Trail Notes
Trump's deranged / Shell shocked / Money worries / Down on the farm / Ill wind / Cost of "War" / Fed election takeover? / More Trump branding / Airline bailouts
Trump’s deranged
We know these are not normal times, but this week we were reminded just how abnormal they are. In slightly more than 24 hours:
The Justice Department announced that it will charge former FBI Director James Comey with threatening to kill or physically harm Donald Trump based on a photo he took of seashells on a beach spelling out “86 47.” (More on that below.)
A document from that same Justice Department contends that the organization suing to block construction of Donald Trump’s ballroom—the National Trust for Historic Preservation—has a “FAKE” name and suffers from “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
The Federal Communications Commission ordered early license renewal reviews for local stations owned by ABC a day after the president said the network should fire Jimmy Kimmel for telling a joke about Melania Trump.
Last but not least, the White House posted a photo of Donald Trump and British King Charles III with a headline that reads: “TWO KINGS.”
Shell shocked
Many of the above citations can been attributed to Donald Trump’s desire to punish his perceived enemies and nail down his pet projects while Republicans still control both houses of Congress. So, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, auditioning for his department’s top job, is anxious to jump as high as the president wants.
Trump was known to be extremely irritated when the first case brought against James Comey was thrown out, so his law firm, aka the Justice Department, has now taken a different tack, focusing on the “86 47” seashell photo that the former FBI director posted on Instagram. The 47 refers to Trump, the 47th president, and Comey later explained that he thought 86 meant to get rid of, not kill. When he learned it could be misinterpreted, he apologized and took down the photo.
But the president jumped right in, claiming he felt threatened and insisting that “86” was something gangsters in the movies say when they want someone rubbed out. Then again, the fact that the Justice Department seized on “86 47” to charge Comey with advocating for the president’s assassination is more than a little ironic, given that MAGA mouthpieces, including Jack Posobiec, posted “86 46” on social media, referencing Joe Biden, while others sell “86 46” T-shirts.
The action against Comey also comes as a time when the same Justice Department is seeking to vacate the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot seditious conspiracy convictions of Oath Keepers leaders, including cofounder Stewart Rhodes, who said in a January 10, 2021, recording obtained by the FBI: “We should have brought rifles. We could have fixed it right then and there. I’d hang fuckin’ Pelosi from the lamppost.”
Money worries
The share of Americans who say their financial situation is getting worse is now higher than at any point in the past 25 years. A new Gallup poll found that 55 percent of those surveyed feel that way. It was 53 percent last year and 47 percent in 2024.
Down on the farm
These are particularly tough times for America’s farmers. Farm bankruptcies jumped by 46 percent last year. In the Midwest, they spiked 70 percent. Even with the Trump administration’s $12 billion bailout issued earlier this year, about 55 percent of that money will go to banks to pay off debt, not for farmers to invest in new equipment. Now, with the closing of the Strait of Hormuz and the resulting rise in diesel fuel and fertilizer prices, farmers will likely have an even tougher time this year.
Ill wind
Donald Trump is so obsessive about his disdain for wind turbines that he’s giving away billions of taxpayer dollars to keep them from being built. His administration already agreed to pay nearly $1 billion to the French company TotalEnergies to give up two licenses for wind farms off the East Coast. Now it says it will pay nearly $900 million more in taxpayer dollars to two other companies to abandon their wind projects, one off the coast of New Jersey, the other off the coast of California.
Cost of “War”
On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called on Congress to officially change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War. He said it would cost about $52 million. The Congressional Budget Office, however, has estimated the cost could run as high as $125 million.
The next day, “Swagger Boy” Hegseth made his first trip to Capitol Hill since the Iran war began and, when he wasn’t singing the praises of Donald Trump, traded insults with Democratic members of the House Armed Service Committee. Hegseth’s team also reported that the war so far has cost $25 billion, although multiple sources estimate it could easily be nearly twice that when considering the cost of rebuilding damaged American military bases and replacing destroyed assets.
Fed election takeover?
It’s no secret that Donald Trump has been pushing the envelope on how much influence the federal government has over how elections are handled. The Constitution gives that authority to the states, but it’s just another boundary he’s trying to cross.
An analysis by an investigative team at Reuters found that the administration has been more aggressive than anyone knew. Its officials have been fanning out across the country seeking confidential records, pushing for access to voting equipment, and digging back into voter fraud cases that courts and bipartisan reviews have already rejected.
It has reached the point where local election officials in some states are conducting workshops on how they’re supposed to deal with federal subpoenas for voting records, attempts to seize voting machines, and the potential for armed federal officers patrolling polling sites. Then there’s the president’s incessant unsubstantiated claim that the 2020 presidential election was rigged, and it appears to be working. A recent Reuters-Ipsos poll found that 63 percent of Republicans believe the 2020 vote was stolen.
More Trump branding
State Department officials revealed that to help commemorate America’s 250th birthday, Donald Trump’s image and his signature in gold will be featured on U.S. passports issued in the coming months. Passports without the president’s image will be available to people who apply online, but anyone who goes to the main passport office in Washington, D.C., will be stuck with the Trump version.
Since Trump has returned to the White House, his name and often his likeness have been plastered on National Park passes, children investment accounts, a new class of battleships, commemorative gold coins, the Kennedy Center, and the U.S. Institute of Peace, not to mention the massive Trump banners displayed on the outside of three federal agency buildings—the Department of Justice, Department of Labor and Department of Agriculture.
Not all Republicans on Congress are happy about the glorification of Donald Trump. When asked about the decision to put Trump’s mug on passports, Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska responded: “I think it’s a little silly. We laughed at Russia when they had pictures of Lenin and Stalin everywhere. Go to China, they had pictures of Mao everywhere. You go to North Korea, pictures of Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, [and] Kim Jong-un. We’re America, and I think we do less of that. And I just think there’s a bit of overreach by some of the subordinates of the president who are trying to cater to his attention. It’s not really America to do this.”
Airline bailouts
What’s this? More creeping socialism from the Trump administration? First, it publicly supported the idea of a $500 million federal bailout of the struggling Spirit Airlines, with the thought that the feds could play a big role in trying to revive it. And now, the administration is in talks with other budget airlines, including Frontier and Avelo, about giving them a combined $2.5 billion lifeline. These proposed bailouts are coming right after airline companies made it clear that the climbing price of jet fuel due to the closing of the Strait of Hormuz is clobbering their bottom lines.
“Apprentice” reboot?
First Amazon spent $40 million to license the Melania Trump documentary and another $35 million to market it. Now, company executives are considering bringing back “The Apprentice,” but with a new host. A frontrunner for host is none other than Donald Trump Jr. Please, make it stop!
Randy Rieland, Money Trail’s “Trail Notes” columnist, is a former columnist at Smithsonian magazine, website director at the Discovery Channel, and senior writer at Washingtonian magazine.
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