Donald Trump’s weird week started with bad medical advice, a deranged speech to the UN and a stuck escalator – and it ended with him settling old scores
Donald Trump has had one of the weirdest weeks of his or any other Presidency.
It started with a deeply unhinged press conference, where he, a TV quack and RFK Jr, gave inaccurate and incredibly dangerous medical advice to the US – the repercussions of which are even being felt over here.
Then he gave a deranged, ranting speech to the United Nations, which was so badly received he had to spend the rest of the week moaning about a stuck escalator.
And it ended with him settling some old scores…
Meanwhile, in Trump World:
- James Comey got indicted
- Stephen Miller was predictably weird about it
- Pam Bondi contradicted herself in a matter of moments
- Kamala Harris had a five word response
- Trump agreed to release the E…files
- Pete Hegseth ordered hundreds of generals to a meeting that could be an email
- And EVERYONE* can watch Jimmy Kimmel now
*in America. It’s still not shown in the UK unless you go to YouTube or something
Here’s all that and everything else you need to know this weekend
1. Comey indicted, but…
Trump’s justice department may have managed to successfully indict former FBI chief James Comey, despite desperately thin charges – but they have a very slim chance of making it stick.
The brief, two-page charge sheet claims he authorised someone to be an anonymous source for news reporting about an FBI investigation into an unnamed person – and then lying about it under oath.
It doesn’t specify who the target of the investigation is or who the “leaker” was.
But it’s reportedly linked not to the Trump investigation, but the earlier Hillary Clinton email server probe.
The alleged leaker is thought to be Columbia Law School professor, and longtime friend of Comey’s, Daniel Richman, who was briefly a special government employee at the FBI.
After Trump fired Comey in 2017, he gave memos detailing his interactions with Trump to Richman, who leaked them.
But under oath, Comey said he gave Richman the memos in an attempt to get a special counsel appointed to look into his firing.
That said, and despite Richman recently going into the FBI for an interview recently and being subpoenaed, the leak of those memos doesn’t appear to be related to the indictment.
It’s possible, then, that the alleged ‘leaker’ is his former deputy at the FBI, Andy McCabe.
Incidentally, now might be a good time to revisit Comey’s memoir, A Higher Loyalty. Or if you have less time, the TV dramatisation The Comey Rule, which stars Jeff Daniels and is medium good.
(It’s already been re-added to Netflix in the States. We can’t imagine it’ll be long before someone rebroadcasts it over here. Sky Atlantic had the rights last I checked).
2. Stephen Miller goes a little over the top
The way you can tell the administration knows they have a slim chance of proving wrongdoing beyond a reasonable doubt is the lengths members of the White House team went on TV last night to paint him as some kind of evil traitor.
For example, Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy Prince of Darkness, said, among other things: “What James Comey did is truly one of the most severe assaults on our freedoms and liberties that has occurred in the whole history of this nation.”
Which seems a *touch* hyperbolic if you ask me.
3. Pam Bondi says weaponisation is dead (but only for MAGA)
Similarly, Pam Bondi went on Fox News to say the Trump administration had ended political “weaponisation” of the Justice department – then went on to warn Trump’s enemies that something that sounds awfully like “weaponisation” was coming for them.
“Whether you’re a former FBI director,” she said. “Whether you are a billionaire funding organisations to try to keep Trump out of office–everything is on the table. We will investigate you.”
It’s worth noting that Republicans have long fought for the right of billionaires to fund organisations to keep their opponents out of office – even pushing a case to the Supreme Court to successfully argue corporations are people and money is speech. Look up “Citizens United”.
4. Kamala Harris’ five-word response to Comey’s indictment
Kamala Harris has a book out. I’m about a third of the way into it, and looking forward to the part where they discuss what went wrong in the 2024 campaign, because so far she’s just been wanging on about how great everyone and everything was.
I mention it only because during her promo tour for the book she had quite a funny response to the Comey indictment.
She told CNN: “It’s painful to see. I mean what’s happening with Comey: Are you f**king kidding me? The United States Department of Justice?”
5. Trump promised to release classified files about a person beginning with E
After months of pressure and countless demands from his supporters and the American people, Trump finally caved and agreed to release the Epstein Fi….hang on, what? The Earhart Files?
“I have been asked by many people about the life and times of Amelia Earhart” he wrote on Truth Social.
“Such an interesting story, and would I consider declassifying and releasing everything about her, in particular, her last, fatal flight!”
Earhart was the first female pilot to fly solo, non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean. She disappeared over the pacific in 1937 while trying to be the first female pilot to circumnavigate the world.
Most people think she got lost while looking for Howland Island and ran out of fuel.
Trump went on: “Amelia made it almost three quarters around the World before she suddenly, and without notice, vanished, never to be seen again. Her disappearance, almost 90 years ago, has captivated millions. I am ordering my Administration to declassify and release all Government Records related to Amelia Earhart, her final trip, and everything else about her. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
6. Pete Hegseth’s big meeting that could have been an email
Fresh from declaring that the 19 soldiers who were given medals of honour in 1890 for for their actions at Wounded Knee, a shameful, bloody massacre of 250 native Americans including women and children of the Lakota Sioux tribe, would not be posthumously stripped of their awards, Pete Hegseth called a very weird meeting that could have been an email.
The (sigh) Secretary of War, demanded hundreds of generals travel from around the world at short notice, to hear him make a short speech on military standards and the “warrior ethos”, according to The Washington Post.
Prior to getting his current made up job title, Hegseth was best known as a weekend host on Fox News. During his stint there, he displayed the warrior ethos by almost killing a ceremonial drummer with an axe.
On Wounded Knee, Hegseth, shamefully, said: “We’re making it clear that (the soldiers) deserve those medals.” He added that “their place in our nation’s history is no longer up for debate.”
7. Dr Trump recommends people get vaccines that don’t exist
Trump went on yet another all-caps rant on Truth Social last night, shouting at pregnant women not to take paracetamol. As if they’d missed the 12 times he did so during his unhinged press conference last week.
He went on to yell: “BREAK UP THE MMR SHOT INTO THREE TOTALLY SEPARATE SHOTS (NOT MIXED!),”
Thing is, the MMR jab, which is entirely safe and has been certified as such for decades, is not available as separate injections in the US. He’s giving Americans medical advice that they cannot follow.
Now do we imagine that will send vaccination rates up or down?
He went on to refer to chicken pox as “CHICKEN P” and spell hepatitis “HEPATITAS”, which I think is a type of Spanish food.
8. Caving on Kimmel
The two station networks – Sinclair and Nexstar – who were still refusing to air Jimmy Kimmel Live have both now caved.
We don’t know whether this was due to pressure from viewers, whether it was because Disney told them that unless they took Kimmel they’d also lose Monday Night Football, or weather FCC chair and general media boogeyman Brendan Carr quietly made it clear they wouldn’t have any trouble with the mergers they have on the way.
But now everyone can watch Kimmel, even if they missed the episode where he said some very nice things about the Mirror’s front page.