After a quiet few days recovering from all the golfing, Donald Trump’s White House has been engulfed in a flurry of activity today
After a quiet few days recovering from all the golfing, Donald Trump’s White House has been engulfed in a flurry of activity today.
The most eye-opening moves are Epstein’s fixer Ghislaine Maxwell getting moved to a cushier prison – and Trump moving nuclear subs around in response to threats from Russia.
And that’s before we even get onto the terrible jobs report, the seven-day tariff reprieve and the registered sex offender Trump invited to the White House last night.
Here’s all the things that have happened in Trump World over the last 24 hours that you need to know about. Everything is fine.
1. Ghislaine Maxwell was moved to a cushier prison
Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving 20 years for sex trafficking linked to dead paedophile Jeffrey Epstein has been moved to a lower security prison in Texas.
The Mirror revealed she’d disappeared from the US Bureau of Prisons custody register and moved to the lower security Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Bryan, Texas.
The move, which has not been officially explained, comes a week after she sat down for two days of interviews behind closed doors with Todd Blanche, the Deputy Attorney General and Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer.
What was discussed at the meetings has not been officially revealed.
2. Trump moved nuclear subs in response to Russia threat
Earlier today, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev threatened the United States with war, saying: “Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war. Not between Russia and Ukraine, but with his own country.”
Medvedev, who now chairs Russia’s Security Council, is known for his, shall we say, apocalyptic rhetoric.
Still, Trump chose to respond – announcing on Truth Social that he had ordered two nuclear submarines “to be positioned in the appropriate regions”.
Trump added: “Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences, I hope this will not be one of those instances.”
3. Trump invited a registered sex offender to the White House and he had no idea why he was there
Donald Trump last night launched a new sports commission to reintroduce the “presidential fitness test”, a series of physical challenges for kids which was in place for decades until 12 years ago.
It was replaced by Barack Obama, with the Presidential Youth Fitness Programme, which focused on overall health rather than athleticism.
The test had been criticised for sharing children in front of their peers, and was often described as “embarrassing,” “humiliating” and “traumatizing”.
But hey, Trump’s bringing that back. And who better to launch it than former New York Giants linebacker Laurence “LT” Taylor, who was arrested in 2010 for the statutory rape of a 16-year-old girl.
He pleaded guilty to sexual misconduct and patronising a sex worker.
The girl told investigators that her pimp commanded her to tell Taylor that she was 19.
He was sentenced to six years probation in March 2011, and is registered as a low-risk sex offender.
He has twice been arrested for failing to register a new address, most recently in July last year.
Speaking at the event, Taylor said he was “proud to be part of this team”.
He said to Trump: “I don’t know what we’re supposed to be doing but I’m here to serve, I’m here to serve you.”
4. Virginia Giuffre ‘wasn’t stolen…she was preyed upon, her brother says
The family of Virginia Giuffre responded with shock to Trump’s claim that she had been “stolen” from him by Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump said on Tuesday that Ms Giuffre, who is alleged to have been recruited by Maxwell aged 16, while working at the President’s Mar A Lago club, was one of a number of his former staff who had been “stolen” from him by Epstein – leading to their falling out.
Her brother, Sky Roberts, said at a news conference earlier: “I think we were shocked by it. Especially the use of the term “stolen.”
Because she’s not an object. She’s a person. Someone who was recruited at Mar-a-Lago–his property.
“It just kind of makes us wonder… how much he knew.”
In a statement, the family said: “We and the public are asking for answers; survivors deserve this.”
5. TACO strikes again
Trump signed an executive order slapping tariffs on many of America’s trading partners.
But despite repeatedly saying all remaining tariffs for countries that had not signed a deal with the US would take effect from today, the 66 countries listed in the order will face their tariffs – from next week.
It came after a flurry of tariff-related activity in recent days, as the White House announced agreements with various nations and blocs ahead of the president’s self-imposed deadline, when he previous threatened sweeping new levies would kick in worldwide.
For countries who had not yet reached a deal with the U.S. prior to Friday, this is potentially welcome news. But it’s also injected a new dose of uncertainty for consumers and businesses still wondering what’s going to happen and when.
Meanwhile, he slapped Canada with a 35% goods tariff from today – saying they had been insufficiently helpful on tackling drug trafficking.
And on his other border, he extended trade negotiations with Mexico for another 90 days.
6. WHERE’S MY PEACE PRIZE????
In case anyone didn’t know Donald Trump really wants a Nobel Peace Prize, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, made his views abundantly clear.
At a press briefing, she claimed Trump had brokered “about one peace deal or ceasefire per month during his six months in office.”
She added: “It’s well past time the President was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”
And she listed the crises he’d allegedly been central in avoiding.
Weirdly, among the list of “peace deals” he’s reached, she listed one between Serbia and Kosovo, where no such deal has been agreed, beyond Trump threatening both with no trade talks if they started fighting.
In fact, with the exception of Israel and Iran, that’s been his strategy for “ending” most of the conflicts listed by Leavitt. We’ll see how long that works for.
7. The FBI ‘redacted Trump’s name’ from Epstein Files
We already knew a 1,000-strong FBI team tasked with assessing whether the bureau’s files on the Jeffrey Epstein investigation could be published.
And previous reporting had claimed Trump’s name was, indeed, in the files – and he had been informed of that fact.
What we didn’t know, until Bloomberg published a story this afternoon, is that the FBI team had gone through the process of redacting his name, and the names of other high profile people, from the files – before the bureau announced there would be “no further disclosure” of the files.
8. US Job growth has returned to Trump 1 levels
Revised job market numbers revealed June was the weakest month of job growth since December 2020 – the last month of Trump’s first presidency.
Some 258,000 fewer jobs were gained in May and June than had originally been reported.
Which is not super surprising, as for most of those months American businesses were in the grip of Trump’s tariff flailing.
The numbers for the month of July was a disappointing 73,000 – much lower than the 110,000 that had been predicted.
Here’s the moment that was revealed on Fox News….