Kennedy Center Honorees customarily visit the White House for a reception prior to their evening Honors celebrations. But not so eight years ago in 2017. That was the year when Kennedy Center Honorees dancer Carmen de Lavallade, singers Gloria Estefan and Lionel Richie, rapper LL Cool J, and TV writer/producer Norman Lear refused to visit the White House occupied by Donald Trump after Trump had made supportive comments about the tiki-torch-bearing, modern-day Nazis marching in the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville that August.

Trump, who has never been known to accept even the slightest of slights, was so miffed at this he never went to any of the Honors Ceremonies during the entirety of his first term. In fact, to this day, Trump has never set foot in the Kennedy Center.

The Kennedy Center was the brainchild of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who established a commission for a new public auditorium in the nation’s capital in 1955. Three years later, he signed the National Cultural Center Act.  In signing this act, Eisenhower confirmed the inherent value of the arts to all Americans, and created what would ultimately become the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. When promoting the construction of the Kennedy Center, Eisenhower said, “In Washington there should be a Center of culture…an artistic mecca.”

The National Cultural Center Act authorized the Center’s construction, mandated an artistic vision to produce and present a wide variety of both classical and contemporary performances, specified an educational mission for the Center, and declared the Center was to be an independent facility, self-sustaining, and privately funded.

In November, 1962, President Kennedy kicked off a $30 million fundraising campaign by holding special White House luncheons and receptions, appointing his wife Jacqueline and Mrs. Eisenhower as honorary co-chairwomen, and placing the prestige of his office behind the venture.

Two months after Kennedy’s assassination, Congress passed and President Johnson signed into law legislation renaming the National Cultural Center the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The Law authorized $23 million to help in construction, which began in December, 1964, when President Lyndon Johnson broke ground, using the same gold shovel used for breaking ground at the Lincoln Memorial and the Jefferson Monument.

The Center opened on 8 September 1971 with a gala performance featuring the world premiere of Mass, a Theatre Requiem honoring President Kennedy, commissioned from legendary composer Leonard Bernstein, conducted by the composer.

In the 54 years since it opened so auspiciously, the Kennedy Center has hosted the best the world has to offer in culture and the arts. And it does so to this day. If you were there last night, you could have seen the American Ballet Theatre perform Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, with music by Isobel Waller-Bridge. Or, in another of the Center’s theaters, you could have laughed to the hilarious Shear Madness.

Wednesday of this week was a dark day for the Kennedy Center. That was the day Donald Trump, just to prove there’s a new boss in town, fired all of the Kennedy Center’s Trustees of Democratic persuasion, as well as the Center’s president, the highly respected Deborah Rutter, and the Chair of the Board, David Rubenstein, founder of the Carlisle Group.

Trump then filled the vacant Trustee slots by appointing ardent loyalists, who promptly and unanimously elected him Chair. He now gets to sit in the Chair occupied by the estimable Mr. Rubenstein since 2010. Of the firings of Rubenstein and the other Trustees, Trump said they,  “do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture”

Trump then appointed Richard Grennell as the center’s interim president. Grennell, a true-believing MAGA Trump loyalist, had been ambassador to Germany during the first Trump administration and Trump’s acting national intelligence director from February to May 2020. In that respect, he replaced Joseph Maguire, whom Trump fired after Maguire advised Congress about Russian interference prior to the 2020 presidential election.

You get on Donald Trump’s bad side at your own peril.

Richard Grennell is utterly devoid of any experience in the arts. He’ll probably have a hard time finding backstage. And he won’t have much help from staff, because Trump also fired a number of people in management.

After appointing Grennell, Trump wrote on his Truth Social network, “NO MORE DRAG SHOWS, OR OTHER ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA.”¹ He also wrote he was “honored” to be elected Chair of the Kennedy Center. As if there was ever any doubt.

One of the chapters in the Authoritarian Playbook calls for extensive efforts to control and shape society and culture.

For example, the Third Reich deemed modern art and artists to be sick and immoral. The regime called this art “degenerate.” The Nazis confiscated thousands of modern artworks from German museums. In 1937, they displayed many in what Goebbels called a “Degenerate Art” exhibition in Munich. After that, they destroyed several thousand confiscated works of art. But they saved the best and most valuable works and sold all of them to enrich the regime and prepare for war.

Reaction to Trump’s takeover in the arts world has been quick. Issa Rae and Low Cut Connie immediately cancelled concerts scheduled for the Center. Renowned Soprano Renee Fleming, singer songwriter Ben Folds, and television producer/writer Shonda Rhimes have all resigned their artistic advisor positions.

A word about David Rubenstein. His financial generosity to the Kennedy Center is unsurpassed. At $111 million, he is the largest individual contributor to the Center in its 54-year history. Rubenstein had planned to step down from his leadership role at the end of this year, but agreed to stay on through 2026, because a national search for a new Chair was taking longer than the Board had anticipated. The Board no longer has that problem.

I wonder what Trump will do next at the Center built by Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson? Maybe change its name to the Trump Center for the Performing Arts?

Why not? He puts his name on everything else he touches.

One thing I’m pretty sure he won’t do — write a check.

______________________

¹ As NPR  has noted, the Kennedy Center hosted several drag brunches at its rooftop restaurant last year as well as a free Drag Salute to Divas event at its Millennium stage and a production of drag performer Kris Andersson’s solo show Dixie’s Tupperware Party — all of which were aimed at adults and none of which were anti-American or propaganda.

On the evening of 8 November 1923, Adolph Hitler and a body of heavily armed stormtroopers broke into a meeting of Bavarian leaders at the Bürgerbräukelle, a beer cellar just outside Munich, and began a serious attempt to overthrow the Bavarian government and then march to Berlin to take over the country, as the Italian Benito Mussolini had done a year earlier in capturing Rome. Known as the Beer Hall Putsch, the coup attempt had not been thought out well and did not reckon with organized police who would counter it.

Overnight Hitler’s allies gathered about 2,000 armed supporters, to each of whom the Nazis paid 2 billion marks for signing up to revolt (because of Germany’s hyper-inflation, this was worth just over $3 on that day).

Early the next morning, Hitler and his rabble set off to capture the Ministry of War, but were met by a strong cordon of police. Nobody knows who fired first, but someone did, and for the next minute the air was full of smoke from all the bullets. Herman Göring was shot in the leg and fell.¹ Hitler was pushed down and dislocated his shoulder. When the fighting stopped, 14 of Hitler’s marchers were killed, along with four policemen.

The German government put Hitler on trial in early 1924, but, because everyone knew the Nazi leader could implicate many Bavarian politicians in the Putsch attempt, he was allowed wide latitude to bully and insult prosecution witnesses, as well as to speechify, which he did incessantly. He said he was “serving the interests of Germany,” which could never be judged treasonous. “The eternal court of history,” he declared, “will judge us as Germans who wanted the best for their people and their fatherland.”

Despite the undeniable fact that members of the putsch had killed four policemen and staged an armed and treasonable revolt, both offenses punishable by death, the court sentenced Hitler to five years in prison, and a cushy prison, at that — Landsberg am Lech, just west of Munich. This was a place that doled out “fortress incarceration,” a mild form of imprisonment for offenders thought to have acted from “honorable motives.” This is where Adolph Hitler and his factotum Rudolph Hess settled in to while away some time. And this is where Adolph Hitler wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle).

In My Struggle, Hitler wrote he’d learned from the failed Putsch. He now realized a violent attempt to take over the government would fail. Consequently, the Nazi Party would become political and would achieve its aims legally. Yes, there would be violence (and there certainly was), but the Party would act according to the law.

After 264 days of a five-year sentence, the German government freed Hitler.

The reason I bring up this history is because in My Struggle, written ten years before Hitler and the Nazis came to power, Hitler told everyone who could read exactly what he and the Nazis would do when they ultimately took control. A poorly written book (although, after 1933, if you didn’t have a copy prominently displayed in your home, a few Brownshirts might pay you a visit with unwelcome consequences), My Struggle lays out with precision the entire Nazi blueprint once in power, including the extermination of the Jews and other undesirables, the creation of the Concentration Camp society, and the invasion of the East to acquire Lebensraum, or the “Living Space” Hitler decided the German nation required to expand.

On 30 January 1933, the day Hitler took power, he began keeping every one of his promises first laid out ten years before. In late March of that year, the Nazis opened their first concentration camp — at Dachau, 12 miles northwest of Munich. They sent four busloads of political opponents and, yes, Jews, to the new facility while the citizens of Dachau, lining the streets, watched the parade go by. In early April, just to make sure everyone got the message, they walked four of the Jews outside and shot them each through the head.

Fanatical megalomaniacs tell you what they’re going to do, and if you let them, they do it. Adolph Hitler is not the only example I could cite.

Moving ahead 92 years, we see another megalomaniac who told us repeatedly what he intended to do if restored to power. Like Hitler before him, Donald Trump told all of us just what we could expect if he won the 2024 presidential election. It should have scared everyone. No one should have thought he was simply hyperbolizing and ,exaggerating to feed his MAGA base. The man is not that subtle. The nation yawned.

In the last three weeks, we have learned much we should have already known. We have watched Trump’s sycophantish acolytes, his Görings and Hesses, implement Project 2025 chapter and verse. This is the document Donald Trump disavowed during the campaign, claiming he didn’t even know the authors.

In 2023, on Veterans Day, the former president (at the time), in an authoritarian rant, wrote on his Truth Social platform, “We pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, lie, steal, and cheat on Elections, and will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and the American dream.”

Adolph Hitler could have written those words about his Germany.

The Nazis did all they could to dehumanize Jews, Gypsies, and other groups they deemed inferior. Hitler and Goebbels, especially, called Jews and other undesirables “vermin.” In addition to Jews, Hitler’s bête noire were Communists and Bolsheviks. He went after them with nearly the same ferocity as he did the Jews. They were all in the Nazi crosshairs. They were all “vermin.”

History is rhyming now.

Donald Trump’s “vermin” is different. Trump’s vermin barrel is full of all those who have opposed or criticized him, particularly law enforcement, the judiciary, military officers who refused to do his bidding, and politicians, such as Liz Cheney, whom he has said should be tried for treason, which is punishable by death. No Republican will publicly criticize him. He has cowed them all.

In his first term, Donald Trump, the reality TV star and New York real estate developer, was new to the job and had no idea what he was doing. Frankly, he was surprised he’d won the election.

He was urged to appoint a number of people to his administration who were qualified to do the work required. But they kept pushing back on his wilder demands and kept him relatively tethered on many issues. He was inhibited by the likes of Reince Priebus and General John Kelly, his first two Chiefs of Staff, General James Mattis, his first Secretary of Defense, and Rex Tillerson, his first Secretary of State.

That tether, fragile as it was, is absent in his second term. We are now experiencing the complete and unhinged Trump, and only those fiercely loyal are allowed to serve. All others, he will kick aside, regardless of expertise or experience. That includes about 4,000 top-level federal service civilian employees who keep the federal machine running relatively smoothly.

Our nation has withstood many deeply troubling challenges, most notably a civil war and two World Wars, but those were long ago. We are now complacent and are demonstrating how completely unprepared we were for the second coming of Donald Trump. We have put on size-12 blinkers and no longer see, much less appreciate, the evil around us.

Witness the collective national shrug as we watched him stroll through 91 criminal charges and mock our judicial system in the process.

Witness his fond embrace of slash-and-burn Elon Musk and the ease with which he got America’s oligarchs to kneel and kiss the ring. Who saw that coming?

Witness his 24 January, Friday night purge of 17 Inspectors General, whose job it is to root out waste, fraud, and abuse in the agencies they represent. Congress passed the Inspector General Act long ago and strengthened it three years ago after Trump tried to dismantle the program in his first term. The Act requires a president to give a 30-day notification to Congress and provide specific reasons for terminations of an inspector general. That did not happen, and the IGs were fired by email in the Friday night purge. This is like getting rid of bank security and leaving the vault door open.

Witness his casual rejection of court rulings over the last two weeks. Yesterday, he said he would abide by the courts’ rulings, but, ominously, also said, “It seems hard to believe that a judge could say, ‘We don’t want you to do that.’ So maybe we have to look at the judges because that’s very serious, I think it’s a very serious violation.”

Witness the ease with which his unqualified and dangerous nominees for cabinet positions are sailing through to confirmation with no Republican pushback.

Witness the nonchalant manner in which he destroyed the 64-year-old USAID and cut off food and medical funding to the world’s neediest people with no more care than it would take to brush a piece of lint off his jacket. He and Musk are proud of that. They say it will save money.

Witness his cavalier decision to significantly reduce indirect payments to grantees of the National Institutes of Health. He tried exactly the same thing in 2018, which angered a more stouthearted Congress, which passed a law prohibiting such action. Yesterday, Judd Legum, of Popular Information scooped that yesterday morning NIH had written a memo to all grantees acknowledging that its funding freeze was illegal and directing staff to resume issuing grants.

And witness the hatred and bigotry he and his followers have shown to our fellow citizens who are outside the mainstream. Trump went out of his way to terrorize the transgender community in order to make his MAGA Christian nationalists happy. Well, he got trans women out of college sports, despite the NCAA reporting that out of 530,000 student-athletes, fewer than ten are transgender.

I can sum up the threat of Donald Trump by saying it is a short step from rounding up all undocumented aliens to rounding up legal immigrants you don’t like to rounding up political opponents who become a nuisance, to rounding up judges who don’t rule in your favor to rounding up…anyone.

Authoritarianism is alive and well at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

________________

¹ The pain from this wound would bother Göring for the rest of his life and is the reason he became a lifelong opioid addict.

The illegal buyout fiasco

According to 2024 data, 375,000 federal employees, not counting the armed services or the Postal Service, live in the Washington, DC, northern Virginia, and southern Maryland area. They make up sixteen percent of the total federal workforce. Of that group, 200,000 live in DC.

Of the top-level managerial and supervisory federal workforce — at the GS13, 14, and 15 levels, all making over $100,000 per year — 40% work in DC.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, which has taken over the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM),  according to reporting in Wired, sent an employment buyout offer in an email to all federal service civilian employees  two weeks ago with the subject line “Fork in the Road.” It gave federal employees just nine days to decide their fates. They could either accept the buyout with a promise of seven months severance through September, or risk immediate layoffs.

The Musk/Trump buyout plan aims to reduce the federal workforce by at least 10%. If this were to occur, 37,500 employees in the nation’s capital would be out of a job. This would be more than 1% of the entire three-state population.

Nationally, if Trump and Musk reach their goal, the federal workforce would be reduced by about 230,000 people. But yesterday, U.S. District Judge George O’Toole, for the second time, threw sand in the gears of the plan. His order puts the plan on hold again “until further order of the Court.”

Writing for The American Prospect, David Dayen shows how the the DOGE, excuse me, make that OPM, email paints a miserable future for employees who refuse the buyout offer.

The Trump administration is requiring a return to the office, and stripping thousands of employees in policymaking roles of civil service protections. Because of expected divestitures of physical office space, many workers would have to relocate into new offices or maybe even new cities. Because of promised reductions in force, many workers who choose to stay could be furloughed anyway: “At this time, we cannot give you full assurance regarding the certainty of your position or agency,” the email reads. Moreover, there are statements about higher performance standards and an emphasis on being “loyal” and “trustworthy.”

Putting aside the possible consequences of what the loss of 37,500 jobs in DC and another 230,000 around the country might do to governmental functioning, just for a moment imagine the effect such a loss might have on our economy, not to mention the lives of the workers cast out into the darkness.

This becomes even more sobering when one considers that neither Trump nor Musk seems to have any kind of a plan for what happens to those folks on the day after.

Finally, it does not appear any of this is legal, not even a little bit. According to the Constitution, Congress establishes funding, and it has set not a penny aside for any of this. In fact, the OPM website clearly states that the limit for incentive packages for voluntary resignations is $25,000, far less than seven months’ pay for the average federal worker.

The freeze that isn’t

Immediately after Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Office of Personnel and Management issued an order appearing to halt all federal grant spending. That order was rescinded amid a political backlash, and a federal court blocked a broader funding aid freeze, too.

In a five-page ruling yesterday, U.S. District Judge John McConnell, Chief Judge of the Rhode Island District Court, said the administration is violating the “plain text” of his initial restraining order.

Judge McConnell issued his ruling after reviewing complaints from several Democratic state attorneys general that the Trump administration has continued to withhold funds anyway.

The continued violations of the restraining order are manifesting in several areas, such as the Department of Agricultural, where farmers have had funds for energy improvements cut off. Also, the National Institutes of Health has slashed billions of dollars in “indirect” costs for biomedical research, funding which was to go to studies into disease prevention and treatment. Last night, another federal judge, this one from Massachusetts, blocked the halt in biotech spending hours after it went into effect.

This could become even more serious, because it is setting up a war between the Judiciary and Executive branches. One need only consider Vice President JD Vance’s reaction to US district court judge Paul Engelmayer’s injunction stopping Elon Musk’s DOGE from accessing the treasury department’s central payment system in search of supposed corruption and waste.

Following Engelmayer’s ruling, Vance wrote that judges “aren’t allowed” to control the president’s “legitimate power.”

“If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal. Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” he wrote.

But this is simply not true, and JD Vance, a Yale Law School graduate, should, and does, know better. In fact, Article III of the US constitution confers a power known as judicial review, which gives federal judges the authority to rule on cases involving the president, as well as other branches of government.

My friends, we are entering a constitutional crisis, and the sooner everyday citizens and members of Congress recognize it for what it is, the better.

So, who’s in Musk’s Mafia?

The oldest person in Elon Musk DOGE rat-pack is reported to be 25 years old; the youngest, 19.

The 19-year-old goes by the online soubriquet, “Big Balls.” If you can believe it, Big Balls has reportedly been appointed senior adviser both at the State Department and at the Department of Homeland Security, raising concerns among diplomats and others about his potential access to sensitive information. He also works out of the Office of Management and Budget. The young man gets around.

Big Balls has a real name, and it is Edward Coristine. Coristine  briefly worked for Musk’s brain chip start-up Neuralink and must have distinguished himself to the boss, because he’s now wormed his way into the sinews and synapses of government.

Coristine was fired from an internship at Path Network, Bloomberg News reports, because of leaking information to a competitor.

Former FBI agent EJ Hilbert told Wired last Thursday: “If I was doing the background investigation on him, I would probably have recommended against hiring him for the work he’s doing.”

“Probably?”

The oldest member of Musk’s DOGE team, 25-year-old Marko Elez, resigned last week after a report from the Wall Street Journal linked him to a now-deleted social media account that shared racist content and advocated for eugenics.

According to the Journal’s review of archived social media posts, Elez posted on X in July: “Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool.”

The account also reportedly shared a post calling to normalize “Indian hate,” suggested Gaza and Israel be “wiped off the face of the Earth,” and said: “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity.”

Following the Elez resignation, JD Vance urged Musk to rehire him, saying, “I obviously disagree with some of Elez’s posts, but I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life.”

Musk then polled his Twitter followers on rehiring Elez, which seems to me a rather interesting, if weird, way to make personnel decisions. At any rate, Must rehired Elez last Friday despite his social media baggage.

If it weren’t so serious, one could be forgiven for thinking Musk’s DOGE adventure looks like a frat house project gone wrong.

Final thought

Some important questions facing America are: What will the Trump Administration do in the face of the Judiciary getting in its way? What will happen if the answer is: Ignore the rulings. In that case, what will all those judges do? Issue Contempt of Court rulings? Try to have somebody arrested?

What?

And what happens after that, whatever “that” is?

We’re about to discover whether Donald Trump has made the Constitution irrelevant. If so, it only took him three weeks to do it.

The Treasury Department, USAID, the Education Department, the Office of Management and Budget, etc.

These are the Departments Elon Musk and his whiz kid software engineers have already wormed their way into and, in important ways, taken over. They wouldn’t have been able to even get in the doors if Donald Trump’s acting, and in some cases already confirmed, Secretaries and Directors had not made it possible by ordering cooperation from the senior staffs.

At the Treasury Department, Musk and his software mafia now have access to the humongous $6 trillion American payment system. That means all the financial information of Americans and American businesses. That means social security, Medicare, Medicaid, the IRS, and more. That means you and me.

It’s likely none of this is legal. Donald Trump advertised that Musk’s off-the-books, unfunded Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, would be like your local town volunteer audit committee. Unelected volunteers trying to make things run better.

That is not the way things are working out. Musk and his proteges are human wrecking balls, unguided missiles intent on destruction from the bottom up.

For example, over at 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, the headquarters for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Musk and his barbarians have come over the wall and are hard at work dismantling the principal humanitarian U.S. agency that gives assistance to countries recovering from disaster, trying to escape poverty, seeking better medical care, and engaging in democratic reforms.

A little history would help.

After World War II, the U.S. adopted the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe. The Plan was so successful, both the Truman and Eisenhower Administrations realized that bringing humanitarian aid to countries in need was good policy and served America’s interests. Consequently, a number of separate governmental organizations began to provide relief where needed, such as the Mutual Security Agency, the Foreign Operations Administration, and the International Cooperation Administration.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy saw the need to unite humanitarian development into a single agency responsible for administering aid to foreign countries to promote social and economic development. Thus was USAID born. When Kennedy proposed the idea of USAID, he said:

 “There is no escaping our obligations: our moral obligations as a wise leader and good neighbor in the interdependent community of free nations – our economic obligations as the wealthiest people in a world of largely poor people, as a nation no longer dependent upon the loans from abroad that once helped us develop our own economy – and our political obligations as the single largest counter to the adversaries of freedom.” 

Kennedy first created USAID by executive order, but shortly thereafter, Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, cementing USAID as a congressionally approved and funded U.S. agency.

For 64 years, USAID has brought vital humanitarian assistance to those in need around the world. According to the Agency, its work “includes steps to diversify the streams of capital that finance development, improve the way progress is measured and invest in force multipliers like science, technology, innovation and partnership to accelerate impact.”

This is the Agency Elon Musk calls “a criminal organization.” Musk compares foreign aid to “money laundering.” He calls USAID employees an “arm of the radical-left globalists” and brags he has been “feeding [it] to the wood chipper.”

Donald Trump, the man who gave Musk the keys to the kingdom says the agency is “run by a bunch of radical lunatics.” One of his first executive orders was to order all foreign aid stopped.

In the last week, dozens of USAID’s top leaders were placed on immediate leave. Hundreds of support staff were let go, and those remaining were told not only to stop funding development work, but also to cut off communication with partner organizations. USAID employees were told to stay home and the agency’s website was taken down.

Then, Musk’s DOGE kids showed up at the front door demanding access to personnel records and classified material. Security officials who tried to stop them were placed on administrative leave.

In the next blink of an eye, USAID ceased being an independent agency when Trump ordered it to be moved into and under the State Department.

None of this is legal, not one little bit, and it has deep and severe, even catastrophic, ramifications all over the world. For example:

• Malaria kills 14 children under the age of 5 every day in Uganda. USAID provides assistance to Uganda’s Malaria Council for insecticide spraying and shipments of bed nets, one of the most effective tools in limiting the spread of the disease. This has stopped.
• Medical supplies to help pregnant women and save babies from dying of diarrhea are no longer reaching villagers in Zambia.
• Throughout Africa, efforts to eradicate polio and stop an outbreak of the Marburg virus, which is similar to Ebola and has a death rate of up to 90%, have stopped.
• One of the most popular and effective U.S. government health programs, the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which has saved tens of millions of lives from the scourge of AIDS, is also halted. This includes the delivery of daily medications that are keeping alive 20 million people in 50 countries who are HIV-positive.

I could go on.

There are justifiable criticisms of USAID. What large organization, governmental or in the private sector, doesn’t have a few warts? Critics contend USAID is too reliant on for-profit contractors when it should be working more closely with local groups in the countries it serves. Fine. Let’s everyone agree management could work to make things run smoother and better.

Meanwhile, how much does all this cost?

The U.S. annually spends $68 billion on foreign aid. USAID gets $40 billion of that. The DoD’s budget, at $815 billion, is twenty times larger.

However, as the former commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, noted, “USAID’s efforts can do as much — over the long term — to prevent conflict as the deterrent effects of carrier strike group or a marine expeditionary force.” Or, as former Defense Secretary Robert Gates put it, “Development is a lot cheaper than sending soldiers.”

Until now, Republican leaders in Congress have avoided saying anything critical abut any of this. Everyone knows the number one mortal sin in D.C. that will send you immediately to the ninth circle of political hell is to criticize Donald Trump in any way. Yesterday, however, Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK),  Susan Collins (R-ME) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) dared raise their heads to suggest it would be nice if somebody asked Congress about all of this. It wasn’t exactly an I’m-mad-as-hell-and-I’m-not-going-to-take-it-anymore moment, but at least it was something. One small breath in a hot desert.

John Thune, the Republican leader in the Senate, insisted yesterday that Musk has not closed USAID, but merely paused operations to examine its spending, as if Musk has any congressional authority to do any of that.

For some strange reason, inexplicable to me, Elon Musk and Donald Trump, with Republican acquiescence, are hell-bent on burying 64 years of good work and good will in a place so deep and remote no one will ever find it.

With all this tearing down of what took so many so long to build up, I can’t help but wonder what would have happened had Kamala Harris won the presidential election three months ago. The country would be just as politicized and just as rancorous, but the tone and pitch of the political fray would be monumentally more civilized, presuming the transfer of power had been peaceful. Elon Musk would be back in California selling cars and sending rockets into space.

Harris and what she represented now remind me of a comet that had come close enough to earth to be faintly visible, but had then been flung into a new orbit and was last seen hurtling away into the frozen wastes of space and dwindling to a pale speck of light, soon to vanish forever.

Decency, like that comet, is quickly disappearing.

As the opioid epidemic raged in the United States in 2020, killing thousands, Congress established a commission to look into the extent to which opioids enter the U.S. from Canada and to investigate ways to reduce the flow. The commission found that “Canada is not known to be a major source of fentanyl, other synthetic opioids or precursor chemicals to the United States, a conclusion primarily drawn from seizure data,” according to its February 2022 report.

Last year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents intercepted about 19 kilograms of fentanyl at the northern border, compared with almost 9,600 kilograms at the border with Mexico, where cartels mass-produce the drug.

The quantities of fentanyl leaving Canada for the United States are minuscule — 0.2 percent of what is seized at the U.S. southern border. Despite this, Canada’s government has been taking significant steps to reduce even further the drug flow to America. In December, Daniel Anson, the director of intelligence and investigations at the Canada Border Services Agency, said the Canadian border agency had established new teams and technology to focus on the export of the drug, as well as the import of synthetic chemicals. The Canadian government will also set up a border financial crime center over the next year to target trade-based money laundering and fraud.

These are important points, to which I will return later in this Letter.

Why has Canada done all this? To avoid Donald Trump’s scatter-brained, unnecessary, treaty-breaking tariffs.

On Saturday, Canada learned Donald Trump didn’t care.

For it was on Saturday that Trump announced, where else, but on his social media network, that he was slapping 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, as well as 10% on China, all to be effective on Tuesday of this week. He also threatened the European Union, telling reporters on Sunday, “It will definitely happen with the European Union. I can tell you that because they’ve really taken advantage of us. They don’t take our cars, they don’t take our farm products. They take almost nothing and we take everything from them.”

Trump apparently thinks fomenting trade wars with one’s allies is a guaranteed recipe for economic success.

The war of words continued over the weekend when Mexico, Canada, and China retaliated by saying they would impose their own tariffs on U.S. goods. Then, the stock market fell like a brick off a table, the Wall Street Journal called called Trump’s tariffs “the dumbest trade war in history,” and Republicans in Congress ran for hideyholes to avoid having to answer journalists’ questions about any of it.

Donald Trump didn’t care.

Over the weekend, the Prime Ministers of Mexico and Canada, each suddenly facing an economic five-alarm fire, had phone conversations with President Trump in which they appeared to capitulate to his demands, the operative term being “appeared to.”

For her part, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum agreed her country would put 10,000 national guard troops on the border to stem the flow of migrants and fentanyl. With that assurance, Trump paused his tariffs for at least 30 days, apparently not realizing Mexico already has 15,000 troops there for that very purpose.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also agreed to take steps to reinforce the northern border, issuing this statement:

I just had a good call with President Trump. Canada is implementing our $1.3 billion border plan — reinforcing the border with new choppers, technology and personnel, enhanced coordination with our American partners, and increased resources to stop the flow of fentanyl. Nearly 10,000 frontline personnel are and will be working on protecting the border.   In addition, Canada is making new commitments to appoint a Fentanyl Czar, we will list cartels as terrorists, ensure 24/7 eyes on the border, launch a Canada-U.S. Joint Strike Force to combat organized crime, fentanyl and money laundering. I have also signed a new intelligence directive on organized crime and fentanyl and we will be backing it with $200 million. Proposed tariffs will be paused for at least 30 days while we work together.

As noted above, with the exception of the Canada-U.S. Joint Strike Force, since December Canada has been putting in place everything else in Trudeau’s statement.

What is the result of this Kabuki Theatre? Mexico and Canada agree to keep doing what they’re already doing, Sheinbaum and Trudeau get to play Trump for the fool that he is, Trump gets to declare victory, the stock market breathes a sigh of relief, the rest of the world gets to see bullying stupidity in action, and U.S. consumers won’t have to pay more for nearly everything — at least for now.

It’s well known that Donald Trump has a love affair with tariffs; it is his preferred economic policy. In 2018, to great bloviation, he imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum, later expanding them to cover certain derivative products that use steel and aluminum, such as nails, tacks, wire and cables. The job losses created by this were substantial, and well in excess of any jobs that may have emerged in the steel-production industry as a result of the tariffs.

Writing in Econofact, Kadee Russ and Lydia Cox of Harvard University and University of California, Davis, respectively, analyzed Trump’s 2018 steel tariffs and concluded:

Tariffs on goods used by a large number of U.S. firms, like steel, make it difficult for U.S. producers to compete against foreign rivals, both at home and in export markets. Tariffs on steel may have led to an increase of roughly 1,000 jobs in steel production. However, increased costs of inputs facing U.S. firms relative to foreign rivals due to the Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum likely have resulted in 75,000 fewer manufacturing jobs…

So, Trump’s steel tariffs created 1,000 new jobs, but, overall, resulted in a net loss of 74,000 jobs.

Donald Trump didn’t care.

The tariff fiasco and Elon Musk’s coup-like takeover of the U.S. government (the subject of tomorrow’s Letter) are frontal assaults on the fabric, indeed the heart, of our 237-year-old Constitution. From the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion, to the civil war, to the cold war, and beyond, the Constitution has always seemed to find courageous defenders when it needed them, and America has become the most prosperous and influential country in history because of that.

What we are facing now is different. Never before has the nation been attacked so ruthlessly from within. In the coming weeks and months, the misguided MAGA cult will feel the brunt of this as services and institutions it depends on go *poof* like a fairy in the middle of the night.

One thing is clear. Donald Trump doesn’t care.

Monday evening, the White House announced a halt to all payments of federal grants, loans, and other assistance to most programs nationwide. All funding was ordered to shut down at 5:00 pm Tuesday.

After the blizzard of Executive Orders in his first week on the job, this latest Trump action proved a hair-on-fire event for many Americans from coast to coast.

On Tuesday, the White House was forced to make clear that Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Pell grants were among a few disbursements allowed to continue. Everything else must stop.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt briefed the press corps yesterday and maintained the directive complied with the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, and went further to say the White House Counsel said it was legal. Leavitt said Trump ordered the “pause” in order to make sure that all of the allocated funds were in compliance with “the President’s priorities.”

As we all know, there are three branches of government: Executive, Legislative, and Judicial. The three are supposed to function as checks and balances on each other. At least, that was the way the Founders, especially James Madison, drew the play up on the board. Madison and the other Founders gave the power of the purse to Congress.

However, Donald Trump has managed to make both Houses of Congress his personal lap dogs, and now there is no check, there is no balance, and there probably won’t be until and unless Democrats take control of the House in the 2026 Midterms.

To come to some rational conclusion about whether Donald Trump is violating the law with his impoundment of funds, it might help to know what the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 actually says.

In 1972, President Richard Nixon did what Donald Trump is trying to do now, only in a much more targeted manner. After Nixon resigned in disgrace, Congress decided it needed to put guardrails up to prevent that sort of thing from happening again. To do that, it passed, and Gerald Ford signed, the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. The Act allowed the President to transmit a “special message” to both Houses of Congress asking that Congress permanently rescind or temporarily defer funds previously allocated through congressional action and presidential approval. Specifically, the Act says:

§683. Rescission of budget authority

(a) Transmittal of special message:

Whenever the President determines that all or part of any budget authority will not be required to carry out the full objectives or scope of programs for which it is provided or that such budget authority should be rescinded for fiscal policy or other reasons (including the termination of authorized projects or activities for which budget authority has been provided), or whenever all or part of budget authority provided for only one fiscal year is to be reserved from obligation for such fiscal year, the President shall transmit to both Houses of Congress a special message specifying—

1) the amount of budget authority which he proposes to be rescinded or which is to be so reserved;

(2) any account, department, or establishment of the Government to which such budget authority is available for obligation, and the specific project or governmental functions involved;

(3) the reasons why the budget authority should be rescinded or is to be so reserved;

(4) to the maximum extent practicable, the estimated fiscal, economic, and budgetary effect of the proposed rescission or of the reservation; and

(5) all facts, circumstances, and considerations relating to or bearing upon the proposed rescission or the reservation and the decision to effect the proposed rescission or the reservation, and to the maximum extent practicable, the estimated effect of the proposed rescission or the reservation upon the objects, purposes, and programs for which the budget authority is provided.

(b) Requirement to make available for obligation:

Any amount of budget authority proposed to be rescinded or that is to be reserved as set forth in such special message shall be made available for obligation unless, within the prescribed 45-day period, the Congress has completed action on a rescission bill rescinding all or part of the amount proposed to be rescinded or that is to be reserved. Funds made available for obligation under this procedure may not be proposed for rescission again.

The 45-day period in (b), above, is the time Congress has to agree or disagree with the President’s request for a “rescission.”

Further, the next section, §684, says that instead of requesting to rescind budgetary authority, the President may also propose instead “to defer any budget authority provided for a specific purpose or project…” In that case, his proposal must meet the same requirements as his rescission request.

The current “pause” in funds dispersal was not transmitted through a “special message” from the President to Congress. It was announced in a memo to the heads of Executive Departments and Agencies from  Matthew Vaeth, Acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget, an office without any authority to do anything like this.

Five Blue states immediately sued the Administration to stop the impoundment, and late Tuesday, US District Judge Loren AliKhan, temporarily blocked the administration from enforcing the new directive. The Judge’s decision is good until next Monday when the two sides will make their cases in Judge AliKhan’s courtroom.

Trump could have used the Impoundment Act to get what he wanted quite legally. If he had simply requested that the House rescind or defer allocated funds he would have been following the law instead of kicking it aside. But that is not who or what Donald Trump is. He does not like to ask anyone for anything; he likes to just take it. In that regard, he is now testing everything and everyone to see just how far he can go before someone or something stops him. The allegedly co-equal branch of government, Congress, has yet to summon the spine to do anything like that.

Through the first nine days of Donald Trump’s second presidency, the Republican party has done the roll-over-and-play-dead act better than my four-footed companion, Lancelot the Wonder Dog, ever could.

“Everything one has a right to do is best not to be done.” — Benjamin Franklin

1763

In 1763, at the end of the Seven Years War (known in America as the French and Indian War), Great Britain had more than doubled her land in North America, had secured the whole of the Atlantic coast, and had triumphed in India and the Caribbean. However, in creating an “empire on which the sun never sets,” she had depleted her Treasury to £4 million and nearly doubled her national debt from £74 million to £133 million. Military spending as a percentage of GDP averaged 74.6%. Moreover, the Treaty of Paris that ended the war ceded Spain all land west of the Mississippi and restored to France her previously held Caribbean islands.

The British government estimated that defending her newly-won possessions would require 10,000 troops permanently stationed in America. The question became how to pay for that.

The first thought of the British government in 1763, under Prime Minister Lord Bute, was to increase taxes on British citizens to raise the necessary funds. This produced riots, especially in the West Country, and a single speech made in Parliament by the brilliant William Pitt ended those taxes on the spot and brought down the Bute government. In his speech, Pitt said:

The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail; its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storm may enter; the rain may enter; but the King of England cannot enter — all his force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement!

When  Bute was forced to resign, he was replaced by George Grenville.

Narrow minded and arrogant, but efficient and capable, as most prime ministers of the era, like Bute, were not (with the notable exception of Pitt, who had guided the country to victory in the war, but who had now retired to his country estates), Grenville decided it was only fair that the American colonists contribute to their own defense. Consequently, he introduced a series of taxes in Parliament — the Sugar Act (1764), the Currency Act (1764), and the Stamp Act (1765).

Three important points need to be made about these taxes. First, Britain imposed them on the Colonies without the Colonies having any say in the matter.  Although America had several high-ranking friends in Great Britain, it did not have a single representative in the British Parliament. This led to the famous phrase, “Taxation without representation is tyranny.”

Second, the amount of money needed to enforce these taxes far outweighed any profit ever derived from them. This was evident to the most capable British public policy experts, such as Horace Walpole and Edmund Burke, who said as much in Parliament repeatedly. It didn’t matter. Grenville went ahead with his taxes.

Parliament ramrodding the taxes down the throats of the American colonists led Benjamin Franklin to make a note in his diary, writing, “Everything one has a right to do is not best to be done.” In other words, just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should.

Third, Grenville’s taxes and the British government’s refusal to appreciate and understand their American colonist citizens, who considered themselves loyal subjects of the Crown, led to Lexington, Concord, the Declaration of Independence, and the American Revolution over the next twelve years. During those twelve years, the British never once sent a single member of the Crown’s government to America to speak with colonist leaders. British authorities did not think it necessary to the colonists, whom they considered “rabble.” Here was governmental arrogance on a massive scale.

This brings me to Donald Trump, his Executive Orders, pronouncements, and the direction in which he appears to be steering America. While he is no King George III or George Grenville, with his myopic vision of public policy, his actions could prove just as consequential as theirs.

2025

Executive Orders are directives from a president to federal agencies on how the government should manage a particular issue. Presidents are granted authority under Article II of the Constitution to issue these orders, which don’t require the input of Congress, but carry the force of law.

While many executive orders are effective immediately, they often take time and resources to implement. Congress can undercut executive orders by passing legislation that guts them— for instance by removing funding needed to carry them out — or by making them difficult to implement. Courts can declare the orders unconstitutional.

In 2017, early in the first Trump administration, things were dysfunctional and chaotic. He and those he had gathered around him were new to the job and didn’t know what they were doing — and it showed. For example, in his first five days in office Trump issued only four executive orders.

This time around, Trump and his acolytes had four years to plan, and in his first five days in office, the planning was evident. He issued 59 Executive Orders, as well as eight pronouncements not requiring Executive Orders. Some of the Executive Orders are, to use a technical term, nothingburgers. But others have struck many in the nation with abject terror.

Last week, in those first few days in office, it became apparent the blueprints being followed had been laid out in Project 2025, the document Trump disavowed repeatedly during the campaign. An analysis by TIME found that nearly two-thirds of the executive actions Trump issued in the first week of his new administration mirror or partially mirror proposals from that 923-page document, ranging from sweeping deregulation measures to brutal and heartless immigration reform to the return of Schedule F, and more.

It is ironic, that, as a convicted felon and sexual abuser, Donald Trump has the power to pardon any person charged or convicted in federal court — like the more than 1,500 January 6th insurrectionists convicted and serving time, or awaiting trial. This was the largest undertaking in Justice Department history, and last week, rather than study this group on a case-by-case basis, as he promised during his campaign, Trump, who has a famously short attention span,  just said, “Fuck it. Release ’em all,” one White House adviser told Axios. With a wave of his hand, he granted clemency to all those charged in the January 6th, 2021, assault on the Capitol, including those convicted of seditious conspiracy or assaulting police officers resulting in serious bodily damage. Trump has repeatedly called these people “hostages.” This action stunned even his supporters and cannot be undone.

Next, he ordered security protection removed from Dr. Anthony Fauci, John Bolton and Mike Pompeo despite our intelligence services asserting Iran had plotted to murder them. Why? Because they criticized him.

As President, he has the power to do all this, and more.

All of which brings us back to the Great Britain of 1763 and Benjamin Franklin.

The British gave away an entire continent with their cavalier, shortsighted, and arrogant refusal to understand and deal with their American subjects. With even a modicum of humility and outreach, the American Revolution might never have happened. But, of course, it did — and the world was changed, turned upside down.

In addition to admonishing, “Everything one has a right to do is best not to be done,” Franklin also reminded Americans the Founders had created, not a monarchy, but a Republic, and that keeping it would be a challenge.

These are certainly challenging times, and, throughout his public life, Donald Trump has never demonstrated humility and has rarely reached out to those who have dared to disagree with him. His recipe for success has been to hit first and hit hard. When he can, he does.

The ultimate questions are these: Is Donald Trump, with his cruel, callous, and narcissistic depravity, assaulting the very concept of our hard-won Republic? How will he and his chaotic shock and awe second presidency be viewed with the zoom lens of history? Is he making the same mistakes 18th-century Britain made?

Perhaps the best question is this: As he pursues his assault on democracy, will Donald Trump and his MAGA movement implode on itself as the better angels of the nation once again rise to rescue it from its worst demons?

For what it’s worth, I’m with the Angels.

Background

In Greek mythology, King Minos commissioned the architect Daedalus to design a labyrinth, or maze, in the Palace of Knossos on the island of Crete to imprison the Minotaur, a half man, half bull monster. Minos then fed his enemies to the Minotaur to get rid of them. The hero Theseus killed the Minotaur, and, having been given a spool of thread by Princess Ariadne to unravel on the way in, was able to find his way out.

This is a brief essay on the IRS, where there is no spool of thread, but most certainly a labyrinth.

The hot potato that is the IRS

In 2022, Democrats controlled the House of Representative and passed Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. The Act included $80 billion to help the I.R.S. hire thousands more employees and update its antiquated technology, which dates from the mid-to-late 1990s. There are IRS tech systems that are not just old enough to vote, they are old enough to run for Congress.

For some reason, this increased funding did not sit well with Republicans. So, when they took control of the House after the 2022 midterm elections, their first piece of legislative business was cutting that $80 billion.

The House did that, but their bill went nowhere in the Senate, controlled by Democrats. But Republicans would get a second chance.

Cutting IRS funding became a central demand of the 2023 debt ceiling negotiation that resulted in clawing back $21 billion from the IRS’s $80 billion. In addition, the debt ceiling negotiation also cost Speaker Kevin McCarthy his job for the sin of negotiating with Democrats.

A big piece of what the IRS wanted to do with the new funding was to improve customer service, making it easier to reach the agency by phone or in person. For instance, the IRS used some of the increased funding to open new Taxpayer Assistance Centers and re-open Centers that had been previously closed due to funding shortages.

Given that our nation and its government run on money and have since the days of Alexander Hamilton, it is bewildering why Republicans are so dedicated to doing away with the one government entity charged with collecting the funds needed to make everything run.

Now enters Elon Musk and the Department of Governmental Efficiency, or DOGE, which, up until now, I thought was the head of the Venetian oligarchy, elected for life by the city-state’s aristocracy. Doges ruled Venice from the 8th century through the Renaissance. Musk wants to be our own personal Doge.

Will Musk and DOGE mount a new assault on IRS funding? In that regard, the first thing the Nazi-saluting owner of X did was ask his social media subscribers. His question on X: “The IRS just said it wants $20B more money. Do you think its budget should be: Increased, Same, Decreased, Deleted?”

Well, what a surprise when 60.6% of more than 212,000 “voters” opted for “Deleted” and nearly 30% said the funding should be decreased. I must say that “deleting” the IRS is one way to make Musk’s assertion he would cut government funding by $2 trillion come true — just don’t collect any taxes.

As we have seen, Republicans not only want to prevent increased funding, they want to cut the funding already there. With that in mind, let me tell you a little story about customer service as it is now.

Welcome to the Labyrinth

The IRS needs money, a lot of it, to improve its customer service. In 2022, the the Agency processed about 165 million tax returns. If only one-half of one percent of taxpayers needed to speak with an agent about their returns, that is 825 thousand calls, or 3,173 calls per every workday. At that rate, given the IRS current staffing, wait times can last hours.

In mid-2024, I needed to speak with the IRS about the taxes my wife and I had filed in April. The issue doesn’t matter. What matters is the whackadoodle adventure of trying to reach someone, a real, live someone, at the IRS.

One can go to any number of websites, including the IRS’s, to discover the correct phone number to call. It’s 800-829-1040. Call it, and the fun begins. The Agency has created an automated phone tree system that rivals the Daedalus Labyrinth. Spend an hour — or more — trying to negotiate the twists and turns, and you’ll end up wanting to drop that high-priced smart phone down the deepest of wells.

Over a couple of months, I tried repeatedly to reach someone. My highly-talented and smart CPA couldn’t even do it. But I was following Calvin Coolidge’s dictum about persistence, so on it went. In the end, I probably would have settled for the Deputy Assistant Janitor.

It was then I discovered my own Princess Ariadne, a kind-hearted and generous CPA named Amy Northard. Northard is CEO of Accountants for Creatives, a CPA firm located in New York City. Recognizing that people like me were wandering around in the IRS phone maze of a wasteland, she decided to do some research, find some answers, and offer help — for free.

Ms. Northard discovered there were 10 steps to negotiating the IRS automated phone system, none of them intuitive, most counterintuitive. In other words, if you followed the phone prompts the automated system provides, you would be bounced around like a bee bee in a boxcar, until a computerized voice eventually said, “Thank you for calling the IRS. Goodbye.” At least it didn’t end with, “Have a nice day.”

I assiduously followed Northard’s advice, and in less than five minutes reached a helpful and apologetic Agent. IRS Agents don’t like what customers have to go through one little bit, but there is nothing they can do about it except be highly helpful when someone eventually reaches them.

Now, my issue is resolved, and it’s time to pay it forward. Here are Amy Northard’s ten steps for reach an IRS Agent.

How do you speak to a live person at the IRS?

1. The IRS telephone number is 1-800-829-1040.
2. The first question the automated system will ask you is to choose your language.
3. Once you’ve set your language, do NOT choose Option 1 (regarding refund info). Choose option 2 for “Personal Income Tax” instead.
4. Next, press 1 for “form, tax history, or payment”.
5. Next, press 3 “for all other questions.”
6. Next, press 2 “for all other questions.”
7. When the system asks you to enter your SSN or EIN to access your account information, do NOT enter anything.
8. After it asks twice, you will be prompted with another menu.
9. Press 2 for personal or individual tax questions.
10. Finally, press 3 for all other inquiries. The system should then transfer you to an agent.

Got all that? You can thank me later.

Monday, a little after Noon, Donald John Trump took the oath of office and became President of the United States for the second time. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts administered the oath. Trump becomes the third president to take the oath without placing his hand on a bible. The other two were Calvin Coolidge and Thomas Jefferson, which suggests that Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, had a secular, rather than Christian, nation in mind.

But there was Melania Trump, looking for all the world like a mortician about to pray over the dearly departed, holding not one, but two bibles, one given to Trump by his grandmother when he was a boy; the other, the Abraham Lincoln Bible. He ignored both.

Of course, if the second-time-around First Lady had been holding the God Bless the USA Bible that Trump is hawking for $59.99, she might have succeeded in getting her husband to do what most others in his situation have done.

I will not say much about Trump’s dark and scary Second Inaugural Address — 2,885 words — except to suggest it was a long redux of his First Inaugural Address, the one about American Carnage. This time around, listening to his SciFi-ish monotone describing an American Wasteland, you could be forgiven for thinking you were listening to George Orwell’s Big Brother deliver lie after lie to the citizen-slaves of Oceana. One of the highlights of the speech was when Trump, the MAGA Messiah, declared he’d been “saved by God to make America great again.”

Although Trump’s lies were legion, they were nothing compared to the two, rambling, off-the-cuff, stream-of-consciousness, devoid-of-reality, rally talks he gave later in the day to his avid fans, first downstairs in the Capital’s Emancipation Hall and later in the Capital One Arena.

All that talk would have tired anyone, but Trump’s day wasn’t finished. In his first post on Truth Social following his inauguration, written in the middle of the night, he got to work firing people, just as Project 2025 said he would.