☕️ BIGGER ONES ☙ Thursday, August 7, 2025 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

DOGE hero bloodied but unbowed; CNN admits Trump’s presidency is historic; tariffs hit 90+ nations; markets surge; Main Street cheers; and Europe’s war games blow up in their wallets.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Thursday! Your roundup today includes: DOGE heavyweight battered but not broken defending his lady from a gang of DC thugs, and how do you suppose corporate media is covering the story?; CNN joins the C&C Army in recognizing the historicity of Trump’s developing presidency; Trump’s tariffs dominate the news cycle again as 90+ new tariff rates spring into effect; markets surge in euphoric joy; Wall Street and Main Street eagerly anticipate the sequel; and European demands for war, war, war boomerang and hit them in the bank accounts.

🌍 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🌍

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Yesterday, the Washington Post ran the latest reel in 2025’s surreal Cinéma de l’absurde, but blandly headlined, “Trump threatens federal takeover of D.C. after attack on DOGE worker.” If you had to pick one DOGE worker who would be most likely to single-handedly fight off a gang of urban hoodlums and carjackers while honorably defending his female companion, which candidate first springs to mind? Time’s up. It was Edward Coristine, also known as, “Big Balls.”

The most heartwarming part of this unfolding story so far is how it has brought President Trump and Elon Musk back together, as both righteously responded in urgent anger on their respective social media platforms— and both demanded the Nation’s Capital be restored to federal control.

The Washington Post reported almost no details about the attack —the most important part of the story— instead flinging itself headlong into the politics and quoting DC’s idiotic mayor. You will understand even better why, once I tell you the story that corporate media won’t.

It went down around 3 am on Sunday night. Just north of the White House, the ‘Swann Street corridor’ elegantly winds between Logan Circle and Dupont Circle— two of D.C.’s most iconic and historically rich neighborhoods. Stately 19th-century rowhomes butt up against buzzing late-night cafés, craft cocktail lounges, and yoga studios that flicker with blue-screen light long into the wee hours. The leafy streets, framed by cast-iron fences and sycamore trees, host an uneasy marriage of wealth, activism, and decay: joggers and dogwalkers by day, aimless teens and food delivery cyclists by night.

Logan Circle, once a Civil War encampment, now boasts rainbow flags, restored Victorians, and in true Hunger Games style, one of the city’s highest per-square-foot property values. A few blocks over, Dupont Circle anchors D.C.’s cosmopolitan elite; home to embassies, think tanks, and the sort of bookshops that still believe in reading. But beneath the upscale sheen lies a deepening tension: rising crime, defunded and disbanded foot patrols, and what residents call the “two D.C.s”— the curated version in travel videos, and the other one that spills out after sunset.

Swann Street itself is narrow, residential, and lined with tightly squeezed, high-end townhouses that sell for millions, their calm, leaf-dusted facades belying the growing sense that the capital city’s central core has slipped beyond civilizational control. At 3 a.m., the only sounds were probably the hiss of wet pavement and the low thrum of distant sirens.

According to the DC Metro Police Report, Edward Coristine, 19, and an unidentified female described as his girlfriend, stood next to his car when they were approached by a group of about 10 “teenagers” who demanded both his car and phone. Coristine shoved his girlfriend into the car and told her to call 911 (she did). The gang of thugs attacked him, stole his phone, and fled the fight when a DC Metro cruiser pulled up.

By the time officers climbed out of their cruiser, Edward Coristine was barely standing. His face was a crimson ruin— a broken nose flattened across his cheek, one eye swollen shut, the other rimmed in blood like a boxer’s final round. Blood streaked down his neck, stained his white pants, and pooled in the collar of his jacket. Witnesses described him as dazed but upright, refusing to collapse even as DC Fire paramedics rushed in.

His girlfriend’s frantic 911 call had brought the cavalry, but not before Edward’s head encountered the pavement hard enough to leave him concussed. EMS treated him on scene for multiple facial lacerations, a black eye the size of a shooter marble, and a clear concussion, the kind that makes your ears ring and your balance lie to you in soft, unintelligible whispers. According to a photo circulated by fellow DOGE alumnus Marko Elez, Edward’s lips were split, his face was smeared with drying blood, and his expression carried the glassy thousand-yard stare of someone who just fought off a pack of rabid wolves and doesn’t remember how.

And yet, he refused to leave in the ambulance. He stood; bleeding, battered, but still standing. That’s when the nickname “Big Balls” stopped being a punchline.

Two 15-year-old assailants were later arrested. Of the hundreds of news reports, not one described Edward’s attackers, even though at least eight of them remain at large. As you can easily imagine, this glaring omission has led to much speculation about their race. The betting remains open.

Edward now holds post as a senior advisor at the Social Security Administration. When he was officially in DOGE, Edward worked at top spots like the General Services Administration, Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Department of Education, and HHS. Despite all that accomplishment, Mr. Coristine has been mocked, doxxed, and viciously parodied by international media since he arrived on the scene earlier this year.

What kind of 19-year-old stands his ground against a swarm of street thugs, face-first and fists out, while the smart move —maybe the only move— was to run? What kind of young person hurls his girlfriend into the car to shield her from danger and then plants himself between her and a violent mob, taking the beating meant for her? Edward Coristine may not be old enough to pour himself a stiff drink when he gets home, but he’s old enough to bleed for someone else.

And that, in this broken age of keyboard courage and bystander paralysis, makes him a man in full.

🔥 For most of its history, Congress kept the Nation’s capital city on a short leash, micromanaged like just another department of the federal government. But President Nixon signed the District of Columbia Home Rule Act into law on December 24, 1973— months before resigning in disgrace the following August. The move was engineered by Democrat activists, riding high on a nearly 40-year reign of one-party control of the U.S. Congress.

Rep. Charles Diggs (D-MI), a civil rights advocate, played a central role. The bill to make DC independent and give it “home rule” passed with nearly all-Democratic support, as part of a post–civil rights push to grant black Washingtonians a say in their local government. The first elected mayor —surreally, Walter Washington— assumed office in 1975. Ever since, Democrats have held near-total control of D.C.’s government— a 50-year unbroken streak of one-party rule, with no meaningful opposition and only fleeting independent challengers.

What followed was a slow-motion car crash of unhinged one-party rule, fiscal mismanagement, corruption scandals, and ideological rot. Since that fateful act, the city has been a political litterbox exclusively controlled by Democrats, with barely a whiff of opposition or dissent. Mayors come and go, some in handcuffs, others merely bumbling and incompetent. Councilmembers wage war on taxicabs, plastic straws, and common sense. The schools are a perennial scandal. City services are bloated and brittle. And crime —violent and random— ebbs and flows like a chronic case of long covid.

Washington has become a cautionary tale in miniature: a $20 billion-a-year, inept local government incapable of keeping its streets safe three blocks from the White House, and now featuring roving gangs of teenage carjackers infesting its most valuable real estate.

Haha, WaPo provided none of this context, focusing only on Trump’s suggestion (not for the first time) of returning the City of Washington to federal control. It was obviously intended to outrage DC locals, who are about 95% Democrat registered. But, from the Founding, DC was always under federal management and stayed that way up until just fifty years ago, when the guilt and pressures of Vietnam and Watergate combined in the lab to create an experiment in unrestrained Democrat governance.

When do we declare the experiment a failure?

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I don’t know whether Trump or his team were reading C&C the other day. But check out CNN. This week, Harry Enten, CNN’s senior data reporter, finally said out loud what I’ve been telling you for months: “Donald Trump is the most influential President of this century and probably dating back a good portion of last century.”

CLIP: At least one CNN reporter —whose job is analyzing political data— has come around to Trump’s historicity (1:25).

Regular readers probably roll their eyes whenever I use words like “historic,” “unprecedented,” and “record-shattering.” I’m wearing out the thesaurus trying to avoid boring y’all to death. But in spite of how obvious it is, corporate media has stubbornly refused to recognize any of those things, probably leaving newer readers wondering if they just fell into a MAGA cult blog on Substack or something.

Things finally shifted this week.

Invoking FDR twice in a minute and a half, reporter Enten rounded up a half dozen categories of record-setting accomplishments on tariffs, immigration, and executive orders. He enthusiastically called it “a tremendously influential presidency.”

Enten on tariffs: “No TACOs* for Trump! The effective tariff rate, get this, 18%, the highest —the highest! — since the FDR Administration in the 1930’s … an effective tariff rate level nine times as high as this time last year.” On immigration: “we may be heading for the first time in at least 50 years for negative net migration, my goodness gracious.” On policy: “In his entire term, Biden signed 77. Donald Trump, making history with 180 executive orders signed so far this year— the most in a year since Franklin Delano Roosevelt.”

(* Portland readers: “TACO” is a Democrat slam on Trump, a dumb acronym for “Trump Always Chickens Out.” What tacos have to do with tariffs or anything else is your guess, but for some reason it always makes them laugh like hyenas huffing dental anesthetics. I prefer “Trade Agreement Compliance Orders.” But mileage varies.)

Trump’s executive orders aren’t just notable for their volume. Taken together, they form a cohesive, carefully coordinated, well-developed, interlocking policy network— finally delivering conservative goals long dreamed of and considered politically impossible since FDR rewired the nation in his progressive image a century ago.

In sum, Enten concluded that President Trump is remaking the country:

“He is remaking the country in terms of tariffs, he is remaking the country in terms of net migration, and he is remaking the country in terms of how much policymaking he is putting through in executive orders. It truly is history-making. He is the most influential president of this century and probably dating back a good portion of the last century. ”

It wasn’t even a year ago that the most we’d hoped was for Biden’s reign of clueless terror to stop. We have much to be thankful for. And we’re still just getting started.

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It’s not just CNN, either. Granted, the praise is a little harder to find amongst the Grey Lady’s stingy pronouncements, but look at this. Trump’s tariffs are dominating the front page of the New York Times like it’s 1930 all over again, except this time Smoot and Hawley are tweeting about it in real time:

Haha, the Times coined the alliterative moniker “Hardest Hit Countries,” as though Trump were some kind of natural disaster. But the real tell appeared in the very same headline: “Trump’s Tariffs Reorder World Trade.” Podcasts, heat maps, and multiple stories— if this were a Democrat administration, the Times would be comparing it to the Marshall Plan. But because it’s Trump, the tone is split between panic and grudging awe.

Still, there’s no denying the underlying message: One man has single-handedly reshaped the entire global economic map virtually overnight.

This morning (at midnight, to be precise), “staggering” new tariffs “snapped into place” on “more than 90 countries.” But unlike Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff barrage, when markets whipsawed, this time the markets didn’t flinch. In fact, they’re euphoric.

Yahoo Finance, first thing this morning:

Trump just unleashed the largest tariff barrage since FDR —over 90 countries hit simultaneously— and the market responded with … a gentle round of applause. Futures rose. Wall Street yawned and got down to work. Larry Summers ate another shoe.

Of course, all that critical market context was missing from the Times’ front-page tirade. What it really says is that investors have embraced Trump’s aggressive reordering of global trade— even without knowing all the details. And that means they’re ignoring all the experts and trusting President Trump and his team. The proof, as they say, is in the banana pudding.

Some of you will be wondering whether Goldman Sachs’ pleasure translates to any benefit for Joe the Plumber. But Trump’s strongarming tactics aren’t just about tariffs— they also include demands for massive, multi-trillion-dollar direct investments by foreign governments inside the U.S. That means jobs, building booms, real estate deals, local revitalization and reindustrialization— all falling right into Main Street’s lap.

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And finally, this story’s delicious irony cracked me up. NBC ran a straight-faced headline this morning: “Kremlin says Putin-Trump meeting agreed, will happen in 'coming days.’” There’s a lot to unpack here. It’s been nearly eight months, yet the two men have not met in person. So a face-to-face meeting is a big deal.

Not much more is known beyond what was announced in the headline. But the announcement arrived as part of a high-velocity timeline: a couple of weeks ago, Trump announced he’d sanction Russia and its allies with tariffs if there were no ceasefire in Ukraine. The unflappable Russians shrugged. Two days ago, Trump announced an additional +25% tariff on India for buying cheap Russian gas, making India’s total tariff 50%. Now, Trump and Putin are scheduling meetings.

Superficially, it seems like Trump’s tariff pressure is working, showing public progress in the effort to end the Ukraine war, which is currently teetering on the brink of ending itself in Russia’s favor. But there’s a lot more happening below the surface. Yesterday, neocon darling Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted this:

Haha! Priceless! Here’s how the scam is working. Since the start of the Proxy War, the Europeans have passed eighteen sanctions packages against Russia. Among them are pledges not to buy Russian energy products, like oil and gas, which the EU depended on for cheap energy. But with a wink and a nod, they promptly worked around their own sanctions packages by buying everything from India, which doesn’t make oil and gas, but buys it from Russia.

In short, the Indians just relabeled Russian energy products and sold them to the EU with a small markup. The EU knew all about it but looked the other way.

🔥 As you know, the Europeans have been the most vocal supporters of the Proxy War and have been demanding the US continue funding it. But now —through their “good friend” Lindsey Graham— Trump just told Europe it must buy our oil and gas or get sanctioned like India.

It might seem small in the grand scheme, but it will wreck what’s left of Europe’s economy. Or maybe I should say, further wreck it. Forced to pay full freight for oil and gas —no more Indian laundry discounts— the EU’s manufacturers will get hammered. Already caught in a maelstrom of green regulations, labor unrest, energy instability, and structural deindustrialization, what’s left of Europe’s heavy industry will now face a brutal choice: absorb the costs, collapse, or relocate. And thanks to Trump’s ‘direct investment’ diplomacy, relocating increasingly means one thing: moving to the United States.

And that cycles right back into domestic economics and creating prosperity for young people.

The way Trump’s global trade strategy wraps around everything is, frankly, breathtaking. He’s using his “Liberation Day” tariff dashboard not just to fix trade imbalances, but to end world wars, crush entrenched interests, realign supply chains, refuel the markets, reindustrialize the heartland, and restore American dominance— without sneaky color revolutions, drag ambassador diplomacy, or decades of soul-sucking multilateral trade negotiations. No secret CIA budget. No USAID slush funds.

Just blunt instruments, fast consequences, and national leverage turned up to eleven.

Why has no one tried it before? What must other world leaders be thinking? I’ll tell you one thing they must be thinking. Not six months ago, they laughed when Trump pulled out of trade agreements, they mocked his “transactional” art of the deal, and they swore his tariff threats were just MAGA theater. Now they are realizing Trump doesn’t TACO and he wasn’t bluffing. They must be scared sushi-less.

Apple just blinked, too. Yesterday the global tech giant announced another $600 billion in new domestic investment in a dramatic Oval Office meeting where Apple’s CEO showered President Trump with 24-carat gold gifts— all made in the U.S. It shows Trump is not just coralling the world’s kleptocratic bureaucrats, but also the global multinationals that pull all the strings behind the scenes. But we’ll have to pick that thread tomorrow.

Anyway, I’m here for the whole show. Roll the next clip.

Have a terrific Thursday! Following the intermission, re-take your seats back here tomorrow morning, for the next reel of essential news and commentary.

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