While awaiting trial in his jail cell before he committed suicide (or was murdered), Jeffrey Epstein wanted to expose the truth about Trump with the hope that he could use it as leverage in his own criminal case. Maybe he could wrangle a lesser sentence. At the time Trump was in his first term as president. Epstein, cooped up in his cell, jotted down notes on a legal pad. What could he tell attorneys about Trump that would expose the truth about this man he knew so well?
Here is what Epstein wrote: “Trump is a total con artist- smoke & mirrors”.
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE FINALLY FIGURING OUT WHAT EPSTEIN KNEW ABOUT TRUMP
It has taken way too long, but the American people are finally realizing what Epstein knew.
Even though Trump has never had a real capacity to govern, interest in governance or concern about the betterment of the American people, he has been a genius when it comes to covering up that truth about himself.
In his first term, Trump appeared to be a more capable leader because his staff helped him to be a more effective president. He had guardrails and helpers around him who were smart and capable. These people said no to him when he had a bad idea that would damage his legacy. He wanted to end Habeas Corpus for immigrants and invoke the Insurrection Act in his first term, but his advisors nixed that. This time around Stephen Miller and JD Vance were exposed in a new book written by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, titled Regime Change in which secret Situation Room conversations were allegedly reported out verbatim. Miller advised Trump to kidnap immigrants and deny them the right to challenge their detentions. JD Vance advised him to order military troops to attack peaceful protestors in Minnesota using the Insurrection Act by falsely claiming the rallies were out of control after the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
In Trump’s first term there may have been a lot of ketchup on the walls of the Oval Office what with Trump hurling his hamburgers in a rage, but at least Trump’s worst instincts were thwarted. Unfortunately, we are in Trump’s second term. He is surrounded by hand-picked bootlickers who let Trump be Trump. We are experiencing Trump Untethered. Just yesterday in an interview conducted by Marc Caputo of Axios, Trump said he didn’t think there are any limits on his power. Thanks to the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision, he seems to be right about that– at least so far.
WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH TRUMP
It is clear that there are three things Trump cares about above all else: 1) getter richer, 2) grandiose self-glorification and 3) getting even.
But it is also clear that Trump is losing his ability to think straight, stand up straight and even walk in a straight line at times. He is 80, after all. We are watching an angry, old, at times befuddled man fail on the world stage, embarrassing himself and our country.
Some people think that he has frontal lobe temporal dementia. People with this problem are more erratic and have less impulse control. People with this problem only get worse. There is no cure. There is also pretty good evidence that he has congestive heart failure. Congestive heart failure causes fluid back up in the body. His ankles are swollen, which is one sign of that problem. Trump also has possible evidence of periorbital edema which may be why his eyes look like they are swollen and not as open as they used to be and his face looks swollen.
If he were just your crazy grandpa with revenge fantasies, he couldn’t bedevil the entire world with his war on Iran, his threats to take over Greenland and Cuba and force Canada to become the 51st state, his attack on the pope, his attack on former American allies and embrace of dictators… I could go on. Unfortunately, Trump is not your crazy grampa. He is extremely dangerous because he has the power of the presidency, a complicit cabinet, a Republican congress that is afraid to restrain him and he is vengeful and has bad judgement.
TRUMP WRECKAGE
In just a year and a half being back in power, Trump, with the help of very capable tech bros and wealthy industrialists, has wrecked many of our government institutions including the Department of Justice which has become the Dept of Injustice, the CDC which used to keep us safe and well informed so we could stay healthy, now a source of mis and disinformation, our Dept of Education, which he is dismantling, and our social safety net, also being dismantled. He threw what was a recovering post pandemic economy under the bus with his tariffs. He is working to create a secret militia from the J6 defendants that will show up at key polling places to scare voters away in the midterm elections so (he thinks) the MAGAs can stay in power in the House.
On that topic, there seems to be yet another nefarious project that a group of DOGE boy holdovers have been working on… a kind of shadow government data system called The National Design Studio. Hmm…sounds innocent enough- but with this administration anything that sounds that innocent is bound to be a James Bond level enterprise engaged in something totally corrupt and evil.
What are these dudes up to? They have allegedly created 99 government websites allegedly designed to fool people into entering their personal information in what appear to be government websites but are not part of the established governmental system. Instead, these websites are part of a private data retrieval system that is not subject to audits, inspector generals or any other oversight.
What the heck are they up to? The most obvious immediate goal might be a shadow voter registration system that circumvents state election records. Trump has been hot to get his grubby bruised hands on those state voter rolls. But, at least so far, numerous lawsuits have successfully blocked the administration from accessing personal voter data possessed by states.
States are empowered by the Constitution to run our elections including presidential elections. As long as the states assert their right over the election process we can hope for a fair midterm election. It’s unnerving, however, that Trump is so dead set on getting our personal data. Why? We don’t know for certain. But one thing IS certain: When you let Trump be Trump you get a lot of friggin messes.
TRUMP’S MESSES
Trump’s recent Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool mess one example of why Trump being Trump is so bad. This project, like so many others he has micromanaged, are grandiose expressions of his need for approval and applause carried out too hastily and impulsively without regard to the law or to scientific information. That is a set up for a bad outcome.
The Lincoln Monument reflecting pool is a study in stupid.
It is also a metaphor for the entire Trump regime.
It starts with Trump denigrating the way others before him have done something. As we all know, he alone can fix it.
President Donald Trump vowed in April to clean up what he called the “filthy” and “disgusting” water in the Reflecting Pool. He promised to resurface the basin to eliminate persistent leaking and to paint it “American flag blue.” Once the pool started to be refilled, on June 4, he praised its “clean, beautiful water.” [Washington Post]
Trump commanded that the reflecting pool be turned blue. Kinda like the red queen in Alice in Wonderland painting the roses red. Remember her?
The New York Times reports:
A business tied to a longtime supporter of President Trump (Mr. Carfaro) was given a no-bid contract to install a water-purification system in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool earlier this spring.
Now that work is coming under scrutiny after algae blooms have come back and turned the iconic pool in Washington a vibrant shade of green rather than the American-flag blue Mr. Trump says he chose.
The contract shows that the National Park Service bypassed the competitive-bidding process that is typically required, and gave a $1.7 million contract to the firm, Greenwater Services of Brookfield, Ohio.
Greenwater Services is an ironic name for a company that ends up making the green algae bloom problem in the reflecting pool much worse than it was before Trump meddled in the reflecting pool. Get ready for a Saturday Night Live skit about this.
The painting part of turning the pool blue was done by another company that was also given a no-bid contract because of the claimed need to act fast to be ready for the 250th anniversary of our country.
Another no-bid contract for $14.7 million had been awarded to a Virginia firm, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, for the same reason of urgent need. That business was paid to spread blue waterproofing material on the pool’s concrete floor.
On Thursday, a section of the pool’s new layer of blue waterproofing appeared to have detached from the bottom and floated to the pool’s surface.
Did Trump’s team listen to people who understood that painting the granite bottom of this reflecting pool could present unique problems? Naw. Who needs science? The king wants a blue reflecting pool. So, it gets turned blue as fast as possible at a cost to taxpayers of 14.7 million dollars. The cost will go up more now because action needs to be taken to fix the problems that were created by Trump’s approach.
Add in Trump’s usual grifting and corruption, and you have the typical Trump formula for bad outcomes.
Mr. Cafaro has given more than $300,000 to political committees connected to Mr. Trump. When the president’s Mar-a-Lago Club hosted the lavish International Red Cross Ball in 2017, Mr. Cafaro’s wife, Janet, was the event’s chairwoman.
What does this administration do about the mess it created to please the king?
First there’s smoke: Trump supporters are claiming that people who don’t like Trump must have put algae into the water to make Trump look bad. Trump himself is now saying the water is green because of “vandalism”. This was not vandalism. This was incompetence.
And then there are mirrors- Trump moves on rapidly to another project. Look over here! He wants to build a giant triumphal arch now to celebrate our 250th anniversary or his birthday or maybe Trump’s eternal greatness. Who knows.
And then there is Trump telling you not to believe what you see.
Donald Trump spent part of his morning posting AI videos of himself near the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, insisting it’s “perfectly blue” and “crystal clear,” with “no algae anywhere.” Anyone who has seen a photo of that pool this week knows that is not true. It is green. [Meidas Touch]
Trump’s failed leadership has literally created a big swamp in the Lincoln reflecting pool that Trump claimed he would clean up.
As Rick Wilson has written in his book about Trump: Everything Trump Touches Dies.
TRUMP’S REPEATED FAILURES HAVE MADE AMERICANS SICK OF HIM
Trump didn’t Make America Great Again, Trump’s Made Americans Sick of Him.
Trump’s approach to the presidency has turned our government into an unscripted, chaotic, impulsive, often cruel, and extraordinarily corrupt reality TV show. It is wearing thin with the American people these days as well as wearing thin globally.
In poll after poll Trump is losing support. Yes, it’s the high cost of living, but it is also the constant barrage of mess ups, lies and corruption.
PRRI’s poll of over 5,400 Americans confirms that Trump’s support has plunged among independents (down from 37 percent to 25 percent since last September) and even further (35 percent to 14 percent) among ‘true independents’ (who don’t lean toward either party).”
PRRI shows Hispanic support down from 39 percent in September 2024 to 23 percent, the lowest in five years. AP-NORC found Hispanic independent support cratering from 46 percent around the 2024 election to ‘as low as 15 percent during last fall’s government shutdown before landing around one-quarter in the spring.’ In the UnidosUS Bipartisan Poll of Hispanic Voters found 67 percent of Hispanic voters nationally disapprove of Trump’s performance, and 66 percent think he and Republicans are not doing enough on the economy.”
- Trump’s approval among millennials has hit its lowest level recorded in the Economist/YouGov polling series.
- The latest poll shows 26 percent approval and 65 percent disapproval, a net rating of -39.
- Nationally, Trump stands at 35 percent approval and 60 percent disapproval (net -25).
- At the beginning of his second term (January 26-28, 2025), millennials were almost evenly split in this polling series, with 44 percent approving and 45 percent disapproving (net -1).
- This represents a swing of 40 net points among millennials since early 2025.
- Polling averages continue to show Trump underwater nationally, with approval in the high 30 percent range and disapproval close to 60 percent.
