Week 44 — The Return

This week, Congress is back in session, and so is the Jeffrey Epstein files story. Congress was greeted upon their return by Epstein survivors, who called for the release of files and accountability. This has been the one story Trump has not been able to spin or control, and he found himself, his regime, and most Republicans contorting themselves to respond, especially after his entry to Epstein’s 50th birthday book, something Trump had denied existed and even sued over, was released by the Epstein estate.

A major theme this week is the Supreme Court siding with Trump, and, according to many lower court judges, therefore undermining the rule of law. As of this week, an astonishing three-quarters of lower court rulings have been reversed. Republicans in Congress too continue to almost completely abdicate their role to Trump and look the other way, including on his self dealing and corruption.

Notable this week is Trump’s pettiness shining through. I wrote more about it here, but as someone who has tracked this man daily for five years, I’ve noted that he cares immensely about being liked. Big parts of his agenda, despite abdication and assists from the Supreme Court and Republican eunuchs, are stalled or failing. When he feels unsuccessful or not in control, he strikes out, often in the most petty of ways.

As a final note, I would encourage you to read through all of this week’s broken norms. There’s a lot happening on a myriad of fronts! Because of the fragmentation and demise of much of our media, many of these stories are exclusive to one news outlet. One subscriber wrote to me, I subscribe to three publications and read them daily, but I still missed so much this week! Exactly. Take the time to keep up with what he is up to!

1. NBC News reported on interviews of a dozen judges appointed by Democrats and Republicans, including by Trump, who criticized the Supreme Court’s handling of Trump cases, with most worried about the practice of undermining the judiciary by overturning rulings.
2. As of Thursday, Trump has won 17 of the 22 cases brought to the Supreme Court, with 2 losses, 2 withdrawn, 1 pending, and 1 dismissed. Most often the decisions are given on the so-called shadow docket, with limited or no explanation for overturning the lower courts’ rulings.
3. WAPO reported the alumni association at West Point canceled a scheduled award ceremony for actor and veterans advocate Tom Hanks, who was to be honored as an “outstanding U.S. citizen,” citing vague reasons, but really in reaction to not being in political alignment with Trump.
4. Trump praised the cancellation of the Hanks ceremony, posting on Truth Social, “Important move!” and “We don’t need destructive, WOKE recipients getting our cherished American Awards!!!”
5. In an op-ed, University of Utah professor Paisley Rekdal said the U.S. Air Force Academy canceled her upcoming lecture, not because of the content, but because some of her comments on social media “were disparaging of the commander in chief.”
6. In a memo, the U.S. Tennis Association asked broadcasters to censor any protest or reaction in coverage of Trump attending the men’s finals at the U.S. Open. This was Trump’s first appearance at the Open since 2015, when he was first running for president, and was booed.
7. On Friday, days after CBS News was accused by Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem of selectively editing her “Face the Nation” interview to make her look bad, the network said it would no longer allow editing of its guests’ words on the Sunday morning show.
8. On Wednesday, American Bitcoin, a company founded by Eric Trump, made its stock debut, increasing the value of his stake by as much as $600 million, and raising conflict of interest concerns as the Trump regime continues to weakens regulations in the burgeoning crypto industry.
9. Bloomberg noted the Trump family had added $1.3 billion of wealth from two nascent crypto ventures in a span of weeks.
10. Trump announced on Friday that he will host the 2026 G-20 Summit at his Doral Resort, adding he might invite additional countries, and had already invited Poland. In 2020, Trump scrapped plans to host the G-7 at the Doral after widespread outcry and warning from legal experts.
11. On Wednesday, Trump claimed the power to order the U.S. military to summarily kill suspected drug smugglers, treating them as if they were wartime combatants, after a military airstrike on a vessel with Venezuelans that he claimed was carrying illegal narcotics.
12. The military use in this way was unprecedented, and raised questions of whether Trump has the authority to order the military to kill people suspected of drug smuggling, considering the fact that Congress had not authorized armed conflict against cartels.
13. Trump signed an executive order renaming the Defense Department as the Department of War, claiming it more accurately reflects the mission of the military. It was unclear if Trump had the authority for the name change. Previous rebrands have been passed by Congress.
14. The Department of War order was Trump’s 200th executive order, a milestone in just 228 days, and the most of any president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed 200 orders in 153 days. During the first regime, Trump signed 220 executive orders over his four year term.
15. On Wednesday, a federal judge blocked the Trump regime from cutting $2.2 billion in research funding from Harvard University, saying the regime had “used antisemitism as a smokescreen” to unlawfully block research funding.
16. On Thursday, Michael Schill, president of Northwestern University, resigned after months of intense scrutiny by the Trump regime, including cutting $790 million of research funding, and attacks by Republicans in Congress.
17. On Wednesday, memos released by the Food and Drug Administration revealed Dr. Vinay Prasad, the agency’s vaccine chief, overruled staff scientists who favored widespread access to Covid vaccines. The agency’s policy was the most restrictive to date for public access.
18. On Wednesday, Health and Human Services Sec. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said he planned to nominate seven new advisers to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which recommends which vaccines the public should take, and what insurance should cover.
19. On Wednesday, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo said at a press conference that the state would move to “end all vaccine mandates,” including for children in K-12 schools. Ladapo said of mandates, “Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery.”
20. Democratic governors in blue states like Massachusetts and New York issued orders to bypass the Trump regime’s Covid limits, making Covid vaccines available to residents who want the shot, and having insurance cover the cost.
21. On Thursday, at a highly contentious Senate Finance Committee hearing, Kennedy clashed with Democrats and Republicans. He touted false information on Covid vaccines, and inaccurately claimed that he was not taking away access, but acknowledged access “depends on the state.”
22. CDC Director Susan Monarez said in an op-ed that morning that she was fired after she would not sign off on vaccine recommendations without first seeing evidence. Asked by senators, Kennedy said he fired her because “I asked her, ‘Are you a trustworthy person?’ And she said no.’”
23. WSJ reported Kennedy plans to release a report suggesting Tylenol use in pregnancy is potentially linked to autism. Researchers have studied use of acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, for decades and found it to be the safest option for pain relief during pregnancy.
24. CBS News reported Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, a former top official at the National Institute of Health, said in a whistleblower complaint that she was removed by Kennedy after she and her colleagues tried to oppose efforts by Kennedy to cancel vaccine research and clinical trials.
25. On Wednesday, Trump responded to bipartisan efforts in Congress to release all Jeffrey Epstein files, calling the files “irrelevant,” and calling it “a Democrat hoax that never ends,” adding, “thousands of pages of documents have been given” to the public.
26. Right-wing Project Veritas released an undercover video of a DOJ employee on what he thought was a date, saying of the Epstein files, if they are released, they will be “very redacted,” and “They’ll redact every Republican or conservative…leave all the liberal Democratic people.”
27. On Friday, Trump posted about the Epstein files on Truth Social, claiming the DOJ had “done its job” and “given everything requested of them,” adding, “It’s time to end the Democrat Epstein Hoax.”
28. On Friday, the DOJ moved to block a request by NBC News to unseal the names of two Epstein associates, to whom he wired payments of $100,000 and $250,000 in 2018, days after the Miami Herald began publishing investigative stories about his 2008 Florida plea deal.
29. On Monday, lawyers for Epstein’s estate gave Congress a copy of the 2003 birthday book, which included a letter from Trump as described in a WSJ article. Trump had sued the Journal and its owners alleging defamation, claiming the letter was “nonexistent” and “a fake thing.”
30. Shortly after the release, the Trump regime said the letter was a fake, claiming that the signature was not Trump’s. Numerous media outlets were quick to pull out signatures that looked exactly the same as the one on the letter.
31. On Tuesday, pressed by reporters on the release of the birthday book, Trump declined to comment, saying, “I don’t comment on something that’s a dead issue. I gave all comments to the staff. It’s a dead issue.”
32. House Oversight Committee chair James Comer accused Democrats on his committee, who released the birthday book to the media, of “cherry-picking documents and politicizing information,” and when pressed on Trump’s letter, said only that he “is not accused of any wrongdoing.”
33. On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt indicated to reporters that the letter was a forgery, saying, “The President did not write this letter. He didn’t sign this letter.” She also said “I did not say the documents are a hoax,” but claimed it was a Democratic “hoax.”
34. Later Tuesday, Trump told reporters, “It’s not my signature; it’s not the way I speak.” Asked if he would meet with survivors, Trump said “I don’t know about — nobody suggested that. Certainly, I don’t like that whole situation,” adding “I haven’t, I haven’t even thought about that.”
35. On Monday, a federal appeals court upheld a $83 million judgement against Trump for defaming E. Jean Carroll, saying the judgement was warranted given “the ‘degree of reprehensibility’ of Mr. Trump’s conduct was remarkably high, perhaps unprecedented.”
36. On Thursday, Trump hosted chief executives of technology companies at the White House. Similar to Trump’s cabinet meetings, the CEOs took turns praising and thanking Trump. They also laid out vague plans for their companies to invest in the U.S. as part of Trump’s agenda.
37. The dinner was scheduled to take place in and launch the newly renovated Rose Garden, which the regime said was “the hottest place to be in Washington, or perhaps the world,” and involved adding a concrete patio over the iconic garden, but was moved inside due to rain.
38. Trump asked Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai about a federal judge’s ruling in his company’s favor, saying, “Do you want to talk about that big day you had yesterday?” to which Pichai said, “I’m glad it’s over,” and Trump added, “Biden was the one who prosecuted that lawsuit.”
39. On Friday, an hour ahead of the release of the monthly jobs report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Commerce Department Sec. Howard Lutnick told CNBC the report would be more accurate because Trump had fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer last month.
40. Roughly 30 minutes before the BLS report was released, the agency issued a highly unusual statement, saying, “Sorry, we are currently experiencing technical difficulties. All BLS data retrieval tools will be available as soon as we’ve resolved the problem.”
41. The BLS’s August jobs report showed the labor market had deteriorated markedly, adding just 22,000 jobs, well below the 75,000 expected, and downwardly revising June to a 13,000 job loss. The unemployment rate was the highest since 2021, and wage growth the lowest since 2021.
42. Shortly after, the Trump regime took the unusual step of sending White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett out to the media to assuage markets, telling CNBC the jobs report was “a little bit disappointing,” but adding, “I expect it’s going to revise up.” BLS is an independent agency.
43. The day prior, private company ADP also showed labor growth slowed in August, adding just 54,000 jobs. Increasingly Wall Street was paying attention to data from private companies like ADP. The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed the lowest reading since 2020.
44. Trump blamed Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and Democrats for the deteriorating labor market. Ironically a weakening labor markets would clear the path for interest rate cuts. A month prior, Trump had blamed the weak labor market on McEntarfer and fired her.
45. WSJ reported that the White House is preparing a report, written by the Council of Economic Advisers, that takes a critical look at the BLS, layout out alleged shortcomings of the agency’s job data and revisions. The report could be made public in the coming weeks.
46. NYT reported the Trump regime is quietly rescinding Biden-era rules, halting the Internal Revenue Service from crackdowns on lucrative tax shelters used by multinational corporations and wealthy individuals. The crackdown was projected to raise $100 billion over 10 years.
47. On Monday, the New York Fed’s monthly Survey of Consumer Expectations index, which measures worker confidence in finding a news job after losing a current one, came in at the lowest reading since the survey was started in 2013.
48. WAPO reported the number of Americans missing work for National Guard deployments or other military or civil duty reached a 19-year high, further disrupting the labor market.
49. At a Senate Banking Committee hearing, Stephen Miran, Trump’s nominee to replace Adriana Kugler as a Fed governor, claimed he could remain independent despite retaining his position at the White House while filling the remaining five months of Kugler’s term.
50. WSJ reported Trump’s DOJ opened a criminal probe against Fed governor Lisa Cook, into whether she submitted fraudulent information on mortgage applications, with investigators issuing subpoenas and using grand juries as part of the probe.
51. Reuters reported Mark and Julie Pulte, the father and stepmother of Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, filed claims as having primary residences in Michigan and Florida, similar to what Pulte accused Cook of doing.
52. On Tuesday, a federal judge ruled Cook could keep her Fed role for now, saying the firing violated the Federal Reserve Act, which limits the basis for firing a governor to their behavior while in office, and also ran afoul of her due process rights. The next Fed meeting is on September 16.
53. On Saturday, the United Nations postal agency said postal traffic to the U.S. sank by more than 80% after Trump ended the “de minimus” tariff exemption, saying, “The global network saw postal traffic to the U.S. come to a near-halt.”
54. NYT reported that signs are appearing around the country in MAGA red crediting Trump for projects financed by the Biden-era Infrastructure Reduction Act, even though Trump forcefully opposed the measure and said Republicans who voted for it would be voted out of Congress.
55. On Thursday, WAPO reported House Republicans are considering several bills that would give Trump more power over Washington, D.C., including measures to remove the elected AG and replace them with a Trump appointee, and measures to overhaul justice policies.
56. On Thursday, D.C. sued the Trump regime, challenging the deployment of National Guard troops from the city and several states, which it called a “military occupation” and an “illegal federal overreach,” and saying, “No American city should have the U.S. military…policing its streets.”
57. A D.C. federal magistrate judge, overseeing the flood of cases since Trump’s policing surge, said the Trump regime was trampling people’s rights by overcharging them with felonies, and moving slowly to dismiss the weakest cases while defendants remained in prison.
58. The judge demanded answers from U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, saying the Trump regime had touched off a “constitutional crisis,” saying officials were “playing cops and robbers” on the streets of D.C. while “the rule of law is being flushed down the toilet.”
59. On Saturday, thousands of demonstrators protested at the “We Are All D.C.” march, against Trump’s troop deployment, and called on him to end it. Some of their signs read, “Trump must go now,” “Free DC,” and “Resist Tyranny.”
60. On Sunday, AP reported law enforcement a dismantled peace vigil that had stood in Lafayette Park outside the White House for more than four decades. Officials justified the removal by mislabeling the memorial as a shelter.
61. On Monday, Trump claimed crime in D.C. had disappeared, and implied that domestic violence is not a real crime and shouldn’t be included, saying, “things that take place in the home they call crime,” and “If a man has a little fight with the wife, they say, ‘This was a crime, see.’”
62. On Friday, a federal appeals court ruled 2–1 to allow the state of Florida to operate “Alligator Alcatraz” as a immigrant detention center, lifting a lower court’s order blocking use of the facility. The two judges in the majority were Trump appointees.
63. On Friday, the Trump regime carried out its largest single-site immigration raid at a battery plant of South Korean car company Hyundai Motors in Georgia. Although the search warrant was for four Hispanic workers, 475 foreigners were arrested and detained.
64. Of the detainees, 300 of those arrested were South Korean nationals. South Korea protested the action publicly. Trump, who has ironically encouraged companies to manufacture in the U.S., baselessly claimed, “We had as I understand it a lot of illegal aliens.”
65. On Friday, a federal judge blocked the Trump regime from ending legal protections for 1.1 million Venezuelans and Haitians to stay and work in the U.S., granted by the Biden administration. The temporary protections would have ended on September 10.
66. On Saturday, ICE conducted raids in Boston and nearby communities, in what it dubbed “Patriot 2.0,” arresting dozens of people. The raids came as the DOJ sued the city and its mayor over its sanctuary policies.
67. On Saturday, Trump posted a meme on Truth Social evoking the Vietnam War, in which he did not serve, with a caption, “I love the smell of deportations in the morning,” adding Chicago was about to find out why he renamed the Defense Department the Department of War.
68. On Sunday, ICE launched what was dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz,” targeting immigrants in Chicago, as part of the regime’s focus on so-called sanctuary cities. An immigrant advocate said it signaled the beginning of ICE’s full escalation in the city and state.
69. The DOJ continued to threaten Kilmar Abrego Garcia with deportation, saying on Thursday that if he filed again to seek asylum, they would no longer be barred from deporting him to El Salvador. On Friday, the DOJ said they would deport him to the small African nation of Eswatini.
70. WSJ reported an order signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi will tighten rules for asylum for women fleeing domestic abuse, reversing a Biden-era policy that gave refuge from a range of threats back home. The order will also impact those fleeing gang violence and crime.
71. On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled 6–3 to lift restrictions imposed by a lower court on federal immigration officials that had ordered agents not to make indiscriminate stops based on factors like looking Latino, speaking Spanish, or working certain jobs. Trump’s 18th win of 23.
72. Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in her dissent, the ruling “all but declared that all Latinos, U.S. citizens or not, who work low wage jobs are fair game to be seized at any time, taken away from work and held until they provide proof of their legal status to the agents’ satisfaction.”
73. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass condemned the ruling as “an attack on every person in every city in this country,” adding that it was “not only dangerous — it’s un-American and threatens the fabric of personal freedom in the United States of America.”
74. Later Monday, Supreme Court Justice John Roberts ruled that Trump can fire Rebecca Slaughter, the Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission, “without cause,” for now, reversing a federal appeals court ruling, with no explanation given.
75. On Friday, a federal court of appeals upheld a lower court ruling, saying the Trump regime cannot unilaterally cut $4 billion of foreign aid, and must move to quickly spend the funds on projects authorized by Congress. Trump appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court on Monday.
76. On Tuesday, Justice Roberts temporarily paused the appeals court ruling, allowing Trump to block the $4 billion of foreign aid for now, ahead of the full court hearing the case. Roberts acted on his own, and did not give an explanation.
77. ABC News reported senior DOJ officials are considering a rule which could restrict transgender people from owning guns, following a deadly shooting at a Minneapolis church by a transgender woman. There was no evidence to suggest transgender people are more likely to be violent.
78. Department of Energy Sec. Chris Wright, a former fracking executive, defended the Trump regime’s decision to block a nearly completed $6.2 billion wind farm, adding climate change “is not incredibly important,” and calling the 2015 Paris agreement on greenhouse gases “silly,”
79. WSJ reported that oil executives, after donating tens of millions to Trump’s campaign, are seeing returns: Trump has opened more federal land to drilling, approved new terminals to export natural gas, and taken steps to hobble renewable energy and electric vehicle adoption.
80. On Wednesday, after a Russian drone was shot down in Poland, Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski said, “Putin laughs at President Trump’s peace efforts…Since Alaska, he has only intensified the war. I hope that [Trump] backs his words with action.”