Today in Politics, Bulletin 170. 7/14/25

… The WH held a prayer luncheon today run by Faith Director Paula White-Cain with Trump in attendance: “America's spiritual and moral foundations have been restored. Today's not just a luncheon. It is a moment of divine alignment. And we believe that God is raising up business leaders who don't separate faith from enterprise but who see their platforms as their businesses and instruments for eternal impact.”

… White-Cain then led the group in a prayer: “We thank you for our great president, President Trump, for his life, his courage, his clarity and unwavering defense of faith and freedom. May your wisdom guide him and your protection always surround him. He is our greatest champion of faith of any president that the United States of America has ever had.”

… Then it was Trump’s turn to address the pastors and faith leaders in attendance. Naturally, he rambled on and on about his grievances and used profanity: “I got indicted five times, impeached two times. All bullshit, right?”

… Trump then talked about the time he told an ugly billionaire friend with a beautiful young trophy wife that she was probably going to leave him if he didn’t get a big tax cut from Trump: “I said to one guy, he's a very, very unattractive man, but he's smart and he's rich and I said, you better hope we get this thing passed because your wife will be gone within about two minutes.”

… Trump met with NATO Sec Gen Rutte at the WH today and again invited the press in to make it an open meeting. Not clear if Rutte knew that was going to be the case as Trump has sandbagged many foreign leaders this way without notifying them ahead of time. He announced that the US would impose “secondary tariffs” of 100% on Russian imports if a peace deal is not reached in 50 days.

… The man who promised repeatedly to end the war in 24 hours is now giving Putin another 50 days before he decides to do anything. The “secondary tariffs” are apparently going to be imposed on any country that buys Russian oil, but as with all things Trump there were few specifics that came with the announcement.

… Trump: "We are very, very unhappy with Russia, and we're going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don't have a deal in 50 days. I am very disappointed with President Putin. I thought he was somebody that meant what he said. He'll talk so beautifully, then he'll bomb people at night. We don't like that."

… Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-RI): “How about zero days?”

… Russia was thrilled with the continued stalling by Trump. When the Trump WH said he was making a “big announcement about Russia” during Rutte’s visit, they expected something much worse. Instead, they are laughing. The Moscow Stock Exchange jumped 2700 points right after Trump made the announcement.

… Q - If Putin escalates further, how far are you willing to go in response if Putin were to escalate and send more bombs in coming days? TRUMP: “Don't ask me a question like that. They’re not Americans that are dying in it. I have a problem - and JD has a problem with it. It’s a stance that he’s had for a long time - they’re not Americans dying. We want to defend our country.”

… Q - Why are you giving Putin 50 more days? TRUMP: “I've just really been involved in this for not very long. It wasn't an initial focus. This is a Biden war. This is a Democrat war.”

… Fox political analyst Lisa Boothe: “I have concerns similar to what Rand Paul expressed. Is this war never ending with Russia and Ukraine? However, I think President Trump deserves our deference. He's always right. When is he been wrong about foreign policy?”

… State Dept Spokesperson Tammy Bruce on Trump’s new tariff threat to Russia: "Thanks to his famous transparency, he has on a number of occasions expressed his dismay regarding Putin and the nature of what goes on. He’s especially outraged at the bombings of civilians. I think it’s going to have an impact.”

… It will have zero impact. Except to make the Russian stock market go up.

… WSJ foreign policy editor Yaroslav Trofimov: “The math of the air war in Ukraine is simple. Yes, air defenses are needed but there will never be enough expensive Patriots etc. The only way to stop Putin from bombarding Ukrainian cities is by helping Ukraine strike deep inside Russia, against the Russian defense-industrial supply chain and its air and missile force installations. The balance of deterrence was established in the Black Sea, and it can also be established when it comes to long-range strikes.”

… Trump got a massive backlash on Truth Social to his post about Epstein on Sat night telling his cultists to just move on while preposterously trying to blame Obama for covering up everything. He received over 46,000 replies and over 90% of them were negative. I posted a substack this morning where I screen-shotted 14 replies that received the most likes from MAGA followers of Trump. You can check them out here to see what they said to him.

… Even though the MAGA base refused to move on as Trump demanded, Fox is apparently following the cult leader’s order. After talking about it constantly for days, they have shut down all mentions of Epstein after Trump’s edict. Media Matters’ Matthew Gertz: “Fox News live mentions today as of noon ET: Biden: 46 Epstein: ZERO.”

… Lara Trump told Benny Johnson on his podcast that Trump has heard the backlash from the MAGA base and thinks he will take action on it: "I think there needs to be more transparency on this, and I think that will happen. He hears all the noise and all the consternation out there so I think he wants to set things right. They hear it and understand it. There is no great plot to keep this information away. I think we're gonna get more transparency on it very soon."

… Dep FBI Dir Dan Bongino’s fake crisis-actor performance to take off from work on Friday and threaten to resign in order to shift MAGA criticism away from himself onto AG Pam Bondi is apparently coming to an end. CNN’s Kristen Holmes: “Dan Bongino did show up for work at the FBI today, two sources tell me. Earlier in the day, sources said that he was in a better headspace today than last week after his blow up with AG Bondi. His long term future is still uncertain.”

… Marge Greene’s boyfriend, Real America’s Voice correspondent Brian Glenn on Epstein: “MAGA is not over on this thing. It’s not going to go away. But I just don’t want MAGA to be the party of ‘Never Happy’. We’re never happy. I don’t want us to fall into this trap where no matter how good things are going, we’re focusing on what didn’t happen. I don’t want that to divide the party, but I certainly understand the frustration.”

… Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) was asked his take on CNN about the Epstein cover up: “Frankly, the fact that you're even covering Epstein is nonsense.” Host John Berman: “It's being covered because the deputy director of the FBI took work off on Friday to protest the DOJ's handling of this.”

… After Trump spoke with Charlie Kirk last night about the Epstein cover-up which has fractured his base, Kirk suddenly changed his tune about the whole thing on his podcast today: “I’m done talking about Epstein for the time being. I’m going to trust my friends in the administration on this.”

… Laura Loomer: “I don’t ever want to hear Charlie Kirk claim he is pro-Trump ever again. After this weekend, I’d say he has revealed himself as political opportunist and I have had a front row seat to witness the mental gymnastics these last 10 years. Lately, Charlie has decided to behave like a charlatan, claiming to be pro-Trump one day while he stabs Trump in the back the next.

… “Charlie hosted Dave Smith at TPUSA’s SAS conference. 3 weeks ago, Smith called for Trump to be IMPEACHED and REMOVED from office over his decision to blow up Iran’s nuclear facilities. Charlie played both sides of the Iran issue on his show as we all saw, because he wants to play to both sides of the aisle.”

… WaPo reported that ICE Director Todd Lyons issued a memo to immigration officials authorizing them to deport immigrants to third countries they aren’t from with as little as 6 hours’ notice and no guarantees that they will be safe from persecution or torture in that country. In cases where the receiving countries have not provided “diplomatic assurances” of safety, ICE is required to give the immigrant 24 hours’ notice. If a country has offered assurances deemed credible by the State Dept, deportation may proceed with no notice at all.

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If you missed yesterday’s Bulletin, you can find it here.

… WSJ: “For years, one of Indonesia’s most popular news channels hosted a weekly segment for the country’s Chinese diaspora that often featured reports in Mandarin from both the US-govt backed Voice of America and China’s state-run television. Now, since the Trump admin moved to dismantle most of the US Agency for Global Media in March, only the reports from Chinese state media show up.”

… “In his second term, Trump has blown up decades of US foreign-policy efforts, eliminating billions of dollars of foreign aid and influence programs, saying the money was being misused and would be better spent elsewhere. The official overseeing its retrenchment, Kari Lake, accused the agency at a hearing last month of being