Friendly Fire

An incompetent fool obsessed with facial hair is in charge at the Pentagon. A would-be authoritarian relentlessly seeking total control is in the White House.

Together on Tuesday, they ranted before the assembled leaders of the military, hastily assembled at their bidding in a manner that suggested urgency.

While Hegseth focused on his battle against DEI, Trump told the generals and admirals he wants them to use cities like San Francisco, Chicago and New York as “training grounds” for the “war within.”

If you were a screenwriter, tasked with creating a scenario for a disaster movie, you couldn’t make this stuff up.

It’s too serious.

And when it comes to the war within, it’s becoming real as a one-sided assault by the President of the United States against democracy.

In this war, our most treasured freedoms are set to become collateral damage.

Killed by “friendly fire.”

HEADLINES:

• The Commander in Chief Is Not Okay (Atlantic)

• US government shuts down as midnight deadline passes (Guardian)

• Judge Rules Trump Unlawfully Targeted Noncitizens Over Pro-Palestinian Speech (NYT)

• Trump’s ominous move to recruit generals and admirals to his political cause (CNN)

• Trump directs generals to defend US from ‘war from within’ (ABC)

• Trump defends troops in US cities after Hegseth decries military DEI efforts (Guardian)

• Trump says he’ll fire generals “on the spot” if he dislikes them (Axios)

• Military leaders absorb highly partisan presentation from Trump, Hegseth (WP)

• Deadlock Grows Uglier as Congress Heads Toward Shutdown (NYT)

• Trump Floats ‘Irreversible’ Cuts To Benefit Programs If Government Shuts Down (Time)

• Trump to Americans: “Go F*ck Yourself”; shuts down Republican-controlled government, increasing monthly health care costs by hundreds of dollars (Gavin Newsom)

• How Tom Homan wound up ensnared in an FBI contracts-for-cash sting (MSNBC)

• Trump threatened to withhold billions in federal funds from New York City should democratic socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani win the election. Mamdani, whom Trump has repeatedly described as a “communist,” isn’t backing down. [HuffPost] 

• Trump administration moves to defund inspector general watchdog group (WP)

• Judge issues blistering opinion against Trump policy to deport pro-Palestinian students (Guardian)

• Trump peace plan ‘ignores interests of Palestinian people’, Hamas official tells BBC (BBC)

• Afghanistan’s internet goes down amid fears of a Taliban crackdown (WP)

• Google’s AI Mode image search is getting more conversational (Verge)

• Stress-Free Eric Adams Spends Day Bribing Pigeons In Central Park (Onion)