Weekend Round Up

18 May, 2026

[Transcript edited for clarity, flow and length]

Over the weekend, Donald appeared on Fox State TV’s Special Report with Bret Baier to discuss his trip to China, his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, trade negotiations, and the growing tensions surrounding the global economy. Here are some of the things Donald had to say.

President Xi said something yesterday. He talked about, and he wasn’t referring to the last 15 months, he talked about America is a nation in decline. And I said, “You’re right.” But he wasn’t talking about because he said, “What you’ve done in 14, 15 months is a miracle.”

Yes. That is actually true. What Donald and the Trump regime have done in the last fourteen or fifteen months is miraculously horrific. He has exposed just how weak this country is and how large a percentage of the population is cruel, ignorant, and willing to tolerate anything in order to support what has become the most destructive administration in modern American history. We still have two and a half years to go, which leaves plenty of time for things to get worse.

Xi, of course, was referring to America as it is now, a country in decline. It is a decline that has been decades in the making, but Donald and his disastrous policies are largely responsible for accelerating it. The global economy is now on the brink of collapse, and that too is largely due to his failed and nonsensical economic decisions. What Donald does not mention is that his trip to China was a victory for Xi and a humiliating defeat for him.

Donald also spoke about his plan for Iran and the Strait of Hormuz.

They’ve been holding up the world for many, many years with the strait. They’ve used this many, many times. They said, “We’ll close the strait.” They’ve closed it in the past. They use it as a weapon. They’re not using it as a weapon with me. And what they did and actually what President Xi said last night sort of smiling about it, he said, “Well, they close the strait and then you close them.”

Oh, sure. I have no doubt.

He is the only person who does not have any doubts. Because of his misguided, ill-advised, illegal, and unconstitutional war of choice against Iran, he has given Iran all of the leverage. Iran is now in a far stronger position than it was before he initiated this conflict. It is also inaccurate to suggest that Iran has historically used the Strait of Hormuz in this way. This is a new reality, one that exists because of what Donald has done.

He is desperate for a peace deal. The Iranians are not. If they were, there would already be one. Instead, they hold the advantage, and there is no incentive for them to make concessions to a weakened and deeply compromised United States.

Last week, Donald raised eyebrows when he told reporters that Americans’ financial struggles did not factor into his thinking on Iran.

This is what he said:

Not even a little bit. The only thing that matters that I’m talking about Iran, they can’t have a nuclear weapon. I don’t think about American financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing. You cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all.

Very simple. When people hear me say it, everybody agrees. Short-term pain, it’s going to be short-term pain, but the pain is much less than people thought because people thought that the oil would go up to $250. It was $99 yesterday, $99 a barrel. I thought it might go up to 200. I was okay with that. Not that I wanted it, but you cannot let them have a nuclear weapon.

They do not have one. We were told repeatedly that American forces had already destroyed Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Then we were told the goal was to eliminate their ambitions. The contradictions do not matter because the narrative changes as needed.

What does matter is what he leaves out. Before this war began, oil was around $65 a barrel. Gas prices are now over $4.50 a gallon in many parts of the country and are expected to rise further. This will not be short-term pain. It will take a long time for prices to stabilize, if they ever do. There are already fertilizer shortages that will disrupt crop cycles, along with countless other downstream effects.

Donald will not feel any of this. He is insulated from the consequences. He is insulated because he is enriching himself, and because he does not pay for anything.

On Sunday, during an appearance discussing domestic politics, another theme emerged, one that runs consistently through this administration. Agency heads are not being appointed to lead or improve institutions. They are being installed to dismantle them.

Linda McMahon, Donald’s Secretary of Education, made that clear.

Well, we are absolutely on the pathway that we’ve established. There isn’t a fixed timeline of when the programs that are now being housed, if you will, at the Department of Education will move to other agencies. We have signed our interagency agreements right now with about 10 different agencies and we will then co-administer these programs from some period of time while we wait for Congress to approve these moves and that’s what will have to happen. The Congress will have to approve. The program’s no longer being housed at a Department of Education because the Department of Education was clearly set up and voted on by Congress, so it would have to be voted on by Congress to close, but we’re on the right path to do that.

They are not going to wait for congressional approval. The intention is clear. The Department of Education is being dismantled, and with it, the foundation of public education. The consequences will fall disproportionately on the most vulnerable students, including those with special needs. That is not a side effect. It is the outcome.

The same pattern appears at the Department of Justice.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was asked about claims that Donald actually won states he lost in the 2020 election.

Here is Blanche’s response:

Well, there’s a ton of evidence that the election was rigged. That’s not something the DOJ needs to tell you about. There’s been evidence about that for many, many years. What I can tell you is that we have multiple investigations going on in Arizona, in Georgia, in Fulton County, Georgia. And that’s exactly what we’re looking at. By the way, this is very difficult because they’re very good. They’re very good at hiding up misconduct and hiding what they’re doing. And so that’s why we’re very focused on finding out whether the right people voted, whether people who were supposed to vote voted, whether there was one vote cast per voter. And that’s what we’re doing in multiple states.

Everything in that statement is false. It is not meant to inform. It is meant to signal loyalty. Blanche is positioning himself as someone willing to use the Department of Justice not to uphold the law, but to serve Donald.

Donald made that expectation explicit in regards to Todd Blanche:

We have a man who’s doing a great job, I’ll tell you. I knew it because he kept me out of jail for years. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, he kept me out of jail. They would indict me left and right. The crooked Democrats, it’s amazing. They impeach me, they indict me. And then when I get in office, if I say something like, “Well, maybe that should be looked into.” Weaponization.

The Department of Justice has been weaponized, but not in the way he claims. It has been weaponized by those who are supposed to protect it. It is being turned into an instrument of political retribution, one that exists to shield him and target his opponents.

Donald has very few skills, but one of them is identifying people who are weaker than he is and exploiting that weakness. He surrounds himself with individuals willing to dismantle the institutions they are meant to lead. They do not resist him. They enable him.

That is the through line. Whether it is foreign policy, economic policy, or domestic governance, the goal is not to strengthen anything. It is to strip it down, hollow it out, and use what remains for personal and political gain.

And that is how decline actually works. Not as an abstract concept, but as a series of deliberate choices made by people who benefit from the damage they cause.