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  • Is Trump Going to Get Into Heaven? Live Updates

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    Photo: Intelligencer; Photos: Getty Images

    Does Heaven exist? And if so, is Donald Trump going to get in?

    In the last year, President Trump has been publicly musing about the afterlife and his place in it with increasing regularity. No one really knows why we’re suddenly seeing this metaphysical side of Trump — is it age, health issues, surviving assassination attempts, glimmers of deeply suppressed guilt for his many sins? Whatever the reason, Trump keeps giving updates on his current odds of getting into Heaven, which seem to fluctuate a lot.

    Honestly, all of these questions are beyond Intelligencer’s purview. The only solid information we can share is what Trump himself has said about the ultimate fate of his soul. Below, we will provide ongoing coverage of this important developing news story, which you can share with your pastor, rabbi, theology professor, Reiki healer, or extremely religious aunt for further discussion.

    At 42, Trump’s concept of the afterlife was pretty hazy, and he didn’t seem all that concerned about where he’s headed. Here’s what he told Glenn Plaskin when he asked him if he was worried about his own mortality in a 1989 profile for the Chicago Tribune:

    Seven years ago, Donald Trump remembers, he gazed at his $200 million Trump Tower and thought to himself: “I’ll be 36 next year and I’ll have done everything I can do… . Sometimes, I think it was a mistake to have raced through it all so fast… .”

    Was it?

    “I don’t know,” he answers thoughtfully, near the end of a long day.

    “What’s the next level up? The grass isn’t always greener… . I might try a different step. Right now, I’m genuinely enjoying myself. I work and I don’t worry.”

    Not even about death. “No. I’m fatalistic and I protect myself as well as anybody can. I prepare for things. But ultimately we all end up going.”

    Heading upstairs for dinner with his children, Donald Trump looks back, hesitating, wanting to finish: “No. I don’t believe in reincarnation, Heaven or hell — but we go someplace.”

    “Do you know,” he says, “I cannot, for the life of me, figure out where.”

    A year later in a Playboy interview, Trump said that “Life is what you do while you’re waiting to die. You know, it is all a rather sad situation.”

    Asked if he meant life or death, Trump continued:

    Both. We’re here and we live our sixty, seventy or eighty years and we’re gone. You win, you win, and in the end, it doesn’t mean a hell of a lot. But it is something to do — to keep you interested.

    Nine years later, Trump told Diane Sawyer that he hoped Heaven was real so there could be some purpose for living:

    I believe in God. I’m religious. I’m religious in my thought. And I just hope, in fact, that we’re all right in believing that there is a heaven, and perhaps in believing that there is a hell. I mean, we have to be here for something. We have to be doing this for some reason. There has to be a reason. And I believe that there is in fact a reason, and I believe heaven could be that reason.

    During a Playboy interview published in 2004, Trump reiterated:

    I look at life and, sadly, life is what you do while you’re waiting to die. From the time you’re born, you’re here for an instant. When you look at — They found Neanderthal man two billion years ago. When you think of time, we’re here for a speck. If you live to be 100 years old, it’s just a millisecond in the overall scope of things. You realize that. You realize that nothing is really so earth-shattering, nothing is really so important. You realize that you live a life, you live a good life, enjoy it, have a lot of fun — which I do — and you’re only going to be here for a short time. On God …

    I believe in God. I think that there’s got to be something, because I can’t believe we’re doing this all for no reason.

    If Trump did any additional deep thinking about Heaven and hell over the next dozen years, he apparently did not share those thoughts publicly. The next time the topic came up was in August 2016, when Trump was begging Evangelical leaders at a “Pastors in the Pews” event to help him get elected.

    “Once I get in, I will do my thing that I do very well,” Trump said. “And I figure it is probably, maybe the only way I’m going to get to Heaven. So I better do a good job.”

    It’s pretty clear that at this point, Trump was just telling a joke tailored to pastors, not actually asking for help getting past the pearly gates.

    Three weeks after surviving an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, Trump sat down with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham. He argued that the country needs religion because it gives people “hope.” (This came up as Trump was accusing Democrats of being “fascists” who were “violent and ruthless to religion during COVID,” but the widely circulated Fox clip omitted the nasty lead in.) Ingraham asked Trump if he believes in Heaven.

    “I do!” Trump said. “If I’m good, I’m going to Heaven. If I’m bad, I’m going to someplace else, like over there, right?”

    A month later, Trump reiterated his basic understanding of the afterlife as good = Heaven, bad = hell while talking with podcaster Lex Fridman.

    “You know, you’re supposed to go to Heaven, ideally not hell, but you’re supposed to go to heaven if you’re good,” he said.

    Just as Trump dodged the original question (“How often do you think about your death?”) he didn’t say where he thinks he falls on this spectrum.

    A year later, Trump had returned to office and his afterlife prognosis had taken a turn for the worse. During a call to Fox & Friends, he said he wanted to broker an end to the war in Ukraine because his chances at getting into Heaven weren’t looking so hot.

    “I want to try and get to Heaven, if possible,” he said. “I’m hearing I’m not doing well. I am really at the bottom of the totem pole. But if I can get to heaven, this will be one of the reasons.”

    Days later, Trump took his new concerns about the great beyond directly to his donors. As Mediaite reported, his Never Surrender PAC sent an email with the subject line “I want to try and get to Heaven”:

    So, can a rich man buy his way into Heaven? Again, this question is above our pay grade. But apparently some element of this plea worked, since the PAC sent an email with the exact same text as recently as January 2026.

    Trump gave us a lot to ponder in this Oval Office press conference. First he declined to rule out a pardon for Jeffrey Epstein accomplice Ghislane Maxwell, though a reporter noted she was convicted of child sex trafficking.

    Then he asserted that we need religion because the fear of burning in hell for all eternity is the only thing that motivates us to make moral decisions, and getting into Heaven is really “important” to him.

    “I felt for a long time that if a country doesn’t have religion, doesn’t have faith, doesn’t have God, it’s gonna be very hard to be a good country,” he said. “You know, there’s no reason to be good. I wanna be good because you wanna prove to God you’re good so you go to that next step, right? So, that’s very important to me. I think it’s really, very important.”

    While talking with reporters on Air Force One, Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked the president if he was still looking to improve his shot at getting past St. Peter.

    Trump shrugged off his recent on-air existential musings, saying, “I’m being a little cute.” Then he suggested he’d resigned himself to eternal damnation.

    “I don’t think there’s anything that’s going to get me into Heaven. I think I’m not maybe Heaven-bound,” Trump said. “I may be in Heaven right now as we fly on Air Force One. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to make Heaven, but I’ve made life a lot better for a lot of people.”

    Laura Ingraham informed Trump that all of his public ruminating about possibly winding up in the bad place wasn’t sitting well with the MAGA faithful.

    “A lot of Christians were sort of sad to hear that because Christ came to forgive our sins, if you believe that as Christians, and they opened Heaven to all of us,” she said. “So don’t you believe that?”

    Trump said he was just joking when he talked about going to hell, and attacked the New York Times for failing to understand sarcasm. But he didn’t actually say he’s confident he’ll go to Heaven.

    “I was kidding, I was having fun. I don’t know if I will or not, I don’t know,” Trump said. “I was having fun, and they made it, like, serious.”

    During a Weave at the National Prayer Breakfast (in which he asserted “religion is back now, hotter than ever before”), Trump reiterated that he was just joking about hell, not questioning the meaning of his life.

    “I really think I probably should make it,” he said. “I mean, I’m not a perfect candidate, but I did a hell of a lot of good for perfect people.”

    So Trump’s Heaven outlook has been upgraded to probably getting in, if only because you don’t actually have to be that good.

    During yet another weave, this time in a speech at a steel processing plant in Rome, Georgia, Trump recounted and exaggerated his previous remarks about his prospects for heaven, and again criticized those who take what he says on the subject seriously.

    I said, “I don’t think I’m gonna make it to Heaven!” in front of this massive group of people, 56,000 people. And they all said “Woah, what does he mean?”

    He then continued playing himself in his own story:

    “I don’t think I’m gonna make it to Heaven! I do a great job for a lot of people, but I don’t think so. I’m just not worthy of Heaven. I’m not gonna make it.”

    And I was having a good time going. You know I was having fun.

    I hope to make it, but I doubt I will, to be honest. A lot of you will. I’m not so sure…

    But I was having fun. The New York Times says in a front page story: “Donald Trump is now questioning his mortality.” They made it like I was totally… So you can’t joke, it doesn’t work.

    So Trump is once again betting against getting to go to Heaven, even though he’d clearly like to go. He also appears to believe that many Georgia steel workers have much better odds than him.

    This post has been updated.


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    Margaret Hartmann

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  • What Critics Are Saying About the Melania Documentary

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    Writes William Thomas at Empire:

    In 1935, Adolf Hitler commissioned director Leni Riefenstahl to make Triumph Of The Will, a highly nationalistic and likely heavily staged account of the Nazi Party’s 1934 Nuremberg rallies. It was a key moment in the history of propaganda films, a coldly fascistic conceptualisation of Germany as the Nazis hoped to recast it, produced with full participation and collaboration of an authoritarian regime. Melania, on the other hand — a new documentary about Melania Trump, wife of President Donald Trump — is more like Triumph of the Shill. It is political propaganda at its most transparent — cynical, pointless, and very, very boring.

    He also notes the missed opportunity:

    There is no drama to speak of, no tension, no narrative arc. Melania’s life story is undeniably fascinating: a former model and beauty queen, born in Soviet-era Yugoslavia, an immigrant who improbably clawed her way to the top, making the White House her home — twice. Within her life, you can surely find the story of America in microcosm: Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to start a luxury jewellery line! As a public figure who rarely gives interviews, she is a mystery, a cipher hiding behind designer sunglasses, surely waiting for her story to be told.

    But this film is uninterested in backstory, in delving even remotely under the surface.

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    Chas Danner

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  • Will the Melania Movie Flop? Ticket Sales & What We Know

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    The Amazon founder has been cozying up to Donald Trump for some time, from killing a Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris to attending Trump’s indoor inauguration. In the same February 2025 WSJ piece, the paper revealed that Melania pitched the documentary to Bezos personally when he dined a Mar-a-Lago in December:

    [Melania] was looking for a buyer for a documentary about her transition back to first lady. Her agent had pitched the film, which she would executive produce, to a number of studios, including the one owned by Amazon. As the meeting approached, Melania consulted with director Brett Ratner on how to sell her idea to the world’s third-richest man. Melania regaled Bezos and his fiancée, Lauren Sánchez, with the project’s details at dinner.

    Just over two weeks later, Amazon, a company that prides itself on frugality and sharp negotiating, agreed to pay $40 million to license the film — the most Amazon had ever spent on a documentary and nearly three times the next-closest offer. 

    Netflix and Apple declined even to bid. Paramount made a lowball $4 million distribution-rights offer. Disney, the most interested studio besides Amazon, offered $14 million. 

    And in March 2025 a “person close to Bezos” told the Financial Times that the Melania documentary “is patently ridiculous, but is very pragmatic”. They added, “He is doing a deal, offering money to buy the Trump family’s affection and flattering the president. If you think about it in terms of costs versus benefit, it is pretty low. It’s a smart investment.”

    An Amazon spokesman downplayed the suggestion that the deal was part of Bezos’s effort to kiss up to the new administration, telling the WSJ, “We licensed the upcoming Melania Trump documentary film and series for one reason and one reason only — because we think customers are going to love it.”

    The documentary isn’t the only deal the Bezos-owned company has made with the Trumps recently. In March 2025, Amazon announced that Prime Video would begin streaming The Apprentice, the reality competition show in which Donald Trump played a successful businessman. The president promoted the show’s streaming debut with two posts on Truth Social. It’s unclear how much he stands to make from the deal.

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    Margaret Hartmann

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  • Making the Melania Movie Sounds Like a Nightmare

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    Days before its premiere, things are looking rough for the Melania Trump documentary. It sounds like the film is on track to flop hard at the box office next weekend, despite Amazon’s efforts to bolster sales. And the White House is getting flak for going ahead with a glitzy private screening of the film on Saturday night as the nation was reeling from the fatal ICE shooting in Minneapolis. But hey, at least they had a blast making it!

    Well, not exactly. Rolling Stone has a new report on all the behind-the-scenes gossip that makes the whole process sound nightmarish.

    While Trump ventures often do no attract the best of what the entertainment business has to offer, the cinematographers involved in the film had surprisingly impressive résumés, and none of the sources mentioned any drama among crew members. But Rolling Stone reported that the “frantic scramble” to gather footage of Melania in the 20 days leading up to Donald Trump’s second inauguration presented huge logistical issues:

    It was a chaotic process that involved hiring and coordinating three separate production crews working in Florida, Washington, D.C., and New York City.

    “People were worked really hard. Really long hours, highly disorganized, very chaotic,” one person who worked on the set said. “It wasn’t easy money,” another added. “It was very difficult because of the chaos that was around everything. … Usually [for a documentary] it’s like, ‘Oh, follow the subject.’ Well, it’s Melania Trump. With the first lady and Secret Service, you can’t just do things you usually do.”

    A full-time travel coordinator was brought on to deal with logistics issues that would invariably arise when, for example, members of the crew would board the Trump Organization’s Boeing 757 to film the first lady on a flight en route to Mar-a-Lago and end up without a ride home. 

    Melania herself didn’t add to the problems; sources described her as friendly and engaged in the process. Brett Ratner, however, was another story. The director was “canceled” in Hollywood following sexual-harassment and misconduct allegations in 2017. While no one quoted in the Rolling Stone piece specifically raises those kinds of allegations, one person said they wouldn’t have signed on for the job if they knew he’d be involved. Another source said there was a lot of talk of “Brett being slimy” among the crew, but perhaps they meant that more literally:

    Ratner left a trail of detritus — discarded orange peels, gum wrappers — wherever he went on set. “He did actually chew a piece of gum and throw it in a coffee cup on my cart,” one said, [but] “didn’t acknowledge my existence for even one nanosecond.”

    Another recalled a long day during which the crew wasn’t allowed to break for meals, and no outside food was allowed to be brought into the space where filming was taking place. Everyone was starving. “Brett, unknowingly or maliciously, got his own food, went up there, was just eating it and just licking his fingers in grubbiest way possible, either being a dick or [having] no awareness whatsoever to the fact that everybody else is working and no one’s eating,” one person recalled. 

    “I feel a little bit uncomfortable with the propaganda element of this,” one member of the production team said. “But Brett Ratner was the worst part of working on this project.”

    An estimated two-thirds of the crew members who worked on the film in New York asked to not be credited. Another told Rolling Stone that after experiencing Trump’s second term, they now wish they’d done the same. “I’m much more alarmed now than I was a year ago,” the person said.

    Sure, you could argue that these crew members should have guessed where things were going in the weeks before Trump’s second inauguration. But it’s hard to find work in Hollywood these days. And few people would have guessed in late 2024 that the Melania documentary would also be an attempt to rehabilitate Bret Ratner because Donald Trump has a secret passion for the Rush Hour movies.


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    Margaret Hartmann

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  • Donald and Melania Trump Have Themselves an Awkward Little Christmas

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    Grievances were aired.
    Photo: Shawn Thew/Bloomberg/Getty Images

    Hosting the Congressional Ball seems like it should be one of the easiest tasks on the Trumps’ agenda. The annual party is a bipartisan event where members of the House of Representatives and Senate gather to celebrate the holidays at the White House. All the president and First Lady have to do is show up in something festive, issue some generic holiday well-wishes, and smile.

    Yet Donald and Melania Trump found a way to make things awkward.

    Melania’s approach to the holidays has always been weirdly spooky, and her attire on Thursday night kept with her inexplicably goth Christmas aesthetic. She wore a black velvet blazer and pants by Dolce & Gabbana over a sheer, high-necked black lace blouse.

    We all know Melania may or may not give a fuck about Christmas, so there’s really no reason to draw attention to her odd vision for the holiday. But the president chose to compliment his wife’s efforts this year by reminiscing about her previous holiday decorating debacles.

    “I would say this is the best. Although, I liked the red trees,” he said. “She got criticized for the red trees. Then I liked the white trees and she was criticized for the white trees. Then I liked the green trees and she got criticized and she went back to green, and they love it.”

    Donald tested Melania’s ability to remain expressionless again a few minutes later, when he breezily recalled how distraught House Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s wife was when he was shot and nearly killed in 2017. He noted that some wives — like maybe the woman standing next to him? — might have had a different reaction.

    “I found out that night you have a wife who loves you dearly,” Trump said. “I know many wives who would not even be crying.”

    In her own brief remarks, Melania thanked lawmakers for supporting the Take It Down Act, which she proudly called “our greatest triumph in my office, in the First Lady’s office, in 2025.”

    She concluded by teasing that she has another legislative project planned for the New Year.

    “I hope you will be excited to support my new legislative initiative in 2026,” she said. “Some of you already know about it because it’s already in the works.”

    Then Donald Trump took the mic again and quipped that he has no idea what the First Lady is talking about.

    “Well, I just heard about that for the first time,” he said, drawing laughter from the crowd.

    “The only thing I can tell you — I know one thing for sure, Mr. Speaker — it’s going to be great for children,” he added. “I don’t know what it is she’s doing, but it’s going to be great for children.”

    So clothing and décor choices aside, the person making things weird on Thursday night was really Donald, not Melania. But don’t feel too bad for our First Lady. She (or someone on her social-media team) got the president back by posting this video. Initially, it looks like Melania is helping her decrepit husband as he slowly struggles to get down the stairs.

    Other videos show that Trump had no difficulty descending the stairs. The clip posted by the First Lady’s office looks off because the video is in slow-motion but the audio is normal speed. Maybe Melania’s team was just trying to be artsy, but it’s an odd thing to post when people are chattering about the president’s mysterious health issues and a (fake) photo of Trump using a walker is going viral.

    Either way, hopefully the Trumps can work out their issues and Be Best this Chrismas (whatever that means).


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    Margaret Hartmann

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  • Now the Trump Administration Is Coming After Our Fonts

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    He’s the narrow type.
    Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

    If I had to pick a word to describe Calibri, the sans-serif typeface that was the default font for Microsoft apps from 2007 to 2024, it would probably be “inoffensive.”

    Sure, Microsoft’s “extremely readable” font has had its critics over the years, but they’ve mostly just complained that it’s too plain, that it lacks personality. I’d bet that for most people, Calibri became a ubiquitous, thoughtless part of their normal life, from office memos to book reports, and few probably realized it was designed and implemented to be a more readable typeface on digital screens — which it has been. Even Microsoft has said that customers didn’t really have strong feelings about it, unlike with other fonts. Everybody thought it was … fine. But it turns out we were all wrong: According to the Trump administration, this 21-year-old boring font is weak and woke.

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday barred the use of Calibri at the State Department and brought back the serif Times New Roman, which was the agency’s official font from 2004 to 2023. This was necessary, he said, to reverse the “wasteful” and distasteful shift to Calibri ordered by his Biden administration predecessor, Antony Blinken. Rubio alleged that change — which provoked little meaningful controversy at the time — was yet another example of woke radicalism run amok, since the change was recommended by the State Department’s now-disbanded DEI office because Calibri is considered to be easier to read for people with disabilities like dyslexia or vision problems. Per the New York Times report:

    While mostly framed as a matter of clarity and formality in presentation, Mr. Rubio’s directive to all diplomatic posts around the world blamed “radical” diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs for what he said was a misguided and ineffective switch from the serif typeface Times New Roman to sans serif Calibri in official department paperwork.

    In an “Action Request” memo obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Rubio said that switching back to the use of Times New Roman would “restore decorum and professionalism to the department’s written work.” Calibri is “informal” when compared to serif typefaces like Times New Roman, the order said, and “clashes” with the department’s official letterhead. …

    Mr. Rubio’s directive, under the subject line “Return to Tradition: Times New Roman 14-Point Font Required for All Department Paper,” served as the latest attempt by the Trump administration to stamp out remnants of diversity initiatives across the federal government. …

    Echoing President Trump’s call for classical style in federal architecture, Mr. Rubio’s order cited the origins of serif typefaces in Roman antiquity. 

    Julius Caesar would never have used Calibri, so neither should Donald Trump’s federal government, where addressing the needs of the disabled is nowhere near as important as demonizing diversity and fetishizing trad aesthetics.

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    Chas Danner

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  • Trump Is Fighting With Architect Over His Too-Big Ballroom

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    The ballroom construction project at the White House seen from the top of the Washington Monument on November 17.
    Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

    Add Donald Trump’s architect to the list of people who are upset over the president’s plans to build a massive new White House ballroom that dwarfs the house itself. The Washington Post reports that Trump has argued with his handpicked classical-revival architect, James McCrery II, over the ballooning ballroom design:

    [McCrery] has counseled restraint over concerns the planned 90,000-square-foot addition could dwarf the 55,000-square-foot mansion in violation of a general architectural rule: don’t build an addition that overshadows the main building. A White House official acknowledged the two have disagreed but would not say why or elaborate on the tensions, characterizing Trump and McCrery’s conversations about the ballroom as “constructive dialogue.”

    But Trump will not be restrained, of course, and now says the ballroom will have an even larger capacity (1,000 people, up from 650) and cost more than $300 million, which is $100 million more than he originally announced:

    Trump’s intense focus on the project and insistence on realizing his vision over the objections of his own hire, historic preservationists and others concerned by a lack of public input in the project reflect his singular belief in himself as a tastemaker and obsessive attention to details … Multiple administration officials have acknowledged that Trump has at times veered into micromanagement of the ballroom project, holding frequent meetings about its design and materials.

    The Post adds that McCrery has kept his criticism private as he tries to deal with his megalomaniacal client’s revisions and keep the job. He is reportedly “worried that another architect would design an inferior building, according to a person with knowledge of his thinking.”

    Though Democrats continue to make as much noise as they can, there remains no indication that anyone will be able to stop Trump from building — and overshadowing — whatever he wants.

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    Chas Danner

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  • Trump Refutes Health-Decline Story by Calling Reporter ‘Ugly’

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    “To do this requires a lot of Work and Energy, and I have never worked so hard in my life,” Trump posted on social media.
    Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

    During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump’s personal physician released a letter claiming that he would be the “healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” This assertion (which, we later learned, Trump dictated) has only become more ridiculous as the president has displayed health issues typical of a 79-year-old, from falling asleep in public to showing up to events with a huge bruise on his hand. But these obvious signs of aging have only made Trump, and everyone in his administration, insist more forcefully that he possesses almost superhuman health and energy levels.

    So unsurprisingly, Trump was infuriated to wake up to a front-page story in the New York Times on Wednesday that described his declining health.

    The story was actually pretty mild. The only big revelation was that compared to his first term, Trump has fewer public events on his schedule and his workday is shorter:

    According to a Times analysis of the official presidential schedules in a database maintained by Roll Call, Mr. Trump’s first official event starts later in the day. In 2017, the first year of his first term, Mr. Trump’s scheduled events started at 10:31 a.m. on average. By contrast, Mr. Trump in his second term has started scheduled events in the afternoon on average, at 12:08 p.m. His events end on average at around the same time as they did during the first year of his first term, shortly after 5 p.m.

    The number of Mr. Trump’s total official appearances has decreased by 39 percent. In 2017, Mr. Trump held 1,688 official events between Jan. 20 and Nov. 25 of that year. For that same time period this year, Mr. Trump has appeared in 1,029 official events.

    Mr. Trump still regularly comes down to the Oval Office after 11 a.m., according to a person familiar with his schedule. This routine is a holdover from his first term: After he complained about being overscheduled in the mornings, Mr. Trump kept so-called executive time hours in the White House residence before he headed downstairs for work.

    The article just summarized thornier Trump health concerns, like the White House’s dubious explanations for his persistent bruising and his lack of transparency about a recent MRI and two “annual” physicals this year. The piece notes that Joe Biden was also vague about his health problems, and it includes a quote from a physician who says it’s “commendable” that Trump can still board Air Force One using a long flight of stairs.

    But Trump did not appreciate Times reporters Katie Rogers and Dylan Freedman’s attempts to be delicate while discussing this sensitive issue. He responded with a Truth Social tirade that did not provide any detailed answers to many questions about his health. Instead, he broadly claimed that his capital-E “Energy” is only increasing, and he’s “never worked so hard” in his life.

    Trump’s other counter-argument: “The writer of the story, Katie Rogers, who is assigned to write only bad things about me, is a third rate reporter who is ugly, both inside and out.” (He did not mention her co-author, Freedman, for some reason. )

    So, as you can see from this Truth Social post, Trump remains astoundingly healthy and mentally sharp. Could a man who’s running low on energy tap out such a lengthy diatribe filled with so many forceful capital letters and nearly coherent arguments? I think not!


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    Margaret Hartmann

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  • Trump’s Latest Power Grab: Reviving the Rush Hour Movies?

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    Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

    One of the few good things you can say about our decades-long relationship with Donald Trump is that he still knows how to surprise us. Expect him to tear into the upstart politician he’s branded a “communist lunatic”? He’s so charmed by New York’s mayor-elect that he starts doing Zohran Mamdani cosplay. Assume he has a basic understanding of what magnets are and how they work, since he’s graduated high school? Think again!

    His latest unexpected maneuver: using the full power of the presidency to … reboot the Rush Hour movies? Semafor reported on Sunday night that Trump has been pressuring his billionaire friend Larry Ellison, the largest shareholder of Paramount, to bring back the Jackie Chan–Chris Tucker franchise:

    But now Larry Ellison, one of Trump’s most prominent financial supporters, owns a second-tier studio, Paramount, and is on the cusp of taking control of the great Warner legacy, with the giant library and sprawling production that come with it.

    … Now, the president is offering some creative input on potential upcoming projects.

    Trump appears to want to revive the raucous comedies and action movies of the late 1980s to late 1990s. He’s passionate, for instance, about the 1988 Jean Claude Van Damme sports flick Bloodsport. A person directly familiar with the conversations told Semafor that the president of the United States has personally pressed the Paramount owner to revive another franchise from Ratner: Rush Hour, a buddy-cop comedy starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker that blended physical comedy, martial arts, and gags about racial stereotypes.

    In days of yore, no one would expect the president to use his influence to get his favorite Hollywood project made. While that does seem like the kind of weird 12-year-old boy request Trump would make, it’s surprising that he cares so much about Rush Hour in particular. You can picture him demanding a Cats revival, another Home Alone installment, or a Gone With the Wind remake that portrays the South even more positively. But (as far as we know) Trump hasn’t been hosting Rush Hour viewing parties at Mar-a-Lago.

    The only recent hint that Trump is a major Rush Hour fan (Rushie? Hour-head?) is that the franchise’s director, Brett Ratner, is directing Amazon’s forthcoming Melania Trump documentary despite being “canceled” following sexual-harassment and -misconduct allegations in 2017. And I guess you could make something of Trump trying to revive the career of Chris Tucker, another celebrity who appears in the Epstein files (and has not been accused of any wrongdoing). But let’s leave that project to the conspiracy theorists. The president just has a passion for ’90s martial-arts/buddy-cop films. Who knew?!

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    Margaret Hartmann

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  • 7 Stupid Moments From Trump’s McDonald’s Summit Speech

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    Trump repeatedly came back to how much fun he had “working” as a McDonald’s fry cook during the 2024 campaign. At one point, he claimed that Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin told him his “skit” was the most-searched thing ever.

    “They called me the following day, after I did that McDonald’s little skit — because it wasn’t a commercial, you got it for nothing,” he said. “And I didn’t know them. They told me … that it received more hits than anything else in the history of Google and that record, it still stands.”

    This claim makes absolutely no sense, but conveniently, it’s impossible to verify because Trump offered no details on what “it” meant. Does he think “Trump McDonald’s” is the most-searched term in the history of the search engine? Is he referring to the page views for some campaign video? Who knows!

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    Margaret Hartmann

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  • J.D. Vance Brags About Trump’s Appalling Lack of Sleep

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    Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

    If a friend was pulling all-nighters, sleeping less than four hours a night, bullying subordinates to do the same, and regularly posting incoherent social-media tirades at 2 a.m., you’d probably urge them to seek help.

    But apparently when the president of the United States does it, it’s good — nay, impressive!

    During a Thursday night appearance on Hannity, Vice-President J.D. Vance said he’s lucky that due to Secret Service protocols he can’t travel with the president, as President Trump forces Cabinet members to go without sleep, just like him.

    “They are always like, ‘You’re so lucky because if we go on a 20-hour trip somewhere, he does not sleep the entire time,’” Vance said. “And of course if he’s not sleeping, if he’s working, he expects everybody else to be working too.”

    “The energy that the guy has is really off the charts,” Vance claimed.

    A moment later, Vance expressed faux sympathy for Joe Biden, saying that for all his issues with his administration, he wonders if the poor guy had the “physical and mental ability to stay on top” of everything the comes at the president.

    “The answer is no, of course not,” Vance said. “And that’s the one thing that, agree or disagree with President Trump about a given issue, every Democrat and every Republican I think deep down would recognize, that [Trump] is a guy who has the energy to do the job. That’s a very, very rare thing.”

    Host Sean Hannity agreed with Vance, marveling at Trump’s lack of sleep during a recent golf trip.

    “Seventeen hours there, 17 hours back, and he’s awake the whole time,” Hannity said. “And he expects you to be awake!”

    Trump’s allies often marvel at his superhuman ability to go without sleep. Of course, we know this isn’t true, since Trump nodded off during an Oval Office press conference just last week, and it’s far from the first time he’s fallen asleep in public:

    But let’s go with Trumpworld’s “emperor’s new clothes” vibe for a moment and accept the premise that the president barely sleeps. Is that a good thing? The Cleveland Clinic says chronic sleep deprivation can cause or worsen many conditions, including:

    Type 2 diabetes.

    High blood pressure (hypertension).

    Obesity.

    Obstructive sleep apnea.

    Vascular disease.

    Stroke.

    Heart attack.

    Depression.

    Anxiety.

    Conditions that involve psychosis.

    We know Trump struggles with at least two of these conditions — obesity and chronic venous insufficiency, a vascular disease. Lack of sleep could also impact Trump’s ability to keep acing those dementia tests he’s so proud of. “There’s also some evidence that sleep deprivation could play a role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease,” the Cleveland Clinic notes.

    Beyond contributing to various health conditions, sleep deprivation is known to have a huge impact on your mood and mental health. According to SleepFoundation.org, not getting enough sleep can cause issues like “trouble paying attention,” “unplanned naps,” “irritability,” “mood changes,” and “difficulty thinking and being logical.” Sound like any presidents you know?

    Just imagine what Trump, and perhaps the world, might be like if rather than celebrating his bad bedtime habits, someone told him to go the fuck to sleep.


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  • 7 Scarily Stupid Moments From Trump’s Interview With Laura Ingraham

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    In response to a question about voters in last week’s elections citing the economy as their top concern, Trump floated a conspiracy theory about Democrats feeding negative talking points to every major news network. His evidence: Nobody uses the archaic word manufactured anymore!

    “More than anything else, it’s a con job by the Democrats,” Trump said. “You know they put out something, ‘Say today, costs are up.’ They feed it to the anchors of ABC, CBS, NBC, and a lot of other, you know, CNN, etc. And it’s like a standard. I’ll never forget, they used a word like manufactured. Remember the word manufactured? ‘It’s a manufactured economy!’ Nobody uses that word. Every anchor broke in, manufactured. They do exactly what they say. It’s such a rigged system.”

    The president insisted that, contrary to what you might have heard or experienced firsthand, “costs are way down.”

    Later in the interview, he dismissed voters’ economic concerns for an entirely different reason. Americans aren’t worried about the cost of living because they’re falling victim to a fake-news “con job,” they’re actually happy with the economy, but the “polls are fake.”

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    Margaret Hartmann

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  • Trump Adds Gold and Marble to Lincoln Bathroom, As Abe Would Have Wanted

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    Photo: TruthSocial/@realDonaldTrump

    You’ve certainly heard of the Lincoln Bedroom in the White House. But were you aware that there is also a Lincoln Bathroom? No? Well, it’s probably for the best, because it was a total dump!

    Until Donald Trump got his hands on it, that is:

    Photo: TruthSocial/@realDonaldTrump

    As Trump revealed in this Truth Social post on Friday, the bathroom off the Lincoln Bedroom has been renovated as part of his ongoing Midas-like effort to add gold to just about every surface in the White House. Here’s a closer look at the Art Deco–style “before”:

    And here’s the “after”:

    Trump then sent out an additional six Truth Social posts showing off photos of the renovation. Here’s a small sample:

    If the goal was to make people using the Lincoln Bathroom feel like they are trapped in block marble, the renovation clearly succeeded. But Trump said his main issue was historical accuracy, complaining that the previous design “was totally inappropriate for the Lincoln Era.”

    “I did it in black and white polished Statuary marble,” he explained. “This was very appropriate for the time of Abraham Lincoln and, in fact, could be the marble that was originally there.”

    Marble walls and floors with polished gold fixtures certainly weren’t common for bathrooms of the time — nor was indoor plumbing. The Springfield, Illinois, home where the Lincolns lived before he was elected president had an outhouse, which you can still visit:

    Photo: Carol M. Highsmith/Library of Congress

    The family quarters in the White House were an upgrade for the Lincolns simply because the residence had indoor plumbing. However, when they moved to Washington in March 1861, Mary Lincoln was disappointed to discover that many areas of the White House were worn down. She embarked on a massive renovation project, according to WhiteHouseHistory.org:

    Concluding that it would be “a degradation” to subject her family and her guests—to such surroundings, the new first lady launched a monumental redecorating project, purchasing new carpets, draperies, wallpaper, furnishings, china, and books, and modernizing plumbing, heating, and lighting.

    Abraham Lincoln was furious when his wife overran a congressional appropriation allocated for the renovation by about 30 percent. After Mary spent $7,500 on furniture, including the Lincoln Bed, in the fall of 1861, she sent Commissioner of Public Buildings Benjamin Brown French to deliver the bad news to her husband. As the First Lady predicted, he was irate.

    “It would stink in the nostrils of the American people to have it said that the president of the United States had approved a bill over-running an appropriation of $20,000 for flub dubs for this damned old house, when the soldiers cannot have blankets,” he shouted at French.

    So perhaps Trump decking out a White House bathroom in marble and gold just as millions of Americans are poised to lose SNAP benefits due to a government shutdown actually wouldn’t go over well with “Honest Abe”? But at least we know Mary Lincoln would have loved it!


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  • All of Trump’s Tacky and Trollish White House Renovations

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    Trump is so committed to adding Midas-like touches to the White House that he had his Mar-a-Lago “gold guy” flown in on Air Force One, as The Wall Street Journal reported in April:

    A cabinetmaker from south Florida who has worked on projects at Mar-a-Lago, John Icart helped add custom-made gold finishes to the Oval Office, including gilded carvings for the fireplace mantel and the molding that wraps around the most famous office in the world, administration officials said. Icart traveled to Washington with Trump on Air Force One, according to one of the officials. He declined to comment, referring questions to the White House.

    This involved festooning the Oval Office with gold furniture and various trinkets, and adding gold carvings to the fireplace and crown molding:

    Administration officials said Trump personally oversaw the installation of the gold carvings on the mantel in the Oval Office. He also brought gold cherubs from Mar-a-Lago to be installed in the White House. 

    Prominently displayed next to the Resolute Desk is a large gold FIFA World Cup trophy. Seven gold vases and urns decorate the mantle.

    … Trump has affixed a gold Trump crest over the door leading into the White House from the colonnade, a recent visitor said. There are gold coasters with Trump’s name on side tables.

    These accents are “of the highest quality” and are being paid for by the president himself, according to a Fox News report that was light on details:

    A White House spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the gold Trump added to the Oval Office “is of the highest quality,” declining to provide further details. The spokesperson also said that Trump personally covered the cost of the gold accents, though did not specify how much gold was added or how much Trump spent.

    However, as explained by BuzzFeed, the moldings looks oddly similar to accents available for as low as $30 on Home Depot’s website.

    For comparison, this is what the Oval Office looked like in the last year of the Biden administration:

    Photo: Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

    And this is what it looks like now:

    Photo: Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

    This is actually pretty impressive, considering that gold paint doesn’t exist:

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    Margaret Hartmann

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  • Trump’s Big Announcement: He’s Not Dead

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    Trump at Tuesday’s press conference, alive and possibly well.
    Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images

    The ongoing speculation about Donald Trump’s hand bruise and health issues reached a fever pitch over Labor Day weekend, as the president had not made a public appearance since August 26. So there was already a lot of anticipation for his next appearance heading into the workweek. Then the White House amped things up by teasing that Trump would reveal something big at his Tuesday press conference.

    “The president will be making an exciting announcement related to the Department of Defense,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said cryptically.

    Multiple theories emerged on what the president might say at his 2 p.m. presser. Would he give a big health update? Announce he was moving U.S. Space Command headquarters? Send the National Guard into Chicago?

    The answer was kind of all of the above yet none of the above.

    Technically, the big announcement was that Space Command headquarters will be relocated to Huntsville, Alabama. But this decision, a reversal of a Biden-administration decision to keep the HQ in Colorado, isn’t all that “exciting,” considering most Americans can’t tell Space Command from Space Force.

    While taking questions at the meeting, Trump did say that it’s a matter of when he sends the National Guard into Chicago, not if.

    But it seems the real point of the much-hyped press conference was simply to prove that Trump is still alive, despite what you may have read on social media.

    “How did you find out over the weekend that you were dead?” asked Peter Doocy during the Q&A. The Fox News correspondent then explained that he was referring to the viral rumors of Trump’s demise.

    Trump claimed, somewhat implausibly, that he was unaware of the posts claiming he was no more. But then he said he had heard the reports that he was in poor health.

    “I have heard, it’s sort of crazy, but last week I did numerous news conferences, all successful, they went very well, like this is going very well, and then I didn’t do any for two days and they said, ‘There must be something wrong with him,’” he said. “Biden wouldn’t do them for months. You wouldn’t see him. And nobody ever said there was anything wrong with him and we know he wasn’t in the greatest of shape.”

    This prompted forced laughter from Vice-President J.D. Vance and other officials gathered in the Oval Office.

    Aside from this denial, Trump did not give any significant updates on his health situation. His hand makeup looked a little better on Tuesday, but it’s clear his big bruise is still there.

    So we’ve learned two important things today. First, Trump is still healthy enough to stand up and deliver rants on his usual topics. Second, don’t trust the White House when it promises “exciting news,” as you might wind up watching a bunch of Alabama lawmakers muse about how “space is the ultimate high ground.”


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  • Melania Trump ‘Doesn’t Have Time’ to Do a Vanity Fair Cover

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    Photo: Samuel Corum/Getty Images

    Will Melania Trump appear on the cover of Vanity Fair? The question has been the source of much media gossip this week, after Semafor reported that the magazine’s new global editorial director, Mark Guiducci, “told people he’s potentially interested” in putting the First Lady on the cover as part of a broader effort to woo conservative readers.

    Within hours, the Daily Mail reported that Vanity Fair staffers were threatening to revolt if Giuducci followed through with the idea:

    “I will walk out the motherf – – – – – – door, and half my staff will follow me,” a mid–level editor told the Daily Mail on Monday, hours after Semafor reported the magazine’s new global editorial director Mark Guiducci was trying to woo Melania to star on his cover.

    “We are not going to normalize this despot and his wife; we’re just not going to do it. We’re going to stand for what’s right,” the staffer continued.

    “If I have to work bagging groceries at Trader Joe’s, I’ll do it. If [Guiducci] puts Melania on the cover, half of the editorial staff will walk out, I guarantee it.”

    “It sickens me,” the staffer added. “Even the idea of it.”

    The prospect of unrest at the publication made MAGA world salivate. Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt promised to “buy several [copies] if they would do this, just to prove a point.” And several Trump influencers, including Charlie Kirk and Laura Ingraham, were apparently duped by an obviously fake mock-up of a Melania Vanity Fair cover:

    But it seems no one is going to have to have a meltdown or start a new career at Trader Joe’s. It turns out Melania — who is often not seen in public for weeks at a time — is simply too busy to sit for a magazine photo shoot. “Page Six” reported that the First Lady has absolutely no interest in a Vanity Fair cover:

    A fashion source familiar with the First Lady’s thinking says she “laughed” at the Vanity Fair request in July and rejected it immediately.

    “She doesn’t have time to be sitting in a photo shoot. Her priorities as First Lady are far more important … These people don’t deserve her anyway.”

    The First Lady hasn’t said much about what’s on her agenda right now, but she did release a one-minute video this week announcing the Presidential Artificial Intelligence Challenge. The final judging will take place in June 2026, and it’s unclear if Melania will be personally involved, but perhaps she needs the next nine months to prepare.


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  • 10 Questions About the Trump D.C. Patrol That Wasn’t

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    As people on the internet who know everything already know, everything Trump says or does is a distraction from something else he doesn’t want you to notice. But in this case, the photo op could have been meant to distract Trump from wanting to go on patrol, since White House advisers may have realized that if the president actually hit the D.C. streets looking for crime — particularly if the patrol was in the same low-to-no-crime areas where most of the federal forces are concentrated — he would be forced to recognize there was no need for a takeover at all, and that everything he believed was a lie.

    Or maybe the Secret Service reminded Trump if he did try to do an actual D.C. ride-along, there would be no way to protect him from actual D.C. residents.

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    Chas Danner

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  • The History of Donald Trump Pretending to Be Superman

    The History of Donald Trump Pretending to Be Superman

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    Illustration: CollectTrumpCards.com

    Among the many laughably unrealistic images in the original Donald Trump NFT collection, one stood out: the illustration of the former president in the classic Superman pose, ripping open his dress shirt to reveal a superhero costume underneath. Trump used this image, which was animated to show lasers shooting out of his eyes, to tease a “major announcement” on December 15, 2022 which turned out to be a collection of 45,000 digital trading cards. “America needs a superhero!” Trump proclaimed in the video posted to Truth Social.

    For many, this called to mind the report that Trump wanted to wear a Superman shirt when he returned to the White House after being hospitalized for COVID-19 in November 2020. But Trump’s effort to portray himself as the Man of Steel — and encourage others to do so as well — actually goes back decades. Of course, there’s plenty of superhero imagery in politics; leaders including George H.W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Justin Trudeau have jokingly encouraged the Superman comparison. As usual, however, Trump found a way to make it weird. Here, a rundown of the last president’s odd past with the Last Son of Krypton.

    Though Donald Trump does not appear to be a fan of the genre in general, he’s made nearly two dozen cameos in comic books over the past three decades. He also served as inspiration for Superman’s archnemesis Lex Luthor in an ’80s reboot of the character, as the Daily Beast reported:

    In 1986, DC Comics rebooted the entire Superman mythos in part to better reflect the anxieties and preoccupations of modern America. Instead of a mad scientist, Luthor was re-envisioned as a rich and powerful businessman, an idea hatched by writer Marv Wolfman and realized in the “comics event of the century,” writer and artist John Byrne’s Man of Steel miniseries.

    It was a time when anti-corporate public sentiment against real-life Wall Street villains like Michael Milken and Barry Minkow was on the rise (the film Wall Street, featuring the partly Milken-inspired Gordon Gekko, was released one year later). But unsurprisingly, one wealthy ’80s mogul in particular inspired the new Luthor: “Of course, Donald Trump was our model,” Byrne tells The Daily Beast.

    Years later, other versions of businessman Lex Luthor became president of the United States — or at least campaigned for the office. In the cartoon series Justice League Unlimited, Luthor admitted to The Question, “My campaign is a farce, a small part of a much larger scheme … Do you know how much power I’d have to give up to be president? … I spent 75 million on a fake presidential campaign, all just to tick Superman off.”

    Some believe Trump only ran for president in 2015 to tick off Obama after he mocked the mogul at a White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. Perhaps, similarly, Trump’s Superman fixation has its roots in being cast as the model for the Man of Steel’s greatest foe.

    In a vacuum, this seems pretty innocuous. As New York Times reporter and foremost Trump chronicler Maggie Haberman recalled, Trump’s 50th-birthday party featured a Superman cake.

    In an interview shortly after the party, Trump’s then-wife Marla Maples told the Times that she was initially picturing a small and intimate affair, but he wanted “a big blowout.” She put together a party at Trump Tower that featured 400 guests, a Marla-as-mermaid ice sculpture, and, per the Times, a Superman cake:

    Then, as the Superman movie theme began to play, the cake was wheeled onto the stage — with all of Mr. Trump’s buildings on it, and a sugar figure of Mr. Trump, dressed like Superman with a money sign on his chest. Ms. [Eartha] Kitt sang “Happy Birthday,” and 600 gold balloons cascaded from the ceiling.

    Throughout his career in presidential politics, Trump encouraged his followers to think of him as a superhero. In an October 2015 interview, CNBC’s John Harwood pushed Trump on his grand promises and lack of policy specifics, saying, “But we don’t have Superman presidents!” The mogul replied, “But we will if you have Trump. You watch.”

    After Hillary Clinton fell at a 9/11 anniversary event in 2016, the Committee to Restore America super-PAC decided to publicly gloat about Trump’s ostensibly superior physical prowess. The group launched a 55-foot billboard in Times Square featuring Trump as Superman.

    “When I was a kid, Superman was my idol because he stood for truth, justice, and the American way, just like Donald Trump,” said tech mogul Dr. Robert Shillman, who donated money for the ad.

    During the Trump administration, memes featuring Donald as Superman became popular among the MAGA crowd with the Trump family’s encouragement. One of the weirder examples is this fake Time magazine cover Donald Trump Jr. posted to Instagram in 2017, featuring his dad as an inexplicably bearded Superman.

    Ye’s appalling recent remarks have totally overshadowed his weird, rambling 2018 Oval Office soliloquy. But back then, the rapper made headlines when he gushed to Trump about his MAGA hat, “There is something about when I put this hat on that makes me feel like Superman! That’s my favorite superhero. You make a Superman cape for me.”

    Trump returning to the White House after being hospitalized for COVID, whipping his mask off, and then heading into the building — though he was possibly still infectious — was one of the most memorable images of his presidency. But it could have been even more shocking, as the New York Times reported days later:

    In several phone calls last weekend from the presidential suite at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Mr. Trump shared an idea he was considering: When he left the hospital, he wanted to appear frail at first when people saw him, according to people with knowledge of the conversations. But underneath his button-down dress shirt, he would wear a Superman T-shirt, which he would reveal as a symbol of strength when he ripped open the top layer. He ultimately did not go ahead with the stunt.

    The NFT collection wasn’t the only thing keeping the Trump-as-Superman theme alive. During the 2022 midterms, Trump was spotted with a gleeful look on his face as Arizona gubernatorial candidate repeatedly called him “Superman” at a rally, and his Save America super-PAC released “Ultramaga” superhero T-shirts:

    A fourth batch of Trump trading cards was released during the last week of August, but you don’t have to throw down $99 per card to see weird images of Trump dressed as Superman. On August 29, the former president posted this poorly photoshopped image of himself as the Man of Steel, with J.D. Vance, Vivek Ramaswamy, Tulsi Gabbard, and RFK Jr. rounding out the Justice League.

    While Trump is literally the inspiration for Superman’s nemesis and his battles against truth, justice, and the American way are well documented, it’s no surprise that he remains invested in pretending he’s an all-powerful hero. Though, it’s possible his Superman fixation is just a cover for a darker delusion.

    This piece has been updated to include Trump’s 2024 Truth Social post.


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  • Trump’s Beard Praise Does Not Bode Well for J.D. Vance VP Pick

    Trump’s Beard Praise Does Not Bode Well for J.D. Vance VP Pick

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    Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty

    The political career of J.D. Vance has undergone quite the transformation. In 2016 he was fretting to his college roommate that Donald Trump might be “America’s Hitler.” Today the U.S. senator from Ohio is aggressively pro-Trump, and he’s rumored to be one of the top finalists on the VP shortlist (along with Doug Burgum, Marco Rubio, and maybe Tim Scott). But those who believe Vance has excellent odds of becoming Trump’s 2024 running mate are forgetting one very important thing: Vance has a beard, and Trump has a weird aversion to facial hair.

    The former U.S. president/beauty-pageant owner puts a lot of stock in who has “the look”; when filling his Cabinet he praised several candidates for being “out of central casting.” And as the Bulwark reported on July 9, it’s likely that in Trump’s mind, a vice-president should not have facial hair.

    “J.D. has a beard. But Trump is a clean-shaven guy. He just doesn’t like facial hair,” a Trump confidant told the outlet. “You just never know.”

    Trump’s issues with whiskers are well-known. In 2020 he publicly told his son Don Jr. to get rid of his quarantine beard, and John Bolton’s bushy mustache reportedly took him out of the running for secretary of State (in 2018 he became national security adviser, but by then Trump was desperate). Trump is basically a real-life version of Monty Burns shouting at Don Mattingly to “shave those sideburns.” But that solution isn’t going to work for Vance, according to the Bulwark:

    So why not shave his face? It’s probably out of the question for Vance because of how young he is and looks. The Ohio senator turns 40 on August 2 and would be the third-youngest vice president to serve. But Trump wants someone who is experienced—or at least looks experienced. And “without the beard, Vance looks like he’s 12,” said another Trump adviser.

    So Vance — who admitted it’ll be a “disappointment” if Trump does’t pick him for VP — must have been relieved when Trump denied that his beard is an issue during a July 10 interview with Brian Kilmeade on Fox News Radio.

    “It looks good,” Trump said. “He looks like a young Abraham Lincoln.”

    This was generally taken as a “glowing endorsement” of Vance’s look. And sure, to any sane person that’s what it sounds like. But it’s a huge red flag to anyone well-versed in Trump’s bizarre grudges and insecurities .

    Trump has a long-running rivalry with Abraham Lincoln. It is a one-sided beef, as the 16th president is dead, and he clearly would not be threatened by Trump even if he weren’t. But on numerous occasions, Trump has pointed to Lincoln as the one possible exception to his claims of being the greatest president of all time.

    “I’ve always said I can be more presidential than any president in history except for Honest Abe Lincoln, when he’s wearing the hat,” Trump said at a rally in 2019. “That’s tough, that’s tough. That’s a tough one to beat.”

    Trump continued claiming that he’s “always competed” against Lincoln throughout his presidency, and earlier this year he blasted his 19th-century predecessor for failing to use negotiation tactics to prevent the Civil War.

    So is it really a good sign for Vance that he reminds Trump of the man he thinks of as his biggest rival? Particularly when Trump has already been publicly warned that Vance could potentially “outshine” him, and even replace him as leader of the MAGA movement?

    I’d argue that it’s actually a good indicator that Vance should brace himself for disappointment. Why would Trump pick a running mate who stirs up his deep-seated Lincoln-related insecurities when he could go with Burgum, a guy who most resembles an inoffensive, lesser-known Muppet?


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  • Trump Denies Saying ‘Lock Her Up,’ So Ignore All This Video Proof

    Trump Denies Saying ‘Lock Her Up,’ So Ignore All This Video Proof

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    Photo: David Greedy/Getty Images

    Do you remember how Donald Trump repeatedly used the phrase “Lock her up” about Hillary Clinton, even calling for her to be tried, convicted, and sent to jail well after he defeated her in the 2016 presidential election?

    According to Donald Trump, you don’t remember any of that.

    No, you’re not crazy. And this isn’t a Berenstein Bears thing. The problem is that Trump is now a convicted felon who could potentially be locked up himself (though that probably won’t happen). This is a pretty embarrassing turn of events for a guy who’s been encouraging his supporters’ “Lock her up” chants for years. So in a Fox News interview that aired Sunday, Trump decided to simply pretend he had never uttered the phrase himself.

    “You famously said, regarding Hillary Clinton, ‘Lock her up.’ You declined to do that as president,” Fox host Will Cain told Trump.

    “I beat her,” Trump responded. “It’s easier when you win. And they always said ‘Lock her up,’ and I felt — and I could have done it, but I felt it would have been a terrible thing. And then this happened to me.”

    President Trump actually couldn’t have ordered law-enforcement officials to lock up Clinton for using a private email server while she was secretary of State; that’s not how our justice system works. But that’s a minor lie compared to what Trump said next.

    “I didn’t say ‘Lock her up,’ but the people said ‘Lock her up, lock her up,” Trump claimed. “Then we won. And I say — and I said pretty openly, I said, ‘All right, come on, just relax, let’s go, we’ve got to make our country great.’”

    So it’s still okay to recall Trump supporters chanting “Lock her up.” But please erase from your mind all these examples of Trump himself calling for Hillary’s incarceration, which were compiled by The Atlantic’s David A. Graham:

    “‘Lock her up’ is right,” he said in October 2016. “For what she did, they should lock her up,” he said at a rally I attended in Greensboro, North Carolina, a few days later. He used other phrasings at other times. In June 2016, for example, he said, “Hillary Clinton has to go to jail. She has to go to jail,” helpfully adding for the historical record: “I said that.” As he noted in the interview, he eased off the demands once he’d won. But in 2020, running for reelection, he went back to playing the hits. “You should lock her up, I’ll tell you,” he said at an Ohio rally.

    And you’re definitely going to want to forget about how Trump was still using the phrase as late as October 2020, saying of Clinton and the Biden family, “Lock them up. You should lock them up. Lock up the Bidens.”

    I’ll let you take one last look at this video of Trump repeatedly saying “Lock her up” over the years:

    But from now on we’re not going to talk about the emperor’s old catchphrase ever again. Sorry, I don’t make the rules — Trump does.


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    Margaret Hartmann

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