Today in Politics, Bulletin 214. 9/25/25

… After putting farmers out of business with his tariffs, Trump announced that he is going to bail them out with more govt welfare: “We’re gonna take some of that tariff money that we’ve made, we’re gonna give it to our farmers who for a little while are going to be hurt until the tariffs kick in to their benefit.”

… But the tariff money is in the US Treasury. Trump can’t take any of it and give it to anyone - it isn’t in a Trump Tariff Slush Fund to dole out. He has to go to Congress and have them do another farm bailout bill like he did in his first term the last time he did this to them. Which means American taxpayers will be asked to pay farmers since they are unable to sell their products to China. The Golden Age of Trumpnomics.

… Mike Pence’s former Chief of Staff Marc Short: “American farmers don’t want handouts and bailouts. They want a reliable trade agenda that allows them to export crops to the world.”

… Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA): “Farmers VERY upset about Argentina selling soybeans to China right after USA bailout. There are still ZERO USA soybeans sold to China. Meanwhile, China is still hitting the US with a 20% retaliatory tariff. WE NEED A CHINA TRADE DEAL NOW. Farmers need markets to boost the farm economy.”

… Agriculture.com: “The US soybean harvest began in Sept without any orders from the world’s largest buyer: China. American producers are harvesting a crop the USDA estimates at 4.3 billion bushels, and there is no indication of when shipments to China will resume. In a typical year, China buys more than half of all US soybean exports. Meanwhile, Brazil set a record for shipments to China from Jan-Aug.”

… Grassley later posted: “Why would USA help bail out Argentina while they take American soybean producers’ biggest market??? We should use leverage at every turn to help hurting farm economy. Family farmers should be top of mind in negotiations by representatives of USA.”

… So we are bailing out Argentina while Argentina’s farmers sell soybeans to China in the place of American farmers which is putting them out of business, so now we also have to bail out American farmers while Argentinian farmers make bank. Makes sense.

… Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins: “Soybean, corn, wheat, sorghum, cotton farmers are facing very difficult times. We are currently in conversations here at the WH, across the govt, on a farmer aid package.”

… ONE WOULD THINK since these are overwhelmingly Trump voters in red states that this is the sort of thing that would give Democrats in Congress some negotiating leverage on other priorities. I guess we will see how that goes.

… High Plains Public Radio: “Kansas farmers are hurting after China’s retaliatory tariffs on the US closed a major market for the state’s biggest crop. Despite a productive year, farmers across KS may not break even. Farm fields across KS are turning amber as sorghum crops come to full maturity. The state’s farmers are expecting a bountiful harvest this year thanks to more rain than recent years. But that’s also coming at the same time the sorghum market is drying up thanks to US tariffs on China. That means KS farmers are losing out.”

… “Historically, KS is known as the wheat state. But in more recent years, it’s become the king of sorghum. The grain grows really well in KS. It’s also versatile like corn and can be used for livestock feed and biofuel production. In Scott City, Amy France and her husband have been growing sorghum for decades. Even one of their children started farming nearby. She said their crop was gorgeous this year:

… “It was the best crop we’ve had in years. We’re expecting a 23% larger crop this year, which is absolutely a blessing. China has been our number one export market. With that being gone at the moment, it is difficult, leaving our producers without our single most critical outlet.”

… “Trump’s trade war with China resulted in the sorghum price plummeting, leaving KS farmers unable to benefit from their productive crops. In 2022, the price for grain was $12.30 per hundredweight, which would be a little over $6 per bushel. For an average KS farmer, that would be about $400 per acre. But now the price is hovering around $3 per bushel, or about $200 per acre.”

… “Sorghum producers rely on the international market. The crop does not have a robust domestic market because most ethanol plants and feedyards prefer corn. Over half of the state’s sorghum is exported, mostly to be used as animal feed or as an ingredient in a popular alcoholic drink in China. Earlier this year, the US imposed new tariffs on China. In retaliation, China enacted its own new tariffs on American imports. That’s led to buyers there purchasing little to no sorghum from US farmers since April.”

… Citadel CEO Ken Griffin to CNBC: “Is that our country, that we’re going to favor the big and the connected? That’s not the American story. When the state becomes involved in picking winners and losers, there’s only one way this game ends: All of us lose. I spoke about my concerns with the crony capitalism if we went down the path of tariffs. The line outside the WH of every business arguing why they should be exempt from paying tariffs on what they import into their products is nauseating.”

… Which is EXACTLY why Congress has exclusive constitutional authority to impose tariffs. But Trump wants to be an autocrat, and unilateral tariff authority forces CEOs to come to him begging. Then he can extort what he wants from them personally.

… I posted this on Feb 1, 2025. BEFORE any tariffs were imposed.

… Forbes: “Trump’s $100,000 H1-B fee is a ‘blessing in disguise’ for European AI startups that need more senior level talent, founders say. The ‘human tariff’ will likely impact early stage US startups that use equity for compensation. One EU tech CEO: “We almost say thank you to Trump, in a way. He’s really helping us keep our talent.”

… Executive recruiter for casinos Mark Wayman: “Never seen so many ‘OpenToWork’ signs on LinkedIn. MGM, Caesars, IGT. Toughest job market I have seen...ever. Even worse than Depression 2.0 in 2008. Have a rainy day fund (6-12 months of living expenses), stay in touch with your professional network (85% of job referrals come from your network), keep your resume updated, and an Executive Recruiter on speed dial.”

… When Trump made the remarks about bailing out farmers, he was meeting with Turkish President Erdogan. As he was doing his daily rant about the 2020 election being stolen, he pointed at Erdogan and said this: “It was a rigged election. He knows about rigged elections better than anybody.”

… Trump isn’t right about everything like he claimed in his speech to the UN, but he is occasionally right about a few things. Maybe he didn’t realize Erdogan was still in the room.

… Trump then started ranting about the shooting at the ICE facility in Texas: “Bad things happen when they play these games. I’ll give you a little clue, the right is a lot tougher than the left. And they better not get them energized because it won’t be good for the left.”

… House Homeland Security Democrats responded: “The President is sick and deranged — openly threatening political violence and thinking it’s all some kind of game. How can anyone defend this?”

… Trump: “I’m very disappointed in Putin. With all of the heavy bombardment over the last two weeks, they have gained almost no land. I’m not going to ever call anybody a paper tiger but Russia has spent millions and millions of dollars in bombs, missiles, ammunition and lives. Their lives. And they’ve gained virtually no land. I think it’s time to stop, I really do.”

… Just a few months ago, Trump and Vance were yelling at Zelensky in the Oval Office that he “didn’t have the cards” to stand up to Putin. Now apparently Putin doesn’t have the cards.

… Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT): “Trump’s Ukraine policy is just who was in the room last. What he said here in NY was helpful and positive for Ukraine, but next week he’ll be attacking Zelensky as a corrupt dictator. The real bottom line is that he hasn’t actually done anything to help Ukraine.”

… Polish PM Donald Tusk: “President Trump stated that Ukraine, with the support of the EU, could reclaim its entire territory. Behind this surprising optimism lies a promise of reduced US involvement and a shift of responsibility for ending the war to Europe. Better truth than illusions.”

… Financial Times’ Christopher Miller: “It seems Poland’s prime minister views Trump’s latest Ukraine remarks the same as many other European officials and Ukrainians.”

… CNN: “US deployed four F-16 fighter jets, a surveillance aircraft, and four tankers to intercept Russian bombers and fighter jets that flew into Alaska’s air defense identification zone, the North American Aerospace Defense Command says. There have been at least 9 such instances this year.”

… This follows recent Russian airspace violations in Poland, Norway, Denmark, Lithuania, Latvia, Finland, and Romania.

… WaPo: “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered hundreds of the US military’s generals and admirals to gather on short notice - and without a stated reason - at a Marine Corps base in VA next week, sowing confusion and alarm in the ranks. The highly unusual directive was sent to virtually all of the military’s top commanders worldwide. The directive was issued earlier this week.”

… A senior Pentagon correspondent told WaPo: “I have never seen anything like this in my 30 years of reporting on the US military. We may be on the brink of war.”

… Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested that the US would not honor the NATO charter: “As I told my European counterparts about two weeks ago, ‘All I hear from you is that Putin wants to march into Warsaw. The one thing I’m sure of is that Putin isn’t marching into Boston.’”

… Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE): “This is how we talked in the 1930s and we learned it did not work. We are in NATO for very good reasons.”

… WSJ: “Every living former Fed chair (Greenspan, Bernanke, Yellen) have joined several former Treasury secretaries (Rubin, Summers, Paulson, Geithner, Lew) and CEA chairs (Hubbard, Mankiw, Romer, Furman, Rouse, Bernstein) who served presidents of both parties, in an amicus brief to the Supreme Court warning a ruling against Lisa Cook’s ability to stay in her job would significantly erode Fed independence.”

… Trump posted this on Truth Social: “A REAL DISGRACE took place at the UN - Not one, not two, but three very sinister events! First, the escalator going up to the Main Speaking Floor came to a screeching halt. It stopped on a dime. It’s amazing that Melania and I didn’t fall forward onto the sharp edges of these steel steps, face first. It was only that we were each holding the handrail tightly or, it would have been a disaster. This was absolutely sabotage. The people that did it should be arrested!”

… Fox host Maria Bartiromo: “The escalator stopped as soon as he and the first lady stepped on it. Look at how great Melania was. She’s unphased. She walks on it - but this could’ve been a massive, massive issue. The president being frozen there in one place makes him vulnerable.”

… Bartiromo’s guest Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL): “Thankfully the first lady and the president had their hands on the rails that were going up the escalator, or they likely would’ve fallen down and injured themselves. It seems to be intentional. I don’t know why we’re still part of the UN.”

… Marlene Robertson: “The most hilarious part of the non-working escalator is that Trump didn’t have a clue what to do until Melania started walking up the stairs. He’s that fucking stupid.”

… Laura Loomer: “President Trump and the First Lady visited the hostile UN, a globalist and anti-American organization. During their visit, a dangerous incident occurred when the escalator they were on abruptly stopped just as the First Lady stepped onto it, nearly causing a catastrophic injury. The escalator appears to have been stopped remotely from a control room. This alarming act by the UN, perceived as hostile to American interests, could have had graver consequences resulting in severe bodily injury or death to both the First Lady and the President.”

… “A fall on an escalator could have resulted in both POTUS and our beautiful First Lady tripping and face planting into metal stairs, which could cause a lethal brain bleed, broken teeth, a broken nose, a head injury, or broken body parts. Fortunately, the First Lady and President Trump are in excellent physical condition, and they were able to withstand this hostile, pre-planned attack and deliberate effort to physically harm and embarrass them in front of the entire world.”

… “This was clearly an effort to prevent President Trump from delivering his remarkable speech at UNGA. The individual(s) responsible for this deliberate and sinister act, tantamount to an attempted assassination of the First Lady and the President of the US, must be identified immediately and face severe consequences!”

… CNN: “Top congressional Republicans and WH allies are working behind the scenes to prevent a politically charged floor vote to release the govt’s Jeffrey Epstein case files next month. The intensifying effort to halt that floor vote comes as Reps. Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna declared on Wed they have the 218 votes needed to compel one when Congress returns.”

… “That final signature on their petition to force the vote will come from Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, who won a special election in AZ Tues night, once she is formally sworn in. Some of the GOP lawmakers who have signed on are privately being pressured to withdraw their name from the petition, which would prevent a vote from taking place.”

… Massie: “The House leaders and some of the powers that be in DC are in full panic mode right now.”

… WSJ did a story about how Trump was surprised that Epstein blew up on him several months ago: “Trump, who had socialized with Epstein in NY and FL and has said he fell out with him before his first arrest in 2006, told aides he couldn’t understand why people were so obsessed with the deceased financier and sex offender. “People don’t understand that Palm Beach in the 90s was a different time,” he groused.

… “He called influential allies. Why is everyone so fixated on the issue? He wanted to know. What would make it die down? Trump was used to having absolute control over his base. The Epstein issue was an anomaly: a negative story on which many of his supporters didn’t seem inclined to follow his lead. WH officials said they underestimated how sticky the issue would prove to be, believing it would blow over and people would move on. Instead, it spurred WH Situation Room meetings and months of strategizing by senior admin officials.”

… “Trump has told aides he was worried some of his friends might be mentioned in the files, and has complained that people should be talking about the admin’s wins, not about Epstein. At other times, he worried aloud that the files might have been doctored to hurt him.”

… When Trump was told the WSJ was about to publish the story about his birthday letter to Epstein, he told aides he was going to call Rupert Murdoch and “kill the story.” He didn’t, and Trump later sued.

… As backlash mounted to DOJ’s announcement that it was dropping the Epstein matter, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles convened a series of meetings in the Situation Room to chart an Epstein strategy. Vance, Bondi and Patel and others were invited. Vance led the push for more disclosure. Wiles and others argued that they would never be able to pacify the most rabid Epstein conspiracy theorists.”

… Repulsive, reprehensible Ryan Walters on Fox: “I’m excited to announce I will be stepping down as Oklahoma state superintendent and taking on the roll as the CEO of the Teacher Freedom Alliance. We’re going to destroy the teachers unions. We will build an army of teachers to defeat the teachers unions.”

… Just two days ago, Walters announced that he was going to require every public school in OK to start a TPUSA chapter in honor of Charlie Kirk. Then he abruptly quit. Not sure what happens to all those Trump bibles he bought with taxpayer money to put in the classrooms.

… MSNBC: “Prosecutors in the EDVA US attorney‘s office presented newly sworn US attorney Lindsey Halligan with a memo explaining why charges should not be brought against James Comey, because there isn’t enough evidence to establish probable cause a crime was committed, let alone enough to convince a jury to convict him. DOJ guidelines say a case should not be brought unless prosecutors believe it’s more likely than not that they can win a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt.”

… Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN): “The American people have realized that things President Trump said were happening to him were actually taking place. Those that did this need to be held responsible, and it’s important that this go to the grand jury and they send something back. I hope they send it today. I think it would be appropriate to see an indictment.”

… Rep. Greg Steube, a member of the Weaponization of Government subcommittee, on James Comey: “In my opinion he should be charged with treason.”

… Lawfare: “So let’s try to play Halligan’s hand out for a moment—a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure: Lindsey Halligan Edition,’ if you will. You, the reader, play the role of Halligan. At least as regards Comey, you don’t have a lot of time. The key statute of limitation runs out in 6 days; after that, any case gets exponentially harder. So you have a brief window in which to decide whether or not you really want to pursue this.”

… “If you don’t go forward, off with your head. Remember how you got this job, after all. But you know that both cases are weak. How do you know this? Again, remember how you got this job. Your Trumpist US attorney predecessor was willing to lose his job, rather than bring these. So you know you’re playing with a bad hand, but you move forward anyway because you have no choice.”

… “Assuming you decide to move forward with the Comey case—you face an immediate problem: What should you charge him with? This isn’t normally a problem prosecutors face, as they start with a crime, then figure out whodunnit, rather than starting with a person and only then deciding whathedun. But Trump wants Comey charged and is convinced he’s guilty of something, and it’s your job now to figure out what.”

… “In short, whatever way you play Halligan’s hand, you lose. You lose by bringing a conspiracy case. You lose by bringing a false statements case involving the conduct of the investigation. You lose by bringing a false statements case involving supposed leaks. You lose by not bringing any case. You lose by going after Letitia James. And you lose by going after James Comey. The only question is whether you lose at the hands of a grand jury, a federal judge, or the president who just finished praising you on social media.”

… CNN: “AG Pam Bondi and other fed prosecutors have concerns about the case against Comey, though an indictment could come as soon as Thurs. Bondi is facing pressure from Trump, who is demanding his political enemies face criminal charges as he once did. The case focuses on whether Comey made false statements during congressional testimony involving the 2016 investigation into Russian interference in the US presidential election.”

… “Some inside the WH view Halligan’s willingness to bring the case as her jumping on a grenade to please Trump – though that is why she was picked to take on the role of leading the Eastern District of Virginia.”

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… NYT: “A senior DOJ official has instructed more than a half dozen US attorney’s offices to draft plans to investigate a group funded by George Soros, the billionaire Democratic donor whom Trump has demanded be thrown in jail. The move is the