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Week 76
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| Sunday, July 1 | | |
Week 77
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| Monday, July 2 |
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| Tuesday, July 3 | | |
| Wednesday, July 4 |
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| Thursday, July 5 | - Scott Pruitt resigns as EPA Administrator, effective July 6, amidst fifteen federal investigations by various government ethics agencies for his assorted management scandals (see here for descriptions.)[3] [4] [5]
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| Friday, July 6 | - Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist and Deputy Administrator of the EPA since April 2018, succeeds Scott Pruitt as acting EPA administrator.
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| Saturday, July 7 | | |
| Sunday, July 8 | | |
Week 78
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| Monday, July 9 |
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| Tuesday, July 10 | | |
| Wednesday, July 11 | | |
| Thursday, July 12 |
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| Friday, July 13 | - Special counsel Robert Mueller indicts twelve Russian intelligence officers,[11] alleging that they "engag[ed] in a 'sustained effort' to hack Democrats' emails and computer networks".[12] [13]
- President Trump holds a bilateral meeting and joint press conference with British Prime Minister Theresa May at Chequers.[14] President Trump advises May to "sue the E.U." during Brexit negotiations.[15]
- President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump meet with Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle for the first time since becoming president.[16] Their meeting makes Trump the 12th incumbent US president the Queen has met during her reign.[17]
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| Saturday, July 14 | | |
| Sunday, July 15 | - President Trump remarks during a CBS interview, "Now you wouldn't think of the European Union, but they're a foe," in response to a question about the biggest foes of the United States.[18]
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Week 79
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| Monday, July 16 |
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| Tuesday, July 17 |
It should have been obvious—I thought it would be obvious—but I would like to clarify, just in case it wasn't. In a key sentence in my remarks, I said the word "would" instead of "wouldn't". The sentence should have been: "I don't see any reason why I wouldn't—or why it wouldn't be Russia." So just to repeat it, I said the word "would" instead of "wouldn't". And the sentence should have been—and I thought it would be maybe a little bit unclear on the transcript or unclear on the actual video—the sentence should have been: "I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be Russia." Sort of a double negative.
- Trump's new remarks are criticized by some Democratic senators[38] who do not believe he misspoke[39] [40] and thought his "back-handed retraction"[41] was "too late".
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| Wednesday, July 18 | - When asked by a reporter before a Cabinet meeting whether he believes that the Russian government continues to make efforts to interfere in American elections, Trump replied, "no".[42] [43] However, Sarah Huckabee Sanders (the White House Press Secretary) disputed that Trump was in fact answering the reporter's question when he said "no", and Trump himself refused to clarify his intent to the press later in the day.
- The New York Times reports that Trump was briefed on January 6, 2017, regarding the Russian government's attempts to interfere in American elections.[44] [45] Trump "sounded begrudgingly convinced", according to the Times's sources.
- Trump receives a public request from Russian prosecutors for permission to interrogate eleven American citizens, including former Amb. Michael McFaul, as part of an investigation into financial crimes that the Russian government alleges against American hedge-fund manager Bill Browder.[46] [47] Trump did not immediately decline the request, with Sarah Huckabee Sanders saying that Trump is "gonna meet with his team" regarding the request.
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| Thursday, July 19 |
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| Friday, July 20 | - The New York Times reports that Trump's long-time lawyer, Michael Cohen, secretly recorded a phone call in which Trump and Cohen discuss a September 2016 payment, in the amount of $150,000, by American Media, Inc. (the owner of the National Enquirer) to Playboy model Karen McDougal in order to acquire the exclusive rights to her story of her 2006 affair with Trump.[52] [53] [54] The National Enquirer never planned on publishing McDougal's story, so the payment (termed a "catch and kill" payment) effectively silenced McDougal's story for the duration of the 2016 presidential campaign. The Times also reported that the tape contains a discussion of a back-payment from Trump to American Media, Inc.; the reporting directly contradicted Trump's long-standing claim that he had no knowledge of the payment to either McDougal or American Media, Inc.
- Rudy Giuliani, Trump's legal adviser, comments that the tape is, in fact, "powerful exculpatory evidence". Some commentators conclude that Trump's legal team, not Cohen's legal team, had leaked the tape to the media;[55] [56] the tape had originally been shielded from prosecutors due to attorney–client privilege, which was waived by Trump's legal team.[57] Some commentators speculate that Trump's legal team released the tape partly to deny Cohen a bargaining device in potential plea negotiations involving cooperation with federal investigations.
- Special counsel Robert Mueller moves to subpoena Kristin Davis, the prostitution mogul known as the "Manhattan Madam". Davis had been best known for her role in the 2008 prostitution scandal involving then-Governor Eliot Spitzer of New York, but she was also a former employee of Roger Stone, a Republican political operative and strategist for Trump.[58] [59]
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| Saturday, July 21 | | |
| Sunday, July 22 | - Trump tweets that Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections is "all a big hoax",[60] appearing to reverse his position yet again on whether the Russian government interfered (and continues to attempt to interfere) in U.S. elections.[61] [62] [63]
- Trump tweets a threat to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani:[64] [65]
NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS! The threat was the culmination of a weekend of intense rhetorical exchange between the Trump administration and the Rouhani administration. Trump's tweet was in response to Rouhani's message that war with Iran would be "the mother of all wars"; Rouhani also warned Trump to "not play with the lion's tail, because you will regret it eternally".[66] Rouhani's message was, in turn, in response to a scathing speech made by Mike Pompeo (the U.S. Secretary of State), which included an allegation that Rouhani owns a $95 billion hedge fund;[67] Pompeo also stated that "to the [Iranian] regime, prosperity, security, and freedom for the Iranian people are acceptable casualties in the march to fulfill the Revolution", and that "the level of corruption and wealth among regime leaders shows that Iran is run by something that resembles the mafia more than a government".
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Week 80
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| Monday, July 23 |
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| Tuesday, July 24 | - At a speech to the annual convention of a veterans' organization (Veterans of Foreign Wars) in Kansas City, Trump says that "what you're seeing and what you're reading [in the media] is not what's happening".[72] [73] [74] Some observers describe this quote as "Orwellian".
- The September 2016 tape, the existence of which was revealed on July 20, is published by CNN on its 9:00p.m. show, Cuomo Prime Time.[75] The three-minute recording proves that Trump and his then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, did discuss the $150,000 payment to American Media, Inc., as claimed on July 20.[76] Moreover, Trump and Cohen can be heard discussing whether to make the payment in cash; on the recording, Trump appears to suggest a cash payment, and Cohen appears to dismiss the suggestion. According to The New York Times, the salient portion of the "sometimes muddled" recording reads as follows:
Mr. Cohen is heard telling Mr. Trump that he will need to set up a company to arrange the payments.Mr. Trump then asked, "What financing?""We'll have to pay," Mr. Cohen said.Mr. Trump then appears to say, "Pay with cash."Mr. Cohen then says, "No, no."The word "check" is uttered, but it is not clear by whom, and the audio is then cut off. However, Trump's legal team disputes this.
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| Wednesday, July 25 |
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| Thursday, July 26 | - The House Republicans who filed an impeachment resolution against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on July 26 back down, deciding not to continue with impeachment proceedings.[81] This decision comes after many high-profile Republicans, including House Speaker Paul Ryan[82] and U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions,[83] criticize the impeachment resolution and express support for Rosenstein.
- Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, claims that Trump had contemporaneous knowledge of the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Trump campaign officials (including Trump's son, Don Jr., and son-in-law, Jared Kushner) and Russian lobbyists, where the Trump campaign was promised "dirt" on Hillary Clinton.[84] While Trump has repeatedly denied that he knew that this meeting took place, Cohen claims that he is prepared to testify to the Special Counsel investigation that Trump knew in advance of the meeting. Commentators note that "this revelation, if true, would directly implicate Trump himself in an effort to conspire with a foreign power to tip the election to him, and a subsequent effort to cover that up."[85] [86] Trump tweets in his denial that "[it] sounds to me like someone is trying to make up stories in order to get himself out of an unrelated jam (Taxi cabs maybe?)."[87]
- The deadline (imposed on June 26 by Dana Sabraw, a U.S. District Court Judge for the Southern District of California)[88] [89] elapses to reunite all migrant families separated by the Trump administration. The government claims that the deadline has been met,[90] [91] but its court filing shows that 711 children (about a third of the 2,551 children separated from their families), whom the government has deemed "ineligible for reunification", are still in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
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| Friday, July 27 | | |
| Saturday, July 28 | | |
| Sunday, July 29 | - President Trump tweets a threat to support a government shutdown if Democratic lawmakers do not vote for "Border Security, which includes the Wall!"[92] [93]
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Week 81
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| Monday, July 30 | - President Trump holds a bilateral meeting and joint press conference with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte at the White House.[94]
- After President Trump has claimed "no collusion" for months,[95] [96] his legal adviser Rudy Giuliani says that "I don't even know if [colluding with Russia] is a crime".[97] Another Trump adviser, former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, echoes the sentiment, saying that "collusion is not a crime". While there technically is no crime called 'collusion' in the U.S. Code, legal experts agree that 'collusion' is an informal shorthand for a number of similar charges, especially conspiracy, which are in the Code, and that the difference between 'collusion' and 'conspiracy' is "just a word choice". Giuliani's and Christie's claims come on the eve of the trial of former Trump campaign chair, Paul Manafort.
- Giuliani also claimed the existence of a previously-unknown June 7, 2016, meeting between Trump campaign officials and Russian lobbyists preceding the Trump Tower meeting on June 9, 2016;[98] however, Giuliani later said that the meeting "never happened". Asked how he could be sure that the July 26 claim by Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen (that Trump had advance knowledge of the Trump Tower meeting) was false, Giuliani replied, "Nobody can be sure of anything".
- President Trump offers to meet Iranian President Hassan Rouhani with "no preconditions".[99] This follows a heated exchange between the Trump administration and Rouhani on July 21 and July 22.
- Robert Wilkie is sworn in as the 10th U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs.[100] [101]
- According to U.S. intelligence agencies, North Korea continues to construct nuclear missiles capable of reaching the United States,[102] [103] despite peace talks at the June 12 summit between Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-un.
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| Tuesday, July 31 |
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| Date | Events | Photo/Videos |
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Week 81
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| Wednesday, August 1 |
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| Thursday, August 2 |
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| Friday, August 3 |
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| Saturday, August 4 | | |
| Sunday, August 5 | | |
Week 82
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| Monday, August 6 | | |
| Tuesday, August 7 | | |
| Wednesday, August 8 | | |
| Thursday, August 9 |
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| Friday, August 10 | | |
| Saturday, August 11 | | |
| Sunday, August 12 |
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Week 83
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| Monday, August 13 | - In a flurry of early-morning tweets, President Trump describes Omarosa Manigault as "wacky", "vicious", "not smart", "nasty", "a loser", and "a lowlife", and claims that she "begged [Trump] for a job, tears in her eyes".[132] [133] [134]
- Prosecutors from the Special Counsel investigation rest their case in the trial of Paul Manafort.[135]
- Peter Strzok, an FBI agent and Chief of the Counter-espionage Section who was removed from Mueller's Special Counsel investigation upon the discovery of his anti-Trump texts, is dismissed from the FBI by Deputy Director David Bowdich.[136] [137] [138] Strzok is notorious amongst right-wing legislators and media figures who leaked and scrutinized the text messages which he exchanged with fellow agent Lisa Page and which were falsely alleged to demonstrate anti-Trump bias that would have undermined Strzok's apolitical role as a leading investigator of the Russian government's interference in the 2016 U.S. elections.[139] [140] [141] [142]
- President Trump signs legislation named the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act while not mentioning the Senator's name.[143]
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| Tuesday, August 14 |
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| Wednesday, August 15 |
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| Thursday, August 16 | - Former CIA Director John Brennan responds to Trump's unilateral revocation of his security clearance,[151] [152] contending in a New York Times opinion-editorial, that "Trump's 'no collusion' claims are hogwash", and that Trump "revoked [Brennan's] security clearance to try to silence anyone who would dare challenge him". In addition, William McRaven, a navy admiral best known for his role as special operations commander overseeing the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, publicly expresses a political position by authoring an opinion-editorial in The Washington Post in defense of Brennan;[153] [154] McRaven dares Trump to also revoke his security clearance, writing:
I would consider it an honor if you would revoke my security clearance as well, so I can add my name to the list of men and women who have spoken up against your presidency. In response, President Trump threatens to revoke the security clearances of more former top-level intelligence officials.[155] Observers draw comparisons between Trump's list of officials whose security clearances he threatens to revoke (which includes James Clapper, James Comey, Michael Hayden, Sally Yates, Susan Rice, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Bruce Ohr) and Richard Nixon's Enemies List.[156]
- Hundreds of newspapers across the United States publish editorials emphasizing the importance of the freedom of the press, a right which is guaranteed by the First Amendment.[157] [158] (The newspapers coordinated the publication date of the editorials, but each wrote an editorial independently.) The effort is in response to recent attacks by the Trump administration on the press, especially to combat the appellation, "enemy of the people".
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| Friday, August 17 | - President Trump tweets that the military parade scheduled for November 2018 will be postponed due to cost.[159] [160] [161] Trump blames "the local politicians who run Washington, D.C. (poorly)" of price gouging in reporting the estimated cost of the parade as $92 million, which covers $50 million for military equipment and aircraft, and $42 million for municipal costs such as security.[162] [163] Defense Secretary Jim Mattis accuses the individual writing the report asserting the $92 million figure of "probably smoking something that is legal in my state but not in most". Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser responds by tweeting:[164] [165]
Yup, I'm Muriel Bowser, mayor of Washington DC, the local politician who finally got thru to the reality star in the White House with the realities ($21.6M) of parades/events/demonstrations in Trump America (sad). OMB Director Mick Mulvaney says that there were other non-monetary considerations that factored into the decision to postpone the parade; Mulvaney would not specify the other "contributing factors".[166]
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| Saturday, August 18 | - The New York Times reports that the White House Counsel, Don McGahn, has testified for nearly thirty hours in three voluntary interviews with investigators working on the Special Counsel investigation.[167] According to the report, Trump and his lawyers allowed McGahn to testify, and did not ask for a de-briefing of the content of his testimony, which included the manner in which FBI Director James Comey was dismissed, as well as other personnel-related matters, including Trump's "obsession with putting a loyalist in charge of the [Special Counsel] inquiry". In response to the report, Trump tweets that "disgraced and discredited Bob Mueller and his whole group of Angry Democrat Thugs spent over 30 hours with the White House Counsel, only with my approval, for purposes of transparency."[168] [169] [170]
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| Sunday, August 19 | - In an interview on Meet the Press, a news program on NBC hosted by Chuck Todd, Trump's legal adviser Rudy Giuliani says that "truth isn't truth".[171] [172] Giuliani later clarified that he was "referring to the situation where two people make precisely contradictory statements, the classic 'he said, she said' puzzle".[173] Many observers, noting that this is the latest in a sequence of unusual statements, including Kellyanne Conway's "alternative facts", Trump's "fake news", and Trump's recent claim that "what you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening", draw comparisons to George Orwell's dystopian novel, 1984.[174] [175]
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Week 84
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| Monday, August 20 | - President Trump attacks Bruce Ohr, a current senior Justice Department official, asking whether he will "ever be fired".[176] Trump has attacked Ohr numerous times since August 11, alleging that he and his wife, Nellie, had been involved both in gathering information for the Steele dossier and in starting the FBI investigation into the Russian government's interference in the 2016 U.S. elections.[177] [178] Nellie Ohr worked for Fusion GPS, the firm which commissioned the dossier, and Bruce Ohr had contact with Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier, throughout its production. However, there is no evidence that Ohr had any involvement with either the FBI investigation or the Special Counsel investigation.
- The New York Times reports that Trump's former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, is under investigation for bank fraud and tax evasion relating to loans amounting to $20 million, taken for Cohen's taxi medallion venture.[179]
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| Tuesday, August 21 | - The first trial of Paul Manafort, former chair of the Trump campaign, concludes, with the jury finding Manafort guilty on five counts of tax evasion, two counts of bank fraud, and one count of failure to disclose a foreign bank account;[180] [181] [182] [183] Manafort is acquitted on zero counts, and the judge, senior judge T. S. Ellis III of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, declares a mis-trial on the remaining ten counts.
- Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal attorney, pleads guilty to five counts of tax evasion, two counts of campaign finance violations, and one count of bank fraud.[184] [185] The campaign finance violations relate to Cohen's arrangement of payments in 2016 with American Media, Inc. to purchase the exclusive rights to the stories of Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels, regarding their affairs with then-candidate Trump; these are regarded as "in-kind contributions" to Trump's campaign, and exceeded the maximum amount allowable by U.S. campaign finance law. In the court proceedings, Cohen makes a prepared statement on the charges, describing the counts in his own words; Cohen implicates Trump on the two counts of campaign finance violations, saying under oath, and under penalty of perjury, that he made the illegal campaign contributions "in coordination with, and at the direction of, a candidate for federal office [Trump]".[186] [187] Trump denies that he directed Cohen to make the payments.[188] [189]
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| Wednesday, August 22 |
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| Thursday, August 23 | - In an interview with Fox News, President Trump claims that "if I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash, I think everybody would be very poor".[194]
- David Pecker, the CEO of American Media, Inc. (which owns the National Enquirer magazine), who was, along with Trump, named by Michael Cohen in his guilty plea as an un-indicted co-conspirator in campaign finance violations committed in the payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, is granted immunity by federal prosecutors in exchange for his testimony.[195] [196] A report by the Associated Press indicates that, during the 2016 election, the National Enquirer hid stories to which it had gained exclusive rights, but which were damaging to Trump, in a safe, as a form of 'friendly blackmail'; a National Enquirer reporter told the Associated Press, "It's 'I did this for you, now what can you do for me'... they [the ''National Enquirer''] always got something in return."[197]
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| Friday, August 24 | | |
| Saturday, August 25 | | |
| Sunday, August 26 | | |
Week 85
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| Monday, August 27 |
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| Tuesday, August 28 | | |
| Wednesday, August 29 | | |
| Thursday, August 30 | - President Trump reveals that Jeff Sessions will remain Attorney General until after the fall 2018 mid-term elections in November during an interview on Bloomberg.[198]
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| Friday, August 31 | | | |
| Date | Events | Photos/Videos |
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Week 85
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| Saturday, September 1 | | |
| Sunday, September 2 | | |
Week 86
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| Monday, September 3 | - President Trump sarcastically tweets "Good job Jeff ..." following the Justice Department indictments of Duncan Hunter and Chris Collins.[199] Trump was criticizing Attorney General Jeff Sessions' handling of the investigations as supporting the Democratic agenda, adding that "the Democrats, none of whom voted for Jeff Sessions, must love him now."[200]
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| Tuesday, September 4 | - The Senate confirmation hearing for Brett Kavanaugh begins.[201]
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| Wednesday, September 5 |
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| Thursday, September 6 | | |
| Friday, September 7 | - Kavanaugh confirmation hearing ends with a vote scheduled for September 20.[204] Over the course of the hearing, over 200 protesters were arrested by the Capitol Police.[205]
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| Saturday, September 8 | | |
| Sunday, September 9 | | |
Week 87
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| Monday,September 10 | | |
| Tuesday,September 11 |
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| Wednesday,September 12 | - Democrats in the Senate reveal that they have received an allegation of sexual assault against Kavanaugh.[207]
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| Thursday,September 13 | | |
| Friday,September 14 | | |
| Saturday,September 15 | | |
| Sunday, September 16 | | |
Week 88
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| Monday, September 17 | - Christine Blasey Ford is identified as the source of the sexual assault allegation against Kavanaugh.[208]
- President Trump states that he will not withdraw Kavanaugh's nomination.[209]
- The Senate Judiciary Committee delays the confirmation vote to allow Kavanaugh and Ford to testify.[210]
- President Trump celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month at the White House.
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| Tuesday, September 18 |
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| Wednesday, September 19 |
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| Thursday, September 20 | | |
| Friday, September 21 | | |
| Saturday, September 22 | | |
| Sunday, September 23 | - The New Yorker reports that Senate Democrats were informed of a second allegation of sexual assault against Kavanaugh.[213]
- President Trump holds a bilateral meeting and dinner with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe at Trump Tower.
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Week 89
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| Monday, September 24 |
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| Tuesday, September 25 |
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| Wednesday, September 26 | - President Trump holds bilateral meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe, and British Prime Minister Theresa May at the UN General Assembly in New York City.
- Michael Avenatti tweets the details of a third accusation against Brett Kavanaugh.[219]
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| Thursday, September 27 | - President Trump visits the United States Mission to the United Nations.
- The Senate Judiciary Committee holds a hearing in which Professor Christine Blasey Ford and Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh are questioned about Ford's allegations.[220]
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| Friday, September 28 |
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| Saturday, September 29 | | |
| Sunday, September 30 | | | |
