October 26, 2025

Peter Charalambous of ABC News read Jonathan Karl's new book in which Karl published some of the evidence Jack Smith had intended to use at trial against Trump in the insurrection case. Among the new tidbits: "Prosecutors were able to support their timeline of events in part using a forensic copy of Trump's iPhone.... Trump's phone ... appeared to contain evidence demonstrating that Trump understood he had lost the election and was aware of the extent of the violence taking place at the Capitol, the book says. According to Karl, the FBI's report on Trump's phone showed that the device was used to access multiple images that depicted the violence at the Capitol, including violent confrontations between officers and protestors, and photos of then-mortally wounded Ashli Babbitt, who was later pronounced dead at the hospital after being shot as she tried to enter the House floor.... 'The throughline of all of Mr. Trump's criminal efforts was deceit,' Smith wrote in the final report."

Aurelien Breeden of the New York Times: “The police have made arrests in the brazen jewelry heist last week at the Louvre Museum in Paris, the French authorities said on Sunday, without specifying how many people had been taken into custody. The robbery, which stunned France, was carried out by four people. Laure Beccuau, the Paris prosecutor, said in a statement that the arrests were made on Saturday evening and that one man was taken into custody at the Charles de Gaulle Airport as he was trying to leave the country. It was not immediately clear whether the police had recovered any of the stolen jewelry, which is worth more than $100 million and includes gem-studded royal tiaras, necklaces and earrings dating to the 19th century.” The AP report is here.

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If you want to know what Trump is doing in Asia, here's the New York Times liveblog.

Trumpertantrum Continues, We Pay. Matina Stevis-Gridneff of the New York Times: Donald “Trump doubled down on Saturday in his feud with Canada over a television ad that used audio of former President Ronald Reagan denouncing tariffs, saying he would punish the country with an additional 10 percent tariff on its goods. Mr. Trump had already suspended monthslong trade talks with Canada, the United States’ second-largest trading partner, on Thursday night because of the ad, which had been paid for by Ontario. Though the ad faithfully reproduced Mr. Reagan’s words, just in a different order, Mr. Trump has insisted it was 'fraudulent' after the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute said it had made 'selective' use of the five-minute original address. The latest twist in the Canada-United States saga comes as the two countries have been locked in intensive talks over lowering some U.S. tariffs on key Canadian goods. The countries’ relationship has drastically deteriorated since Mr. Trump’s election, as he has menaced the close U.S. ally with tariffs and spoken of making Canada the 51st state.” The Guardian's story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'd guess the Reagan folks capitulated to Trump because  the National Archives operate and maintain the Reagan Library using taxpayer money, and Trump could and would cut the Library off without a dime. He is a vicious, vindictive bully who will do anything to get back at people who don't kowtow to him, as this newest surtax on Canadian goods attests. ~~~

     ~~~ Justin Wolfers on Bluesky: "Rule of Law Alert: Trump’s authority for country-specific tariffs comes from the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which doesn’t mention tariffs — but does require a national emergency. An ad showing that Reagan opposed tariffs surely is not a national emergency." Via Scott Lemieux. ~~~

     ~~~ Scott Lemieux in LG&$: “If I may be permitted to be so gauche as to invoke the law, Congress just simply did not authorize the president to impose tariffs in retaliation for ads he doesn’t like. If this counts as 'national security' the term means nothing at all. If the Supreme Court of the United States was a court of law as the term was once understood, this would be a highly relevant fact.”

Marco Hernandez, et al., of the New York Times: “The East Wing was demolished this week, but the ballroom design is still in flux, even though construction was slated to begin in September. The project is supposed to be completed before the end of Mr. Trump’s term at a cost of $300 million — $100 million more than the previous estimate.... And the various plans Mr. Trump has shared have suggested a hurried process. Along with the differences in the drawings, the model he displayed on Wednesday appeared to have some mistakes, like a staircase leading up from the South Lawn to no clear landing.” The drawing with the Stairway to Nowhere also depicts the jambs of two windows hitting each other. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Maybe we should call it the Trump Mystery Ballroom, like the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California. Sarah Winchester, the widow of the rifle magnate William Winchester, reportedly (though perhaps not actually) believed that she would only live as long as she kept remodeling the house. The Winchester house contains many curiosities, like doors and windows that open onto nothing -- AND a stairway to nowhere. It is not ridiculous to wonder if Trump thinks he will live as long as he keeps on building -- and grifting. ~~~

~~~ Maureen Dowd of the New York Times: “A Jackie Kennedy garden was plowed over by the bulldozers. The woman with the best taste in the history of the White House was rubbished by the man with the worst taste in the history of the White House. Many of his voters wanted to see Trump take a jackhammer to Washington, but I’m not sure they meant it this literally. Melania probably doesn’t care. As The Times’s Katie Rogers reported in her book about first ladies..., Melania only dropped by the East Wing, which held the offices for the first lady and her staff, a couple of times in the first term. She hasn’t been around much this term either.... 'We the People' is quaint. Now we are governed by the whims of one person.”

Tyler Pager of the New York Times: “Timothy Mellon, a reclusive billionaire and a major financial backer of ... [Donald] Trump, is the anonymous private donor who gave $130 million to the U.S. government to help pay troops during the shutdown, according to two people familiar with the matter.... 'He doesn’t want publicity,' Mr. Trump said as he headed to Malaysia.”  

     ~~~ Marie: If that's true, I'm glad the Times outed Mellon. He's a jerk and a crank and a racist: “Mr. Mellon, a wealthy banking heir and railroad magnate, is a longtime backer of Mr. Trump and gave tens of millions of dollars to groups supporting the president’s campaign. Last year, he made a $50 million donation to a super PAC supporting Mr. Trump, which was one of the largest single contributions ever disclosed. A grandson of former Treasury Secretary Andrew W. Mellon, Mr. Mellon was not a prominent Republican donor until Mr. Trump was elected. But in recent years, he has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into supporting Mr. Trump and the Republican Party. Mr. Mellon, who lives primarily in Wyoming, keeps a low profile despite his prolific political spending. He is also a significant supporter of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr....” ~~~

     ~~~ Steve M. reports Timothy Mellon is a lot worse than I let on above. After pointing to a number of particulars, Steve concludes, "Rich head cases like Timothy Mellon run our country. We're required to defer to their whims. And now that we have a president who's effectively dismantled the non-punitive parts of the government and created a culture of government by large donation, the country will be run according to rich lunatics' whims more than ever before." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Rep. Jamie Raskin, BTW, has asserted on the teevee that the gift to the DOD is illegal; it is legal to give a gift to the Treasury, which can dole out funds as authorized by Congress, but it is not legal to earmark gifts for specific uses. And you can see why. Although Mellon's gift is a drop in the bucket when it comes to paying the military, potentially it interferes with Constitutional governance. First, such gifts imply that the president* can finance his own military, beholden not to the nation but to him personally. Second, in this particular case, such a gift (or gifts) -- theoretically, anyway -- reduces the Congress's ability to bargain with the administration to reopen the government because it reduces soldiers' anger at the shutdown. ~~~

     ~~~ Paul Campos, in LG&$: “You’ll be shocked to hear that this is all flagrantly illegal, although the Times phrases the matter in the prissy way for which it is so justly famous: 'Still, the donation appears to be a potential violation of the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits federal agencies from spending money in excess of congressional appropriations or from accepting voluntary services.' Yeah I’d say that 'appears' to violate the explicit terms of a federal statute. Don’t hold your breath for ‘Ol Balls & Strikes to jump in here, although this is actually a situation where the shadow docket ought to be employed for once.... The modern Republican party, of which Trumpism is the final full flowering, would be much less dangerous if it were made up exclusively of venal grifters, as opposed to the generous dollop of insane plutocrats and religious lunatics who enliven its membership.”

Pay the Troops, Starve the Children. Heather Cox Richardson: "Yesterday the Trump administration said it would not use any of the approximately $6 billion the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) holds in reserve to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).... Yesterday’s USDA memo also says that any states that tap their own resources to provide food benefits will not be reimbursed.... With Republicans refusing to negotiate with Democrats in the normal way, with House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) keeping the House out of session, and with Trump leaving for Asia for a week, Republicans are clearly making the calculation that Democrats who refused to give up their demand for the extension of the premium tax credit to stop dramatic hikes in the cost of healthcare premiums will cave when America falls into a hunger crisis.... And yet, at the same time the Department of Agriculture says it cannot spend its $6 billion in reserves to address the $8 billion needed for SNAP in November, the administration easily found $20 billion to prop up right-wing Trump ally Javier Milei in Argentina.... What are we doing here, folks?"

Annie Karni of the New York Times: “Speaker Mike Johnson’s decision to put the House on an indefinite hiatus that is now stretching into its second month while the government is shut down is the latest in a series of moves he has made that have diminished the role of Congress and shrunken the speakership at a critical moment. It’s an approach born of political expedience that could have far-reaching consequences for an institution that has already ceded much of its power to ... [Donald] Trump. And Mr. Johnson, who without the president’s backing wields little influence over his own members, has chosen to make himself subservient to Mr. Trump, a break with many speakers of the past who sought in their own ways to act more as a governing partner with the president than as his underling. 'I’m the speaker and the president,' Mr. Trump has joked.... Mr. Johnson has done little in recent weeks to contest the point.”

Charles Thrush of Block Club Chicago: “Federal agents unleashed chemical irritants on Chicago-area residents for the fourth day in a row Saturday morning, according to witnesses and news reports. Agents deployed tear gas on civilians Saturday morning at two separate locations on the Northwest Side, in Old Irving Park and Avondale, according to social media posts and rapid responders. A little before 10 a.m., near the intersection of Kildare Avenue and Grace Street in Old Irving Park, federal agents tear-gassed neighbors responding to the scene of an arrest, according to the Chicago Tribune.... A 67-year-old woman was 'knocked to the ground' by masked agents, a rapid responder told Block Club. The clash occurred just before the Old Irving Park Association Halloween Parade was set to march down the street, disrupting the event, neighbors said in a local rapid response chat.”

AP: “The detention by immigration authorities of a Chicago man whose 16-year-old daughter is undergoing treatment for advanced cancer is illegal, and he must be given a bond hearing by Oct. 31, a federal judge has ruled. Attorneys for Ruben Torres Maldonado, 40, who was detained Oct. 18, have petitioned for his release as his deportation case goes through the system. While U.S. District Judge Jeremy Daniel said in an order Friday that Torres’ detention is illegal and violates his due process rights, he also said he could not order his immediate release. 'While sympathetic to the plight the petitioner’s daughter faces due to her health concerns, the court must act within the constraints of the relevant statutes, rules, and precedents,' the judge wrote Friday.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: If prosecutors had an ounce of decency, they would release Maldonado now and not insist on fighting a bond hearing. But they must be more worried about their own jobs than about the comfort and needs of a gravely ill girl. This is what they're hearing from Washington, D.C.: “'This is nothing more than a desperate Hail Mary attempt to keep a criminal illegal alien in our country,' Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. 'The Trump administration is fighting for the rule of law and the American people.'”

Aaron Pellish of Politico: “Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington’s long-serving delegate in Congress, was scammed out of thousands of dollars on Thursday, D.C. police confirmed.... A public police report said the 88-year-old Norton’s credit card was charged with over $4,000 for services at her home. The incident was reported by Jacqueline Pelt, a longtime aide and Norton ally, who is listed in the report as living at Norton’s home. Pelt 'did not authorize any work to be performed' at Norton’s house, the report said, and cancelled Norton’s credit cards after discovering they’d been charged.... The internal report described Norton as having 'early stages of dementia' and characterized Pelt as a caretaker with power of attorney for Norton.... The incident raises further questions about Norton’s fitness for public office, despite repeatedly saying she will seek reelection next year. Her absence from the public eye amid ... Donald Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to Washington was noted by close allies, including Donna Brazile, a longtime political adviser who called on Norton to retire in a Washington Post op-ed last month.”

Anita Gates of the New York Times: “June Lockhart, the soft-spoken actress who exuded earnest maternal wisdom and wistful contentment in two very different mid-20th-century television roles, on the heartwarming children’s series 'Lassie' and the futuristic 'Lost in Space,' died on Thursday at her home in Santa Monica, Calif. She was 100.” MB: Biographies are so often interesting reads -- even when you don't expect them to be.

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Ireland. Shawn Pogatchnik of Politico: “Independent socialist Catherine Connolly swept to a landslide victory Saturday to become Ireland’s next president, dealing a record-breaking rebuke to the two center-ground parties of government. Jubilant supporters of the 68-year-old Connolly, a lawmaker from the western city of Galway, embraced and kissed her as final results from Friday’s election were announced at the Dublin Castle count center. In her victory speech, Connolly struck an immediate note of unity. She stood side by side with Ireland’s government leaders — and pledged to challenge the far right and its anti-immigrant agenda.... Connolly won, in no small part, thanks to backing from Ireland’s five left-wing parties, most crucially Sinn Féin. All stood aside to give her a clean run on an anti-government platform, a political first for the normally fractious left.”