At 9:36 this morning, the President of the United States was briefly seen leaving the White House as his vehicle raced by, en route to an undisclosed location. Thirty-four minutes later, at 10:10 a.m., the mystery was solved as his motorcade pulled into Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia. The next time he was seen by the press pool wasn’t until 3:20 that afternoon, as he made his way back to the White House.
Late that evening, after the press were released and most of the White House staff had gone home for the night, Donald Trump was still awake, posting on social media. Before finally calling it a night, he shared three final posts. None of them were something any leader of any country should be posting, let alone the President of the United States. In less than two minutes, he posted three times, two posts celebrating bombs dropping in the Middle East, and one post, seconds later, a video of himself golfing.
It started at exactly 10:18 p.m., when he made an announcement to the world that read: “Kharg Island being blown to smithereens!!! President DJT.”
One minute later, at 10:19 p.m., he shared a 9-second, violent and cartoonish video showing the Kharg Island oil refinery complex being bombed and engulfed in flames, black smoke rising into the sky as critical infrastructure burned. Seconds later, he posted another video. This one lasted just three seconds. It showed Donald Trump on a golf course, teeing off beneath an overcast sky on bright green grass.
Kharg Island is responsible for roughly 90 percent of Iran’s crude oil exports. If this facility were actually “being blown to smithereens” tonight, it would represent the single largest escalation of the six-month war with Iran and would be breaking news.
Here is what actually happened today. Earlier on Sunday, U.S. forces struck Iranian rocket launchers on Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz. Not Kharg Island. Larak Island. It was the first American military action against Iran in more than a month, breaking a lull that had held since August 1, when Trump said he would pause strikes at the urging of Gulf allies. According to CENTCOM spokesperson Tim Hawkins, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps forces had been observed preparing to launch rockets loaded with sea mines into the strait. The U.S. military had just finished clearing those mines from the international shipping lanes only last week. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard confirmed casualties on Larak Island, saying there had been “martyrdom and injury of several of our fighters and compatriots.”
Then Iran retaliated. The IRGC launched ballistic missiles and drone strikes targeting two American air bases in Jordan. Iranian state television broadcast footage of the missiles being launched. As of this writing, the missiles aimed at Jordan have reportedly been intercepted, with no confirmed impacts. But that does not mean American forces are out of danger. American service members are stationed at those bases tonight, and they remain in harm’s way.
While all of that was unfolding, and American troops were bracing for incoming missiles in Jordan, their commander in chief posted a fake video of the wrong island on fire and then posted a video of himself enjoying a relaxing day on the golf course.
As devastating as all of that is, it wasn’t the only dangerous thing Donald Trump did today. Earlier, he wasn’t focused on missiles and destruction overseas. He was focused on attacking something much closer, our press. It started with what he posted at 8:46 this morning.
“THE FAKE POLLS USED BY OUR CROOKED MEDIA ARE OUT OF CONTROL, AND SOMETHING MUST BE DONE ABOUT IT. FCC TO THE RESCUE! President DJT.”
Fourteen minutes later, at 9:00 a.m., he followed that with a longer, more targeted attack on Kristen Welker, the host of NBC’s Meet the Press. He called her the “Unpopular ‘Hostess’” of the show. He accused her of “purposeful inaccuracy.” Then he wrote something that we all need to take seriously, not just because of its historical parallels, but because we are at a very dangerous moment in our own history. We have a president who is teetering on losing the unchecked power he has grown to depend on: “Because of this purposeful inaccuracy, she will be reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment. Unfortunately, she is not the only one.”
“She is not the only one.” is the President of the United States telling every reporter in this country that telling the truth now comes with the threat of federal consequences. That is a warning shot aimed at the entire press corps, newsrooms, independent journalists, local newspapers, writers, content creators, and every single person using their voice to tell the truth.
The “purposeful inaccuracy” that warranted federal punishment was that Welker described Trump’s endorsement record in the 2026 primaries as producing “mixed results.” That phrase is backed up by NBC’s own reporting, which noted that six Trump-backed candidates for the House and governor lost their primaries earlier this month. CNN described the results the same way. So did Newsweek. “Mixed results” is not inaccurate or controversial. It was basic reporting. It was a journalist doing their job. NBC responded: “Kristen is one of the best in the business and we stand by her.”
If you have been reading my posts every night, you know this is not an isolated attack. This is a pattern, and it is accelerating. It is also one of my greatest concerns for this country. Without a free press, we are at far greater risk of an authoritarian takeover because truth is replaced by propaganda, accountability disappears, and the public loses its ability to distinguish one from the other. So much of our future depends on journalists being able to report the truth without fear, and every attack takes us one step closer to self-censorship. This is one of the main reasons so many of us lose sleep at night, and also something that not nearly enough people even know is happening.
In September 2025, after Disney pulled Jimmy Kimmel off the air under pressure, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that the FCC could revoke broadcast licenses of networks with hosts “against me.” Two weeks ago, Disney and ABC filed a lawsuit against the FCC, arguing that the agency’s decision to review ABC’s broadcast licenses ahead of schedule amounted to a direct attack on the First Amendment. And the language in that lawsuit tells us exactly where we are in this moment. Disney’s attorneys wrote that the campaign is “calculated to operate in terrorem upon the rest of the industry.” In terrorem. Latin for “as a warning.” ABC is the visible target. But the message is addressed to every broadcaster in the country. The ultimate cost, they wrote, “is borne by the press as a whole.”
FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, the sole Democrat remaining on the commission, has tried to hold the line, saying, “Once again, this FCC pretends it has the power to control news coverage. In reality, the FCC has vanishingly little power over national news networks.” And she is right. The FCC licenses local broadcast stations, not networks. No licenses are even up for renewal until 2028. But the reality is that it does not matter whether the FCC actually has the legal authority to do what Trump is demanding. What matters is that the President of the United States is telling the country that it does. The threat itself is the weapon. You do not have to follow through on every threat to silence a free press. You just have to make enough of them that reporters start doing the math in their heads before they report the truth. Once that math starts, the truth does not disappear with a dramatic act of censorship. It disappears quietly, one story at a time, as journalists decide the safer path is silence.
This is how fascism spreads, by turning our own institutions against us. It doesn’t take soldiers in the streets or buildings on fire. It happens when regulatory agencies are turned into enforcement arms and federal commissions are weaponized against the truth. It happens when a man with the full power of the presidency tells a journalist she will be “reported for rebuke or punishment” because she stated a fact he did not like, and then warns every other journalist in the country that they could be next.
There is another part of this story that also needs to be told. Trump’s threat tells us something about him, but it also tells us something about the people who still believe they can stay in the regime’s good graces.
Five weeks ago, on July 24, at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Kristen Welker was filmed laughing and chatting with Stephen Miller, Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff, who is also compared to a less capable Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propagandist. The clip spread across social media, and the backlash was immediate. Nicolle Wallace, without naming Welker directly, criticized journalists at the dinner who were “cozying up” to members of the administration and applauding the president. She called it a “jarring image.”
Welker did what so many people in Washington still believe will protect them. She went to the dinner. She smiled at the right people. She laughed with the right people. She played the access game, the one where you stay close to power and hope that proximity buys you safety. Five weeks later, the President of the United States threatened to use a federal agency against her. It didn’t protect her. It never does with people like Trump.
That’s the lesson every journalist, CEO, Republican member of Congress, and really every powerful person who believes they can stay in the regime’s good graces needs to understand. It won’t protect them. The Vichy collaborators in France thought cooperation would spare them. It didn’t. German industrialists who funded Hitler believed they could control him. They couldn’t. Soviet officials praised Stalin in public, toasted him at state dinners, and still ended up in the gulags. The pattern is always the same. The people who choose to enable these evil strongmen are rarely spared. They are simply among the last to be devoured.
That wasn’t the only disturbing thing we learned today. The Washington Post also reported that the Pentagon has been secretly installing conservative military veterans with massive online followings into government roles. They have been given official government email addresses as though they are Pentagon employees. Their assignments have not been disclosed. And they are being deployed to amplify Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s agenda while attacking anyone who scrutinizes the administration.
These are not anonymous social media trolls. Rob Maness is a retired Air Force colonel with more than 135,000 followers who called for the removal of “disloyal” Pentagon employees. Kurt Schlichter is a retired Army colonel with nearly 620,000 followers who praised Trump as a “hero” for confronting Iran. Thomas Anderson, who writes under the pen name Cynical Publius, has more than 323,000 followers and wrote in April that there was “a cancer in America’s military ranks” that “must be expunged.” Pentagon spokesman Joel Valdez declined to say whether any of them are drawing taxpayer-funded salaries or what their exact roles are.
Every single story we learned about today reached us because a journalist reported it. Without a free press, we can’t have a free country. Without reporters willing to do their jobs in the face of federal threats, silence doesn’t just protect Trump from bad headlines. It protects him from accountability for everything. When this is all said and done, and I still believe it will be, I won’t think about Trump. He’ll be a distant memory. His name will be remembered alongside every other strongman who believed he could outlast history. He is not who I’ll think about.
I’ll think about our cowardly Congress. Our cowardly Supreme Court. The people who enabled him. The ones who had the power to stand up for their country and chose not to. They are the people I thought about when I saw everything he posted today.
But more importantly, I’ll think about the brave ones. The truth tellers. The people who kept showing up every single day, even when the threats came, when the comments were vicious, and when the hate was loud. The ones who refused to be intimidated into silence. I’ll think about the people who protested, went to rallies, knocked on doors, and never stopped talking about what was happening and what had to change. The ones who dedicated their lives to making sure this never happens again. That’s how this time will be remembered.
Like I do every single time Donald Trump attacks the free press, I am asking you to join me in what I call my economic protest. You have supported me so generously, and I need you to know how much that means to me. Your paid memberships have made it possible for me to write these posts every single day without ever putting them behind a paywall. I never want the truth to be available only to those who can afford it. You are the reason everyone else can read these posts for free. Thank you.
Tonight, like I have done countless times before, I’m asking you to think beyond me. Think about the other people doing this work day in and day out, often at great personal risk. Think about the other journalists, writers, and independent voices you trust, the ones who have never stopped and never will. The ones showing up every single day to tell the truth, even while the President of the United States threatens to use federal agencies to punish them for doing so. If they offer a paid membership, please consider joining. Let’s make sure they are financially prepared for whatever comes next.
Because in this moment, with a president actively trying to silence the free press and replace it with propaganda, one of the most powerful things we can do is make sure the truth remains available to every person who needs it.
The week ahead will be long and tumultuous. The House returns tomorrow. Nine weeks from now, we vote, and even more importantly, we send a message to the president and his enablers that their time is up, that this is our country, and that we are taking it back. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.
I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather
PS. You can make a significant difference right now by subscribing to my Substack. Your support helps me cover more ground and keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in this country.
This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.
Picture of the Day: I’m still getting photo communications from my older daughters, and I thought this one was really fun. I heard it tasted as good as it looked!
Sources used in the writing of this post:
https://rollcall.com/factbase/trump/calendar/
https://rollcall.com/factbase/trump/calendar/
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/08/30/politics/us-iran-strikes-larak-island
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/30/us-iran-strikes-strait-hormuz.html
https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/18/media/disney-abc-fcc-trump-lawsuit-the-view-retaliatory
Thank you Heather.
There’s a classic English proverb: "He who sups with the devil should have a long spoon" Now this dates back at least to the 14th century and appears in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Squire's Tale as well as Shakespeare's plays.
It’s been modernized to -
“You cannot invite the devil to dinner and get mad when he overstays his welcome"
So the White House Correspondents Dinner invited who to a dinner? Maybe really rethink this event through … Journalist’s thinking the rules are not changing, the goal posts moving continually. Who in the MSM has stood up to him when he called any female journalist “Piggy” or him telling a journalist to “Be Quiet”? Hear the sound of crickets.. The MSM gave him money versus going to court and fighting..
What you tolerate today, you accept tomorrow. What you then accept today, you embrace tomorrow. — The free press has embraced what they shouldn’t have tolerated from Day 1.
Adolf Hitler eliminated the free press with astonishing speed. just four weeks after Hitler became chancellor, the regime issued the Reichstag Fire Decree. By March 9, 1933, the last major opposition newspapers, such as the Munich Post, were permanently banned. Paramilitaries raided their offices, destroyed printing presses, and sent editors to early concentration camps. — “Less than One Month”
Benito Mussolini took a more gradual, bureaucratic approach to entrenching his power. After the March on Rome in October 1922, opposition newspapers initially continued to publish, though they faced frequent physical attacks and intimidation by Fascist squads (Blackshirts). By July 1925, Mussolini introduced sweeping new laws that formally outlawed anti-fascist publications and required all articles to be pre-approved by the government.
In December 1925, the regime passed a law forcing all practicing journalists to register officially with the Fascist Party, completing the total co-optation of the press exactly three years after taking office. — “Total Three Years”
Feel free to read how Mussolini repressed Jews in Italy, political opposition, to repress anti-fascism (Antifa), implement censorship, loss of privacy (Flock cameras), etc. may sound very familiar to our current times.
https://www.historyfromonestudenttoanother.com/a-level/a-level-european-history-1919-41/mussolinis-italy-1919-41/repression-in-fascist-italy
The weight of changing anything is on each of our shoulders. We are tired, dog tired in fact we are probably tired of being tired. Know I am. Yet, we all do what we need to do to move forward.
Have said it’s going to be a bumpy road, it’s going to get bumpier because while those Congressional people have been on vacation.
The House of Representatives has been on recess for about 5.5 weeks, since July 24, 2026.
The Senate has been away for roughly 3.5 weeks, since August 7, 2026.
Want to start a list as to what Mango Mussolini has done in 3.5 to 5.5 weeks?
— VOTE
Xi jinping the communist ruler in China regularly “disappears “ his dissenters.
The latest was his top military general and his best friend from school days.
No one is safe from a dictator.
Not only is Pete Hegseth packing the white house with Fawning military men but he also thinks he could stand for president in 2028
Trump needs to go but 100% but so does completely incompetent Pete and his new bodyguard !