“I want to try and get to heaven, if possible. I’m hearing I’m not doing well. I am really at the bottom of the totem pole. But if I can get to heaven, this will be one of the reasons,” Trump told a second outlet after referencing his efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war.<\/p>\n

For his earthly Washington Secrets<\/em> Weekly Report Card, Trump made several advances toward his divine goal.<\/p>\n

He started the week by hosting an international Oval Office summit on the war and broke bread with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky<\/a> six months after the two got into a verbal battle while sitting in the very same seats.<\/p>\n

He expanded the federal government&rsquo<\/a>;s aid to Washington, D.C., police, and the city logged a rare week with no murders. Critics decried the “takeover,” but the improvements in citizen safety were hard to ignore.<\/p>\n

And Trump received two personal positive signs. In one, an appeals court gave<\/a> him a partial victory in dismissing a $515 million fraud penalty<\/a> pushed by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who based her campaign for the job on getting Trump. And at the end of the week, Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime Jeffrey Epstein associate serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, said Trump was always a gentleman in her company.<\/p>\n

Conservative grader Jed Babbin dished a “B-plus” for the week, citing the Ukraine meeting and New York case. Democratic pollster John Zogby, however, cited bad economic polling for Trump; though, he did see a positive in the president’s New York court victory. He summed it up this way: “I guess good weeks boil down to less bad news.”<\/p>\n

Jed Babbin<\/strong><\/p>\n

Grade: B+<\/span><\/p>\n

President Donald Trump had a pretty good week, considering his appellate court win<\/a> in a New York fraud case, the (uneventful) meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Euro-allies and the hint that the Federal Reserve might cut interest rates.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Supreme Court<\/a> allowed Trump to kill $800 million in DEI grants from the National Institutes of Health. It was a partial win, but Trump will take it.<\/em><\/p>\n

The judgment that New York Attorney General Letitia James obtained against Trump clearly violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against excessive fines, so the New York appeals court held. The trial judge should have known that but he was too glad to be punishing Trump. It was only a part way win given the fact that Trump’s ban on running a New York business for about three years stood.<\/em><\/p>\n

In another court case, this time dealing with the climate nonsense over Florida<\/a>’s “Alligator Alcatraz,” prohibited the operation of the prison. The Trump administration is appealing and could win.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Ukraine mess is still a mess. The Democrats are screaming at Trump for having failed to negotiate a cease-fire (as if that were even possible, given Russian President Vladimir Putin’s demands) and our European allies want to make sure we take a huge part of the burden if a cease-fire is arranged. At least Zelensky turned up in a suit to the summit (sans necktie) which was more respectful of Trump.<\/em><\/p>\n

Maybe the biggest news was the FBI raid on Friday on former national security adviser John Bolton’s home and office, reportedly for classified documents. Bolton should have been smarter than to keep any classified documents, but we’ll see. Bolton’s hatred for Trump is featured in all of his writings. If the FBI didn’t come up with any classified stuff in the raid, expect Bolton to sue.<\/em><\/p>\n

John Zogby<\/strong><\/p>\n

Grade: D-<\/span><\/p>\n

Polls show 62% of American consumers believe that unemployment will worsen in 2025, a majority are still bracing for more inflation, and 55% disapprove of President Donald Trump’s handling of the economy. But perhaps he got a break from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell<\/a>, who suggested he’d lower rates in September.<\/em><\/p>\n

There were more headlines this week about Trump being played by Russian President Vladimir Putin than about a possible (serious) peace deal. And the FBI break-in at the home of former national security adviser John Bolton was not good.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
<\/iframe> <\/div>\n<\/figure>\nBut the president won a huge victory in a New York appeals court that tossed his company’s conviction on bank fraud. I guess good weeks boil down to less bad news.<\/em><\/p>\nMeanwhile, one quarter of the population of Gaza City is starving, and Israel pretty much only has the U.S. in its corner.<\/em><\/p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/washington-secrets\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">SEE THE LATEST POLITICAL NEWS AND BUZZ FROM WASHINGTON SECRETS<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nJed Babbin<\/strong> is a Washington Examiner<\/em> contributor and former deputy undersecretary of defense in the administration of former President George H.W. Bush. Follow him on X <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/jedbabbin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">@jedbabbin<\/a>.<\/p>\nJohn Zogby<\/strong> is the founder of the Zogby Survey and senior partner at <a href=\"https:\/\/johnzogbystrategies.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">John Zogby Strategies<\/a>. His latest book is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Beyond-Horse-Race-Polls-Should\/dp\/1538197146\">Beyond the Horse Race: How to Read Polls and Why We Should<\/em><\/a>. His podcast with son and managing partner and pollster Jeremy Zogby can be heard here. Follow him on X <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/zogbystrategies\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">@ZogbyStrategies<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <script data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/cdn-cgi\/scripts\/5c5dd728\/cloudflare-static\/email-decode.min.js\"><\/script> <\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trump views ‘Heaven’ as his ultimate goal: White House report<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2647,"featured_media":2477926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Trump-Report-Heaven.jpg?w=696","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[6711,5894,33296,3634,32127],"class_list":["post-2477925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-confidence","tag-politics","tag-report-card","tag-trump","tag-white-house"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Trump-Report-Heaven.jpg?w=696","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2477925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2647"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2477925"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2477925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2477929,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2477925\/revisions\/2477929"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2477926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2477925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2477925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2477925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}