What did Donald Trump do today?

He tried to make political hay out of a murder.

At a press availability today, Trump insisted that the murder of conservative podcaster Charlie Kirk was the work of "radical left lunatics" and hinted at a shadowy network of organizations linked to it that he promised to unearth and "beat the hell out of." 

Kirk was shot yesterday while appearing at Utah Valley University in Provo. Undeniably influential, Kirk was indeed unpopular with centrist and left-of-center Americans who were aware of him. Kirk's stated beliefs included the following:

• 10-year-old rape victims should be forced to bear children under all circumstances. 

• Doctors who care for transgender people should be put on trial like Nazi war criminals were.  

• Successful Black women like Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson or Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, among others, "stole a white person's slot" and "don't have the brain processing power to be taken seriously." 

• "America was at its peak" when the foreign-born population was at its lowest. (That was in the early 1970s, but Kirk appeared to mean the mid-1920s.) 

• The racist and Islamophobic "great replacement theory" is true.  

• Retirement—at any age—was against the Bible.   

• President Biden should be "given the death penalty for his [unspecified] crimes against America"

• "Prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people" and that it's "happening more and more."  

• The government should create a volunteer "citizen force" to protect "white demographics"

• The Civil Rights Movement—all of it—was a "mistake" 

• 45% of American voters are "maggots, vermin and swine" (referring to registered Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents)

• Islam, as a religion, is a threat to the United States and "not compatible with civilization."  

• Getting vaccinated is an attack on the freedom of others.

• Blacks—as a race—are "in decline" since the end of the Jim Crow era of state-sanctioned segregation.

• The United States can and should mandate (his) specific religious beliefs. 

• Black people were presumptively unqualified for jobs like airline pilot. 

• Some number of gun deaths were an acceptable trade-off for the Second Amendment.

Many of those are versions of ideas that Trump has embraced, too. But Kirk was also the subject of furious attacks from the extreme right wing. Laura Loomer, a professional competitor of Kirk's who has a great deal of influence over Trump, just last week accused Kirk of being a "charlatan" who "stabs Trump in the back." Kirk had also weathered years of attacks from another white nationalist podcaster, Nick Fuentes, who encouraged his listeners to harass Kirk for not being anti-immigrant enough. 

Kirk was on the outs with the Trump White House at the time of his death, in part because he had joined the conservative mini-revolt over Trump's ongoing cover-up of the Epstein investigation results. 

Of course, Trump doesn't know anything about the ideology (if any) of the shooter yet, because that person—about whom virtually nothing is known other than that he appears to be a relatively young, light-skinned man—has yet to be found. The early response from the FBI, now led by Trump's flatly unqualified political loyalists Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, is not encouraging: the agency arrested and then released not one but two mistakenly identified suspects, and then delayed making public announcements including updated photos of the shooter until Patel and Bongino could be present in Utah for the cameras.

Trump himself fomented a mob attack on a session of Congress in a desperate attempt to hold on to power in 2021, and then rewarded the people involved with pardons and cash settlements. He also said on the campaign trail in 2016 that Hillary Clinton should be assassinated if she won the election, routinely encouraged supporters to beat up protestors at his rallies, and tried to cozy up to white nationalist gangs as a last-ditch ploy in the 2020 election.

Why does this matter?

• Jumping in front of a funeral procession for attention is pretty bad even for Trump. 

• "Waving the bloody shirt" works better if the person doing it knew or cared about the victim before they died.

EARLY VOTING IS NOW UNDERWAY IN THE FOLLOWING STATES: Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, and Wyoming

What did Donald Trump do today? 

He literally told a violent white nationalist group to "stand by."

Tonight's presidential debate was almost universally panned, as much for its unwatchability—"shitshow" was the word a CNN anchor used—as for the torrent of lies and exaggerations Trump helped put forward. 

But Trump made one statement in particular that seems to have made more of an impression than most. Moderator Chris Wallace challenged Trump to condemn white supremacists and militia groups, such as those targeting anti-racism protests in Kenosha and Portland. Trump demanded a specific name, and Joe Biden mentioned the Proud Boys, a violent white nationalist group that openly supports him. 

Trump responded, "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by, but I'll tell you what, somebody's gotta do something about antifa and the left because this is not a right-wing problem. This is a left-wing problem."

The Proud Boys are an all-male, openly racist organization that the FBI declared an extremist group in 2018. It teaches that white Americans are at risk of genocide by immigrants, and has tried to provoke violence at otherwise peaceful protests against racism. It was involved in the deadly 2017 Charlottesville "Unite the Right" rally, where Trump memorably declared that the Proud Boys' side of the conflict contained "very fine people."

Members of the group were ecstatic with Trump's deputizing them for future actions. One of their leaders posted on social media, "Trump basically said to go fuck them up! This makes me so happy." He later wrote, "President Trump told the proud boys to stand by because someone needs to deal with ANTIFA... well sir! we're ready!!" 

Within an hour of Trump's remark, the group had incorporated it into its logo.

In a related question, Wallace asked Trump if he would ask his supporters—in general, not just the white supremacist ones—to respect the outcome of the election, and to wait for the count to be concluded without resorting to violence. Trump responded that he wanted his supporters to physically go to polling places and "watch very carefully."

Why is this a bad thing?

• A president who can't bring himself to denounce a violent white nationalist gang is unfit for office.

• Sending loyal private militias to "watch" polling places is what dictators do.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He made a difficult leadership decision—but not as President of the United States.

When Trump took office, he steadfastly refused to put his assets in a blind trust, or even formally resign from his leadership of the Trump Organization. In theory, he gave day-to-day control over his businesses to his adult sons. But in practice, he's shown a great deal of interest in the minutiae of his private business affairs—which explains why foreign countries seeking to influence him always make sure he knows that they're buying things from him.

Today, the Trump Organization announced it would not host a fringe anti-Muslim group at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's financially struggling Palm Beach luxury resort and the country's de facto winter White House. The leader of "ACT for America," Brigitte Gabriel, is a confidant of Trump's who brags about having a "standing meeting" with Trump. Trump's disgraced former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was a board member of the group, and his embattled Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, has spoken to the group. The event scheduled for Mar-a-Lago was apparently a fundraiser aimed at Trump donors.

Few Americans will have a problem with Trump deciding not to host an Islamophobic group. But until a watchdog organization reported on the politically awkward event, Trump had no problem playing host and profiting from his dual role as caterer and political patron.

Why should I care about this?

• If a president can't rid himself of conflicts of interest with his private businesses, he should quit the presidency.

• Doing the right thing after you get caught doing the wrong thing isn't the same as being right.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He tried to start a fight in the Democratic party, and got condemned by Republicans.

Trump was up bright and early with a tweet thread that, even by his standards, was overtly "xenophobic, even racist"—and that's coming from one of his most reliable supporters. 

In it, he said that four freshman Democratic congresswomen who "came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe" to "go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came."

Three of the four members of Congress Trump was talking about were born in the United States. The fourth, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), came to the United States as a child refugee from the civil war in Somalia.

Trump's real intent, on a day where golf was the only other thing on his schedule, appears to have been to try to drive a wedge between those members and Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the House. Both his original tweets and a follow-up thread mentioned Pelosi. He falsely claimed, not for the first time, that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) had called Pelosi a "RACIST!" 

As a political maneuver, it doesn't seem to have worked. As of Sunday evening, no national Republican had stepped forward to defend him, and those that did comment called his display "racist and disgusting," pointedly reminded Trump that "we're all Americans," and said that "it has to stop."

Democrats, predictably, found common ground in turning Trump's racist words back on him. Pelosi, the four congresswomen Trump attacked, and Democrats in general were all on the same page in their responses.

Why should I care about this?

• Even by Trump's standards, this is racist.

• Defining your political opponents as foreigners is what authoritarians do.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He got the First Amendment backwards again.

Trump vented on Twitter again today, furious over coverage of his Mexican tariff bluff. His anger at the traditional media eventually segued into anger at social media:

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech, doesn't apply to private companies, only government censorship. (For example, Trump was successfully sued in his capacity as President for blocking his critics on Twitter. However, Trump has appealed that decision, arguing that he can ban users if he wants to.)

More to the point, Twitter doesn't banned conservatives. It has, however, cracked down on bots and fake accounts, groups that advocate violence, white nationalists, conspiracy theorists, and bigoted trolls. These categories include a number of prominent Trump supporters hit by Twitter bans, which may be why he thinks of them as "conservative."

Since taking office, Trump has called for government crackdowns against comedy shows that make fun of him, former employees who write books about him, entire television news networks whose coverage isn't flattering enough, and Google, for making it possible to find all of the above with its search engine.

Why is this a problem?

• It's bad if the president doesn't know literally the first thing in the Bill of Rights.

• Presidents don't get to dictate what a free press says about them.

• Conservative Americans might not appreciate being lumped in with people like Jacob Wohl, Alex Jones, Laura Loomer, or Louis Farrakhan.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He put the presidential seal of approval on a Canadian white nationalist troll.

Trump retweeted Lauren Southern to his Twitter audience of tens of millions today, as part of his ongoing campaign to convince his base that they are the victims of social media companies. (Some of them are, although not the way Trump means.)

Southern's brief career has involved trolling transgender people, claiming that the Black Lives Matter movement has "killed more people than the Klan," and saying that rape only goes unpunished in "third world countries." She was refused entry to the UK last year for inciting violence against Muslims on a previous visit. 

Southern also made a movie promoting a false conspiracy theory that has the South African government committing "white genocide." (Trump was apparently fooled by the buzz around it and tweeted about that, too.)

It's possible Trump actually believes that Twitter and Facebook are targeting conservatives rather than threats of violence and hate speech. (Or he may think that to be conservative is to make threats and embrace white supremacy.) 

But more than that, he may feel he can't afford to lose a single supporter in the 2020 election, even if it means cozying up to white nationalists—and he may be right. 

How is this a bad thing?

• Conservatives who voted for Trump might not like being lumped in with white supremacists, internet trolls, and Klan apologists.

• What dignity the office of the presidency still has left is more important than Trump's poll numbers.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He said that an immigrant war refugee turned Congresswoman didn't know how life worked.

Today, Trump was asked to comment on the doctored video he'd posted to Twitter that has led to death threats against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN). He responded by saying that he didn't regret anything he'd done, and added:

She is somebody that doesn’t really understand life, real life. What it’s all about.

Rep. Omar was born in Somalia in 1981. When she was a child, her family fled the Somalia Civil War, a conflict that has killed perhaps half a million people and created more than a million refugees. Omar spent four years in a refugee camp in Kenya, after which her family applied for asylum status in the United States and moved to Minneapolis. (As a candidate in 2016, before Omar ran for office, Trump tried to win over Minnesota voters by claiming that they had "suffered" at the hands of the Somali refugees living in the state because, Trump had decided, they were joining ISIS.) Omar became a U.S. citizen in 2000 at the age of 17, graduated from the University of North Dakota, and then worked in state politics until she was elected to the Minnesota legislature in 2016 at age 35.

By comparison, Trump was born in New York City in 1946 to an immigrant mother. (His father was born in the United States, although Trump has gotten confused about that several times lately.) He suffered from behavioral problems that caused his father to send him to a private military boarding school. He attended Occidental College, and then Fordham College, and finally the University of Pennsylvania. (He has falsely claimed to be a top student at Penn, and has threatened those schools with legal action if his grades are ever released.) Immediately after receiving his degree, he was suddenly stricken with bone spurs that prevented him from entering the Vietnam draft, according to a podiatrist whose landlord was Trump's father. He spent the remainder of his 20s and early 30s as a part of his father's business empire, and taking part in a long-running tax fraud scheme that helped channel his father's money to him and his siblings tax-free over the course of decades.

Trump didn't say what about "real life" he thought could only be learned at private boarding schools or taking a job in a multi-millionaire father's business empire.

Earlier this month, shortly after Trump's fixation on Omar began, a man who identified himself as a Trump supporter was arrested for calling Omar's office and saying that she was "a fucking terrorist" and that he was "going to put a bullet in her fucking skull."

Who cares?

• "Real life" happens even to people who aren't Donald Trump.

• Trying to keep people in line with the threat of violence is what dictators do.

• People born into solid gold houses shouldn't throw stones.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He said that white nationalism isn't a real threat.

Yesterday, a self-described white nationalist from Australia shot and killed 49 people in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Trump initially hesitated to call the attack terrorism, and during an Oval Office appearance before reporters, he had this exchange:

Q: Do you see today white nationalism as a rising threat around the world?

TRUMP: I don’t really. I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems. I guess if you look at what happened in New Zealand perhaps that’s the case. I don’t know enough about it yet. They’re just learning about the person and the people involved.

In reality, as both the FBI and watchdog groups have noted, hate crimes and membership in white nationalist groups have increased sharply in recent years.

By the time Trump spoke, the killer's political leanings were known worldwide. It's not clear what further information Trump was waiting for in order to understand the shooter, who talked about white nationalism during his internet livestream of the murders he committed at two mosques.

To be clear, there's no reason to think that Trump approved of the killings. But Trump, who was cited by the New Zealand killer as a white nationalist role model, has always shown a real fear of confronting or speaking ill of the white nationalists he believes are an important part of his base.

For example, even after it ended in murder, he famously broke free of his own staff's attempts to restrain him from declaring the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville to be the work of "very fine people." He blamed the victims of a mass murder at a Jewish synagogue in Pittsburgh rather than comment on the white nationalist ideology of the killer. His White House compiled a list of terrorist incidents that left off attacks against non-white and non-Western targets. Trump is a vocal supporter of Alex Jones, who says that the world is undergoing a "white genocide" (a phrase also used by the New Zealand shooter). He's retweeted hoax videos from white nationalist groups, and pardoned a convicted felon who was a darling of the white nationalist movement.

Trump did not use the word "Muslim" in any of his comments on the shooting today. His reluctance to note that Muslims peacefully engaging in worship were the victims also has political roots: he has built his political brand on the belief that his own supporters hate Muslims.

Why does this matter?

• A president who can't easily condemn racially motivated murder can't do the work of the presidency.

• People who voted for Trump who aren't Islamophobic, racists, or white supremacists, might not like that he apparently thinks they are.=

• Ignoring politically inconvenient problems doesn't make them go away.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He added a little Islamophobia to his border wall campaign.

Trump's rationale for refusing to sign spending bills without money for his oft-promised border wall changes from time to time. Sometimes he claims that the issue is a humanitarian crisis, and that a wall at the very end of their journey will deter people who have traveled thousands of miles on foot to escape political or criminal violence. 

But for the most part, Trump prefers to accuse refugees from violence and starvation of being criminals themselves. Today, he added an Islamophobic twist to that narrative, claiming that an unnamed "border rancher" had found "prayer rugs," presumably abandoned by the Muslim terrorist infiltrators who Trump wants people to believe are hiding among refugees. 

"Prayer rugs" at the U.S.-Mexico border are an urban legend: much talked about, never actually found. One supposed example turned out to be a soccer jersey. More recent stories of borderland "prayer rugs" may have been inspired by those left behind by radical Islamic terrorists who bombed a Kansas City department store—in the 2018 movie Sicario: Day of the Soldado. 

Why should I care about this?

• It's wrong to use one kind of bigotry to justify another.

• Just in case Trump actually believes this: the president should be able to tell the difference between reality and a movie.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He came up with an interesting new justification for his border wall.

Trump, who was presumably preoccupied with the sentencing of his "fixer" and campaign finance co-conspirator Michael Cohen, took a leisurely approach to his office duties today, even by his standards. But he still found time to tweet out a novel suggestion about why Congress should fund his border wall.

Trump was apparently referring to a shooting in Strasbourg last night in which a gunman opened fire on a crowd at that city's Christmas Market, killing two and injuring 12 others. The shooter, who escaped the scene, is thought to be Chérif Chekatt, a lifelong criminal.

Taking Trump's tweet at face value, he seems to believe that "terror" in France would have been averted if that country had more "border security." 

Chekatt was born and raised in France.

Trump appears to have been trying to have the last word with "Chuck [Schumer] and Nancy [Pelosi]" after a photo opportunity with them on the subject of his border wall went disastrously wrong for him yesterday.

Why does this matter?

• It's really important that presidents sound coherent.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He announced new anti-immigrant rules that are almost certainly illegal.

Today, Trump published rules that claim for the presidency the authority to bar asylum claims from virtually any immigrant. But since those rules conflict with existing law, they would almost certainly be struck down after the first court challenge.

Using executive orders to claim power he doesn't have is nothing new for Trump. He did the same thing almost immediately after taking office in an ill-fated attempt to ban legal travel to the United States from predominantly Muslim countries. He's also essentially ignored the emoluments clause to the Constitution by attempting—although not very successfully—to profit from foreign governments patronizing his real estate and hotel businesses.

Even his appointment yesterday of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general probably falls in this category. Whitaker had not been in the normal DOJ line of succession because he had not been confirmed by the Senate, something that is required of "principal officers" by the Constitution. (Trump himself used this line of attack months ago to declare Robert Mueller's appointment unconstitutional, but Mueller had been confirmed by the Senate, and the special counsel is not a principal officer.)

So what?

• In a democracy, presidents don't do things they know are unlawful and dare the courts to stop them.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He refused to apologize for basing his policies on the "great hatred" that Americans supposedly have against Muslims.

Trump held a joint press appearance today with Muhammadu Buhari, the president of Nigeria (who diplomatically omitted comment on Trump calling his country a "shithole"). A reporter asked Trump about the pending Supreme Court case on his Muslim-targeted travel ban. Lawyers for the opposing side are arguing (among other things) that the ban was illegal because of Trump's explicitly discriminatory reasons for enacting it. But, those lawyers conceded, if Trump were to publicly disavow those views, the ban might be more legally sound. 

Trump has rarely if ever apologized for anything. The closest he came was when he gritted his teeth through a video message that included the word "apologize" after the Access Hollywood tape came out, although he later floated the idea that the whole thing was a hoax. 

Trump responded to the reporter's question by saying that there was "no reason to apologize."

There would be a lot to apologize for, even counting only those Islamophobic remarks directly related to a policy position. In December 2015, candidate Trump put out a statement saying that "Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on." 

In March of 2016, he said, "I think Islam hates us," and that its followers "have this hatred of the United States and of people that are not Muslim." He said it was difficult to separate out Muslim terrorists from law-abiding Muslims "because you don't know who's who."

While signing the first of his travel bans as President, a week after his inauguration, he recited the title of the order ("Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States") and remarked, "We all know what that means.” He then added that he was "establishing a new vetting measure to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States of America."

President Buhari, a Muslim, did not comment on this response either.

So what?

• Discrimination based on religion is bad and unlawful.

• Essentially, what Trump is saying is that anti-Muslim statements are more important to him than the policy he says is essential to preventing terrorism.

Sunday Week in Review, Best People Edition

What else did Donald Trump do this week?

He had some trouble with "the best people." 

His new drug czar. Taylor Weyeneth is Trump's deputy chief of staff for the Office of National Drug Control Policy. The ONDCP is the agency principally responsible for coordinating the administration's response to the opioid crisis, meaning that Weyeneth has enormous responsibilities. Trump has previously been criticized for dumping that task on two fantastically underqualified appointees--Jared Kushner (his son-in-law) and Kellyanne Conway (his former pollster). 

Weyeneth is a 24-year-old who was recently fired from an entry-level job at a law firm because, as it was reported this week, he simply didn't show up for work. He does have some experience that might endear him to Trump, though--he was a volunteer for the Trump campaign and has helped to organize golf tournaments.

Drug overdoses kill more than 150 Americans every day.

His personal lawyer. Michael Cohen has served as Trump's lawyer since long before the campaign, and is entrusted with sensitive and personal tasks. One of them, the Wall Street Journal discovered this week, was to charter a limited liability corporation in Delaware for the sole purpose of making a $130,000 payment to the porn actress Stormy Daniels. Delaware is a popular choice for single-purpose corporations like this because its laws do not require disclosure of the names of the people involved, but Cohen did not fully take advantage of that privacy, allowing the WSJ to link him to the paperwork establishing "Essential Consulting LLC," as the vehicle was known.

Trump and Daniels had a sexual encounter in 2006, shortly after the birth of Trump's youngest son to Melania Trump, she told In Touch magazine in 2011. The magazine apparently decided that publishing the interview, which included graphic and unflattering details about then-private citizen Trump, was not worth the trouble of having to defend against the inevitable threat of a libel suit.

If there is an explanation for a company being created by Donald Trump's lawyer to pay $130,000 to a porn actress that doesn't involve payment for her silence over his extramarital sex with her, neither Cohen nor Trump seems interested in giving it.

A number of other media outlets had been independently pursuing the Daniels story during the 2016 campaign, but were unable to get Daniels' cooperation because the rights to the story had been bought by the tabloid National Enquirer, which then refused to publish it. The Enquirer's publisher is a personal friend and political supporter of Trump's.

His Russia probe defense lawyer. Cohen was not the only Trump lawyer who stumbled on the job this week. In this week's episode of a CBS News podcast, Ty Cobb said that Trump would likely be interviewed by independent counsel Robert Mueller at some point. This is neither surprising nor especially damning, but what Cobb said next--that he was concerned Mueller would be laying a "perjury trap" for Trump--was.

A perjury trap is when a prosecutor asks a question in the belief that the subject will lie. Since it is illegal to lie under oath or to obstruct an investigation, the lie itself becomes a crime. It is impossible to "trap" someone who is telling the truth, or simply refusing to answer on Fifth Amendment grounds.

In other words, Cobb was saying that he was afraid Trump will not be able to stop himself from lying. He's hardly the only one who thinks so, but it's not clear what benefit saying so publicly will have for his client.

His chief of external affairs for the CNCS. Trump appointed Carl Higbie in 2017 to run public outreach for the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS). Higbie had no experience in the role, but was a campaign surrogate and fundraiser.

He resigned this week after CNN found that he had said that black women "think breeding is a form of government employment," that black people had "lax morality," that he accepted being called a "racist" if that meant not liking Muslims, that Muslims were pedophiles, that military servicemembers suffering from PTSD had "weak minds," and various other statements along those lines.

Higbie also used the word "shithole" in 2013 in almost exactly the same context that Trump used it last week, although this was apparently not enough to save his job.

Why are these bad things?

• A president who can't be bothered to appoint a competent drug policy team is basically saying he doesn't really care about the issue.

• Some of the people who voted for Trump might have felt differently if they'd known about six-figure hush money checks to porn stars over extramarital sex.

• It's not a good sign if a president's defense lawyer doesn't trust him not to commit perjury.

• A president who can't screen out flagrant, open racists from his administration is either incompetent or not that bothered by flagrant racism.

Sunday Week in Review

What else did Donald Trump do this week?

Racial slurs. On Monday, Trump once again referred to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) as "Pocahontas." Trump has made the racial taunt--in reference to Warren's family history suggesting Cherokee and Delaware heritage--many times before, but this time it came as a sort of free-association during a ceremony honoring the Navajo "Code Talkers" of the second World War.

Native American groups were not amused, particularly because this latest use of the Powhatan woman's name as a slur distracted from what was supposed to be a celebration of Native American war heroes. 

Trump had a history of racial attacks on Native Americans long before Sen. Warren got under his skin. In 1993, he suggested that he had more "Indian blood" than the leaders of tribes who operated casinos in competition with him. He also said that the tribal organizations were fronts for organized crime, a claim he later worked into TV attack ads aimed at halting the construction of a new Mohawk casino that would compete with his.

Revisionist history. One of the defining moments of Trump's political career was the release of the Access Hollywood tape in which he bragged about sexually assaulting women. The release prompted an "apology" notable for its anger and defensiveness, but it did at least acknowledge that the tape was real: "I said it. It was wrong and I apologize." The statement was remarkable at the time because it was arguably the only time Trump had ever been known to publicly admit any sort of wrongdoing, much less give a grudging apology.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that Trump has been telling people that he now believes the footage was somehow falsified. (It was not.)

As is often the case, it is hard to know whether Trump is deliberately lying, or has genuinely convinced himself to remember things differently. The Times piece cites Trump's own advisors, who admit that he "privately harbor[s] a handful of conspiracy theories that have no grounding in fact," and that his changing view of the tape may be one of them. His advisors are not the only ones wondering lately about the extent to which Trump is fully engaged with reality.

On the other hand, Trump has been accused by at least sixteen individual women of sexual assault or harassment, not counting pageant contestants (some of them underage) who reported that he deliberately barged in on their dressing rooms while they were changing.

Diplomatic crisis. On Wednesday, Trump retweeted Islamophobic videos by an ultra-nationalist fringe group implicated in the murder of a British member of Parliament. When the Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May expressed her disappointment, he immediately raged back at her on Twitter, telling her in so many words to mind her own business.

In short order, Trump was repeatedly denounced from the floor of Parliament. Language used in the House of Commons is often blunt by American political standards, but for a Member to say that a sitting American president was "either a racist, incompetent, or unthinking—or all three" is unprecedented in the last two centuries. By Friday, there were other consequences. The British government canceled a "working visit" where Trump was to ceremonially open an American embassy in London that had been scheduled for next month.

The "working visit" itself had been a compromise to avoid the massive protests that were expected if he were given the honor of a full state visit. (While a state visit was still on the table, Trump had been eagerly looking forward to it, specifically requesting a ceremonial carriage ride with the Queen.)

Meritocracy. In October, Trump declared a "public health emergency" on opioids--an act which freed up $57,000 to combat an epidemic of addiction which killed about 30,000 Americans in 2015. This is distinct from a declaration of a national emergency, which would have allowed the government to tap into the $13 billion FEMA budget.

On Wednesday, Trump appointed a "czar" to oversee the administration's efforts to combat the opioid epidemic: his former pollster and TV surrogate Kellyanne Conway.

What is so bad about these things?

• A president who can't control the impulse to make racial slurs at a ceremony honoring war heroes of that race is not mentally fit for office.

• Telling big lies in the hopes that people will believe you rather than their own ears is what authoritarians do.

• It's a problem if an American president is so toxic in our closest ally that he's blacklisted from even informal visiting.

• It's bad to appoint unqualified political operatives to manage a medical crisis.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He infuriated two allied governments, gave a boost to the movement behind the assassination of a British member of Parliament, and gave an al-Qaeda recruitment video unprecedented viewership--all in the same retweet.

The events of the day began between 6:30 and 6:50 A.M., when Trump's morning Twitter rant included three retweets of videos posted by one of the leaders of "Britain First," an ultra-nationalist movement at the fringes of British politics. Another of their followers murdered British MP Jo Cox last year over her stance on immigration policies. The videos depicted supposed atrocities committed by Muslims.

One video, titled "Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!", was immediately revealed to be a lie. The perpetrator was neither a Muslim nor a migrant to the Netherlands; he was a native-born Dutch citizen who was arrested and prosecuted as a minor. (The government of the Netherlands put out a statement pointedly reminding Trump, personally, that "facts do matter.")

Another was labeled "Islamist mob pushes a teenage boy off roof and beats him to death!" The action took place during what amounted to a civil war in Egypt between the military and supporters of the ousted Morsi government. The perpetrators were arrested and convicted for the killing.

The third was described as "Muslim Destroys a Statue of Virgin Mary!" This is accurate. It is also recruiting propaganda made by an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, which is now receiving worldwide attention thanks to Trump's amplification of it.

Trump almost certainly had no idea what he was retweeting, or what the consequences would be, or who Britain First is. As with all propaganda, its only purpose is to deceive by telling people fictional versions of what they want to hear, and Trump--who still claims to have witnessed firsthand nonexistent celebrations in the streets by New Jersey Muslims on September 11th, and may actually believe it at this point--is an astonishingly easy target for such things.

Confronted by reporters about the lies Trump had unknowingly retweeted, Sarah Huckabee Sanders would only say that the video of one non-Muslim Dutch native assaulting another brought attention to "threats" by Muslim migrants that are "real no matter how you look at it." 

What's the problem here?

• A president who is so careless that he accidentally directs worldwide attention to al-Qaeda propaganda is unfit for office.

• A president who first promotes the group behind the murder of an allied country's legislator, and then angrily pushes back when that country's government complains, is a disgrace.

• Using propaganda to dehumanize one group and frighten another is what authoritarians do.

• It's increasingly difficult to believe that Trump has any control over his impulses.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He was apparently convinced that property crimes going up in Britain were the result of "radical Islamic terror."

At 6:30 A.M. this morning, Trump tweeted, "Just out report: 'United Kingdom crime rises 13% annually amid spread of Radical Islamic terror.' Not good, we must keep America safe!" This is almost precisely the same wording used by One America News Network moments earlier. OANN is a satellite-only channel known for promoting conspiracy theories and as a favorite choice for friendly questions by Trump's press secretaries.

Crime is indeed up in England and Wales (though not the UK as a whole), according to statistics published yesterday that reflect a 13% increase in all crimes reported to the police. About 4.5 million crimes were recorded in the past year. These include everything from fraud to burglary to domestic violence. Virtually none of those millions of crimes had anything to do with terrorism.

British officials were not pleased by Trump's comments, which were not the first time he's suggested that British citizens needed to be more afraid. 

Why is this a problem?

• Trying to stoke fear and erode confidence in legitimate governments is the goal of terrorism.

• A president who copies actual "fake news" rather than get his information from the best law enforcement and intelligence services in the world is either incompetent or too lazy for the job.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He declared three days of prayer and remembrance for the anniversary of the September 11th attacks.

Trump's proclamation establishing September 8-10 as National Days of Prayer and Remembrance is in line with how presidents have typically commemorated the anniversary of 9/11, and its language is solemn and diplomatic. It describes the day of the attacks this way:

We pause to remember that tragic morning, when our homeland endured unprecedented attacks. As we watched smoke billow from the World Trade Center, we prayed for the safety of our fellow Americans, and we reached out to help, however we could.

In reality, though, this diverges from what Trump himself did on that day--and what he later claimed he did.

That day, Trump gave an interview with WWOR, a New Jersey TV station, in which he took time to mention that with the collapse of the World Trade Center towers, his building at 40 Wall Street was now the tallest building in New York. "40 Wall Street actually was the second-tallest building in downtown Manhattan, and it was actually, before the World Trade Center, was the tallest. And then, when they built the World Trade Center, it became known as the second-tallest. And now it’s the tallest." (It wasn't, although it was close.)

Fourteen years later, with his presidential campaign underway, Trump made a different sort of claim about September 11th, 2001: that he had seen "thousands" of Arab-Americans on TV, cheering the collapse of the towers. Trump had never mentioned this before, including in interviews he gave about 9/11 shortly after the day itself, and was unfazed by the fact that no such tape exists and nobody else remembers seeing it.

Why does this matter?

• A candidate who lies about his fellow Americans' loyalty in the wake of tragedy for political gain makes him unfit as president to commemorate that tragedy.

• Trump calling for days of "remembrance" when his own memory seems to follow what he thinks will get him votes is grotesque.

Sunday Week in Review

What else did Donald Trump do this week?

Ends climate change panel. Trump has been forced to disband a number of his advisory panels—or, in several cases, claim he retroactively disbanded them after they quit—in the wake of his ambivalent response to the white nationalist march on Charlottesville that ended in the murder of an anti-fascist protestor. But this week, he found a panel he could disband for different political reasons: his Advisory Committee for the Sustained National Climate Assessment. 

As with many issues, what Trump claims to believe on climate change varies with his audience and mood, but he's made abundantly clear what policy he intends to make with respect to it: none. The dismissal of the panel means that the forthcoming quadrennial National Climate Assessment—a draft of which was leaked by its authors for fear that the Trump administration would bury it—will not be translated into actionable policy items.

Trump has not been completely idle on environmental policy: just last week Trump rescinded an executive order issued by President Obama requiring the federal government to consider flood risks and mitigation strategies when making investments in flood-prone areas.

Condolences and well-wishes. Trump found himself pressed for reaction to two tragedies—the USS John S. McCain's collision with a merchant vessel and the impending Harvey disaster—in situations where he had not yet been given formal talking points or a teleprompter speech.

With respect to the accident that claimed the lives of ten US Navy personnel, he offered this: "That's too bad, too bad."

His reaction to Harvey's imminent landfall was somewhat more optimistic: "Good luck to everybody. Good luck."

Twitter bots. It was a relatively slow Twitter week for Trump, who only found time to tweet 57 times from his personal account. But in what seems to be a recurring pattern, one of them was a retweet of a bot account that had offered up gushing praise of him. Trump was so taken by @aroliso's assessment of his character—

Every single day the #FakeNews media try to take you down.. You never falter, you always stand strong!

— Aroliso (@Aroliso) August 21, 2017

—that he retweeted it within five minutes.

It's no secret that Trump is susceptible to flattery (and enraged by its absence), but @aroliso was a recently activated bot account, that was linked to another bot account (since erased), which in turn was linked to a custom-built piece of software used to interface with Twitter's API, which in turn referred in its source code to a defunct maker of pro-Trump movie parodies.

The good news for Trump is that nobody associated with these nested fake accounts seemed to have recently tweeted anything overtly genocidal or anti-semitic, which has been a problem for his retweets before. But given that Twitter bot-nets and (actual) fake-news propaganda are at the forefront of known Russian cyberwarfare operations, the frequency with which Trump is tricked into reading and amplifying fake Twitter accounts is troubling.

Friday news dump. Trump attempted to sweep three—or, arguably, four—major stories under the rug on Friday night when the nation's news appetite was largely taken up with reports from the Hurricane Harvey landfall. But because of the audacity of the dump (and the insightful analysis of frankly heroic websites), it had something of a Streisand effect.

As is increasingly the case, the chorus of people calling Trump out for what he was trying to hide prominently featured Republican voices.

Why are these bad things?

• Dismissing advisors because you're afraid you won't get the advice you want to hear is stupid.

• It doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in a president's ability to do his job if he can't muster up a vaguely appropriate response to obvious tragedies without help from aides.

• A president who can be manipulated this easily can be manipulated far too easily.

• There is a difference between political messaging strategy and cowardice.

What did Donald Trump do today?

A great deal--between about 7 and 9 p.m. on a Friday in August during a major natural disaster.

In the space of a few hours, the Trump White House made three announcements that, under normal circumstances, would each have dominated a day's news cycle. They were the pardon of Joe Arpaio for federal criminal contempt, the resignation or forcing out of the politically embarrassing aide Sebastian Gorka, and the implementation of Trump's spur-of-the-moment ban on military service by transgendered people.

It's not uncommon for politicians to wait until the end of the weekly news cycle to release sensitive news, but tonight is not merely a lull in the collective attention span. Nearly 8,000,000 Americans on the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana are in the path of the first major hurricane landfall in ten years, a Category 4 storm that is likely to cause massive or even catastrophic damage. 

The transgender service ban is very unpopular, and has earned Trump rare public pushback from active-duty military leaders. Trump is walking a very fine line with the white nationalists who are his strongest supporters, and has especially good reason to want to sweep the Arpaio and Gorka stories under the biggest possible rug, as the two are admired chiefly by white nationalists and Islamophobes.

Who cares?

• Presidents who are doing their jobs well don't generally need to resort to this kind of distraction from what they're doing.

• It's hard to know whether this is being done more out of cynicism or cowardice.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He tweeted out a racist fairy tale that, for all anyone knows, he may actually believe.

In response to terrorist vehicular murders in Barcelona (which, this time, he did not hesitate to label as such), Trump tweeted a racist urban legend about Gen. Pershing executing fifty Muslims in the US-occupied Philippines with bullets dipped in pig's blood. According to Trump, this so horrified potential Muslim attackers that they refrained from "radical Islamic terrorism" for 35 years. 

Trump, who justified his hesitation to offend torch-wielding neo-Nazis and Klansmen by saying that he always waits to get "the facts," is repeating a lie with no basis in fact. He didn't invent this myth, although he seems to embellish it every time he tells it. (Last time, it was only 25 years; in reality, neither pig blood nor any other substance had much effect on a conflict that had Muslims on both sides.)

Pershing was the military governor of the predominantly Muslim Moro Province of the Philippines. In reality, he tried to de-escalate the rebellion by avoiding civilian casualties and fostering civil society among non-rebelling populations. While the Moro people were almost all Muslims at the time of Pershing's governorship, they were not radicalized: they had been resisting rule by Western governments since Spain colonized the Philippines in the early 16th century. 

Why is this bad?

• The president of the United States of America should not be endorsing savagery and religious hatred, under any circumstances whatsoever.

• Mocking non-radicalized Muslims as superstitious cowards is a good way to radicalize them.

• If Trump is not dumb enough to actually believe this, then he must think his supporters are.

• Presidents who start the day talking about how important it is to learn from history is should probably learn some history.