trump war crimes

Donald Trump is the weakest strongman ever

Yes, the White House is calling them "public-service announcements." They are not. A public-service announcement promotes policy, like anti-drunk driving laws. What the president is doing is using tax dollars to air commercials created for his 2024 presidential campaign. With them, Donald Trump hopes to move voters against the Democrats in advance of the midterms. They are illegal. They use public money for partisan gain.

That said, the president's ads may end up serving the public in unintended ways. First, as I said, they are illegal. Anyone can see that. Second, they remind everyone Trump is the president, even though he won't be on the ballot in November. (His net approval on the economy among indie voters is 99 points underwater, according to CNN.) Third, and most of all, they remind everyone of promises he made to get reelected and promises he broke.

For instance, Trump says in one ad:

"With you at my side, we will demolish the ‘deep state.’ We will expel the war mongers from our government. We will drive out the globalists; we will cast out the communists, Marxists, and fascists. We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country. We will rout the fake news media, and we will liberate America from these villains once and for all."

Let's see:

Trump covered up the Epstein files. On the right, that's "the deep state."
Trump attacked Iran, at Israel's behest. On the right, that's "globalist."
Trump honors communists like China's Xi and acts kinda communist himself: taking equity stakes in corporations, imposing illegal tariffs, undermining private enterprise.
Trump embodies "the sick political class." He has made over 28,000 stock trades using inside information to make hundreds of millions of dollars for himself and his family.
Trump has bullied and censored media – eg, Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel – and attempted to replace legit news with government propaganda. (It was called Trump TV, but no one watched.) The claim to "rout the fake news media" is undermined by the fact that Trump is using tax money to pay for TV ads for a campaign that does not exist.

If the president were surrounded by smart people who had the guts to talk to him truthfully, he might reconsider the wisdom of using tax dollars to buy air time for an old ad whose message is, more or less, HERE'S WHY YOU'RE MAD AT ME AND MY PARTY. Trump is not surrounded by smart people with guts, but instead bootlicking pricks who are going to see the scam through to the end. With the price of gas and diesel burning up the economy, especially the agricultural economy, the White House deputy chief of staff nevertheless thought it would be productive to post this video over the weekend. (It appears to be AI.)

But Trump does not need an illegal ad to remind us that he does not believe a word he says. That's accomplished by his actions since returning to office, most recently his decision to honor Xi Jinping, the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, with a lavish state dinner.

Remember that, for Trump, China has long been a scapegoat. He blamed "the China virus" for the pandemic. (Wuhan province is the source of the "lab leak" conspiracy theory.) A million died not because of Trump's rank incompetence, but because China "weaponized" the covid.

The president has blamed China for cheating on trade. This allegation is the load-bearing pillar on which is based the idea of reorganizing the economy to be "America First." In reality, however, he has accomplished little except adding to inflationary forces, like the Iran War, that are driving up the cost of everything. Trump's illegal tariffs are now costing workaday Americans about $231 billion a year, or as much as $2,500 per household, according to an assessment by the Democrats on the congressional Joint Economic Committee.

In July, during a prime-time speech, Trump blamed China for the fact that he lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden. Trump called it "the largest compromise of election data in history." Because of China's "sinister election meddling," Trump called for the passage of the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizens to vote, above and beyond what's already required. Trump threatened states with the loss of counter-terrorism funding if they did not change their election laws. He sued 30 states to force the release of their voter rolls.

(Trump is obviously not alone. The Republican Party habitually blames China for problems created by the Republican Party, or as cover for doing what they really want to do, for instance, rigging free and fair elections. Just this morning, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson told Fox Business that popular rage against data centers, especially in rural areas where the GOP dominates public affairs, "is a Chinese psy-op. I really believe that. That's not a conspiracy theory." Whenever a Republican says "that's not a conspiracy theory," it is.)

So, for Trump, China is to blame for, well, you name it. Over the last decade, Trump has said America has got to get tough on China or suffer the consequences. But last week, when it came time to face the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping, what did Trump do? Did he show toughness? Was he the strongman America needs? Here's the Times: "any public hint of that concern disappeared, replaced by an ebullience that bordered on gushing."

In 2016, presidential candidate Donald Trump said, "we can't continue to allow China to rape our country, and that's what they're doing. It's the greatest theft in the history of the world." But a decade later, he said, "President Xi and I have forged a friendship, a truly great friendship, actually." On social media, he added that the meeting was one of "friendship, strength and success." He said Xi looked “strong, vibrant, and fit — better than ever.”

Watching it all, Max Boot said, "Trump’s most important transformation has been from China hawk to China dove." But that almost certainly overstates reality. He didn't mean what he said back then. He doesn't mean what he says right now. Nothing matters, except what's personally beneficial to him, not even the fact that China is helping Iran kill Americans in the war. (He refused to call out Russia for doing the same thing.) For God's sake, Trump's nihilism is such that, according to the AP, he actually asked Xi if he would be interested in buying US armaments. That's not a strongman. That's a man who will say anything for a buck.

In the end, it may be a public service for Trump to run ads for a campaign that no longer exists, thus reminding everyone of the things that he said, and the fact that he didn't mean them. But no ad is needed. Trump sold the idea that he would make America great, in part by being tough on China, but when faced with a chance to confront the enemy, he flinched.

Trump-appointed judge ruins America's 'collective mental health' break

Thursday’s ruling from U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly putting an end to Trump’s White House media ban was lamentable for the speed with which it was issued. An exhausted nation was enjoying a break from Trump’s vitriol dominating every channel but, alas, the reprieve was short-lived.

On September 24, only three days after banned outlets CNN, MSN, and Politico sued, Kelly ordered the White House to ‘immediately return, reinstate, and restore’ their access to the White House. The judge said the banned media outlets had met the legal thresholds for a temporary restraining order, which he put into effect for 14 days. “This is a high bar,” Kelly wrote, “but Plaintiffs have met it.”

At argument, Trump’s DOJ made a laughable attempt to call his press ban a “matter of national security.” The DOJ argued that the three banned news organizations engaged in a “non-exhaustive list of reporting incidents” that “threatened national security and spread falsehoods.” Those incidents included publishing construction details about the East Wing bunker, reporting on who is really funding the White House ballroom, and reports detailing how U.S. munitions stockpiles were affected by the administration’s mistakes in Iran.

Kelly rejected the DOJ’s “national security” explanation as an after-the-fact justification. The judge noted that Trump had not used a national security argument when he announced the ban, but instead focused solely on what Trump called negative coverage of his administration.

Trump TV: when a man gasps for attention like a fish out of water

On the day of the hearing Wednesday, after Kelly had failed to immediately rule, even though the ban was a textbook example of government censorship, I was hopeful the judge would drag his decision out, because other major news networks had suspended their shared pooled television coverage of Trump in solidarity with the banned networks. The media boycott left Trump with comically reduced media exposure as even The New York Times and The Washington Post stopped publishing new Trump images.

The media blackout was so effective, it seemed perhaps Kelly, a Trump appointee, might have a partisan motive in prolonging it: to help Republican candidates in competitive races by reducing Trump’s face time. A delayed ruling meant continued diminished Trump coverage, also a welcome balm for our collective mental health.

But taking airtime from a creature formed by Reality TV and media attention was like taking a fish out of water. Deprived of 24/7 media attention, Trump’s pitiful wet flopping on the deck prompted his staff to create a quick and embarrassing replacement: Trump TV, a 24-hour YouTube livestream of White House coverage — curated, of course, by the White House.

Trump calls himself the “King of Ratings,” but Trump TV debuted to hilariously small numbers, peaking at around 8,000 viewers and frequently dropping down to a few thousand. As of Thursday morning, under 500 live viewers were watching. The internet blew up over the fact that a YouTube stream of a black screen and box fan had more viewers than Trump. One of the funniest sentences ever written, thank you Roxanne Cooper of Alternet, said it all: “Trump TV was similarly crushed by random ambient streams of people getting pedicures.”

And now, a blatantly illegal campaign ad

Trump’s lesson in humility would be funny, but Trump has taken State TV to the next illegal level. Fox News is now airing a new partisan ad promoting Trump, “paid for by the U.S. government.” The 30-second video combines rapid cuts of Trump, American flags, and military aircraft, alongside claims about tax cuts, manufacturing, and policing. Images of Trump are accompanied by a choir singing, “Love me,” repeatedly. It ends with Dana White saying, “He is the toughest, most resilient person I’ve ever met, and nothing was going to stop him from fighting so hard for the country he loves.”

Spending tax dollars on political campaign ads has long been illegal under federal law. The Hatch Act prohibits federal employees, as well as local government employees under federally funded programs, from engaging in political activities of any kind while they are on the clock. The General Government Appropriations Act also prohibits the expenditure of any tax dollars to produce partisan content. Ads that glorify an official or an administration, like singing “Love me” against a backdrop of militaristic Trump images and brags, blatantly violate both laws.

Internet reaction was swift and correct. Occupy Democrats' Grant Stern tweeted, “Dear Leader is using YOUR tax dollars to make this insane propaganda with a musical track that says 'Love Me' on repeat.” Author Brendan Noble asked, “Why is the U.S. Government paying for cult-level media like this? 'Love me' over images of Trump feels like some weird psychological play. Regardless, it's propaganda with our tax dollars.”

The cost of the absence of truth

The ad is an obviously illegal use of taxpayer dollars, and a legal reckoning will come at some point, IF the 90 million voters who stayed home in 2024 care more about the price of gas than they cared about Trump’s J6 coup attempt. But more dangerous than Trump’s continued abuse of power is the fact that Trump appears to believe his own falsehoods.

Much noise has been made about Trump’s assistant Natalie Harp, who follows him around with a portable printer. It’s widely reported that Harp shows Trump only favorable news stories, positive polling, and praise. Trump inhales that disinformation and regurgitates it back to a press pool allergic to hard questions because they are owned by Trump’s corporate backers.

Steady flattery may make the job more palatable to a man getting tired of politics, but it’s dangerous. Trump can’t make informed decisions if he only hears information he wants to hear; advisors with nefarious intentions can also shape information to manipulate him. But that’s what seems to be happening: Trump believes we are winning the war in Iran because Hegseth tells him we are; he believes the economy is strong; he thinks world leaders respect him, even as they mock him and move toward alliances excluding the U.S.

Unfavored media outlets’ crucial role is correcting Trump’s misinformation on everything — the war in Iran, the economy, even foreign trade. They may have returned to the White House, but the extreme danger of a president so insulated from the truth that he believes his own propaganda remains.

Sabrina Haake is a political analyst and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Subscribe to her free Substack, The Haake Take.

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Florida 'paying big price' for Trump’s Canadian trade war

The U.S. has such a toxic brand that, despite the huge World Cup events, folks don't want to come to the U.S. on vacation and spend hefty tourism dollars.

Axios reported the new numbers this week, and a CNN report noted Monday the U.S. suffered a 20 percent drop in tourism in 2026 from 2025.

The U.S. Travel Association president Geoff Freeman explained that it isn't something happening around the world. This significant drop is coming from tourism only to the United States.

"Travel around the world is growing at a 5 to 10 percent clip, and it's dropping to the U.S. in the same numbers," he said.

CNN co-host Boris Sanchez asked how it would have been different if there hadn't been a huge World Cup event, and Freeman agreed it would have been far worse.

"This is a trend," he explained. "We welcomed nearly 80 million visitors in 2019. We haven't gotten back to that number any year since. While the rest of the world continues to grow, we obviously need to revisit our strategy to figure out what we're going to do to turn the tide."

There were already huge drops in tourism amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Now those numbers are falling even more.

It prompted the CNN hosts to ask what could possibly be causing this anti-American sentiment.

Freeman explained that it's more than just one specific thing.

"There's a variety of reasons they're not coming," he said. "Cost matters. It's because of the war in Ukraine. You can't fly over Russian airspace for Asian travelers. Certainly there are some for whom politics matters, and they're swearing off the United States. I think what's happening more often than not, though, is travelers are reading the foreign press. They're seeing these horror stories. They're worried that if I come here, I'm going to get detained. My device is going to be searched. They're fearful."

One story reported by The Guardian revealed 65-year-old British tourist Karen Newton was detained for six weeks after her tourist visa to the U.S. expired.

Becky Burke, a 28-year-old Welsh backpacker, was held for 19 days and led away in chains. The U.S. claimed she had to be detained "related to the violation of the terms and conditions of her admission." Burke's mother said she thinks the authorities misunderstood. She said that her daughter was trading work around the house for stays at various accommodations, the BBC reported. Burke's mother thinks that they considered this "employment" in the U.S. when she wasn't approved for that.

Still, Freeman said that stories like those are "a misperception of what happens."

He claimed that the World Cup helped dispel a lot of those stories, but it didn't help reset beliefs around the world about the U.S.

Given most tourism is to states like California, Florida, New York and Texas, Freeman said that those states are experiencing huge increases in cost.

"Florida is paying a big price for the drop in Canadian visitation," said Freeman. Canadians began boycotting the U.S. amid President Donald Trump's trade war.

Freeman explained that it isn't merely tourism; Canadian business travel has also fallen.

"People who would come to buy a Caterpillar tractor, they would come to go look at another American good. They're deciding to go to another country right now," said Freeman. "That's the loss we're feeling. Not to mention the fact that these people that come here, we know when they're here, they enjoy their time. They go home and tell their friends and family about the experience they had. When they don't come, it doesn't just cost us now. It costs us down the road because we continue to drive these travelers into the arms of other countries."

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Trump may have just accidentally created the authority to 'lock him up'

Veterans are standing in the middle of D.C.’s Memorial Circle at rush hour with banners denouncing plans for Trump’s arch. Their continuing protest, which started on Memorial Day, features a replica arch and an urgent plea to “protect and defend the solemnity and honor of this hallowed ground.”

The veterans have a point the rest of us need to hear, including 'unitary executive’ nonsense-spouting Supreme Court justices who think the madman at the helm is free to take a wrecking ball to our nation’s historical monuments. At 25 stories tall, Trump’s arch would deliberately diminish the stature of monuments around it, and would forever obscure historical sightlines, laid after the Civil War to symbolize national healing.

At the protests, Retired Army Colonel Ann Wright, a 29-year Special Operations officer, carries an “over our dead bodies” banner for “Mr. Bonespurs, with five deferments from the military.” The veterans’ spokesperson explained that, “To place a memorial that would obstruct the unbroken viewshed from the Lincoln Memorial to Arlington Cemetery would totally destroy all that this space represents.”

Trump’s sacrilege

The targeted sightline, unbroken across the Potomac River via the Arlington Memorial Bridge, was rendered two generations after the Civil War as a symbol of national reconciliation. The memorial to Abraham Lincoln, preserver of the Union, deliberately overlooks Arlington, the estate of Confederate Robert E. Lee and the hallowed burial grounds for both sides, to symbolize the enduring triumph of national unity over the tragedy of division.

Alignment of those monuments was key. Lincoln’s memorial (‘A house divided against itself cannot stand’) solemnly overlooks the shared blood and soil of Arlington’s dead. Veterans are concerned that a giant arch dominating Arlington, now the final resting place of more than 400,000 war veterans, many of whom died in battle, would overpower the significance of their sacrifice.

Retired Army Major General Paul Eaton called the arch “entirely inappropriate, (bordering) on sacrilege to the men and women buried” there. A Gold Star mother whose son is buried at Arlington lamented grievously that the arch’s planned observation deck means tourists will be able to take selfies while burials are happening.

“We don’t need tourists overlooking funerals. I’m just appalled,” she said. “We need everybody to speak out about this.”

The legal battle

In May, a federal panel packed with Trump appointees approved plans for the arch, then in August, the National Park Service found the monument would have “adverse effects” on several historic sites. Although aviation experts noted the hazards of a 250-foot arch near the runway of one of the nation’s busiest airports, last week Trump’s FAA approved the plans.

Meanwhile, Vietnam War veterans have sued to stop the project, challenging the arch for both lacking congressional authority and blocking historically significant monument sightlines. Earlier this month, a federal judge ordered the administration to provide at least 48 hours’ notice before conducting any activities on the planned arch while the case is pending.

After that order, over a year after revealing plans for the arch, and after the Supreme Court let Trump get away with his ballroom on manufactured national security grounds, Trump then raised a national security rationale for the arch. Last Sunday, Trump claimed that he’d “agreed” to convert the proposed arch, at the “strong request” of the military, “into a top grade Military Complex/ Triumphal Arch,” alleging that:

"(F)or National Security purposes, I have agreed to convert the magnificent Triumphal Arch, planned since the Civil War Era many years ago, (laughably false)… into a top grade Military Complex/Triumphal Arch…”

Trump said his arch would “house, store, and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones, plus Snipers, on both the roof and plaza areas, and additionally have and hold large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage.” Arlington’s historic message of national healing — and the devastation of its opposite — is sadly lost on the most divisive president in our nation’s history. He also seems to miss how a Hitler-inspired monument would discourage tourists who may not want snipers aimed at their heads.

Ye old national security ruse

Courts have long given deference to the executive on matters of national security. In 1936, the Supreme Court said presidents must have ‘wide latitude in security affairs,’ reiterating the same in 1988, and again in 2018. Small wonder Trump is now claiming that his decorative arch is “necessary to protect US national security.”

Never mind that it took Trump over a year to manufacture a “national security” rationale for his obviously ornamental arch.

Trump’s security claim is just another well-worn litigation ruse. He also cited national security to defend both unconstitutional immigration tactics and his ban of several media outlets from the White House. He even claimed that trade relations posed an “unusual and extraordinary threat to national security” to defend his tariffs, an argument the Supreme Court rejected.

The ballroom decision illustrates the flaw of the “unitary executive” theory

After the Supreme Court cleared the way for Trump’s sprawling ballroom, however, the same flawed analysis could protect Trump’s arch. Even after Chief Justice Roberts wrote that Trump’s ballroom was “likely unlawful,” the other conservative justices determined that the National Trust for Historic Preservation couldn’t block it, because “mere offense, disagreement, or distaste” wasn’t enough to constitute an injury for purposes of standing, trashing decades of legal precedent whereby historic preservationists successfully sued to protect historic landmarks.

The question now dangling before a nation dreading a Hitlerian arch in D.C. is this: If a National Trust created by Congress to act as guardians of historic monuments doesn’t have standing to sue to protect those monuments, who the hell does?

If SCOTUS approves this arch, under its misguided ‘unitary executive’ theory that contradicts the founders’ intentions of never having a king again, wait for Trump to sandblast his name into all four sides of the Washington Monument, install a statue of himself sitting in the Lincoln Memorial, and carve his own face on Mount Rushmore.

The only silver lining of such a ruling would be that the next president would then possess the legal authority to build another monument on the basis of national security: a permanent prison cell around Trump, open for public viewing at feeding times. Only then, the security justification will be real.

Sabrina Haake is a political analyst and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. You can subscribe to her free Substack, The Haake Take.

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Legal scholar makes the case to indict Trump for war crimes

President Donald Trump must be indicted for war crimes, one legal scholar argued for The Hill, and while there are various legal grounds on which this could be done, one particular "atrocity" stands above them all.

Bennett L. Gershman is a veteran law professor at Pace University, who also previously worked as a prosecutor for the New York State Anti-Corruption Office. On Monday afternoon, he published a new op-ed for The Hill, expressing how "surreal" it felt to see Trump threaten to "annihilate" Iran during his recent United Nations address, not long after the organization's Human Rights Council "issued a report finding 'reasonable grounds to believe' that the U.S. had committed war crimes on Feb. 28, 2026, the day Trump launched his war on Iran by bombing a girls’ school in the southern city of Minab," a strike that killed 157 people.

"Trump’s performance at the U.N. featured his disdain for the principles of the United Nations, his mockery of the preeminence of international law, and his scorn for the values of human dignity and justice," Gershman wrote. "To Trump, it seems, coercion overrides cooperation, and force determines who lives and who dies. He boasted that 'I have used strength to make America the most powerful country in the world,' and that 'to the victor belong the spoils.'

While the "horrific bombing" of the girls' school in Iran was the primary reason Gershman put forward to justify indicting Trump, it was far from the only one mentioned.

"Trump should be indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, including his administration’s actions in killing multiple people in boat strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific waters, claiming, without evidence, that they were smuggling drugs, as well as his invasion of Venezuela, which involved killing scores of civilians in the course of arresting leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife," Gershman argued.

Gershman conceded that public awareness of the strike might not be strong, given the fact that "news reports and official post-mortems of war tragedies often elude scrutiny, especially the details of airstrikes, targets, identification of munitions, casualties and attribution." The U.N. report, he explained, included numerous harrowing details, including "Pre-strike photographs [depicting] classrooms furnished with educational materials, children’s artwork and learning aids" and "satellite imagery" showing children in a courtyard. It also includes heartbreaking and graphic details from the immediate aftermath of the strike, which the report determined "was the intended point of impact," and not the result of "an errant strike or collateral damage."

"The International Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands, has issued indictments and arrest warrants for 74 individuals during its tenure, including Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu, for war crimes and crimes against humanity," Gershman concluded. "Trump and members of his administration should be concerned that they also may be indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity."

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Trump has finally united Americans with one simple word

For the first time in decades, anger over corruption is a topline issue in a national election, according to major polls. While Americans have long regarded the federal government as infested with crooks, they are at long last taking names and kicking -- uh, demanding accountability.

What the polling also shows very clearly is that we owe this overdue change to President Donald J. Trump, whose self-serving misconduct has enraged most voters.

For a journalist who has reported on corruption across the political spectrum for decades, this revival of civic consciousness is refreshing (and a bit stunning). To be honest, I've spent countless hours poring over dusty records to expose misconduct by politicians of both parties, often without arousing much electoral indignation. Two years ago, I published "The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers, and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism," a book that tells how Trump and his predecessors have ruthlessly ripped off the public and their own followers.

But that was then -- and now feels very different.

Three weeks ago, Gallup released a new poll finding that 89% of Americans, a record high, believe that government corruption is endemic, an increase of 10% over 2025.

That total includes 91% of Democrats, 90% of independents and 83% of Republicans -- and it coincides with Trump's return to the White House. Many other polls have reported similar results in recent months, notably a September UMass-Amherst poll showing that 97% of respondents perceive corruption in Washington; an August Ipsos poll that found "overwhelming bipartisan majorities" share this sentiment. A survey conducted by the Brennan Center for Justice showed 97% consider corruption "a big systemic problem" in our politics and government.

Recent polling also suggests that voters have observed the explosive corruption pouring billions into Trump family accounts with growing disgust. Nearly 70% of respondents to a Reuters/Ipsos poll in August said Trump "inappropriately" uses presidential power to reap personal profits. Almost simultaneously, a UMass-Amherst poll showed that 53% identified the presidency as the "most corrupt" element in a broadly tainted federal government. And this month, a poll by The Economist and YouGov said that C-word is most frequently chosen by voters to describe Trump.

Nobody who covers government, including me, would claim that Democrats as a party are exempt from the crimes and misdemeanors afflicting officialdom. But what we have seen with Trump and the Republicans surrounding him is so disproportionate and brazen as to dwarf whatever came before. In this cycle, we have dozens of Republicans -- notably including Maine Sen. Susan Collins -- come under plausible suspicion of misconduct or worse.

That may be why Democrats stand to benefit from the renewed public concern over grift and graft. According to the latest survey by Rasmussen Reports, a pollster notorious for its Republican skew, "the Democratic Party is more trusted than Republicans to deal with corruption, an issue most voters say will be important in their midterm vote."

Should the Democrats win both houses of Congress, they will need to end the stock trading that harmed the reputations of leaders in both parties, among other reforms. And they must fulfill the promise by Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), who would head the House Oversight Committee under a Democratic majority, to investigate "the Trump crime family."

Handwringing over how to confront Trump's corruption and misconduct probably led to his second term. No more dithering, Democrats.

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Trump shuts down review because backlash conflicts with his 'vision'

A historical preservation group said it was “gobsmacked” on Monday after the Trump administration said it was closing down its consultation with experts about President Donald Trump’s plan for a triumphal arch in Washington, DC, because addressing their concerns and those from the general public would require them to deviate from the president’s vision for the project.

On Thursday, Travis Voyles, the Trump-appointed vice chairman of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP), sent a letter informing civil society and historic preservation groups that it was ending the federal review of how the 250-foot-tall arch would harm nearby historical sites.

That review is required under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, which mandates that federal agencies, including the National Park Service (NPS), consider how a project will affect historic properties and seek ways to “avoid, minimize, or mitigate” the harms of a planned project.

The federal regulations governing the Section 106 process explicitly state that “the views of the public are essential to informed federal decisionmaking,” and require agencies to “seek and consider” those views.

The administration, via the NPS, has acknowledged that the Triumphal Arch would have “adverse effects” on historical sites, disrupting views of Arlington National Cemetery, the Lincoln Memorial, and dozens of others. Meanwhile, the proposal has received over 107,000 public comments, most of which are negative, according to a sample from the DC Preservation Office.

But rather than taking the public concern as a reason to reevaluate or scale back the project, Voyles explained that the ACHP was choosing to end public consultation altogether because taking it into account would require changing the “fundamental nature” of the project in a way that the administration would never accept.

“It is clear that the proposed undertaking and its potential effects on historic properties have raised significant public interest, and the NPS stated in its September 22, 2026 correspondence that it believes additional consultation on the existing proposal is unlikely to result in agreement... to resolve adverse effects,” he wrote.

“Further, the NPS stated that implementation of alternatives to avoid or minimize the adverse effects would alter the fundamental nature of the proposed undertaking and fail to achieve its goals,” he continued, explaining that “in recognition of the public’s significant concerns,” they were “hereby terminating” consultation.

Voyles said the ACHP would create its own recommendations and deliver them by October 7 to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, whose office is overseeing the project. Burgum is legally required to consider and formally respond to those recommendations, but unlike a legally binding memorandum of agreement, he does not have to follow them.

The ACHP has set a deadline for public comments for Tuesday night at 11:59 pm and said it planned another meeting with consulting parties.

One of the outside groups involved in the consultation process was The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF), a national historic-landscape preservation nonprofit, whose founder and CEO, Charles Birnbaum, worked at the NPS for 15 years and was the principal author of the federal guidelines for cultural landscapes.

Section 106 requires consultation to begin “at the early stages of project planning.” But TCLF says the review began only after the Commission of Fine Arts had approved the arch’s design.

Meanwhile, the TCLF has said that it and other relevant preservation groups were invited to only a single meeting on September 9, just weeks before public consultation was terminated. They said this indicated that any real alternative proposals had essentially been taken off the table.

On Monday, Scott MacFarlane of MeidasTouch News published a letter from the TCLF savaging the administration’s “extraordinary” reasoning for canceling the public consultation.

“Mr. Voyles has written a singularly audacious letter,” it said. “Rather than address the ‘public’s significant concerns regarding the adverse effects’ on one of the nation’s most revered and symbolically important cultural landscapes through an authentic public engagement process that doesn’t foreclose avoidance as a precondition, the administration, through its proxy, the ACHP, has decided the public’s role is meaningless, unimportant, and of no value whatsoever.”

The question of historical preservation is one of numerous legal issues facing Trump’s effort to build the arch, which is estimated to cost at least $100 million, though the administration has not published an official price tag.

Although it will be partially funded by taxpayers, Congress has not yet authorized the project, leading to a federal lawsuit seeking to block construction.

Outcry over the public funding for the project led Trump last week to propose using the monument as a “military complex” that would house drones, ammunition, and snipers. He has similarly attempted to justify his taxpayer-funded White House ballroom project by giving it a dual national security purpose.

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95 pages of chaos: The White House rules that nearly tanked the election

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court blocked an executive order from President Donald Trump restricting voting by mail in ways that could have thrown the upcoming midterms into chaos. But the White House originally had far more disruptive plans, ProPublica has learned.

According to several people knowledgeable about the discussions, the administration initially floated an idea that would have virtually shut down mail voting: requiring all ballots to be delivered exclusively through certified mail. The proposal — which would have required voters to be home and sign for delivery of their ballots — was ultimately abandoned, after vehement Postal Service objections that it would have been impossible to execute.

Even after the idea fizzled, Postal Service officials were cut out of crucial conversations as the Trump administration moved forward with what became the final executive order, two people familiar with the matter said. Issued in March, its contents came as a shock even to the Postal Service’s lawyers.

Trump’s order would have forced postal workers to serve as gatekeepers, deciding which ballots would be delivered and which wouldn’t. Beyond that, it would have inexplicably handed authority over the plan’s execution to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who has no formal oversight over the Postal Service.

Inside the Postal Service, which is overseen by a bipartisan Board of Governors, deliberations on whether to comply with the order stretched on for weeks. Some board members found it alarming but feared Trump would respond to a direct challenge by trying to fire them, sources familiar with their concerns told ProPublica. Instead, they remained silent, counting on the courts to block the measure.

“The board was being careful how or when it took action, knowing that it might be its last action,” one source said.

ProPublica previously detailed postal officials’ deep concerns with the Trump order. Now our reporting reveals how the order came to be and who was involved in crafting it, as well as the extent to which the White House tried to dictate how mail-in ballots would be processed.

The White House team leading the mail-in voting discussions included J. Brian Sikma, a special presidential assistant who has been involved in other administration election initiatives, including identifying noncitizen voters for prosecution and seeking to ban voting machines. (Sikma didn’t respond to a request for comment.)

The commerce secretary, Lutnick, served in “an advisory and coordination capacity” in drafting the order, a department spokesperson confirmed to ProPublica.

“President Trump values Secretary Lutnick’s advice on many matters,” the spokesperson said.

In an emailed statement, White House spokesperson Lauren Bis denied the administration had interfered improperly with the Postal Service, an independent agency whose governance structure is specifically designed to protect it from political influence. She said the executive order “added important safeguards to vote-by-mail. These were commonsense measures to protect the security of mail-in ballots and to ensure only Americans vote in American elections.”

Bis also rejected the idea that the certified-mail proposal was “unworkable,” saying this played no part in the administration’s decision “to go in another direction.”

A Postal Service spokesperson declined to comment on the agency’s internal deliberations about the executive order and said it was the Board of Governors’ policy not to discuss them.

He referred ProPublica to an earlier statement by Postmaster General David Steiner that said: “Postal employees take great pride in their responsibility to support the democratic process. We will continue to approach that responsibility with the care, professionalism, and dedication that voters and election officials expect from the United States Postal Service.”

In an interview, Jonathan Smith, president of the American Postal Workers Union, called the Trump administration’s push to revamp mail voting problematic and baseless.

“The ultimate goal was to create chaos and doubt in the vote-by-mail process,” he said. “You’re creating a rule to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.”

The White House first reached out to the Postal Service in the fall of 2025, saying the administration wanted to explore how to improve mail voting.

Trump has long claimed without evidence that mail voting is riddled with fraud, though he frequently votes by mail himself. He’s said the process is “inherently corrupt” and contributed to his defeat in the 2020 presidential election.

Postal Service leaders responded to the administration’s late 2025 overture with recommendations they had been making to local election officials for years. Nearly a third of all ballots in the 2022 and 2024 elections were cast through the mail. Mostly, independent audits showed, the system worked reliably. But at times, ballots got lost or delayed.

Officials with the Postal Service had long wanted election offices to use standardized ballot envelopes with scannable barcodes, logos and other features that would make it easier to separate election mail from other first-class mail. In 2024, a bipartisan bill to turn those recommendations into requirements stalled in the Senate.

When Trump retook the Oval Office, it soon became obvious the White House had other ideas, including requiring ballots to be sent by certified mail.

Doing this could, in theory, erase some security concerns, but local governments would have to pay a higher fee to send each envelope and postal workers would have to conduct millions of identity checks, crippling timely delivery.

“It was just, for many reasons, a terrible idea,” one top Postal Service official said.

The White House backed down, but when the final order was unveiled, postal officials said they were surprised to see it demanded that they implement the envelope changes and ballot-tracking measures they’d recommended in time for the midterms.

The directive also required states to provide the Postal Service with lists of eligible mail voters, which workers would then try to match with ballots before sending them out. Designing a new ballot-tracking system would normally take about a year, postal officials said.

They were particularly concerned with the order’s requirement that Postal Service workers reject ballots for an array of reasons, ranging from outdated voter information to unscannable bar codes. All mail ballots from a state could be rejected if the state refused to provide its voter list.

“That’s not what we do,” a former official involved with the discussions said. “We deliver mail. We don’t decide what goes and what doesn’t.”

Postal Service officials were taken aback that the final order put Lutnick in charge of coordinating with other agencies and the postmaster general in “effectuating all relevant aspects of the implementation.”

Lutnick’s involvement came after Trump had discussed putting the Postal Service under the Commerce Department. At Lutnick’s February 2025 swearing-in, Trump said he thought Lutnick’s “great business instinct” was just what the Postal Service needed. (The postal board fought back, and Trump’s idea of merging the agency into the Commerce Department is apparently no longer on the table.)

Almost immediately after the executive order became public, four separate lawsuits challenging it were filed by states led by Democrats and political and civil rights groups. Democratic members of Congress and postal union leaders urged the Postal Service and its Board of Governors, which had long defended the agency’s independence, to resist. A June 2026 Supreme Court decision allowing Trump to remove leaders of many agencies long considered independent gave the governors pause, however.

Steiner, appointed at Trump’s behest in mid-2025, directed Postal Service leaders to prepare to implement the order. In public statements, he defended the measure and said he would leave it for the courts to decide. At his direction, postal officials began establishing procedures to comply with Trump’s order.

As they started to craft rules, career postal officials, concerned about voter privacy and disenfranchising legitimate voters, attempted to do as little as they could to comply, three people knowledgeable about their deliberations said. They looked for ways to protect workers from having to step out of their traditional lanes.

For example, they proposed having states turn over their voter lists but not requiring Postal Service workers to use them to decide which ballots to send out. When the Postal Service’s lawyer took the idea to the White House counsel, however, it was rebuffed as “not enough,” the former official said.

The White House team made clear that if even one ballot envelope in a batch mailing didn’t match the state list, the entire mailing should be rejected and election officials should be notified. “That means if four addresses don’t align in a mailing of one million, 999,996 other people don’t get their ballot tomorrow,” the former official said.

As ProPublica has reported, staffers found these issues highly troubling. A whistleblower complaint released in August warned that the system designed to carry out the executive order was rushed into being, untested and error-prone.

The final rule — 95 pages spelling out how the agency would carry out Trump’s order — was issued on Aug. 21, less than a month before the first mail ballots were due to go out.

It left many questions unanswered: How would lists of voters be kept updated? How would the Postal Service ensure local officials were able to upload voter information to the agency’s new portal? How could postal officials approve the new ballot envelope designs required by nearly 10,000 voting jurisdictions in just weeks?

“This was going to be a disaster,” the former postal official said.

The Sept. 14 Supreme Court ruling provided a reprieve, but Smith, the postal union president, criticized agency leadership for not stepping in more forcefully. Counting on the courts to halt the order, said Smith, was “a dangerous calculation, and showed a clear lack of courage and integrity.”

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Republicans are finally waking up to 'a world of hurt'

It’s astounding how the GOP is waking up in a world of hurt, seemingly only now realizing how much trouble they are in. All year long, the numbers told the story, as did the special elections and the anger about tariffs and the war. But now Republicans suddenly seem to realize it’s all for real, defying Trump and criticizing him. It’s all too late as conditions have deteriorated rapidly, with polls showing the Senate very much in play and MAGA operatives and podcasters fretting about big losses in the House…

The Supreme Court, in good news, ruled for a third and final time that Missouri could not use its new gerrymandered maps. But this week the Supreme Court handed down a bad ruling allowing the federal government to let states use a database that shares personal information to check if noncitizens are voting—a database with a bad track record. While it’s something to be concerned about, legal advocates have been cautioning against alarm right now and reassuring people that it will have limited, if any, impact on the upcoming midterms. But the Trump administration has other plans in place, and we have to be alert…

The ban against CNN, MS NOW and Politico has been on-again, off-again, as the Trump administration for hours appeared to defy a judge’s ruling, only to let the outlets back into the White House—but then attempted to ban some of their journalists from the state dinner with the Chinese leader. And now Trump has banned CNN from Air Force One. This is all a vile attack on the press and a brazen challenge to the judge’s order. But Trump is also hurting himself by not having cameras on him because the other TV networks that share pool footage have shown solidarity and refused to participate in the pool. Trump has actually seemed jarred by this, wondering out loud why the cameras weren’t there after he banned the outlets…

This week we saw a real turning of the tide in the numbers as we are 38 days from the election, and it only confirmed where things have been going: toward the Democrats. The GOP has been delusional about this for months, but now Republicans are beginning to panic.

Axios—a Beltway favorite of conventional wisdom and, in my view, often pro-GOP framing—reports, “GOP election outlook goes from bad to ‘craptastic’”:

President Trump told voters to pretend he’s on the ballot. Apparently they’re listening: Republicans coast to coast are getting pulled under by a violent undertow fueled by Trump’s unpopularity.
Why it matters: It’s looked bad for Republicans all year, but this week felt different — like the political environment was disintegrating in real time, one ominous data point after another.
Most worrisome for the GOP, there’s virtually no chance the war ends, inflation cools, interest rates fall, consumer confidence rises, and economic optimism surges before the Nov. 3 election.
That’s why Republicans fear the undertow imperils so many candidates once deemed safe.
“The numbers are somewhere between s---abulous and c---tastic,” a top Republican advising several federal races across the country told Axios. “It looks worse than 2018 now. Trump is heading to Bush 2006 levels.”

Trump’s poll numbers are sinking further, now down to an all-time low of 32% approval in the Reuters/Ipsos poll and 32% in a Quinnipiac poll.

All of it is happening as economic conditions deteriorate rapidly, which is causing those polls to crater for Republicans and rise for Democrats. From The New York Times:

For Americans stung by years of persistently high prices, the end of September brought little obvious relief, as a long unresolved war with Iran continued to ripple across the U.S. economy in ways that made the nation’s battle with inflation all the more vexing.
Oil prices whipsawed around $100 per barrel while costs at the pump remained high, with a gallon of gasoline reaching an average of nearly $4.50 nationally by Friday, according to AAA. The more concerning spike occurred in diesel, which topped $6.50 per gallon, raising the possibility that high transportation and shipping costs could make groceries and other goods more expensive soon, too.

Mortgage rates passed 7% after the Fed raised interest rates in recent weeks. And there’s talk of mortgage rates even going to 8%. The Fed is due to meet at the end of October, and after the stress on the bond market in recent days, it’s expected that officials could increase rates again—days before the election.

MAGA podcaster Steve Deace was among those finally going public about how bad it is, posting on X:

Yesterday, Iowa House Republicans were informed by their own pollsters that if you are in a +15 district you’re within the margin for error, if you’re in a +10 district you’re underwater, and that this might end being an even worse midterm environment than 2006.
I slept on whether to share this publicly, because I don’t want to cause anyone to black pill. But this morning I ultimately decided the truth should be shared while there is still six weeks left to do something about it for the good of the country.
Because if the environment is this bad in my home state, where Trump has been the most popular political figure over the last decade, I can’t imagine where it is everywhere else.

VoteHub now puts the Democrats’ chances of winning the Senate at 59%, something that would have seemed unthinkable just a year ago. As The Washington Post notes:

Democrats have been favored to seize control of the House, which has a narrow Republican majority. The math in the Senate is more daunting: Democrats control 47 seats to Republicans’ 53.
The clearest path to a majority requires Democrats to retain all of their seats and win four GOP-controlled seats, including at least two in states President Donald Trump won by double digits in 2024. That path, which once felt like a long shot, now seems feasible.

But not only should none of us get overconfident; Trump’s determination to control elections, challenge results and sow doubt about them is something we have to take seriously. While the Supreme Court dealt a huge blow to his attempt to control mail-in ballots and this week finally stopped Missouri Republicans from using a gerrymandered map, the Court also handed down a troubling ruling. It will allow states to use a database that’s been in place for a long time, with access to voters’ personal information, to check whether they are noncitizens—even though the system has produced false positives.

It should be pointed out that this applies only to states that voluntarily use the database—27 states have used it in the past—for elections. Blue states are not required to use it. Texas uses it and is being sued because there were so many false positives.

Legal advocates, however, caution that while we have to focus on it in the future, it has limited, if any, power to affect the upcoming midterms:

Friday’s Supreme Court ruling clearing the way for states to use a sweeping online system to identify ineligible voters is a victory for the Trump administration, which has routinely promoted unfounded claims of widespread illegal voting by noncitizens. But the impact of the decision on the November midterm elections is likely to be limited, according to election law experts.
That is largely because federal law establishes a 90-day “quiet period” before elections, in which wide-scale changes to state voter rolls cannot be made. The provision is meant to avoid last-minute chaos in elections, and is likely to prevent major changes ahead of the Nov. 3 midterms, experts said.

But that might not stop the Trump administration from trying to use it after the election regarding individual voters it suspects, as The Wall Street Journal reports, and the administration is doing everything it can to exert influence over the election:

The Civil Rights Division has also written to the chief elections officers in all 50 states warning them officials face prosecution if they knowingly have noncitizens registered to vote.
The Justice Department is spotlighting prosecutions of noncitizens who voted or registered to do so. Prosecutors have announced several batches of cases in recent weeks, with more on the way. The department has charged more than 70 people with unlawful voting and registration offenses since the start of the administration.
And on Election Day, federal officials will be out in force. The department has historically sent staff from the Civil Rights Division to monitor elections in areas where they have sued to enforce voting-rights laws. This year, it is preparing to send up to 1,000 election monitors—from across the department and potentially other agencies as well—to a broader swath of states.

So none of us should be resting, because numbers can be overblown and, even if they’re not, Trump will try every way he can to affect the election. It’s why we have to support legal advocates as much as we can, and be ready.

After a judge ruled that the Trump administration had improperly banned Politico, MS NOW and CNN from the White House and ordered their credentials restored, the White House continued to deny them access for hours. The White House TV press pool—which includes the major networks, including Fox News—had joined together, effectively denying Trump television pool coverage during the visit of Chinese dictator, President Xi Jinping.

But after the outlets were reinstated, the White House later denied some MS NOW and CNN journalists access to cover the state dinner for the Chinese leader. They were later allowed in.

But then, on Friday, CNN was banned from Air Force One, where it was to provide pool coverage on a trip to Tennessee. It’s not clear how the Air Force One decision interacts with the judge’s order restoring White House access.

Trump, who said he would campaign in 35 of the most competitive districts for the midterms, was going to see the game between the University of Texas and Tennessee—with only 38 days before the election. He so far has planned campaign rallies in Durant, Oklahoma, and Mobile, Alabama—neither in a state with a major competitive Senate race and both in a place where he will have big, adoring crowds.

But I digress.

Trump seems confused about his media ban. He hates the reporters and their coverage, but he loves the attention and being on TV. That’s why he’s responding to it in a confusing and haphazard way, complaining about the media blackout his own actions helped create. The New Republic notes:

In the topsy-turvy MAGA world, some of America’s most prominent media outlets are choosing not to cover Donald Trump. In reality, they’re still under the Trump administration’s ban.
The president claimed on Truth Social Thursday afternoon that MS NOW and CNN “refused to cover” the arrival of Chinese President Xi Jinping at the White House.
“The event was magnificent—Actually made for Television but, because they’re Fake News, and because they knew how good it would be, they didn’t want credit to be given to ‘TRUMP,’ they refused to be there,” Trump wrote. “That’s why they have such poor Ratings.”
But that was far from the truth. Reporters from those two networks, as well as many others, refused to cover Xi’s arrival in protest of Trump’s attempt to ban CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House grounds. What’s more, just hours after Trump’s post, CNN and MS NOW were blocked from covering the state dinner at the White House Thursday night.

Trump’s love-hate relationship with the press will likely cause further conflict. I think he did all of this as a distraction from things that made him feel powerless—like the war in Iran, the Supreme Court mail-in-ballot decision and the Fed raising rates—to something that made him feel powerful.

But how powerful is he if he is effectively not on television screens much of the time? So much of his perceived power is garnered from being constantly in the media. The fact that the media finally joined together—and maybe the on-again, off-again strategy has been designed to force them to break with one another—has been kryptonite to the attention-obsessed president.

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'May be a good idea': Trump caught off guard by his own ambassador’s claim

President Donald Trump on Monday was directly asked about his offer to sell arms to China in his recent meetings with President Xi Jinping.

It was reported over the weekend that David Perdue, U.S. Ambassador to China, said Trump made the suggestion during one of his meetings with the Chinese president.

The Associated Press called it "an unlikely offer that if consummated would upend generations of U.S. policy toward China and Taiwan and expose U.S. technology to a potential foe."

Speaking to "Fox News Sunday," Perdue didn’t say exactly when during the visit Trump made the officer, only that one was made.

On Monday, the U.S. State Department tried to distance itself from Perdue's comment, releasing a statement saying, “U.S. law prohibits arms sales to China and there is no offer or plan to sell arms to China.”

According to Perdue, Trump was downplaying the U.S. relationship with Taiwan, which includes arms sales. The comments shocked both sides of the political aisle.

When Shannon Bream spoke with Perdue, she cited some of those concerns because aid packages that included weapons for Taiwan have been delayed despite continued threats from China to invade the island. She was curious if the U.S. was intentionally delaying the arms because it was attempting to do a deal with China or because the U.S. knew that the Xi meeting was coming up.

Perdue made it clear he was speaking specifically about selling arms to China.

Trump “is as strong on Taiwan as I’ve ever seen anybody” Perdue told her, noting that he has already sold plenty of weapons. The two men, Perdue said, spoke extensively about U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan throughout the visit.

“But President Trump continues to say, ‘Hey, we sell arms to other people around the world,’” Perdue said. “He actually asked President Xi, would he like to buy some, at one point.”

Trump was asked about it in the Oval Office during a press availability on Monday, with a reporter citing Perdue's comments specifically.

"I never heard of that one," Trump said. He attempted to correct the reporter, saying, "To Taiwan?" But the reporter specified that Perdue said China specifically.

"I going to have to ask him you mean — you mean we're gonna sell — now, they probably like to buy it, because we do make better equipment, and so maybe it's a good idea," he said. "But, uh, we didn't discuss it. He may have been talkin' about Taiwan. I think he was probably talking about Taiwan."

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Trump may have blown the cover on a terror investigation tied to key US base

Five men were released on bail after being arrested on suspicion of a terrorist attack in the U.K. on a base that has been helping the U.S. launch bombs into Iran.

Reporter and author James Ball wrote for The iPaper that there are still few facts available, but that a tip from a "concerned passerby" may have been what alerted authorities to a possible attack on RAF Fairford base in Gloucestershire.

It was "significant" enough that new Prime Minister Andy Burnham skipped a political football match at a Labor Party conference, said Bell.

RAF Fairford is the United States’ principal European forward operating site for long-range heavy bombers. So, if there were a successful terrorist attack, it could be a serious disruption to President Donald Trump's ongoing war with Iran. It would also make for a serious security crisis for both countries. The base is visibly associated with the U.S., though it remains on U.K. soil. So, even if an attack were limited, it would be seen as an escalation in the war with Iran.

Since it's a place with a lot of munitions, homes nearby could also be affected by such an attack. It means a high number of U.K. civilians would likely be harmed.

Bell explained that under normal circumstances, "the U.S. and U.K. governments would carefully coordinate to make sure their messaging was entirely in line in such situations."

But then there's Trump, who Bell characterized as not having the time to "bother with such details."

Popping off to reporters, Trump implied that the U.S. was somehow involved with the operation and then leaked details about the specifics publicly.

“We had them under investigation,” Trump said. “They were looking to do big ⁠damage to our fort and working with the British worked out great … we had them under view for a long time.”

He called them “fantastic” arrests and praised the “amazing job” the police had done. The problem, Bell explained, is that the U.K. never disclosed anything about the suspects, the duration of an operation or whether RAF Fairford was a possible terrorist target.

"It is hardly out of character for Trump to run roughshod over such national security concerns, though: over his two terms, he has built up a consistent pattern of being utterly unable to keep his mouth shut when a chance to show off – or to make a threat – presents itself," wrote Bell for iPaper.

Trump disclosing classified information isn't anything new. In one recorded conversation with reporters, Trump had an aide bring a classified military operation map he'd taken from the White House and showed it to the group. In another incident, Trump showed foreign leaders where the U.S. had stashed its nuclear submarines. He even told former dictator Rodrigo Duterte that he had two nuclear subs near North Korea.

Trump even leaked police investigation information from the 2017 bombing of the Manchester Arena.

He has also tweeted sensitive satellite intelligence images of a failed satellite launch in Iran that Israel's government shared with him.

Bell noted that last year, the Dutch decided that they'd begin restricting what intelligence they shared with the U.S. out of fears that there could be a “politicization of our intelligence and the violation of human rights."

Trump will be gone on Jan. 20, 2029, the report noted. Until then, Bell said most are "keeping their heads down" and keeping up whatever business they can.

National security is something different, however. "When the U.K. is trying to deal with what could be complex national security problems, not being able to rely on the discretion of the U.S. president is a major headache."

Bell closed by saying, "Trump’s indiscretion on this occasion will almost certainly prove to be harmless. Next time, we might not be so lucky."

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