Trump Hit Brazil With Punitive Tariffs for Prosecuting His Ally But Promised Argentina a $20 Billion Taxpayer Bailout to Help His Other Pal Win Election: An Executive Watch Roundup
Our early-October selection of the president's latest and greatest assaults on the rule of law
The UnPopulist, alongside its parent organization, the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism (ISMA), launched Executive Watch earlier this year. This one-of-a-kind project, designed to track presidential abuses of power as they are happening, has been meticulously documenting each illicit action emanating from the White House.
Below is our biweekly selection of new entries posted in Executive Watch. You should bookmark this page that contains a chronological scroll of the abuses and this post that sorts and lists them under our 5 P categories:
After reading this roundup, tell us in the comments: Which of these abuses do you take to be the most troubling, and why?
Sept. 30, 2025
Speaking to a Room Full of Generals, Commander-in-Chief Donald Trump Declares War on Major American Cities Run by Democrats
Category: Power Consolidation
In a speech to 800 of America’s top military officers, brought home with little notice for a highly unusual meeting, Donald Trump announced a vision for the U.S. military that centers on the use of force against our own cities to quell civil unrest.
A report in Time summarizes this message:
President Donald Trump on Tuesday signaled that he would make greater use of the U.S. military to quell disturbances Democratic-run cities across the United States, warning of a “war from within” and comparing domestic threats to foreign enemies.
“The ones that are run by the radical left Democrats ... what they’ve done to San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, they’re very unsafe places. And we’re going to straighten them out one by one. This is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room,” he said in a speech to military leaders. “That’s a war too. It’s a war from within.” …
“We should use some of the dangerous cities and training grounds” for the military, Trump said. He added that he’s given an order to create military “quick reaction forces” to “help quell civil disturbances.” Deploying the military for civilian law enforcement would violate the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.
Given that there is no insurrection or civil unrest to put down, and given that he is only targeting cities run by Democrats, we can assume that what Trump really intends is to use the military to suppress protests and punish his political opponents.
The only comfort we can take from this speech is the military’s response:
When Trump started the speech, none of the hundreds of command officers applauded, keeping with a tradition of not applauding political leaders in order to show that the military’s role is set apart from American politics. Trump said he’d never walked into a room so silent.
Sept. 29, 2025
Google Delivers $22 Million to Trump to Settle His Frivolous Lawsuit—Just Like Other Major Companies Afraid that He’ll Otherwise Use His Office to Retaliate Against Them
Category: Personal Grift
The signature form of corruption for Donald Trump’s return to office has been big corporations settling frivolous lawsuits they could easily win in court, as a transparent and obvious way of paying Trump a bribe. Paramount, Disney, and Meta have done it—and now Google has followed suit.
The New York Times reports:
YouTube agreed to pay a $24.5 million settlement to President Trump and others who were suspended by the video streaming platform in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, according to a legal document filed on Monday. …
The vast majority of YouTube’s settlement payment—$22 million—will go to Mr. Trump, according to the filing in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. He has directed that the money be contributed to the Trust for the National Mall and to the construction of a ballroom at the White House. …
“If he hadn’t been re-elected, we’d be in court forever,” said John Coale, a lawyer for Mr. Trump. “Then the president gets re-elected and things look a lot better.” …
Until recently, Mr. Trump’s lawsuits against the social media companies had largely stalled. A federal judge dismissed the case against Twitter in 2022, and judges had put the lawsuits against Meta and YouTube on ice. …
“The law was on their side,” said Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law, who said the settlements were akin to “buying influence.” The companies “do seem like they are currying favor with the presidential administration,” he added.
These are not settlements of lawsuits but rather payments of giant bribes to the sitting president. It somehow seems fitting that the money will go to build Trump a giant gilded ballroom, where he will gather with other wealthy businessmen in tuxedos to trade favors and solicit more bribes.
Sept. 25, 2025
Trump’s DOJ Demands Its Attorneys Come Up With Charges It Can File Against Soros, a Longtime Bogeyman of the Right
Category: Presidential Retribution
Donald Trump has been busy exploiting the assassination of Charlie Kirk to pursue a general crackdown on his political opposition. Now we see how this is taking shape: a new Justice Department campaign of legal harassment against left-leaning nonprofit organizations, particularly focusing on longtime right-wing bogeyman George Soros.
The New York Times reports:
A senior Justice Department official has instructed more than a half dozen U.S. attorneys’ offices to draft plans to investigate a group funded by George Soros, the billionaire Democratic donor who President Trump has demanded be thrown in jail.
The official’s directive, a copy of which was viewed by The New York Times, goes as far as to list possible charges prosecutors could file, ranging from arson to material support of terrorism. The memo suggests department leaders are following orders from the president that specific people or groups be subject to criminal investigation—a major break from decades of past practice meant to insulate the Justice Department from political interference.
Mr. Soros began his global grant network, now known as the Open Society Foundations, decades ago to fund democratic initiatives around the world, particularly in communist and formerly communist countries. In the 1990s, the organization expanded its work to the United States. It provides grants to groups that work for human rights, democracy and equity, but Mr. Trump and some Republicans contend, without providing evidence, that it is a shadowy network promoting civil unrest, violent protests and property destruction. Liberals say the assertions are falsehoods aimed at stifling dissent. …
After Mr. Kirk’s killing this month, Mr. Trump sharply criticized the “radical left,” singling out Mr. Soros’s foundation and urging that he be put behind bars. Mr. Soros is “a bad guy” who “should be put in jail,” he told NBC News.
Notice that the origin of this investigation is not any specific criminal act, because there is no evidence of one. The origin is Trump’s desire to target an organization that opposes him, and he has instructed his minions at the Department of Justice to go searching for a crime.
This is the way things work in a dictatorship. As Stalin’s secret police chief, Lavrentiy Beria, famously said: “Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.” A dictatorship does not start with evidence of a crime and then look for its perpetrator. It starts by selecting a target, then invents an offense as a pretext for his persecution.
Sept. 24, 2025
Trump Fires U.S. Attorney for Refusing to Prosecute Trump’s Enemies and Replaces Him With a Former Personal Lawyer With No Experience or Scruples
Category: Presidential Retribution
Donald Trump just fired an experienced U.S. attorney for refusing to prosecute two of Trump’s political enemies, New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey, for lack of evidence to support the charges. His replacement, another of Trump’s personal attorneys chosen for unswerving loyalty to him, is now moving ahead with bogus charges against Comey.
The New York Times reports:
Lindsey Halligan, a former defense lawyer for Mr. Trump who was hastily appointed after the president forced out her predecessor last week, is rushing to draft an indictment under withering pressure from the White House. The president has demanded the department go after one of his foremost enemies, even though career prosecutors determined there was insufficient evidence to indict Mr. Comey.
Ms. Halligan, who had no experience as a prosecutor before her recent appointment, could seek to bring charges as early as Thursday, but is expected to take action by Tuesday, when the statute of limitations on Mr. Comey’s congressional testimony expires, according to officials who requested anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. …
Even if Ms. Halligan meets her deadline, there is no guarantee the grand jury will determine that the government has met the evidentiary threshold to indict Mr. Comey.
Right now, the greatest barrier to Trump pursuing vindictive prosecutions against his enemies seems to be the grand jury system. It is notoriously easy for prosecutors to present carefully selected evidence and get a grand jury to agree there are grounds to charge someone. But Trump’s Justice Department and its clown-car partisan lawyers have increasingly failed to clear even that low bar.
Sept. 24, 2025
After Imposing Harsh Tariffs on Brazil for Trying His Populist Ally for an Insurrection, Trump Is Pledging $20 Billion of American Taxpayer Money to Bailout His Libertarian Pal in Argentina
Category: Political Corruption
While the U.S. government shuts down for lack of funds, Donald Trump can still find $20 billion to bailout Argentina from a financial crisis. What’s worse is that he is doing this for nakedly political reasons: to support a political ally, Argentina’s President Javier Milei. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent openly describes the bailout as giving Milei a “bridge to the election.”
Bloomberg reports:
The U.S. plans to extend a $20 billion swap line to Argentina and is ready to buy the country’s foreign bonds, providing much-needed financial support to President Javier Milei as he tries to regain investor confidence and stem a run on the peso.
Terms of the deal are still being negotiated, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a post on X early Wednesday that sparked a brief rally in Argentine assets. He made clear in an interview on Fox News that the financing was meant to help Milei ahead of a crucial midterm vote next month, aiding an ideological ally in a region where President Donald Trump has few friends in power. …
Bessent described the aid as a “bridge to the election,” referring to the Oct. 26 vote in which Milei is looking to boost his libertarian party’s presence in Congress. …
Bessent’s plan would mark an extraordinary turnabout for a U.S. president who was elected on a promise to limit American military and financial interventions overseas in favor of focusing on domestic concerns. Since taking office, Trump has slashed billions in foreign aid and cut or suspended military assistance for Ukraine in its fight against Russia. But in the case of Argentina, Trump appears to be coming to the aid of a leader whom the administration views as an ideological ally.
This turnaround on “America First” is a particular kick in the gut to American farmers, who have seen their exports collapse because of Trump’s trade war—while Argentina takes our place. But at least this helps one American. Popular Information reports that the bailout will rescue a hedge-fund billionaire and friend of Bessent who bet big on Milei’s economic policies.
The funds of the U.S. Treasury are supposed to be used to promote the financial stability of the United States, not to help the president’s friends—nor to support his global political project to prop up right-wing leaders.
Earlier this year, Trump hit Brazil with ideologically-driven tariffs because it put his populist ally—and fellow insurrectionist—on trial, but is now promising to bailout its neighbor, Argentina, to the tune of $20 billion to help his ally politically.
Sept. 22, 2025
Trump’s 100K Fee Hike for High-Tech H-1B Visas Is Illegal, Unconstitutional, and Corrupt
Category: Policy Illegality
The Trump administration keeps producing layered cakes of executive abuse, with one form of abuse on top of another, all the way down.
A new executive order imposes a $100,000 fee on H-1B visas issued to high-skilled foreign workers. But Trump has no legal authority to impose this fee. As
notes, “except for specific statutory fees, the only basis for the government to issue fees is to recover costs of adjudicating applications.”You can see this lawlessness in the chaos with which the change is being implemented. No one knows quite what it means because the only basis for the new fee is the arbitrary diktat of the president—yet his executive order was far from clear on the details.
According to a New York Times report:
Bernhard Mueller, co-chair of the immigration practice group at Ogletree Deakins, said he had been flooded with calls from executives and corporate board members about the new rules and how to communicate with employees about them. “There’s a lot of question marks all over this,” he said early Saturday. “We are still flying in somewhat foggy conditions.”
Moreover, this arbitrarily imposed fee serves as a way for the administration to raise revenue without any approval from Congress, as Politico notes in passing:
The fee hike for H-1Bs comes just months after the GOP’s sweeping policy and tax legislation raised fees for asylum applications, work permits, and humanitarian protections, part of an effort to curtail the number of undocumented immigrants able to apply for legal pathways. But it was also a way to raise revenue for the administration’s other priorities, including detention expansion, border wall construction, and the hiring of 10,000 new ICE agents.
Last but not least, the new policy seems to allow Trump to make arbitrary and ad hoc exceptions. According to Science, “The order allows the government to waive the new fee for employees working ‘in the national interest.’” This gives Trump a new club to hold over the heads of tech companies—and universities.
The government holds a lottery to award up to 85,000 H-1B visas annually. However, universities and other nonprofit organizations are exempt from that cap, and elite research universities may employ as many as 200 or more faculty members and other science, technology, engineering, and math workers under the program. But the new fee, which applies to any application submitted after 21 September, could end that practice.
This is part of a wider pattern of Trump asserting completely arbitrary power over the American economy, by making more businesses and institutions dependent on his personal favor, with the end-goal of consolidating his own power.
Sept. 20, 2025
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth Threatens to Revoke the Press Passes of Pentagon Reporters Who Don’t Obtain Approval Before Publishing Any Story About the Agency
Category: Power Consolidation
In an extraordinary clampdown on the press, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has imposed a new policy that basically limits Pentagon reporters to reprinting press releases.
NPR reports:
Going forward, journalists must sign a pledge not to gather any information, including unclassified reports, that hasn’t been authorized for release.
Using the rebranded “Department of War” acronym, “DoW,” the 17-page document obtained by NPR outlining the new rules for the media says those who fail to obey the new policy will lose their press credentials—cutting off access to the headquarters of the largest department in the U.S. government.
“DoW remains committed to transparency to promote accountability and public trust,” the document said. “However, DoW information must be approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if it is unclassified.” …
Earlier this year, Hegseth announced new rules limiting reporters’ ability to move freely through the Pentagon without an approved escort—a change that broke years of tradition of both Democratic and Republican administrations.
The fact that this includes unclassified information reveals that it is not about national security. It is entirely an attempt to control the news and to limit the media to reprinting this administration’s press releases.
Sept. 20, 2025
The Trump Justice Department Shuts Down the FBI Case Investigating Border Czar Tom Homan for Accepting Cash Bribes
Category: Personal Grift
Surprising absolutely no one, Trump administration “border czar” Tom Homan was recorded last September on camera by undercover FBI agents accepting a cash bribe in return for future favors. Also surprising no one, the investigation was quashed by the same Trump officials who killed the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams in exchange for cooperation on the administration’s draconian immigration crackdown.
MSNBC has the scoop:
In an undercover operation last year, the FBI recorded Tom Homan, now the White House border czar, accepting $50,000 in cash after indicating he could help the agents—who were posing as business executives—win government contracts in a second Trump administration, according to multiple people familiar with the probe and internal documents reviewed by MSNBC.
The FBI and the Justice Department planned to wait to see whether Homan would deliver on his alleged promise once he became the nation’s top immigration official. But the case indefinitely stalled soon after Donald Trump became president again in January, according to six sources familiar with the matter. In recent weeks, Trump appointees officially closed the investigation, after FBI Director Kash Patel requested a status update on the case, two of the people said.
It’s unclear what reasons FBI and Justice Department officials gave for shutting down the investigation. But a Trump Justice Department appointee called the case a “deep state” probe in early 2025 and no further investigative steps were taken, the sources say.
The federal investigation was launched in western Texas in the summer of 2024 after a subject in a separate investigation claimed Homan was soliciting payments in exchange for awarding contracts should Trump win the presidential election, according to an internal Justice Department summary of the probe reviewed by MSNBC and people familiar with the case.
Trump has a strong stance on the issue of corruption: He is for it. Nearly the first thing he did in office was to fire corruption watchdogs, gut the Office of Government Ethics, and suspend enforcement of a law against bribing foreign governments.
Given this background, it’s important to remember that this is the one case of blatant, cash-in-a-paper-bag corruption that we know about. But with federal anti-corruption watchdogs totally gutted, who knows how many more such cases are happening even as we speak.
Sept. 19, 2025
Trump Fires U.S. Attorney for Adhering to Proper Evidentiary Standards and Refusing to Persecute the President’s Political Enemies
Category: Presidential Retribution
Donald Trump has promised to punish his political enemies by prosecuting them for a whole array of imagined crimes. But most professional prosecutors at the Department of Justice still have standards. One of them refused to bring bogus cases against two Trump targets—so Trump fired him.
The New York Times reports:
The U.S. attorney investigating New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, and the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey said he had resigned on Friday, hours after President Trump called for his ouster.
Erik S. Siebert, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, had recently told senior Justice Department officials that investigators found insufficient evidence to bring charges against Ms. James and had also raised concerns about a potential case against Mr. Comey, according to officials familiar with the situation. Mr. Trump has long viewed Ms. James and Mr. Comey as adversaries and has repeatedly pledged retribution against law enforcement officials who pursued him. …
The episode was consistent with Mr. Trump’s threats to pursue the law enforcement officials who investigated him, an apparent challenge to the fundamental principle enshrined in the Justice Department’s rulebook of investigating crimes rather than targeting out-of-favor individuals to uncover potential wrongdoing.
See an overview of how the politically motivated case against Letitia James fell apart when the investigation turned up evidence that exonerates her. But to move these malicious prosecutions forward, Trump has pushed out a professional U.S. attorney and replaced him with an eager but inexperienced lackey.
Sept. 18, 2025
The Trump Department of Defense Is Firing Non-Loyalists and Recruiting Loyalists to Create a MAGAfied Military
Category: Power Consolidation
The United States military has traditionally been composed of citizen soldiers drawn from all groups and political affiliations. A key aspect of a free society is that the use of force is not placed in the hands of a partisan organization with its own distinct political agenda.
Donald Trump’s Department of Defense is attempting to undermine this tradition.
NBC News reports:
Pentagon leaders are considering a new recruiting campaign that would encourage young people to honor the legacy of assassinated conservative activist Charlie Kirk by joining the military, according to two officials familiar with the planning. …
As part of the potential new campaign, Pentagon leaders are considering using chapters of Kirk’s political organization, Turning Point USA, at schools across the U.S. as military recruitment centers, the officials said. That could include inviting recruiters to be present at events or advertising for the military at the chapters, one of them explained. President Donald Trump has credited Kirk and Turning Point USA with helping him win the 2024 election.
Remember that the Trump administration has already been using Charlie Kirk’s assassination as an excuse to politicize the armed forced by purging anyone critical of Kirk. And this report notes the real kicker: “Kirk did not serve in the armed forces.” Then again, neither did Trump.
Sept. 17, 2025
DOJ Disappears a Study From its Site Showing that Right-Wing Violence Is Five Times Greater than Left-Wing Violence
Category: Political Corruption
Donald Trump has been trying to lay the groundwork for a purge of his political opposition by blaming criticism of his administration for a supposed wave of left-wing violence. The problem is that there is no such wave, and the evidence actually shows that right-wing violence has been significantly more common. So Trump’s Department of Justice buried the evidence.
The Guardian describes what happened:
The US justice department has scrubbed a study from its website concluding that far-right extremists have killed far more Americans than any other domestic terrorist group, just days after a gunman fatally shot the prominent conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
The report, now archived, titled What NIJ Research Tells Us About Domestic Terrorism, vanished from the Department of Justice website between 11 and 12 September, according to Jason Paladino, an independent investigative reporter who first wrote the story. Kirk, the 31-year-old Turning Point USA founder and Trump ally, was gunned down while speaking at Utah Valley University on 10 September.
The vanished study opened with: “Since 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists, including 227 events that took more than 520 lives. In this same period, far-left extremists committed 42 ideologically motivated attacks that took 78 lives.” …
The National Institute of Justice study, which was based on research spanning three decades, represented one of the most comprehensive government assessments of domestic terrorism patterns. It found that “militant, nationalistic, white supremacist violent extremism has increased in the United States” and that “the number of far-right attacks continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism.”
In the Trump administration, everything must be subordinated to the president’s preferred political narrative and his attempts to consolidate power. Accordingly, agencies formed to protect the public have been corrupted to protect the president’s authoritarian agenda.
Aug. 26, 2025
The Trump Administration Wants to Follow Communist China and Give Government Part Ownership of Defense Companies
Category: Power Consolidation
The right wants us to believe that Trump is a champion of free markets. Instead, he is increasingly adopting a Chinese model of partial state ownership and domination of private enterprises. To complete that model, all we need is state ownership of defense contractors—which is exactly what Trump’s people are proposing.
CNBC reports:
Top officials at the Pentagon are “thinking about” whether the U.S. should acquire equity stakes in leading defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Tuesday. The Cabinet secretary, in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” revealed the Defense Department’s interest in taking those stakes days after the U.S. government acquired 10% of Intel stock in a roughly $9 billion deal. …
Lockheed, which makes most of its revenue from federal contracts, is “basically an arm of the U.S. government,” he said. …
Trump’s move to take ownership of a chunk of Intel, an embattled chipmaker, is a major escalation in his efforts to achieve his economic goals by exerting more and more government control over the private economy.
Trump said Monday that he would make similar deals “all day long.”
President Eisenhower famously warned about a “military-industrial complex” in which decisions about what defense systems to buy would not be made based on the best interests of the country but on cozy ties between the government and contractors. Trump’s scheme would make that problem far, far worse.
© The UnPopulist, 2025
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Donald Trump has clearly abused his office to wield the tariff powers reserved for Congress as an international bludgeon not only for economic reasons but to extort, coerce and blackmail foreign countries to submit to his political and personal will, as he is doing with Brazil. His abusive exercise of these powers will be before the Supreme Court in the near future. Even his most rabid enablers on the Court will not be able to distort, contort and twist the Constitution and the laws of the land to justify this megalomaniac in wielding the tariff authority of Congress to bend other countries to his visceral urges. This is how he claimed "I run the country and the world." He does, because his cheerleaders on the Supreme Court have enabled him to do so.