“So the line is that I’m a dictator, but I stop crime. So a lot of people say, you know, ‘if that’s the case, I’d rather have a dictator.’” – President Trump [Scroll center column for more.]
FRIDAY 8/29/25
Trump Nixes Security for Harris – President Trump has cancelled former Vice President Kamala Harris’ security detail, an unnamed senior White House official has told USA Today. Former veeps typically receive six months of Secret Service detail after leaving office, but ex-President Biden extended Harris’ to a full year according to the report – it was scheduled to continue to January 20, 2026.
Other political enemies who have had their Secret Service detail cancelled by Trump include his former national security advisor, John Bolton, and the former president’s son, Hunter Biden.
“The Vice President is grateful to the United States Secret Service for their professionalism, dedication and unwavering commitment to safety,” Harris advisor Kirsten Allen told USA Today.
Harris is preparing for a 15-city tour for 107 Days, her book on the 2024 presidential campaign scheduled for release September 23.
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Cook’s Day in Court – A federal judge in Washington, D.C. hears Trump-besieged Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook’s request for a temporary restraining order today to prevent the president from firing her over allegations she fraudulently filled out a mortgage application a year before she joined the Fed in 2022. If the court grants Cook the restraining order, she can continue to serve while contesting President Trump’s attempt to fire her “for cause,” according to The New York Times.
If Trump is allowed to nominate a replacement he will gain a majority of his loyalists on the seven-member Fed board. Cook, whose term is set to run to January 31, 2038, also serves as a member of the Federal Open Market Committee, which holds its next meeting to set interest rates, September 16-17.
Cook has said she will not be bullied into resigning, the NYT notes. But it will be costly, as the Fed cannot defend her directly, for legal reasons.
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January 6 Whitewash, Cont.– The family of Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt, shot and killed while rioting on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, will be offered full military honors, a spokesperson for the Department of the Air Force said Thursday (per Politico). The Biden administration previously had denied her family the honors. –TL
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THURSDAY 8/28/25
Missiles Over Peace Negotiations – Russia launched a large-scale attack, one of its most devastating of the war so far, on Ukrainian cities late Wednesday/early Thursday, The Kyiv Independent reports. Ukraine intercepted 563 of 598 Russian drones and 26 of 31 Russian missiles launched overnight, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.
At least 18 were killed in Kyiv, at least 12 fatalities were reported in the Darnytski district, where a residential building was struck, and at least one fatality was reported in the Shevchenkivskyi district, according to Ukraine Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko. Another 38 people were reported injured in the attacks.
The European Envoy in Kyiv, Katarina Mathernova, described the attacks as “Moscow’s true answer to peace efforts.”
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CDC Director Out After a Month – White House spokesman Kush Desai told The New York Times in an email late Wednesday that Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez was “not aligned with the President’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again” and thus “the White House has terminated Monarez from her position at the CDC.”
Dr. Monarez, an infectious disease researcher, was sworn in as CDC director by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. just a month ago, but Kennedy has since tried to remove her following a “tense confrontation.”
Mark S. Zaid, an attorney for Monarez, responding after midnight Thursday, called the firing “legally deficient” because the president did not announce it. Desai did not respond to the NYT with a response to Zaid’s statement.
People “familiar with events” told NYT reporters that Monarez had clashed with Kennedy over his vaccine policy. Four other high-profile officials have quit the CDC en masse over vaccine policy and Kennedy’s leadership. –TL
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WEDNESDAY 8/27/25
Trump Cabinet Celebrates Labor Day – President Trump’s “crackdown on crime” and ongoing fight to fire Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook were key issues during his televised 3-hour, 17-minute cabinet meeting in an increasingly gilded cabinet meeting room Tuesday. Trump touted his takeover of Washington, D.C., where crime was “the worst it ever was.”
“And now, over the last 13 days, we’ve worked so hard, we’ve taken so many criminals, more than a thousand…” Trump said.
He took swipes at Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who has authority over whether the National Guard should be deployed in Chicago (where Trump wants to deploy troops next) and the president said Cook should not be on the Fed board of governors because of unproven allegations of “mortgage fraud.”
Cook continues to fight the firing, over which it appears the president does not have authority. If Trump can flip the seat, his appointees will have a majority of the seven-member board.
Trump also seeks to rebrand the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, now that it is the tax and spending law for the coming fiscal year.
“It’s a massive tax cut for the middle-class,” Trump said.
Most of the cabinet meeting was yet another praise-fest for President Trump, according to a New York Times analysis of the event. Each cabinet member took turns praising their leader and worked harder to out-praise each other.
“Each one of these people spoke. If I thought one of them did badly, I would call that person out,” Trump said.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gave an update of shrimp contaminated with radioactive material and accused South Asian nations of “dumping shrimp” on Walmart, thus providing fodder for Trump’s tariff policies.
Secretary of State/acting National Security Advisor/acting United States Agency for International Development (USAID)/acting archivist Marco Rubio said, “Personally, this is the most meaningful Labor Day of my life, as someone who has four jobs.”
“That’s true,” Trump replied.
Billionaire special envoy Steve Witkoff laid it on thick, complimenting Trump’s leadership in Israel’s war with Gaza, where the Israeli Defense Force this week shelled a hospital, killing 20 including five journalists.
“There’s only one thing I wish for,” Witkoff said. “That the Nobel committee finally gets its act together and realizes that you are the single finest candidate since the Nobel Peace, since this Nobel award was ever talked about.”
Witkoff called Trump the only person who could “solve” the Russia-Ukraine war, according to the NYT.
Was that too much even for Trump?
“I don’t know, you’ve told me that a few times,” the president replied. “Unless he was saying it just to build up my ego. But it’s not really. I have no ego when it comes to this stuff.”
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Greenland Again – Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen has summoned the US chargé ď affairs in Copenhagen to explain a media report describing a covert influencing operation in Greenland by American nationals connected to President Trump, Newsweek reports. Trump’s ongoing campaign to take Greenland for the US over military interests and mineral resources has been out of the spotlight in recent months.
“Any attempt at interference in the internal affairs of the kingdom [of Denmark] will, of course, be unacceptable,” Rasmussen told the Ritzau news agency. Newsweek reported it contacted the White House and US State Department for comment, outside normal business hours. --TL
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Fired Not Fired
TUESDAY 8/26/25
Trump Tries to Fire Fed Gov – Citing unproven allegations of “mortgage fraud” by his Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) director, President Trump says he has fired Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook (above) “immediately,” according to MPR’s Marketplace.
The Wall Street Journal Tuesday called the “firing” Trump’s “most dramatic step yet in his effort to take control of the independent central bank and its vast authority over interest rates.”
Biden administration appointee Cook late Monday rejected Trump’s social media announcement, saying the president does not have the authority to do so.
Cook attorney Abbe Lowell said Trump’s “demands lack any proper process, basis or legal authority,” the WSJ reports. “We will take whatever actions are needed to prevent his attempted legal action.”
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, himself under constant pressure from Trump to cut interest rates, indicated at the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank’s annual Jackson Hole Economic Policy Forum last Friday the central bank would likely do so when it next meets in September. An interest rate cut from the current 4.25%-4.5% would likely be the result of a weakening jobs market rather than eased inflation, which remains stubbornly north of the Fed’s 2% target.
FHFA Director Bill Pulte, grandson of the founder of the nation’s third-largest homebuilding group has accused Cook, without evidence, of claiming on mortgage applications that homes in both Michigan and Georgia are primary residences. Primary homes typically garner lower mortgage rates than second homes.
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No ‘Zelenskyy Moment’ for Lee – South Korean President Lee Jae Myung’s staff worried his White House visit Monday with President Trump “that we might face a ‘Zelenskyy moment,’” Politico reports, after Trump raised questions about South Korean democracy on social media earlier in the day.
That appears to refer to former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s sudden declaration of martial law last December. Yoon was quickly impeached and had his presidential powers removed, and in January was charged and incarcerated.
Trump may have noticed similarities between Yoon and former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who faces trial for attempting an alleged coup in January 2023 after losing a runoff in the 2022 presidential election to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Trump has imposed a 50% tariff on Brazilian goods, including coffee, due to Trump’s friendship with Bolsonaro, despite a US trade surplus with the country.
But President Lee prevented any such retribution Monday. He said the meeting turned out “beyond my expectations,” according to Politico. Lee said he thought he understood Trump because he has read The Art of the Deal, and indeed, the South Korean president showered the US president with praise going into the meeting.
After the meeting, there were few details beyond the verbal agreement Lee made with Trump in July for a 15% tariff rate, more than $350 billion in South Korean investments into the US and $100 billion in purchases of US-sourced energy.
Additional deals announced Monday include a $50 billion plan for Amazon to team up with South Korean companies to help launch small nuclear reactors with the online retail giant’s X-energy startup, and sale by Boeing and GE Aerospace of 103 Boeing aircraft to South Korea for $50 billion. –Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa