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.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He tried to distance himself from yet another indicted campaign manager.

Steve Bannon was indicted today in federal court. He and three other defendants are accused of defrauding donors to a non-profit that promised to crowdfund the building of a border fence with Mexico. The US Attorney in the case, Geoffrey Berman, is the same person Trump unsuccessfully tried to purge from the job earlier this summer.

Asked about Bannon's arrest, Trump said this:

Well, I feel very badly. I haven’t been dealing with him for a long period of time, as most of the people in this room know. He was involved in our campaign, he worked for Goldman Sachs, he worked for a lot of companies, but he was involved likewise in our campaign, and for a small part of the administration very early on.

Bannon was "involved" in the Trump campaign as its CEO. Once Trump took office, his "small part" was as a senior advisor with a national security portfolio usually reserved for military generals and virtually unfettered access to Trump.

Trump also tried to distance himself from the donor-supported "We Build The Wall" scheme that Bannon and his co-defendants siphoned money from. 

I know nothing about the project, other than I didn’t like, when I read about it I didn’t like it. I said this is for government, this isn’t for private people, and it sounded to me like showboating and I think I let my opinion be very strongly stated at the time.

 

In reality, it's difficult to keep track of all the ways Trump is involved with Bannon's scheme. The general counsel for the project, failed Senate candidate Kris Kobach, said publicly in 2019 that the private wall had Trump's explicit blessing, which the White House did not deny when asked. Donald Trump Jr., whose main job is as a political surrogate for his father, appeared in a video with one of the people indicted today and praised it as "private enterprise at its finest."

But the most damning connection between Trump and the private fence scheme comes in the form of a $1.4 billion contract awarded to a construction company involved in it. Trump himself "personally and repeatedly" pressured the Army Corps of Engineers to award a lucrative contract for the "real" border fence. 

The beneficiary, Tommy Fisher, is a major Republican donor and conservative media star. Fisher put up at least $25 million towards the private fence scheme, but that appears to have sealed the deal in terms of getting Trump to lean on government contractors.

Bannon joins Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, and Michael Cohen as top Trump campaign officials indicted for or convicted of federal crimes.

Why does this matter?

• Presidents who care about "law and order" generally have fewer criminals than this running their campaigns.

• Donors to a cause endorsed by the Trump family whose money was stolen by Trump's campaign manager might not think Trump really "knew nothing" about this.

• Billion-dollar government contracts should go to the most qualified low bidders, not political cronies who kick money back to a president's other associates.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He lied about American troops in Germany.

In trying to explain his decision to redeploy American troops currently stationed in Germany, almost universally seen as a gift to the Putin regime, Trump tweeted this today:

It's not clear whether Trump is still genuinely confused about what NATO is "all about," or simply hoping his Twitter audience is. American troops are stationed in Germany to advance American interests, which include a stable and democratic Europe.

There is no "2% fee to NATO." (NATO's administrative budget is tiny, and Germany is paid up on its obligations.) But it will cost the United States billions of dollars to redeploy its forces.

Germany trades with Russia for the same reasons that the United States does with every country—like China, for example—with which it is not actively at war. Not only does Germany need some amount of natural gas, Russia's desperately fragile economy cannot survive without selling it. This economic reality has helped keep the peace even as Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed part of its territory—something Trump would like to forgive.

Of course, Trump is personally beholden to Russia in both political and financial ways. It's impossible to ignore the possibility that he is doing this simply because Putin wants him to. Trump has spoken with Putin eight times since Trump was warned that Russia was paying the Taliban bounties to kill American troops and destabilize the peace process, but Trump insists the subject has never come up. He defended Putin again today, calling his own government's intelligence reports "fake news."

Why should I care about this?

• There should never be any doubt about what country a president's loyalties lie with, much less this much doubt.

• A president who can't remember basic facts about our most important military alliances is unfit to be commander-in-chief.

• Germany is a military ally of the United States and Russia is not.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He said nobody ever told him about the Russian plot to have American troops murdered in Afghanistan.

Yesterday, the New York Times broke a shocking story: that U.S. intelligence agencies had uncovered a Russian scheme to pay bounties on American troops in Afghanistan. According to the report—now independently confirmed by several news agencies—American spy agencies caught a Russian military intelligence unit offering to pay Taliban militants to kill Americans, in order to derail the peace process and further bog the United States down.

Twenty Americans were killed last year in Afghanistan, and the peace talks have broken down. Russia reportedly paid some of the bounties, indicating that the Putin regime believed the deaths were related to their offer.

The plot was detected in late March. Since then, Trump has spoken with Russian president Vladimir Putin five times and issued a joint diplomatic statement about U.S.-Russia military cooperation. He's also lobbied on Russia's behalf to rejoin the G7, and demanded alarmingly Russia-friendly troop redeployments in Europe. No action whatsoever was taken, internally or diplomatically, against Russia.

Trump dodged the story yesterday, and spent the morning and afternoon today playing golf. When the White House finally released a statement, it claimed that nobody had told Trump about it.

That is contradicted by all other sources so far, which report that it was discussed in the National Security Council, the agency whose job it is to keep Trump informed. The idea that American troops could be assassinated by a Russian spy agency without the president being informed is, to put it mildly, ridiculous. As David Gergen, a senior advisor to four presidents, put it today:

He would have been — in every single White House that I’ve ever worked in, and every single White House I know anything about. This is very, very important information. It does affect the relationship with Russia. He would have been briefed instantaneously. It would have been in the materials sent in to him, and it would have been discussed with him. And I think Vice President Biden makes a very good point, what is raising so many objections on Capitol Hill is that this was in the same timeframe the president has extended an olive branch to Putin, inviting him to this G-7 meeting over the objections of Chancellor Merkel and others who do not want that to happen. The president stood up for him. 

And so all of that suggests that this is a much more complicated story. What we’re possibly facing is that the White House was, the president was briefed but that he had reasons relating to his reelection and his relationship with Russia that he’s being very dovish about this.

It's entirely possible that Trump didn't understand what he was being told, or couldn't focus long enough to take action. His notoriously short attention span has been an enormous challenge for his intelligence briefers, who have struggled to keep him engaged long enough to get through one-page summaries. (One tactic that has had some success is using Trump's name frequently.)

It's also possible that Trump understood the situation in basic terms—Russia was paying the Taliban to kill American soldiers—but was simply unable or unwilling to act against Russia. It's difficult to quickly summarize the financial, criminal, and political leverage that the Putin regime has over Trump, but it appears to have completely paralyzed him.

Why does this matter?

• A president this compromised by a hostile country—or by mental issues—is totally unfit for office.

• The lives of American troops are more important than whatever interests Donald Trump is protecting.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He declared himself above the law.

COVID-19 diagnoses hit a new all-time daily high in the United States today, with more than 38,000 new cases reported. 

The worst of the initial outbreak happened in and around New York City, but new cases are sharply down in the tri-state area. Today, the governors of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut announced a 14-day quarantine for anyone traveling to their states who has been in a state with a high number of cases.

That would include Donald Trump, who yesterday held a crowded indoor rally in Phoenix, Arizona. Trump plans to visit his luxury golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey this weekend, as he does almost every weekend.

Today, Trump signaled that he had no intention of complying with the orders, which have the force of state law. "The president of the United States is not a civilian," a spokesperson said. 

Actually, the president of the United States is always a civilian, even if they once served in the military—which Trump notoriously did not. 

But whether or not that statement was meant literally, it's a pretty good summary of Trump's assumption that rules don't apply to him. He's declared that the Constitution gives him the power to "do whatever I want". (It doesn't; that's a dictatorship.) He's fired government watchdogs throughout the executive branch, and virtually declared war on the United States' own intelligence community for its pre-election efforts to stop Russia from interfering in the election on his behalf. 

Hundreds of people travel with Trump during his weekly taxpayer-funded visits to his resort homes, ranging from his personal household servants to his Secret Service detail. Two of the six people working his Tulsa rally event who tested positive for COVID-19 were Secret Service agents, and their illness has now forced dozens more into self-isolation. Trump hasn't commented on that, but he's known to be extremely careful about his own exposure to the virus, demanding that people around him wear the masks he refuses to wear because he's afraid of looking "weak."

Why does this matter?

• The president of the United States is not above the law.

• The health and safety of the American people is more important than Donald Trump's golf game or political fortunes.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He celebrated 197 miles of border wall he hasn't built.

Trump traveled to Arizona today for campaign events in a state he now desperately needs to win. The official reason for the trip, though, was to deliver remarks on "the Commemoration of the 200th Mile of New Border Wall" on the Mexican border—which puts the travel costs on the taxpayers rather than the Trump campaign.

Three and a half years into the Trump administration, the fenced portion of the U.S.-Mexico border is three miles longer—not 200. The rest has been repairs or renovations to existing barriers.

Those three miles, though, are in Trump's signature style. At his insistence, the easily-climbed bollard fence is painted black, so that it will retain heat in the summer. (This will increase the total cost of border fencing by $500 million or more.) 

Other issues have arisen with Trump's "big, beautiful" fence. Large sections of it will require floodgates to be kept wide open for much of the year. Fences put up in the remote areas favored by drug smugglers, furthest from active patrols, are easily destroyed by household tools—or, of course, ladders.

Immigration was Trump's signature issue in 2016, even though he has a long history of hiring immigrants legally and illegally. He promised that Mexico would pay for it, although immediately after taking office he begged the Mexican president not to publicly contradict him on this. American taxpayers have picked up the bill instead. 

But at this point it's not clear why Trump thinks Americans still see immigration as a pressing issue. Only 2% of Americans cited immigration as the biggest problem facing the country in a recent Gallup poll. At the top of that poll of the things that Americans were most worried about were economic issues (19%), poor leadership in government (21%), the coronavirus response (20%), and racism (19%). 

How is this a problem?

• Presidents who accomplish things people would actually be impressed by don't need to embellish.

• It's wrong to take credit for things you didn't do.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He pre-delegitimized the 2020 election, in case he loses.

Trump spent the morning of the first working day after his disastrous Tulsa rally sowing the seeds of doubt about the legitimacy of the 2020 election. 

Trump also claimed that "MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WILL BE PRINTED BY FOREIGN COUNTRIES, AND OTHERS."

Trump, of course, sought Russian help for his 2016 campaign and was impeached for trying to force Ukraine to interfere in 2020. In fact, undermining Americans' faith in the legitimacy of their own government was the main goal of that Russian interference.

As usual for Trump's talk about mail-in ballots, none of this is true—not even the World War One reference. There was no presidential election during the United States' time in that war. But soldiers deployed away from home voted by mail in the 1944 election without incident. In fact, expanding the troops' access to ballots was a major priority for the federal government.

Trump himself votes by mail; so does almost every voter in five states, and mail-in absentee ballots are available in every state. Mail-in voting is extremely popular, and even after Trump's recent attempts to demonize it, Americans support expanding it to anyone who wants it by more than a two-to-one margin. 

Trump, who famously said in October of 2016 that that election was rigged unless he won, is more or less openly trying to give himself an excuse to delegitimize the 2020 race if he loses. He believes—falsely, as it turns out—that making it easier for voters to cast a legitimate ballot hurts Republicans.

It's hard to see why Trump would bother unless he was fairly convinced he was going to lose. If that's the case, he's in good company. Polls in June are snapshots of the current mood, not a prediction. But in that snapshot, Trump is losing badly to Joe Biden.

Why should I care about this?

• "Elections are only legitimate if I win" is the philosophy of a dictator.