The Weekly List

This week the theme of inequity continued to be front and center. While Trump refused to sign a housing affordability bill, which had rare bipartisan support, new disclosures revealed he had personally reaped $2.2 billion in 2025! Trump’s windfall primarily came from new businesses in cryptocurrency, but he also enriched himself in a bevy of other ways, unprecedented for a sitting U.S. president. Meanwhile this week, Trump continued to obsess over his Washington D.C. construction projects, which after he had repeatedly claimed would be entirely funded by him and private donors, this week reporting revealed taxpayers would be on the hook for perhaps billions! As would taxpayers be on the hook for over $700 million to refurbish and house Trump’s new Air Force One, a gift from the Qatari government that he will keep after leaving office. All in all, a stunning week of disclosures on unprecedented grift and corruption.
Supreme Court decisions were a mixed bag this week. Two decisions broke what were thought to be landmark decisions made decades ago. Overall, although Trump lost on birthright citizenship, other victories in the area of immigration will empower and embolden him to take further action. A ruling on campaign finance in favor of Republicans will allow in more outside monies ahead of midterms. The one thing that did not go Trump’s way this week were rulings related to his efforts to impact voting in the midterms. After several losses, he and his allies have basically taken Congress hostage: paralyzing House voting until such time as his SAVE America Act, which does not have the votes in the Senate, is passed.
As the country entered the week of July Fourth, Trump launched his highly politicized Freedom 250 celebrations, which like his Reflecting Pool renovations, were plagued with problems. Attendance was embarrassingly light, with broadcast images revealing an almost empty National Mall. A shocking Gallup poll captured the mood of the country, with just 19% of Americans saying the founders would be pleased with how the country has turned out, a new low.
Meanwhile, the Iran War — remember that? — seems to have become an inconvenience for Trump. The public hears little about it, and what we do hear is contradictory information. After the two sides exchanged attacks, it appeared negotiations were halted. Trump is reportedly weighing options to restart the war, but seems again disinterested, and for now is leaving diplomacy to two real estate developers representing U.S. interests.

Trump just doesn’t care. That is a great takeaway from this week’s list. He views his power as absolute, saying in an interview that he has not been humbled by the Iran War, but instead learned that there are “no limits” to his power. He feels unbridled by public opinion or what is good for his political party approaching midterms. His concerns seem wrapped up in his legacy as a great conqueror abroad, while also enshrining his legacy in our country’s capital, as would be typical of dictatorships.
Trump has lost the war with Iran that he started, abandoning all of his stated objectives, for fear of his legacy being compared to former President Herbert Hoover. It wasn’t his falling approval, reaching new lows on issues as well, or the crisis of affordability hitting most Americans, it was the stock market. After spending the past decade criticizing former President Barack Obama for releasing $1.7 billion in funds to Iran in completing the JCPOA, the Trump regime opened U.S. dollar-denominated oil sales for the first time in four decades, planned to released tens of billions more from frozen accounts, and set up a $300 billion fund for Iran. All in all a humiliation for the U.S. and our world standing that will surely have lasting world impacts.
Meanwhile, Trump spent the week obsessed with his D.C. legacy, this week on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, inventing stories of “vandalism” to cover for gross incompetence. The Kennedy Center remains under wraps, quite literally, after his name was removed. The White House complex is a literal mess. His regime continues to struggle with the basic tasks of the federal government, the tolls of which are increasingly coming to bear, and instead is focused on his campaign of retribution. On the edges the Republicans, out of their own self-interest, are turning on him.

This week, after days of strikes on Iran, which included a precision strike on a water plant serving 20,000 Iranians, Trump announced a “deal” with Iran on his 80th birthday. While Trump, and his front man on the deal, Vice President JD Vance, trumpeted the one-and-a-half page long memorandum of understanding, they also refused to release it publicly, even to members of the Gang of Eight, even days later.
Terms of the MOU did start to leak out nonetheless, with the NYT describing the deal as Trump winding down a war he started, with all his stated goals unmet. Trump’s main goal of ending Iran’s nuclear program, which he had claimed last June to having “obliterated,” was notably not addressed in any way. Trump continued to tout his deal as superior to former President Barack Obama’s JCPOA, which was negotiated without a war, but emerging details did not back that claim.
Meanwhile, Trump held an unprecedented spectacle on White House grounds for his birthday, incorporating the U.S. military, and using the White House as changing rooms for UFC fighters, in what critics called undignified and worse. The event culminated in the winning fighter referring to former First Lady Michelle Obama as a “man,” which Trump and his regime refused to condemn, and seemed to have been the main lingering vibe of the event. While the White House anticipated 125,000 would attend, the crowd was limited to thousands.
Meanwhile, the rest of Trump’s DC projects were in disarray. After spending $14.2 million to repaint the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in flag blue, days later the pool turned green as it filled with algae. Trump tried to avoid removing his name from the Kennedy Center, but lost, and so instructed the regime to cover the center with a giant tarp. Trump continued to fight for his White House ballroom, which he had repeatedly promised would be funded by donations, but as it turns out, looks to cost $600 million, not $400 million, half of which would be covered by taxpayers.
This week, when pressed on the impact of his policies and war on affordability for Americans, Trump said, “I love inflation,” a line likely to be widely featured in Democrats’ midterms advertisements. Trump was, for the first time, losing ground not only with white working-class voters, but also with rural voters. Meanwhile, this week’s list is full of examples of insiders like Elon Musk having the regime do his bidding, and Trump using the apparatus of the federal government to pursue his enemies.
Those of us old enough remember the bicentennial celebration in 1976, when Americans were treated to years-long events in celebration across the country, a time of unity and pride. Fifty years later, the country is in disarray, inequality reigns, corruption rules, and Trump this week threw away all pretensions and announced the July 4th event planned on the National Mall would be a “Trump rally.” That’s where our country finds itself at its 250th anniversary.

This was an unusually and notably slow week of broken norms compared to recent months. The news cycle has slowed considerably. Two factors stand out that may contribute.
There remain lingering doubts about the state of Trump’s health after his most recent visit to Walter Reed, although our media is saying and reporting very little about it, as opposed to their daily and hourly obsession with former President Joseph Biden. The WSJ Editorial Board writes, as Trump nears his 80th birthday, “we hope no one is hiding any contradictory details” on his recent visit, adding, “One lesson from the Biden health fiasco is that voters will punish a party that tries to cover up infirmities.”
The second is Trump’s focus on his two personal priorities, his legacy and personal vendettas, as we pass the five month mark before midterms, where Democrats are likely to at least gain control of the House of Representatives and put a check on power. Trump cannot stop talking about his arch, his UFC arena, and of course his ballroom. He is obsessed with his legacy, while being openly callous towards the concerns of Americans on issues like affordability. He is also obsessed with rewriting history, targeting his enemies, and seeking to reward his supporters who back the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Towards that end, Trump and his allies were already sowing doubt this week about election results, as the vote count in California’s primary proceeded at its usual slow pace.
It is unclear whether Trump has so ensconced himself with loyalists that he does not comprehend his growing unpopularity, or if he simply has again constructed an alternative truth. This week, Trump was loudly booed in his home city at Madison Square Garden, but he claimed to have heard cheers. As his polling continue to fall, the Journal noted that Trump’s cultural influence is also waning. This week we are also continuing to see the real world impacts of the incompetent loyalists he installed to run our federal agencies, and the out in the open corruption and pay-to-play that have characterized this second regime, and benefited Trump, his family, and his allies.

This was a week full of setbacks for Trump, at home and abroad. The U.S. continued to be mired in Trump’s war of choice with Iran, which, by all appearances, the U.S. seems to be losing. As we pass the three month mark, Trump and his regime seemed to vacillate, day by day, on whether a ceasefire or escalation was near, or whether, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the war was over.
On the home front, Trump suffered two major setbacks, first with a federal judge reversing his rebranding of the Kennedy Center, and then, bowing to both political and legal pushback, Trump backed down on his so-called ‘anti-weaponization’ fund. Backed down in part — not on the immunity audit, which benefits him personally. Uncharacteristically in recent days and weeks, Trump has largely avoided the media, and spent another weekend sending a flood of AI slop on Truth Social.
Increasingly it appears that Trump, as he put it this week, does not “care about the midterms.” His focus instead seems to be on throwing himself a big 80th birthday party at the nation’s capital, putting his name and brand as many places as possible, and enriching himself, his family and allies as much as possible before the clock runs out.
What alarms me most is all that we have normalized. The Justice Department, now run by his personal lawyer, has become a cudgel for Trump’s personal vendettas. This week, he crossed the line to pursuing E. Jean Carroll, who is completely a personal target, unrelated to his time in office. He named Bill Pulte to acting director of national intelligence, handing his ally unfettered access to a gold mine of intelligence, which he would undoubtedly use to target enemies, and could also harness to impact midterms. Trump’s regime acts like a mafia organization, awarding huge government contracts and loans, as Trump places stock market bets with his personal funds on companies he then champions. Our leadership in all realms is continuing to become more white and male, and less competent.
The question now is whether Republicans will at long last stand up to Trump, as they did with his fund, or if they will revert to being compliant junior assistants. Trump made some enemies in the Senate, after endorsing primary opponents of Sens. Bill Cassidy and John Cornyn. Will the Senate at long last push back? If not, it becomes a waiting game for how much damage Trump can do before the midterm elections, just five months away.