The Trump Presidency Is Going Great

Donald Trump is barnstorming red states like a washed-up rock star on a farewell tour, telling crowds they’re witnessing something so historic it will never happen again — which, for the sake of democracy, let’s hope is finally true. He’s allegedly there to help his handpicked Senate candidates Darline Graham and Michael Whatley, who are thrilling voters about as much as a C-SPAN rerun, but the rallies are transparently about the one thing Trump always campaigns for: himself.

He begs supporters to "pretend I'm on the ballot" while cycling through his usual setlist — tariffs made us rich, his crowds are the biggest in history, etc. — then adds a new, deeply statesmanlike bit about studying Sen. Jon Husted’s ass, which he insists boosted Husted 12 points in the polls because of course reality is whatever he says into a microphone. He even drags Ken Paxton into the body-shaming routine, because nothing says serious governing agenda like the president roasting senators’ glutes on stage.

The grand closing argument? A promised $5,000 "Trump dividend" for every American adult if Republicans take both chambers — a campaign-season fantasy payout that sounds suspiciously like trying to buy votes with Monopoly money. He then immediately undercuts his own bribe by joking that at Mar-a-Lago, where he invites everyone to be his guest, five grand might only get you a hamburger and a small dessert. So the pitch is: re-elect my party, I’ll totally get you a check that doesn’t exist, and you can come blow it at my overpriced resort. Subtle.

Florida’s Republican Sen. Ashley Moody has pioneered a bold new theory of democracy: why talk to voters or the press when you can just glide to reelection on gerrymandered vibes and Fox hits? She’s refusing to debate Democratic socialist Angie Nixon, ducking reporters so aggressively that her security literally bodies them away, and holding “Get Out The Vote” rallies where the press is allowed by invitation only. Then her campaign posts carefully curated photos afterward, like a hostage tape with better lighting.

The shyness really kicked in after a leaked grand jury report found that Ron DeSantis’ administration diverted $10 million earmarked for poor kids’ health care and laundered it through “multiple organizations” until it magically landed in the bank accounts of two GOP PACs and the Republican Party of Florida. The report says Moody’s office, back when she was Attorney General, was involved in the transfer. Her defense? She claims her office had no idea how the money would be used — they just helped move the cash from sick children to Republican slush funds, who among us hasn’t. Naturally, she’s now running as a champion of “freedom” and “affordability,” while hiding from any unscripted questions like they’re subpoenas.

Instead of open events, Moody sticks to safe spaces: Trump rallies, closed-door GOP gatherings, and rooms full of handpicked supporters where no one dares ask about $10 million in missing kids’ health care money. The press gets barricades; the base gets culture-war soundbites about stopping a “socialist” from walking onto the Senate floor. And somehow, polls still show her leading. Florida politics has officially reached the stage where you can help preside over the rerouting of children’s health funds into party coffers, refuse to debate, dodge scrutiny, and still be the frontrunner — a useful reminder that the cruelty is the point, the corruption is the feature, and accountability is strictly by invite only.

The Trump administration has discovered an innovative new way to help American workers: make it easier for them to inhale lead, asbestos, formaldehyde, and arsenic. Senator Elizabeth Warren, Rep. Ilhan Omar, and a pile of other Democrats are begging OSHA to stop ramming through a rollback of respirator rules that would let employers skimp on providing masks and even scrap required medical evaluations for workers using certain respirators. Because when you’re around toxic dust and fumes all day, what you really don’t need is medical oversight.

Guiding this public health masterclass is OSHA assistant secretary David Keeling, a former UPS and Amazon executive, because nothing says “guardian of worker safety” like the logistics guys famous for squeezing every last second out of employees. The rules were blasted out in July 2025 with little evidence, rushed through a hearing in August while Congress was on recess, and shoved along in months instead of the years OSHA rules usually take. When even construction trade groups are like, "uh, actually, regulations save us money and prevent lawsuits," you know the deregulation train has left the planet.

This isn’t a one-off, it’s part of Trump’s broader campaign to see how many worker protections can be fed into a woodchipper before someone notices. The Labor Department floated more than 60 deregulatory changes last year while Republicans try to hack over 8% off OSHA’s budget and the agency bleeds inspectors and staff. Inspections dropped 20% in 2025, 223 employees bailed under buyouts, and the people still there are supposed to keep millions of workers safe with vibes and a clipboard.

The administration still calls itself a “champion of the American worker,” though apparently the worker in question is a corporate balance sheet. Actual workers can enjoy their helpful new freedom to choose between a paycheck and their lungs. Don’t worry, if you get black lung, silicosis, or some fun arsenic-related souvenir, OSHA will totally get back to you — they just “did not immediately respond to a request for comment.”

Trump is barnstorming the country to rescue deeply unpopular Republicans from the political wildfires he personally started, and his big midterms pitch is: an imaginary $5,000 check for every adult if the GOP keeps Congress. There’s a catch, of course — it has to be spent in America, preferably in places like Florida or, he helpfully suggests, Mar-a-Lago. Then he laughs that five grand won’t actually buy you more than a hamburger and maybe a dessert at his club. The president has essentially moved from dog-whistling to just straight-up standing on stage and cackling at how broke you are.

All this is happening while his Iran war spikes gas prices, his tariffs jack up the cost of everything, and his Big Beautiful Tax Cut For Rich Guys guts Medicaid and children’s nutrition programs to pay for more yachts. On a parallel track, he’s amping up the fascist cosplay: calling Muslim Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed a “jihadist,” urging crowds to “fight” him like the passengers on Flight 93, and letting Ted Cruz workshop racist slurs like “jihadist leprechaun” into the campaign repertoire. It’s an administration that wrecked your grocery bill, sneers at your electric bill, and then offers you a fake check you can theoretically burn on a Mar-a-Lago burger you still can’t afford. Truly, elite-maxxing governance for the oligarch era.

The Trump administration is busy slamming the door on immigrants from 75 mostly Global South countries as alleged "national security" and "public benefits" risks — but when it comes to Flávio Bolsonaro, a Trump-aligned Brazilian far-right politician defying his own Supreme Court and under investigation for money laundering and tax evasion, suddenly the State Department turns into a concierge desk at Mar-a-Lago.

While ordinary families are trapped under Trump’s ever-expanding, repeatedly-illegal visa bans, Bolsonaro and his clan hopscotch from Brazil to Argentina to Ecuador and glide into Miami under umbrellas like low-rent Bond villains, with US visas apparently waiting on a silver platter. A federal judge has already ruled that Trump’s 75-country immigrant visa ban violates the Immigration and Nationality Act’s ban on nationality-based discrimination — but the White House remains committed to its white-nationalist sorting hat: brown refugees out, foreign authoritarian cronies in.

At the same time, Trump is punishing Brazil’s democratic government for not being sufficiently pro-Bolsonaro, slapping 50% tariffs on Brazilian goods, sanctioning judicial officials, and even yanking the visa of Brazil’s ambassador to Washington as petty retribution. So yes, the message from Washington is crystal clear: if you’re a corrupt, election-denying far-right operator dodging investigations, America is your safe space; if you’re a regular immigrant from the Global South, you are a "public benefits risk" and a security threat. Rule of law for enemies, golden visas for friends.

Vice President J.D. Vance has apparently decided his brand will be anti-fraud, which is adorable coming from an administration whose main innovation in public policy has been turning the federal government into a rewards program for cronies, donors, and whichever family member texted Trump last. NPR reports that Vance is making a big show of cracking down on fraud ahead of the midterms, as though voters are going to forget who’s been running the place while they’ve watched insider deals, self-dealing, and straight-up grift ooze out of every federal agency.

Instead of confronting the small problem of systemic corruption and conflicts of interest rotting the executive branch from the inside, Team Vance is selling a pre-election "fraud" crackdown like it’s a new streaming service. The idea is to distinguish himself from the administration he serves in, without actually challenging any of the oligarchs, dark-money operations, or Trumpworld enrichment pipelines that define it. So yes, the Trump administration is bravely tackling fraud — as long as the fraud in question is small enough to prosecute, politically convenient, and far, far away from the people actually running the show.

President Trump is out on stage in Georgia bragging that U.S. oil and gas companies are "making hundreds of billions of dollars" off his Iran war, and it turns out one of those lucky beneficiaries is a guy named President Trump. According to Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee, his personal oil and gas holdings have ballooned from $12.6–$46 million at the end of 2025 to a delightful $22.5–$81.6 million now — a tidy average gain of 43% while everyone else is busy donating a kidney to fill their gas tank.

While Americans have paid about $856 more per family at the pump since the war started — with gas jumping from $2.87 to $4.29 and diesel to $6.28 — Trump has been busily buying and selling millions in energy stocks. He snapped up between $4.7 million and $17.5 million in oil and gas shares after the war began, then dumped up to $1 million of ExxonMobil stock on the very day he declared a ceasefire. Just a coincidence, says the White House, which swears his portfolio is managed by totally independent wizards who coincidentally keep loading up on the exact sector supercharged by his foreign policy decisions. There are no conflicts of interest, please enjoy your $6 diesel.

Press secretary-for-billionaires Davis Ingle insists Trump "only acts in the best interests of the American public" and has "no ability" to influence his own investments, which is an adorable thing to say about a man whose job literally moves global markets every time he stumbles near a microphone. Meanwhile, Chevron and ExxonMobil — where Trump holds up to $23.1 million and $18.4 million respectively — are raking in war-boosted profits, even as he theatrically scolds them for making "too much money" from a shortage he helped create. War is hell, unless you’re long Chevron.

Presidents are still allowed to trade stocks while in office, because America is apparently a political science experiment run by Goldman Sachs. So as Trump’s Iran adventure drains wallets and fattens oil company balance sheets, the commander-in-chief is sitting on an energy portfolio that explodes in value every time tensions flare. The Joint Economic Committee calls it a serious conflict of interest; Trump calls it a rally line. Either way, the message is clear: your pain at the pump is just another line item on his quarterly earnings report.