What did Donald Trump do today?

He retreated deeper into paranoia about "threats" against him, this time from seashells.

A day after Trump's meltdown where he said that a late-night comedian's joke about his poor marital and physical health on Thursday somehow incited the security breach at the WHCD on Saturday, his administration found a new way to paint him as the victim of "threats": by indicting a political opponent for writing numbers with seashells.

Former FBI director James Comey posted this picture of seashells spelling out "86 47" to his Instagram account last May. "86" is American slang dating back to the 1930s meaning "get rid of" or "cancel" or "undo." It was usually used in the context of the service industry: unruly patrons or unwanted orders could be "86'ed." 47, of course, refers to Trump, who often calls himself by the number of his presidential term.

The indictment today claims that by spelling out numbers meaning "get rid of Trump" or "undo Trump's presidency," Comey was threatening Trump's life. It did not specify whether the Trump administration considers the use of seashells to do this as an aggravating factor.

It does, however, say with a straight face that by spelling out these numbers, Comey "did knowingly and willfully make a threat to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon, the President of the United States."

There's no love lost between Comey and Trump, which might explain why Comey—like a sizable majority of Americans—want Trump "86'ed" via impeachment or removal by the 25th Amendment. Trump fired former Comey during his first term after Comey repeatedly refused to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump, and in particular after Comey refused to back Trump's lie that Comey had exonerated him over his campaign's collusion with the Putin regime. (Lifelong Republican Comey, as well as a Republican special counsel and a Republican-led Senate committee, have all said that Trump did accept Russian help to influence the 2016 election.)

An earlier indictment against Comey for the same "crime" has already been thrown out, and the overwhelming consensus is that this will be laughed out of court as well, if it even makes it there. Social media today was full of screenshots of Republican politicians who had used the "86" term against their political opponents to zero controversy or criminal liability. 

Trump himself doesn't appear to have ever used the term in a political context, but he has, for example:

• called for his own Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to be executed 
• said that Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) should be shot
• posted social media images of Joe Biden being hogtied (among countless other images of violence against politicians he hates), as well as an AI slop video of him literally dumping shit on Americans from a plane.
• said that Hunter Biden should face the "death penalty" for tax evasion 

In fact, if seashell numbers count, it's almost easier to say who Trump hasn't committed or threatened violence against, a list that amounts to himself, certain world leaders he admires, and some (but not all) of his immediate family. 

Why does this matter?

• Making it illegal to suggest that the leader's time in office should ever end is basically square one for a dictatorship. 

• It's embarrassing for the most powerful man in the world to be this committed to playing the victim. 

• It is not, under any conceivable circumstance where the Constitution still protects Americans' right to free speech and to choose their own government, to say "86 47."
  
  
• 86 47. [—Ed.]

What did Donald Trump do today?

He tried to parlay a joke about his failing health into a retroactive assassination threat.

Recently, ABC late night host Jimmy Kimmel did a sketch in which he pretended to host the White House Correspondents' Association dinner. Traditionally, this event features a comedian roasting both the president and the press. In fact, Kimmel himself did the honors in 2012.

One of Kimmel's jokes from his fake WHCA podium went like this: "And of course, our First Lady Melania is here, look at Melania, so beautiful," as footage of Melania Trump was spliced in. "Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow."

 

The skit can be seen in its entirety here. It also featured jokes about the "documentary" film and de facto Trump bribe Melania ("the world's first motionless picture"), and barbs at Trump officials like Stephen Miller ("so racist, the reason he went bald was because his hair was black"). 

The event Kimmel was lampooning took place on Saturday, and was interrupted by an armed man charging into the outer perimeter of Trump's security cordon. Kimmel's skit aired on Thursday. 

But that didn't stop Donald Trump, in an overwrought social media post, from trying to act as though Kimmel's laid-back joke about his notoriously fragile health—and his notoriously frosty relationship with his own third wife—counted as "a despicable call to violence," and that Kimmel should be fired for it.

Of course, Trump has tried before to get Kimmel fired, and succeeded only in drawing attention to the show. The last time came in September of last year, and resulted in a ratings bonanza for Kimmel that he has sustained into this year.

Kimmel's show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, airs weeknights at 11:35E/10:35C, and streams on Hulu.

UPDATE: Kimmel addressed the matter during tonight's monologue.

 

Why does this matter?

• Trump of all people should know what an actual threat dressed up as a "joke" looks like. 

• There's nothing more pathetic than someone throwing a tantrum because people laughed at him. 

What did Donald Trump do today?

He went all in on the concept of a "Militarily Top Secret Ballroom."

 

Last night, Trump's appearance at the White House Correspondents Dinner was interrupted when an armed man tried to rush through the outer security perimeter. He was immediately detained. Trump and other White House officials were moved from the ballroom where the event was being held, and then subsequently returned to the White House after the suspect had been arrested.

It's important to note that the suspect, Cole Allen, never got anywhere near Trump, or even within two floors of him. The Hilton hotel where the event was held was open to the public, and Allen was brought down as he was trying to run through the first of several security perimeters. Other people, including Trump's security detail, were in danger, but Trump was not.

But what Trump seems to have taken away from this is that he is desperately endangered, and that he must be given carte blanche to construct a "Militarily Top Secret Ballroom." (Unbelievably, that is a direct quote.) This is, of course, the gaudy and at times physically impossible building that Trump has been obsessed with building since he returned to office, and for which he destroyed the historic East Wing of the White House before he had permission to build it.

What happened last night is exactly the reason that our great Military, Secret Service, Law Enforcement and, for different reasons, every President for the last 150 years, have been DEMANDING that a large, safe, and secure Ballroom be built ON THE GROUNDS OF THE WHITE HOUSE. This event would never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the White House. It cannot be built fast enough! While beautiful, it has every highest level security feature there is plus, there are no rooms sitting on top for unsecured people to pour in, and is inside the gates of the most secure building in the World, The White House. The ridiculous Ballroom lawsuit, brought by a woman walking her dog, who has absolutely No Standing to bring such a suit, must be dropped, immediately. Nothing should be allowed to interfere with with its construction, which is on budget and substantially ahead of schedule!!!

Trump even had DOJ lawyers demand today that the National Trust for Historic Preservation drop its lawsuit against the construction of the "ballroom," claiming with a straight face that the absence of a ballroom on the White House grounds is endangering Trump's life. 

 

 

Trump's claim that presidents have been clamoring for this for 150 years is, obviously, a lie. In reality, neither President Ulysses S. Grant nor any subsequent president had ever mentioned anything like the combination defense bunker/ballroom Trump is imagining. That includes the three living former presidents, none of whom supported the "ballroom" idea or Trump's destruction of the historic East Wing. It also includes several presidents who oversaw major renovations to the White House (both Roosevelts, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and even Trump during his first term) but never gave any thought to a "militarily top secret ballroom."

All presidents in recent decades have experienced "threats" like this that were dealt with by their perimeter security. Would-be assailants occasionally try to climb the outer fence around the White House, or fire at the (bulletproof) windows of the building from the street.

Trump has faced "threats" of similar magnitude, where intruders were stopped long before getting anywhere near him, at both Mar-a-Lago and his private golf courses, where he has spent about a third of his presidency. He has not indicated that he'll stop going to those places.

Why does this matter? 

• If Trump feels the need to hide in a bunker for the rest of his presidency, the White House already has one.  

• If there were a good reason to destroy a third of the White House and build a ballroom, then Trump wouldn't need to ignore the law and make up excuses to do it anyway.

• It is just so unbelievably embarrassing for the United States to have its president talking about a "top secret Ballroom" as though that made any sense at all.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He "cancelled" negotiations with Iran that Iran had already left. 

Just after noon today, "DONAKD" Trump wrote a post on his boutique social media site claiming that he'd walked away from peace talks with Iran.

I just cancelled the trip of my representatives going is Islamabad, Pakistan, to meet with the Iranians. Too much time wasted on traveling, too much work! Besides which, there is tremendous infighting and confusion within their “leadership.” Nobody knows who is in charge, including them. Also, we have all the cards, they have none! If they want to talk, all they have to do is call!!! President DONAKD J. TRUMP 

The 12:26 P.M. post was subsequently replaced with one in which Trump correctly spelled his first name.

Setting aside the question of whether there's such a thing as "too much work" to extricate the United States from the current fiasco with Iran, there's an even more obvious problem with this claim. By the time Trump was insisting that he was the one who had "all the cards," Iran had already walked away first.

In a strange way, both Trump and Iran are behaving rationally. Given the overwhelming military superiority of the United States, the war could hardly be going better for the regime that controls Iran: it is selling more oil and exerting much firmer control over the population than before the war, while benefiting from the destabilizing effect that the war has had on American influence over the region. There is very little for Iran to gain at the bargaining table that it can be sure Trump wouldn't immediately renege on.

Trump, for his part, may see political benefits to the chaos and confusion of on-again, off-again diplomacy. He knows—or at least his military advisors do—that there is virtually nothing to be gained from any further military escalation in Iran. But any move towards actual de-escalation would force him to acknowledge a flatly humiliating truth: that he has essentially lost a war with a country that should have posed no threat whatsoever. 

Unfortunately, what is best for Trump politically is not what's best for the United States or the world economy as a whole. The double blockade of the Persian Gulf is not even close to air-tight where Iranian ships are concerned, but it has otherwise crippled vital sectors of the world economy in ways that will take months or longer to recover from. For example, food price spikes in the United States are already baked in through the end of this year due to American farmers needing to pay more for fertilizer that relies on Gulf shipping.

Why does this matter?

• Americans' economic and military security is more important than Donald Trump's ego. 

• Most people who'd screwed up this badly at an important job would try to find some way to quit and let someone more competent handle things. 

• Presidents should be willing and able to do "too much work" once in a while.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He got handed a legal setback in his attempt to pay himself $10 billion in taxpayer money.

Trump, a billionaire heir who routinely praises himself for not taking his $0.0004 billion salary as president, is suing the IRS for $10 billion on the grounds that it was negligent in allowing some of his tax returns to be released. The supposed "negligence" occurred during Trump's first term in office while he himself was responsible for it.

But the IRS—which is under Trump's direct control and is led by Trump appointees—has recently been signaling that it will settle the matter out of court with Trump. An actual trial that the IRS was trying to win, as it would against literally any other plaintiff besides Trump, would probably last longer than Trump's tenure as president, at which point a new administration would almost certainly start fighting back in court. A quick settlement, on the other hand, would net Trump some or all of the $10 billion at issue immediately, while he could still write the check with one hand and cash it with the other.

That may explain why Trump's legal team notified the district court handling the "lawsuit" about a potential settlement before the IRS legal team had even had a chance to formally acknowledge the suit—a pretty obvious tell that would never happen when the parties weren't colluding with one another. 

The obvious irregularity was noted today by Judge Kathleen Williams, who ordered Trump and the IRS to explain why there was any controversy between Trump the plaintiff looking to profit from the government taking orders from Trump the defendant. She noted in her order that Trump has signed executive orders requiring the Department of Justice (which would represent the IRS in this case) to follow his direct instructions.

President Trump has issued multiple executive orders which shape the relationship of the agencies of the executive branch to his presidency. For example, “[n]o employee of the executive branch acting in their official capacity may advance an interpretation of the law … that contravenes the President[’s] . . . opinion on a matter of law, including but not limited to … positions advanced in litigation[.]” 

One such employee of the executive branch, the Attorney General, has a statutory obligation to defend the IRS when it is hailed into court, but then is ostensibly required by executive mandate to adhere to the President’s opinion on a matter of law in such a case. 

The result, Judge Williams wrote, is that it's not clear "whether the Parties here are truly antagonistic to each other." Precisely to avoid sham settlements like this, courts do not consider cases where there is no actual dispute.

Williams' order does not end Trump's chances at "winning" $10 billion from taxpayers for having evidence of his obvious and already well-documented tax crimes released to the news media, but it will slow it down, and draw attention that Trump clearly doesn't want.  

Why does this matter?

• Corruption doesn't get much more obvious than a president demanding $10 billion directly from the government branch he leads. 
  
  
• That $10 billion will come from the pockets of Americans who don't cheat on their taxes.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He had a nap on live TV, for all the good it did him.

According to his official schedule, Trump "participated in a Health Care Affordability event" at 3:00 this afternoon. This is a rare example of Trump actually complying with a health care law passed by Democrats during the Biden administration, which requires the White House to negotiate bulk prices for drugs purchased by Medicare. (Trump campaigned in 2016 on the claim that he'd do this, but immediately changed his position after taking office and sided with pharmaceutical companies lobbying against it. The law that forced his administration to make these deals today was President Biden's signature 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.) 

But Trump's own personal mental and physical health were once again the real focus today. Trump opened the event—which, again, was about drug purchasing discounts—with a bizarre ramble about a plan he'd come up with to spiff up the Lincoln Memorial's reflecting pool. Trump's idea is to coat the "filthy" water feature with the kind of lining found in backyard pools, except a slightly darker "American flag" shade of blue. 

The reflecting pool in 2021.

 

Then, as other people spoke, Trump once again fell fully and unambiguously asleep on live TV. His face drooped, his head lolled forward, and his eyes closed and remained closed until he jerked back awake.

The 79-year-old Trump's physical frailty is hardly a secret, and falling asleep like this is quite common behavior for Trump, who regularly nods off while in the public eye, and whose staff had to invent a whole new euphemism—"executive time"—to cover up his daytime naps on his official schedules. 

Unfortunately for Trump, his nap didn't seem to do him much good. When he woke up, he seemed cranky, and snapped at a reporter who asked if he had any idea how much longer his war with Iran would last. His reply: "You're such a disgrace. Did you hear what I just said? How many years was Vietnam?"

American combat operations in Vietnam lasted about eight years, from March 1965 to March 1973. Donald Trump was draft-eligible for most of that time, until a physician who was a tenant in a building owned by his father agreed to sign a fraudulent medical excuse. The Vietnam War is generally remembered as the conflict that showed that even nations much smaller and less well armed than Iran can effectively resist and strike back at military superpowers, and that "bombing them back to the Stone Age" doesn't win wars.
 

Why does this matter?

• The presidency of the United States is an important enough job that you need to be able to stay awake while actively doing it. 

• Forming weird, sudden obsessions with ideas that are grandiose but incoherent is a symptom of mania, and it is not a sign of good cognitive health in the elderly.

• Americans are allowed to ask questions of their presidents about major events like wars and it's only a disgrace if the president can't answer.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He found still yet another Black person to call "low-IQ."

Trump, in another emotional social media rant claiming that the 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court was somehow stacked against him, called Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson a "Low IQ Person." 

 

Earlier this month, he used the same term for Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), the ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives: "totally low IQ person."

 

Other people Trump has called a "low IQ person" include:

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX)

 

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN)

Rep. Al Green (D-TX)

 Vice-President Kamala Harris

 

LeBron James 

 

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)

 

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)

 

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) 

  

and Lenard Larry McKelvey, better known by his stage name Charlamagne Tha God

 

He's also used recently used the term to describe the tens of millions of ethnic Somalis in general, and especially Americans of Somali descent: "I always say these are low-IQ people." 

Trump, who has repeatedly and in all seriousness boasted about passing dementia screening tests that involve identifying animals in pictures and counting backwards, believes that he is highly intelligent and that this is genetic. He often cites the fact that he is related to (though not descended from) his uncle John G. Trump, who was a legitimately accomplished electrical engineer, as proof of his own mental prowess. 

That is closely linked to Trump's belief in the racist, discredited theory of eugenics. He got this from his father, Fred Trump Sr.—but not because of genetics. As Donald Trump himself has admitted, Fred—who was arrested at a Ku Klux Klan rally in 1927—taught him that intelligence was a simple, heritable trait like eye color. 

Trump certainly isn't alone in clinging to these archaic racial theories about intelligence. Eugenics and even things like phrenology are trendy again on the far right, including among people like Elon Musk, who hold great sway over the Trump administration. He's not even the only U.S. president to espouse them. For example, they bear a strong similarity to views expressed by President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), although as a relative racial moderate during his presidency more than a century ago, Wilson generally didn't air them in public once he took office.

Why does this matter? 

• Dressing gutter racism up in the language 150-year-old discredited science doesn't make it smart. 

• Nobody who isn't completely insecure about their intelligence—however justified that insecurity may be—talks this much about how smart they are and how dumb everyone else is.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He suffered another huge loss in a war he started without thinking it through, and now can't get out of.

Voters in Virginia tonight approved a constitutional amendment to allow its Democratic-majority legislature to redraw its Congressional districts in a way that will probably net Democrats four House seats in the midterm elections this year. The most likely result is that Virginia's House delegation will go from a close 6D-5R split to a 10-1 Democratic advantage.

The amendment will allow the Virginia legislature to offset partisan redistricting in states controlled by Republicans—who were acting on direct orders from Trump. Texas, Missouri, Ohio, and North Carolina have already done so. Trump has been desperately trying to get Indiana and Florida to do the same, although Indiana Republicans flatly refused (causing an irate Trump to lash out so furiously that one of his supporters tried to get a Republican state senator shot).

The problem—and this may sound familiar—is that Trump seems to have assumed that the initial battle was the whole war, and that his "enemies" wouldn't or couldn't fight back. But the Democratic-led states of California and Virginia did, and Utah was ordered by courts to redraw its own maps in a politically neutral way that will nevertheless probably yield another Democratic-leaning district. The result is that Trump's desperate attempt to shore up his party's razor-thin margin in the House has so far netted…

…a loss of one seat. 

The contest in Virginia was relatively close tonight, with the pro-redistricting amendment passing by only 3%. That is the closest that Democrats have come to a loss in a genuinely contested election since Trump returned to office, with backlash against Trump propelling them to almost absurd margins in off-year and special elections. 

The reason for the narrow margin is that partisan gerrymandering is usually unpopular with Democratic voters, who have most often been the victims of it. Both the California and Virginia measures are temporary, and were promoted as leveling the playing field until the normal post-census redistricting will take place after 2030.

Tonight's windfall for Democrats isn't necessarily the end of the story. The Florida legislature may pass legislation that might net Republicans two more seats. But, as in Indiana, there's growing resistance inside the GOP to following Trump off what looks like an electoral cliff in the midterms, and for very good reason. Gerrymanders work by making the margin of victory in "safe" seats smaller, not larger, while packing the opposition party into as few districts as possible. But in a wave election—and Trump's profound unpopularity more than a year into his second term means this is shaping up to be one—the "safe" seats can suddenly become very competitive, and the opposition party can win more seats than it would have without the gerrymander. 

Yesterday, Trump may have inadvertently boosted the Virginia amendment's chances of passing when he warned that "if the Democrats get additional seats, they're going to be making changes at the federal level." Tonight, in spite of another ongoing social media binge, he's avoiding the subject.

Why does this matter?

• A smarter president probably wouldn't have bungled this quite so badly, or gotten into this situation at all. 

• This all started because Donald Trump once again wasn't willing to risk letting Americans pick their own government by respecting the results of a free election.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He melted down over pressure that he says he isn't feeling to find some escape hatch from the Iran debacle.

For the second time in less than a week, Trump spent the better part of a workday crafting and posting an angry social media rant, insisting in four emotionally overwrought posts that he was not feeling any pressure to end the war with Iran, while simultaneously saying it would happen soon and demanding that the news media pretend that it was already over.

This is what Trump posted (shown here as a single connected text) between 1:35 and 2:28, while he was supposedly in a "policy meeting."

The DEAL that we are making with Iran will be FAR BETTER than the JCPOA, commonly referred to as “The Iran Nuclear Deal,” penned by Barack Hussein Obama and Sleepy Joe Biden, one of the Worst Deals ever made having to do with the Security of our Country. It was a guaranteed Road to a Nuclear Weapon, which will not, and cannot, happen with the Deal we’re working on. They actually gave $1.7 Billion Dollars in “GREEN” Cash, loaded into a Boeing 757, and flown to Iran for Iranian leadership to spend anyway they saw fit. He emptied out all of the Cash from Banks in D.C., Virginia, and Maryland. Those Bankers said they’ve never seen anything like it before. In addition, Hundreds of Billions of Dollars was paid to Iran. If I did not terminate that “Deal,” Nuclear Weapons would have been used on Israel, and all over the Middle East, including our cherished U.S. Military Bases. The Fake News, like Lightweight Washington Post “Journalist” David Ignatius, loves to talk about the JCPOA, knowing that it was DANGEROUS, and a Complete Embarrassment to our Country. If a Deal happens under “TRUMP,” it will guarantee Peace, Security, and Safety, not only for Israel and the Middle East, but for Europe, America, and everywhere else. It will be something that the entire World will be proud of, instead of the years of Embarrassment and Humiliation that we have been forced to suffer due to incompetent and cowardly leadership! The Democrats are doing everything possible to hurt the very strong position we are in with respect to Iran. Despite World War I lasting 4 years, 3 months, and 14 days, World War II lasting 6 years and 1 day, the Korean War lasting 3 years, 1 month, and 2 days, the Vietnam War lasting 19 years, 5 months, and 29 days, and Iraq lasting 8 years, 8 months, and 28 days, they like to say that I promised 6 weeks to defeat Iran, and actually, from the Military standpoint, it was far faster than that, but I’m not going to let them rush the United States into making a Deal that is not as good as it could have been. I read the Fake News saying that I am under “pressure” to make a Deal. THIS IS NOT TRUE! I am under no pressure whatsoever, although, it will all happen, relatively quickly! Time is not my adversary, the only thing that matters is that we finally, after 47 years, straighten out the MESS that other Presidents let happen because they didn’t have the Courage or Foresight to do what had to be done with respect to Iran. We’re in it, and it will be done RIGHT, and we won’t let the Weak and Pathetic Democrats, TRAITORS ALL, who for years have been talking about the Dangers of Iran, and that something has to be done, but now, since I’m the one doing it, belittle the accomplishments of our Military and the Trump Administration. This is being perfectly executed, on the scale of Venezuela, just a bigger, more complex operation. The result will be the same. In my First Term, I built the Greatest Military our Country has ever seen, including adding Space Force. In my Second Term, I am properly and judiciously using our Military to solve problems left to us by others of far less understanding or competence. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! I’m winning a War, BY A LOT, things are going very well, our Military has been amazing and, if you read the Fake News, like The Failing New York Times, the absolutely horrendous and disgusting Wall Street Journal, or the now almost defunct, fortunately, Washington Post, you would actually think we are losing the War. The enemy is confused, because they get these same Media “reports,” and yet they realize their Navy has been completely wiped out, their Air Force has gone onto darker runways, they have no Anti Missile or Anti Airplane Equipment, their former leaders are mostly gone (This has been, in addition to everything else, Regime Change!), and perhaps, most important of all, THE BLOCKADE, which we will not take off until there is a “DEAL,” is absolutely destroying Iran. They are losing $500 Million Dollars a day, an unsustainable number, even in the short run. The Anti-America Fake News Media is rooting for Iran to win, but it’s not going to happen, because I’m in charge! Just like these unpatriotic people used every ounce of their limited strength to fight me in the Election, they continue to do so with Iran. The result will be the same — It already is! The Iranian leadership has forced hundreds of Ships toward the United States, mostly Texas, Louisiana, and Alaska, to get their Oil — Thank you very much! President DONALD J. TRUMP

Very little of this is new. Trump frequently takes credit for the existence of the U.S. military, declares himself the greatest president ever, and calls Americans who disagree with him "TRAITORS," including and especially the people who report the news he makes. 

Unfortunately, the lack of news here is a problem for the vast majority of Americans, and world markets, who have been waiting for any sign that Trump had somehow been talked into accepting the reality of the situation, or at least convinced to declare victory and go home in spite of the outcome.

In particular, the fact that Trump referenced the JCPOA, the multinational agreement that kept Iran nuclear-free until Trump withdrew from it in a fit of pique in 2018, is a bad sign here. It's no secret that Trump, who personally loathes former President Barack Obama, sabotaged the JCPOA to undermine Obama's foreign policy legacy. But the $1.7 billion he mentions—Iranian funds frozen in foreign accounts as a result of US sanctions that were lifted as part of the JCPOA—has been in the news again recently for reasons that have outraged Trump: as a point of comparison for the billions of dollars in new revenue streams Trump's war has potentially provided Iran. In fact, Trump has even hinted at offering his own vastly larger $20 billion financial incentive for Iran to table its nuclear program, though he denied it when asked directly. 

Iran's leaders, perhaps not feeling they had much to gain by bargaining with someone who posted and 816-word rant about how he absolutely wasn't feeling extreme pressure to make a deal, responded with a shrug and signaled they were prepared for a return to hostilities.

Why does this matter?

• People who are as accomplished at the "art of the deal" as Trump thinks he is rarely have public tantrums about how not desperate they are to make the whole situation go away. 

• No matter how often he says it, the American people are not Donald Trump's enemy, and him being president doesn't change that.

• Literally everyone and everything involved here is more important than Donald Trump's ego. 

What did Donald Trump do today?

He celebrated the "victory" of the U.S. Navy over an unarmed cargo ship in a war that, apparently, is back on.

Today, the U.S. Navy attacked and boarded an Iranian cargo ship that—at least according to Trump—was trying to run the blockade around the Persian Gulf. At the moment, Trump's account of events is the only one available to the American public, and he is, to put it mildly, not the most reliable source. 

Iran called the act "piracy" and promised to retaliate. It also explicitly revoked its promise to allow vessels to proceed safely through the Strait of Hormuz. In practice very few ships were making the transit during what Iran was calling a temporary act of good faith during a ceasefire. Now, non-Iranian ships are once again effectively trapped in the Persian Gulf, along with all the critical resources they would normally be carrying: oil and gas, but also the critical chemical components of everything from plastics manufacturing to fertilizer for American farms to high-end medical and aerospace technology. 

In the context of a war that has been chaotic and grim for the United States, these events are almost normal. Both sides are capable of effectively destroying normal passage through this chokepoint in world trade, and both sides are doing so.

That said, Trump's social media post about the seizure of the Iranian ship was boastful and triumphant, and he may actually feel that way about it. The problem, of course, is that he was equally enthusiastic about—as he believed—having secured peace on victorious terms, specifically including the end of Iran's blockade, just two days ago.

 

 

It is not clear whether the Trump administration thinks that there is a ceasefire still in place, or if it has any idea whether Iran will take part in further peace negotiations that are scheduled to resume tomorrow.

Why does this matter?

• When you're bragging about the most powerful navy in human history boarding a single unarmed cargo ship, it's a sign your war isn't going very well. 

• Lives, businesses, and security will be lost every day that Donald Trump waits for a way to end this war that doesn't make him look as incompetent and weak as he is.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He let a comedy podcaster write prescription drug rules for the FDA.

Trump spent a rare Saturday in the White House today, with only one event on his schedule: he signed an executive order speeding up review of two psychedelic drugs. He did this at the behest of podcaster Joe Rogan (who shares with Trump the distinction of having hosted a reality game show on NBC) and his Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert Kennedy Jr.  Perhaps even more influential for Trump, right-wing tech billionaire and Trump patron Peter Thiel has also advocated for the legalization and commercialization of these drugs, and owns a company that will profit if they are made legal for prescription.

 

Trump's remarks made clear that he was skipping past the normal scientific procedures for assessment and study as a favor to Rogan personally, who let Trump use his popular platform late in the election to reach young male voters. As Rogan described it, he sent Trump a text message mentioning the possibility, and Trump responded with "Sounds great. Do you want FDA approval? Let's do it."

By the standards of some medical theories Trump has advanced, ibogaine and psilocybin are probably relatively harmless. Taking controlled, small amounts of psilocybin (the active ingredient in hallucinogenic mushrooms) under medical supervision is absolutely safer than injecting bleach or household cleaners, which Trump famously mused aloud about as a potential COVID-19 cure during a press conference. And ibogaine, while known to have certain dangerous side effects, is safer on balance than taking massive doses of the veterinary antiparasitic drug Ivermectin, which Trump also touted as a cure for COVID. (Some Americans followed his "advice" and suffered serious illnesses or death as a result.)

Kennedy, for his part, has used his tenure as HHS head to slash funding for cancer research, and medical research in general. He's an advocate for several discredited and unscientific health practices, including fad diets and using over-the-counter medicines to treat serious infectious diseases. He's expressed skepticism about the basic germ theory of disease, campaigned against vaccinations, and in one case personally sparked a fatal measles epidemic. A recovering heroin addict, Kennedy's mental health and cognitive stability have been called into question almost as much as Trump's, most notably by his own family. He's most recently been in the news amid fresh reports of his bizarre habit of picking up roadkill for later study or consumption: Kennedy has, by his own admission, made off with the carcasses of bears, whales, and—as revealed this week—a raccoon's penis.

For the most part, because most data comes from reports of recreational use, the effects of ibogaine and psilocybin aren't well understood—including how severe the established negative effects and toxicity are. Under normal circumstances, the FDA would grant permission for small-scale lab studies, then escalate to a larger scale if the evidence pointed to a clear and statistically meaningful benefit that outweighed any risks that were discovered. Final approval for use as legally prescribed medicines would come after a series of carefully designed clinical trials in human patients, with specific safeguards built in based on earlier data. 

Trump's order, done on the say-so of a podcaster, short-circuits that process and orders the FDA to jump in blind.

Why does this matter?

• Decisions about how the United States government helps Americans get and stay healthy shouldn't come from comedy podcasters the president owes a favor to. 

What did Donald Trump do today?

He straight up lied about Iran agreeing to a peace deal.

This afternoon, Trump declared that Iran had "agreed to everything" that he had demanded in peace talks. Specifically, he insisted that Iran had agreed to give up its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, to open the Strait of Hormuz and "never to close" it again. "This will be a great and brilliant day for the world," he told a conservative political conference audience. "Because Iran has just announced that the Strait of Hormuz is fully open and ready for business."

In reality, Iran's government has emphatically rejected Trump's claims, outright accusing him of lying to manipulate the markets and score political points at home. Iran's foreign minister announced on state television that "Iran’s enriched uranium is as sacred to us as the soil of Iran and will under no circumstances be transferred anywhere," and that the matter had not even come up for discussion.

As for the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, which is in Iran's long-term financial interest, there was a brief moment today when Iran once again signaled it was moving towards a limited, toll-based opening of the Persian Gulf to international shipping. But that immediately fell apart when Trump insisted that the United States Navy would maintain its own blockade of the Gulf. Iran's government announced that the Strait would remain open in a limited capacity, far below its normal volume, only for the duration of a 10-day ceasefire that expires at the end of the coming week.

The ships that have been stuck in the Gulf since the conflict began clearly believe Iran. A number of them broke for the Strait today, only to sharply turn back when the Iranian government announced the actual terms.

Two countries that had actually come to an agreement might spin things slightly differently for domestic political purposes—but not to the extent of one declaring peace while the other remained at war. Unfortunately for the United States, Trump has far more reason to lie than the alliance of religious hardliners and military officers that control Iran. Unlike the authoritarians he openly admires, Trump does not yet have complete control of state media, and only limited ability to inflict violence on his internal political enemies. The war has strengthened the Iranian regime's control over its population and helped it suppress internal dissent, while the disastrous and predictable outcome has greatly weakened Trump, and the United States in general.

This was the outcome that internal White House sources were trying to warn Trump of a month ago today when they said that he had blundered into letting Iran control how and if the war ended. It remains unclear to what extent Trump believes what he was saying today.

As has happened frequently during the second Trump administration, there was a sudden and anomalous spike in trading of oil futures immediately before Trump's announcement, which itself came just before markets closed for the weekend. 

Why does this matter?

• Reality doesn't change just because Donald Trump says so. 

• It's bad when a hostile foreign country can use the president's ego as a weapon against the United States.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He ranted about his ballroom at length.

Last year, Trump destroyed the East Wing of the White House, without permission from Congress. He did this with as much secrecy as is possible, hastily knocking it down behind construction barriers after lying to the American public that he was only making minor alterations to it. He had claimed that the ballroom he wanted to build "wouldn't interfere" with the East Wing immediately before having it destroyed.

Since then, despite an obsessive interest in the proposed ballroom's construction, Trump has been held up by legal challenges. A federal judge ruled earlier this month in favor of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the agency established by law to protect historical buildings, and ordered a halt to construction of the ballroom. Today, the same judge clarified that an exception he had made for the construction of national security facilities under the ballroom was not a blank check to construct the whole thing anyway.

This outraged Trump to the point that he spent the whole afternoon posting four lengthy rants to his boutique social media website, railing against the Republican-appointed Richard Leon as a "Trump Hating Judge" and making absurd claims about the planned ballroom. Some of the most outrageous:

• Trump asserted, as he often does, that the ballroom is "free" because it is being paid for by corporate sponsors. Even if this weren't a bribe—and Trump has made clear that he regards contributions to the construction fund as the cost of doing business with his White House—it's still not true that taxpayers won't end up paying for it. The "donations" that corporations are making are tax-deductible and secret, so money comes out of the budget either way. Trump also recently gave a Luxembourg steel company a special break on tariff rates in exchange for a "donation" of $34 million worth of steel, reducing revenue and undermining the American steel industry at the same time. 

• Trump also said, and this is a direct quote, that "The Ballroom is deeply important to our National Security" because it will contain "Top Secret Military Installations." Setting aside the question of how secret they are if Trump is tweeting about them, the judge's order doesn't prevent Trump from building an underground bunker if that's what he wants to do. It simply prevents him from violating the law by building an entire new structure on the grounds of the People's House without authorization from the people's representatives in Congress. 

• Trump insisted that nobody had legal standing to stop him. In reality, of course, Trump is not the whole government, and doesn't rule by fiat, especially where Congress has given its own agencies jurisdiction. 

• Finally, Trump claimed that the ballroom was "not a joke to me, or the people of America." It's completely clear that Trump is deadly serious about the ballroom. As for the American people, polls show they overwhelmingly think it's a joke, and a pretty bad one.

The posts appeared at 2:45, 3:47, 4:05, and 6:41. Trump then reposted all of them again about a half an hour after the last one. They come to a grand total of 782 words. 

Why does this matter?

• A president ranting that "The Ballroom is deeply important to our National Security" is deeply embarrassing. 

• Obsessive fixation on grandiose schemes is not a sign of good mental health. 

• Even by Trump standards, this is bizarre, and sad.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He got extremely confused about a major political event that happened to him.

Trump is serving as a massive anchor dragging down Republicans' chances of keeping control of the House of Representatives in the upcoming elections—and that's coming from Republicans themselves. The situation is so dire that political forecasters now think Democrats have a decent chance of picking up four seats retaking the Senate outright in what, going by the map, should be an awful year for them. 

That has focused attention on the Supreme Court, and whether two of its elderly Republican justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, might choose to retire soon rather than risk having Trump's picks to replace them blocked by a Democratic-controlled Senate.  In an interview that aired this morning, Trump had this to say:

Look at — happens to Justice Ginsburg. She was not exactly a young woman. The election was taken. They had a Democrat who could’ve appointed a liberal justice — and the liberals do stick together, that’s one thing about those justices, they stick together like glue, not like the Republicans. But she decided she was going to live forever, and about two minutes after the election, uh, she — went out, and I got to appoint somebody.

Ginsburg died of cancer in September of 2020, almost four years after Trump took office. Trump's over-the-top reaction to "learning" of her death from a reporter, in which he performed shock and insisted "you're telling me now for the first time"—although he clearly was aware—became something of a meme. He then ignored her deathbed plea for him to wait until the election was settled before naming a replacement.

Instead, his administration rushed to appoint Amy Coney Barrett before the November election, doing in barely six weeks what would normally have taken at least four months. That should stick out in Trump's mind for reasons that go beyond the political: the White House ceremony celebrating her nomination was a COVID superspreader event that likely gave Trump the near-fatal case that saw him hospitalized days later.

But Trump's version today has the timeline off by a matter of years, at least. The closest thing to an explanation seems to be that he was conflating her death with the death of Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016, during Barack Obama's last full year in office. Obama nominated Merrick Garland to replace him, but the Republican-controlled Senate refused to vote on him, giving Trump the opportunity to name his replacement after the 2016 election.

Trump clearly wasn't lying. His version of the story isn't embellished to make him look good; it was just wrong on basic facts he lived through as President.
 

Why does this matter?

• Confusing elements of different stories is called confabulation, and it is not a sign of good cognitive health in the elderly.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He tried to erase the history of both his impeachments.

This morning, Trump promoted an article written by his impeachment lawyer and mutual friend of Jeffrey Epstein, Alan Dershowitz, suggesting that his first impeachment could be "expunged" by an act of Congress. The gist of Dershowitz's argument is that one of the witnesses against Trump consulted with Democratic lawmakers before coming forward. (Congress has the Constitutional responsibility for oversight of the executive branch, so contacting lawmakers about criminal behavior in the White House is not exactly out of bounds.)

Not even Trump disputes the basic facts that led to his first impeachment: fearing that he would lose the 2020 election to Joe Biden, Trump pressured Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to publicly announce a criminal investigation in to Biden's son Hunter, and to (falsely) claim that it was Ukraine that had tried to interfere in the 2016 election rather than Russia. He conditioned continued American military support for Ukraine on this, and then obstructed Congress when it tried to investigate after whistleblowers brought evidence of Trump's scheme to light.

Coincidentally or not, Trump also tried to legally undo the subject of his second impeachment today. The DOJ, now led by his personal criminal defense lawyer Todd Blanche, asked federal courts to throw out the seditious conspiracy convictions of a number of members of white supremacist and militia organizations related to the January 6th attack on Congress. Trump, who was impeached in the last days of his first term for that attempt to cling to power, had already granted clemency to anyone who committed crimes on his behalf that day. 

Neither action would have any real legal or practical effect. But Trump, for all his legendary outrage at anyone—whistleblowers, voters, courts, or Congress—who would hold him accountable, seems to genuinely believe he can rewrite history by fiat even as he calls attention to it.
 

Why does this matter?

• Reality doesn't change just because Donald Trump doesn't like what happened in it. 

• Corruption, obstruction of justice, and attempted coups are still wrong.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He stayed up all night and regretted it in the morning.

Trump, who is 79 years old and erratic under the best of circumstances, stayed up all night posting to his boutique social media site. At 9:03 PM on Sunday, he posted a lengthy screed against Pope Leo XIV, accusing the head of the Roman Catholic Church of being "WEAK ON CRIME." 46 minutes later, he posted an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus, healing the sick while worshipers looked on adoringly.

 

Trump then posted at 9:50 PM, 10:10 PM, 10:32 PM, 10:34 PM, 10:53 PM, 12:43 AM, 2:35 AM, 2:36 AM, 2:37 AM, a second post at 2:37 AM, 2:38 AM, and 4:10 AM, before, presumably, getting a little sleep. 

If Trump's public schedule is to be believed—and for this sort of thing, it shouldn't be—he might have gotten a little under three hours of sleep before getting up and ready for "executive time" starting at 8:00 AM. (In the Trump White House, that is a euphemism for time spent browsing social media, calling friends, or napping, so Trump may well have just slept through the first part of his "workday.")

When he did finally appear after noon, Trump was asked about why he depicted himself as Jesus. He insisted that he thought the picture of him in the white and red robes, showing him laying hands glowing with holy light on the head of a sick man—which is how Jesus is often depicted in devotional art—was showing him as a "doctor."  

 

Then, perhaps not wanting to walk back the Jesus comparison too much, he insisted, "I do make people better." He also praised the obviously AI-generated image as having come from a "very beautiful, talented artist," and blamed "the fake news" for the controversy.

Trump comparing himself to Jesus is nothing new: this isn't even the first time this month he's done it. But this time, he outraged some of his strongest Christian supporters—to say nothing of Christians and non-Christians across the political spectrum—and was forced to remove the post. 

Why does this matter?

• Inability to sleep because of an agitated state of mind at night, followed by excessive sleepiness during the day, is an indicator of severe cognitive decline in the elderly. 

• Dementia is the generous explanation for comparing yourself to Jesus right after you denounce the Pope for forgiving criminals. 

What did Donald Trump do today?

He blockaded a blockade. 

This morning, having abandoned "peace" negotiations with Iran after less than a day, Trump announced that he, too, would blockade the Persian Gulf. He also claimed that the US Navy would interdict any vessel that paid Iran's toll, although he didn't say how he'd know which ones those were, or what would happen afterwards. In fact, as is often the case, it's difficult to tell whether Trump knew what he was saying at all. Military seizure of a Russian or Indian or Chinese-flagged ship would instantly change the character of the war.

Unlike most of the war up to this point, there is at least a theoretically valid military justification for blockading Iran. It might make it harder for Iran to resupply weapons or other militarily useful materials, or to raise money by exporting its own products. But Trump's blockade isn't complete, and can't be: Iran has shipping channels via the Caspian Sea with its main trading partner Russia, as well as overland routes through friendly countries bordering it, including Turkmenistan and Afghanistan.

 

The result is that Trump is simply adding to the effectiveness of Iran's near-complete closure of the Persian Gulf. Not only will this hurt the rest of the world more than it hurts Iran for the foreseeable future, it also undoes what little relief Trump had won for oil prices by taking the unprecedented (and humiliating) action of dropping sanctions against Iranian oil exports in the middle of a war against it.

Trump, who attended a UFC match in Florida last night while negotiations collapsed, has once again remained hidden from the press today. His only brief comments came as he arrived in DC, insisting that "other nations" were joining the US in trying to prevent the sale of Iranian oil. As is often the case when Trump claims international support for one of his plans, he was unable to say exactly which other nations were involved.

Still, it is possible to see this as a positive development. A blockade is easier to back down from than a ground invasion, both in terms of the level of military commitment and the amount of public scrutiny it would receive. The main obstacle that the United States has been facing in extricating itself from the debacle of the Iran attacks has been Trump's own unwillingness to admit he's made a mistake.

Oil and gas prices were once again up sharply on the news.

Why does this matter?

• The safety and stability of Americans, and for that matter everyone else, is more important than Donald Trump's ego. 

What did Donald Trump do today?

He told Americans exactly why gas prices are going to go up again.

Yesterday, Trump seized on a tweet by Canadian oil and gas industry analyst Rory Johnston. It showed a map plot of empty oil tankers rerouting in a continuous line stretching halfway around the world, bound for American oil export terminals on the Gulf of Mexico. This is, obviously, the result of a fifth of the world's oil supply being shut off by Iran's ongoing blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

 

Johnston said it was "very cool" to see this, referring to the unusual redeployment of a substantial portion of the world's oil fleet. But Trump apparently misunderstood Johnston's enthusiasm and assumed it was a good thing for United States, and stole Johnston's map for a post to his own boutique social media account. (Johnston took the theft in good humor.)

Today, Trump doubled down on the idea that chaos in the oil markets was a positive development:

Massive numbers of completely empty oil tankers, some of the largest anywhere in the World, are heading, right now, to the United States to load up with the best and "sweetest" oil (and gas!) anywhere in the World. We have more oil than the next two largest oil economies combined - and higher quality. We are waiting for you. Quick turnaround! President DJT 

In reality, what this means is that American consumers will be bidding directly against the rest of the world for oil that otherwise would have mostly remained in the United States.

The oil market is global and complex. Refineries are built to process specific kinds of oil based on specific levels of demand in different places, and they have fixed capacities. Inefficiencies, like having to reroute a tanker fleet 10,000 miles, drive up the price. So does limited supply.

It's true that American oil company profits will go up, although Iran itself and Russia are the real winners, as both are now free from American sanctions on their oil, and both are heavily dependent on petroleum revenue to support their wars against the United States and its ally Ukraine.

But actual Americans pay more for everything when fuel prices soar like they have since the start of Trump's attacks on Iran: more for gasoline, which is now over $5/gallon on the west coast, and more for everything shipped on planes or trucks.

Why does this matter?

• A president who can't understand the most basic economic concepts like supply and demand isn't fit to hold office. 

• There's a difference between what's good for a few oil companies and what's good for 340 million Americans.