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Foreign. 2026 President Donald J. Trump's remaking of Washington, D.C. to reflect his personalized approach to power rather than the American people and their government has become a little too on the nose over the past week. After weeks of hyping the idea that he would restore the reflecting pool by the Lincoln Memorial to spectacular condition it had been destroyed by Barack Hussein Obama and sleepy Joe Biden, Trump today reposted an article from the right wing site Breitbart titled Thank you, President Trump reflecting pool in D.C. wows after Trump Renovations. In fact, as Kinney Achioc of Politico reported today, the renovations Trump said would cost $1.5 million appear from federal contracting records to have cost almost 6016 million, and the pool is now fouled with green algae. But Trump and his cronies are simply telling the American people it's a win. President Donald J. Trump is an expert builder who has fixed the reflecting pool for good. Unlike the failed and extremely costly attempt by Obama and Biden, a spokesperson for the Interior Department told Chuck. The alleged compliance of the board of the Kennedy center with a court order requiring it to remove Trump's name from the center illustrates yet another of Trump's hallmarks, cheating the system. Trump packed the board with loyalists who made him chair and then changed the name of the building, despite specific language from Congress that no additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials shall be designated or installed in the public areas of the Kennedy Center. The board missed the court deadline by 12 hours. Then Charles M. Floca, whom Trump installed at the head of the Kennedy center, certified to the court that the center and its board have complied with the court's order. In a statement, Kennedy center spokesperson Roma Duravi said that the center was fully compliant with the court's directive and that the board was evaluating legal options. Their conclusion seems to have been that the court ordered them only to take down Trump's name. It did not order them to show that his name was down or to keep Kennedy's name visible. Currently, the Kennedy center portico facade is covered with a giant tarp through which workers have created passageways to make the center's doors accessible while keeping the portico covered. Trump has made his career on the idea that there is always a way to cheat the system if you operate in bad faith, and he has carried that idea into the government. Famously. In 2016, when Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton said Trump was hiding his tax returns because he had paid no federal taxes in years, Trump answered, that makes me smart. Now. After voters re elected him in 2024 Trump's handpicked acting attorney General Todd Blanch has agreed that the Department of Justice will not prosecute Trump, his oldest sons, or the Trump Organization for tax evasion. Both system cheating and spectacle were on display in last night's Ultimate Fighting Championship matches on the South Lawn of the White House. Trump got around restrictions on using the White House grounds for such an event by claiming it was in honor of the nation's celebr of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, for which Congress has suspended normal regulations. Then, at 9:30 Friday night, as Aram Roston and Joseph Gideon of the Guardian reported, the UFC issued a press release saying that the cryptocurrency venture World Liberty Financial, which emerged on Wednesday as an official sponsor of the event, would be the presenting partner of a new $250,000 performance of the night bonus pool. World Liberty Financial is the Trump family's cryptocurrency company, overseen by Zach Witkoff, the son of billionaire Steve Witkoff. The elder Witkoff is Trump's special envoy to the Middle east and for peace missions, including to Russia's President Vladimir Putin, apparently at Putin's request. Zach Everson of Public Citizen explained what this arrangement means. In addition to connecting World Liberty Financial directly to the White House, UFC is giving cash to World Liberty Financial World Liberty Financial gives its crypto to the fighters. World Liberty Financial then invests the cash in U.S. treasury bonds and keeps the interest The UFC fight on the White House lawn was also about spectacle and not just about appealing to Trump's base, as fighter Josh Hokut did by echoing a right wing conspiracy theory that smeared former first lady Michelle Obama. MAGA influencers and administration officials hyped the event as representing the United states. But on June 11, Reuters reported that only 16% of Americans thought it was appropriate to hold UFC cage matches at the White House. 46% said it was inappropriate. Even among Republicans, only 31% thought it was appropriate. We are about to see if Trump's focus on cheating the system for his own ends and and distracting from his actions with spectacle will work over something as huge as the Iran war and Americans constitutional rights. Shortly before he appeared at his birthday fight, Trump posted on social media the deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete. Congratulations to all. I hereby fully authorize the toll free opening of the Strait of Hormuz and simultaneously herewith authorize the immediate removal of the United States naval blockade. Ships of the world, start your engines. Let the oil flow. About an hour later he posted. This great deal will bring peace and security to the whole region. Many presidents have tried to make peace with Iran and all have failed before me. The leaders of the region have for the first time found a president who can help them achieve real peace with the opening of the strait. Upon the signing of the deal on Friday for purposes of mine removal, oil will flow on both ends again for the region and the world. It appears that Trump badly wanted to sign an agreement with Iran yesterday on his birthday before taking off today for Europe to attend the G7, an informal forum made up of leading industrialized democracies Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States and including the European Union. Rumors about what was included in negotiations swirled all weekend. While Trump is boasting that the agreement is a triumph, no one has yet seen any terms and the agreement that is scheduled to be signed in Geneva, Switzerland on Friday appears to be a memorandum memorandum of understanding or an mou for a 60 day ceasefire for continued negotiations, not a final agreement. Zach Stanton of msnow notes the ways in which Trump's version of the MOU and what Iranian officials say about it are quite different. Trump says the Strait of Hormuz will be permanently toll free, while Iranian officials say they will regulate the strait along with Oman, Trump is trying to cover over the release of $24 billion in frozen Iranian assets by saying no money will exchange hands. But this morning, Vice President J.D. vance told CBS that in addition to that $24 billion, Iran will also have access to $300 billion in funds for reconstruction. Discussion of Iran's nuclear ambitions will be put off for later. In his remarks about the MOU yesterday, Trump thanked Russia's President Vladimir Putin and China's leader Xi Jinping for their help. In the Atlantic, national security scholar Tom Nichols noted that even without the details, it is clear that Trump has failed to achieve every one of the goals he put forward for this war of choice, and now he is determined to sign, seal and deliver America's capitulation as quickly as possible. Iran's government is intact and now under the control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Strait of Hormuz is under Iran's control. Iran has significant drone and missile stocks, Iran can continue to sponsor terrorism and money will flow to Iran. Nichols points out that Iran leaves the conflict stronger than before. Any claims that Trump managed to limit Iran's nuclear ambitions is silly. Nichols notes. The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was working to limit Iran's nuclear enrichment before Trump tore the agreement up in 2018 and when Trump chose to start bombing in February 2026, Iran was nowhere near getting a bomb. Nichols notes that Trump's declaration that the strait is open is terrific, but such a statement has about as much effect as I or my wife or my cat declaring the strait open. Only Iran can make that decision, he concludes. The war leaves Iran battered but more powerful and with more cash at its disposal, while it leaves America weaker, with important stocks of weapons depleted and with its consumers paying the price for the war at the gas pump. That the terms of the MOU are unlikely to favor the US Showed perhaps even more clearly when Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican of South Carolina who has been a staunch advocate for using even more force against Iran, appeared to tee up, blaming Vance for the terms of the agreement. He also suddenly fell back on the need for Congress to put its stamp on what seems likely to be an inglorious end to a war. Trump and loyalists like Graham have insisted Congress had no role in approving under our law, any nuclear deal with Iran will be sent to Congress for review and a vote, he wrote on social media. I look forward to reviewing the final product, and I believe it is imperative that the architect of the deal, Vice President Vance and his negotiating partners, be part of the process in presenting the final deal to Congress. But Trump will try to sell this as a win after their recent reporting that the Trump administration went into panic mode to cover up the Epstein files last summer, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swann reported in the New York Times today that the Trump administration came much closer to trying to get rid of the writ of habeas corpus than was previously known. That right prevents the government from locking people up arbitrarily. Authorities must charge a prisoner with a crime and take the case into the legal system. The Constitution spells out the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it. Last spring, when the Supreme Court said undocumented immigrants had the right to challenge their deportations, according to Swann and Haberman, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller proposed simply suspending the writ of habeas corpus and throwing them out. Warned away from the idea because of the outcry it would spark, the administration found a way to cheat the system. It changed long standing policy concerning immigrants who had been in the US For a long time. In the past, those caught on the border could be detained without a hearing, while those who had been here for a long time could request to be released on bond. The administration simply treated those who had been here for years as if they had just arrived, throwing them into detention without a bond hearing. Judges have ruled against this new interpretation, but having found a way to cheat the system, the administration is simply ignoring them. As legal commentator Joyce White Vance put it, the question inside Trump's White House wasn't whether they could suspend rights, it was whether they could get away with it. And then there was the idea of using spectacle to sell the Insurrection Act. Haberman and Swann report that Miller, and especially Vice President Vance, pushed the idea of invoking the Insurrection act to put down protests of agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE and Border Patrol. They did so even after federal agents had shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Preddy in Minnesota. According to the reporters, Vance said the use of troops to put down Americans in the streets would be PA painful in the short term, but it would send a message that what he insisted were paid protesters. There is no evidence that either Good or Pretty was a paid protester would never again disrupt ICE operations. While the White House did not invoke the act at the time, the reporters conclude that for the proponents of invoking it, the Insurrection act would remain a loaded weapon in a West Wing eager to test the limits of presidential power. Early this morning, Trump posted on social media on July 4th at the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument in beautiful and safe Washington, D.C. we are going to host the most spectacular Trump rally of them all. A Tribute to America.
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Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dedham, Massachusetts, recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.