The Conversation -- July 27, 2025

Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: “As ... [Donald] Trump golfed Saturday at his course in Turnberry, Scotland, hundreds of protesters took to the streets to denounce his presence in Britain, opposing the administration’s policies on immigration, the war in Gaza and myriad other issues. In Edinburgh, one woman played the bagpipes while holding an anti-Trump sign. Mr. Trump ... played with his son Eric and Warren A. Stephens, his ambassador to the United Kingdom, and the diplomat’s son. Donald Trump Jr. also accompanied his father on the trip to Scotland, where they were greeted at Glasgow Prestwick Airport by a crowd of supporters.... 'This immigration is killing Europe,' Mr. Trump said. 'And the other thing, stop the windmills. Killing the beauty of your countries.' On Saturday, the Scots, who opinion polls show have low regard for Mr. Trump, let their opposition to his policies be known. A group called Stop Trump Scotland organized a rally as a 'festival of resistance' against Mr. Trump that drew hundreds in Aberdeen, in Scotland’s north, and Edinburgh.” (Also linked yesterday.) 

Your Tax Dollars at Work. S.V. Date of the Huffington Post: “American taxpayers will shell out at least $10 million over the next several days so ... Donald Trump can participate in a marketing photo opportunity at his golf resort in Aberdeen, Scotland — the profits from which will flow directly into his own pocket. Trump is planning to visit his golf resorts in both Aberdeen on the east coast and Turnberry on the west. His appearance in Aberdeen coincides with the grand opening of a second 18-hole course there, which Trump has been personally publicizing in recent years. The trip is unrelated to a planned state visit to the United Kingdom in September, making it by far the most expensive golf vacation to date in either of his terms. It will also increase the total golf tab in his second term to at least $52 million. He spent $152 million in taxpayer money playing golf at his own resorts in his first term.” (Also linked yesterday.) 

Crazy Criminal Would Prosecute Rival. Ashleigh Fields of the Hill: Donald “Trump on Saturday doubled down on his accusations that former Vice President Harris paid celebrities to endorse her during the 2024 presidential election. The president, echoing previous claims that Harris paid Beyoncé, Oprah and Al Sharpton to support her White House bid throughout the campaign trail, said Harris and the celebrities involved should be 'prosecuted.' 'YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO PAY FOR AN ENDORSEMENT. IT IS TOTALLY ILLEGAL TO DO SO. Can you imagine what would happen if politicians started paying for people to endorse them. All hell would break out,' the president wrote in a Truth Social post. 'Kamala, and all of those that received Endorsement money, BROKE THE LAW. They should all be prosecuted! Thank you for your attention to this matter.'...”

Peter Baker in the New York Times: “No commander in chief ... has been as consumed by conspiracy theories as ... [Donald] Trump and now they seem to be consuming him. They have been the rocket fuel for his political career since the days when he spread the lie that Mr. Obama was secretly born overseas and therefore not eligible to be president. More than a decade later, Mr. Trump is coming full circle by trying to divert attention from the Epstein conspiracy theory with a new-and-improved one about Mr. Obama supposedly committing treason.... Mr. Trump ... relishes conspiracy theories, particularly those that benefit him or smear his enemies without any evident care for whether they are true or not.... Mr. Trump ... [once] falsely accuse[d] Mr. Obama of spying on him.... At one point, Mr. Trump spread the claim that Osama bin Laden was not actually dead and that Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden had the Navy’s SEAL Team 6 killed....

“The past week or so have seen a fusillade of Trumpian conspiracy theories, seemingly meant to focus attention away from the Epstein case. Mr. Trump accused Mr. Obama of 'treason,' and posted a fake video showing his predecessor being handcuffed in the Oval Office and imprisoned. He followed that Saturday with a fake image of Mr. Obama in the role of O.J. Simpson driving a white Bronco being chased by police cars, including one driven by Mr. Trump.... Asked last week about whether he had been told his name was in the [Epstein] files, Mr. Trump again pointed the finger of conspiracy elsewhere. 'These files were made up by Comey,' he told reporters, referring to James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director he had fired more than two years before Mr. Epstein died in prison in 2019. 'They were made up by Obama,' he went on. 'They were made up by the Biden administration.'”

Cat Zakrzewski of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump split with Elon Musk almost two months ago. But he can’t escape one of his former friend’s parting blows: an explosive accusation that the president’s name appears in the Justice Department’s Jeffrey Epstein files. During the public implosion of his alliance with the president in early June, Musk claimed that Trump was refusing to release files related to the accused sex trafficker because the president was named in the documents.... Seven weeks later, new revelations bolster the mercurial billionaire’s claims. And even if Musk’s goal was merely to stoke the controversy without necessarily settling it, his mission has been accomplished — and then some.” More on the Revenge of the Creepy Nerd linked below.

Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: “More than most recent vice presidents, JD Vance seems to be locked out of the room where it happens.... His online presence speaks to the main role he does seem to have in the White House: something akin to the president’s official fanboy. And in addition to acting as cheer captain for his boss, Vance works to give the administration a veneer of intellectualism to cover its cruelty, corruption and incompetence — a spokesman for the president’s brand of national populism.... Trump and Vance envision a world of tiered citizenship, each in his own way, where entry depends on heritage and status rests on obedience. The best traditions of our country make this difficult. And so they have found refuge in our worst.” The link is a gift link. (Also linked yesterday.) 

     ~~~ Marie: In his column, Bouie writes a graf that sort of explains the reason I put an asterisk after “president” when I refer to Donald Trump (I think this practice was originally Charles Pierce's idea). Here's Bouie: “As Trump himself will tell you, he tends not to know what his deputies are doing with their time. He professes to be ignorant of the actions of his government. Asked, for example, if his administration was planning to send migrants to Libya, he replied, 'I don’t know. You’ll have to ask the Department of Homeland Security.' He saves his attention and enthusiasm for the pomp and circumstance of the presidency. He’s eager to host other heads of state and government, to attend celebrations and to speak to crowds of supporters. He also spends a lot of his time at his clubs and resorts, golfing, gossiping and glad-handing with passers-by and hangers-on.”

Whistleblower Aid: “A Whistleblower Aid client and a former Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney has lawfully disclosed evidence to the DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General that corroborates the thrust of the whistleblower claims regarding Emil Bove and other senior DOJ officials actively and deliberately undermining the rule of law. Our client, whose identity we are protecting, has provided substantive, internal DOJ documents to the Inspector General, supporting former senior DOJ attorney-turned whistleblower Erez Reuveni’s allegations. Reuveni’s whistleblower complaint exposes 'high-level governmental personnel [at the DOJ who] knowingly and willfully defied court orders, directed their subordinate attorneys to make misrepresentations to courts, and engaged in a scheme to withhold relevant information from the court to advance the Administration’s priority of deporting noncitizens.” Here's a Huffington Post item. (You may have to scroll down for the HuffPost item.) (Also linked yesterday.) 

Sophia Tareen of the AP: “Federal immigration judges fired by the Trump administration are filing appeals, pursuing legal action and speaking out in an unusually public campaign to fight back. More than 50 immigration judges — from senior leaders to new appointees — have been fired since Donald Trump assumed the presidency for the second time. Normally bound by courtroom decorum, many are now unrestrained in describing terminations they consider unlawful and why they believe they were targeted. Their suspected reasons include gender discrimination, decisions on immigration cases played up by the Trump administration and a courthouse tour with the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat[, Sen. Dick Durbin (Illinois)].... The firings are on top of resignations, early retirements and transfers, adding up to 106 judges gone since January, according to the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, which represents judges. There are currently about 600 immigration judges.”

Greg Jaffe, et al., of the New York Times: “Suspicions about leaks and a mistrust of senior military officers have defined much of [Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s] first six months on the job.... [A] standoff over [the] promotion [of Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims] reflects an ongoing clash between Mr. Hegseth’s highly partisan worldview, in which he has written that the Democratic Party 'really does hate America,' and the longstanding tradition of an apolitical military that pledges an oath to the Constitution. Mr. Hegseth’s actions could shape the military’s top ranks for years to come. His insistence on absolute loyalty, backed with repeated threats of polygraphs, also creates uncertainty and mistrust that threaten to undermine the readiness and effectiveness of the force, officials said.” The article goes on to reprise incidents that demonstrate what a catastrophe Hegseth is. This is a gift link.

Dan Lamothe & Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of polygraph tests to search for people leaking information to the news media was stopped at the direction of the White House after a senior adviser to Hegseth raised alarm to senior officials there about being targeted.... The adviser, Patrick Weaver, complained to White House officials this spring with concerns that he could soon be directed by Hegseth or another member of his team to submit to a polygraph test.... The possibility angered Weaver, an immigration hawk seen within the administration as a loyal foot soldier to ... Donald Trump and associate of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.... The White House intervention, which has not previously been reported, came in the form of a phone call by an individual close to the administration after Hegseth’s team had begun administering polygraph tests to people around the defense secretary in April, according to people familiar with the matter, who declined to identify the individual.”

Here's a Daily Mail story that sounds just like a Daily Mail story, but it's Bobby Junior, so it's true: ~~~

     ~~~ Sea Vampire Gives RFKJ a Hickey. Chris Melore, et al., of the Daily Mail: “On a tour of the Nez Perce salmon hatchery in Idaho on Thursday, RFK Jr let a parasitic sea vampire, also known as a lamprey, bite his arm until the creature left a 'hickey' behind. The head of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) posted about the blood-letting adventure on X, writing 'Lampreys hickeys at the Nez Perce salmon hatchery' while showing off pictures of the experience.”

Jacob Wendler of Politico: “Elon Musk is promising to shake up the midterms with his own political party.... Musk’s yet-unfulfilled plans to form an 'America Party' could threaten Republicans already fighting to defend their seats by razor-thin margins in next year’s midterms elections, Democrats argued, by siphoning off more disgruntled conservatives from Republicans than disaffected liberals from the Democrats.... New polling this week from Marquette University Law School found that 40 percent of Republicans say they would be somewhat or very likely to support an America Party candidate in their state or congressional district, as opposed to just one in four Democrats.”

Marie: I keep hearing or reading stories about Trump's plummeting poll number. But also too, there is this: ~~~

     ~~~ Miriam Waldvogel of the Hill: “The Democratic Party is viewed negatively by 63 percent of American voters — the lowest approval rating of the party in more than 30 years of The Wall Street Journal’s surveys — according to a new poll from the newspaper. The survey found that while voters disapproved of ... [Donald] Trump’s handling of a variety of issues, they generally said they trusted Republicans more than Democrats to take care of those issues in Congress.” (Also linked yesterday.) 

David Marchese of the New York Times interviews Robert Reich. MB: I don't often read interview transcripts, but I'm a fan of Reich's, so I went for it. That was definitely not a mistake. I share his views, including his feelings about boomers. And the story of "Mickey" is stunning. If you can't access the transcript, here's the real thing: (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

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Minnesota. Jeff Day & Ryan Faircloth of the Minnesota Star Tribune: "From the first 911 call, moments after Minnesota state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were shot at their home in the early morning of June 14, police knew a masked gunman was impersonating an officer, had targeted a politician and was on the move. Yet it would take 10 hours for law enforcement to systematically alert lawmakers to the exact nature of the danger they faced. Communication across a patchwork of agencies was also spotty, leaving some officials unaware of the threat for hours and raising questions about whether the suspect, Vance Boelter, could have been caught earlier. In at least one instance, police didn’t follow their own procedures when they responded to attacks on the homes of lawmakers. The shootings killed Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and wounded the Hoffmans." ~~~

     ~~~ The rest of the article is firewalled, by Scott Lemieux publishes some details from it. As Lemieux writes, those particulars are not good. After they heard gunshots inside the Hortmans' house, Brooklyn Park cops waited for an hour outside the house before they entered. MB: As long as police departments give priority to low-IQ job applicants, these kinds of remarkable errors in judgment will remain SOP.  

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Israel/Palestine, et al. Samy Magdy & Mariam Dagga of the AP: “A mother pressed a final kiss to what remained of her 5-month-old daughter and wept. Esraa Abu Halib’s baby now weighed less than when she was born. On a sunny street in shattered Gaza, the bundle containing Zainab Abu Halib represented the latest death from starvation after 21 months of war and Israeli restrictions on aid. The baby was brought to the pediatric department of Nasser Hospital on Friday. She was already dead.” MB: I'll bet Bibi had his lunch today. ~~~

~~~ Patrick Kingsley of the New York Times: “Following days of global outrage at Israel’s restrictions on aid to Gaza, the Israeli military announced on Saturday night that it would revive the practice of dropping aid from airplanes, and make it easier for aid convoys to move through Gaza by land. The announcement came amid a crisis of severe hunger in Gaza, where the number of wartime deaths caused by starvation has nearly doubled in the past month, to 127. Hunger has spiraled since Israel blocked all food deliveries between March and May. It then put in place a new and contentious aid system that required many civilians to walk for miles, through Israeli military lines, to reach a handful of food distribution points run by private contractors.”

Ukraine/E.U. Andrew Kramer of the New York Times: “The European Union said on Friday that it would withhold 1.5 billion euros, or $1.7 billion [in aid to Ukraine], from an overall fund of 4.5 billion euros whose disbursement is dependent on achieving good governance standards and that can’t be used for military purchases. The decision is not final, however, and the funding can be restored if Ukraine meets certain benchmarks. Mr. Zelensky had no public comment on the aid cut, which nevertheless was a setback for Ukraine’s leader, who is depending on European financial support to fill gaps left by the Trump administration’s refusal to underwrite Ukraine’s war effort.... The E.U.’s decision capped a tumultuous week for Mr. Zelensky, who first pushed a measure through Parliament that stripped the independence of two anticorruption agencies, raising protests from foreign leaders as well as the Ukrainian people.”