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.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He got frustrated with his latest pet project and ordered weeks of work demolished.

Trump's latest renovation obsession—other than destroying the East Wing of the White House for his "military top secret ballroom," the already-just-renovated Kennedy Center, shopping mall-style signage reminding people standing directly outside the Oval Office what it's called, cheap gold-colored plastic appliqué from Home Depot on the White House walls, his proposed "triumphal arch," destroying what was left of the Rose Garden, putting up a UFC cage match arena on the White House lawn for a single night's private entertainment, closing off the last public views of the White House, and his now ten-times-over-budget, two-months-late attempts to replace the dark gray surface of the Lincoln Memorial's reflecting pool with a dark blue surface—is a new helipad.

 

Trump has been holding court for weeks on the specific aesthetic details he wants to include, enthusiastically telling reporters assembled for Iran War comment about the particularly beautiful color of granite he wanted, and how it would have the presidential seal carved into it. Much of the work had already been completed. But today, construction crews began demolishing weeks of work on Trump's orders, reverting almost all the way to the beginning because Trump was dissatisfied with the particular way it looked against the horizon from his vantage point inside.

The official reason for the destruction of the old landing site is that newer versions of the helicopters used to transport him could theoretically damage the grass. (Trump has been excitedly telling reporters about his plans to replace the grass on White House lawns lately, too, spinning biologically inaccurate stories about how the actual leaves of grass themselves were more than 100 years old.) But off the record, Trump's staff offer other explanations. He has become convinced that it is essential that China's president Xi Jinping be received at the White House on the new pad. And the 80-year-old Trump, who often finds it very difficult to walk short distances in a straight line, or go down ramps or stairs without assistance, would be spared a couple hundred feet of walking in the new location. 
 

Why does this matter?

• Putting up gaudy palaces as a show of the leader's power is what tinpot dictators do. 

• Presidents have more important things to do than worry about what kind of pavers border a helipad. 

• Presidents who decide to worry about that kind of thing anyway should be able to think things through first so that they don't have to do everything twice. 

• Elderly people repetitively obsessing over pet projects and becoming frustrated easily is not a good sign of cognitive health.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He saw a basketball game, disrupting thousands of actual fans inside and outside the arena.

Trump traveled to New York this evening to see the Knicks play the San Antonio Spurs in Game 3 of the NBA finals. It's the first time the Knicks have been in the finals in 27 years, and their stampede through the playoffs has been a major cultural event in the city. 

Trump is not a fan of the sport. He attended at the invitation of the team's owner, James Dolan, who like Trump is an heir to a billion-dollar New York fortune. The sport isn't a fan of him, either: he's routinely picked fights with the sport's predominantly Black superstars, and said that players being allowed to take part in Black Lives Matter protests was "gonna destroy the league." (It did not.)

That lack of respect showed in the reaction he got tonight. He was booed on his way into the arena:

New Yorkers welcome Trump's motorcade with a chorus of BOOS. Lots of great signs too 😂

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— TofuNYC 🏳️‍🌈🗽🇺🇦 🇬🇱🚫👑🖕🧊 (@groguspeak.bsky.social) June 8, 2026 at 7:12 PM

He was loudly booed during the playing of the National Anthem:

Trump, shown on camera during the national anthem, is booed loudly at MSG

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) June 8, 2026 at 7:40 PM

 

During the national anthem, President Donald Trump was booed by the Game 3 crowd at MSG.

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— The Athletic (@theathletic.com) June 8, 2026 at 7:47 PM

And in spite of some ticket prices in the arena exceeding $50,000—a substantial fraction of what it would cost to buy access to Trump himself—he was roundly booed each time his face appeared on arena screens. 

Part of the reason for that reaction is simply that Trump is extremely unpopular in New York, where he got about 25% of the vote in 2024, meaning he is less popular in the city of his birth than Kamala Harris is in Wyoming. 

But Trump's visit also added more than two hours of wait time for each attendee. 

 

Worse, Trump's security requirements forced the cancellation of a watch party outside the Garden that thousands of fans were expected to attend. The gathering had been organized and approved by the office of NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani, who was also in attendance—though in a "cheap seat" he bought for himself.

Dolan had tried to deny that the cancellation of the watch party was due to Trump, but the NYPD immediately released a statement confirming that the Secret Service required it due to Trump's visit, and that the watch party would resume during Game 4 when Trump was not present.

Trump's appearance is also crushing the hopes of businesses near the Garden for some windfall profits: only ticketholders were allowed inside a fifteen-block zone, while pedestrian and vehicular traffic was banned. 

San Antonio won by a score of 115-111. It was the Knicks' first loss since April 23. Trump didn't seem very interested in the game he disrupted: in spite of deafening crowd noise, he nodded off for part of it. 

Trump takes a long blink during the NBA Finals

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— MeidasTouch (@meidastouch.com) June 8, 2026 at 9:00 PM

 

Trump left with the game still close in the 4th quarter.

 

Why does this matter?

• The White House gets ABC.  

What did Donald Trump do today?

He tried to make himself a hero for pardoning a white-collar criminal who got caught trying to cheat pollution rules.

Shortly after concluding a full week following a hospital visit in which he did not appear in front of cameras, Trump gave what amounted to a rally speech today in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. Uncharacteristically, he remained sitting the whole time, leading to some speculation that he wasn't able to stand for that long. 

During the speech, Trump made reference to a man he had supposedly pardoned from a seven-year prison sentence for the crime of "fixing his car." 

There is legitimate debate over the so-called "right to repair" issue. As consumer goods, and especially vehicles, become more complex and computerized, manufacturers are more likely to use software or intellectual property protections to force third-party repair shops to pay a licensing fee for access. This can drive up repair costs and limit what consumers can do with their own property. That appears to be the spotlight that Trump was trying to jump in front of today.

In reality, the man Trump was apparently referring to, Troy Lake, was not in prison for  "seven years" and certainly not for "fixing his car." Lake, the owner of a large truck repair company, was convicted for his role in an interstate conspiracy to disable emissions monitoring on hundreds of heavy-duty commercial trucks so that they'd pass inspections. That gave Lake's co-conspirators, who owned the trucks that Lake disabled monitors for, a huge financial advantage over competitors who followed the law and kept their trucks in compliance with emissions standards. As the Department of Justice noted at the time:

Emissions controls on vehicles are critical to maintaining air quality, and when these controls are disabled, the increase in excess tailpipe pollution is significant. A study of the effects of tampering with these 344 trucks showed that the conspirators in this case collectively caused an illegal increase in pollutants of at least 1,300 tons of excess nitrogen oxides, 30 tons of excess non-methane hydrocarbons, 600 tons of excess carbon monoxide, and 30 tons of excess particulate matter. The World Health Organization has found that diesel exhaust is a carcinogen and causes lung cancer. Diesel exhaust is also associated with asthma and an increased risk of mortality from cardiovascular and respiratory disease. These impacts disproportionately affect low-income communities that tend to be located near highways and other high-traffic areas. 

Lake's actual sentence was for one year, not seven. Trump also seemed confused about other details: he claimed that he'd pardoned Lake one or two weeks ago, but it happened last December. He also blamed the conviction on "the Democrats" but the investigation into Lake and his criminal co-conspirators began in 2018, when Trump was president.

Why does this matter?

• If Trump had pardoned someone people would actually have sympathized with, he wouldn't have needed to lie about what the criminal had done.
  
  
• Past a certain point, lies get so obvious that they're just another way of telling your audience you think they're stupid.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He gave himself the power to fire civil servants for telling him things he doesn't want to hear.

Trump went to the hospital last Tuesday for a "physical," after which he did not appear in public or in front of a camera for an entire week. Today, he finally emerged at a signing ceremony, with unexplained facial swelling, appearing both agitated and exhausted.

The occasion was his signing of an executive order that purports to make at least 8,000 senior federal government employees "at-will," meaning that they can be fired for any reason or no reason at all. Under existing laws, politicians need a valid reason like poor performance to fire most federal employees.

Civil service protection laws were put in place to prevent corruption. When government employees, especially those in supervisory positions, can be fired at the whim of a president, then they are more vulnerable to pressure to act in the president's interests rather than the public interest. This isn't a theoretical problem: it was the driving force behind the rampant government corruption of the late 19th century. 

Trump routinely refuses to acknowledge findings by the federal government that he doesn't like, or that are politically damaging to him, calling them the work of the "deep state," a supposed shadowy conspiracy against him. 

In effect, Trump's order would give him the power to force government employees to choose between keeping their jobs, or doing their work in an honest and nonpartisan fashion, whenever their duties conflicted with what Trump wanted them to do or say. For example, he could force the Treasury Department to cook the books on critical inflation or unemployment statistics—just like he accused previous administrations of doing. 

A Trump spokesperson today claimed that all the order was intended to do was make sure that federal employees followed all "lawful" instructions. But there would be nothing strictly illegal about Trump demanding that a government medical researcher issue a report that wind turbines cause cancer, or that household cleaning products could be taken internally to cure COVID. He could force the NIJ, which compiles crime statistics for the federal government, to "find" that undocumented immigrants commit more crimes than native-born citizens, even though the opposite is true.

Trump has gone on a stock-buying spree lately, often in companies that have subsequently announced lucrative government contracts, driving up the value of his investments. He could make government auditors—the exact people whose job it is to prevent waste and fraud—come up with fake "reasons" after the fact that seem to justify those contracts, insulating him against prosecution from corruption after leaving office. He could make research scientists at the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry choose between warning the public about a dangerous chemical made by a company he'd invested in, and losing their jobs.

Or, to take an example from today's headlines, Trump could have simply pressured USDA field agents not to confirm that screwworms, the devastating cattle parasite, had been found in Texas. This would have allowed him to dodge responsibility for needlessly killing the cheap and effective government program that had kept them from spreading northward into the United States. 

It also means that Trump could simply continue his pattern of firing people he suspects for demographic reasons of being "disloyal" to him, as with his purge of female and Black military leaders.

Why does this matter?

• The federal government owes its allegiance to the American people, not Donald Trump personally.   

What did Donald Trump do today?

He casually threatened to "blow up" Oman, a military ally and diplomatic partner in his war on Iran.

It's been 89 days since Iran functionally closed the Persian Gulf to all but a few ships per day, drastically affecting the world economy and forcing the United States to sue for peace with a nation that Trump has repeatedly claimed was already defeated.

NBC News tracker

It's not in Iran's best interests to keep the Persian Gulf closed forever, but it is to Iran's advantage to maintain active control over the formerly open passage. It is doing this now by threat of force, because cargo and tanker ships are slow and vulnerable, but legal control recognized by some international agreement would be better for Iran, not least because this would create a mechanism for it to charge tolls.

Accordingly, its counter-offers at the negotiating table have made a priority of recognizing its de facto ability to cripple world trade (and its willingness to do so). But to give the appearance of regional unity, those proposals have generally offered to split the proceeds with the nation of Oman, which sits on the other side of the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz.

 

Oman, which has maintained some backchannel diplomatic relationships with Iran, has played a key role in negotiations, which may explain why Iran's government has offered them that olive branch.

Today, at a Cabinet meeting where he once again had difficulty staying awake, Trump was asked about the possibility of joint Omani-Iranian oversight of the Strait. Trump, whose company is "developing" a luxury resort hotel in the capital Muscat largely paid for by the Omani and Saudi governments, responded that if Oman tried to enter into any such arrangement, "we'd have to blow them up."

Oman is a military ally of the United States, and has been attacked directly because of the war. Nineteen of its citizens have died in those attacks.

This is at least the fifteenth country that Trump, who complained bitterly for months about not receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, has threatened to launch military attacks against. Many of them, like Panama, Canada, Ukraine, Denmark, Mexico, and now Oman, are military and diplomatic allies. 

Why does this matter?

• No matter how many times Donald Trump does it, threatening or attacking the United States' allies is an evil act that makes the United States less secure. 

• A president who can't remember or doesn't care who is on which side of a war he's fighting is unfit for command.   

• If Trump were in a position to dictate terms about how the Strait of Hormuz is reopened, it would already be open. 

• Constantly making empty threats shows weakness, not strength.

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 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 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 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 once again threatened to withhold medical care from poor children to punish the Americans he thinks are his enemies.

The day after Trump gave a long speech that left him visibly exhausted, the White House kept him out of public sight today. But the administration did send JD Vance and Mehmet Oz out to reiterate a threat Trump made last night. The two held a press event today promising to withhold $259 million in Medicaid funds to the state of Minnesota. That state's governor, Tim Walz, was Vance's opponent in the 2024 vice-presidential race. 

Minnesota is also home to the largest Somali-American communities in the nation, a group Trump has compared to animals and falsely accused of disloyalty. It's not clear how much of Trump's loathing of Americans of Somali descent comes from his personal racist beliefs and how much of it is political opportunism in the belief that other Americans can be convinced that those racist beliefs are true. Racist broadsides against immigrants were a major theme of his campaign and a sort of acid test for then-candidate Vance, who was given the job of spreading false rumors that Haitian-American immigrants in Ohio were stealing and eating household pets.

The link to Minnesota and Medicaid has its roots in a fraud investigation launched by the Walz administration before the election. Some of the targets were Somali-Americans, although most were not. That ultimately led to Walz suspending one grant program that had been a particular target for fraud, although legitimate claims were filled through other programs.

Medicaid, which is the federal government's main provider of health insurance for children and poor families, has no such alternative at the state level, meaning that Trump's threatened cuts will directly impact the ability of Minnesotans who have not committed fraud to receive necessary health care. 

There's no way to be sure whether Vance and Oz's delivery of Trump's threat will amount to anything in practice. He's made precisely this same threat before, to no real effect, because courts immediately put a stop to it. As a general rule, Trump has no legal power to punish Americans, especially Americans who are not themselves guilty of any crimes, by arbitrarily denying them government services—and certainly not as a means of political revenge against a state that doesn't vote for him.

Oz, who is Trump's Medicaid administrator, said that people who commit fraud against the program are "self-serving scoundrels." That's hard to disagree with. Among the people who have commited fraud against Medicaid and Medicare who have received pardons or commutations from Trump are:

• Paul Walczak of Florida, who stole employee Medicare payments and used them to buy a yacht, and whose mother later gave Trump's PAC $1 million 

• Joseph Schwartz of New Jersey, who committed fraud against Medicaid as the CEO of a chain of for-profit nursing homes, who paid lobbyists with Trump's ear $1.1 million to get the pardon 

• Lawrence S. Duran and Judith Negron of Florida, who defrauded Medicare of $200 million, and who had earned the longest sentences for health care fraud ever handed down in the United States 

• Rickey Ivan Kanter, who defrauded Medicare through his orthopedic shoe business 

• Paul Behrens, Thaddeus Bereday, Todd S. Farha, William Kale, and Peter Clay of Florida, all executives in a health insurance company that defrauded Medicare 

• Robert Corkern of Mississippi, a hospital management company owner who bribed a public official to overpay for his services, driving up public reimbursement costs 

• William "Ed" Henry, a former Republican member of the Alabama state legislature, who stole government property as part of a Medicare fraud scheme 

• Ted Suhl of Arkansas, who ran a faith-based behavioral therapy clinic, and defrauded Medicaid 

• Philip Esformes of Florida, whose chain of nursing homes billed Medicare $1.3 billion for care it never provided to patients, and who went on to commit other crimes after Trump's clemency 

• Saloman E. Melgen of Florida, an opthalmologist who bilked Medicare for $73 million by performing unnecessary (and sometimes painful and dangerous) eye surgeries 

 

Why does this matter?

• It's beyond evil to punish poor children by withholding medical care to score political points against Americans who politically oppose you. 

• Under no circumstances does a president who pardons $1.6 billion in medical fraud, mostly from his own home state, care about medical fraud.

What did Donald Trump do today?

Very little, even by his standards.

Trump, who likes to call other people "low energy," is famously removed from the actual work of the presidency. Even in his first term he was usually unable or unwilling to put in a full day of work in the Oval Office, and his visibly declining health and ability to control himself has removed him even further from the day-to-day operation of the White House in his second term. He's even disappeared from public view without explanation for a week at a time. The result has been that, even more often than in his first term, Trump appears to have been kept out of the loop on major decisions that "he" has supposedly made, while competing junior aides dictate policies without any real oversight.

In that sense, today was a fairly typical day in the Trump presidency, in that it was the Saturday of a three-day weekend in which he has no public events scheduled. He went to a Trump-branded golf course, although in keeping with the new normal of his second term, there was no way to know if he actually played golf. The press pool and White House photographers, who were often allowed to take pictures during his rounds, were not even allowed to verify that Trump was actually in the motorcade that went to the course today. (Trump has difficulty walking down stairs or even ramps without assistance, and while he's known to rely on a cart when he does play, even the act of getting up and down from it a hundred times or so would probably be challenging given his other symptoms.) 

Trump's afternoon schedule was similarly opaque: he supposedly had "private meetings" with unspecified visitors. It's not known who, if anyone, he met with, and likely never will be if it was anything other than a social call: Trump revoked a longstanding policy of releasing visitor logs to the public when he first took office.

But he's also been oddly silent on social media today, the one area of public life where he's normally very energetic (and sometimes hypermanic). He posted only twice to his private microblogging site the whole day. One of those posts did make headlines, because rather than a love letter to his third wife Melania, it was a Valentine's Day rant about what amounted to a bad dinner date he'd once had with the alt-conservative talk show host Bill Maher. 

Arguably, Trump complaining about not being treated gently enough by comedians wasn't the most newsworthy part of the 500-word essay that he posted: he also tried to walk back a truly deranged side comment about China's plans to cancel the Stanley Cup (that is, the NHL championship) by economically dominating Canada, which contributes seven of the NHL's 28 teams. In this morning's tirade, Trump reversed course and now claimed that he had

jokingly stated in a TRUTH that, “The first thing China will do is terminate ALL Ice Hockey being played in Canada, and permanently eliminate The Stanley Cup.” Well, he went on and on about the Hockey statement, like “What kind of a person would say such a foolish thing as this,” as though I were being serious when I said it

The post that Trump is referring to came this past Monday, and while people did call it "silly" and "deranged" and "manic," nobody—including Trump's White House staff—called it a joke. It wasn't the first time Trump has said it: a few weeks earlier, he said the same thing to reporters, who didn't take it as a joke then either.

Oh, well, if, if they do a deal with China, yeah, we'll do something very substantial, because we can't, look, I have a great relationship with China presidency, but we don't want China to take over Canada. And if they make the deal that he's looking to make, China will take over Canada. And the first thing they're gonna do, end ice hockey. 

Typically, a president caught making a ridiculous statement in writing that embarrassed him might have the option to blame a staffer, but the Trump White House has already played that card once in the past week.

Why does this matter?

• Trump doing nothing at all might be an improvement, but a president who can't or won't rise to the burdens of the office should resign. 

• Nothing says a president has to be funny, but it's a huge problem when nobody can tell the difference between his "jokes" and his delusions.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He "brought God back" by arresting clergy.

Anti-abortion protestors held a march today in Washington, attended by a number of Trump administration officials. But as was the case at his inauguration last year, the cold weather seems to have been too much for the increasingly frail Trump, who stayed indoors and delivered a brief message by recorded video.

Trump has been anxious to shore up his support with anti-choice voters. They have good reason to think he's not really serious about their pet issue: he was pro-choice most of his life before running for office, and he's gotten confused about exactly what it is he's supposed to believe now that he claims he's anti-abortion. His brief message didn't talk much about abortion, but he did make one interesting claim: that he's "bringing back God."

This isn't the first time Trump, who is famously unclear on the basics of Christianity, has made vaguely blasphemous statements like that. He's compared himself directly—and favorably—to Jesus Christ several times, and he's claimed to be specially ordained by God in ways that mere mortals aren't.

In other religious news, more than a hundred members of the clergy were arrested today in Minneapolis for protesting the campaign of terror Trump is waging by deploying ICE against immigrants, citizens, people of color, protestors, observers, schoolchildren, and children too young to be in school. 

Faith leaders line up to be arrested at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport.

The arrested clergy were part of demonstrations all across Minnesota today. In the Twin Cities alone, tens of thousands of people took part in a march on a day when the temperature was -10°F.

 

Why does this matter?

• Jesus commanded his followers to obey God's law by showing mercy and hospitality to foreigners. 

• He also had some pretty harsh words for people who pretend to be pious and then do evil.

• Arresting clergy whose moral stances pose a danger to the establishment is what dictators do, but it has a long history in the United States too.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He forced NATO to take up defensive positions against an American invasion of Greenland.

In response to Trump's bizarre and increasingly serious threats to invade Greenland, European countries that are officially allies of the United States have been sending military and diplomatic delegations to the island. France recently announced it was opening a consulate in Greenland's capital city of Nuuk, and today it confirmed it would be sending military forces to participate in joint force exercises with Denmark. The UK is also sending a single officer, and Germany, Norway, and Sweden are also taking part.For their part, Denmark's armed forces have been given strict orders to actively repel any attack on Greenland. 

In military theory, token detachments like this in the path of a potential invasion are called "tripwire forces." They're intended to deter aggression (because of the promise of a full-scale counterattack) without provoking unstable regimes with an escalating force. For example, the United States military presence in South Korea is not large enough to repel an invasion from North Korea, but even the notoriously chaotic North Korean government is unwilling to risk harming American troops for fear of retaliation.

In other words, the rest of NATO is beginning to treat Donald Trump the same way they do Kim Jong-un, and for the same reasons. Support for a military invasion of Greenland is nonexistent among Americans, with a recent poll showing only 4% of Americans in favor. 

The foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland were in Washington today, meeting with JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Predictably, nothing was accomplished, if only because Trump preemptively declared today that "anything less than" surrender of Greenland was "unacceptable." He also flatly refused to rule out a direct military invasion of a founding member of NATO.

Trump himself did not attend the meeting. Instead, he held a signing ceremony for a bill promoting 2% milk, during which he nodded off. 

Why does this matter?

• Even by Trump standards, this is delusional and dishonorable. 

• Destroying NATO like this would be a godsend to nations hostile to the United States

What did Donald Trump do today?

He did just about everything he could to make people question his health and judgment.

At midnight Thursday morning, Trump was where he's spent most of the last two weeks: his private resort in Florida. As usual, his right hand was pasted over with makeup that doesn't match his skin tone, to cover up a bruise he claims is from shaking hands. That explanation, which the White House continues to gamely offer reporters who ask about it, doesn't explain why Trump has recently been wearing concealer on his left hand, or why he's needed adhesive bandages to cover the spot where an IV for some undisclosed infusion would go.

But today, Trump had more news about his health—none of it good. The Wall Street Journal posted a long article today detailing his various health struggles and his increasingly obvious decline in energy and cognitive fitness, as well as the effort to portray him as healthy and fit. As is typical for such stories, the reporters asked the White House for comment before publishing, and were surprised when Trump made himself available for questions. 

In the course of the impromptu interview that followed, Trump blamed his hand bruising on his aspirin regimen, saying that he takes 325mg per day in order to get "nice, thin blood pouring through my heart — does that make sense?" From a medical standpoint, it doesn't. Daily aspirin is almost never prescribed anymore for people who have not already had a cardiac incident, even people whose heart health is suspect, like Trump admits his is. And when daily aspirin is indicated, the dose is 81mg, not 325. 

In other words, Trump says he is taking aspirin explicitly against doctors' orders, and four times the dose that would be recommended even if that were a good idea.

He also tried to retroactively downgrade the mysterious MRI that reporters learned he'd undergone last fall to a CT scan. When news of the MRI broke, he claimed he didn't know what it was for—something almost impossible to believe, as MRIs are never done unless a physician is trying to confirm or rule out a specific and serious health issue. But some drug regimens, notably Alzheimers drugs like Leqembi, do require an MRI to ensure they're not causing dangerous brain swelling or fluid buildup.

As is often the case, it's not clear whether Trump was confused then or lying now, although it's worth noting that even if Trump didn't know the difference between an MRI and a CT scan, his doctors and staff would, and could have corrected the record earlier.

Trump said the lesson he'd learned from all this was, in so many words, not to tell people about future medical procedures. "In retrospect, it’s too bad I took it because it gave them a little ammunition. I would have been a lot better off if they didn’t, because the fact that I took it said, ‘Oh gee, is something wrong?’ Well, nothing’s wrong.”

Trump, who handed over control of the nation's public health and medical regulatory agencies to a devotee of pseudo-scientific conspiracy theories, is full of unusual ideas about health. When the COVID-19 epidemic broke, he publicly suggested using household cleansers and veterinary deworming agents as a drug therapy. And he unironically believes an 18th-century theory that exercise is bad for the body because it uses up the finite amount of energy a person is born with.

UPDATE, 1/2: Trump followed up early this morning with another social media post claiming that he had "just" passed his "third" dementia screening test. Trump also announced passing his third dementia screening test a month ago. It's not clear whether Trump mistakenly thought the December exam had just happened, or whether his doctors had for some reason ordered a fourth dementia test and he'd lost count, or whether he's simply making things up.

Why does this matter?

• Presidents who can't be honest about their health (or simply can't remember what it is) aren't healthy enough to serve. 

• Someone who gets and then ignores the best medical advice in the world on matters that might kill them is also unfit, although more on grounds of stupidity or narcissism.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He stayed up late on a posting binge and then slept through the work day.

Last night, and into early this morning, Trump went on a posting binge to his private microblogging service that might charitably be described as "manic" and more accurately as a "meltdown." To take one example as representative, the 79-year-old current president of the United States retweeted a conspiracy theory that former First Lady Michelle Obama was the secret power behind the throne of the Biden administration.

All told, Trump made about 150 posts of that nature between 7 p.m. and midnight.

Today, the only event on his schedule was a Cabinet meeting, followed by a brief announcement. He slept through much of it, even when the speaker was sitting right next to him and directly addressing him by name, closing his eyes slowly and nodding before occasionally startling awake, over and over and over again. 

Trump's inability to make it through meetings without nodding off, along with his general physical and mental decline, has been more and more directly addressed in the media lately. He's reacted badly to that coverage, but it hasn't stopped it from continuing to happen.

The only point Trump appeared less dozy was during his own remarks, which were incoherent and unfiltered even by his standards. Among other things, he went on a racist rant about "garbage" Americans who came to the United States as refugees from Somalia, said that "affordability" for everyday items was a "con job," lied for the umpteenth time about gas prices, and tried to explain away his pardon of a former president of Honduras who helped the Sinaloa cartel traffick more than 400 tons of cocaine into the United States.

Why does this matter?

• This is not someone who is mentally, emotionally, or physically able to carry out the duties of the presidency.   

• Anybody in any other job would be fired for this.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He got very upset that people are noticing he's having trouble staying awake.

Trump (or someone posting as him) was up bright and early this morning, but in a foul mood. The cause was a New York Times article from yesterday about the visible decline of the 79-year-old's health and ability to make it through even his relaxed idea of a full day's work. 

 

The article, written by Katie Rogers, discussed Trump's frequent struggles to stay awake, even in situations where he knows he is the center of attention. It noted that the average time of Trump's earliest public appearances in a given day has crept later and later in the day, to an average of 12:08 p.m., up from 10:31 a.m. in 2017. Even in the early days of his first term, when he was a comparatively youthful 71, Trump often built what his aides called "executive time" into his schedule—unstructured time he'd spent in the residence, watching TV or napping. (In the current term, Trump's detailed schedule is kept secret from the public entirely.)

Rogers' piece also addressed some of the unanswered questions about Trump's physical health, such as why he was given an MRI at his most recent physical. Trump claims not to know the reason, or even what part of his body was being imaged, something that is almost impossible to believe since MRIs are never given as a matter of routine. But it is at least possible that it's related to the monthly intravenous he is apparently receiving. Some drugs administered in that way and on that schedule, such as the Alzheimer's drug Leqembi, require MRI monitoring.

Much of Trump's 288-word rant was a rehash of his usual up-is-down claims about his success: prices that are going up are actually going down, the economy that literally 1% of Americans are optimistic about is great, he's personally ended nonexistent "wars," and so forth. But he also returned to some favorite and equally plausible brags about his health, among them that he "aced" a "COMPREHENSIVE COGNITIVE TEST" that was in reality a dementia screening exam that asks the patient to identify pictures of zoo animals and do single-digit arithmetic problems in their head.

Trump, who recently snapped "Quiet, piggy!" at a female reporter who was asking about why he was stonewalling on his promise to release the government's files on Jeffrey Epstein, also called the NYT's Katie Rogers "ugly inside and out." He declared the paper itself, not for the first time, to be an "ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE." 

The next week won't do much to burnish Trump's image as an energetic go-getter. He escaped the White House yesterday to start a six-day vacation, and has exactly one item—a late afternoon phone call—on his schedule between now and next Monday.

Why does this matter?

• A president who was actually mentally competent and physically healthy enough to do the job wouldn't be so worried about this kind of thing.  

What did Donald Trump do today?

He rushed to help exactly one American, a wealthy political supporter, get the health care they needed.

Scott Adams, the conservative culture warrior and creator of the comic strip Dilbert, announced earlier this year that he has been diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer and is not expected to live long. Adams, who recently said that Black Americans were a "hate group" and that whites should "get the hell away" from them, has been a vocal Trump supporter since 2015. 

That relationship may be why Adams publicly begged Trump to intervene in what he described as the botched administration of a last-chance drug that might extend his life. It is also probably why Trump immediately responded, via HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who told Adams that Trump "wants to help" and would be contacting him.

Where less well-connected Americans are concerned, Trump and Kennedy have slashed funding for cancer research, and medical research in general. Adams, whose net worth is estimated to be in the tens of millions of dollars, probably isn't having financial issues related to his treatment, but 45 million Americans are facing sharp increases in health care premiums due to Trump's refusal to fund ACA subsidies.

Adams described his problem as a logistical issue, not a question of money or access. But this wouldn't be the first time Trump has pulled strings to get someone access to medicines other people can't have: he did it for himself when he nearly died of COVID-19 in 2020. Clinical trials often make exceptions for patients who are truly without hope, but in the case of the brand-new experimental monoclonal antibody therapy Trump helped himself to, it did mean he took a dose that would have gone to someone else. About 60,000 Americans died of COVID before that therapy became available to the general public.

Pluvicto, the drug Adams is seeking access to, was developed at Purdue University from research funded by the National Cancer Institute. Trump's budget, passed this summer, cut the NCI's budget by almost 40%.

Why does this matter?

• Americans have a right to health care whether or not they're wealthy campaign surrogates for the current president. 

• There's cronyism, and then there's picking one person out of tens of millions to have the government help.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He accidentally revealed more about his "routine physical" than he probably meant to.

Last month, Trump visited Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. At the time, his staff insisted that the visit was "routine," even though it was the second such screening in a year, and Trump had been suffering from a variety of visible symptoms and prolonged absences from the public eye.

Speaking with reporters today aboard Air Force One, Trump confirmed that he had undergone an MRI, adding, "I gave you the full results." This is a lie: the results of the MRI—or even its existence—had not been disclosed before. Pressed for details, he called it "perfect" and insisted that his physicians told him it was "some of the best reports they've ever seen."

MRIs, or magnetic resonance imaging scans, are never, ever given as a matter of routine to healthy patients—no matter how elderly or politically important. They are only given to help diagnose specific ailments, or to rule out or confirm a diagnosis. While armchair diagnosis is hardly a science, it's been difficult for medical professionals to miss the potential symptoms of heart disease or transient ischemic attacks (better known as "mini-strokes") that Trump has displayed in recent years. MRIs can help diagnose both.

MRIs can also help identify the root causes of certain diseases affecting cognitive function like Alzheimer's. Trump, who became disoriented while trying to navigate an unfamiliar room in Japan today and needed to be personally guided around by the new Japanese Prime Minister, once again bragged about passing this dementia screening test.

 

Trump, and this is a direct quote, characterized it as "very hard." 

Why does this matter?

• Presidents don't have to be in perfect health, but they do have to be willing to tell the truth about their health. 

• Presidents who are cognitively impaired, even just some of the time, are not fit for office and should resign or be removed.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He got health care, of an unspecified sort, while others lost theirs.

Trump visited Walter Reed Medical Center today for what the White House described as a routine physical—his second in less than six months. 

It is, to be blunt, unlikely that this is the real reason. Even if Trump, who is 79, required routine health monitoring more often than once a year, that could be and historically has been done without requiring the president to visit a hospital.

Trump has manifested a wide range of troubling physical and cognitive symptoms during his second term, when he has been well enough to appear in public at all. Although his staff denies it, he has almost certainly been receiving intravenous drug infusions, as evidenced by the telltale bruise on the back of his hand that he has tried to conceal by slathering makeup on it. He's suffering from severe edema in his lower extremities, which the White House eventually admitted to after photographs of grossly his swollen ankles made the news. He's frequently had difficulty staying awake during the day, and while he is spending more weekends than ever at one of his private golf courses, there's less evidence than before that he's actually playing golf, which would require at least some mobility. That may be because Trump is having difficulty walking in a straight line, something that was painfully obvious as he staggered from one side of a red carpet to the other during a recent meeting with Vladimir Putin. 

It's clear that Trump's physical wellness is an increasing source of concern to him. He has, very uncharacteristically, started talking about his place in the afterlife, volunteering his belief that if he accomplishes certain goals while in office, he'll be able to get into heaven. He's also become defensive about his increasingly obvious frailty, at one point showing jealousy about how the younger and fitter President Obama would run down stairs, rather than slowly and cautiously lowering himself down them as Trump does.

Of course, physical deterioration is simply a natural part of aging, and not in and of itself a problem for the presidency. The mounting evidence of Trump's cognitive decline is another matter. Just in the last few months, he's fallen for AI scams, announced a "new" policy he'd forgotten about in the few months since the last time he announced it, forgotten which countries were involved in the "wars" he claims to have ended, forgotten about a major military operation from his first term, accused pharmaceutical companies of conspiring to cover up good news about vaccines, and gotten confused about whether his TV was "lying to him," among other things.

Trump took advantage of his unlimited access to taxpayer-funded healthcare on the same day that federal health workers received layoff notices from the Department of Health and Human Services. According to HHS, these layoffs are related to the ongoing government shutdown over Trump's refusal to fund health insurance premiums. These workers are the first federal employees to lose their jobs since Trump's recent threat to fire people in "popular Democrat programs"—by which he apparently meant healthcare.

Why does this matter?

• All Americans deserve health care of the quality—and quantity—that Donald Trump is getting.