What did Donald Trump do today?

He let a foreign billionaire white-collar criminal off the hook for the dumbest and most corrupt of reasons.

Gautam Adani is an Indian national who was indicted by the Department of Justice in 2024 for his part in a staggeringly large international bribery scheme. Adani didn't just pay billions of dollars in bribes; he also took part in an elaborate scheme to hide the bribes from the United States government. This is the kind of white-collar crime that the DOJ takes extremely seriously because foreign corruption defrauds and disadvantages American markets and investors. That is, it takes it seriously except when Trump, a convicted white-collar criminal himself, is in charge of it.

Today, Adani reached a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for the civil portion of the complaint against him. But that appears to be in concert with a planned settlement in the criminal case too, in which the Trump DOJ would drop all charges against him in exchange for a promise to invest $10 billion in American companies and create 15,000 jobs. 

This proposed deal is shocking for three reasons. First, it is a bedrock concept in ethical prosecution that wealthy criminal defendants shouldn't be able to buy their way out of punishment. The belief that billionaires can always buy their way out of legal trouble is corrosive enough when there's some truth to it, but the Department of Justice has essentially never endorsed the idea that it's a desirable thing, until now.

Second, this kind of vague promise of future investment is one that Trump has sought before, from individuals and foreign countries. But they are virtually never kept, because they're inherently unenforceable. Over and over and over and over and over and over again, Trump has bragged about collecting IOUs in exchange for policy or trade concessions of real value, but it's hard to point to a single dollar of foreign investment that resulted that wouldn't have happened because of normal market opportunities. 

Which leads to the third problem: Adani had already made exactly this "pledge" before he'd offered it up as part of a plea bargain. In fact, he made that promise just a few weeks after the 2024 election—loudly and publicly—and explicitly tied his sudden goodwill towards the United States to Trump's victory.

In other words, Trump's DOJ is about to drop a multi-billion corruption charge because the defendant is wealthy enough to offer Trump a campaign talking point, in the form of a meaningless pledge to make investments he was going to make anyway, that he had already made anyway in an attempt to curry favor with Trump. 

Why does this matter?

• It's wrong to hold the wealthiest people in the world to a lower standard of justice, or no standard at all. 

• Presidents who aren't so eager to take bribes themselves usually have a problem with criminals who offer them.   

• A competent dealmaker wouldn't get taken in by people offering meaningless promises so often.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He got sued for his domestic corruption while he brought his family's private business to China.

Trump has been revealing increasingly gaudy plans for his future presidential "library" in Miami, although by his own insistence, it won't actually have a library. Instead, Trump envisions it as a 50-story for-profit hotel atop a "presidential center" featuring giant golden statues of him. (These are not to be confused with the giant golden statue he's recently had installed at one of his golf courses.) 

Screenshot from AI-generated Trump video announcing the "library"

Presidential centers—that is, the bottom floors of Trump's proposed hotel—are privately-funded nonprofits. Trump, whose fraudulent New York charity was shut down and dissolved after he was caught using it for any number of illegal activities, has been using these kinds of entities as pay-for-access bribes, from his inauguration fund to the one for his pet "ballroom" project. 

But that isn't the corruption that got him sued today in Florida. Instead, it's the massive $300 million giveaway of valuable public land belonging to Miami Dade College that Trump-friendly governor Ron DeSantis and his handpicked college trustees has engineered in an apparent attempt to curry favor with him. Trump himself called it "the best block in Miami," and that's probably not far from the truth in economic terms. 

The parcel is almost certainly worth more than MDC's entire endowment. DeSantis's appointees sold it to Trump's presidential center for $10. Trump has always struggled to turn a profit with hotels, even with the help of decades of fraud to prop them up, to say nothing of his habit of forcing the US government to pay top-dollar rents to them. In spite of those illegal and gray-area advantages, he's famously bankrupted many of his hospitality properties while others strugglefra. But a hotel built on free land in a major tourist destination would have an enormous advantage over all other competition.

Trump didn't comment on the corruption lawsuit today: he was busy flying to China for a visit with its president, Xi Jinping. Traveling with him was his son Eric, a private citizen whose company is actively pursuing a deal with the Chinese government to build data centers in the United States.

Why does this matter?

• Corruption is always bad, even when Americans have gotten used to it from Trump. 

• When you have to buy the president's attention, only the corrupt and powerful will benefit.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He tried to lie his way out of his latest vanity project boondoggle.

Since returning to office, Trump has been obsessed with what amount to redecorating projects. Some, like his covering the White House in gold-colored plastic gewgaws and mall signage, are merely odd. Some, like his utter destruction of the historic East Wing of the White House, have been catastrophic. And some, like his fixation on a "militarily top secret ballroom"—that is an exact quote—run the gamut from absurd to pathetic to flagrantly corrupt at the same time.

His latest preoccupation, announced just a few weeks ago, is with covering the Lincoln Memorial's reflecting pool in a coating akin to a backyard pool's liner. Work has already begun, thanks to an emergency no-bid contract that Trump rushed through to try to have it completed in time for 4th of July celebrations. In pitching the project to an increasingly angry electorate, Trump made a number of claims. Specifically, he said that

• the project would cost $1.3 million
• it would be done by "his pool guys," contractors who had installed pools at his resort properties and were experts in this kind of work
• it would take "two weeks" to finish
• it would save hundreds of millions of dollars over the cost of replacing the leaky plumbing underneath the pool

As recent reporting makes clear, none of this is true. Costs are already ballooning to over $13 million and rising, and the work is nowhere near complete after more than "two weeks" of work. It may not even be ready by July, which was the whole justification for the "emergency" no-bid contract. 

 

What little work has been done is visibly shoddy. The blue color Trump demanded is uneven and splotchy, and the surface is bubbling and tearing, indicating it's not adhering to the granite and won't be waterproof. In fact, it's likely that the "repairs" will do more damage than they fix, which is the basis for a lawsuit filed this morning to halt the work. That means that the leaky pipes underneath will still need to be fixed at some point in the future, hopefully by a contractor with some experience on jobs like this, which the awardee of the no-bid contract—Atlantic Industrial Coatings—admits it doesn't have.  

Trump also completely changed his story on his "pool guys" today, and now says he'd never worked with them, blaming the Interior Department for hiring them. But his new claim still contradicts the story the White House is telling: Trump now says he'd never heard of them, but Trump's spokespeople are saying he ordering them hired based on what he'd supposedly heard about them "as a builder." 

The conflicting stories means it's not clear how the company obtained the lucrative contract, which is one reason that no-bid contracts are usually illegal.

It wasn't the only awkward moment for Trump today where his vanity projects are concerned. In spite of Trump's constant claims that his "ballroom" will not cost public money, his party is already preparing supplemental budget requests of more than a billion dollars in taxpayer funds. Asked by a reporter about the ever-increasing costs today, a visibly emotional Trump snapped at her, calling her a "dumb person" and insisting that the project (which may never be built) was still "under budget."

Why does this matter?

• Becoming obsessed with strange ideas or pet projects is not a sign of good cognitive health in the elderly. 

• Even if Trump knew what he were doing, this would be a terrible use of a president's time and energy. 

• Just because he's not fooling anyone doesn't mean it's okay for the president to lie to the American people. 

• Donald Trump's aesthetic sensibilities being upset is not an "emergency" requiring the waste of tens of millions of taxpayer dollars.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He floated the idea of temporary undoing less than a week of the inflation he's caused.

Rising gasoline prices are one of the most visible effects of Trump's disastrous war with Iran. Most Americans buy gas regularly, and the prices are prominently displayed—and for Americans who can't charge the cost of their travel to the taxpayers, it's usually a major household expense.

The fact that Americans feel changes in the price at the pump so clearly, even though the cost of filling up a tank isn't necessarily the most severe problem that Iran's ongoing successful blockade of the Persian Gulf will cause, makes it a political crisis for Trump. And that is why today he proposed pausing collection of the 18.4-cent-per-gallon fuel tax.

The funds raised from that particular tax are earmarked for transportation construction projects, so that the heaviest users of roads are also contributing the most to their maintenance. There's no free lunch: every dollar lost to a gas tax holiday would either have to come from other revenue sources, or through canceled maintenance on an already aging and rickety highway infrastructure. 

But the real problem with Trump's idea is how little it would offset the damage done by the Iranian blockade that he instigated. Even assuming that wholesalers, resellers, and retailers all dropped their prices the full 18.4 cents—and there is no guarantee they would—it would only cancel out about five days of recent gas price inflation. 

A better and more permanent solution would be a resolution of the conflict, but Trump seems both unable and unwilling to move towards that goal. Unable, because Iran has a much stronger negotiating position in the short term: its authoritarian government's control has been strengthened by the war, and it had already been cut off from global trade even before hostilities began. Iran's ruling regime has shown no interest in giving Trump in easy off-ramp. And unwilling, because there is essentially no path forward for Trump that doesn't end in utter humiliation for a man who is incapable of admitting even trivial, harmless mistakes.

And unfortunately for Americans and the rest of the world economy, even a quick end to the conflict and the sudden reopening of the Persian Gulf wouldn't avoid serious long-term consequences. Global oil reserves are approaching critical levels, after which it won't be possible to put any brakes on the upward spike in prices. Production has already shut down in many Gulf oil fields, and capped wells can't be reopened quickly or cheaply. Trade disruptions have already driven the price of basic feedstocks like plastics, sulfur, nitrates, helium, and aluminum, and that in turn has already led to likely permanent price increases in sectors ranging from agriculture to computing to manufacturing in general.

The federal gas tax is set by law and Trump has no authority to order it paused.

Why does this matter?

• Donald Trump's pride is less important than the American and world economy. 

• No remotely competent president would ever have let the situation get this bad in the first place. 

• Shifting money around to make it look like things aren't so bad didn't work for Donald Trump's private businesses, and it won't work here. 

• Americans generally like having food to eat even more than they like having gas for their cars.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He once again brought up the subject of his popularity.

Trump had another lazy Sunday afternoon, with nothing more pressing than "executive time" on his schedule, which is the euphemism his aides use for time he spends on social media, watching TV, or sleeping. That gave him the opportunity to reflect on his boutique social media service about a favorite subject: how much he thinks Americans love him.

It's no exaggeration to say that Trump is historically unpopular. No president since modern polling began with the Eisenhower administration with has ever been this unpopular at this point in his term, and few presidents have ever been as unpopular at any point as he is right now—not even fi
rst-term Donald Trump.

Only Richard Nixon was less popular at this point in his second term, and in May 1974 he was just a few months away from being forced to resign in disgrace.

Trump's unpopularity is crashing through boundaries not normally possible. He's underwater in ruby-red states like Mississippi, Montana, and Utah.

 

Polls aren't perfect predictors of elections, but that suggests that buyers' remorse has set in so hard with American voters that Trump would lose another presidential election today by an absurd margin in the electoral college. 

Even Trump-friendly poll aggregators like RealClearPolitics.com agree: Trump is approaching the level of unpopularity he spiked to after the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Trump didn't specify which "Poll Numbers" he thought were "Excellent," although he rarely does, and when he does it's usually clear he's not understanding what he's seeing. Last month, he gushed over a poll showing him with 96% approval, either not knowing or not caring that it was a poll of attendees at a pro-Trump political conference. He also seized on CNN's Harry Enten mentioning that his support was at 100% among self-described "MAGA voters"—meaning, again, that Trump's self-proclaimed supporters support him. Enten later clarified that a better way to describe Trump's popularity—which was higher then than it is now—was as a "steady fall into the abyss." 

Of course, Trump—who "jokes" about attempting another coup and staying on past the end of his second term—isn't on the ballot and won't ever be again. But his party is in 2026, and in spite of aggressive gerrymandering done at Trump's behest to disenfranchise Democratic voters, especially African-Americans, it now seems likely that Trump will be a historical anchor in the midterms. Trump may even cost his party the Senate, in a year when the map of seats up for election is terrible for Democrats.  

Projected chance of winning the House (racetothewh.com)

 

All that having been said, there is a smidgen of good polling news for Trump, whose increasingly fragile health has been a real concern. By a plurality of 45-31, Americans believe that the 79-year-old Trump could still successfully beat up an 8-year-old boy. (24% thought it was too close to call.)

Why does this matter?

• The only thing more pathetic than thinking you can trick other people into liking you is tricking yourself into believing you've done it.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He made money off the presidency at one of his golf courses for the second consecutive weekend.

Trump spent the day at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, VA, watching the third round of a LIV tour event. LIV is an upstart golf tour seeking to challenge the PGA Tour's dominance. Backed by the Saudi government, with whom Trump is deeply financially entangled, it's been a lifeline for Trump's golf courses, which—like so much of the real estate empire he inherited—have often lost shocking amounts of money. As one 2021 article put it, the reason that the avid golf fan Trump can't seem to make money even on a business he ought to have some understanding of might be "incompetence, vanity, or something more sinister" like tax fraud. 

Families of September 11th victims have protested LIV events at Trump courses, correctly noting that before Trump started taking Saudi money, he had blamed the Saudi royal family for their complicity in allowing the attacks to happen. (There's no clear evidence that the Saudi government was directly involved in the 9/11 attacks, but it absolutely has committed atrocities like the kidnapping and murder of Saudi-American journalist Jamal Khashoggi—and gotten Trump to run interference for it on multiple occasions.)

This is the second weekend in a row that Trump, who has been open about accepting thinly-disguised bribes during his second term, has made money off of a major professional golf tournament. Last week it was the PGA Tour's turn to pay the piper at Trump National Doral. That course saw the unveiling of a 15-foot golden statue of Trump this week, so reminiscent of a biblical idol that a televangelist supporter of Trump felt obliged to preemptively address the issue: "Let me say this plainly: this is not a golden calf."

 

 

Why does this matter?

• Using the power of the state to force people to pay you money is what tinpot dictators and Russian oligarchs do. 

• It's bad to have a president in hock to so many foreign governments, and worse that they're all dictatorships. 

• One way to avoid people thinking you're making golden idols of yourself is not to make golden idols of yourself.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He identified with the Russian point of view in several different ways.

The German military surrendered to Allied commanders on May 8, 1945. Today, Trump signed a presidential proclamation commemorating the anniversary of that day, which is known in the West as Victory in Europe Day, or V-E Day. But Trump's proclamation had an odd detail: it referred to the day as "Victory in World War II Day." This is, obviously, not correct—the Second World War didn't end for the United States until September 2, with the surrender of Japan.

But there is one nation that refers to the May date as "Victory Day" because it was not at war with Japan at the time: the Soviet Union, and its successor state Russia. Trump is politically, financially, and personally indebted to Vladimir Putin, and has frequently demonstrated a kind of worshipfulness of, or at least submissiveness to, the Russian dictator.

Of course, Trump makes up new words and phrases and spellings and rules of capitalization all the time, so it's not impossible that he just stumbled on the phrase by accident. (Trump, just a few weeks shy of 80, is not quite old enough to personally remember the surrender of Japan—although he should have learned about it in school.)

But it comes on the same day that Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, revealed that Trump had personally begged him to agree to a ceasefire with Russia over the "Victory Day" weekend. (Russia celebrates the day on May 9, because the official surrender happened just after midnight Moscow time.) Ukraine called the three-day ceasefire a political stunt, noting that Russia won't allow an actual break in hostilities. 

Trump had made a point of insisting that the "Victory Day" ceasefire was his idea, but in reality, the idea is known to have come from Putin, who used Trump to put pressure on Ukraine. Trump and Putin are functionally on the same side in the conflict, even as the United States remains an ally of Ukraine. 

Putin has been anxious to have a declaration of "peace" in place on the day that Russia traditionally holds a military parade in Red Square. The war has been unexpectedly devastating for Russia, owing to mismanagement and overconfidence on Putin's part. It has dragged on for years when it was supposed to be over in weeks, so the optics are important even for a dictator who has essentially crushed all opposition.

Zelenskyy responded with a presidential proclamation of his own, sarcastically declaring Red Square and only Red Square a safe zone from Ukrainian attacks during the morning of the parade. 

  

Why does this matter?

• It's bad that a dictator of a hostile nation can make the President of the United States run errands for him. 

• A smarter president would have learned from Putin's blunder in Ukraine and not made precisely the same stupid assumptions in a war of choice against a large, technologically sophisticated country.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He had a more deranged than usual public appearance, once he was feeling up to it.

Trump met privately today with Brazil's president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva—apparently. Following visits from foreign heads of state, presidents always hold a joint press conference, and one was scheduled for today at 11:00 AM. But hours went by after the meeting was concluded without Trump appearing or any explanation being offered. Eventually, Lula and his entourage left, without comment.

It might have been reasonable to assume that the meeting went badly, but in comments released later, Lula (who has taken a moderate stance on Trump in a country that loathes him even more than Americans do) gave no sign of any problems and said he was "very satisfied" with the meeting. Addressing Trump's glaring absence from the public events that had been remained on the press schedule even after Lula's party left the White House, the Brazilian president demurred, saying only that it seemed unnecessary.

But other circumstances suggest a different explanation. Trump's sleep schedule has been increasingly erratic, and it's playing out in full view of the public: he is wide awake in the middle of the night posting on his boutique social media site, and then unable to keep from nodding off on live TV during the day. As recently as yesterday, the swelling and bruising in his hands—both of them, now, in spite of the White House's continued claim that it comes from shaking hands—was worse than ever. 

Trump remained hidden from public view all day until an unannounced motorcade trip to supervise his latest fixation, putting swimming pool liner on the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool. After that excursion, Trump held a very brief press gaggle in which he

• said that peace talks with Iran were going well and that the ceasefire was intact, in spite of Iran firing directly on US Navy ships today 

• implied in the same breath that he would launch a nuclear attack against Iran if they didn't "sign an agreement fast" 

• called a female reporter a "baby" and "bitch" as staffers frantically tried to shoo the press away

A clear majority of Americans, 59%, said in a recent poll said that Trump is mentally unfit for the presidency.

Why does this matter?

• Losing the ability to mask anti-social impulses—like saying things you want to say, but know you're not supposed to—is a sign of cognitive decline. 

• So is obsession with pet projects or ideas. 

• So is disrupted sleep habits in the very elderly. 

• It's a problem if this is all happening to a man who really can order a nuclear strike.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He tried to jump in front of the spotlight around Ted Turner's death.

Media mogul Ted Turner died today at age 87. Turner was the founder of several early cable networks, most notably CNN and TBS. He was a connoisseur of movie history, first leading the charge to colorize black and white movies, and then—as an act of contrition to the film purists he'd outraged—creating the cable channel TCM, known for its ad-free presentation of culturally and historically significant movies. His success as a cable pioneer and as a businessman in general made him a billionaire, and he adopted a flamboyant lifestyle to match. He bought two sports teams to provide fodder for his growing cable empire: the Atlanta Hawks and the Atlanta Braves. He even appointed himself manager of the Braves for one game in 1977 (a loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates), a stunt that played to his flair for the dramatic but which is remembered surprisingly fondly by baseball's old guard.

 

Turner and Trump, who turns 80 next month, were superficially similar in many ways. Both were married three times and had five children, although Turner had a much warmer relationship with his wives and children. Both have courted controversy with crass remarks: Turner for making hoary jokes about Polish people, and Trump for saying that Americans who don't support him are traitors and that entire races of people are vermin with subhuman intelligence. Both owned sports teams: Turner with the occasionally good Hawks and the dynastic Braves, and Trump with the New Jersey Generals of the short-lived USFL. Trump and Turner were both billionaires, with Turner's fortune coming from a local billboard business he started and parlayed into a multimedia empire, and Trump's coming from $400 million in tax-evaded inheritance that he used to repeatedly bankrupt businesses until he began to successfully monetize the presidency during his second term through crypto scams and pay-for-access bribes. 

That may be why Trump took the unusual step of remembering Turner fondly today in a post to his boutique social media website. Normally, Trump uses the occasion of a person's death to insult them and avenge whatever grudges he may have had against them, a tactic he's deployed against everyone from celebrity filmmakers to icons of the civil rights movement to American troops killed in combat. But he called Turner "one of the Greats of Broadcast History" and claimed that he was "a friend of mine," adding, "Whenever I needed him, he was there, always willing to fight for a good cause!"

That makes it sound like Turner liked Trump or his politics. In reality, Turner explicitly endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016, and addressed that endorsement to Trump in the first line: "From one billionaire to another, Donald, I prefer Hillary." 

On almost every political issue imaginable, Turner opposed Trump. He was an avid environmentalist and conservationist who railed against environmentally devastating coal mines, while Trump believes conspiracy theories about wind turbines causing cancer. Turner was staunchly in favor of women's rights to abortion, while Trump—at least since he started trying to get elected—has engineered the destruction of that right. 

Turner also prided himself on his philanthropy, establishing the Turner Foundation, which has given more than $400 million in grants for environmental protection projects. Trump's charity was dissolved after a trial found it to be fraudulent, used by Trump to make illegal political contributions and pay for personal expenses like oil paintings of himself and sports memorabilia. 

Why does this matter?

• Jumping in front of the spotlight when someone famous and well-liked dies is narcissistic and needy even by Trump standards. 

• If Ted Turner had liked and supported Donald Trump, Donald Trump wouldn't be the only person saying he did.
  
  

What did Donald Trump do today?

He fell on his face with Iran, and then tried to say it was what he meant to do all along.

On Sunday, Trump announced what he called "PROJECT FREEDOM." This was meant to be an arrangement of some kind where US Navy ships would "guide" commercial ships safely out of the Persian Gulf. Crucially, however, this was not to be an escort: the Navy has not entered and apparently will not enter the Gulf.

Even with an escort, it would be very difficult if not impossible for the United States to guarantee the safety of the enormous, dead-slow, and in some cases literally explosive oil tankers and cargo ships stranded in the Gulf. More than two days after Trump announced the plan, it appears that at most two civilian ships have been safely "guided" out, though the Navy isn't saying exactly how. Iran has been permitting a few ships per day to transit regardless.

Of course, Iran doesn't have to destroy every ship that tries to run its blockade in order to render the entire Persian Gulf completely useless for commercial purposes. Even one ship in a hundred being seriously threatened would be catastrophic, and it is almost trivially easy for Iran to carry out that kind of threat with cheap drones and speedboats, or even divers armed with limpet mines. Shipping companies and merchant sailors have been unwilling to take that risk for good reason. 

That was the backdrop for a press availability today in which Trump was asked about whether and how he would respond to the fact that Iran has fired on US ships. Trump, who fell asleep at his desk later in the event, didn't seem to know. It's not at all clear from his slurred, garbled response that he was even aware those attacks had happened.

Q: Can I ask you about Iran, Mr. President? They've fired at US ships several times in the last 24 hours. What do they need to do to violate the ceasefire?

TRUMP: Well, you'll find out, because I'll let you know. They know what to do, and they know what to do [unintelligible]. And they know what not to do, more importantly, actually. And, uh— they fired [unintelligible] little boats, with pea-shooters, you know what a pea-shooter is? Little boat with a little—you know why, cause they don't have any boats anymore. 

Later, Iran's attacks against American ships forgotten (or forgotten again), Trump claimed that diplomacy with Iran was going so well that he was going to pause "Project Freedom" to focus on negotiations. 

 

In other words, Trump has gone from being unable to prevent Iran from blocking the Strait, to being unable to prevent Iran from blocking the Strait while trying to do something about it, to being unable to prevent Iran from blocking the Strait while claiming it was his idea.

Elsewhere today, Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed that the United States' goal in Iran is to open the Strait of Hormuz—or, in other words, to get back to the situation before Trump launched attacks in the first place.

Of course, at some point, Iran will begin to permit traffic through the Strait again, as its own government has acknowledged. The question is when, and on whose terms. For the moment, Iran's ruling regime seems content to prove that Trump can't force it to do anything, and Trump seems determined to prove them right.

Why does this matter? 

• A president who can't remember or doesn't care about the details of an ongoing war isn't fit for office. 

• Neither is a president who can't stay awake in the middle of the day.  

• It's bad that Trump doesn't seem capable of understanding how humiliating this is for him and for the United States.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He replayed his old threats of atrocities, to no effect.

Today, with Iran showing no interest in bargaining for peace on his terms, Trump retreated to an earlier tactic: threatening atrocities. From the safe space of a Fox News interview, Trump blustered that Iran would be "blown off the face of the Earth" if it used military force against US Navy ships in the Persian Gulf. He didn't specify the ruling regime, any more than he did when he said that Iran's "whole civilization will die" if it didn't open the Strait of Hormuz back in early April.

In reality, Iran hasn't opened the Strait then or since, which once again goes to the practical problem that Trump has trapped himself in: nobody is taking him seriously.

From a humanitarian standpoint, that's a good thing: what Trump is threatening (or pretending to threaten) is genocide, the mass punishment of Iranian civilians for the misdeeds of the dictatorial regime that rules the country. Even his lesser "threats" against the Iranian people, to destroy critical civilian infrastructure under the paper-thin justification that power plants and bridges help the Iranian military, would likely kill hundreds of thousands.

But in terms of the United States' ability to influence world events, the Iran situation is disastrous and getting worse with each new attempt by Trump to turn the page. Today was the day that ships trapped in the Persian Gulf were supposed to be "guided" safely out through the Strait of Hormuz by the United States, according to Trump's announcement of what he calls "PROJECT FREEDOM" yesterday. But no US Navy ships entered the conflict zone, and it doesn't appear that any neutral ships made it out of the Gulf without Iran's blessing. 

Instead, Iran responded to Trump's ploy by attacking the Trump-aligned UAE and, apparently, at least one civilian ship in the Persian Gulf, a South Korean cargo vessel. Trump's reaction was to demand that South Korea join the fight—in other words, the same angry plea for the rest of the world community to extricate him from the quagmire that he's made several times in the past.

Why does this matter?

• It's a problem that Donald Trump can't find a way out because at this point there's no hiding how unbelievably badly he has fucked this up.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He offered condolences for Rudy Giuliani's poor health as only he could or would.

Rudy Giuliani is hospitalized tonight in "critical but stable condition." No other information is presently available. 

Giuliani was mayor of New York City during the September 11th attacks, and was briefly a top-tier political celebrity as a result. Later examinations of his actions before and during the attack, showing that he'd made enormous errors of judgment in managing New York's emergency response system cost him a lot of that goodwill. First responders went into the towers with radios that couldn't receive urgent commands to evacuate when it became clear that collapse was imminent, costing hundreds of firefighters' lives. This was a known problem that Giuliani dragged his feet on for two whole terms.

Giuliani was also responsible for the location of the city's emergency command center, which he put in the Trade Center itself over the strenuous objection of the NYPD. He used city police and city services to facilitate an extramarital affair with Judith Nathan (who later became his third wife) and then billed the costs of covering it up to city agencies. The two things are related: Giuliani insisted that the command center be within walking distance of his office, and it included a luxuriously-appointed "bunker" apartment for his private use, where he often met Nathan.

Giuliani tried to set himself up as a power broker in the post 9/11 world, to little success given his fame. He championed his hand-picked NYPD Commissioner, Bernie Kerik, as the Secretary of Homeland Security, but Kerik had to withdraw over a scandal that he had employed an undocumented woman as a nanny. That turned out to be the least of his crimes, which included tax fraud and lying to the FBI. (Trump, who has also committed tax fraud and knowingly employed undocumented workers, later pardoned him.)

After a brief flirtation with a presidential run in 2008—famously derailed by then-candidate Joe Biden's joke about Giuliani being unable to make a sentence that didn't involve "a noun, a verb, and 9/11"—he attached himself to the Trump campaign. He was personally involved in Trump's attempts to blackmail Ukraine into "investigating" Biden, the crimes that formed the basis for Trump's first impeachment. Though increasingly erratic and unreliable during Trump's first term, and widely understood to have a serious alcohol problem, Giuliani's willingness to break any rule or law in pursuit of Trump's aims seems to have convinced Trump that he was the "Roy Cohn" figure that Trump had been searching for. 

Giuliani was increasingly desperate for money to support a Trump-like luxury lifestyle, and that depended on Trump staying in office, so that Giuliani could—among other things—sell access to Trump for pardons. That may explain why Giuliani was so willing to break the law on Trump's behalf in a desperate attempt to overturn the result of the 2020 election. He lied to courts about matters of fact during the litigation that immediately followed, made what judges called "strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations" in an attempt to drag proceedings out past the deadline for Congress to act, and viciously slandered election workers with bizarre conspiracy theories that got them death threats. He lost virtually all of his dwindling fortune to those workers in lawsuits. He was disbarred and indicted for the election crimes. Trump issued a pardon for his federal crimes after returning to office. 

One other event, no more bizarre than many in his life but particularly horrifying in terms of what it said about his morality and mental state in his later life, is worth mentioning. Giuliani was "interviewed" as part of the comedy sequel Borat Subsequent Moviefilm. In reality, the interviewer was the actor Maria Bakalova (a 24-year-old convincingly made up to look younger), but Giuliani had been led to believe that she was an underage right-wing journalism protégée. He flirted with her, invited her up to his private hotel suite, and then laid back on his bed and began to reach into his pants. "Borat," played by actor Sascha Baron Cohen, then interrupted the scene before Giuliani could actually expose himself or make a direct sexual advance on Bakalova.

 

Trump, who is two years younger than Giuliani, reacted to the news on his boutique social media by blaming Democrats and insisting that Giuliani had been "RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING."

Our fabulous Rudy Giuliani, a True Warrior, and the Best Mayor in the History of New York City, BY FAR, has been hospitalized, and is in critical condition. What a tragedy that he was treated so badly by the Radical Left Lunatics, Democrats ALL — AND HE WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING! They cheated on the Elections, fabricated hundreds of stories, did anything possible to destroy our Nation, and now, look at Rudy. So sad! President DONALD J. TRUMP  

As for it being Democrats who treated Giuliani badly—and Trump's supposed concern over it—there is a coda to the relationship between the two men. Trump, whose net worth has ballooned to over $10 billion since returning to the presidency, owes Giuliani more than $2 million in legal fees, but is refusing to pay, or even take calls from his former lawyer.

 

Trump and Giuliani (in drag) in a comedy sketch recorded for a charity event in 2000. Later in the sketch, Trump rubs his face in Giuliani's "breasts" and tries to kiss him. As president, Trump has tried to gin up outrage at "immoral" drag performances.

Giuliani at the infamous Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference. 

 

A substance, possibly hair dye or facial makeup that had been applied to the hair, drips down Giuliani's face during a press conference after Trump lost the 2020 election.

 

Why does this matter?

• You can judge a lot about a person by the company they keep.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He blustered about destabilizing NATO because Germany spoke honestly about his war in Iran.

Earlier this week, German chancellor Friedrich Merz said this about the current state of the Iran War, in which Iran enjoys a stronger position than it had before Trump launched attacks, while Trump is desperate for a face-saving way of backing down: 

The Iranians are obviously very skilled at negotiating, or rather, very skilful at not negotiating, letting the Americans travel to Islamabad and then leave again without any result. An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, especially by these so-called Revolutionary Guards. And so I hope that this ends as quickly as possible.

Merz saying that Trump was being humiliated by Iran was apparently a worse provocation than the actual humiliation, and in response, Trump vowed to start pulling American forces out of Germany.

Asked about it today at his vacation resort in Florida, Trump doubled down, saying that "We're going to cut way down, and we're cutting a lot further than 5,000."

American forces in Europe are there for the benefit of the United States, not just its European allies. The installations where American troops and aircraft are stationed allow the United States to project its military force much further than it otherwise could. Trump himself was outraged when, for example, Spain—which hosts only about 3,800 American troops—refused to allow him to use its airbases to conduct attacks on Iran. Trump fumed in the media about imposing an embargo on Spain before, apparently, forgetting about it.

Trump has made no secret of his contempt for NATO, the basis for those joint security arrangements, and—outside of demands that European countries join in wars he launched without consulting them, or help him escape from the consequences—has looked for excuses to degrade the United States' military alliances with its traditional allies wherever possible. 

The main benefactor of these efforts is the Putin regime in Russia. Trump is personally, financially, and politically beholden to Putin, who has interfered in American elections to help him.

Why does this matter?

• American national security is more important than Donald Trump's ego, or the favors he owes.  

What did Donald Trump do today?

He blabbed about a top secret operation and in the same breath admitted he'd screwed it up.

Last month, Trump hinted at the existence of an otherwise secret plan to give weapons to Iran's Kurdish minority, who would in turn distribute them among opponents of Iran's ruling regime and overthrow it in the chaos caused by Trump's war.

In reality, of course, what happened is that the war made the clerical-military alliance stronger and less vulnerable to internal challenges than ever. The attacks killed a number of senior leaders on the first day, including the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but the nature of the regime hasn't changed. It is now led by Ali's son, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who is one of the few surviving members of his family.

Trump has been the only member of his administration to even hint about US plans to arm Iranians, meaning that it was classified and should not have been spoken about at all. That's especially true because the United States is no more popular with anti-government Iranians than the Khamenei regime is, and having public American backing weakens the movement.

Today, he elaborated: not only had the secret plan been put into action, but it had failed. Trump apparently brought up the subject with reporters just to complain that he was "not happy with the Kurds" for keeping the weapons.

It's not clear why Trump thought that giving weapons to the relatively isolated and ethnically separatist Kurdish population would be a conduit to the urban, majority Persian protestors in a different part of the country that he had wanted to prop up. It's especially baffling given the lack of trust that he should have expected. Trump famously betrayed the Syrian Kurds who had been helping the United States campaign against ISIS. More than ten thousand of them died in that conflict, after which Trump called for their ethnic cleansing.

In an attempt to minimize the scope of the problem, Trump claimed that it had only been a "small amount" of weapons, but this is almost certainly a lie. For one thing, it was "a lot of guns" the last time Trump talked about it, not "a small amount." And for another, there wouldn't be much point in sending only a few token weapons into a country the size and population of the entire US eastern time zone. 

While there is a growing movement supporting Kurdish independence from Iran, it does not yet have autonomy in practice, and the IRGC is still in de facto control of Kurdish regions. That means that one possible outcome is that any American military hardware will simply end up in the hands of the Iranian military.

Why does this matter?

• Donald Trump's need to blame everyone else for his mistakes doesn't justify blurting out classified information. 

• When you rush into war on the assumption that it'll all work itself out and other people will win it for you, you get this kind of stupid and slapdash thing.