The Trump Presidency Is Going Great

The Trump administration is reportedly toying with the idea of granting asylum to Jewish people fleeing the UK, but only after the proposal was floated not by, say, human rights experts or refugee agencies, but by Trump’s personal lawyer, Robert Garson. Because nothing says serious asylum policy like "I talked to the president’s attorney who once filed a $50m tantrum against Bob Woodward that got laughed out of court." Garson says he’s been in touch with the State Department about offering refuge to British Jews who feel unsafe amid a real and disturbing rise in antisemitism in the UK.

But don’t mistake this for a sudden humanitarian awakening. Garson helpfully explains why this asylum idea is so appealing: British Jews are a "highly educated community" that "speaks English natively" and "doesn’t have a high proportion of criminals". In other words: this is not about protecting vulnerable people, it’s about importing the "right" kind of refugees. Just a few months ago, the same Trump administration proudly slashed the total refugee cap for 2026 to 7,500 and earmarked most of those slots for white South Africans. People fleeing war, famine, or U.S.-backed dictatorships? Get in line behind the curated Eurocentric victim list.

Garson says he sees "no future" for Jews in the UK and blames British prime minister Keir Starmer for allowing antisemitism to grow, while Trump’s special envoy on antisemitism, Yehuda Kaploun, gets looped into the brainstorm as if U.S. asylum law is just another Mar-a-Lago side project. Meanwhile, protests against Israel’s devastating assault on Gaza are casually recast as "marauding mobs" and "baying for Jewish blood"—a handy way to smear dissent while polishing Trump’s image as the great protector of Jews abroad, even as his movement at home happily platforms white nationalists.

So we end up with the Trump doctrine on refugees: if you’re brown, Muslim, poor, or fleeing the consequences of U.S. foreign policy, the door is bolted shut. But if you’re white or Western, politically useful, and can be deployed as a talking point against your own government? Step right up, there might be room in the 7,500-person refugee cosplay quota. Human rights, but make it demographic curation.

Trump has decided that what America really needed this holiday season was another travel ban, so he’s expanded his personal no-fly list to five more countries plus anyone holding Palestinian Authority documents—because nothing says "national security" like collectively punishing stateless people who already have almost no freedom of movement. Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, South Sudan, Syria, and Palestinian Authority passport holders are now under full restrictions, while Laos and Sierra Leone get upgraded from "partial discrimination" to the deluxe package.

The White House insists this is all about "screening and vetting failures" and not, absolutely not, no way, about racism, Islamophobia, or targeting poor Black and brown countries. They cite things like "unreliable civil records" and "corruption"—in other words, conditions the US helped create through decades of war, sanctions, and "foreign policy"—as grounds to lock people out. Also starring in the justification: an Afghan suspect in a shooting, because if one person commits a crime, obviously millions of unrelated people must be banned indefinitely. Very scientific. Very "anti-science", you might say.

This is Trump’s third travel ban, a sequel so lazy they didn’t even bother to change the plot: pick a list of mostly Muslim and/or African countries, slap on "security" language, and dare the courts to stop him. The Supreme Court upheld the first version, so now we’re doing the extended universe edition, adding more African nations like Nigeria, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe to the "partial restrictions" tier, plus the usual enemies list (Cuba, Venezuela) for flavor. But don’t worry, the ban comes with exceptions for diplomats and athletes at major sporting events—because if you can run a 9.8 in the 100m, you are apparently no longer a national security threat.

As always, the cruelty is the point. Families are split, students and workers are stranded, refugees are trapped—while Trump gets to brag about being "tough" and cable panels dutifully debate whether this obviously discriminatory policy is actually just smart border security. The White House says the bans stay until countries show "credible improvements" in identity management and cooperation with US deportations—in other words, until they remake their systems to Washington’s liking or their citizens just give up trying to come. But sure, tell us again how this isn’t a Muslim/Africa/Palestinian ban, just a totally neutral spreadsheet of "risk" that somehow keeps circling the same kinds of people every single time.

Trump’s purge of diversity programs is now gutting military recruitment, with the Army and other branches abandoning one of the nation’s top Black engineering events—a key talent pipeline for military STEM jobs. Instead of showing up at the prestigious Black Engineer of the Year Awards (BEYA) to recruit high-achieving candidates, the Army sent recruiters to an NRA event instead—because, apparently, attracting fewer, less qualified applicants is the new strategy. Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has declared Black History Month and Women’s History Month “dead”, and military officials are scrambling to erase any trace of diversity efforts. One furious Army general summed it up: "It's f---ing racist. For the Army now, it's 'Blacks need not apply.'"

Another stellar DOGE hire bites the dust. Marko Elez, a 25-year-old staffer at Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has resigned after being linked to a deleted social media account that promoted racism and eugenics—because vetting isn’t part of the efficiency plan.

Elez, who had been granted access to the U.S. Treasury’s payment systems, was reportedly tied to posts advocating for white supremacist ideology. His departure comes amid growing concerns over how DOGE is staffing federal agencies with young, unqualified Musk acolytes who somehow keep getting access to sensitive government infrastructure.

This resignation raises more questions than answers about who’s actually overseeing DOGE’s hiring process and how many other extremists have been slipped into federal positions under the guise of “efficiency.” But don’t worry—nothing to see here, just another totally normal day in the Trump-Musk dystopia.