August 11, 2017

“The roster of villains in President Trump’s world is legion. The list of people he has been willing, even eager, to publicly attack includes not just Mitch McConnell, his latest target, but Jeff Sessions, Chuck Schumer, Paul Ryan, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama,” the New York Times reports.

“And don’t forget James Comey, Robert Mueller, Andrew G. McCabe, Rod Rosenstein, John Podesta, Nancy Pelosi, Lisa Murkowski, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rosie O’Donnell, Meryl Streep, the mayor of London and the cast of Saturday Night Live. The countries he has assailed include not just North Korea and Iran but also Germany, Canada, Mexico, China and Sweden.”

“But for all of that feistiness, for all of those verbal and online fisticuffs, there is one person who is definitely not on Mr. Trump’s target list: President Vladimir Putin of Russia.”

President Trump’s threats against North Korea “have highlighted as never before the tension between the president’s duties as chief executive and the role he often seems to prefer as the country’s highest-profile TV and Internet commentator,” the Los Angeles Times reports.

“The frequent disconnect between Trump’s words and actual policy has been visible for months. On major issues — healthcare, trade, taxes — as well as on more specific questions such as whether transgender Americans may serve in the military, Trump has made declarations that the rest of the administration and Congress have often ignored or sidetracked.”

“The current situation differs from those earlier examples because of the context and risk. In the fraught standoff with North Korea, where miscommunication or misunderstanding could trigger a devastating war, the question of how to react to Trump has taken on tremendous gravity.”

“We have two leaks. You have the leaks coming out of intelligence and various departments having to do with Syria, having to do with all sorts of different places, having to do frankly with North Korea. And those are very serious. And then, you have the leaks where people want to love me, and they’re all fighting for love. Those are little inner-White House leaks. They’re not very important. But actually, I’m somewhat honored by them.”

— President Trump, quoted by the Washington Examiner.

Foreign Policy obtained the disturbing memo written by ousted National Security Council staffer Rich Higgins which “provides a sweeping, if at times conspiratorial, view of what it describes as a multi-pronged attack on the Trump White House.”

Trump is being attacked, the memo says, because he represents “an existential threat to cultural Marxist memes that dominate the prevailing cultural narrative.” Those threatened by Trump include “‘deep state’ actors, globalists, bankers, Islamists, and establishment Republicans.”

Though not called out by name, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster “was among those described in the document as working against Trump.”

“Donald Trump’s company turned a $1.97 million profit at its opulent Trump International Hotel so far in 2017, dramatically beating its expectations and giving the first hard numbers to critics who charge that Trump is profiting from his presidency,” the Washington Post reports.

“The Trump Organization had projected that it would lose $2.1 million during the first four months of 2017 as it established a new hotel and convention business in the nation’s capital, according to newly released federal documents. Instead the hotel, with its namesake in the White House down the street, is already turning a hefty profit and charging more for its rooms than most or all of the city’s other hotels.”