Weekend Report: What's going on?

Trump fires Joint Chiefs chairman, installs loyalist, in all-out Pentagon purge. GOP members of Congress under fire at town halls. Consumer sentiment plunges on fears of Trumpflation.

In another Friday night massacre, Donald Trump fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth then fired five other senior legal officers and service chiefs, including Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to serve as chief of naval operations, and Gen. James Slife, a top Air Force officer. Presidents don’t replace generals in the shift of administrations—Brown was just recently appointed after Gen. Mark Milley retired—but this is a purge as Trump installs those loyal to him who are less qualified but are complete sycophants.

Republican members of Congress are being bombarded with phone calls, people showing up at their offices and angry crowds at town halls. This is not just Democrats or progressives. It’s independents and Republicans who are angry at Trump’s power grab and demanding GOP members do something about it. As polling shows Trump beginning to plummet, the GOP is freaking out and the crowds at the town halls are just one sign of what could happen to them in the mid-term elections next year.

The Dow plunged yesterday on fears of inflation after a respected survey of consumer sentiment showed broad fears about the economy, much of it connected to Trump’s tariffs. Consumer sentiment had been rising for a year, but it went into free fall in the month since Trump took office.