Trail Notes
Republicans fold like tacos / ICE has money to burn / Dark day for solar / Sweet stench of success / Paramount sells out CBS News / "Alligator Alcatraz" razzmatazz

Tough Talking Republicans Fold Like Tacos
Donald Trump certainly got the Fourth of July he wanted. Congressional Republicans who talked tough about the problems they had with his One Big Beautiful Bill Act (BBBA) folded like tacos when he sweet-talked them at the White House with promises of executive order fixes and then sent them home with signed MAGA swag.
Most of the news media’s focus has been on the massive legislative mishmash’s estimated $1 trillion cut to Medicaid—the largest in the program’s history. That’s understandable, given that, according to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projection, nearly 12 million Americans could lose their coverage over the next decade. Although Trump repeatedly promised that his administration “wouldn’t touch” Medicaid, Medicare or Social Security, he knew a huge rollback in Medicaid funding would be necessary to help cover the expense of extending the 2017 tax cuts. He’s attempted to cover up that lie by claiming that any reduction in funding would be a result of addressing—all together now—waste, fraud and abuse.
ICE Has Money to Burn
Vice President JD Vance says that people are making way too much about this whole Medicaid thing and how much the BBBA will add to the federal debt (the CBO estimates $3.2 trillion). All of that, he said, is “immaterial” compared to the ton of money the bill allocates to deporting aliens.
Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller offered his own precious take. He posted on X that the torrent of funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “will liberate America from invasion. Occupied towns will be freed. Whole towns saved.”
The numbers are staggering. The BBBA will provide about $170 billion for deportation and “border enforcement,” including $45 billion for building new immigration detention centers—an increase of 265 percent from ICE’s current detention budget. That’s 62 percent more than the funding for the country’s entire prison system and could provide space to hold 116,000 undocumented immigrants until they’re shipped out of the country.
Another $30 billion will go to hiring 8,500 more enforcement officers and more than 2,000 attorneys and support staff. The bill will even provide a signing bonus of as much as $20,000 to newbie ICE agents who commit to stay in the job for five years. It allocates an additional $14.4 billion for transporting and removing deportees and nearly $47 billion more for border wall construction—more than three times what the Trump administration spent on the wall during Trump’s first term.
A Dark Day for Solar (and Wind)
At the same time, the BBBA takes an ax to the U.S. renewable energy industry. While proposed excise taxes on solar and wind energy companies were removed from the bill at the last moment, the BBBA guts many of the incentives included in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. That includes phasing out tax credits for developing renewable energy technology that stimulated $600 billion in private investment in 750 clean energy projects since 2022. The bill will limit those tax credits to projects that start construction before June 2026. Longer term, it casts a dark pall over renewable energy.
The BBBA also eliminates the $7,500 tax credit for households that buy a new electric vehicle. That will go away at the end of September instead of in 2032 as originally mandated. Meanwhile, tax incentives for renewable energy home improvements, including solar panels, will be eliminated at the end of this year.
Given the president’s frequent and often distorted rants about solar and wind energy, none of this is surprising. Recently he described renewable tax credits on Truth Social as a “giant SCAM.”
But the timing of the country’s ghosting of renewable energy is dubious at best. As artificial intelligence becomes a central part of modern life, AI data center energy demand is expected to grow dramatically. What’s more, pulling back on renewables pretty much guarantees that the United States will cede dominance to China.
The Sweet Stench of Success
Speaking of a giant SCAM, the shameless shilling of the Trump brand continues unabated. The latest hustle is the introduction of two Trump fragrances described as a “rallying cry in a bottle.” There’s “Fight Fight Fight” at $199 a bottle and the more luxurious “Victory 47” at $249. Trump himself boasted on social media that the cologne and perfume are all about “Winning, Strength and Success.” Of course, the small-print disclaimer explains that “Trump Fragrances are not designed, manufactured, distributed or sold by Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization, or any of their respective affiliates or principles.” In other words, Trump was paid just to slap his name on the bottle.
Paramount Sells Out CBS News—and Press Freedom
In a settlement about as predictable as tomorrow’s sunrise, CBS owner Paramount agreed to donate $16 million to Donald Trump’s presidential library in exchange for him dropping his lawsuit against “60 Minutes.” The president, you no doubt recall, sued Paramount for the ridiculous amount of $10 billion last fall, contending that “60 Minutes” had deceptively edited an interview with Kamala Harris to make her look better.
The consensus among legal experts was Trump didn’t have much of a case—editing footage for time and clarity is a routine part of producing TV news and documentaries. Ah, but there was a catch. Shari Redstone, Paramount’s controlling shareholder, has been pushing to sell the company to Skydance, a Hollywood studio. And that would require the approval of the Federal Communications Commission, which likely would get complicated if the network made the president look bad in court.

So, what’s a dozen or so million? A spokesperson for Trump's legal team called the settlement a “win for the American people” over the “fake news media.” But it was a big loss for press freedom. Paramount did try to save some face by refusing the president’s demand for an apology. Still, a strong whiff of grovel.
Trump Tariffs’ $82 Billion Tab for Mid-Sized Companies
According to a new report from the JPMorgan Chase Institute, the administration’s tariffs have added about $82 billion in total new costs to all mid-sized companies—businesses with annual revenues of $10 million to $1 billion. The big question is if and when those increased costs ripple out into the economy, either through price hikes or slimmer profit margins that could result in layoffs.
Trump Gives His Blessing to “Alligator Alcatraz”
The president really seemed to enjoy himself during his visit Tuesday to what may become a 5,000-bed immigrant detention center in the middle of the Everglades. He seemed tickled by the notion of detainees attempting to escape through the python and alligator-infested swamp surrounding it, joking that they would have to be taught how to run away from alligators. And soon thereafter, of course, “Alligator Alcatraz” hats and shirts went on sale on the Florida Republican Party’s website.
But fans better snag some “Alligator Alcatraz” merch quick before the courts put the kibosh on Trump’s project, which, if built, is expected to cost $450 million a year to operate. Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit on June 27 charging that Florida officials and the Trump administration ignored environmental regulations in their haste to construct the facility, which is located in a nationally and state-protected area in the Big Cypress National Preserve. They asked a federal judge to halt construction until the government complies with an environmental review, which has yet to happen.
The Education Department’s $6 Billion Red Scare Revival
Seemingly out of the blue, the Education Department notified state education agencies that it will not be releasing more than $6 billion in federal funding that helps pay for after-school and summer programs, support for students learning English, and teacher training. The money had already been appropriated by Congress, but the Education Department, in an email sent Monday, said the payment due Tuesday is on hold, and that it “was committed to ensuring taxpayer resources are spent in accordance with the president’s priorities.” In response to a query from Politico, a spokesperson for the Office of Management and Budget said: “Initial findings have shown that many of these grant programs have been grossly misused to subsidize a radical leftwing agenda.” Expect a lawsuit on this one.
Randy Rieland is a former columnist at Smithsonian magazine, website director at the Discovery Channel, and senior writer at Washingtonian magazine.
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