The Daily Wrap Up

22 October, 2025

[ Transcript edited for clarity and flow]

You know how it goes. How do you tell that Donald Trump is lying? He’s opening his mouth. We saw yesterday the desecration of the East Wing of the White House that followed Donald’s promise that the construction of his obscene ballroom would not touch the White House. We’ll talk later about how he’s trying to lie his way out of that one, but this is of a piece with everything else Donald has been doing for the last ten years. It’s gotten worse in the last 10 months because nobody is bothering to stop him.

Donald is literally like the character from The Twilight Zone episode “It’s a Good Life” played by Billy Mummy. I’ve talked about this before, and I’m sure some of you remember that it’s about a little boy who can make adults do whatever he wants them to do because, if they refuse to do as he wishes, he turns them into grotesque creatures that are so horrifying that the other adults beg him to send them out to the cornfield.

His name is Anthony Fremont. Josh Marshall wrote about this today, but I made a a TikTok video about Donald’s resemblance to Anthony Fremont a couple of weeks ago and I’ve actually been thinking about that episode since Donald ran for President in 2015. That’s who he is—a man with the emotional maturity of a pre-pubescent boy and the impulse control of a toddler. And he’s in charge of everything. Anybody who’s in a position to stop him is afraid of him.

The difference, of course, is that Anthony Fremont could literally destroy you and then send you out into the cornfield. What’s Donald going to do to you? Granted, he could sue you for a hundred million dollars, or he could sic the Justice Department on you or write a mean post about you on his failing social media platform. Sure. But he can’t wish you out into the cornfield, at least not yet.

But nobody is stopping him, because all those fascist Republicans are either completely in agreement with everything he’s doing; or they’re willing to look the other way so they can hang onto their petty power; or they’re legitimately afraid of him. Well, the Republicans empowered this monster. Maybe they should do something about it. But because they won’t, the East Wing of the White House is being destroyed, and Donald is now demanding that his own Department of Justice pay him reparations to the tune of $230 million. Why?

[Watch on Youtube HERE]

Because under Merrick Garland there were two very serious cases against him totaling over 93 indictments. One allegation, backed up by a lot of evidence that most of us saw with our own eyes, that Donald incited an insurrection against his own government. The other case was about whether Donald stole highly sensitive, classified documents from the American people after he was no longer in the White House. Spoiler alert—he did. But we don’t know what he did with those documents. We don’t know whether he sold them to anybody, and, if so, to whom and for how much or in exchange for what. We still don’t know any of that.

We will never have a resolution to the insurrection case, because he, with the help of the corrupt illegitimate super-majority of the Supreme Court, ran out the clock. As for the documents case, it landed on the desk of one of the most corrupt judges in America. I refer to Aileen Canon as Donald’s personal pocket judge because at every step of the way, she acted like she was on Donald’s defense team. Because of her, and the aforementioned clock, that case is also gone.

Now Donald is back in the White House with access to all of those highly sensitive, classified documents. But that still is not enough for this toddler tyrant. It’s not enough for this weak, pathetic, empty little man that, not only did he get away with these horrific crimes against America and the American people and our constitution, he also got rewarded for committing them by getting back into the Oval Office, thanks to 78 million Americans who either don’t know or don’t care how bad he is and how bad all of this is.

Why, exactly, does Donald think the United States owes him $230 million? In what way has this creature suffered anything? He didn’t even pay his own legal bills. He grifted money for that off of his supporters. He’s demanding the money for two reasons. One, because he knows he can. Who’s going to stop him after all? And two, because he knows he’s going to get it. Do you seriously think Pam Bondi is going to draw a line here? Do we seriously think that Todd Blanche is going to say, “Well, Donald, enough and no more. You’ve already made billions of dollars off the presidency by grifting your followers and stealing from the treasury. We can’t possibly expect American taxpayers to give you $230 million of their hard-earned money, especially during a shutdown when so many people are suffering to the point that civil servants are having to line up at food banks because of you.”

Of course Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche will more than happily go along with Donald’s extortion; they’ll happily sign the checks themselves. This is what happens when you don’t rein in an unruly child who cannot handle being told no. This is what happens when you refuse to stand up to a man as petty, vindictive, vengeful, corrupt and greedy as Donald Trump. This is what happens when you decide that the thing that is most important is money and you empower a man who doesn’t understand anything else; who, indeed, equates money with self-worth. That is an extraordinarily dangerous place for an individual to be, but for a country to have landed here, well, that’s downright terrifying.

Let’s dive in.

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Recently The New York Times published a piece detailing the sweeping economic ramifications of the government shutdown. It has halted more federal operations than previous shutdowns and Donald has laid off thousands of workers instead of furloughing them, doing away with back pay which has devastated the workforce.

Economists estimate we’re losing somewhere between 7 to 15 billion dollars in economic output every single week. As a result, visa processing, small business loans, and federal mortgage guarantees have all been halted. This is causing a ripple effect across labor markets, housing, and seasonal industries. The Americans being hid the hardest are contractors, farmers, and small businesses that rely on federal support or data, because, remember, there’s an almost total data blackout as well.

Entrepreneurs are laying off staff. Rural borrowers can’t access low interest loans and visa delays are hurting seafood processors.

All of this is happening because of the Republicans who are in charge of all three branches of government: the Executive Branch, the Legislative Branch, including both houses of Congress—the House of Representatives and the Senate—and the Judicial Branch, mostly the Fifth Circuit and the corrupt, illegitimate super-majority of the Supreme Court. All are controlled by Republicans. There is no universe in which the shutdown can be blamed on Democrats. Donald Trump is also largely responsible for the shutdown, because he told the Republicans in Congress not to negotiate with Democrats. That’s what a great deal maker he is.

Also, what does he care? What does he care if people are going out without pay? If it isn’t safe to fly anymore’ if our food isn’t being inspected'; if vaccines aren’t being distributed; if small businesses are getting screwed over. What does he care? He’s making money hand over fist, and now he’s going to extort the Department of Justice for $230 million because his feelings were hurt. Again, this is entirely down to the Republicans. I never want to hear a Republican politician say ever again that they care about working people, that they care about small businesses, that they care about the military, that they care about essential workers—ever.

This morning, CNN posted some deeply demoralizing footage. As I mentioned earlier, out-of-work federal workers are standing in line at food banks. This is America 2025. How proud are we that government workers go hungry and struggle to pay bills and have to wait in line for hours to get handouts so they can feed themselves and their children? Donald is building a 250 million dollar ballroom, and asking the DOJ to hand over $230 million, because two very serious cases against him were dropped and, as punishment, he got to be president again. That’s Donald in a nutshell. You have to admit, he has his priorities straight.

The Republicans in Congress could do something immediately to stop this insanity. All they need to do is join with some of their Democratic colleagues across the aisle. But we know, that’s not going to happen because they’re ideologically or characterologically aligned with a man who is destroying this country or they’re desperate to keep their jobs, or they’re afraid. What exactly are they afraid of? Dealing with what other people who stand up to Donald Trump have to deal with all the time—death, threats, lawsuits, malicious prosecutions.

But the Republicans are cowards to their core. Do you know how we know they’re cowards? Donald Trump is the weakest person who has ever walked the planet. He is a terrified little boy, and these people are afraid of him despite the fact that, unlike Anthony Fremont, Donald doesn’t have the power to turn anybody into anything except a spineless sycophant. So, today, the aforementioned demolition continued on the east wing of the White House.

At this point, Donald’s wanton destruction of the East Wing of the White House is the perfect distillation of everything that has happened to this country. An incompetent aggrieved, desperate, greedy, small man, who must get his way no matter what the cost to anybody else—with not one ounce of respect or care or concern or compassion or, God forbid, empathy—has been given the power to destroy whatever is good about America. That’s what he has reduced this country to, with the help, of course, of many people.

Today a reporter pointed out to Donald that:

Many people were surprised the entire East Wing is being demolished because you had said initially that the ballroom would just touch or would not.

And Donald responded:

Well, certain areas happened. Yeah, can tell us what happened. Certain areas are being left. We determined that after really a tremendous amount of study with some of the best architects in the world, we determined that really knocking it down, trying to use a little section, the East Wing was not much. It was not much left from the original. It was over the course of a hundred years, it was changed. The columns were removed and it was a much different building. Then a story was added on in 19 48, 19 49. There was a story added on which was not particularly nice, and the building was very, very much changed from what it was originally. It was never thought of as being much. It was a very small building, and rather than allowing that to hurt a very expensive, beautiful building that frankly they’ve been after for years, you have that. I brought these along so people could see, but there’s a relative. Nobody’s actually seen anything quite like it. I think it’ll be one of the great ballrooms anywhere in the world. It’s about $300 million. It’s set to do many, many things including meetings of foreign leaders, including the honoring of foreign leaders. You can see this. This is a plan if it’s got tables so that you honor a foreign leader, we have a proper space right now. We have a space that with tables holds about 79 people, and this is a proper kind of a thing. Now, what the White House was doing, as you know, is they were putting tents out on the lawn. This is an interior shot of the ballroom. I think there’ll be nothing like it, and it’s being paid for a hundred percent by me and some friends of mine donors.

That’s how we know it’s all a lie because does any of us seriously think that that greedy creep is putting up a dime of his own money to build anything? Also, what is a “great ballroom?” Is there such a thing? And who needs one anyway? He claims it’s to honor foreign leaders, but I’ve been to the White House and it’s quite lovely.

Nobody but Donald has ever asked for or wanted this hideous ballroom. And in order to get it, he is destroying a part of our history, which sounds remarkably like the mission of the Republican party as a whole.

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The New York Times published a piece on the Donald White House Construction Project, and in it they mentioned some of the destructive history that I was referring to earlier. In 1980 construction on Trump Tower had begun. The project was only possible because of my grandfather, but Donald was the face of it and got all of the credit. In order to get the zoning and the permits and the goodwill he needed, Donald promised that the Art-Deco freezes on the facade of the Bonwit Teller building—the department store that was being razed to the ground to make room for Trump Tower—would be preserved and donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

That’s all he had to do—preserve these invaluable and beautiful friezes. You know what he did? He took a wrecking ball to them and reduced them to rubble destroying them forever. And there was no recourse to right that wrong, none whatsoever.

When journalists inquired of the Trump Organization about the existence of the two limestone Art Deco friezes, a spokesperson going by the name John Barron [one of Donald’s aliases] replied: three independent experts had found that the works had ‘no artistic value’ and were worth at most an estimated $9,000. According to ‘Barron,’ the removal would have cost $32,000 and would have meant a week and a half delay of the demolition work.

As I said, Donald comes by his destructive tendencies honestly. But the difference between him and my grandfather was, one) my grandfather was a straight-up sociopath and, two) my grandfather actually did build things. He got enormously wealthy in the process and he had a lot of help and got a lot of government funding that helped him become a billionaire, but he built things. In the end, he owned something like 48 apartment buildings and complexes in Queens and Brooklyn.

But when something got in his way, whether it was my dad or a beloved amusement park in Coney Island, he too was going to tap into those destructive impulses of his.

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This week the Associated Press reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has altered the ways in which military leaders interface with Congress. He ordered Pentagon officials to seek permission from the Legislative Affairs office before communicating with lawmakers. Meanwhile, The New York Times just reported that the U.S. military has struck yet another vessel suspected of transporting drugs. Unlike previous strikes of this nature, this action took place in the Pacific Ocean as opposed to the Caribbean Sea. I don’t know if these stories are connected. I hope we find out, but just a quick reminder, andI will have a lot more to say about it this later in the week: Whether or not those were actual drug runners, the punishment for being a drug runner is not to be murdered without due process.

Donald and the U.S. military officers involved in these strikes are murdering people. Whether they’re innocent or guilty of anything, they’re being murdered. There is no other way to frame it. To discuss this violence as legitimate acts against people who wish harm to the United States of America or are threatening the safety of American citizens is unacceptable.

[Watch on Youtube HERE]