April 20, 2026

Trump Is So Out of It. Natalie Allison, et al., of the Washington Post: “Even as United Nations Ambassador Mike Waltz and Energy Secretary Chris Wright were [on Sunday morning talk shows] confirming [JD] Vance’s participation [in peace negotiations in Pakistan]..., Trump was telling the networks the opposite. Vance wouldn’t be traveling to Pakistan because of security concerns, the president told journalists from ABC and MS NOW in separate phone calls Sunday morning.... The contradictory remarks highlighted a continuing challenge for the administration: On information as basic as who would attend high-stakes peace talks, as well as on broader questions of whether Iran has agreed to terms for a deal, Trump’s oscillating claims have led to confusion and required clean-up by his staff.... Trump [also] has offered shifting accounts of the status of talks with Iran and of the Strait of Hormuz that have been contradicted by the Iranians and sometimes himself. He has contradicted himself, as well his energy secretary, about prospects for lower gasoline prices. And he has offered conflicting accounts on one of the key issues in the conflict — the fate of Iran’s highly enriched uranium.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: There are a couple of reasons this isn't surprising. (1) Trump does not have the mental capacity to keep track of what is going on in what is, admittedly, a fast-moving series of developments. (2) Trump can't handle the stress of things going badly in his stupid war. Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal reported that when Iran shot down a U.S. fighter jet, Trump “'screamed at aides for hours' and was then 'kept out of the [Situation R]oom' while his team was given minute-by-minute updates, according to a report.” That is, aides don't tell him what's going on, or they paint inaccurate rosy pictures of what's happening, AND he can't remember what he is told. If you watched Sen. Jon Ossoff's recitation of Trump's "status reports" on the Iran war (and I recommend it), then you the war "ended" about a dozen times. And we won!

Lauren Gurley & Meryl Kornfield of the Washington Post: “Lori Chavez-DeRemer..., Donald Trump’s labor secretary, is leaving her position amid professional misconduct allegations, becoming the third Cabinet member to depart during Trump’s second term. White House communications director Steven Cheung posted on X on Monday that Chavez-DeRemer would leave the Cabinet to take a position in the private sector, though he did not say where she was going. Cheung said the deputy labor secretary, Keith Sonderling, would become the acting head of the agency. The AP's report is here.

Katie Robertson of the New York Times: “The F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, sued The Atlantic on Monday, accusing it of defamation over an article that claimed his excessive drinking and unexplained absences were putting his job in jeopardy. The article ... was published on Friday and detailed Mr. Patel’s behavior in his role leading the Federal Bureau of Investigation, citing more than two dozen anonymous sources. The author, Sarah Fitzpatrick, wrote that Mr. Patel’s conduct had 'often alarmed officials at the F.B.I. and the Department of Justice.' The article said he 'has also earned a reputation for acting impulsively during high-stakes investigations.' Mr. Patel denied the claims in a statement to The Atlantic, which the article included.... 

“The suit seeks $250 million in damages.... Mr. Patel, as a public figure, must meet a higher standard than an ordinary citizen to prove his case. He must show not only that there were falsehoods in the article but also “actual malice” — a legal standard that means that the defendants published defamatory material either while knowing it was false or with reckless disregard as to its truth.” MB: The suit, IMO, is a bluff. Patel is a lawyer, so he knows that dozens of witnesses against him may be called to testify under oath in depositions. And if he has any self-awareness at all, he knows those witnesses -- who will no longer be anonymous as they were in the Atlantic report -- will testify at length that they witnessed him in various states of drunkenness & incapacity. Some will bring receipts -- in a few cases, real receipts -- like bar tabs. This case is not going to get as far as the first depo.

Tim Apple Steps Down. Kalley Huang & Tripp Mickle of the New York Times: “Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, said on Monday that he would step down after nearly 15 years running an operation that rode the wild popularity of the iPhone to become one of the most influential and valuable companies in the world. Mr. Cook, 65, will move into a new role as Apple’s executive chairman in September and be succeeded in the company’s corner office by John Ternus, the 50-year-old head of Apple’s hardware engineering. The resignation of Mr. Cook will end one of the most successful management runs in the history of American business. During his tenure, Apple’s annual profit quadrupled to more than $110 billion, while its value ballooned more than tenfold to $4 trillion.”

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So Much Losing. 

Tony Romm & Ana Swanson of the New York Times: “The Trump administration on Monday is set to take its first steps toward returning more than $166 billion collected from tariffs that were struck down in February. Just over a year after imposing many of the duties, the government is expected to begin accepting requests for refunds, surrendering its prized source of revenue — plus interest. For some U.S. businesses, the highly anticipated refunds could be substantial, offering critical if belated financial relief. Tariffs are taxes on imports, so the president’s trade policies have served as a great burden for companies that rely on foreign goods.... By Monday morning, those companies can begin to submit documentation to the government to recover what they paid in illegal tariffs. In a sign of the demand, more than 3,000 businesses, including FedEx and Costco, have already sued the Trump administration in a bid to secure their refunds, with some cases filed even before the Supreme Court’s ruling.”

Ben Hubbard of the New York Times: “... coursing through the discussions among the thousands of participants ... at Turkey’s showcase diplomatic conference in the Mediterranean resort town of Antalya over the weekend..., were questions about how to respond when the United States disregards its allies and the global order it long professed to represent.... Dozens of heads of state and other senior officials from Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia [discussed how] the foreign policy chaos of ... [Donald] Trump’s second term, the vast disruptions caused by the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, has put new urgency behind the idea that Turkey and other so-called middle powers should count less on global heavyweights and instead partner with their neighbors to manage their own regions. The desire for such cooperation surfaced repeatedly at the conference, the Antalya Diplomacy Forum, which concluded on Sunday.

Jim Morris of the AP: “Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a video address released Sunday that Canada’s strong economic ties to the United States were once a strength but are now a weakness that must be corrected....'The world is more dangerous and divided,' Carney said. 'The U.S. has fundamentally changed its approach to trade, raising its tariffs to levels last seen during the Great Depression.'... Carney said he plans to give Canadians regular updates on his government’s efforts to diversify away from the U.S.” Thanks to RAS for the lead. ~~~

Marie: It occurred to me -- not for the first time -- as I read Mark Carney's remarks that Trump doesn't know how to lose. This is a fairly strange thing, because we already know that Trump is one of the world's biggest losers. Do you know of anyone else who has had six bankruptcies? He lost millions and millions of dollars he inherited. At one point he and his companies had been involved in something like 3,500 lawsuits, and Donald Trump had to have lost a large percentage of those; otherwise, you too could attend Trump "University." He lost almost every suit in his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Even in more personal matters, he was a tremendous flop. We know that at least two dozen women say they rejected him when he sexually assaulted them; for every one of those women, there have to be at least 20 others who didn't report his gross advances but nonetheless told him to get lost. 

Most people would try a different tack after just a few of those losses. But Trump only got worse. He amplified his bad behavior. He went from insulting a war hero -- John McCain -- to insulting the Pope. He doesn't seem to realize that those women who rejected him moved on to real relationships, that the companies who won lawsuits against him found other business opportunities, that every sane person knows Joe Biden won the 2020 election and crucially, now, that the countries he has dissed, belittled, used and abused will find other ways to succeed without the U.S. 

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Everything Definitely Is Not Going Very Smoothly. The New York Times is liveblogging developments in the Iran war. From the pinned item at 4:20 am ET: “Oil prices were sharply up on Monday after Iran said it would retaliate for a U.S. attack and seizure of an Iranian cargo ship near the Strait of Hormuz, an escalation that put pressure on a fragile cease-fire set to expire this week.... [Donald] Trump said American negotiators would arrive in Pakistan on Monday for a second round of peace talks since the two-week truce went into effect on April 8. A White House official said Vice President JD Vance was expected to lead the delegation, though Iranian state media said Tehran had not yet agreed to a meeting. A U.S. Navy destroyer fired on the Iranian cargo ship on Sunday after it defied a weeklong American blockade of Iran’s ports, Mr. Trump said. Marines were searching the ship as officials weighed whether to tow it to Oman, a U.S. official said. Iran’s armed forces warned that they would soon retaliate against the United States for what they called 'armed piracy,' according to Tasnim, a semiofficial Iranian news agency.”

Mariana Alfaro, et al., of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump said Sunday that the U.S. military seized an Iranian-flagged cargo ship that tried to bypass the American blockade of the vital Strait of Hormuz, hours after he renewed his threats of broad attacks on Iran’s infrastructure if no deal is reached in talks expected this week in Pakistan. 'The U.S. Navy Guided Missile Destroyer USS SPRUANCE intercepted the TOUSKA in the Gulf of Oman, and gave them fair warning to stop,' Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. 'The Iranian crew refused to listen, so our Navy ship stopped them right in their tracks by blowing a hole in the engineroom. Right now, U.S. Marines have custody of the vessel.'” MB: Such a childish description.

Cheyanne Daniels of Politico: “... Donald Trump on Sunday announced the U.S. will continue peace talks with Iranian representatives in Pakistan on Monday — even as he continued to threaten striking civilian infrastructure in the region. In a post to social media, the president accused Iran of violating a ceasefire and striking multiple European ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Now, Trump said, 'many' ships are headed to the U.S. 'to load up.... We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it because, if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran. NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!... They’ll come down fast, they’ll come down easy and, if they don’t take the DEAL, it will be my Honor to do what has to be done, which should have been done to Iran, by other Presidents, for the last 47 years.,' he continued. 'IT’S TIME FOR THE IRAN KILLING MACHINE TO END!'” (Also linked yesterday.)

U.S. Commits Another Multiple Murder on the High Seas. Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: “The U.S. military attacked a boat in the Caribbean Sea on Sunday, killing three people. The strike raised the death toll to at least 180 in the campaign by the United States against people it accuses of smuggling drugs at sea. Gen. Francis L. Donovan of the Marine Corps, head of the Southern Command, ordered the strike, the command said in a statement on social media. It included a 12-second video showing a boat zooming through the water and then exploding. Legal specialists on the use of lethal force have said that the strikes are illegal, extrajudicial killings because the military cannot deliberately target civilians who do not pose an imminent threat of violence, even if they are suspected of engaging in criminal acts. The Trump administration has not provided evidence of drug smuggling. The Southern Command, which oversees military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean from its headquarters near Miami, cited unspecified intelligence in the announcement. It said the boat had been traveling on 'known narco-trafficking routes' and was 'engaged in narco-trafficking operations.'”

Alexander Willis of the Raw Story: "Amid the ongoing U.S. war against Iran..., Donald Trump considered awarding himself the Medal of Honor [link fixed], the most prestigious military award issued by the U.S. government, White House insiders claimed in a report published Saturday evening in the Wall Street Journal." He also went into screaming fits after Iran downed a U.S. fighter jet. MB: Most people who are warped enough to work for Trump deserve all the crap he throws at them, but I would not put up with such a hostile work environment. (Also linked yesterday.)

Minho Kim & Tim Balk of the New York Times: “Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said on Sunday that gasoline prices in the United States had probably peaked but acknowledged that they could remain elevated for months, undermining ... [Donald] Trump’s earlier claim that high fuel prices would be  'short-term.' Mr. Wright had said in early March that the average gas price in the United States would fall below $3 a gallon within 'weeks' after [Mr.] Trump and Israel initiated airstrikes against Iran in late February. But on Sunday, Mr. Wright appeared to backtrack in an appearance on the CNN program 'State of the Union' after the host, Jake Tapper, asked him when it would be 'realistic' for Americans to see $3 per gallon prices at the pump. 'I don’t know,' Mr. Wright said. 'That could happen later this year. That might not happen until next year. But prices have likely peaked.'” An Axios item is here.

Notes from the Trump Crime Family, Where the Graft Never Ends. Eric Lipton of the New York Times: In order to get Washington to permanently lift crippling sanctions against Syrian, the Khayyats -- a powerful Middle Eastern business family -- proposed building a “Trump-branded resort. At the same time, his two older brothers were negotiating an even bigger real estate partnership with Ivanka Trump, the president’s elder daughter, and Jared Kushner, her husband, to help them finance a multibillion-dollar resort in Albania.... To get almost anything done in the nation’s capital requires not alienating a vexed and vengeful president, and, ideally, pleasing him. Other presidents, both Democratic and Republican, have taken steps to avoid even the perception of a conflict of interest, while in Mr. Trump’s world it is almost the reverse. The family has been open that it intends to keep doing business deals around the world. That has led to a warped system of executive patronage in which investors donate millions to the president’s pet projects, or invest alongside the Trump family, in hopes of achieving their policy goals, even if no explicit ask is ever made.”

Alex Isenstadt of Axios: Donald "Trump and his administration officials are working aggressively behind the scenes to court Joe Rogan, even as the podcast titan torches the president over the Iran war.... Rogan's backing, and his pull with young male listeners, helped power Trump to a second term. The president knows that keeping him close still matters. Rogan made a surprise appearance in the Oval Office on Saturday, lauding Trump as he signed an executive order on an issue the podcaster had pushed to the president in a text message — speeding federal review of psychedelic drugs to help serious mental illness.... The White House had been working to build bridges to Rogan for months. Trump is 'frequently' in touch with the podcaster, according to a Trump aide."

Joyce Vance elaborates on "Justice According to Trump." She contrasts the way the Trumpy DOJ is going after former CIA Director John Brennan (story linked below) with its effort to vacate the convictions of the worst insurrectionists. (Also linked yesterday.)

It's a Small, Small World. Marcy Wheeler shows the ties among all the shady lawyers and their shady clients that bind the investigation of the Russia investigation into one crooked scheme. As usual, it takes dedication to follow the web Wheeler lays out, but the bottom line is this: "So Todd Blanche is appointing a lawyer [-- Joe diGenova --] formerly paid by Russian allies to discredit the Russian investigation to declassify and release a load of intelligence — things like cybersecurity collection, more intelligence shared by Dutch spooks, and human intelligence — in the guise of criminalizing counterintelligence investigations. This was never a real criminal investigation. But it just moved into something far more ominous." MB: I had not realized how deeply Blanche was implicated in this whole crime family consigliere business. He is the real-life Tom Hagan (Robert Duvall) to the Trump Mafia.

One way to lobby for a better job in the Trump administration -- or keep the sinecure you already have: pretend you about to "prove" one of Trump's grievances or conspiracy theories is based in reality: ~~~

~~~ Patrick Marley of the Washington Post: “The Justice Department is demanding all ballots from the 2024 election in the Detroit area, a highly unusual move that comes shortly after prosecutors seized 2020 ballots in Georgia and obtained 2020 election records in Arizona. The push to collect thousands of election records in swing states is part of a sweeping effort by ... Donald Trump and his administration to scrutinize elections that has cast doubt on how they are run. Trump has spent more than five years falsely claiming the 2020 election was rigged against him. In recent months, he has shifted his focus to this fall’s midterm elections by seeking to restrict voting by mail and urging Republicans to 'take over' voting in 'at least 15 places,' such as Detroit. The latest demand ... came from Harmeet K. Dhillon, the assistant attorney general who oversees the Civil Rights Division and is widely viewed as auditioning to replace Pam Bondi.... [Michigan] officials — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, state Attorney General Dana Nessel and Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson — decried the demand as a baseless attempt to undermine the public’s confidence in elections.” The NBC News report is here. ~~~

~~~ So then Drunk Kash sez ... ~~~ 

~~~ Joe Sommerlad of the Independent: “FBI Director Kash Patel has insisted he has the 'evidence' to finally prove ... Donald Trump’s long-standing claim that the 2020 election was rigged against him and hinted he could make it available this week. Patel – who was hit by allegations of alcoholism this weekend, sparking rumors he could soon be fired – told Maria Bartiromo on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures: “We have the information that backs President Trump’s claim. 'I can’t get ahead of the Department of Justice and the president, but President Trump… President Trump speaks truthfully when he says that.... “Stay tuned this week.... You might see a thing or two.'”

Marie: If you designed the worst government you could imagine, it would look a lot like the Trump administration. They are not only thoroughly corrupt; they are not only anti-democratic; they have not only perverted the justice system to the point "justice" has become an ironical term; they not only try to subvert free and fair elections; they also turn time-tested legislation inside out, so it does the opposite of what it has done for decades to make life better for Americans AND less costly to taxpayers.    

Everything They Do Is Wrong. Jill Filopovic in a New York Times op-ed: In 1970, “Congress passed Title X: the first federal program entirely dedicated to family planning and reproductive health care. It would go on to become one of the most successful federal programs of the last century, with one study finding it prevented some 20 million unintended pregnancies in just 20 of its 50 years by providing women with free and low-cost birth control. It has significantly reduced child poverty. In 1957, nearly one in 10 teenage girls gave birth. Today, the rate is closer to one in 100. For every dollar spent on family planning funds, the government saves $7 in Medicaid costs. But ... [Donald] Trump seems intent on killing Title X. This month, the Department of Health and Human Services quietly issued new funding guidelines that have effectively subverted the program’s entire purpose.... Title X under Mr. Trump seems aimed at getting more women pregnant, whether they want to be or not. And it appears to cater to three influential parts of the Trump coalition: The anti-abortion movement; the MAHA, or Make America Healthy Again, movement; and pronatalists who want to see birthrates rise at nearly any cost.” 

Marie: The following story is several days old, but to catch you up on more of the biography of our Secretary of Health and Human Services, let us proceed. A cautionary reminder: these people not only are remarkably incompetent and/or corrupt and/or unsuitable to hold their high government offices, they also are decidedly not normal: ~~~

~~~ Guardian: “Robert F Kennedy Jr once cut the penis off a road-killed raccoon in an incident that is just one of several involving dead animals that the controversial US health secretary has been involved in. A new book called RFK Jr: The Fall and Rise was published this week and reveals a diary entry for Kennedy that describes the prominent vaccine critic ... stopping his car on a New York highway on 11 November 2001. 'I was standing in front of my parked car on I-684 cutting the penis out of a road killed raccoon, thinking about how weird some of my family members have turned out to be,' Kennedy wrote in the journal. He added: 'My kids waited patiently in the car.' Isabel Vincent, the author of the new book, told People that he took the raccoon’s genitals so he could 'study them later'. Kennedy has long had a fascination for animal bodies, especially those he finds dead....”

Only the Shadow Knows. Until Now. Jodi Kantor & Adam Liptak of the New York Times: A one-paragraph ruling in February 2016 “marks the birth, many legal experts believe, of the court’s modern 'shadow docket,' the secretive track that the Supreme Court has since used to make many major decisions, including granting ... [Donald] Trump more than 20 key victories.... The New York Times has obtained ... 6 pages of memos, exchanged in a five-day dash..., showing how the justices talk to one another outside of public view ... [and] bringing the origins of the Supreme Court’s shadow docket into the light.... In the Trump era, [Chief Justice John Roberts] and the other conservative justices have repeatedly empowered the president through their shadow docket rulings. By contrast, the papers reveal a court wielding those same powers to block Mr. Obama....

“Read a decade later, the memos suggest that none of the justices fully appreciated what they were doing: embarking on a questionable new way of operating.... Even as they debated the Obama [clean-air] plan’s possible burden on the power industry, in the entire chain of correspondence obtained by The Times, not a single justice, conservative or liberal, mentioned the dangers of a warming planet as one of the possible harms the court should consider.” Do read on. The link is a gift link. MB: BTW: Justice Kagan, IMO, seemed to know what was up. AND John Roberts is a sneaky bastid. (Also linked yesterday.)

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Georgia Senate Race. He's getting better. Enjoy: ~~~ 

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Bulgaria. Catherine Belton of the Washington Post: “Kremlin-friendly former president Rumen Radev looked set for victory in Bulgaria’s snap election, according to exit polls Sunday evening, in a vote that has taken on additional significance for Moscow as it looks to rebuild toeholds of support within the European Union in the wake of ally Viktor Orban’s defeat in Hungary last week. Projections on national television indicated that Radev’s Progressive Bulgaria would win more than 40 percent of the vote, meaning he would still probably have to form a coalition with a more pro-Western party to secure a parliamentary majority.”