Hi all, hope you are enjoying your Sunday. Let me catch you up on what’s going on today with my mid-day recap.
It’s a day that ends in “y,” so that means yes, I watched the sitting president of the United States spiral into yet another public meltdown on social media again. This morning, Trump’s meltdown was an admission of a pay-for-pardon bribery scheme gone wrong. Trump raged over the fact that Democrat Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar, who was indicted for corruption charges and recently pardoned by Trump, refused to switch parties as a thank you to Trump. That refusal, according to Donald Trump, was “such a lack of LOYALTY.” Trump went further, berating Cuellar’s daughters and claiming they “should be mad” at their father for staying a Democrat after “I saved you because your daughters wrote me a letter.”
This is coercion in the open. It is a leader who believes public power is a personal tool, and who expects private allegiance in exchange for official acts. It is the kind of threat an authoritarian makes when he imagines the government exists to serve him alone. It is an admission of a quid pro quo scheme that would result in any other president’s impeachment.
While Trump raged online, another authoritarian figure celebrated the direction of the United States. Vladimir Putin publicly praised the newly released U.S. National Security Strategy, saying it “perfectly aligns” with the Kremlin’s worldview. He is correct. The document explicitly calls for cultivating “resistance” within European nations. That is a direct statement of intent to destabilize the European Union. It also suggests limiting the expansion of NATO, which is an objective Russia has pursued for decades. In addition, it discusses supporting far-right political movements in Europe that want deeper alignment with Moscow.
This is now official American policy. Yet it has been almost entirely ignored by corporate media. I did a big deep-dive on this horrific document yesterday. You can read it here.
The weekend also brought another strange Trump event, this time at the State Department where he handed out Kennedy Center Honors to celebrities. Rather than delivering coherent remarks, he rambled and made inexplicable sounds. The rituals of governance have been replaced with theatrical displays that flatter him while diminishing the seriousness of the office.
And Trump continues to try to justify the pardon of Juan Orlando Hernández, the former Honduran president convicted of trafficking more than 400 tons of cocaine into the United States. At his federal trial, jurors heard testimony linking Hernández directly to the Sinaloa Cartel, including statements such as “Stuff the drugs right up the noses of the gringos.”
Despite the extraordinary severity of the crimes, prominent Republican senators claimed ignorance when asked why Trump pardoned him. Senator Tom Cotton said, “I haven’t spoken to the president about that.” Senator Eric Schmitt responded, “I’m not familiar with the facts or circumstances.” Senator Curtis said he would “need to do more research.”
These men are United States senators. National security is part of their job. Yet they apparently did not feel the need to understand a presidential pardon for one of the world’s most prolific drug traffickers. But let’s be honest: they know what happened here. They understand it. But this game in which Republicans feign ignorance over abhorrent Trump actions has become their go-to strategy to avoid criticizing their Dear Leader. This is what happens when loyalty to Trump overwhelms loyalty to the country.
Cotton went further when discussing the U.S. military strike that killed survivors of a capsized fishing boat off Venezuela. When presented with testimony that the survivors were signaling surrender, Cotton dismissed the question. “It doesn’t really matter what they were trying to do,” he said. When asked whether the boat was even heading to the United States, he claimed the issue “didn’t come up in my briefing.” He then said he did not simply support such actions but wanted them to continue.
While all of this unfolded, right-wing media tried to distract the public by manufacturing a scandal about Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. The story centers on a fraud scheme involving a nutrition program that Minnesota actually uncovered and prosecuted. Trump, meanwhile, pardoned David Gentile, the architect of a 1.6 billion dollar Ponzi scheme that defrauded thousands of regular investors. It received a mere fraction of the national coverage you would expect and demand from such a scandal.
The contrast speaks for itself. Walz is attacked for catching and prosecuting criminals who operated in his state. Trump is barely questioned for freeing criminals who devastated communities and endangered national security.
The weekend’s interviews also highlighted a growing pattern of ICE detaining U.S. citizens. When confronted with video of a young mother chased to her home and detained despite repeatedly stating she was a citizen, “border czar” Tom Homan excused the conduct by claiming that many undocumented immigrants falsely claim citizenship. He argued that “reasonable suspicion” was enough to justify detention. America is officially a “show me your papers” country under Donald Trump.
This is an America in which authoritarianism, racial profiling, and political intimidation are normalized. It is an America in which entire communities, including Somali immigrants whom Trump recently called “garbage,” are dehumanized by the president himself.
Taken together, these actions reveal a government not even hiding its intentions. They are telling us exactly what they plan to do. It is our responsibility to listen and respond.
The stakes are clear. Our democracy is not only under pressure. It is being deliberately dismantled. The question that remains is whether the American people, and the institutions that claim to protect them, will confront this reality before the damage becomes irreversible. And that’s why it is so important that We the People along with independent media continue to lead the fight. We have no time to wait for the cavalry. We are the cavalry.
Thanks for watching and reading today’s mid-day recap. Ron Filipkowski will be publishing his full weekend news bulletin later today, so keep a lookout! I truly believe Ron’s news bulletins are the best political newsletters in the country, so thank you for sharing them and for spreading the word about this Substack. Let’s keep growing!
