​Donald Trump suffers due to Epstein scandal, Carney takes poor approach with First Nations.

In the last week two political Leaders, Donald Trump and Mark Carney have seen sharp challenges to their political strength. Trump showed he continues to lack a meaningful response to climate change, but more sharply, he faces an immediate crisis with the Jeffrey Epstein file. For his part, Carney struggles to find a better way to work with First Nations as his effort on Thursday to convince assembled chiefs was a disaster.  

Dealing with Trump and climate change, first. Trump was found lacking in an article by the celebrated American columnist, Paul Klugman, and forwarded to this writer—by an American who decidedly is not a supporter of Trump or his administration.

Klugman zeroes in on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric (NOAA) which includes the U.S. National Weather Service. He argues that the terrible cuts to
NOAA “are not an attack on government, but on science.”
 
A full week after the tragic flood in Kerr County, Texas which resulted in the deaths of sixty adults and thirty-six children, President Trump paid a visit to the flood scene.

Trump contends that the failure to predict the flooding had nothing to do with his administration’s plan to cut NOAA’s funding by 40 per cent.

Meanwhile, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney did not have a good week. He took on an ambitious effort, holding an historic meeting Thursday with the First Nations Chiefs at the Museum of History in Gatineau Quebec with its impressive, and symbolically important Indigenous totem poles.
 
PM Carney wanted this meeting to win the support of the Chiefs for his C-5 legislation on major national projects.
 
Unfortunately, the Prime Minister has not learned a fundamental lesson in dealing with First Nations, which is to consult prior to a decision, not after.
 
Carney had promised First Nations wealth and prosperity for generations to come.
 
Carney has seemingly not learned why Indigenous peoples are called First Nations—because they were the owners of this land before the white settlers arrived.
 
At the conclusion of the meeting, he told the chiefs he is not willing to amend the C-5 legislation. Not a wise move, Mr. Prime Minister; he listened but did not hear.
 
Donald Trump also did harm to his cause in recent days. Trump is in significant trouble with his own much-celebrated MAGA (Make America Great Again) base over the Epstein files.
 
Without going into the sordid details of the Jeffrey Epstein case, the billionaire sex trafficker has become a major problem for Trump. His MAGA movement has long developed a conspiracy theory based on the belief that there are pedophiles in the top reaches of the U.S. Government. This belief has become gospel for the MAGA effort to “drain the swamp” of government in Washington DC.
 
During his most recent campaign, Trump promised to reveal the names in the Epstein files, but recently, Trump has claimed that the list was “made up” by former FBI director James Comey and former Democratic presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Not to mysteriously, Maurene Comey, daughter of James, and prosecutor of Epstein, has been fired by the Trump administration.
 
For Trump, it has become far more dangerous politically than the NOAA cuts discussed above.
 
The whole Epstein file has just exploded with the Wall Street Journal reporting that Epstein’s friends sent him bawdy letters for his 50th birthday. One of these was from Donald Trump. The President says the letter is a “fake thing”. He has lashed out on his own MAGA supporters for fixating on the “Epstein Hoax”.
 
Trump is threatening to sue Rupert Murdoch, the owner of the Wall Street Journal.
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Even before the Wall Street Journal revelations, Steve Bannon, Trump’s long-time backer and former White House Chief Strategist, warned that for the Epstein issue “to go away, you’re going to lose 10 per cent of the MAGA base.”

The Epstein file is a gathering scandal so serious that it could eventually bring down Trump, even with his Harry Houdini-like ways to escape trouble, witness his ability to bounce back from his numerous felony convictions, his turning of the riot on Capitol Hill to his own political advantage, or, surviving despite being impeached twice by Congress, the only President in U.S. history to be twice impeached.
 
Still, the world waits as Trump hangs on to his contention that tariffs are the best route to economic prosperity for the U.S.A. and can be implemented with his erratic on again/off again style.
 
This has caused PM Mark Carney to give up on his hope for a comprehensive new trade agreement by July 21 with the United States and possibly Mexico as well.
 
Carney has done some tariff setting of his own.  He has promised a further 25 per cent on non-U.S. countries importing steel to Canada and hurting Canadian steel producers.
 
Overall, the last nine months have seen incredible upheaval in the life of Canadians and Americans. The chaotic and often cruel second presidency of Donald Trump, and the rise of Canadian patriotism in response to Trump’s talk of Canada becoming the 51st American state, led to Carney riding that patriotism to his election victory and position as Prime Minister.
 
We are destined to live in interesting times.