# Trump’s Protestations

An episode of [Letters from an American](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1730358737), 9 Aug 2026, 15 min.

Audio: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/210412822/de9d31312e352513180853763fe1867a.mp3

August 7, 2026 Reports indicate a serious shortage of US long range missiles, Trump denies this story but reportedly is frustrated with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth who in turn blames Depute Secretary of Defense Stephen Feinberg, Replenishing the munitions stockpiles will take yeras and cost billions of dollars, Numbers released by the Department of Labor show that the economy shed jobs in July and the jobs numbers from May and June have been revised down, Republicans are focusing on Dr Anthony Fauci, and voted to hold him in contempt of Congress, Trump continues to insist that vandals, not a poor installation, caused the damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, A three judge panel of the US Court of Appeals ruled that Trump cannot build his ballroom without congressional approval, Trump has protested and plans to appeal to the Supreme Court, Voters are even more concerned about inflation and prices than they were six months ago. Watch today's recording here: https://www.youtube.com/live/g9TUa1Rwd6U?si=T8_KKcHQZElhpnZ- Get full, free access to Letters from an American here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe You can also find me: Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/hcrichardson.bsky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heathercoxrichardson/?hl=en Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heathercoxrichardson/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@heathercoxrichardson Get full access to Letters from an American at heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe

## Transcript

[0:00] \[music\]
[0:07] SPEAKER_01: August 7, 2026.
[0:10] SPEAKER_01: On Tuesday,
[0:11] SPEAKER_01: August 4,
[0:12] SPEAKER_01: Aaron Banco,
[0:13] SPEAKER_01: Mike Stone,
[0:14] SPEAKER_01: and Jonathan Landay of Reuters reported that the U.S.
[0:17] SPEAKER_01: has used virtually all of its highly accurate long-range missiles
[0:22] SPEAKER_01: that can strike accurately from a safe distance.
[0:26] SPEAKER_01: Sources told the journalists that
[0:27] SPEAKER_01: the dwindling missile supplies could make it more difficult for the U.S.
[0:31] SPEAKER_01: to deter Russia and China.
[0:34] SPEAKER_01: The journalists reported that the shortages contributed to President Donald J.
[0:39] SPEAKER_01: Trump's decision not to resume massive strikes against Iran.
[0:45] SPEAKER_01: At 1234 on Thursday morning,
[0:48] SPEAKER_01: Trump denied the story,
[0:49] SPEAKER_01: posting that the U.S. has massive amounts of munitions, especially of certain types.
[0:56] SPEAKER_01: Additionally, large amounts are being manufactured and shipped to the U.S. as needed.
[1:02] SPEAKER_01: Defense companies are building the largest number of plants and factories
[1:06] SPEAKER_01: in our country's history.
[1:08] SPEAKER_01: The leakers of these treasonous statements are being hunted down.
[1:13] SPEAKER_01: Long-term jail sentences will be sought.
[1:18] SPEAKER_01: Despite Trump's protestations,
[1:20] SPEAKER_01: Tara Kopp,
[1:21] SPEAKER_01: Natalie Allison,
[1:23] SPEAKER_01: and Noah Robertson of the Washington Post reported yesterday morning
[1:27] SPEAKER_01: that Trump exploded at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the issue.
[1:33] SPEAKER_01: Sources told the journalists that at the cabinet meeting Trump held
[1:36] SPEAKER_01: at Camp David last Friday,
[1:38] SPEAKER_01: Trump appeared to confront Hegseth with his concern that he had been misled
[1:43] SPEAKER_01: about weapon shortages.
[1:45] SPEAKER_01: The journalists reported that Trump is increasingly frustrated with Hegseth,
[1:50] SPEAKER_01: who was enthusiastic about striking Iran and helped to convince Trump it would be
[1:55] SPEAKER_01: a quick victory.
[1:58] SPEAKER_01: Hegseth allegedly responded by blaming Deputy Secretary of Defense Steven Feinberg,
[2:05] SPEAKER_01: the private equity billionaire who is pushing Congress to pass
[2:09] SPEAKER_01: a $1.5 trillion military budget,
[2:13] SPEAKER_01: while at the same time he is overseeing the newly created Economic Defense Unit,
[2:18] SPEAKER_01: or EDU, in the Defense Department.
[2:22] SPEAKER_01: The EDU is directing government investment in private sector defense contractors
[2:28] SPEAKER_01: and has cut deals for the government to start taking equity stakes
[2:32] SPEAKER_01: in those businesses.
[2:35] SPEAKER_01: Yesterday,
[2:36] SPEAKER_01: Alexander Ward,
[2:37] SPEAKER_01: Josh Dossey,
[2:38] SPEAKER_01: Laura Seligman,
[2:40] SPEAKER_01: and Meredith McGraw of the Wall Street Journal reported
[2:44] SPEAKER_01: that Trump has ordered investigations into who has been leaking information about
[2:48] SPEAKER_01: the weapon shortages,
[2:50] SPEAKER_01: and that Trump called Feinberg to talk about speeding up production.
[2:55] SPEAKER_01: Hegseth joined the call.
[2:57] SPEAKER_01: The journalists also reported that Vice President J.D.
[3:01] SPEAKER_01: Vance talked to Republican senators on Thursday to defend
[3:05] SPEAKER_01: the administration's handling of the war on Iran.
[3:10] SPEAKER_01: Also yesterday,
[3:11] SPEAKER_01: Seligman and Yoko Kubota of the Wall Street Journal reported that U.S.
[3:16] SPEAKER_01: intelligence assesses that the depletion of U.S.
[3:20] SPEAKER_01: munitions has made it more likely that Russia will try to fracture
[3:25] SPEAKER_01: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization,
[3:27] SPEAKER_01: or NATO, alliance in the next few years by attacking a NATO nation.
[3:35] SPEAKER_01: Global Affairs columnist David Rothkopf wrote today in the Daily Beast
[3:40] SPEAKER_01: that replenishing the munitions stockpiles Hegseth
[3:43] SPEAKER_01: and Trump have depleted will take years and will cost hundreds of billions
[3:49] SPEAKER_01: of dollars.
[3:51] SPEAKER_01: Rothkopf reports that experts in the military and former employees of
[3:56] SPEAKER_01: the Defense Department consider Hegseth's record To be the most egregious example
[4:02] SPEAKER_01: of defense management malpractice in our history.
[4:06] SPEAKER_01: And, Rothkopf wrote,
[4:08] SPEAKER_01: that's saying something since this is the country that gave us the Vietnam War,
[4:12] SPEAKER_01: the Iraq War,
[4:14] SPEAKER_01: the Afghanistan War,
[4:16] SPEAKER_01: blank check support for Israeli genocide in Gaza,
[4:19] SPEAKER_01: and drunken sailor levels of defense spending that have actually weakened us while,
[4:25] SPEAKER_01: in so doing, strengthening our rivals worldwide.
[4:31] SPEAKER_01: Numbers released by the Department of Labor this morning show that the U.S.
[4:35] SPEAKER_01: economy shed 23,000 positions in July,
[4:39] SPEAKER_01: a significant drop from the 83,000 new jobs economists had predicted.
[4:46] SPEAKER_01: The department also revised the jobs numbers from May and June down by more than 100,000 jobs.
[4:54] SPEAKER_01: That's a big kick in the guts, economist Justin Wolfers wrote.
[4:59] SPEAKER_01: Over the past three months,
[5:00] SPEAKER_01: the U.S. economy created about 200,000 fewer jobs than we had thought.
[5:07] SPEAKER_01: Revised down your views substantially, he added.
[5:12] SPEAKER_01: The unemployment rate fell to 4.1% as nearly a million people stopped looking
[5:18] SPEAKER_01: for work over the past two months.
[5:21] SPEAKER_01: Carl Kitnia of CNBC noted Schwab's observation that
[5:26] SPEAKER_01: the labor force participation rate has given up all gains since February 2021.
[5:34] SPEAKER_01: According to the National Women's Law Center,
[5:37] SPEAKER_01: women make up the vast majority of the labor force decline.
[5:43] SPEAKER_01: Republican senators have responded to the crisis in national security and
[5:47] SPEAKER_01: the slowing economy By voting to hold Dr.
[5:51] SPEAKER_01: Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress for invoking his Fifth Amendment right
[5:56] SPEAKER_01: to remain silent in a Senate Homeland Security
[5:59] SPEAKER_01: and Government Oversight Committee hearing on July 29th.
[6:03] SPEAKER_01: As the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
[6:08] SPEAKER_01: at the National Institutes of Health,
[6:11] SPEAKER_01: Fauci was part of Trump's coronavirus task force.
[6:15] SPEAKER_01: As Chris Iorfida of CBC News notes,
[6:19] SPEAKER_01: Senator Rand Paul,
[6:21] SPEAKER_01: a Republican of Kentucky,
[6:22] SPEAKER_01: has helped to lead those who blame Fauci for the origins of COVID,
[6:27] SPEAKER_01: for masking protocols and shutting down churches and schools,
[6:31] SPEAKER_01: and of exaggerating death tolls, attacking him to whip up their base.
[6:37] SPEAKER_01: Paul has said repeatedly he would like to see Fauci behind bars.
[6:42] SPEAKER_01: Before he left office,
[6:43] SPEAKER_01: former President Joe Biden issued a preemptive pardon for Fauci
[6:48] SPEAKER_01: to prevent MAGA Republicans from vindictive prosecution.
[6:53] SPEAKER_01: Although Fauci has testified before Congress more than 200 times,
[6:58] SPEAKER_01: including more than 20 times about COVID,
[7:01] SPEAKER_01: he took the fifth when Paul pulled him in front of the committee,
[7:04] SPEAKER_01: the Kentucky Senator Chairs, last week.
[7:07] SPEAKER_01: The day before Fauci's testimony,
[7:10] SPEAKER_01: Paul posted on social media,
[7:12] SPEAKER_01: If Anthony Fauci comes before my committee tomorrow and perjures himself,
[7:17] SPEAKER_01: his preemptive pardon from Joe Biden will not protect him.
[7:22] SPEAKER_01: In a statement before testifying,
[7:24] SPEAKER_01: Fauci said,
[7:26] SPEAKER_01: Given Paul's obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution,
[7:31] SPEAKER_01: his repeated slanderous comments about me,
[7:34] SPEAKER_01: And recently,
[7:35] SPEAKER_01: his publicity releasing my unredacted personal diary aimed at embarrassing
[7:40] SPEAKER_01: and intimidating me.
[7:42] SPEAKER_01: The only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me
[7:46] SPEAKER_01: before this committee is to get me to say something,
[7:50] SPEAKER_01: anything,
[7:51] SPEAKER_01: that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up,
[7:56] SPEAKER_01: in his words, behind bars.
[8:00] SPEAKER_01: And so, Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment rights more than a hundred times
[8:05] SPEAKER_01: as Republican senators taunted and berated him.
[8:09] SPEAKER_01: On Thursday,
[8:10] SPEAKER_01: Paul led the Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security Committee to hold Fauci
[8:15] SPEAKER_01: in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a federal subpoena by refusing
[8:21] SPEAKER_01: to answer their questions.
[8:23] SPEAKER_01: All Democrats voted no.
[8:26] SPEAKER_01: Normally,
[8:27] SPEAKER_01: a contempt vote would then go to the full Senate,
[8:30] SPEAKER_01: where it would need 60 votes,
[8:32] SPEAKER_01: but Paul likely knows that there are not 60 senators willing to agree to
[8:36] SPEAKER_01: the measure.
[8:38] SPEAKER_01: So, as Sabrina Siddiqui and Sadie Gurman of the Wall Street Journal report,
[8:43] SPEAKER_01: he is bypassing the Senate and asking Vice President J.D.
[8:47] SPEAKER_01: Vance to certify the report and refer it directly to the U.S.
[8:51] SPEAKER_01: Attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro.
[8:56] SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile,
[8:56] SPEAKER_01: Trump continues to insist that vandals,
[8:59] SPEAKER_01: not a poor installation,
[9:01] SPEAKER_01: caused the damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and to demand
[9:05] SPEAKER_01: that Pirro prosecute the wrongdoers.
[9:09] SPEAKER_01: He continues to insist that Olympian David Hearn,
[9:13] SPEAKER_01: whom the Department of Justice indicted for the damage,
[9:16] SPEAKER_01: be prosecuted,
[9:17] SPEAKER_01: despite Pirro's move to drop the indictment,
[9:20] SPEAKER_01: claiming the problems came from the installation itself.
[9:25] SPEAKER_01: U.S. Attorney Janine Pirro should revisit her hastily made decision,
[9:30] SPEAKER_01: especially since it turned out that the gentleman involved is a big player
[9:34] SPEAKER_01: in Act Blue,
[9:36] SPEAKER_01: a disgraceful fundraising scam,
[9:38] SPEAKER_01: and is represented by a Trump-deranged,
[9:41] SPEAKER_01: sleazebag,
[9:43] SPEAKER_01: political hack lawyer, Norm Eisen, the President of the United States, posted.
[9:51] SPEAKER_01: Trump was perhaps even more incensed by today's ruling by a three-judge panel of
[9:56] SPEAKER_01: the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
[10:00] SPEAKER_01: Two of the three judges upheld a lower court's decision
[10:04] SPEAKER_01: that Trump cannot build his ballroom without congressional approval.
[10:09] SPEAKER_01: Each president is a temporary tenant,
[10:12] SPEAKER_01: not the owner of the White House and its executive residence.
[10:16] SPEAKER_01: The president has no and claims no constitutionally assigned authority over
[10:23] SPEAKER_01: that property,
[10:24] SPEAKER_01: which is designed and maintained for the use of all presidents,
[10:29] SPEAKER_01: current and future, and for the American people, the court wrote.
[10:34] SPEAKER_01: We are aware of no instance in American history in which a president unilaterally
[10:41] SPEAKER_01: and using privately collected funds demolished substantial portions of
[10:46] SPEAKER_01: the White House that Congress authorized to be built and American taxpayers paid
[10:51] SPEAKER_01: for.
[10:53] SPEAKER_01: Until now.
[10:55] SPEAKER_01: They noted that Trump tore down the east wing of the White House with no review
[10:59] SPEAKER_01: and no advance notice and quoted the district court's finding that
[11:04] SPEAKER_01: the government's concerns regarding the safety and security of the White House are
[11:09] SPEAKER_01: a problem of the president's own making.
[11:14] SPEAKER_01: A Judge Trump-appointed dissented,
[11:16] SPEAKER_01: saying the ballroom likely falls under the president's authority
[11:19] SPEAKER_01: to make improvements to the executive residents for security purposes.
[11:25] SPEAKER_01: The court stated its decision in order to enable Trump to appeal to
[11:29] SPEAKER_01: the Supreme Court, which he said he will do.
[11:32] SPEAKER_01: On social media,
[11:33] SPEAKER_01: he posted,
[11:34] SPEAKER_01: The military and Secret Service are viewing this horrendous,
[11:39] SPEAKER_01: politically motivated,
[11:40] SPEAKER_01: and unlawful ruling as a national security threat to our nation,
[11:45] SPEAKER_01: in that the entire complex is being built for the protection of our country,
[11:50] SPEAKER_01: and additionally, all future presidents.
[11:54] SPEAKER_01: He added that the desperately needed and totally secure ballroom,
[11:59] SPEAKER_01: which is being built ahead of schedule and under budget,
[12:02] SPEAKER_01: is a gift from President Trump and great patriots of the United States of America.
[12:08] SPEAKER_01: There will be no expense to the American taxpayer.
[12:12] SPEAKER_01: In fact,
[12:13] SPEAKER_01: as Sarah Blaske and Jonathan O'Connell reported in the Washington Post in June,
[12:18] SPEAKER_01: officials from the federal government have already committed taxpayer money for more
[12:23] SPEAKER_01: than half of the cost of the ballroom.
[12:27] SPEAKER_01: Later, Trump posted again,
[12:29] SPEAKER_01: saying of presidents,
[12:30] SPEAKER_01: we are not tenants who pay rent and do all other things that a tenant must do.
[12:35] SPEAKER_01: We are presidents elected by the people of the United States of America
[12:40] SPEAKER_01: and have many rights,
[12:41] SPEAKER_01: including the right to fix,
[12:43] SPEAKER_01: renovate, secure, protect, and beautify the White House grounds.
[12:50] SPEAKER_01: Then he posted AI images of himself with famous World War II era generals George S.
[12:56] SPEAKER_01: Patton and Douglas MacArthur.
[12:59] SPEAKER_01: Two images with the caption Trump 2028, one saying just kidding and the other without comment.
[13:07] SPEAKER_01: Two images suggesting the roof of the ballroom would have the great
[13:11] SPEAKER_01: and very important military asset of a drone port.
[13:16] SPEAKER_01: Two images claiming to show vandalism at the reflecting pool,
[13:21] SPEAKER_01: an article claiming he had won the Iran war,
[13:23] SPEAKER_01: and an image making fun of Biden for allegedly having a poor golf handicap.
[13:32] SPEAKER_01: At polling website 50plus1 today,
[13:35] SPEAKER_01: Cooper Burton and Mary Radcliffe noted that voters are even more concerned
[13:40] SPEAKER_01: about inflation and prices now than they were in 2024, by a significant margin.
[13:55] SPEAKER_01: In October 2024, 24% of Americans identified inflation as the nation's most important issue.
[14:05] SPEAKER_01: In a poll released this week, those numbers had jumped to 36%.
[14:16] SPEAKER_00: Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson.
[14:21] SPEAKER_00: It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dedham, Massachusetts.
[14:25] SPEAKER_00: Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.

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