[Transcript edited for clarity, flow and length]

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At the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night, things took a sharp turn when a gunman attempted to breach a secured area. Shots were fired on a nearby floor, sparking a very real security scare. Donald and almost his entire cabinet were in the ballroom at the hotel. They never appeared to be in any immediate danger, and security ultimately held, but the incident is raising serious questions.

Bizarrely, Donald is using what happened to make the case that his $400 million ballroom is more urgent than ever. This, despite the fact that the Correspondents’ Dinner is a private event with more than 3,000 people and would never be held at the White House anyway.

Within hours of what could have been a very serious incident, Donald and his team were back in the White House press briefing room arguing that the shooting proved the need for the ballroom.

We looked at all of the conditions that took place tonight, and I will say it’s not a particularly secure building. And I didn’t want to say this, but this is why we have to have all of the attributes of what we’re planning at the White House. It’s actually a larger room and it’s much more secure. It’s drone proof, it’s bulletproof glass. We need the ballroom. That’s why Secret Service, that’s why the military are demanding it. They’ve wanted the ballroom for 150 years for lots of different reasons, but today’s a little bit different because today we need levels of security that probably nobody’s ever seen before.

The rationale makes no sense. If the hotel was not secure, why was the president of the United States and almost his entire cabinet allowed to go there? The safest place on the planet should be wherever the president is, especially when surrounded by the vice president, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, and the head of the FBI. Security was the responsibility of the Secret Service, not the hotel.

The next morning, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson went on Fox to do what he does best. This is what he had to say:

They’ve incited violence, in my view. You have some of the most prominent figures on the Democrat side effectively calling for war. They use those kinds of metaphors, and it incites violence because there are crazy people in society and they get radicalized online. We’ve got to recognize that. It’s time to turn down the rhetoric. I hope this will be a sobering reminder. The ballroom will be a solution for this because it’ll be on the most secure compound in the world. It’ll have seven inch thick glass on the windows. It’ll be a very safe environment to do events like this.

If you are concerned about violent rhetoric, start with Donald. He is the one calling the left radical lunatics. He is the one spreading lies about immigrants and inciting fear. He is the one escalating language in ways that have real-world consequences.

At the same press conference, Peter Doocy asked Donald why this keeps happening. This is was Donalds response:

Well, I’ve studied assassinations, and I must tell you the most impactful people, the people that do the most, you take a look at the people, Abraham Lincoln. The people that make the biggest impact, they’re the ones that they go after. They don’t go after the ones that don’t do much. I hate to say I’m honored by that, but I’ve done a lot. We’ve taken this country from being a laughing stock, and now we’re the hottest country anywhere in the world. There are a lot of people that are not happy about that.

That response speaks for itself.

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We already know that anything that happens will be used as justification for this ballroom, which is a deeply questionable project. The company responsible for building it previously received a no-bid contract worth tens of millions of dollars. That is how this works.

Donald also made it clear that none of this would change his approach to the war with Iran.

Winning the war in Iran, I don’t know if that had anything to do with it. I really don’t think so based on what we know, but we’re going to continue to do a great job.

There was real fear and chaos at the event, and it should not be minimized. But the footage that emerged raised serious questions. People reacted in ways that were, at best, revealing. There were visible inconsistencies in how individuals were protected, including the fact that the vice president was removed before Donald was even approached.

All of this points to gaps in protocol and raises legitimate concerns about how security was handled.

That brings us to a broader issue. When people no longer trust the government, even basic facts become difficult to accept. If officials come forward with explanations, there is no guarantee the public will believe them.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was asked about the suspect and how the alleged shooter was able to travel across the country with weapons, stating:

This isn’t about changing the law or making the laws more restrictive around possession of firearms. It appears he purchased these firearms over the past couple of years. We don’t know how they ended up in his possession in DC. I don’t think the narrative here is about changing laws. This is about law enforcement doing their jobs and a suspect who tried to do something and failed miserably.

That explanation is not reassuring. If anything, it highlights a failure, not a success.

What it suggests is that nothing will change. There will be no meaningful effort to address gun violence or improve public safety. But there will be hundreds of millions of dollars allocated to a ballroom so Donald can hold events without interruption.

Before the Correspondents’ Dinner, Karoline Leavitt made a comment that now feels difficult to ignore. This is what she said:

It’ll be funny. It’ll be entertaining. There will be some shots fired tonight, so everyone should tune in.

The remark may have been intended as a metaphor, but in hindsight it lands very differently.

Later, when asked about his evacuation, Donald offered his version of events. This is what he said:

I was standing up and walking out, and then they said, “Please go down to the floor.” So I went down, and the first lady went down also. We were asked to go down by the agents as I was walking. I was pretty much standing up and then they told us to go down.

And then there was the moment during a separate interview when Donald was confronted with serious allegations. This is what he said:

I’m not a rapist. I didn’t rape anybody. I’m not a pedophile. You read that from some sick person. I was totally exonerated. You should be ashamed of yourself for reading that.

This is where things stand.

We are dealing with a situation in which a serious security incident is immediately politicized, used to justify unnecessary spending, and deflected through blame and rhetoric. At the same time, trust in institutions continues to erode, and transparency remains elusive.

That combination is not just troubling. It is dangerous. Release the files.

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[ Transcript edited for clarity, flow and length]

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Mary Trump: Norm, thanks for being here. As I mentioned, I wanted to talk about your Atlantic piece from January 2016, The Eight Causes of Trumpism, and where we are now compared to where we were, what feels like several geological epochs ago. But first, we have to address the fact that we do not have weekends anymore. Once again, over the weekend, something happened that turned all eyes to Donald, and somehow an alleged attempted mass shooting was used to justify building a four hundred million dollar ballroom. What are your thoughts?

Norm Ornstein: I have many thoughts. One is that there are a lot of unanswered questions. This individual was not shot. He was captured without any wounds. He was reportedly carrying a long gun, a handgun, and multiple knives, and he ran through a magnetometer. We saw images of Secret Service agents with guns drawn while he was sprinting away before he fell and was captured, yet no one fired. That is unusual.

We also had one officer struck in a bulletproof vest. I would like to see the ballistics on that bullet. If I had to guess, it may have been friendly fire. Under those circumstances, Secret Service agents are trained to shoot to kill, so it is difficult to understand what happened.

There is also a larger issue. I have been working for years on continuity of government planning. Reports indicate that the president, vice president, and much of the cabinet were all in that ballroom. The only person in the line of succession not present was the president pro tempore of the Senate. That creates a dangerous scenario. If a catastrophic event occurred, the country could be left in a very precarious position. The Presidential Succession Act dates to 1947 and is clearly outdated.

Beyond that, I stopped attending this dinner about twenty years ago because it had become a farce. It is a gathering of three thousand people, many of whom treat it as the highlight of their lives. It has turned into a spectacle of celebrity culture. There is only one ballroom in Washington that can seat that many people, which is why it is used.

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Now, the idea that this incident justifies building a White House ballroom is absurd. A smaller ballroom would not even accommodate this event, and it would be inappropriate to hold a private dinner of this kind in an official government space.

The dinner itself is problematic. The White House press corps, with very few exceptions, has lost integrity. This event celebrates a president who has called them the enemy of the people. Media organizations invited members of this administration, including individuals who represent the worst elements of it. That alone is troubling.

Mary Trump: Not quite yet, because there is more. CBS had fifteen tables, and some of the worst figures were seated there. What exactly was being celebrated? The press has spent over a decade being attacked, labeled fake news, and treated as enemies, yet they continue to participate in this spectacle.

There was also an interview where Donald felt the need to say that he is not a rapist or a pedophile, even though the question had nothing to do with him. That kind of response is revealing.

Norm Ornstein: When I saw that statement, I thought of Richard Nixon saying he was not a crook. It carries the same implication. And in Donald’s case, there are legal findings that make such statements even more questionable.

Mary Trump: Exactly. A jury has already made a determination. And yet we are in a situation where we cannot trust the information we are given. If officials claim the alleged gunman had certain motives, I do not believe them. We saw this before. There were no clear reports, no transparency, and conflicting narratives.

Even basic details do not align. The timeline, the security response, the descriptions of proximity, none of it makes sense. This creates a dangerous environment where people cannot distinguish truth from fabrication.

Norm Ornstein: There are legitimate questions about the Secret Service. In a previous incident, the response did not follow protocol either. Instead of protecting the president by minimizing exposure, there were actions that contradicted standard procedures.

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In this case, it is also important to recognize that the ballroom itself is heavily secured. It is extremely difficult to breach. Any claim of immediate danger inside that space appears overstated.

There is also a financial dimension. A contractor recently received a large no bid contract for work that had previously been estimated at a fraction of the cost. That raises concerns about corruption and the possibility of kickbacks tied to the proposed ballroom project.

Mary Trump: Which brings us to your article. You outlined the causes of Trumpism before it fully took hold. Many of those figures are no longer central, but their influence remains. The infrastructure they built is still in place. Did you anticipate how severe things would become?

Norm Ornstein: I wrote that piece before Donald secured the nomination because I believed the conditions were already there. Many analysts thought he would fade, but I saw deeper forces at work. The tribalism that developed over time, the influence of figures like Newt Gingrich, and movements like the Tea Party all contributed.

The election of Barack Obama played a role as well. It did not eliminate racism. It triggered a backlash. I recall saying on election night that we would see more overt racism, not less, because some people would use that moment to claim that racism no longer existed.

Even so, I did not expect it to reach this level. His first term was damaging, but it was not the full catastrophe we are seeing now. Many voters in 2024 underestimated what a second term would bring.

The key difference is that there are no longer constraints. In his first term, there were individuals who resisted extreme actions. Those people are gone. They have been replaced by loyalists. The Supreme Court has also shifted in ways that expand executive power.

As a result, we are seeing actions that would have been unthinkable before. Policies are being implemented without regard for norms, laws, or consequences.

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Mary Trump: We have moved from proposals that were once shocking to actions that are even more extreme, and there is little resistance within the system. The mechanisms of accountability have weakened significantly.

Norm Ornstein: And it is likely to get worse. I am particularly concerned about the integrity of future elections. There are multiple ways the process could be undermined. Ballots could be challenged or seized. Mail delivery could be manipulated. Voting access could be restricted. Intimidation at polling places is a real possibility.

In more extreme scenarios, emergency powers could be used to disrupt or delay elections. These concerns are based on patterns we have already seen.

Even if elections proceed and there is a shift in control, there are risks during the transition period. Significant changes could be made that have long lasting effects, particularly in the judiciary.

Mary Trump: That is why it is so important to face reality. We cannot assume that normal processes will protect us. We have already seen a breakdown in peaceful transitions of power.

Norm Ornstein: That is correct. However, there is a potential shift underway. Donald’s support is declining. The situation in Iran could accelerate that trend. Rising costs and instability are affecting his base.

If the conflict escalates further, especially if it requires additional troops or a draft, that could become a breaking point for some supporters.

Mary Trump: It may take that level of impact for people to reconsider. Many voters respond to immediate personal consequences.

Norm Ornstein: Even then, the path forward will be difficult. Rebuilding institutions, restoring norms, and regaining public trust will take time. But if there is a shift in congressional control, it could create an opportunity to begin addressing the most serious issues.

Mary Trump: It is not just about recovery. It is about doing things properly going forward. Educating people about the importance of institutions, the rule of law, and basic human decency.

Norm Ornstein: Exactly. It will be a long and difficult process, but there is still a path forward. The key is whether enough people are willing to recognize the stakes and act.

Mary Trump: Norm, thank you. This is a difficult conversation, but it is a necessary one. And for everyone watching, this is not a reason to disengage. It is a reason to stay engaged and informed.

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Norman Ornstein

Norman Ornstein is an emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a contributing editor at The Atlantic.

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Here’s an alarming trend since Donald has gotten back into office: the American government seems to be more interested in enriching and empowering our enemies than it is in assisting and strengthening our allies.

Russia, to the extent that it can be said to be the enemy of Putin’s puppet and his complicit regime, is benefitting enormously from Donald’s illegal, unconstitutional war-of-choice against Iran. Since the beginning of the war, 20% of the world’s oil supply has been effectively frozen and the price of Brent crude oil per barrel has increased by as much as 70 percent. In a desperate bid to lower gas prices here at home, Donald lifted sanctions against Russia thereby making Russian oil much more valuable. This comes at a crucial period in Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine—filling its coffers and giving it more resources with which to gain the upper hand in the conflict against our erstwhile ally. (It’s worth pointing out that this windfall occurs in the context of U.S. aid to Ukraine falling by 99% since Donald’s inauguration in January 2025.)

Iran, our sworn enemy, is more powerful than it has been in decades thanks to Donald’s ineptitude. The war has effectively handed them control of the Strait of Hormuz and, therefore, control of the ships carrying the aforementioned one-fifth of the world’s oil supply. To make matters worse, the Trump regime also announced a 30-day lifting of Iranian oil sanctions with the aim of lowering U.S. gas prices, even as experts warned the move will have limited impact on prices here and will result in a $14 billion windfall for Iran. This “solution,” which is both illogical and self-defeating, boggles the mind.

All of this, of course, benefits China, our greatest and most powerful adversary. China has been gaining an advantage over us in numerous ways in the realms of trade, diplomacy, and soft power as the result of Donald’s nonsensical tariffs and disorganized foreign policy. The Iranian War continues this trend.

Which brings us to tonight’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner. It will be the first time Donald has attended since 2011. In response to this year’s invitation, he posted:

The White House Correspondents Association [WHCA] has asked me, very nicely, to be the Honoree at this year’s Dinner, a long and storied tradition since it began in 1924, under then President Calvin Coolidge. [It would be my] honor to accept their invitation.

Donald isn’t being “honored,” and the fact that he was invited is nothing new—as he himself said, it is tradition to invite the sitting president, and he was invited every year during his first term. This is the first time, however, that he hasn’t boycotted the event.

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Hundreds of journalists, including Sam Donaldson, Dan Rather, and Ann Curry have signed an open letter asking the WHCA to “forcefully demonstrate opposition” to Donald’s “efforts to trample freedom of the press.” The letter continues:

The dinner has long served as a symbol of the vital and irreplaceable role of a free press in American democracy and a celebration of the First Amendment and the journalists who uphold it. [Donald’s] systematic, sustained, and unprecedented attacks on the free press... render his presence at such an event a profound contradiction of its purpose.

The collective weight of the administration’s actions — retaliatory access bans, coercive regulatory investigations, frivolous lawsuits against the press, defunding of public broadcasting, dismantling of international broadcasting, physical restrictions on journalists, personal verbal attacks on reporters, assaults on the media in official White House press releases and social media posts, the arrest of journalists, and the pardoning of those who committed violence against the press — represent the most systematic and comprehensive assault on freedom of the press by a sitting American president.

Donald’s useless daughter-in-law, Lara, said on Fox that Donald:

has been preparing to go into this snake pit his entire life.

Which tells you that his opinion of his hosts and those they pretend to represent has not changed. So, what has?

Donald’s appearance signals his belief that he has vanquished his enemy and this is a victory lap.

As my friend, Brian Karem, put it:

[Donald] has, like Kathy Bates did to James Caan in Misery, hobbled the press.

The difference is that for the most part, corporate media corporations have submitted willingly to the hobbling or, worse, intentionally hobbled itself either to do Donald’s bidding, further enrich their shareholders, or both. By extending the invitation and allowing Donald to give a speech in which he will no doubt launch even more attacks at journalists and journalism, the WHCA has chosen to participate in one of the greatest capitulations to the Trump regime of any entity since Donald first came into office in January 2017.

There is every reason to believe that capitulating in the hopes of some kind of reprieve is a failed strategy. Not only has Donald’s anti-journalism rhetoric become more flagrant and more frequent, more members of the executive branch are also using their not-inconsiderable power to settle scores.

FBI director Kash Patel is suing The Atlantic for $250 million over a well and deeply sourced story about his egregious behavior as that agency’s leader. And according to The New York Times, Patel ordered the FBI to begin

investigating a New York Times reporter last month after she wrote about the bureau’s director, Kash Patel, using bureau personnel to provide his girlfriend with government security and transportation.

Brian outlines the problem in stark terms: standing up to Donald is

the only way to keep from becoming what the majority of the press is today: spineless and worthless. We have been belittled by the president, routinely called fake news and the ‘true enemy of the people.’ [Donald’s] cosplaying defense secretary has likened us to the Pharisees of the Bible who betrayed Jesus.

No one has ever tried so hard to destroy, demean and belittle free thought as Donald Trump.

In addition, he has aggressively acted to defund vital public media institutions like PBS and NPR.

The WHCA’s attempt to put on a show starring the man most responsible for the degradation of our media as if everything is just fine is grotesque and serves no one but Donald and his corporate overlords. The invitation and his appearance legitimize and empower a man who has single-handedly done the fourth estate untold harm while putting him in a position to do even worse.

On a personal level, perhaps worst of all, leadership at the WHCA is increasing the danger Donald poses to individual reporters and journalists, whom he has been attacking with increasing frequency. They are complicit and it is shameful.

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[Transcript Edit for length, clarity and flow]

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Waj Ali: I had an excellent chat with my friend and fellow nerd avenger Mary Trump about the debacle that is Donald’s Iraq war, our tanking economy, Donald’s collapsing poll numbers, and Waj’s epic takedown of a religious bigot.

Waj Ali: On Monday I returned to Piers Morgan after a long hiatus. It was supposed to be me, Tim Miller, Pastor Doug Wilson, and Michael Knowles. Michael Knowles is Temu Ben Shapiro, but he had technical difficulties. Honestly, if I were him, I’d have technical difficulties too because it’s very hard to defend this failed war. That’s usually his role—being a mouthpiece for MAGA.

So it ended up being Doug Wilson, Tim Miller, and me. We discussed the war, Donald’s favorability ratings, and Donald mocking the Pope—the first American Pope and one of the most popular figures in the country right now. Donald treats the Pope like Batman because he wears a costume and has a Popemobile, as if that means he should be fighting crime.

Then Doug Wilson comes into the picture. He’s a pastor and the spiritual mentor of Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense. As we’ve discussed, Hegseth is completely unqualified, with a disturbing history of abusing women and struggling with alcoholism. He’s essentially a cosplay crusader with tattoos tied to white Christian nationalism.

Hegseth invited Doug Wilson to the Pentagon to lead prayers. So who is Doug Wilson? He openly rejects the separation of church and state. He promotes Christian dominionism. He has written that American slavery was sanctioned by the Bible and wasn’t that bad—that it was mutually beneficial between enslaved people and enslavers. He mocks women and believes they should be second-class citizens, subordinate to men. He has even suggested repealing the 19th Amendment.

This is someone who justifies violence in pursuit of white supremacy and Christian domination. And yet, instead of distancing from him, Hegseth amplifies him. After CNN aired a segment exposing Wilson’s views, Hegseth shared it proudly, saying “all of Christ for all of life,” then invited him to the Pentagon.

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So now we have Americans dying in a war led by someone taking guidance from a man who rejects democracy, supports slavery, and wants to roll back women’s rights to the 19th century—or earlier.

Mary Trump: At least.

Waj Ali: Exactly. So I confronted him. Honestly, it felt like I was possessed—in the Blues Brothers sense, on a mission from God. He’s not used to being challenged. He operates in safe spaces where no one pushes back.

At one point, he said, “We should respect religious leaders,” after we discussed Donald mocking the Pope. That gave me an opening. People later asked if I planned it. I didn’t. It was just preparation meeting opportunity. I’ve been following Hegseth and Wilson for over a year.

I used facts. And I used the Bible.

Mary Trump: Which you probably know better than he does.

Waj Ali: They treat Jesus like a mascot. They’ve hijacked him—duct-taped his mouth, slung an AR-15 over his shoulder, and turned the cross into a prop. It’s all about white supremacy.

As you’ve written in The Reckoning, people used religion to justify slavery, segregation

Mary Trump: And lynching.

Waj Ali: Exactly. They claimed divine approval for atrocities. And now you see the same pattern. This isn’t fringe anymore. This is the Secretary of Defense influencing policy based on extremist theology, trying to create conditions for the “end times.”

These Christian Zionists believe controlling Jerusalem will trigger the second coming. So they’re shaping policy to fulfill that narrative, regardless of consequences.

Mary Trump: We’ve been warning about this for a long time. What’s striking is how automatically religious figures are given respect without earning it. That creates cover for abuse.

And this isn’t just Hegseth. White supremacy and Christian nationalism are now core to the Republican Party. We’ve seen military leaders framing conflicts as religious wars. Over 200 complaints were filed by service members about that.

Religion is being used to justify atrocities. So how do we change the conversation? Why do Democrats keep pulling punches instead of confronting this directly?

Waj Ali: First, we have to name it. Democrats and institutions avoid saying “white Christian nationalism” because they don’t want to offend people. So they use vague terms like “religious nationalism.”

That’s a mistake. We’ve spent years refusing to call things what they are—racism, misogyny, fascism. Meanwhile, the real threat goes unnamed.

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We need to say it clearly: this is white Christian nationalism. And also clarify that it doesn’t represent all Christians or all white people.

Second, we need to engage religion differently. Religion isn’t going away. America is still deeply religious. The right understands this and uses religious language effectively—even hypocritically.

The left has ceded that ground. We shouldn’t.

When I challenged Wilson, I used religious language. I used scripture. That’s why it resonated. They’re not used to being challenged on their own terms.

If you reclaim that language—if you use Jesus and the Bible to promote justice—they have no answer.

Look at MLK. His movement was rooted in faith. Gandhi, Romero—same thing. Religion can be a force for justice if used correctly.

Mary Trump: I’m conflicted about that. On one hand, it’s effective. On the other, we’re supposed to have separation of church and state.

Allowing religion into civic life got us here—Donald reading Bible verses in the Oval Office, creating positions for people like Paula White, who equates him with God.

We have prayer sessions in the Pentagon. A national prayer breakfast. Religion is embedded everywhere.

Why?

Waj Ali: I agree with you. Ideally, we maintain separation of church and state. But we also have to deal with reality. Religious communities exist and influence politics.

So the approach is to engage without imposing. Use moral language when appropriate, but don’t weaponize religion the way they do.

And recognize the double standard. If a Muslim were asked their favorite Quran verse, people would react differently. Meanwhile, Christian nationalism is normalized.

Ultimately, we need to expose that hypocrisy and move toward a system where all religions—or none—are treated equally.

Mary Trump: Let’s shift gears. The war is going terribly. The economy is struggling. Donald’s approval is around 33%.

Are we at an inflection point?

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Waj Ali: I think so. Donald has betrayed his base on three major promises.

First, no forever wars. Now we’re in one. Americans are dying. Costs are rising.

Second, economic stability. We’re seeing shortages, rising prices, and global instability.

Third, transparency—like releasing the Epstein files—which he hasn’t done.

At the same time, global alliances are shifting. Countries are looking to China. The U.S. looks weaker.

Domestically, his base is shrinking. He’s losing independents, young voters, and even some Republicans. But here’s the key point: he’s acting like someone who won’t leave power peacefully.

He knows he could face legal consequences. So he’s doubling down. We saw what happened in 2020. It will be worse next time.

Mary Trump: Exactly. We cannot assume normal processes will hold. There was no peaceful transfer of power last time.

We need to face reality. The system is not functioning the way it used to.

Yes, people are paying attention now because they’re personally affected—gas prices, inflation—but the underlying issues are much deeper.

We need a plan to ensure we never get this close to authoritarianism again.

Waj Ali: And part of that conversation needs to include the “broligarchy”—tech billionaires like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel.

They’re investing heavily in politics to avoid regulation and shape the system in their favor. We’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars influencing elections, including Democrats.

If politicians are funded by these interests, can we trust them to enact real change. That’s a critical question moving forward.

Mary Trump: Absolutely. And the scale of that money is staggering.

We’ll have to leave it there, but clearly, there’s much more to discuss. Before we go, please be a better capitalist.

Waj Ali: I’ve got a Substack—The Left Hook. Everything is free, but there’s a discounted subscription if you can support.

Mary Trump: Thank you, Waj. And thank you to everyone watching. Check out The Left Hook and The Good in Us. Please like, share, and subscribe to Mary Trump Media.

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The Left Hook with Wajahat Ali

A political, cultural, and intellectual playground for the rest of us with writer Wajahat Ali

By THE LEFT HOOK with Wajahat Ali

[Transcript edited for clarity, length and flow]

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Donald appeared on CNBC’s Squawk Box this morning with Joe Kernan for yet another one of his incoherent, rambling interviews.

They discussed the unconstitutional, illegal war of choice with Iran that Donald got us into, what it could mean for oil prices and the broader economy, as well as inflation. Donald defended his bumbling approach to foreign policy while taking shots at the Fed along the way, as if those two things have any relation in our reality.

The conversation, as I said, bounced around a lot, mostly because Donald could not stick to answering the question asked of him. It was also the usual mix of bluster, tough talk, puffing himself up, and economic grievances. For example, on the economy, Donald told Kernan, quote, “You want to see a bad stock market. Try blowing up the Middle East.”

Well, that is one way to do it.

But that is an interesting thing. Remember when he said, “We’re going to win so much, you’re going to get tired of winning.” Well, here we are.

Yes, thousands of civilians have been killed. Thirteen American service members so far have been killed. But you know what? The stock market was doing too well.

But the real truth of the matter, of course, is that the stock market seems oddly unaffected by this war. First, that may have something to do with the market manipulation And secondly, oil prices are going through the roof, which is good for the CEOs at the oil and gas companies that Donald is almost certainly getting a kickback from.

At one point in the conversation, the talk turned to interest rates.

Here is what Donald had to say:

It was down to 5 percent. It wasn’t down two or three

The reason it was down was because I had won the election, and it started falling after I won the election, and I started getting prices down from right after November 5th.

Oh wow. That is a trick and a half.

First of all, inflation was down to 3 percent at the end of Biden’s term. The Economist, not exactly known for its left leaning politics, had a cover that said, “America, the American economy, the Biden economy is the envy of the world.”

Okay. So it is a lie that inflation was at 5 percent.

Kevin Warsh, Donald’s pick to lead the Federal Reserve, is before the Senate today for his confirmation hearing to replace current Fed chair and apparently enemy of Donald’s, Jerome Powell. Warsh says he will act independently and ignore pressure on interest rates, but that claim is drawing some skepticism, probably because it is a lie.

Republican Senator Tom Tillis says he will not support Warsh until the Justice Department investigation into Powell is resolved. That issue came up this morning when Kernan asked Donald if he would drop that bizarre and frivolous case.

Here is what he had to say:

We have to find out why a small building costs close to four billion. It’s not finished, by the way. They have a long way to go. They rip down the most beautiful ceilings. They will never build them again. The most beautiful, thick, foot and a half thick walls of solid masonry. They are never going to be built again. They put up six inch sheet rock walls and they say, “So we have no insulation. It’s not in the budget.” I mean, they had the best out building. It was so beautiful. I would have fixed that building. I would have had it brand new, beautiful for 25 million, and they are going to spend close to four billion, maybe more than that. I don’t know. It’s not finished. In fact, I looked at it the other day. I’m afraid Kevin will have to have an office next to me in the White House because that building is not going to be done. He is not going to be able to use that building for a long time. And he had a complaint. He said, “I didn’t realize this.” He said the saddest thing is they ripped down the best building. He said there was a building that had beautiful boardrooms that he used many times when he was there, beautiful boardrooms and meeting rooms. It was so beautiful, the nicest in Washington. He said they ripped it down, and maybe they did that to save money like the Gavin Newsom railroad, where they made it shorter in order to save money, but it is still 25 times over budget.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Says the guy who ripped down the east wing of the White House to build a 200 million, wait, no, sorry, 250 million, sorry, 300 million, nope, 350 million, nope, 400 million dollar ballroom.

Also the same guy who, when he was ripping down the Bonwit Teller building in New York City to build the eyesore that is Trump Tower, promised the Metropolitan Museum of Art that he would preserve the art deco friezes on the outside of that Bonwit Teller building and donate them to the museum.

And what did he do to save a couple of bucks.

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He turned them into rubble.

There has been a lot of uncertainty about US Iran talks because during the ceasefire, Donald keeps threatening the other side. As it turns out, that uncertainty was warranted because Vice President J.D. Vance traveled all the way to Pakistan to be met with a Lego delegation of fictional Iranians.

I am just kidding.

Iran did not show up.

So Kernan tried to ask about a possible deal with Iran, but Donald had other things on his mind.

Here is what he had to say:

Kernan: So to be clear, you are saying that you need at least the prospects for a signed deal today and tomorrow, or else you would resume bombing Iran.

Donald: Well, I expect to be bombing because I think that is a better attitude to go in with, but we are ready to go. I mean, the military is ready to go. They are absolutely incredible. I built the military in my first term. I am using it now. The military, when I took it over from Barack Hussein Obama, it was so depleted, so sad. And I built it in my first term. You remember those big numbers. You talked to me about it once. That is a lot of money for military. I built it. We did a great job with our military, and we are using it now and rebuilding it too. We have done a lot of rebuilding also in my first year.

Yes. In our almost 250 years, it was not until the idiot who is Donald Trump became president of the United States that we actually had a functioning military.

The United States military budget has been close to a trillion dollars for a very long time now, and I say shame on both parties for that one.

Here is the thing though. It was not falling apart. It was probably the most fierce and well armed military in the history of the world.

The reason, theoretically, we wanted a military that large, that extensive, and that strong was to keep us safe, to keep the rest of the world safe, and in the event we got drawn into conflict so we could defend ourselves appropriately.

It was not built the way it is built so that we could, whenever we wanted, attack other countries unprovoked.

The military is ready to go.

The last resort for any military with leaders who are sane is to get into an armed conflict with an enemy.

So what about those Strait of Hormuz maneuvers?

Remember, Iran closed it. To punish Iran for closing it, Donald blockaded it, and then Iran closed it again. It is very hard to keep straight.

Here is what Donald told Kernan this morning:

Very successfully, the blockade has been a tremendous success. They said two days ago, “We will open the strait.” I said, “No, we are not going to open the strait until we have a final deal.” No, no, we want to open the strait. They said, “We are not opening. We totally control the strait, just so you understand, for all the fake news out there.”

Okay then. That is clear.

The truth of the matter is that whether there is a blockade or Iran closed it, Iran actually does now control the Strait of Hormuz, and their control of the strait may last beyond this war.

Why?

Because Donald has failed so miserably in all of his objectives that he has actually made Iran more powerful now than it has been, certainly in years, if not decades.

All of this is why, in the future, America, you do not put in charge a man who cares about nothing but money and about nothing but metrics like how well the stock market is doing, who does not care at all who dies in his war of choice if it makes him feel better about himself.

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[Transcript edited for clarity, flow and length]

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This weekend, after Donald’s fake ceasefire was threatened by Iranians firing on an oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, he went on to his failing social media site, where he is now also trying to sell weight loss drugs. But mostly, he was interested in threatening more war crimes.

He wrote, “Iran decided to fire bullets yesterday in the State of Hormuz, a total violation of our ceasefire. My representatives are going to Islamabad Pakistan. Iran recently announced that they were closing the straight, which is strange because our blockade has already closed it.” To which I must say, as myself, you cannot close something that was already closed.

But let me continue with Donald’s very well considered, measured, and sane social media post.

They are the ones that lose the closed passage $500 million a day. The United States loses nothing. In fact, many ships are headed right now to the US.

Here is more of what he had to say:

Iran, always wanting to be the tough guy. We are offering a very fair and reasonable deal, and in the spirit of being reasonable and fair, I hope they take it.

And then he continued with this:

I hope they take it because if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single power plant and every single bridge in Iran. No more Mr. Nice guy. If they don’t take the deal, it will be my honor to do what has to be done, which should have been done to Iran by other presidents for the last 47 years. It is time for the Iran killing machine to end.

I think it is important to make the subtext text, because we know what he is saying. He is threatening to commit war crimes if his demands are not met.

The reason he has to make those demands is because he, single handedly, has rehabilitated Iran as a factor in the Middle East. Iran is now more powerful than it was before the war and probably than it has been in decades.

Well done, Donald.

The only way he can get himself out of the corner he has painted himself into is to blow the whole country up. Remember the threats of genocide?

Well, according to Iran state media, they have not yet decided if they will send a delegation to Pakistan to negotiate with Donald’s representatives. And here is the thing. Why would they.

What they are doing is working. Their propaganda campaign against Donald in particular, and the American government in general, is working. It is driving Donald crazy. It is getting under his skin.

And despite Donald’s protestations to the contrary, by controlling the Strait of Hormuz and starting to impose a toll on every ship allowed through, Iran is getting richer and American taxpayers are suffering.

Because last I checked, oil is still more than $3.50 a gallon more expensive than it was before Donald’s illegal and unconstitutional war of choice.

Turns out that, speaking of the American taxpayer, we are going to be providing Donald with $10 billion more for his completely corrupt and inconsequential Board of Peace.

Here is what Donald had to say this weekend:

The Board of Peace is showing how a better future can be built, starting right here in this room. I want to let you know that the United States is going to make a contribution of $10 billion to the Board of Peace. Thank you.

One, with whose authorization? And two, for what?

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Because I do not know if you have noticed this, but none of the countries on the so called Board of Peace, of which Donald is the chair in perpetuity, is doing anything to help resolve the problems in the Middle East.

Let us check in on Donald’s polling.

Here is what Steve Kornacki had to say:

Donald Trump’s standing with the public here now is an approval rating in our poll of just 37 percent. The last time this poll reported out a couple of months ago, it was 39 percent. The big change from then to now, of course, is the launch of the war in Iran and everything that has continued to happen there. So down to 37 percent approval for Trump. Mention Iran and look at this. A big driver of that clearly is how that war is going. Only a third of adults approve of Trump’s handling of the war in Iran. There is a quarter, I should say, one quarter of Republicans say they disapprove. Those who call themselves Republicans. That might be something to keep an eye on. This continues to be a problem for the president, inflation, the cost of living.

Also, on top of that, somebody in Donald’s administration just told a journalist that gas is most likely going to be above $3 a gallon for the foreseeable future, maybe into 2027, which, by the way, is probably overly optimistic.

So Donald’s polling numbers are in free fall across the board. He is underwater in every single category.

But here is the thing. We have to act like that is not the case, because Americans have very short term memories. What we need to worry about is what happens if some deal is made in Iran that the American media pretends is some kind of win for Donald.

Because let us be real. No matter what happens, this has been an epic disaster of his making. But if it can be spun differently, it will be spun differently.

One of the reasons that optimism is misplaced is because, let us say for the sake of argument, the Strait opens tomorrow and 100 percent of pre war traffic is allowed through. Do you know how many weeks it is going to take for us to catch up. Do you know how many weeks, if not months, it is going to take for prices to come down?

As is often the case, oil and gas prices go up quickly, but it takes a very long time to bring them down again. So this should be an issue at least through the midterms. Thankfully, this is a bad issue for the Republicans and, of course, for Donald.

But let us not get complacent, because there is a chance that Donald might be able to come to some deal with Iran that is not completely disastrous for the United States, even though it will still be bad for us and good for Iran.

It is the American media’s seeming knee jerk reaction to turn anything into Donald’s benefit. So we have to worry that the media is going to spin any kind of deal in a way that makes him look good. And because American voters have very short term memories, they may just think that everything is fine.

In a way, of course, that they did not when Biden was in office.

Why?

Because the American media’s default position is to support Republicans and make them look better than they are, or at least less bad than they are. So we are going to keep an eye on these polls, because they are epically bad and they are in free fall. He is underwater across the board. So my advice?

Let us keep it that way.

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A couple of weeks ago, Paula White-Cain, Donald’s so-called personal spiritual advisor and head of the White House faith office he created, gave the following remarks at an Easter event while Donald looked on:

Jesus taught so many lessons through his death, burial and resurrection. He showed us great leadership. Great transformation requires great sacrifice. And Donald, no one has paid the price like you have paid the price. It almost cost you your life. You were betrayed and arrested and falsely accused. Because of his resurrection you rose up. Because he was victorious, you were victorious. And I believe that the lord said to tell you this: because of his victory, you will be victorious in all you put your hand to.

That statement was made during a celebration of the highest of high holy days for Christians. I don’t think “blasphemy” is a strong enough word to describe White-Cain’s comparison of a corrupt heathen like Donald Trump to Christians’ Lord and Savior. And the white evangelical excuse for their support of Donald—that he is but an imperfect vessel anointed by their god to help them achieve their political goals, is wearing thin especially with a snake-oil salesman like White-Cain trying to turn Donald into some kind of Christ-like martyr.

If you want to understand how power sustains itself inside of this movement, not just politically, but psychologically and spiritually, it helps to understand who Paula White-Cain is.

Paula White-Cain should either be in prison for being a snake-oil-selling grifter or in a psych ward, but instead of being a reviled figure who is forced to exist on the periphery, she’s actually a very powerful person in our government. She’s been Donald’s personal spiritual advisor since 2002 when he first saw her on television, because he can spot a world-class grifter when he sees one.

White-Cain built her career preaching the prosperity gospel. And this resonated with Donald because he and his siblings grew up exposed to the teachings of Norman Vincent Peale. My grandfather, Fred, wasn’t a reader, but it was impossible not to know about Peale’s wildly popular best seller, The Power of Positive Thinking. Peale, the pastor of Marble Collegiate Church in midtown Manhattan, was among the first to preach the proto-prosperity gospel, with its superficial message that successful people are successful because god believes they’re better than everybody else. That message—and the ease with which Peale was able to sell it—led us to the likes of Paula White-Cain and Joel Osteen and those other mega church pastors who grift hundreds of millions of dollars from their flocks every year.

Peale, who had a fondness for rich businessmen like my grandfather, wrote:

Being a merchant isn’t getting money. Being a merchant is serving the people.

He was a charlatan, but he was a charlatan whose doctrine proclaimed that you need only self-confidence to prosper in the way God wants you to. That view neatly confirmed what Fred already thought: he was rich because he deserved to be and that appealed enormously to him.

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Peale wrote:

Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! . . . A sense of inferiority and inadequacy interferes with the attainment of your hopes, but self-confidence leads to self-realization and successful achievement.

Self-doubt wasn’t part of Fred’s makeup, and he never considered the possibility of his own defeat. Peale’s proto–prosperity gospel also complemented the scarcity mentality my grandfather clung to, even as he got richer and more successful. My grandfather did not subscribe to the belief that “the more you have, the more you can give;” rather he believed “the more you have, the more you have.” Peale’s message supported that belief. Fred conflated financial worth with self-worth, monetary value with human value. The more he had, the better he was. If he gave something to someone else, that person would be worth more and he less.

White-Cain certainly subscribes to that kind of zero-sum selfishness. And all that does is reinforce the megalomania of people like Donald Trump and his dad.

With White-Cain’s formal government role, she has direct access to Donald. She has participated in a laying on of hands in the Oval Office, and she delivers prayers extolling Donald’s divine virtues as public performance.

She speaks in tongues:

And she performs exorcisms:

For years now, the white evangelical excuse for supporting somebody as irreligious and sinful as Donald has been to say that he’s an imperfect vessel. White-Cain has left that dubious rationale in the rear-view mirror Now we are told saying no to Donald would be like saying no to God. In a prayer delivered during Donald’s first term, White-Cain framed political opposition to Donald using the language of spiritual warfare:

We break every assignment of the enemy against Donald.

White-Cain is one of the chief architects of this madness. She helps perpetuate the notion that wealth and righteousness are equivalent. She conflates political victory with divine mandate, and loyalty to Donald with loyalty to God.

There is, of course, a financial angle here. IRS filings show that in 2024 Paula White Ministries reported approximately $166,000 in total income and paid herself $143,000 in compensation. But that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the $80 million she has raked in through her television ministry. This is the prosperity gospel made literal. She is enriched through donations so she, too, can be the chosen of God.

And that brings us back to Easter week when White-Cain made it clear that the flawed vessel framework was no longer necessary. Why? Because Donald is now a martyr. He’s comparing himself to Jesus Christ—but so are other people. Those people that blasphemous and absurd comparison know exactly what they’re doing. In the process, it’s making them very rich at the expense of the vulnerable and deluded people who listen to them.

And their rhetoric confirms Donald’s own delusions that he is a unique historical figure. It bolsters his dangerous notion not simply that he’s at the center of the universe, but that he is the universe. Donald has no ideology. His belief system, such as it is, is comprised solely of his self-interests and the conclusion he has reached, thanks to his own psychological deformities and the myths people like my grandfather and the Paula White-Cains of the world have perpetuated, that it is he who is the higher power.

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It is bordering on the impossible to keep track of everything that is going on in this country and in the world. I have to be honest with you, I have struggled at times to find the through line, to connect the dots, and to keep my eye on the overarching themes. But every once in a while, an event occurs that serves as an alarming distillation of where we are as a country.

A recent event that checks off those boxes was a UFC match held over the weekend. It serves as a microcosm for many of the dysfunctional, dangerous things that are unfolding in America in 2026 while we are in the middle of an unconstitutional illegal war of choice.

It is some of the people who attended this event I want to focus on because it helps us find that through line that is so difficult to uncover. Joe Rogan, who is one of those people responsible for getting Donald back into the White House in 2024, has recently been taking to his podcast to criticize Donald, especially in the context of his horrific immigration policies and, most recently, the aforementioned unconstitutional illegal war of choice in Iran. Joe Rogan showed up at this UFC event shaking hands with Donald, the guy he now pretends to claim should no longer be in the Oval Office. I know this probably seems unlikely, but I guess Joe Rogan was not entirely sincere in his criticisms.

And then that brings us to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was also at this event. He was looking sharp and sober, which is to say very inebriated. What was the Secretary of State of the United States of America doing at a UFC event while negotiations were going on between the United States and the country with which we are at war? Who was handling those negotiations? The entirely unqualified Vice President of the United States, J.D. Vance, a man not exactly known for his measured temperament or diplomatic skills, along with two grifters, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. One, again, who has no negotiating skills that I am aware of, and the other, Kushner, who has no official role in our government. Kushner just happens to be Donald’s son-in-law, and he happens to like taking money from Middle Eastern countries.

This, to me, highlights just how unserious the United States of America is at this point in diplomacy or in statecraft and how little invested Marco Rubio is in doing his job as Secretary of State.

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That, of course, brings us to this horrific excuse of a human being, Andrew Tate. He was there with his brother, Tristan. Both of them have been accused by the governments of Romania and the United Kingdom of rape and sex trafficking young women. Why are Andrew and Tristan Tate not in a very deep, dark hole in Romania or in the United Kingdom? Because Donald does not want them there. Tate, who had a mediocre career as an MMA fighter, subsequently built a massive social media platform, essentially peddling misogyny and self help for pathetic men.

Tate knew at some point he was probably going to get caught, because his misogyny, his sick ideas about women, and how he treated them were so public. He knew he needed friends in high places, and he started cultivating relationships with some of Donald’s children, including his oldest son, Donny. And of course, Andrew Tate made it known far and wide that he was a huge supporter of Donald. So somebody in the Trump regime made a deal with Romania’s government, making it clear that it would be better for them if they let Donald’s friends, Andrew and Tristan Tate, misogynist, alleged rapist and sex traffickers, go free. Once they were released, where did they go? They went to Florida. And now we learn that Andrew Tate is also very close friends with Donald’s youngest son, Barron.

Let us leave aside for the moment what kind of despicable parents you would need to be in order to allow your relatively young child to associate with monsters like Andrew Tate and focus on what other purpose this is serving. Allowing Andrew Tate to roam free and to be seen at the event with the President of the United States is just another way this regime, a regime of fascists, misogynists, rapists, and abusers of women and children, is trying to normalize misogyny and violence against women, which brings us to Donald Trump himself.

We are in the middle of an unconstitutional illegal war of his choosing, and this was what was utmost in his mind.

This is what Donald said to a UFC fighter last weekend.

Thank you. You are a beautiful man. Great fight. I will give you a moment. You look so good. You are too good looking for a fighter. You are an incredible fighter. Thank you, man.

That is what Donald was doing while the United States is bombing Iran, while Iran is bombing other countries, while Israel is obliterating Lebanon, because he started a war he does not know why he started and certainly does not know how to end. Under his watch, over 200 Iranian children have been killed. Hundreds of people have been killed in Lebanon. Dozens in Israel. Thirteen American service members, at least, are dead because of him. And while very high-stakes negotiations were going on between the United States and Iran, he was watching a UFC fight.

This is always the case. Donald only cares about his own immediate needs. He needed to be in a crowd, he needed to be admired, and he needed to see a couple of grown men beat each other.

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[Transcript edited for clarity, length and flow]

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I sat down with Joanna Coles of the Daily Beast for a lengthy conversation about what in the world was Melania thinking? Why does anybody care? Also, we talked about the toll that Donald’s illegal unconstitutional war of choice must be taking on him and how it might be driving him to further extremes. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did because I always have a blast talking to Joanna.

Joanna Coles:
Mary Trump, fantastic to have you back on the podcast. There’s a lot to discuss, not least how your uncle, the president, copes under pressure. I want to talk about the 25th Amendment, because you’ve previously mentioned seeing echoes of your grandfather’s dementia in Donald. But first, I want to ask about Melania Trump—your step-aunt—and her recent statement. She said she never really knew Jeffrey Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell, insisted she’s never been accused of anything, and oddly suggested Congress should talk to victims and even some of the men involved. As a clinical psychologist, what was she saying—and what wasn’t she saying?

Mary Trump:
What she was saying, oddly enough, is, “I have no connection to a pedophile and sex trafficker,” which is not something you’d expect a First Lady to need to clarify. So she’s clearly trying to get ahead of something. I’ve met Melania once, a long time ago, so I don’t claim to know her. But the statement was bizarre—especially because it drew attention to the Epstein files, something Donald has been trying to bury.

She claims she had nothing to do with Epstein or Maxwell, despite documented evidence suggesting otherwise. Then she says, “I’m not a victim.” Well, if we can show she was connected to them, that means she willingly associated with two of the worst people imaginable. What’s puzzling is whether she did this independently or with approval. It’s hard to believe she acted without permission. So why would his team think this was a good idea? Unless, as some have joked, she’s trying to distract from something else.

Joanna Coles:
What did you make of her delivery?

Mary Trump:
It was aggressive. The way she entered the room suggested she expected to be believed simply because she said something. She seemed out of her depth, but also convinced she was controlling the situation.

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Joanna Coles:
She looked angry to me, like she didn’t want to be there.

Mary Trump:
That tracks. She rarely seems to want to be anywhere, especially with Donald. So again, why was she doing this? She appeared resentful—like, “Why do I have to deal with this?” The answer is, she didn’t have to. But in doing so, she reminded everyone about the Epstein files.

Joanna Coles:
Their relationship appears transactional. She’s calling for transparency, while he’s tried to suppress it. What do you make of that?

Mary Trump:
She has no power to enforce transparency. What she did was cruel. Epstein’s victims have already shown extraordinary bravery, speaking out despite enormous pressure. For her to suggest they need to do more is insulting.

She’s trying to present herself as transparent while denying reality. “Ignore the photos, ignore the emails—I had nothing to do with it.” It mirrors Donald’s tactic: promise transparency, then claim it’s out of his hands while blocking it behind the scenes. I found it offensive.

Joanna Coles:
Do you think she’s trying to separate her brand from his?

Mary Trump:
Absolutely—and she’s not alone. You see it with figures like Megan Kelly, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and others who suddenly claim Donald has gone too far. But he hasn’t changed. He’s always been this person. They helped elevate him and are now trying to distance themselves.

Their reputations shouldn’t be rehabilitated. They were complicit. So no, I don’t have sympathy for that.

Joanna Coles:
You’ve spoken before about your grandfather’s dementia. What similarities do you see now?

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Mary Trump:
It’s increasingly alarming. As Donald declines—physically, cognitively, psychologically—he’s revealing who he’s always been. My grandfather began showing clear symptoms in his late 70s, around Donald’s current age.

I remember an event where my grandfather suddenly looked terrified—like he didn’t know where he was. I see that same disorientation in Donald. Add to that falling asleep during the day and worsening impulse control. That’s especially concerning, because it only gets worse. And Donald already started from a volatile baseline.

Joanna Coles:
What did that loss of impulse control look like in your grandfather?

Mary Trump:
Late at night, he would become paranoid—accusing my grandmother of stealing his checkbook. He feared losing money. These episodes escalated into intense rage. He never became physically violent, but it was frightening enough that they eventually had someone stay overnight for safety.

Donald already lacks impulse control, so it’s sobering to think where this could lead.

Joanna Coles:
Given what you’ve seen, is he fit to be president?

Mary Trump:
He’s never been fit. But now we have objective concerns. A president who is disoriented, impulsive, physically unwell, and threatening extreme actions—those are not acceptable traits. That shouldn’t be controversial.

Joanna Coles:
How is he handling pressure now, especially as some of his base begins to criticize him?

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Mary Trump:
It’s likely making him worse. He’s under stress levels he’s never experienced. For the first time, he may realize he’s losing control—and that no one can save him.

Historically, someone always bailed him out—his father, banks, media networks, political allies. Now there’s no one. He fired Pam Bondi not for disloyalty, but because she couldn’t protect him from himself.

That’s why we’re seeing increasingly erratic behavior. He started a war without understanding the consequences, and now he’s lashing out. And there’s no bottom—there’s always worse with him.

Joanna Coles:
What about J.D. Vance being sent to negotiate?

Mary Trump:
It’s another example of Donald distancing himself from responsibility. If things go badly, it’s someone else’s fault. My grandfather did the same—never wrong, always blaming others.

Vance is being set up to fail, even as Donald sees him as a potential successor. The idea of someone succeeding him is intolerable, so he undermines them preemptively.

Joanna Coles:
So if he can’t succeed, no one can?

Mary Trump:
Exactly.

Joanna Coles:
On a lighter note, what do people say when they meet you?

Mary Trump:
I live in New York—nobody cares. That’s one of the best things about it. Occasionally someone asks why I don’t change my name. It’s my name. If anything, I’d prefer Donald and his children change theirs.

Joanna Coles:
Will you be invited to Donald Jr.’s wedding?

Mary Trump:
I didn’t even know he was getting married. But I’d love to go—purely for observational purposes.

Joanna Coles:
You could report from inside.

Mary Trump:
All it would require is sucking up to Donald and selling my soul.

Joanna Coles:
I don’t see that happening. Mary Trump, thank you as always. Your insights are invaluable.

Mary Trump:
Thanks, Joanna. This was great.

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PRIMAL SCREAM with Joanna Coles

The Portrait of Trump's Presidency Is Rotting From the Inside Out

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15 days ago · 67 likes · 2 comments · Joanna Coles and The Daily Beast

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As of 3:00 local time, 66% of the Hungarian electorate had cast a vote. That number will likely go up dramatically in the last four hours the polls remain open. Polls have been showing that incumbent prime minister Viktor Orban and his party, Fidesz, are well behind his challenger Peter Magyar and the Tisza party.

Orban refers to his system as “illiberal democracy”—a Christian nationalist counter to Western liberal democracy. Its goal has nothing to do with improving the lives of the Hungarian people. In his disastrous sixteen years in charge, Orban has bequeathed his country high unemployment, the social safety net has been brought to its knees, and it is one of the poorest countries in the EU. He’s taken control of universities and the media and restructured the judiciary by installing loyalists with little or no experience in violation of the country’s constitution. His administration is rife with corruption—during his time in office oligarchs have benefited enormously—and the population is shrinking.

If all of this sounds familiar, it’s because Orban, who Steve Bannon claimed was “Trump before Trump,” provided the roadmap for Donald and the Republican Party, just as Vladimir Putin provided the roadmap for him.

With nothing to run on, Orban has campaigned on stoking fear by claiming that Magyar will drag Hungary into a war with Ukraine. Considering it’s Orban that has relied on his friend Vladimir Putin to spread AI-generated propaganda on his behalf and his pro-Russia American allies (specifically Donald Trump and JD Vance) to campaign for him, the Hungarian people should be much more concerned about an Orban victory. In fact, protesters at his rallies have been shouting, “Russians go home.” The people understand what side their corrupt, compromised prime minister is on.

They also understand what’s at stake, hence the massive turnout. As David Pressman, Joe Biden’s ambassador to Hungary, put it:

The only policy [Magyar is] talking about is that there needs to be a systemic challenge to what has become a kleptocracy that is undermining Hungary and Hungarianness.

Massive turnout aside, we should not be overly confident about the results of today’s election. Polls may show Magyar’s margin to be large, and a landslide for him and his party is a possibility, but unsurprisingly Orban and Fidesz have, during their 16 years in power, done much to rig the electoral system in their favor including extreme gerrymandering. Fidesz has iron-clad control of the media landscape--Reporters without Borders estimates that the party and its allies “now control around 80 percent of the media landscape.”

As the Hungarian people are demonstrating, all the systemic disadvantages they’re up against should not lead to complacency or despair. Instead, they are why turnout matters, showing up matters, and voting matters—even if, or perhaps especially if, the system is rigged against us.

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Even those who were once among his most loyal and sycophantic supporters are starting to question Donald’s fitness. Right-wing commentators with massive followings, including Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones, are expressing concerns about Donald’s Iran rhetoric, including last week’s threat to commit genocide. They contend this is a sign of his increasing instability and lack of judgment. That suggests to me that they haven’t been paying very close attention over the last several decades.

Here’s what a few of them have had to say:

Tucker Carlson: People who are in direct contact with the president need to say, “No, I’ll resign. I’ll do whatever I can do legally to stop this because this is insane. And if given the order, I’m not carrying it out.”

Nick Fuentes: The antichrist is president. Okay. The antichrist is president. The red heifer has been born. We are at war with Iran. The strait of Hormuz is closed.

Megyn Kelly: I mean, I don’t know about you, but I am sick of this shit. I’m sick of it. Can’t he just behave like a normal human? I mean, honestly, like the president, 3D chess—just shut up.

Candace Owens: The 25^th amendment needs to be invoked. He is a genocidal lunatic. Our Congress and military need to intervene. We are beyond madness.

The perpetually confused Joe Rogan and Theo Von had the following exchange:

Rogan

I’m confused. I can’t believe we went to this war. When we started bombing Iran, I was like, “This can’t be true.”

Von

And what about Lebanon now?

Rogan

Well, they’re trying to, supposedly, they’re trying to stop the terrorists.

Von

That’s crazy though if you’re the fucking terrorist.

And after calling for the 25^th amendment and calling Donald’s threat of genocide “evil and madness,” Marjorie Taylor Greene said:

The American people have to open their eyes and deal with reality and deal with truth. And the truth is, look, you may have supported [Donald] for 10 years like I did and like you have, but this is not the same man. This is not the same man that we supported.

Where to start? Well, let’s start here: Donald is exactly the same person now as he was five decades ago—he was never fit to lead this country. And every single one of those people helped get us to Donald Trump. Now that Donald’s decline is undeniable and his behavior and rhetoric are increasingly unstable, they see the writing on the wall, they’ve decided that it’s in their best interest to turn against the person they’ve been loyal to for the last decade.

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I’m glad that they are speaking out even if for the most self-serving reasons because tens of millions of people are still influenced by the likes of Rogan and Carlson and Owens; if they can open some eyes, that’s a good thing. Having said that, however, we cannot allow any of them to be rehabilitated or given credit for saying the right thing. They are the worst of us—racists, Christian Nationalists, fascists—most of whom have been spreading hatred, bigotry, and propaganda long before Donald won the 2016 election.

Then there’s the reality that Donald has done plenty of evil and mad things since getting into the White House. During his first term, he implemented the child separation policy and the Muslim ban; he mishandled the COVID pandemic so maliciously that over 400,000 Americans died unnecessarily; he spread the Big Lie about the 2020 election; and incited an insurrection against his own government. In the last fourteen months, DOGE, under his watch, pulled funding from USAID which has resulted, thus far, in the unnecessary deaths of 700,000 people, including 400,000 children; ICE and CBP agents have murdered American citizens, immigrants, and undocumented workers in American cities; and he’s illegally ordered the U.S. military to blow up boats in the Caribbean Sea. This is not even close to being an exhaustive list. The high-profile loyalists who cheered Donald on while he was committing all of those horrors can spare me their outrage.

This shift towards directly criticizing Donald and calling for his ouster may be the first domino to fall within the MAGA base. It seems as if Greene’s public challenges to Donald, along with the insistence of a handful of Republicans in the House of Representatives that the Epstein files be released against Donald’s explicit wishes, may embolden other Republicans who’ve been questioning Donald’s judgment behind the scenes for years now.

The whole world is watching as Donald’s threats become increasingly desperate and extreme, but they’re also watching as the American system proves itself to be completely incapable of reining him in. For our allies, Donald is not the problem, in this instance—America is. The stakes could not be higher and to insulate ourselves and the world from further harm, the best thing that could happen is for Donald Trump to be boxed in and weakened to the point of irrelevance.

The increasing chorus of dissenting voices is chipping away at the myth that Donald is forever impervious to negative publicity, invulnerable to criticism, and incapable of being held accountable. The more people on the right that speak out, the closer we get to the tipping point. Just as Mike Campbell, a character in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises went bankrupt “gradually, then suddenly,” Donald may lose his grip on power more quickly if we can reach a critical mass of dissent.

[Transcript edited for clarity and flow]

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I got to hang out with my friend and Fellow Nerd Avenger, the awesome Danielle Moodie. We talked about the very troubling circumstances unfolding in the Middle East and what do Democrats need to do to position themselves in the upcoming election in order to convince the American people not only that they’re the party that’s going to fix everything, but that they’re a party that takes accountability seriously.

Danielle Moodie: Folks, I am so excited to be in conversation this morning with my friend Mary Trump. You know her as a New York Times bestselling author. You know her through her work with her Mary Trump Media channel. She’s an all-around badass and resistance fighter. I guess, for what—10 years—we’ve been warriors in this?

Mary Trump: Years, not millennia? My goodness.

Danielle Moodie: Not millennia? I don’t know. I feel 108, but a good old right behind.

Mary Trump: Day by day. What a good day.

Danielle Moodie: But I want to start out today because, look, it’s only Thursday. It feels like we have lived at least 65 days in this week alone.

Having dealt with an impending nuclear war on Tuesday, to then be woken up to a false ceasefire and the continued battering of South Lebanon by Israel, Donald Trump woke up this morning and decided to post that the troops are ready and excited about battle—because this is what we do now.

I want to get your thoughts on Tuesday—where you were, how you were feeling about this impending doom that was hovering over the world. I mean, Donald Trump held the world hostage for 12-plus hours on Tuesday with his finger hovering over a potential nuclear bomb.

Mary Trump: Yeah. Listen, Danielle, you and I know that a moment like this has been coming for a very, very long time, and nobody has the right to be surprised that we got here. This is who he is.

He is flailing, he’s failing, he’s desperate, he’s declining—and he’s aware of enough. And I said this in 2020, and look, I don’t like quoting myself, and I actually hate being right about a lot of this, but I said right before the 2020 election, “If he feels like he’s going down, he’s going to take all of us down with him.” I also said that if he gets back into office, it’s going to be the end of the American experiment. And here we are.

So on Tuesday, when I read that monstrous post threatening genocide against an entire people—an ancient culture that, if freed from its oppressive regime, would have so much to offer the world—it was, again, not surprising.

But honestly, I felt a sense of resignation. I didn’t actually think he was going to go through with it, but the fact that we couldn’t be 100 percent sure—and perhaps more troubling, the fact that we couldn’t be sure there were any sane voices in the military who would refuse to follow such an illegal order—was terrifying.

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It’s like waiting for Supreme Court decisions. Can we be 100 percent confident they won’t overturn birthright citizenship? No, we can’t.

So it adds to that sense of helplessness and hopelessness that they want us to feel. Donald keeps manipulating the entire world into focusing on nothing but him. And it’s not sustainable.

And just because he didn’t act on Tuesday doesn’t mean he won’t at some point in the near future.

Danielle Moodie: And I think that’s what is so troubling. I don’t think we reflect enough on the trauma being inflicted on us and around the world.

People in Iran were calling loved ones, leaving voicemails saying, “I don’t know if I’ll be able to reach out again.” And it really angered me seeing people joking with taco emojis, saying, “Oh, we taco’d.”

This is nuclear war. It’s not a joke. I understand humor as a coping mechanism, but people were saying goodbye.

And now people are still living on edge—not knowing if it will be Friday, next week, or a month from now.

So I want to ask you: this morning he says the military is ready, they’re not leaving Iran, the strait must be open—which it already was before this war. He also says we’ve already won.

So which is it? Do we need backup, or have we won? And what do you think NATO allies will do, given they’ve said this is not their war?

Mary Trump: Well, first, NATO is a defensive alliance. We are the aggressors here. This is an illegal, unconstitutional war.

But one of the most alarming things about Tuesday was that nobody in the Republican Party thought to come back to Washington. Congress was out. JD Vance was in Hungary helping Viktor Orbán.

Nobody is taking this seriously.

The president launched an illegal war and threatened genocide—and nobody acted.

And where were the Democrats? They should have returned and spoken nonstop about the danger we’re in.

Donald is unfit. He was unfit 10 years ago, and he’s more unfit now. He is unhinged. He cannot speak coherently. He contradicts himself constantly.

We won. We need help to win. The strait is open. The strait is closed. There have been dozens of shifting rationales.

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And now he wants outcomes that already existed before this war—like the Strait of Hormuz being open and Iran’s nuclear program being contained, which the JCPOA had achieved.

What concerns me is that Republicans allow this unchecked, and global leaders like NATO’s head decline to criticize it and instead praise his leadership.

That gives him permission to escalate.

Danielle Moodie: Exactly. I went live on Tuesday because I was spiraling, and I asked: where is leadership?

Democrats were tweeting like influencers instead of acting like officials.

Meanwhile, other world leaders were preparing their countries for energy and food shortages.

No one here is preparing Americans.

So what should Democrats be doing?

Mary Trump: They need to tell the truth about how disastrous the last 14 months have been and prepare people for what’s coming.

And they need to present a bold vision—not minor fixes, but massive structural change.

We need to reimagine the country. Reform the Supreme Court. Reform the Senate. Codify laws instead of relying on norms.

Agencies are being dismantled by individuals. That must stop.

And Democrats must promise real accountability—not just electoral losses, but legal consequences.

These people should face prosecution. The U.S. should join the ICC.

Because if this goes unpunished, we are not serious about democracy.

Danielle Moodie: I think the world is already putting us in a timeout. They don’t trust us anymore.

Our policies swing wildly every four years. Why would anyone rely on us?

And I want to ask about figures like Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene—people who supported Trump but now criticize him.

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Some Democrats are treating them as allies.

What do you make of that?

Mary Trump: It’s maneuvering. They see the writing on the wall and want to isolate blame on Donald.

They should not be rehabilitated. Ever.

They created this. They profited from it.

Democrats must make clear: we don’t want you. You are not part of the solution.

Danielle Moodie: I worry Democrats will embrace them anyway, like they did with figures like Liz Cheney.

And that could set up something even worse—a more openly authoritarian future.

Mary Trump: Exactly. We need a full reimagining—not a return to old systems.

Danielle Moodie: As we close, I’m worried Americans aren’t responding urgently enough.

There were no massive protests on Tuesday.

Do Americans have the appetite for real resistance?

Mary Trump: If they don’t, the future will be very dark.

But people are overwhelmed. The news cycle is relentless, and that’s intentional.

And people are still dealing with trauma—from COVID, from years of instability.

We need to extend some grace—but also improve organizing.

The protests are growing, but they need to escalate.

At some point, it won’t be about rallies. It will be about shutting things down.

Danielle Moodie: Agreed. Mary, thank you so much for this conversation. It helps ground me, and I know it helps others too.

Tell people where they can find you.

Mary Trump: I’m on all platforms @MaryLTrump. My Substack is The Good in Us. It’s free. And check out Mary Trump Media on YouTube.

Also, follow Danielle—she’s one of the voices keeping me going.

Danielle Moodie: Thank you, my friend. Folks, this is independent media. Like, comment, subscribe.

If you can support us, please do—but everything remains free.

Mary, take care of yourself. Stay rested, hydrated, and sane.

Mary Trump: Totally.

Danielle Moodie: Talk soon.

Mary Trump: Thanks, everybody.

Danielle Moodie: Thank you, everyone.

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[Transcript edited for clarity, flow]

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Mary Trump: I spent some time talking with the great Thom Hartmann about Donald’s very uplifting Easter post and what the mess in Iran entails. We also discussed Donald’s cognitive, physical, and psychological decline and what that might mean for all of us. Plus, we got into the firing of Pam Bondi and whether that’s about misogyny or simply the fact that there is no such thing as being sycophantic enough for the most insecure loser who has ever lived. I hope you enjoy it.

Thom Hartmann: Mary, welcome back to the program. It’s so nice having you with us.

Mary Trump: Anytime. It’s always wonderful to hang out with you, even during these apocalyptic times—or maybe especially during these apocalyptic times.

Thom Hartmann: Yeah, it’s when we all need to support each other, I think. I’m curious about your thoughts on your uncle’s unhinged, obscene, blasphemous tweet.

Mary Trump: Yeah, there’s nothing like threatening war crimes on the highest holy day of the religion he was allegedly celebrating.

Thom Hartmann: And dropping the F-bomb.

Mary Trump: Dropping the F-bomb and being Islamophobic— all of it. It was a trifecta of awfulness. I think what worries me about it more than anything else—because we have no right anymore to be surprised or shocked by his indecency, his depravity, his cruelty, his profanity—is the fact that there’s a team of people who either felt they couldn’t control him, couldn’t convince him not to post this, as you said, blasphemous and obscene tweet, or didn’t think they should.

Thom Hartmann: Yeah.

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Mary Trump: So I think we need to understand where we are. So many people continue to enable him past the point of sanity. Everything that’s happening right now is happening with an army of people either turning a blind eye or actively supporting everything he does. And that’s why he continues to have such a negative—and profoundly negative—impact not just on this country, but on the world.

Thom Hartmann: I used to work for an international relief organization based out of Germany. In 1980, I went into Uganda at the tail end of the civil war. The Tanzanians had come in and ejected Idi Amin, who fled with 10,000 of his soldiers to Saudi Arabia, where he lived as a king with his many wives for the rest of his life.

We took over a region where people were dying every day of starvation. We were burying bodies with bulldozers. I met several government officials, and I asked one of them, “How could you have put up with Idi Amin?”

His response was, “We were all terrified of him.”

Do you think people in the Trump White House are starting to feel like that?

Mary Trump: I think a lot of them have felt like that all along. I think many, if not all, elected Republicans have felt that way all along—but it’s a difference of degree.

People living under Idi Amin were at risk of torture, murder, their families being murdered. What Republicans enabling Donald are afraid of now is a mean post on his failing social media site, a threatened primary, or maybe having the DOJ sicced on them. That is not an excuse.

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If everybody had stood together against him at the very beginning, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. That applies not just to individuals, but to corporations, institutions of higher learning, law firms—everyone.

These people have nobody to blame but themselves. And to continue doubling and quadrupling down on their sycophancy suggests they either don’t understand the stakes or they don’t care. Which is why, at some point, they need to be held accountable in a very real way.

Thom Hartmann: Yeah, for sure. I’m curious about your thoughts, as a licensed clinical psychologist, on what some are calling “sundowning syndrome”—that as the day progresses, Donald seems to lose more impulse control.

And then there’s the suggestion from Dr. John Gartner that what we’re seeing is actual dementia—deterioration in the frontal lobes affecting impulse control.

What’s your sense of where he is right now, and where he’ll be over the next few years?

Mary Trump: The rapidity of his decline—across physical, neurological, and psychological health—is quite alarming.

I’m not a neuropsychologist, but I am familiar with cognitive testing, and the fact that he keeps being asked to take basic cognitive assessments multiple times is not a good sign.

My grandfather had Alzheimer’s starting in his mid to late 70s. Donald is now in that same age range, and I see similarities. He often seems disoriented to time and place, has short-term memory issues, and is experiencing hypersomnia—falling asleep during the day—which is an indicator of serious issues.

Thom Hartmann: Yeah, he’s nodding off.

Mary Trump: Exactly. And his increasing lack of impulse control and inability to understand what is appropriate is also concerning.

I’m equally worried about his psychological deterioration. I’ve never formally diagnosed him, but he increasingly meets many criteria on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist.

Psychiatric disorders don’t improve on their own. Combined with poor physical health, cognitive decline, and extreme stress, we are heading toward one of two outcomes:

Either he becomes incapacitated—which, frankly, would be the better outcome—or he continues down this extremely dangerous path, putting the country and the world at risk to protect his ego.

That’s where we are. It’s a perfect storm of potential horror.

Thom Hartmann: We’re talking with Mary Trump, who publishes the newsletter The Good in Us on Substack.

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I was reading Earl Stephens’ Substack, and he wrote that beyond the psychology, Trump is simply a racist, a woman abuser, a convicted felon, a liar, a thief, and more—essentially calling him the most dangerous person on earth. What do you think?

Mary Trump: All of that is true—but it’s always been true. His racism and misogyny aren’t getting worse; they’ve always been there.

What’s troubling is how normalized those traits have become. We were told repeatedly that it was “baked in” and that voters didn’t care. And unfortunately, tens of millions of Americans don’t care.

But here’s the issue: if, alongside legal analysis, we had consistently explained his psychological unfitness—his impulsivity, his nihilism, his inability to improve—people might have understood the real danger.

Instead, many people thought, “He may be flawed, but he’ll help us economically.”

If they had understood that he is fundamentally unstable and dangerous—and always will be—maybe the conversation would have been different.

Thom Hartmann: That’s important. And quickly—your thoughts on Pam Bondi. Do you think gender played a role?

Mary Trump: It plays some role, and we’ll likely see another woman targeted next.

But more importantly, Bondi could not have been more sycophantic. The issue is that even maximum loyalty isn’t enough. She ran into the limits of a system that still, to some degree, functions.

What Donald and his allies don’t understand is that no amount of sycophancy can protect him—or us—from himself.

Thom Hartmann: And that’s the real danger—for the country and the world.

Mary Trump: Exactly.

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[Transcript edited for clarity, length and flow]

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I just had a great conversation with the wonderful Jim Acosta about Donald’s state of mind—whether we should truly be worried that he might do the unthinkable, the roles the Republican Party, his inner circle, and his cabinet are playing and what’s going on with his family. It was a fascinating discussion, and I hope you get as much out of it as I did.

Jim Acosta: Welcome to the Jim Acosta Show. It’s another day that ends in “why” amid the chaos unleashed by Donald Trump in the Middle East. Today, Trump is threatening to wipe out Iran’s civilization if they don’t surrender to his demands. The Iranians appear to be calling his bluff. In the meantime, Trump has set an 8:00 PM deadline for tonight to get what he wants, but his threat to wipe out the Iranians has resurrected talk of removing Trump from office. Let’s discuss this with the wonderful Mary Trump, who is his niece and has repeatedly warned the public about her uncle’s lack of fitness for office, to put it mildly. Mary, great to see you again.

Mary Trump: It’s great to see you too, Jim. I’m sorry the circumstances are so dire.

Jim Acosta: I know, I know. And when I reached out to you yesterday, I had no idea that today he would threaten to wipe out Iran’s civilization—but here we are. I mean, he says a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. “I don’t want that to happen. However, now that we have complete and total regime change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionary, wonderful can come out of this.” I don’t know what he’s saying here. It’s sort of all over the place—gobbledygook. When you saw this, what was your reaction?

Mary Trump: I think I was a little surprised that it’s taken him so long to get here. He has been looking for an excuse to bring us to the brink. And none of us has any right anymore to be surprised by anything Donald Trump says or might do.

One of the things that’s so deeply troubling—and I know you know this—is that we actually don’t know. We cannot say with any certainty what will happen at eight o’clock tonight. And he likes it that way. But we also have to focus on the fact that he can’t do this alone. The silence of the Republicans is deafening, and they’re all complicit in this.

And if Donald does indeed give the order to destroy a civilization—which is genocide, a crime against humanity—that’s an illegal order that cannot be followed. So again, he’s been giving orders to murder people in the Caribbean Sea that keep getting followed.

So it’s a very scary place to be.

Jim Acosta: No question about it. And you make a very good point. I mean, Mark Kelly and others have said, “Don’t follow illegal orders.” They’ve communicated that message to members of the military. But as you mentioned, these illegal orders have been followed.

But the question in my mind is—and you just sort of answered it when you said we don’t know what he’s going to do—I tend to think that he is bluffing, that this is a “taco” situation where at 7:59 this evening he’ll say, “The talks continue,” or something along those lines. And I think you and I have talked about this—it’s probably a coping mechanism on my part. I don’t want to imagine the worst. And I think it’s very possible he will do this.

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Mary Trump: Yes. Now, to your point—and it’s a good one—that doesn’t mean he’ll do it tonight. There is an ego-saving mechanism at work here. He’s getting all sorts of attention. He is, to certain people, coming across as a tough guy. He’s saber-rattling, and he feels like a big man who is in control of everything.

And of course, much of this is also to keep attention focused away from other things that have been plaguing his second term—the Epstein files, the horrific mistakes he’s made vis-à-vis the economy, and on and on. We could talk for an hour about all the terrible things he’s done since January 2025.

But part of this is also that he’s continuing to sustain very severe narcissistic injuries. He knows on some level that he is not in control of anything, including the way he’s presenting himself to the public or being perceived. He’s losing his ability to control his impulses. We know that he’s in some cognitive decline. He can’t stay awake during the day.

A lot of this is to make him feel that he isn’t losing control. There will come a point, however, when that becomes inescapable. I don’t think we’re at that point yet, but if he doesn’t destroy an entire civilization tonight, that doesn’t mean we’re out of danger—because he’s not out of danger.

Jim Acosta: Right. He is the danger. And it seems to me—I saw Marjorie Taylor Greene was putting it out there, the 25th Amendment. Anthony Scaramucci was saying he should be removed from office. There are folks on the Republican side saying, “Enough is enough, he’s got to go,” based on that Truth Social post.

I guess I’m curious what you think. To me, he is the poster child for the 25th Amendment. He is not fit to serve right now. What are your thoughts?

Mary Trump: I think it’s really important to say that he’s never been fit—ever. He was never qualified. He never had the temperament. He never had the knowledge. He is a deeply compromised human being, and he always has been. But obviously, he’s much less fit than he was ten years ago.

Of course, he needs to be removed from office, but the problem with the 25th Amendment is that the people who have the power to do that aren’t going to. Sure, there are some Republicans calling for his removal, but they’re not in office. They don’t have the power to do anything.

Donald has successfully surrounded himself with the most corrupt, sycophantic cabinet and inner circle of any president. And the Republican Party—Republicans in Congress—are entirely complicit in all of this. And of course, we see that as incompetent as Pete Hegseth is, he’s done a pretty good job of hollowing out the upper echelons of the military.

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So who in the Trump regime is going to remove him? Nobody.

Jim Acosta: Yeah. And the Republicans control Congress, so they’re not going to impeach and remove him. But it seems to me that if he unleashes something tonight that is akin to trying to wipe out a civilization, at that point there’s more than our democracy on the line—it’s our souls. And maybe there are Republicans in Congress who don’t care about that, but I think they should at this point, given what we’re dealing with.

And the other thing that is part of this, Mary, is how easily it seems Donald Trump is being led around by other people in his orbit. There’s a story in The New York Times today that Maggie Haberman wrote with Jonathan Swan about how Benjamin Netanyahu came to the White House, delivered a presentation, and they went around the room discussing it. The CIA director, John Ratcliffe, said talk of regime change was farcical. There was pushback. But in the end, Trump thought, “This is what he wants to do, so I’ll do it.” He’s going with his gut.

But as you said—what gut? He should never have been president. But that’s what we’re up against. He’s not only compromised cognitively, but he seems easily led by people around him.

Mary Trump: Yes. I think that has always been true to some degree. He either knows what he wants and seeks out the person who agrees with him, or he is influenced by whoever is reinforcing his impulses. And right now, that’s everybody.

In this instance, according to that article, it was Pete Hegseth who was completely on board—another deeply compromised person who has no business being anywhere near the U.S. military.

What really stood out to me was the idea that people in the administration view him as a man of history who sees things they don’t. If that’s true, we are in even bigger trouble, because no rational person could think that Donald is anything other than an ill-informed person who is only out for himself.

And failing to understand that is a large part of how we got here. I don’t like quoting myself, but in 2020 I said that if Donald thinks he’s going down, he’s going to take all of us with him. And here we are—and he’s going down.

Jim Acosta: Yeah, I agree. And it seems like he understands, on some level, how in over his head he is, which is why he’s lashing out. It’s almost childlike behavior. And I wonder if you could shed some light on that, because it’s gotten worse. We see it every day now—outbursts, profanity, threats.

Mary Trump: Yes. Part of that is the lack of impulse control that comes with whatever cognitive decline he’s experiencing. But we also need to remember that he has had serious, untreated psychiatric issues for decades. Those worsen over time, especially alongside physical decline.

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There was a time when that behavior was strategic—a kind of “deal by tantrum” approach. But what’s new is that he is no longer in control of it. This is not a tactic anymore. It’s a reaction to a crisis of his own making.

He doesn’t know what to do. He isn’t a strategic thinker. He just keeps making things worse.

And we also need to remember that he has essentially been institutionalized his entire adult life—first by wealth, then by the presidency. He’s never had to function like a normal adult, and that has had consequences.

Jim Acosta: Yes, absolutely. And his physical decline is visible. The way he walks, the bruising, the fatigue—this is not the same person from 2016.

Mary Trump: No, it’s not.

Jim Acosta: And it seems to be accelerating.

Mary Trump: It is. But what’s important is that it’s not changing him—it’s revealing him. People once mistook his energy and aggression for strength. That illusion is gone.

Jim Acosta: And he no longer has guardrails. No John Kelly, no James Mattis. Now it’s Pete Hegseth. There’s nobody to stop him.

Mary Trump: Exactly. There are no guardrails. And there’s no one willing to step in. The complicity is total.

Jim Acosta: It really does reveal how vulnerable the system is.

Mary Trump: Yes. But if we survive this, at least we will know exactly what needs to be fixed. We need to codify everything. No more relying on norms.

Jim Acosta: And Supreme Court reform.

Mary Trump: Absolutely. He has been placed above the law. And that must be addressed.

Jim Acosta: And finally, the family—no one is stepping in.

Mary Trump: Because they’re benefiting. These relationships are transactional. They won’t intervene because they profit from his behavior.

Jim Acosta: In any other family, they’d take away the keys.

Mary Trump: Exactly.

Jim Acosta: Mary, always great to talk to you.

Mary Trump: Thanks, Jim. I appreciate it.

Jim Acosta: Thanks so much. Very interesting insights there from Mary, especially on the family. I hadn’t really thought about that until the end of the interview. In any other situation, the kids would step in—but they’re not, because they’re cashing in.

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[Transcript edited for clarity, flow and length]

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I had a chance to talk with my friend and fellow Nerd Avenger, Waj Ali, and we discussed Donald’s extraordinarily uplifting post on Easter. I’m being very sarcastic, just how dangerous it is that he’s boxed himself in in Iran and how Democrats need to get very, very serious at electing leaders who are going to do what’s necessary to make sure that we get our country back. Enjoy.

Wajahat Ali: We have the fantabulous Mary Trump, the best Trump, not to be confused in any way, shape, or form with her deranged uncle, Donald. Mary has joined us on Easter. Happy Easter to anyone who celebrates. May it be a blessed Easter for everyone. Easter, for those who don’t know, commemorates what Christians believe is the resurrection of Jesus, who represents life and hope. And you would just think—you don’t have to be a Christian; I’m not Christian—you could just say a simple “Happy Easter.” You could just say, “Happy Easter, Christians!” Exclamation point. Can you please tell us what Donald did yesterday?

Mary Trump: Well, he skipped his usual tradition of wishing “Happy Easter” to all the suckers and losers and whatever else he usually says. Yes, I also am not Christian, and yet I don’t get offended when people wish me a happy Easter, and I am happy to wish other people a happy Easter, and I don’t think they get offended if they don’t celebrate the holiday. You know what I don’t do? I don’t swear at people on the highest of high holidays for Christians. I don’t commit Islamophobia. And this will shock you—I’m glad you’re sitting down—I don’t threaten war crimes. But that’s because clearly I don’t understand the spirit of the holiday.

Wajahat Ali: You don’t know, Mary. You didn’t pay attention. I went to UPenn. This is how everyone wishes everyone Easter.

Mary Trump: You know what the problem is? Unlike Donald, at least according to Paula White, I didn’t go to Saturday and Sunday school three days a week. That was my mistake. By the way, Paula White is the spiritual advisor who’s either psychotic and/or a total grifter. And—

Wajahat Ali: My answer to that is yes.

Mary Trump: Yes. And there’s no flipping way any of my grandparents’ children went to Saturday and Sunday school. Well, certainly not three days a week, because I don’t think that’s possible since that’s only two days. But these were not religiously raised people. They’re like knee-jerk Protestants. But apparently Donald doesn’t even know that because he keeps saying he takes communion, but we don’t—Protestants, unless you’re Episcopalian, and you’re not taking communion. Anyway, that’s totally beside the point. The point is that I think every single evangelical who supports him is partially responsible for this, along with all of the Republicans in Congress who continue to do absolutely nothing. And every single one of them should be made to answer for his absolutely grotesque post on, again, one of the highest of high holidays if you’re a Christian. If they’re not offended by it, if they make excuses for it, then anything that happens is—well, I think everything that happens is their responsibility anyway.

But none of these people should be taken seriously. None of them should be given the benefit of the doubt. And they have so much to answer for anyway, including the erosion between church and state, but that’s the subject for another time.

Wajahat Ali: It’s just egregious hypocrisy, shameless. The fact that they’ve transformed this rapist vulgarian into an orange calf. For those who really don’t know what we’re talking about, well, good for you. But yesterday, Sunday, there’s usually—even egg hunt, man, just talk about the Easter hunt. Talk about the Easter Bunny. Just something. Donald, who’s the president of the United States of America, the commander in chief of a waning empire, said, “Tuesday, Tuesday will be power plant day and bridge day all wrapped up in one in Iran.” So first and foremost, war crimes. To blow power plants and bridges—war crimes. Second sentence, there’ll be nothing like a third sentence: “Open the effing strait.” He actually used the word. “You crazy bastards or you’ll be living in hell.” All caps. “Just watch.” Then he apparently converts to Islam: “Praise be to Allah. President Donald J. Trump.” If he has converted to Islam, we don’t want him. Christians, he’s yours, bro. He’s yours. Take him.

And then we saw Zohran Mamdani, who’s actually a Muslim, mayor of New York—oh, the person that corporate Democrats, centrist Democrats, pro-Israel fanatics, and the Republicans have been after for, like, I don’t know, a year. This is what Zohran Mamdani said: “Happy Easter, New York. Today, millions of New Yorkers celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the victory of hope over despair and faith over fear.” Mary.

Mary Trump: What a monster.

Wajahat Ali: This Easter, how dare he?

Mary Trump: That’s how it’s done. But what should also be alarming, in addition to Donald’s—I mean, listen, the guy is decompensating before our eyes, but that’s been happening over many years now. It’s just accelerating because of the pressure he’s under and because he has created a disaster for himself. He has painted himself into a corner he cannot get out of. And that’s why we’re seeing him start to throw people like Pam Bondi and, arguably, the most sycophantic of the sycophantic propagandists, Karoline Leavitt, under the bus, because they cannot save him from himself. It’s an impossible task. But he can’t take responsibility for any of it, so of course it’s all on them.

I think I tweeted this: his tweet was horrible, but we have no right to be surprised or shocked anymore.

Wajahat Ali: There you go.

Mary Trump: It’s the fact that nobody either could stop him from posting it or even thought they should, because it was fine. I think more alarming is the fact that the official White House Twitter account, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense—what’s his name? Pete Hegseth—are using their official government accounts to talk about “she has risen.” And no, sorry, this is not a Christian country.

Wajahat Ali: It’s—

Mary Trump: Offensive. It should offend everybody, including Christians, that they’re using their official government accounts to proselytize their very narrow, violent vision of Christianity. And I think that could have very long-lasting—I think it is going to have very long-lasting effects, and it’ll be very difficult to untangle all of that.

Wajahat Ali: Folks, I have a really good conversation later on today with Julie Ingersoll, who, at 3:00 p.m., follows Christian nationalism. She’s going to come in and talk about how this is exactly connected to what Mary is saying, which is that we have a bunch of cosplay crusaders in the White House, a bunch of hardcore right-wing extremist Christian nationalists who do not believe in the separation of church and state. And even in the war on Iran with Pete Hegseth, as more and more reporting has come out, he’s been one of the main cheerleaders, him and Huckabee and others. They truly believe that this is a necessary step in order for the reemergence of Jesus, because if you follow their type of eschatology, they believe Jews need to control Jerusalem as a necessary precondition for Jesus to come back. Jesus comes back, the first group he kills are the Jews, then the Muslims.

So they are literally, according to their extremist fantasy, living out the fantasy in policy, trying to make it into a reality, not making a slur. And there’s a reason why, folks, every Republican and Democratic president before Donald did not go to war with Iran. Netanyahu has been at this for four decades. Even George W. Bush—Mary, there were simple times, Mary, when you and I were younger and had less gray hair, where we thought George W. Bush would be the worst president of our lifetime. And even George W. Bush was like, “I won’t go to Iran, but I’ll go to Iraq. I’ll do something really stupid, but not that stupid.” And then Donald comes in and goes, “I’ll do it.”

And then this is what really bothers me, because you did mention this. We should be shocked but not surprised. Donald also tweeted this: “Tuesday, 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time.” Tuesday, 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time. After what he just tweeted, he tweeted, “Tuesday, 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time.” So Aaron Rupar, a friend of the show, looked at this tweet and quote-tweeted, “It cannot be ruled out that this is a threat to use a nuclear weapon against Iran.” I looked at that and I said, “I agree.” Other people have said that as well, that he could potentially use nuclear weapons. He’s already threatened war crimes. He’s already engaged in an illegal war. He’s already incited a violent insurrection.

Then Ian Bremmer, who I really do enjoy shitting on, because he deserves it, because he represents this class of professional pundits, people who are part of the big club, the people who have been wrong for ten years, the people who have failed up for ten years, the people who have made millions of dollars by telling the rest of us—I mean, I suffer from TDS, the person who mocked me when I said Donald Trump won’t leave. After everything, Ian yesterday goes, “Come on, man.” And then Aaron says, “I stand by what I said.” Then Ian says—the man who’s made millions being wrong—“But you needn’t. You could just say, ‘Nah, having now thought it over, that’s not a real possibility.’” Then Aaron, to his credit, says, “Why would you think it isn’t? Trump is obsessed with blowing stuff up, has talked about using nukes in the past, clearly loves having his name in the history books, is more unhinged than ever. Do tell me why you think I’m wrong.” Ian says, “Massive civilian casualties, Gulf allies existentially opposed, radiation doesn’t respect borders, would destroy Trump’s legacy. Do you want me to continue?”

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Your response to Ian.

Mary Trump: Shut up. I don’t know. That is not a very mature, considered response. So let me give you a more mature, considered response.

I think that there is a—and unfortunately they seem to be the ones breaking all the boxes and getting all the attention—there is a pundit class that feels like its job is perpetuating the complacency of the American people and making sure that they don’t understand the threats we’re facing. I agree with Aaron in this—I agree with Aaron a lot, but in this particular instance as well, because we’re not just talking about a man who has—Donald, who has boxed himself in.

I mean, think about where we are. His objective for the war now is to create conditions that existed before the war started, including, by the way, bringing back the JCPOA—not that he’s talking about it in those terms.

Wajahat Ali: Essentially the JCPOA. That’s what it is.

Mary Trump: Essentially the JCPOA, except after the loss of many lives and empowering Iran, which was on its heels. All we needed to keep doing with Iran was increase sanctions and try to plan for a post-regime change by empowering the people. He basically took the worst possible tack. If and when this war ends, Iran will have control over the Strait of Hormuz and will be calling the shots. So that’s one issue.

But two more also important issues. Aaron alluded to one of them. Historically, Donald has shown himself to be obsessed with the nuclear. He has claimed many times that he knows more about the nuclear than the generals do. Nobody has ever asked him what exactly it is he knows, but he’s been allowed to tell that lie.

He is a nihilist. He does not believe that the world could possibly exist beyond him, so he doesn’t believe in legacy because once he’s gone, everything’s over.

Here’s what we need to be most worried about, because these are all interconnected things. Donald has spent his entire life protecting himself from the truth about what a loser he is. That’s getting harder and harder to do because he is acting out in ways that are exposing to the world just how incompetent and stupid he is and is having very real consequences.

Here’s the other problem. Because he’s a nihilist and because he is so desperate to change the subject—and I said this back in 2021, and I’m very sorry to report that I was right about it—if Donald feels like he’s going down, he’s going to take all of us down with him.

Wajahat Ali: The Samson option. Take away the pillars.

Mary Trump: Exactly. And then throw into the mix the fact that he and his corrupt, useless children are so financially in bed with many countries, especially Saudi Arabia and the UAE. And if Mohammed bin Salman, who I think has more influence than Benjamin Netanyahu ever could, says, “You need to stay there until this is taken care of,” do we seriously think that Donald’s going to think to himself, “Well, the most efficient way to do that in terms of making sure it’s over is dropping a nuclear weapon, but radiation doesn’t respect boundaries and a lot of innocent people will die and look what might happen”? He’s not a strategic thinker. He’s not going to think in the long term. He’s going to think, “What is the best way for me to change the subject and to get people to stop talking about what a loser I am?”

Wajahat Ali: No, I really appreciate that analysis. And you should write a book about this.

Mary Trump: Yeah, maybe I should. Maybe I should go back in time six years and—

Wajahat Ali: Write a book about this. Maybe you should write a book about the psychology of your uncle, this man you grew up with, and the family that you unfortunately grew up with, and what produced this man. Maybe people should read that to understand who has access to the nuclear codes and could destroy the world. I’m just thinking.

The title of this talk is The Madness of King Trump. And it’s a nerd reference to a great ’90s movie—I think 1994—which I don’t know if you’ve all seen, called The Madness of King George, with a great performance by Nigel Hawthorne as King George III. And the movie is kind of darkly comic, but it just shows the king of England going insane. They didn’t really know at the time that he was going insane, so they don’t understand what’s wrong with him, but people clearly realize this man’s erratic. So he becomes violent and has these wild outbursts and all these cures that they’re trying, and none of them work. And everyone’s trying to say the emperor has no clothes.

So I feel like clearly this man is 80 years old. There’s dementia in the family. He’s not healthy. I’m not saying this to mock people with cankles, but when you have those cankles—my grandmother had them—the heart’s not functioning properly. It’s swelling from water retention. He has blotches now on both arms. He has got an MRI twice—totally normal, right? Cognitive tests. And then even before the physical decline, I would also say the type of mental—I wouldn’t characterize—I’m not a psychologist like you, so I don’t know necessarily how to diagnose him, but the narcissism, the vanity, the cruelty, also the criminality—you combine it all together.

And this is where the Ian Bremmers and the CNNs and the anchors and the corporate media and the pundits who’ve all been wrong—even now after ten years—why do you think they still suffer from this failure of imagination? Because I agree with everything you said. He will do the Samson option. I’ve compared him to a New York sewer rat who will cut through anything and everyone just to survive. They’ve seen him do an insurrection. They’ve seen him pardon the insurrectionists. They’ve seen him literally join Israel in a failed, unwinnable war. They’ve seen him be racist. They’ve seen him quote Nazis. They’ve seen him eat and dine with Kanye West and Nick Fuentes. They’ve seen him held liable for raping E. Jean Carroll. Even after ten years, these losers who keep failing up, who get paid millions of dollars to be wrong—Mary, why is there still a failure of imagination? “Oh, he won’t do that. He won’t use nukes.” That’s just irrational.

Mary Trump: Yeah. Well, you and I have been banging our heads against the wall of this issue for ten years now. During his first term, how many times did we hear people like—what’s his name? I can’t think of his name, but he wasn’t the only person—many pundits saying, “Oh, he’s going to be presidential any minute now.”

Wajahat Ali: Oh, yes.

Mary Trump: How many years did it—

Wajahat Ali: Van Jones?

Mary Trump: Yes. Thank you. Thank you. He was the president of that.

Wajahat Ali: “This is the moment he became president.”

Mary Trump: Yeah. Never happened. Although I think it’s fair to say that the one thing Donald has done is change what “presidential” means. It doesn’t mean dignity and reserve and maturity and knowledge anymore. It means swearing and racism and Islamophobia and stupidity and lack of impulse control.

And then during his first term—I think it was maybe towards the end of his first term—they started saying “racism” and they started saying “lie.”

Wajahat Ali: Actually, no, not even at the end of the first term. It was only in the second term, because even at the end of the first term they said “racial trip-ups.”

Mary Trump: Oh, right. You’re right. And I mean, that was so infuriating. I remember one of my very first interviews, somebody—my book that I actually wrote in 2020, I mentioned that the N-word was used in my family. I mean, not with great frequency, but it wasn’t uncommon and it wasn’t even shocking. And I was asked about that, and people were just disbelieving. I’m like, “In what universe do you think that guy isn’t using the—”

I think it’s so difficult for people to come to grips with the fact that tens and tens of millions of Americans chose this, and they just can’t accept—many of them just can’t accept the reality because, again, fascism just started to come into vogue as a descriptor last year. And I mean, we’ve been saying that since 2017. It’s maddening.

But then, of course, there are a lot of people who are just playing the game because they want to be employed and they want to make a lot of money. And the corporate structure is such that that’s what gets rewarded because look who is in control of everything—Donald’s right-wing buddies.

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And this is the larger problem, I think. The people currently keeping him in power—the Larry Ellisons of the world, the Elon Musks of the world, the elected Republicans—are doing it because they continue to believe that he is the only one who can control the base and he does everything they want him to do.

Wajahat Ali: Do.

Mary Trump: Everything. So why turn the page on a guy that’s making them wealthy to a degree that was previously unimaginable? And these people actually think they’ll be insulated from climate catastrophe, nuclear war, because I’m sure they have very lovely bunkers somewhere.

Wajahat Ali: Or they’ll go to space and terraform Mars.

Mary Trump: Yeah, because that’s a thing that could happen in a very, very short period of time.

Wajahat Ali: Yeah. I’ve likened them to remoras in the sense that they’ll just use and ride Donald Trump to get their end goal. Miles Taylor was telling me that Donald just, on a whim, said, “Greenland, I want it” in the first Trump administration. So then they had to come up with a justification to acquire Greenland, which does not belong to America. And then the broligarchs you’re mentioning are like, “Greenland, huh? You know what? We can create our network states in Greenland. We can try to create one of the free cities in Greenland. Yes, Donald, take Greenland. Yes, take the oil of Venezuela. Yes, some of us are cosplay crusaders, get rid of Iran. Yes, crypto, crypto, go all in on crypto. Hey, have David Sacks be the head of your czar of crypto and AI.”

David Sacks, also part of the PayPal broligarchy. Also friends with—wait for it—Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, who gave over $200 million to make Donald Trump president. Elon Musk, who headed DOGE and stole our data. Elon Musk, who hand-delivered J.D. Vance to the presidency. Wait for it—Peter Thiel, who was in cahoots with Epstein and wanted to destroy the post-World War II order. Peter Thiel. I mean, it’s so incestuous.

But I think, going back, the big picture is this failure of imagination, Mary, because you did remind me. It’s the world’s worst “I told you so.” Because as you were saying it, I remember: “You suffer from TDS. Watch it, you’re crazy.” This wasn’t just MAGA. These were all the people getting paid millions of dollars to be wrong. All the pundits, all the experts, all the people in D.C., all the anchors. I used the word authoritarian—that’s too much. Fascist—that’s too much. Racist—that’s too much.

I remember, Mary, in 2016 leading up to the election, BBC NewsHour invited me. I was working at Al Jazeera America at that time, and BBC NewsHour is the big show in England, for those who know. I remember they invited me and I said something that—I literally wish there was a clip because the host malfunctioned in real time. His brain just short-circuited because I said, “Donald Trump is a white supremacist president and he’s going to help try to make white supremacy great again. What we’re witnessing is the death rattle of white supremacy that has turned into a death march.” His brain couldn’t understand what I was talking about. “What do you mean white supremacy?”

And I remember—who am I? I’m nobody—but a lot of the Brits, people of color especially in London, who were watching this show, were like, “This Wajahat Ali is onto something. I think he’s right. I think it is white supremacy.”

But then people should read another book you’ve written. I think literally what we’re witnessing is a majority of this country slowly but surely waking up and acknowledging racism, authoritarianism, the rape of our land and our wealth and our resources and our girls by billionaires, a genocide committed by Israel, war crimes, and also white supremacy. And then we have a vested class, which includes some liberals, who say, “No, no, no, no, nothing to see here, nothing to see here. Let’s just get to reconciliation without—”

Mary Trump: Truth. Yeah, because that works out well.

Yeah, I think we’re in the next phase of this project. Part of it is not allowing things to fall through the cracks. We need to keep talking about Gaza. We need to be talking about Ukraine. We need to keep talking about the Epstein files. We need to be talking about the fact that the Supreme Court—I do believe they will rule against Donald in the birthright citizenship case, but the fact that they took it moves the Overton window in the sense that it makes it seem like, oh, that was a reasonable case, a reasonable argument.

Wajahat Ali: You mean 9-0? It should be 9-0. I don’t think it’s going to be—

Mary Trump: 9-0. I think it’s going to be 8-1 or 7-2.

Wajahat Ali: Yeah.

Mary Trump: But again, they should never have taken it because taking it legitimizes the issue in a way it never should have been. So we need to keep reminding people that women in over half the states are second-class citizens and they’re still dying from pregnancies that should have been aborted but weren’t because their doctors are cowards or what have you.

Wajahat Ali: And also Tylenol—you can’t take Tylenol.

Mary Trump: I don’t understand why Tylenol didn’t sue him for trillions of dollars. Anyway, so—

Wajahat Ali: Well, can I tell you some breaking news on the Supreme Court?

Mary Trump: Please.

Wajahat Ali: The Supreme Court has vacated contempt of Congress charges against Steve Bannon, who had refused to honor a subpoena from the committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack and later served a four-month sentence. And now they have granted the Trump Justice Department’s request to vacate an appeals court ruling against his contempt case.

Mary Trump: Yeah.

Wajahat Ali: It clears a path for the dismissal of the case.

Mary Trump: Also, by the way, the other reason the Supreme Court took the birthright citizenship case is to make people think that it’s a reasonable institution. Look, they don’t vote with him all the time, but then they do shit like this. And also, by the way, Donald brought the judgment against him that E. Jean Carroll won to the Supreme Court—something, again, they should not even have considered. Because basically he owes her many, many millions of dollars. He hasn’t paid a dime yet because he keeps appealing it. It’s been with the Supreme Court, I think, for four months, and every week they just kick the can down the road.

So the corrupt, illegitimate supermajority of the Supreme Court is completely in the tank for Donald. Let us not be fooled by those rare instances in which they vote against him.

So right now, our most vitally important project, other than keeping our eyes on the ball of what’s happening in this country and in the world, is to insist upon real accountability when we have the opportunity for that. And I’m not talking about not reelecting people. I’m talking about this country needs to join the ICC and everybody in the Trump regime needs to go to The Hague— that kind of accountability. And we have to have a real reconciliation. We need to look back, not just forward. Let’s put it that way.

Wajahat Ali: For those who don’t know, there’s a little data point I’ve kept in my head from a couple of months ago. Reuters was, to my knowledge, the only outlet that reported on it—that the Trump administration has threatened to sanction the ICC unless they promise not to investigate members of the Trump administration after they leave.

Mary Trump: Wow. Yeah, because they’re thugs. They’re thugs. And if we seriously want to recover—and don’t get me wrong, there are certain ways in which I don’t think we should recover. We should lose our status, if not permanently, at least for generations, as a superpower. We should spend the next several decades atoning for the sins committed by the American people by electing this monster twice. We should have to pay serious reparations and all of the things. But I don’t know how we take ourselves seriously if we allow the architects of these monstrosities to go free and continue to enrich themselves. I don’t see how that works.

So I think that’s a message that needs to start sounding loud and clear as we get closer to the midterms and, of course, closer to 2028.

Wajahat Ali: Let me ask you a final question. A lot of Democrats are throwing their hats in the ring. Ruben Gallego threw his hat in the ring, kind of, said he’s open to running. Shapiro has at least—there’s a whole bunch of folks. And yet yesterday, Ruben Gallego, an example of several of them, said, “We should keep giving money to Israel and we should not say abolish ICE.”

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And you’ve seen this discourse over the past two and a half weeks that Third Way and corporate Democrats and The Bulwark and others have just been obsessed with Hasan Piker. They’ve gone after Abdul El-Sayed, who’s a Muslim American and running for Senate, for campaigning with Hasan Piker, but they didn’t go after Summer Lee or Bernie Sanders or AOC, only the Muslim guy. And you’re seeing Gavin Newsom say, “Oh, billionaires are part of the big tent.” You’re seeing AI and crypto and pro-Israel AIPAC groups spend millions of dollars in Illinois, millions of dollars in North Carolina.

They’re spending half a billion dollars, Mary, in California, which means that so far, whoever ends up becoming the Democratic nominee, as of right now, will be very pro-AI, very pro-crypto, very pro-AIPAC, and isn’t against abolishing ICE. And to me, they will go for restoration instead of transformation. Your response to that type of Democrat?

Mary Trump: That way lies madness. That way lies destruction. If you think that the solution to these horrors is to go back to where we were and resurrect the situations that made these horrors possible, then you’re not a serious person. And I think Democratic voters need to be very clear-minded about what they need to do in terms of the candidates they choose.

We need to make it clear that if you aren’t willing to reform the Supreme Court in significant ways, if you are not willing to undo every single thing Donald’s done and do away completely with traditions and norms and start codifying everything, if you’re not willing to get rid of the filibuster, if you’re not willing to draw a very bright line in terms of Netanyahu’s government and in terms of Russia and—I mean, I could go on and on—but basically, if you’re not willing to abolish ICE, and I would argue the DHS also needs to be abolished—

Wajahat Ali: Created after 9/11.

Mary Trump: I know. Yeah.

Wajahat Ali: We don’t have USAID. We don’t have the Department of Education anymore. They existed long before DHS and ICE.

Mary Trump: Take all of that money and create a new agency under the umbrella of which is USAID, FEMA, things that actually help people and cost less than this war has cost us in a month.

So we need to be very clear about what’s disqualifying and what kind of candidates we are willing to accept because, just technically speaking—I don’t mean to be crass—but we need to win. We need to use this unique opportunity in modern American history to realize that we could run the table here—

Wajahat Ali: Because—

Mary Trump: The other side is so unspeakably bad and corrupt and cruel and vicious and incompetent and all of the other things that we do have a chance at creating massive generational change if we just have the right candidates and we have the guts to make the argument. So that’s where I am on it.

Wajahat Ali: I completely agree, folks. It’s a time for fighters.

Folks, real quick, I’ll let Mary leave in about a minute. At 12:00, it’s Danielle and me on Democracy-ish. At 1:30, Trita Parsi, who’s an expert on Iran, who has earned the wrath of Laura Loomer—someone described her as Zionist Jigsaw, which is too funny. She has now attacked him and said he’s here on a green card and has urged the Trump administration to kick him out. That’s illegal, but they probably will. So Trita Parsi’s on at 1:30 talking about Iran, and at 3:00 we have Julie Ingersoll to talk about Christian nationalism.

Mary, can you please shamelessly promote yourself?

Mary Trump: I can try. Yes, everybody, please check out my Substack. It’s called The Good in Us. Go over there and subscribe. It’s free, of course. Also, we’re on Patreon, so check out Patreon. And we have a YouTube channel that is kind of on life support, but we—

Wajahat Ali: Why? Don’t you have half a million? Isn’t it doing good?

Mary Trump: No, I’ve been shadow-banned.

Wajahat Ali: Oh, you feel it and you know it?

Mary Trump: Oh yeah. Yes, indeed. But we’re still there, so we still have content. So please go check it out. And I’m on all of the things, including TikTok. I got permanently banned from TikTok and then I got reinstated, so who knows?

Wajahat Ali: Oh, was it after, I don’t know, Larry Ellison took it over?

Mary Trump: I never thought of that before. I think you’re—

Wajahat Ali: Right. I think that could have happened.

Folks, please go and subscribe to Mary’s YouTube channel. It’s fantastic. She does a show. What time is the show every day?

Mary Trump: Actually, we don’t have the live show right now. The live show is on hiatus because of the shadow banning, but we have videos dropping every day. So check them out.

Wajahat Ali: All right. Check out the videos, folks.

And this is The Left Hook. Everything is free. And if you don’t mind me saying, Mary, I have a partner who has reached out to me. Hopefully they can reach out to you. In fact, I think they really want to. I have never done any solicitation for partners or advertisers because I’m a terrible capitalist. But Ground News approached me. Ground News was started by a South Asian woman, a NASA scientist. And it’s an independent aggregator of world news, but also an auditor of world news. So if you want to talk about, oh, I don’t know, Trump threatening a nuclear war, it shows you all the news articles about that one issue, but it audits them.

It audits them based on, number one, who owns the outlet. So it tells you the ownership of the outlet, which I think is very important. Number two, the bias of the outlet, if it moves to the right or to the left. And number three, how trustworthy that outlet is. And it also has a highlight section, spotlight section, where you can see how the right wing is looking at an issue versus, oh, I don’t know, the majority of the world. It supports allies such as Qasim Rashid, Zeteo, Jen Welch.

So once I did two weeks of my own research, Mary, I said, “I have no problem partnering with you.” So I’m partnered with Ground News. I looked at it for two weeks. They gave me a free account and I thought it was legit. I thought it was important. And so they are partnered with The Left Hook. And for Left Hook and Mary Trump viewers right now, they have given me a special. It’s a 40% off discount. So this is the link. Try them out. If you want to try it out, you get 40% off. I do not get any money off this. It’s groundnews.com/hook, groundnews.com/hook.

And Mary, if you want to be introduced to them, let me know, because I do think they’re a very good partner and I think they’re your fans as well. So it’s groundnews.com/hook. I think it’s very useful. Try it out, get 40% off.

Thank you all for watching. Please go subscribe to Mary’s Substack. I kept her five minutes longer. She said 30 minutes, but we’re on a roll. No, we are. I kept you for 38 minutes. Forgive me, Mary. I’ll owe you those eight minutes back. Thank you to the 2,700 people for watching. We titled this The Madness of King Trump. Let’s hope cool heads prevail. His deadline is what, Tuesday? But his deadline, Mary, has been two weeks and two days and two hours. So maybe, just maybe, this will be an inshallah. Now that he’s apparently Muslim, maybe this was an inshallah tweet and he’ll just punt it down the line.

Thank you all, take care, be kind, and please, oh please, don’t be a fascist. Bye, Mary. Awesome.

Mary Trump: Thanks, guys. Bye.

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Pam Bondi, one of Donald’s most sycophantic and loyal minions, was removed from her position as Attorney General of the United States after she failed to in her efforts to protect her boss and prosecute his perceived political enemies. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, a former personal lawyer to Donald, will be acting attorney general until a permanent replacement is named. The new AG is likely to be Blanche or Lee Zeldin, who, as Secretary of the Environmental Protection Agency, is currently in charge of destroying the planet on behalf of Donald’s cronies in the oil, gas, and coal industries.

From the outset, Bondi’s tenure at the Department of Justice was disastrous. She obliterated the separation between the DOJ and the White House, turning the agency into a purely political entity; she, along with Harmeet Dhillon, Assistant Attorney General and head of the once-storied Civil Rights Division, shifted the division’s mission away from defending the right of all Americans—including and especially the most at risk—towards protecting the most privileged among us; through firings, reassignments, demotions, and forced retirements, she decimated the ranks of career civil servant professionals, destroying generations worth of institutional knowledge in the process; and she turned the DOJ into Donald Trump’s personal defense form. All of this was at the expense of the DOJ, which may never recover, the rule of law, and the American people.

It is almost impossible to quantify the extent of the damage Bondi has wrought, just as it is difficult to think of a way she could have been more subservient to the demands of her boss or more destructive to the agency she led on his behalf.

And yet, it still wasn’t enough to appease Donald.

He announced the decision to let Bondi go on his failing social media platform calling her

a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend [who is moving] to a much needed and important new job in the private sector.

He didn’t even bother to make up a new government position for her as he did with Kristi Noem. Noem’s sins, after all, weren’t nearly as consequential. While she got fired because she got too much attention when it was revealed she spent $220 million on an ad campaign largely featuring her, she did carry out Donald’s cruel and inhumane immigration policies to great effect.

Bondi, on the other hand, failed to fulfill her most essential obligations. First of all, she made the fatal error early on by taking Donald at his word. During the 2024 presidential campaign, he had promised voters that he would release the Epstein files as soon as he got back into office.

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His surrogates were even more direct.

In December 2023 Kash Patel said:

Been calling for ALL of it to be released so the public can have accountability- we must find out who pedo’d around with Epstein: Barr totally failed.

In October of 2024, JD Vance said:

Seriously, we need to release the Epstein list. That is an important thing.

Early in her tenure, in February 2025 Bondi was on Fox:

HOST: DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein’s clients? Will that really happen?

BONDI: It is sitting on my desk right now, to review.

Donald, of course, could have ordered the release of the Epstein files at any time and, in the months following his inauguration, and at his direction, the DOJ claimed it “found no basis to revisit the disclosure of those materials.” This reversal put the Department of Justice under intense bipartisan scrutiny over its failure to release the Epstein files.

Under threat of a bipartisan effort to force their release, Donald said that “House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide.” But, of course, given the ensuing delays and redactions, it looks like there was a lot to hide.

All of this kept the issue alive and Bondi was blamed. She was subpoenaed to testify before Congress about the DOJ’s non-compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Her performance—belligerent, disrespectful, obstructive—was meant for an audience of one, but clearly Donald could not forgive her for the fact that the Epstein files were still an ongoing issue.

But Bondi’s removal was also about her failure to go after Donald’s perceived political enemies with the relentlessness he required. It didn’t matter to him that the reason for her failures in this regard had nothing to do with her willingness to do his bidding, but instead that Bondi ran headlong into opposition to her (and his) agenda in the form of grand juries and a judiciary that, at least for the most part, are still willing to uphold the rule of law.

It’s hard to imagine anybody who did as much to meet Donald’s demands as Pam Bondi and the lesson here is that in the end nobody will be found to be loyal enough, sycophantic enough, or corrupt enough to stay on Donald’s good side.

Pam Bondi’s firing is illustrative of a problem facing anybody left in the Trump regime who is tasked with protecting Donald and undermining the system to further his corrupt agenda of self-enrichment. Unfortunately for us, there are still plenty of people waiting in line to try. The good news is, they will all fail because nothing they do will be enough, and the one thing he can’t be protected from is himself.

Independent media is more important than ever. My goal at The Good in Us is to stay above the fray, connect the dots, and bring you clear-eyed analyses and assessments that help you negotiate these chaotic times. It is free to subscribe, and adding your voice to this amazing community is a great way to help us reach more people. If you are able, a paid subscription is a phenomenal way to make sure I can keep expanding Mary Trump Media and speaking truth to power. I will never pull punches, and I will never be beholden to anything but the truth.

Thank you for everything you do.

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One of the reasons we’re in the mess we’re in is because this country fails to face up to its shortcomings. Just as we have never grappled with our deeply embedded racism, we have never acknowledged our misogyny, both prejudices so deep that they are woven into the fabric of who we are in a way that makes it almost impossible to unravel.

There are so many ways in which the Trump regime is using the knee-jerk misogyny of most Americans to continue its assault on women, particularly women of color.

Unemployment for black women rose nearly two percentage points in 2025. Men, on the other hand, joined the labor force at three times the rate of women. During the same time, the Trump regime has dismantled the Women’s Bureau at the Department of Labor, gutted diversity programs, and instructed the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission not to prioritize gender discrimination charges. It’s also advanced what the National Women’s Law Center calls a “false and dangerous narrative” that the success of working women constitutes reverse discrimination.

Negatively impacting the economic independence of women is not ancillary to the Trump regimes agenda, it’s a goal. After all, women who are financially dependent are easier to control. The Trump regime, of course, isn’t solely interested in rolling back rights, it wants to rewrite history. MS Now reported last week that Donald signed an executive order declaring the accomplishments of transgender women to be, in his words, “an improper ideology.” He’s also ordered the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum not to recognize transgender women or risk losing its funding. House Republicans pass an amendment banning transgender women from the museum entirely, erasing women like transgender activists Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, and Lynn Conway from the national record.

There is significant overlap between misogyny and homophobia. Donald has signed executive orders that officially recognize only two sexes in the US, male and female; banned transgender people from military service; and outlawed gender affirming care for minors. The corrupt, illegitimate super-majority of the Supreme Court allowed both bans to take effect. Prisons have been allowed to replace hormone therapy with conversion therapy, which as of today, in an eight-to-one ruling has been legitimatized by the Supreme Court in a shocking 8-to-1 ruling thanks to Justices Sotomayor and Kagan. Demonstrating just how comprehensive the assault on LGBTQ+ rights have been, the LGBTQ+ option was eliminated from the national suicide and crisis lifeline.

Hundreds of NIH grants have been cut because they contain the word “gender.” Pam Bandi has directed the FBI to offer cash rewards for the arrest of transgender activists she called domestic terrorists.

The outrageous tactics of the Trump regime aside, it’s really quite simple: Transgender women are women; their rights are women’s rights; their history is women’s history. This is a human rights crisis being perpetuated by our own government against our own citizens.

According to the World Health Organization, an organization from which Donald withdrew the United States of America on the first day of his second term, about one in three women worldwide have experienced physical or sexual violence in their lifetime Let me repeat that: One in three women has experienced physical or sexual violence during the course of their lifetime. That suggests that there are a lot of men out there who have committed physical and/or sexual violence against women. Many of them have never been and will never be held to account.

It’s likely that more than 33% of all women have been assaulted because of the likelihood of underreporting due to fear, stigma, or the very real risk of retaliation. In recognition of this massive problem, the Violence Against Women Act was passed in 1994. As a result, domestic violence fell by more than 60% over the next three decades. It worked. It saved lives. But the 2026 Republican budget cut funding for the Violence Against Women Act by nearly 30%.

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The people currently running our government are hardcore misogynists who do not care about the wellbeing of women. Donald’s Department of Justice has terminated hundreds of grants, representing more than $800 million in support for shelters for victims of domestic violence, domestic violence hotlines, emergency housing, and law enforcement training. New guidelines have stripped funding from organizations serving the most vulnerable among us including transgender and undocumented women.

In this country, 20 people, mostly women, are assaulted by an intimate partner every minute. When survivor’s support systems are weakened, domestic violence homicides increase by up to 26%. That means more women are murdered by their intimate partners because funding has been stripped from the very programs that are designed to prevent such assaults.

Donald, because he’s a vile, unapologetic hater of women, had the audacity, while speaking to religious leaders at the Museum of the Bible, to dismiss domestic violence incidents characterizing them as “a little fight with the wife.” He said:

There’s no crime. They said crime’s down 87%. I said, ‘No, no, no. It’s more than 87%, virtually nothing.’ And much lesser things. Things that take place in the home, they call crime. They’ll do anything they can to find something. If a man has a little fight with the wife, they say, ‘This was a crime.’ see? So now I can’t claim a hundred percent.

“A little fight with the wife,” is not the appropriate way to describe the fact that every day in the United States of America, three women on average are killed by a current or former partner. Only a misogynist who himself is unbothered by the sexually assault or harassment of women would refer to domestic violence as “a little fight,” not worthy of including in crime statistics.

Three women being murdered every day in America by a current or former partner constitutes an epidemic of violence and the Trump regime seems hell-bent on making this problem worse. It is a particularly bitter irony that the man who is simultaneously gutting the Violence Against Women Act and exposing the names of Epstein survivors while claiming he’s protecting women is also the man who was found liable by a jury of his peers for raping E. Jean Carroll.

The Heritage Foundation, the same organization behind Project 2025, has now released what is being called Project 2026. The updated agenda is to ban abortion pills, weaponize the 150-year-old Comstock Act in order to criminalize sending abortion medication by mail, establish fetal personhood, and strip every federal safeguard protecting reproductive freedom.

Project 20206 also calls for lowering the average age of marriage; encouraging colleges to function less as places of education and more as places for young people to meet future spouses; and proposes removing employer requirements for bachelor’s degrees, arguing that higher education causes women to delay marriage and children.

The Heritage Foundation’s agenda is out in the open, and the organization is deeply embedded within the Trump regime. Donald hired at least 18 Project 2025 contributors to serve in his administration. This is the infiltration of the federal government by an extremist organization with which the Trump regime is completely in line.

What’s so disturbing is that this has been out in the open since Project 2025 was published in the months before the 2024 presidential election. Many of us were shouting from the rooftops that this was the blueprint Donald would follow if he got back into office, but too many people believed him when he said that he had no knowledge of Project 2025. So the question is, do people still believe him now?

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And show up you did.

Quick Note: I asked you to send me your pictures of the No Kings rally you attended yesterday, but I mis-typed the email address. The right one is info@marytrumpmedia.com. You can also send them to The Good in Us Substack email.

Five million Americans across 2,100 cities showed up for the first No Kings rally. Seven million Americans across 2,700 cities showed up for the second No Kings rally. Yesterday, over eight million of us across more than 3,000 cities showed up to protest the fascism and cruelty, the corruption and the illegitimacy of Donald and the Trump regime.

According to The New York Times,

the demonstrations stretched across the country, from above the Arctic Circle (Kotzebue, Alaska: population 3,000) to the tropics, in Puerto Rico. There were also 39 international No Kings rallies, according to organizers.

The 3.5% rule tells us that non-violent movements in which 3.5% of the population participate can be twice as effective as violent uprisings in effecting regime change. In the United States that would be about 12 million people showing—and we’re almost there.

But numbers won’t be enough absent “momentum, organization, strategic leadership, and sustainability.” In other words, while we grow the numbers of those getting out in the streets in defense of our democracy, our rights, and our values, we also need to protest more frequently; we need to be prepared to continue to make our presence known for the foreseeable future; and we need leaders who understand what’s at stake, who refuse to compromise, and who are willing to fight for us without pulling punches.

So let’s ensure all of those things happen. And let’s keep showing up—for our country, for our most vulnerable communities, for our future, for each other, and for ourselves. Because we have a long road ahead of us and we’re going to need to take time to give ourselves moments of joy and peace and grace.

Even though it’s a little dark, I have always found this prose poem by Charles Baudelaire, which I first read in the script of the greatest American play ever written, Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, uplifting because it reminds us that we need to be realistic about the challenges we face and the means by which we can best face them. But, if possible, choose poetry and virtue:

Be always drunken. Nothing else matters: that is the only question. If you would not feel the horrible burden of Time weighing on your shoulders and crushing you to the earth, be drunken continually. Drunken with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you will. But be drunken.

And if sometimes, on the stairs of a palace, or on the green side of a ditch, or in the dreary solitude of your own room, you should awaken and the drunkenness be half or wholly slipped away from you, ask of the wind, or of the wave, or of the star, or of the bird, or of the clock, of whatever flies, or sighs, or rocks, or sings, or speaks, ask what hour it is; and the wind, wave, star, bird, clock, will answer you:

“It is the hour to be drunken! Be drunken, if you would not be martyred slaves of Time; be drunken continually! With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you will.”

—Enivrez-Vous, Charles Baudelaire (Symons trans.)

Thank you for everything you do.

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In the first fourteen months of Donald’s second term, over 50 percent of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundations fascist playbook has been implemented. The number of reasons to protest the Trump regime the Republicans in Congress, Republican governors, the corrupt, illegitimate super-majority of the Supreme, and, course, Donald himself, is long. Here is a not exhaustive list:

• The assault on women’s rights continues apace. A woman’s right to bodily autonomy has already suffered a severe blow in the wake of the Supreme Court’s egregious decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, they are coming for abortion drugs, birth control, and, the the so-called SAVE America Act, a woman’s right to choose.

• The Commander-in-Chief is currently ordering illegal strikes on boats in the Carribbean Sea which to date have resulted in the murders of over 150 people.

• Donald launched an unconstitutional war, without the consent of Congress or the American people, in which at least 13 U.S. service members have died and over 2,000 civilians have been killed.

• After months of imposing tariffs and failing to plan for his war of choice, Donald has brought the American economy to the brink. In the last month, the stock market has dropped over 3,700 points and gas prices are up 30%. American farmers are going bankrupt in record numbers.

• The dismantling of the Constitution proceeds at an alarming pace.

• Corruption is rampant in what is easily the most corrupt presidential administration in American history.

• The Trump regime embraces and promolgates racism, anti-semitism, Islamaphobia, and homobphobia placing the lives of minorities increasingly at risk.

• The Republican Party and the corrupt, illegitimate super-majority of the Supreme Court are dedicated to the project of making Donald an imperial president.

I could go on, of course, but you get the idea. The only people who can turn this around, the only people who can stop the insanity is US.

If you are able, please join a No Kings protest near you. Every single one of us who show up makes a difference. Let’s make it clear that we believe in the American experiment and the Constitutional order; we believe in achieving a truly representative democracy and we will not be silent. We will exercise our first amendment to protest the cruelty, criminality, and fascism of this regime without fear.

Be safe. Be prepared. And bring your joy!

Please send pictures of your signs and your No Kings rally to info@marytrumpmedia.com. I’ll be posted over the next few days.

And to get you in the mood, here is the phenomenal protest song “No Kings, No Hate, No Fear” written by my amazing friends Nils and Amy Lofgren and performed by Nils with a video created by Dennis Mora.

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I found out yesterday that I was permanently banned from TikTok. I don’t really know why. Two days ago, I was informed that I had two strikes for content violations against me . Apparently in the 24-hour period following, I got another strike. What happened between then and now? I can’t tell you because I went from being locked out of my TikTok account to not having one anymore.

This isn’t exactly surprising. We knew that things at TikTok were going to get bad for left-landing accounts when Donald’s buddy, Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle and now in control of a mind-boggling share of American media. When the Ellison deal finally went through, the U.S. Treasury (ostensibly) received a “transaction fee” in the amount of $10 billion.

The fix was already in and I suppose it was just a matter of time. But TikTok really had to dig deep to find “offensive” content in my account: the first video they flagged was posted back in October 2024. I incurred the second strike for a recent video in which I criticized FCC chair Brendan Carr for threatening to pull the licenses of networks that report the news about the Iran war accurately.

It’s increasingly the case that creator content critical of Donald and the Trump regime is getting suppressed across many platforms—I’ve been dealing with suppression on Twitter since Musk took over in 2022— but the suppression ranges from a slight but noticeable downtick in views and overall engagement to absolute throttling.

There are certain things the powers that be at TikTok don’t want people talking about. Jeffrey Epstein, for example, and the fact that Donald is mentioned in the Epstein files over a million times with only half of the six million documents having been released by Donald’s corrupt DOJ, which, in this instance as in many others, is acting as Donald’s personal defense firm.

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In the wake of unprecedented media consolidation, the sands are shifting rapidly in the American media landscape leading to changes some of which we should have a anticipated—the skewing of coverage, the siloing of information, and the creation of something that increasingly looks like state run media. What we can’t yet foresee are the ways in which the capitulation of corporate media, the failures of traditional media, and the silencing of critical voices will impact the future of our democracy.

This is a five-alarm fire. Many of those who control the biggest and most influential media platforms, like Ellison, Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos are complicit with the Trump regime because they know the only way to retain or acquire lucrative government contracts is to stay on Donald’s good side through compliments and coverage that is favorable to him. As a result, it’s getting harder for people to get easy access to verifiable facts.

I fully believe that independent media is the future of media in America. A robust, flexible, unafraid independent media universe is what is going to get us through these dark times. We need an array of voices out there making the case for our country, presenting people with facts, and giving them an unfiltered but deeply considered perspective.

The question is, with more power being concentrated in the hands of those with an agenda that aligns (or pretends to align) with a fascist regime, what are the rest of us going to do about it?

While its getting harder on some platforms for Mary Trump Media to get our content in front of our subscribers, we recognize that when we cannot get the kind of reach we want in one place, we have to go other places. When we get locked out of TikTok, we have to turn our attention elsewhere.

Our goal is to be show up in as many places as humanly possible. That, of course, requires resources and it requires the thoughtful deployment of the resources we have. These are times that require flexibility and creativity with an eye to having as much impact as possible during what is the most critically important period we have ever lived through.

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