Trump’s policies are self-serving and harmful

Trump’s policies are self-serving and harmful

Bob Sheak, May 11, 2026

Arlene Sheak edits

Here are some examples.

#1 – As U.S. Debt Hits a Worrying Milestone, Washington Barely Notices

This is the title of Tony Romm’s article, New York Times, May 7 2026

(https://nytimes.com/2026/05/07/business/us-debt-trump-policies-budget.html). Here’s some of what he writes.

“The debt is outgrowing the size of America’s economy. The president’s policies could accelerate the country’s fiscal headaches, experts say, unless policymakers intervene.

The debt problem.

Romm writes this. “The U.S. government learned last week that it may have reached an unfortunate milestone: The size of its debt surpassed the nation’s total economic output.

“It was a striking imbalance, according to early estimates, one that the country has experienced only in rare circumstances — briefly during the pandemic, and in the aftermath of World War II.”

The source of the problem.

“U.S. debt has soared in recent years because of a mismatch between federal spending and tax revenue, one complicated by a rapidly aging population, which has driven up costs across government.

The problem increases.

“For economists, the fear is that these conditions are inching the United States toward a fiscal crisis, one in which its debt is so great that the country can’t easily afford to pay the rising interest on it. But their warnings have long gone unheeded in Washington, calcifying the strains on the government’s balance sheet in ways that President Trump’s agenda is expected to exacerbate.”

Republican-controlled Congress ignores the problem

“Despite winning a congressional majority, Republicans have cut little in spending over the past year. With the few savings they did achieve, they put that money toward offsetting a fraction of the cost of Mr. Trump’s tax cuts, which are still expected to add more than $4 trillion to the debt in the coming years.”

Evidence

“Those fiscal risks aren’t yet fully realized in the total federal debt held by the public, which topped about $31.26 trillion in March, federal records show. By comparison, the nation’s nominal gross domestic product, a measure of its output using current dollars, reached $31.21 trillion in the 12-month period ending in March, according to data released last Thursday and analyzed by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which supports deficit reduction.”

The looming threat of a “debt spiral”

“Marc Goldwein, its senior vice president, said the symbolic milestone helped to illustrate the fiscal risk facing the United States. If its debt continues to grow faster than the economy, he said, it will only become more expensive for the government to borrow money, as investors demand higher yields on bonds to finance that debt.

“‘When that happens, at some point, you’re in this debt spiral,’ Mr. Goldwein said.

““The only way to stop it is through some kind of big shock to the system.’

Image

The debt will be higher at the end of this fiscal year

“…the Trump administration itself has recently estimated that the annual imbalance will still reach around $2 trillion by the end of fiscal 2026, which could mark an increase from a year earlier.

“Adding to the challenges, the U.S. government is just beginning to refund billions of dollars collected from Mr. Trump’s once-vaunted, and now illegal, global tariffs, with the first checks expected to reach businesses next week. That could further rattle the nation’s finances, just as the Trump administration simultaneously confronts the potentially towering cost of the Iran war.”

The debt will continue to grow

“In its annual report, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected in February that the government’s debt would outpace economic growth this year — and worsen in the years to follow. Pointing to a changing, aging work force, the scorekeeper estimated that U.S. debt held by the public would soar to 120 percent of gross domestic product by the end of 2036.

The effects

“If that occurred, the budget office warned, the ‘risk of a fiscal crisis’ would increase, eroding trust in the dollar and constraining the ability of lawmakers to ‘respond to unforeseen events or for other purposes, such as to promote economic activity or strengthen national defense.’”

Trump will compound the problem

“In the meantime, Republicans under Mr. Trump added to the debt, chiefly through enacting their package of tax cuts last year. William McBride, the chief economist at the Tax Foundation, which generally supports lower taxes, said that the cuts may levels of debt closer in time, maybe a few years.’

“Mr. McBride said the problem would only be compounded by Mr. Trump’s push for a massive increase in military spending, which he hopes to set at nearly $1.5 trillion starting next fiscal year. The president first indicated he would seek the boost, the largest in modern history, before declaring war on Iran — and since has suggested that the administration could seek additional money for that conflict.”

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#2 -America in Decline

In an article in The New York Times, Christopher Caldwell posits that “America Is Officially an Empire in Decline” (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/03/opinion/oran-us-empire.html).

Mr. Caldwell is a contributing Opinion writer for the paper and the author of “The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties.”

Caldwell makes his basic point as follows.

“The American-Israeli attack on Iran was more than a bad idea; it has turned into a watershed in the decline of the American empire. Some might prefer the word ‘hegemony’ to describe the world order the United States leads, since its flag does not generally fly over the lands it protects or exploits. But the rules are the same: Imperial systems, whatever you call them, last only as long as their means are adequate to their ends. And with the Iran war, President Trump has overextended the empire dangerously.”

“The assumption in Washington over the past decade has been that the world is engaged in a game of geostrategic musical chairs and the music is about to stop. China may soon overmatch us not just in military-industrial capacity but also in information technology. The world will harden into a new, less favorable geostrategic configuration. This is the last moment to reshape it in America’s favor.”

The war on Iran demonstrates this. Caldwell writes, “That is because the United States lacks the military means to impose its will on Iran in a long conflict.” Its missiles and other weapons “are needed to defend allies and interests in other theaters, and the United States is depleting them. According to reporting in The Times, it has already used 1,100 of its long-range stealth cruise missiles, earmarked for potential conflicts in Asia, leaving just 1,500 in the stockpile, and fired an additional 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles, about 10 times as many as the military buys in an average year. American leaders have been scolding their European allies for years about the inadequacy of their fighting forces. But if one measures America’s military might against our pretensions rather than our G.D.P., it is just as inadequate.

Caldwell notes the U.S. has options, but it will “pay a very steep price, no matter which of them it chooses. It can desist in Iran — having demonstrated, for no good reason, that its military is far less dominant than the world had assumed. Or it can draw resources from theaters that are of vital national interest, such as Europe and East Asia, to fund what the president refers to as his Iranian ‘excursion.’ Or it can resort to the extreme military options Mr. Trump darkly alluded to in social media posts starting in early April, which will redound to the everlasting shame of the country he leads.

The United States stands to lose its reputation, its friends or its soul in this war of choice.

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#3 – As Trump’s Poll Numbers Fall, His Authoritarian Instincts Grow More Extreme

Sasha Abramsky, The Nation, April 1, 2026

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-authoritarianism-polls

Sasha Abramsky is the author of several books, including The American Way of Poverty, The House of Twenty Thousand Books, Little Wonder: The Fabulous Story of Lottie Dod, the World’s First Female Sports Superstar, and Chaos Comes Calling: The Battle Against the Far-Right Takeover of Small-Town America. His latest book is American Carnage: How Trump, Musk, and DOGE Butchered the US Government.

Increasingly unpopular and facing a fracturing coalition, Trump is using government power to punish his critics, take political revenge, and revel in his own cruelty.

“Even as President Donald Trump’s hold over the electorate wanes, his administration’s naked authoritarian tendencies intensify. If you can tell a man’s mettle by how he behaves under pressure, Trump—mired in a ludicrous standoff of his own making with Iran and cratering in the polls—is putting on a display of raw narcissism and petty cruelty unparalleled among modern democracies.

Abramsky writes: “When Robert Mueller died in March, Trump went onto social media to post a note explaining that he was glad that Mueller was dead. This was after he had declared that the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife by their mentally ill son was a result of ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome.’ Yet, when late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel made a mildly off-color joke about Melania Trump looking like an “expectant widow”—this was before the shooting and possible assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner—Trump responded first by demanding, again, that ABC fire Kimmel and then by siccing Brendan Carr’s pliant FCC onto the broadcaster, initiating an unprecedented review of many of the network’s local licenses.”

Abramsky points out, “The FCC has argued that the scrutiny being accorded ABC licenses is solely to do with an investigation into its diversity policies (since, clearly, according to the white supremacist mores of the administration any efforts to present a diverse face to US viewers are somehow, inherently, illegitimate). Yet the timing of this makes it all too clear that in reality it is spiteful, vengeance politics, designed to pressure ABC into ditching Kimmel.

“In all likelihood, the efforts to pull ABC affiliates from the air will go nowhere; after all, the broadcaster’s parent company, Disney, has pretty deep pockets, and its lawyers aren’t going to let the company go quietly into the night. But the mere fact that the Trump administration is attempting to pull this trick shows just how far from democratic norms it has strayed and just how much it is willing to lean into the playbook used to such great effect over the past two decades by authoritarian leaders such as Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán, and Tayyip Erdoğan.”

“Now, any wrap-up of the week’s authoritarian bilge would be remiss in neglecting to mention the extraordinary State Department decision this week to issue a limited number of Trump-embossed US passports to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding. Let me emphasize how abnormal this is. Not a single other country on earth—not North Korea, not Iran, not Putin’s Russia, not Xi Jinping’s China—etches its current leader’s image onto its passports.”

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#4 – Economist: Don’t Listen to Hegseth, Trump’s Iran War Will Cost ‘Very Possibly Trillions’

Jessica Corbett refers to sources that offer this viewpoint, May 8, 2026

(https://www.commondreams.org/news/cost-of-iran-war). Here are excerpts.

“University of Michigan professor Justin Wolfers on Friday joined a growing number of economists and other critics casting down on what he called ‘the Pentagon’s lowball $25 billion estimate’ for the cost of President Donald Trump’s illegal war on Iran.”

Trump’s cabinet officials vastly underestimate the cost of this war.

Corbett writes, “While testifying before Congress last week alongside US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Pentagon comptroller Jules ‘Jay’ Hurst offered the $25 billion figure. However, experts have responded with raised eyebrows. Stephen Semler, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, estimated that the government spent at least $71.8 billion during the first two months of the war, or around $1.2 billion each day.

Although Trump told Congress last Friday—a key deadline under the War Powers Act—that his assault on Iran had been ‘terminated,’ citing the ceasefire deal reached a month ago after his genocidal threat, the administration has maintained its naval blockade and on Thursday bombed what it claimed were ‘Iranian military facilities responsible for attacking US forces.’

“As the threat of more US bombings of Iran loomed, Wolfers wrote Friday in a New York Times opinion piece that ‘the Pentagon’s stated number reflects only a narrow accounting of the tab that Operation Epic Fury is running up. It’s the price of the more than 2,000 Tomahawk and Patriot missiles already fired, the warplanes already flown and in some cases lost, and the rest of the gear already chewed through. It does not measure the true cost of the war—including the human toll.’”

Corbett continues citing Wolfers.

“‘Since the start of the war, oil markets have been disrupted, consumer confidence has cratered, the global economy is groaning, and military budgets are growing,’ the economist continued. ‘The toll from this upheaval must be counted in lives disrupted, jobs lost, companies shut down (see: Spirit Airlines), and the income and output sacrificed. The less easily quantified costs—death, disability, and mental health—could become much more dramatic should President Trump send troops into Iran, which still can’t be ruled out.’”

The US and Israel have not achieved any of their objectives in the Iran War.

“The US and Israel said they wanted to eradicate Iran’s nuclear program and change its regime. The regime is now composed of more hard-liners than before, and Iran’s nuclear capability has not budged since last summer. Now the two sides are negotiating the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, which was open before the conflict, and the terms of Iran’s nuclear program, which they were negotiating before the conflict. Moreover, the compromise being contemplated involves Iran pausing uranium enrichment in exchange for the US lifting sanctions and unfreezing Iranian funds. That sounds suspiciously like the deal President Obama struck in 2015 that Trump ripped up when he took office….”

The US war has done harm to Iran and also the US.

“All this war has done is killed thousands of people, opened a new front for Israel in Lebanon, damaged most US military sites and most energy production facilities in the region, led to oil spills that are visible from space, created a shipping bottleneck that will take at least a year to fix, raised domestic gas prices to a record for this time of year, cost American consumers $34.3 billion and counting, ended the life of one US airline with more likely to come, and led us down an imminent path to physical shortages of critical commodities like oil, including in the United States.

There is no end in sight.

Corbett continues. “The Washington Post reported Thursday that the Central Intelligence Agency has privately warned the Trump administration that ‘Iran can survive the US naval blockade for at least three to four months before facing more severe economic hardship,’ and its ‘analysis might even be underestimating Iran’s economic resilience if Tehran is able to smuggle oil via overland routes.’”

A global recession?

“The reporting heightened concerns,” Corbett writes, “about how long the war may drag on. The International Monetary Fund warned last month that a prolonged conflict could cause a global recession.”

Wolfers estimates “based on the movement of oil prices, along with the S&P 500—is that stocks are about 5% lower than they otherwise would be, suggesting that the war has wiped about $3 trillion off the value of these companies.”

Trump wants a huge increase in military spending

“Shortly after launching the war in February, the White House signaled it would need $200 billion for the operation. However, it is now seeking a $1.5 trillion defense budget for the next fiscal year—which Hegseth tried to frame as a fiscally responsible plan that puts ‘the American taxpayer first’ in a widely ridiculed video this week. Wolfers highlighted that the budget request is ‘a roughly 40% boost over this year. That’s a massive $600 billion increase, or roughly $4,000 per household.’”

Military costs will exceed what Trump anticipates

“‘The best any economist can do right now is get the order of magnitude right, and my math suggests the Iran war will cost hundreds of billions of dollars, and very possibly trillions,’ Wolfers concluded.” Current estimates from the Trump administration also do not figure in ‘lifetime medical care and disability benefits for veterans, and the higher recruitment and retention costs that follow a bloody war—all compounded by a rising interest bill.’”

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#5 – Trump Administration Covering Up “Extensive” Damage Done to US Bases by Iran

Sharon Zhang reports on this cover up for Truthout, Published, April 27, 2026

(https://truthout.org/articles/trump-administration-covering-up-extensive-damage-done-to-us-bases-by-iran).

“In their initial retaliatory strikes of the war, Iranian forces caused far more extensive damage to U.S. military assets than Trump administration officials have admitted to in public and private, new reporting finds as Germany’s chancellor says the U.S. is being ‘humiliated’ by Iran.

“In these strikes, Iran hit over 100 targets across 11 U.S. bases in the Middle East, striking ‘warehouses, command headquarters, aircraft hangars, satellite communications infrastructure, runways, high-end radar systems and dozens of aircraft,’ according to reporting by NBC, citing an analysis by conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

Zhang continues, “These strikes caused damage that will cost billions of dollars to repair, the publication found, citing U.S. officials, congressional aides, and another person familiar with the damage. The reporting corroborates earlier findings that many of the U.S.’s 13 bases in the region have been rendered ‘all but uninhabitable’ due to strikes.

Bottom of Form

“In all,” Zhang writes, “the damage is far worse than Trump administration officials have acknowledged both in public and in private briefings with Congress, aides told NBC. The Pentagon is not even disclosing the extent of the damage or estimated costs of repairs to members of Congress, the aides said.

“No one knows anything. And it’s not for lack of asking,” one congressional GOP aide said. “We have been asking for weeks and not getting specifics, even as the Pentagon is asking for a record-high budget.”

Zhang: “Officials told NBC that the Trump administration is still gearing up to request over $100 billion — on top of its record-shattering $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget ask — in supplemental funding for the war, despite some of the more expensive aspects of the war, like airstrikes, having come to a standstill in recent weeks.

The Trump administration is attempting to withhold information on the costs of the war.

“Meanwhile,” Zhang continues, “multiple private satellite imagery companies are withholding imagery of the region at the request of the U.S. government.

“Officials are also reportedly withholding U.S. casualty numbers. The Intercept has reported that the Pentagon’s casualty counts keep shifting, and that last week officials actually dropped the total number of casualties from 428 to 413, without explanation. One U.S. government official said the Pentagon’s practices are the ‘definition of a cover-up.’”

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#6 – An Almost Unthinkable Threat’: Trump Warning That Iran Will ‘Glow’ Sparks Latest Fears of Nuclear Attack

Stephen Prager reports on Trump’s seeming allusion to the use of nuclear weapons in his Iran War, May 8, 2026 (https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-make-iran-glow).

Prager writes, “As he struggles to force Iran’s capitulation, US President Donald Trump issued what seemed to be yet another threat to commit an act of mass destruction against the country through nuclear warfare.

“When negotiations have faltered in recent weeks, Trump has on multiple occasions defaulted to genocidal threats—including that the ‘whole nation of Iran’ would ‘die,’ and that the whole country would be ‘blown up’—which have only seemed to anger and galvanize his Iranian adversaries rather than make them quake with fear.”

“On Thursday, the US launched what it said were ‘self-defense’ strikes on military facilities it claimed were responsible for attempting to attack three US Navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran called the attacks a violation of the ceasefire and said its attacks on US ships were in response to American bombings of Iranian oil tankers the previous day.

“Trump told reporters on Thursday that if the ceasefire were truly over, everyone would know. ‘If there’s no ceasefire, you’re just going to have to look at one big glow coming out of Iran,’ he said. ‘They’d better sign the agreement fast… If they don’t sign, they’re going to have a lot of pain.’”

“Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, the editor-in-chief of Responsible Statecraft, noted that if it were indeed a nuclear threat, it would be ‘ironic since the war today supposedly is to prevent Iran from getting… a nuclear weapon.’

“The National Iranian-American Council (NIAC) said that ‘threatening to make Iran glow—with nuclear weapons or otherwise—is an almost unthinkable threat to commit a mass war crime against 92 million people. It must never be normalized.’

“Trump’s pledge to wipe out Iranian civilization last month drew widespread condemnation and led dozens of Democratic members of Congress to call for his Cabinet to remove him from office using the powers of the 25th Amendment.”

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#7 – Sunlight Doesn’t Go Through the Strait of Hormuz: Bill McKibben on Iran Oil Shock & Green Transition, interviews on Democracy Now (https://www.democracynow.org/2026/4/30/climate_change_super_el_nino_amoc).

Bill McKibben. as a guest on Democracy Now, sees a good thing coming out of
Trump’s war on Iran, namely that some countries are moving away from fossil fuels to renewables. He has published many books and is a co-founder of 350.org and founder of Third Act.

The title of this episode it “Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization”

Here it most of the Transcript of the interview.

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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to climate change. Last month was the warmest March on record in over 130 years in the United States, and average rainfall across the country is at a record low so far this year. The dry conditions are fueling wildfires across Georgia and Florida ahead of what is expected to be a very hot summer. And now the WMO, the World Meteorological Organization, is predicting a likely super El Niño weather pattern to begin later this year through 2027, further driving up average global temperatures.

Meanwhile, new research has found that a major ocean circulatory system in the Atlantic, known as AMOC, is in danger of weakening to the point of collapse faster and sooner than previously thought. The AMOC system, which includes the Gulf Stream, helps distribute heat around the planet. Its collapse could have catastrophic consequences. Scientists are now concerned the tipping point could be reached as early as the middle of this century.

But despite overwhelming scientific consensus, the United States, the world’s largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases, is moving away from taking the threat seriously. This is President Trump earlier this month at a [Turning] Point USA rally in Phoenix.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The green new scam, one of the greatest scams in history. Remember, climate change, global warming, all of this. They actually had global warming, remember. Then that wasn’t working, because we were actually cooling as a planet. … And then they just said climate change, because climate change takes care of heat, snow, whatever you have.

AMY GOODMAN: That was President Trump speaking at Turning Point. Despite this, the energy crisis caused by the war in Iran is underscoring the economic and security benefits of transitioning away from fossil fuels and towards renewable alternatives.

For more on all of this, we’re joined by climate activist and author Bill McKibben. His recent article in The New Yorker magazine is headlined “The Iran War Is Another Reason to Quit Oil.” Bill McKibben is co-founder of 350.org and Third Act, joining us here in our New York studio.

Welcome back, Bill, to Democracy Now! If you can talk about what the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran means for the climate?

BILL McKIBBEN: Well, what it meant, what it means for energy policy is that everyone around the world can suddenly see the utter folly of relying on a fuel that not only is destroying the planet’s climate, but also that can be bottled up behind a 20-mile-long waterway. I mean, sunlight has to travel 93 million miles to reach the Earth, but none of those miles go through the Strait of Hormuz. That makes it a very appealing alternative, especially now that it’s cheaper than burning coal and gas and oil. So, the movement in the last month has been pretty remarkable around much of the world in the direction of what we used to call alternative energy. The only place that’s not happening, of course, is here at home.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And could you explain? I mean, first of all, the U.S. now produces the most oil in the world. So, how does that play into this?

BILL McKIBBEN: Well, Pete Hegseth said the other day that there were tankers lining up outside the Texas ship channel to get good old American crude. It’s true that in the short run, this will probably be a bonus for the big American oil companies, whose profits are through the roof, and who, by the way, should be paying a serious windfall profits tax in any serious government. But over the slightly longer term, what we’re seeing is demand destruction around the planet.

Look, the forecast for how American oil companies were going to stay rich and prosperous for the next couple of decades pretty much depended on everybody in Asia deciding they were going to drive gasoline-powered pickup trucks. That’s not what’s happening. Instead, people are crowding into the showrooms of companies like BYD, the Chinese EV giant, because they don’t want to pay. I mean, we’re paying $4 and $5 for gas. It’s much higher in much of Asia, which is, you know, where this story will be decided.

Would that we were doing all this for climate reasons. I mean, we’re meeting right now, or just finished this big meeting in Santa Marta in Colombia, with many nations trying to work towards a fossil fuel phaseout on climate grounds. That isn’t happening anywhere near fast enough. A bigger catalyst at the moment is the clear geopolitical imperative to get off fossil fuel while you can.

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about where you’re seeing this around the world. As you say, in fact, countries are running to this, as the U.S. administration is running away from this.

BILL McKIBBEN: The president of South Korea said the other day that he wasn’t able to sleep at night, trying to figure out where they were going to find energy supplies. The place they’re going to find them, he said, is homegrown energy. Indonesia, which is going to be one of the most important powers in the world, announced, within days of the start of hostilities, that they were going to put 100 gigawatts’ worth of solar on their grid in the next few years. Everybody’s figuring out that it is ludicrous to be exposed any more than you have to to the completely volatile and undependable supply of fossil fuel, when, you know, the sun rises pretty much every morning.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And if you could explain, to your point — you know, the argument here is that, you know, renewables are too expensive, they take too long. But China, meanwhile, has built so much clean energy very, very quickly, it’s a world leader in clean energy investment, installation and manufacturing. How did that happen?

BILL McKIBBEN: Well, the Chinese decided that this was going to be the strategic imperative, and so they got to work. And they’ve driven the price down so far that this is by far the — we live on a planet where the cheapest way, Nermeen, to produce energy is to point a sheet of glass at the sun. That’s been true now for three or four years. And it’s showing up in the fact that 95% of new electric generation around the planet last year came from the sun and the wind.

Now, the U.S. is the exception to that. Even here, though, we’re seeing continued investment in this stuff, just because of economics. The state where it’s growing the fastest is that radical progressive hub, Texas. And at Third Act, we’ve been having lots of luck this spring in state legislatures around the country, getting them to approve this so-called balcony solar, or plug-in solar, that’s the very easiest, cheapest way for apartment dwellers and others to get in on this burgeoning revolution.

AMY GOODMAN: Bill, we just have two minutes, and I want to get to the El Niño and the possible collapse of this AMOC, the Atlantic Ocean circulation system, what this means.

BILL McKIBBEN: Nothing good. When I wrote The End of Nature 40 years ago, this was one of the things that we were talking about as a possible result of climate change. As you melt, as fresh water pours off a melting Greenland, it changes the salinity, and hence the density, of sea water in the North Atlantic. That density drives this giant heat distribution engine, the biggest on the planet. If it collapses, as the chief scientist on this work now said is at least a 50% possibility this century, then it’s a civilizational-scale event. Temperatures plummet across Western Europe. Sea levels rise sharply and quickly along the eastern U.S. But, basically, this — basically, we add, I don’t know, 30 or 40 parts per million CO2 almost immediately to the atmosphere, as CO2 leaves the ocean. These are the kind of things that they make science fiction thrillers about. It would be the biggest tool that we have right now to do that is the very rapid deployment of clean energy.

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Concluding thoughts

Trump and his administration are taking to country into a steep decline, with their right-wing policies that benefit the rich and powerful, along with Trump and his family, greatly. At the same time, they are advancing policies that will continue doing harm to most Americans. Trump pursues vanity projects while all this is taking place. He calls for massive increases in military spending, ostensibly for the continuation of the current war and to rely on force or the threat of force in his international relations. Under Trump, the US is no longer recognized as a reliable ally and is in the process is undermining long-standing alliances. And, to top it off, he is increasing the country’s debt and undermining the nation’s future.

The Climate Catastrophe advances and may be unstoppable. Trump’s policies contribute to the dire trend

Bob Sheak, April 19, 2026

Arlene Sheak edits

Introduction

In this article I offer an update of evidence on the accelerating climate crisis. We may be at a point where the crisis will continue to advance, as it has, and cause ever-more destruction and death across the planet. It is an existential threat to humanity.

It would take far more effort by nations, especially those in the West and China, to end dependence on fossil fuels and the accompanying torrent of carbon emissions they produce. This appears to be increasingly unlikely, but the only recourse.

Every Key Climate Indicator is Flashing Red

Julia Conley reports on March 23, 2026, on the absence of effective action in the U.S. and across the globe to slow down the climate crisis (https://www.commondreams.org/news/un-report-climate). She writes that “every key climate indicator is flashing red,” referencing the annual State of Global Climate report by the United Nation’s meteorological agency, The World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO). Here’s some of what she reports.

“The annual State of the Global Climate report by the United Nations’ top meteorological agency was released Monday, marking the first time the authors of the report have included the Earth’s energy imbalance as a key indicator of the climate emergency.

“The World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) inclusion of the imbalance only provides more evidence of what scientists have been warning for decades: The continued extraction of fossil fuels is causing heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide and methane to build up in the atmosphere and is causing planetary heating, which is leading to extreme weather including wildfires, drought, and severe hurricanes and cyclones.

“The State of the Global Climate report explains that in a stable climate, incoming solar energy is roughly equal to the amount of energy leaving the Earth.

“But with greenhouse gases at their highest level in the atmosphere in at least 800,000 years, that equilibrium has been thrown off, and the energy imbalance—which has increased steadily over the past two decades—is at its highest since the observational record began in 1960.”

“Last year was the second- or third-hottest year on record, depending on the data set, owing to La Niña conditions that temporarily cooled the planet. Earth was about 1.43°C warmer than the pre-industrial average, and 2024—when hotter El Niño conditions were in effect—remains the hottest year with global temperatures averaging 1.55°C above pre-industrial levels.”

“Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump—whose country is the largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases—has taken steps to weaken the world’s ability to respond to the climate emergency, withdrawing from dozens of climate- and energy-related international treaties and slashing climate research and emergency response spending.

“Trump has also pushed for more fossil fuel emissions—investing in the expensive, pollution-causing coal industry; demanding that the Pentagon obtain energy from coal plants; and mandating oil and gas lease sales.”

World Meteorological Organization: Last 10 Years Have Been the Hottest on Record

Eloise Goldsmith reports on this for Common Dreams, March 19, 2025

(https://truthout.org/articles/world-meteorological-organization-last-10-years-have-been-the-hottest-on-record).

A WMO [World Meteorological Organization] report also found that 2024 was the warmest year in a 175-year observational period.

“A report released by the World Meteorological Organization on Tuesday found that not only was 2024 the warmest year in a 175-year observational period, reaching a global surface temperature of roughly 1.55°C above the preindustrial average for the first time, but each of the past 10 years were also individually the 10 warmest on record.

“‘That’s never happened before,’ Chris Hewitt, the director of the WMO’s climate services division, of the clustering of the 10 warmest years all in the most recent decade, told The New York Times.”

World on track for catastrophic 3 degrees Celsius warming, UN warns

Zia Weise and Lucia Mackenzie also consider evidence that documents the rise in global warming, Oct 24, 2024 (https://politico.eu/article/united-nations-emissions-gap-global-warming-data-climate-change-report).

“Current plans and policies will lead to 2.6 to 3.1 degrees Celsius of global warming this century, with zero chance of limiting the temperature increase to the totemic 1.5C target agreed in Paris in 2015, according to a new report out Thursday.

“In fact, existing measures are falling so far short of what’s needed that the world even risks blowing past 2C, the Paris accord’s upper limit, the U.N. warned.

“The severity and frequency of dangerous heat waves, destructive storms and other disasters rise with every fraction of warming. At 3C, scientists say, the world could pass several points of no return that would dramatically alter the planet’s climate and increase sea levels, such as due to the collapse of polar ice caps.”

“In general, the G20 — which comprises industrialized countries such as the EU and U.S. as well as Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia — were responsible for 77 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2023.

In stark contrast, all 55 African Union countries accounted for just 6 percent.”

2025 Ranked as One of World’s Hottest Years Due to Human-Made Climate Crisis

Chris Walker , Truthout, Dec 30, 2025 (https://truthout.org/articles/2025-ranked-as-one-of-worlds-hottest-years-due-to-human-made-climate-crisis). Chris Walker is a news writer at Truthout, and is based out of Madison, Wisconsin. Focusing on both national and local topics since the early 2000s, he has produced thousands of articles analyzing the issues of the day and their impact on the American people. He can be found on most social media platforms under the handle @thatchriswalker.

“Climate change made 2025 heat waves 10 times more likely, a new report finds.

“A new analysis of the world’s climate in 2025 finds that this year was one of the three hottest ever recorded, demonstrating that the threat posed by the human-made climate crisis is not going away anytime soon.

“The analysis by World Weather Attribution (WWA), an organization that examines the likelihood that the climate crisis played a role in severe weather events, also shows that, over the past three years, the world has exceeded the 1.5 degrees Celsius global increase limit outlined in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

“Bottom of Form

Overall, the WWA report published on Tuesday documented 157 extreme weather events throughout 2025, defined as an event that either causes more than 100 deaths in a given area, detrimentally affects more than half that area’s population, or results in a state of emergency being declared.”

Friederike Otto, a co-founder of WWA and a professor of climate science at the Imperial College of London, said the climate crisis and humanity’s role in exacerbating it could not be debated.

“‘Each year, the risks of climate change become less hypothetical and more brutal reality,’ Otto said.

“‘The heat waves we have observed this year are quite common events in our climate today, but they would have been almost impossible to occur without human-induced climate change,’ Otto explained.

“WWA called for rapid and deep reductions in the use of fossil fuels, stating that extreme weather will continue to intensify without immediate changes.

“Globally, the world isn’t doing enough to slow, let alone reverse, the trend. China, for example, is investing in renewable energy sources, but also still heavily invests in coal. And in the U.S., the Trump administration is ending once-planned renewable energy projects in favor of fossil fuels.”

“‘A lot of policymakers [are] very clearly making policies for the interest of the fossil fuel industry rather than for the populations of their countries,’ Otto opined.”

New Climate Reports Show ‘Unprecedented Run of Global Heat’

Bob Berwyn, Inside Climate News, Jan 13, 2026 (https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13012026/multiple-reports-show-2025-extreme-global-heat)….

“Data from multiple international agencies shows the reality of a rapidly warming world.

“Several annual international climate reports released Tuesday indicate that relentless human-caused warming continued in 2025, especially in the oceans and at the poles.

“For the third year in a row, Earth’s average temperature ran close to 1.5 degrees Celsius hotter than the climate that sustained human civilizations as the 20th century began, before fossil-fuel pollution started damaging the atmosphere.

“Avoiding more than that level of warming is also the key long-term temperature goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement. Research shows that warming by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the baseline will spell the end of nearly all global glaciers and coral reefs and mark a dangerous red zone for damage and destruction of ecosystems, food supplies, human health and infrastructure.”

The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service report released Tuesday ranked 2025 as the third-warmest year on record, just a hair cooler than 2023 and within striking distance of 2024, the hottest year on record. Together, the past three years have averaged more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures, the first time any three-year stretch has crossed that threshold.

“‘Emissions simply haven’t come down as fast as people believed they would,’ Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus, said when asked about crossing the Paris Agreement limit so soon.

“‘And the extreme temperatures of 2023, 2024 and 2025 will be seen as cooler than average in just a few years, Burgess said, warning that continued fossil-fuel emissions are rapidly resetting what the world considers normal.”

“‘By far and away, the high global temperatures of the last three years have been due to the record amount of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere,’ Burgess said. Other factors can have regional impacts, such as reductions in industrial and shipping pollution that reflect heat away from Earth, especially over oceans, and can also nudge the global average by about 0.1 degrees Celsius.

“Major climate monitoring centers around the world are releasing their annual assessments in coordinated fashion Tuesday and into early Wednesday, including the World Meteorological Organization, NASA and the United Kingdom’s Met Office.

“The reports’ exact global temperature figures differ by a few tenths of a degree, reflecting slightly different datasets and analytical methods, but they all point in the same direction: Global warming is accelerating, driven overwhelmingly by human emissions.”

“‘We’re all very consistent in the near term, because our planet is better observed than it has ever been,’ said Burgess.”

“A separate analysis released last week by Climate Central quantifies the damage caused by climate extremes in the United States. The group found that the country experienced 23 weather and climate disasters in 2025, from destructive storms and floods to heat-driven wildfires, that each caused at least $1 billion in damage, totaling about $115 billion in losses.”

“Climate Central is a nonprofit organization of scientists and journalists that researches and communicates climate science and impacts. After the Trump administration cut NOAA’s billion-dollar disaster database, the group revived it to keep long-term loss tracking publicly available using the same scientific methods.

“In addition to the disaster database, the Trump administration last year reduced weather balloon launches, said it would shut down the National Center for Atmospheric Research and cut thousands of positions at science-focused agencies. Experts warn that weakening or sidelining science leaves communities more vulnerable.

“Several groups of former federal scientists are working outside the government to ensure critical information continues to flow. The American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union are teaming up to publish a series of peer-reviewed papers to help fill the gap left by the discontinuation of the National Climate Assessment. Other former federal officials are building Climate.us as a replacement for a federal website that the Trump administration shut down last year.”

“For the contiguous U.S., 2025 was the fourth-warmest year on record, according to the annual State of the Climate report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, also published Tuesday. The NOAA report highlights that heat was concentrated in the West, with Nevada and Utah recording their warmest years in the 134-year record. As part of that report, the U.S. Climate Extremes Index ranked 2025 as the 12th-highest on record, particularly for maximum and minimum temperatures and for dry conditions.”

Arctic sea ice hits lowest winter level as unprecedented heat smashes records all over Earth

NBC News March 27, 2026 (https://www.nbcnews.com/science/climate-change-artic-sea-hits-lowest-winter-level-unprecedented-heat-records-rcna265501).

“The sea ice is crucial to Earth’s climate because without it reflecting sunlight, more heat energy goes into the oceans. Ice of all kinds around the poles acts as Earth’s refrigerator.

“Vital Arctic sea ice shrank to tie its lowest measured level for the winter, the season when ice grows, as a warming Earth shattered records across the continents.”

“The shrinking Arctic sea ice was announced Thursday as temperatures broke March heat records across the United States, all over Mexico, in Australia, across Northern Africa and through parts of Northern Europe. Climatologist and weather historian Maximiliano Herrera, who tracks extreme temperatures, called the extreme March temperatures ‘by far the most extreme heat event in world climatic history’ and said on social media that the next few days would be ‘much worse.’

“Sixteen states broke March temperature records in the past week or so, said weather historian Christ Burt. Twenty-seven locations had temperatures in the past week high enough to tie or surpass the hottest April day on record, including St. Louis, meteorologists said. Mexico has had thousands of records shattered, some of them warmer than the hottest May temperatures, but that’s nothing compared with what’s happening in Asia, where “dozens of thousands of monthly records” were smashed by 30 to 35 degrees (17 to 19 degrees Celsius) margins, Herrera said.

Steady decline of sea ice

“This year’s sea ice area was about 525,000 square miles (1.36 million square kilometers) lower than the 1981 to 2010 winter average peak. That’s about twice the size of Texas.

Americans Are Concerned About Climate Change—but They Should Be Afraid

Mark Hertsgaard makes this point in The Nation, July 17 2025

(https://thenation.com/article/environment/covering-climate-now-americans-afraid).

Mark Hertsgaard is the environment correspondent of The Nation and the executive director of the global media collaboration Covering Climate Now. His new book is Big Red’s Mercy: The Shooting of Deborah Cotton and A Story of Race in America.

Americans still don’t comprehend how imminent, dangerous, and far-reaching the threat is—and journalists are partly to blame.

“Anthony Leiserowitz, the executive director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, said Yale’s latest survey found that only 29 percent of Americans are ‘very worried’ about climate change—a remarkably low number, considering that climate change is already killing people and devastating communities around the world and threatens much worse if left unchecked.

“‘I constantly make the point that only 29 percent are very worried, when it should be 100 percent,’ Leiserowitz told Covering Climate Now. ‘This reflects [climate change’s] lack of salience for most Americans. There are many who are not deniers, but do not adequately understand the risks, that the impacts are here and now, and the urgency of action.’”

“In the United States, the percentage of people supporting stronger climate action is 74 percent. Why, then, are significantly smaller percentages ‘greatly worried’ about climate change?

“‘There’s a big difference between general support for stronger climate action and prioritizing climate action,’ Leiserowitz said. He invoked a concept from political science, the issue public, defined as ‘a relatively small proportion of the general public that is both passionate about an issue and directly engaged in taking political and personal action.’ He added, ‘While it’s important to have a large majority of the public supporting action (e.g., 89 percent), most issues also need an organized, powerful ‘issue public’ that is loudly demanding policy change and implementing personal change.’”

“The fact that less than half of the public is ‘greatly worried’ about climate change shows that most Americans still don’t comprehend how imminent, dangerous, and far-reaching the threat is. There is a ‘critical need for better climate communications,’ Leiserowitz said, ‘especially quality media reporting.’”

Trump to World: Green Energy Is a Scam and Climate Science Is From ‘Stupid People’

Somini Sengupta and Lisa Friedman quote Trump in this, New York Times, Sept 23, 2025, article (https://nytimes.com/2025/09/23/climate/trump-climate-energy-united-nations-unga.html).

“President Trump went on a rant against climate change at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, calling it the ‘greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world’ and saying that the scientific consensus on global warming was created by ‘stupid people.’ He also berated countries, including close allies of the United States, for adopting renewable energy.

“It added up to an extraordinary diatribe that ignored the human suffering exacted by the heat waves, wildfires and deadly floods that are aggravated by the burning of fossil fuels and, at the same time, stood at odds with the rapid expansion of renewable energy all over the world.”

“‘Trump continues to embarrass the U.S. on the global stage and undermine the interests of Americans at home,’ Gina McCarthy, who served as the United States climate policy director in the Biden administration, said in a statement. ‘He’s rejecting our government’s responsibility to protect Americans from the increasingly intense and frequent disasters linked to climate change that unleash havoc on our country.’”

“On his first day in office, Mr. Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement, a voluntary pact among nearly 200 nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is the only country to have done so. His administration also has thwarted renewable energy projects, stripped federal incentives for wind and solar power and removed climate-science data from government websites. It has also commissioned a report downplaying the consequences of climate change.”

“The United States is already the world’s leading exporter of natural gas and the biggest producer of oil, and the Trump administration is encouraging new development. Mr. Trump has also signed executive orders to expand the burning and mining of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel.”

“He referred to global warming as ‘the greatest con job ever perpetrated’ and upbraided world leaders for sticking to an international agreement to limit global temperature rise and transition away from fossil fuels. The moment was all the more remarkable because the United States is responsible for the largest share of global emissions since the Industrial Revolution.”

“Jennifer Morgan, who has served as Germany’s climate change envoy, said European countries saw clean energy as a way to ensure their energy security and to expand their economies. To build a strong Europe, she said, it is necessary to ‘tackle climate change to avoid people having to leave their homes.’”

Trump orders USDA to take down websites referencing climate crisis

Gabrielle Canon, The Guardian, Jan 31, 2025 (https://theguardian.com/2025/jan/31/trump-orders-usda-websites-climate-crisis).

“On Thursday, the Trump administration ordered the US agriculture department to take down its websites documenting or referencing the climate crisis.

“By Friday, the leading pages on the United States Forest Service website for key resources, research and adaptation tools – including those that provide vital context and vulnerability assessments for wildfires – had gone dark, leaving behind an error message or just a single line: “You are not authorized to access this page.”

“The government website was one of many that were affected on Friday by new directives from the Trump administration on what information federal agencies can publish.”

The changes at the Forest Service website followed a directive issued by the United States Department of Agriculture’s office of communications. In the memo, which was reviewed by the Guardian, officials instructed website managers across the agency to ‘identify and archive or unpublish any landing pages focused on climate change.”

Trump Administration Erases the Government’s Power to Fight Climate Change

Lisa Friedman considers this issue in the New York Times

(https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/climate/trump-epa-greenhouse-gases-climate-change.html).

“The Environmental Protection Agency rejected the bedrock scientific finding that greenhouse gases threaten human life and wellbeing. It means the agency can no longer regulate them.

“President Trump on Thursday announced he was erasing the scientific finding that climate change endangers human health and the environment, ending the federal government’s legal authority to control the pollution that is dangerously heating the planet.

“The action is a key step in removing limits on carbon dioxide, methane and four other greenhouse gases that scientists say are supercharging heat waves, droughts, wildfires and other extreme weather.”

“Led by a president who refers to climate change as a ‘hoax,’ the administration is essentially saying that the vast majority of scientists around the world are wrong and that a hotter planet is not the menace that decades of research show it to be.”

Trump to World: Green Energy Is a Scam and Climate Science Is From ‘Stupid People’

Somini Sengupta and Lisa Friedman, New York Times, Sept 23, 2025

In a remarkable United Nations address, the president lashed out at wind turbines, environmentalists and allies around the world while dismissing the dangers of climate change.

Against Humanity’: Leaders Denounce Fossil Fuel-Loving Trump as He Skips Out on Global Climate Summit

Stephen Prager writes this in a article for Common Dreams, Nov 7, 2025

(https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-skips-cop30).

“Every fraction of a degree means more hunger, displacement, and loss—especially for those least responsible,” said UN Secretary General António Guterres on Thursday. “This is moral failure—and deadly negligence.”

“As world leaders gathered in Brazil for this year’s global summit on the accelerating climate crisis this week, many took note of the absence of US

President Donald Trump.

“”This year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) summit comes on the tenth anniversary of the Paris Climate agreement, in which nations committed to adopting policies intended to keep global temperature increases below the threshold of 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, considered a tipping point at which many of the worst ravages of climate change will become irreversible.

“Ten years later, progress has fallen far short of the mark, with leaders scrambling to keep the deal’s goals intact—an aim that is likely untenable without the cooperation of the US, the globe’s largest historical emitter of carbon.

“America’s president has not only once again pulled the US out of the Paris agreement, but also sought to turn climate denial into public policy and spent his term in office thus far grinding American investment in renewable energy to a halt—actions viewed as extraordinary abdications of responsibility at a time when the globe is ever more rapidly approaching the point of no return for warming.

“Every fraction of a degree means more hunger, displacement, and loss—especially for those least responsible,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday. “This is moral failure—and deadly negligence.”

“Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has emerged as one of the world’s leading climate defenders from the heart of the Amazon rainforest, began the conference by delivering an indirect but unmistakable shot at Trump.

“He denounced the “extremist forces that fabricate fake news and are condemning future generations to life on a planet altered forever by global warming.”

“Other Latin American leaders were more direct. Colombian President Gustavo Petro, whom Trump recently hit with sanctions and threatened with military action, denounced the US president as ‘against humanity,’ as evidenced by ‘his absence’ at the conference.”

“‘The president of the United States at the latest United Nations General Assembly said the climate crisis does not exist,’ added Chilean President Gabriel Boric. ‘That is a lie.’”

“In Trump’s stead, over 100 other state and local figures from US politics have traveled to Brazil to take part in the conference: Among them are California Gov. Gavin Newsom, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, and Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers.”

“Even without Trump present, COP30 is crawling with fossil fuel lobbyists seeking to stymie progress. A report released Friday from the climate advocacy group Kick Big Polluters Out found that over 5,350 fossil fuel lobbyists have attended UN climate negotiations over the past four years. The corporations they represent are responsible for more than 60% of global emissions.”

2 Weeks of Iran War Released More Carbon Emissions Than 84 Countries Do Yearly

Sharon Zhang reports on this fact for Truthout, Published March 23, 2026

(https://truthout.org/articles/2-weeks-of-iran-war-released-more-carbon-emissions-than-84-countries-do-yearly

“The first two weeks of the U.S. and Israel’s war on Iran released a deluge of carbon emissions equivalent to the combined yearly climate warming pollution output of the lowest 84 emitters in the world, a new analysis finds.

“Researchers for progressive think tank Climate and Community Institute found that the first 14 days of the assault released over 5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. This is more than the annual emissions of mid-sized economies like Iceland or Kuwait, and roughly the same as dozens of the lowest emitters together.

“‘No matter which of the many reasons Trump has since provided for attacking Iran, the US intervention in Iran is now clearly about oil, plunging the Middle East into another crisis and deepening the social, economic, and environmental costs of war,’ wrote researchers Patrick Bigger, Benjamin Neimark, and Fred Otu-Larbi in a newsletter post about the analysis.

“Bottom of Form

For their analysis, researchers examined reports from the media, international organizations and other independent institutions in order to gather data on factors like munitions quantities, fuel consumption, and infrastructure destruction. They then used that information to determine the volume of emissions based on prior research on emissions from the U.S. invasion of Iraq and from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“The largest cause of emissions in the report is the destruction of homes and buildings, which has resulted in nearly 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions, the analysis found. Researchers based this estimate on data from the Iranian Red Crescent Society, which says that 20,000 units were damaged or destroyed in the conflict, including dozens of medical facilities and schools.”

“The emissions from building destruction alone are equal to those of 1.1 million gas-powered cars yearly, the group said.

“The second largest contributor was the attacks on oil facilities by Israeli and Iranian forces in areas across Iran and the Middle East, as well as strikes on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, amounting to 1.9 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

“The remaining emissions came from fuel used by military warships, fighter jets, and support vessels and vehicles; the loss of equipment like the U.S.’s and Iran’s downed aircraft, lost naval vessels, and destroyed missile launchers; and the intensive use of drone and missile attacks.

“‘The carbon costs of the war will continue to rise dramatically as it drags on’ the Climate and Community Institute researchers wrote.

“‘However, the most significant climate impact of the attack on Iran will not be the emissions of the conflict itself, but from its aftermath,’ they went on. ‘As the US continues to press on in its ill-conceived quest for ‘energy dominance,’ fossil fuel production will be expanded in the name of energy security, locking in emissions from extraction infrastructure for decades.”

But the climate emissions from the war, which has no end in sight, will affect the entire world.

The report comes as the U.S. goes through a record heat wave, with eight states setting an all-time high heat record in March. The heat wave would have been ‘virtually impossible’ without changes caused by the climate crisis, research group World Weather Attribution said. More heat may be yet to come, as weather and climate experts predict an extremely strong El Niño this year, which typically means hotter temperatures across the globe.”

Concluding thoughts

This record of a continuing dependence on carbon dioxide emitting fossil fuels, especially in the U.S., where Trump celebrates it, is causing the planet’s temperature to continue rising, with increasingly disastrous consequences.

If Trump, the Republicans, and their corporate allies remain in power, the U.S. contribution to this existential calamity will not be reversed. Unfortunately, it is not a sure eventuality that Democratic administrations would be willing to do enough. Americans are understandable concerned with “affordability” and getting by. The issue of the climate crisis remains an abstraction or non-issue.

The harmful behavior and policies of Trump did not just start

Bob Sheak, April 17, 2026

Arlene Sheak edits

The news is filled with the harm Trump has generated over his second presidential term, and before. He is linked to Jeffrey Epstein’s pedophile networks. His association with Elon Musk led to the reduction of federal jobs and serivces. His “Big Beautiful Bill” reduced taxes on the rich and powerful permanently. He has deployed ICE agents in cities across the country to find, detain, and/or deport immigrants, most of whom have been law-abiding and employed residents and citizens. Millions of people have protested against Trump’s ICE policies. He seems egomaniacally to look for every opportunity to have his name put on government building, monuments, and even on a one-dollar bill.

His tariffs inflated costs in the economy and had a drastic impact on many Americans. He started an unnecessary war on Iran that has led to much higher gas prices, fertilizer prices, and even higher inflation. He ordered the war on Iran without authorization from Congress. It is a lawless and unnecessary war. The war has caused immense destruction and death in Iran, including children. Now Trump has proposed a budget for 2027 that would raise military spending to levels not seen since WWII, while calling for severe reductions in other parts of the federal budget. He has even implied that he could order the use of nuclear bombs on Iran.

———-

Trump’s 2027 budget proposal favors military spending

LISA MASCARO and KEVIN FREKING report in an article for AP News on April 3, 2026 that Trump’s 2027 budget seeks $1.5T in defense spending alongside cuts in domestic programs (https://apnews.com/article/trump-2027-annual-budget-congress-defense-f95715d838bc17afd9799208cd3181.e3). Here’s some of what they write.

“President Donald Trump has proposed boosting defense spending to $1.5 trillion in his 2027 budget released Friday, the largest such request in decades, reflecting his emphasis on U.S. military investments over domestic programs.

“The sizable increase for the Pentagon, some 44%, had been telegraphed by the Republican president even before the U.S.-led war against Iran. The president’s plan would also reduce spending on non-defense programs by 10%.”

“‘It’s not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare — all these individual things,’ he said. ‘They can do it on a state basis. You can’t do it on a federal.’”

Debt, deficits and tough choices ahead

Mascaro and Freking continue. “With the nation running nearly $2 trillion annual deficits and the debt swelling past $39 trillion, the federal balance sheets have long been operating in the red.

“About two-thirds of the nation’s estimated $7 trillion in annual spending covers the Medicare and Medicaid health care programs, as well as Social Security income, which are essentially growing — along with an aging population — on autopilot.

“It’s the rest of the annual budget where much of the debate in Congress takes place, as Democrats over the years have insisted that changes in the level of spending for defense and non-defense need to be equitable.

Trump’s proposals “suggests $1.1 trillion for defense would come through the regular appropriations process, which typically requires support from both parties for approval, while $350 billion would go in the budget reconciliation process that Republicans can accomplish on their own, through party-line majority votes.”

———–

War crimes

Over 100 legal experts say Trump committed ‘war crimes’

In an article for Mick Hilden, Alternet on April 2, 2026, Mick Hilden reports that “over 100 legal experts say Trump committed ‘war crimes’

(https://www.alternet.org/trump-war-crimes-2676655530). He writes,

“When President Donald Trump launched war against Iran at the end of February, his conduct then and since may amount to ‘’war crimes,’ according to an open letter signed by over 100 international law experts. The experts assert that ‘the attack was a clear violation of the United Nations Charter’ as there was no evidence that Iran posed an imminent threat.

“The letter signatories include senior professors, leaders of prominent international law organizations, former government legal advisors and military law experts including former Judge Advocates General, who signed to “express profound concern about serious violations of international law and alarming rhetoric by the United States, Israel and Iran in the present armed conflict in the Middle East.”

This body of experts asserted that the war — ‘which is costing U.S. taxpayers between $1-2 billion each day’— raises four main concerns.

“First, there is the violation of international use-of-force laws, as ‘there is no evidence that Iran posed an imminent threat’ to justify Trump’s self-defense claims.

“Second, there appear to have been serious violations of international humanitarian law, with 67,414 civilian sites struck, 498 of which are schools and 236 of which are health facilities, killing at least 1,443 Iranian civilians, including 217 children.

“Third, the letter points out ‘concerns about rhetoric and threats from senior officials.’ These include threats of ‘no quarter’ from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has said that ‘the U.S. does not fight with ‘stupid rules of engagement’ and may conduct strikes on Iran ‘just for fun.’ At the same time, Trump has been making threats to civilian infrastructure like power and water desalination plants, which if carried out, entail serious war crimes.

“Finally, the signatories are worried about the reduction of institutional safeguards against further violations, asserting that Trump and his officials have ‘deliberately and systematically weakened the protections meant to ensure compliance with international humanitarian law.’ They have achieved this by removing senior military lawyers without cause, replacing military advocates general, and abolishing ‘civilian environment teams’ and other mechanisms specifically designed to limit harm to civilians during operations.”

“The letter concludes by urging ‘U.S. government officials to uphold the UN Charter, international humanitarian law and human rights law at all times, and to publicly make clear U.S. commitment to and respect for norms of international law.’

“But their pleas may fall on deaf ears as on Wednesday night, Trump delivered a national address in which he gave little sign of changing course, instead declaring that he would bomb Iran ‘back to the Stone Age.’

———-

Mentally unstable

Amidst all this harm and chaos, Trump is now being characterized as mentally unstable, that is, MORE mentally unstable than in the past.

Peter Baker has a lenthy article in The New York Times on Trump’s condition

(https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/13/us/politics/trump-mental-fitness-25th-amendment.html). Baker writes, “President Trump’s erratic behavior and extreme comments in recent days and weeks have turbocharged the crazy-like-a-fox-or-just-plain-crazy debate that has followed him on the national political stage for a decade.” Baker seems to favor the latter, just plain-crazy option. “A series of disjointed, hard-to-follow and sometimes-profane statements capped by his ‘threat to wipe Iran off the map last week and his head-spinning attack on the pope on Sunday night’ have left many with the impression of a deranged autocrat mad with power.”

Jamelle Bouie writes in the NYT on how Trump is “not a man in control of himself” (https://www.nytimes.com.2026/04/15/opinion/trump-iran-power-unitary-executive.html). “The president is struggling with the consequences of his actions, raging in protest of the fact that for all its firepower, the United States cannot bomb Iran into submission.” Trump looks for others to blame. “Over the last few days, Trump has denounced ‘the Fake News Media’ as ‘CRAZY, or just plain CORRUPT!’ for its reporting on the war. He attacked Pope Leo XIV in a bizarre rant, calling him ‘WEAK on Crime’ and ‘terrible for Foreign Policy.’ And he posted an A.I. image of himself as Jesus, surrounded by devotees, healing an unnamed man.”

Some top psychiatrists, have also written to Congressional majority and minority leaders in the US Senate and US House about Trump’s mental instability. The psychiatrists include James Gilligan, Prudence L. Gourgueshon, James R. Merekanges, and Jeffrey D. Sachs. The letter is reproduced on The Alternet website, April 15, 2026 (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/top-psychiatrists-issue-urgent-letter-to-congress-about-trump-s-mental-instability-opinion/ar-AA20WQwAl).

“Dear Senate Majority Leader Thune, Senate Minority Leader Schumer, Speaker Johnson, and House Minority Leader Jeffries:

“We write to you today with a sense of urgency that we do not use lightly. The behavior and rhetoric of President Donald Trump have crossed a threshold that demands the immediate and bipartisan attention of Congress. This is not a partisan assessment. It is a judgment grounded in observable fact, consistent professional assessment, and the constitutional responsibilities that your offices carry.

President Trump exhibits what forensic mental health experts have, across dozens of independent assessments, identified as the ‘Dark Triad’ of personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Rather than constituting a clinical diagnosis, this trait-based assessment is grounded in behavioral observation and is particularly useful for assessing the level of danger an individual poses in a political leadership position. We do not offer this as a clinical verdict. We offer it as the considered judgment of a substantial body of professional opinion, based on well-researched evidence that is consistent, accumulating, and impossible to dismiss.”

“What makes this more than an academic matter is what predictably happens when this personality structure collides with immovable obstacles. The clinical literature is clear: individuals with Dark Triad profiles, when confronted with situations they cannot control or escape, do not recalibrate. They escalate. The psychological imperative to relieve narcissistic collapse overrides strategic calculation, concern for consequences, and ordinary self-restraint. Rage surges to domination. Impulsivity overrides caution. The urgent need to extinguish psychological pain eclipses every other consideration.”

The most urgent of their recommendations is that “Congress must immediately retake its constitutional authority over war. The bombing of Iran and the initiation of a naval blockade — acts of war under both US and international law — cannot be authorized by presidential fiat. Article I of the Constitution vests in Congress the sole power to declare war and to regulate commerce with foreign nations. The Framers intended Congress to deliberate upon and be accountable for precisely such consequential actions. Congress must assume its constitutional authority now, before further escalation renders the question moot.”

———-

There are other deeply serious indications of Trump’s mental instability and the reckless policies that stem from it. Tom Nichols offers some glimpses into Trump’s behavior in an article titled “Trump’s Latest Meltdown” for The Atlantic Magazine, published on April 14, 2026

(https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/04/trump-pope-post-truth-social/686802).

Here are excerpts.

“On many recent nights, Donald Trump has been posting obsessively on his Truth Social site into the wee hours. The president, of course, has never been one for a solid night’s sleep—or restrained and temperate commentary on social media—but his emotional state seems to be fraying: This weekend, he attacked Pope Leo XIV, presented himself as Jesus Christ, and then jabbed at his phone until dawn.

“Judging from those posts, the commander in chief is in distress. No one can say for sure what is causing the president’s bizarre behavior. Perhaps Trump’s narcissistic insistence that he is always successful in everything he undertakes is feeling the sting and strain of multiple public failures, including the collapse of his campaign to dislodge the Iranian regime, plummeting approval ratings, the decline of the U.S. economy, and, on Sunday, the crushing defeat of one of his favorite fellow authoritarians, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.”

Nichols describes Trump’s posts on Truth Social on Sunday night, April 12.

“So a few minutes after nine on Sunday night, Trump posted a salvo of more than 300 words on Truth Social. According to the White House’s official schedule, he had just landed at Joint Base Andrews after his trip to Miami and was likely posting from the plane.

“His post was, in every way, bonkers. The president accused the pope of being ‘Weak on Crime’ and ‘Weak on Nuclear Weapons.’ He said that Leo ‘wasn’t on any list to be Pope’ and that he likes Leo’s brother Louis much better because ‘Louis is all MAGA.’”

“He had recommendations for the pontiff about how to be a better Vicar of Christ, saying he ‘should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician.’”

“This one screed against the leader of a billion and a half Catholics was worrisome enough, but for Trump, it was just the beginning of a long night. Only 45 minutes after flaming the pope, Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself as (apparently) Jesus Christ, healing a sick man while soldiers and nurses and other worshipful white people gaze in awe and military jets fly overhead. You have to see the image to really grasp its weirdness, and to take in how offensive, even heretical, it might be to Christians of any mainstream denomination. (Trump has since taken that post down, claiming that he thought it depicted him as wearing a doctor’s outfit—a denial that is not only laughable, but is also hardly reassuring about his cognitive health.”

Nichols then provides a timeline for Trump’s behavior from 10:10 p.m. until 4:10 a.m.

“Five minutes after this sacrilegious nonsense, Trump posted a mock-up of a Trump Tower on the moon. (Sure, why not.)

“Twenty minutes after that, at 10:10 p.m., Trump shared a silly meme about how Bernie Sanders, Chuck Schumer, and Joe Biden all look old after so many years in office, unlike himself. Twelve minutes later, he posted a clip from Newsmax’s Rob Carson Show. Twenty minutes later, he posted yet another Newsmax clip from the same show.

“Relative calm then overtook Trump’s phone until 12:43 a.m., when he announced that the U.S. Navy would be blockading Iranian ports in the morning—as if it were just another stray factoid to share in his news feed.

“Then, a bit more than two hours later—at 2:35 a.m.—he posted a link to a right-wing news site that approved of his Iran actions. At almost the same time, he posted another news story from the site about the Biden family and Ukraine. Two minutes later, he posted an article about Eric Swalwell leaving the California governor’s race. A few minutes later, he posted the same Biden story, again.

“Within another minute, Trump posted a link about an appeals court ruling that he could keep building his beloved ballroom until April 17. Finally, after a brief pause, he wrapped things up by posting a laudatory article from the New York Post—at 4:10 a.m., not long before dawn.”

——–

Concluding thoughts

Our president is an unstable, self-serving, and vindictive person. He has done great damage to the society, not the least of which is take the men and women of our military to an unnecessary war in Iran. This war has done great harm to the Iranians and has been costly to the U.S. in money, the use of expensive weapons, and the loss or wounding of American soldiers. Despite massive protests against his policies, he does what he wants, knowing that Republicans who control both houses of Congress will bend their knees to him. Despite all this, there is opposition outside of his Republican base to his policies and support in recent elections for dozens of Democratic candidates, pointing toward victories in November.

Trump proposes a huge increase in military spending, despite widespread economic stresses

Trump proposes a huge increase in military spending despite widespread economic stresses.

April 10, 2026

Bob Sheak

Arlene Sheak edits

Introduction

Trump and Republicans in Congress are – and have been – advancing a budget for the country that reduces assistance for ordinary citizens. This is glaringly obvious in Trump’s budget proposal for 2027, a budget that likely will be approved by Republicans in Congress. It is a budget that overwhelming favors military spending. It would not be so bad if citizens generally were in sound financial shape, but many are not. There has been an “affordability” problem across the country for most of Trump’s second term.

At the same time, people are also being negatively affected by Trump’s tariffs, cuts in government programs and staff in the early months of his second term, a precarious job market, and the disastrous effects of his Iran War reflected, for example, in high gas prices and high fertilizer prices. See the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities for a detailed analysis if the economic difficulties associated with the policies of Trump and the Republican party (https://www.cbpp.org.research/federal-budget/a-record-of-historic-harm-in-the-first-year-of-trumps-second-term). Here is a summary of the CBPP’s research.

“The Trump Administration and congressional Republicans advanced one of the most radically regressive policy agendas in our nation’s history during the first year of President Trump’s second term. As a result, tens of millions of people will be less able to meet the growing cost of their basic needs — whether it’s affording groceries, seeing a doctor, keeping the power on, or paying the rent — even as the wealthiest households get a windfall of more tax breaks. At the same time, President Trump and his Administration have undermined and corrupted many basic functions of government, including the proper and timely allocation of funds approved by Congress, leading to more disruption and harm.”

These problems figure in the low poll ratings of Trump. For example, here is the most recent Trump approval rating, according to the latest from The Economist (April 1, 2026):

Favorable: 36%
Unfavorable: 57%
Not sure: 7%

In this context, consider Trump’s 2027 budget proposal.

———-

“A Moral Obscenity”

Jake Johnson refers to this term in describing Trump’s 2027 budget proposal (https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-2027-budget). Here is some of what he writes.

“President Donald Trump’s White House released a budget proposal on Friday [Sept. 3] that pairs an unprecedented, debt-exploding $1.5 trillion in military spending with tens of billions of dollars in cuts to domestic agencies and education, healthcare, climate, and housing programs.”

“Trump’s budget request for fiscal year 2027, which must be approved by Congress [now controlled by Republicans] includes $73 billion in total cuts to nondefense spending while boosting military outlays by 42%—or nearly $500 billion—compared to current levels.”

Johnson continues. “Programs cut or eliminated in the proposed budget—under the guise of slashing ‘woke programs’ and ‘ending the Green New Scam’—include the Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Justice program, Community Services Block Grants, electric vehicle charging subsidies, renewable energy initiatives at the Interior Department, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing.

“The budget proposal also calls for cuts to the already-depleted Internal Revenue Service, without offering specific figures.”

“One budget expert noted that, if enacted, the White House’s requested cuts would bring nondefense discretionary spending to ‘its lowest level in the modern era.’”

Alternatively, what would $500 billion in Pentagon spending if it were spent on non-defense programs and the needs of typical citizens? Here are some answers to which Johnson refers.

“The $500 billion annual increase in proposed Pentagon spending—if it were instead deployed humanely—would be enough to solve or meaningfully address the nation’s great problems, from healthcare to daycare, from the climate crisis to affordable housing, from improving schools to making college education affordable,” said Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen. “Instead, Trump and Vought propose to spend an unfathomable amount on a Pentagon that can’t even pass an audit to further empower an out-of-control and incompetent leader in Pete Hegseth.”

———-

Trump’s Imperial Military Budget

Robert L. Borosage refers to Trump’s budget proposal as an “imperial military budget, The Nation, April 8, 2026

(https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-imperials-military-budget).

Borosage writes: “In his recent military budget, Trump is saying the quiet part out loud: Waging war is more important to his administration than providing for basic needs at home.”

He points out that “the $1.5 trillion military budget—a $500 billion, 42 percent increase that would be the largest year-on-year percentage increase since the mobilization for Korean War.” Trump is all-in on this increase, while saying that the federal government should not have to continue to pay for a host of non-defense programs. He quotes Trump.

“I said to [Office of Management and Budget director] Russell [Vought], ‘Don’t send any money for daycare because the United States can’t take care of daycare. That has to be up to a state. We can’t take care of daycare…. We’re fighting wars…. it’s not possible for us to take care of daycare. Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things, they can do it on a state basis. You can’t do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing, military protection.”

Borosage continues. “It wasn’t just daycare that would take the hit. The press reported that president’s budget called for a 10 percent cut in all non-defense discretionary programs (outside of Medicare and Medicaid, which were savaged last year, and Social Security), targeting primarily anything related to climate, the environment, civil rights, education, and food support and other poverty programs. But in reality, compared to the cost of continuing current levels of service, it slashes domestic programs by nearly one-fourth. With ICE and Homeland Security getting increases, targeted programs were cut to the bone: the Environmental Protection Agency cut by more than one-half, LIHEAP—heating subsidies for low income families—eliminated, another $20 billion lopped off rebuilding infrastructure.”

Borosage elaborates his point.

“The proposed $1.5 trillion annual military budget, about 5 percent of the GNP, is real money. As Dean Baker notes, it comes to about $12,000 per family. And that doesn’t include the $200 billion supplemental that the Pentagon will reportedly seek to pay for the war on Iran.

Borosage continues. “The money lards a military-industrial complex that is the largest source of waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government—and has never been able to pass an audit.”

And he refers to Representative Ro Khanna on what alternative non-military spending could buy.

“Let me tell you what $200 billion could do here in America. It would allow for free public college for every American kid. We could build a thousand trade schools, we could pay every American teacher $60,000 to start.

“We could have universal childcare: childcare at $10 a day, with childcare workers making $25 an hour. And we could fully fund special needs education at 40% of what the federal government needs to fund.

“Or it could pay to reverse the cuts already made in vital needs. Reversing the cuts in Obamacare made by Trump and the Republican Congress last year would cost $27 billion annually. Extension of the Earned Income Tax Credit that aided low-wage workers curing Covid would cost about $40 billion annually.

We don’t need more military spending to keep us safe. We already have such a force.

Indeed, “Trump repeatedly and correctly boasts that the US military is already the most powerful military in the world by far. The ‘Department of War’ accounts for 40 percent of the world’s military spending, more than the next nine costliest militaries combined—seven of which are (or were before Trump) our allies. This despite the fact that, surrounded by oceans to the East and West and allies to the North and South, the United States is uniquely secure against any conventional assault.”

Trump’s “military fantasies”

“But,” Borosage writes, “Trump’s budget request isn’t really a wartime budget. Most of the increase is a down payment on military fantasies. A centerpiece is an initial investment in Trump’s Golden Dome, his utterly fantastically recycled version of Reagan’s Star Wars, calling for building a defensive ‘dome against missile attacks. It will squander hundreds of billions on multiple layers of land-, sea-, and space-based sensors and interceptors designed to protect the US from next-generation missiles and drones. Like Reagan’s fantasy, the system won’t work, serving only to enrich high-tech military contractors, accelerate the arms race in space, and lead China and Russia and other future nuclear-armed adversaries (France?) to move toward hair-trigger alert postures. Add to that a down payment of $65.8 billion in shipbuilding for Trump’s ‘Golden Fleet,’ featuring ‘Trump-class’ battleships that, if our corrupted military contractors actually succeed in building, will provide tempting targets for inexpensive air and underwater drones that are becoming the weapons of choice for weaker countries.”

Borosage offers the following conclusion. “A $1.5 trillion annual military budget isn’t necessary for the defense of the United States. Rather it assumes that the US will continue to police the world. We will remain committed to global military hegemony—aiming to be dominant militarily in this hemisphere, from Europe to the Russian border, counter China in the South China Sea, strike terrorists across the world, sustain a global empire of 750-plus military bases, and deploy military forces to over 100 countries, while patrolling the seven seas.”

———-

William Hartung contends in an article for Common Dreams. April 3, 2026that Trump’s $1.5 trillion Pentagon Budget will make US weaker

(https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/1-5-trillion-pentagon-budget). William D. Hartung is a Senior Research Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and the author most recently of “Pathways to Pentagon Spending Reductions: Removing the Obstacles.”

Here’s some of what Hartung writes.

““It has been reported that the Pentagon on Friday [April 3] will release a proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2027 of almost $1.5 trillion, with approximately $1.15 trillion in discretionary spending contained in the department’s regular annual budget and an additional $350 billion dependent on Congress including it in a separate budget reconciliation bill.

“Whatever vehicles the administration chooses to promote this huge increase, it will be doubling down on a failed budgetary and national security strategy. If passed as requested, $1.5 trillion in Pentagon spending—in a single year–will make America weaker by underwriting a misguided strategy, funding outmoded weapons programs, and crowding out other essential public investments.

“The current war in the Middle East is a case study in the ineffectiveness of an overreliance on military force in seeking to make America or the world a safer place.”

Here is a key point. Hartung writes: “In his first term, President Trump abandoned a multilateral agreement that was effectively blocking Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon. Six years later, in his second term, the president initially justified his disastrous intervention against Iran as being motivated by fears” that Iran might be developing such a capacity. He did this without evidence they were doing so.

Hartung emphasizes that diplomacy worked, while reckless resort to force does not, as evidenced by the devastating human, budgetary, and global economic consequences of the current Middle East war. Passing a $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget would be a recipe for endless war.

“Meanwhile, other, non-military investments needed to protect the lives and livelihoods of Americans are being sharply reduced. By one account, the first week of the war on Iran cost $11.6 billion. That’s more than the Trump administration proposed for the annual budgets of the Centers for Disease Control and the Environmental Protection Agency combined for this year. Yet addressing the climate crisis and the need to prevent future outbreaks of disease are essential to the safety and security of Americans.

“The administration has also reduced our available tools of influence on the foreign policy front by decimating the Agency for International Development, laying off trained diplomats at the State Department, and withdrawing from major international agreements. This leaves force and the threat of force as virtually the last tools standing for promoting U.S. security interests.”

———-

Eric Ross writes at length for Tom Dispatch on “The Price of Empire and the Costs of War on Iran.” April 2, 2026 (https://tomdispatch.com/blowback-2026). In his opening paragraph, Ross presents a summary of the many “costs” of Trump’s war on Iran, not only for the US but even more on Iran.

“What will the costs of the latest round of illegal, ill-fated U.S. military adventurism in the Middle East amount to? Some of the toll is already clear. Washington has squandered billions of dollars on a reckless war of aggression against Iran. A merciless campaign of aerial bombardment has driven millions from their homes. American and Israeli airstrikes have rained destruction on 10,000 civilian sites and already killed more than 3,000 people in Iran and Lebanon. Among the dead are more than 200 children, many killed in a U.S. strike on a girls’ school, a war crime that evokes the grim precedent of such past American atrocities as the 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam or the 1991 Amiriyah shelter bombing in Iraq.

“The latest war has also dealt a potentially fatal blow to our already battered democratic institutions. It’s a war neither authorized by Congress nor supported by the public. Instead, it was launched by a president who refuses to submit to the law or heed the will of the people, claiming in true authoritarian fashion that he is the law, and that he alone embodies the popular will.”

———-

Sarah Fortinsky writes on how Trump’s approval rating has hit a new low as the Iran war squeezes economy, and reminds us how this war was arbitrarily started by Trump, with no consultation with Congress and with no concern about public opinion. Now, the public is reacting, belatedly negatively(https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5811709-trump-approval-rating-iran-war-economy). Here’s some of what she writes.

“President Trump’s approval numbers have slipped in recent weeks, hovering near the lowest levels of his second term, as Americans — including his conservative base — grow increasingly wary of a prolonged war in Iran that could portend trouble for the U.S. economy.

“Recent polling from YouGov and The Economist has Trump’s approval rating down 4 percentage points since just before the U.S. struck Iran, falling from 39 percent in late February to 35 percent in the latest survey.

“A Reuters/Ipsos poll similarly put Trump’s approval at 36 percent, down from 40 percent earlier this month, while a Fox News survey found the president’s disapproval rating at 59 percent, the highest level recorded in either of his terms.

The shift has coincided with declining support for Trump’s handling of the Iran war, which saw its sharpest drop yet this past week — as gas prices climbed to more than $4 for the first time since 2022….”

“Trump, who spoke to the public Wednesday night [April 1] about the conflict, saw his polling on Iran start out at 39 percent in early March, before dropping to 36 percent for two weeks and then ticking down to 30 percent in the latest YouGov/Economist survey.”

“The drop-off in Trump’s overall approval rating comes as Americans broadly sour on the economy, with only 14 percent saying conditions are improving….”

———-

Concluding thoughts

Trump’s budget proposal, with its emphasis on military spending and dismissal of federal responsibility for most non-defense programs, is losing his support among vast numbers of citizens, even among his base. This is reflected in polls and also in recent Democratic electoral victories. It is also reflected in the 8 million people who demonstrated against Trump on “No King’s” day. Still, it is of great concern that Trump is still able to wield such great power as president.

The true costs of the Iran War

Bob Sheak, March 22, 2026

Arlene Sheak edits

Introduction

There are so many indications of how poorly and undemocratically Trump is using the power of his presidency. Still, he continues to have the support of his enormous MAGA base. He dominates the Republican Party and has the support of large segments of the rich and powerful. His party controls both the House and Senate. He can count on the Supreme Court to support him in significant ways, by giving him immunity from the law while he is president, as one example.

One miscalculated way Trump uses this power is to take the country to war in Iran. It can be a distraction from other problems the president faces –the lackluster economy, the healthcare crisis, the absence of job creation, the angry responses to the effects of his tariffs, his relationship to Epstein, the low ratings he gets for his presidency, and so forth. But Trump’s Iran war exacerbates all these problems.

———-

The Iran War

He has taken the country into an unnecessary war of his choosing that is compounding the country’s economic difficulties – while crippling Iran’s economy, killing and disrupting the population, including young children. It is important to remember that, contrary to the Trump government’s distorted assessment, Iran did not represent a threat to the U.S., and that prior to the war they had expressed a willingness to negotiate with the U.S. on the nuclear bomb issue and Trump seemed to agree. CNN journalists reported on this (https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/03/middleeast/iran-nuclear-talks-us-strike-intl-hnk).

“Iran has tentatively agreed to resume nuclear talks with the United States as it tries to avert the threat of further military strikes, in what would be the first such negotiations since the Trump administration bombed three of Iran’s nuclear sites last summer.

“The discussions are expected to be held in Oman, a source familiar with the matter told CNN Tuesday night. Iran’s semi-official ⁠ISNA news agency also reported Oman as the venue for talks that it said would take place on Friday. ‍

“The White House said Tuesday that talks between would proceed this week despite changes requested by Tehran to the venue and format.

“Sources had told CNN on Monday that Iran’s top diplomat, Abbas Araghchi, was likely to meet US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump, in Istanbul on Friday.

“However, the plans hit a snag after Tehran requested the talks be relocated to a different city, that regional participants be excluded and that the scope of the discussions be limited to just the country’s nuclear program, CNN reported earlier. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday that Trump is keeping open the option of military strikes if diplomacy fails.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkiansaid Tuesday that Tehran is pursuing negotiations –– though with conditions.

“‘I have instructed my Minister of Foreign Affairs, provided that a suitable environment exists — one free from threats and unreasonable expectations — to pursue fair and equitable negotiations, guided by the principles of dignity, prudence, and expediency,’ Pezeshkian wrote on X.

“He said he has given the go-ahead for the negotiations following ‘requests from friendly governments in the region.’”

Of course, Trump subsequently ordered the launching of the “excursion,” now in its fourth week. But, despite the destruction and death Iran is suffering, Iran is striking back, sending drones into nearby countries and U.S. bases, causing some casualties, and closing the Hormuz Straits, which has caused oil and gas prices to soar in the U.S. and around the world.

———-

The costs to the U.S. of the war

The $1.3-Million-a-Minute War

Nicholas Kristof, an opinion columnist for The New York Times, reports that the war is costing the U.S. $1.3 million a minute

(https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/21/opinion/iran-war-cost.html). Here’s some of what he writes.

“Let’s ponder for a moment the vast sums that we’re pouring into the war with Iran. The Pentagon has requested [an additional] $200 billion (more than $1,400 per American household) to fund the war, but even that understates the total cost.

Linda Bilmes, a Harvard expert on financing war, who was a former assistant secretary and chief financial officer of the U.S. Department of Commerce under Bill Clinton, told me [Kristof] that most of the costs will arrive later. For example, any soldier who develops a medical disorder or aggravates an existing one will receive lifelong benefits and medical care. If today’s troops claim such benefits at the same rate as those who participated in the 1990-91 gulf war, that alone would eventually cost at least $600 billion, Bilmes said. Not to mention, of course, the human toll of all of this.

“All told, she expects this Iran war to cost taxpayers more than $1 trillion.”

Alternative ways this money could be spent – examples

Kristof writes: “Here are some ideas of what the war money could be used for instead. My calculations are conservative, based on Pentagon reporting that the first six days of the war cost $11.3 billion — and even that incomplete tally amounted to more than $1.3 million a minute.

“For a bit more than two weeks of this war, we could offer free college education to every American family earning less than $125,000 annually, at a cost of around $30 billion a year.

“For less than three weeks of war, or $35 billion, we could run a nationwide pre-K program for 3- and 4-year-olds.

“For $75 million, about an hour’s worth of war, we could provide three books free to every child in America who is living under the poverty line, according to Kyle Zimmer of First Book, a nonprofit that works on early literacy. Research suggests that books like these can help get children reading and improve their outcomes.

“A woman dies in the United States every two hours, on average, from cervical cancer. Screening all uninsured women who need it would cost perhaps $1 billion and could save hundreds of lives, according to Dr. Linda Eckert, a cervical cancer expert at the University of Washington. That’s less than 13 hours of the war bill.

“We could get glasses to all 2.3 million low-income schoolchildren in the United States who need them but don’t have them. The base cost would be about $300 million, according to Vision to Learn, a nonprofit that does this work. The bill would be what we spend on four hours of this war.

“For about $34 billion a year, less than three weeks of war, we could restore health insurance subsidies that the Trump administration let expire last year. One analysis predicted an additional 8,800 preventable American deaths as a result.

“The war money would save even more lives if we allocated part of it abroad. Indeed, we spent more on the first three days of war than we spent ($4 billion) on all humanitarian aid in 2025. Consider what we could achieve internationally:

“For $400 million or less, a bit more than five hours of war, we could deworm all children in need worldwide, according to Evidence Action, a nonprofit that works on deworming. This would result in stronger, healthier children and adults.

“For $380 million, less than five hours of war, we could provide vitamin A supplementation for the 190 million children who need it. Helen Keller Intl, a nonprofit engaged in this work, says this would prevent up to 480,000 child deaths each year and virtually eliminate blindness from vitamin A deficiency.

“About one day’s worth of war spending could save more than 350,000 lives from malaria, through a rigorously studied screening and prevention program, according to Esther Duflo, an economist at M.I.T.’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab.”

“If we reallocated this war spending to needs at home and abroad, Americans would have access to school from pre-K to college and would have health insurance, and large numbers of children worldwide would not starve to death — and we would still have billions of dollars left over.”

———-

Economist Jack Rasmus considers “some economic consequences of the Iran War” (https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/03/20/some-economic-consequences-of-the-iran-war). Jack Rasmus is author of ’The Scourge of Neoliberalism: US Economic Policy from Reagan to Trump, Clarity Press, January 2020. He blogs at jackrasmus.com and hosts the weekly radio show, Alternative Visions on the Progressive Radio Network on Fridays at 2pm est. His twitter handle is @drjackrasmus.

Here is just some of what he writes in this highly documented article.

“As the US-Israel war on Iran enters its third week [now fourth week], the outlines of the economic consequences and fallout of the war have begun to emerge. As the war continues—and by most indicators it appears it will for months longer—the War’s negative impact on the US and world economies will deepen further.

“What are some of the economic dimensions for the war’s negative consequences?

“First and most obvious is the current oil price shock’s effect on inflation. Not just for US prices, but other countries as well. And not just for goods and services but for asset prices (i.e. stocks, bonds, forex, derivatives, gold, silver, etc.).

“Another is the long-term disruption of global supply chains and the volume of global trade.

“As inflation rises, central banks, led by the US Federal Reserve, will continue to raise interest rates with a corresponding negative impact on the US and other economies, many of which are already nearly stagnant or are beginning to enter recession. Most heavily impacted will be Europe, the Gulf States, and Middle East energy-dependent countries in East Asia like Japan and South Korea.

“Another negative impact will be on global money capital flows—both real investment and financial portfolio asset markets (stocks, bonds, forex, derivatives, etc.).

“Then there’s the US budget deficit and national debt. The deficit will now approach $2 trillion a year, for the third straight year. That deficit will drive the national debt to exceed $39 trillion by later this spring and possibly $40 trillion by year end.

“The Iran war and its costs converge with a host of other forces driving the deficit and the debt into ever greater crisis: Trump’s escalating war spending (including his plan for $400 billion more for just the Pentagon), the current sharply slowing US real economy (that grew at a mere 0.7% rate in fourth quarter 2025), the present collapse of employment and job creation now underway in the US and Trump’s massive 2025 $5 trillion tax cuts benefiting mostly investors and corporations at the expense of US Treasury tax revenues which is estimated to reduce corporate income tax revenues by $77 billion in 2026.

“Not least, the war will accelerate the current fiscal crisis of the American Empire. The costs of Empire now exceed $2.2 trillion a year when all categories of ‘defense’ in the US budget are considered, not just the Pentagon and the US Department of Defense—the latter alone which now exceeds $1.1 trillion a year.

“Trump’s war in Iran will exacerbate all these negative economic trends, US and global; and the longer the war continues—which by all indicators it will—the worse the negative economic consequences.”

———-

Trump underestimates the costs of the Iran War

Nick Turse considers the costs in an article for The Intercept

(https://theintercept.com/2026/03/17/trump-iran-war-cost).

He states his central point: “The Trump administration is drastically undercounting the price tag of the U.S. war with Iran, peddling fragmentary estimates that offer Americans a skewed understanding of the costs.

“The Pentagon on Thursday said the U.S. spent about $11.3 billion in just one week of its war on Iran; Trump economic adviser Kevin Hassett similarly put the figure at $12 billion on Sunday.

‘But these sums are dwarfed by estimates offered by experts in the costs of war, lawmakers experienced with the Pentagon budget, and two government officials briefed on Operation Epic Fury who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

‘At the very least, they say the war is burning through between $1 billion and $2 billion per day — or roughly $11,500 to $23,000 per second. The cost, the officials told The Intercept, could rise to a quarter trillion dollars or more over the coming months.

The long-term costs

Turse continues. “Even that is a drop in the bucket compared to the long-term expenses, which could cost the U.S. trillions of dollars in the decades to come. One of the officials lamented that Americans would be paying off the war for generations.

“‘If this war takes months rather than weeks, the costs will become astronomical,’ said Gabe Murphy, a policy analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan budget watchdog advocating for an end to wasteful spending,

“Jules Hurst III, the War Department’s acting comptroller and chief financial officer, called the Pentagon’s initial $11.3 billion estimate a “ballpark number,” speaking at the Reagan Institute’s National Security Innovation Base Summit. Hurst said a more comprehensive figure would be provided with a supplemental budget request, which he said the Pentagon plans to soon submit to the White House and Congress.

“Democratic lawmakers believe the true number is far higher because the Pentagon estimate did not include many expenses, including the massive buildup of military assets, weapons, and personnel in the Middle East ahead of the conflict.

Lawmakers have said they expect the Iran War supplemental request to reach at least $50 billion — on top of a $1.5 trillion War Department budget request for 2027.

Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif. told The Intercept that Americans had been conned into an open-ended conflict, with unclear goals and no exit plan.

“‘We haven’t gotten sufficient details in public or behind closed doors about the strategy, the objectives, the length of the operation, or how much this will cost taxpayers,’ she told The Intercept. ‘The American people are demanding an end to this illegal war to prevent more killings of children, retaliation against U.S. service members, skyrocketing costs to U.S. taxpayers, and yet another endless war.’”

Turse reports, “A three-week conflict could cost taxpayers between $60 billion and $130 billion, according to the two government officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to speak freely, with both stressing that the estimates were speculative. “It’s a back of the napkin estimate,” said one official.

“A five-week war could top out at $175 billion. Eight weeks could put the total at $250 billion. ‘They really have no idea of the real cost,’ said one of the officials, noting that bookkeeping is not a Pentagon strong suit. The self-styled War Department has never passed an audit, despite almost a decade of attempts.”

Estimate costs of the war don’t consider the “pre-war military buildup, which had already cost taxpayers an estimated $630 million. “according to Elaine McCusker, a former senior Pentagon budget official now at the American Enterprise Institute. (McCusker said those costs are likely to be absorbed within the Pentagon’s existing $839 billion 2026 budget.)”

“Initial estimates of the first 100 hours of the war tacked on around $3.7 billion in operational costs, munitions, and damaged or destroyed equipment, according to a cost breakdown by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, or CSIS. This and other estimates turned out to be drastic undercounts as Pentagon officials, in classified briefings, disclosed that the military burned through $5.6 billion worth of munitions in just the first two days of the war. An updated analysis by CSIS now estimates that Epic Fury cost $16.5 billion by its 12th day.”

Linda Bilmes (see reference to her on p. 3) says that the price tag of the war will exceed $50 billion if the conflict stretches into its third or fourth week. ‘Probably higher, she added.

“Bilmes cautioned that enormous short-term expenses — like spent munitions, the deployments of aircraft carrier strike groups, and aircraft shot down — will be eclipsed by even more significant expenditures like the long-term costs of veterans’ benefits and interest on the debt to pay for the war. The ultimate cost, Bilmes says, may reach into the trillions of dollars.

“Bilmes notes that around 50,000 U.S. troops are deployed around the Middle East as the United States and Israel, as well as Iran and its proxies, strike fuel depots, oil facilities, and military sites — all of which release noxious substances shown to negatively affect human health. ‘The majority are being exposed to toxins, contamination, acid rain, dust from infrastructure destruction, and burning oil fumes, so we can estimate that at least one-third will be claiming disability benefits under the PACT Act,’ she said, referring to a landmark 2022 law expanding health care and benefits for veterans exposed to burn pits, Agent Orange, and other toxic substances. ‘That is a major long-term cost that almost nobody looks at.’ Bilmes said that if veterans claim benefits at the rate of the extremely short 1990 Gulf War — 37 percent of whom receive compensation today — this alone would add around $600 billion in costs over their lifetimes.

Bilmes explained that these long-term costs are exacerbated by the fact that all the money is borrowed. “Back in 2004, the public debt was below $4 trillion. Now the gross debt is $38 trillion — and about 30 percent of that is due to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,” she said. A key contributor to that spike is the fact that the United States went to war in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 while simultaneously cutting taxes — increasing spending while reducing revenues.

“‘This combination had never happened before in the history of U.S. wars,’ she said. With interest rates almost double what they were in the 2010s, Bilmes notes that 14 percent of the federal budget already goes to interest payments, which are destined to rise further with the Iran war.”

“Murphy, the policy analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense,

“‘We’re facing a spiraling debt crisis, skyrocketing health care premiums, dire food insecurity, and natural disasters that are growing more frequent, extreme, and costly. These are national security issues,’ Murphy, policy analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense, told The Intercept. “If Congress believes this war is a good use of taxpayer dollars, it should vote on an authorization for the use of military force.” It hasn’t yet done this. Taxpayers are entitled to more clarity about why this war is being fought, what the endgame is, and how much it will cost in American casualties and deaths.

The unfortunate truth is that Americans will be paying massive sums of money for generations to finance Trump’s second war with Iran. “These costs aren’t known to the American people.” Our children will end up paying for his tragic misadventure.

———-

The Trump government wants $200 billion more for its war on Iran

Helene Cooper, Tony Romm, Megan Mineiro and Karoun Demirjian report on the Pentagon’s request of $200 billion to fund the Iran War

(https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/19/middleeast/pentagon-200-billion-iran-war-funding-hegseth.html). Here’s some of what they report

“The Pentagon has asked for $200 billion in funding for the war in Iran, according to a military official and an administration official, a significant sum adding to the costs of an already divisive campaign.

“The request has been sent to the White House, the military official said, which will review it before any request for funds is formally submitted to Congress. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the proposal. The request was reported earlier by The Washington Post.

“‘Obviously, it takes money to kill bad guys,’ Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said when asked about the request during a news conference on Thursday, adding: ‘As far as the $200 billion, I think that number could move.’

“On Capitol Hill, the sum — nearly a quarter of the country’s entire annual defense budget — is already raising eyebrows among some moderate Republicans who would be key to approving the funds, including Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and the head of the chamber’s Appropriations Committee. Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska and a key swing vote, said that the Trump administration would have to make a more concerted effort to engage Congress on the war before such a request could be approved.

The journalists note, “It was not immediately clear how long the Pentagon intended for the $200 billion for the Iran war to last, or what operations it would cover.” This request suggests that the U.S. military is preparing for an extended engagement in Iran.

Last week, Pentagon officials told lawmakers that the first six days of the war against Iran had cost more than $11.3 billion. Since then, President Trump has threatened to escalate the fighting, including floating the idea of putting American troops on the ground even as he has alternated the threats with suggestions that the United States might conclude its military campaign soon.

But the $200 billion figure suggests that the U.S. military is preparing for an extended engagement in Iran.

———-

Concluding thoughts

Trump had opportunities to continue negotiations with Iran, but instead he chose to end them and start the war. The evidence that Iran was building or preparing to build nuclear bombs is non-existent. Trump insisted that this regime could not be trusted, but negotiations, like those in the past, may have opened the door to international inspectors, who would have been able to verify what Iran was doing.

The evidence that the Iran regime is terrible to its people is well documented. But that is beside the point. We tolerate un-democratic and cruel regimes elsewhere, in for example Russia, North Korea, Iraq, or deal with them in other ways, say, with sanctions. In a better world than we have, the U.S. would set an example to others, but under Trump and his allies, we have become an example of a narcissistic President with an oligarchic strain who tends to use the threat, if not the employment, of military action in attempts to get his way. If this continues, the U.S. will not have any reliable allies.

A war of choice

Bob Sheak, March 5, 2026

Arlene Sheak edited

Iran did not threaten U.S.

The current US war on Iran is not the result of an attack on our country or even a threat of such a war. It is a war waged by Trump and his government by choice and based on questionable assumptions about Iran’s intentions. The war also conflicts with Trump’s view of himself as a peace president.

Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondents for The New York Times, writes on how during his presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2024, Trump promised to focus on “America First” and to avoid foreign wars (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/us/politics/trump-peace-president-war.html). Trump dubbed himself “a peace president.” In the presidential race of 2024, “he boasted of starting ‘no new wars’ in his first presidential term. He asserted that if Kamala Harris won, she would send the “sons and daughters” of Americans “to go fight for a war in a country that you’ve never heard of.”

“Barely a year later,” Baker writes, “Mr. Trump is racing to topple foreign regimes, and is sending American sons and daughters to wage another war in the Middle East. The self-declared president of peace has chosen to become the president of warafter all, unleashing the full power of the U.S. military in Iran with the explicit goal of toppling its government.” The attack is now on its sixth day with no end in sight.

Baker continues, “The bombardment of Iran on Saturday was the ninth time he had ordered the military into action in his second term, even as he has decapitated the government of Venezuela and threatened to overthrow Cuba’s dictator.

“In his middle-of-the-night social media video announcing the opening of this new war, Mr. Trump laid out a bill of particulars against Iran going back nearly half a century, including its pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, its support for terrorist groups that attacked Americans and allies, the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and the recent massacre of Iranian protesters. But he never explained why those aggressions required action now rather than earlier, or why his thinking evidently changed.” He also failed to offer a plan on how long he expected the war to last, what the costs will be, how it will wind up, and said Americans in Iran and the region will have to find ways to safety themselves. Given the absence of air flights, many have few options to leave.

Baker points out that Trump did call for regime change, “calling on Iranians to overthrow their leaders. ‘When we are finished, take over your government,’ Mr. Trump said. ‘It will be yours to take.’ He repeated this in a social media post Saturday afternoon announcing that the strike had killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader — ‘one of the most evil people in History,

as the president put it.”

Just how Iranians should go about taking over their country was left unclear. Mr. Trump wrote that police and revolutionary guard forces should “peacefully merge with the Iranian Patriots, and work together as a unit to bring back the Country to the Greatness it deserves” — a remarkable notion suggesting that Iranian security officials would somehow team up with the same people they were gunning down in the streets just weeks ago.”

“His public posture, however, has veered wildly over the past year,” Baker notes. “One moment, he presents himself as a historic peacemaker, forming a so-called Board of Peace and griping that he has not won the Nobel Peace Prize while claiming, inaccurately, that he has ended eight wars — including one with Iran. The next moment, he threatens to seize Greenland, take back the Panama Canal, strangle Cuba and even go after Colombia’s president as he did Venezuela’s.”

———-

The Idea That Trump Is Antiwar Was Always Delusional

Michelle Goldberg addresses this point

(https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/02/opinion/trump-iran-antiwar.html).

She argues that it is ludicrous to ever think of Trump as a promoter of peace.

She writes that “what Trump has always hated isn’t conflict but sacrifice, the notion that American power should ever be constrained by a veneer of idealism or care for global opinion.” His real view is conveyed by what he said at a 2025 rally:

“I’m really good at war. I love war, in a certain way, but only when we win.” One of his chief complaints about the Iraq war, let’s remember, was that George W. Bush had failed to take Iraq’s oil.”

“Trump’s first term,” Goldberg writes, “was marked by a huge surge in drone strikes: According to the BBC, he ordered 2,243 in his first two years in office, compared with 1,878 in Barack Obama’s eight years. He reversed the longstanding American policy of treating Israel’s settlement building as illegitimate under international law, one of many sops to the American right.

“It’s true,” Goldber writes, “that Trump did not start any new wars, though, in retrospect, that seems like luck as much as design. In 2020, when Trump ordered a drone strike on Iran’s top military commander, Qassim Suleimani, The Washington Post reported that the decision “came as a surprise and a shock to some officials briefed on his decision, given the Pentagon’s longstanding concerns about escalation.” If that assassination didn’t spiral into a wider conflict, it may well have been a result of Iranian restraint, with some reporting suggesting that Iran provided America advance warning of its retaliatory strikes in Iraq.

“The lesson Trump learned from his first term, it seems, is that there’s no real cost to his belligerence, and so he has ratcheted it up. Trump, according to Axios, “authorized more individual airstrikes in 2025 than President Biden did in four years.” Given the lack of meaningful resistance he faced from his base, it’s not surprising that he has become even more reckless. Across many different realms, Trump’s pattern is basically the same: He goes as far as he can until someone stops him.

———-

This Is an Unnecessary, Unauthorized, and Unconstitutional War

John Nichols contends rightly that the Trump’s Iran War “is an unnecessary, unauthorized, and Unconstitutional War,” March 2, 2026

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/iran-war-congress-war-powers-act

Nichols reminds us that Congress, not the president, has “primacy over matters of war and peace” under the War Powers Act.

He reports that on Saturday morning, after President Trump launched an unnecessary, unauthorized, and unconstitutional attack on Iran, US Representatives Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie did their jobs as members of Congress.

The California Democrat and the Kentucky Republican had already cosponsored a War Powers Act resolution in hopes of thwarting a rush to war with Iran. Now the war was on. Bombs were dropping, missiles flying, and people dying. So the bipartisan team demanded that Congress step up. Khanna immediately announced, “Trump has launched an illegal regime change war in Iran with American lives at risk. Congress must convene on Monday to vote on US Rep. Thomas Massie[’s] & my [War Powers Resolution] to stop this.”

Seeking to force a congressional debate about the war—as Khanna and Massie are doing in the House, and as Tim Kaine (D-VA) has proposed in the Senate—is a vital first step in pushing back against Trump.

It won’t be easy. Despite a notable level of congressional opposition to Trump’s new war, efforts to establish even the most basic counterbalances to presidential war making will face overwhelming odds. House Speaker Mike Johnson, the Louisiana Republican who serves as Trump’s enforcer in the chamber, will do everything in his power to thwart any meaningful effort to renew the constitutionally mandated role of Congress as the arbiter of matters of war and peace. The same goes for the president.

The issue did belatedly come of a vote, as reported by Reuters (https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/us-senate-backs-trump-iran-014335375.html).

“US Senate Republicans backed President Donald Trump’s military campaign against Iran on Wednesday, voting to block a bipartisan resolution aiming to stop the air war and require that any hostilities against Iran be authorized by Congress.

“The Senate voted 53 to 47 against advancing the resolution, largely along party lines, with all but one Republican voting against the procedural motion and all but one Democrat supporting it.

Nichols continues. The latest effort by Democrats and a few Republicans to rein in President Donald Trump‘s repeated foreign troop deployments, the war powers resolution was described by sponsors as a bid to take back Congress’s responsibility to declare war, as spelled out in the US Constitution. Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the US Constitution plainly reads, “The Congress shall have Power…to declare War.”

Senate Republican, in the majority, insisted that Trump’s action was legal and within his right as commander in chief to protect the United States by ordering limited strikes. They accused supporters of the resolution of endangering US forces.

Nichols questions their rationale. “There’s no indication that there’s any sort of circumstance that would give the President the unilateral authority to order military action. It’s true that presidents have some inherent authority to deploy the military as Commander in Chief, but that’s really limited to true emergency circumstances where there is an attack underway that needs to be repelled, or maybe an extremely clear imminent attack. But there’s no suggestion that that’s the case today—that would make the strikes illegal.”

———-

Trump and his Secretary of State offer rationales for why they started this war and will continue it for as long as “it takes.”

Reuters journalists Nandita Bose, Humeyra Pamuk and Simon Lewis report on attempts by Trump and the Secretary of “War” to justify the Iran war (https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-says-he-ordered-iran-strikes-thwart-tehrans-missile-program-2026-03-02) Consider how U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained it.

“The president made the very wise decision — we knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” Rubio said on Monday.” All of this is unsubstantiated.

Reuters – “We’re already substantially ahead of our time projections. But whatever the time is, it’s okay. Whatever it takes,” Trump said at the White House on Monday, during his first public event since the conflict began. — He made no mention of regime change, saying the fight was needed to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, which Tehran denies seeking, and to thwart its long-range ballistic missile program.”

The regime change rationale came a little later.

———-

Senate votes in support of Trump’s war

Democracy Now (https://www.democracynow.org/2026/3/5/headlines)

The United States Senate rejected a resolution Wednesday that would have directed the removal of U.S. armed forces from hostilities with Iran, as Iran’s government said the death toll from joint U.S.-Israeli attacks passed 1,200. Fifty-two Republicans were joined by Pennsylvania Democratic Senator John Fetterman on a procedural vote opposing the war powers resolution. This is Mississippi Republican Senator Roger Wicker.

Sen. Roger Wicker: “I’ll vote no on the pending resolution. President Trump decided to attack Iran. That decision was profound, deliberate and correct.”

Forty-four Democrats and two independents voted to advance the war powers resolution, joined by Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul. That fell short of the 51 votes needed to pass.”

———-

Some effects of U.S. bombing

#1 – Many Americans in the region are stranded (https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/us-iran-war-israel-strikes-tehren-lebanon-day-5-al-udeid-targeted).

“The State Department said Wednesday night that a charter flight of American citizens had departed from the Middle East and was headed to the U.S. It did not provide further details, including how many people were on board and where they had been evacuated from, citing ‘operational security purposes.’

“The State Department earlier on Wednesday said it had helped about 6,500 Americans depart the region, after it told U.S. citizens to evacuate 14 countries in the Middle East on Tuesday amid the widening war with Iran.

“The U.S. government has since faced criticism from some Americans trapped abroad for not doing more to facilitate their return.”

#2 – Democracy Now reports, Secretary Hegseth said that the U.S. and Israel are in the process of crushing Iran’s government “without mercy” (www.democracynow.org/2026/3/5/headlines).

“Iran’s Foreign Ministry says U.S. and Israeli attacks have struck 33 civilian sites across Iran, including hospitals, schools, residential areas and historic sites. Earlier today, airstrikes ‘destroyed’ Tehran’s Azadi Stadium, which has hosted international soccer matches. Meanwhile, two Iranian Red Crescent Society paramedics told Middle East Eye last weekend’s bombing of an elementary school in southern Iran was a so-called double-tap airstrike, with the second strike coming after the school’s principal called parents and told them to come and pick up their children. The strikes killed about 175 people, most of them young girls.

#3 – More information from Democracy Now about the

bombed girls’ school ((https://www.democracynow.org/2026/3/4/nilo_tabrizy).

Reporter Nilo Tabrizy is interviewed by host Amy Goodman about this tragedy. Here are excerpts.

AMY GOODMAN: It happened early Saturday morning. One of the first strikes of the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran hit a girls’ school in Minab, in southern Iran. The death toll is now at least 175, most of them primary school girls. On Tuesday, thousands of people filled the streets of Minab for a mass funeral. The girls’ ages range from 7 to 12. Iran’s school week runs from Saturday to Thursday. When the missile hit the school on Saturday morning, the girls were in their morning session. After the strike, parents searched for their children among the dead.

NILO TABRIZY: Yeah, absolutely. So, right now we’re not necessarily able to get in touch with eyewitnesses or, you know, friends and families of the young girls who were killed, but we were able to verify the video. So, there was one video that I saw probably around 6:30 a.m. Eastern Time on Saturday, and I was able to verify that and know that the video that we saw that showed at least, you know, half of the structure was hit. You know, two stories were torn down. The scene was really graphic. I saw things like a small child’s hand in the rubble, blood-stained backpacks, homework scattered everywhere. And so, when I see scenes like that, it’s important to verify and know that it’s from the current moment, so I was able to do that.

#4 – Nicholas Kusnetz points out that the “War in Iran Could Have ‘Historic’ Disruptions on Energy Markets” (https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02032026/iran-war-oil-energy-markets).

Kusnetz writes, “Oil prices jumped after the United States and Israel attacked Iran. Experts say the effects on oil and gas prices will depend on how long the war lasts and whether Iran damages energy infrastructure.”

“The U.S. and Israeli war against Iran is disrupting energy markets and driving oil and gas prices higher in the United States and globally. While those increases are modest so far, experts say the war has the potential to cause more severe and lasting impacts if Iran damages the region’s energy infrastructure or restricts shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

“Already, the three-day-old bombing campaign has killed hundreds of people in Iran, including the country’s leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“Iran has retaliated by hitting a broad range of targets across the region, including oil and gas sites. On Monday, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Energy said its Ras Tanura oil refinery sustained ‘limited’ damage after the interception of two drones. QatarEnergy said Monday it was halting production of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, after military attacks on two facilities.”

About one-fifth of global oil and LNG supplies pass through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway connecting the Persian Gulf with the Arabian Sea. On Sunday only five oil tankers moved through the strait, according to S&P Global Energy, compared with about 60 per day before the war.

“Analysts say global markets can withstand these types of cuts over the short term—global oil prices were up about 7 percent Monday compared to the day before bombing began. But the conflict also has the potential to cause ‘the largest oil supply disruption in history,’ said Jim Burkhard, vice president and head of crude oil research at S&P Global Energy, in a note.

“If the reduction in tanker traffic continues for a week or so it will be historic,” Burkhard wrote. “Beyond that it would be epochal for the oil market with prices rising to ration scarce supply and impacts in financial markets.”

Any lasting disruptions could prove even more meaningful for global gas markets, said Daniel Sternoff, senior fellow and head of corporate partnership strategy at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. Countries generally have smaller inventories of gas than oil to cushion disruptions, Sternoff said, though the impacts would be most pronounced in Asia and Europe. The United States is the world’s largest gas producer and a net exporter, so he said consumers would be somewhat insulated.

“The biggest question now, Sternoff said, is whether Iran damages oil and gas facilities around the region.

“All of this looks like a deliberate Iranian choice to escalate really quickly against its neighbors and to try to use world energy markets and prices as a pressure point,” Sternoff said, referring to the attacks in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. “We are really quickly into a really dangerous phase here of which there is no precedent.”

“A sustained increase in crude oil prices will push up the price of gasoline, too. And unlike with natural gas, American consumers are not insulated from the global oil market, experts say. Even though the United States is a net exporter of oil, refiners still import large volumes of crude.

“If prices remain elevated for no more than a couple of weeks, there may be little lasting impact, said Alan Krupnick, a senior fellow and director of the industry and fuels program at Resources for the Future, an environmental and energy think tank. But if high prices hang on for months, Krupnick said, that could have ripple effects that cut both ways with respect to climate change and fossil fuel output.

#5 – Effects of the war on financial markets

Jason Karaian reports on how “global markets tumble as Iran War intensifies

(https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/03/world/middleeast/stock-markets-iran.html). Here are excerpts from his article.

“A global market sell-off intensified on Tuesday, as Iran expanded its retaliatory attacks around the Persian Gulf region while American and Israeli officials signaled that strikes on Iran could continue for weeks. Stocks and bonds slipped and oil and gas prices surged. Investors sought havens like the dollar to protect their money from the uncertain and unpredictable effects of the fighting on the world economy.

“In a prolonged conflict, the combination of higher energy costs, disrupted logistics, and a generalized confidence shock would constitute a meaningful drag on global trade volumes at precisely the moment the world economy was still digesting the inflationary and growth consequences of the tariff shock,” noted analysts at ING, a bank. “The mother of all bad timings.”

“Fears of disruption to shipping on the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial waterway on Iran’s southern border through which a large share of the world’s oil and gas passes, upended energy markets. Oil prices continued to surge, with Brent crude oil, the global benchmark, rising more than 6 percent, to $83 a barrel, the highest level since mid-2024.

“Natural gas prices soared. European natural gas futures jumped for a second day; prices have roughly doubled over the past two days. A measure of gas cargoes in Asia rose 45 percent on Tuesday. Qatar, a major exporter of liquefied natural gas to buyers in Asia and Europe, halted L.N.G. production after attacks on its facilities on Monday. On Tuesday, Qatar’s state-owned energy company said it would also pause the production of “some downstream products” like polymers and aluminum.

“U.S. stocks were set to open sharply lower on Tuesday, with futures for the S&P 500 down 1.8 percent. Markets in New York recovered from early declines on Monday to close slightly higher, lifted by software and energy stocks.

“Stock markets in Asia and Europe recorded a second day of steep declines. The main index in South Korea dropped 7 percent on Tuesday, while stocks in Japan fell 3 percent. The Stoxx Europe 600 index fell more than 3 percent in early trading, with every market across the continent in the red.

“Bonds around the world sold off, as investors assessed the prospect of a potentially prolonged war worsening inflation and spurring higher interest rates. Rising oil and gas prices could result in increased prices at the pump for consumers and add costs to a wide range of component parts for businesses. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield, which moves inversely to prices, rose by 0.4 percentage points, to 4.1 percent. Yields on government bonds in Britain, Germany and Japan jumped even more.

———-

In starting this war, Trump is gambling his presidency

Tyler Pager addresses this issue (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/02/us/politics/iran-trump-polls-republicans.html). Here’s some of what he writes.

“Six American service members were killed, and 3 U.S. military jets were shot out of the sky. Investors are bracing for market turmoil, fearing prolonged disruption to oil supplies. President Trump says the military campaign against Iran could extend for weeks, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that ‘the hardest hits are yet to come from the U.S. military.’”

“With his decision Friday to authorize war against Iran, Mr. Trump is taking the biggest gamble of his presidency, risking the lives of American troops, more deaths and instability in the world’s most volatile region, and his own political standing.

“Mr. Trump, facing declining approval ratings and staring down the possibility that Republicans will lose control of Congress in the midterms, plunged the United States into what is shaping up to be its most expansive military conflict since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

“In just over a year since taking office, Mr. Trump has authorized military action in seven nations, even after he repeatedly promised American voters that he would end, not start, wars. During his inaugural address, he said his ‘proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker.’”

“Now it is Mr. Trump who is orchestrating a rapidly expanding military effort in a region whose history and religious and factional politics make it an especially complex battleground.”

“While a handful of prominent voices in his movement have publicly denounced the decision to go to war, Mr. Trump’s base appears to be standing by him, for now.”

“Still, some of the president’s allies privately worry that there is little political upside to the attacks on Iran and huge downsides, particularly the loss of U.S. troops and rising cost of oil.

“Trump sold voters on a ‘pro-peace’ vision of himself as an America First candidate, yet in under 13 months, he has ordered strikes on seven foreign nations and plunged our country into more open-ended conflict using taxpayer dollars,” Ken Martin, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement.

“While he’s distracted by foreign conflicts and shiny ballrooms, Trump has failed to deliver on his promise to bring costs down for working families, who are paying more every day because of Trump’s actions.”

“Early polling after the attacks show most voters are not in favor of them. A CNN poll found 59 percent of Americans disapprove of Mr. Trump’s decision to launch strikes against Iran, and Reuters-Ipsos poll found that only 27 percent of Americans approve of the military campaign.”

———–

Concluding thoughts

The President continues to act as though he can make policy like a King. But not everything is going in his direction. His poll numbers on his presidency are low. Prices remain high. Wages suffer. Employment is barely moving, except in Health Care. There is widespread criticism of ICE. The war is unpopular. And the Epstein issue lingers on. He faces impeachable offenses once he leaves office. Democratic candidates are winning elections.

Trump, the “winner”

Bob Sheak, Feb 15, 2026

Arlene Sheak edited

Trump takes a position in the campaigns prior to the elections in 2016 (won), 2020 (lost), and 2024 (won), that if he wins, the election was fair, but if he loses, it was rigged against him. He insists that, if the votes had been counted as they should have been in 2020, he would have – should have – won the presidency. But whether he eventually wins or loses, he always tells the public prior to an election that any defeat is due not to his unpopularity but to unfair tactics by the other side. The same is true after a lost election.

In other words, Trump tells us he lost the 2020 presidential election because it was rigged by Democrats against him. His opponents call this “election denialism.” It goes this way. If he loses, as the evidence indicates he did in 2020, it was not a legitimate loss because, in his view, many votes were cast illegally and/or poll workers failed to do their work honestly. If he wins, then the election is a conformation of his prowess and intelligence. Either way, he thinks of himself as the winner. This logic applies to all elections, policies, and issues of public importance. With respect to the 2020 election, the overwhelming verifiable evidence tells the 2020 election was conducted fairly, as confirmed by dozens of state audits and re-audits of the voting.

A record of Trump’s Election Denialism

Tal Axelrod examines this issue in an article published on Sept. 8, 2022, (https://abcnews.com/Politics/timeline-donald-trumps-election-denial-claims-republican-politicians/story?id=88168408). He writes,

“Trump himself, from the 2016 primary through today, has made election denialism a central part of his campaigns and of Republican politics — and also helped make it a motivating issue for other politicians, including those who once had criticized him for it.”

“And while ABC News/Ipsos polling this year showed a majority of Americans sharply disapproved of Trump’s role in attacking the 2020 election, including a fifth of Republicans, that same survey also indicated a majority of Republicans believed he didn’t really lose,” according to Axelrod.

But Trump denialism goes back even before he entered policies.

Axelrod: “Trump has a long history of crying foul in contests he doesn’t win, including previously saying that the ‘Emmys are all politics’ after his reality TV show, ‘The Apprentice,’ never won an award. He also labeled then-President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection ‘a total sham.’”

It was in the 2016 presidential election, ‘in which he lost the popular vote to Clinton but won the Electoral College, that he began making claims of fraud more consistently.’ Axelrod continues: “In the final weeks of the 2016 race, he refused to confirm whether he would accept a defeat. Afterward, he insisted, despite the evidence to the contrary, that he had only lost the popular vote “if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.”

Axelrod gives the example of how Trump said before the 2020 election that

“the only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged.”

‘After his defeat by Joe Biden, his claims became more frequent, with Trump swiftly leveling vocal yet baseless allegations in the early hours after Election Day.

“On Nov. 7, 2020, as news organizations correctly projected that Biden had defeated him, Trump tweeted the opposite: ‘I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!’ he claimed. In a statement, he vowed that ‘this election is far from over’ and promised to pursue legal challenges. (Ultimately no such court cases affected the 2020 race.)”

“And in mid-December 2020, after the Electoral College had officially selected Biden as the next president, Trump continued to say the result should be overturned: “This Fake Election can no longer stand. Get moving Republicans,” he tweeted.”

———-

In protest of the “stolen” 2020 election results, Trump incites attacks on the Capitol

The Jan. 6,2021, assault on the Capitol is a glaring and unprecedented example of the lengths to which Trump will go in rejecting the widely authenticated 2020 presidential election.

Trump did not accept any of this evidence at the time and went on to encourage thousands of people, including extremist groups, to come of the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021, the day on which the election results were to be certified. In short, Trump and his close associates wanted to do all they could to stop the peaceful transfer of presidential power, thinking their cause was righteous.

Author Nora Neus documents what occurred during that day in her book, 24 Hours at the Capital: An Oral History of the January 6^th Insurrection (publ. 2025). Here are a few telling points from the book that implicate Trump and demonstrate that the attempted insurrection would not have occurred without Trump’s encouragement. For example, she quotes Jacob Glick, investigator for the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6^th Attack on the United States Capital. Glick told Neus, “You need the paramilitary movement to exist. You need the white power movement to exist. But you also need Donald Trump to be seen as an ally. And you also need Donald Trump as that ally to tell them to do something. And without all of those things happening, January 6^th wouldn’t have happened” (pp. xii-xiii).

The rioters breached the police barriers and reached Senate side of the Capitol building on 2:10 P.M. They first entered the building at 2:11 P.M. Trump watched the television coverage of the events. It wasn’t until 4:03 P.M. that Trump made a videoed statement to the insurrections,

“I know your pain. I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from me. It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it, especially the other side, but you have to go home now….we love you, you’re very special.”

Neus points out, “Almost immediately, rioters saw the video and began to disperse” (p. 141).

———-

An update on the “loving” relationship between Trump and the insurrectionists

When Trump narrowly won the presidential election in 2024, one of the first things he did as president was to pardon about 1,500 men and women who had been convicted for their participation in the Jan. 6 riot. Sasha Abramsky considers the implications in an article for Truthout, Feb. 3, 2025 (https://truthout.org/articles/traumps-january-6-pardons-were-a-green-light-to-far-right-paramilitaries).

Sasha Abramsky is a freelance journalist and a part-time lecturer at the University of California at Davis. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including The Nation, The Atlantic Monthly, New York Magazine, The Village Voice and Rolling Stone. He also writes a weekly political column. Here are excerpts from the article.

“With President Donald Trump’s pardoning of more than 1,500 people charged with offenses relating to the January 6 insurrection, and his description of them as ‘hostages”’ rather than as insurrectionists, paramilitarism is now firmly back on the national agenda.

“Trump’s actions in freeing these men and women and lionizing their actions in 2021 was made all the more shocking by the fact that, with a few exceptions, Republican members of Congress — many of whom themselves had to flee the mob on January 6 — largely responded without criticism.”

‘That silence in the face of a relentless attack on the judicial system speaks volumes, suggesting that it has become a policy goal of the GOP to historically rehabilitate the perpetrators of that shameful attack four years ago — and those who egged them on — and to normalize the truly ghastly idea of a paramilitary praetorian guard standing ready to do the ‘Great Leader’s’ dirty work.”

“Now, with Trump running roughshod over his political opposition, and the full force of the federal government being mobilized to rewrite the history of January 6 and lionize its perpetrators, not-very-subtle signals are being sent that Trumpism welcomes violence — just so long as it is violence carried out on its behalf.”

“By pardoning the January 6 insurrectionists, the president has effectively condoned those who commit violence on his behalf….”

———-

Trump now worries 2026 midterms will be stolen from him

There are echoes of the 2021 attack reflected in Trump’s current concerns about upcoming congressional and senatorial elections to be held in the 2026 midterm elections. Trump and the Republican Party are doing what they can to bolster Republican candidates. They are gerrymandering congressional districts in ways to favor Republicans. They are talking about sending ICE enforcers to voting places in Democratic strongholds to intimidate voters. With Democrats gaining political momentum in early 2026, Trump has even talked about possibly taking the extraordinary step of instituting “The Insurrection Act,” which would postpone elections altogether because of public turmoil and disruption.

The Insurrection Act

Juliana Kim, Alana Wise report for NPR about Trump’s threat to invoke the Insurrection Act (https://www.npr.org/2026/01/15//nx-s1-5678612/minneapolis-insurrection-act-trump-threats). They write,

“The act is one way the president can send troops to states to restore law and order…allow armed forces to carry out law enforcement functions, such as making arrests and conducting searches.” The law could also permit the military to protect federal buildings and carry out immigration enforcement.”

Kim and Wise refer to statements Trump made on Truth Social: “If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State.”

In response to Trump’s comments, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said the president triggered the demonstrations by sending thousands of federal agents to Minnesota. He argued there were no grounds to invoke the Insurrection Act.” Ellison added, “If Donald Trump does invoke the Insurrection Act, I’m prepared to challenge that action in court.”

According to William Banks, professor emeritus of law at Syracuse University and the insurrection act is loosely defined and gives broad deference to the president. He adds, “It’s incredibly open-ended and grants him a dramatic amount of discretion to federalize an incident.” Furthermore, “The law also does not mention time constraints on the troop deployments. Nor does it involve Congress in the process to maintain checks and balance.”

It could also be instituted to buttress Republican campaigns in 2026.

———-

Trump’s fear of being impeached if Democrats win midterms

He is particularly worried about the 2026 midterm elections. Journalist Megan Lebowitz reports that Trump believes that if Republicans lose the midterms he will be (https://www.abcnews.com/politics/2026-election/trump-predicts-impeachment-if-republicans-lose-2026-midterms-rcna252604). The article was published on Jan. 6, 2026. Here is some of what she writes.

President Donald Trump had a warning for Republicans on Tuesday [Jan. 3]:

“‘You got to win the midterms, because if we don’t win the midterms, it’s just going to be — I mean, they’ll find a reason to impeach me,’ Trump said in a speech at a House Republican policy retreat. ‘I’ll get impeached.’”

Lebowitz reminds readers that Trump is the only president to have been impeached twice in the House, adding that supporters of the move in the Senate didn’t have the necessary two-thirds supermajority of votes to convict him in either of the cases. For details on how the process works, go to https://usa.gov/impeachment.

Previous impeachments

“Trump was first impeached in 2019 on charges stemming from accusations that he tried to pressure Ukraine to announce investigations into then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, in part by withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in congressionally approved military aid, as a way to damage Biden’s election chances. Trump was impeached a second time, in 2021, for his role in the events surrounding the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol as he tried to overturn his loss to Biden.”

———-

Concluding Thoughts

Given his record, Trump will utilize every means available to him to buttress his and Republican upcoming political prospects. The 2026 midterm elections will have a great effect on whether Trump will gain or lose some power. If there is a Democratically controlled House and/or Senate, his chance of advancing his right-wing agenda and power will be significantly reduced.

A president with great power, repression, amid growing resistance

Bob Sheak, Jan. 24, 2026

Arlene Sheak edited

The president is an embarrassment to the US, but more importantly, he is an unprecedented danger to democracy and a threat to peace in the world. He often claims he is for peace, but he is quick to utilize the military abroad and authorizes the largest military budget in American history – and in the world. He also aggressively authorizes the deployment of federal law-less enforcers into cities across the U.S, particularly “Democratic” cities.

All the while, he acts and speaks erratically. He makes up his own “truths.” He sees himself as an all-powerful leader, an autocrat or dictator. He enriches himself and his family. The New York Times Editorial Board reported that Trump had pocketed $1,405,500,000 in 2025

(https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/01/20/opinion/editorials/trump-wealth-crypto-graft.html).

His power is unfortunately rooted in his control of the executive branch of the U.S. government, including the military, an array of federal agencies, ICE, along with the Republican Party, support from the rich and corporations, a conservative majority in the Supreme Court, and his base of tens of millions of right-wing Americans. His policies are having detrimental effects on many Americans.

———-

His mental instability

Harold Meyerson contends that the president has “become psychotically megalomaniacal (https://prospect.org/2026/01/20/25th-amendment-time–mad-king-donald).

“Age, narcissism, and megalomania now determine Trump’s actions and, alarmingly, the domestic and foreign policy of the United States.

“Today, which marks the first anniversary of Trump’s reassuming the duties of the presidency, it’s clear that the conventional wisdom was profoundly and disastrously wrong. Age, narcissism, and megalomania now determine Trump’s actions and, alarmingly, the domestic and foreign policy of the United States.

When the consequences are confined to his ordering up monuments to his assumed greatness—stamping his face on coins, engraving his name on government buildings, sizing his ballroom to dwarf anything else in D.C.—they can be dismissed as relatively harmless outbursts of ridiculously overindulged self-love.

“But when, as he told The New York Times earlier this month, he views the only constraints on his actions to be his own sense of propriety and morality, rather than the Constitution that presidents are sworn to preserve, protect, and defend, then we’ve been shuttled into a different form of government than the one we’ve assumed we’ve lived in for the past 250 years: a monarchy, at least as Trump himself sees it.”

Meyerson gives this example, regarding Trump’s bizarre reason to annex Greenland. “The president Bottom of Form

Tcited his failure to win the Nobel Peace Prize as a reason he wants to seize Greenland. Just believing that he was in any sense qualified for the prize itself should have been evidence enough of his derangement. He surely feels wounded when anyone dares to tell him the truth about himself, as the Nobel Peace Prize committee unknowingly did when they gave the award to somebody else.

“But his determination to seize Greenland—already disgraceful, deplorable, and altogether addled even before his Nobel deprivation message—has become proof positive of his narcissistic megalomania, now that he’s linked his determination to his wounded ego.”

———-

Trump’s meandering speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland

Erin Mendell and Shashank Bengali report on this for The New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/21/us/politics/trump/davos-speech-takeaways.html). Here are some highlights of what they report.

“In remarks that stretched for over an hour, Mr. Trump lashed out at NATO in front of fellow members of the military alliance and lobbed criticism at the leaders of several nations, Somali immigrants in the United States, wind power and more.”

Denmark and Greenland

“Mr. Trump referred to Greenland, which he has insisted the United States must control for reasons of national and international security, as ‘cold and poorly located.’ He has argued that China and Russia could seek to exploit it, and said on Wednesday that granting U.S. control of it was ‘a very small ask.’” He ruled out using military force, but threatened European leaders who oppose such a U.S. annexation, telling them ‘We will remember.’”

Trump’s veiled threats pushed the long-established trans-Atlantic alliance “to the brink.”

Here are examples of other points Trump mentioned.

He spent several minutes arguing that European nations have hurt themselves by trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while reveling in his efforts to block and dismantle renewable electricity plants in the United States.
After referring to Greenland, a territory with a population of nearly 60,000 people, as a “piece of ice,” he appeared to confuse it with Iceland, a Nordic island nation, when talking about a dip in the stock market this week.
He said he had received a call from Karin Keller-Sutter, Switzerland’s president at the time, pushing back on an initial 30 percent tariff. “And she was very repetitive,” he said, adding, “She just rubbed me the wrong way.” After that call, Mr. Trump said, “I made it 39 percent.”
Mr. Trump drew some gasps when he directly criticized Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada. Canada is historically one of the United States’ staunchest allies.
Mr. Carney said in a speech at Davos on Tuesday that the era of U.S. hegemony could be over, calling the current moment “a rupture.” Though he didn’t mention Mr. Trump’s name, there was no mistaking his meaning.

———-

His Falsehoods

Falsehoods Fueled Trump’s First Year Back in Office

Linda Qiu does a fact-check of Trump’s falsehoods in 2025

(https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/20/us/politics/trump-falsehoods-fact-check-first-year-year.html). There is no surprise here. Trump has a long-history of stretching the truth and outright lying.

In the first year of his second term, President Trump has cited an arsenal of falsehoods, baseless claims and distortions to justify significant policy changes on the economy, immigration, trade, executive power, and foreign policy.

For example, Trump claimed that he would transform the economy from the “worst” to the “best” and that his tariffs would bring back manufacturing companies to the U.S. Contrary to this claim, Qui writes,

“The manufacturing sector shed 63,000 jobs from January 2025 to December 2025. Construction spending in manufacturing has also declined. Economic activity in the sector in general contracted for 10 consecutive months in 2025, according to a longstanding survey by the Institute for Supply Management.”

———-

Billionaires and Corporations gained a lot in Trump’s first year back in the White House

Derek Seidman considers who gained the most during Trump’s first year, Jan 20 2026 (https://truthout.org/articles/who-gained-the-most-during-trumps-first-year-billionaires-and-corporations). Seidman is a writer, researcher and historian living in Buffalo, New York. His research finds that billionaires and corporations did well 2025. Others find that the average American struggled just to pay the bills.

Seidman writes,“Big banks saw their stocks skyrocket by 29 percent during Trump’s first year.”

“…major industries and their billionaire leaders who rule over us all — from Wall Street to Silicon Valley, Big Oil to Big Crypto — have profoundly benefited from the administration’s first year. Many of these corporate actors have cozied up with Trump through piles of campaign and inauguration contributions, as well as donations to his White House ballroom project.

“They’ve been the big winners over the past year, raking in billions from a policy agenda overseen by Trump and his administration stacked with billionaires and industry-friendly regulators.”

Here’s one of Seidman’s examples.

‘Wall Street and its coterie of financial oligarchs have been prime beneficiaries of Trump’s first year. This is especially true of big banks, which saw their stocks skyrocket by 29 percent in 2025.

“The bullishness around banks springs largely from Trump’s lax regulatory regime.

This includes the weakening of antitrust oversight, to the glee of big banks profiting from ramped-up mergers and acquisitions, and the appointment of corporate-friendly regulators to key financial cabinet and oversight roles.”

“One major beneficiary of these policies is Jamie Dimon, the longtime billionaire CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the U.S.’s biggest bank.

Dimon — who appears to be chumming up with Trump after years of tension — raked in around $770 million in 2025 through a “combination of salary, bonuses, dividends, stock grants and appreciation in his allotment of the bank’s shares,” whose value rose 34 percent last year, according to The New York Times.

‘Other bank executives — at Citi, Goldman Sachs, Capital One, and more — have also massively cashed in.’

Seidman writes,

“Tech corporations and billionaires have been major beneficiaries of Trump’s first year, with their stocks and revenues soaring, as the president has adamantly backed their core interests, including turbocharging the construction of data centers that power artificial intelligence (AI), gutting state-level AI regulations, cutting limits of AI chip exports, and approving chip exports by chipmaking behemoth Nvidia to China.”

———-

Trump is hardly a president who advances peace in the world

Katrina Vanden Heuvel and John Nichols consider Trump’s “Donroe Doctrine,” Jan 13 2026 (https://www.thenation.com/article/society/donroe-doctrine-venezuela-maduro). Here’s some of what they write.

“Trump, acting very much as a European king of old, attacked Venezuela as this edition of The Nation went to press. His move represents a brazen violation of international law that destabilizes global security and seizes Congress’s exclusive authority to declare war. Military force is justified only in response to a clear, credible, and imminent threat to  the security of the US or its treaty allies. Venezuela, whatever its internal dysfunctions or its connections to drug trafficking, poses no such threat.”

They continue.

“While Trump and his allies tried to justify naked aggression as part of a convoluted strategy to target ‘narco-terrorism,’ Representative Pat Ryan (D-NY), a former Army intelligence officer who served two combat tours during the Iraq War, declared, ‘No matter what they say, it’s always oil.’ Ryan was not alone in recognizing echoes of the WMD claims of former president George W. Bush, and how that blood-for-oil war went so horribly awry. In his first bid for the presidency, Trump positioned himself as something of an anti-war Republican. That was always a cynical gambit, and Trump is now exposed as an economic imperialist who learned nothing from Iraq and who is willing, as Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) noted, to embark on a career of empire that risks the lives of US troops to make ‘oil companies (not Americans) more profitable.’”

———-

The growth of reckless domestic law-less enforcement: ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Bill Chappell considers “How ICE grew to be the highest-funded U.S. law enforcement agency (https://www.npr.org/2026/01/21/nx-s1-5674887/ice-budget-funding-congress-trump). Here’s some of what he reports.

“Just 10 years ago, the annual budget for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, was less than $6 billion — notably smaller than other agencies within the Department of Homeland Security. But ICE’s budget has skyrocketed during President Trump’s second term, becoming the highest-funded U.S. law enforcement agency, with $85 billion now at its disposal.

“The windfall is thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, enacted last July. After hovering around the $10 billion mark for years, ICE’s budget suddenly benefited from a meteoric spike.

Chappell quotes Lauren-Brooke Eisen, senior director of the justice program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan policy institute.

“With this new bill and other appropriations, it’s larger than the annual budget of all other federal law enforcement agencies combined….”

Chappel continues. “ICE is now the lead agency in President’s Trump immigration crackdown, sending thousands of agents into U.S. communities. As its funding and profile has grown as part of those efforts, ICE has come under increasing criticism for its officers’ actions, from masked agents randomly stopping, questioning, and detaining people and thrusting them into unmarked vehicles to the recent

“Under the 2025 law, ICE has a $75 billion supplement that it can take as long as four years to spend, along with its base budget of around $10 billion. If the agency spends that money at a steady pace and current funding levels continue, it would have nearly $29 billion on hand each year. That essentially triples ICE’s total budget from recent years.

“To give that large number a sense of scale, consider that the Trump administration’s 2026 appropriations request for the entire Justice Department, including the FBI, stands at a little over $35 billion.

“The Trump administration has set lofty goals for ICE, aiming to deport 1 million people each year. And the One Big Beautiful Bill Act also allocates $45 billion for ICE to expand its immigration detention system — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said last June that the agency will be able to hold up to 100,000 people in custody daily. By comparison, the federal Bureau of Prisons currently holds over 153,000 inmates.

“As of Nov. 30, 65,735 people were held in immigration detention, according to the data tracking project Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

With those metrics in mind, ICE went on a hiring spree in 2025, fueled by its bigger budget. In just one year, the agency says, it ‘more than doubled our officers and agents from 10,000 to 22,000.’ (The Office of Personnel Management, which tracks federal workforce statistics, is only updated through Nov. 30 and does not reflect any hiring made by the DHS in the last quarter of the year.)

“According to the DHS, ICE received 220,000 applications in 2025, thanks in part to a generous incentive package with perks like a signing bonus of up to $50,000, disbursed over the course of a five-year commitment, and up to $60,000 in student loan repayment.

“ICE is still on that hiring spree, looking to hire deportation officers in at least 25 cities around the U.S., according to a job listing on the USA Jobs website that will remain active through the end of September. The starting salary for an ICE deportation officer in the Enforcement and Removal Operations division, or ERO, ranges from $51,632 up to $84,277.”

———-

More Americans have come to oppose Trump’s ICE, or Immigration and Customs Enforcement force

Joe Lancaster reports on this and how support for abolishing ICE is surging (https://reason.com/2026/01/20/as-ice-cracks-down-support-for-abolishing-it-surges).

Lancaster writes, “Earlier this month, the death of Renee Good at the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer Jonathan Ross brought overly aggressive federal law enforcement into public view. As a result, more Americans than ever now think we should get rid of it.”

He continues, “More Americans now support the abolishment of ICE, in a major change since July and in Donald Trump’s first presidency,” Forbes‘ Mike Stunson wrote last week, “as the fatal shooting of Renee Good by a federal officer has led to a wave of backlash against the agency.”

Stunson who “cited a January 2026 poll conducted by The Economist and YouGov, which found that 46 percent of respondents support abolishing ICE, with 43 percent opposed. The same poll found 50 percent felt Good’s shooting was “not justified,” while only 30 percent said it was justified.

“A separate poll by Civiqs found 43 percent of respondents support ending ICE, with 49 percent opposed. Notably, though, this represents a dramatic shift since only a few months ago. In September 2024, only 19 percent supported, and 66 percent opposed, abolishing the agency.

“It was also the highest number in favor of abolition, and the lowest number against, since Civiqs began asking the question in July 2018, when the #AbolishICE movement began in earnest. (At that time, respondents favored keeping the agency intact by a 2–to–1 margin.)

‘And an Associated Press/NORC poll shows 61 percent of Americans now oppose Trump’s handling of immigration; as recently as March 2025, respondents were evenly split.

“The reason for the shift is clear: Americans are suddenly confronted with the reality of what ICE is doing, and they don’t like what they see.”

What do they see?

“Trump has deployed 3,000 federal officers and agents to Minneapolis this month, the largest operation in DHS history,” Nick Miroff wrote last week in The Atlantic. “Many of the ICE officers and Border Patrol agents are outfitted in tactical gear and wear body armor and masks, and they’re using the technological tools that the department acquired to protect the country’s borders: surveillance drones, facial-recognition apps, phone-cracking software. Powered by billions of dollars in new funding, they are making immigration arrests and grabbing protesters who try to stop them.”

Stunson continues.

“The results are plain to see: ICE officers assaulting U.S. citizens, smashing windows and dragging them from their cars, going door-to-door without a warrant or even reasonable suspicion. In October, ProPublica reported ICE had arrested at least 170 Americans—in many cases using considerable force—including some who were detained for multiple days without being allowed to contact their families or an attorney.”

Stunson adds, “Georgetown University’s Center on Privacy and Technology found that ICE has scanned the driver’s license photos of one in three American adults and could access the driver’s license data of three in four American adults.”

An alternative

“Leaving immigration restrictions more to the states would bring us closer to the Constitution’s original meaning,” agrees George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin. “We may not be able to fully restore the original meaning of the Constitution on this score. But abolishing ICE and shifting more law enforcement resources to state and local governments would bring us closer to it. It would also simultaneously curtail ICE abuses and reduce crime.”

“The U.S. went nearly its entire existence without ICE; it could do so again. And the more that Americans become familiar with the agency and see what it does, the more they seem to agree.”

———-

Jack Smith’s Testimony on Trump’s Indictments

Glenn Thrush and Alan Feuer report on Jack Smith’s defense of his Trump indictments during House Hearing (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/us/politics/jack-smith-trump-testimoney-congress.html).

“Jack Smith, the special prosecutor who twice indicted Donald J. Trump, defended his investigation in a tense and long-awaited appearance before a House committee on Thursday — flatly accusing Mr. Trump of causing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.”

Smith said, “No one should be above the law in this country, and the law required that he be held to account,” Mr. Smith said in his opening remarks. “So that is what I did.”

“The hearing posed significant risks to Mr. Smith, who has said he believes Mr. Trump and his appointees will seize on the smallest misstep to investigate, prosecute and humiliate him. House Republicans had made it clear that they would make a criminal referral to the Justice Department if his testimony revealed serious inconsistencies or misstatements.”

“‘Our investigation revealed that Donald Trump is the person who caused Jan. 6, that it was foreseeable to him and that he sought to exploit the violence,’ Mr. Smith said, sitting alone at the witness table with a water bottle, legal pad and white ballpoint pen.”

Jack Smith told the committee that he believed his investigations had gathered proof beyond a reasonable doubt that would have led to President Donald Trump’s convictions on charges of mishandling classified documents and seeking to unlawfully overturn his 2020 election loss, if he had not won last year’s presidential election.

———-

Concluding thoughts

I have written enough, though it is hardly all that could be written. The central point is that we are stuck with a president who looks at America and the World as something he can manipulate and, in the process, does great harm. And there are signs he is mentally unstable.

There is hope.

Democrats are doing well in recent state elections. People are demonstrating against his anti-immigrant, anti-democratic deployment of ICE forces. Trump’s poll ratings are down. Many countries are resisting his threats on tariffs and military interventions. Then, not the focus here, there are the yet to be released Epstein files.

The consequences of authoritarian power

Bob Sheak, January 12, 2026

Arlene Sheak edited

An unnecessary and tragic shooting

Renee Nicole Goodman was shot to death on Thursday, Jan. 8

by an ICE official. “ICE” stands for “Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”

This United States agency was created, so the government’s account says, to enforce immigration law across the country and protect public safety at the nation’s borders and within them. They are not called officials; they are “federal law enforcement officers” under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Soon after this hideous event, Christi Noam, Secretary of the Department of

of Homeland Security, President Trump, and Vice-President J.D. Vance,

all described Renee as “a domestic terrorist” who had, they erroneously said, tried to run over one of the ICE law enforcers who then shot her in self-defense. The evidence is abundantly clear that their account is designed to protect ICE rather than to advance accountability and justice. It is simply wrong and cruel.

Here is some of what these immoral government dimwits have said.

Noam

“On Wednesday, Noem said any loss of life is a “tragedy” but alleged that this incident was “preventable” (Noem defends ICE officer who shot woman in Minneapolis as having “followed his training” – CBS News).

“ICE officers and agents approached the vehicle of the individual in question, who was blocking the officers in with her vehicle,” Noem said Wednesday night. “And she had been stalking and impeding their work all throughout the day [not true]. ICE agents repeatedly ordered her to get out of the car and to stop obstructing law enforcement [no obstruction by her], but she refused to obey their commands. She then proceeded to weaponize her vehicle and she attempted to run a law enforcement officer over “

Trump

“President Donald Trump has doubled down on his response to the fatal shooting of a protester by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on Wednesday, but admitted that he did not like to see such tragedies unfolding in U.S. cities” (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-political/trump-ice-shotting-minneapolis-renee-good-b2896922.html). But he is ultimately responsible for these tragedies and his comments about it are ridiculous.

“After Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old poet and mother of three, was shot dead behind the wheel of her car on a residential street following a confrontation with federal immigration officers, the president took to social media to blame the victim.

“Trump wrote that he had reviewed footage of the incident and concluded: ‘The woman screaming was, obviously, a professional agitator, and the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE officer, who seems to have shot her in self-defense.’

“He went on to express sympathy for the agent involved, commenting: ‘It is hard to believe he is alive, but is now recovering in the hospital.’

“That claim was subsequently contradicted by Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara, who told CNN that he understood the victim was the only person hurt in the encounter.”

J.D. Vance

“Vice President JD Vance blamed Renee Nicole Good for her own death during a press briefing one day after the 37-year-old mother was shot and killed by the ICE agent.” (https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/jd-vance-blames-renee-nicle-22442628.html).

“Vance, 41, described the circumstances of Good’s death as ‘an attack on federal law enforcement’ as well as ‘the American people’ while speaking to reporters from the White House on Thursday, Jan. 8.

“The vice president, who raised his voice at times while speaking, passionately defended the ICE agent — who has since been identified as Jonathan Ross — while characterizing Good as a radical activist.

“Vance alleged Good was ‘part of a broader left-wing network to attack, to dox, to assault and to make it impossible for our ICE officers to do their job,’ before accusing her of ‘trying to ram this guy with her car,’ referring to Ross.”

“Everybody who has been repeating the lie that this was some innocent woman who was out for a drive in Minneapolis when a law enforcement officer shot at her, you should be ashamed of yourselves, every single one of you.”

The shame is his.

———–

A very different response from the Minneapolis mayor

Jacob Frey, the Democratic mayor of Minneapolis walked to a lectern Wednesday and delivered a blunt retort, saying that Trump’s officials’ account of what happened was “bullshit,” according to a report by Yasmeen Abutaleb for the

Washington Post (After ICE shooting, Minneapolis mayor emerges with blunt rebuke of Trump).

“To ICE, get the f— out of Minneapolis,” Frey added later in his news conference. “We do not want you here”

“Frey, who recounted his experience in an interview with The Washington Post, has emerged as a singular figure in the aftermath of Renée Good’s death. For days, he has aggressively countered the Trump administration’s portrayal of the shooting, becoming one of the most prominent critics of the way the president and his team have depicted the situation.

“While President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance have defended the officer and promised sweeping protections for federal agents, Frey has argued that available footage shows Good was not a threat and that the officer acted recklessly. He penned a New York Times op-ed with the headline stating, ‘Trump Is Lying to You’ and lambasted the FBI for seizing control of the post-shooting investigation, cutting out local officials. ‘This is not a time to hide from the facts,’ he said Friday.”

———-

ICE Is a Domestic Terror Threat

Jordan Liz discusses the issue in more general terms for Common Dreams, Jan 8, 2026 (https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/ice-domestic-terrorism).

The Trump administration false claims.

On January 7, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent murdered Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. Immediately, the Trump administration sprang into action to propagandize the incident. Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin claimed that the woman “weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them.” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claimed, “It was an act of domestic terrorism.”

President Donald Trump posted via Truth Social:

“…The situation is being studied, in its entirety, but the reason these incidents are happening is because the Radical Left is threatening, assaulting, and targeting our Law Enforcement Officers and ICE Agents on a daily basis. They are just trying to do the job of MAKING AMERICA SAFE. We need to stand by and protect our Law Enforcement Officers from this Radical Left Movement of Violence and Hate!”

Jordan Liz writes:

“Even after shooting Good, ICE agents refused to allow a doctor who was at the scene to provide aid. When an ambulance arrived 15 minutes later, they were blocked by ICE vehicles. They harassed her, shot her, and if there was even the faintest possibility that she might have lived, they took that away from her too.”

What really happened.

Liz continues: “There is ample video evidence showing that Good was driving away slowly. None of the agents—who, to be clear, had no right to harass or intimidate her in the first place—were even remotely in danger. They simply shot her because they knew they could. They shot her because the Trump administration has specifically and purposely empowered law enforcement to act without impunity or care.”

The actions of fascists

“What’s particularly alarming here,” Liz writes, “is how, despite the abundance of video evidence and eye-witness testimonies, the Trump administration insists on lying. This is literal fascism. To quote George Orwell’s famous 1984, ‘The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.’”

Conservative commentators echo Trump

“And it’s not just the Trump administration. Conservative commentators are also amplifying this obvious falsehood. Megyn Kelly lies, ‘This cop almost got run over by this woman, who accelerated into him.’ Matt Walsh blames the ‘protestor’ and the ‘Democrats who’ve been fomenting chaos and violence against ICE for months.’ Elon Musk, whose Twitter-X is the social media propaganda wing of the Trump administration, backs the ICE agent: ‘Attempting to murder them with a car requires self-defense.’”

Trump and his allies are anti-democratic

Liz continues. “The Trump administration has given up any pretext of being a democracy bound to the Constitution. They demonstrated this when they kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro and imposed colonial rule on Venezuela. And they demonstrated it Wednesday domestically against its own citizens. They will lie at every moment.”

——–

American citizens have rallied around the country to protest Renee Good’s murder

Sergio Martínez-Beltrán reports on the protests for NPR (https://www.npr.com/2026/01/10/nx-s1-5673229/ice-protests-minneapolis-portland-renee-good). Consider some of what he writes.

“People took to the streets in cities across the country this weekend to protest the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics following the death of Renee Good in Minneapolis, a 37-year-old woman who was shot and killed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer last week.

“At least 1,000 events across the U.S. were planned for Saturday and Sunday, according to Indivisible, a progressive grassroots coalition of activists helping coordinate the movement it calls ‘ICE Out For Good Weekend of Action.’

Leah Greenberg, a co-executive director of Indivisible, said people are coming together to ‘grieve, honor those we’ve lost, and demand accountability from a system that has operated with impunity for far too long.’”

“Large crowds of demonstrators carried signs and shouted ‘ICE out now!

during protests across Minneapolis on Saturday. One of those protesters, Cameron Kritikos, told NPR that he is worried that the presence of more ICE agents in the city could lead to more violence or another death.

“The night before, hundreds of city and state police officers responded to a “noise protest” in downtown Minneapolis. An estimated 1,000 people gathered Friday night, according to Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara, and 29 people were arrested.

“People demonstrated outside of hotels where ICE agents were believed to be staying. They chanted, played drums and banged pots. O’Hara said that a group of people split from the main protest and began damaging hotel windows. One police officer was injured from a chunk of ice that was hurled at officers, he added.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey condemned acts of violence but praised what he said were the “vast majority” of protesters who remained peaceful, during a morning news conference.”

“In Philadelphia, police estimated about 500 demonstrators ‘were cooperative and peaceful’ at a march that began Saturday morning at City Hall, Philadelphia Police Department spokesperson Tanya Little told NPR in a statement. No arrests were made.

“Activists participate in a protest prior to a march to the headquarters of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Sunday in Washington, D.C.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

“Protests also continued Sunday, including in Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and New York City.

“Crowds gathered across the metro Atlanta area, including on the 17th Street bridge, where demonstrators held signs that read ‘Stop ICE Terror Now’ and ‘ICE out 4 good,’ according to local media reports.

“In Washington, D.C., a day after protesters gathered in front of the White House on Saturday, demonstrators marched to ICE headquarters on Sunday. There were no arrests during the protests, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police Department told NPR on Sunday.

“A large crowd of demonstrators also marched in New York City on Sunday, according to PIX11.”

There were also demonstrations in Columbus, Ohio.

——-

Prosecute the ICE killer!

Elie Mystal writes in an article published on Jan 8, 2026 that Nicole Good’s murderer should be prosecuted (https://www.thenation.com/article/society/prosecute-renee-good-murderer). Here’s some of what he writes.

“The Trump administration has murdered another person. On Wednesday, ICE agents killed a woman, identified as 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, who was not engaged in any illegal activity.”

“Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey immediately called DHS’s justifications for murder ‘bullshit.’ Again, there is video of the incident, and that video shows that, as usual, DHS and the Trump administration are lying. It shows a nonviolent encounter that turns deadly when an ICE agent unloads his gun into a car at an unarmed woman.”

There are state laws in Minnesota that are meant to prevent the murder of nonviolent people. These state laws also apply to federal agents. Mystal clarifies his point: Bottom of Form’Criminal immunity extends only to agents who are performing their federal duties. Despite the way ICE tends to operate, murdering unarmed civilians is not part of the official duties of ICE agents.’ However, the case for murder may well end up in a ‘lengthy immunity fight in this case and will probably last years and end up in the Supreme Court, where six Republicans stand at the read to lick Trump’s boots and grant him whatever illegal thing he is asking for.’”

———-

ICE in context

Chris Iorfida considers ICE historically and poses the question, “What is ICE and how has it changed during Trump’s 2nd term? | CBC News.” His basic point is that over the years, “ICE agents have reportedly been involved in dozens of shooting incidents. The article was posted on Jan. 8, 2026.

ICE expansion over 20 years

“ICE came into being after the Homeland Security Act was enacted in 2002, as the United States sought to grapple with the consequences of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.”

“Responsibilities and functions previously carried out by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) workforce under the aegis of the Department of Labour were reconsidered, and ICE was established in 2003 under the Department of Homeland Security, focusing on the removal of unauthorized persons in the U.S. and stamping out cross-border trafficking of migrants.”

“Both Republican and Democratic presidential administrations have utilized ICE — Barack Obama was dubbed by some critics ‘the deporter-in-chief.’ But from the very first moments of launching his presidential campaign in 2015, Trump has focused on illegal immigration in an unprecedented way.”

Iorfida continues. “In his first administration, Trump sought through executive orders and his own pulpit to pressure some local and state law enforcement agencies who over the years began to limit their co-operation with ICE in some circumstances.

Trump has ignored any such local and state pressure.

Since capping his political comeback last year, Trump and some of his closest advisers — including Stephen Miller — have expressed a desire for one million deportations a year.

“The first-year Trump budget allocated more than $170 billion US over four years for border and interior enforcement, with $75 billion going to ICE for further arrests of immigrants, including the building of more detention facilities. In an analysis critical of the administration, the liberal Brennan Center for Justice said the ICE budget for 2025, at almost $29 billion, was nearly triple the amount of the previous year’s budget.”

ICE tactics and arrests

Iorfida continues.

“U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown is supposed to be targeting criminal illegal immigrants, but more American citizens and legal immigrants are being rounded up. For The National, CBC’s Terence McKenna talks to people who have been dragged away by ICE agents and asks: Is America becoming a police state?

“Mike Fox, a legal fellow with the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank in Washington,” Iorfida writes, “criticized that approach in September in an interview with CBC News.

“‘The [deportation] numbers are going to be a lot lower if you’re actually focusing on the violent people that you should be focusing on,’ he said. ‘It’s a lot easier to just stand outside a Home Depot and round people up.’”

Many people rounded up by ICE have no criminal record

“Cato has been among a number of think-tanks and civil rights groups to point out that the statistics provided by the federal government have shown that significant numbers of people detained by ICE have not incurred a criminal record since entering the U.S.”

Shootings, but not indictments

“Good’s killing was the second fatal shooting by an ICE officer in four months.”

“ICE agents fatally shot Silverio Villegas González, a 38-year-old cook from Mexico, during a traffic stop in suburban Chicago on Sept. 12. The FBI and DHS have yet to release any information concerning previously announced inquiries into the shooting.”

“ICE-involved shootings before this year were rare but not unprecedented, according to The Trace, an outlet devoted to gun-related news. What is unheard of are prosecutions.

“…between 2015 and 2021, 59 shootings by ICE officers occurred across 26 U.S. states, leading to 23 fatalities.” There were no indictments of ICE agents.

———-

It is not at all surprising that Trump and his administration flout the law.

Journalist at the New York Times interviewed Trump and find this to be true.

Trump Lays Out a Vision of Power Restrained Only by ‘My Own Morality’

David E. Sanger,Tyler Pager,Katie Rogers and Zolan Kanno-Youngs

(https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/us/politics/trump-interview-power-morality.html). These reporters were able to interview Trump in the Oval Office.

Here is some of what Trump said on whether domestic law restrains or guides his behavior as president.

He did acknowledge in the interview some constraints at home, “even as he has pursued a maximalist strategy of punishing institutions he dislikes, exacting retribution against political opponents and deploying the National Guard to cities over the objections of state and local officials.”

Trump suggested

“that judges only have power to restrict his domestic policy agenda — from the deployment of the National Guard to the imposition of tariffs —

under certain circumstances.’

“But he was already considering workarounds. He raised the possibility that if his tariffs issued under emergency authorities were struck down by the Supreme Court, he could repackage them as licensing fees. And Mr. Trump, who said he was elected to restore law and order, reiterated that he was willing to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy the military inside the United States and federalize some National Guard units if he felt it was important to do so.”

———-

A final note: He and his family are profiting from his presidential power as chaos, fear, and anger soar across the country

David Kirkpatrick, interviewed on Democracy Now, discusses how New Yorker Mag “Reveals Trump Family’s Frenzy to Cash in on the White House”

(https://democracynow.org/2025/8/20/trump_profit). The money flows to Trump and his family through numerous sources. Amy Goodman, the host of Democracy Now, offers this summary of Kirkpatrick’s research.

“Many payments now flowing to Trump, his wife, and his children and their spouses would be unimaginable without his Presidencies: a two-billion-dollar investment from a fund controlled by the Saudi crown prince; a luxury jet from the Emir of Qatar; profits from at least five different ventures peddling crypto; fees from an exclusive club stocked with Cabinet officials and named Executive Branch.”

Here are excerpts from what Kirkpatrick said in the interview.

20 million dollars over the last few years selling campaign merchandise through the Trump Organization’s online story (e.g., baseball hats, flip-flops)
$550 million through selling NFTs, or non-fungible crypto tokens, 75% of which flows to the Trump organization
Selling stablecoins, providing a way to transfer money here and there digitally. Trump’s sons set up a company to deal in these coins called World Liberty Financial. They are invested in Treasuries. The United Arab Emirates put up $2 billion to buy stablecoins.
Profiting from the rising stock price in their online company, Truth Social.
The crown prince of Saudi Arabia, who controls the public investment fund, invested $2 billion with Jared Kushner’s private equity firm.
Kushner has “accumulated as much as $4.8 billion in assets under management….quite a bit of it also from the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.”

Kirkpatrick adds,

“Now, again, in my accounting, I’m not including deals which appear to be extensions of the business they were in before he was elected. You know, he had licensed his name for use on four condominium buildings around India before he ever went into the White House. Now there are five more Indian projects. Fine, let’s leave that aside.”

———-

Concluding thoughts

Trump and his administration are essentially anti-democratic and cruel. This is reflected in the abuses of ICE as it enforces Trump’s anti-immigration agenda. It is dramatically and tragically reflected in the murder to Renee Good, which has sparked outrage and protests against Trump and ICE across the country. And it is sadly reflected in how Trump is dismissive toward the law and how his family profit amidst it all. We hope that such abuse of power will culminate in voters holding the administration and its Republican toadies accountable in upcoming elections.

What the President gave us in 2025.

Bob Sheak, Dec 22, 2025

Arlene Sheak, edits

Let me underscore a few of the sad effects of Trump and his policies in 2025.

1 – A decline in employment opportunities

“…the U.S. economy added just 64,000 jobs in November, the weakest monthly gain in more than four years and a clear sign that hiring is slowing” (https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/bad-jobs-data-delivers-another-hit-to-trump-s-economy-story/arAA1SGFYt?ocid=BingNewsSerp). This includes: “softer hiring trends and renewed strain in the manufacturing industry that had been central to Trump’s promises to blue collar communities. Those warning signs, detailed in a Dec labor analysis, suggest that November’s disappointment is not a one-off blip but part of a pattern that is increasingly hard for the White House to spin away.”

2 – The affordability problem

“Findings in a poll released Dec. 11 from the progressive think tank the Century Foundation, shared exclusively with USA TODAY, show rising costs are taking a heavy toll on the American family, with the working class bearing the brunt of what the group calls an “affordability crisis” (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/87623654007).

“Nearly 3 in 10 of voters polled said they held off getting medical care over the past year because of costs. One-third said they have skipped a meal. Two-thirds of respondents said they are buying cheaper groceries or buying less food, while half said they dipped into savings to cover basic expenses.”

3 – ICE – a government-supported harassment of immigrants

“Neither Jose nor Josue [referred to in this article] have been convicted of a crime. The same is true of 73 percent of the more than 65,000 immigrants in ICE detention as of November, a record number of detainees [kidnapped people]. Nearly half of all immigrants in ICE detention have neither a criminal conviction nor pending criminal charges. Of the immigrants with criminal convictions, 5 percent have been convicted of violent crime such as murder or rape, according to the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank” (https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2025/12/19/how-ice-deports-refugees-and-migrants-despite-years-of-good-conduct).

4 – A self-glorifying, narcissistic president – Peter Baker reports the following (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/21/us/politics/trump-imperial-presidency.html).

“ He no longer holds back, or is held back, as in the first term. Trump 2.0 is Trump 1.0 unleashed. The gold trim in the Oval Office, the demolition of the East Wing to be replaced by a massive ballroom, the plastering of his name and face on government buildings and now even the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the designation of his own birthday as a free-admission holiday at national parks — it all speaks to a personal aggrandizement and accumulation of power with meager resistance from Congress or the Supreme Court.”

5 – His cruelty –

Henry Giroux writes here (https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-response-to-reiners-death-shows-the-cruelty-at-the-core-of-his-politics). On Trump’s cruelty.

“The endpoint of such brutalizing rhetoric is the colonization of consciousness, the normalization of state terror, and the steady march toward targeted persecution.

“After the September shooting of conservative commentator and close Trump ally Charlie Kirk, MAGA figures were relentless in condemning what they called ‘political and celebratory responses,’ weaponizing the tragedy to demand greater restrictions on free speech and to justify punishing liberal and progressive groups Trump despised. In this context, outrage was not about decency or respect for the dead, but about exploiting grief to expand authoritarian power.”

6 – The big lie – i.e., he won the 2020 presidential election

“Donald Trump is the only US president to deny electoral defeat, claiming that his loss in the 2020 presidential election was due to widespread fraud. We contend that belief in this “big lie” is deeply intertwined with devotion to Trump. That is, those who were already deeply aligned with Trump were not only more inclined to accept the big lie; its acceptance fostered ever deeper alignment with the former president. This alignment fueled other pro-Trump attitudes, related to both Trump’s felony indictments and his policy goals should he be reelected in 2024. These phenomena illustrate how the fusion of personal identity to a political leader can lead to acceptance of a single piece of misinformation that itself can serve as a base upon which other misinformation may propagate and insulate the original fiction against falsification. We begin by putting these phenomena into historical context.” This quote is from an article by Philip Money and William B. Swan, reported on Cambridge website, Jan 1, 2025.

7 – Trying to avoid his Epstein involvement

(https://the hill.com/opinion/white-house-5658590-epstein-scandal-bondi-trump-impeachment)

William S. Becker writes:

“Since the federal government got involved in the Epstein scandal in 2019, the case has been shrouded in mysterious leniency, cover-up and stonewalling. Now, with many of Epstein’s victims, the American people, and a virtually unanimous Congress calling for transparency, the scandal has become a confrontation that should end Attorney General Pam Bondi’s career — and Donald Trump’s presidency.

“Why Bondi? Because the nation’s highest law-enforcement official has violated the law with her willful contempt of Congress. It’s not just any law. Congress passed it 527-1, requiring the Justice Department to release all its files on the Epstein case by midnight last Friday. Eighty percent of American adults support it. So do many of the victims of Epstein’s alleged sex-trafficking operation.”

8. President is losing his grip on Republicans

“According to NBC News polling, the proportion of self-identified Republicans who align primarily with MAGA movement has plummeted by seven percentage points since April 2025 (https://www.newsweek.com/polls-show-donald-trump-losing-base-republican-party-maga-11248366).

“In the most recent survey conducted between November 20 and December 8, only 50 percent of Republicans said they identified more with MAGA, compared to 57 percent earlier in the year.”

9 – Surrounding himself with incompetent sycophants

Ross Rosenfeld reports on this (https://www.newsweek.com/trumps-circus-of-sycophants-opinion-2062218).

“And who in his inner circle is willing to go against the president, point out the lunacy of many of these plans, and make counterarguments? No one, of course—and few outside of it either. Because there is an atmosphere of fear. ‘We are all afraid, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said to her constituents last week.

10 – A convicted felon

“Yes — based on the reporting provided, Donald Trump remains a convicted felon: a New York jury found him guilty on 34 counts of first‑degree falsifying business records on May 30, 2024, and he was sentenced on January 10, 2025; the sentence was an unconditional discharge that imposed no jail time or fine, but it did not erase the conviction itself” (https://factually.co/fact-checks/politics/is-donald-trump-a-felon-current-status-2025-46d6d8).

11 – A law-breaker

He has been impeached twice, indicted four times, convicted of 34 felonies, found liable for sexual abuse and found liable for business fraud.

–Alexander Mallin also addresses the issue, ABC News, Dec 17,2025

(https://abcnews.go.com/US/jack-smith-testifies-house-judiciary-committee-trump-probes/story?id=128493801).

“Former special counsel Jack Smith told lawmakers Wednesday he believed his investigations had gathered proof beyond a reasonable doubt that would have led to President Donald Trump’s convictions on charges of mishandling classified documents and seeking to unlawfully overturn his 2020 election loss, if he had not won last year’s presidential election.

“Smith’s testimony came during a closed-door hearing in front of the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee as part of the panel’s probe into Smith’s investigations.

Smith told the committee that his actions were “based on what the facts and the law required.”

“‘If asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether the President was a Republican or Democrat,’ Smith said, according to his prepared remarks.”

“Smith charged Trump with undertaking a ‘criminal scheme’ to overturn the results of the 2020 election in order to remain in power, and with mishandling classified materials after leaving the White House in 2021. Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges in both cases, before both cases were dropped following Trump’s reelection due to the Justice Department’s long-standing policy barring the prosecution of a sitting president.

“‘The decision to bring charges against President Trump was mine, but the basis for those charges rests entirely with President Trump and his actions, as alleged in the indictments returned by grand juries in two different districts,’ Smith said in his prepared remarks.’”

12 – He hates his enemies

Here’s some of what Tyler Pager reports (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/22/us-political/trump-kirk-memorial-hate.html).

“As tens of thousands of people mourned the conservative activist Charlie Kirk on Sunday, President Trump made a seemingly unscripted remark that summed up the retribution campaign that has come to define his second term.

“‘I hate my opponent,’ Mr. Trump told the crowd at the memorial in Arizona, ‘and I don’t want the best for them.’”

“Mr. Trump has used the full might of his political and executive power to express that mind-set in myriad ways, sparing no facet of American life. He has attacked law firms, universities, political leaders, government agencies, late-night TV hosts, news organizations and cultural institutions, and Mr. Kirk’s killing has only accelerated that campaign. Mr. Trump and his top advisers have signaled a broad crackdown on liberal groups, making the baseless argument that they are part of a violent conspiracy.

13 – Trump rejects science

Jeff Tollefson writes: “In just the first weeks of Donald Trump’s second presidency, his administration embarked on making radical changes to US science (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-04051-y). He continues.

“Officials appointed by the new president started firing thousands of researchers and other government employees. At the same time, it cut billions of dollars of US support for global-health programmes, including dismantling the US Agency for International Development (USAID). It arrested some scholars from outside the United States as it stepped up efforts to restrict entry into the country and limit political speech. Over the next few months, the US government took steps to exert unprecedented control over universities by withholding federal research funding. The administration cancelled tens of billions of dollars in research grants to universities to force the adoption of policies on hiring and admissions, policing of campuses, curricula and other factors.”

14 – RFK, Jr.

Madeline Halpert writes the following for BBC ((https://www.bbc.com.news/articles/dcvgv1ggrzzjo).

“More than 750 current and former employees of the US health department have published a letter rebuking Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, saying his ‘dangerous and deceitful statements’ contributed to recent violence at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters”)

“Officials say the man who fired hundreds of rounds at the CDC this month, killing a police officer, had expressed distrust in the Covid-19 vaccine.

“In their letter, the staff said the attack came as ‘politicized rhetoric

drives mistrust in institutions.

“They also said Kennedy had put Americans’ health in danger and hurt the country’s ability to respond to public health emergencies.

“‘Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is complicit in dismantling America’s public health infrastructure and endangering the nation’s health by repeatedly spreading inaccurate health information,’ they wrote in a letter addressed to both Congress and Kennedy and published on a site called Save HHS.

“The signatories were affiliated with the CDC, the National Institutes of Health, and Health and Human Services.”

15 – Trump seems drawn to autocrats –

Peter Baker reports on this (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/21/us/politics/trump-imperial-presidency.html).

“When President Trump hosted the crown prince of Saudi Arabia last month, he pulled out all the stops. To the traditional pomp of a formal White House visit, he added a few even fancier touches: a stirring military flyover, a procession of black horses and long, regal tables for the lavish dinner in the East Room instead of the typical round tables.”

16 – Enriching himself and his family – Baker: “The lack of checks on Mr. Trump has given him latitude that his predecessors did not enjoy, not just in policymaking but also in profit-making. While other presidential families have cashed in on the White House, none has been as successful or brazen as Mr. Trump and his clan. In the 11 months since he reclaimed the White House, the president’s family has made billions of dollars, at least on paper, through business deals around the world and cryptocurrency investments from people with a vested interest in American policy.”

Concluding thoughts

With luck, good evidence, effective organizing, electoral participation, and determined politicians, we may be able to tell a story of how Trump’s self-serving and anti-democratic policies were overcome in 2026.