tool at our disposal to address" threats to Trump's life—including, apparently, having civilians unknowingly traveling in a jet that an enemy nation was hoping to target for destruction. 
 

Why does this matter?

• This is pure, shameful cowardice.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He once again forgot that he needs to check with other countries before assuming they'll do what he hopes they'll do.

On July 30, Trump announced that his "Board of Peace" had "reached a HISTORIC agreement for the COMPLETE DISARMAMENT of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza." The so-called "Board of Peace" is a non-governmental agency supported by what amount to bribes from a laundry list of totalitarian dictatorships hoping to curry favor with Trump. It is headed by Trump in his capacity as a private citizen, not as President of the United States, and its charter give him permanent and irrevocable control over its membership—and therefore its budget. 

Nevertheless, the 15-point plan it outlined was more or less identical to other peace proposals for the region, and got at least tepid support in the United States and abroad. Unfortunately for Trump's premature celebration, one foreign country has rejected it: Israel. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, like Trump, is vulnerable to prosecution if he loses the protection of his office. He's used the war against Gaza as a political tool, even as his government failed to act on detailed and specific advance knowledge of the October 7th attacks that started the conflict, but is now in danger of being turned out in elections this fall. Netanyahu, whose best chance at staying in power is to revive the apparent threat posed by Hamas in the minds of Israeli voters, said Trump's plan relied on "fictitious" disarmament that would leave Israel vulnerable to further attack.

Trump, who was infuriated by news reports that he'd let Netanyahu goad him into war with Iran, has tried without much success over the years to get the Israeli leader to acknowledge his authority. During the 2025 Iran-Israel conflict, Trump demanded that Israel call off an attack on Iran, then watched impotently as Israeli bombers proceeded to their target anyway, even as he insisted on social media that they were merely delivering a "friendly plane wave." Trump's public demands weren't enough to stop an Israeli attack on Iran in June of this year, either, as he scrambled to get Iran to agree to the now-defunct memorandum of understanding.

Trump, who as usual spent the weekend at one of his luxury golf resorts, has not responded publicly and his staff may not have managed to get him to sit for a brief yet. 

But it wasn't all bad news from Israel on the Middle Eastern diplomatic front today for Trump. He also got bad news from Iran.

Why does this matter?

• A president who can't understand that other countries won't just automatically do what he wants them to is too naïve or stupid to be fit for office. 

• If what happened in Gaza were important to Trump beyond giving him something to tweet about, he probably would have checked with Israel before announcing it.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He accidentally told the truth about his attempts at voter suppression.

Trump has been pushing a voter suppression bill for months now known as the SAVE Act. It would instantly disenfranchise tens of millions of legitimate voters, if it were allowed by courts to go into effect—which it almost certainly wouldn't. It would require voters to show not only photo ID like a driver's license, but also "documentary proof of citizenship," which in most cases would mean either a passport or a birth certificate matching their current legal name.

That means that, for example, a married woman who took her husband's name and didn't have a passport would not only have to be able to present her original birth certificate, but also court paperwork for her name change. Many people simply don't have those documents handy, or have lost them over the years, and getting replacements can take months. Anyone in that situation would be unable to vote in the 2026 elections.  

The lengths to which Trump has been flogging this DOA bill have infuriated Senate Republicans, who are now in real danger of losing control of the chamber in spite of a terrible map for Democrats. Today, the Senate adjourned for five weeks, killing any chance of a last-minute vote. (Democrats could block it with a filibuster, but the bill is so toxic at this point that most Congressional Republicans are trying to sweep it under the rug themselves.)

In what was apparently intended to be a comment on this fact, Trump posted an Instagram video featuring an unusual guest on his private microblogging page: former Vice-President Kamala Harris. In the video, Harris accurately laid out the various forms of voter suppression that Trump and his political allies were looking to enact, and said this specifically about the SAVE Act:

HARRIS: So you've got the Supreme Court doing its thing, then, this president is trying to push this SAVE Act, which basically would require that for people to register to vote, you're going to have to have proof of who you are through a passport, which a lot of Americans don't have. Or a birth certificate—same point. Obstacles to make it difficult for you to register to vote.

At some point during the morning the original post was taken down and replaced with one where the video cut off after "proof of who you are," making it sound like Harris was objecting to there being any verification of voters at all.

Why does this matter?

• There's only one reason a politician tries to make it hard for citizens to vote. 

• If Trump could make the case for this bill, he wouldn't have to lie about it.