The Conversation -- August 12, 2025

Marie: Don't bother to try to comment. I logged out and tried. I got the message my comment had "taken," but it had not. I complained about this to Squarespace yesterday after Ken W. told me he couldn't post comments. Response from Squarespace? Crickets. I'm about to try again.

Marie: It's hard to know what is more attractive to the most lawless president* in U.S. history: diverting attention from the Epstein scandal or releasing his little private army on people of color, but here is what Trump did yesterday: ~~~ 

~~~ Michael Birnbaum, et al., of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump announced Monday that he would place the D.C. ... police under direct federal control and deploy the National Guard to the streets of Washington to fight crime and clear the city of its homeless population, an extraordinary flex of federal power that could expose residents of the nation’s capital to unpredictable encounters with a domestically-deployed military force. The decision to deploy troops comes as the president has been slamming America’s cities as places where crime is out of control, despite two years of declines that have brought homicide levels in many major cities to their lowest levels in decades. The administration has already mobilized FBI agents in recent days in overnight shifts to help local law enforcement prevent carjackings and violent crime in the city, officials said. Because the District of Columbia is not a state, the federal government has unusually sweeping powers to intervene over the objections of its residents and leaders, giving the president an opportunity to use it as a laboratory for a militarized approach to urban crime-fighting....

“In addition to the FBI, the Secret Service and the U.S. Secret Service Uniformed Division have also been directed to launch special patrols in Washington, according to a White House official.... But the administration has not consulted with the D.C. police department — the chief law enforcement agency responsible for policing local crime — about how best to deploy federal resources, said a senior official....” (Also linked yesterday.) 

~~~ The New York Times liveblogged some sort of bonkers press conference Trump headed up with the usual suspects as supporting cast members. MB Update: As it often is, the liveblog is amusing what with Trump being such a dunderhead & lying SOS. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

Eric Schmitt & Helene Cooper of the New York Times: Donald “Trump’s decision to send at least 800 National Guard troops into the streets of Washington to fight crime is the latest example of how the president has used the military to advance domestic policy priorities.... Already this year, Mr. Trump has deployed some 10,000 active-duty troops to the southwest U.S. border to choke off the flow of drugs as well as migrants, and 4,700 National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles to help quell protests that had erupted over immigration raids and to protect the federal agents conducting them.... Mr. Trump last month secretly signed a directive to the Pentagon to begin using military force against certain Latin American drug cartels....

“The National Guard troops who will fan out across Washington starting this week will not perform law enforcement tasks, Pentagon officials said on Monday.... But like the Guard in Los Angeles, the soldiers in Washington will probably be able to detain people temporarily in certain circumstances until federal agents arrive, officials said. The soldiers will be armed and authorized to defend themselves, military officials said.” ~~~

~~~ Lindsay Whitehurst of the AP: “... Donald Trump took unprecedented steps toward federalizing Washington, D.C. on Monday, saying it’s needed to fight crime even as city leaders pointed to data showing violence is down. He took command of the police department and deployed the National Guard under laws and Constitutional powers that give the federal government more sway over the nation’s capital than other cities. Its historically majority Black population wasn’t electing its own city council and mayor until 1973, when Republican President Richard Nixon signed the Home Rule Act. The measure still left significant power to the president and Congress, though no president has exercised the police powers before.” ~~~

~~~ Chris Mirasola in a Lawfare essay: "Federal law provides the president unusually broad discretion to deploy the D.C. National Guard for law enforcement functions. Yet this statutory scheme, and the manner in which Trump is using it, erode the diminishing guarantees against military incursion into domestic affairs." Mirasola outlines the statutory basis for Trump's deployment of the military in D.C., even as he notes that the laws are "outdated and incredibly broad.... Finally, there are the especially concerning facts of this military deployment, which we must place in the context of an ever-growing impulse to deploy the military within the United States. It began eight months ago at the southern border. It spread to Los Angeles earlier this summer. And it is now arriving (returning, really) to the capital. Each time, the president has justified these military deployments under the pretext of a domestic crisis that facts do not support." ~~~

~~~ Joyce Vance on Substack: "It’s deeply concerning that Trump’s predication for seizing control in the District — allegedly out of control crime — are a lie.... Time and again, Trump shows his willingness to grab and abuse power, and each instance makes the next more likely.... Trump declined to deploy the Guard on January 6—when doing so would have been entirely appropriate, claiming he lacked the power to do so. Yet now, he has suddenly, and without a valid reason, ordered the troops to mobilize." ~~~

~~~ Heather Cox Richardson: “Trump’s performance at the press conference ... made it clear that his mental deterioration is moving rapidly. He let Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and FBI director Kash Patel explain the actual plan, taking the microphone himself to describe a fake world in which he plays the role of hero, solving five wars, creating a booming economy, solving the border security others couldn’t, protecting Americans from a hellscape that exists only in his rhetoric.... As [former Time editor Rick] Stengel noted, 'Throughout history, autocrats use a false pretext to impose government control over local law enforcement as a prelude to a more national takeover. That’s far more dangerous than the situation he says he is fixing.'... The administration is also consolidating power over the economy. Greg Ip of the Wall Street Journal noted today that the U.S. is marching toward a form of state capitalism in which Trump looks much like the Chinese Communist Party, exercising political control not just over government agencies but over companies themselves.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: So what has been obvious for months is this: a fascistic, ignorant old man of metastasizing mental incompetence -- backed by his administration, the Congress and the Supreme Court -- is taking control of all aspects of American life: the law, the economy, the cultural institutions, and of course all of government, including the military. ~~~

~~~ Meagan Flynn, et al., of the Washington Post: “D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) faced one of the greatest tests of her leadership in her decade-long tenure Monday as ... Donald Trump took over the D.C. police department and deployed the D.C. National Guard onto city streets — a stunning moment in the history of the city’s limited self-rule. For now, Bowser continued with the cautious approach she has taken over the past several months and said there is little the city could do to prevent Trump’s unprecedented actions. Although she disputed Trump’s characterization of D.C. as riddled with surging violence, the city will cooperate as the law requires, she said.... Fearing the kind of intervention that materialized Monday, Bowser has sought to avoid antagonizing the president with the kind of resistance that other Democratic mayors nationwide have not hesitated to display....” ~~~

     ~~~ Matt Pusatory & Amber Anderson of WUSA9 Washington, D.C.: "High level sources in the Wilson Building and the Metropolitan Police Department told WUSA9 that Mayor Muriel Bowser and Police Chief Pamela Smith were not given a heads up about Trump's plan to take over and federalize the police force. They were only preparing for an announcement on the National Guard." ~~~

~~~ Erin Cox, et al., of the Washington Post: “Even before ... Donald Trump announced Monday that he would take over D.C. policing, city residents started to feel it. Social media posts showed FBI officers on the streets over the weekend in areas known for nightlife.... Residents shared images of officers wearing Immigration and Customs Enforcement uniforms under the Key Bridge in Georgetown on Sunday. The next morning, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives posted an image of officers standing next to FBI agents and Park Police officers, alongside pictures of confiscated firearms and narcotics. Trump promised much more to come.... The Drug Enforcement Administration began sending agents to homeless campsites. The U.S. Park Police was tasked with addressing graffiti in federal parks. National Guard troops were expected to staff intersections and work in shifts of 200 starting later this week.... Trump named Terry Cole, the head of the DEA, as interim commissioner of the D.C. police. Cole told Police Chief Pamela A. Smith on Monday evening that the federal team is hoping for the Metropolitan Police Department to lead the effort....” A related NPR story is here. ~~~

~~~ Martin Weil & Emma Uber of the Washington Post: “A man was shot and killed in the District Monday hours after ... Donald Trump announced he was taking control of the D.C. police to stop crime. The killing occurred in Northwest Washington within a half-mile of two of the high-profile homicides the president cited at his news conference.” ~~~

~~~ Steve Benen of MSNBC: “... while Trump has repeatedly insisted that crime in nation’s capital is 'out of control,' in reality, crime in D.C. has dropped. Indeed, we can say this with some confidence because U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office is still promoting a press statement from earlier this year that boasts about violent crime in the city dropping to a 30-year low.... The president even appears to be creating new criminal statutes on the fly, declaring at his press conference that those who 'even think about destroying a statue or monument' in the city will 'go to jail for 10 years.' Does he have the legal authority to make such declarations? By all appearances, the president doesn't much care.... Trump also took the opportunity to share some related thoughts about how his newly deployed forces would treat criminal criminal suspects.... 'You knock the hell out of them. It’s the only language they understand,' the Republican said, adding,  'You spit and we hit — and they get hit real hard.' Trump, of course, maintained very different standards for Jan. 6 rioters, many of whom did far more than just spit on police officers during violent clashes at the Capitol....”

     ~~~ This video is pretty good, but the way Maddow started her show, leading up to the segment above, is better yet. Here's a pirated copy of the entire show, and it's worth watching the beginning. If MSNBC causes YouTube to take down the pirated video, there's likely to be another.

David Sanger of the New York Times: Donald “Trump set the lowest possible bar for his meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Friday, declaring that 'probably in the first two minutes I’ll know exactly whether or not a deal can get done,' and insisting he was ready to walk away from the talks and let the two sides continue to fight it out. In a rambling news conference, Mr. Trump reiterated that he planned to negotiate what he called 'land swaps' and batted away the statements over the weekend by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, that his country’s Constitution prohibited him from giving away land to an invader. In describing the meeting, Mr. Trump told reporters that 'I’m going to Russia on Friday,' and repeated a version of the same statement several minutes later. In fact, the meeting is set to take place in Alaska, which has not been part of Russia since 1867, when it was sold to the United States for $7.2 million.... Recent history suggests that Mr. Trump is inclined to accept Mr. Putin’s version of reality: This year he suggested that Ukraine was responsible for the invasion of its own territory....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Sanger doesn't say so, but Trump said the same thing yesterday, blaming President Zelensky for starting the war. I heard him while I was flipping through channels. Sanger goes on to write about how the meeting was hastily called, more evidence that a main purpose of the "summit" for Trump is to divert attention from the Epstein scandal. ~~~

     ~~~ An Independent story is here. MB: Since he already feels Alaska belongs to Russia, maybe the person whose photo is on the cover of "The Art of the Deal" will sell Seward's Folly back to Russia if Putin throws in a little multi-million-dollar sweetener for Trump.

Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: Donald “Trump signed an executive order on Monday extending a trade truce between the United States and China for another three months, continuing a reprieve from the threat of escalating tariffs and export controls, which rocked the global economy earlier this year. The extension, until Nov. 10, gives the countries more time to work out their differences and sets the stage for a potential summit between Mr. Trump and Xi Jinping, China’s leader, later this year. Mr. Trump suggested on Monday that there had been progress in the negotiations. 'They’ve been dealing quite nicely — the relationship is very good with President Xi and myself,' Mr. Trump said at the White House.” A CNBC report is here.

Tony Romm, et al., of the New York Times: Donald “Trump announced on Monday that he would nominate E.J. Antoni, an economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Mr. Trump fired the previous commissioner of the agency after it reported weak job growth. Dr. Antoni, who would need to be confirmed by the Senate, has previously criticized the bureau and questioned its methods and reports. His nomination underscored Mr. Trump’s attempts to place his own allies in control of a key repository of data about the nation’s hiring, wages and prices.” The AP's story is here.

For the Moment, Some Truth on Truth Social. Drew Harwell of the Washington Post: “An [AI] 'answer engine' on Trump’s social media site ... keeps contradicting him.... [It] says the 2020 election wasn’t stolen, tariffs aren’t boosting the stock market and Barack Obama is seen favorably.” The search engine is programmed to rely on “conservative sources” to formulate its answers, but it is still coming up with some accurate answers.

Ben Rhodes in a New York Times op-ed: “Over the decade that [Donald Trump] has dominated our politics, he has been both a cause and a symptom of the unraveling of our society.... The comparatively moderate first Trump administration ended in a catastrophically mismanaged pandemic, mass protests and a violent insurrection. The fact that he returned to power even after those calamities seemed to confirm his instinct that America has become an enterprise with a limitless margin for error, a place where individuals — like superpowers — can avoid the consequences of their actions.... The second Trump administration has fully normalized the ethos of short-termism.... To overcome [Trumpism], Democrats must mobilize people to believe in the future.” (Also linked yesterday.) 

Perry Stein of the Washington Post: “A federal judge in New York denied the Justice Department’s request to release grand jury transcripts from the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein’s imprisoned associate, Ghislaine Maxwell on Monday. The ruling cited that the circumstances of the case do not merit breaking the secrecy of grand jury proceedings. The Justice Department has asked three federal judges who oversaw parts of the Epstein and Maxwell cases to release grand jury transcripts amid the public furor over the Trump administration’s decision this year not to release any more information from the Epstein files. So far the requests, two in New York and one in Florida, have not yielded the release of any transcripts. A judge in Florida has already rejected the request, and another request to a judge in New York, who is overseeing Epstein’s legal proceedings, is pending.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Marie: You wouldn't know this if you relied on the WashPo story linked above. Fortunately, there is Marcy Wheeler: ~~~

~~~ The Judge Was Not Amused. Marcy Wheeler: “Judge Paul Engelmayer has rejected Todd Blanche’s bid to unseal Ghislaine Maxwell grand jury materials .... because Blanche was lying when he insinuated there’d be anything of substantial public interest.... 'A member of the public familiar with the Maxwell trial record who reviewed the grand jury materials that the Government proposes to unseal would thus learn next to nothing new. The materials do not identify any person other than Epstein and Maxwell as having had sexual contact with a minor,' [Engelmayer wrote]. Engelmayer did consider unsealing the material for another reason: to expose the government’s attempt at diversion.... 'The one colorable argument under that doctrine for unsealing in this case, in fact, is that doing so would expose as disingenuous the Government’s public explanations for moving to unseal. A member of the public, appreciating that the Maxwell grand jury materials do not contribute anything to public knowledge, might conclude that the Government’s motion for their unsealing was aimed not at “transparency” but at diversion—aimed not at full disclosure but at the illusion of such....' He goes onto call out Blanche’s haste, sloppiness, and ignorance about the proceeding, and his inattention to the concerns of the victims.... This was a stunt. Now exposed as a stunt.” [Wheeler's emphasis.] (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: As a teevee expert said recently -- and not necessarily in relation to the Epstein scandal -- federal judges typically assumed they could rely on assertions made by federal prosecutors; judges tended to accept the DOJ's proffers more-or-less at face value. Not anymore. The Trump DOJ has the same respect for the truth that Trump himself does. ~~~

     ~~~ AND. Even the worst among us is entitled to legal representation in our system of justice, so I will not fault Bondi or Blanche or Bove for representing the deplorable Mr. Trump in various past predicaments in which he put himself. But in the course of their representation of this hot, stinking turd, surely they learned many a tidbit attesting to his hot, stinking turdiness. And still, and still. They chose to serve in his "justice" department. They chose to convert the "justice" department into a private law firm for his hot, stinking turdiness from the paragono of law enforcement it is meant to be. And in so doing, of course, they also chose to pervert the course of justice -- time and again. They chose to do numerous questionable or outright unlawful things. They chose to harm and defame many innocent and honorable people. They all chose to lie under oath in at least one instance. They chose to shame the nation they swore to serve. The "leaders" of our "justice" system are a band of hardened criminals. 

Marco Compiles False Human Rights Report for Trump. Adam Taylor, et al., of the Washington Post: “The [State D]epartment’s annual human rights reports, which are scheduled to be transmitted to Congress on Tuesday..., are expected to target the South African government for its alleged mistreatment of White Afrikaner farmers and the Brazilian government for its alleged persecution of former president Jair Bolsonaro, an ally of ... [Donald] Trump. Human rights advocates, foreign leaders and other critics of the Trump administration say its claims about both governments are exaggerated. Within the State Department, there is considerable unease, too, over how the writing of these and other country-specific human rights reports were shaped compared with past years, with some saying the process was unduly politicized.... A Trump political appointee, Samuel Samson, led the draft’s rewriting after Africa subject matter experts in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor refused to continue their involvement, citing the inclusion of false and misleading information....”

Chris Cameron of the New York Times: “A federal judge blocked the Trump administration on Monday from withholding federal funding to the National Endowment for Democracy, a nonprofit established by Congress to bolster democracy worldwide that had been paralyzed by the loss of funding earlier this year. Judge Dabney L. Friedrich of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia wrote in her 15-page ruling that the Trump administration had withheld funds from the nonprofit 'for impermissible policy reasons,' and that the endowment had suffered irreparable harm in the form of layoffs of critical staff members and suspension of several democracy-supporting initiatives.... The endowment, which has been denounced by major authoritarian powers like China and Russia, was one of several U.S.-backed human rights groups that fell victim to aggressive cuts mandated by the Department of Government Efficiency, a group led by Elon Musk that sought to slash much of the government soon after ... [Donald] Trump returned to office.”

Group Decides Trump Has Made Military Academies Racist Enough. Vimal Patel of the New York Times: “When the Supreme Court struck down race-conscious admissions at colleges in 2023, the justices said the decision did not apply to military academies because they had 'potentially distinct interests.'... Students for Fair Admissions sued shortly after to test that idea. It argued that the use of race in admissions at the academies, including the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the United States Air Force Academy, should also be struck down. On Monday, the group dropped its case, acknowledging a significant shift in the political landscape since it had brought its lawsuit. In some of their earliest actions in office, Trump administration officials reversed diversity initiatives, including the considering of race in admissions, at the military schools.”

Madeleine Ngo & Margot Sanger-Katz of the New York Times: “The Republicans’ domestic policy legislation will most likely raise after-tax incomes of the richest Americans while its cuts to social spending will leave the poorest at a substantial disadvantage, according to an analysis released on Monday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The report also estimated that millions of low-income Americans could lose access to federal food assistance or Medicaid under the sweeping bill that ... [Donald] Trump signed into law last month. This highly regressive pattern — both cutting the safety net for the poor and reducing taxes for the rich — has no precedent among large budget bills passed in the last 40 years. The budget office’s report was an update to an earlier analysis it had issued in June.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Colombia. Genevieve Glatsky & Julie Turkewitz of the New York Times: “Miguel Uribe, the Colombian senator and presidential hopeful who was shot in the head at a campaign event two months ago in an attack that shocked the nation, has died at 39, according to a statement posted by his wife. Mr. Uribe had spent nine weeks in the hospital after the shooting in Bogotá, undergoing multiple surgeries before succumbing to his injuries. The hospital had announced in a statement this weekend that Mr. Uribe’s condition had worsened and that he was experiencing bleeding in the brain.... Mr. Uribe’s mother, Diana Turbay, a prominent journalist and daughter of a former president, was killed in 1991, when Mr. Uribe was a child, after being kidnapped by a drug cartel. The senator’s shooting in June, captured on video, had both divided the nation over how to address violence in the country and united people of disparate political backgrounds around a shared tragedy.... It is still not clear who masterminded the assassination or why.” (Also linked yesterday.)