WASHINGTON — Last week was relatively quiet by Trump-era standards.

Monday was a week in itself.

The U.S. president contemplated a major military strike. The office of the president’s lawyer was raided. The president lashed out at the special counsel investigating his campaign. The president’s company pressured the president of Panama.

Among other things.

Here’s a play-by-play of another extraordinary day in Washington:

8:08 a.m.: Trump’s company pressures Panama’s president

The president’s company, which he still owns and his two sons control, pressured the president of Panama to intervene on the company’s behalf in a bitter legal dispute over the management of a hotel in Panama City, the Associated Press reported.

The Trump Organization sent a letter to Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela “URGENTLY” seeking his “influence” in the dispute — and appeared to threaten harm to the Panamanian government if he did not help. (He didn’t.) Panamanian officials were baffled, and ethics experts said the letter appeared to be using the power of the presidency for private profit-making purposes.

11:55 a.m.: Trump hints at military action against Syria over Saturday chemical attack

“We’ll be making some major decisions over the next 24 to 48 hours. We are very concerned when a thing like that can happen. This is about humanity. We’re talking about humanity. And it can’t be allowed to happen,” Trump said in remarks televised shortly after he delivered them.

11:57 a.m.: Trump says NAFTA deal is in sight

In his most optimistic comment to date on the status of North American Free Trade Agreement negotiations, Trump said, “We’re fairly close on NAFTA.” He appeared to be referring to the prospects of some sort of agreement in principle.

Immediately afterward, he reverted to his usual threat: “If we don’t make the right deal we’ll terminate NAFTA and we’ll make the right deal after that.” But then he returned to his new positivity: “But we have a chance to make a deal on NAFTA.”

12:01 p.m.: Trump says he’ll “probably” find a way to avoid a tariff war with China

The move was a response to U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff on steel and alumnimum. (The Associated Press)

Joining his economic team in signalling an openness to trade negotiation with China, Trump said “probably we will” come to an agreement with China to avoid the tariffs both sides have threatened.

But he also played down the danger of China’s threatened retaliatiatory tariffs on U.S. agricultural products. American farmers are “great patriots,” he said, and if they get hit with tariffs, they will understand that they are making a sacrifice “for the country.”

“And we’ll make it up to them,” he said. “And in the end, they’re going to be much stronger than they are right now.”

2 p.m.: Budget office says Trump tax cuts will cause debt to balloon

Trump’s administration claimed his tax cuts would pay for themselves. Congress’s independent budget experts disagree. In a new report, the Congressional Budget Office said the tax cuts would add a total of $1.9 trillion (U.S.) to the federal deficit by 2028. The CBO also said the national debt would spike from $21 trillion to $33 trillion under Trump’s policies.

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2:51 p.m.: A Pruitt smoking gun?

The Atlantic magazine, which last week broke the story that Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt used an environmental law to give hefty raises to two close aides in defiance of White House wishes, reported that there is an email confirming Pruitt knew at least about the $56,765 raise to senior counsel Sarah Greenwalt — though he claimed on Fox News last week that he had known nothing until the day prior.

3:02 p.m.: Trump “strongly feels” a lie

Challenged about Trump’s lie last week that “millions” of people voted illegally in the 2016 election, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders defended him — by talking about his unfounded feelings. “Certainly, the president still strongly feels that there was a large amount of voter fraud,” she said.

3:54 p.m.: A sensational raid on Trump’s lawyer

The New York Times reported the FBI just raided the office of Trump’s longtime lawyer and problem-fixer Michael Cohen and secured records related to Cohen’s $130,000 payment in the last month of the 2016 election to adult film star Stormy Daniels — as well as “emails, tax documents and business records,” plus “communications between Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen.”

Read more: ‘Many people have said you should fire’ Mueller, Trump says after FBI raid on his lawyer’s office

Special counsel Robert Mueller, who leads the investigation into the Trump campaign’s relationship with Russia, referred the Cohen matter to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, which obtained the search warrants.

“This is a big deal,” Ken White, a former federal prosecutor, wrote on the website Reason. Such a search, he wrote, would have required “high-level approval” from the Trump-backed U.S. Attorney himself, an “elaborate” review process, and consultation with the Department of Justice, which is led by other Trump appointees.

Around 6:10 p.m., the Washington Post reported that Cohen is being investigated for possible bank fraud and campaign finance violations.

6:19 p.m.: Trump denounces special counsel, attorney general

Asked about the Cohen raid, Trump, sitting with military leaders in the White House, resumed his attack on Mueller and on his own attorney general, Jeff Sessions. He called Mueller’s probe “an attack on our country in a true sense, an attack on what we all stand for.” He called the raid “disgraceful.” Asked if he would fire Mueller, he said, “We’ll see what happens ... Many people have said, ‘You should fire him.’” And he described the execution of the search warrant as a break-in: “They broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys,” he said.

6:27 p.m. Trump promises military action against Syria

“It will be met, and it will be met forcefully,” he said.

Daniel Dale is the Star’s Washington bureau chief. He covers U.S. politics and current affairs. Follow him on Twitter: @ddale8

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