The Trump Presidency Is Going Great

American workers are doing something truly radical under Donald Trump: trying to have some power over their own lives. Union leaders have launched "Union Now", a nonprofit designed to boost union density in a country where about 70% of workers say they want a union and only 10% are allowed to have one – a ratio that would make any self-respecting corporation drool, but somehow is considered "freedom" when it’s about paychecks instead of phones.

Sara Nelson and other organizers are trying to build a war chest to help workers withstand bosses who fire people illegally during organizing drives, stall first contracts for years, and generally behave like they read the National Labor Relations Act and thought it was a list of suggestions. Meanwhile, Trump’s newly re-rigged NLRB has swiveled from watchdog to corporate HR department, making it even easier for employers to drag out negotiations until workers either quit in despair or die at their second job.

Former labor secretary and current NYC deputy mayor Julie Su politely calls these endless delays a "form of union busting," which is a very professional way of saying: companies are breaking the law and the federal agency in charge of stopping them is now cheering from the luxury box. Union membership is down from 21 million in 1979 to 14.7 million today, even as the population has grown by over 100 million, but don’t worry – billionaire wealth is doing great. Trump’s America: collective bargaining for CEOs, bootstraps for everyone else.

President Trump is once again staring at a guardrail of American democracy and asking, very sincerely, whether it would look better smashed through the windshield. This time it’s the Senate filibuster, which he wants to vaporize so he can shove the so‑called Save America Act through the chamber without the pesky inconvenience of needing more than 50 senators to agree.

Senate Republicans, however, are having a rare moment of semi-conscious thought. They’re reportedly nervous about detonating the filibuster because they understand that one day, they might not be the ones holding the gavel, and then Democrats could use the same no‑rules sandbox to pass things that aren’t handouts to donors and Christian nationalists. So we get the usual GOP dilemma: protect basic institutional norms, or hand Trump the matches and hope the fire only burns other people.

The filibuster has a long, ugly history — from civil-rights obstruction to routine gridlock — but it’s still one of the last speed bumps left between Trump and full‑tilt majoritarian rule dressed up as populist revolution. The fact that the future of a 200‑year‑old legislative norm now hinges on whether Senate Republicans are more afraid of Trump’s rage tweets than of someday being in the minority tells you exactly how sturdy American democracy is in 2026: held together with vibes, cowardice, and a parliamentary procedure nobody actually likes.

Donald Trump’s bold new strategy for crisis management: sue everyone who reminds the public he was friendly with Jeffrey Epstein. This time, he went after the Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch for a casual $10 billion because they published a story about a sexually suggestive letter, allegedly signed by Trump, in Epstein’s 2003 50th birthday album. Apparently the real defamation, in Trumpworld, is journalism with receipts.

U.S. District Judge Darrin P. Gayles responded the way the legal system often does to Trump’s rage-litigation: by tossing the case. The judge ruled that Trump failed to show the article was published with actual malice, which is a polite judicial way of saying, "you can’t just scream ‘fake news’ and demand ten billion dollars." Gayles did let Trump file an amended complaint, presumably for the comedic value.

Lawyers for the Journal and Murdoch tried to go a step further and get the court to declare the article’s statements true as a matter of law, but the judge said questions like whether Trump wrote the letter or was Epstein’s friend are factual issues for later. Meanwhile, the whole spectacle is just the latest episode in the administration’s ongoing effort to weaponize defamation suits to freeze out reporting it doesn’t like, especially around the embarrassingly real Epstein files Congress pried loose from the estate.

The White House and Dow Jones both declined to comment, perhaps too busy calculating how many more times the president can try to sue his way out of his own documented history. The First Amendment, annoyingly for Trump, remains in effect.

The leader of the free world has now formally entered a beef with the leader of the Catholic Church, because of course he has. Flying home from Florida, Donald Trump took a break from threatening Iran with annihilation to rage-post about Pope Leo XIV, calling the American-born pontiff "very liberal," "WEAK on Crime" and "terrible for Foreign Policy" — which in Trumpworld means Leo's main sin is suggesting that maybe waging a quasi-religious war in Iran fueled by a "delusion of omnipotence" is bad.

Trump, whose administration is currently justifying the Iran war in explicitly religious terms, then accused Leo of being fine with Iran having nukes (he isn't) and attacked him for criticizing the U.S. ouster of Venezuela's government, bragging that he's doing exactly what he was elected "IN A LANDSLIDE" to do. So we’ve got the president boasting about toppling foreign governments and threatening to wipe out "an entire civilization" while smearing the Pope as a radical leftist for quoting Isaiah about blood-soaked hands. Totally healthy democracy vibes.

Not content with screaming at the Vicar of Christ, Trump capped the night by posting an image of himself in biblical robes, glowing hands outstretched over a sick man, surrounded by eagles, a flag, and reverent onlookers — a sort of QVC knockoff of Renaissance religious art. Having already suggested Leo was picked "because he was an American" to deal with him, Trump helpfully clarified the theology of Trumpism: if he wasn't in the White House, Leo wouldn't be in the Vatican, God is apparently his campaign manager, and the presidency is now a part-time role moonlighting as messiah-in-chief.

Donald Trump is reportedly workshopping his final act as president: a radius-based group pardon for anyone who wandered within 200 feet of the Oval Office, like a war crimes Groupon. According to the Wall Street Journal, he’s been telling aides he’ll issue mass pardons at the end of his term, even fantasizing about a news conference where he announces them all at once. The room laughed; the justice system did not. The White House’s Karoline Leavitt insisted it was all a joke, then immediately reminded everyone that the president’s pardon power is “absolute”, which is a fascinating way to say, “We’re kidding unless we decide not to be.”

Trump has already handed out clemency like MAGA merch: more than 1,800 people so far, including 1,500 unconditional pardons on Day One for January 6 rioters, even those who assaulted cops. One accused pipe bomber is now arguing in court that Trump’s blanket Jan 6 pardons should cover him too, because his actions were “inextricably tethered” to the riot. When your legal system has to pause to ask whether the guy with the bombs is covered by the president’s vibes-based amnesty, things are going extremely well.

The pardon list doubles as a loyalty rewards program. Trump wiped the slate clean for Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, whose company conveniently processed a $2bn transaction from an Emirati fund through World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s crypto toy, helping “legitimize” their digital currency. The White House called Zhao a victim of Biden’s “war on cryptocurrency”, which is one way to describe enforcing anti–money laundering laws when they’re not helping your family’s coin. He also commuted George Santos’s sentence after Santos pleaded guilty to wire fraud and identity theft, praising him because “he lied like hell” but was “100% for Trump”. Honesty may be optional, but devotion to the Dear Leader is non-negotiable.

So we now have a president openly joking about an end-of-term purge of accountability, after already turning the pardon power into a punchline stapled to a loyalty oath and a crypto side hustle. The message is clear: commit crimes, lie spectacularly, maybe help the family grift a bit, and as long as you orbit within the magical 200-foot circle of power, the law is just a suggestion.