Trump's latest move should be the 'single most disturbing thing' to the world | David Cay Johnston

This is Donald Trump's fantasy world.Donald Trump.creates his own reality.He just makes stuff up.And he spent his career before he became president with lots of journalists who just accepted whatever he said.If he said a building had 10 more stories than it did, or his wealth was 50 or 100 times what it was, they just, many of them accepted that.

And he's used to that.He's not used to the pushback he gets in the position as president.

Hello and welcome to the Trump Report.I'm Maddie Hale.Lots to get into today.There's a little bit of Iran war.There's a lot of domestic news, a lot of, I guess, not turning on Trump from the Republican Party, but at least, you know, pushing back on some of his choices.So we'll get straight into that.

Now, my guest today is Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, professor at Rochester Institute of Technology and an author of an array of books on Donald Trump, David K. Johnstone.Thank you so much for joining the show.

Glad to be with you again, Maddie.

Let's kick off with the Iran war and then we'll move into more of the domestic stuff.So Axios is reporting that Trump administration is close to announcing an interim deal with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, potentially as early as Wednesday.So today, Trump has confirmed that there were very good discussions with Iran, but hasn't publicly confirmed that an agreement is imminent.Now, Iranian state media didn't deny that these talks took place, but they warned any deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz will be delayed as long as the United States continues threatening Iran.So, look, it's getting tiring hearing the same old tale every single day, Professor, but are you optimistic that this could lead to some sort of breakthrough?

No.Donald has said more times than I can count, more than 40 for sure, that peace is at hand and it's just made up stuff.Now, this isone of the few cases where the Iranian state media has not denied there are any talks taking place.I think that's because there are some discussions that the Omani government is trying to mediate.And those talks along the lines that Oman and Iran would turn the Strait of Hormuz into a toll passageway, which was serious worldwide implications because there are straits all over the world that have been treated as international waterways for forever.

So, but why would the Iranians prior to the November elections in the United States do anything to help Donald Trump?They very much want to see him humiliated at the polls in the United States and to have his power weakened, and perhaps even a Congress that will flex its authority, its sole authority under the American Constitution, to stop the attacks on Iran.

I wonder if you see the situation right now as the United States committing to sanctions relief, even signing something in order to get the Strait of Hormuz fully open and a free waterway?

Donald may announce something, but what he's shown is that you can't rely on anything he says.I'm going to, you know, wipe out the civilization.Oh, no, change my mind.I'm going to do the most ferocious attack you've ever seen.Well, no, I guess I decided not to.It's all meaningless because there is no thoughtful, strategic thinking going on here.

The only thing that we don't know for sure we will eventually is whether senior American military leaders have been pushing back inprivate to Trump saying some of the things you want to do would be war crimes under American law, not just international law, and being resistant to doing that.We haven't seen any indication of that yet, but it is a logical and reasonable thing to anticipate because we have a military in the U .S.that is apolitical, or at least has been up until Donald Trump.and listens to military lawyers.

So Trump said in an interview with Fox News, as I mentioned before, that these are very good conversations, but they, being Iran, don't like to admit that.But, you know, it's a little bit disconcerting.You tell people that we're having wonderful discussions and then some guy will come out of Iran and say we have not met.It's a lie.I mean, I wonder if you believe that Iran is exploiting what may be Trump's biggest political vulnerability, his need to project strength, his need to project control to Americans by publicly refusing to match his optimism about the talks, just knowing how this will derail his popularity back home.

Oh, I think the Iranians have proven themselves to be very smart at this, from the Lego videos they put out every few days that just mock Trump, to the statements that are designed to humiliate him.They're very good at this game, much better than Donald is.

Let's move on to, you know, Trump at home.But he spent the afternoon yesterday trying to shift the conversation back to his preferred domestic narrative, which is, of course, economic success, political strength, Republican momentum, while dismissing negative coverage as just fake news.Now, I want to read out a few of these posts.So I think it was about 13 posts stretching about two hours, Professor.He wrote, you know, manufacturing is booming.He wrote the stock market is an all -time high.

He said American exports are on fire.He said the United States is in the golden age of America.He said my real polling numbers, not those ones made up by fake news media, are the best they've ever been.He said the fake news, the Democrats are doing everything they can to distract people's thoughts from these massive successes.But it's getting harder and harder for them to do so.He then said the White House renovation project is on cost and substantially ahead of schedule.

He said his planned ballroom will be paid by by the American patriots, no taxpayer money.I mean, what do you think this tells us, David?It's not out of the blue, but these string of thoughts, these string of consciousness that he plays out, he types it out on True Social, what does it tell us?Does it tell us that he's worried about the way that he's being perceived?

Well, first of all, Donald doesn't actually post these.There's a woman who follows him around and takes what he says and puts it into the True Social posts.But this is Donald Trump's fantasy world.Donald Trump creates his own reality.He just makes stuff up.And he spent his career before he became president with lots of journalists who just accepted order reset.

If he said a building had 10 more stories than it did, or his wealth was 50 or 100 times what it was, many of them accepted that.And he's used to that.He's not used to the pushback he gets in the position as president.He's also desperate because he knows things are not working out.For example, GDP, gross domestic product growth now is one and a half percent.That's half the average for the last 75 years.

Half.And it's declining.We don't have the best economy ever by any measure.We have lots of Democrats who, some of whomare probably not very good candidates, but who are winning in various elections because they understand that large numbers of Americans are in terrible financial straits.There's a new joke going around in the U .

S.about a Trumper who says, it's amazing what Donald Trump has done.My pickup truck used to take $50 worth of gasoline, but now it holds 125.What success!

Well, you know, speaking of true social, Professor Trump, he was roasted after sharing this AI generated image of him.dressed up, I guess, as a heavily decorated military hero standing alongside America's legendary World War II generals.Critics were quick to point out the irony, reminding everyone that Trump received five Vietnam -era deferments, including one for bone spurs, which meant that he never actually served.So what was your reaction to this?Because my kind of interpretation, Professor, was that he almost set himself up for a roasting here.

Well, Donald doesn't think through carefully a lot of these things.I mean, Donald believes now that he is all -powerful.That's very crucial to understand.He said in his first term, I have an Article 2, referring to the U .S.Constitution, that says I can do anything I want.

It says nothing of the kind.But as he is in the second term surrounded by sycophantic aides, Instead of people who pushed back in the first administration to keep him within the rails of the American constitution, he has developed this belief that he can do anything he wants.And he's being vindicated in that belief.After all, one of the two US senators, Republican senators, who delayed the approval of Todd Blanche to become the attorney general of the United States, Todd Blanche was Trump's personal lawyer and has referred to himself as president, as the president of the United States.lawyer.Perhaps unintentionally, but he said it.

They, one of them, Senator John Cornyn of Texas said, we can't do anything to stop Donald Trump.That's ridiculous.Congress has all the power.The president is just the errand boy of Congress under the American constitution.But if Republicans believe they have to give Trump whatever he wants, then of course he gets a feedback loop that says, not only am I all powerful, but I can do anything I want and no one will stop me.

Well, let's get into that, because it's an interesting story that we haven't covered this week.But Trump, he nominated his former lawyer, as you mentioned, Todd Blanche, to become the permanent attorney general.But several Republicans, as you say, you know, they blocked Trump's own pick, saying that they had concerns over this proposed $1 .8 billion compensation fund and this special IRS audit protections for Trump and his family.So to win them over, Todd Blanche basically agreed to drop the fund and scale back this IRS protection.But Republicans then they backed his nomination after those changes, allowing it to pass the Senate Judiciary Committee.But Blanch now, you know, he has to head to a full Senate confirmation vote, although Republican Susie Collins, Susan Collins has said that she'll probably vote against him.

But David, this is significant because it's Trump's own Republican senators who are pushing back against his pick for the Attorney General, forcing Todd Blanch to have to backtrack on two proposals that would have benefited the president before they even agreed to select So what does this tell you?

Well, it's a sham.As a matter of law, the two letters Todd Blanch wrote have absolutely no meaning whatsoever, and nothing prevents Trump from reviving his plan to pay the cop beaters and would -be assassins who attacked the Capitol on January 6th, screaming, kill Mike Pence, the vice president.None of this has stopped.This is all theater for people who don't understand the law.And it'll be very successful with large numbers of people.After all, law, like medicine or journalism or plumbing, is a specialty.

in terms of knowledge.The two senators involved were both primary.That is, they lost their primary elections because Donald Trump came out against them and in favor of an insurgent MAGA Trumper running against them.So this was sort of their way of extracting a pound of flesh from Trump.But it really has no meaning and Trump clearly has not given up on the idea that he wants to give Those people who tried to overthrow the American government in 2021 on January 6th.He wants to give them taxpayer money.

Well, Cory Booker said, you know, these concessions are meaningless because Trump can simply reverse them later.So does he have a point to that?

No, that's exactly what I just said.Cory Booker is exactly right.These are the two letters written by Todd Blanche that purport to put an end to the slush fund to pay the cop beaters and would -be killers who attacked the US Capitol on January 6, five years ago.are meaningless.Donald Trump can revive this at any time.And so what you're seeing these two senators do is now that they've did a little humiliation of Trump after Trump humiliated them by not supporting their reelection, and they were voted out in the Republican Party primaries, they now are bending their knee to Donald.

And one of them, Senator Cornyn of Texas says, well, there's nothing we can do to rein in Donald Trump, which is absolutely ridiculous as a matter of law, politics, or anything else.The president under the American system is to carry outthe directives of Congress.Congress is not there to say, oh, yes, whatever you want, Mr. President.We don't have a king.We don't have a dictator, though Donald behaves like one.

And the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill helps him behave this way.

But because Republicans did force Todd Blanch originally to scale back these protections that would have limited IRS audits on Trump's past tax returns.Does that in at the very least suggest that these Republicans did believe that the president had something to hide?

Oh, I think everybody understands Donald has something to hide.Why would you want complete, absolute protection for yourself, your businesses, your two older sons and a wide, if you if you read the agreement, you can interpret this very widely.I mean, people who are business venture partners with the Trumps to be exempt from audits unless you're a tax cheat.Now, of course, I've documented repeatedly that that Donald Trump has been found by two courts to be a tax cheat and have engaged in civil fraud, that the behaviors he was told never do them again, he has continued to do, which is proof of mens rea or criminal intent.The tax returns that were released by the House Democrats and the ones that were leaked are all have numerous badges of fraud in them.So there's no, I don't think there's any possible dispute about the fact that Donald Trump needs this kind of protection.

On the other hand, a new administration comes in, I have no expectation that Donald Trump, who will then be, I think, 82 or 83, will be prosecuted for his decades of tax crimes.

But it's hilarious in the sense that David, you know, he's just adding more fuel to the fire.Of course, he's denied any wrongdoing when it comes to his taxes and family.wrongdoing as well.But this proposal from Todd Blanch just adds fuel to the fire.

Yes.But so long as the Republican leadership does not stand up to Donald Trump, does not execute its authority as the legislative branch, the first branch under the American Constitution, then what does Donald care?It's just not significant to what he's doing.Now, what we're seeing is enormous damage being done to the constitutional framework in the United States.And I've spoken a lot in America about the things we need to do to update our constitution, big parts of which turn out to be unenforceable because they are based on the assumption that only an honorable person would become president.

Well, let's get into another example of Trump's Republicans pushing back against his administration.Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth's pick to lead the Army has stalled after several GOP senators reportedly refused to support the nomination.So, Hegseth wanted General Christopher Leneve to be confirmed as the Army Chief of Staff at Republicans, led by Senator Joni Ernst, to argue that he lacks this experience for the job, noting that he's only been a four -star general for about six months.But the opposition is reportedly so strong that the administration is even reluctant to send this for nomination to the Senate.What do you make of this, Professor?Because yes, he has decades of military experience, but Pete Hegseth's choices in the last year or so for hiring and firing has been under intense scrutiny.

Well, Pete Hegseth is trying very hard to create an all -white, all -male Christian nationalist military, whereas the US military has always been absolutely separated from politics, and there's lots of evidence of this.And I've been warningfor 10 years now that the key sign that Donald Trump wants to impose a dictatorship would be promoting people into high military office who are loyalists to him, not to the Constitution.And that's part of what Pete Hegseth, who was a low -ranking officer and only technically in combat, has been doing.You know, he's been removing the names of Medal of Honor winners who are minorities or women.He's been blocking the promotions of highly qualified officers for what pretty clearly is the simple fact that the color of their skin isn't white or their gender isn't male.

And this should be the single most disturbing thing, not just to Americans, but to the whole world.After all, it is not unknown that dictators, when they get in, promote unqualified people out of order, or people who have expressed their personal loyalty to the dictator rather than to the government and to the republic, in order to solidify their power.

Do you think that we've already seen the downfall of these decisions when it comes to Hegseth and Trump's hiring and firing.Of course, there's been dozens of top generals that have lost their jobs.We've seen no evidence of misconduct and reasons as to why they've lost their jobs.So now that the United States has entered into a war of its own with Iran, I wonder if we've already seen, you know, the negative sides to these decisions.

Well, Pete Hegseth has removed a number of highly competent officers, particularly with expertise about China and Iran.And that should be deeply troubling to people.It makes thecountry less safe, not more safe.We've seen the same purges happen at the Central Intelligence Agency, and there's been some minimal reporting on some of the other of the 17 U .S.

intelligence agencies, removing people not because they weren't doing their job, but because they were not telling the Trump administration what it wanted to hear.So the shocking part to me is that how far does it have to go before the Republicans who control Congress in both Senate and House are willing to stand up for the Constitution and stand up for national security?And the reality of the world is there are lots of people and regimes that seriously don't like the United States.And so we live in a dangerous world.I wish we didn't, and I don't think we have to live in that dangerous world, but we do.

I want to get your thoughts on a domestic story happening.So Ohio Republican Congressman Max Miller, he's given his first TV interview since these domestic abuse allegations were made against him by his ex -wife and former girlfriend.So despite his former father -in -law, who just happens to be Republican Senator Bernie Marino, publicly calling for him to resign, Miller has refused to step aside.He said in this interview that President Trump has been through all of these lies before, so I'm going to do the same thing.We assume that means just, you know, fight against the allegations.But do you think he's following in Trump's political playbook, or is this a situation where invoking Trump could actually make things a lot worse?

Well, Miller is now the subject of a House ethics probe, supposedly asked for by him, but it would be inevitable if he didn't.Accusations that you threw scalding water on your wife, that you broke your two -year -old's collarbone, that you're a wife beater and you're a member of Congress, We've had some of these come up with Democrats and the Democratic Party has moved very quickly.push that person out the door.We're not going to see that from Trump.And Bernie Moreno, the junior senator from Ohio, who is the father -in -law in this case, has said Miller is a liar and he's a wife -beater and he will do everything he can to protect his daughter and granddaughter.I don't see anything good coming out of this for the Republican party.

And the best thing for the Republicans would be for Max Miller to resign from Congress right away so that they can get a candidate on the ballot in November.

I want to get your thoughts on this story from Politico.They're reporting, citing current and former U .S.officials, that the Trump administration has been significantly expanding its intelligence gathering on Cuba, including more surveillance flights, a larger CIA presence and expanding its network of spies and intelligence assets on the island.So the sources are telling Politico that the intelligence buildup could be preparing for future military options.The intelligence surge comes as Trump continues to increase presence on Cuba.

pressure on Cuba's communist government.So I wonder what you think about this, David.Do you think that Trump is preparing to invade Cuba?And would that even be on the cards just given how much of a strategic failure Iran has been to the Trump administration?

There's no evidence that Donald has ever cared one whit about Cuba.This is Marco Rubio, Secretary of State and former Florida Senator, who is the child of people who fled the Castro regime.South Florida is full of people who want to go back to Cuba and were run out when the communists won in the late 1950s.The increase in surveillance by aircraft, uh, satellites, et cetera, and maybe even put.some human assets on the ground is all consistent with the dream of people like Marco Rubio that they can unseat the communist dictatorship in Havana.And to Donald, Marco Rubio is going to make a very strong case that he will look better and he will be a big hero and Florida will forever be Republican.

if he can just get rid of the current regime.They're even talking now about indicting Raul Castro, Fidel's brother, 94 years old.And of course, let's not lose sight of the fact that by cutting off oil to Cuba, primarily oil from Venezuela, A lot of people have died in Cuba.The lack of electricity meant that people who needed medications that have to be refrigerated or who needed surgeries couldn't get them for lack of electricity.I think there's a strong argument that the U .S.

has committed war crimes against Cuba without having fired a single shot.

But do you think that had Iran wrapped up after that first strike on Ali Khamenei, had it been a mirrored situation of what happened in Venezuela, obviously Maduro wasn't killed, but had it been a swift regime change operation the way that we believe that Trump thought it would go down, do you think that he probably would have invaded Cuba or had very, yeah?

The bill of goods that Benjamin Netanyahu sold Trump, you know, in a few weeks, you'll be able to overtake the regime in Tehran had been successful.Yes, the US would have moved on to Cuba.We might even have sent in troops to take over Cuba.But Trump is so tied down with the Iranian issue that this is very much a backburner issue for everyone except the Cubans, who are in dire straits because they don't have the oil that they need.They don't have thedomestic oil of any consequence.

Professor, just a final question.A big story this week has, of course, been U .S.Attorney Jeanine Pirro's office concluding that the damage to the reflecting pool wasn't vandalism.After all, it was caused by a botched renovation and faulty installation of the pool's new liner.Now, this was a big story.

A month or two ago, millions of dollars were spent on this renovation.Of course, Trump blamed vandalism.That was open to question.But The New York Times is now reporting that Jeanine Pirro's relationship with Trump has deteriorated.to was not vandalism.What does that say about how this case was handled inside Trump's own administration?

Well, I followed this very closely because we were in Washington when this was going on and my wife went to the reflecting pool and put her hand in the water, hoping to snatch one of the little pieces of rubber.And that's exactly what the people who were prosecuted for were.She just didn't get prosecuted.Donald Trump was clearly sold a bundle of lies by his interior secretary, the former governor of one of the Dakotas.Jeanine Pirro came to the White House, according to the New York Times, with boxes of evidence that there was no vandalism, that this was shoddy workmanship by the no -bid contractor picked by Trump because they were so great.And of course, the president's motorcade included

his limousine, the Beast, which weighs many tons, drove across the reflecting pool when it was empty, no doubt causing damage to it.Jeanine Pirro is in the position as an officer of the court and as a former judge, she can't lie to the court.And when the evidence was very clear that this was all nonsense, She had no choice but to do what she did.And I don't know that her job is secure.Trump may yet get rid of her.But the important issue here is this is like many other things about Donald Trump.

He just made up this story of vandals, or he was fed it by his interior secretary.He certainly has expanded on it since then.And once Donald believes something, It's very difficult, almost impossible to get him to change his mind.You've got to come up with a better story that allows him to shift.And so people should be very worried.Prosecuting people, potentially for 10 years in prison, for putting their hand in a pool of water, as I've done in my lifetime and many other people have, is a good indication of the authoritarian nature of this administration.

And trust me, my wife and I have over dinner several times talked about, boy, you know, it could have been you who got indicted, sweetheart.

Oh, well, I'm really happy for Mrs Kay Johnston that she didn't get arrested on the spot.Professor David Kay Johnston, thank you so much for joining The Trump Report.

Thank you, Maddie.