Self-inflicted Problems

(upbeat music) September 9th, 2026. Yesterday at a White House event honoring those who sacrificed their lives on 9/11, President Donald Trump went off script and claimed he had taken a crew downtown right after this happened. They were, they had no hesitation. Everybody went down with me. We went down as a big group of people. Wasn't too much we could do, I'll be honest. It was raw. Nobody's seen anything like it ever. We had other buildings. United States steel building was creaking, really creaking. And we thought it was going to fall down. The truth is it creaked a lot. It creaked. It still creaks, but it never came down. And I'll never forget two firemen. We thought it was coming down on top of us and two firemen, big, strong guys. And I'm not the smallest guy in the world. They grabbed me under the arm said gotta get out of here and they literally lifted me up. This is not easy to do, I'm big. They lifted me up and they started running with me. I said, fellas, I can run myself. But they were amazing, but they thought it was coming down. It didn't come down, US steel. In fact, as CNN fact checker Daniel Dale reported, there is no evidence for any of this story. Trump was at Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan when the planes hit the World Trade Center. And there is no evidence for any of his other claims either. Trump's nephew, Fred Trump, added that Trump did not have a big building under construction at the time. And the only crew he claimed to bring to the site would have been secretarial and accounting employees. The younger Trump said he was so offended by President Trump's claim that he felt the need to speak out. The White House said he was a private citizen at the time, not everything he did was documented. And White House spokesperson Davis Ingle attacked the media for using this to try to attack him. Trump posted on social media, everything I said was exactly accurate. Canada's retaliatory tariffs on US-made goods went into effect yesterday, matching Trump's tariffs on Canada dollar for dollar and rate for rate, covering about $20 billion in US goods. Trump responded by escalating his trade war with Canada even further, banning certain products outright and establishing new tariffs on Canadian motorcycles, alcohol, and dairy products on September 29. The US and Iran are striking at each other again. The US said it attacked and destroyed five Iranian oil tankers on Tuesday. Iran said it targeted two US ships and eight oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday as they tried to traverse an area Iran has said is off limits. They also said they had fired at a US military base in Jordan. The price of oil has surged as fighting resumed with the cost of Brent crude rising above $100 a barrel. Tonight, Jennifer Jacobs of CBS News reported that Iran strikes on my-o-effect salty airbase in Jordan caused damage to multiple American military aircraft. Jacobs also posted that US forces launched more than 30 Patriot missiles in their defense against the Iranian strikes. Today, Trump told reporters that the Iranians are prolonging the war because of the US midterm elections and that he expects the war on Iran will end and gas prices will come down as soon as the elections are over. They can't hold out any longer, Trump said. They're desperate to try and affect the election so that we can get a nice weak group of people in there and leave them alone and let them have their nuclear weapons. But tonight, Alexander Ward, Shelby Holiday and Michael R. Gordon of the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump's top advisors have warned him that the Iran war could continue for the rest of his term. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has already extended the deployment of some of the troops in the Middle East and is planned for additional extensions. The conflict is already straining the military and disrupting global oil markets. What is most astonishing about the nation's economic and military problems is that they are entirely self-inflicted at the whim of one man. On October 19, 2024, the month before Trump was reelected, the economist called the American economy the envy of the world. The American economy has left other rich countries in the dust, wrote Simon Rabinovich and Henry Kerr. Expect that to continue. But Trump insisted the economy was weak and that tariff walls would make it boom. Months after taking office, he grabbed Congress's authority to levy tariffs and on Liberation Day began trade wars around the globe, hobbling the free trade system that had underpinned global trade since World War II. When the Supreme Court ruled his power grab unconstitutional, he turned to temporary powers to achieve the same results. And now we are in a trade war with our longtime friend and ally Canada. And the president is posting insulting memes about Canada's prime minister on social media. Economist Paul Krugman wrote today, "I don't think there has ever been a dispute this stupid. Bear in mind that this crisis is entirely gratuitous." As Trump's failures from soaring prices to plunging approval multiply, Krugman wrote, "He is doubling down on his disrespect for an attempted bullying of our northern neighbor and former ally. That is, you should think of this conflict not as something reflecting US national interests, but as a form of self-medication from a sundowning president." Krugman called attention to the fact that the economies of the US and Canada have been tied closely since at least 1965. Canada supplies about 60% of US aluminum and about 70% of the oil refined in the Midwest. It supplies almost all of the lumber the US uses for framing in new homes. This trade war will do real damage to both economies. The Iran War II was self-inflicted and has been conducted without authorization by Congress as required by the Constitution and by the 1973 War Powers Act. Trump appeared to think the US military could get rid of the head of the Iranian regime when it attacked Iran on February 28th, as it had done to the head of Venezuela in just hours the previous month. Repeatedly, Trump has expressed surprise that Iran seized control of the state of Hormuz, through which about 20% of the world's seaborne oil had passed before the attacks. And while Trump is now trying to justify the attacks by claiming he is working for a nuclear-free Iran, under the joint comprehensive plan of action or JCPOA negotiated between the US, China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and Iran during the Obama administration. Iran agreed to reduce its stockpile of enriched uranium significantly and allow inspections in exchange for relief from some sanctions. The state of Hormuz remained open. Although inspectors said Iran was honoring the deal, Trump took the US out of the JCPOA in 2018. And the following year, Iran resumed work on enriched uranium necessary for a nuclear weapon. Meanwhile, reports of corruption in the administration continued to drop. Katsokruski and Aaron Schaeffer of the Washington Post reported yesterday that Trump gave his executive assistant Natalie Harp and two other young female employees gifts of $45,000 in cash last year. That amount is about a third of their $150,000 annual salary. He gave $20,000 to Walt Nauda, who was Trump's co-defendant in the case of Trump retaining classified documents after he left office. The chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, Richard Painter, told the journalists the gifts appear to violate federal law. Federal employees can't receive salary supplements from outside sources. The acting director of the Office of Government Ethics, or OGE, under Obama, Don Fox, said the legality of the gifts was not clear in part because such payments are not a circumstance that OGE ever really envisioned. This just doesn't happen. Bill Allison of Bloomberg reported yesterday that Steve Whitkopf earned $107 million in 2025 from the holding company that keeps his share of world liberty financial. The cryptocurrency venture he and the Trump family founded, and in which shake Tanoon Bin Zad al-Nayan, the brother of United Arab Emirates president, has invested. half a billion dollars. Whitcoff is Trump's special agent for the Middle East and has been negotiating with Russia. Trump reported earning more than $594 million in 2025 from the same venture. Jim Vandahy and Mike Allen of Axios reported today that they are hearing from top White House officials and elected Republicans that they are no longer even trying to persuade Trump to do something or not to do something. They are worn out Vandahy and Allen report. They know they can't stop him and they don't even try. Trump insiders calculate they lived by Trump and so will die by Trump rather than break with Trump. Their utter dereliction of duty to the United States of America has opened the field for Democrats. Yesterday, Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker's team announced the creation of a new political action committee that will invest at least 20 million dollars in Democratic candidates for the House of Representatives. Shia Kapos of Politico reported that the ready for the fight pack, which echoes the phrase the governor uses to end his political speeches, is targeting seats currently held by Republicans. Democrats must think big and take the fight to every corner to support candidates in often overlooked races, Pritzker said. On CNN tonight, Pritzker warned Americans not to believe Trump's lies. This is the president who ran in 2024 and told you that on day one, he was going to lower prices. He was going to end forever wars. And what do you know? He's done neither. In fact, he's done the opposite. Prices have gone up since he took office. And of course, we're in this endless war in Iran. He can't stop it. Doesn't know what he's doing. And after complaining about Joe Biden's age, he himself, President Trump, that is, is suffering from dementia. And I think we can all see that. So I think that's what I would say about whatever he's promising for the future. You know he never delivers. Tonight at the Trump Apollosa midterm convention in Dallas, the Trump insisted on holding to rally his base. He promised that if the Republicans win the midterm elections, he will give all adult Americans a check for $5,000, a plan that would cost more than a trillion dollars and would require congressional approval. He called it the Trump dividend thanks to our tremendous strength and success economically. Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at SoundScape Productions, Deade of Massachusetts, recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.