Trump's Griftathon Rolls On as He Sells Traders Early Access to His Market-Moving Social Media Posts: An Executive Watch Roundup
Our early-August selection of the president’s latest and greatest assaults on the rule of law
We launched Executive Watch early in Donald Trump’s second term, and it has been meticulously cataloging this White House’s abuses of power ever since. Below is our biweekly selection of new entries.
This page contains the presidential abuses in chronological order. This post, a one-stop shop, sorts and lists the abuses under our 5 “P” categories:
One last thing: starting today, we are taking a short post-LibCon2026 break, which means we’ll be running a bit leaner over the next few weeks. We’ll still be active—in fact, we’re currently prepping posts on some key moments from the conference, we’ve got a podcast episode to release soon on the survey we just ran tracking populist sentiment in America, and we’ll be resurfacing some pieces from our archive and maybe also republishing some pieces from other venues. Don’t worry—we’ll be back to full speed soon!
Aug. 4, 2026
Trump Weaponized His ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’ to Pressure Two Holdout Republican Senators Into Advancing Blanche’s Confirmation
Category: Power Consolidation
Just weeks after Attorney General nominee Todd Blanche told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the administration’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” was “not moving forward,” Trump made clear it was never actually dead. The fund, a preposterous culture war grievance brought to life by Trump’s limitless capacity for seeing himself and his followers as victims, would let the Justice Department funnel taxpayer money to people it deems casualties of “weaponization”—a category broad enough to include convicted Jan. 6 defendants.
The same settlement that created the fund also handed Trump, his two adult sons, and the Trump Organization sweeping immunity from IRS audits of their own tax returns.
Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) had been withholding their committee votes to advance Blanche’s nomination until both the fund was killed in writing and the audit-immunity language was narrowed.
CNN reports:
President Donald Trump on Saturday said he would work to get a controversial $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund passed into law if he can’t garner the support in the Senate to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general. The president said on social media he will “push hard” to codify through Congress the fund that has been at the center of resistance to Blanche’s nomination. … “Todd Blanche was a voice of reason! It will immediately be back on the table, and I will get it done.”
Tillis responded to Trump’s post Saturday, saying that Blanche, “who I consider qualified for the job, will not be confirmed because of this reversal.” “Despite comments as late as yesterday that the fund is dead, President Trump clearly intends to resurrect the payout pot for punks either by inappropriately establishing another bogus fund or pushing Congress to vote for a bill that the majority of Republicans in the Senate would be against,” Tillis wrote on X.
On Sunday night, Blanche rescinded the fund and narrowed the IRS immunity provision, limiting it to claims already open when the settlement was signed rather than the sweeping immunity it previously granted. Cornyn and Tillis said they were satisfied, and on Tuesday the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to advance Blanche's nomination out of committee, with both senators backing him. This is a deal that, as a follow-up CNN report reveals, the White House was directly involved in brokering.
But the concessions are shakier than they look. Blanche’s rescission doesn’t touch the underlying settlement agreement—which can only be modified with Trump’s written consent. That means the fund could still be revived, or its terms enforced through a lawsuit, regardless of what Blanche has promised. And even if the narrowed immunity holds, Trump still walks away with a potential major windfall: protection from a tax liability that could reach $100 million, secured through a settlement a federal judge has already ruled came about via “manipulation of the judicial process.”
Asked why he expects the deal to hold, Tillis said only that he believes Blanche “is an honorable man”—though he conceded that Trump “could simply always create a new fund.”
Aug. 1, 2026
DOJ Concedes That the Reflecting Pool Damage Trump Blamed on ‘Vandalism’ Was Caused by His Own No-Bid Contractor’s Botched Work
Category: Power Consolidation
On July 2, U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro indicted former Olympic canoeist David Hearn on a felony charge, telling reporters the evidence would prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that he had “forcefully and violently” torn up the liner of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool during Trump’s multimillion-dollar renovation. When a reporter asked whether preexisting problems with the renovation might be the real cause, Pirro waved him off.
A month later, Pirro’s office quietly reversed course. After Pirro herself visited the drained pool and Interior Department officials sent over documents they hadn’t previously shared, prosecutors admitted the damage was actually the result of a rushed, botched installation by the contractor Trump’s team hired without competitive bidding. Hearn is now demanding an apology; his lawyers say the case should never have been brought in the first place.
NBC News reports:
The Justice Department filing said that based on its review of evidence, “it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt.” …
[A] supervisor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, which is headed by Jeanine Pirro, wrote that officials obtained information that undermined “the evidentiary basis for the indictment” against Hearn. Prosecutors said that after the indictment came down on July 2, the Interior Department provided additional documents to the U.S. attorney’s office “indicating that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in June 2026 was the result of flawed installation by the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings.” …
President Donald Trump, in a post on Truth Social Saturday, said he “disagreed” with the Justice Department’s decision to drop the case. “I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool. I don’t know what she was thinking? To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM,” Trump wrote, adding, “There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS!”
An innocent man spent a month facing a felony charge so the president wouldn’t have to admit his signature beautification project was built on a no-bid contract that produced shoddy work.
July 29, 2026
Trump Sells Wall Street a $100k-Per-Month Head Start on His Truth Social Posts Despite Senators’ Insider-Trading Warning
Category: Personal Grift
Trump Media’s paid data feed, which charges trading firms up to $100,000 a month for millisecond-early access to the president’s Truth Social posts, launched on Aug. 1. Trump’s family holds roughly 41% of the company through a trust controlled by his son, Donald Trump Jr., meaning every subscription sold financially benefits the president—a conflict Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) flagged in a letter to SEC Chair Paul Atkins before the launch.
The senators noted that Trump has previously used Truth Social to promote individual stocks, and argued that selling paying subscribers a speed advantage on his own market-moving posts is different from other forms of enhanced access, since those posts are statements from a sitting president.
CNBC reports:
Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate whether Trump Media & Technology Group is violating the law by selling faster access to President Donald Trump’s Truth Social posts. “This appears to be an outrageous abuse of the President’s office for his personal benefit …” the Democratic senators wrote. … They asked Atkins to complete a legal analysis of Trump Media’s new service, including laws that “prohibit insider trading and market manipulation,” before it begins on Aug. 1. … Trump “stands to profit from the launch of this service,” as do the “firms and wealthy individuals that pay the subscription fee” to get his posts faster, the senators noted.
Truth API could provide particular advantage to high-frequency trading firms, they warned. “While financial firms and analysts have relied on manual monitoring of Truth Social, the API automatically feeds around-the-clock Truth Social posts directly to those who are simply willing to pay up front for milliseconds of additional notice.”
Trump Media’s response was to dismiss the senators’ concerns as either stemming from “ideological opposition to free markets” or a basic misunderstanding of securities law. What the response did not include is a denial that the president profits every time someone pays to read his posts a few milliseconds early. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called Truth API “the exact definition of insider trading.” Worth keeping in mind that the SEC tasked with policing any of this is chaired by a Trump appointee.
July 29, 2026
Trump Pardoned Convicted Fraudster Three Days After He Donated to a Vulnerable Republican Incumbent's PAC
Category: Political Corruption
Adam Kidan, the Republican megadonor and convicted fraudster from the Jack Abramoff scandal, was pardoned by Trump alongside nine Clean Air Act violators on July 3. According to new reporting from NOTUS, Kidan donated $2,600 to the leadership PAC of Rep. Ryan Mackenzie (R-Pa.), a vulnerable incumbent Trump had just campaigned for in his eastern Pennsylvania district, on June 30. Trump pardoned Kidan three days later.
Kidan’s pardon wiped away a felony fraud conviction and an outstanding restitution order tied to the underlying scheme. It’s unclear how much of it he ever paid, and a pardon is likely to erase what remains.
Spotlight PA, running NOTUS’s reporting, has the story:
Mackenzie’s office told NOTUS that the Republican congressman did not speak with the White House or Trump about the pardon, but it declined to answer questions about whether the congressman intends to keep Kidan’s donation. “Congressman Mackenzie has never advocated for a pardon from the President on anyone’s behalf,” Mackenzie spokesperson Arnaud Armstrong said in a statement. …
Following publication of this article, the White House said … that Trump takes his power to issue pardons seriously, that he is “the final decision maker” on pardons and that a team of “elite lawyers” evaluates every request before it reaches the president. …
Mackenzie faces Democratic challenger Bob Brooks to represent Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District in what the Cook Political Report ranks as a “toss-up” race. In an email to NOTUS, Brooks campaign manager Jenna Kaufman said: “Three days after a convicted fraudster cut Ryan Mackenzie a massive campaign check, that same fraudster walked away with a presidential pardon. That is corruption in plain sight.”
Mackenzie has since returned the donation. His office said he gave back Kidan’s $2,600 “to avoid even an appearance of impropriety”—an implicit admission of exactly the appearance Trump’s pardon created.
Three days is a curiously tight window for a coincidence, and this is hardly the first time Trump’s pardon pen has moved suspiciously close to a payment. Kidan didn’t respond to requests for comment on the timing. He’s also given to at least six other Republicans in competitive 2025–26 races—Mackenzie is just the one whose timing lined up closest to when the pardon was issued.
July 29, 2026
The Secret Service Falsified an ‘Emergency’ to Track Comey’s Phone Over an Instagram Post, Even After Being Warned It Was Illegal
Category: Presidential Retribution
Former FBI Director James Comey is fighting to get his indictment over a since-deleted Instagram post—seashells arranged to read “86 47”—thrown out as vindictive and selective prosecution, and a new court filing from his lawyers explains why. The day Comey posted the photo, a Secret Service agent asked a colleague about “pinging” Comey’s cellphone to track his location. The colleague said it would be legally questionable, absent a genuine emergency. Federal law only allows that kind of warrantless request when there is an imminent threat to someone’s life. By the Secret Service agent’s own account, nobody believed there was one. His supervisor said they might do it anyway. They did.
Meanwhile, Trump himself was tracking the case in real time. During one of the Secret Service’s interviews with Comey, the agent traveling with Trump reported getting “lots of questions” about the interview. A Secret Service timeline entry from that day notes that Trump wanted a copy of the interview notes ahead of a press conference that evening.
Comey’s lawyers also point out that, per the FBI’s own threat database, the phrase “86” had never once appeared as a coded threat prior to Comey’s post, and two retired organized-crime agents told the FBI they’d never heard it used to mean “kill” either.
Reason reports:
The day of the Instagram post, a Secret Service special agent in charge (SAIC) “asked me about the possibility of pinging Comey’s cell phone,” an assistant to the SAIC (ATSAIC) reported in an email the next day. “I said it could be done, but it would be a bad idea.”
Why? Under 18 USC 2702, a cellphone provider generally may not “knowingly divulge” customer records, but there is an exception when a “governmental entity” asks for the information if “the provider, in good faith, believes that an emergency involving danger of death or serious physical injury to any person requires disclosure without delay of communications relating to the emergency.” In this case, there was no evidence to support such a belief.
“To declare an exigency exception” to the usual warrant requirement, the ATSAIC noted, “we needed to believe that there is an imminent threat to life or limb.” At the time, he added, “we did not believe that anyone’s life was in immediate danger,” so “legally it was a bad idea to ping the phone.” The ATSAIC said he “argued against taking this option” because it was “legally questionable.” The SAIC “agreed with me but said we might do it anyway.”
And so they did. On May 16, an agent filled out a form asking Verizon for Comey’s location information, averring that the surveillance was “relate[d] to an emergency involving danger of death or serious physical injury to a person, necessitating disclosure without delay of information relating to that emergency.” … That agent said he “was asked by the SAIC to ping the cellphone of James Comey via exigency.” He added that he did so “with hesitation.” An assistant agent in charge (ASAIC) reported that “the #3 guy at DOJ ’wanted to ping the cellphone via an exigency request.’”
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has insisted the 11-month investigation turned up serious evidence beyond the Instagram post itself. What his own administration’s Secret Service actually found, when it had jurisdiction, was nothing. The agency closed its case even as the FBI’s own investigation, which produced little of substance until weeks before the indictment, was already technically underway.
July 28, 2026
ICE Is Now Pulling People Off Jet Bridges Over Visa Overstays
Category: Policy Illegality
Immigration agents, wearing regular clothing instead of uniform, have started detaining travelers at boarding gates and jet bridges, targeting people over visa overstays rather than existing deportation orders or criminal records. The Department of Homeland Security receives passenger information before every flight through the TSA, giving ICE agents foreknowledge of where someone will be and at what time.
The case drawing the most attention: Chantal Alejandra Morales Rojas, an Ecuadorian citizen, was pulled off a jet bridge in Denver on July 20 as she tried to board her flight. Footage shows agents detaining her while a friend shouts for help. DHS calls Morales Rojas “an illegal alien” who came in 2024 and has been here on an expired visa since Jan. 2025. Morales Rojas’ attorneys say she entered the country legally on a J-1 exchange visa in 2023 and had received work authorization while an application to stay in the country was pending. Even if DHS is right about her expired visa, the idea that this is what enforcement should look like is absurd.
Morales Rojas isn’t an isolated incident. CNN reports on a similar case out of Las Vegas:
An attempted arrest at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas ended when ICE agents walked away leaving a man on the ground with one handcuff on. The two agents were trying to forcibly detain the man on July 13 when onlookers confronted them, according to police and federal officials. A TSA officer told bystanders to keep back, video of the attempted arrest shows.
The man being arrested was identified as Phu Nguyen, 57, in the US on an expired visa, according to DHS. After a “crowd of anti-ICE agitators surrounded officers,” they stopped the arrest to “de-escalate the situation and for officer safety,” a statement from the department said. Las Vegas police removed the handcuff from his wrist and he was released after they determined he had no outstanding warrants.
Nguyen, a citizen of Australia who was born in Vietnam, was taken into custody the next day when he landed at Los Angeles International Airport. His two-year visa had expired in 2015, DHS said.
Overstaying a visa is generally a civil violation, not the kind of public-safety threat ICE has always pointed to as its priority for street-level enforcement. Under Trump, though, it is grounds for unidentified agents to pull someone off a jet bridge in front of horrified fellow passengers, pending case or not.
July 27, 2026
Trump Asks Supreme Court to Let Him Rewrite Mail-In Voting Rules After Two Courts Already Blocked Him
Category: Policy Illegality
In March, Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security to compile citizenship lists of eligible voters for every state and instructing the Postal Service to develop new rules for mail ballots, including requiring a specific envelope for ballots and sending them only to voters on the states’ lists. This is the latest move in his broader campaign to reshape how states run their own elections. Well, 23 states and Washington, D.C. sued, and in June a federal judge in Massachusetts sided with them.
Rather than accept the loss, the administration escalated. When the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit declined to lift the block last weekend, Solicitor General D. John Sauer went straight to the Supreme Court and asked the justices to let the order take effect in nearly half the country before ballots go out this fall.
CBS News reports:
Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that the district court’s injunction is “extraordinary” because it prevents federal agencies from taking steps to implement Mr. Trump’s directive, which he said “merely sets forth general policy guidance” and aims to promote election integrity.
“The Executive Order functions only to direct the President’s subordinates to take appropriate and lawful action to implement the President’s policy objectives,” he wrote. “By stopping the relevant agencies and officials from implementing that Order with respect to the November 2026 federal election, the injunction operates as ’an improper intrusion by a federal court into the workings of a coordinate branch of the Government.’”
The lower courts have twice found reason to block this order from taking effect this election cycle. The administration’s answer was to ask the Supreme Court to let it happen anyway. Lose in court, escalate, and hope the clock runs out before Election Day forces the issue. It’s a familiar playbook by now.
July 24, 2026
Department of Energy Admits it Canceled Grants for Blue States Just Because They Didn’t Vote for Trump
Category: Presidential Retribution
Last October the Trump administration canceled almost $8 billion in grants for clean energy projects, ostensibly to reduce federal spending and waste. In a development that will shock no one, the rationale the administration offered didn’t turn out to be the real reason for the decision. The actual reason was that the administration deliberately targeted states that voted for Kamala Harris.
As The New York Times reports, the administration just admitted it in court:
In little-noticed court documents, federal officials acknowledged this month that they had terminated the funding “based solely” on political criteria, targeting projects in states that were represented by Democrats and had voted for Kamala Harris, the party’s presidential nominee, in the 2024 election.
The admission showed how President Trump has weaponized the provision of federal education, energy, health, housing and infrastructure aid in his second term. Far from rooting out the sort of misspending that Mr. Trump sees as rife in Washington, the White House has instead sought to leverage the budget as a tool to assist its allies — or as a cudgel to hurt the president’s foes.
“With one exception,” a lawyer for the Energy Department conceded in a court filing this month, “the 284 terminated grants had a recipient location and/or at least one place of performance in a state that awarded its electoral votes to Kamala Harris in the 2024 election and has two Democratic-caucusing senators.”
The lawyer acknowledged that none of the grants were included in the October terminations “based on any programmatic, statutory, cost-reduction or performance-based factor.” … The filings also appeared to undermine the congressional testimony of Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who spoke about the cancellations in a June House hearing: “No decisions were made on politics.”
Trump’s weaponization of the Department of Justice is the flashiest, and most dangerous, of his efforts to turn all of government into a vehicle to redress his own personal grievances, but it’s far from the only department being misused to punish political enemies. Still, it’s highly unusual for an agency to plainly admit it. It’s likely this concession was intended to avoid discovery, where highly damning internal communications could be revealed. By conceding the point, the administration can argue providing such evidence is unnecessary.
July 23, 2026
A Judge Shut Down the DOJ’s Attempt to Subpoena New York Times Reporters for Covering His Qatari Jet’s Security Flaws
Category: Presidential Retribution
Donald Trump flew in his shiny “new” Qatari jet to the recent NATO summit in Ankara, but left Turkey aboard the older Air Force One, switching back to the Qatari jet partway home at a U.K. air base. According to reporting by The New York Times, that’s because the Secret Service told Trump his luxury “gift” jet didn’t have all of the necessary security features. Trump’s response to that reporting: subpoenas for the reporters who broke the story in a blatant attempt to chill the freedom of the press. Thankfully, a federal judge’s criticism of the investigation led the Trump DOJ to withdraw its own subpoenas—at least for now.
The New York Times explains its own legal win:
“Either we can quash the subpoenas, or you could withdraw the subpoenas,” the judge told Sean Buckley, a top official in the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, who was speaking on behalf of the government.
Judge Subramanian then grilled the prosecutors for the vast majority of the hourlong hearing, his demeanor at times resembling a teacher scolding his pupils. He asked few questions of The Times’s lawyers; at one point, he even apologized to one of them and promised time to respond to some of the government’s statements.
Under the judge’s questioning, the government acknowledged factual errors in its filings. It conceded that it had omitted significant information — including that the case pertained to journalists’ records — when it asked a different federal judge to prevent a phone company from disclosing a record request.
“The inadvertent errors and the ‘in hindsight we should have done things differently,’ these things are piling up,” the judge said.
That the government’s harassment of people who merely irritate the president—rather than any coherent notion of “political enemies”—is often clownish doesn’t make it any less dangerous to press freedom. The Times fought back, but many companies and media outlets do not. Clearly, the embarrassment from incidents like this one is not enough to dissuade the administration from pursuing a maximalist strategy of legal harassment using the Department of Justice.
July 22, 2026
Trump Escalates His One-Man Trade War on Canada, a Top Ally and Trading Partner, With New 50% Tariffs
Category: Policy Illegality
The Supreme Court’s ruling against Trump’s first attempts to impose sweeping tariffs (under IEEPA) has not dissuaded the president from trying to find a different legal fig leaf to accomplish the same goal, or from using tariffs as a punitive measure against countries whose leaders displease him. The president’s latest target, once again, is Canada.
The New York Times reports:
On Monday, President Trump added new 50 percent tariffs on a slate of Canadian goods, adding more pressure on one of the United States’ top trading partners and further straining a once close alliance. The move by Mr. Trump was a significant escalation of the trade war between Canada and the United States that he started well over a year ago.
These tariffs, as well as those that came before them, violate the trade agreement that United States, Canada and Mexico signed during Mr. Trump’s first term.
While Mr. Trump threatened to bring tariffs against Canada last week over wildfire smoke that was crossing the border, he has not linked the new tariffs to that. Rather, his administration is using an obscure, never tested piece of trade law to penalize Canada, in the view of the administration, for discriminating against the United States. … Mr. Trump is imposing the tariffs under a long-unused statute, Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, which allow him to impose tariffs of up to 50 percent on countries that have taken discriminatory trade measures against the United States. The bill also introduced high tariffs that exacerbated the collapse of global trade during the Great Depression. Several legal experts expect a challenge in American courts.
Donald Trump remains completely single-minded in his determination to destroy the longstanding friendship between the United States and Canada, as well as to impose tariffs by any means necessary. We will, presumably, have to wait and see whether the Supreme Court will step in once again to save Trump from himself.
July 20, 2026
Trump’s Unhinged, Rambling Speech Lays Groundwork for Future Election Interference
Category: Power Consolidation
While The UnPopulist was gathered in D.C. for its 2026 Liberalism for the 21st Century conference, Donald Trump delivered a long, rambling speech about his favorite topic: imaginary election vulnerabilities. Despite high billing from the administration (a White House press release described it as exposing “bombshell evidence”), the evidentiary content of the speech was, predictably, a nothing-burger. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be a serious threat to the actual integrity of our elections.
Lawfare gives us this blunt assessment, together with a warning of what the speech was actually designed to accomplish:
President Trump’s speech last Thursday on the 2020 election was most notable for what it did not contain: evidence that any malign activity affected the result. Much of what he described was already known. None of it showed that votes were changed, fraudulent ballots were counted, or the election was stolen. None of it showed that intelligence officials had concealed such evidence. … President Trump stopped short of many democracy advocates’ worst fears on Thursday night. He did not issue an executive order declaring a national emergency. He didn’t seek to decertify voting machines, or enact the SAVE America Act unilaterally—opting to call on Congress to pass it instead. And he also didn’t release much that was new in the way of intelligence; most of the featured claims had already earned enough public attention to be thoroughly debunked.
The speech was, in short, political theater. But political theater can have real consequences. … Yet regardless of whether the administration manages to strong-arm states into enacting any of its reforms before November—or ever—these declassifications and the accompanying demands may lay the groundwork for alleging foreign interference or fraud on or after Election Day as justification for federal intervention. Last week’s messaging may also simply be targeted at fomenting doubt and discord that could prove dangerous during a contested election.
Thursday’s speech was ostensibly about 2020. Its real significance may lie in what it prepares the public to accept in 2026.
Trump’s constant election lies seem obviously ridiculous to us, but they are believable for his most loyal supporters, and lay the groundwork for his most sycophantic enablers to act on his falsehoods, potentially including Republican members of Congress. Additionally, the conspiracy theories continue to fuel violent threats and intimidation against election officials and officeholders.
July 16, 2026
Trump Administration Launches Nearly $5 Million Grant Program to Bankroll Far-Right Parties in Europe
Category: Power Consolidation
The Trump administration is continuing with its efforts to support far-right parties in other countries—the irony of Trump’s own recent complaints about Chinese election interference aside, of course. The global far right lost a significant funding stream recently with the defeat of Hungary’s Viktor Orban, and the United States appears to be stepping up to the plate, prompting German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to say “I do not want the American government or institutions close to the government to interfere in German elections.”
The Guardian reports:
The German chancellor was responding to a US initiative offering grants of up to $3m (£2.2m) for European charities, thinktanks and individuals.
The funding will be for those seeking to “address national sovereignty, migration, censorship and lawfare challenges in line with shared political philosophy, law and our common western civilizational heritage”.
Former US officials say the grant scheme is part of a months-long effort by the state department to repurpose US government funds to support far-right groups and potentially political parties in Europe. … Previous reporting has suggested that the state department under Trump is interested in funding political parties in Europe, but that it could be hampered by US laws around foreign assistance. On Wednesday, Merz highlighted that it was illegal to finance political parties in Germany from abroad.
The former state department official said: “There seems to be an effort by the state department to put the thumb on the scale of elections in Europe, giving an unfair advantage to rightwing parties with resources that they would ordinarily not get.”
Note: the $3m figure is the cap on any single grant; the State Department’s total funding pool for the program is nearly $5 million, according to its own materials.
It’s hard to keep track of just what the Trump administration thinks of foreign election interference: it seems to be fake news, until it isn’t, as well as unacceptable and bad, unless it’s us doing it to our European allies.
July 15, 2026
Hegseth Brings the Pentagon Into the Manosphere By Diagnosing the Military’s Main Problem as Low Testosterone, Ordering Mandatory Screening for Troops Over 30
Category: Power Consolidation
“Amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics,” according to the old military saying. Incompetent internet-poisoned former TV talk show hosts, apparently, talk testosterone levels. In a video straight out of a manosphere fever dream, Pete Hegseth announced plans for a “High-T Department of War,” with mandatory testosterone screening for service members over the age of 30.
The Guardian reports:
The US defense secretary unveiled plans for a new screening program for testosterone deficiency among troops that will work to ensure service members have the “right testosterone levels” to perform at their optimal condition in a video posted to X.
“Warfighters” aged 30 and above will undergo annual tests as part of their health assessments, while those under 30 can choose to opt in, Hegseth said. Treatment, including testosterone replacement therapy, is voluntary and aimed at “restoring and optimizing” natural capabilities. … Testosterone, and concerns about a shortage thereof, has become a political fixation on the right. Alternative media commentators such as Tucker Carlson have decried a crisis of masculinity in films such as The End of Men, while influencers promote “T-maxxing” and direct-to-consumer testosterone injections.
No word from the “Department of War” on whether testosterone levels are responsible for the administration’s utter strategic incoherence in the ongoing war with Iran.
July 14, 2026
Trump Blindsides Gulf Allies and His Own Aides With Hormuz Toll Scheme, Only to Abandon it a Day Later
Category: Policy Illegality
As the Trump administration continues its helpless flailing in trying to find a politically acceptable exit from its disastrous conflict with Iran, the president briefly announced—and reversed the next day—a plan to charge a 20% toll on shipping coming through the Strait of Hormuz.
CNN has the story:
President Donald Trump shocked Gulf allies and many of his own aides with his plan to impose a toll on the Strait of Hormuz, touching off an international scramble to convince him to reverse course on his demand, several sources familiar with the matter told CNN.
The abrupt announcement on Monday came despite months of warnings from Trump’s own advisers not to pursue the idea, for fear it would undermine the US’ own war aims — as well as validate Iran’s purported plans to charge fees in the strait, which the administration repeatedly characterized as illegal. … Inside the White House on Monday, aides rushed to flesh out the logistics for creating such an unprecedented tolling system, including determining who would pay the fees and how they would be collected. Many officials and outside analysts initially assumed shippers would foot the bill, but the effort was further complicated by another Trump declaration later on Monday that US allies in the Gulf would be paying instead.
Those same Gulf allies’ leaders, meanwhile, were working frantically to get Trump on the phone in time to talk him out of the idea altogether.
By Tuesday morning, the flurry of appeals from nations—including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar—had succeeded. Instead of the US collecting tolls, Trump announced that the countries had pledged to pour new, undefined sums into US investments.
Such is American foreign policy now.
July 10, 2026
Trump Guts the Bipartisan Election Assistance Commission to Clear the Way for Fresh Attacks on Our Electoral System
Category: Power Consolidation
In yet another attempt to undermine the legitimacy of American elections, Donald Trump fired the two Democratic members of the Election Assistance Commission, “allowing” the one remaining Republican member to resign instead of being fired (the other Republican member resigned in April and had not yet been replaced). This move leaves the EAC, not simply without a quorum, but without any members at all—its remaining staff can carry on routine operations, but cannot take any new actions.
The New York Times has the story:
According to its website, the commission guides states in ensuring they meet voting requirements, oversees testing and certification of voting systems and disperses funding to help states meet requirements. It serves as a national clearinghouse for information on election administration and maintains the national mail voter registration form established by the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.
After Russia’s election interference efforts during the 2016 presidential campaign, the commission sharpened its focus on cybersecurity issues, supporting states alongside the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency as they reviewed and improved safeguards on their voting machines. Mr. Trump in his second term has overseen major cuts at the cybersecurity agency, which has not had a Senate-confirmed director since he returned to the White House. Now, after the ousters at the election commission, the two primary points of contact for state and local elections officials are leaderless.
Given that the EAC is required to have two commissioners from each party, and that appointments require confirmation, Trump has little chance of fully staffing it with loyalists who will support his lies about election security or his own efforts to interfere in voting. Kneecapping the commission entirely, it seems, is his second preference.
© The UnPopulist, 2026
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