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 fired every federal election watchdog he could.

The Election Assistance Commission is an independent federal agency whose function, as the name suggests, is to assist states in the conduct of elections. Under the Constitution, states, and not the federal government, conduct elections. The EAC tests and certifies voting machines, coordinates the distribution of federal funds in support of elections, and maintains the national mail voter registration form. It was created in 2002 as a bipartisan organization that was supposed to be insulated from White House interference.

Trump, who conspired with a hostile foreign power to influence the 2016 election and then coordinated a violent riot in an attempt to overturn the result of the 2020 election, fired the two Democratic members today, and accepted the resignation of the sole remaining Republican. This leaves the organization with no members, which means it can take no actions in support of the 2026 midterms. 

Trump's abysmal approval ratings are widely expected to cost Republicans the House of Representatives in those elections, and possibly even the Senate.
 

Why does this matter?

• Nobody does this kind of stuff who intends to honor the results of free and fair elections if they can possibly help it. 

What did Donald Trump do today?

He had a "businesslike and highly constructive" phone call with Vladimir Putin, according to Vladimir Putin.

Trump spent an hour and a half on the Fourth of July talking with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. The call was "businesslike and constructive" and centered on Russia's desire for a diplomatic end to the war in Ukraine, something Trump "reaffirmed his readiness" to make happen.

At least, that's what the Russian government said today. Trump had kept the call a secret.

This is a common pattern with Trump and Putin, having happened at least half a dozen times now. Needless to say, it's not common practice for American presidents to have secret peer-to-peer talks with the leaders of hostile nations, precisely because it allows the other party to control the narrative and undermine the United States.

Trump, whose demeanor towards Putin ranges from the awestruck to the submissive, doesn't seem able to break the habit. This may be because he is genuinely psychologically incapable of resisting this kind of manipulation from Putin. That's certainly the prevailing opinion on Russian state-run media, which mercilessly mocks Trump as a weak thrall to Putin. 

Putin's ability to command ninety minutes of Trump's time on the Fourth of July, in the middle of the 250th anniversary celebrations, certainly supports that theory.

Another factor is that Trump's history of secret backchannel communications with Russia he'd prefer the American people not know about goes back to before his first term in office. Even with his collusion with the Putin regime to influence the 2016 election a matter of public record (and certified by a Republican-led Senate committee) Trump is still politically vulnerable on the subject: he is virtually alone on the entire political spectrum in his support for Putin and the Russian objective in the war against Ukraine. 

Why does this matter?

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

• Americans shouldn't have to rely on Russia for information about their own government. 

What did Donald Trump do today?

He nominated still yet another of his personal criminal defense attorneys to a top DOJ post.

Today, Trump announced that he was nominating James M. McDonald as the next US Attorney for the powerful Southern District of New York. McDonald is currently a member of Trump's legal defense team trying to appeal his conviction in the New York state fraud case. He was found guilty of 34 felonies relating to his attempt to launder an illegal in-kind hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, the adult film actress he had a brief sexual encounter with shortly after the birth of his youngest son.

Trump may be the only president in history to have personal criminal defense lawyers on retainer at the time he took office. Prior to Trump, no incoming president had ever been indicted on state or federal felony charges, much less convicted. 

McDonald joins a long list of Trump defense attorneys who are being put in sensitive positions in the DOJ and the federal bench. Trump's first attorney general, Pam Bondi, was part of his impeachment defense team. His current nominee for that position, Todd Blanche, defended Trump and other people in Trump's circle after they were indicted for their roles in the conspiracy to keep Trump in office after 2020. (Blanche is also the person Trump trusted to "interview" Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted child sex trafficker and associate of Jeffrey Epstein, after which Maxwell received an upgrade to a minimum-security federal "resort" prison.) Trump appointed yet another of his criminal lawyers, Emil Bove, to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Matthew Schwartz, another lawyer on his criminal appeals team, was nominated by Trump as a judge on the Second Circuit. Trump named D. John Sauer, who secured for him a Supreme Court ruling making him all but invulnerable to criminal prosecution for crimes committed while in office, his first Solicitor General.

Trump hasn't really made any secret as to why he only seems to trust lawyers who have a track record of shielding him from prosecution. He was infuriated when both of his Attorneys General from his first term eventually reached a point where they refused to act as his personal lawyer: Jefferson Sessions, when evidence of Trump's collusion with Russia to influence the 2016 election became undeniable, and William Barr, when Trump was in the throes of trying to attempt a coup to toss out 2020 election.

When Sessions appointed a special prosecutor, Trump reportedly wailed, "Where's my Roy Cohn?!" That was a reference to Trump's disgraced former lawyer and notorious political dirty trickster Roy Cohn, who died in 1986. Trump publicly distanced himself from Cohn when it was revealed that Cohn, a closeted gay man, was dying of AIDS—but publicly praised him for his "loyalty" above all else. 

Trump replaced sessions with Barr, a political brawler who showed none of Sessions' respect for the traditional separation of legal and political matters. But when Barr told reporters that there was no evidence of voter fraud (or at least none against Trump), which by then had become undeniable, Trump was so enraged he threw his lunch plate at the wall.

McDonald, if confirmed, would have prosecutorial jurisdiction over the city in which the Trump Organization is based. He would also be responsible for prosecuting, or choosing not to prosecut, white-collar crimes like corporate fraud and insider trading committed there.

Why does this matter?

• The Justice Department is supposed to serve the interests of the people of the United States, not Donald Trump personally. 

• A president who wasn't afraid his crimes, past or present, would catch up to him probably wouldn't be so worried about "loyalty" from prosecutors.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He invented an election conspiracy theory that was ridiculous even by his standards.

 

Early this morning, Trump made baseless claims that Democrats in California were somehow "trying to STEAL THE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA PRIMARY, AND THE MAYOR OF LOS ANGELES, PRIMARY, AWAY FROM TWO GREAT REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES." More ominously, he claimed that the US Attorney in Los Angeles was looking into it, although that office refused to confirm any investigation into what has been a busy but orderly election.

Trump was impeached, and indicted in both federal and state courts, for his part in the criminal conspiracy to illegally keep him in power despite the results of the 2020 presidential election. He did not provide any evidence.

Even by Trump standards, these are bizarre lies. Republican candidates are leading in both of these nonpartisan primaries, where the top two candidates advance to the general election. As of tonight, Republican Steve Hilton has the most votes of any single candidate in the gubernatorial race, and Republican Spencer Pratt is in second place in the LA mayoral primary. In fact, if Democrats were trying to "steal" races in the California primaries, they'd be doing a terrible job of it. Republicans and Democrats will likely each have a candidate in every statewide race, with the possible exception of Insurance Commissioner. 

It's unlikely even Trump believes what he's saying about the California elections. It's true that he's famously emotionally ill-equipped to handle losing: after the results of the election became clear in December 2020, he threw a plate of food against the wall of the White House when his Attorney General refused to take further part in his efforts to cling to power. 

But he's also made clear on many occasions that he doesn't really regard elections as binding, at least not on him, which may explain why he's so willing to tell obvious lies. To this day, Trump still explains away his loss in the November 2020 election by claiming that the January 6th riots were a dirty trick played by the "Biden FBI." Astute readers may note that Trump was president that whole time, and the FBI was led by his appointees (who President Biden retained).

Trump's general strategy, even going back to before he was first elected, has been to undermine the basic concept of elections. He's declared them "rigged" even when he or his party eventually won, spread conspiracy theories about voting by mail even as he does it himself, and invented preposterous stories about literal millions of never-detected "illegal" votes supposedly cast by undocumented immigrants to explain why he lost the popular vote in 2016 to Hillary Clinton. 

Trump didn't mention it in his rant, but there are congressional districts where the runoff will have two Democratic candidates. That's because the districts were drawn up by the California State Assembly to be virtually guaranteed to elect a Democrat. That partisan gerrymandering was done in direct response to Trump's demand that every Republican-led state do the same, and only after several of those states had. 

All told, Republicans are likely to net about 6 seats as a result. That's generally expected to be far too little to prevent an anti-Trump wave in the midterm elections. By way of comparison, Democrats picked up 41 seats in the House of Representatives in 2018, when Trump's net approval rating was -10% at this point in the cycle. As of the latest 2026 polls, it's -25% and dropping fast.

 

Why does this matter?

• States don't need Donald Trump's permission to hold elections. 

• There's only one reason a historically unpopular politician would try to undermine public confidence in democracy. 

• You don't tell lies this obvious unless you think the people listening to you are very, very stupid.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He tried to jump in front of the spotlight around Ted Turner's death.

Media mogul Ted Turner died today at age 87. Turner was the founder of several early cable networks, most notably CNN and TBS. He was a connoisseur of movie history, first leading the charge to colorize black and white movies, and then—as an act of contrition to the film purists he'd outraged—creating the cable channel TCM, known for its ad-free presentation of culturally and historically significant movies. His success as a cable pioneer and as a businessman in general made him a billionaire, and he adopted a flamboyant lifestyle to match. He bought two sports teams to provide fodder for his growing cable empire: the Atlanta Hawks and the Atlanta Braves. He even appointed himself manager of the Braves for one game in 1977 (a loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates), a stunt that played to his flair for the dramatic but which is remembered surprisingly fondly by baseball's old guard.

 

Turner and Trump, who turns 80 next month, were superficially similar in many ways. Both were married three times and had five children, although Turner had a much warmer relationship with his wives and children. Both have courted controversy with crass remarks: Turner for making hoary jokes about Polish people, and Trump for saying that Americans who don't support him are traitors and that entire races of people are vermin with subhuman intelligence. Both owned sports teams: Turner with the occasionally good Hawks and the dynastic Braves, and Trump with the New Jersey Generals of the short-lived USFL. Trump and Turner were both billionaires, with Turner's fortune coming from a local billboard business he started and parlayed into a multimedia empire, and Trump's coming from $400 million in tax-evaded inheritance that he used to repeatedly bankrupt businesses until he began to successfully monetize the presidency during his second term through crypto scams and pay-for-access bribes. 

That may be why Trump took the unusual step of remembering Turner fondly today in a post to his boutique social media website. Normally, Trump uses the occasion of a person's death to insult them and avenge whatever grudges he may have had against them, a tactic he's deployed against everyone from celebrity filmmakers to icons of the civil rights movement to American troops killed in combat. But he called Turner "one of the Greats of Broadcast History" and claimed that he was "a friend of mine," adding, "Whenever I needed him, he was there, always willing to fight for a good cause!"

That makes it sound like Turner liked Trump or his politics. In reality, Turner explicitly endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016, and addressed that endorsement to Trump in the first line: "From one billionaire to another, Donald, I prefer Hillary." 

On almost every political issue imaginable, Turner opposed Trump. He was an avid environmentalist and conservationist who railed against environmentally devastating coal mines, while Trump believes conspiracy theories about wind turbines causing cancer. Turner was staunchly in favor of women's rights to abortion, while Trump—at least since he started trying to get elected—has engineered the destruction of that right. 

Turner also prided himself on his philanthropy, establishing the Turner Foundation, which has given more than $400 million in grants for environmental protection projects. Trump's charity was dissolved after a trial found it to be fraudulent, used by Trump to make illegal political contributions and pay for personal expenses like oil paintings of himself and sports memorabilia. 

Why does this matter?

• Jumping in front of the spotlight when someone famous and well-liked dies is narcissistic and needy even by Trump standards. 

• If Ted Turner had liked and supported Donald Trump, Donald Trump wouldn't be the only person saying he did.
  
  

What did Donald Trump do today?

He tried to erase the history of both his impeachments.

This morning, Trump promoted an article written by his impeachment lawyer and mutual friend of Jeffrey Epstein, Alan Dershowitz, suggesting that his first impeachment could be "expunged" by an act of Congress. The gist of Dershowitz's argument is that one of the witnesses against Trump consulted with Democratic lawmakers before coming forward. (Congress has the Constitutional responsibility for oversight of the executive branch, so contacting lawmakers about criminal behavior in the White House is not exactly out of bounds.)

Not even Trump disputes the basic facts that led to his first impeachment: fearing that he would lose the 2020 election to Joe Biden, Trump pressured Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to publicly announce a criminal investigation in to Biden's son Hunter, and to (falsely) claim that it was Ukraine that had tried to interfere in the 2016 election rather than Russia. He conditioned continued American military support for Ukraine on this, and then obstructed Congress when it tried to investigate after whistleblowers brought evidence of Trump's scheme to light.

Coincidentally or not, Trump also tried to legally undo the subject of his second impeachment today. The DOJ, now led by his personal criminal defense lawyer Todd Blanche, asked federal courts to throw out the seditious conspiracy convictions of a number of members of white supremacist and militia organizations related to the January 6th attack on Congress. Trump, who was impeached in the last days of his first term for that attempt to cling to power, had already granted clemency to anyone who committed crimes on his behalf that day. 

Neither action would have any real legal or practical effect. But Trump, for all his legendary outrage at anyone—whistleblowers, voters, courts, or Congress—who would hold him accountable, seems to genuinely believe he can rewrite history by fiat even as he calls attention to it.
 

Why does this matter?

• Reality doesn't change just because Donald Trump doesn't like what happened in it. 

• Corruption, obstruction of justice, and attempted coups are still wrong.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He threatened the "disloyal" judges who overturned his illegal import tax scheme.

As had been expected for months, the Supreme Court today struck down most of Trump's tariffs as illegal taxes that he had no statutory authority to levy. Certain laws already on the books do give the president a very limited authority to impose tariffs in a bona fide national emergency. But Trump seemed to go out of his way to make the case against himself, declaring in social media rants that he was imposing specific tariffs to punish his political enemies or because foreign governments tried to fight corruption caused by his own political allies.

Trump held a press conference shortly after the ruling was announced, and gave a bitter and sarcastic monologue about what he saw as flaws in the decision. Not for the first time, he treated the votes against him by justices he'd appointed, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, as personal betrayals. In fact, he paid the Court's three liberal members a backhanded compliment for what he imagined was their partisan "loyalty," although anger at Trump's tariffs is a pretty bipartisan thing these days: the impact of the illegal taxes hit red America the hardest, and staunch Republican groups like the US Chamber of Commerce were among the challengers.

But in a clearly emotional tone, Trump said he was "absolutely ashamed" of Gorsuch and Barrett and, for some reason, added that their families would be too. (Trump has a history of trying to menace judges by talking about their families.) He also said that the justices who voted against him were captives of an unspecified "foreign influence," but refused to provide any details when asked.

(Trump himself is known to be under the direct influence of the Putin regime in Russia, which he directly begged to interfere in the 2016 election. This is a conclusion that was endorsed by a Senate committee led by a majority of Republicans in 2020, even before the election he lost to Joe Biden that year, and before his attempts to illegally install himself in office in spite of that election. He's also sought and received financial gifts from foreign governments while in office, ranging from mere gold bars to luxury jets to scam cryptocurrency profits.) 

Of course, Trump is entitled to his opinion, and this is far from the first time he's lashed out at judges who held him to the law. In fact, usually his outbursts are a lot worse and more overtly threatening. 

But he's also made it clear that he thinks only he is entitled to an opinion, and that people who criticize judges who have issued rulings he liked are somehow breaking the law. Just before returning to office, Trump called for people who say things like he did today about Supreme Court Justices to be put in jail for trying to influence them. At the time, he was talking about the court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade and women's right to reproductive freedom. Most Americans support those rights and were critical of the ruling, but none of them had the power to force the executive branch to "investigate" justices for ties to supposed foreign puppetmasters.

Perhaps the only clear and consistent message out of the Trump administration on the subject of tariffs today was that everyday Americans will not see any kind of refund for the thousands of dollars in taxes that they indirectly paid. (Importing businesses might be able to recoup those taxes, but unlike a surprise surtax like the ones Trump imposed, windfall profits are never passed along to consumers.) Asked about it today, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent literally laughed at the notion, saying "I got a feeling the American people won't see it." 

Why does this matter?

• Donald Trump is not the only American who gets to have an opinion or a say in how the United States is governed.  

• Puppets installed in glass White Houses shouldn't throw stones.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He said Russia only wanted to help Ukraine.

Trump has returned to a full-court press to get Ukraine to surrender to the Putin regime on terms dictated by Russia. Today, after a phone call with Vladimir Putin and a meeting with Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump had this exchange with a reporter, in which he claimed that "Russia wants to see Ukraine succeed."

Q: In your conversation with President Putin, did you discuss what responsibility Russia will have for any kind of reconstruction of Ukraine— 

TRUMP: I did. I did. They're going to be helping. Russia's going to be helping. Russia wants to see Ukraine succeed. Once— it sounds— a little strange but I was explaining to the president [Zelenskyy], uh, President Putin was very generous in his feeling toward Ukraine— succeeding. Including, uh, supplying energy, electricity, and other things at very low prices. So, lotta—lotta good things came out of that call today.

The Putin regime does not want to see Ukraine succeed except as a conquered province of Russia.

Russia invaded and annexed Ukraine's Crimean peninsula in 2014, then launched a surprise decapitation attack against the remainder of the country and its government in 2022. Since then, it has killed nearly 100,000 Ukrainians (including more than 10,000 civilians), stolen Ukrainian children from parents in occupied territory, and committed numerous war crimes.

Reaction to Trump's endorsement of the Putin regime's "generous feeling" was sharply negative and bipartisan.

Trump has openly sought and received Putin's help in influencing American elections through disinformation campaigns and cyberattacks, and is personally and financially beholden to him. 

Why does this matter?

• Past a certain point it doesn't matter if the president is being controlled by a hostile foreign power or just behaving exactly as though he were.  

What did Donald Trump do today?

He convened a political meeting to tell the Justice Department how to shield him from the Epstein scandal—and then canceled it when he got caught.

Tonight, senior officials from the FBI, the DOJ, and the White House are meeting with Vice-President JD Vance to coordinate their political strategy over the scandal that has resulted from Trump's refusal to make good on a campaign promise to release details of the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking ring. Trump and Epstein were close friends for many years, and Trump has steadfastly refused to offer anything but kind words towards Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's convicted co-conspirator in their child sex trafficking operation. He's also repeatedly refused to rule out a pardon or commutation of her sentence.

UPDATE: As of 8 P.M., the meeting has reportedly been canceled, because of the leak that it was happening. The official White House statement is that no such meeting was ever planned, but at the same time sources inside the administration are confirming that it had been set up and then canceled for fear of negative publicity.

Maxwell met with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche last week, and—incredibly—was upgraded to a comparatively luxurious minimum-security "honor dorm" prison in Texas, after her lawyer made clear that she expected to be rewarded for what she said in the interview.

Maxwell was also charged with perjury over lies she told under oath to protect Epstein during a 2016 civil trial. But today, there are reports that Trump is angling for ways to officially reveal Maxwell's assertions to Blanche that she never directly observed Trump engaging in wrongdoing. That appears to be a main part of the agenda for the executive branch summit at the VP's residence tonight.

Outside of a Trump presidency, it is extremely unusual for Justice Department officials to have any contact with the White House about ongoing cases, much less to get their stories straight in order to benefit a sitting president. When former president Bill Clinton had a chance meeting at an airport with then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch in 2016, it was an enormous political scandal, because of the implication that Clinton might have been trying to lobby Lynch on behalf of Hillary Clinton, who was running for president. 

Trump himself went nuclear on the campaign trail over that brief encounter, hyping it as an unprecedented scandal and evidence of a shadowy conspiracy against him.

Even in Trump's first term, there were lines that the attorneys general he handpicked for personal loyalty to him wouldn't cross. Jefferson Sessions recused himself when evidence of Trump's connections to Russian election interference on his behalf became impossible to ignore, allowing a deputy to appoint a special prosecutor. Bill Barr, who was willing to creatively edit that special prosecutor's report to soften its assessment of Trump's complicity, nevertheless quit rather than be involved in Trump's increasingly desperate and unlawful attempts to cling to power after the 2020 election.

But with Blanche and Bondi—both of whom served as Trump's personal defense attorneys in his criminal trials and impeachments—there has been no such reluctance. They and FBI Director Kash Patel have openly embraced Trump's philosophy that the government's law enforcement power is his personal sword and shield, to protect him from any accusations of wrongdoing and punish his enemies. 

Virginia Giuffre was employed as a 16-year-old "masseuse" at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in 2000, and in one of Trump's most recent versions of the story of his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, it was Epstein's "stealing" Giuffre that soured their relationship. (In reality, Trump continued to associate with Epstein at least through 2007.) Epstein and Maxwell raped and trafficked Giuffre, who took her own life earlier this year. Her family released this statement today:

We understand that Vice President JD Vance will hold a strategy session this evening at his residence with administration officials. Missing from this group is, of course, any survivor of the vicious crimes of convicted perjurer and sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein.

Their voices must be heard, above all. We also call upon the House subcommittee to invite survivors to testify. As Virginia Roberts Giuffre's siblings, we offer to represent her in her stead and we hope the administration takes our call to action seriously.

Why does this matter?

• The only "strategy" that the DOJ should care about where child sex trafficking rings are concerned is bringing everyone associated with them to justice.  

• The law does not exist to serve and protect Donald Trump exclusively.  

• At this point, it's pretty much impossible to think of an innocent explanation for Trump's actions over the Epstein scandal.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He demanded that his political enemies be prosecuted "right or wrong."

Trump, who a White House aide says has been "on the fucking warpath" as the Epstein scandal widens, continued to lash out at his political opponents today in an overt attempt to change the subject. In particular, he demanded that President Obama and members of his administration be prosecuted for "treason" over their supposed attempts to steal elections: 

TRUMP: Barack Hussein Obama is the ringleader. Hillary Clinton was right there with him, and so was, uh, sleepy Joe Biden, and so was—the rest of them, Comey, Clapper. They tried to rig an election and they got caught. And then they did rig the election in 2020. And then because I knew I won that election by a lot, I did it a 3rd time… but I won that all the same way in 2020.  

In other words, Trump's theory of the case is that Presidents Obama and Biden failed to "rig" the elections against him in 2016 and 2024, but succeeded in doing so in 2020 when Trump himself controlled the executive branch. (In reality, Trump attempted to foment an insurrection against the lawfully elected Biden administration, during which Americans died as Trump supporters attacked the Capitol to stop the certification of the vote.)

Trump has been campaigning on weaponizing the Justice Department against his enemies since the 2016 campaign—and complaining bitterly when investigations were commenced into his actual crimes for nearly as long. But today's remarks were extreme even by that standard: at one point, Trump demanded that Obama be prosecuted purely as revenge: "It's time to start, after what they did to me, and whether it's right or wrong, it's time to go after people."

If there were any doubt that this was an attempt to distract from the Epstein scandal, Trump himself put it to rest in other remarks, explicitly instructing Republicans to respond to questions about his links to Epstein by talking repeating his claims about Obama.

TRUMP: And remember, don't let them forget—it's so important—Obama cheated on the election. …Obama cheated, and—when they give you all the nonsense—Obama cheated, and his people cheated, but he was there, and you ever hear this, they talk about—if they ever even mention it, they never mention his name. Just the opposite with me, they only mention by name, but they don't mention any of you guys, they don't mention Tom, they don't mention Steve, they don't mention our great speaker, they mention Trump all the time. 

…But remember this, Obama cheated on the election, and we have it cold—hard—blue [sic]—and it's getting more so because the stuff that's coming in is not even believable.

Shortly after Trump's remarks today, still more new evidence linking him to Jeffrey Epstein was uncovered, including the revelation that Epstein was a guest at Trump's second wedding.

Why does this matter?

• Presidents need to be able to have literally any priorities other than their own self-preservation. 

• A president who is too busy trying to deflect from scandals to do anything else is unfit for office on that basis alone. 

• Donald Trump is literally the only person in the last 200 years of American history who has attempted a coup. 

• No matter how many times he tries it, using the power of the state to punish your enemies with phony "investigations" is dictator shit.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He spoke with Vladimir Putin and apparently learned some things that were news to him.

Trump used his private microblogging site today to break the news that he had spoken with Vladimir Putin, and that Putin intended to launch a counterattack after Ukraine's devastating drone strike against the Russian bomber fleet.

Russia and Ukraine have been in conflict since 2014, when the Putin regime invaded the Crimean peninsula, which is part of Ukraine, and in open warfare since Putin launched an attack against the remainder of the country in 2022. Under the circumstances, it is not exactly news that there would be further assaults by Russia.

What is notable, however, is Trump's matter-of-fact recounting of what Putin supposedly told him, and the absence of any indication that Trump tried to dissuade Putin. The United States is currently in a bizarre situation where its allegiances in this conflict are not clear even to itself: Trump's personal loyalties are and always have been with Putin, but the public and both parties in Congress overwhelmingly support Ukraine, to which the United States is still supplying some military aid. As recently as April, Trump was at least willing to use his social media posts to suggest that Russia could de-escalate, as he did in one much-mocked incident containing the memorable plea "Vladimir, STOP!"

Trump also revealed that he "believes" Putin is interested in preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. This, too, does not come as news to people other than Trump himself: Russia was one of the partners in the JCPOA that Trump pulled the United States out of during his first term. At essentially no point in history has any nuclear power not been opposed to proliferation to other countries.

Trump's own self-written readout of the call is the only one available to the American public at the moment, but that may change. Trump's personal and political debt to the Putin regime, and the problems that Americans finding out about it has caused him, means he often edits or conceals entirely his calls with Putin. As a result, the Russian state media—which makes no secret of the extent to which it sees Trump as a pawn of Putin—is often the first and most forthcoming with details of their conversations.

Why does this matter?

• At this point, the only reason not to speak of Trump as a de facto Russian agent is that it's too embarrassing to acknowledge it. 

• Presidents who can't remember how hostile nations with nuclear weapons feel about nuclear proliferation aren't mentally fit to serve.
  
  
• The security of the United States and its allies is more important than Donald Trump's personal loyalties. 

What did Donald Trump do today?

He got a good performance review, though not from the American people.

One of the effects of Trump's bizarre attack on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week was to strengthen the resolve of the world's remaining democracies, particularly in Europe, to support Ukraine against the Putin regime in Russia. Today, British Prime Minister Kier Starmer announced that the UK would commit to providing "boots on the ground, and planes in the air"—a substantial escalation from the indirect military and financial aid that European countries have been providing up to this point.

Russia, for its part, believes that Trump is "rapidly changing all foreign policy" obligations in a way that "largely aligns with [Russia's] vision," according to a government spokesperson speaking today on Russian state television. Finishing the war on favorable terms is a high priority for the Putin regime, but so is driving a wedge between the United States and its military allies, which Trump's actions are helping with.

A new poll released today indicate that Americans agree with the Russian government about Trump's allegiances—which is not to say they approve. Americans support Ukraine over Russia by a 13-to-1 margin. But the same poll shows that four times as many Americans believe that Trump favors Russia over Ukraine.

There has never been a situation in American history where the president and the public at large have been on opposite sides of a conflict. Even in situations where American involvement in a conflict became unpopular, such as the Vietnam War, there was never any real disagreement about which side the United States was aligned with.

Trump asked for and received help from the Putin regime to influence the 2016 election, and was impeached during his first term for withholding military aid to Ukraine as part of a scheme to force the Zelenskyy government to attack his rival for the presidency, Joe Biden.

Why does this matter?

• A president who can't submit himself to the overwhelming will of the American people shouldn't be in office.

• Doing what a hostile foreign power wants, and none of your allies do, is generally a bad idea.

• There's no difference between a president who is captive to the will of an enemy nation and one who simply acts like he is.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He said he would strike a deal to end Russia's war on Ukraine, but not by supporting Ukraine.

At a press conference today, Trump had this exchange with a reporter.

Q: At this point, would you -- to hold on to leverage in dealing with President Putin, would you make a commitment to the Ukrainians that you will keep supporting them during the negotiations?

TRUMP: Well, I wouldn't tell you if that were the case.

This fits with Trump's Russia-friendly stance during the campaign and his first term. For context:

Trump was elected in 2016 with open and covert assistance from the Putin regime in Russia, and at one point specifically begged Russia for help on live TV in finding supposed dirt on his opponent, Hillary Clinton. He also clearly viewed Putin and his oligarchs as a financial lifeline, and his son bragged about the amount of money that was being directed their way from wealthy Russians. During his first term, he had a relationship with Putin that at times bordered on the obsequious, if not humiliating. 

His relationship with Ukraine has been colder. In 2019, faced with the prospect of running against Joe Biden, he tried to strongarm the government of Ukraine into ginning up a fake "investigation" of Hunter Biden, who at the time was on the board of a Ukrainian energy company. Trump also demanded that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Ukraine support his false claim that it was Ukraine, and not Russia, that had tried to interfere in the 2016 election, and against Trump rather than for him. In retaliation for Zelenskyy's refusal to comply, Trump suspended military aid to Ukraine. He only restored it months later when his actions came to light because of a whistleblower's report. Trump then attempted to conceal evidence, ordered staff not to comply with congressional investigations, and fired those who did. Trump was eventually impeached over his actions against Ukraine, which had been a military and strategic ally of the United States since overthrowing a Russian puppet government in 2014. 

Trump, possibly alone out of all American politicians, has never condemned Russia's most recent invasion of Ukraine. While the stalled and protracted campaign itself has been a costly embarrassment to the Putin regime, which had far more military capability than the much smaller Ukraine, it has been devastating to the Ukrainian people. Between 60,000 and 100,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed, along with tens of thousands of non-combatants from deliberate Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure like apartment buildings and hospitals.

Why does this matter?

• The United States military and diplomatic might is not there to enforce one man's personal grudges.

• A commander-in-chief who cannot bring himself honor America's commitments to its allies is unfit for the job.

• So is a president who is compromised by his personal loyalty (for whatever reason) to the leader of a hostile foreign power.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He got a sentencing date for the crimes he has been convicted of in New York state.

Trump has been indicted for 88 separate criminal charges in four distinct cases. One case is in Georgia and whether Trump will be prosecuted alongside his co-conspirators. Two of them were federal cases that have been suspended, though not abandoned, by the special prosecutor in charge of them, Jack Smith. Trump has complained throughout that these cases—in fact, all allegations or complaints of any kind against him—are the work of a shadowy conspiracy of his political enemies.

In the fourth case, tried in New York state, Donald Trump was found guilty in May by a jury of his peers of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. 

That jury found that Trump had falsified business records in an attempt to conceal payments he made to Stormy Daniels, a porn actor he had sex with shortly after his wife Melania gave birth to his youngest son. This is a crime under New York State law, and a felony because it was in furtherance of other illegal acts. One of those illegal acts was tax fraud. Another was the violation of campaign finance laws, since the "hush money" was meant to keep voters from learning of Trump's affair, and that made the money involved subject to campaign disclosures. 

Today, the judge in the case, Juan Merchan, ruled that Trump would be sentenced for these crimes on January 10. Merchan indicated that he did not intend to order Trump to serve a jail sentence, which is typical for first offenders. 

Trump was also found guilty in a bench trial of criminal contempt for threatening witnesses against him and jurors, and paid a fine.

Trump cannot pardon himself for state crimes, as he is widely expected to do for his federal crimes.

Why does this matter?

• No matter how he justifies it, no matter who he blames, the incoming president of the United States is a convicted felon, and that is not a good thing.

• It's wrong to lie to voters even if you don't commit crimes in the process, but especially if you do.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He celebrated the chance to appoint an FBI director he thinks will be personally loyal to him… again.

Shortly after taking office in 2017, Trump demanded that then-FBI Director James Comey swear personal loyalty to him. Comey refused, and Trump fired him shortly thereafter. 

The firing was particularly urgent for Trump, because the FBI was conducting the investigation into Russia's interference on Trump's behalf in the 2016 election. In fact, the firing was so suspicious that the acting FBI Director immediately opened an obstruction of justice investigation into Trump. As a result, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller as a special counsel to investigate exactly how much influence Russia had over the election—and over Trump.

This was the sequence of events that led to Trump appointing Christopher Wray as the new FBI Director in 2017. Wray remained in office through the end of Trump's term, earning some respect for his willingness to defend the nation's law enforcement agencies from Trump's attacks.

After Trump left office, he was indicted in federal court for stealing classified documents and fomenting a coup. The FBI was involved in investigating both sets of crimes and, among other things, executed search warrants on Mar-a-Lago, where Trump had stashed those boxes of stolen government documents.

Trump was infuriated by Wray's "disloyalty" in refusing to obstruct those investigations, and promised to replace him if re-elected. Today, after Wray's announcement that he would resign rather than be fired, Trump was gleeful, saying that "today is a great day for America as it will end the Weaponization of what has become known as the United States Department of Injustice." 

Trump plans to replace Wray with another director he hopes will be personally loyal to him—and he may get it this time. Kash Patel is an election denier who has mimicked Trump's language about the supposed "deep state" conspiracy against him and—again parroting Trump—threatened to jail journalists.

Why does this matter?

• It is under no circumstances whatsoever appropriate for a president to demand a pledge of personal loyalty from the director of the FBI.

• Even now, nobody is above the law, but it's bad if Trump thinks he is and acts like it.

• Virtually all of the people Trump accuses of "weaponizing" politics against him are Republicans he appointed.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He got celebrated by two of his favorite people.

Trump celebrated Thanksgiving as he does many holidays—by sarcastically mocking Americans who didn't vote for him. But he also was on the receiving end of well-wishes from two extremely influential men in his life: Vladimir Putin and Elon Musk.

Putin, speaking today to Russian media, called him a "real man" and "intelligent." Trump's fascination with Putin, whose regime has interfered on his behalf in each of the last three presidential elections, is widely known. As Russia's intelligence head put it:

The election campaign is over. To achieve success in the election, Donald Trump relied on certain forces to which he has corresponding obligations. As a responsible person, he will be obliged to fulfill them.

Putin is a former KGB spymaster who has enjoyed forcing Trump into bizarrely submissive demonstrations of loyalty, such as the 2018 press conference in Helsinki, Finland, where he got Trump to say that he trusted Putin's word over that of the U.S. intelligence community—something that horrified virtually every Republican who was asked about it. Trump is also financially reliant on Putin to prop up his ramshackle business empire.

Trump also received holiday greetings from Elon Musk, whose financial backing has proved equally important, and who has been even less restrained about flaunting his influence over Trump since the election. (Trump staffers infuriated by Musk's imposition on the transition have accused him of trying to become "co-president.") Musk sat himself at the head table with Trump and members of his family for Thanksgiving dinner.

Why does this matter?

• It's bad that the President of the United States can be this easily manipulated.

• Russia is a hostile foreign power and does not have the United States' best interests at heart.

EARLY VOTING IS NOW UNDERWAY IN ALL STATES THAT ALLOW IT, except for New York and parts of Florida (begins Oct. 24), Maryland (Oct. 26), Washington D.C. (Oct. 27), and Oklahoma (Oct. 29).

What did Donald Trump do today?

He reminded people why he attacks the news media.

Trump tried to draw attention again today to his previously taped interview with Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes. It was reported yesterday that Trump found Stahl's questioning too difficult, and stormed out of the interview before it was over. 

Today, he had surrogates repeat his "threat" to post the interview before the show airs on CBS this Sunday. He also posted cryptic still photos from the interview, as well as a post where he claims Stahl had "no idea" about his supposed accomplishments on health care. (If so, she wouldn't be alone in that.) 

Taken at face value, Trump's behavior here is pretty normal, for him. Attacking media figures who don't fawn over him is standard practice, and much more so when the person in question is a woman—like, for example, Thursday's debate moderator Kristen Welker, last week's town hall host Savannah Guthrie, CBS correspondent Weijia Jiang, CNN reporter April Ryan, PBS's Yamiche Alcindor, Kaitlan Collins of CNN, Fox News host Megyn Kelly, MSNBC morning anchor Mika Brzezinski, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, CNN reporter Abby Phillip, NBC reporter Katy Tur, and CBS's Paula Reid.

This isn't the first time Trump has tried to pick a fight with Stahl, either. But in 2016, when she hosted the first post-election interview with Trump, she asked him why he attacked the press. As she described the encounter:

Before the interview, I met with him in Trump Tower, and he really is the same off-camera that he is on-camera. Exactly the same. And at one point he started to attack the press, and it's just me and my boss and him, and he has a huge office, and he's attacking the press. And there were no cameras, there was nothing going on. And I said, "You know, that is getting tired. Why are you doing this? You're doing it over and over, and it's boring and it's time to end that. You know, you've won the nomination, and why do you keep hammering at this?" 

And he said, "You know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all, and demean you all, so when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you."

 

Why does this matter?

• Someone who can't handle being asked difficult questions can't handle the presidency.

• Solving problems should be a higher priority for a president than avoiding blame for them.

EARLY VOTING IS NOW UNDERWAY IN ALL STATES THAT ALLOW IT, except for: New York and parts of Florida (Oct. 24), Maryland (Oct. 26), Washington D.C. (Oct. 27), and Oklahoma (Oct. 29).

What did Donald Trump do today?

He said he didn't really mean what he said if it meant having to do what he said.

On October 6, Trump tweeted that he had "fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents" related to what he calls the "Russia hoax"—or, in other words, the U.S. government investigation into Russia's attempts to infiltrate his campaign and interfere the election. (It was not a hoax.)

This was surprising for two reasons, if anyone was taking Trump seriously. First, there's a reason the government doesn't usually make public how it catches foreign spies. "Sources and methods" need to be kept secret to work, although Trump has carelessly revealed them to Russian officials in the past. 

And second, there's no reason to think the full story would clear Trump, given the enormous number of connections between Russian intelligence operatives and senior campaign staff, to include his adult children. In other words, if Trump were to actually release documents about the Russia investigation, it would only demonstrate why the United States counterintelligence agencies were so convinced that the Putin regime had infiltrated Trump's inner circle.

News organizations immediately petitioned the government to see these documents, but were told that no declassification had taken place. In court, the Justice Department was forced to argue that even though Trump really can order declassification via tweet, he didn't mean it in this one case. The judge ordered Trump to respond by today about whether he was serious—in which case the documents really would be released—or not.

Trump, through his chief of staff, admitted today that he never actually intended to declassify anything.

So what?

• It's wrong to lie to the American people.

• Major policy decisions probably shouldn't be done via spontaneous Twitter declarations.

• Pretending that Trump didn't ask for and receive help in the form of criminal interference by Russia doesn't mean it didn't happen.

EARLY VOTING IS NOW UNDERWAY IN THESE STATES: Arizona, California,  Georgia, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, and Wyoming EARLY VOTING BEGINNING THIS WEEK:  TUESDAY, OCT. 13 in Kentucky and Texas WEDNESDAY, OCT. 14 in Kansas, Rhode Island, and Tennessee, THURSDAY, OCT. 15 in North Carolina FRIDAY, OCT. 16 in Washington SATURDAY, OCT. 17 in Massachusetts and Nevada

What did Donald Trump do today?

He said America had gone to hell on his watch.

In a trio of tweets, Trump said that California, Illinois, and New York—three states he has no chance of winning in the upcoming election—were "going to hell," or words to that effect.

As odd as it may seem for Trump to be campaigning on the supposed failure of the country on his watch, it's part of a strategy he's been following almost from the start of the campaign. Trump's list of "must-win" states now includes normally safely Republican strongholds like Texas, North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Arizona, and Alaska, as well as traditional battlegrounds like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Florida. He seems to have concluded that any state—or really, any Americans—who can't help him get re-elected are expendable, and safe to attack in order to persuade those who can. 

Trump isn't the only one pursuing this strategy. Turning Americans against one another has been the goal of hostile foreign governments since the start of the Cold War. In fact, corroding Americans' faith in government and one another was the main goal of the Putin regime's attacks on the 2016 election.

What's the problem with this?

• People who think America has "gone to hell" probably shouldn't be president of it.

• It's bad if a presidential campaign is singing the same tune as a hostile country's anti-American propaganda campaign—twice.