Heather Cox Richardson reviews the new focus in Trump’s actions. He has lost interest in governing. He is fixated on rigging the 2026 elections and redecorating the White House. He wants to leave indelible changes, sort of like the “Kilroy was here” graffiti. But in Trump’s case, he wants to make changes that can’t be wiped away, like tearing down the East Wing before anyone could stop him. His golden ballroom will be his lasting memorial. His successor will quickly strip the Oval Office of the gold kitsch that he plastered all over the walls, making it look like the reception room of Louis XIV.
Richardson writes:
Presumably afraid of investigations into his actions, President Donald J. Trump appears to have abandoned all pretense of governing for the good of the country and is focusing on rigging the 2026 election to keep Republicans in power.
This morning, as the National Association of Realtors reported that U.S. home prices have hit an all-time high, he announced that he will not sign the housing bill, which was designed to address the unaffordability of housing and which passed Congress with strong bipartisan majorities, “in PROTEST over the fact that the United States Senate is not capable of passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT.”
As the Lincoln Project summed it up, the Republican Party’s message four months before the midterms appears to be, “You’re not getting affordable housing unless you give up your voting rights.”
His demand for the passage of a bill that most observers agree will suppress voting is only one of the ways that Trump is trying to rig the 2026 election.
After federal judges have repeatedly prohibited the administration from seizing state voter lists, apparently to run them through a program designed to identify noncitizens who are not eligible for certain federal programs (something federal judges have also prohibited), Trump’s appointees at the Department of Justice appear to have turned to trying to intimidate election officials.
On Tuesday the Department of Justice confirmed that it has sent letters to election officials in all fifty states and Washington, D.C., warning them that they could be criminally prosecuted if noncitizens vote. The letters came from Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, a Trump loyalist, and gave them five days to detail how they will maintain “clean voter lists.”
Utah lieutenant governor Deidre Henderson, a Republican, posted on social media: “Got another love letter this morning from the DOJ sprinkled throughout with threats of criminal prosecution. I’m sure I’m not the only chief election officer of a state who is being targeted for following state and federal laws by resisting DOJ’s demands for private voter data that have thus far been ruled illegal by at least a dozen courts. This is truly bizarre behavior by the federal agency that is supposed to be protecting civil rights.”
Last night, Trump fired the last two Democratic members of the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), an independent federal commission that helps state and local officials make sure elections are smooth and secure. Among other things, it certifies voting machines and maintains the national mail-voter registration forms. The only other current member of the EAC, a Republican, resigned. The fourth member of the EAC, a Republican, resigned earlier this year.
A White House official told Justin Papp of CNBC that the Supreme Court recognized Trump’s authority to fire the agency officials in its June 29 Trump v. Slaughter decision, which overturned more than 90 years of precedent to rubber stamp the president’s right to fire agency officials who are not aligned with his political agenda.
“The President, and head of the Executive Branch, reserves the right to remove individuals that may not be totally aligned with the important task of securing America’s elections and ensuring every legal vote is counted,” the official told Papp. “The Slaughter decision gives the President precedence to do so.”
Legal analyst Harry Litman says this interpretation of the Slaughter decision is a stretch. He noted that “[n]othing in the agency cases held that Trump could simply shut down an agency of Congress’s creation. That’s what he has done with the [E]lection Assistance [C]ommission which now lacks commissioners to act. It’s taking the court’s cases to the ultimate conclusion and just disabling an important agency.”
The nonpartisan, nonprofit League of Women Voters, which works to protect the right to vote, called the removal of the Election Assistance Commission officials “a direct attack on the independence of our nation’s election infrastructure…. The American people deserve elections administered by trusted professionals, not shaped by political interference. This is not a routine personnel decision—it is a dangerous escalation in the effort to weaken the safeguards that protect free and fair elections in the November midterms.”
This is the backdrop for the news from Betsy Klein and Kaitlan Collins of CNN today that the White House is fortifying the White House entrance at the North Portico during Trump’s renovation of the Ionic columns there.
In March, Trump’s appointee to the Commission on Fine Arts, which advises Trump on design matters, urged replacing the historic Ionic columns with more ornate Corinthian columns that would match the ones Trump picked out for his ballroom. The White House says the work on the North Portico is “standard restoration work,” but did not answer CNN’s question about whether there would be more substantial changes to the North Portico. Trump recently posted pictures of the Corinthian columns at his proposed ballroom, boasting that “When completed, there will be nothing like it anywhere in the World!”
While the focus has been on the historic columns and their possible replacement, it is not until now we have learned about the strengthening of the White House door. The portico is now covered with scaffolding that is covered with a drape, and a White House official told Klein and Collins that the renovations will include security enhancements at the request of the U.S. Secret Service.
Dan Diamond of the Washington Post also reported today that under the Trump administration, the Secret Service, the White House, and the Interior Department are seeking to place permanent eight- to nine-foot-tall fencing around Lafayette Square, where tourists and protesters congregate, in front of the White House. They are also considering fencing off the parts of Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House. In the past, when officials believed it was necessary to shut off access to Lafayette Square, they used temporary barriers to avoid the perception that they were restricting public access to what is known as the People’s House.
Eleanor Holmes Norton, the nonvoting congressional representative from the District of Columbia., objected. “More fencing around the President’s Park would send the wrong message to the nation and the world by continuing to transform our democracy from one that is accessible and of the people to one that is exclusive and fearful of its own citizens,” she said.
Tonight, at 11:59 PM, the housing bill became law without the president’s signature.
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Notes:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/09/trump-fires-election-commissioners
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/10/trump-purges-election-assistance-commission.html
https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/09/politics/white-house-columns-trump-construction
https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/10/politics/white-house-front-door-fortification
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/03/15/white-house-columns-ionic-corinthian/
https://www.npr.org/2026/07/10/nx-s1-5885027/housing-bill-without-trump-signature
Trumpstruth.org:
Bluesky:
lincolnproject.us/post/3mqcdfiwwh72n
harrylitman.bsky.social/post/3mqci7yv6m225
Threads:
Diane Ravitch's blog 
And add that the National Guard is to stay activated in Washington, DC. until January, 2029. Seems to me he is very worried about something.
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DEATH ANXIETY: Trump’s efforts to try to make certain that he’s remembered by plastering his name on monuments and passports and redecorating the White House in his style is characteristic behavior of someone with a mental disorder that psychiatric textbooks label as DEATH ANXIETY. This is the anxiety that some people develop when they are told that they don’t have long to live and want to be remembered after they die by leaving behind monuments to themselves.
TRUMP’S EXCESSIVE DROWSINESS that causes him to fall asleep even at important meetings is a symptom of a person who is on MASSIVE DOSES of blood pressure medication, which is what a person with severe CONGESTIVE HEART FAILURE would be taking. The reason why Trump plans to build a medical center beneath his White House ballroom is because Trump needs to be close to immediate medical treatment.
In addition, Trump’s ongoing hair loss is likely attributable to drugs used to treat congestive heart failure, such as beta-blockers, ACE inhibitors, and diuretics.
CONGESTIVE HEART FAILURE: Trump’s swollen legs and ankles are a classic indication of congestive heart failure, according to clinicians who daily treat patients with congestive heart failure. Their diagnosis is supported by the constant bruises in the backs of Trump’s hands which are typical of frequent IVs to drain excessive fluids from his body to delay inevitable heart failure as long as possible.
TRUMP KEEPS BRAGGING about “acing” the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) that his doctors keep giving him, but MoCA is only used TO KEEP TRACK OF THE RATE OF MENTAL DECLINE OF SOMEONE WHO HAS ALREADY BEEN DIAGNOSED WITH SYMPTOMS OF DEMENTIA.
FRONTOTEMPORAL DEMENTIA — Clinical psychiatrists who have been observing Trump’s erratic behavior, his memory lapses, his confusion, and his unsteady gait, diagnose him as having frontotemporal dementia.
ANGRY, CURSE-WORD-FILLED verbal and physical outbursts are one of the characteristic behaviors of someone who has frontotemporal dementia. Trump’s outbursts even include public use of the F-word in speeches which is an embarrassment to America and something that no President has ever done in public in front of the entire world.
DELUSIONS are another behavior someone with frontotemporal dementia shows, such as Trump’s delusional insistence that Iran was building nuclear weapons, while at the same time he was saying that, Trump’s own White House officials were telling Congress under oath that Iran was not building nuclear weapons and was no threat to the United States.
WHAT HAPPENS TO ALL OF US if during one of Trump’s 3 a.m. rants on social media, Trump is struck with the delusional dementia belief that China is about to launch missiles at us and so Trump orders a pre-emptive nuclear missile strike? All the sensible Pentagon generals with actual war experience have been fired by Hegseth and replaced with Hegseth’s “warriors” who are only too eager to push that red Launch button. There is no place for us to hide from China’s missile response to that dementia delusion. Nuclear missiles will fly in both directions, the atmosphere of the entire planet will become toxic…Earth dies…we all die.
God, help us…all of us in the entire world..
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