Donald Trump gets a curiously clean bill of health, slaps 100% tariffs on China …and something weird has been going on with Melania and Putin
Donald Trump let his personal doctor take a look under the hood yesterday, and whaddayaknow – it turns out he’s in “exceptional” health.
Not “for a man his age”, not “for a man whose primary source of vitamins is the lettuce in his cheeseburger, and he normally scrapes that off”.
“Exceptional” health.
Nothing to see here. Let’s carry on.
Meanwhile, in Trump World:
- Was it a ‘yearly checkup’ or an ‘ongoing health plan’?
- He got a surprising procedure – just don’t tell RFK Jr
- The ‘invasion’ of Democrat states is a just a “preview”
- Rubio backed the Nobel winner
- Trump was as gracious in defeat as you’d expect
- Trump slaps 100% tariffs on China
- …and what’s going on with Melania and Putin?
Come for the unhinged moments, stay for the shoehorned anecdotes about the Arctic Monkeys and Richard Hawley. Here’s everything you need to know and more.
Trump’s health
1. Wait…was it a yearly checkup or an ongoing health plan?
The White House issued a readout of Trump’s ‘yearly’ checkup at Walter Reed overnight and it’s…interesting.
Contrary to what Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday, the visit was characterised by the President’s doctor as a “Comprehensive Follow-up Evaluation” and part of his “ongoing health maintenance plan” – which is not the same as a “yearly check-up”.
Further evidence for this not being a routine visit is in the very expensive laundry list of tests he was put through – including advanced imaging, lab testing and “preventative health assessments conducted by a multidisciplinary team of specialists.”
The rest of the report mostly goes on about how he’s heart healthy and his test results were “exceptional”. It doesn’t mention the chronic venous insufficiency the White House has previously confirmed Trump suffers from, nor any of the other ailments attributed to him in the past.
2. He got a surprising medical procedure – just don’t tell RFK Jr
Ahead of some “international travel” – which probably means the trip to the Middle East next week that he was teasing on Thursday – Trump got his shots.
Among them, an “annual influenza and updated Covid-19 booster vaccinations”.
Could get awkward next time he sits down with America’s most disappointing nephew. Still, at least he didn’t take any paracetamol.
The invasion
3. Calling up the National guard is ‘a preview of’ military voter intimidation
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek and California’s Gavin Newsom warned in Newsom’s podcast Friday. The governors also condemned the deployment of military troops to Chicago and Portland.
They said they wouldn’t be surprised to see federal law enforcement officers at voting places next year during the midterm elections.
“This is a preview of things to come at voting booths and polling places all across the country,” Newsom said. “This is about something much insidious than just control in the short run.”
Kotek met with Secretary Kristi Noem when she was in Portland earlier this week, but said “it’s hard to have a rational conversation with irrational people.”
4 .House Speaker smears millions of Americans who don’t like Trump as ‘terrorists’
House Speaker Mike Johnson – not a fan of Bad Bunny, as we learned yesterday – went on Fox News last night, once again desperately trying to blame the shutdown on the Democrats, after polls repeatedly showed the public blame it on his Republican Party.
And while he was doing that, he managed to call millions of Americans who don’t like Donald Trump ‘terrorists’.
See, on October 18 there’s (finally) going to be a “No Kings” rally on the National Mall in Washington DC. You’ll remember the No Kings marches that sprung up across America a few months ago. Between events held in 2,100 cities and towns, between 4 and 6 million Americans turned up to protest against Donald Trump’s antidemocratic leanings.
It was a record-breaking display of peaceful protest, and Speaker Johnson does not like it.
He said: “They have a “Hate America” rally that’s scheduled for October 18 on the National Mall. It’s the pro-Hamas wing and antifa people.”
A couple of things about that statement:
Notwithstanding it not existing as an organised group, ‘Antifa’ is a designated terror organisation in the United States, as of a few weeks ago.
Also, if anything, given the premise of the movement is adherence to Constitutional principles and the rule of law, he should call it a “love America” rally.
5. Also, Mike Johnson is an enormous hypocrite
Finally, the Republicans have just spent the last month complaining that left-wing rhetoric had played a part in provoking acts of political violence in America.
Johnson himself said the following: “Calling people Nazis and fascists is not helpful. There are some deranged people in society, and when they see leaders using that kind of language so often now increasingly, it spurs them on to action. We have to recognise that reality and address it appropriately.”
By that logic, it’s hard to see how Johnson didn’t potentially just put a big red target on a huge gathering of peaceful protesters for “some deranged people” on the right.
The Nobel Prize
6. Rubio backed the winner
So Donald Trump didn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize.
This was unsurprising for a number of reasons, which I went through in some detail here yesterday.
But it has deliciously emerged overnight that both Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security advisor Mike Waltz signed a letter nominating the winner, Maria Corina Machado.
7. Trump suggested she should have given it to him
Stay with me, but there’s a moment I remember from the 00s that came back to me today. Taking the stage after winning the Mercury Music Prize for their debut album, Arctic Monkeys singer Alex Turner opened his acceptance speech by saying: “somebody call 999 because Richard Hawley’s been robbed.”
Hawley, a fellow son of Sheffield, also up for the prize for his album ‘Coles Corner’, later reflected that the quip was “very Sheffield” and “incredibly generous.”
He said: “The Sheffield sense of humour is quite self-effacing. You take the p*** out yourself, and quick, because you know some other f***er’s going to do it pretty soon. When Al said that quote when they won the Mercury Prize, that was very Sheffield.”
He added: “You’ve saved yourself looking like a bighead, and bigheads aren’t liked. Al was being incredibly generous – it was like me winning without winning. I don’t think he thought about the consequences of it, but the consequences were extremely positive for me. So cheers Al.”
After losing the Nobel Peace Prize, Donald Trump was not quite as gracious in defeat as Richard Hawley.
“The person who actually got the Nobel Prize called today, called me, and said ‘I’m accepting this in honor of you, because you really deserved it.’ A really nice thing to do.
“I didn’t say ‘Then give it to me, though.’ I could have said that. She might have, she was very nice. And I’ve been helping her along the way, they need a lot of help in Venezuela, it’s a basic disaster.
“You could also say it was given out for ’24 and I was running for office in ’24… There are those that say we did so much that they should have done it. I’m happy because I saved millions of lives.”
Trade
8. Trump slaps 100% tariff on China over rare earth exports
Trump announced on Truth Social that he is slapping a further 100% tariff on China for tightening export controls on rare earth minerals.
He’s gained a reputation for backing down from such threats.
But if Trump goes ahead with it, the move would push tariff rates close to levels that in April fanned fears of a steep recession and financial market chaos.
He said the date for imposing the tariff would depend on “any further actions or changes taken by China.”
And he said the US would apply export controls to “any and all critical software.”
About 70% of the world’s rare earth minerals supply comes from China – and are essential for high-tech industries, including automobiles, defence and semiconductors.
General grifting and weirdness
9. Trump Time
Adverts for Trump’s christmas cracker looking watches are currently wall to wall on his favourite news network, Newsmax.
The watches cost UP TO $100,000.
I held one at a conference once. It was garbage. Just rotten. Tinny and cheap. Don’t buy one.
10. Turns out the cost of a ‘free’ jet from Qatar is ‘one airbase’
It turns out, maybe, the ‘free’ jumbo jet Qatar gave trump might not have been entirely free.
Pete Hegseth revealed yesterday that the US is moving forward with plans to build a dedicated facility in Idaho to train pilots from Qatar.
And the facility to be built at the Mountain Home Air Force Base will “host a contingent of Qatari F-15s and pilots to enhance our combined training, increase the lethality, interoperability.”
The arrangement is not unusual. Pentagon officials noted that similar facilities have been set up for other allies for decades, and the Idaho base already hosts a fighter squadron from Singapore.
But the news drew a sharp rebuke from close Trump ally and right-wing influencer Laura Loomer, who called the plan “an abomination” and accused the Qataris of being associated with Islamic terror organisations.
“No foreign country should have a military base on US soil. Especially Islamic countries,” Loomer wrote in one of several social media posts just hours after Hegseth’s announcement.
11. What is going on with Melania and Vladimir Putin
Melania Trump made an announcement at the White House, while her husband was getting his medical checkup done yesterday.
She came out and proudly announced that 8 (eight, out of an estimated 20,000) Ukrainian children abducted to Russia had been reunited with their families, following a dialogue she set up with Vladimir Putin.
And by dialogue, we mean an “open” line of communication over several months.
She requested the dialogue in a letter to Putin, which she made Donald deliver at the Alaska summit.
It’s obviously great news that those children are no longer in Russian re-education camps. But there’s something weird about the way we got there.