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... "It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business," Michael Corleone tells his brother, Sonny, in The Godfather. But for Donald Trump, it's always personal. And he leaves this week feeling betrayed.

First, the US supreme court rejected his effort to restrict mail-in ballots ahead of the midterm elections. "These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court," the president wrote on his Truth Social platform. "They are merely a shell of their original selves."

Then the Federal Reserve defied Trump by raising its benchmark interest rate by a quarter-percentage point to a range of 3.75% to 4%, marking its first rate hike in three years. The Trump-appointed Fed chair, Kevin Warsh, described it as "a sober decision, serious decision, responsible decision".

The president lashed out again but was careful to blame the board rather than Warsh. Trump told reporters he had spoken to the chair. "I said you might as well vote with the board because it's not going to matter. The board is very hostile. They're very political."

It was an effort to rationalise a shock to the system for Trump, who instinctively assumes that anyone he appoints to high office will be eternally in his debt and automatically do his bidding.

It is a view constantly reinforced by his cartoonishly loyal cabinet, from defence secretary Pete Hegseth to attorney general Todd Blanche, who was previously Trump's personal lawyer.

Blanche held a press conference in the White House Rose Garden on Tuesday and staunchly defended Trump. He was rewarded two days later when he attended a campaign rally in Gastonia, North Carolina, and heard Trump say of him: "He'll go down as the greatest attorney general in the history of our country." ...