TRADE WAR: President Trump’s steep tariffs on goods imported from about 90 countries went into effect at midnight. Trump says he’s trying to rebalance international trade and bring manufacturing back to the US. 

  He’s also crowing about how much money he’s bringing to the treasury. “We’re taking in hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs,” Trump said. The estimate so far is about $150 billion.

  The trouble is that the tariffs are passed along to importers and the ultimate customers. Prices of anything imported …  from coffee and bananas to toys … will increase, maybe not immediately, but they will.

THE WAR ROOM: President Trump plans to meet in person as soon as next week with Russian President Vladimir Putin and follow that with a separate meeting between himself, Putin, and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, The NY Times reports. 

  Trump told European leaders about his plans. Asked by a reporter if Russia and Ukraine had agreed to the summit, Trump said, “There’s a very good prospect that they will.”

  Putin later said he would agree to the meeting.

  In Trump world, don’t believe words, only actions. Trump issued a glowing report about his special envoy’s talk with Putin, who speaks to negotiators but does not end his war on Ukraine. “My Special Envoy, Steve Witkoff, just had a highly productive meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social feed. “Great progress was made!”

  Great progress would be an end to the war.

DINNER DANCE: CNN was reporting all day yesterday that Vice President JD Vance had been planning a dinner for last night at his residence for major parties in the Trump administration to talk about handling the Jeffrey Epstein criminal files. Included would have been Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel who have been at odds regarding opening the books on the sex trafficker who hanged himself in jail in 2019.  

  The network later reported that the dinner plans were “in flux” and that the event had been moved or rescheduled after it was publicly reported. But that wasn’t the headline … it was what President Trump said about it.

 Asked about the dinner during an appearance in the Oval Office, Vance said, “It’s completely fake news” and that  “I think the reporter that reported it needs to get better sources.

  President Trump at first said he didn’t know anything about the dinner plans but later went on to say; “Look, the whole thing is a hoax. It’s put out by the Democrats because we’ve had the most successful six months in the history of our country and that’s just a way of trying to divert attention to something that’s total bullshit.”

  One of the “Democrats” diverting attention from Trump’s greatness is South Carolina Republican Rep. Nancy Mace who has been pushing for release of the Epstein files.

  Another of those “Democrats” is Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene … also a Republican … who has warned Trump that he’s in danger of fracturing his base if the administration is not more transparent with the Epstein files.

REGIME NEWS:

— Apple CEO Tim Cook appeared in the Oval Office with President Trump yesterday to say the company will increase its US investment by $100 billion. Apple is bringing more of its supply and manufacturing to the US to avoid the tariff wrath of Trump.

— President Trump threatened yesterday to impose a 100 percent tariff on foreign-made semiconductors, exempting companies that make a commitment to invest and build in the US.

— Trump signed an order yesterday to place 50 percent tariffs on imports from India as of August  27th if India continues to buy oil from Russia.

— Trump yesterday claimed that retail costs are down for Americans. “Gasoline is down, it’s gonna’ be soon, I believe, less than two dollars a gallon.” He said, eggs are down, everything’s down.”

  There are actually some areas of the country where gasoline is in the low to mid two dollar range, but not below, according to the website Gasbuddy.com.

   The average price of eggs has been dropping, down to an average of $3.77 in June. It was $6.22 in March.

THE SHOOTING GALLERY: A 28-year-old sergeant at Fort Stewart, Georgia is being held after a shooting on base in which five fellow soldiers were wounded.

  Quornelius Radford, a soldier in the 3^rd Infantry Division, is reported to have used a personally-owned gun.

  Early reports say that the shooter had a dispute with one of the victims the day before, but the motive is unknown. The Army says Radford was stopped by fellow soldiers who were unarmed.  

THE NEWSBEAT: Former Boston television anchor Kate Merrill is suing her former station, WBZ, as well as parent companies CBS and Paramount, charging that she was the victim of employment discrimination because she was white.  

  Merrill filed her lawsuit in federal court this week, also charging two former colleagues. In May of 2024 she had been demoted from her position as a weekday morning anchor and transferred to weekend nights after she had been accused of “microaggressions” against two newly-hired Black employees.

  Merrill worked at WBZ for 20 years. The lawsuit says that none of her actions “were described or motivated by overt racism or unconscious bias” and that her demotion was “career ending.”

THE OBIT PAGE: Latin music star Eddie Palmieri, who reigned in the golden age of salsa and Afro-Caribbean music in New York City, died at his home in Hackensack, NJ at 88.

THE SPIN RACK: Smoothie King and Heinz have collaborated to make a Ketchup-based smoothie.

BELOW THE FOLD: As pets become too expensive in an increasingly pricey world, the Aalborg Zoo in Denmark asked people to donate their unwanted pets … not for display … but to be fed to their captive predators. The museum says that in particular “chickens, rabbits and guinea pigs” would make good dinner for the European lynx. 

  Sorry fluffy.