Saturday Afternoon Updates: Trump Makes Another Mystery Trip to Walter Reed While Siccing His DOJ on the Press — 7/11/26
Saturday afternoon news updates: an unscheduled cognitive test, missile threats, and subpoenas for reporters who dared to do their jobs
Hi all, Ben here. It’s Saturday. Let’s get into everything we’re tracking today.
Top stories we’re covering:
Trump gets another physical and another cognitive test at Walter Reed, as questions about his health keep piling up
Trump threatens to bomb Iran for a “one year period” if they try to assassinate him
The Trump DOJ subpoenas four New York Times reporters over their coverage of the Qatari Air Force One
A new plan would permanently fence off Pennsylvania Avenue outside the White House
The “Great American State Fair” got postponed again, on its own final day
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann downplays an ICE killing of a U.S. resident in Texas
Rep. Ro Khanna says he was detained by armed Israeli settlers in the West Bank
Marco Rubio threatens Cuba
FBI Director Kash Patel reportedly gets summoned to the White House and has to cancel a trip to see his girlfriend perform in Chicago
The bipartisan housing bill becomes law, despite Trump’s refusal to sign it
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Now let’s get into it.
Locked Down and Fuming
Donald Trump was holed up in the White House this morning before heading to his golf club, and by all accounts he is furious. The reporting suggests his anger stems from revelations about his Qatari-donated Air Force One, the $400 million luxury jet he’s been so proud of, and how it turned out not to be secure enough to fly him directly home from a NATO summit. He had to use the old plane instead. Embarrassing.
So what does a wounded strongman do when he’s humiliated? He doesn’t own it. He sends his Justice Department after the journalists who reported on it. Reporters Julian Barnes, Eric Lipton, Tyler Pager, and Eric Schmitt of the New York Times have all been hit with subpoenas, some delivered by federal agents right to their homes, according to the Times. The paper is calling it a brazen act, and if you ask me, that undersells it.
The Times’ top newsroom lawyer, David McCraw, put out a statement making clear how serious this is: federal agents showing up on a reporter’s doorstep should alarm anyone who believes in the Constitution and the free press it protects. He said the move is nothing more than an attempt to intimidate journalists and keep the public in the dark about how their government operates and their tax dollars get spent.
And this isn’t the only place we’re seeing this pattern. Remember the Reflecting Pool renovation, the no-bid contract Trump handed to a friend that ended up turning the water green with algae, exactly like experts warned it would? Instead of admitting the screwup, his administration had people arrested for showing up to see the mess in person. That’s the throughline here. Weak leaders don’t take responsibility. They find someone else to punish.
Governor Gavin Newsom, replying to MeidasTouch’s reporting, summed it up pretty well, listing off the pattern: deploying private police, seizing ballots, prosecuting political enemies, purging watchdogs, and now subpoenaing the free press. He noted there’s a word for all that.
Here’s the thing though. There’s more to this story that connects directly to why Trump is in such a paranoid, defensive crouch right now, and it has to do with missiles, a foreign government, and his own mental state. Stick with me.
