Trump on Epstein: I never went to the island. Bill Clinton went there supposedly 28 times. I never had the privilege of going to the island. I turned it down.
Epstein didn’t buy “the island” until Trump supposedly had severed his relationship with Epstein. But whatevs…
REPORTER: Doesn't the AG have to tell you if your name is in the Epstein files?
TRUMP: Well, I haven't been overly interested in it. It's a hoax that's been built up way beyond proportion. Those files were run by the worst scum on earth — Comey, Garland, Biden. They can easily… pic.twitter.com/zh6joLKh0r
REPORTER: Doesn’t the AG have to tell you if your name is in the Epstein files?
TRUMP: Well, I haven’t been overly interested in it. It’s a hoax that’s been built up way beyond proportion. Those files were run by the worst scum on earth — Comey, Garland, Biden. They can easily put something in the files that’s a phony.
REPORTER: What caused the breach between you and Epstein?
TRUMP: That's such old history. Very easy to explain, but I don't want to waste your time by explaining it. He did something that was inappropriate. He hired help and I said 'don't ever do that again.' I never went to the… pic.twitter.com/YhyuAkSYPU
REPORTER: What caused the breach between you and Epstein?
TRUMP: That’s such old history. Very easy to explain, but I don’t want to waste your time by explaining it. He did something that was inappropriate. He hired help and I said ‘don’t ever do that again.’ I never went to the island.
Okay. Was the “help” he’s referring to Virginia Giuffre? Was it that Epstein hit on a daughter of a friend at the club? That Epstein bid on a property he wanted to sell to a Russian oligarch? Which is it?
Trump: "I don't do drawings. I'm not a drawing person. I don't do drawings of women, that I can tell you. They say there's a drawing of a woman, and I don't do drawings of women." pic.twitter.com/amPHupHjoV
Trump: "Who would do a controversial drawing? Now with that being said, they say there were many letters done by many people. Many big, successful people." pic.twitter.com/bRE1CZZ0ui
That’s the tip of the iceberg. Everything he’s said in this appearance is pretty much gibberish. Get a load of this one:
Trump on hostages in Gaza: "You even see it with Germany, where people would be let into a house and live in an attic in secret." pic.twitter.com/Oz39V8p3ej
Detention cell (“penal isolator”) of a camp in the Vorkuta Region, 1945 | Source: Russian Federation State Archive, Moscow. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
NBC News reports that rubbing Donald Trump the wrong way means retaliation:
The Justice Department filed a complaint Monday alleging misconduct by a federal judge overseeing several cases involving the Trump administration, including a challenge to the legality of deportation flights to El Salvador in March.
The complaint against James Boasberg, the chief U.S. district judge in Washington, D.C., which was filed by Attorney General Pam Bondi’s chief of staff, Chad Mizelle, alleges that Boasberg made improper comments during a judicial conference in March.
“While there,” Mizelle wrote, “Judge Boasberg attempted to improperly influence Chief Justice Roberts and roughly two dozen other federal judges by straying from the traditional topics to express his belief that the Trump Administration would ‘disregard rulings of federal courts’ and trigger ‘a constitutional crisis.'”
NBC News hasn’t verified the remarks, which Mizelle said Boasberg made on March 11. The conference wasn’t open to the public.
Meaning an anonymous informer ran to the DOJ, you know, to inform.
They shoot dissidents, don’t they?
Improper public comments about Joseph Stalin got one shot or sent to a prison camp in Siberia. Good news! The arsenal of freedom is not quite there yet.
“These comments have undermined the integrity of the judiciary,” tweeted AG Pam Bondi, “and we will not stand for that.”
There is a flood of improper behaviors from the Trump administration, including graft, violating people’s constitutional rights, masked gunmen violently kidnapping people, throwing immigrants into a Florida concentration camp without due process, and summarily deporting others to obscure third countries. But disrespecting Dear Leader demands swift, retributive action.
… Judge Boasberg’s actions have harmed the integrity and public confidence in the integrity of the judiciary. His comments on March 11 appear to have been improperly implemented from the bench. Having assumed President Trump would defy court orders, Judge Boasberg issued a TRO and threatened sanctions—all on a false premise. Such conduct violates litigants’ trust in an impartial judiciary and falls below the standards that safeguard the integrity of the judiciary and public confidence in that integrity.
The Trump Department of Justice run by the party that’s spent decades undermining public confidence in elections and tolerates institutionalized grift is lecturing you on judicial integrity. Let that sink in.
Mizelle asked for a second time that Boasberg be removed from the Alien Enemies Act case. And more:
Upon substantiation, impose appropriate disciplinary action, including a public reprimand and referral to the Judicial Conference for consideration of impeachment-related recommendations, if the committee finds willful misconduct.
Calling him a “troublemaker and agitator,” Trump called for Boasberg’s impeachment in March after he ordered a halt to Trump’s deportation of Venezuelans under an obscure war powers provision.
If Trump called for Boasberg to be shot, there was no one in the room, you know, to inform.
Videos from Donald Trump’s excursion to Scotland have repeatedly gone viral. They demonstrate that the convicted felon has a lousy golf swing and, oh, “Pele” cheats.
"Golf is a game of honor, and the man who doesn’t respect that isn’t worth the divot he leaves." – Arnold Palmer pic.twitter.com/FKN30iQSED
Another viral video comes from Trump’s meeting on Monday with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the president’s opening comments got drowned out by a nearby bagpiper. The pair were meeting to discuss their recent trade deal.
US President Donald Trump holds an impromptu press conference on the steps of Trump Turnberry, accompanied by Sir Keir Starmer, Lady Victoria Starmer, and some noisy bagpipes
Trump met Starmer to much fanfare at the golf course, with the prime minister rolling up in his motorcade and exiting to blasting bagpipes. He and his wife, Victoria, greeted Trump on the front steps of the clubhouse, then began to speak — but the bagpipes drowned them out for several minutes while Trump attempted to deliver his speech.
The rest of the president’s trip involved visiting his many golf courses around Scotland, including one near Aberdeen that his family is slated to open next month.
Critics have argued that the overseas trip — which includes Trump’s entourage of advisers, White House and support staffers and Secret Service agents as well as the pool of reporters who cover Trump — is a prime example of Trump blending his presidential duties with promoting his family’s business.
Self promotion and grift are among Trump’s few, true talents. Indeed, he seems to have arranged for the American taxpayer to buy him a $1 billion-plus “free” airplane, a gift from Qatar. It needs, um, a little upgrading to be suitable as Air Force One (The New York Times):
Officially, and conveniently, the price tag has been classified. But even by Washington standards, where “black budgets” are often used as an excuse to avoid revealing the cost of outdated spy satellites and lavish end-of-year parties, the techniques being used to hide the cost of Mr. Trump’s pet project are inventive.
Which may explain why no one wants to discuss a mysterious, $934 million transfer of funds from one of the Pentagon’s most over-budget, out-of-control projects — the modernization of America’s aging, ground-based nuclear missiles.
In recent weeks, congressional budget sleuths have come to think that amount, slipped into an obscure Pentagon document sent to Capitol Hill as a “transfer” to an unnamed classified project, almost certainly includes the renovation of the new, gold-adorned Air Force One that Mr. Trump desperately wants in the air before his term is over. (It is not clear if the entire transfer will be devoted to stripping the new Air Force One back to its airframe, but Air Force officials privately acknowledge dipping into nuclear modernization funds for the complex project.)
Every year, it feels like there are multiple claimants to the title of “drink of the summer.” For the fancy, maybe 2025 is the year of the Hugo spritz. But if your finances are a little more stretched, which a lot of people’s are, you might be opting for this year’s more economical option: the Spaghett. Also known as the NASCAR spritz, the hobo Negroni, or the trailer park spritz, the drink consists of a bottled beer — often a Miller High Life — topped up with a splash of Aperol and maybe some lemon juice (a lot of people don’t bother with the last bit). It’s a way to fancy up your drink without fancying up the price tag too much. And the Spaghett’s popularity has been on the rise, as more drinkers feel increasing pressure on their wallets. Recession indicator? Maybe. Let’s call it the recession Aperol spritz.
Data from the payments platform Square shows that orders for Spaghetts in the first half of 2025 are up by 65% from last year, and since 2022, Spaghett orders are up by 1000%. The number of Spaghetts showing up on bar receipts has risen over the past five years, per Square’s data. Google searches for Spaghetts have spiked this summer.
Much of the interest is organic — Spaghetts are appearing more on menus, they’re easy to make at home, and the word is spreading about their existence, both on social media and in real life…Given that an Aperol spritz could easily run you $15, the cost of the knock-off beer version is part of the draw.
It sounds awful. But I think I’ll order one and see…
In all seriousness, it’s clear that prices of everything are starting to spike. But apparently, unless its eggs or gas it just doesn’t pierce the consciousness. Or maybe we’re all just fine with it as long as Orange Julius Caesar is making America great again.
JPMORGAN: “.. Even with these various deals either inked or getting closer, we still think we are on track for an average effective tariff rate somewhere in the very high teens. This wouldn’t be much lower than the immediate post-Liberation Day tariffs that were the cause of so much market angst.”
The good news is that quite a few are opposed to sending them to foreign gulags without any due process so they have a slight limit on their monstrous hatred of immigrants. Jesus would be proud.
Republican voters remain solidly supportive of Trump’s deportation program, which was one of the central promises of his presidential campaign. Some 90% of Republicans in the Journal survey approve of how he is handling immigration and illegal immigration. A mere 11% in the GOP say Trump’s deportation efforts have gone too far or have crossed a line, compared with about 90% of Democrats.
Three-quarters of Republicans favor detaining and deporting people without allowing them to see a judge or have a court hearing, compared with 39% of voters overall.
“I believe that immigration is a privilege and a right and that there are venues for that to happen,” said Shannon Snyder, 52, a former Democrat-turned-libertarian in Fortuna, Calif., who voted for Trump for the first time in November. “I support him escorting them out…If people came here illegally, they shouldn’t be here.”
“Escorting them out” is a funny way of describing abducting people on the street and throwing them in a concentration camp.
So 15% tariffs are just great now? Higher than we've had in since the 1930s but since Trump said a couple of months ago that he'd put 50% tariffs that means this is really great.This is why people think Trump is such a magical figure. He has made every elite in the country into a moron.
Trump posted a AI video of Obama being arrested in the Oval Office
If it were anyone but Donald Trump doing it, this latest pathetic attempt to distract from a burgeoning sex scandal would be laughed out of town. I speak, of course, about the ridiculous accusation that former president Barack Obama committed treason back in 2016 when his administration investigated the Russian interference in the presidential election — an election which no one disputed that Trump legitimately won. But because he has shown in this second term that he is willing to blow up every norm, rule and law without blinking an eye, it’s fair to worry just a little bit that something quite dangerous could be afoot.
The term “treason” is often thrown around to denote any act of betrayal but the U.S. Constitution, in Article III, Section 3, defines treason as “levying war against the United States or adhering to its enemies, giving them aid and comfort.” The Congress has determined that it is punishable by death and while saying this may be typical Trump hyperbole the group he has around him are running with this latest attempt to relitigate this grievance.
It was only a few weeks ago that the absurdly unqualified Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was on the outs with the president over public comments that Iran was not close to obtaining a nuclear weapon. Trump was being pressured by Israel to bomb their facilities at the time and he rejected her assessment and reportedly left her out of important meetings and considered eliminating her position altogether.
Gabbard is a survivor, however, and has always had a rather unnatural enthusiasm for all things Russia, so she released a timely “investigation” into the 2016 post-election interference probe that has handed Trump and his henchmen a new straw to clutch as they desperately try to point the press and their own supporters in any direction except Jeffrey Epstein. On the heels of CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s referral of former FBI Director James Comey, former CIA Director John Brennan and former DNI James Clapper to the FBI for allegedly making false statement to Congress and other obscure acts of wrongdoing Gabbard has asked the Department of Justice to investigate whether the Obama administration faked the evidence of Russian interference in that election.
Trump was asked who the DOJ should look into at one of his many long-winded oval office gatherings and in a lengthy incoherent rant, he accused President Obama of committing treason:
One might have thought that a sharp reporter in the room would have turned to Secretary of State Marco Rubio who was seated next to the president and asked if he would care to comment since he was the Chairman of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee which produced the definitive report on the Russian interference campaign in 2020 and concluded that it was anything but a hoax. Unfortunately no one did that but Rubio is on the record:
It would be easy to dismiss this whole thing as just another Trump tirade but unfortunately he has a very biddable Attorney General in Pam Bondi, who happens to be fidgeting on the MAGA hot seat at the moment having disappointed the faithful with her handling of the Epstein affair. There is every reason to believe that she will take this as far as the boss deems it necessary and as brittle and angry as he seems to be about all that, it’s not unthinkable that he would order someone to be indicted on these bogus charges, whether they make any sense or not.
Bondi has already ordered a “strike force” to investigate the allegations and Senators Lindsey Graham , R-S.C., and John Cornyn, R-Tx., are calling for a Special Counsel. There have already been two — Robert Mueller and John Durham — but maybe a third will finally get them the indictments of big names that they’ve been craving all these years.
Former President Obama’s office felt compelled to respond by dismissing the accusations as “ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction” which is correct but they must also be at least slightly concerned that Bondi and her hand-picked Trump lawyers are prepared to go to the mat after their mishandling of the Epstein Files scandal. Whether Obama is immune from prosecution due to the recent Supreme Court ruling designed to help Trump break as many laws as possible is beside the point. Trump will go after his associates:
“It probably helps him a lot. Probably helps him a lot. The immunity ruling. But it doesn’t help the people around him at all…He’s done criminal acts, there’s no question about it. But he has immunity. And it probably helps him a lot. He owes me big. Obama owes me big.”
Obama did not commit any crimes and neither did the other officials. Unfortunately, the political press appears to be ready to dive right in. Axios reported over the weekend that the “two scandals” are unfolding on parallel tracks, despite the fact that one of them is a patently obvious distraction based on easily refuted facts:
Why it matters: President Trump’s war on his predecessor is dramatically escalating just as he faces new pressure over his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files — with a steady stream of leaks extending the scandal, day by day.
For MAGA, the new focus on “Russiagate” offers a unifying reprieve — a return to familiar territory where Trump is the victim of a conspiracy, not the subject of one.
It’s a retribution campaign that’s deeply personal to Trump’s most loyal supporters, and one that could plunge the U.S. into uncharted territory if carried to its extreme conclusion.
Trump is thrilled to see the media take the bait. He said of Gabbard, “she’s the hottest one in the room right now,” an unfortunate turn of phrase under the current circumstances but one which trips so easily off his tongue that it can only remind everyone of the scandal he’s trying to avoid. The question now is whether Bondi will be able to redeem herself as adroitly as Gabbard has done. She knows what she has to do. Will she have the guts to do it?
