Today's job numbers are bad. There's no getting around it. So Donald Trump reacted to this bad news by immediately firing the messenger. Which is really bad. "Banana republic" bad, in fact. We should all expect Trump to name the next head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics who will then dutifully report next month that "in August, America added eight million new jobs, thanks to our Dear Leader's brilliance." Because that is obviously what Trump wants to hear, instead of any proof that the fantasy world he inhabits in his head is rosier than the actual reality in which the rest of us live.

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The next few weeks could be fairly pivotal for the U.S. economy, with new monthly economic numbers being released telling us where we are now, while perhaps new tariff numbers will be imposed by the end of the week which may tell us where we are headed with the rest of the world. All of these outcomes hinge mostly on how Donald Trump's big trade war with the rest of the planet continues to play out.

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Once again, this week was consumed by an out-of-control political fire that is engulfing Donald Trump, his attorney general, the F.B.I., and all of Trump's fellow Republicans in Congress. They built a political Ponzi scheme out of the Epstein files, and it has now completely collapsed around them.

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I should start out by clarifying that headline. When I say "Trump Is Getting Weaker," I am not referring to the news today that Donald Trump is suffering from problems with the veins in his legs and the bruising on his hands. I speak not of physical weakness, but instead of political weakness. And I'm going to mostly set aside the continuing internecine battle among Republicans over the Jeffrey Epstein files as well, since although the issue has been making headlines for weeks now, there is something much more interesting going on in the background. While Trump flails around desperately trying to somehow pin all the blame over the Epstein files cover-up on Democrats (which isn't convincing anyone), the widening schism within his own party has happened independently from some much larger trends. Democrats are gleefully trolling Trump and the Republicans over the Epstein files fiasco, but no matter what the upshot of it all turns out to be, the fact will remain that Trump is getting a whole lot weaker on pretty much every other issue under the sun. Sooner or later, Democrats should start making some political hay out of this weakness (assumably, after the Epstein files tempest blows over).

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That headline is somewhat confusing, since it is not actually "Taco Tuesday," but instead merely the day which followed "TACO Monday." The latter, of course, refers to the neologism "Trump Always Chickens Out," which was created to describe exactly what took place yesterday. But it is also applicable to a different foreign policy stance (or "crouch," more like) that Donald Trump has been taking, which he is now threatening to change (but probably won't).

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Next month, America will celebrate its 249th birthday on July 4th. But the rest of the world will be much more concerned with what happens five days later, on July 9th. That is the deadline for Donald Trump's 90-day "pause" in what he calls his "reciprocal tariffs" on the rest of the world. Either countries have a new trade deal in place with the U.S. by that date, or else steep tariffs will once again be imposed upon them.

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Donald Trump bent to reality last week, issuing an order that amounts to a stunning turnaround on his "mass deportation" policy. Instead of rounding up every undocumented immigrant in sight everywhere, ICE will now back off on raiding farms, meatpacking plants, hotels, and restaurants. Because the reality of the situation is that if you removed all the undocumented immigrants from these industries, they would essentially grind to a halt. Which Trump has (thankfully) now finally realized.

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It has been a week of dangerous precedents being set -- and it's not over yet.

One precedent that didn't get much media attention (but which is truly disturbing) was Donald Trump giving a nakedly political speech to American soldiers in uniform, where he pre-screened the crowd for both looks and ideology. One memo sent out before Trump arrived specified: "No fat soldiers." Another stated: "if soldiers have political views that are in opposition to the current administration and they don't want to be in the audience, then they need to speak with their leadership and get swapped out."

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The most important battle over immigration policy isn't being fought on the streets of Los Angeles right now, but rather over the airwaves. This is the fight for public opinion, and it could go either way. If the public largely sides with Trump's immigration tactics, it will strengthen his hand. But if the public decides the tactics go too far then it will weaken him in the long run. How the events of this week are ultimately seen by the public could be the deciding factor. Is Donald Trump and his administration doing what the voters elected him to do, or is he vastly overreaching in a dictatorial fashion? That's the entire rhetorical battle in a nutshell.

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We seem to be quickly headed for a confluence of events that is going to produce a rather shocking split-screen moment next weekend. We could be simultaneously watching a parade that is ostensibly being given for the celebration of the U.S. Army's 250th anniversary, while we also watch the national military being deployed on the streets of American cities. That's a jarring contrast, you have to admit.

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