The Morning Sixpack - August 11, 2025
Trump pushes controversial deals, hardline immigration tactics, and foreign policy moves as critics warn of rights and global fallout.
Trump Eyes Federal Takeover of D.C. Crime Fight—National Guard on Standby
President Trump is preparing to flex federal muscle in Washington, D.C., promising to clear homeless encampments and crack down on crime—and he’s not ruling out sending in the National Guard. In fact, they’re on standby. And we know what happens when he says that (“Stand back and stand by.”)
Trump is set to announce his new plan at a White House news conference, after already flooding the city with FBI agents on overnight shifts to help curb carjackings and violent crime. He’s painting D.C. as spiraling out of control, though Mayor Muriel Bowser points to data showing violent crime is actually down 26% compared to last year. Facts, however, rarely get in the way of a good campaign visual.
Meanwhile, DC crime is at its lowest levels since at least 2019. Interesting that crime doubles and halves every two years…
The president compared his plan to his immigration crackdowns, warning on social media, “Be prepared! There will be no ‘MR. NICE GUY.’ We want our Capital BACK.”
This comes days after a bloody carjacking involving a former U.S. DOGE Service staffer nicknamed “Big Balls,” whose injuries Trump used as a rallying cry for federal control of the city. By the way, don’t be misled: Big Balls is still wreaking havoc in DC; he quit DOGE and moved to the SSA to kill Social Security.
If Trump deploys the Guard, it would be another instance of him bypassing local authority to use U.S. military forces domestically—a move critics say edges toward over-militarization. D.C.’s unique status means he doesn’t need Bowser’s permission, and so far, she hasn’t even been briefed on the plan. Meanwhile, local police weren’t consulted about the influx of federal agents either.
This federal push echoes Trump’s first-term decision to clear peaceful protesters in 2020, raising the question: Is this truly about safety, or about optics? (With Trump, it’s always about the optics.)
Given the stats, the latter feels more likely. But hey, nothing says “law and order” like importing a small army into a city where crime is actually dropping.
Source: Washington Post (gift article)
More: U.S. Military Preparing to Activate National Guard in D.C. (gift article)
When the guy who built his brand on firing people decides to fire an entire city’s control over itself, you know we’re deep into the reality TV phase of governance.
Trump-Putin Alaska Summit Raises Eyebrows—Ukraine Left Waiting in the Cold
President Trump is heading to Alaska for a face-to-face with Vladimir Putin—and so far, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy isn’t even invited.
The meeting, scheduled for Friday, appears tilted toward Moscow’s goals, with reports that the two leaders will discuss a “peace plan” requiring major Ukrainian territorial concessions or swaps—terms Zelenskyy has already flatly rejected.
European officials are scrambling to get Zelenskyy a seat at the table, but Washington hasn’t confirmed any changes.
Analysts warn that if Zelenskyy refuses a deal Trump backs, the U.S. could simply walk away from supporting Ukraine (more below), handing Putin exactly what he wants. “Either outcome could drive a long-term wedge between the US and Europe,” one expert told The New York Times. For the Kremlin, that’s not just a win—it’s a jackpot.
The optics alone are a diplomatic gut punch for Kyiv. This isn’t just about who’s in the room; it’s about who’s being deliberately left out. And given Trump’s pattern of cozying up to strongmen while badgering allies, it’s hard not to see the summit as a made-for-TV power play with real-world consequences.
If this Alaska summit ends with Ukraine sidelined and Russia emboldened, the fallout won’t just hit Kyiv—it could fracture Western unity in a way that takes years generations to repair. The only clear winner right now is the guy flying in from Moscow.
Source: Semafor
When your foreign policy looks like the plot of a bad Cold War reboot, don’t be surprised if the audience starts rooting for the other side just to make it interesting.
Trump Cuts a Deal: Nvidia and AMD to Hand Over 15% of China Chip Sales to U.S. Treasury
In an unprecedented move, Nvidia and AMD have agreed to give the U.S. government 15% of their revenue from advanced chip sales to China—a deal that blurs the line between national security and political shakedown.
Sounds a lot like the beginning of fascism…
The Trump administration had halted shipments of Nvidia’s H20 AI chips to China back in April, only to reverse course and start granting export licenses—but with strings attached. The levy is part of the condition for getting those licenses, allowing both Nvidia and AMD to resume sales that had been costing them billions in lost revenue. As one analyst put it, the Chinese market is simply too big to walk away from, even if the U.S. takes a hefty cut.
Geoff Gertz, a senior fellow at the Center for New American Security, summed up the head-scratcher: “Either selling H20 chips to China is a national security risk, in which case we shouldn’t be doing it… or it’s not a national security risk, in which case, why are we putting this extra penalty on the sale?”
That’s the billion-dollar (or in this case, multi-billion-dollar) question.
For Nvidia, China represented $17 billion in sales last fiscal year—13% of its total—while AMD pulled in $6.2 billion from the market, nearly a quarter of its revenue. Losing access to China would’ve been catastrophic, but paying 15% to the U.S. Treasury will still dent margins on those chips, according to Bernstein analysts. And there’s always the risk Trump could “change his mind” and slam the door shut again. Or be the mob boss he wants to be and raise the government’s cut.
While Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick insists the deal keeps Chinese companies using an American “tech stack,” critics see it differently. As former Commerce adviser Alasdair Phillips-Robins put it, “If this reporting is accurate, it suggests the administration is trading away national security protections for revenue for the Treasury.”
Translation: Welcome to the new age of tariffs—now applied directly to individual companies instead of entire countries.
Source: Reuters
It’s like the government just became the world’s most expensive reseller—except instead of adding value, they’re just adding themselves to the invoice.
I’m writing an in-depth piece on this later. Watch for it. We’re slipping down that slippery slope towards full-blown fascism. This is just one sign.
Vance: U.S. is “Done” Funding Ukraine War Ahead of Trump-Putin Alaska Summit
Vice President J.D. Vance says the U.S. is finished bankrolling the war in Ukraine and will push for a peace deal when President Trump meets Vladimir Putin in Alaska this Friday.
Speaking to Fox News, Vance said, “We’re done with the funding of the Ukraine war business. We want to bring about a peaceful settlement to this thing.” The Trump administration is aiming for a ceasefire that could involve territorial concessions to Russia—specifically, Kremlin control over eastern Ukraine in exchange for halting hostilities.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is having none of it. In a pointed statement on X, he said, “Any decisions that are against us, any decisions that are without Ukraine, are at the same time decisions against peace.”
Zelensky hasn’t been invited to the Alaska summit, though the White House insists a trilateral meeting is still possible.
European leaders, while offering diplomatic and military backing for Trump’s efforts, have warned that any deal must protect both Ukraine’s sovereignty and Europe’s security interests. Vance, however, made it clear the U.S. wants Europe to shoulder the costs: “If the Europeans want to step up and actually buy the weapons from American producers, we’re OK with that, but we’re not going to fund it ourselves anymore.”
This marks another instance of the administration telling Europe to take the lead in its own backyard. Trump has already struck deals compelling NATO allies to boost defense spending to 5% of GDP and to buy U.S. weapons for Ukraine—paid for by them, not American taxpayers. The Alaska meeting will test whether that approach can actually end a war Trump once promised to resolve “in 24 hours.”
Source: The Hill
Apparently “peace through strength” now means “peace through sending Europe the invoice.”
Let’s not forget that the US was “giving” Ukraine weapons that we could no longer use. In essence, Ukraine was getting our leftovers. We were going to eat the cost either way. Now it sounds like the U.S. wants to turn a profit on the war. Imagine that!
Israeli Airstrike Kills Al Jazeera Reporters in Gaza—Network Calls It a ‘Targeted Assassination’
An Israeli airstrike outside Gaza City’s largest hospital killed Al Jazeera correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohamed Qreiqeh, along with several other journalists, in what the network says was a deliberate attempt to silence its coverage of the war.
Israel quickly claimed responsibility, alleging that al-Sharif led a Hamas cell—accusations both he and Al Jazeera had previously dismissed as baseless.
Press freedom advocates, including the U.N. and the Committee to Protect Journalists, condemned the strike as a grave violation of international law and part of a broader effort to intimidate or eliminate those documenting the conflict. “Anas and his colleagues were among the last remaining voices from within Gaza, providing the world with unfiltered, on-the-ground coverage,” Al Jazeera said in a statement.
The strike hit a journalists’ tent outside Shifa Hospital, killing at least six media workers and two others, and damaging the entrance to the hospital’s emergency building. Al-Sharif had just reported a nearby bombardment minutes before his death; in a message prepared in case he was killed, he wrote, “I never hesitated for a single day to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or falsification.”
This war has already become the deadliest for journalists in modern history, with at least 186 media workers killed in Gaza, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Al-Sharif and Qreiqeh were separated from their families for months, only briefly reuniting earlier this year during a ceasefire. Both had been visibly shaken by the suffering they witnessed daily—al-Sharif famously broke down on air in July while reporting on starvation in the territory.
Funerals for the journalists drew hundreds, including many members of the press. Calls are growing louder for international intervention to protect reporters in conflict zones—but given Israel’s ongoing pattern of labeling journalists as militants without presenting hard evidence, those protections seem far from guaranteed.
Source: AP News
When telling the truth gets you marked for death, you start to realize some governments fear cameras more than they fear weapons. And here we thought it was just Saudi Arabia who murdered journalists… maybe it’s all of the Middle East governments?
Trump Administration Asks Supreme Court to Greenlight Immigration Arrests Based on Appearance, Language, and Job Type
In other words, profiling.
The Trump administration is urging the Supreme Court to let immigration officers in Southern California arrest people based on their race, language, location, and type of work—factors federal judges have already ruled unconstitutional.
At issue is a July 11 order from U.S. District Judge Maame Frimpong, upheld by the 9th Circuit, blocking arrests in the Central District of California that relied on these criteria. The court found that immigration officers had been detaining people for looking Hispanic, speaking Spanish or accented English, being near certain locations like car washes or Home Depot parking lots, or holding jobs such as day labor or landscaping. Judges called this a recipe for targeting anyone who “appears Hispanic” without actual evidence of wrongdoing.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer argues those factors are “valid reasons” for arrests in the Central District, which covers Los Angeles County and six other counties. He wants the injunction suspended while the case moves forward, claiming the rulings “threaten to upend” immigration enforcement. Civil rights advocates counter that the administration is simply trying to repackage racial profiling as legitimate policing.
The dispute escalated after Trump took control of the California National Guard in June and deployed troops to protect immigration agents during workplace raids. That move survived a separate court challenge from Gov. Gavin Newsom, but judges have repeatedly ruled that the arrest tactics themselves cross legal lines. In a parallel case, Judge Jennifer Thurston banned similar practices in the Eastern District of California, warning, “You can’t just walk up to people with brown skin and say, ‘Give me your papers.’”
Oh, but they are.
The Supreme Court has ordered lawyers for the immigrants to respond by Tuesday. In the meantime, ICE raids continue to test the limits of the injunction—including a recent Home Depot sweep in Los Angeles where 16 Latino workers were detained, prompting accusations that the government is already ignoring the court’s order.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
When your “reasonable suspicion” test boils down to skin tone, language, and a hard hat, you’re not enforcing immigration law—you’re running a guessing game with handcuffs. It’s racism, pure and simple.
One could say the U.S. is ethnic cleansing without the overt murder of its residents.