Trump Publicly Fantasizes About Imprisoning Obama: An Executive Watch Roundup
Our early-August selection of the president's latest and greatest assaults on the rule of law
The Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, the publisher of The UnPopulist, 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. We’re covering everything from Trump’s punitive imposition of tariffs on another country in solidarity with a fellow strongman who plotted a violent overthrow of that country’s government, to his threats of litigation against a newspaper for doing its job, the First Amendment be damned. And we’re not stopping there. We call out many more of his abuses below.
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?
July 20, 2025
Trump’s Illicit Threat to Jail Obama Is Meant to Rally His Supporters Around Bogus Prosecutions of Political Opponents
Category: Presidential Retribution
Having claimed absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for himself, Donald Trump is now openly fantasizing about arresting and jailing former President Barack Obama for his actions in office, posting fake AI-generated video of Obama being handcuffed and pacing in a cell.
Time has an overview:
The current President shared on his Truth Social platform on Sunday a video from TikTok user @neo8171 that starts with a montage of Democratic politicians, including Obama, saying, “No one is above the law,” to the tune of Luciano Michelini’s “Frolic” (made famous as the theme song of sitcom “Curb Your Enthusiasm”). After about 40 seconds, the soundtrack changes to the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.,” as apparently AI-generated video depicts Trump and Obama sitting in the Oval Office and FBI officers handcuffing Obama while Trump smiles and laughs. It ends with an AI-generated depiction of Obama pacing around a jail cell.
Trump also shared an AI-generated image attributed to X user @sirtemplemount that showed fake mugshots of Obama and officials from his Administration with the words “The Shady Bunch.”
The occasion for this is a heavily politicized report from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard targeting, not foreign enemies, but domestic ones, using out-of-context passages to make false claims that Obama officials falsified information about Russian election interference. Yet, as the Time article notes, that information has been repeatedly validated:
Rep. Jim Himes … referred to a Republican-led Senate report in 2020 that agreed with the 2017 findings of Russian influence. That report was backed by now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio and found “no evidence” of collusion between Trump and the Russian government in the 2016 election but did find “irrefutable evidence of Russian meddling.” There have been several other reviews since 2017 that also backed the assessment.
Trump’s fantasy of jailing Obama is very unlikely to happen. It is more likely that Trump will initiate bogus, politically motivated prosecutions of Obama administration officials. Those cases will fail in the courts, but their purpose is to harass Trump’s political opponents—and eventually to prepare his supporters to support arbitrary arrests of their hated political enemies.
July 18, 2025
Trump Sues The Wall Street Journal for Daring to Report on His Lewd Birthday Card to Jeffrey Epstein
Category: Power Consolidation
Facing a rebellion from his own supporters over the administration’s failure to release more information about Jeffrey Epstein, a financier who died in jail after being accused of sexually exploiting underage girls, Donald Trump is now attempting to prevent the media from reporting on his long friendship with Epstein. How? By suing, of course!
The New York Times reports:
President Trump on Friday accused Rupert Murdoch and The Wall Street Journal of defaming him in an article about a lewd birthday greeting that the publication said Mr. Trump had sent to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein decades ago.
In a suit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Mr. Trump said the article “falsely claimed that he authored, drew and signed” the note to Mr. Epstein.
The complaint claimed that “given the timing” of the article, “the overwhelming financial and reputational harm suffered by President Trump will continue to multiply.” It asked for awarded damages “not to be less than $10 billion.”
The suit named as defendants The Journal’s parent company, News Corp; Mr. Murdoch, News Corp’s founder and former chairman; Robert Thomson, News Corp’s chief executive; Dow Jones, the publisher of The Journal; and two Journal reporters.
It would be easy to regard such a frivolous lawsuit as futile; Trump’s close connection to Epstein has been known for a long time. Yet Trump has already succeeded in using this tactic to intimidate other media outlets. As the Times notes:
Mr. Trump routinely berates journalists and news organizations, and has increasingly used legal threats and actual litigation against media outlets. His lawsuit over a “60 Minutes” report on CBS News resulted in a $16 million settlement with Paramount this month. Last year, ABC News agreed to settle a defamation suit brought by Mr. Trump for $15 million, plus $1 million for his legal fees. He recently threatened to sue The New York Times and CNN over their reporting about the U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
The context of the Epstein case is a particular reminder of what these threats of litigation are intended to accomplish. They are a method for Trump to deter all but the most well-funded and assertive news outlets and suppress any facts that contradict his preferred narrative.
July 17, 2025
CBS Cancels Stephen Colbert Ahead of its Parent Company’s Takeover by a Trump-Friendly Owner
Category: Power Consolidation
Paramount, the parent company of CBS, CBS News, and its flagship investigative reporting show 60 Minutes, has made a series of capitulations to Donald Trump since the election, culminating in the $16 million settlement of a bogus Trump lawsuit. So it’s reasonable to ask why they suddenly canceled a successful late-night show hosted by a prominent Trump critic.
At The Atlantic, David A. Graham offers some reasonable speculation:
This evening, the network announced plans to end The Late Show With Stephen Colbert when the host’s contract ends next May. Late-night personalities come and go, but usually that happens when their ratings sag. Colbert, however, has consistently led competitors in his time slot. CBS said this was “purely a financial decision,” made as traditional linear television fades.
Perhaps this is true, but the network that once made Cronkite the most trusted man in America no longer gets the benefit of the doubt. CBS’s owners have made a series of decisions capitulating to President Donald Trump, and the surprise choice to allow Colbert—a consistent, prominent Trump critic—to walk seems like part of that pattern. …
Earlier this month, CBS agreed to a $16 million settlement to end Trump’s lawsuit. The agreement doesn’t pay Trump directly, but the network agreed to pay legal fees for him and a co-plaintiff, and to contribute to Trump’s future presidential library. Trump has stated that the deal also includes unspecified “advertising,” reportedly for public-service announcements that boost Trump-approved causes. Paramount denies this. Now comes Colbert’s departure. If the reasons are truly financial, one wonders how his salary compares to the money spent to settle a dubious lawsuit.
One of the first steps a strongman takes in consolidating his dictatorship is to ensure that all of the big media companies, particularly mass broadcast media, are controlled by businessmen who depend on his favor. Paramount, which is about to be bought out by a Trump-friendly tech billionaire, is the first media firm he has clearly captured.
July 15, 2025
The Administration’s War on Civil Service Protections Is Continuing Unabated in a Bid to Stack Executive Agencies with Trump Puppets
Category: Power Consolidation
One of the triumphs of late 19th-century politics was the reform of the civil service to eliminate the politicized “spoils system” and establish standards of competence and professional integrity. Trump is against both of those goals and wants total, personal control of everything, so he is working to roll back the entire system.
The New York Times describes the pattern:
The Justice Department is accelerating its efforts to undo decades of civil service protections intended to insulate the work of law enforcement officials from political interference, according to current and former officials, ramping up a wave of firings in recent days.
A new batch of more than 20 career employees at the department and its component agencies were fired on Friday, including the attorney general’s own ethics adviser, Joseph W. Tirrell. Others who were dismissed included a handful of senior officials at the U.S. Marshals Service, as well as prosecutors and support staff who once worked for Jack Smith when he was a special counsel prosecuting Donald J. Trump. …
Employment law experts say such letters are at odds with decades of case law, as well as the decisions of an obscure part of the federal government called the Merit Systems Protection Board. Taken together, both have stood for the principle that career civil servants can be fired only for cause.
In recent cases, however, the Trump administration has pushed the idea that such protections no longer exist for federal workers, including at the Justice Department. …
“They are openly defying longstanding laws and specific directions of the presiding judge,” [fire Justice Department attorney Elizabeth G.] Oyer said in a statement. “They are working to sabotage the protections in place for nonpolitical civil servants,” part of what she called a broader effort “to install political puppets in place of nonpartisan experts throughout the Department of Justice.”
The president, she added, “is building a team of loyalists who will use their official positions to carry out his revenge agenda, and he is clearing out people of principle who may stand in his way.”
Note that Oyer was fired after complaining about an attempt to use pardon powers on behalf of the actor Mel Gibson, a friend and supporter of Trump. This tells you why civil service rules are being torn down: to turn the federal government into a favor factory for Trump’s supporters and an instrument or retaliation against his enemies.
July 10, 2025
Whistleblower Details How Trump’s DOJ Tried to Fraudulently Frame Kilmar Abrego Garcia as a Gang Member
Category: Policy Illegality
Department of Justice whistleblower Erez Reuveni has already revealed how Trump official Emil Bove gave instructions to ignore the courts. New emails provided by Reuveni reveal other attempts to abuse prosecutorial power and evade complying with a court order to release Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
The New Republic got early access to the documents and provides an overview:
On June 24, Reuveni filed a whistleblower complaint to the Justice Department’s inspector general and to the Senate and House judiciary committees, alleging extensive misconduct inside DOJ. The complaint’s most explosive, widely covered charge was that a top DOJ leader, Emil Bove, told officials that in deporting migrants under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, they may have to ignore court orders stopping the removals and tell the courts “f--- you.”
But the whistleblower complaint also detailed internal deliberations over Abrego Garcia’s case, and this part is also damning. …
“Can we say the following?” Percival asked, then listed several things he’d like the administration to say about Abrego Garcia, one being: “This guy is a leader of MS-13.”
“If we can get a declaration to that effect, yes,” Reuveni answered. This meant the assertion could not be made without a facts-and-evidence-based declaration from ICE on Abrego Garcia’s status.
In other words, top DHS officials apparently were pushing to characterize Abrego Garcia as an MS-13 “leader” before any evidence of this had appeared. And Reuveni expressly warned against doing this absent such evidence. …
After all this, Reuveni refused to sign a legal brief that again charged Abrego Garcia with membership in MS-13, a brief Reuveni believed lacked evidentiary support, according to the complaint. Soon after, he was placed on administrative leave for “failing to zealously advocate on behalf of the United States.” His real offense was demanding that the administration stick to the facts on Abrego Garcia. …
After the whistleblower complaint broke, DOJ dismissed Reuveni’s claims as “utterly false.” But as [Senator] Durbin noted in a statement, these new emails “clearly substantiate” the complaint.
Remember that this is only the prosecutorial misconduct that we know about, thanks to one whistleblower in one case. Given the scope of Trump’s mass deportations, and the hundreds of people still in torture prisons in El Salvador, we can assume this is just a fraction of the DOJ’s abuse of power.
July 9, 2025
Trump Imposes Tariffs on Brazil to Prevent His Strongman Buddy Bolsonaro from Being Prosecuted for an Attempted Coup
Category: Political Corruption
Donald Trump’s arbitrary imposition of tariffs is not merely an abuse of his power over the economy. He is also using tariffs in an attempt to interfere in Brazilian politics on behalf of a fellow strongman accused of plotting a coup to stay in power when he was voted out of office in 2022.
CNN reports:
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened Brazil with a crippling tariff of 50% starting August 1, according to a letter he sent to the country’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
In the letter posted on Truth Social, Trump alleged Lula is undertaking a “Witch Hunt that should end IMMEDIATELY!” over charges against its right-wing former president, Jair Bolsonaro. …
Bolsonaro, often dubbed the “Trump of the Tropics,” is on trial in Brazil for charges related to an alleged plot to overturn the 2022 election results. He and dozens of associates have been charged with attempting a coup d’état, which prosecutors allege involved a plan to potentially assassinate elected President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Bolsonaro’s coup attempt—see an overview of the charges and the evidence—was a clear attempt to copy Donald Trump’s attempted coup on Jan. 6, 2021. Now Trump is returning the compliment by trying to get Bolsonaro off the hook, and perhaps trying to set a precedent for his own future.
July 1, 2025
The Department of Education Illegally Withholds Congressionally Allocated Funds to Humor Trump—Again
Category: Policy Illegality
Who controls the purse strings of the federal government? The Constitution says Congress. Trump thinks he does. So he is now arbitrarily withholding $7 billion of education funding, seemingly in an attempt to dismantle the Department of Education without congressional approval.
The New York Times reports:
The Trump administration has declined to release nearly $7 billion in federal funding that helps pay for after-school and summer programs, support for students learning English, teacher training and other services.
The money was expected to be released by Tuesday. But in an email on Monday, the Education Department notified state education agencies that the money would not be available.
The administration offered little explanation, saying only that the funds were under review. It gave no timeline for when, or if, the money would be released, saying instead that it was “committed to ensuring taxpayer resources are spent in accordance with the president’s priorities.”…
The move is likely to be challenged in court and has already been criticized as illegal by Democrats and teachers’ unions, who emphasized that the money had been appropriated by Congress and was approved by President Trump in March as part of a broader funding bill. …
The administration has taken an aggressive approach to cutting back the federal government’s role in education, including plans to eliminate the Education Department entirely. Though only Congress can abolish the department, the Trump administration has taken an ax to education staffing and funding more broadly as it seeks to whittle down the department.
Note that cutting English language programs is specifically intended to target immigrants. According to this report, “families who do not speak English could be cut off from schools and the support system they need.”
But the key sentence here is the administration’s insistence that money be spent “in accordance with the president’s priorities”—not the priorities of Congress. It is an implementation of one-man rule.
June 26, 2025
Trump Forces the President of State-Funded UVA to Resign for Embracing Campus Policies that Rankle MAGA
Category: Power Consolidation
On the dubious claim that the worst form of racism in America is rich white kids not getting into their first-choice schools, the Trump administration has been pressuring universities to remove all programs meant to offer more opportunities to racial minorities. Now they have taken the extraordinary step of dictating the firing of the president of the University of Virginia.
The New York Times reports:
The Trump administration has privately demanded that the University of Virginia oust its president to help resolve a Justice Department investigation into the school’s diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, according to three people briefed on the matter.
The extraordinary condition the Justice Department has put on the school demonstrates that President Trump’s bid to shift the ideological tilt of the higher education system, which he views as hostile to conservatives, is more far-reaching than previously understood.
The government’s extensive pressure campaign has stripped billions of dollars from elite universities, including Harvard, which has been the target of investigations from at least six different federal agencies. But this is the first time the administration has pushed a university to remove its leader. …
Mr. Ryan, hired in 2018 as the university’s ninth president, has leaned into issues like making the school more diverse, increasing the number of first-generation students, and encouraging students to do community service. But his approach, which he says will make the university “both great and good,” has rankled conservative alumni and Republican board members who accuse him of wanting to impose his values on students and claim he is “too woke.”
It worked. Ryan has since resigned. But this is about more than Trump abusing his power against a university. He is also abusing it against a state government. UVA is a state university that answers to the Virginia legislature and the governor, not to the federal government. Or it was, until very recently.
© The UnPopulist, 2025
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Thank you for publishing this. There has to be serious pushback against this person - Trump - currently in charge of the reins in the US of A. Do not let him, or his cronies, get away with this increasingly authoritarian behaviour. Remember past history - Hitler, Stalin and a few other current 'Presidents' in other authoritarian countries.
Beware, take note.
End this ‘merikkkan nazi