"You have an ambassador that has cachet, and the Italians like that. They like that [they’re] important enough to us that you’re going to come into our town, on your big boat..."

"... and pay respect to us and have us in your home. That’s what I hear from people."

Tilman Fertitta, Trump's ambassador to Italy, quoted in "Trump’s ambassador to Italy is flaunting his wealth, and it’s dividing Italians/With a net worth of $11.1 billion, Tilman Fertitta, a great-grandson of Sicilian immigrants, is one of the wealthiest people ever to be a U.S. ambassador" (WaPo gift link). 

WaPo explains: "Italy has perhaps a different relationship with wealth than other European countries such as Britain, where aspiration can be viewed as a personality flaw. This is the land where Gucci and Versace helped define loud luxury, and where the political cult of billionaire playboy Silvio Berlusconi once reigned. But even here, the Italian elite can see American-style displays of wealth as violations of good taste. And while some on the political left have happily sipped champagne on his yacht, others have sharply criticized the tour."

Fertitta offers advice about how to deal with Trump: "What I’ve said is, 'You don’t want to get in a verbal volleyball match with Donald Trump; because he’s relentless, and he’s going to win." And: "If he’s not giving you a hard time, then you’re not worth the time of day."

Oh, no! Now, we have to call Lake Ontario "Lake America."

I'm reading "Trump signs order renaming Lake Ontario as Lake America, escalating Canada feud/President Donald Trump called Canadian officials 'nasty people' and said the country 'has been ripping us off for a long time on trade, very sadly.'"

“We filed all the necessary papers, documents, everything else,” Trump said. “We notified all the various people that we have to notify. So we’ve done everything that you have to do. And this is official, effective immediately.”

"[T]his relationship is pathological, and a source of great irritation among other courtiers. It is Trump distilled to his essence..."

"... cult leader and his most rabid follower, narcissist and his most flattering mirror. The daughter of a devoutly Christian real estate broker who died by suicide during the pandemic, [Natalie] Harp idolizes Trump with a rare fervor.... ... Trump told his staff that Harp was the only one who loved him as much as his wife and kids did. 'She’ll never leave me,' he would tell other staffers.... It’s a perfect (taxpayer-funded) relationship. She thinks he’s amazing. And he agrees."

Writes Maureen Dowd, in "Natalie’s Magnificent Obsession" (NYT gift link).

"Obsession" is the title of a current movie that is, as Dowd tells us, "about a man who wishes for more adoration from a young woman, who falls under his spell and maniacally provides it." 

I haven't seen it. And I haven't seen "Magnificent Obsession," but I know it's a 1954 movie starring Ronald Reagan's first wife:

ADDED: After reading Dowd's column, I scribbled this at Grok, writing quickly, without the intention of sharing it, but I'm sharing it:

I'm interested in they way many women in the workplace are competitive with other women in a way that's actually sexist — judging that other women are getting more than they deserve because of their looks and/or imagining that sexual things are going on. They're actually impeding the progress of women... or are they trying to help some subset of women by pulling particular women down? (I'm thinking about the reaction to Natalie Harp.)

And then I connected the Natalie Harp foofaraw to this passage from "President Kennedy: Profile of Power" (commission earned) that my son Chris — reader of presidential biographies — had just texted to me last night. We join the Cuban Missile Crisis in progress.

"She is a platinum blonde geyser of positivity, there to buck him up when the going gets rough."

I'm reading "'With All My Heart, Natalie.' Trump’s Most Devoted Aide Emerges. President Trump’s White House aide Natalie Harp is always by his side. What, exactly, does she do?" by Shawn McCreesh and Maggie Haberman, in the NYT (gift link).

They're talking about Natalie Harp because"she was chosen to join the president on the secret food-delivery-truck rescue gambit" and because Senator Jon Ossoff, a potential Democratic Party nominee for President, observed, "[Trump] doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.'"

The Times article also refers to Harp as a "sylphlike woman."

The quote "With all my heart, Natalie" — seen in the article headline is the sign-off of a letter Harp wrote to Trump in which she apologized for attracting press coverage as she walked a golf course as Trump played golf and, naturally, used a golf cart. I guess that looked foolish to some observers looking for one more thing to revile. I haven't read about the incident, but I suspect she wanted the exercise. I've walked golf courses as a spectator. It's normal for spectators to walk.

"The letter goes on to say: 'I want things to always be right between us. I also know I’ve been distracted all week (forgetting to eat throughout the days, and even forgetting to sleep, and only catching a couple hours at a time).'"

"This whole thing has been really surreal and absurd... it’s a relief, but there’s a detachment to that relief of extreme concern for other people and for our country."

Said David Hearn, "the Olympian," quoted in "Judge Dismisses Former Olympian’s Felony Charge in Reflecting Pool Case/The move ends the criminal case for David Hearn, a former Olympic canoeist, after prosecutors acknowledged that the Trump administration’s claims of vandalism were false" (NYT gift link).

"The episode culminated in a consequential showdown in the Oval Office between [Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney], who appeared to be fighting for her job, and Mr. Trump, with Doug Burgum, the interior secretary, in attendance. Ms. Pirro told Mr. Trump that Mr. Burgum had misled him with a self-serving cover story for his own mistakes. Mr. Trump seemed considerably less angry by day’s end, and Ms. Pirro emerged from the meeting with her job intact, for now."

And here, with a gift link, is "Inside the Oval Office Showdown Between Trump and Jeanine Pirro/Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, told President Trump that his interior secretary, Doug Burgum, had misled him with a self-serving cover story for his own mistakes."

That article, from August 4th, says "This account... demonstrated a core truth of Mr. Trump’s second term: Anyone willing to contradict the president is in trouble, even if the dissenter happens to be a family friend who has faithfully executed his prosecutorial agenda over the years."

Yeah? But Pirro got her way, and she's still there. So much for "a core truth."

"Trump privately tells donors to back Vance while publicly keeping 2028 open."

So says The Washington Post.

“At the end of the day, we need to elect JD,” Trump said during an Oval Office meeting with donors roughly two weeks ago, according to two people with knowledge of the comments who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter....

Even as Trump buoyed his vice president to donors in the Oval Office, though, he was still peppering people around him with questions about Vance versus Rubio.... An adviser to the president with direct knowledge of Trump’s comment to the donors said that Trump has privately resolved that Vance will be the heir to the GOP, but that it is “too early” to determine when Vance will announce his candidacy or when Trump will publicly endorse him.

Six other Trumpworld advisers and allies, however, cautioned that they aren’t convinced the president has settled on Vance, noting that Trump tells different things to different people and could still change his mind about an endorsement for 2028. Trump aides widely agree that the president will delay endorsing to avoid appearing to be a lame duck.... 

Trump at the funeral.

President Trump whips out Tic Tacs and hands them out at Lindsey Graham’s funeral: pic.twitter.com/yYhDG1mAoh

— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) July 28, 2026

Trump takes issue with the Lindsey Graham eulogy he's reading: "Virtually everyone liked Lindsey. Well, not everybody. But it sounds good. I have to be honest. I have to veer from this for a second." pic.twitter.com/L5JwAXxWi0

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 28, 2026

"I recommended, to Governor Henry McMaster, Lindsey Graham’s wonderful sister, Darline, to serve as interim Senator from the Great State of South Carolina."

"This would be a fabulous tribute to Lindsey, who loved her dearly!"

Signed President DONALD J. TRUMP, at Truth Social.

UPDATE: At the time Trump posted, McMaster had already offered Darline Graham Nordone the position and she had accepted, according to the NYT:

Mr. McMaster said that he has asked Ms. Nordone to fill the seat after they spoke “in the wee hours of Sunday morning” following Mr. Graham’s death, and that she accepted, “through tears.” 

“I called the president afterwards, and he thought that it was a great idea,” Mr. McMaster said.

Trump's post went up at 9:43 a.m. today.

Also: "There is a long history in American politics of having the widowed wives of men who die in office finish out their terms. Mr. Graham, who never married, joked when he ran for president that, if he won, maybe his sister would take on the duties of first lady."

"We don’t need presidents who have weird obsessions."

Said Kamala Harris, back in October 2020, blogged at the time, here.

I know that at the time I thought I bet all the Presidents have had a weird obsession. I know because I said that in a podcast at the time. 

That post and podcast predated access to Grok, so I didn't have the chance to use this prompt: Accept the hypothesis that every U.S. President had a weird obsession and to list all the Presidents with their weird obsession. I did use it today, though. Some of my favorites:

I saw a young woman with magenta hair bicycling in Madison, Wisconsin, a tote bag slung over one shoulder.

What was the slogan on the tote bag? "NOW MORE THAN EVER." What?! A Nixon fan?!!

What slogans of today will lose the association with a particular political cause or candidate and — half a century or so in the future — become usable for other causes by people who would hate that cause or candidate if they knew what the hell he/she/it was?

Yes We Can... Stronger Together... Change We Can Believe In... Make America Great Again...

There's background on Nixon's slogan in a WaPo article dated March 15, 2017: "Now, more than ever, ‘now more than ever’ needs to go/The phrase's resurgence is historically inappropriate":

"I can call anyone about anything."

He CALLED FIFA 🤣 pic.twitter.com/hp1DObdnFv

— Baby News Network (@BabyNetworkNews) July 6, 2026

"And beneath the bluster, Trump’s limited view of the American Revolution is very familiar..."

"... it reflects, like so much else about him, the mainstream culture of the Cold War era, when museums and films did indeed tell a relentlessly upbeat story of American accomplishment — in vivid contrast to the plodding drudgery of communism. The leftist radicals of the 1960s and 1970s dissented noisily from this cosy view, but the majority accepted it unquestioningly. Since then a more extreme view has taken root: those who see the revolution not as the start of an unfinished project but as a fixed source of authority, a 250-year-old set of final answers. But as the US blows out its birthday candles, does it still have the capacity it once had for political renewal, while retaining its founding principles? It is always easier to start revolutions than to end them. This is why so many Americans have believed theirs was superior to others: it had been brought to an elegant conclusion by the constitution of 1787. Americans, it seemed, had escaped the spirals of radicalism and authoritarianism that beset France, or Latin American republics...."

From "Happy birthday USA. But is America’s revolution unravelling? When the USA turned 200, the nation came together as one. Fifty years on, what are the chances of the same thing happening under Donald Trump? A special series from The Sunday Times Magazine is dedicated to the 250th anniversary of the USA."

That's the London Times. The view from the losing side.

Why do people read this illustration to represent Trump depicted as Jesus rather than Trump with the miraculous power of the laying on of hands?

 

Trump shared this image, then took it down when he was attacked. The image was said to represent him as Jesus. He denied that he had seen it that way. He said the image showed him as "a doctor making people better and I do make people a lot better." Many observers hooted "Doctor!" What kind of doctor wears a robe and applies small orbs of light to the patient's forehead!?

But what is Jesus-y about handheld balls of light? What is Jesus-y about an American flag, the Statue of Liberty, the Lincoln Memorial, a bald eagle, fighter jets, soldiers ascending upward, and a medical worker with a stethoscope?

You can see what you want here, and maybe if you're genuinely concerned about blasphemy you'll want to err on the side of not jumbling up worldly images with things that might be sacred. But is there any serious Christian iconography there? I see nothing other than the white tunic and red mantle. What about the healing itself? But healing with the laying on of hands is not something limited to Jesus. Whether it is effective or not, it has been a widespread practice through human history, and it is a way to express the idea of profound healing.

There is healing through the laying on of hands in the Old Testament and, in the New Testament, it is not limited to Jesus. And in Western history, there was also the "royal touch" — "a form of laying on of hands, whereby French and English monarchs touched their subjects... with the intent to cure them of various diseases and conditions."

American Presidents are frequently portrayed as healers — spiritual healers — and the use of exalted imagery is common, not some freakish new thing special to Trump. It might be a bad idea — because it's trashy art, because politics and religion should be kept strictly separated, or because propaganda is deceptive and distracting — whatever. That image may be bullshit, but the outrage over it is also bullshit. When I think of all the times Barack Obama was portrayed as a Christ figure! Ridiculous. Grow up. 

And here are The Thompson Twins:

Oh, lay your hands on me/(Lay your hands) woo-hoo/(Ooh, lay your hands) oh, lay your hands on me/(Lay your hands) oh, oh-oh-oh....

"In a chapter entitled 'He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not,' Dr. Fauci described how Mr. Trump repeatedly told him he 'loved' him while at the same time..."

"... excoriating him with tirades flecked with four-letter words. 'The president was irate, saying that I could not keep doing this to him,' Dr. Fauci wrote. 'He said he loved me, but the country was in trouble, and I was making it worse. He added that the stock market went up only 600 points in response to the positive Phase 1 vaccine news, and it should have gone up 1,000 points, and so I cost the country "one trillion dollars."' (The president added an expletive.)..."

From "Fauci Speaks His Mind on Trump’s Rages and Their ‘Complicated’ Relationship/In a new book, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci recounts a career advising seven presidents. The chapter about Donald J. Trump is titled 'He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not'" (NYT).

"Did you hear Trump's take on the JFK assassination? Why he didn't release the files?"

"He said that if you knew what I know, you wouldn't tell people either. Which is crazy. What does that mean?"

Joe Rogan asked Tucker Carlson, toward the end of a 3-hour conversation.

Carlson answered:

"Cities are no longer filling with vaulting, flowing, gooey, non-orthogonal buildings engineered through advanced computing power."

"Architecture has been hit by a new sobriety. Tradition, apparently, is back.The reaction against ultramodern architecture arrived slowly at first, but accelerated with the financial crash of 2008, as the world economy and many political systems became increasingly unsteady. Amid this apparent chaos, the stability of neoclassical architecture was advocated from the very top. In 2020, the United States president Donald Trump signed an executive order advocating 'classical' architecture, including 'beautiful' traditional styles such as Greek Revival, Gothic, Georgian and neoclassical. This followed the British Conservative government appointing the late philosopher Roger Scruton to head a 2018 commission ensuring that new housing would be 'built beautiful,' which Scruton made clear meant 'traditional.' Even earlier, in 2014, the Chinese president Xi Jinping issued an edict demanding an end to 'weird architecture' in China.... And in the European Union, particularly Germany and Poland, projects of historical reconstruction – the kind that, in a previous decade, might have involved ultramodern non-orthogonal CGI-optimised arts centres – now feature new traditional-style buildings with gables and pitched roofs, set along winding lanes...."

Writes Owen Hatherley, in "The new architecture wars/Traditionalist and modernist architecture are both mass-produced, industrial and international. Is there an alternative?" (Aeon).

"I would pay a lot of money to sit down with that 51 percent of respondents and ask them to tell me five things Trump accomplished in office."

"I’d even spot them the first four: a tax cut; the appointment of three SCOTUS judges; the killing of Qasem Soleimani; Operation Warp Speed."

Writes Jonathan Last, reacting to a Wall Street Journal poll asking whether Trump or Biden had a better record of accomplishments — 51% said Trump, 40% said Biden — in "America’s Authoritarian Exceptionalism/Demagogues usually arise in times of chaos and privation. In America, our demagogues have become powerful during a period of peace and prosperity" (Bulwark).

So Last is offering "a lot of money" to name one more Trump accomplishment. I'm sure he'll want the power to deny that any particular thing deserves the designation "accomplishment" — e.g., Trump's efforts to secure the southern border.

ADDED: I'll name one that liberals are practically compelled to view as an accomplishment: the First Step Act.

"President Biden’s nearly two-year-old German shepherd Commander bit seven people in a four-month period after former first dog Major was ousted from the White House over similar aggressive behavior..."

"... according to internal Secret Service communications reviewed by The Post.... In the most serious documented incident involving Commander, the White House physician’s office on Nov. 3, 2022, referred a bitten Secret Service uniformed officer to a local hospital for treatment after the dog clamped down on their arm and thigh... Records show Commander broke the skin of a different Secret Service member’s hand and arm weeks later after the president unleashed him outside the White House following a family movie night — and the following month, Commander bit the back of a security technician at Biden’s Wilmington, Del., home.... Biden, 80, has reportedly expressed doubts about the honesty of a Secret Service member who reported being bitten on the leg by his prior dog Major, also a German shepherd.... Behind the scenes, agents described alarming series of incidents...."

I'm reading "Biden’s dog Commander sent Secret Service officer to hospital, bit 6 others after replacing first pooch Major" (NY Post). 

Two aggressive, uncontrollable dogs? Clearly, the fault of the humans.

Remember when Trump was criticized just for not having a dog? ("I wouldn't mind having one honestly, but I don't have time. How would I look walking a dog on the White House lawn?... Feels a little phony to me. People say, Oh, you should get a dog. Why? It's good politically. I said, That's not the relationship I have with my people.")

ADDED: Harry Truman famously said, "If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog." Joe Biden got 2 dogs in Washington and both were enemies.

"The assassination was 60 years ago. What national security secrets could possibly be at risk? What are they hiding?"

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tweets.

It’s not about conspiracy – it is about transparency. In a midnight Friday night announcement the White House has delivered the bad news that President Biden will be maintaining secrecy indefinitely on some JFK assassination related records.... 

"What, for his part, did Trump really think of his vice president? In one unintentionally revealing anecdote..."

"... Pence relates how he attended the musical 'Hamilton' and, at the curtain, heard one of the cast members issue a statement on behalf of the show expressing anxiety and alarm over the administration’s lack of commitment to protecting a diverse America. 'I wasn’t offended by anything he said,' Pence writes, but Trump 'was outraged — mostly as a New Yorker. "Broadway is almost like going to church," he told me.' When Pence declined to turn the episode into culture-war point-scoring, Trump 'good-naturedly' admonished him: 'You took the high road. I never take the high road.' Somehow one doubts that Trump intended that as a compliment."

From "Mike Pence highlights his heroic hour, and sidesteps the rest/In his memoir, 'So Help Me God,' the former vice president writes of his outrage at the Capitol invasion but is generally soft on President Trump" (WaPo).

Here's my blog post from the time. I was mainly concerned that Mike Pence was put in physical danger.