Magical Mystery Tour 😱✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️😱  

Cabinet Chronicles:  Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is living up to expectations and not in a good way, and the make-up studio that CBS reports he had outfitted at the Pentagon for his various media appearances, that’s just the tip of the eyeliner brush. The Wall Street Journal which has been doing a bang up drop reporting on Hegseth, has detailed the events surrounding the classified briefing on China that Hegseth had planned to provide Elon Musk until he was forced to downgrade it to a secret-free show and tell. Hegseth was so infuriated that reports of his planned tete-a-tete with Musk made it to the press and to Trump who despite his own willingness to share secrets with Putin, wasn’t okay with Hegseth sharing secret China war plans with Musk.  Hegseth’s reaction to the leaking of his planned Musk meeting was to go nuts on the Generals and Admirals who he believed, without proof, were responsible.  He even threatened to force a few of them to take polygraph tests. The WSJ’s report followed an AP article that revealed that Hegseth had an unsecured personal computer set up in his office with the Signal messaging app so that he could more easily chat with his friends and family.  He used the personal computer when he shared detailed Houthi bombing raid plans with his wife, brother, personal lawyer, and a few of his other unvetted bros and buddies.  To date, five of Hegseth’s close aides, including his chief of staff, have been forced out.  Various media outlets report that chaos reigns at the Pentagon, which together with the unsecured computer is good news for Russia, China, and any other US adversaries and even a few allies with good hacking skills but not good for the country.  The official White House position is that Trump continues to have full confidence in Hegseth but behind the scenes, not so much. Word is that Hegseth still has his job because Trump doesn’t want to publicly acknowledge how much he screwed up by appointing him in the first place.  In other cabinet news, Axios reports that the fight between Musk and Treasury Secretary Bessent over whose choice should serve as acting director of the IRS was so heated that it involved a chest to chest, expletive laden shouting match in “earshot” of Trump and a number of other White House officials, presumably one or more of whom were the source for the Axios article  Though the argument between the merely very rich Bessent and the world’s richest man Musk didn’t involve fists, it came close. Despite Musk’s way larger pocketbook, Bessent’s came out on top. Then there’s Secretary of State little Marco he’s so anxious to please Trump and his oil industry contributors that yesterday he notified the members of State’s Office of Global Change, the group that oversees, or until yesterday oversaw, international climate change negotiations for the US, that the office is being shuttered, apparently because climate change doesn’t exist if you ignore it?  Ironically, one person who is now experiencing firsthand the impact of extreme weather is former Press Secretary, now Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders.  Her request for federal aid to help with Arkansas’ recovery efforts from the string of deadly and destructive tornados that hit her state in March has been turned down by Trump because, again, climate change isn’t real and if anyone should know that it’s Sarah because didn’t she say as much when she was running Trump 1.0’s messaging? It’s not just Arkansas; Trump has also cut off hurricane relief assistance to North Carolina where Republican Senator Thom Tillis, who despite his reservations provided one of the crucial votes for Hegseth’s confirmation, faces a tough reelection battle in 2026.

Fog of War:  Trump hates all things Ukraine and loves all things Russia. Ukraine has been the thorn in his side since Trump 1.0 and for whatever reason, be it the “pee tape” rumors or just the fact that Putin is rich and powerful, he loves and wants to be like him. Trump promised to end the Russia-Ukraine war on day one of Trump 2.0, perhaps thinking that he could so with the stroke of one of his ever-present sharpies but ending wars isn’t easy and neither Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy nor Russia’s Vladimir Putin are making it easy for him.  Early this week Trump and his complicit Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that it was time for Ukraine who Trump continues to insist started the war to cede Crimea to Russia without asking Russia to make any meaningful concessions.  He also blamed Zelenskyy for the continuation of the war.  Then Putin did what he frequently does, he showed Trump up by mercilessly attacking residential areas in Kyiv, killing twelve and injuring 100 more. The “dismayed” Trump responded to Putin’s bombing raid by posting the following Truth Social post: Vladimir, STOP! I am not happy with the Russian strikes on KYIV. Not necessary, and very bad timing," adding “5000 soldiers a week are dying. Lets get the Peace Deal DONE!"  I guess his magic sharpie wasn’t available. Peace remains elusive.

Legalities:  The Trump administration continues to face pushback from the courts and also from some of its own attorneys.  Yesterday, due to an “accidental” posting out of Southern District of New York, we learned that the DOJ knows and has advised the Department of Transportation that its push to undo New York’s congestion pricing is based on a weak, unlikely to prevail argument.  DOJ’s reaction to that reveal was to replace the lawyers working on the case.  They still plan to proceed with their suit but will be using more compliant lawyers to do so.  We also learned yesterday after a federal judge ordered his return that there’s another, or probably just another that we know of,  illegally deported Venezuelan migrant stuck in CECOT, the El Salvador gulag. There’s also news on the Kilmar Abrego Garcia front, both sides in the case have agreed to a one-week freeze of legal actions, an indication that the government might actually be bringing him home, or at the very least springing him from the gulag. The courts have also pushed back against some of the Trump administration’s DEI efforts and Trump’s order requiring that voters show proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections. That last requirement is Trump’s effort to disenfranchise voters under the guise of preventing aliens from voting, even though virtually no aliens, ETs or otherwise, vote.                

More: Bill Owens, 60 Minutes long time producer, resigned this week, another victim of Trump’s effective campaign against the media.  Citing his age, 80-year-old Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, the second ranking Democrat in the Senate, announced that he won’t be running for reelection in 2026.  Similarly, Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, also 80, told colleagues that she plans to retire rather than seek reelection.  Schakowsky, a progressive Democrat, was likely going to be primaried, not over her positions, but because of her age.  Lastly, Trump has invited the top 220 buyers of $TRUMP, his meme coin, also known as his latest grift, to a private gala dinner at Trump National Golf Club in Washington DC.  The top 25 holders will get “an ultra-exclusive” private VIP reception with him as well as a “Special Tour.” What else is there to say?

#BringThemAllHomeNow