In any normal week, Katie Zacharia’s disastrous first briefing would be the top of this list – but events move fast in Trumpworld. Here’s a roundup of what you need to know this week
Trump with 5-day press secretary Katie Zacharia(Image: X/ @KatieZacharia)
It’s just weeks until the midterm elections and Donald Trump is doing the things he does before an election.
He’s holding rallies to dwindling numbers of people in States where his party should be winning but isn’t. Oh, and he’s laying the groundwork for rigging the election if it looks like he’s going to lose. Meanwhile he’s had to sack his new press secretary just five days into the job. And he’s been accused of betraying Ukraine by relaxing even more sanctions on Russia. Here’s everything that’s happened this week in Trumpworld that you need to know about. Buckle up.
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Katie Zacharia lasted half a Scaramucci
In any normal week, I’d be starting this roundup with Trump blindsiding everyone – including Chief of Staff Susie Wiles – by appointing Katie Zacharia as his new Press Secretary on Monday. And then maybe a rundown of her disastrous debut hosting the White House Press Briefing, which lasted 13 minutes, five of which she spent taking questions from just three people and still managed to commit an excruciating gaffe.
Even worse than her stilted, mumbling, head-down delivery of an opening monologue of the President’s “wins” was the moment when she mistakenly referred to her husband as “my president”. A flub that would surely have prompted an awkward conversation with said husband, who she explained was making preparations to move from California to DC to support her in her new role. Well, hopefully they didn’t, you know, buy or sell property or anything. Because just four days after said disaster briefing, Trump sacked her. And not just over the briefing.
See, Katie Zacharia has, for some time, described herself in public as a lawyer and/or as an attorney. So, not unreasonably, people started asking in which state she took the bar exam – perhaps aware that she made an attempt at it in California in 2011, and failed. Asked about it outside the White House, she mumbled something about “when I was in China.” Which is a weird answer to that question. She did live in China for a spell after she left college, got married and failed the California bar exam. She even worked at a law firm. But a qualified lawyer she was not. In fact, in China you have to be a citizen to take the bar exam. Katie denied having misled anyone about her credentials – though Trump’s face when she was asked the question did not suggest he knew beforehand.
After that, it was all somehow downhill. She appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show to defend herself…and what she clearly thought would be a softball interview turned into a pretty stern grilling on her past and performance from the TV host who is in Trump’s ear the most. Then she went on Fox and Friends, and it was a similar kind of car crash.
So on Friday afternoon, when Trump was departing for a rally in Georgia, he told reporters he had had a chat with Zacharia and suggested, perhaps, the job was “not for her” and she’d be “transitioned” to another part of the administration. Whether this conversation actually took place is unconfirmed…but the message was clear. She was out and he was moving on.
And today’s latest is that the interview with Hannity that sealed her fate…was set up by Wiles, and has been described as a “sanctioned hit.” This, under any normal administration would be seen as a hack move by a Chief of Staff who wanted to throw someone under a bus. But in Trump 2.0 Wiles looks like a galaxy brain, Malcolm Tucker-level political operator.
Trump betrays Ukraine
In a far more depressing turn of events, Trump’s journey to Putin’s way of thinking appears to be complete. Since the Russian hardman’s birthday last week, when Trump made a point of calling his bestie on the phone, the US President has been in a downward spiral of unthinkable acts.
It started with the diesel deal, presumably a birthday present for Putin, which saw Trump relax sanctions to allow Russia to pump its fuel into American tractors. And last night Trump signed an executive order suspending yet more sanctions – which he signed into law just a month ago at the behest of late Senator Lindsay Graham. Trump said scrapping the sanctions was in the US “national interest”. But the lurch to Putin’s side and apparent betrayal of Ukraine has prompted a bipartisan backlash from US lawmakers – many of whom are facing re-election battles in less than three weeks’ time.
Meanwhile, in an even darker turn of events, Starshield – the satellite internet service Ukraine relies upon for defensive intelligence and drone control – has apparently been limited, putting lives under threat. Reuters reported the limitation was deliberate, and was ordered from inside the Trump administration – though both Trump and Elon Musk – on whose Starlink service the system is built – have denied involvement.
The midterms are looming – and the threats have begun
Trump has been on the campaign trail, holding rallies almost every night to try and prevent a complete blowout in the looming midterm elections. All 435 seats in the House, 34 Senate seats and 36 governors mansions are up for grabs across the country – and the Republican Party is braced to suffer heavy losses.
Statewide polls put Democrats ahead in enough states to hand them control of both the House and Senate – with even Republican strongholds like Texas looking likely to turn blue on November 3. Which means Trump has been giving lengthy, meandering speeches in states like Georgia, Texas, Kentucky and Michigan in a bid to try and energise his base. “Pretend I’m on the ballot,” is his most oft-repeated refrain – but with recent polls putting his approval as low as 22%, that may do more harm than good.
And the results aren’t the only thing to be watching in this set of elections. Yesterday, three Democratic senators felt they compelled to write to Attorney General Todd Blanche, to ask for a commitment that he won’t seize ballots or any other election materials before the votes have been concluded and the results certified.
The letter from Sens. Alex Padilla, (California), Sheldon Whitehouse (Rhode Island) and Dick Durbin (Illinois), argued any such actions would constitute unlawful election interference by the Justice Department. The letter comes against a backdrop of escalating threats by the DOJ to election officials who don’t comply with its demands.
On Thursday, the DOJ sued California election officials, alleging they didn’t act quickly enough to review names the federal government identified as “likely” noncitizens. And Trump posted on Friday night threatening to jail election officials if they don’t comply. The Justice Department seized 2020 ballots from Georgia’s Fulton County earlier this year, saying it was investigating “irregularities.” Georgia’s votes in that presidential race were counted three times and affirmed Democrat Joe Biden’s win
Oh, and here’s Kid Rock being racist
In Michigan, the Democrats have selected a man named Abdul El-Sayed as their candidate for the vacant Senate seat. He’s known by most as a Michigan-born progressive left-leaning, very charismatic epidemiologist. To Trump’s ol’ buddy Kid Rock, he’s a potential Islamic Terrorist. “The point I would like to make with especially El Sayed is that we need to be very careful,” Rock said on Fox News. “…with these ideologies that I don’t believe are compatible with western civilisation. It appears that that El Sayed is assimilated. You know what I mean? But I don’t see him saying all the time like this is the greatest country and I love the opportunities it gave me. It’s all this country is racist and this that and the other.”
El-Sayed is, once again, a native Michigander.
Rock went on: “And I would like to make the point that there’s been some other people who have assimilated to this country. The Fort Hood shooter. Those men, those extremists that became pilots and and crashed into our World Trade Centers. And this is why I call him a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
Trump has been doing some dog-whistling of his own, deliberately misnaming the Democrat as “Mohammed El Sayed”. It’s unclear if he was aware El Sayed’s middle name was Mohamed when he repeatedly made the comments over the last week. And responding to the backlash to his taunts, Trump said in Georgia on Friday night: “I don’t care. I’m the President of the United States, I can call you whatever the hell I want.” He went on to say: “His name is actually Abdullahalalalala baa ba ba Muhammad El-Sayed. So his middle name is Muhammad. I was right.. almost.”
Stay classy.
