The Trump Presidency Is Going Great

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams has done the unthinkable in Trump’s America: she’s asked if a lawsuit actually makes legal sense. Trump is suing the IRS and Treasury for $10 billion because a contractor leaked his tax returns, but there’s a tiny constitutional speed bump — he’s the sitting president, and the IRS is an agency he literally oversees. Williams dryly noted that courts need an actual “case or controversy,” which is hard to find when one side ultimately answers to the guy on the other side.

Both Trump’s lawyers and the Justice Department have been trying to quietly hit the pause button while they “resolve” this, which sounds a lot like, “We’re workshopping how the president can bill taxpayers for his own embarrassment.” Trump swears he’ll donate any winnings to charity, a lovely gesture that somehow still involves vacuuming billions out of the public treasury because his tax records showed he paid $750 in federal income taxes and the nation laughed.

The complaint, filed by Trump, Don Jr., Eric, and the Trump Organization — truly the Avengers of reputational harm — claims the leak caused them financial damage and “public embarrassment.” The judge now wants both sides to explain by May 20 why this isn’t just the president staging a fake fight with his own government to get a giant check from taxpayers. The Justice Department, led by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, insists it can handle these “competing interests” ethically, which is a bold promise when the core issue is whether the president can turn the U.S. government into his personal GoFundMe.

The US Senate has narrowly decided that Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness would look much better as a sulfide mining experiment, voting 50–49 to repeal Biden’s 20-year mining moratorium so Trump can sign it and call it patriotism. The big winner isn’t Minnesotans, or the millions who visit one of America’s most beloved wilderness areas – it’s Twin Metals Minnesota, the local costume worn by Chilean mining giant Antofagasta, which is itching to drop a copper and nickel mine just a few miles from the Boundary Waters.

Democratic senator Tina Smith helpfully pointed out that this is the exact opposite of "America First": the mine is owned by a foreign company, the ore will go to Chinese state-owned smelters, and the metals will be sold on the open market. So naturally, the GOP and a bare Senate majority raced to approve it, because if there’s one thing this era stands for, it’s handing US public lands to foreign corporations and calling it supply-chain security. Two Republicans, Susan Collins and Thom Tillis, voted against turning a national treasure into a chemistry set, while Josh Hawley simply didn’t bother to vote – presumably conserving his strength for more performative outrage on television.

Environmental groups are describing this as a "dark day" for the Boundary Waters and a warning for public lands everywhere, which is polite code for "Congress just put a ‘for sale’ sign on your favorite national forest." Twin Metals, meanwhile, insists it will "responsibly" mine the area and pass "stringent" environmental standards, which is exactly what every mining company says right before the river starts glowing. Legal fights and permitting hurdles remain, but the message from Trump’s Washington is unmistakable: if you’re a foreign corporation with a good lobbying team, America’s wilderness is your strip mall.

The Trump White House is in court insisting that a $400 million, 90,000-square-foot ballroom is a "vital" national security project, because apparently the republic now rises or falls on the president’s ability to host state dinners under missile-resistant chandeliers. After a federal judge — a George W. Bush appointee, no less — ruled that "no statute comes close" to giving Trump the authority he claims to have to plop a private mega-ballroom onto federal land, the administration suddenly discovered that the entire thing is actually a bunker, a hospital, a top secret military installation, and probably NORAD with better catering.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation delicately pointed out that Trump has somehow managed to keep living in the White House, hosting press conferences and foreign dignitaries, despite the giant self-inflicted construction crater where the East Wing used to be. Only once a court called the project what it is — an illegal vanity build — did the "open construction site" magically transform into a looming "national security crisis." The trust notes that the underground security work was always fine; it’s the glitzy party box on top that suddenly had to be stapled to "continuity of operations" so it could hitch a ride on the emergency excuses train.

The administration, undeterred by the whole "you are not the owner of the White House" thing, insists Trump has inherent power to "modernize, renovate, and beautify" the place however he wants, and is already rattling its saber at the Supreme Court if the appeals court doesn’t salute. The argument boils down to: it’s privately funded, therefore checks and balances are for peasants, and Congress can go sit in the old East Wing rubble. Trump, meanwhile, keeps lovingly showing off models of his dream ballroom to reporters, seamlessly transitioning from war with Iran to seating charts, because nothing says "steady leadership" like treating the Executive Mansion as a Mar-a-Lago franchise with missile-resistant steel columns.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick — the man Trump decided should oversee American commerce, not, say, his own alibis — will sit for a voluntary interview with the House Oversight Committee on May 6 about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Chair James Comer is very proud that Lutnick has "proactively" agreed to talk, which is a nice, gentle way of saying, "we found the flight logs."

Lutnick previously told the New York Post that by 2005 he had decided Epstein was "disgusting" and that he wanted nothing to do with him. Bold stance. Unfortunately for that heroic origin story, Justice Department files show Lutnick and his family paid a friendly little visit to Epstein’s island in 2012 — four years after Epstein pleaded guilty to sex crimes with a minor — and that he appears to have invited Epstein to a small Hillary Clinton fundraiser in 2015. For a guy who wanted "nothing to do" with Epstein, he sure had a hard time saying no to the private island and the donor list.

Pressed in a Senate hearing, Lutnick said he can’t remember why he took the trip to the island, but assures us there was nothing "untoward" about it. Because when you fly to a convicted sex offender’s private island with your family, years after the conviction, it’s usually just for the vibes. He now says he’s eager to "set the record straight" before the committee and insists he’s done nothing wrong — a phrase that, in this administration, might as well be printed on the official Cabinet letterhead.

Authorities haven’t accused Lutnick of a crime, but the Commerce Secretary being neck-deep in the Epstein orbit while running a major federal department is exactly the kind of ethical tire fire you’d expect from a government that treats background checks as a personal insult. America’s economic policy, brought to you by people who can’t remember why they went to sex predator island.

The IRS has discovered an exciting new innovation in campaign finance: if you fire a quarter of the staff and let the servers cry for help in binary, $51 million in political donations just vanishes into a disclosure black hole. The Center for Political Accountability noticed that second-half 2025 filings for 527 groups – the state-level slush funds that buy governors and attorneys general – are mysteriously blank, replaced with the soothing message: “IRS technical issue preventing e-file reporting.” Nothing says transparent democracy like a 9-figure influence industry depending on whether the upload form works.

This little magic trick is hitting the Republican Attorneys General Association, the Republican State Leadership Committee, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, and the Republican Governors Association – you know, the people who bankroll Ron DeSantis and the multistate lawsuits that kneecap federal policy. One of them even had to post its donor list on its own website like some kind of accountability cosplayer, while the IRS offers "radio silence" on when it might stop eating filings. An IRS spokesperson claimed in February the issue was "resolved," which is technically true if you define "resolved" as "we stopped answering follow-up questions."

The fun twist: this "glitch" arrives right after the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) helpfully chopped 27% of the IRS workforce and dumped a giant new tax law on the remaining survivors. Now the only major political organizations overseen by the IRS – the ones that vacuum up millions in corporate money to quietly remake state and national policy – are wandering around with missing donor data in an election year. Corporate cash is still flowing just fine; it’s the public’s right to see who owns which attorney general that’s been put on the chopping block. Government efficiency, indeed.

The National Capital Planning Commission, now conveniently run by Trump loyalists, is set to review and possibly rubber-stamp the president’s dream project: a 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom that required literally demolishing the East Wing of the People’s House. He’s a temporary tenant, but he’s renovating like a guy who just found out the landlord died without a will.

This follows Trump firing all six members of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts last fall and replacing them with allies who promptly approved the design, because nothing says “independent review” like clearing out the whole board to make way for your $400 million presidential quinceañera venue. Preservationists sued to stop this architectural ego trip, but a federal judge dismissed their objections as a “ragtag group of theories,” apparently finding “don’t let the president bulldoze historic federal property for a mega-ballroom funded by shadow donors” too abstract a legal concept.

The cost has already doubled from Trump’s original $200 million estimate to $400 million, all supposedly covered by “private donors” and Trump himself. There’s a donor list with big corporations on it, but donors are allowed to stay anonymous and no one knows who gave how much. So we’ve got a president tearing down part of the White House, building a massive new event space, and paying for it with opaque corporate and possibly foreign money, outside normal congressional approval. Definitely nothing to see here, just American democracy getting flipped like a condemned row house to make room for the world’s most corrupt wedding venue.

President Trump’s latest gift to the fossil fuel and real estate gods: a nominee to run the nation’s largest public lands agency who has previously supported selling off federal lands. Because when you’re responsible for guarding America’s natural heritage, you obviously want someone whose first instinct is to slap a price tag on it and see if Exxon or a hedge fund wants to build a view-blocking monstrosity there.

As the Senate committee advances this walking conflict-of-interest toward confirmation, Democrats are pointing out the tiny, barely noticeable problem that the public lands chief maybe shouldn’t be on record as wanting to liquidate the inventory. Republicans, meanwhile, appear thrilled at the prospect of turning national parks and public ranges into a giant scratch-and-dent sale for donors. Stewardship is out; parting out the country for spare cash is in.