Today in Politics, Bulletin 406. 6/26/26

… The Great American Fair in DC so far has turned out to be, like most Donald Trump productions, somewhat of a disaster. Leading up to the festivities, Trump hyped the 16-day long event as the hottest celebration of America in history. It has turned out so far, like the military parade for his birthday last year, to be a complete dud.

… CityCast DC: “If Americans are going to flock to the Trump admin’s Great American State Fair, they certainly weren’t doing it when the doors opened Thursday. The massive, nostalgic fair has overtaken much of the National Mall, with a presidential rally to kick things off and AF flyovers to punctuate opening day. But within the gates of the fair itself, there were vast stretches of open grass and a high ratio of workers to actual visitors.”

… “For Washingtonians accustomed to big activities on the Mall, the fair’s Ferris wheel may be the most notable element. But, up close, the 110-foot wheel actually looks small compared with those at more traditional fairs. It was also still the Mall: Inside the security enclosure, there were few benches and even less shade. Stapled onto the air-conditioned enclosures was a vinyl-like material patterned to look like grand columns.”

… CityCast reporter Kaela Cote-Stemmermann checked in with an update: “The Ferris wheel at the Great American state fair is DOWN. Operator told me due to generator issues and engine overheating. Unclear when it will be moving again, at least 1 - 2 hours they said.”

… Fox5 DC anchor Homa Bash also had an update: “Food hall at Great American State Fair has lost power - they have food but tell me all their ice cream has melted.”

… DC Council Member Christina Henderson: “Went to the Great American State ‘Fair’ so you don’t have to. Not a funnel cake, corn dog, bucket lemonade, or fried Snickers in sight. The only ride is the Ferris Wheel. It’s not that kind of state fair, y’all. Before you pack up your kids to go down there, just know the main attraction is the state booths. And not every state offers an interactive attraction. Real missed opportunity on the food aspect though. A Taste of the States would’ve been fun.”

… USA Today: “Food at the fair was a significant expense for attendees, with options limited on kickoff day. The only food stall that was open during kickoff sold turkey legs for $23, a smash cheeseburger for $20 and a giant western sausage for $20. Lemonade cost $9. For those who wanted a snack, pretzels – when available – ranged in price from $12.48 to $24.96.”

… Despite Trump’s claims that 45,000 attended opening day of the fair, NBC estimated attendance at 1,000.

… Kate Corliss with The Washingtonian also attended the fair: “An hour into my excursion, I have already been the subject of two exorcism attempts and my constitution is starting to falter. There can’t possibly be a better time for my lemonade. I step into the food hall, where I see a single vendor: Express Hibachi, which is an unusual name for a purveyor of personal pizzas and chicken Caesar salads. I skip the dining and head straight for the beverage stand. At this moment, I realize it’s all over: The only available lemonade is Minute Maid, sold by the plastic bottle.”

… “Feeling bamboozled and stupid for believing that I might find something beautiful at this garish perversion of an American tradition, I consider purchasing three $14 Cutwaters and passing out in the middle of the grass. But I already appear to be emanating a demonic energy to my fellow fairgoers, so I settle on a $5 water. In the meantime, another performer has taken the stage, a 14-year-old singer named Reagan Oliver who has traveled here from Arkansas and croons a sweetly timid rendition of ‘Delta Dawn.’ Most of the attendees ignore her, and only a few clap when she’s done.”

… “The only remaining entertainment for today is the rodeo, a cobbled-together production that isn’t set to start until later in the afternoon. I really hate to see horses in compromising situations, but when the cowboys start warming up in the small pen shortly before 2 PM, I watch because there’s nothing else to do. Two men, one donning a ‘Stand for the Flag, Kneel for the Cross’ T-shirt that feels like the most authentic state fair token I’ve seen all day, stand alongside me. They’re visiting from OH, and it’s their first time in DC. ‘We’re disappointed,’ they tell me of their fair experience.”

… “They’re traveling with a group that includes children, and they planned to scope out the scene and hopefully invite the rest of the family to come along. But they don’t see how a kid could possibly have fun here, with the lackluster attractions and the conspicuous absence of cotton candy. Plus, they had a hard time finding the entrance; they wandered for more than an hour before they found the security line. I tell them I got lost, too. ‘And you live here,’ one points out. ‘How do you think we feel?’”

… Meanwhile, a man was arrested for masturbating in public at the event. From the police officer’s report on suspect Gian Rachtelli: “I was approached by a female member of the acrobat team who noticed an older white male was making her and the other female performers uncomfortable. The said they noticed him making lewd gestures with his hand in his pants as if he was masturbating while they were performing.”

… TMZ reported today that there was a big above-ground pool set up at the Fair today where people were being baptized.

… But the best is yet to come! Trump posted this today: “The Fourth of July Airshow, over our Great Capital, will be the biggest, by far, in the History of the USA. Hundreds of Planes, of different types, sizes, and speeds, will be on display. It goes from 1:15 PM, until 11:30 PM. I will be speaking at approximately 9 PM, preceding the Fireworks which again, like the Airshow, will be approximately 10 times larger than any Fireworks in the History of our Country.”

… Trump just submitted a supplemental for $67.1 billion to pay for the cost of the Iran War, he also submitted a $1.5 trillion military budget, and we are $39 trillion in debt. What the hell - just add the flyovers and fireworks to our tab so we can keep the Trump parties and grifts going.

… The Atlantic: “The pathway that connects the WH residence to the Oval Office has long been paved in TN flagstone. Every president since Harry Truman made the 45-second commute, and made it without complaint, until Trump. The dun rock would not do. Instead, Trump wanted polished African granite, carved in Italy, with a flamed-finish stripe—slightly raised, to prevent slips—running down the middle. As workers tore up the flagstone last March, a reporter asked Trump who was paying for the enhancements. ‘Paid for by me,’ he replied.”

… “But that wasn’t true. Budget documents from the National Park Service show that the walkway replacement cost taxpayers $689,232, and is part of a $1.3 million project that included repairing adjacent stone and masonry and providing new hardware for nearby doors. A year earlier, in a separate ‘Rush project at request of POTUS,’ the Park Service spent $347,503 to remove and replace the stucco on the colonnade wall, a project that cleared the way for Trump to affix gold frames and plaques mocking some of his predecessors.”

… “This previously undisclosed spending is part of an enormous shift of taxpayer cash away from National Parks around the country and into the Washington area. In order to pay for the president’s projects, the parks have had to cancel needed repairs, slash their budgets, and operate with fewer employees.”

… NYT: In Trump’s war, the Pentagon burned through “around 1,100 long-range stealth cruise missiles built for a war with China, close to the total number remaining in the US stockpile.” It fired 1,000+ Tomahawk cruise missiles, 10x the number it buys each year.

… As Congress prepares to bailout farmers with another $11 billion in addition to the $12 billion they got last year, Trump told farmers that Iran will soon be buying all their food: “We have a new market coming up, and that’s called The Lovely Country of Iran. They’re having a hard time with food and we’re going to be taking some of their money and we’ll spend it and we’re going to be buying wheat, soybeans, and corn, a lot of it, and that process is going to be starting soon. It’s going to be big.”

… Trump: “We also called on Congress to pass a supplemental funding bill that will provide $11 billion in relief to help our great agricultural producers rebound from the losses that they had due to the Biden admin. So we’re going to be getting an $11 billion payment in relief to our farmers, and Brooke, you’ll distribute that money hopefully equitably.”

… Rep. Mike Levin (D-CA): “Trump is asking Congress for $11 billion to bail out farmers, and has the audacity to blame Biden for the losses. Biden did not put a single tariff on the inputs farmers buy. Trump did, and when Trump taxed the world, the world hit back.

… “Trump’s tariffs closed markets to American farmers and drove up the cost of the equipment, seed, and chemicals they depend on. China retaliated with tariffs on soybeans and much more, and pulled back its purchases of American soybeans. China is the single biggest buyer of American soybeans on earth, and Trump handed that market away.”

… “This is not the first bailout but the latest in a string of them. This $11 billion adds to the $12 billion already sent to farmers this year. $23 billion and counting, all to patch a wound Trump inflicted himself. We are now on track for roughly a third of all farm income in 2026 to come from govt checks. Also, nearly 40% of the last bailout flowed to the largest farms while small family operations went under. In 2025 alone, 15,000 farms closed, most of them small.”

… “So when Trump says Biden did this, that is complete and utter nonsense, and everyone knows it. Trump raised the costs, started the trade war, lost the markets, and is sending you the bill.”

… Trump gave a speech today where he launched his new theme for the midterm elections - that Democrats are communists and you have to vote Republican to stop a communist takeover of America. His premise for that was based on the candidates Zohran Mamdani endorsed who won their primaries in NY:

• On Mamdani Rent Freeze: “What the mayor doesn’t say is that these buildings will soon turn into ghettos and slums, and that everybody will continue leaving New York. And as this spreads throughout the country very much like an uncontrollable form of cancer. The country itself will be taken down.”

• “These are hardcore, godless communists, they are godless communists, all communists are godless. They don’t believe in God. This is the most serious threat to our country since its existence, in my opinion, 250 years ago. This is a major threat to our country.”

• “They will close your churches. They’re trying to. They want to end religion. They have to end religion because their ideology doesn’t work if you have strong religion.”

• “Communism is very easy to sell. It destroys everything, but it’s very easy. I’ll be honest, I think I’d be the greatest communist in history. I’d give free rent. Ladies and gentlemen, from now on, you don’t have to pay any rent. From now on, anybody who wants a house, don’t worry about it. Just pick the house you want. Everybody gets free food. Everything is free from this point forward. Everyone’s going to vote for me.”

• “They’re animals, they’re animals. In many cases, they’re not smart, but in some cases they are. It’s easy for them to get followers because they make promises that they know they can’t keep.”

… Mike Johnson spoke before Trump: “If we lose the midterms, these Democrats will turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body, and they'll go after the president's family, the cabinet, his donors, friends, half of you in this room will be targeted. I run the protection program. We’ll take care of you.”

… Just the Speaker of the House pledging that if you vote Republican he will continue to make sure all the corruption and criminality happening in the Trump admin will be covered up by him and his do-nothing committee chairs.

… Spectrum’s Taylor Popielarz: “While interviewing Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins, I asked her about the screwworm outbreak in the US and recent criticisms from Texas Ag Commissioner Sid Miller over how USDA has responded to it.”

… Rollins: “First of all, the TX Ag Commissioner is dangerous at this point. He is unserious. He is way off base. And I don’t mean to make this about him, but what he is saying is actually dangerous. And you talk to any rancher or producer in Texas, almost any one of them, I’d say 99 out of 100, and they would agree with that statement. So we just have to take that off the field.”

… Miller responsed: “What’s truly unserious is USDA’s refusal to learn from its own success. The Screwworm Adult Suppression System, was researched, developed, and successfully deployed multiple times by USDA and helped eradicate screwworm decades ago. If I were being unserious, why would I have been invited to brief senior WH officials just last week because I want USDA to succeed in this fight?

… “Screwworm is a direct threat to America’s multi-billion-dollar livestock industry, our wildlife, our pets, and even humans. It demands action, not accusations. I won’t waste time trading insults when US agriculture is on the line. For 19 months, ranchers, veterinarians, and producers have begged USDA to use every proven weapon—not just sterile flies. Instead, USDA bet everything on one strategy, deploying 8 billion sterile flies, yet we have more cases today than we’ve ever had – including 5 new cases just today.”

Whew! What a week. These have been marathon efforts this week with a heavy dose of political news despite the fact that we don’t have a Congress. I decided to lead off with some lighter fair news because it was fun piecing the various reports together on another Trump debacle.

I am off on Saturdays and we will be heading out kayaking on a river tomorrow. I will be back with the Weekend Bulletin on Sunday night. If you missed yesterday’s Bulletin, you can find it here. Thank you to all who read, share, and subscribe.

… Daily Beast: “WH aide Natalie Harp’s obsession with Trump has become so severe that her own brother has spoken out. Preston Harp, the estranged brother of Trump’s favorite personal assistant, blasted the 80-year-old president and his too-close-for-comfort bond with Preston’s 34-year-old sister.”

… In an interview with The Daily Mail, Preston called Trump a “national embarrassment” and said his sister’s relationship with him is “very unhealthy - she’s