Today in Politics, Bulletin 245. 11/7/25

… Trump FINALLY got confronted today by the FACT that the Walmart Thanksgiving dinner he keeps citing to prove prices are down is only because his comparison from last year contained FEWER items, of less quantity, with more inexpensive brands. He called the NBC reporter who asked him about it “fake news” and refused to call on her again.

… The press conference today was with his favorite European leader, autocrat and Putin pal Viktor Orban. First Trump repeated the lie: “If you look at affordability, which they campaigned on, they lied. Because they talked about, oh, prices are up. No, no, prices are down under the Trump Admin. And they are down substantially.”

… Reporter: “Since you brought up the Walmart Thanksgiving meal, it also contains less … Trump interrupts: I haven’t heard that. Who are you with? Reporter: NBC. Trump: Fake news, you are fake news. NBC is really gone down the tubes.”

… Trump then asked for Karoline Leavitt to come in to scold the reporters for him since he was getting upset: “Karoline, would you discuss that question that was asked and how it was asked in such a fake disgusting manner by the fake news?”

… Leavitt: “So affordability is what the American people elected this president to do. And he is doing it and you guys refuse to cover it.”

… Trump: “You know why they refuse to cover it, because they’re fake news.”

… Orban: “Can I get her for us?”

… Trump: “Karoline, the prime minister would like you to work for him in Hungary. That’s a very good decision you just made. Please don’t leave us, Karoline.”

… Matthew Gertz with Media Matters: “Trump is being embarrassed in front of his friend, who successfully cudgeled his country’s press into line by forcing the sale of outlets to his allies, a strategy that Trump is now trying to replicate to eliminate dissent in this country.”

… Trump: “Our energy costs are way down. Our groceries are way down. Everything is way down. And the press does not report it. Thanksgiving meals 25% down. So I don’t want to hear about the affordability!”

… Even Fox today admitted that prices are up on so many things because of Trump’s tariffs, running an entire segment on it. It’s tough to fool people about how much things cost because they know damn well how much they are paying. But Trump seems convinced that if he lies enough they will believe him over their empty bank accounts.

… Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) on CNN: “These tariffs have been one of the many reasons that our lives are more unaffordable. So what I don’t want to happen is, if the Supreme Court decides to save Trump from himself and things may be reduced in cost that people say, well, everything is going well and they don’t fully understand, it wasn’t him, it wasn’t him. If it was up to him, you still would be suffering.”

… Fox Business: “This year’s holiday hiring is going to be at the lowest level in 15 years. Retailers will hire between 265,000 and 365,000 seasonal employees. That compares with 442,000 last year. Why the slowdown? This is indicative of a softer job market.”

… Grocery store employee on CNN: “At least 45% of our customers rely on food stamps. We’re seeing less of their faces as of recently. They’re buying things that they can throw in their freezer and stretch towards the end of the month, because we don’t know what’s gonna happen.”

… SNAP recipient on CNN: “I’ve been disabled since birth, so I rely on food stamps and Social Security to survive. I’ve been struggling. It’s been really hard. I’ve literally been eating spaghetti for 4 days because it’s all I have in my apartment.”

… Trump on why he is refusing to disperse SNAP funds despite a court order: “Our country has to remain very liquid because problems, catastrophes, wars - it could be anything. We have to remain liquid. We can’t give everything away.”

… JD Vance on the court order that they pay out SNAP money: “It’s an absurd ruling, because you have a federal judge effectively telling us what we have to do in the midst of a Democrat govt shutdown, which what we’d like to do is for the Democrats to open up the govt. We can’t have a court telling the president how he has to triage the situation. We’re not going to do it under the orders of a federal judge. We’re going to do it according to what we think we have to do to comply with the law, of course.”

… PA Gov Josh Shapiro was asked about Vance’s statement: “He rose to some prominence by writing a book about growing up in Appalachia, where there are a whole lot of people who get SNAP. He made millions of dollars off telling their stories, and then he turned his damn back on those very people he likes to write about and claim as his own.”

… “And you’ll excuse me for getting emotional about it, but when I see people in my state who are hungry because of Vance’s bullshit politics, that makes me angry.
That’s why I went to court, and that’s why we’re putting dollars on people’s SNAP cards—because that’s what the people of PA deserve. And America deserves better than JD Vance.”

… Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: “It’s incredible to me that Trump and Republicans have decided to weaponize hunger and starvation by unlawfully, at this point, withholding SNAP benefits from 42m Americans. But this is not surprising when you consider the fact that in their one big ugly bill, Republicans already enacted the cut to SNAP benefits in American history.”

… WaPo: “In the nation’s largest cities and its smallest towns, from its public housing projects to its community college campuses, Americans are struggling to fill pantries and dinner plates. With the record-setting govt shutdown dragging into its 6th week, more than 41 million people - most of whom are children, elderly or disabled - are still waiting on aid from the govt’s largest anti-hunger program, SNAP.”

… Back to Trump: “The reason I don’t want to talk about affordability is because everybody knows it’s far less expensive under Trump than it was under Sleepy Joe Biden and the prices are way down.”

… Trump called Biden “Sleepy Joe” throughout his presidency and still does. This despite the fact that he fell asleep in court constantly during his trials and falls asleep in meetings every week now. This was Don Snorleone yesterday during the press conference on drug prices.

… Trump then continued to press his demand that the Senate abolish the filibuster: “If we do it, we will never lose the midterms. And we will never lose the general election. These are some of the things we pass if we terminated the filibuster - Voter ID, No mail in voting.”

… Trump then claimed that the reason why Republicans lost so badly in Tuesday’s elections is because he decided not the help their candidates: “I watched that election, which I was not much involved in. I didn’t support Virginia, the candidate. Didn’t do a lot of support for the other candidates.”

… As usual, Dementia Donnie can’t remember the black woman’s name - Winsome Earle-Sears, so he calls her “Virginia”.

… After the press conference was over, Trump posted this on Truth Social a few hours later: “While Cattle Prices have dropped substantially, the price of Boxed Beef has gone up - Therefore, you know that something is “fishy.” We will get to the bottom of it very quickly. If there is criminality, those people responsible will pay a steep price!”

… He then flew on Air Force One to Palm Beach, where is will be enjoying another golf weekend with parties at night at his gilded country club.

… Jasmine Crockett was asked to give her take on Marge Greene’s transformation: “Greene voted for this. Point blank, period. Her constituents were the ones that were on the receiving end of this. In fact, I’m sure that we can find tape of me going down and talking about how many people in their Republican districts were going to lose health care, how many children were going to lose health care because of that bill. I don’t understand why she didn’t do the right thing when she had a chance.”

… The Nation writer Jeet Heer: “Two things are both true: 1. Marjorie Taylor Greene is alarmingly batshit crazy. 2. Marjorie Taylor Greene is one of the sanest voices in the Republican party.”

… Punchbowl: “Schumer is on the floor right now. He will propose a 1-year extension of Obamacare subsidies. Remember: Speaker Johnson is opposed to this.”

… Schumer: “Democrats are offering a very simple compromise. Thune just needs to add a clean one year extension of the ACA tax credits to the CR.”

… This is what I posted on social media on October 27. It was my idea for a way out of the shutdown that could benefit Dems politically: “A short term deal to extend ACA subsidies one year isn’t ideal but it would instantly make another extension a central issue in the midterms which wouldn’t be the worst thing for Dems.”

… Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) to Semafor: “It’s a horrible idea. We might as well go home and start over again. It’s disappointing that they think that this is what’s going to open the government.”

… Sen. Maj. Leader John Thune to Punchbowl: “Thune says the new Dem offer is a ‘nonstarter’ but called it a sign of ‘progress’ that they backed off their original offer from several weeks ago. But reiterates it still doesn’t ‘get anywhere close to what we need to do here.”

… Democrats: Let’s reopen the government today, extend the health insurance subsidies for one year, then let the voters decide in the midterms if they want to extend them further or cancel them. Republicans: HELL NO!!!

… Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) explained on Fox why Dems won’t cave: “I think there will be some pretty substantial damage to a Democratic brand that has been rehabilitated on the heels of an election in which the people told us to keep fighting, if we immediately stop fighting. If we surrender without having gotten anything and we cause a lot of folks in this country who had started to believe in the Democratic Party to retreat again, I worry that it will be hard to get them back up off the mat in time for next fall’s election cycle.”

… WH Econ Advisor Kevin Hassett was asked about the shutdown on Fox: “I think that Secretary Bessent wisely said we’re starting to see pockets of the economy that look like they might be in a recession. If we go another month or so, who knows how bad the economy could be this quarter? And we know whose fault it would be.”

… Hassett: “The impact on the economy of the shutdown is far worse than we expected because it’s gone on for so long. Goldman estimates that it’s over a percent or a percent and a half of GDP. I think we were thinking we were gonna have at least 3% growth in Q4. I think now we’re expecting something like half that.”

… Unhinged maniac Rep. Tom Emmer on Fox: “Most of these senators are scared to death that if they vote to reopen the govt, the insane people that frankly fantasize about the assassination of our great president, that they will turn on them. They’re doing this for the smallest group of people, the most violent and virulent.”

… Kobeissi Letter: “The US govt shutdown is expanding: Today, the FAA officially began cutting 700 flights PER DAY across 40 airports. Airports are now facing a shortage of 3,500 air traffic controllers with 4+ MILLION passengers impacted.
What happens next? As the shutdown drags on, the economic impact is compounding. Moody’s estimates that the shutdown is now costing the US $30 billion PER WEEK. If the shutdown lasts until the end of this month, the total cost could exceed $250 billion. Never in history has this happened.”

… “The stock market is beginning to react. Currently the S&P 500 is on track to fall -3% this week. This marks a -$1.7 trillion drawdown in market cap as concerns over the shutdown are growing. Markets are pricing-in a prolonged disruption of commerce in the US. Meanwhile, total US debt is rising by an average of +$17 billion PER DAY during the shutdown. Yesterday ALONE, US debt surged +$45 billion in a single day. We are officially less than 5% away from hitting a record $40 trillion in US debt. Deficit spending is out of control.”

… Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) was on Steve Bannon’s podcast ranting and raving about Zohran Mamdani, MAGA’s new poster boy for all that is evil in the world: “We just saw what happened in NY. We lost NY. It will be completely Muslim in 3-4 years. That’s what they want. And it’s going to spread throughout the country.”

… Rep. Jasmine Crockett was asked on CNN if she had any advice for Mamdani: “Listen, I don’t know that he needs my advice. He has been a master. Frankly, he could do a master class for all Democrats on communication.”

This was such a long week that I was really hoping for a rare slow news day today, but it was not to be! I am certainly looking forward to my day off tomorrow. We are going to see the new Russell Crowe movie on the Nuremberg trials, so I can take some notes for 2029.

See you with the Weekend Bulletin on Sunday night. If you missed yesterday’s Bulletin, you can find it here. Now, on with the show!

… More disgusting corrupt pardons were announced by the most America Last president in history. NYT: “Trump is pardoning Michael McMahon, a retired cop convicted of acting as a Chinese agent in a plot to intimidate a Chinese family in NJ.
Prosecutors said it was part of a CCP effort to control Chinese nationals. The WH