What did Donald Trump do today?

We don't really know.

As is typical for a weekend day (and not uncommon for weekdays), Trump went to one of his luxury golf resorts today. The pool reporter was prevented from directly observing him, but there is at least some indirect "proof of life" because he reportedly attended a dinner for his political action committee. 

The Trump administration made no policy announcements today. There were no major developments in court cases involving Trump. If Trump signed any bills or orders, the White House hasn't told anyone about them yet.

To be clear, it was anything but a slow news day where the consequences of Trump's actions were concerned. Among other things, news broke that Trump had illegally destroyed cherry trees given as a diplomatic gift by Japan to renovate a golf course. Reports also surfaced that his supposed "deal" to give control of Venezuela's oil reserves to American companies he favored was likely to face legal and constitutional objections from, in effect, the entire political apparatus of the country. And there was more analysis of the lucrative stock trades Trump made in the oil and gas sector that just so happened to come directly before his public statements about the Iran war caused prices to change.

But in terms of events that could be directly attributed to Trump himself, the only evidence came from his social media feed—and that is no longer a reliable indicator. There were 20 posts to his microblogging website account today, including while he was supposedly golfing. But most of these were image posts—memes or the AI slop that is typical of most Trump administration comms these days. For example, there was an AI slop video of "Donald ducks"—ducks with Trump's hairpiece—carrying assault rifles to defend Lake Ontario. 

As a practical matter, it's long been clear that Trump is not personally posting most of what goes on his social media account. For one thing, it's extremely unlikely that Trump is capable of using a phone or laptop well enough to upload video or images. But recent revelations about the extent of his relationship with the aide who does much of his posting for him, Natalie Harp, strongly suggest Trump may not be aware from day to day what "he" is saying, and not just in the AI slop and memes. The emotionally raw letters that Harp sent Trump use the same idiosyncratic capitalization that appear in Trump's posts.

Harp isn't the first young junior aide that Trump has developed an emotionally intense relationship with that alarmed others close to him. Hope Hicks played a similar role during Trump's first term, as did his daughter Ivanka, both of whom were called on to help manage his outbursts of temper.

Why does this matter?

• It's bad if it's not clear who is actually exercising the powers of the presidency.