By Ben Meiselas
Hi all! I know it’s Saturday, but the news doesn’t take a break, and neither do we. Let me catch you up on the latest.
Saturday began with another alarming display from Donald Trump, who continues to behave in ways that no stable democracy should tolerate from the person entrusted with its highest office. As his polling sinks to historic lows and his administration buckles under the weight of chaos of its own making, the president spent the morning issuing deranged social media posts, threatening foreign nations, and lying about basic economic data that millions of Americans know from lived experience to be false.
One of his first messages was directed at “all airlines, pilots, drug dealers and human traffickers,” warning them that the airspace above Venezuela was “closed in its entirety.” The White House offered no legal basis for this pronouncement. Trump’s post left the unmistakable impression that he was prepared to shoot down commercial airliners near Venezuela. This is not foreign policy. It is the unstable rhetoric of someone who views war as a personal tool and international order as an annoyance. And it comes as his administration continues to pursue unauthorized military actions off the coast of Venezuela and Colombia, where reports have now confirmed that Navy SEAL Team 6 carried out lethal strikes on suspected narcotics vessels after survivors pleaded for help.
These were not lawful acts of war. They were extrajudicial killings. According to recent reporting, the alleged order from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was to “kill everybody,” a directive that violates the most basic tenets of the laws of armed conflict. The Senate Armed Services Committee, in a rare bipartisan statement, has vowed “vigorous oversight” into the strikes and the possibility that U.S. forces were directed to deny quarter. If true, that’s a war crime. And murder.
The chaos and instability abroad mirrors the instability at home. In another post, Trump claimed that drug prices were dropping “500 percent, 600 percent, 700 percent and more,” a mathematical impossibility that would require pharmaceutical companies to pay customers to take medications. The truth is the opposite: health care costs are rising sharply as families brace for the loss of Affordable Care Act subsidies Trump refused to renew. Under this administration, insurance premiums are climbing, out-of-pocket costs are climbing, and Americans are being priced out of the care they need.
His economic claims only grew more fantastical. Trump declared that tariffs had made the United States “rich and safe and powerful” and that “inflation has taken prices down,” even as families across the country struggle to buy groceries, pay rent, and keep up with utilities. The Chicago Sun-Times captured this reality with its stark Friday headline: “Bleak Friday.” Millions feel it. Millions know it. Trump ignores it. Or worse, Trump knows it — and lies about it. He tries to gaslight Americans into believing we are in a “golden age” where everything is cheap and everyone is thriving. But people are confronted by the harsh reality of living under this regime every single day.
Perhaps nowhere is his detachment clearer than in housing. The president boasted about promoting 50-year mortgages, a universally denounced idea that would trap families in lifelong debt without addressing affordability.
All of this unfolded while Trump’s own preferred propaganda outlets reported on his deteriorating state. Drudge Report’s Saturday headline read, “DON’S MENTAL SPIRAL,” citing his misogynistic attacks on female reporters and his increasingly erratic mood swings. Their coverage mirrors what health experts, including Dr. Vin Gupta of Meidas Health, have been warning: the president’s cognitive and physical condition appears to be rapidly declining.
Yet amid this instability, Trump still found time to wield his pardon power in ways that undermine both national security and public safety. On Friday he announced he would pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, sentenced in the United States to 45 years for trafficking hundreds of tons of cocaine into the country while collaborating with the Sinaloa Cartel. Trump’s decision to shield a convicted narco-trafficker stands in direct conflict with his own administration’s claims of waging a war on drugs.
Even Republicans at the state level are beginning to revolt. In Indiana, multiple GOP legislators have accused the Trump White House of extortion, Hatch Act violations, and attempts to coerce them into rigging redistricting maps ahead of the midterms. State Senator Greg Walker said the White House staffer who contacted him was “campaigning on company time.” Another Republican state senator, Mike Bohacek, condemned Trump’s repeated use of the R-word to attack political opponents, noting that his own daughter has Down syndrome and that Trump’s slurs “have consequences.”
We are also learning that MAGA Congressman Troy Nehls, a representative from Texas, has announced that he will be retiring at the end of his term. Nehls has been one of Trump’s most deranged and loyal soldiers, and recently humiliated himself by declaring he’d support Trump and vote to block the release of the Epstein files, before Trump changed his strategy, which resulted in Nehls then changing his vote last-minute once again to try to please Trump. Embarrassing.
Internationally, Trump has boasted for months about securing a peace deal between Congo and Rwanda. No such deal took hold. Violence continued. Thousands died. Now both nations are preparing to return to Washington to attempt another agreement. And as the president fabricates accomplishments, U.S. influence has faded; Kenya just turned to China for $1.5 billion in infrastructure funding after U.S. support collapsed.
Yet Trump remains fixated on the one issue he believes truly matters: the size of the golden ballroom he is attempting to build at the White House. He has spent part of his weekend fighting with architect John McCrery II, who refuses to expand the room to Trump’s liking. While the world burns, Trump obsesses over ornamental gold.
Even on this Saturday, the collapse continues. This is a regime unravelling in real time, led by a man whose grip on reality completely gone. The American people see it. The world sees it. And democracy depends on confronting it with unflinching clarity.
We will continue to do that here at MeidasTouch every single day. Thank you for subscribing to this Substack. Remember to like this post, spread the word, and check our YouTube channel and the MeidasTouch Podcast for more updates throughout the day.
