If you haven’t noticed, I no longer included in this recap how often Trump golfs or visits a golf course. It’s a given he’s going to golf far more often than his predecessor, whose golf habits Trump criticized endlessly. It’s also apparent that when he said he wouldn’t be out golfing—no, he’d be spending his weekends working—he was lying.

Sorry for the late and abbreviated recap this week—I was on vacation and trying to ignore the news. Here’s what happened in Trump’s 29^th week.

Missed From Last Week:

1. The Trump campaign and associates turn over around 20,000 pages of documents in the Russia investigation.
2. Trump launched a series of ″news″ videos on Facebook with Lara Trump (his daughter-in-law) as the ″anchor.″ They’re calling this ″real news″ because, as Lara says, ″there’s so much fake news out there.″ But this screams of state-run media.

Russia:

1. Two Republican house staffers make a surprise visit to the office of Christopher Steele’s lawyer (Steele wrote the dossier on Trump). No one in the committee knew anything about this, but we later find out they were there on Devin Nunes’ behest. Nunes is supposed to be recused from the investigation.
2. It comes out this week that the FBI executed a surprise search warrant on one of Paul Manafort’s homes a few weeks ago in the wee morning hours.
3. Financial disclosures for the lawyers working on the special investigation with Robert Mueller show that many left multi-million-dollar jobs in the private sector to work on this.
4. A Russian surveillance plane flies over the D.C. area, including the Pentagon, capitol buildings, and other government buildings.
5. Mueller requests documents from the White House on Michael Flynn, presumably to determine whether he was paid by the Turkish government to discredit a dissident.
6. Trump surrogates won’t confirm whether Trump wants to fire Mueller, but four Members of Congress have proposed bills protecting Mueller.
7. Trump says any investigation into his finances is off-limits, but the Deputy Attorney General says Mueller can investigate any crimes discovered in the course of the probe.
8. Trump periodically sends messages to Mueller of appreciation and just general greetings.
9. Federal investigators work on getting Paul Manafort’s son-in-law, who is also a business partner, to cooperate in the Russia probe.
10. Mueller subpoenas Manafort’s financial records.
11. The House Intelligence Committee wants to question Trump’s personal secretary.
12. Trump thanks Putin for expelling hundreds of diplomatic employees back to the U.S., saying he’s trying to reduce payroll (apparently not understanding that these State Department employees aren’t actually fired).

Courts/Justice:

1. A federal judge orders an October hearing into whether Trump’s business dealings violate the emoluments clause.

Healthcare:

1. Jared Kushner’s brother owns a healthcare company that lobbied against the repeal of the ACA. Jared held a stake in the company at the time, but has since divested.
2. As Republicans try to find ways to destroy the ACA, insurers start pulling out of markets and expect a rise in premiums because of the uncertainty being created. Insurance companies plan to boost premiums to guard against the uncertainty, up to 20% in some markets. Insurers say the uncertainty is far outside the norm.
3. The White House fails to coordinate with organizations responsible for outreach and education before the open enrollment period for the ACA begins.
4. The Freedom Caucus in the House is trying to force an outright repeal of the ACA, bypassing House leaders.
5. Trump declares the opioid epidemic a national emergency.

International:

1. Trump tweets a Fox News story that Nikki Haley says contains classified info. The story claims that North Korea loaded anti-ship missiles on a boat near the coast, which Haley says is classified info because it indicates where we get that information from.

2. North Korea says they’ll use nukes against us if we provoke them militarily. They also promise “a thousand-fold revenge” against the latest UN sanctions. Meanwhile, Trump spends the day tweeting insults to Democratic Senator Dick Blumenthal.

3. The Pentagon is considering drone strikes on ISIS in the Philippines to assist our allies there.

4. Trump threatens to release ″fire and fury like the world has never seen″ in retaliation to any moves by North Korea to attack U.S. interests. Of note, a year ago, 50 Republicans previously employed in national security signed a letter warning that Trump acts impetuously, has no self control, and is erratic.

5. Trump later wonders if fire and fury wasn’t quite strong enough.

6. Trump tweets, “My first order as President was to renovate and modernize our nuclear arsenal. It is now far stronger and more powerful than ever before….” In truth, updating the arsenal is under review.

7. Trump sends out aides to get people to rally around him in his escalation with North Korea.

8. North Korea calls Trump’s threats a ″load of nonsense.″

9. Tillerson manages to defend Trump’s statement while de-escalating the situation some and smoothing out Trump’s threat.

10. In spite of all the trash talk, the administration has been in back-channel talks with North Korea for months.

11. The Pentagon prepares a plan in the event that Trump orders a strike on North Korea.

12. Trump comes under criticism from leaders on both sides over his rhetoric around North Korea.

13. European officials view Trump as erratic and limited, and say he is a laughingstock in European government circles.

14. After North Korea’s threat to attack Guam, Trump had a phone meeting with the Governor of Guam. Trump said that this has made Guam famous and now their tourism will rise tenfold. Because I certainly want to visit the current target of a nuclear threat. Aaand the Republican Governor agreed with him.

15. The UN Security Council voted unanimously to sanction North Korea for its missile testing.

16. The number of people who took the Foreign Services exam in June fell 26% from the previous year. Interest in foreign service work has tumbled under this administration.

Legislation/Congress:

1. Trump calls out Mitch McConnell for not getting him the legislation he wants—healthcare, tax reform, infrastructure, and so on.
2. Congressional Democrats raise alarm bells over the Regulatory Reform Task Force’s lack of transparency. They’ve been performing their reviews in private, out of the public view, and in consultation with experts and lobbyists from the businesses from whom the task force is supposed to be protecting us.
3. Trump supporter and funder Robert Mercer funds potential opponents to Jeff Flake in Arizona. Trump put a target on Flake after he released a book and did several interviews critical of both Republicans and Trump.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. We’re still waiting for word from Trump condemning the mosque bombing last week in Minnesota.
2. Neo-nazis, white supremacists, the KKK, and other hate groups from across the country come together for rallies in Virginia and North Carolina. This is the biggest white power rally in decades.
3. They are met with both peaceful counter protesters and with the more violent antifa groups.
4. The hate groups march with torches and chant slogans like ″Jews will not replace us!″ and ″Blood and soil!″ an old Nazi slogan that refers to a racially defined group associated with specific lands.
5. After the rallies break up, a car ploughs through a crowd of counter-protesters who were peacefully demonstrating away from the alt-right groups. One woman is killed and at least 19 injured. The driver is a white supremacist.
6. Additionally, two police officers are killed when the helicopter they were monitoring the rallies from crashes.
7. David Duke says that alt-right groups voted for Trump because he’s going to bring their America back.
8. In Trump’s initial statements, he basically said that the people protesting the racist hate groups were as bad as the hate groups themselves, drawing deep criticism from all sides.
9. Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe stands up and says what Trump should have—bigotry and hatred are not welcome. He tells the hate groups to go home.
10. The DoJ opens a civil rights investigation into the extremist attack.
11. Trump gets blasted for not calling out white supremacists by name, something he accused Obama of doing with Islamic terrorists.
12. Kenneth Frazier, Merck’s CEO, denounced Trump’s comments along with hatred, bigotry, and group supremacy. He then dropped out of Trump’s business council. Additional CEOs follow suit.
13. Trump immediately attacked Frazier on Twitter, saying Frazier’s resignation will give him “more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!” Frazier went from business genius to ripoff artist in just three weeks in Trump’s mind.
14. Social media users start identifying and outing alt-right marchers. Some from the alt-right are fired from their jobs.
15. Refugees continue to flee across the northern border of the U.S. and into Canada. They are currently staying in tents erected by the Canadian army.
16. Chicago says it will sue the DoJ for it’s policies on sanctuary cities.
17. Deportations of illegal immigrants under Trump is lower than under Obama by an average of 3,000 people per month, even though they are casting a wider net.
18. Five transgender members of the military sue Trump for proposing to ban them from serving.
19. DHS considers starting ″Life After Hate″ back up and adding new funds. This agency works to deradicalize members of white hate groups like the KKK and neo-nazis.

Climate/EPA:

1. Emails show that the USDA censors climate change language.
   • Instead of “climate change,” staff must use “weather extremes.”
   • Instead of “climate change adoption,” staff must use “resilience to weather extremes.”
   • Instead of “greenhouse gases,” staff must use “build soil organic matter, increase nutrient use efficiency.”
   • Instead of “sequester carbon,” staff must say “build soil organic matter.”
   • However, the emails say this won’t change any of the modeling, because, you know, climate mitigation is important. This also doesn’t apply to scientific studies.
2. The New York Times releases a leaked draft of the government’s climate change report. This is the final draft presented to the administration, and it was leaked because scientists are afraid Trump will try to change it because it contradicts his and his administrations claims that climate change isn’t affected by human activity.
3. The report has already incorporated both public and scientific comment.
4. The climate change report needs to be approved by August 18 by 13 different government agencies, including the EPA. As we know, Scott Pruitt, the head of the EPA, does not believe in man-made climate change.
5. The official report that Trump releases will give a clear indication of whether our policies going forward will be based on science or belief.
6. According to EPA employees, Scott Pruitt is very secretive and goes to extreme measure to hide what he’s doing.
7. Let’s take a second to look at this quote from the NY Times:
   • “Allies of Mr. Pruitt say he is justified in his measures to ramp up his secrecy and physical protection, given that his agenda and politics clash so fiercely with those of so many of the 15,000 employees at the agency he heads.”
   • Employees also say that Pruitt’s ignoring years of scientific research and industry input.
   • So why is it we’re letting the one person who disagrees with 15,000 experts steer the direction of our environmental future? IMO, the conclusions of 15,000 experts should override the one.
8. The Department of the Interior eases the Sage Grouse protections implemented under Obama.
9. The EPA makes it easier to approve new chemicals.

Budget/Economy:

1. Consumer confidence, which bumped up after the election, has been on the decline since January.
2. 39% of American colleges and universities see a decrease in applications from foreign students. The University of Toronto, on the other had, sees a 20% increase.

Elections:

1. The DoJ changes its position on Ohio’s purging its voter rolls. They previously argued the purges weren’t lawful because they targeted Democrats and African Americans. Now they say the purges are lawful.

Miscellaneous:

1. Talk about giving a participation medal to everyone… Trump’s aides give him a propaganda report that contains only positive news about him. Twice a day. WTH?
2. Steven Miller, who last week accused CNN’s Jim Acosta of being cosmopolitan, lives in a nearly $1 million condo in a building described as “the new ideal for sophisticated, modern, urban living.” Also known as cosmopolitan.
3. House Democrats request information on how much government money is being spent on trump properties.
4. After two deadly crashes, the Marine Corps grounds all aircraft for 24 hours.
5. The Phoenix mayor asks Trump not to hold his rally there in light of the recent controversy surrounding the events in Charlottesville. Trump ignores his request.
6. Silicon Valley entrepreneur (PayPal) Peter Thiel throws his support behind Trump publicly, and has from the beginning. But in private he told friends last year that there’s a 50/50 chance this ends in disaster. This year, he’s upping the odds on that.
7. Even with last week’s confirmation of over 60 of Trump’s nominees, he still lags far behind in staffing up open positions.
8. Four senior cybersecurity officials resign.
9. Faced with what they call a dysfunctional federal government, city Mayors talk about ways to take on problems like the opioid epidemic, homeland security, and global warming on their own.

Polls:

1. In a recent survey, 52% of Republicans would support postponing the 2020 election if Trump said we should (to make sure there’s no voter fraud). 56% would if both Trump and congressional Republicans backed it.
2. Trump hits yet a new low in the Quinnipiac poll with 33% approving and 61% disapproving of his performance.
3. 36% of Americans say Trump’s first 200 days were successful. 59% call it a failure.
4. 47% of Americans now strongly disapprove of Trump’s performance.
5. 60% of Americans don’t think Trump is honest and trustworthy.