Today in Politics, Bulletin 167. 7/8/25

… Trump held another insane Cabinet meeting today in front of the press where he and his most senior appointees took questions on a variety of topics, followed by a series of batshit crazy responses.

… A reporter attempted to ask AG Pam Bondi about the recent Epstein story, but as she was starting to answer Trump interrupted: "Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy has been talked about for years. Are people still talking about this creep? I can’t believe you’re asking a question about Epstein at a time like this where we're having some of the greatest success and also tragedy with what happened in Texas. It just seems like a desecration."

… Seems a bit defensive. Plus a few minutes later he was rambling about windmills and whether he should use gold leaf or gold paint on the moldings of the Cabinet room. More on that later.

… Trump fan Roseanne Barr posted right after: “Mr. President- Yes, we still care about Epstein. Is there a time to not care about child sex trafficking? Read the damn room.”

… Alex Jones put out a video where he was crying like Kyle Rittenhouse on the witness stand: “I’m going to go throw up, actually. I’m physically going to puke right now. Because I have integrity. I just really need the Trump admin to succeed and save this country and they’re doing so much good. But for them to do something like this - it tears my guts out.”

… Bondi was finally allowed to answer about Epstein’s death and served up this word salad: “The minute missing from the video. What we learned from the Bureau of Prisons, every night they redo that video. It's old from like 1999. Every night the video is reset. Every night should have the same minute missing. So we're looking for that video to release that as well showing that a minute is missing every night. That's it on Epstein.”

… While this was going on, Elon Musk posted: “Bannon is in the Epstein files.”

… Tucker Carlson said on his podcast: “The current Attorney General Pam Bondi is covering up crimes.”

… Jack Posobiec reacted on Bannon’s podcast: “Pam Bondi sounds just like Hillary Clinton right now.”

… The insanity was just getting started. Trump: “I asked Xi how many wind farms do you have? They don't have a lot. Very few. Wind is tremendously expensive and very ugly. If you want a house inside of a windmill, your house is worth than less half. And you hear noises.”

… Yes, he very clearly said house inside of a windmill. The market for windmill houses will apparently tank if we invest in clean, renewable energy. And China has an enormous amount of wind generated power and will dominate us in that area soon.

… Trump: “You look at California. They have blackouts and brownouts every week. They're totally out of control. They have a really incompetent governor.”

… That is also fiction.

… Trump: "The country had a Great Depression. And then after the depression, long after it started, they brought back tariffs to see if they could save it. But it took them really 25 years to get out of the Great Depression. A lot of people don't understand that."

… The Smoot-Hawley tariffs that Trump loves were long before the Great Depression and they only made it much worse. We started to come out the the depression with FDR’s New Deal, but the economy didn’t fully recover until WWII. The depression also lasted about a decade, not 25 years.

… Trump then started pointing at the ceiling: "The only question is will I gold leaf the corners? My cabinet could take a vote. You see the top line moldings. You can’t paint it. Because if you paint it, it won’t look good because they’ve never found a paint that looks like gold. So painting it is easy but it won’t look right. So the question is whether we should gold leaf it?”

… So much for the gravity of the moment as we talk about serious matters like Texas and the war in Ukraine.

… Trump: "We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth. He's very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless."

… So he’d admitting that he’s a rube who got played by Putin and is easily manipulated by foreign leaders who flatter him. More on that later.

… Q - Did you approve of the pause of weapons shipments to Ukraine? Trump: “We want to put defensive weapons in because Putin is not treating human beings right.” Q - So who ordered the pause? Trump: “I don't know. Why don't you tell me?”

… He knows. It was Putin-loving Undersecretary of Defense Elbridge Colby who was installed at the Pentagon as Hegseth’s minder. And it was approved by Hegseth. But apparently the American people aren’t allowed to have the information about which government official blocked Patriot batteries approved by Congress as the bombings continue to escalate daily.

… Trump: "We are going to send some more weapons to Ukraine. They have to be able to defend themselves. They are getting hit very hard now."

… Axios: “Trump has decided to transfer 10 Patriot interceptor missiles to Ukraine from 30 that were previously stuck in Poland due to the suspension of military aid. “

… Phillips O’Brien, Prof of Strategic Studies at St. Andrews Univ: “So Trump snatched 30 Patriot missiles away from Ukraine at the last minute--and is now agreeing to hand over 10. It’s a strategy of death by little cuts for Ukraine. It’s a derisory move, meant to appease pro-Ukraine voices in the GOP.”

… Q - Ukraine has asked the international court to go after Russia for using toxic chemical weapons. Can you comment? Trump then whispers to Pete Hegseth: “What do you know about this?” Hegseth whispers back: “John might know.” Trump to reporter: “Well, I'd ask John to discuss it.”

… John Ratcliffe the CIA director. And this is something that has been in the news, but Trump doesn’t get daily intelligence briefings like his predecessors so he apparently doesn’t know anything and doesn’t want to know anything. But he knows about gold foil on moldings.

… Trump also threw this out there: “We will be putting a tariff on copper at 50%.”

… EPA Secretary Lee Zeldin then put his knee pads on: “You know what? God bless America because of the end of the day President Trump is here, JD Vance is here, and the greatest Cabinet ever assembled to deliver that most much-needed and highly, highly demanded accountability.”

… CNBC: “The IRS in a new federal court filing says that churches can endorse political candidates without risking the loss of their tax-exempt status. The move upends a 70-year interpretation of the US tax code, whose Johnson Amendment has barred non-profit groups, including churches, from endorsing political candidates without putting their tax-exempt status in jeopardy.”

… Other tax-exempt organizations will still not be permitted to endorse candidates. But churches will.

… TACO Trump was asked last night if his latest, most recent tariff deadline of August 1 in his various letters to countries is 100% firm this time or is it subject to change: “No, I would say firm, but not 100% firm.”

… After getting ridiculed again on social media for waffling on that statement, Trump posted on Truth Social: “As per letters sent to various countries yesterday, in addition to letters that will be sent today, tomorrow, and for the next short period of time, TARIFFS WILL START BEING PAID ON AUGUST 1, 2025. There has been no change to this date, and there will be no change. In other words, all money will be due and payable starting AUGUST 1, 2025 - No extensions will be granted. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

… Atlantic columnist James Surowiecki: “The US has a free-trade agreement with S. Korea ratified by Congress, under which Korea has almost no tariffs or other trade barriers on US goods. Trump is arbitrarily, and unconstitutionally, overriding that deal and imposing a 25% tax on all imports from Korea, on a whim. And while it's a trivial point, the fact that Trump's letter to S. Korea's president announcing the new tariff rate reads like it was written by a 14-year-old boy is also just embarrassing.”

… AG Sec Brooke Rollins was asked about a report that has MAGA furious that Trump may halt deportations of migrants who are farm workers: "The president has been unequivocal that there will be no amnesty. But we must be strategic in how we are implementing the mass deportations so as not to compromise our food supply."

… So this is a game of semantics. MAGA hears “amnesty” and they get pissed. So they are going to give them work visas most likely.

… Rep. Eric Burleson (R-MO): “‘Strategic deportations’ sounds like amnesty lite for certain industries. If you broke the law to get here, you must leave. Deport them all.”

Reminder there is no Bulletin tomorrow because I do my live show Uncovered at 4 ET where we take a deep dive into the Top 10 stories of the week. I will post the link to it here tomorrow. You can also submit a question in the replies below for my ‘Ask the Editor’ show with Ben which we do tomorrow after Uncovered.

If you missed my last Bulletin, you can find it here.

… Rollins continued: "Ultimately the answer on this is automation. There are 34 million able bodied adults in our Medicaid program. There are plenty of workers in America,