State of War: How Trump is fighting a 9-front battle

President Trump is fighting a war with multiple battlefields It s a nine-front crusade although I could easily double that number If there s a common thread here it s the president taking on elite institutions that he has long resented or reviled That s why his first three months seem stuck on hyperspeed critics would say chaos because he s broken with the traditional model of tackling one or two issues at a time Voters gave him a second term to shake things up It s the first Trump term on steroids GUIDANCE DEPT TO RESUME COLLECTIONS ON DEFAULTED FEDERAL ATTENDEE LOANS FOR FIRST TIME SINCE The president is surrounded by loyalists who encourage his flood-the-zone approach unlike selected of the more traditional figures Rex Tillerson Jim Mattis Gary Cohn who tried to restrain him the last time he lived in the White House One advantage is that he uses Truth Social as a weapon unloading on those who displease him And yet he still finds time to abolish rules limiting shower pressure call for the abolition of pennies and come out against changing clocks though his stance on daylight savings is unclear all matters that affect people s daily lives Here in no particular order are Donald Trump s nine battlegrounds TOP PRIVATE UNIVERSITIESAlthough Trump himself went to the Wharton School he is constantly attacking Columbia and other top Ivy colleges Harvard where he has frozen more than billion in federal funding and another billion is at danger is fighting back Plus the IRS is looking at revoking the university s tax-exempt status The White House now admits that the letter a Trump official transmitted to Harvard was unauthorized and should not have been sent Harvard administrators were stunned because they thought they were in the process of negotiating a settlement with the administration LAW FIRMSOne giant law firm after another under pressure from Trump has caved and reached settlements with the White House This involves agreeing to provide up to million or even million in pro bono services on matters vital to the administration The alternative is an executive order pulling its members precaution clearances making it impossible to serve their corporate clients without access to secret statistics A inadequate firms have fought back and selected attorneys have resigned in protest but largest part are volunteering to settle MEDIA President Trump has sued CBS NBC and Gannett He won a -million lawsuit against ABC approved by Disney after George Stephanopoulos repeatedly called him a rapist when he was genuinely held liable for sexual abuse Even if the suits go nowhere journalists and news outlets have to hire lawyers and go through an ordeal MARK ZUCKERBERG ON THE STAND CRAZY SCARY IDEAS LED HIM TO BUY INSTAGRAM AND WHATSAPPTrump has long used the press as a foil but now he ridicules the likes of CNN s Kaitlan Collins when she tries to ask questions He refused to take a question from an NBC reporter saying the architecture has no credibility And yet Trump provides an absolutely stunning degree of access He takes questions virtually every day and has taken over the press pool with the AP still excluded The coverage is overwhelmingly anti-Trump sometimes that s self-inflicted but that also boosts clicks and ratings It s a love-hate relationship FEDERAL RESERVEThe markets nose-dived again the day before today as Trump stepped up his personal assault on Fed Chairman Jerome Powell in an obvious attempt to pressure him into resigning Powell s job is to worry about inflation not to goose the commercial sector because the president wants him to cut interest rates The entire tariff war has spooked Wall Street and alienated such allies as Canada the st State Mexico and the European Union He repeatedly promised a tariff war during the campaign but no one expected tariffs of this magnitude even against China which has retaliated Now Trump says he ll even work out a deal with China The -day pause briefly seemed to stabilize things but whether the president can strike deals with countries in days remains to be seen COURTSDonald Trump has a long history of attacking judges and prosecutors Now he is going up to the line and perhaps navigating it when it comes to challenging court rulings even with a - conservative majority on the Supreme Court The other day the president deflected questions about the wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia telling reporters to speak to the lawyers The next day he unloaded at length on Abrego Garcia saying he s a violent man who deserves to be in prison and criticizing Chris Van Hollen s trip to visit him in a rigorously staged photo op Abrego Garcia may well be a gang member but a previous court ruling had ascertained he should not be sent to El Salvador Politically this is a winning issue for Trump But when SCOTUS ruled - that he should facilitate Garcia s return Trump pretty much ignored it TRUMP SAYS HE'S 'NOT HAPPY' WITH FED CHIEF JEROME POWELLIn a separate event the Supreme Court - ordered Trump not to move a second wave of Venezuelan newcomers from where they are being held This time the administration agreed to follow the ruling FORMER AIDESThe president is going after two of his appointees from the first term He has ordered an assessment of his former cybersecurity chief Chris Krebs for falsely and baselessly denying that the vote was rigged He called Krebs a notable bad-faith actor who weaponized and abused his cabinet authority meaning Krebs unveiled what every other probe including one by Attorney General Bill Barr ascertained no evidence of vital fraud Trump also ordered a probe of Miles Taylor better known as Anonymous for the New York Times op-ed he wrote ripping the president Taylor a former Homeland Precaution official wrote a book under the pseudonym Anonymous making outrageous contends both about your administration and about others in it the president was recounted in a memo So he too is under scrutiny Trump even accused Taylor of committing treason HILL REPUBLICANSThe president has pressured members of his own party into going along with just about anything he wants Other than the Matt Gaetz fiasco that has meant approving all his nominees despite doubts about the likes of Pete Hegseth and RFK Jr He has openly warned that he will use Elon Musk s money to launch primary opponents against those who defy him Musk has been a heat shield for Trump though he has broken with him on tariffs Remember that Musk poured money into that Wisconsin Supreme Court battle and lost The chainsaw looks very different now While the violent attacks against Tesla have been despicable Musk has also had to admit after vowing to cut trillion that he ll only be able to save billion Musk also admitted firing and having to rehire bird flu experts and nuclear bomb specialists but remains the world s richest man Lisa Murkowski just came out and mentioned it They are all afraid to criticize Trump for fear of political retaliation KENNEDY CENTERIt s never been done but the president fired all the Democratic board members and named himself chairman He s even suggested that he should host the annual awards given out for the glittering building on the Potomac named for JFK not because he demands the attention he says but because it would be good for ratings The board has unfailingly been bipartisan but that doesn t bother Trump Specific performers led by Lin-Manuel Miranda of Hamilton fame have already pulled out Will only conservative performers get the green light I ve picked the Kennedy Center as an example of Trump s values wars but he s also taken aim at the Smithsonian Institution and the National Zoo VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYYThe president with help from JD Vance utterly humiliated the Ukrainian president during that meltdown meeting at the White House Now Zelenskyy bears a good bit of responsibility for the clash he should have kept his mouth shut and walked away with an agreement but took the bait Trump went a step further kicking him out of the White House and sending him home Now Trump through Marco Rubio says he may give up on negotiating a cease-fire in Ukraine That s exactly what Vladimir Putin wants so he can keep on seizing land from the brave Ukrainians One thing that Trump mentioned he would do but hasn t done is pressure his pal Putin He still blames Zelenskyy and Ukraine for having the temerity to be invaded by the Kremlin That s the list Feel free to create your own Sometimes it works for Donald Trump sometimes it doesn t But it helps explain the dizzying pace of change and sends an unmistakable message that he is in charge