Another sign of lack of empathy
Democrats quickly seized on the strain facing the U.S. military.
Rep. Jason Crow accused President Trump of not caring about service members or their families after the president rejected claims that the Lincoln’s deployment had gone on too long.
Questions about deployment length and conditions aboard the carrier deserve direct answers, not flippant answers.
Richard Angwin
Navy Carrier’s Problems Are Tied to Attacks on U.S. Base Early in War
The aircraft carrier U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln’s supply problems began soon after the first day of the war, as Iranian missiles and attack drones fell on a Navy base in Bahrain.
The Iranian attack, retaliation for the U.S.-Israeli assault on Tehran, destroyed much of the base. And as it went up in smoke, so did a major logistics hub that the Navy has relied on for decades.
The Navy needed a Plan B to continue feeding the sailors working around the clock to keep warplanes flying strike missions, and later to maintain a blockade of Iran’s ports.
With the threat of Iranian attacks at other ports in the region, the Pentagon looked to a base under British command on the island of Diego Garcia as its supply hub, which is south of the Maldives and roughly 2,200 miles from where two aircraft carrier strike groups have been operating in the Gulf of Oman.
The loss of the hub in Bahrain has contributed to a host of reported problems on carriers supporting operations against Iran, as Democratic senators raise concerns about the Lincoln’s 5,000 sailors and their nearly nine-month deployment.
Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, said in a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that the reported problems included shortages of basic supplies and the deteriorating mental health of its crew members.
The Lincoln’s replacement is the Japan-based carrier U.S.S. George Washington, which earlier this week was heading west through the Strait of Malacca in Indonesian waters en route to the Middle East.
Another carrier, the U.S.S. George H.W. Bush, has been operating in the Middle East for months since deploying from Norfolk on March 31.
When asked if the carrier deployments were too long, the president said, “No, no, no, not nearly long enough.”
Mr. Hegseth had a similar response on Thursday when a reporter asked how long the United States could maintain its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
“We can hold it as long as we need to, indefinitely,” he replied.
At the war’s outset, Keir Starmer, then the British prime minister, denied the Pentagon access to Diego Garcia for use in the operation against Iran. That decision drew Mr. Trump’s ire, and Mr. Starmer ultimately relented on March 1, granting the U.S. military access to the island for what he described as a “specific and limited defensive purpose.”
A U.S. military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive logistics, said the Navy began using Diego Garcia as the main shipment point shortly after the Navy’s base in Bahrain was heavily damaged.
The use of Diego Garcia as the Navy’s new logistics hub may explain why Iran fired two medium-range ballistic missiles at the island on March 20.
One of the missiles fell into the Indian Ocean short of its target. A Navy warship shot down the other.
The San Diego-based Lincoln has been at sea for nearly nine months without what the Navy calls a “liberty port” — where sailors can get off the ship for a few days.
Bahrain is one of the two ports where U.S. aircraft carriers in the region have typically moored so their crews can get some downtime. The other, the Emirati port of Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman, is also well within the range of Iranian missiles.
The Trump administration relied on yet another carrier, the U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford, in the Caribbean for its pressure campaign against Venezuela and later extended its deployment to the Middle East to launch airstrikes against Iran. So far the war has seen the commitment of a significant portion of the Navy’s fleet of aircraft carriers, which will go down to 10 with the expected retirement of U.S.S. Nimitz next year.
While six months is the typical length of a Navy deployment at sea in peacetime, some carriers have done far longer stretches following the Sept. 11 attacks. The Ford’s 326-day deployment, however, broke the record for the longest by a carrier since the Vietnam War.
But in that war, carriers assigned to Yankee Station, a section of the Pacific off the coast of Vietnam, would often head to the Navy base at Subic Bay, Philippines — a short two-day transit away — where sailors could take a break from running nonstop flight operations and the ship could load up on ordnance, food, fuel and other necessary supplies.
By tradition and Navy regulation, the commanding officer of a warship can request a “beer day” for their crews when they have been at sea for 45 straight days or longer. Given the Lincoln’s time at sea, the crew would have been eligible for five beer days already.
A spokesman for the U.S. Fifth Fleet, which covers naval operations in region and would authorize beer days, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday about whether any of the ships participating in the Iran war had requested them.
In an interview, Representative Mike Levin, Democrat of California, said that his constituents included sailors aboard the Lincoln, and that their family members had reached out to express their concerns about the deployment.
“It gets back to that big picture, which is: What is the mission here?” Mr. Levin said. “That’s what the families want to know.”
Another sign of Insanity
President said he may soon declare the Strait of Hormuz a territory of the United States.
President Trump Suggests Historic New Status For Strait Of Hormuz
President Trump just floated a move that would completely rewrite the fight over one of the most important waterways on Earth.
Speaking Friday in Garden City, New York, the president said he may soon declare the Strait of Hormuz a territory of the United States.
It was a remarkable line, even by the standards of a war that has repeatedly broken old assumptions about American power in the Middle East.
President Trump said Iran is being “very badly defeated” and argued that the United States already controls which vessels can pass through the strait.
He then warned that more ships could be destroyed if they attempt to challenge the blockade.
The president’s language sounded partly light, but the military posture behind it is anything but a joke.
The Associated Press reports that President Trump made the statement while discussing the war with Iran and the extraordinary deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln. The carrier has been supporting U.S. operations for more than 260 days, with the USS George Washington expected to move into the region as its replacement.
The report also notes that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has rejected claims that conditions aboard the Lincoln were being inaccurately portrayed. U.S. Central Command has pushed back as well, while Navy officials say they have not observed an increase in suicidal thoughts or attempts aboard the carrier.
Meanwhile, the United States has reimposed a blockade on Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz, and Hegseth says American forces can maintain that pressure for as long as necessary.
This report captures the military posture behind President Trump’s new declaration:
Another black mark
Golden age for diarrhea and white-collar crime.
DONALD TRUMP PROMISED Americans a new golden age. Unfortunately, it turns out to be a golden age for diarrhea and white-collar crime.
Biological, social, and financial parasites are all flourishing, because the Trump administration has destroyed the institutional capacity necessary to detect and eradicate them.
In the latest (non-GI-related) development, the Department of the Treasury announced this week that it would destroy the government’s registry of shell-company ownership. This is an anti-corruption database that Treasury is by law required to maintain, so that law enforcement can more easily “follow the money” when investigating crimes.
Even worse, the Trump administration will also destroy all the data it has already collected, so that no future presidential administration or local police department can use it, either.
“It’s like Trump ordering the deletion of the FBI’s entire fingerprint database,” former congressman Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.), a champion of the 2021 law that created the corporate registry, told The Bulwark.
They’re effectively salting the earth, so that sex traffickers, scam artists, drug lords, money-launderers, and tax cheats can roam free not only through the end of Trump’s time in office but long after he’s out, too.<hr/ >
It is always something Trump wants to stop that would improve our lives.
Trump cancels Biden-era bid to speed power line construction
The Trump administration is canceling a Biden-era effort to speed up power line construction in parts of Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Nebraska and the Dakotas.
The Energy Department announced this week that it would not move forward with designating three areas as National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors, a move that could get them federal help to speed up power line build-out.
The Biden administration identified three corridors to be part of the program: parts of Lake Erie and Pennsylvania; parts of Colorado, New Mexico and Oklahoma; and parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and five Native American reservations.
Designating power lines in these areas as being in the national interest would have allowed federal regulators to issue permits to approve them if states do not act quickly enough or deny them permission to build.
While electricity from various power sources including fossil fuels, nuclear and renewables are carried by power lines, a significant amount of new energy coming on to the grid is renewable and building out power lines could be crucial for getting new green power online.
Environmental advocates slammed the move to cancel the designation as being bad for the nation’s electric grid and potentially driving up power costs.
“Building long-distance transmission lines is one of the best ways to lower costs and secure and upgrade our grid — and strengthening our grid is wildly popular, too. Pulling the plug on these long-planned transmission corridors will pull the rug out from under billions of dollars in investments and tens of thousands of jobs for hardworking families,” Matthew Davis, vice president of federal policy at the League of Conservation Voters, said in a written statement.
Good news
Automatic Tariff Refunds Coming To These FL Residents:
FL shoppers who bought goods from overseas vendors last year should expect to see automatic tariff refunds hit their bank accounts soon.
FL shoppers who bought goods from overseas vendors last year should expect to see automatic tariff refunds hit their bank accounts soon.
FL shoppers who bought goods from overseas vendors last year should expect to see automatic tariff refunds hit their bank accounts soon. (Shutterstock)
Floridians who bought something from an overseas vendor last year should check their bank accounts.
Shippers, including FedEx and UPS, that acted as customs brokers for imported packages and received tariff refunds from the U.S. government have started to pass on those refunds to the customers who originally paid the tariffs.
The refunds to consumers are the last step in a months-long process that kicked off in February when the Supreme Court struck down sweeping tariffs implemented by President Donald Trump in March 2025 under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act on goods from almost every country. The court ordered the government to return the tariffs it collected.
How Big Are Refunds?
So far, about $100 billion in tariffs have been refunded to companies that paid them under a system set up by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
That doesn’t mean Americans will get anywhere close to what they paid in tariffs, since most were paid indirectly. In 2025, the Trump tariffs amounted to an average tax increase of $1,000 per U.S. household, according to the Tax Foundation, a Washington, D.C., group that studies taxes.
But some consumers are getting some of what they paid directly back from shippers, including UPS, DHL, and FedEx.
The refunds are being rolled out in phases based on what date they were paid. Shippers have said they’ll return the refunds on a rolling basis as they receive them.
Tariff refunds from shippers will be directly refunded to credit cards or bank accounts.
Most big overseas retailers paid the tariffs themselves and passed them along to retailers with a line item in their invoice that was part of the total bill, or indirectly by raising prices. But some smaller sellers left the tariff to be paid when it reached the United States. In those cases, shippers paid the bill and charged the recipient of the package.
What Are Shippers Doing?
FedEx said it has begun the process of issuing $800 million in tariff refunds it received from the government back to the customers that paid them. Customers don’t need to apply to receive their refund, but they can enter tracking numbers for purchased items into a portal on the FedEx website to see whether or not they are due a refund.
UPS said it had paid $5 billion in tariffs on behalf of clients as of April and was initiating government refund applications. The company initially requested $500 million in reimbursement, noting that clients can anticipate receiving their refunds within one to three months after Treasury funds are distributed.
DHL similarly said that it has filed claims for almost all eligible shipments where it served as the importer of record and is returning the refunds it has received.
“The volume and pace of refunds continue to depend on CBP’s processing of claims,” DHL said in a statement.
What Are Retailers Doing?
Major retailers mostly plan to use tariff refunds to lower prices rather than issue direct consumer refunds, as most indirectly passed on tariff costs or absorbed them.
Amazon received $600 million in tariff refunds last quarter. CFO Brian Olsavsky stated that while Amazon rarely acts as the importer of record, it will automatically refund customers in limited cases where specific import charges were directly passed on, using remaining refunds to lower prices.
Other large retailers report similar strategies. Best Buy expects to use refunds to offer customer value, while Costco plans to return passed-on tariffs “in some form,” depending on refund timing, amounts, and ongoing litigation.
So this proves that Trump saying US does not pay the tariffs was a LIE
New aircraft carrier going to Middle East amid questions over conditions on USS Abraham Lincoln
The U.S. is sending a new aircraft carrier to the Middle East amid reports of poor conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, which has been long deployed to the theater in support of the war against Iran.
Source: WJXT
Florida-based company recalls nearly 30,000 pounds of raw beef imported without federal inspection
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ICE plans to outfit officers with gloves that deliver electric shock
The Department of Homeland Security plans to equip ICE agents with gloves that emit electric shocks to use on uncooperative people in the field, according to a notice posted on its acquisition system.
August 12, 2026 at 3:10 p.m. EDT
Federal vaccine recommendations have not changed yet.
But the bottom line is that federal vaccine recommendations have not changed yet.
Implementing Trump’s directives would require a lengthy administrative process and probably a legal battle, even as Trump has privately urged his deputies to move faster.
“An executive order is not an automatic change to the schedule, because that’s not the legal way it’s done,” said Dorit Reiss, a professor at the University of California College of the Law at San Francisco whose research focuses on public health law.
States, not the federal government, generally set vaccination requirements for school attendance.
Another try
While he said Tuesday the fund as previously constituted was dead, Blanche said he and the president would support congressional legislation on the matter. “The president feels very strongly, as do I, that there were people who were victims of a Department of Justice that was absolutely weaponized, and he feels very strongly that he would want to make them whole, as do I,” the attorney general added.
CFI Responds to Trump Executive Order on Childhood Vaccines
On Monday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order reducing the number of federally recommended childhood vaccines and advancing his “long-held but discredited theory that childhood shots should be spaced out into separate medical visits.” As an organization committed to promoting evidence-based science in public policymaking, the Center for Inquiry (CFI) publicly denounced the executive order, which ignores decades of research showing childhood vaccines are both safe and effective.
CFI President and CEO Robyn Blumner said: “There are very few people less qualified than Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be making decisions about vaccine policy. Donald Trump is at the top of that very short list.”
Blumner continued: “This new executive order is just the latest example of the administration’s complete disregard—and overt hostility toward—evidence-based science. Public health policy should be based on rigorous science backed by data, not the personal beliefs and suspicions of one highly unqualified individual.”
The assassination threat was relayed by the Israeli government to the CIA, where analysts did not view the intelligence as compelling and conveyed that skepticism to Trump administration officials, one of the officials said.
You have:
- Plane A: the new Qatari 747, which is not a hardened presidential aircraft like Air Force One and does not have the same publicly known defensive capabilities. Trump hurried to accept it, apparently eager to show off his new presidential plane.
- Plane B: the older, hardened Air Force One—designed specifically to protect the president—but it isn’t Trump’s new toy.
- Plane C: a military aircraft that no one would expect the president to be aboard. He could disappear into it without attracting the same attention.
Then there is a threat. The Secret Service decides to make Trump disappear, almost like a three-card Monte trick, and move him and aides secretly onto Plane C.
But as the pilots, press and staff were not told in advance, they could have been left behind without knowing that the president had already been moved to safety and take other means to get home. But Trump is whisked away.
Then, when asked about leaving the staff behind, Trump doesn’t appear particularly concerned about them. His focus is on himself. And his statement that he was in even more danger than those who were left behind is especially revealing: if the threat was directed at the president, moving him to a military aircraft would presumably make him safer, while those left behind would still be exposed to whatever threat prompted the evacuation.
The whole episode reinforces the impression that the story, in Trump’s telling, has to be about him.
August 10, 2026
Today, though, Trump’s war on Iran is demanding a resolution, and it is crystal clear that the Iranians believe they are in a position to dictate terms to the United States.
Iran and Oman have been negotiating terms for travel through the Strait of Hormuz, which runs between the two countries. Iran closed the strait when Trump and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu initiated strikes against Iran on February 28, 2026. Before the war, more than 20% of the world’s shipborne oil and even more than that of its shipborne fertilizer traveled through the strait, and their loss has dramatically impacted the global economy. Farmers around the world are having trouble obtaining fertilizer, and the price of oil—and the corresponding price of gasoline and diesel—have jumped dramatically.
On Saturday, Iranian officials laid out a series of demands the U.S. must meet before they will reopen the strait. They say the U.S. must lift the naval blockade of Iranian ports and withdraw the U.S. military, “permanently end the war against Iran and Iran’s allies in Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen, and Iraq,” and “never threaten nor insult Iran in any language,” essentially gagging Trump. They want an end to sanctions on Iran and the release of frozen Iranian assets. And they want reparations. All up front, as conditions for reopening the strait.
In the past, sanctions relief and the release of frozen assets were made conditional on an end to Iran’s nuclear program. Now such a negotiation doesn’t even appear to be on the table. And Iran is asserting its right to control traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for global trade. Tolls on ships using the strait would provide significant funding for the Iranian regime.
Foreign policy scholar and diplomat Philip Gordon, who served in the Biden White House, wrote: “U.S. acceptance of Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz is an extraordinary outcome only made conceivable by an administration that squandered legitimacy, alienated allies, attempted regime change in a war it had not adequately prepared for and that is being forced to accept a catastrophic outcome without viable alternatives.”
He suggested that “in other circumstances Iran’s closure of [the] Strait by brazenly attacking maritime traffic and neighbors’ civilian infrastructure would likely have justified and led to a united, global response—like the U.S.-led naval escort mission during the Iran-Iraq war, the global coalition that reversed Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1991, the multinational naval force enforcing UN sanctions in the Gulf in the 1990s, or the UN Security Council sanctions on the Iranian nuclear program in the 2010s—that led to the JCPOA.”
“Instead,” he wrote, “[the] US and other countries are now being forced to accept an outcome that would have been unthinkable before the war but seems to have become unavoidable because of it.”
Yesterday Trump told Barak Ravid of Axios, “We are low-keying it,” explaining: “We are only semi-negotiating with them. We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money.” He stressed that Iran’s in an economic crisis and that since oil prices have come down slightly in the U.S., gas prices have eased enough to provide some relief to consumers.
“It will work out,” Trump told Ravid. “It always works out. It’s like a chess game.”
But Trump’s mood had changed by today. At 12:31, he claimed Iranian negotiators had never before mentioned reparations for the damage done to Iran during the five month conflict, although the Memorandum of Understanding he signed on June 17 clearly calls for the establishment of a $300 billion fund for Iran’s reconstruction and economic development, suggesting either that Trump has forgotten what was in the agreement or didn’t know.
Trump posted: “I am likewise demanding compensation from Iran, for all of the people that they have killed and gravely wounded with their roadside bombs and many conflicts, for which they are famous…. I have instructed my representatives to put this firmly into any, and all, future negotiations.” An hour later, he added: “Also,…Iran should be responsible for the damages and death caused to the people of Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Gaza!”
Later, when a reporter asked Trump when he thought the Strait of Hormuz would open, he answered: “Well, it’s open now…. It’s open now. Look, the only one that has control of the Strait of Hormuz right now is the United States Navy.”
Iran apparently wants its part of the agreement up front because it doesn’t trust Trump to follow through once the strait is reopened, and there is reason to doubt that he will—or can—deliver on his promises. Yesterday, Netanyahu openly rejected the plan that Trump announced as a done deal less than two weeks ago to end the fighting in Gaza.
On July 30, Trump posted that his “Board of Peace reached a HISTORIC agreement for the COMPLETE DISARMAMENT of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza” in exchange for the withdrawal of Israeli forces there. “This is a monumental step toward lasting PEACE and SECURITY,” Trump wrote. “One year ago there was a violent raging war, humanitarian crisis and hostages kept in brutal captivity,” he wrote, but now there was a “historic breakthrough.” “CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL ON THIS AMAZING DEVELOPMENT, THAT EVERYBODY SAID COULD NEVER BE ACHIEVED!” he wrote.
At the time, Netanyahu expressed skepticism, but today he openly broke with Trump. When asked about the rejection, the White House told reporters to talk to the Board of Peace.
While much of the focus of the media has been on Trump’s bumbling in the Middle East, the administration has been busy working to reshape Latin American countries into right-wing protectorates of the United States. In Colombia’s recent election, Trump endorsed a right-wing millionaire lawyer who had never before run for office, Abelardo de la Espriella. De la Espriella holds both U.S. and Colombian citizenship and is a Republican who supports Trump.
De la Espriella won a close election, and as soon as he took office, replacing the leftist
Gustavo Petro, the U.S. pledged $1 billion in assistance to Colombia, “as part of a security package to support President (Abelardo) de la Esprilla’s administration in achieving our shared goals,” the White House said.
Tyler Pager, Julian E. Barnes, and Frances Robles of the New York Times reported on August 7 that the administration has been looking for a similarly cooperative leader for Cuba. In a search for “more regime alteration than regime change,” they write, the administration has “pressed its spy agencies to identify someone in the mold of Delcy Rodríguez, who became Venezuela’s interim president after U.S. forces captured the previous leader, Nicolás Maduro, in January. U.S. officials viewed Ms. Rodríguez as a pragmatist who could seamlessly assume power and would be willing to work closely with them,” the journalists report.
The plan appears to be to get Cuba to open its economy to private enterprise including U.S. businesses, buy oil from the U.S., and push out the Russian and Chinese intelligence operatives there. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Pager, Barnes, and Robles note, has secretly established a Cuba task force.
Their New York Times colleague Adam Entous reported on August 5 that the task force includes “case officers who recruit and manage spies, intelligence analysts, officers who conduct cyberoperations and officers who specialize in covert influence operations.” Sources told Entous that the plan appeared intended to create rifts among those in Cuba’s political elite to enable the rise of leaders willing to agree to Trump’s demands.
Trump’s assumption of control over Venezuela seems to have been the model for attempts to take over other countries. Last September the Trump administration began strikes against small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that Trump claimed—without evidence—were being operated by narcoterrorists from Venezuela. Then the U.S. began to seize vessels allegedly carrying sanctioned Venezuelan oil. On January 3, 2026, in a nighttime raid, the Trump administration conducted airstrikes in Venezuela and removed Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, taking them to New York to face federal narcoterrorism and drug-trafficking charges.
Although opponents of Maduro, who had seized power after losing a presidential election, cheered the raid in the belief that Trump would help them put opposition candidate Edmundo González in power—exiled opposition leader María Corina Machado gave Trump her Nobel Peace Prize medal after the raid in an apparent attempt to create good will—in fact the administration supported Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez. On January 5 it formally recognized her as Venezuela’s head of state.
Venezuela’s high court disagreed. It called Maduro’s absence a “kidnapping” and determined that under the country’s constitution, Rodríguez could act as president for 90 days, a period the National Assembly could extend for another 90 days. But if Maduro didn’t return after either 90 or 180 days, the absence must be considered permanent. At that point, the constitution requires elections to be held in 30 days.
When Rodríguez’s first 90 days were over, there was no public announcement that the National Assembly, which is controlled by her political party, had extended her acting presidency. July 3 marked 180 days since Maduro’s kidnapping.
As Antonio María Delgado of the Miami Herald reported, in late July the U.S. Department of Justice asked the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida to dismiss a lawsuit filed by three Americans against Rodríguez accusing the Maduro government, which was well known for human rights abuses, of torture. The Justice Department called for the dismissal on the grounds that Rodríguez is entitled to immunity as Venezuela’s head of state, thus underscoring that Trump intends for her to run the country. Delgado called it an “extraordinary step.”
Negotiations are underway for a new election, but opposition leader Machado has been excluded from them. On August 6, seven Democratic senators led by Adam Schiff (D-CA) wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, reiterating that Rodríguez is still the acting president rather than the head of state,and putting the administration on notice that its “increased support of the same officials who contributed to the Venezuelan government’s lengthy and well-documented record of human rights abuses and violations is alarming, and we urge the State Department to re-commit to its long-standing practice of calling attention to human rights violations committed by the Venezuelan regime and exerting pressure on regime officials to end these abuses.”
An exclusive story tonight by Dan Lamothe, John Hudson, Andrew Ba Tran, and Joyce Sohyun Lee in the Washington Post revealed the utter cowardice behind Trump’s authoritarian aspirations.
Leaving Türkiye on July 8 after the NATO summit, the day after he had renewed strikes on Iran, Trump made a show of switching from the newly outfitted plane given to the U.S. by Qatar to an older plane that had served as Air Force One before Trump got the Qatari jet. The journalists who were traveling with the president and some of the White House staff moved with the president to the older plane for the leg of the trip that would take them to Britain.
But the journalists report that Trump and some of his aides secretly left the older plane in a container lowered into an airport catering truck and were transferred to a smaller plane for the trip. There had apparently been credible Iranian threats against Trump’s life, and so officials turned to a plan to hide him, even from senior U.S. officials. To do so, they left the journalists and staff on the plane that would use the Air Force One call sign, turning them into a decoy for an Iranian strike. White House staffers instructed journalists to lower their shades when they entered the plane.
Trump secretly reboarded the bigger plane in Britain and was filmed coming down its stairs, suggesting he had been on the flight. Then he boarded the Qatari jet, along with the press pool and the staffers who had been on Air Force One, for the trip from Türkiye. On the flight, Trump briefly spoke to reporters, who asked why they had been asked to lower their window shades on the previous flight.
It was “because you’re probably on a dangerous flight because of the sleaze bags that we have to deal with,” Trump said. He added that there are threats against his life “all the time” and that “I’m number one on their list, before you. But if I go, you go. Right?” “Perhaps someday you want to change professions.”
Bluesky national security commenter Angry Staffer wrote: “So, I completely understand secreting POTUS away from a credible assassination attempt. But leaving the entire Air Force One crew, press pool, etc. to play decoy is some sick shit.”
Over the past few weeks, President Donald Trump has made it clear that he will not take Supreme Court decisions as the final word on anything.
The president has introduced new tariffs, renewed efforts to fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook and issued new executive orders to limit birthright citizenship. While some experts said the moves signal outright defiance of the high court, they nonetheless push the limits of the rulings that Trump lost earlier this summer.
“Without question, President Trump is challenging the bounds of the court’s opinions,” particularly regarding Cook’s firing and birthright citizenship, said Richard Lazarus, a law professor at Harvard University.
The high court’s opinion affirming that nearly everyone born in the United States is a citizen does not allow Trump to create exceptions like the ones set out in his recent executive orders. ThoseTrump orders say children are ineligible for birthright citizenship if born to “alien enemies,” foreign terrorists, foreign lobbyists or people who fraudulently request tourist visas in order to give birth in the U.S.
In signing the orders, Trump referred to the Supreme Court decision on birthright citizenship, saying, “We’re ending it a different way.”
As for Cook, the justices ruled that she deserved notice and a chance to respond before being fired, and Trump’s latest move seeks to provide that. The White House sent a letter to Cook last week renewing the threat to fire her, giving her 21 days to respond and directing her to submit any response to the White House by Aug. 26.
“The Supreme Court’s ruling on the Cook case required notice and an opportunity for a hearing in considering whether the president should take certain adverse employment actions,” Bis added. “The president’s notice sent to Fed. Governor Cook offers exactly that within the precise structure enunciated by the Court.”
Still, Trump’s underlying rationale for dismissing Cook — that she engaged in mortgage fraud — remains unproved, and she has not been charged. While the renewed push to fire her does not “repudiate” the Supreme Court’s opinion, Lazarus said, it “certainly confronts it by challenging its limits.”
Trump is not the first president to look for ways around adverse Supreme Court rulings. Most recently, when President Joe Biden’s plan to forgive student loan debt was struck down by the Supreme Court, Biden within hours announced a separate plan to forgive the debt.
Two decades earlier, President George W. Bush wrestled with the court over procedures for detainees seeking freedom from the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
But such instances appear to be historical exceptions rather than the rule, said David Super, a professor at Georgetown Law.
“Most presidents treated Supreme Court rulings as dispositive of the issues involved rather than as technical documents to be evaded,” Super said.
That includes an earlier version of Trump. During his first term, the president was more willing to accept losses at the Supreme Court and move on, Super said. He cited rulings against Trump’s efforts to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and to add a question on citizenship status to the 2020 Census.
“The second-term President Trump appears to have much less regard for the other branches of the federal government than the first-term one did,” Super said.
Similarly, the Trump administration last month imposed new tariffs on U.S. imports from 60 economies under an authority different from the one the Supreme Court rejected in February. The new duties, imposed under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, purport to penalize countries that fail to curb imports produced by forced labor.