Donald Trump said he does not think about consumers! Yes, he said that!

Donald Trump Is Now the Un-Populist

Donald Trump, on May 12, 2026, while taking questions from reporters about the Iran conflict. When asked if he was considering Americans' financial situations during negotiations, he responded, "Not even a little bit."

Published in New York Magazine Intelligencer by Ed Kilgore

From the expensive and unnecessary ballroom to the illegal Iran war, to blatant self-dealing, Donald Trump is ignoring the will of the people — to his Growing Old Party's peril.

Less than four months from now, early voting begins in the 2026, midterm general elections. Political scientists differ on exactly when voting intentions are formed, but the consensus is that for the vast majority of the electorate, it happens well before the last-minute rush of campaigning. Most Republicans, whose control of Congress is at risk in November, are acutely aware that they are running out of time to convince swing voters that their sour perceptions of Donald Trump’s job performance — always the single most important variable affecting midterm outcomes — are erroneous. And at almost every turn, the president seems to be on a mission to make that as hard as possible.

While assessments of Trump’s handling of a broad range of issues have remained well underwater for over a year now, there are particularly and especially salient negative perceptions of how well he’s dealt with high living costs (arguably the issue that most determined his 2024 victory over Kamala Harris) and whether his strange and aimless war with Iran was a good idea. Trump’s two biggest problems are dangerously interactive, since the Iran war’s effect on global energy prices has clearly boosted domestic inflation, and his prosecution of this “war of choice” has come to symbolize his refusal to focus on the public’s actual concerns. For all the interminable discussion of a GOP “affordability agenda,” it’s getting very late in the year for that agenda to suddenly appear.

And, most recently, despite the intense loyalty congressional Republicans have consistently shown toward Trump, an unprecedented revolt has broken out, for the moment shutting down the legislative process. The growing GOP grievance is that Trump is continuing to elevate personal hobbyhorses (e.g., his White House ballroom project, which he now wants taxpayers to subsidize, and his bizarre new slush fund for alleged victims of Biden administration persecution) over the measures Republicans need to stay in office.


The implications of this revolt go beyond smooth executive-legislative relations or even the unity of the GOP. Whatever one thinks of Donald Trump from the perspective of ethics, policy, the U.S. Constitution, or the health of democratic institutions, his prowess as a gut-level politician has been universally, if grudgingly, respected. An essential ingredient of the loyalty he has inspired in the Republican ranks has been his ability to bend traditional conservatism to “populism,” a voter-friendly blend of themes and proposals that probably saved the GOP from the irrelevance it seemed to be courting before he came down the escalator in 2015. He famously convinced a party in love with “entitlement reform” to lay off trying to slaughter the sacred cows of Social Security and Medicare. He talked Republicans out of a near century of free-trade orthodoxy because culturally conservative blue-collar voters hated NAFTA. And he convinced the militarist wing of the GOP that massive defense spending didn’t require actually using it in unpopular “forever wars.”

Now comes the terrifying possibility that the man who made Republicans “populists” is himself becoming the ultimate un-populist. Trump is not just ignoring (or, because he can only acknowledge praise of himself, actively denying) public opinion; he seems to be courting unpopularity. Americans really dislike his beloved tariffs, and although Trump has the perfect legal excuses to stop pursuing them, he still persists. Trump can’t stop bashing Obamacare, even though he got badly burned on the subject in his first term and has no coherent replacement for it. His war in Iran was the rare U.S. war that was unpopular from the get-go, but he can’t seem to let go of it, and it’s an even bet he’ll start another war before suppertime. The political “outsider” who was too rich to bribe is now the consummate insider grabbing money with both hands to enrich his family and friends and the most disreputable of his supporters.

Most astonishing of all, the veteran entertainer who understood the intense resentment of working people for elites who seemed to mock them while fleecing them is now becoming the elitist-in-chief. He is explicitly annoyed that people struggling to make ends meet don’t appreciate they are living in a “golden age” in which stock markets climb dizzily upward on record corporate profits. He’s angry that Americans don’t just take his word for it that they need to pay higher prices for gasoline or light and heat so that he can win some more wars and peace prizes. And he is indifferent at best to how very bad it looks that he is devoting more time to his many tacky and self-glorifying vanity projects than to his day job. Many regular folk used to enjoy watching Trump thumb his nose at the powers that be. Now he’s the Man, the very opposite of a plucky underdog.

For Republicans who desperately need his help to retain their offices and their power, it increasingly appears that Trump has lost touch with the country. Yes, he’ll help them in the midterms by rigging congressional districts and perhaps interfering with the vote itself, but not by bending to adverse public opinion. It would be one thing if like some second-term presidents of the past, he drifted toward lame-duck status and began ceding power to his allies and successors. But no: Trump dominates news media and the political landscape more forcefully and ubiquitously than ever. (The more Trump talks, the more he contradicts himself and his advisors.)

He’s in danger not only of squandering his party’s midterm-election hopes, but of handing his putative heir J.D. Vance an anvil and the GOP an indelible MAGA brand — even as the idea that he has restored “American greatness” becomes ridiculous to all but his fiercest acolytes.

It’s possible, of course, that such assessments once again underestimate the 47th. Perhaps, against all expectations, he will snap out of his extended fugue state and begin listening to the public and his party leaders. But, Donald Trump would be well advised to make his 80th-birthday wish Make Trump popular again. In the meantime, the candle  he’s already🕯️ blowing out is his own.

Donald Trump''s slush funds is a criminal use of tax payer money for him to use for his own vindiciive purposes

 Chattanooga Times Free Press editorial

Times Opinion: Trump’s new slush fund is rank corruption — public money for lawbreakers and his corrupt pals.
The dollar amount in Donald Trump's

💲1.776 Billion slush fund memorializes this nation's revolutionary break from a king; if this agreement fully goes through, we might as well be returning to an unaccountable monarchy. The origin of this corrupt pot of cash for the president to pay himself, his family and his political allies, including January 6th, rioters and other democracy enemies, was his personal lawsuit against the IRS, which has been settled with the new agreement to create the slush fund.

If there has been one through line to the second Trump administration, it is the effort to relentlessly push the boundaries of what is possible or acceptable by an executive a little further out every day. This represents one major leap in the direction of authoritarianism — Donald Trump is directly raiding the public coffers to enrich cronies, not just via his corrupt business dealings and pseudo-bribes from foreign governments, but straight up getting checks from the public treasury.

Also, we must ask what this outcome ultimately incentivizes❓ It's hard not to read it as Donald Trump paying the foot soldiers in his failed 2021, coup for t

These convicted  insurrectionists have already ensured that they won't face criminal consequences for their attempt to end American democracy during their evil January 6th attacks on the Capitol. It is impossible to understand how Republicans continue to support evil Trumpzi-ism and his corrupt intentions. 

Trump has continuously intimated that he may attempt to run for a third term; this would of course be unconstitutional, but Trump has demonstrated that he places very little stock in that document.
The Anti-Weaponization Fund (aka "slush fund") being set up in the Department of Justice will have a five-person board answering only to the attorney general, who is now Trump's former personal criminal defense lawyer Todd Blanche in an acting capacity. There will be no congressional oversight and no public accountability. It's also not clear who can seek money, but as the Daily News pointed out, Rudy Giuliani and Eric Adams seem to fit the profile.

The message of these payouts is that those who violate the law, even those who engage in violence on behalf of Trump's agenda may, not only evade consequences but be compensated with public funds, a sickening outcome. In addition, the settlement reportedly has stipulations that the IRS will forever suspend inquiries into Trump, family members and companies over past tax non-compliance. What is that if not a direct license to keep even more public money pilfered via nonpayment, and a marker that the president and his inner circle are above the law❓

Police officers who defended Congress on January 6 are suing to stop this Anti-Weaponization Fund, 💢which would reward the mob who beat them. That seems like pretty good standing to us.

Congress, of course, should also probe this extraordinarily corrupt transactionk if it is ever able to shake itself out of its stupor and engage in the checks that it is supposed to have on the executive, who has busied himself weaponizing the government for his benefit while sapping Congress' own powers.

As shocking as this slush fund is, it should best be understood as one more test for what the administration can get away with. If that test is successful, it will absolutely not be the last time that Trump raids our taxpayer dollar💲 to bolster the MAGA agenda in direct contravention to the interests of protecting American democracy.

Donald Trump has zero integrity no respect for America's fallen heroes. Memorial Day begins the cruel construction for his hideous arch

In Washington DC, the nation’s capital, this Memorial Day will be like no other. Editorial opinion published in the Boston Globe.

The once unbroken vista across the Potomac River leading to Arlington National Cemetery, the final resting place of 400,000 American veterans, last week became something of a construction zone — as plans proceed apace for Donald Trump’s hideous triumphal arch on Memorial Circle.

What the arch is supposed to celebrate — what “triumph,” real or imagined — is itself a matter of controversy and conjecture. What is certain is that nothing — not a lawsuit brought by veterans nor a federal court order halting its construction — will stand in the way of a president more obsessed with monuments than with honoring the fallen service members this day was set aside to honor more than 150 years ago.

Having set his sights on Memorial Circle near the entry to the Arlington military cemetery for his 250-foot arch, topped by two gilded eagles and a gold-plated Lady Liberty — all with wings extended — Trump apparently wasn’t waiting for Congress or the federal courts to give him the go-ahead.

No, exactly a week before Memorial Day 2026, the fencing went up at Memorial Circle, along with an industrial drilling rig and pink flags used by surveyors.

It was days after Interior Secretary Doug Burgum had testified at a House Natural Resources Committee hearing. And according to Representative Jared Huffman of California, “there wasn’t a project. Not even a proposal. Just a discussion,” Huffman posted on Instagram.

Asked at that hearing, “Who is the arch being built for?” Burgum responded, “For the American people.”

However, when asked last year by a CBS reporter what the monument was for, Trump pointed to himself and answered, “Me.”

And who are we to not take Trump at his word❓

The design was reportedly inspired by Trump’s fascination with the Arc de Triomphe, which began during a visit to Paris in his first term for a ceremony marking the anniversary of the end of World War I. But the Parisian landmark, its construction begun during the reign of Napoleon, is, however, only 164 feet high. It would be dwarfed by Trump’s proposed 250-foot monument — a figure that’s supposed to represent the nation’s 250th birthday and originally slated to be completed by July 4, 2026.

Meanwhile, the administration has cut medical staffing at the Veterans Affairs Department.

The arch would be more than double the size of the Lincoln Memorial and the equivalent of a 25-story office building, the lawsuit filed against its construction notes.

“Its location on Memorial Circle would situate the monument on an axis between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, obstructing a line of sight that was designed to represent the unification of the Nation following the Civil War and that has existed for nearly a century,” the suit says.

The lawsuit also charges the construction is illegal because it lacks congressional approval and ignores a host of “statutes impos[ing] procedural requirements” for construction in the area.

But mostly, the Vietnam vets and the architectural historian bringing the suit argue it “would dishonor their military and foreign service and the legacy of their comrades and other veterans buried at Arlington National Cemetery, and would degrade their personal experience when visiting Arlington Cemetery or traveling around Memorial Circle and on the Memorial Avenue Corridor.”

And could there be a more stark contrast to the row upon row of simple white gravestones than this proposed gaudy monument to nothing more than the enormous ego of the current occupant of the White House❓🤢

It speaks volumes about the offensiveness of this ego driven project — and its location — that the administration simply couldn’t wait for this Memorial Day to pass before the very pathway to Arlington National Cemetery was desecrated with fencing and drilling equipment.

People, of course, will still come to Arlington, will still place the flags that honor loved ones, brothers and sisters in arms, fallen heroes, as they have since this sacred place was opened to honor the service of those who fought on opposite sides in a war that nearly tore this nation apart. Arlington became part of the healing process — as it was on that day in May 1868, when some 5,000 men and women walked among the then 20,000 graves of Union and Confederate soldiers, decorating them “with the choicest flowers of springtime,” former Union General John A. Logan insisted.

“We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance,” he added. “Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.”

True then. Truer now.

Main Stream media not holing the evil Trumpzi administration to the same standards as with President Joe Biden

 

Trump self-deals, lies and seems to fall asleep in meetings. The media treats it all as ‘priced in’ (IOW already reflects all known information and expected) published in The Guardian by Margaret Sullivan.

As for the corporate news media, they remain highly distractible and largely deferential.

Trump is a sleety sleepy criminal 🥱  

Trump's insane screeds on his ❗ social media posts are unhinged. He falls asleep in meetings. He proudly proclaims he’s not thinking “even a little bit” about Americans’ personal finances in talks with Iran. And he lies constantly about the supposed success of the war with Iran he started for no good reason.  (To quote Joseph Heller in Catch 22: "From now on I will think only about myself". 🤢) 

That’s just the start, of course, when it comes to Donald Trump’s disastrous second presidency. There’s the ruination of the Kennedy Center, the building of a ballroom (or bunker?) to replace the White House East Wing, and the wrecking ball that the Trump-aligned supreme court has taken to the voting rights of Black Americans. There’s the endless self-dealing and the abuse of the justice department’s intended purpose.

And yet, the mainstream media doesn’t make much of any of that, not in any sustained way.

The shocking excesses and corruption of Trump 2.0 are “priced in”.

These outrages, for the most part, are largely treated as, well, Trump being Trump.

It’s as if much of big media has decided that it’s too much trouble to focus, in any sustained way, on developments that would have resulted in weeks of headlines, if not impeachment and conviction, in the pre-Trump era. And certainly in the President Biden era.

“I simply cannot believe I live in a timeline where journalists helped force the last president out of his reelection campaign for being too old, so the country put an unstable 79-year-old who falls asleep constantly in office and none of the same journalists care at all,” one observer, Jamesetta Williams, put it succinctly on X/ (formerly Twitter).

Next month, Trump turns 80. He functions with no apparent restraints, and it seems doubtful that the situation will improve any time soon.

Some extreme outrages do rise to the surface, provoking a raised eyebrow or two.

The New York Times gave its lead news position in print the other day to his “anti-weaponization fund” of 💲1.8bn. It’s intended to use taxpayer money to compensate his allies – maybe including the January 6, convicted criminal rioters who attacked police officers – for being prosecuted by an earlier iteration of the US justice department.

Reporters quoted Donald K Sherman, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a legal watchdog organization, calling it “one of the single most corrupt acts in American history”. And a sub-headline made a carefully distanced reference to “critics” who call this a slush fund.

Ah, the critics. There they are again.

The mainstream media largely shrugged off the slush-fund story, depicting it as politics as usual – no cause for alarm or sustained coverage. The NBC evening newscast by Wednesday had moved on, focusing instead on Raúl Castro’s indictment, the California wildfires and a car explosion in lower Manhattan. And Fox News, home to the fervid Maga base, offered cursory coverage both on the air and online, giving an obligatory nod to Democratic lawmakers who voiced their objections, but mostly handing the network’s microphone to Trump allies such as JD Vance and the loyalist acting attorney general, Todd Blanche.

Granted, there have been a few recent pieces about Trump’s apparent physical and mental decline, including one by Jonathan Lemire in the Atlantic. He acknowledged that Trump hasn’t faced the same scrutiny for his age-related decline as Biden did, and pointed out “questions about his health and increasingly erratic behavior”.

But it didn’t get all that much attention. Nothing does.

One of the problems, of course, is that there’s just so much.

Journalists get geared up to cover one outrage – $1bn for ballroom security! – when another one comes along: $1.8bn for the slush fund!

And ever onward.

Now he’s dissing Americans’ worries about their family budgets, but that fades as he schmoozes the next authoritarian dictator, or threatens “a friendly takeover of Cuba”.

“Flood the zone with shit,” was the way former Trump aide Steve Bannon once described the media strategy. It’s turned out to be a highly effective technique.

One almost can’t blame overwhelmed citizens for wanting to hide their heads in the sand, despite the extraordinary dangers of doing so.

As for the corporate news media, they remain highly distractible and largely deferential. Also, not really unhappy since Trump provides constant outrage, which makes for news, and then he moves on

They do, too.

Often, it falls to independent voices – not associated with corporate media – to say the obvious, loud and clear.

Terry Moran, formerly of ABC News and now on Substack, called the slush fund “plunder” in a recent post, and urged mainstream media to stop using “weasel words”, like unusual or controversial, to report on it. Moran called an associated development, the shielding of the Trump family’s entire tax history from scrutiny, for all time, as “breathtakingly corrupt”.

You won’t hear THAT on the evening news or in the rest of mainstream media.
By the time you read this, they’ll already have moved on. 💢

Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture.

Donald Trump and maga Republicans support evil Stephen Miller and his wife Katie Miller cruel child separation from immigrant parents

Evil Stephen Miller delivers for Trump: 145,000 US kids separated from their parents:  A thinktank investigation shows how immigration detention has torn apart families, and experts point to trauma.  Published in The Guardian by Arwa Mahdawi

More than 53,000 citizen children with a detained parent were estimated to be under the age of six. 😢

Evil Stephen Miller, Donald Trump’s immigration czar and the architect of some of the government’s cruelest policies, doesn’t care what you think about him. He doesn’t care if you call him “Pee-wee German” or “Weird Stephen” or “Voldemort”, or any of the other nicknames he has inspired; his self-esteem is excellent. (Try Miller's doppelganger, Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi public relations officer and chief architect of the regime's messaging.)

Joseph Goebbels (29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945)

“I have a very, very secure, intact ego,” Miller told Fox (Fake❗) News’s Jesse Watters this week after being asked how he felt about his wife, Katie Miller, potentially landing a big distribution deal with Paramount for her terrible Maga podcast. “I’ve never had a larger fan following,” Miller continued. “[A]ny man who works for Donald Trump is a man that is very, very strong and self-assured in his role.”

Well, yes, I suppose you’ve got to be a very, very strong man to separate babies from their parents – which is what Miller will forever be famous for. Back in Trump 1.0, Miller played a key role in implementing a “zero tolerance” border policy that systematically removed more than 5,000 immigrant children, some just a few months old, from their parents at the US-Mexico border. 

A Human Rights Watch report released in December 2024, found that as many as 1,360 children had never been reunited with their parents.😟😠😢

Trump is not the first president to detain or deport the parents of US citizen minors. Nevertheless, he’s doing it at a much faster rate, and in a much crueler way, than his predecessor. 

A data analysis by ProPublica published in March found “ICE arrests of parents doubled in the first seven months of Trump’s second term compared with the President Joseph Biden administration”. It also found mothers were being more aggressively targeted: “Trump is deporting about four times as many moms of US citizen children per day as Biden did.” A Guardian investigation from May uncovered similar statistics.

Another change from Biden administration norms are the guidelines on how immigration officers should exercise their discretion when it comes to families. “A document once known as the Parental Interests Directive has been given a new name under Trump – the Detained Parents Directive,” writes ProPublica. “And its preamble, which once instructed agents to handle immigrant parents in a way that was ‘humane,’ has been stripped of the word.”

Again:  Sadly, Trump is not the first president to separate US citizen children from their immigrant parents. But no other administration has been so callous about the welfare of the children affected. “The bottom line is that there is no systematic approach to protecting the children of those detained by ICE,” the Brookings report states. There is “no government entity … responsible for their wellbeing”. There also isn’t adequate record-keeping, meaning we have little idea what is happening to all these children.

What we do know, of course, is that many of these children are going to be immensely traumatized. Kelly Kribs, an attorney at the Young Center, told the Guardian in May that the separation crisis unfolding now is even more insidious than the family separation policy from Trump 1.0. “It’s leading to all the same forms of trauma that we saw unfold back in 2018,” said Kribs. “But the speed and the scale of the separations now is at a level we’ve never seen before.”

One suspects that the Millers, who have three kids of their own, are not particularly perturbed by these 145,000 traumatized children. Stephen met his wife, Katie, when they both worked for Trump during his first term, and she is just as hawkish on immigration as he is. “DHS sent me to the border to see the separations for myself – to try to make me more compassionate – but it didn’t work,” Katie boasted to Jacob Soboroff in 2018, according to his book, Separated. She added that colleagues told her she’d think about family separation differently when she had her own kids: “But I don’t think so.” Perhaps she’ll share some more of her charming views with us on The Katie Miller Podcast. (a weekly talk-show style series hosted by conservative communications strategist Katie Miller.)

Donald Trump and maga Republicans want Americans tax money to create a slush fund to support convicted criminals!

Trump’s 💲1.8 Billion Slush Fund Is Worse Than Stealing

Definition: an unofficial, loosely regulated pool of money set aside for unspecified, discretionary, or illicit purposes

Recasting the January 6 insurrection as the work of heroic patriots remains the president’s highest priority. Published in The Atlantic, by Jonathan Chait

Among the very first things Donald Trump did upon assuming the powers of the presidency for the second time was commute the sentences of, and grant pardons to, everybody involved in his attempt to overturn the 2020, election. 😡😠 Republican allies expressed moderate disappointment but vowed to move past this ugly blemish. Senator Susan Collins called it a “terrible day for our Justice Department.” Senator Tommy Tuberville admitted, “It’s a hard one, because we work with them up here,” referring to Capitol Police who were viciously beaten by Trump’s allies. Tuberville concluded, “At the end of the day, we’ve got to get January 6, behind us.” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said that Republicans were “not looking backwards; we’re looking forward.”

It was not, however, just one terrible day. Trump’s loyalty to his most violent and criminal supporters was a signal of his highest priority and has been a reliable guide to his decisions ever since. The impulse to rewrite the history of January 6, 2021, appears to be the inspiration even for the establishment of a 💲1.8 billion Treasury Department slush fund ❗for victims of so-called weaponization of government.

Last week, when the administration floated the notion of disbursing payments to alleged victims of government weaponization, cynics assumed that Trump meant to divert the money to himself. But this assessment may have turned out to be too naïve. Trump already has ample ways to profit from office, including from stock trading with the benefit of inside knowledge and by accepting gifts from client states. The Justice Department told reporters yesterday that Trump, his sons, and his family business would not receive payments from the fund. The recipients will almost surely be insurrectionists and other Trumpzi allies.

How, exactly, can Trump hand out taxpayer dollars at his whim❓ The putative mechanism is a settlement with the Internal Revenue Service. In 2020, an IRS contractor leaked a few years of Trump’s tax records. (Before Trump, major presidential candidates had for decades voluntarily released their returns, an essential step in demonstrating that they had no conflicts of interest.)

The contractor was caught and sent to prison. Trump, nevertheless, sued for the offense of being subjected to a portion of the scrutiny his fellow candidates have voluntarily undergone. 

Because Trump runs the IRS, it is no longer in a position to place any limits on his demands. He has already exploited the loophole of suing his own government to pay a series of allies investigated for or convicted of committing crimes out of loyalty to him. The recipients include the family of Ashli Babbitt, an insurrectionist who was shot and killed on January 6, while smashing her way into a corridor behind which members of Congress had taken shelter from the mob.

Trump’s Justice Department describes the forthcoming payouts as a “systematic process to hear and redress claims of others who suffered weaponization and lawfare.” The process is, in fact, the opposite of systemic. It is designed to be controlled personally by Trump and sheltered from any judicial scrutiny.

If the government were actually compensating victims of lawfare, it would direct payments to James Comey, Mark Kelly, Adam Schiff, and other targets of Trump’s vindictive prosecutions. 

Trump has described his actions as turnabout—“I was hunted by some very bad people. Now I’m the hunter.”—which, given that he has called his own prosecutions political targeting, is tantamount to confessing that he is targeting his enemies.

But, of course, nobody entertains for a moment the thought that the fund could conceivably reward an actual victim of weaponization. To ensure that it will never be used for a deserving victim, the fund is scheduled for termination on December 15, 2028.

Asked by a reporter yesterday whether people who committed violence against police officers should receive payments, Trump replied, “It’ll all be dependent on a committee. A committee’s being set up of very talented people, very highly respected people.” The committee is being selected entirely by Trump, who retains the power to replace any member who displeases him, and who in any case has argued in multiple contexts that he is entitled to exert full control over any decision by the executive branch.

The most dystopian explanation for this scheme comes from sources who sketched it out to ABC News last week. As ABC’s reporters characterized it, the sources described the fund as “a hybrid between a victim compensation fund—similar to the civil claims process that followed the 2010, Deepwater Horizon oil spill—and a truth-and-reconciliation-style commission.”

Trump’s commission is deviously inverting the original and most famous truth-and-reconciliation commission. South Africa established its commission to document the crimes committed under its apartheid regime. Rather than uncovering the truth to facilitate the state’s transformation from authoritarianism into democracy, Trump is doing the reverse, inscribing his lies into the historical record in an effort to undermine democracy.

It is common to describe Trump’s steps as vengeance, but he has more in mind than merely settling old scores. This obsession drove Trump to support a successful primary challenge to Senator Bill Cassidy, whose offense was casting a symbolic vote to impeach him after January 6. Cassidy had long since surrendered any independent impulses, to the point of violating his own pro-vaccine convictions to cast a humiliating, decisive vote to confirm (the idiot❗) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of health and human services. Yet Cassidy’s penitence did not satisfy Trump.

Trump considers it essential both to intimidate anybody who would stop him from carrying out illegal orders—hence his attempts to imprison Democrats who truthfully advised military members that they should not obey illegal orders—and to reward anybody who does follow them. He has reportedly promised mass pardons before he leaves office. Trump could have waited until after the 2028, elections to set up his slush fund, but he is doing it now in a high-profile way, presumably to communicate directly that loyal allies can expect lavish rewards.

The government’s operating ethos during Trump’s second term has followed the dictum that the president and his allies are immune from the law, while his enemies can expect to be hounded. As his party watches silently and cowers, his intentions grow only more naked.💢😡😱

Donald Trump and maga Republicans are wrong to promote expensive and unpopular Trumpian narcissists' policies

News Analysis published in The New York Times by Luke Broadwater

Defiant After Bad Week, Trump Pushes Ahead on Politically Unpopular Ideas. Donald Trump continues to act like he’s politically all-powerful, even in the face of indications that he is not.

By pretty much any estimation, Donald Trump has had a very bad week.

New poll numbers show his approval rating has hit a second-term low. He is weighing whether to restart a bombing campaign in an unpopular war against Iran. Gas prices are high and inching higher heading into Memorial Day weekend. And his grip over Republican lawmakers is beginning to slip after he proposed a pair of deeply unpopular spending items, prompting an unusual revolt from the Senate.

When faced with such a backlash ahead of midterm elections, many politicians would pivot, redirecting their focus to issues they are on stronger footing with.

But Trump has decided to double down, presenting himself as politically all-powerful even in the face of indications that he is not.

Over the years, Trump has often appeared to have an air of invincibility. He survived assassination attempts and won re-election despite being under multiple criminal indictments. He has successfully exacted retribution on many a perceived enemy. Now, with less than three years left in office, he seems comfortable burning whatever political capital he has in order to leave his legacy, even if it drags his party down in the process.

Rather than abandoning his plan for a 💲1.8 billion fund to reward allies who claim they were persecuted by Democrats, Trump has defended the proposal, suggesting he could have used the taxpayer money to enrich himself.

“I gave up a lot of money in allowing the just announced Anti-Weaponization Fund to go forward. I could have settled my case, including the illegal release of my Tax Returns and the equally illegal BREAK IN of Mar-a-Lago, for an absolute fortune,” the Trump wrote on his (fake❗) social media. “Instead, I am helping others, who were so badly abused by an evil, corrupt, and weaponized Biden Administration, receive, at long last, JUSTICE!”

Trump's acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, also (unethically) attempted to defend the plan in a hostile meeting with Senate Republicans. 

Inside the room, Blanche came under withering questioning and criticism. Several Republicans spoke up to express worry that the fund would be used to provide money to people who had attacked police officers during the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol and were later pardoned by Trump.

The meeting went so poorly for Blanche that party leaders scrapped planned votes on another of Trump’s top priorities: a 💲72 billion immigration crackdown measure lawmakers had planned to muscle through before Memorial Day.

“There’s a boiling point here,” said Sarah Binder, a professor of political science at George Washington University. “Of course, the boiling over, it’s in part because Trump doubles down. He rarely admits that maybe he needs to backtrack a little.”

Trump was also undeterred when another unpopular policy position — using taxpayer money to help fund security for his 💲400 million luxury ballroom on White House grounds — was met with backlash on Capitol Hill.

He said that without the 💲1 billion, the “White House won’t be a very secure place.” He called for the firing of the Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, a nonpartisan official who ruled that approving the money would violate Senate rules.

“The Republicans allow the Elizabeth MacDonoughs of the World to stay in power, and brutalize us,” Trump complained.

Another dynamic at play in the Trump White House is a lack of dissenting voices to some of Trump's most extreme ideas.

In Trump’s first term, some of the president’s most radical ideas were checked by aides like John F. Kelly, the Trump White House’s longest-serving chief of staff; Jim Mattis, who was. Trump’s first defense secretary; and Gary Cohn, an economic adviser.

But those men are long gone, and their positions have been filled mostly by people who are true Trumpzi cult believers.


Underscoring that point, Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, this week defended the so-called weaponization fund, even as critics called it a “slush fund” that could give payouts to Jan. 6 rioters.

“So many lives destroyed, so many livelihoods ruined, so many people who were deprived of their fundamental rights and freedoms as American citizens,” Mr. Miller said of the need for the fund, adding: “This settlement is just a small measure of the justice that they are owed.”

Trump seemed unconcerned about whether these ideas are popular with voters, and has lamented openly that Democrats are likely to gain ground in the midterm elections. He has been most animated when discussing how he exacts vengeance on Republicans who criticize him.





At a political rally Friday in Rockland County, N.Y., Mr. Trump boasted about the recent victories in Republican primaries in which challengers he backed took out incumbent lawmakers who had crossed him.

“We knocked out a bad senator from Louisiana,” Trump said to cheers. “We knocked out everybody,” he added.

Left unsaid was that Trump needed the votes of the Republicans he opposed.

Ms. Binder said she took Trump at his word when he argued last year that he had little further use for Congress, a suggestion that he could enact most of his agenda by circumventing lawmakers. She said that the president was thinking in larger terms about continuing to control the G.O.P. after his presidency, and what kind of legacy, historically and physically, he could leave behind. She pointed to his push to build a triumphal arch in Washington.

“He’s focused on the arch. I think he’s focused on his own personal legacy. He’s focused on vengeance,” she said. “He doesn’t have a legislative agenda, so does he really need a Republican Senate?”


Luke Broadwater covers the White House for The Times.

Donald Trump and maga Republicans must obey the Constitution and support Equal Protection 14th Amendment

Attack on birthright citizenship highlights Trump’s white nationalist ambitions

Echo opinion published in the Los Angeles Times by Carlos de Loera

In the summer of 1868, the 14th Amendment was ratified, granting birthright citizenship to “All persons born or naturalized in the United States.”

Crafted in the aftermath of the Civil War, the landmark legislation was aimed at providing citizenship to formerly enslaved people. The amendment directly undid the ruling of the 1857, U.S. Supreme Court case of Dred Scott vs. Sandford, which stated that enslaved people were not U.S. citizens.

More than 150 years after the amendment’s ratification, Donald Trump signed an executive order in January 2025, that offered a redefined interpretation of who exactly is entitled to birthright citizenship.

The proposed presidential directive suggested that citizenship should not be extended to children born within the U.S. or its territories to parents who are undocumented or have temporary visas.

The order — which would affect all children born to parents without permanent legal status in the U.S. after Feb. 19, 2025 — argued that “the Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’”

More than 150 years after the amendment’s ratification, Donald  Trump signed an executive order in January 2025, that offered a redefined interpretation of who exactly is entitled to birthright citizenship.

The proposed presidential directive suggested that citizenship should not be extended to children born within the U.S. or its territories to parents who are undocumented or have temporary visas.

The order — which would affect all children born to parents without permanent legal status in the U.S. after Feb. 19, 2025 — argued that “the Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’”

This retconning of the 14th Amendment aligns with the Trump administration’s continued crusade to demonize nonwhite citizens, which kicked off when he first ran for president in 2015.

The administration has continually placed travel bans on Muslim-majority countries; scaled back diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) measures at the federal level; tried to craft immigration and refugee services in a way that prioritizes white people; perpetuated the “anchor baby” myth; ramped up spending for Immigration and Customs Enforcement; attempted to expedite deportations; created an increased surveillance state on undocumented people as ICE raids have besieged immigrant communities over the last year; and housed detained migrants in poorly and dangerously run detention centers.

Stephen Miller, the front man for Trump’s deportation campaign, claimed that the U.S. would essentially be a utopia if there were no immigrants.

Trump’s border czar Tom Homan has openly shown contempt for judges’ rulings on deportation processes when dealing with Latino immigrants.

With the help of other cronies like Kristi Noem, Gregory Bovino, Kash Patel, Brendan Carr, Marco Rubio and Karoline Leavitt, the Trump administration has virtually crafted the Avengers of white nationalism.

Immediately after the order’s signing, several federal judges from across the country blocked its implementation, ruling that it’s unconstitutional. However, in June the Supreme Court ruled that district courts couldn’t authorize nationwide injunctions of the executive order.

After that decision, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a nationwide class-action lawsuit — officially known as Trump vs. Barbara — to block Trump’s executive order last June in New Hampshire on behalf of all the children who would be affected by the directive. The district court judge presiding over the case granted a preliminary injunction, which prevented the order from being enforced. In December, it was announced that the Supreme Court would review the district court’s ruling.

On April 1, the Supreme Court was presented with oral arguments from both sides — though a decision on the case will not be reached until the end of the Supreme Court’s session in late June or early July.

Ahead of these presentations, the deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, Cody Wofsy, spoke with The Times about the case.

Wofsy explained that the only legally sound way for the executive order to be implemented would be through an official amendment to the Constitution, which would need to be approved by the states. He highly doubted something like that would even pass.

However, the attorney noted that a lack of legality wouldn’t necessarily stop the Trump administration from denying people citizenship.

“If there were no lawsuits, the government would be treating all these children as if they were not citizens,” Wofsy said. “What I’m saying is that’s illegal, but that the government does illegal things sometimes.”

Wofsy also further delved into the particularities of the court case, stating that the Trump administration wants to require that parents of babies born in the U.S. be “domiciled” in the country.

“That means somebody who resides here and has the intention to reside here indefinitely,” he said. “One problem for [the Trump administration] is that for most of the babies who are being targeted by the executive order, their parents are domiciled here.”

Additionally, he noted that there is currently no domicile requirement within the 14th Amendment and that there is already legal precedent for a constitutional interpretation that asserted that stance.

The 1898, Supreme Court case of United States vs. Wong Kim Ark affirmed the right to citizenship of a child born in California to two parents who were Chinese nationals. The landmark ruling set the legal groundwork for any child born within the U.S. to be considered a citizen, regardless of their parents’ residence status.

The Supreme Court brief put forth by the Trump administration mentioned that court case but argued that the ruling “does not cover children of aliens who are not ‘permitted by the United States to reside here.’”

Wofsy called out the legal move for its perversion of what political representation should be.

“Citizenship is not a policy tool to be wielded just because the people temporarily in office would rather the electorate looked different from the way it does,” he said. “[In] America, the people elect their representatives, the representatives do not pick who the people are going to be.”

A positive outcome for the Trump administration could create a permanent second‑class caste of people whose citizenship can be questioned.

“This would be the starting gun to a much broader attack on citizenship and belonging in this country more generally,” Wofsy said. “And we know who the targets of those attacks would be. It would be communities of color. It would be vulnerable populations in this country who already have their citizenship and their belonging in America questioned on a regular basis.”

In terms of enforcement, this new reality would make it so that the thousands of children born monthly since Feb. 19, 2025, would effectively be rendered undocumented immigrants, with virtually no avenue to get any type of legal status.

Wofsy said these kids would be “subject to immediate harms” and that they could be arrested, detained and deported from the U.S.

“They’re going to grow up living in fear of immigration enforcement and having their families torn apart,” he noted. “It also means they’d be denied passports, ordinary access, Social Security cards and various kinds of programs, including early life nutrition as they get older.”

The executive order’s implementation could also create a logistical nightmare for people who have nothing to do with those who are being targeted. For example, it could affect members of religious communities that may not have traditional documentation and people who’ve lost their documentation due to natural disasters.

“What if you need to prove the immigration status of your parents, maybe decades before questions are being raised about citizenship?” Wofsy said. “[It could] potentially strip citizenship from unknown numbers of people who not only should be citizens under the Constitution as it’s written, but even should be citizens under the executive order rules but maybe can’t prove it.”

Wofsy called the Trump administration the “most anti-immigrant administration that we’ve seen in at least 100 years” and pointed at the ultimate goal of all its restrictive policies.

“They want to turn the clock back to a time when the country was less free, less equal and more than anything more white,” he said. “Overall, it is a vision of America that says that nonwhite populations coming here, enjoying the fabric of America, is a bad thing. I don’t think that is what the American people believe. I don’t think that’s what they voted for and I do not think that this assault on birthright citizenship reflects American values.”

Donald Trump demands fealty from his evil cult but never reciprocates: Trumpism is Fascism

After crushing primary defeat in a primary, the Republican incumbent Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana used his concession speech to deliver a message about — and to — Donald Trump.

Echo opinion published in the Boston Globe by Renée Graham

“When you participate in democracy, sometimes it doesn’t turn out the way you want it to,” the two-term senator said. “But you don’t pout, you don’t whine, you don’t claim the election was stolen, ... you don’t manufacture some excuse. You thank the voters for the privilege of representing the state or the country for as long as you’ve had that privilege. And that’s what I’m doing right now.”

What Cassidy also did was something he had failed to do since Trump returned to office — call him out publicly❗ Never mentioned Trump's name. But, only when his own political career was left in ashes was Cassidy willing to singe  Trump.

Cassidy has been a marked man since 2021, when he was one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump after the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the US Capitol. At the time, Cassidy said, “Our Constitution and our country is more important than any one person. I voted to convict President Trump because he is guilty.” In response to Cassidy’s vote, the Republican Party of Louisiana censured him.

But Trump, who turned the power of the presidency into a revenge fest, made no secret of his desire to get Cassidy, whom he called “disloyal,” out of Congress. 

In the Senate primary, he endorsed House Representative Julia Letlow, who received 45 percent of the vote and will face John Fleming, a Louisiana state treasurer, in a runoff on June 27.

As soon as Trump returned to office, Cassidy tried to get back into his good graces — only to discover that Trump doesn’t have any. But to appease him, Cassidy voted to confirm every member of Trump’s Cabinet.

That included Robert F. Kennedy Jr. As a doctor, Cassidy knew that Kennedy was not only unqualified to be the health and human services secretary but, also, that he was an anti-vaxxer and a peddler of the junkiest junk science.

But with his vote, Cassidy, a staunch vaccine advocate, appeased Trump and gave Kennedy undeserved trust. That didn’t stop Kennedy from blaming Cassidy for the derailed confirmation of Casey Means, a so-called “wellness influencer” as surgeon general.

In a social media post, Kennedy said that Cassidy “once again did the dirty work for entrenched interests seeking to stall the [Make America Healthy Again] movement and protect the very status quo that has made America the sickest nation on earth.”

Whatever legacy Cassidy hoped to cement during his Senate tenure, his decision to help Kennedy become The Worst Health and Human Services Secretary™ in American history will overshadow all of it.

Cassidy learned what other Republicans, despite their stalwart sycophancy, have found when they thwarted Trump’s fragile ego — he will stop at nothing to destroy them politically.

A year after Marjorie Taylor Greene, the former Georgia congresswoman, heckled former president Joe Biden during his final State of the Union address in 2024, Trump excoriated her as a “lunatic” when she pushed for the release of the Justice Department’s files on convicted sex offender and former Trump buddy Jeffrey Epstein.

(House Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky also demanded the Epstein files release, which landed him in Trump’s crosshairs. He faced a tough primary challenge on Tuesday against a Trump-endorsed candidate.)

Without Trump’s support, Greene declined to seek reelection. But she has continued to joust with Trump, and she has said that “MAGA has become a cult.”

MAGA has always been a cult. But not until Trump turned on Greene did she bother to notice. That’s typical of Republicans who only tend to buck Trump on their way out of the door — like Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who is not running for reelection. His scathing cross-examination of Kristi Noem in March probably helped get her fired as Homeland Security director.

Having lost his shot at another Senate term, Cassidy should also behave like a man with nothing to lose. Perhaps his concession speech was a preview.

“Let me just set the record straight: Our country is not about one individual. It is about the welfare of all Americans and it is about our Constitution,” Cassidy told his supporters. “And if someone doesn’t understand that and attempts to control others through using the levers of power, they’re about serving themselves. They’re not about serving us. And that person is not qualified to be a leader.”

Instead of a potential three-term senator, Cassidy is a cautionary tale for Republicans. He traded his conscience for capitulation to a man he knew was not qualified to be a leader. 

In search of his own self-preservation, Cassidy toadied up to a tyrant, placed Trump above country and the Constitution, and still ended up as a loser.

Donald Trump and maga Republicans going to use America's tax money to support convicted criminals!

$1.8 billion slush fund is all the evidence you need that Trump is corrupt.

Echo opinion letter published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, written by Sharon Carlberg, in Cheyenne, Wy.

The recent unethical awarding by the Trump Justice Department of 💲1.8 billion to Donald Trump is all anyone needs to know to understand that the United States of America has been so badly compromised by this administration it might never recover.

Please use your own intelligence to put that in perspective. This is something that happens in lawless, corrupt governments.

It encapsulates everything that is wrong with this corrupt Trump administration and exposes the con man you elected twice.

Please- America and the Congress wake up❗⏰⚠️ lease be honest.  This grifting of tax payers bodes well for no one outside the billionaire class.

Donald Trump has no "win-win" options strategy to exit his disastrous and illegal Iran war of choice.

Has Iran surrendered yet❓ Trump has no one to blame but himself.

Has Donald Trump (maybe) thought abut getting Batman involved❓

Echo opinion published in the Los Angeles Times by Daniel R. DePetris.

Nearly three months after the United States and Israel launched their large-scale bombing campaign against Iran and about six weeks since the April 8 ceasefire took effect, Donald Trump faces an inflection point. Does he return to war❓ Maintain the ceasefire and U.S. blockade on Iranian ports in the hope of cutting a deal on American terms? Or drop his maximalist negotiating stance❓

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), an informal foreign policy advisor for the White House, continues to press for more aggressive U.S. military action. Trump’s political advisors would prefer that the war end as soon as possible to minimize political repercussions against the Republican Party in a midterm election year.

Trump seems conflicted. 🙄😕

Despite weeks of U.S. bombardment and an ongoing naval blockade, Tehran is as protective of its nuclear program today as it was before the war began. “For Iran, the Clock⏲️  is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them,” Trump wrote on Truth Social over the weekend. A day later, Trump took to the social media platform again to announce he suspended planned U.S. attacks on Iran to give talks more time.

Unfortunately for Trump, he’s proved to be his own worst enemy on this subject. Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium and Tehran’s effective control of the Strait of Hormuz, the regime’s two biggest cards, are a byproduct of Trump’s own policy decisions.

The first is a clear indictment of Trump’s first-term order to withdraw the United States from the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a highly technical accord that put Iran’s nuclear work in a box by restricting the number and quality of centrifuges it could use, capped the amount of enriched uranium it could produce and compelled Tehran to ship 97% of its stockpile out of the country. When the Trump administration scrapped that hard-won deal, Iran responded by enriching more nuclear material at a faster pace and accumulating the very stockpile the Trump administration is now seeking to neutralize.

The Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s second card, would not even be an issue today if the Trump administration had refrained from going to war in the first place. On Feb. 27, the day before the conflict began, more than 150 tankers and vessels traveled through the strait. The international waterway was open for business.

Not so today. On Thursday, a grand total of three crossings were registered in the waterway. This collapse of commerce is a consequence of Iran’s ability to harass civilian tankers so much that shipping companies no longer view the journey as worth the cost. 

As Adm. Brad Cooper, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday: “The Iranian capability to stop commerce has been dramatically depleted through the strait, but their voice is very loud. And those threats are clearly heard by the merchant industry and insurance industry.”

By virtue of his own actions, Trump is now left with a series of policy options that range from least bad to terrible. None of them are ideal, and all of them carry some risk.

For starters, Trump could resume the war. Any renewed U.S. bombing campaign would probably expand the U.S. military’s original set of targets to include a portion of Iran’s energy infrastructure, which Trump has threatened repeatedly to hit.

A U.S. invasion of Kharg Island, where 90% of Iran’s oil processing takes place, might also be up for discussion. The aim would be to destroy Iran’s remaining military capabilities and further squeeze its oil revenue until Tehran’s strategic calculus on the war shifts to Washington’s liking.

Yet there are no guarantees that doubling down on military force will work. Trump’s entire strategy has relied on a baseline assumption: The more punitive the United States is, the more likely Tehran will be to cave. Yet that simply hasn’t occurred.

If anything, Iran is more dug in now than it was in the opening days of the conflict. For the regime, capitulating to Trump is as dangerous as losing the war. Why would more bombing succeed where previous bombing failed?

The risks of additional U.S. military action are considerable as well. Before the ceasefire, Iran was launching ballistic missiles and attack drones across multiple gulf Arab states, hitting Qatar’s largest natural gas processing facility, Saudi Arabia’s east-west oil pipeline and Dubai’s luxurious high-rises. As the Iranians have stated, such attacks will not only resume if Trump orders a resumption of the war but will expand to new targets, including desalination facilities and nuclear power plants. Such strikes would raise global oil and gas prices to even more absurd levels, adding to the extra $40 billion the American people are already paying for fuel since the war began.

What about continuing the status quo❓ While this contingency would be less costly than another round of bombing or a U.S. ground invasion, it’s unclear whether it would help or hurt negotiations toward a settlement. There’s a possibility that extending the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports could merely reaffirm the regime’s earlier decision to preserve its own shutdown of the strait. Iran is now urging Washington to end its blockade before talks on the nuclear file can be held. And it’s a mystery whether Trump’s blockade is working anyway; the U.S. intelligence community assesses that Iran could withstand this pressure point for three to four more months, which may be too long for Trump to sustain given the oil disruptions that are bound to get worse.

Striking an agreement to end the war, return the strait to open traffic and restrict Iran’s nuclear program would be the most beneficial policy for the United States with the least amount of cost attached — not quite undoing the harm from Trump’s first-term decision to scrap the nuclear deal and his second-term decision to start a war. U.S. and Iranian negotiators are passing proposals back and forth as we speak. But as of now, Trump can’t stomach agreeing to a deal that covers some of Iran’s terms, including but not limited to a shorter suspension of enriched uranium and some kind of Iranian role in the management of the strait. Even if Trump did reassess his position, he would be forced to confront the hawks in his political coalition who would consider anything short of Iran’s total surrender a failure.

In short, Trump is in an unenviable position. He’s got nobody to blame but himself.

Daniel R. DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a syndicated foreign affairs columnist.