The Daily Wrap Up

Donald Trump is celebrating a 22-foot gold statue of himself, which was recently unveiled at the president's own golf course in Doral, Florida.

[Transcript edited for clarity, flow and length]

This morning, National Economic Advisor Kevin Hassett told CNBC’s Joe Kernan that, thanks to Donald’s decision-making, the economy heading into the midterms is looking strong for Republicans. In other words, he lied.

I think that one of the things that’s happening is that the world is changing so fast right now that President Trump has sort of taken every problem on earth and got 100% at fixing it. And I think that that can be stressful for people to see so much change going on. But the bottom line is that in the end, when we look at what happens for elections, that people look at their wallets, they see how they’re doing. The economy’s growing very strong incomes are growing. You and I have talked about Ray Fair for 20 years. Ray Fair of Yale says that GDP in the second quarter is the thing that tells you what’s going to happen in the election. And so I think that right now Republicans should feel very, very good about the trajectory.

Kevin Hassett clearly either does not know or does not want you to know what is actually happening. According to Congressional Budget Office projections, the United States is now spending more on interest on the national debt than it is on national defense. We are already spending close to a trillion dollars on defense, and the CBO’s 2026 outlook shows interest costs continuing to rise beyond that level for the foreseeable future.

Over the weekend, Donald sat down with journalist Cheryl Atkinson and claimed that he has already ended eight wars during his current term. In other words, he lied.

But I ended eight wars and to a point where the woman, a very good woman too, Maria, she received the Nobel Peace Prize and she said, “I received it. The only one that you get it is Donald Trump. I didn’t know her. And it was very nice, very gracious actually. But I ended, think of it. I ended eight wars and we have the greatest economy we’ve ever had. Just as I’m walking into the room, I see the S&P hit a brand new high during a so-called war. I call it a military conflict because it was pretty easy. We have the greatest military in the world. You look at Venezuela, you look at Iran, look at what... We wiped out their Navy in one week, 159 ships at the bottom of the sea. We wiped out their Air Force. We wiped out everything. We wiped out their leaders, I guess, maybe.

He claims he ended eight wars, so what is the logic? That we needed a new one?

What we are in right now is a war. It is not a military excursion or incursion. It is an unconstitutional, illegal war of choice that he chose to engage in against all advice, and one we are losing. The world now sees clearly that the American military is not as dominant as Donald claims.

On Sunday, Donald posted that Iran had presented a peace deal but that it was unacceptable. He offered no details, leaving the public without any understanding of what was rejected or why. By all accounts, the peace process is failing, and the conflict is likely to continue. That is exactly the position Iran benefits from.

At this point, the best possible outcome is a return to pre-war conditions. The Strait of Hormuz remains open, perhaps a nuclear agreement can be revisited, but the lives lost cannot be restored.

This morning, Donald was asked directly about the Iranian proposal.

It was just unacceptable. A lot of people said, “Well, does he have a plan?” Yeah, of course they do. I have the best plan ever. Iran has been defeated militarily totally. They have a little left. They probably built up during this period of time. We’ll knock that out in about a day, but I have a plan. It is a very simple plan. I don’t know why you don’t say it like it is. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.

What is the plan? What specifically was unacceptable? There are no follow-up questions, no accountability, and no clarity.

Meanwhile, NBC News reports that millions of Americans have already lost SNAP benefits under Donald’s policies, including approximately 200,000 children in Arizona alone. The cuts, tied to strict work requirements and documentation rules, have led to significant drops in enrollment and increased reliance on food banks.

Last week, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins openly celebrated these cuts.

Now, the good news, in just one year alone, we’ve already moved four and a half million people off of SNAP. So this idea that once a government program’s in place, you can never roll it back. President Trump has proven that to be wrong with the vice president leading the way. And that’s just the beginning. So we’re going to be pulling more and more people off that shouldn’t be on the program, ensuring that the taxpayers are protected. And frankly, part of this is the dignity of work, right? This is a great American biblical foundational principle that people should work unless they’re very old or disabled or a child.

This framing is misleading. It suggests that people are leaving the program because they are doing better, when in reality many are being removed regardless of their circumstances. The result is predictable: more hunger among the most vulnerable.

At the same time, frustration is growing among Donald’s supporters over the delayed rollout of the T1 smartphone. Hundreds of thousands of people placed deposits despite no confirmed release date, and the company has since clarified that those deposits do not guarantee a device.

This is what one MAGA supporter had to say:

Hey, Trump supporter here. This goes out to Don Junior and Eric. Where is my phones? I ordered three, no four gold Trump phones in the summer told they’re going to be the best. Talked my son into ordering some. We heard they were going to come out in September. Then it was November, then the end of the year. Now we cannot get any updates. Hundreds of thousands of people put down deposits. Give me my phones or give me my money back.

That is fraud. That is a grift.

Meanwhile, a group of evangelical figures gathered at Trump National Doral for a ceremony centered around a massive gold statue of Donald. During the event, Donald called in to thank attendees.

This is what Donald had to say:

Hello, everybody. I want to thank you so much for being there today and more importantly for what you did. The statue is beautiful. I saw it during the weekend. It is incredible. I just want to thank you. I know it was done from love. I want to thank everybody there. The country is doing great and Iran is not doing good because of us.

Pastor Mark Burns later defended the statue.

It represents the miracle of God. That’s what it represents, not the statue itself. We all know this is not some idol. People are quoting scripture about false gods, and I am glad they are. I hope they take it to heart.

And yet the contradiction is obvious. The very scriptures being cited explicitly warn against exactly this kind of display.

This is not about faith. It is about manipulation. It is about using religion to elevate Donald beyond accountability and beyond criticism.

Finally, there is the matter of the reflecting pool, where a no-bid contract was awarded to a personal associate, bringing the cost to more than $13 million, far exceeding initial estimates.

So when we talk about fraud, when we talk about corruption, when we talk about grift, we do not need to look anywhere else. It is all happening right there, out in the open, exactly where it has been all along.