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Jared and Ivanka Plan a Billion Dollar Resort on a Privatized Albanian Island

By dianeravitch
June 5, 2026 //
1

Ivanka Trump Kushner was recently interviewed about her and her husband’s plans to develop Sazan Island, off the coast of Albania, into a major resort. Five miles of private beachfront. Thousands of hotel rooms. She says she wants it to be the kind of setting that people want. It’s clear that she has no contact with most “people.”

Sazan Island is owned by the state. The Kushners intend to privatize and develop it. The president of Albania welcomes foreign investment because Albania is poor, and he wants to bolster the economy and create jobs.

Albanians are not happy. In fact, thousands of them are rioting against the deal, due to the threat to the island’s natural beauty and biodiversity. It’s possible that their riot is intensified by their views of the Trump family.

The people in the streets may block it.

Categories Billionaires, Environment, Trump

Trump Administration Cancels System to Monitor Oceans for Climate Change

By dianeravitch
June 4, 2026 //
3

The Trump administration has made clear its hostility to science, most especially to any scientific research into climate change. Trump and his allies are certain that climate change is a hoax, and they have defunded all efforts to study or prepare for the consequences of climate change. Trump hates wind power, solar power, and any other alternatives to fossil fuels, which he seems to think are inexhaustible. The United States has ceded the leadership in alternative energy sources to China and European nations and other countries who accept the clear evidence of climate change.

Eric Niiler of The New York Times reported:

The Trump administration is dismantling a $368 million deep-ocean observation system that was put in place a decade ago to monitor coastal environments, marine ecosystems and powerful currents that affect the global climate.

The National Science Foundation said it would send ships in June to begin removing more than 900 deep-sea instruments anchored off Oregon, Washington State, Alaska, North Carolina, and an area between Greenland and Iceland known as the Irminger Sea.

Scientists have used data from the system to understand how the ocean is absorbing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, how changes in ocean temperature such as marine heat waves might affect fisheries or signal bigger shifts in the climate, and coastal flooding along the East Coast.

The station in the Irminger Sea has been key to understanding changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current, a global conveyor belt of water that some scientists are concerned may be weakening as a result of climate warming. A collapse of the current could have severe weather effects.

The Irminger Sea moorings are fixed to seafloor 9,200 feet below the surface and are part of an international collaboration among scientists who are studying the overturning current.

Michael England, a spokesman for the National Science Foundation, said the decision to dismantle the network, known as the Ocean Observatories Initiative, “aligns with N.S.F.’s wider strategy to have a nimbler approach to prioritizing support for evolving scientific priorities and emerging technologies as well as a deliberate approach to smart life cycle management within its portfolio of research infrastructure.”

Craig McLean, who was the acting chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration during the first Trump term, said the move was part of a pattern in the Trump administration.

“This reflects the further lack of understanding that the current administration has of scientific value and scientific merit,” Dr. McLean said. “By dismantling such a system, we push the United States back yet again into a rear seat in global scientific leadership.”

The ocean observation system began operating in 2016 and was expected to continue for 25 years. Jim Edson, a marine meteorologist who led the Ocean Observatories Initiative, called it “the world’s most advanced continuously operating ocean observing systems.” When it was first proposed, the science foundation said it was important to have a long-term presence at scientifically important sites in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Removing the instruments could take 15 months. Seismic instruments positioned around an active underwater volcano off Oregon will continue operating until 2028.

Each observation station consists of several moorings that secure long arrays of devices connected to wires. The devices measure ocean currents as well as chemical and biological conditions from the water’s surface down thousands of feet.

The instruments were hardened to resist the pressure of the deep ocean, corrosive seawater as well as marine plants and animals that can foul electronics. Remotely controlled robotic vehicles and gliders around the moorings collect and transmit data to research laboratories.

Funded by the National Science Foundation, the network was coordinated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in collaboration with Rutgers University, the University of Washington and Oregon State University. A Woods Hole spokeswoman referred questions to the N.S.F.

It cost $48 million annually to operate the network. The Trump administration repeatedly tried to shutter it, proposing to cut its funding by 80 percent in both 2025 and again in 2026. Congress pushed back, restoring the money.

To try to reduce costs, managers turned off some of the instruments and collected less data, according to a December 2025 presentation about the observatories at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, a nonprofit organization of scientists.

Still, the science foundation moved ahead to decommission the observatory network.

Hilary Palevsky, professor of earth and environmental sciences at Boston College, has been using data from the Irminger instruments for the past decade to better understand how the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Scientists have benefited from downloading data from remote ocean instruments, rather than making difficult, dangerous and expensive trips to sea each year. Pulling up the instruments without a plan to store them or to continue collecting data “is very hasty,” she said.

“One of the real tragedies here is that collecting data effectively at this site was a huge engineering challenge, and it’s not the kind of thing where you can just leave your notes for the next person who comes in,” Dr. Palevsky said. “There’s a lot of expertise that has the potential to be lost.”

The $48 million annual budget for the observation network was small compared with the value of the data it collected for understanding the oceans and the climate, Dr. McLean said.

In the huge federal budget, $48 million is inconsequential, like grounding error.

Categories Environment, Extremism, Science, Stupid, Trump

U.S. House Defies Republican Leaders, Votes for Sanctions on Russia, Aid for Ukraine

By dianeravitch
June 4, 2026 //
2

Half a dozen Republicans and one independent joined Democrats to authorize a start to aid to Ukraine and sanctions for Russia. They defied not only the Republican leadership, but Trump, who does not want to help Ukraine and has eased sanctions on Russia.

This has been a bad couple of days for Trump. He lost his $1.776 billion slush fund for his allies; Congress will not pay $1 billion for his ballroom; the House passed a War Powers Act to limit his war in Iran. It takes just a few Republican votes to block his authoritarian wishes.

Robert Jimison of The New York Times reported:

Defying Republican leaders, the House voted on Wednesday to take up a bill to impose sweeping new sanctions on Russia and provide additional aid to Ukraine, after a bloc of G.O.P. defectors joined Democrats in an effort to ratchet up pressure on Moscow more than four years into the war.

The bill, which still must win passage in the House, faces a difficult path to enactment, given divisions in the Senate over a sanctions package and objections from the White House. President Trump has repeatedly signaled he does not want Congress constraining his flexibility to negotiate directly with Moscow, and could veto the legislation if it reaches his desk.

Still, the 218-to-204 vote to take it up, in which six Republicans and one independent who normally votes with them crossed party lines to side with Democrats, sent a clear signal of bipartisan pressure on the matter. It added to a growing list of issues on which the Republican-led Congress has in recent weeks shown a greater willingness to challenge Mr. Trump, including the war with Iran, his push to fund a new White House ballroom and a bid to create a federal fund to benefit his political allies.

The legislation’s centerpiece is a broad package of sanctions targeting Russia’s oil and gas sector that is aimed at striking at the Kremlin’s primary source of wartime revenue. Lawmakers in both parties have argued for more than a year that sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies have failed to fully sever the energy revenues that continue to bankroll Moscow’s war effort.

The bill would expand restrictions on financial institutions that conduct business with sanctioned Russian officials and state enterprises and seek to crack down on entities that help Moscow evade existing sanctions. It also would target international organizations, companies, banks and governments that continue doing business with sanctioned Russian entities, provisions primarily aimed at actors in China, Central Asia and other jurisdictions that have helped Russia circumvent Western restrictions.

And the legislation would eliminate a sanctions waiver President Trump approved earlier this year that provided limited relief.

It would authorize roughly $1.8 billion in direct spending and more than $8 billion in loans for Ukraine’s war effort as the country continues to face deadly bombardment in Kyiv and other areas.

The bill languished for more than a year as Republican leaders on the House Foreign Affairs Committee declined to take it up, preventing lawmakers from debating and amending it.

That prompted Representative Gregory W. Meeks of New York, the committee’s top Democrat, to turn to a procedural maneuver known as a discharge petition, which allows rank-and-file lawmakers to bypass the leadership and force a bill to the House floor if it gains the support of a majority of members.

The bill must pass the House and pass the Senate. Trump might veto it.

But it shows that Trump’s iron control of his party is slipping.

Categories Democrats, International, Republicans, Trump

Timothy Snyder on “Superpower Suicide”

By dianeravitch
June 3, 2026 //
2

Timothy Snyder is an expert on European history. He taught for many years at Yale University and held a prestigious chair in European history. In 2025, he accepted a chair at the University of Toronto. His Substack blog is titled “Thinking About…” This important essay appeared in May 9. Nothing Snyder says here has changed.

He wrote:

The United States has just spent billions of dollars to lose a war that enriches its oligarchs, impoverishes the citizenry, sabotages its alliances, and strengthens its enemies. As justification for the self-destructive mindlessness, the White House gestures towards Jesus and genocide.

On April 20th I was asked to speak in New York about ethics and power. My thinking, which I expressed in a conversation at the Council on Foreign Relations, on this little video, and in the media, was that our utterly unethical war was also utterly self-destructive. The war, a catastrophe in itself, suggests the guiding principle of Trump foreign policy: superpower suicide. The term was since come into more general use, and readers have been asking me to spell it out.

Empires have risen and failed before, but to my knowledge no state has ever chosen to kill its own power, and succeeded with such rapidity.

It is hard to see this clearly. Even as we oppose individual Trump adventures, we hope that in some way they are based on some understanding of the national interest. They are not. To get the perspective we need to see the nature of this anti-strategic self-slaughter, it will help to consider thirteen traditional bases of state power.

1. Statehood. A superpower must, at a minimum, be a modern state. This means that it must be an arrangement that includes, via law and other institutions, a larger body of citizens within a common endeavor. There is no sign that the Trump administration regards the United States of America as a state. It treats the existence of the United States as a commercial opportunity for a select few people, American and otherwise.

2. National interest. Another minimal requirement of superpower would be a sense of why that power must be used. The Trump administration exhibits no interest in the good of the people. Theorists of international relations have differed as to how leaders understand national interests; we are intellectually unprepared, however, for a situation in which the leader simply does not care about either the state or the nation.

3. Succession. Again, for a state to maintain itself as a superpower, it must maintain itself over time. The basic requirement of such continuity is a succession principle, a means by which authority is transferred from some people to other people while institutions continue to function. In the United States, democracy enables succession. Historically, there are means of succession, for example by dynasty (or dynastic adoption, as in second-century Rome) or by the decision of a politburo, as in China or the USSR (in the US this would be a capitalist politburo, the sort of oligarchical coven that got us JD Vance). Getting from democracy to such different arrangements would end the American republic. Trump aspires to stay in power indefinitely, and says so. By putting the vote in question, he puts America in question, and thus American power.

4. Elites. For states to thrive and to accumulate and maintain power, the right people have to be in charge. There is no perfect means to achieve this, and there is the inevitable tension, as the Roman Stoics and others have noted, between the skills needed to rise to the top and those suited to serving some general interest. And those who rise to a position of authority will try to pass it on to their children; the Roman Catholic Church went to the extreme of insisting on priestly celibacy to block this tendency. Historically, powerful states seek ways to enable qualified people to serve in positions of authority, regardless of birth. Ancient China had an examination system. Napoleon established the principle of merit in both civilian and military life. The United States had a civil service that was the envy of the world as well as a military that was its most meritocratic institution. The Trump administration has chosen to disable the civil service and to purge the military command of people of quality. This process has been carried out by people who are themselves wildly unqualified to hold any sort of office, let along cabinet positions. To see where we are, we must understand that people such as Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, and Pete Hegseth, about whom one might raise other objections, had no business accepting their nominations, since they lack any qualifications. The fact that such people could be considered, let alone appointed, is a marker of superpower suicide.

5. Education. In a deeper sense, a superpower must have a mechanism to refresh its society, and thus its politics and administration, by preparing its population to understand the challenges of the world. This administration has done the contrary. University students are forbidden to gather and to speak their minds; university administrations are threatened with retaliation if they allow their faculty to teach freely; libraries around the country, including in military academies, are purged of useful books; public education generally is replaced with scams whereby tax money is transferred from the poorer to the richer while schools themselves are starved; an unregulated internet is allowed and indeed encouraged to transform the public sphere into a realm of emotions and recriminations.

6. Science. The rise of great powers often involves an alliance between politics and science. The ancient Mesopotamians were astronomers whose systems of describing the heavens still mark our ways of thought; so were the Mayans. The Romans managed to operationalize Greek science to build, defend, and cure. The Renaissance was, by no coincidence, also the age of exploration. Modern imperial powers built state institutions to fund science and attract scientists; the United States from the 1940s was the outstanding example of this trend, and science (often as practiced by immigrants) was the most important basis of American superpower. Current American policy is to fund science on the basis of primitive ideological taboos, and to discourage young scientists from immigrating to the United States. Senior scientists are also leaving; a colleague in a central position in US science just told me that he is leaving the country in part because the overall environment is better in other places. It is also US policy to cast doubt on basic scientific observations, such as that of human-caused climate change.

7. Energy. Human groups that pioneer new forms of energy technology rise; those that do not fall. This might be the most profound truth of our history; a magnificent forthcoming bookdemonstrates the significance of energy transitions at the most profound level, that of the history of life on earth itself. Humans who mastered fire could consume more energy themselves. Humans who domesticated dogs could use their energy to hunt mammoths. Humans who domesticated plants could turn solar energy to their own purposes. Humans who understood weather and climate could turn wind energy to the purpose of exploration and conquest, as did the Vikings. The United States was established on the cusp of a transition to hydrocarbon energy: coal, oil, natural gas. These forms of energy are now becoming obsolete, not only in ecological but also in economic terms. And yet this administration has chosen to cancel America’s energy transition and subsidize technologies that have no future. This is superpower suicide in perhaps the most basic form. And nothing could benefit America’s chief rival, China, more than this choice.

8. Technology. It requires little effort to associate technology with the rise of great powers. Military achievement is associated intimately with innovation; from the spur to the machine gun, the causal relationship is not really contestable. While the United States spends gigantic amounts of money on weaponry, the Trump administration has chosen to focus on weapons from the past rather than of the future. Trump’s idea is battleships named after himself based on what he remembers of a movie. The plans for “Trump-class” battleships are a mixture of the fictional and the vulnerable, which does reflect the man. The notion is to invest untold amounts of money into a kind of weapon has been understood to be obsolete since 1943, and which if somehow built would be highly vulnerable to weapons other countries now have. This strategic atavism draws the United States away from national security in its most basic sense. The shape of modern warfare is revealed by the high-tech war between Russia and Ukraine, especially in Ukraine’s successful self-defense. The Trump administration chose to ignore the lessons of that war and to demean and defund America’s Ukrainian ally, to the detriment of American interests and American warfighting.

9. Diplomacy. This art, celebrated by great powers, has been trashed by the United States. It cannot be practiced without understanding other countries, as the most focused American diplomats have stressed (for example, Henry Kissinger, who can hardly be excused of softheartedness). It has rested, in the American and other cases, on the deliberate construction of a diplomatic corps where people train in languages and trade in knowledge. Under the Trump administration, the foreign service has been trashed. The principle of diplomacy, such as it is, is that other countries will do what we want because we are big and bad. This has not worked. The bizarre notion that the president can himself “make deals” is the sign of a religious cult; like most cults, its activity is the generation of ever more creative excuses for the lack of performance. There is no evidence that Trump knows how to negotiate, and abundant evidence that he does not: for example, defeat in trade wars with China; personal vulnerability to the preferences of Russian leaders, and the disaster of Iranian nuclear enrichment, of which Trump himself is the chief sponsor. In practice, critical negotiations, with Iran and elsewhere, have been put in the hands of two people, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, with close personal relationships with the president and obvious economic stakes in the relevant conflicts. The diplomacy of the Huns was far more sophisticated than this. It is hard to overstate how primitive the current American approach is, and how much joy it brings to America’s enemies.

10. Alliances. Great powers have allies. To be sure, they might change these alliances rapidly for reasons of interest, as the East Roman (Byzantine) Empire famously did. The whole history of the Roman Empire, for that matter, was one of active diplomacy with neighboring barbarians (as the Romans saw matters); archaeology bears witness to the arrangements that were made. The history of modern European empires was also one considered alliances, as the architects of American superpower understood. Under the Trump administration, useful allies are mocked and marginalized for no reason other than personal whimsy and a sense of grievance. Because there is no sense of state or national interest, there can be no understanding that alliances are of service. Trump feels annoyed because he is losing a war and removes US troops from Germany; those troops are there to enable the United States to win wars. I personally cannot think of any other example in which the leaders of a great power behaved in this way, presumably because these kinds of choices are inconsistent with the maintenance of power. The United States now seems to be treating as “allies” middle eastern countries that have nothing to offer except their own interests in the use of American armed forces in their own region, permanent engagement in the disastrous politics of oil, and financial opportunities for people personally close to Trump.

11. The international system. Postwar America did something far more impressive than build a system of alliances; it essentially created a set of laws, rules, and norms that allowed American power to maintain itself and to expand. The European Union and NATO, so abused by the Trump people today, were indirect and direct results of American policies intelligently designed to maximize American trade and security interests. But the achievement was far broader than that, and indeed historically unprecedented: the construction of laws and conventions that kept one country in the center of the world. Today, the Trump people make themselves at the World Economic Forum, the Munich Security Conference and similar gatherings and complaining that the rules are against them — the exact opposite was the case, because America made the rules. In deliberately destroying its own international system, this American government is improving the position of its rivals China and Russia, who have been calling for exactly this to happen, but who lacked the ability to make it happen.

12. The idea of victory. A superpower wins in confrontations, at least some of the time. This administration loses again and again, and is seen to lose by others. Trump announced that his main weapon of influence would be tariffs, but then lost his trade war with China, leaving Beijing more powerful and more emboldened. The Russo-Ukrainian war is a curious case. It would serve the interests of the United States in prosperity and stability for Ukraine to win; but under Trump the United States has switched its policy to one of support for Ukraine to support for Russia. So it has lost in that way. But since the United States has made that pivot, Ukraine has performed ever better in the war, and Russia has performed worse. And so the United States, amazingly, has managed to be the loser in the same war a double sense: by failing to see its own interests, and then by failing to fail. The Iranian war is an obvious strategic defeat in every traditional sense; insofar as there were any American objectives, they were not achieved. Trump’s policies have left Iran with more enriched uranium in the hands of a more radical regime which holds new sources of economic power in the world. In the current situation, in which military options have been self-humiliatingly exhausted, the useful instruments would be those that involved communicating with the Iranian people or influencing Iranian society. Those institutions existed until very recently; they were willfully demolished, to great fanfare, in early 2026.

The United States is now governed by people who celebrate defeat in symbolic terms characteristic of states in disastrous decline. Consider Defense Secretary Hegseth’s description of the rescue of a US pilot as the resurrection of Jesus. The screaming blasphemy of this might distract us from its strategic helplessness. Christological images of this sort are used as propaganda to transform defeat in the real world into victory in some imaginary one. The US lost the war in Iran. Among other things it was not able to sustain an air campaign. The downing of a US fighter meant than an individual mission failed. It is happy news, of course, that the pilot survived. But the notion that this was a “literal miracle,” as Hegseth claimed, brings the United States, sadly, into the tradition of losers who use Jesus to claim to be winners. An historical example of this was Polish Romanticism, with its idea that the collapse of a republic (chiefly due to wealth inequality) made of Poland the “Christ of Nations.” Donald Trump’s own self-deification has to be seen in similar terms: a president who could assert power in this world would not have to claim that his real authority comes from another one. His fantasies of the total destruction of Iranian civilization are part of an apocalyptic panorama that is inconsistent with decent politics.

13. Finances. Though not the most interesting historical subject, budget disaster stands behind many of the most notable collapses of state power, ancient and modern. Under Trump our national debt now approaches $40 trillion. National debt is higher than GDP of the country for the first time since the end of the Second World War. That is a notable point of comparison: it is normal to run big deficits when facing the challenge of the scale of a world war. We are running huge deficits for an entirely different reason: because we decline to tax wealthy individuals and corporations. That is not an approach that is consistent with fighting and winning wars, nor with maintaining the social services that allow a modern society to function. More profoundly: it reflects an approach to politics — government as customer service to the very wealthy — that leads us from power to ethics.

The war can lead us to a diagnosis of superpower suicide. Wars cannot be won by people who have no idea what they are doing, because they have no frame of reference (such as the nation or the state) beyond their own feelings. They cannot be fought well when the wrong people are making the daily decisions and the wrong weapons are being deployed. They cannot be reasonably brought to an end when there is no practice of diplomacy and no notion of the value of alliances and no concern about corruption.

But even a strict focus on power will lead us back to justice. But just as the war is only a symptom of superpower suicide, so superpower suicide is only a symptom of a still deeper condition, the one that must be addressed.

Even if all we cared about were American power, we would have to ask ourselves how to undo the distortions of democracy and the drastic inequalities of that enabled world-historical levels of strategic buffoonery. After a year of Trump, we face a situation where reform and repair are not the relevant categories. And, in a certain sense, this is useful. The fact that we reached this point, the fact that just a year of Trump could bring superpower suicide, shows us that the prior status quo was unsustainable.

The systems that made the United States a superpower cannot be rebuilt as they were, nor should they be: they involved structural injustices that made the present attempt at self-annihilation possible. From where we stand now there are two ways forward: one is the self-induced downfall of the American republic; the other is to reconsider American ideals and to restructure American politics so as to bring the people greater power over a more just future.

*****

PS. If you would like to help Ukrainians defend themselves from Russia’s criminal war of aggression, please consider contributing to the Sky Defense campaign. For worse but also for better, as the Ukrainians have shown us, this is a time when civil society campaigns can contribute to general security.

Categories Accountability, Censorship, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Elections, Environment, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Failure, Fraud, Freedom, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, International, Lies, Science, Stupid, Technology, Trump, Tyranny

Heather Cox Richardson: Trump Is Stuck in a Quagmire, Lashes out at Critics, and Praises Himself

By dianeravitch
June 2, 2026 //
5

Heather Cox Richardson sums up the quagmire in which Trump is stuck, unable to bully Iran, and, according to him, “bored” by the stalemate in negotiations. His response, as she shows, is to unleash a flurry of unhinged tweets about his grandeur, his historical significance, and his self-regard. One can only imagine the reaction of the media and the public if any other president posted similar images and words. At minimum, there would be widespread concern about his deepening megalomania.

She wrote:

As we enter the summer months, we’re hitting the ground running. There is so much news today, I’m going to have to let some of it splash over into tomorrow to do it justice. For today, Iran and its role in the president’s deteriorating mental condition are going to take center stage.

Over the weekend, there were what I’m going to have to call the usual reports of an imminent agreement between the U.S. and Iran to end hostilities, with the usual outcome.

Last week the U.S. and Iran appeared to be making headway on a 60-day memorandum of understanding to continue the ceasefire and to establish a framework for further talks about Iran’s nuclear program. But President Donald J. Trump is caught between a rock and a hard place in these negotiations.

His base demands that he look strong and accomplish what, after the initial strikes failed, he claimed to have started the war for: to make sure Iran doesn’t have the capacity to produce a nuclear weapon. He also needs to reopen the Strait of Hormuz—which was open before he began the strikes—and get oil flowing again from that region of the Middle East. Prices in the U.S. are rising, and the looming threat of oil reserves running out adds even more pressure to consumer prices.

And Congress returns to work tomorrow, raising the possibility that lawmakers will pass a war powers resolution requiring Trump to withdraw American forces from the region. House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) sent House members home a day early before the Memorial Day holiday out of concern such a measure would pass.

But Iran is in no hurry to throw Trump a lifeline. Their negotiators now maintain they have a right to control the Strait of Hormuz. They are demanding reparations for the damage inflicted in the country during the war, and they say they won’t negotiate over the nuclear program until there is a ceasefire.

But these conditions are all problematic for Trump’s negotiators. Permitting Iran to control the strait is not just about oil; it’s about the principle of freedom of the seas set out after World War II. Global trade depends on that concept. The exchange of money is also a problem for Trump. He has spent much of his political life attacking the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that China, France, Germany, Russia, the U.K., the U.S., and the European Union negotiated with Iran during the Obama administration, claiming that former president Obama “gave” Iran $1.7 billion. In fact, the JCPOA simply permitted the release of Iranian assets frozen overseas by sanctions, but much of Trump’s base believes that Obama showed weakness by buying an agreement.

And then there is the nuclear issue.

So what has tended to happen in negotiations is that the teams come up with a framework, details leak to the media, and Trump’s base hears that Trump has weakened on some of his maximalist demands. They complain, Trump then posts something false about the talks or incendiary about Iran, and the negotiations fall apart.

And the cost of the war, in both lives and treasure, and the pressure on U.S. consumers and the economy continue to mount.

Last Friday, Trump and his advisors spent two hours discussing the latest round of negotiations in the Situation Room. According to Erika Solomon and Farnaz Fassihi of the New York Times, that agreement included the release of about $24 billion in frozen Iranian assets and a postwar “investment fund” to rebuild Iran, with one diplomat telling the journalists the number on the table was $300 billion. Talks about Iran’s nuclear program would be deferred.

On Friday morning, Trump posted, once again, that the strait would be opened and that Iran must never have a nuclear weapon. But then he emerged from the Situation Room without the “final determination” on the agreement he had promised. On Saturday, Mohsen Rezaie, one of the advisors to Iran’s supreme leader, posted: “As predicted, the President of the United States is betraying diplomacy for the third time.”

Over the weekend, Trump’s social media account posted repeated attacks on Democrats and on the judges who have been deciding against him in legal cases. He posted long defenses of his alterations to monuments in Washington, D.C., and AI images of capital landmarks covered in trash and graffiti juxtaposed with ones gleaming and fresh, with captions that blame Democrats for the former and praise Trump for the latter.

His posts seemed designed primarily to reassure himself. By Saturday, so many of the musical acts his team had lined up to play at his Freedom 250 “Great American State Fair” from late June through the beginning of July had bailed that Trump posted that he was “thinking about bringing the Number One Attraction anywhere in the World, the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime, and he does so without a guitar, the man who loves our Country more than anyone else, and the man who some say is the Greatest President in History (THE GOAT!), DONALD J. TRUMP, to take the place of these highly paid, Third Rate “Artists,” and give a major speech, rallying the Country forward like I have done ever since being President!” He continued: “Two years ago, the United States was DEAD. Now we have the “HOTTEST” Country anywhere in the World. I don’t want so-called “Artists” that get paid far too much money, who aren’t happy. I only want to be surrounded by Happy People, Smart People, Successful People, and People that know how to WIN. So, by copy of this TRUTH, I am ordering my Representatives to look at the feasibility of doing an AMERICA IS BACK Rally on Wednesday, Washington, D.C., same time, same location. Only Great Patriots invited—It will be a Wild and Beautiful Celebration of America! President DONALD J. TRUMP”

It was an odd echo of his December 19, 2020, tweet calling his base to Washington, D.C., in which he wrote: “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”

Odder still was what followed: image after image of Trump as a great leader. There were images of Trump alongside first president George Washington, one of them showing the two presidents riding horses together in colonial garb beside a racecar with TRUMP across the hood, the White House in the background, and the Space Shuttle overhead. In an AI image, Trump is dunking a basketball over an exhausted New York governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat; in another image, he and Patriots football player Tom Brady stand talking, backlit, under a caption that reads “GOAT.”

There were pictures of Trump kissing the American flag; Mount Rushmore with Trump’s sculpture in line with those of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln (who looks somewhat alarmed); Trump apparently as a superhero admiral with armor on his chest that bears an American eagle; Trump standing near King Charles; Trump with China’s president Xi Jinping.

A series of AI images in the style of the 1950s Dick and Jane readers show a town parade festooned with flags and patriotic bunting, little girls laughing together at an old-fashioned town fair, and little boys in a suburb playing ball. All of the images read: “AMERICA IS BACK!” And in them, all of the people are white.

He posted an image of a white family from that era standing beside a Cadillac Coupe DeVille parked on a suburban street, with the caption: “BILLIONS WERE SPENT TO CONVINCE YOU THIS IS EVIL.”

Then Trump’s account posted a series of images contrasting his vision of Biden’s America versus his own. In his images, Biden’s world was one of theft, illegal squatting, violence, and illegal immigration. The images of Trump’s “solutions” to these problems showed people imprisoned, arrested, and deported.

At 1:02 this morning, Trump posted: “Iran really wants to make a deal, and it will be a good one for the U.S.A. and those that are with us. But don’t the Dumocrats, and various seemingly unpatriotic Republicans, understand that it is MUCH tougher for me to properly do my job and negotiate, when political hacks keep negatively ‘chirping,’ at levels never seen before, over and over again, that I should move faster, or move slower, or go to war, or not go to war, or whatever. Just sit back and relax, it will all work out well in the end—It always does! President DJT”

A minute later, his account posted: “Has anyone ever seen a happy Dumocrat???”

Then, later this morning, Iranian officials said they were suspending negotiations with the U.S. until Israel, which entered the war alongside the U.S., stops its strikes on Lebanon, strikes they say violate the ceasefire agreement. They warned they would close the Strait of Hormuz entirely—a few ships have been making the transit—and move against the Bab al-Mandab strait at the outlet of the Red Sea, as well. On CNBC, Trump told Eamon Javers that he doesn’t care if peace negotiations with Iran end. “I couldn’t care less,” he said. Negotiations were starting “to get very boring.”

But oil prices jumped sharply with the announcement of the suspension and the threat to the Bab al-Mandab, and at 1:43 in the afternoon, Trump posted: “Talks are continuing, at a rapid pace, with the Islamic Republic of Iran.” At 5:47, he posted on social media that he had spoken with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and indirectly with Hezbollah, and that they both agreed to stop striking each other.

The Pentagon has been trying to control information coming out about its actions for months now, but that effort is now ramping up. This afternoon, Scott Nover of the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon has designated its press office as a classified space—a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF—and even those journalists who have not had their press badges rescinded will require an appointment to talk to the press secretary. 

—

Notes:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-obama-iran-cash/
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/29/trump-no-update-iran-deal-00943503
https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/01/world/live-news/iran-trump-lebanon-war-news?post-id=cmpv0qep900003b6sh3u6kp9i

Click to access Fact-check-iran-deal-1.pdf

Tehran pauses peace talks with U.S. over Israeli attacks in Lebanon, Iranian sources say
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/01/trump-iran-war-negotiations-oil-israel-interview.html
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook-pm/2026/06/01/trump-i-dont-care-if-iran-talks-are-over-00944460
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/energy/oil-prices-trump-iran-talks-collapse-rcna347869
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/06/01/pentagon-bans-journalists-press-office-designating-it-classified-space/

X:

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HamidRezaAz/status/2061439791132996026

Trump’s Truth:

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Categories Character, Extremism, Failure, Fraud, Health, Trump

Colorado: Governor Polis Bends to Trump Pressure, Frees Tina Peters

By dianeravitch
June 2, 2026 //
2

Trump has spent a lot of time rescuing, pardoning and trying to reward the people who joined him in attempting to overturn his election loss in 2020. He is a giant baby. He is a sore loser. He lost decisively, and he refuses to accept it. More than 60 federal and state courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, rejected his appeals because there was no evidence of election fraud.

Someday, with time, we will look back on Trump’s refusal to accept his defeat as a low point in our history. Of course, we will look at his two terms in office as the absolute nadir of our history, as a time he spent rolling back civil rights, environmental protections, international alliances, access to healthcare, defunding medical and scientific research, bullying universities, and censoring the mass media.

Trump bullied Governor Jard Polis of Colorado to free Tina Peters, and Polis succumbed:

Tina Peters, the former clerk convicted of participating in a scheme to chase election conspiracy theories promulgated by President Donald Trump, was released from prison Monday after the president successfully pressured Colorado’s Democratic governor into commuting her sentence.

Peters’ release was confirmed by the Colorado Department of Corrections. The state agency said it would have no more information about the 70-year-old inmate. Her sentence was shortened by Gov. Jared Polis last month after Trump waged a lengthy pressure campaign against the governor and his state.

Peters served less than a quarter of her nine-year sentence.

Peters was the first local election official to be charged with breaching security after the 2020 election. She snuck in an outside computer expert affiliated with My Pillow Chief Executive Mike Lindell — who himself denied that Trump lost the White House in 2020 — and the person copied the county’s Dominion Voting Systems computer server as it was updated in 2021.

Peters then joined Lindell onstage at a “cybersymposium” that promised to reveal proof that the election was rigged. Video and photos of the computer system upgrade, including passwords, were posted online. The move stoked false claims that voting machines were manipulated to steal the election from Trump.

Peters was convicted in 2024 of attempting to influence a public servant, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, violation of duty and other crimes by jurors in Mesa County, a Republican stronghold that supported Trump. An appeals court upheld her conviction in April, but ordered Peters to be resentenced because it said the judge who sent her to prison wrongly punished her for speaking out about election fraud.

Trump had championed Peters’ case, but because she was convicted under state law, he did not have the power to pardon her. Instead, the president pressured Polis to do so, lambasting him on social media and disinviting him to a White House meeting with other governors. The Trump administration also announced plans to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado and relocated the U.S. Space Command to Alabama.

Polis commuted Peters’ sentence on May 15. In a letter, he wrote that although Peters was convicted of serious crimes and deserved to spend time in prison, the sentence was “extremely unusual and lengthy” for a first-time non-violent offender.

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, called the move a “dark day for democracy” and said it amounted to “selling out our state’s justice system for Trump.”

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Censorship, Civil Rights, Colorado, Corruption, Cruelty, Elections, Evil, Extremism, Fraud, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Health, History, Injustice, International, Trump

“60 Minutes” Punches Back at Firings

By dianeravitch
June 2, 2026 //
4

Oliver Darcy posts a very informative update on news of the media world. This is an unusual one, which appeared yesterday, based upon a recording of a meeting of the staff of “60 Minutes” with its new executive producer.

“60 Minutes” is the leading news program in the nation. It’s investigative reporting is known for being fearless.

When CBS was purchased by the billionaire Ellison family, they set about making the network more Trump/friendly. Part of the deal to sell CBS was the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s show by the previous owner Shari Redstone.

After ownership changed, David Ellison hired Bari Weiss, editor of a center-right blog called “The Free Press” to be editor-in-chief of news. She was a print journalist with no experience in broadcast journalism.

There was an immediate uproar at “60 Minutes,” when Weiss delayed a segment on immigration because the producer Sharyn Alfonsi did not obtain a comment from the Trump administration. Eventually, the show aired and later Alfonsi was fired, along with other correspondents and staff, including the executive producer Tanya Simon.

The veteran staff of “60 Minutes” is clearly outraged by the firings and by the choice of an executive producer selected by Weiss.

Pelley’s ‘60 Minutes’ Revolt

In a stunning confrontation, Scott Pelley accused Bari Weiss of “murdering” the newsmagazine and relentlessly grilled her newly installed executive producer, Nick Bilton, over the show’s recent firings, according to audio obtained by Status. 

On Monday morning, the staff of “60 Minutes” convened for an introductory meeting with Bari Weiss‘ handpicked new executive producer of the program, Nick Bilton. Bilton, the technology journalist who lacks both broadcast news and managerial experience, opened the meeting by reading from some prepared notes. He didn’t get far. 

Scott Pelley, the iconic “60 Minutes” correspondent and longtime CBS News journalist, interjected and started grilling Bilton about what he dubbed “Black Thursday”—referencing the day last week in which Weiss carried out mass firings, terminating Tanya Simon as executive producer, ousting Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega as correspondents, and showing the door to other senior staffers. 

In the extraordinary back and forth, an impassioned Pelley relentlessly pressed Bilton on Weiss’ intentions for the storied newsmagazine, pointed out that he has no relevant experience to helm television’s most prestigious news program, grilled Bilton on what he knew about the firings, and more. 

“Bari loves this institution,” Bilton told staffers at one point during the highly contentious meeting. “She loves ’60 Minutes.'” 

“She’s murdering ’60 Minutes,'” Pelley countered. “She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it—and she’s doing exactly that.” 

This story is based on audio of the meeting obtained by Status. A CBS News spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment, but Pelley’s stunning series of remarks left staffers on the newsmagazine wondering if he will resign. 

In the meeting, Pelley pointed out that Weiss has “no qualifications for her job” and told Bilton “you have slender qualifications for this job.” Pelley, the former anchor of “CBS Evening News,” noted that the changes Weiss has made to that program “have been catastrophic.” 

“So why should we expect any of this is going to be any better?” Pelley asked Bilton. 

Bilton tried to move the meeting along, but Pelley pressed on, challenging the new executive producer’s references in interviews to “60 Minutes” creator Don Hewitt’s vision for the program as he outlined his plans. 

“I have another question,” the veteran journalist said. “Did you at any point work with Don Hewitt, telling everybody about what Don Hewitt thought, and what his inspiration was? I worked for Don Hewitt from 1999 to 2004 and Lesley Stahl probably worked with him for 30 years. Just wondering how you have such deep insight?” 

Bilton replied that he was simply quoting Hewitt’s own words from past interviews and asked Pelley whether he had any other questions. Pelley said that he did. 

“I have many questions,” Pelley responded. “What was wrong with Sharyn Alfonsi?” 

As Bilton started to say he would “defer,” Pelley interrupted: “This is not the crowd to dodge.” 

Bilton insisted he was not dodging. 

“Nobody talked to you about that?” Pelley continued, pressing him on the firing. “They’re taking one of your correspondents away and nobody mentioned to you what was wrong with Sharyn?” 

Bilton acknowledged that he “had conversations with people.” 

“And what came out of those conversations?” Pelley asked. “They are private conversations?” 

Bilton reiterated that he “did not fire” Alfonsi or Vega. Pelley pointed out that Bilton had nonetheless discussed the matter with others. Charles Forelle, a top Weiss deputy and managing editor of CBS News, interjected, telling Pelley that he was being “rude.” 

“This is not actually productive,” Forelle said. “This is not an interview.” 

“It’s working for me,” Pelley replied. 

“Anybody came into our house—this is ’60 Minutes,'” Pelley added. “I guess you wandered in expecting to read a statement off?” 

Pelley then asked Bilton “what was wrong with” Draggan Mihailovich, the executive editor of “60 Minutes” who was fired on Thursday. 

Bilton again said that he did not fire Mihailovich. Forelle one more told Pelley that he was being “rude.” 

Pelley did not let up, however. The veteran newsman told Bilton and Forelle that the way management handled the firings was “cruel.” Forelle—yet again—responded by calling Pelley “rude.” 

“I’m not being rude,” Pelley shot back. “I have some pretty—you know what was rude? Black Thursday. That was the absolute definition of rudeness. Telling Tanya Simon she had to be out of here at five o’clock. Sending Draggan Mihailovich to HR to get fired, because nobody could look him in the eye. Not talking about Tanya’s contract. Not talking about Sharyn Alfonsi’s contract. Not talking about Cecilia Vega’s contract. Just calling them up and telling they were fired. That’s rude. This is a conversation. That is rude, and you were part of that.” 

At that point, Bilton acknowledged that there were many questions about the moves that Weiss had made last week. He said he did “not feel comfortable” answering some of them and proposed going to Weiss—who was notably absent from the meeting—so that Pelley could raise his concerns to her directly. 

“What I would like to do right now is talk about what happens next,” Bilton added. 

As Bilton tried to move the discussion on to the show’s future, another staffer pointed out that it “takes years” to develop new correspondents for the program and noted that new correspondents would require training. 

Bilton pushed back, saying “these are not going to be new correspondents that have never done this before.” The remark drew laughter, to which Bilton said, “You have no idea what my plans are, so I will present those plans to you. I will present them when the time is right.” 

Pelley, who was applauded multiple times during the meeting by other staffers present, then refocused the conversation on the firings. 

“Here’s a question: Were you aware of how Black Friday was going to play out?” he asked. “I find it odd that you would take this job knowing that you would never be welcomed here.” 

“I have no problem taking a job in a place that I am not welcome, OK? I don’t believe that will be the case,” Bilton replied. 

“I am not intimidated by—I have been a journalist for 25 years, Scott. I have sat and talked with incredibly powerful people like you have,” Bilton continued. “None of it intimidates me, OK? So you are not going to intimidate me in front of this group of people.” 

“Does it show good judgment to take this job under those circumstances?” Pelley asked. 

“Yes, it does,” Bilton replied, saying he would end on this note: “The reason it takes good judgment is because I care so deeply about this institution, and I want to ensure that what happened to TIME magazine and all of these other institutions does not happen here.” 

“Well, we feel protected,” Pelley replied. “That’s great. Thank you.” 

Bilton then brought the acrimonious meeting to a close, thanking the staff for “graciously being so welcoming.” 

Categories Censorship, Disruption, Ethics, Media, Trump

The Trump Regime’s List of Forbidden Words

By dianeravitch
June 1, 2026 //
8

Certain words have been censored from government documents, most especially those that refer to diversity, equity, and inclusion, meaning race, ethnicity, gender, and LGBT status.

The New York Times has kept a running list of “forbidden” words. The list does not include the exhibits that have been removed at public museums, public libraries, National parks, and other public institutions.

As President Trump seeks to purge the federal government of “woke” initiatives, agencies have flagged hundreds of words to limit or avoid, according to a compilation of government documents.

  • accessible
  • activism
  • activists
  • advocacy
  • advocate
  • advocates
  • affirming care
  • all-inclusive
  • allyship
  • anti-racism
  • antiracist
  • assigned at birth
  • assigned female at birth
  • assigned male at birth
  • at risk
  • barrier
  • barriers
  • belong
  • bias
  • biased
  • biased toward
  • biases
  • biases towards
  • biologically female
  • biologically male
  • BIPOC
  • Black
  • breastfeed + people
  • breastfeed + person
  • chestfeed + people
  • chestfeed + person
  • clean energy
  • climate crisis
  • climate science
  • commercial sex worker
  • community diversity
  • community equity
  • confirmation bias
  • cultural competence
  • cultural differences
  • cultural heritage
  • cultural sensitivity
  • culturally appropriate
  • culturally responsive
  • DEI
  • DEIA
  • DEIAB
  • DEIJ
  • disabilities
  • disability
  • discriminated
  • discrimination
  • discriminatory
  • disparity
  • diverse
  • diverse backgrounds
  • diverse communities
  • diverse community
  • diverse group
  • diverse groups
  • diversified
  • diversify
  • diversifying
  • diversity
  • enhance the diversity
  • enhancing diversity
  • environmental quality
  • equal opportunity
  • equality
  • equitable
  • equitableness
  • equity
  • ethnicity
  • excluded
  • exclusion
  • expression
  • female
  • females
  • feminism
  • fostering inclusivity
  • GBV
  • gender
  • gender based
  • gender based violence
  • gender diversity
  • gender identity
  • gender ideology
  • gender-affirming care
  • genders
  • Gulf of Mexico
  • hate speech
  • health disparity
  • health equity
  • hispanic minority
  • historically
  • identity
  • immigrants
  • implicit bias
  • implicit biases
  • inclusion
  • inclusive
  • inclusive leadership
  • inclusiveness
  • inclusivity
  • increase diversity
  • increase the diversity
  • indigenous community
  • inequalities
  • inequality
  • inequitable
  • inequities
  • inequity
  • injustice
  • institutional
  • intersectional
  • intersectionality
  • key groups
  • key people
  • key populations
  • Latinx
  • LGBT
  • LGBTQ
  • marginalize
  • marginalized
  • men who have sex with men
  • mental health
  • minorities
  • minority
  • most risk
  • MSM
  • multicultural
  • Mx
  • Native American
  • non-binary
  • nonbinary
  • oppression
  • oppressive
  • orientation
  • people + uterus
  • people-centered care
  • person-centered
  • person-centered care
  • polarization
  • political
  • pollution
  • pregnant people
  • pregnant person
  • pregnant persons
  • prejudice
  • privilege
  • privileges
  • promote diversity
  • promoting diversity
  • pronoun
  • pronouns
  • prostitute
  • race
  • race and ethnicity
  • racial
  • racial diversity
  • racial identity
  • racial inequality
  • racial justice
  • racially
  • racism
  • segregation
  • sense of belonging
  • sex
  • sexual preferences
  • sexuality
  • social justice
  • sociocultural
  • socioeconomic
  • status
  • stereotype
  • stereotypes
  • systemic
  • systemically
  • they/them
  • trans
  • transgender
  • transsexual
  • trauma
  • traumatic
  • tribal
  • unconscious bias
  • underappreciated
  • underprivileged
  • underrepresentation
  • underrepresented
  • underserved
  • undervalued
  • victim
  • victims
  • vulnerable populations
  • women
  • women and underrepresented

Notes: Some terms listed with a plus sign represent combinations of words that, when used together, acknowledge transgender people, which is not in keeping with the current federal government’s position that there are only two, immutable sexes. Any term collected above was included on at least one agency’s list, which does not necessarily imply that other agencies are also discouraged from using it.

The above terms appeared in government memos, in official and unofficial agency guidance and in other documents viewed by The New York Times. Some ordered the removal of these words from public-facing websites, or ordered the elimination of other materials (including school curricula) in which they might be included.

In other cases, federal agency managers advised caution in the terms’ usage without instituting an outright ban. Additionally, the presence of some terms was used to automatically flag for review some grant proposals and contracts that could conflict with Mr. Trump’s executive orders.

Some of the Trump regime’s efforts to censor history have been reversed. For example, it lost its fight to remove the Gay Pride flag from the Stonewall bar in Greenwich Village in New York City.

The New York Times reported:

The Trump administration has agreed to officially restore the Pride flag that was removed from the Stonewall National Monument in New York’s Greenwich Village. 

The move marks a reversal by the Trump administration, which had the flag removed back in February. It comes on the heels of a lawsuit brought by several nonprofit groups against Department of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the National Park Service and others. The agreement to restore the flag settles the lawsuit. 

The National Park Service said it removed the flag under guidance from the Department of Interior, which had said non-agency flags could not be officially displayed on flagpoles managed by the National Park Service. 

The court agreement says it will no longer be subject to the political whims of whoever is in power.   

“The whole reason why the flag belongs at Stonewall is because it is such a big part of the history of the LGBTQ community and the struggle for equality. Stonewall itself is obviously such a part of that history and all along what we asserted was that the flag itself was a representation of that history,” attorney Alexander Kristofcak said.

Advocates say the ruling could have a national impact at other places where the Trump administration has sought to combat diversity initiatives. For example, the Trump administration removed an exhibit on George Washington’s ownership of slaves from Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia. 

But in February 2026, a federal judge ordered the restoration of the Philadelphia exhibit.

Politico reported that Judge Cynthia Rufe wrote a “withering opinion” in which she compared the Trump administration’s stance to George Orwell’s 1984. It was an effort, she said, to eliminate the truth by an administration that did so because it could. No, you can’t, she ordered.

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Extremism, Gender, Propaganda, Racism, Trump

Federal Judge Reopens Case That Led to Trump Slush Fund and Freedom from IRS Audits

By dianeravitch
May 30, 2026 //
11

Today, I read Robert Reich’s commentary on a remarkable event: A bipartisan group of 35 former federal judges asked Federal Judge Kathleen J. Williams to reopen the case that culminated in a deal between President Trump and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who had been Trump’s personal lawyer before the 2024 election.

The “settlement” between Trump and Blanche handed over $1.776 billion to a commission controlled by Trump, and in another part of the “settlement,” Blanche agreed that neither Trump nor his family members would be audited by the Internal Revenue Service.

The retired judges said that Trump and Blanche may have deceived the court and perpetrated a fraud.

Judge Williams agreed to investigate and gave Trump and Blanche until June 12 to respond.

Reich wrote:

I can’t overstate the importance of Judge Kathleen Williams’s decision on Friday to reopen Trump’s $10 billion case against the I.R.S. 

She said she wants to investigate “grievous allegations” that the hasty deal to resolve it was “premised on deception,” and she ordered Trump’s lawyers to tell her by June 12 whether the lawsuit should be formally reopened because “the court was the victim of a fraud.”

The “deception” and “fraud” Judge Williams refers to were allegedly carried out by Trump and his Justice Department.

This is a big deal. 

Judge Williams’s decision came in response to court papers filed on Wednesday by a bipartisan group of 35 former federal judges who urged her to revive the case and dig into the details of the agreement to settle it. 

The judges’ brief is also a big deal. They call it a motion for relief from judgement or order or, alternatively, “leave to appear as amici curiae by thirty-five former federal judges.” 

I don’t recall a similar instance of 35 former federal judges filing such a motion or amicus (friend of the court) brief. 

In it, the judges argue that the parties’ — Trump and the Justice Department’s — so-called “settlement” agreement was made to circumvent the court ‘s possible finding that the case presented no actual controversy, since Trump is on both sides of it. 

This, they conclude, constituted a fraud on the Court.

I wanted to read the brief by the 35 judges. I did. You should read it too. It is linked in the next paragraph from Reich’s post.

Judge Williams’s decision came in response to court papers filed on Wednesday by a bipartisan group of 35 former federal judges who urged her to revive the case and dig into the details of the agreement to settle it.

Read it yourself. The judge had previously raised the question of whether Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit was genuine, since he seemed to be suing himself. Had the case gone to trial, she might have tossed it, since there were not two genuine adversaries.

The parties decided to withdraw their lawsuit and quickly reached an agreement that was highly beneficial to Trump (the slush fund and freedom from audits).

The former judges smelled a rat and took the unprecedented step of joining together to petition Judge Williams.

Alan Feuer and Andrew Duehren wrote in The New York Times today:

A federal judge in Miami reopened President Trump’s $10 billion case against the I.R.S. in a striking turnabout, saying that she wanted to investigate “grievous allegations” that the hasty deal to resolve it was “premised on deception.”

The ruling by the judge, Kathleen M. Williams, on Friday to revive the case shortly after closing it was a significant blow both to Mr. Trump, who had voluntarily dismissed the suit last week, and to the Justice Department. After the president withdrew the suit, senior department officials released a pair of extraordinary agreements that settled the case by establishing a $1.8 billion fund to compensate people who claimed they were victims of government “weaponization” by Democrats.

The deal also conferred lucrative tax benefits on Mr. Trump, his family and his businesses.

Judge Williams’s decision came in response to court papers filed on Wednesday by a bipartisan group of 35 former federal judges who urged her to bring the case back to life and dig into the details of the agreement to settle it.

The former judges said that Mr. Trump’s settlement agreement raised serious questions about his “candor toward the court and manipulation of the judicial system.”

Before she closed the case, Judge Williams, an Obama appointee, had in fact questioned whether the lawsuit presented an actual conflict that she could adjudicate, given that Mr. Trump was on both sides of the suit, bringing claims against a federal agency that he controlled. When she closed it, she noted there was no “settlement of record,” but shortly after, the Justice Department released its agreement foreclosing the action.

In her brief but stern order on Friday, Judge Williams said that she wanted to investigate the circumstances surrounding Mr. Trump’s efforts to settle the lawsuit in a way that benefited him and his allies. If she succeeds in moving forward with her inquiry, it could ultimately result in questions being asked of the Justice Department leaders who signed the agreements to settle the suit — chief among them, Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, and Stanley Woodward Jr., the No. 3 official in the department.

In her order, Judge Williams asserted that she was “empowered to investigate serious misconduct” in any case before her, and ordered Mr. Trump’s lawyers to tell her by June 12 whether the lawsuit should be formally reopened because “the court was the victim of a fraud.”

She also wanted Mr. Trump’s lawyers to respond to the question of whether he had colluded with his own government to settle the case “to avoid judicial scrutiny.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Judge Williams pointed to reporting by The New York Times that described how the I.R.S. had prepared a 25-page memorandumoutlining defenses against the suit that the Justice Department did not take up in court.

Lawyers for the former judges hailed Judge Williams’s decision.

“The judges and their counsel greatly appreciate the seriousness with which the court is addressing these grievous allegations,” said Norman Eisen, who represented the former judges for the nonprofit group, Democracy Defenders Fund. “We stand ready to work with the court as it investigates this matter.”

Mr. Eisen was joined by the law firms Platkin and Susman Godfrey.

In their filing this week, the former judges claimed that Mr. Trump had improperly used his suit against the I.R.S. as a way to obtain “unlawful private benefits” for himself and his family, and to create a fund that would dole out taxpayer money “without constitutional or congressional authority.”

They also argued that the president had tried to shield the deal from judicial oversight by rushing a settlement and “short-circuiting” Judge Williams’s ability to examine its terms.

The $1.8 billion fund has faced separate legal headwinds. A federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia temporarily blocked the Trump administration from taking any further steps to set it up or disburse money from it. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including many Republicans, have also been critical of the fund, which upended G.O.P. plans to pass a party-line bill funding immigration enforcement efforts last week.

Mr. Trump, along with two of his sons and the Trump family business, first sued the I.R.S. in January, claiming they were owed at least $10 billion because a former contractor at the agency had leaked their tax returns (and hundreds of others) during the president’s first term in the White House. The Trumps claimed that the I.R.S. should have done more to prevent the contractor, Charles Littlejohn, from disclosing tax information to The New York Times and ProPublica.

Mr. Trump’s suit, as I.R.S. officials laid out in their memo and other lawyers have noted, had clear legal flaws. Potential defenses against it include that it was filed after the statute of limitations, and that it incorrectly faulted the I.R.S. for the actions of Mr. Littlejohn, previously a contractor employed by Booz Allen Hamilton. But the Justice Department never made an attempt to contest Mr. Trump’s suit. No government lawyer entered an appearance in the case.

That has fueled criticism that the deal the Justice Department struck with Mr. Trump was not a genuine attempt to avoid a loss on the merits to the president in court, but instead a scheme to provide him and his political allies with public benefits.

In a footnote, Judge Williams questioned the provision granting Mr. Trump, his family and their businesses immunity from I.R.S. scrutiny of tax returns they had already filed. She wrote that the audit protection may run afoul of Justice Department rules requiring legal settlements to directly relate to the issues in the suit.

She also noted that only Mr. Blanche signed the audit provision. The separate, nine-page agreement laying out the $1.8 billion fund was signed by Mr. Woodward and Frank Bisignano, who is serving as the chief executive officer of the I.R.S., a newly created role that is not subject to Senate confirmation.

Here is NPR’s summary.

Categories Accountability, Corruption, Ethics, Fraud, Injustice, Justice, Trump

How Trump Will Use His Slush Fund as a Powerful Tool to Control the GOP

By dianeravitch
May 27, 2026 //
2

Jonathan V. Last of The Bulwark explained why Trump’s $1.776 billion slush is such a powerful tool for a crafty mob/boss.

Last wrote:

We’ve been thinking too narrowly about the $1.776 billion pot of taxpayer money that Donald Trump will soon control.

Most people assumed Trump would use it to pay off meathead insurrectionists, sort of a . . . treason stimulus.

Absolute gold.

Others believed that while Dummkopf MAGA might get a couple bucks here and there, the real money would be funneled to Trump family members and organizations.

But the Slush Fund from Hell—or whatever we’re calling it—is much more useful than any of that. It’s a multitool for corruption and maintaining MAGA discipline. Let me explain.

You have to respect Trump as an innovator. He saw that private lawsuits could be used as a way to legalize bribery and extortion—that’s what his defamation suits against CBS and ABC were.¹

Trump understood that while it might be illegal to go to CBS and ABC and demand that they pay him protection money, he could use a civil lawsuit as justification for creating a private legal contract that amounted to the same thing.

He further understood that if he filed a civil suit against the U.S. government and then became president, he could direct the government to settle with him on whatever terms he desired.

These are ideas which seem to have occurred to no one in American history prior to Trump. When it comes to corruption, the man knows how to think laterally.

So what sort of lateral uses could he make of a $1.776 billion fund which he controls completely? There are two big ones.

The obvious one is bribery. As we discussed last week, Trump can turn the fund into fee-for-service. You give him a thing he wants—a vote, a certification, a report—and then you get compensated at a later date.

But the subtle one is something else altogether. It’s about holding people on side.

One of the striking design details about the fund is that it disappears just before Trump leaves office. It is sunset so that it can never be directed by anyone other than Trump.

Think about how this is likely to work in practice.

If you were Trump, would you pay out money before your last days in office? 

Because I would not.

The optimum strategy is for Trump to pay a couple people early, just to validate the fund’s existence. After that he should encourage anyone and everyone to apply for compensation. And then he should wait.

Because open applications give him leverage over people.

As a for-instance: Two days ago Mike Flynn almost criticized Trump about making a deal with Iran. Do you think people will be willing to do even that much if they have compensation applications pending that could be worth millions of dollars?

Another reason Trump should wait to disburse funds is that he can implicitly promise to pay more than $1.776 billion. Think about it: $1.776 billion is a lot of money, but it’s only 1,700 million-dollar portions. If Trump starts paying people right away, the fund gets drawn down and people start to realize that maybe they won’t get anything from it.

But if the nut is largely intact, everyone in MAGA world can dream. Trump can pass out tens of billions of dollars worth of promises—Don’t worry, we’ll take care of you; you just have to wait a little bit longer—with everyone thinking that, since he’s going to pay up at the very end, there’s enough cash for them to get theirs.

Second-term presidents become politically weak when members of their party realize that their incentives are diverging from the POTUS.

Maybe the POTUS is becoming unpopular, so candidates need to distance themselves from him. Maybe party elites are thinking about the future and how to take over once the old man is gone.

The slush fund is a tool to fix that problem. It’s the promise of a tangible reward for Republicans to stay on his side. Be nice to him. Do what he asks. Don’t freelance. And maybe there’s a pot of gold for you at the end of the rainbow.

The slush fund won’t work on everyone. Some Republicans will be secure enough that they don’t need Trump’s money. Some will be ambitious enough that they’re willing to forgo the uncertain promise of a payout for a shot at the title.

But it’ll work for some of them. It will encourage them to modulate what they say. And within the rest of the Republican ecosystem, having more people on-side than there otherwise would be will have a force-multiplier effect. Seeing people stick with Trump will cause more people to stick with Trump.

Watch what happens in the coming days with the Iran deal. See how many defections there are. And then ask yourself: How many of those people who suddenly get with the program are hoping to apply for some compensation from their president?

Categories Corruption, Elections, Trump
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