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“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” — Animal Farm. That was how I described Trump’s lavish state dinner, thrown for Chinese President Xi Jinping, which included billionaires, chief executives, Fox News hosts, three Supreme Court justices, cabinet members, and a slew of Trump loyalists, donors, and insiders. One expert noted that normally such dinners were hosted for close allies or to celebrate a diplomatic breakthrough. Even Senate Republicans publicly questioned and criticized the dinner, and the three days of posh ceremony provided to Xi. Notably, the dinner came at a time when consumer confidence hit its lowest reading since 2014, and Trump’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill had resulted in millions of Americans losing access to SNAP food benefits. It also comes amid more stories highlighting members of his regime eating at the proverbial trough — enriching themselves while in office. The dinner was also not covered by a press pool, as Trump lawlessly thumbed his nose at the federal court, while ironically praising China’s tightly controlled state media. With midterms a mere five weeks away, Trump tried his last gasps of impacting election day. He used taxpayer monies to pay for campaign ads aired on national television, likely unlawfully. He won a Supreme Court case allowing some use of his highly inaccurate national voter roll. And he ramped up deportations, even facing pushback from his own base and elected Republicans, to have an issue to crow on. Overall, Trump appears increasingly out of touch with both the American people and on-the-ground reality, and polling suggests voters will have something to say about this on November 3.

This week, amid mounting political losses and sagging polls, Trump struck out at a frequent and familiar target, the free press. In an unprecedented act, Trump banned three media outlets from the White House. When the networks banded against his clear violation of the First Amendment, Trump and his regime clumsily rolled out a version of state-television, Trump TV, another first, that immediately flopped. Timing for Trump’s abrupt stunt could not have been worse, with the United Nations General Assembly and an upcoming visit with China’s president on the schedule. For the first time during the second regime, and with time running out ahead of midterms, Republican candidates sought to distance themselves from Trump and his policies en masse. Republicans in office spoke out publicly against his policies and corruption. This is hardly a profile in courage — it took Trump’s approval plummeting on every issue to make it happen. Once again, GOP members of Congress showed the country that self-preservation came first. Trump’s ill-conceived Iran war has become a quagmire seven months later, with all sorts of unintended consequences playing out. This week he returned to his antics of threatening annihilation, but no one took his words seriously. Trump quietly capitulated on his Greenland takeover, while threatening Canada over its plans to join the European Union, sounding oddly like Russian President Vladimir Putin with his threats to Europeans on joining NATO. Meanwhile, Trump’s odd fawning over Russia and China continued, even as evidence continued to show those countries’ efforts to help Iran. Overall, Trump is at a new low, for either regime, on all fronts, and is even, for the first time, losing his loyalist base in large numbers. Ensconced in his bubble, and surrounded by enablers, he continued to be obsessed with his legacy, and totally disconnected from the American people and their priorities.

This was a crazy week of alarming broken norms. There are so many important, concurrent themes that deserve attention as we pass 50 days until the midterm elections mark, it’s breathtaking! Please take the time to read this list in its entirety. Trump’s Iran war has spun out of control, and the impacts of record fuel prices are not only hitting U.S. consumers and businesses, but economies worldwide. This week we learned that not only has the war cost U.S. taxpayers tens of billions, it has also left our country exposed amid depleted munitions. Reporting also revealed that on this, and so many other issues, Trump and his regime are simply lying to the American people. This week there were more eye popping stories about Trump’s, his regime’s, and his family’s corruption, and possible quid pro quos with foreign governments. Oh, what we have normalized! Our foreign ‘policy’ under Trump has proven to be haphazard, erratic, and dangerous. Self-enrichment and self-aggrandizement continue to occupy much of Trump’s attention, with this week’s focus on a battle over the Kennedy Center. Polling shows the American people have had it! Trump has tainted not only himself, but his political party, which has done nothing to curb his worst impulses. Trump’s solution was a Republican midterm convention, which mostly featured him, and received limited viewership and interest. It’s as if the public is tuned out and waiting him out until the midterms. He seems to sense the displeasure, and is doing all he can to interfere with midterms.

This week, as we passed Labor Day and head into the final stretch before midterms, Trump and his regime were frantically trying to find ways to impact voting. The regime filed two emergency applications with the Supreme Court, and ginned up involvement of federal agencies, including continual attempts to prove Trump’s baseless claims of widespread voter fraud, and efforts to have a presence at polling places on Election Day. Despite Trump and Vice President JD Vance claiming that the U.S. was not really at war with Iran, escalating attacks and the ensuing spike in oil, gas, and diesel prices proved otherwise. Trump can’t lie his way out of what consumers are paying at the gas pump! Yet, reporting made clear that Trump and Defense Department Sec. Pete Hegseth have no clear strategy to extricate the U.S. from a war we are losing, and are instead actively working to silence dissent. This week, there continues to be widespread dissatisfaction among the American people with Trump’s priorities, which include his legacy projects and enriching himself and his circle, their corruption, the economy, the cost of living, and Trump’s Iran war. Trump spent Labor Day weekend sending more than 100 Truth Social posts, many directed at our longtime allies, while aggrandizing himself, raising questions about his judgment and mental health.

This week Trump continued his inexplicable targeting of what were formerly some of the strongest U.S. allies, while coddling and cozying up to former adversaries. In what the WSJ Editorial Board dubbed “the dumbest trade war,” Trump escalated tensions with Canada, including threats to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America, while Vice President JD Vance mused that “Canada is a state.” Unlike during his first regime and earlier in his second, now countries are pushing back against his antics rather than being bullied into submission. Speaking of pushing back, the Iran war, now in its sixth month, is at a standstill. Americans’ approval of the war hit a low point of 31%, as support even from Trump’s Republican base faltered. Experts questioned the efficacy of Trump’s new tactic of imposing an “economic D-Day” on Iran, which had previously faced decades of sanctions to little avail, other than pushing Iran to sign the JCPOA, which Trump exited. Trump and Defense Department Sec. Pete Hegseth’s strategy back home continued to be to silence dissent. Meanwhile, Trump kept his focus this week on his pet projects and targeting his perceived enemies. Trump enjoyed two Supreme Court wins on his ballroom and mail-in voting, with midterms approaching. In a sign that Trump knows what is coming with midterms, he sent Jared Kushner to meet with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, likely to become the House Speaker after midterms.

In a relatively quiet summer week, with Congress out of session, Trump pushed forward on his personal agenda, while the issues impacting most Americans got left by the wayside. There was nary a focus on the issues impacting Americans like affordability, healthcare, and rising rates. Instead, Trump and his regime pushed full steam ahead on his D.C. pet projects, and pursuing his petty grievances and political adversaries. Trump continued to lose the support of the American people, with his approval hitting new lows, while 7 in 10 Americans said his business dealings were influencing his decisions as president. In a sign of his waning influence within his own party, Trump-endorsed candidates lost three primaries this week, bringing the total this season to 10, the highest number since 2022. Trump’s Iran war came to a standstill, with no end in sight, and seemingly no strategy going forward. Reports of poor living conditions and sailors’ mental health issues aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and other ships made headlines, while Trump and his Pentagon denied and deflected. Meanwhile, Trump saved much of his ire for longtime U.S. allies, like South Korea and Canada, with his continued erratic and nonsensical foreign policy.

This week, as Trump’s failures mounted and his polling continued to fall, he tried a new tactic ahead of midterms: blame the Republicans. In an interview, he bragged that he had “already won” his race, and said of the American people’s discontent, “They’re angry at Republicans, but they’re not angry at me.” The shift seemed to be a tacit acknowledgment of what lies ahead on November 3, and Trump preemptively looking to shift the blame. Once again this week, many of the broken norms, and much of Trump’s continued focus, is on his Washington D.C. vanity projects. Along with these projects, Trump spends his time searching for ways to impact the midterms, targeting his perceived enemies and pursuing his petty grievances. One time this week reporting indicated that a light bulb went off, and Trump wanted to offer an economic favor to the American people to gain support for Republicans on Election Day. Then we learn his ‘bold’ idea is cutting the capital gains tax rate, further illuminating how out of touch Trump has become, ensconced in his cocoon of yes-people. Trump’s Iran war is a complete disaster. He and regime senior officials are desperately searching for an off ramp, but finding none. Trump looked incredibly weak as Iran threatened to cut off negotiations until he left office, leaving him open to comparisons to former president Jimmy Carter, whom he often cites as a complete failure. As well, a story about him being sneaked off of Air Force One in a catering cart, while leaving journalists and regime officials on a decoy plane out of Turkey, further chiseled away from his strongman image.

This week Trump finds himself hitting all sorts of unenviable records for lowest approval, least public support for a war, and lowest approval on economic issues, even as midterm elections are now just three months away. Trump dismissed the polls as fake — a tactic he used during his first regime — but there is also a vast difference in his sentiment and approach this go-round. In his second regime, Trump does not seem to care about his polling data or Republican losses; rather, he has other priorities. An NYT reporter explained that Trump’s major focus now is on his legacy projects: putting his name and image wherever possible, especially in Washington D.C., before his time in office runs out. Since he has also been reported as saying he will pardon his entire regime before leaving office, he is less worried about what Democrats can do with control of the House and potentially the Senate. He has also shown little interest in actual policy or governing in this second year of his second regime. His cabinet likewise has little to show for their time in power. Other than his legacy, Trump continues to focus on personally enriching himself, and raising hundreds of millions to pay for all his pet projects. Trump is facing some pushback this week, although minor, and hardly a profile in courage given that most of it is coming from outgoing members of Congress. U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro dropped charges relating to Trump’s Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, raising his ire while revealing his lies and his regime’s incompetence. Federal judges continued to rule against Trump’s efforts to federalize midterms and other extreme measures. Trump’s Iran war is a complete mess, and risks turning into an endless quagmire, which will further mar his disastrous performance.

This was a disastrous week for Trump. Little is going his way, and the American people are increasingly turning against him. Trump continued to focus on his personal priorities, not issues that his party wants 100 days away from midterm elections, and not on what the American people want either. Nearly three-quarters of Americans said Trump was not paying attention to the country’s important issues, like the economy and affordability. Although Trump had promised his Iran “excursion” would last mere weeks, months later he is caught in an increasingly unpopular quagmire of a war. Trump suffered setbacks in a number of legal battles this week, including being forced to withdraw subpoenas of NYT reporters; losing an appeal on his efforts to thwart mail-in voting; a judge requiring significant financial disclosures in his BBC lawsuit; a long pause on Paramount’s proposed takeover of Warner Bros., parent company of CNN; and more. At a rescheduled White House Correspondents Dinner, Trump gave a rambling, insult-laden keynote, which fell flat. The irony of the mission of the association being to defend the First Amendment, while Trump continued to use the levers of his regime to attack both journalists and media outlets, left some attendees wondering if at long last it was time to “rethink” the dinner, or consider other alternatives while an autocrat was in office.

While we are in the lazy days of summer, this week had story lines that made the country feel as if in chaos, with a much ballyhooed speech by Trump on the 2020 election, and an escalation of the Iran War. Much to his chagrin, Trump’s prime time speech was not covered by all the networks, causing him to call for licenses to be revoked. The speech was a rehashing of past conspiracies, with Trump blaming the “deep state” for withholding the information he was about to release from him while, ironically, he was president during the alleged election fraud. Materials released after the speech fell flat, and the response was muted. The Iran War escalated this week as the ceasefire came to an end, and while the U.S. struck Iran, Iran in turn struck U.S. bases in the region, killing more U.S. troops. Once again, the Pentagon tried to withhold information on wounded soldiers. After failing to hold a press conference for two and a half months, Defense Department Sec. Pete Hegseth came hat in hand looking for more money for the Iran War. Little was offered by way of explanation for where the war was headed, let alone the U.S.’s objectives. All the power and decisions continued to be made by one man. Chaos and incompetence continued to rule at federal agencies. This week at confirmation hearings, Trump appointees appeared bound by their loyalty test not to say out loud that Joseph Biden won the 2020 election. Other agencies like Health and Human Services, which still has no confirmed leader at the CDC, showed signs of its inability to handle basic tasks, amid growing outbreaks of the measles, and now cyclospora.

This week Trump pushed boundaries to new extremes, while the judicial branch pushed him back on others. In the aftermath of NYT reporting that Trump had switched Air Force One planes to return from the NATO summit in Turkey due to security concerns, federal agents showed up at the homes of some Times reporters with subpoenas, an extraordinary measure of targeting the press. At the same time, Trump and his regime suffered some dramatic losses and pushback from judges this week on his IRS settlement, his attempts to interfere with midterms, and his efforts to avoid payment to E. Jean Carroll, which this week he finally made. In the days after the Wall Street Journal reported that Iran had hatched a new plot to kill Trump, he returned to strikes against them, bringing the U.S. back into an active war. Trump, who is used to relying on his impulses and improvisation, gyrated from saying the U.S. would control the Strait of Hormuz and charge a 20 percent protection fee, to flip-flopping back to alleged investments from Gulf states. It was unclear where Trump’s Iran War, which he is running unilaterally, was heading, or how it could possibly end. As Trump pressed to ramp up deportations, this week three men were killed by ICE, two of whom were shot in their cars despite not being ICE agents’ intended targets. While the Department of Homeland Security sought to pull back traffic stop arrests in the aftermath, Trump overruled them the next day. Notably, the ICE agents did not have body cameras in any of the incidents, despite promises to equip officers two months ago. This week Trump lost one of his closest allies with the sudden death of Sen. Lindsey Graham, while the state of Sen. Mitch McConnell, who has been out of public sight for weeks, is unknown. While speaking of the loss of Graham, Trump pivoted to his SAVE America Act, continued his push to interfere in the midterms, and baselessly cast doubt about election results. Overall, it was a week of pandemonium.

In a week when the country should have been coming together to celebrate our 250th anniversary, Trump instead chose to make the Independence Day celebrations highly partisan, and all about himself. He made speeches attacking his political enemies as “communists,” and made repeated baseless claims about the dangers they posed to the country. He continued to push unfounded claims about the infiltration of others into our country, who were not only tainting the fabric of our country, but also secretly helping to elect Democrats. Toward that end, Trump has continued his efforts to muddy the waters and sow doubt about the midterm elections. While continuing to push Republicans in Congress to end the filibuster and pass his SAVE America Act, Trump has also deployed federal agencies, this week including the FBI, the Justice Department civil rights division, and FEMA, to pressure states to change the way voting is conducted, a role that the executive branch does not have according to the Constitution. Even after 18 months in office, Trump continued to push for baseless investigations into so-called fraud in the 2020 election, of which his regime has uncovered none. U.S. foreign policy is being decided by one mercurial man, as former alliances in Europe and the Middle East are being tested. At the NATO summit, Trump again threatened to annex Greenland, re-engaged in battle with Iran after calling their leaders “scum,” and said he would cut off U.S. trade with Spain. He also continued his castigation of our former allies for not helping in his Iran War. The grift and quid pro quos of this regime continue to be simply astounding. This week has seen more pardons, a process that has become pay to play; continued reporting on Trump and his family’s widespread efforts to enrich themselves, even as supporters are left holding the bag with losses; countries and corporations seeking favor with Trump, and by extension our federal agencies, by being sycophantic, including lavish donations and gifts. At our 250th anniversary, the state of our democracy is weak and teetering.

This week the theme of inequity continued to be front and center. While Trump refused to sign a housing affordability bill, which had rare bipartisan support, new disclosures revealed he had personally reaped $2.2 billion in 2025! Trump’s windfall primarily came from new businesses in cryptocurrency, but he also enriched himself in a bevy of other ways, unprecedented for a sitting U.S. president. Meanwhile this week, Trump continued to obsess over his Washington D.C. construction projects, which after he had repeatedly claimed would be entirely funded by him and private donors, this week reporting revealed taxpayers would be on the hook for perhaps billions! As would taxpayers be on the hook for over $700 million to refurbish and house Trump’s new Air Force One, a gift from the Qatari government that he will keep after leaving office. All in all, a stunning week of disclosures on unprecedented grift and corruption. Supreme Court decisions were a mixed bag this week. Two decisions broke what were thought to be landmark decisions made decades ago. Overall, although Trump lost on birthright citizenship, other victories in the area of immigration will empower and embolden him to take further action. A ruling on campaign finance in favor of Republicans will allow in more outside monies ahead of midterms. The one thing that did not go Trump’s way this week were rulings related to his efforts to impact voting in the midterms. After several losses, he and his allies have basically taken Congress hostage: paralyzing House voting until such time as his SAVE America Act, which does not have the votes in the Senate, is passed. As the country entered the week of July Fourth, Trump launched his highly politicized Freedom 250 celebrations, which like his Reflecting Pool renovations, were plagued with problems. Attendance was embarrassingly light, with broadcast images revealing an almost empty National Mall. A shocking Gallup poll captured the mood of the country, with just 19% of Americans saying the founders would be pleased with how the country has turned out, a new low. Meanwhile, the Iran War — remember that? — seems to have become an inconvenience for Trump. The public hears little about it, and what we do hear is contradictory information. After the two sides exchanged attacks, it appeared negotiations were halted. Trump is reportedly weighing options to restart the war, but seems again disinterested, and for now is leaving diplomacy to two real estate developers representing U.S. interests.

Trump just doesn’t care. That is a great takeaway from this week’s list. He views his power as absolute, saying in an interview that he has not been humbled by the Iran War, but instead learned that there are “no limits” to his power. He feels unbridled by public opinion or what is good for his political party approaching midterms. His concerns seem wrapped up in his legacy as a great conqueror abroad, while also enshrining his legacy in our country’s capital, as would be typical of dictatorships. Trump has lost the war with Iran that he started, abandoning all of his stated objectives, for fear of his legacy being compared to former President Herbert Hoover. It wasn’t his falling approval, reaching new lows on issues as well, or the crisis of affordability hitting most Americans, it was the stock market. After spending the past decade criticizing former President Barack Obama for releasing $1.7 billion in funds to Iran in completing the JCPOA, the Trump regime opened U.S. dollar-denominated oil sales for the first time in four decades, planned to released tens of billions more from frozen accounts, and set up a $300 billion fund for Iran. All in all a humiliation for the U.S. and our world standing that will surely have lasting world impacts. Meanwhile, Trump spent the week obsessed with his D.C. legacy, this week on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, inventing stories of “vandalism” to cover for gross incompetence. The Kennedy Center remains under wraps, quite literally, after his name was removed. The White House complex is a literal mess. His regime continues to struggle with the basic tasks of the federal government, the tolls of which are increasingly coming to bear, and instead is focused on his campaign of retribution. On the edges the Republicans, out of their own self-interest, are turning on him.

This week, after days of strikes on Iran, which included a precision strike on a water plant serving 20,000 Iranians, Trump announced a “deal” with Iran on his 80th birthday. While Trump, and his front man on the deal, Vice President JD Vance, trumpeted the one-and-a-half page long memorandum of understanding, they also refused to release it publicly, even to members of the Gang of Eight, even days later. Terms of the MOU did start to leak out nonetheless, with the NYT describing the deal as Trump winding down a war he started, with all his stated goals unmet. Trump’s main goal of ending Iran’s nuclear program, which he had claimed last June to having “obliterated,” was notably not addressed in any way. Trump continued to tout his deal as superior to former President Barack Obama’s JCPOA, which was negotiated without a war, but emerging details did not back that claim. Meanwhile, Trump held an unprecedented spectacle on White House grounds for his birthday, incorporating the U.S. military, and using the White House as changing rooms for UFC fighters, in what critics called undignified and worse. The event culminated in the winning fighter referring to former First Lady Michelle Obama as a “man,” which Trump and his regime refused to condemn, and seemed to have been the main lingering vibe of the event. While the White House anticipated 125,000 would attend, the crowd was limited to thousands. Meanwhile, the rest of Trump’s DC projects were in disarray. After spending $14.2 million to repaint the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in flag blue, days later the pool turned green as it filled with algae. Trump tried to avoid removing his name from the Kennedy Center, but lost, and so instructed the regime to cover the center with a giant tarp. Trump continued to fight for his White House ballroom, which he had repeatedly promised would be funded by donations, but as it turns out, looks to cost $600 million, not $400 million, half of which would be covered by taxpayers. This week, when pressed on the impact of his policies and war on affordability for Americans, Trump said, “I love inflation,” a line likely to be widely featured in Democrats’ midterms advertisements. Trump was, for the first time, losing ground not only with white working-class voters, but also with rural voters. Meanwhile, this week’s list is full of examples of insiders like Elon Musk having the regime do his bidding, and Trump using the apparatus of the federal government to pursue his enemies. Those of us old enough remember the bicentennial celebration in 1976, when Americans were treated to years-long events in celebration across the country, a time of unity and pride. Fifty years later, the country is in disarray, inequality reigns, corruption rules, and Trump this week threw away all pretensions and announced the July 4th event planned on the National Mall would be a “Trump rally.” That’s where our country finds itself at its 250th anniversary.