The Trump Presidency Is Going Great

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the boring little nonprofit Congress created in 1967 to fund NPR, PBS, and 1,500 local stations, has decided to do the only responsible thing it can do in Trump’s America: kill itself before Republicans kill it more. After Trump and his Project 2025 fan club leaned on Congress to cut $1.1 billion from CPB, the board finally voted to dissolve the organization entirely, ending nearly 60 years of quietly supporting children’s education, civic literacy, and actual journalism — all the things this administration sincerely hates.

Trump’s memo to Congress ranted that taxpayers had been forced to subsidize “radical, woke propaganda disguised as ‘news’,” which is a bold claim from a guy whose primary news source is his own social media rage-posts. He then threatened that any Republican who didn’t vote to defund CPB would lose his endorsement — and, shockingly, the courage of the GOP vanished faster than local newspapers in a hedge fund buyout. The result: CPB shut down operations in August, and now the board is pulling the plug entirely, saying dissolution is their final act to protect public media from being left defunded and permanently vulnerable to further political attacks.

Meanwhile, the people who actually use public media — especially in rural America and news deserts — are left with fewer trusted sources of information and more Facebook conspiracy groups. Over half of CPB-funded stations were rural, giving 99% of Americans access to public media. Now, an analysis says 15% of local stations could close within three years. Donors have gone on a $70m "rage-giving" spree to keep things afloat, but you can’t permanently replace federal baseline funding with tote bags and guilt. In other words: the government just kneecapped one of the last broadly trusted news systems in the country, all to own Big Bird. But sure, tell us more about how this is about fiscal responsibility and not killing-democracy one institution at a time.

President Donald Trump spent his weekend doing what any responsible head of state would do after a politically motivated double murder: sharing a conspiracy video on Truth Social that suggests Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz somehow had a hand in the killing of state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband. The video strings together zero evidence, some viral fraud allegations, and a lot of insinuation to imply Walz and state program fraud were linked to the murders. In other words, it’s the standard MAGA true-crime fanfic — except this one uses a real grieving family as content.

Walz, the 2024 Democratic VP nominee, called it “dangerous, depraved behavior from the sitting president of the United States” and warned that Trump “will get more innocent people killed.” But sure, let’s pretend this is just "asking questions" and not the commander in chief pouring gasoline on an already politically violent environment where a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband were murdered and another lawmaker and his wife were shot.

Hortman’s children, Colin and Sophie, are now forced to publicly beg the president to stop exploiting their parents’ deaths for a disinformation hit piece. Sophie calls it “a painful, false twisting of my mother’s final vote,” while Colin asks Trump to remove the video and apologize for using his mother’s own words to dishonor her memory. The Hoffman family — who were also attacked — backs them, saying the conspiracy reflects the same hateful lies that motivated the violence in the first place. Because nothing says "law and order" like echoing the worldview of the guy currently under federal indictment for the murders.

Meanwhile, the White House can’t seem to explain why the president is boosting a random conspiracy edit while his administration weaponizes viral fraud claims in Minnesota to justify federal action. Over 70 people have already been charged in a real DOJ fraud case, but Trump is more interested in the YouTube-ification of presidential power: take an ongoing tragedy, slap on some baseless accusations, and hit share. Responsibility and compassion, the families say, would start with taking the post down. Unfortunately, that’s not nearly as on-brand as turning political violence into campaign content.

Ørsted, Europe’s biggest offshore wind developer, is dragging the Trump administration into court after the White House randomly decided that a nearly finished $5bn offshore wind farm is now a grave "national security" threat. The Department of the Interior froze leases for five major offshore wind projects with all the legal precision of a late-night Trump tweet, offering no actual details about the supposed risks—because nothing says "serious security review" like "we just made something up to help oil buddies".

The Revolution Wind project had already spent nine years in environmental and regulatory purgatory, secured every required federal and state permit in 2023, and is about 90% built—foundations in, 58 of 65 turbines installed, and scheduled to deliver "reliable, affordable power" in 2026. So naturally, Trump’s team slapped on a "stop-work order" in August, tanked Ørsted’s market value, got smacked down by a federal judge, waited a few months, and then tried again with a broader lease suspension. In other words, it’s not energy policy, it’s bureaucratic sabotage in service of Trump’s fossil fuel donors and his personal vendetta against tall white spinny things he finds "ugly".

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse politely translated the move as an effort to raise energy prices, kill American jobs, and supercharge climate chaos—so yes, from the administration’s perspective, it’s going great. Ørsted and partner Skyborn now say litigation is "necessary" to protect their rights and avoid "substantial harm" from the suspension, which is legalese for "this is blatantly unlawful garbage and we’re done pretending it’s not". But sure, tell us more about how this is all about "national security" and not just another front in Trump’s war on renewables and the rule of law.

ICE is rolling out a $100m ‘wartime recruitment’ media blitz because nothing says ‘totally normal democracy’ like the federal government targeting the MAGA-verse with Call of Duty–style ads for real-life deportation squads. The agency is geofencing military bases, Nascar races, gun shows, and college campuses to find people whose dream job is "deport illegals with your absolute boys" — an actual ICE ad line, not a rejected Proud Boys slogan.

All of this is made possible by Trump’s big, beautiful HR 1, which shovels $45bn into cages and another $32bn into enforcement and manpower, so ICE can hire roughly 14,000 new agents and brag that arrests will “explode” in 2026. They’re dangling up to $50,000 signing bonuses and $60,000 in student loan payoff to fill the ranks, while a record 68,440 people sit in detention — the vast majority with no criminal conviction — and the administration grumbles that only about 300,000 people have been deported so far, well short of their dream of a tidy, round million removals in year one.

To sell this, ICE is slapping Uncle Sam, George Washington, and Lady Liberty onto recruitment ads that paint immigrants as ‘criminals and predators,’ and then farming out the message to fitness and ‘tactical lifestyle’ influencers for at least $8m, because why just have fash aesthetics when you can literally sponsor them? Marketing experts politely note that the campaign is aimed at people “with something to prove” who want power “under the guise of patriotism” — in other words, exactly the personality type you’d pick if your goal was maximum abuse potential with a flag on top. But sure, tell me again how this is about ‘guarding the homeland’ and not building a taxpayer-funded, ultra-jacked deportation militia.

Congress dropped the 255-page Jack Smith transcript on New Year’s Eve, because nothing says "fresh start" like a meticulous record of how the sitting president allegedly committed crimes and then just canceled the prosecutions by winning the Electoral College again. Smith calmly walks through how his team found proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election and hoarded highly classified documents at his country club — including in a ballroom and a bathroom, because when you think "national security," you obviously think "next to the guest towels."

Smith also notes that Trump "repeatedly tried to obstruct justice" and that there was enough evidence to charge him in both cases. So what happened? Trump got re-elected, took back control of the Justice Department, and his people helpfully made the criminal cases "go away" — not because he was innocent, but because he was in charge. In other words, the rule of law got replaced with the rule of "who’s holding the nuclear codes this week." Smith and his staff were then fired, because nothing screams "totally exonerated" like purging everyone who investigated you.

Now, from the safety of his restored throne, Trump is demanding investigations into the officials who charged him, and Smith openly says he has "no doubt" Trump wants retribution against him and that DOJ now wants payback on anyone who worked the Trump cases. House Republicans, led by Jim Jordan, are doing their part by hauling Smith in for an eight-hour deposition, just to make sure every future prosecutor in America understands the new precedent: if you follow the evidence to the president, enjoy the unemployment line and maybe an investigation. But sure, tell us again how this is all about "law and order."