U.S. President Donald Trump continued to escalate his trade war with Canada when he announced that effective September 29, some Canadian products — including alcohol and certain motorcycles and dairy products — will be banned from the United States. And according to liberal economist Paul Krugman, the damage from Trump's "idiotic trade war" will be even worse than what is being reported.

"There have been many trade conflicts in history, some of them more destructive than the U.S.-Canada fight," Krugman writes in his Substack column. "But I don't think there has ever been a dispute this stupid. Bear in mind that this crisis is entirely gratuitous. Canada has done nothing wrong. Even if one buys into Trumpian nonsense about how every nation that sells us more than it buys is ripping us off, Canada isn't a villain. Last year, Canada did run a modest trade surplus with the United States in goods, but more than half of this imbalance was offset by a U.S. surplus in services. Overall, trade between our nations was almost balanced."

Krugman lays out some key reasons why "an escalating trade war with Canada" will "do real damage to the U.S. economy" as well as to the Canadian economy.

"The essential thing to understand about U.S.-Canada trade is that our two economies have been closely integrated for a very long time," Krugman explains. "We've had free trade in autos and automotive products since 1965. We signed an overall free trade agreement in 1988, six years before the creation of NAFTA (the North America Free Trade Agreement), which included Mexico. And all those decades of free trade have encouraged a great deal of specialization."

Canada, according to Krugman, "supplies a surprisingly large share of many crucial goods."

"Canada provides 70 percent of the oil refined in the U.S. Midwest," the former New York Times columnist notes. "Canada supplies about 60 percent of U.S. aluminum. Canada supplies almost all of America's spruce-pine-fir lumber — preferred for framing in residential construction … In short, if Trump, (Treasury Secretary Scott) Bessent and company think that trade conflict with Canada is a trivial issue, one that Americans will barely notice, they're in for a rude awakening … But Canadians understand why they are being asked to suffer this pain: They are defending their sovereignty and their national identity. Will Americans be willing to suffer economically to soothe Trump's bruised ego?"

President Donald Trump's reaction to his bruising new Supreme Court loss will not be quiet, according to a prominent former staffer from his first term, as he is now likely to get "reckless" and demand "extreme measures."

Trump this week saw his attempt to meddle with voting in the U.S. fall apart, after the Supreme Court, in a 7-2 ruling, declined to halt a lower court ruling that blocked the implementation of mail-in ballot changes while a lawsuit progresses. The suit stems from Trump's efforts, via executive order, to use the Postal Service as a means to enforce new restrictions on mail voting, a system he has falsely accused of being ripe with fraud for years.

Miles Taylor is a national security expert who previously worked in the Department of Homeland Security in Trump's first term, rising to the office of Chief of Staff before departing in late 2019. He also gained notoriety after writing an op-ed for The New York Times in 2018 as an anonymous whistleblower, claiming to be part of a resistance movement within the administration against Trump's worst impulses. He has since emerged as a vocal conservative critic of the president and has frequently endorsed his political enemies.

On Tuesday, Taylor published his latest column for The i Paper, offering his own first-hand accounts as a means to predict how Trump reacted to his major new Supreme Court loss.

"When Donald Trump loses, he lashes out," Taylor explained. "And if the past few days are any indicator, his top advisers will be getting phone calls – like we did in his first term – demanding extreme measures. Only this time, he’ll have a more compliant audience... I can tell you what probably happened inside the White House late last night and this morning, because in that first term, I was on the receiving end."

He added later: "Moments like this one produced a particular kind of phone call. Late at night, Trump would dial up from the residence, angry about being boxed in and demanding increasingly absurd measures that tested the bounds of legality. I remember when he lost a major case in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and flew into a rage, summoning us to an urgent meeting and telling us he wanted to 'get rid of the judges.' We had to tell him that a president cannot unilaterally abolish a federal appeals court without setting the U.S. Constitution on fire."

Taylor noted that, during his time in the first Trump White House, he never worried much about these demands being met, given that the officials "around him would slow-roll it, talk him back down or quietly let it die." Now, however, his administration is more thoroughly staffed with loyalists, likely to ask "how soon" when asked "to jump off a cliff."

In the wake of the latest ruling, Taylor suggested that Trump is likely to be calling up the "White House, Justice Department and Homeland Security" to demand the most "extreme" possibilities for rigging the midterms in favor of the GOP. He also said Trump's recent demand that his supporters "cheat" at the ballot box to help him was far from a joke, as the president previously "joked" about ideas as a "trial balloon" for actually going through with an idea.

"I spent years watching this President absorb humiliation and somehow turn right back around and convert it into fresh recklessness," Taylor concluded. "Last week, he got a partly empty arena. Last night, he got a legal smackdown of his latest election scheme. In the first term, when the phone rang after moments like these, Trump would recount his lawless fever dreams and bark immoral orders. But there were still people in the building willing to say 'absolutely not' to the crazy idea on the other end of the line. The phone is ringing again, but this time I have no idea who’s left to refuse him."

Back in the early 20th Century, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS) separated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS)—the Mormon Church — to protest its 1904 manifesto renouncing polygamy. The FLDS is a marginal group that the vast majority of Mormons, from former Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) to R&B star Gladys Knight, AKA The Empress of Soul, have zero connection to. But according to the Washington Post, the FLDS could endanger Rep. Andy Biggs' (R-Arizona) gubernatorial campaign in the Grand Canyon State.

Biggs is seeking the GOP nomination in Arizona's 2026 gubernatorial race. If he wins the nomination on Tuesday, he will take on Democratic incumbent Gov. Katie Hobbs in the general election. According to Washington Post reporter Hannah Knowles, however, a 2013 controversy involving the FLDS could come back to haunt the far-right Biggs.

"Momentum was growing in 2013 to crack down on a polygamist religious group accused of ... abusing girls in rural Arizona," Knowles reports in the Post. "The Justice Department was suing. The group's leader was in prison after a stint on the FBI's most-wanted list. Arizona's attorney general wanted to shut down the local police force, the Colorado City Marshal's Office, which he accused of doing the bidding of sect leaders. But a bill designed to strip authority from the marshal’s office never got a vote in the (Arizona) State Senate. "

Knowles continues, "Its Republican sponsor blamed then-Senate President Andy Biggs (R) for the bill's failure to advance in that chamber. Now, more than a decade later — as Biggs cruises toward an expected victory in Tuesday's primary for Arizona governor — the episode is likely to get renewed attention."

Democrats, Knowles reports, "expect to highlight the old fight over the marshal's office" — which, according to the Post reporter, is "one of many polarizing moments in Biggs' long legislative record that some Republicans worry could come back to haunt them in a hotly contested swing-state race."

One of those Republicans is Buster Johnson, a county supervisor in Arizona.

Johnson told the Post, "I would rather vote for somebody who has made a stand for women and children above religion."

Knowles notes that "scrutiny of" the FLDS "grew in the 2000s when officials charged its leader at the time, Warren Jeffs" with felonies and he was placed on the FBI's most-wanted list.

President Donald Trump's bruising return to the White House has sent many longtime foreign allies scrambling to get their distance, and according to a new piece from The Atlantic, that distance will last long after Trump is gone.

Trump's second term as president has been marked by notable and widespread disrespect toward nations once seen as close U.S. allies. Between his attempts to level massive tariffs against nearly every nation in the world and his frequent breaches of diplomatic norms, Trump has created a hostile global environment in which allies no longer feel safe trusting in the stability of the U.S.

In a new piece for The Atlantic on Tuesday, staff writer Vivian Salama argued that this new dynamic, in which the nations of the world are working to establish a safe distance from the U.S., is bound to become the new normal for years to come, even after Trump leaves office and is potentially replaced by a more traditional, dependable administration.

"For years, the strategy among U.S. allies was to wait President Trump out," Salama explained. "Now many are preparing for a world in which the United States is no longer indispensable — not simply during Trump’s presidency but afterward as well, regardless of who occupies the White House. They are building military capabilities, diversifying trade, developing new domestic industries and forging relationships that reduce their dependence on Washington."

Writing further, Salama stressed that this is not a wholesale abandonment, but more of a precaution being taken to protect against the recurring instability of American leadership.

"This isn’t a coordinated revolt against America or a wholesale turn toward China," Salama continued. "Most U.S. partners see Washington as an essential partner and don’t fully trust Beijing. But nations that were once firmly in the American orbit are concluding that they cannot rely on the U.S. to provide the same leadership, markets, technology, and military protection that it has for decades. And that, foreign officials told me, is true no matter who wins the presidency in 2028."

She added later: "The changes are already visible, including in rising European defense spending, Canada’s commercial outreach to China and Japan’s efforts to become a larger arms supplier. Taken together, these trends point to a reordering of the international system that stretches far beyond Trump. 'Trump brought with him an earthquake, but we’d be foolish not to prepare for aftershocks,' a senior European official told me. 'The fact is, we’ll be setting ourselves up for failure if we assume that everything will go back to the way it was after Trump leaves office. The world is changing, and we can see very clearly now that America is changing too.'"

Salama also noted that, for as much as the president has become obsessed with monuments to himself, this dramatic shift in the global order is likely to become one of his "most consequential" legacies.

Dr. Jeremy Faust, an emergency medicine physician at Harvard Medical School, argues that two major concerns about Donald Trump’s health are being quietly ignored amid the president’s repeated claims of being in “perfect” health after a fourth visit to Walter Reed.

Trump announced online that his fourth trip to Walter Reed for a checkup showed he remains a paragon of good health. CNN host Brianna Keilar said that it isn't surprising because he says that after all of his "annual" physicals, even if those physicals are happening multiple times each year.

However, Dr. Faust has deeper questions for the doctors that he thinks are too often ignored.

"At some point, the president went from being on low-dose aspirin to this very high-dose aspirin," he began. "We learned about that earlier this year, and that happened sometime between 2018 and last year. And many of us said that was unwise because as an E.R. doctor, treating patients [who] are on medications that thin the blood or that disrupt clotting."

It's a problem for the elderly, who are at higher risk of falls. If blood can't clot, a fall with an injury could result in significant blood loss.

"So, the question is, why is he on that dose? Does his doctor really recommend it? One of the things I think everyone who's watching knows is that you have to have a very strong doctor-patient relationship. And if the president is taking a dose of aspirin that his doctor doesn't recommend, and even the United States Preventive Services Task Force says is not a good idea — well, I question that. And I kind of wonder if that's changed since then."

The bruise on his hand, the White House said, comes from his high-dose aspirin and shaking so many hands. Lately he's been hiding it with makeup and under the table or covered by his other hand.

When he looks at the headlines, Dr. Faust said that much of the concern boils down to "normal aging" and Trump suffering from "chronic venous insufficiency," which the White House says is the reason for his swollen legs.

"And in fact, when we learned about it last year, the really important thing was to rule out other, more dangerous conditions. And I think his team did that well. So, it's very important that the president has frequent interactions with his team, which he does, to make sure nothing else comes up," the doctor said.

As for Trump falling asleep in public, Dr. Faust said the president is 80 years old, implying it was normal for someone of his advanced age to grow more exhausted.

The final question involved the MRI, which Trump said he had last year. Dr. Faust said that he believes Trump misstated the claim, and that, from what he understands, it was actually a CT scan of Trump's heart. The doctor wanted to know why the imaging was done at all or if it was an example of overuse. He cited health influencers who advocate for full-body scans as a preventive medicine measure. However, he said, it can often send people on a wild goose chase to understand something benign that may pop up.

"It's ironic," he said, "because you have a president who hasn't really expanded access to health care. So, that's a cognitive dissonance that goes beyond his patient care. But it's certainly one that I think people will be interested in."

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A striking photograph of President Donald Trump emerged Monday, reigniting debate about the president's physical health after images showed severe bruising across both of his hands.

The image, captured during a White House health care affordability event where Trump appeared alongside Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., revealed deep purple discoloration that the president has previously attempted to conceal with cosmetic products.

When questioned about the visible injuries to his hands, Trump has attributed the bruising to the physical toll of constant handshakes with supporters and world leaders. However, medical professionals and observers have questioned whether such an explanation adequately accounts for the extent and persistence of the injuries now being documented in recent photographs.

The president's apparent efforts to hide the condition — rather than address it directly — have drawn scrutiny from commentators across the political spectrum who wonder what underlying health issues might be responsible.

Social media erupted with commentary following the image's circulation. Political analyst Nicole Sandler described the sight as "downright nauseating," while journalist Gavin Aronsen labeled it a "graphic image."

Others offered critiques that questioned both the president's transparency and what the bruising might indicate about his overall health status. The incident underscores ongoing concerns about Trump's fitness for office and his willingness to be forthright with the American public about his medical condition.A pattern of health questions

Trump's physical appearance has become an increasingly frequent topic of public discussion throughout his presidency. Medical professionals have speculated that such symptoms could indicate circulatory problems, lymphedema, or other underlying conditions that warrant clinical evaluation.

The bruising on his hands represents yet another visible health concern that Trump has chosen to address through concealment rather than transparency. Unlike previous presidents who have made their medical records publicly available, Trump has resisted calls for comprehensive health disclosures, citing privacy concerns.

At nearly 80 years old, Trump is among the oldest individuals to serve as president. Questions about his cognitive and physical fitness have intensified as he approaches his birthday in June. A recent poll showed that 59 percent of Americans believe Trump lacks the mental sharpness needed to lead the country effectively.

The White House has not issued any official statement regarding Trump's hand injuries or what may be causing the persistent bruising. Medical experts note that without a formal diagnosis from Trump's personal physicians, the public can only speculate about the underlying causes based on visible symptoms and the president's own contradictory explanations.

New York Magazine reporter Ben Terris recently sat down with President Donald Trump for nearly an hour to discuss his health. Now, he's saying the unsightly bruise on the back of Trump's hand is apparently getting worse — and that the president is "very self-conscious" about it.

In a Monday interview with The Bulwark's Tim Miller, Terris went into detail about his encounter with Trump in the Oval Office. He told Miller that while he hadn't expected White House physicians to be present during his conversation with the president, he decided to focus the bulk of his questions on Trump's health — which the president and his staffers welcomed.

According to Terris, both White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt both pushed the narrative that the 79 year-old president had never been in better health. Miller suggested that Terris refer to Trump as a "superhuman president," which Terris made into the article's headline in what he called a "tongue-in-cheek" reference. Leavitt urged one of the physicians present in the meeting to repeat their comment to Terris that they thought Trump was in better health than former President Barack Obama — who is 15 years younger than Trump and has a disciplined workout routine.

However, Terris said the key moment that stuck out to him from his sit-down with the president was seeing his bruised hand. Terris conceded that Trump's excessive use of aspirin was the likely culprit for the bruise, as using the drug has been known to cause skin to bruise easily. But the New York Magazine writer went on to tell Miller that Trump's hands looked "gross" up-close and that his hands were unusually "soft" due to a lack of "physical labor over the years."

"But then on the other side, the backside of his hand, it looked kind of like rhino hide," Terris said. "It was very dry. The bruise had kind of taken over the whole back of his hand."

Terris also mentioned that he was president at the Oval Office for the president's meeting with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and that Trump "spent the whole time covering his hand with his other hand so nobody could see it." The president reportedly continued to "look at it like he was checking the time."

"He is very self-conscious about it," Terris said. "In fact, I talked to somebody who had a meeting with Trump and he had a bruise on the back of his hand and he wanted to like, relate with the president about it. He's like, 'look, I got one too.' And Trump shot it down."

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President Donald Trump repeatedly insists that his health, both physical and mental, is first-rate. But his niece, psychologist/author Mary Trump, often points to behavior that, she says, shows poor mental health. And recurring bruising on Trump's hands, CNN's Adam Cancryn reports, continues to raise questions about the president's physical health.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claims that the bruising occurs because Trump is shaking hands with a lot of people. But according to Cancryn, medical experts are questioning that explanation.

"Across a series of events last week," Cancryn explains in an article published on December 31, "the 79-year-old Trump appeared with discoloration or light bruising on the back of his left hand, in addition to the more persistent bruise on his right hand that has been visible for months. The new bruise appears to complicate the White House's explanation that the right-handed Trump developed the bruising through constant handshaking along with a regular regimen of aspirin that can make such discoloration more common."

Cancryn continues, "And while medical experts told CNN there is no fresh cause for concern, calling it a likely benign condition common in older people, they warned that Trump's reluctance to be more transparent about his health only threatens to intensify the scrutiny that he's struggled all year to escape…. The fresh bruising on Trump’s left hand represents the latest development to fuel speculation about his health since he returned to the White House — a sensitive topic for him that he's sought to counter by boasting frequently about his vigor."

Dr. Jeffrey Linder, chief of general internal medicine at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in the Chicago area, told CNN that Trump and his allies are "feeding the curiosity cycle" where the bruises are concerned.

Linder notes, "He's in the public eye; he has a certain image he wants to portray, and even these minor things detract from that image."

Dr. Jonathan Reiner, who was a cardiologist for the late Vice President Dick Cheney and is now a professor of medicine at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., points out that bruising on an older person's hands isn't necessarily symptomatic of a severe health problem.

Reiner told CNN, "Bruising can be just simply a one-off thing when you have some trauma, you bump into something. Aspirin will make you more prone to bleeding…. The question now is less medical than it is transparency."

Read Adam Cancryn's full article for CNN at this link.

President Donald Trump was once again golfing over the weekend, and according to a new report from The Daily Beast, his appearance on the links reignited concerns about his declining health.

Trump on Saturday made an appearance at a tournament put on by the controversial professional league, LIV Golf, which was hosted at his own property in Bedminster, New Jersey. While there, he was photographed with his arms exposed while wearing his typical white golf shirt, and appeared to have even more "mysterious bruising" than usual.

"Donald Trump looked a little worse for wear as he bared his bruised arms during a golf outing," The Daily Beast detailed. "Not one to spend too much time on foot while golfing, Trump was photographed slouching in a golf cart, decked out in his bright white, heavily-branded presidential merch."

It continued: "With his forearms exposed by a polo shirt, Trump revealed bruises of varying sizes, alongside what looked to be a couple of scrapes. Trump also sported Band-Aids on a couple of fingers of his right hand, which he rested on his knee while squinting forward at the route ahead. While Trump is known for suspicious bruising, usually it’s the president’s hands—not arm—which draw attention."

Trump has frequently been spotted with prominent bruising on the top of his hands, or with a conspicuous layer of makeup trying to cover it up. The administration's typical response to questions about this situation has been to claim that Trump is getting bruised by the many handshakes he does every day. They have also claimed that this tendency is worsened by his taking aspirin doses, which are meant to address his confirmed case of chronic venous insufficiency.

Other observers have suggested that the bruising is consistent with the bruises patients, especially seniors with weaker skin, develop when receiving intravenous medication through veins in the tops of their hands. Some have even suggested that he might be receiving a specific anti-Alzheimer's medication, Leqembi.

"Alongside the bruising, there are many other facets of Trump’s health which don’t always quite add up, including swollen limbs, chronic sleepiness, slurring, and bouts of emotional outbursts or confusion," the report added. "Despite speculation, the White House insists that Trump is in perfect health, with spokesperson Davis Ingle saying in April: 'President Trump is the sharpest, most accessible, and energetic president in American history. President Trump’s commitment is unwavering and he proves that every single day.'”

When reporters noticed a bruise on President Donald Trump's right hand back in February, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt attributed to the discoloration to all the hand-shaking he does.

Trump, Leavitt told reporters, "meets more Americans and shakes their hands on a daily basis than any other president in history.”

More recently, the subject came up again when a reporter asked Leavitt about a bandage Trump was wearing on that hand — to which she responded, "We've…. given you an explanation for that in the past. The president is literally constantly shaking hands. The Oval Office is like Grand Central Terminal."

But MS NOW's Steve Benen believes that Leavitt's explanation isn't holding up.

New York Magazine's Margaret Hartmann, on Monday, December 29, reported that Trump also had bruising on his left hand.

According to Hartmann, "(Trump) also had some purple discoloration on the back of his left hand…. The left-hand bruising, as well as the right-hand makeup, was still visible on Sunday when Trump met with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky at Mar-a-Lago."

Benen, in a December 30 column, argues, "I can imagine a scenario in which White House officials simply said, 'Look, Trump is the oldest elected president in American history. He'll soon turn 80. Like it or not, sometimes octogenarians' hands don't look great.' But they're not saying this, at least not yet. Instead, the official line from Team Trump is that handshaking led to bruising — despite the fact that the issue is now affecting his left hand, and the president is not ambidextrous."

The MS NOW columnist and "Rachel Maddow Show" producer continues, "Complicating matters further is the broader context. This is the same president who's struggled with questions about a recent MRI — Trump has said he has 'no idea' which part of his body was scanned — which came around the same time that he appeared to fall asleep at a couple of White House events…. It's entirely possible there’s nothing to this story, but given Trump's unfortunate record, he hasn't exactly earned the benefit of the doubt on questions of medical transparency."

Steve Benen's full MS NOW column is available at this link.