THURSDAY: Voters hate the bill when they know what's in it!

THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 2025

Also, they don't know what's in it: The zone is flooded every day—and the day of reckoning for the budget bill continues to draw near.

As the zone keeps getting flooded, every distraction serves as a distraction. Also, every actual news event functions in much the same way.

That said, what is in that budget bill? Also, how well does the public understand what's in the ballyhooed bill?

In this morning's New York Times, Jacob Hacker and Patrick Sullivan address each of those questions. We're scoring Professor Hacker as first among equals. Here's the identity line:

Jacob S. Hacker, a political science professor at Yale, is the author, with Paul Pierson, of “Let Them Eat Tweets​: How the Right Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality.” Patrick Sullivan is a postdoctoral fellow at Yale.

Whatever! At any rate, Hacker and Sullivan aren't fans of the bill. Headline included, here's how their guest essay starts:

How Awful Is the Republican Megabill? Here Are Four of the Worst Parts.

The Trump-era Republican Party, we’re told, is a working-class party standing up for ordinary citizens against powerful elites. One section of the Republicans’ major policy bill is even titled “Working Families Over Elites.”

But that bill—the one and only major legislative effort of Trump 2.0—is the most regressive, least populist policy package in memory. With its distinctive mix of tax cuts laser-focused on the rich and spending cuts that most hurt middle- and low-income Americans, it would shift more resources up the income ladder than any bill passed since scorekeepers started keeping track. And when voters learn what it would do—even Republican voters—they recoil from it.

We know, because we asked them. In a survey we ran after the House version of the bill passed, we showed a random selection of voters how the bill would affect the take-home income of less affluent Americans versus the top 1 percent. Opposition exploded, with only 11 percent of Americans supporting the bill—one-third the level of support seen among those not shown the distributional results. Among Republicans, the shift was even larger: Support and opposition flipped—to nearly 3 to 1 opposition from nearly 3 to 1 support.

As unpopular as the bill is, however, Americans have yet to fully understand the special alchemy of inegalitarianism that defines it. Break through the deception and misdirection, and Republicans’ signature policy bill, which President Trump and G.O.P. lawmakers call the One Big Beautiful Bill, seems more aptly named Elites Over Working Families.

The New Haven pair state two major findings:

Voters hate the bill when they know what's in it. Also, voters don't know what's in it!  

Briefly, let's state the obvious:

The validity of Hacker's findings turns on the accuracy of what he and Sullivan told their random selection of voters about the budget bill's contents. To give you a rough idea of what those voters were told, here's how today's guest essay continues along from above:

The bill is awful for most Americans in many ways. Here are four of the worst.

1. It is epically regressive

[...]

2. The hyper-regressive tax cuts you haven’t heard enough about

[...]

3. A war on the I.R.S. could make the bill even more costly.

[...]

4. It is another “skinny” attempt to repeal Obamacare.

Those are the four (4) major problems they attribute to the bill. In each case, as you can see, we've omitted their amplification of the matter in question.

Hacker and Sullivan see this bill as a disaster for middle- and low-income Americans. That said, discussion of this bill keeps getting swept aside because of the endless array of distractions which now define American political culture—but also because major orgs like the Fox News Channel will never, on pain of death, discuss provisions of the bill which may harm the bulk of their channel's viewers.

Sad! But that's the way our political / journalistic culture works in these latter days.

What's actually in the budget bill? Pete Hegseth and Karoline Leavitt insist on joining President Trump in his angry denunciations of whatever it is the president has just angrily denounced. As such angry pseudo-discussions roll on, discussion of the budget bill gets swept to the side again.

This bill is going undiscussed in many venues and for various reasons. Meanwhile, can anyone here play this game?

We've shown you the headline which tops this guest essay online. For reasons we can't quite explain, this is the headline which appeared in this morning's print editions:

Three of the Ugliest Points About the Republican Megabill

No, we aren't making that up! According to the fine print beneath the online presentation, that's what the headline said in this morning's print editions!

Did someone have trouble counting to four? Also, as the nation continues to slide toward the sea, can anyone here play this game? 

THE PLAYERS: She should be thrown out like a dog!

THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 2025

The remains of an earlier age: The Remains of the Day started out as an acclaimed 1989 novel. After that, it was turned into an acclaimed 1993 feature film. 

We'll do a quick drive-by tomorrow. For today, we'll say this:

At one time, not long ago, yesterday's report in Mediaite might have seemed like an Onion parody.

That said, a parody of what? The conduct described in the report would have been extremely hard to imagine. 

Even viewed as some sort of parody, the report would have been hard to process. Headline included, the report started off like this:

‘FIRE NATASHA!’ Trump Launches Scathing Attack on CNN Reporter, Demands She Be ‘Thrown Out Like a Dog’

President Donald Trump demanded that CNN fire Natasha Bertrand, the reporter responsible for a story about how a preliminary U.S. intelligence assessment suggested the American attack on three Iranian facilities did not destroy the country’s nuclear program, in a fiery Truth Social post demanding that she be “thrown out ‘like a dog'” on Wednesday.

There he'd gone again! The sitting president had told the world that CNN should fire one of its reporters. 

She should be "thrown out," the president had said. More precisely, he had said that Natasha Bertrand should be thrown out "like a dog:"

Truth Details

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump

Natasha Bertrand should be FIRED from CNN! I watched her for three days doing Fake News. She should be IMMEDIATELY reprimanded, and then thrown out “like a dog.” She lied on the Laptop from Hell Story, and now she lied on the Nuclear Sites Story, attempting to destroy our Patriot Pilots by making them look bad when, in fact, they did a GREAT job and hit “pay dirt”—TOTAL OBLITERATION! She should not be allowed to work at Fake News CNN. It’s people like her who destroyed the reputation of a once great Network. Her slant was so obviously negative, besides, she doesn’t have what it takes to be an on camera correspondent, not even close. FIRE NATASHA!

Is something wrong with this freaking guy? Of one thing we can all be certain:

As we'll show you below, Blue America's major news orgs will never be willing to ask that question. CNN included, they'll never be willing to go there!

Below, we'll reinforce that point. For now, let's simply say this:

That report in Mediaite wasn't a parody by the Onion, and it was perfectly accurate. The president had actually said those things, in one of his three million recent Truth Social posts.

There was a time, not long ago, when that report in Mediaite would have been impossible to believe. There would have been no way to imagine that a sitting president would have behaved that way.

That was then, but this is now—and, for better or worse, this is now routine behavior from the sitting president. 

To his credit, he didn't say that Bertrand is "scum," or even that she's "a sick person." On at least this one occasion, he left those bombs undropped.

That said, is something wrong with President Trump? If the answer is yes, we regard that as a human tragedy, and we'll recommend that you should follow suit.

Is something wrong with President Trump? We thought it might be worth taking a look at the CNN report which had the president incensed—at the report which carried Bertrand's name, along with the names of two other reporters.

This was the report from CNN—the report which launched our failing nation's latest pseudo-discussion. The report strikes us as fair and nuanced. As you can see, this is the way it started:

Exclusive: Early US intel assessment suggests strikes on Iran did not destroy nuclear sites, sources say

By Natasha Bertrand, Katie Bo Lillis and Zachary Cohen, CNN

The US military strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities last weekend did not destroy the core components of the country’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months, according to an early US intelligence assessment that was described by seven people briefed on it.

The assessment, which has not been previously reported, was produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s intelligence arm. It is based on a battle damage assessment conducted by US Central Command in the aftermath of the US strikes, one of the sources said.

The analysis of the damage to the sites and the impact of the strikes on Iran’s nuclear ambitions is ongoing, and could change as more intelligence becomes available. But the early findings are at odds with President Donald Trump’s repeated claims that the strikes “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also said on Sunday that Iran’s nuclear ambitions “have been obliterated.”

Two of the people familiar with the assessment said Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed. One of the people said the centrifuges are largely “intact.” Another source said that the intelligence assessed enriched uranium was moved out of the sites prior to the US strikes.

“So the (DIA) assessment is that the US set them back maybe a few months, tops,” this person added.

The White House acknowledged the existence of the assessment but said they disagreed with it.

That's the way it started.

As you can see, Bertrand was listed as one of three (3) reporters. The president decided that she was the one who should be thrown out like a dog, though he didn't say that she's scum.

As for the report itself, we can't see what's supposed to be wrong with the work by The CNN 3.  We say that for these reasons:

As early as paragraph 3, the reporters explicitly noted that the assessment in question "could change as more intelligence becomes available." They quickly noted that the White House (said it) disagreed with the assessment offered in the DIA's report.

For the record, CNN hadn't seen the report itself. They said they were relying on the kindness of (seven) strangers as they described its contents. 

CNN could have noted that fact more explicitly. We'd call that a minor offense.

On the whole, the repot strikes us as journalistically competent but also as fundamentally fair. Along came a major official who may be a bit less balanced in his rage-filled reactions.

In his post, the president repeated the absurd claim that CNN's report constituted an attack on the American pilots who carried out last weekend's strike. At one point not long ago, it would have been hard to imagine a sitting president repeatedly making a remark so transparently dumb

Dumb as it was, the president said it again! He then moved on to his main idea—one of the three reporters should be fired "like a dog."

Is something wrong with President Trump? If so, we regard that as a human tragedy—but of one thing you can be certain:

For better or worse, Blue America's upper-end press will never be willing to center that fairly obvious question. This very morning, the New York Times has once again established that point.

We refer to the profile by Tyler Pager which appears in today's print editions. Headline included, the profile starts like this:

Online and IRL, Trump Offers a Window Into His Psyche

Over the course of three hours on Tuesday, President Trump scolded Israel and Iran with expletive-laced comments on the South Lawn of the White House. He told reporters he had just chastised the prime minister of Israel, and he shared a screenshot of a private text from the NATO secretary general on social media.

Most presidents deal with international crises in private—at most, they might release a carefully crafted statement.

That has never been Mr. Trump’s style. With this president, the entire world gets a view into his thoughts, gripes and whims in ways that are often reminiscent of a chronically online millennial. His posts come at all hours of the day and night—many self-congratulatory, some trivial, some angry—and his in-real-life appearances can sometimes echo his online persona.

All are windows into his psyche, a trove of insight into the intentions, moods and vulnerabilities of the commander in chief.

Pager started with a daring claim. The president's endless social media posts offer a window "into his psyche."

But as his report proceeds, Pager operates as sanitizer in chief, perhaps at the direction of his editors. He restricted himself to social media posts, moving beyond the furious behavior which often emerges in the president's public actions.

The president recent angry F-bomb was mentioned only in a sanitized way. The endless name-calling of the past few days went unmentioned altogether.

Is something wrong with the president—something signaled by his apparent rage and his apparently erratic behavior? Could something perhaps be wrong "with his psyche," as Pager seems to ask?

This morning, the New York Times pretends to ask even as it refuses to do so. The president's conduct is routinely normalized, but in this morning's pseudo-profile it's largely disappeared. 

There was a time when that report in Mediaite would have been hard to imagine. As Americans, we're left with the remains of an earlier day when the president keeps going off—and when Blue America's major orgs insist on averting their gaze.

Last Saturday's attack? It's all over but the shouting! The discourse has been upended again. The major players remain. 

Tomorrow: What the spokeswoman said

WEDNESDAY: An insult like "scum" isn't even worth noting...

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25, 2025

...the second time around: Yesterday, when he dropped the bomb in question, one news site took notice.

Mediaite reported the president's rage. Tommy Christopher started like this, headline included:

‘SCUM!’ Trump Rages at CNN, MSNBC on White House Lawn Over Skeptical Coverage

President Donald Trump raged at MSNBC and CNN over their coverage of the U.S. airstrikes in Iran, claiming they “hurt” bomber pilots by questioning his claims about the damage done.

[...]

Both of those networks drew Trump’s rage when he spoke to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House Tuesday morning as he departed the White House on route to The Hague, Netherlands.

He called the outlets “scum” and accused them of trying “to demean me” with their reporting.

At that point, Mediaite's Tommy Christopher presented a transcript of the angry president's rage-filled remarks. His remarks had gone like this:

REPORTER (6/24/25): How confident are you [INAUDIBLE] has been demolished?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I think it’s been completely demolished. I think the reason we’re here is because those pilots, those B-2 pilots, did an unbelievable job.

And, you know, the fake news, like CNN in particular, they’re trying to say, “Well, I agree that it was destroyed, but maybe not that destroyed.”

You know what they’re doing? They’re really hurting great pilots that put their lives on the line! CNN is SCUM! And so is MSDNC. They’re all—.

And frankly, the networks aren’t much better. It’s all fake news, but they should not have done that.

Those pilots hit their targets. Those targets were obliterated, and the pilots should be given credit. They’re not after the pilots. They’re after me. They want to try and demean me.

Obviously, no one has been criticizing the pilots who performed Saturday's elaborate mission. The president offered that absurd claim, that moved to the angry assertion that CNN and MSNBC are "scum."

We're willing to call that unusual language. Quite correctly, Mediaite took note of that fact, from its eye-catching headline on down.

That was the fury of the president as he started his trip to the NATO conference. This morning, during a formal presser at The Hague, there the president went again. Once again, with extreme anger, he delivered his favorite new bomb:

PRESIDENT TRUMP (6/25/25): This was an unbelievable hit by genius pilots and genius people in the military. And they're not being given credit for it because we have scum [pointing] that's in this group. 

And not all of you are. You have some great reporters, but you have scum. 

CNN is scum.  MSDNC is scum. The New York Times is scum. They're bad people. They're sick.  And what they've done is they're trying try to make this unbelievable victory into something less...

As of this morning, the New York Times is also scum. And not only that—the Times is also sick.

Love is said to be better the second time around. By way of contrast, the furious use of the insulting term "scum" seems to be less notable. 

In today's diatribe from The Hague, the president continued with the ridiculous claim in which "the genius pilots" are being demeaned by the press, along with other "genius people in the military."

After relaunching that foolish claim, he turned again to his favorite insult, even as some of the "scum" sat right there before him. For a fuller account of today's explosion, see this morning's report.

Love is better the second time—but this startling insult is being ignored today, even at Mediaite. Simply put, our sitting president is extremely erratic and very angry—and our timorous press corps seems inclined to normalize all such behavior.

They don't know what to say about this This seems to be their solution:

Nothing to look at! Move right along!

In this face of the president's strange behavior, they just say nothing at all.

THE PLAYERS: Furious president does it again!

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25, 2025

The New York Times calmly reports: For the record, Men's Health magazine isn't a medical journal.

That said, it seems to have a significant global readership. In what seems like a dated overview, the leading authority on such magazines offers this overview:

Men's Health

Men's Health (MH), published by Hearst, is the world's largest men's magazine brand, with 35 editions in 59 countries; it is the bestselling men's magazine on American newsstands.

Started [in 1986] as a men's health magazine, the magazine currently covers various men's lifestyle topics such as fitness, nutrition, fashion and sexuality. The magazine's website, MensHealth.com, averages over 118 million page views a month.

[...]

In 2004, Men's Health began putting celebrities and athletes on the cover, and with their shirts on—a departure from the covers of the 1990s.

Those statistics all seem to be dated. For recent claims by the magazine itself, you can just click here.

Plainly, Mea's Health magazine isn't a medical journal. We cite it today because a new report in the magazine caught our eye. 

The report may even seem to flirt with a type of political relevance. To peruse it without a paywall, you can simply click this:

10 Signs You're Dealing With a Sociopath, According to Experts

WHEN YOU THINK about a sociopath, you probably envision Patrick Bateman out of American Psycho. Films and TV make these characters look outrageously cruel and manipulative. In real life, however, sociopaths may be a little harder to identify.

“Sociopaths in real life often look charming and can be quite liked as a manipulation tactic,” explains Erin Rayburn, L.M.F.T, founder of Evergreen Therapy in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

The report proceeds from there. It doesn't cite nine signs, or even eleven. It found exactly ten!

We expect to walk you through that report before the week is done. For now, we'll start with a sober, though perhaps imperfect front-page report in this morning's New York Times.

First, a bit of background:

During this morning's four o'clock hour, we saw the sitting president, Donald J. Trump, ranting again about "the scum"—about the "sick people"—who inhabit the mainstream press corps. 

He was speaking live and direct—and very angrily—from the NATO summit in The Hague. His press event was aired live on the Fox News Channel =during a special early broadcast of its daily 5 o'clock show, Fox & Friends First.

There the president went again, complaining about "the scum!" But even as he spoke, that front-page report in the New York Times started off rather soberly, exactly as seen here:

Strike Set Back Iran’s Nuclear Program by Only a Few Months, U.S. Report Says

A preliminary classified U.S. report says the American bombing of three nuclear sites in Iran set back the country’s nuclear program by only a few months, according to officials familiar with the findings.

The strikes sealed off the entrances to two of the facilities but did not collapse their underground buildings, the officials said the early findings concluded.

Before the attack, U.S. intelligence agencies had said that if Iran tried to rush to making a bomb, it would take about three months. After the U.S. bombing run and days of attacks by the Israeli Air Force, the report by the Defense Intelligence Agency estimated that the program had been delayed, but by less than six months.

The report also said that much of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was moved before the strikes, which destroyed little of the nuclear material. Iran may have moved some of that to secret locations.

As far as we know, the claims in those opening paragraphs are accurate. There actually is a "preliminary report," and that actually is what "officials familiar with [its] findings" say the report has said.

Needless to say, that doesn't mean that this preliminary report represents the final word on what happened this weekend.  Experienced specialists all seem to agree that the process of assessing a military attack—the process of constructing a BDA (a Bomb Damage Assessment)—is a process of many miles.

As far as we know, the headline in the Times report accurate. As far as we know, there actually is a "U.S. report" which says that this weekend's strike "set back Iran’s nuclear program by only a few months."

We don't know if that will turn out to be the final, most persuasive assessment. Under current arrangements, we do know this:

There will never be a final assessment on which our nation's warring tribes—Red and Blue—will largely agree.

As the Times report continues, it offers some sagacious background information concerning Saturday's attack. If we were to criticize the journalism, we might suggest that this passage might have appeared a bit earlier in the Times report:

Officials cautioned that the five-page classified report was only an initial assessment, and that others would follow as more information was collected and as Iran examined the three sites. One official said that the reports people in the administration had been shown were “mixed” but that more assessments were yet to be done.

But the Defense Intelligence Agency report indicates that the sites were not damaged as much as some administration officials had hoped, and that Iran retains control of almost all of its nuclear material, meaning if it decides to make a nuclear weapon it might still be able to do so relatively quickly.

Officials interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity because the findings of the report remain classified.

The White House took issue with the assessment. Karoline Leavitt, a White House spokeswoman, said its findings were “flat-out wrong.”

Those are paragraphs 15-18 in this morning's report. The passage closes with the mandatory statement by Karoline Leavitt, bringing the eternal note of sadness in, at least according to us.

According to paragraph 15, officials cautioned that the five-page report was only an initial assessment. One official has said that more (definitive) assessments were yet to be done.

The New York Times did include those cautionary notes. It seems to us that these words of caution might have been positioned earlier in this important report. 

That said, the Times report was sober and nuanced. It probably wasn't a perfect report, in part for the obvious reason:

There's no such thing as a perfect report. No such creature exists.

To our ear, the Times report stood in contrast to what we'd already seen the president say. To see him live and direct from The Hague, you can start by clicking here.

We were watching in real time. We were watching when he said this, in a room full of reporters, for the millionth time:

PRESIDENT TRUMP (6/25/25): This was an unbelievable hit by genius pilots and genius people in the military. And they're not being given credit for it because we have scum [pointing] that's in this group. 

And not all of you are. You have some great reporters, but you have scum. 

CNN is scum.  MSDNC is scum. The New York Times is scum. They're bad people. They're sick.  And what they've done is they're trying try to make this unbelievable victory into something less...

He went on from there, sticking to his original claim about total obliteration. People at the New York Times are "scum," the president said. He also said they're "sick people." 

For the record, this:

For better or worse, wisely, or not, news orgs like the New York Times refuse to engage in medical or psychological diagnoses. They won't even interview (carefully selected) medical specialists who might engage in such discussions.

Our very angry sitting president is willing to fill that breech. Karoline Leavitt will then step in to repeat whatever the president has said. The two Americas, Red and Blue, will be fed these divergent plates of porridge.

After the president finished, a pair of Fox News Channel friends threw to Dr. Rebecca Grant. Chyronned as a "military expert," she started off with this:

DR. GRANT: Wow! That was a full bomb damage assessment briefing! And first, I've got to say, NATO is thrilled with Trump's B-2 strike on Iran, thrilled. What an honor to hear the debrief there!

It had been an honor to hear him!

Fox & Friends First was on the air an hour early. That's the way the expert started. The problems facing our flailing nation's political culture continue along from there, though largely undiscussed. 

Saturday's attack is over and done. The leading players remain, on various sides of the aisle.

Men's Health is willing to tackle some major topics. For better or worse, our mainstream press corps, not in a million years!

TUESDAY: Sitting president spots the scum...

TUESDAY, JUNE 24, 2025

...then continues from there: The Daily Beast is reporting a poll. For ourselves, we probably wouldn't call its results "devastating" or a "bombshell," but the Beast's report starts like this:

Devastating Poll Shows Trump What Americans Think of His Bombings

A bombshell CNN poll found that a clear majority of Americans disapprove of President Trump’s decision to launch airstrikes in Iran.

The poll found that 56 percent of Americans disapproved of [Saturday's] military action in Iran, while only 44 percent were in favor. It also found that 58 percent of those surveyed believe Trump’s actions will make Iran a bigger threat to the U.S.

The vast majority of Democrats (88 percent) and most independents (60 percent) said they opposed the strikes, while most Republicans (82 percent) broadly approved. But just 44 percent of Republicans said they strongly approved of Trump’s actions—a much smaller cohort than the 60 percent of Democrats who strongly disapproved.

Just to be clear, the featured question was this:

What is your view of the US decision to take military action in Iran?

Plainly, the question seemed to refer to Saturday's military strike, not to possible "military action" in general.

For our money, we'd generally prefer to see polling numbers cut against President Trump by a larger margin than 56-44. This second question did produce a larger negative split:

Do you think this US military action will make Iran [more of a threat / less of a threat] to the US?

Responses there broke in favor of "more of a threat" by 58-25. Opinion on that could change, of course, depending on what does or doesn't come next.

CNN asked another question—a question we think is instructive. That question went like this:

How much do you trust Donald Trump to make the right decisions about US use of force in Iran?

We regard that as a very good question. Rightly or wrongly, for better or worse, respondents broke down like this:

How much do you trust Donald Trump to make the right decisions about US use of force in Iran?
Great deal / moderately: 45%
Not much / not at all: 55%

More simplistically, 45% basically trust his decision making; 55% basically don't. Given where the Daily Beast report went next, we'd call that a bit of a win for the selling of President Trump.

Here's the way the Daily Beast report continued:

The poll results were featured in a segment on CNN at 6:40 a.m. ET on Tuesday. Within 20 minutes, Trump furiously lashed out at the network while speaking to reporters on the White House lawn as part of an explicit tirade, slamming CNN as “scum.”

Ranting about reports from CNN and MSNBC that his airstrikes may not have completely destroyed Iran’s nuclear stockpiles, Trump fumed: “CNN is scum. And so is MSDNC ... It’s all fake news. They should not have done that. Those pilots hit their targets, those targets were obliterated, and the pilots should be given credit. They’re not after the pilots, they’re after me.”

Obviously, no one is "going after the pilots." But so said President Trump.

Over and over, again and again, everyone seems to be going after President Trump if you let him tell it. We can't help wondering what a (carefully selected) medical specialist would say about this endless pattern of behavior, but we do know this:

Given prevailing rules of the game, no news org is going to ask.

To a remarkable degree, large elements of Red America's current elites are driven by fury and rage. Of course, if western literature began with the Iliad, it began with a lengthy profile of fury and rage as expressed by a furious, rage-filled group of extremely angry men.

For ourselves, we don't have a lot of confidence in President Trump's future decision making. In what we would regard as a tragedy, his erratic behavior routinely spills with rage, as happened again today. 

We refer to this Truth Social post. It concerns three Democratic House members, with a certain "Palestinian" senator thrown in:

Truth Details

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump

Stupid AOC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the "dumbest" people in Congress, is now calling for my Impeachment, despite the fact that the Crooked and Corrupt Democrats have already done that twice before. The reason for her "rantings" is all of the Victories that the U.S.A. has had under the Trump Administration. The Democrats aren’t used to WINNING, and she can’t stand the concept of our Country being successful again. When we examine her Test Scores, we will find out that she is NOT qualified for office but, nevertheless, far more qualified than Crockett, who is a seriously Low IQ individual, or Ilhan Omar, who does nothing but complain about our Country, yet the Failed Country that she comes from doesn’t have a Government, is drenched in Crime and Poverty, and is rated one of the WORST in the World, if it’s even rated at all. How dare "The Mouse" tells us how to run the United States of America! We’re just now coming back from that Radical Left experiment with Sleepy Joe, Kamala, and "THE AUTOPEN," in charge. What a disaster it was! AOC should be forced to take the Cognitive Test that I just completed at Walter Reed Medical Center, as part of my Physical. As the Doctor in charge said, "President Trump ACED it," meaning, I got every answer right. Instead of her constant complaining, Alexandria should go back home to Queens, where I was also brought up, and straighten out her filthy, disgusting, crime ridden streets, in the District she "represents," and which she never goes to anymore. She better start worrying about her own Primary, before she starts thinking about our Great Palestinian Senator, Cryin' Chuck Schumer, whose career is definitely on very thin ice! She and her Democrat friends have just hit the Lowest Poll Numbers in Congressional History, so go ahead and try impeaching me, again, MAKE MY DAY!

Yes, that's what he posted. 

At this site, we regard that apparently uncontrollable anger as a human tragedy—as a tragic loss of human potential. We also regard it as a reason to be concerned about President Trump's future decision-making.

Sadly, he keeps going back to that cognitive test, apparently not knowing how dumb the reference is. 

For ourselves, we think AOC's call for a third impeachment didn't exactly make sense. That said:

Forty-five percent of respondents told CNN that they expect that the man who keeps churning "Truths" of that type will make decent future decisions. Somewhere within that number, we almost suspect, our own tribe has failed to connect.

Our literature begins with a portrait of rage. It leads onward toward the fall of Troy—to a vicious and violent outcome.

In the present instance, our sitting president spotted the scum, then continued along from there. We regard this as a human tragedy. Many others trust this man.

THE PLAYERS: He says that he said, "Don't go in!"

TUESDAY, JUNE 24, 2025

Except he didn't say that: Last Friday, in Morristown, New Jersey, there he went again!

Almost surely, the decision to bomb Iran had apparently already been made. As a possible part of a multifaceted feint, the president was heading off for a relaxing weekend at his Bedminster country club.

After landing at Morristown Municipal Airport, the president took questions from reporters. For unknown reasons, NBC's Vaughn Hillyard tossed him a misleading softball about his position, way back in 2002, on the impending war in Iraq.

By our lights, Hillyard's presentation was grossly misleading. In his response, the president took it and ran:

HILLYARD (6/20/25): Twenty years ago, you were skeptical of a Republican administration that attacked a Middle East country on the idea of questionable intelligence of weapons of mass destruction. How is this moment different with Iran?

TRUMP: ...I was very much opposed to Iraq. I was—I said it loud and clear, but I was a civilian, but I got a lot of publicity. But I was very much opposed to the Iraq war, and I actually did say, "Don't go in. Don't go in. Don't go in."

I actually did say, "Don't go in," the president said.

Except he didn't say that. He didn't say any such thing in the run-up to the war in Iraq.

Journalistically, this matter was litigated long ago, back in the day when Candidate Trump made his first ran for the White House. At that time, it became obvious that he hadn't opposed the war in Iraq, and certainly not in the full-throated way he still likes to say he recalls.

More than twenty years later, there the president went again! The next day, the attack on Iran's nuclear sites proceeded, with the president stepping forward to claim a degree of success which may or may not have occurred.

("Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.")

The day before the strike on Ira, he stood on the tarmac in New Jersey. 

I said it loud and clear, the president said. I actually did say, "Don't go in. Don't go in. Don't go in."

In fact, he didn't do any such thing. And he didn't actually say that.

How will history judge Saturday's attack on Iran? Assuming "history" exists in the future, the bombing attack may be judged as a major geopolitical success.

Or then again, possibly not! That will depend, at least in part, on the judgments and the decisions which are made from here. 

Were Iran's enrichment facilities completely obliterated? Everyone seems to agree that no such assessment can be made at this point. But whatever may have happened to those facilities—even if the facilities have been destroyed—the major players who got us here are going to remain.

President Trump will stay in place; so will Vice President Vance. So will the president's cabinet members and his informal advisers.

The mainstream press corps will stay in place. So will the various players seen on the Fox News Channel.

The Democratic Party will still be there, with its officials inclined to argue about tangential legalisms. And we denizens of Blue America will still be in place, perhaps failing to see, right to the end, the ways our own imperfect judgments helped create a world in which President Trump, and his associates, will be making the major decisions as this matter moves forward.

President Trump remains unchanged. So does the problem he seems to have with the task of making accurate statements.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth will, most likely, remain—and it's as we showed you in yesterday's report. In a move straight outta Orwell, he offered this, on Sunday morning, in the wake of the attacks:

SECRETARY HEGSETH (6/22/25): Thanks to President Trump's bold and visionary leadership and his commitment to peace through strength, Iran's nuclear ambitions have been obliterated.

Many presidents have dreamed of delivering the blow to Iran's nuclear program and none could until President Trump. The operation President Trump planned was bold and it was brilliant.

[...]

President Trump said, No nukes. He seeks peace, and Iran should take that path. He sent out a Truth last night saying this: "Any retaliation by Iran against the United States of America will be met with force far greater than what was witnessed tonight." Signed, "The President of the United States, Donald J. Trump."

President Trump had "sent out a Truth!" Incredibly, that's what Hegseth actually said.

Incredibly, that's what he fellow actually said. In the process, he invented a new piece of Orwellian language.

("He is such a boy," a young Bulgarian woman once said. As we noted yesterday, we kept flashing on her words in the wake of Hegseth's statement.)

At least for now—and possibly for much longer than that—the bombing mission on Iran has changed the shape of the American discourse:

We're so old that we can even remember the political murders in Minnesota! Beyond that, it's as we noted in Saturday's report. We can even remember the day when Vice President Vance engaged in this astonishing bit of ugly political conduct:

Vance Blames L.A. Violence on California Democrats and Disparages Padilla

Eight days ago, Senator Alex Padilla was forcibly removed from a news conference and handcuffed by federal agents after he interrupted Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, at the Wilshire Federal Building in Los Angeles.

At the same building on Friday, Vice President JD Vance disparaged Mr. Padilla for engaging in “political theater” and called him by the wrong name.

“Well, I was hoping Jose Padilla would be here to ask a question, but unfortunately, I guess he decided not to show up because there wasn’t the theater,” Mr. Vance said during a news conference in response to a reporter. “I think everybody realizes that’s what this is. It’s pure political theater.”

Mr. Vance’s spokeswoman later said that he misspoke when he said the senator’s name.

[...]

Later Friday, a spokeswoman for Mr. Vance said the vice president misspoke when he said Mr. Padilla’s name.

“He must have mixed up two people who have broken the law,” said Taylor Van Kirk, the spokeswoman.

Jose Padilla is the name of a man who was convicted of terrorism conspiracy in 2007 after being arrested in Chicago on suspicion of planning to set off a radioactive dirty bomb.

Astonishing! A person could always imagine that the Vice President had misspoken unintentionally when he bungled the senator's first name.

The astonishing statement by the press spokesperson lay any such thoughts to rest. It also serves to remind us of the vast cultural problem our flailing nation still faces.

Bombs have fallen in what may come to be seen as an historically significant mission. Or then again, possibly not!

The way the current situation plays out will depend, in very large part, on future decisions made by people like Hegseth and Vance—and of course, by President Trump himself.

Should those of us in our flailing nation have confidence in what will come next? It seems to us that the answer is no. In fact, imperfect judgment flows like a mighty stream from elements of the American nation—and that even include us Blues.

Some facilities in Iran are gone, but the major players remain. As we noted yesterday, the Middle East is "a story without an ending." There is still no way to know how events will unfold from here.

Some sites are gone, but the story remains. As the week continues, we'll continue to offer some thoughts about the deeply flawed American tribes who do, in fact, remain.

This afternoon: We owe you reports from last week

Tomorrow: Bluster and fury