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Cashing in Nepotism at its finest. Trump still doesn’t grasp the concept of groceries There are no limits as to what Trump will take credit for. Graham Platner holds Maine hostage—along with Democrats’ Senate hopes This man truly doesn’t understand the concept of “no.” Click here to see more cartoons.

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When Donald Trump gets into a loop, it’s hard to get him out. He’ll just talk in a circle until he’s bored and moves on to the next thing. He has fixated on Greenland and ruminated on his reflecting pool. Right now, though, his focus is The Communists. And as a new Reuters analysis reveals, he’s really into it: Over the past two weeks, Trump has brought up communism a full 81 times. 

Communism is an old rhetorical obsession for Trump—who was in first grade when Joseph Stalin died—and his allies. In 2025, he introduced a “National Anti-Communism Week.” He blamed communists for his 2023 criminal indictments. During his 2020 campaign, he accused his opponents of (you guessed it) communism.

It may be a product of his deep relationship with Roy Cohn, a lackey of Red Scare architect Sen. Joseph McCarthy and Trump’s longtime mentor and personal lawyer. 

But over the past week, the president appears to have hit overdrive, sermonizing against communism at fever pitch. And like his Red Scare predecessors, Trump is also using the label to go after immigrants, decrying a “resurgent communist menace” from “newcomers to our country” in a July 3 speech at Mount Rushmore—designed by an anti-immigrant crusader and Ku Klux Klan associate—that also characterized communism as “a mortal threat to American liberty” and “the greatest threat” to the United States, surpassing Pearl Harbor, both World Wars, the September 11 attacks, et cetera.

Then Trump really got going: “You can be loyal to Karl Marx, or you can be loyal to America,” he continued. “You can be a communist, or you can be a patriot. You cannot be both. The godless communist morality states that anything is justified to bring about inhuman visions…They don’t want good. They don’t love God, and they don’t want God. They don’t love religion, and they don’t want religion, and they won’t have it, but we will not let them win.” 

The actual communists of the Communist Party USA have spent the past week sending strident press releases to clarify that they are not, in fact, the Democratic Socialists of America.

Maybe Trump’s handwringing over so-called communists isn’t entirely misguided. After all, capitalism hasn’t been looking too good lately. A recent Gallup poll showed that less than half of young Americans feel positively toward our economic system. The libertarian Cato Institute found last week that a majority of Americans under 30 feel positively about socialism, and more than a third report a favorable view of communism. So if communism is a “cancer” that Trump must “cut out fast,” as he threatened to do at an America250 event, he certainly has his work cut out for him.

Conspiracy theorist Donald Trump Jr. lashed out on Wednesday at right-wing conspiracy theories swirling around the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Trump Jr. has attended the preliminary hearings ahead of the trial of Tyler Robinson, who is accused of shooting and killing Kirk in 2025. In an appearance on Fox News, Trump Jr. said he was happy to “see the actual facts” in the…

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A cartoon by Jack Ohman. Related | Graham Platner holds Maine hostage—along with Democrats’ Senate hopes…

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A former judge was spared a prison sentence Wednesday after being convicted for helping an immigrant evade ICE agents in her Wisconsin courtroom.

U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman only gave Hannah Dugan a $5,000 fine, saying, “I think this is a situation where an otherwise good person, upset by immigration policies in this country, made a bad decision in the moment.” Dugan faced up to five years in prison.

“This is a few minutes of conduct for someone who has dedicated her life to public service,” Adelman said. “It’s a marked deviation from an otherwise law-abiding life.”

Dugan was found guilty last December on two counts of federal obstruction, though jurors did not charge her with concealing an individual from arrest. The case followed an incident in which federal immigration agents entered the court in April 2025 to arrest Mexican immigrant Eduardo Flores-Ruiz. Dugan confronted the agents outside her courtroom and redirected them to the chief judge’s office on grounds that their warrant was insufficient. Flores-Ruiz was later arrested outside the court.

In his ruling, Adelman noted that Dugan had decades of public service, no pattern of criminal behavior, and an otherwise clean record. He added that the consequences of Dugan having a criminal record and losing her judicial position were enough, and that Flores-Ruiz was ultimately detained and deported anyway.

Before her sentencing, Dugan told the court that she meant to preserve “decorum and safety of the courtroom” by helping Flores-Ruiz.

“I have been cast as both a scofflaw and a hero. I am neither. I am a public servant who’s just trying to do my job,” Dugan said.

Six ICE agents showed up at Dugan’s Milwaukee courthouse in April last year, preparing to arrest and deport Flores-Ruiz, who was set to appear before Dugan in court over three misdemeanor counts of battery. According to prosecutors, Dugan led Flores-Ruiz out of a private door instead of the courtroom’s public exit, telling her court reporter she’d “get the heat” for her actions.

The FBI subsequently arrested Dugan, sparking a backlash from Democrats and even some conservatives. She later resigned from the Milwaukee County Circuit bench after Wisconsin Republican legislators threatened to impeach her.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced Tuesday that his department would redirect $1.73 billion in Biden-era grants away from establishing “DEI bike lanes” to build roads and bridges instead.

So, what exactly is a “DEI bike lane?”

The Daily Wire pointed to former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s claim that a series of 2021 grants funding bike lanes would serve to “improve infrastructure, strengthen supply chains, make us safer, advance equity, and combat climate change.”

Upon hearing “equity,” President Donald Trump’s goons can’t help but get triggered into attacking any federal spending that won’t benefit them directly. In reality, those Biden-era grants directed funds to build a new transit center in North Carolina, replace bridges in New Mexico, extend streets in New Hampshire, install traffic lights and crosswalks in Missouri, and install bike lanes in Seattle, among other projects. Now the financial status of these projects is unclear.

The Daily Wire also complained that when the Biden administration announced the availability of $1.5 billion in grants in 2023, applicants were encouraged “to consider how their projects can address climate change, ensure racial equity, and remove barriers to opportunity.” Those funds were already awarded to dozens of projects across the country—not just bike lanes—in both rural and urban areas.

The Trump administration has made extensive efforts to root out federal programs addressing racial discrimination. Now it seems that to even have considered racial inequality is grounds for losing millions of dollars.

“America is fortunate to have a Builder in the White House who knows America is only as great as our infrastructure,” Duffy told The Daily Wire. “That’s why this Department is investing in repairing critical roads and bridges that connect Americans to job opportunities, port infrastructure that bolsters our national security, and aviation and transit projects that move American families.”

But American families benefit from the presence of bike lanes, even if they don’t use them. Even the federal government acknowledges that bicycle lanes make roads a lot safer.

“To make bicycling safer and more comfortable for most types of bicyclists, State and local agencies should consider installing bicycle lanes,” said a statement from the Federal Highway Administration. “Providing bicycle facilities can mitigate or prevent interactions, conflicts, and crashes between bicyclists and motor vehicles, and create a network of safer roadways for bicycling.”

Rather, it seems likely that the Trump administration has chosen to zero in on bike lanes because they may be associated with urban areas that are led by Democrats and home to minority groups.

The move is simultaneously a blow to the diverse communities in American cities and a cheap culture-war win over the liberal urbanites. At the same time, the policy is in line with Trump’s efforts to boost gas-powered vehicles.

But American families will suffer from a lack of bike lanes too, especially with gas prices remaining high—and likely to stay that way.

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Bryan Johnson, the tech millionaire spending heavily in a quixotic effort to avoid death, has received yet another stark reminder of his terminal mortality.

Last week, Johnson announced he has been diagnosed with autoimmune gastritis, an incurable disease that causes the immune system to attack healthy stomach cells. “My stomach is eating itself,” he wrote.

Normally, such a diagnosis would be no laughing matter. But we can make an exception for Johnson, one of the more ridiculous characters to emerge during Silicon Valley’s pivot to AI psychosis. Johnson, who claims he will not die, has started a cult movement called Don’t Die, which is based on convincing gullible people that death is optional (and getting them to buy the health supplements Johnson sells).

In his supposed quest to overcome death, Johnson has:

-Injected the blood plasma of his teenage son
-Subjected his penis to shock therapy
-Swallowed 100 pills a day
-Baked in a 200 degree sauna while icing his testicles
-Taken massive doses of psychedelics
-Tweeted details about his girlfriend’s genitals
-Declared that mankind will use AI to create God

“We are creating God in the form of superintelligence,” Johnson told Bari Weiss in an interview. “If you just say: What have we imagined God to be? What are its characteristics? We are building God in the form of technology.”

Johnson has even announced the creation of his own Network State—with plans for a private country called Don’t Die. When asked to state his goals during a 2024 interview, Johnson said:

One is start a company. Two is start a country. Three is start a religion. Four: Don't Die. Five: Become God.

Unfortunately for Johnson, it appears God—or Nature—will have the last laugh. His diagnosis isn’t terminal, but it’s a reminder that he is mortal, and will remain so no matter how much Snake Oil he swallows or teenagers he drains. He will not be God, or even see God.

This may seem like an obvious and unnecessary point to make, but it’s crucial, because Johnson is not alone. The wealthiest men in the world are spending billions of dollars in an emergency quest for life extension. From a Wall Street Journal story headlined “The Billionaires Fueling the Quest for Longer Life”:

Silicon Valley giants Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, Yuri Milner and Marc Andreessen are among the boldface names behind the influx of money in the longevity industry. Thiel’s quest for longer life spans nearly a dozen companies—some of which were funded by his venture firm and others by a nonprofit foundation he backed—that raised more than $700 million, according to the Journal's analysis.

They and other wealthy investors have helped push what was once something of an academic backwater into the cultural mainstream. Many companies ultimately fail, but the ultrawealthy and other enthusiasts are following the money and the science to decide where to invest and what to take.

The billionaire quest for political power and the billionaire quest to defeat death are, I’d argue, the same project wearing two hats. Democracy is a limit on power. Mortality is a limit on power. Both projects are, at bottom, a tantrum against the words “limit” and “reality.”

So it’s pleasing to see Johnson—the pallid mascot of Silicon Valley’s panicky death fear—get such a brutal reality check. Too many media outlets have built up his legend, giving him the attention he so desperately craves. But the media builds you up to tear you down, and the walls are closing in on Johnson and his delicate flesh.

This all ends very badly for him. In fact, it ends in death. No amount of protein powders or magic mushrooms or crotch tortures will change this simple, incontrovertible fact—and neither will billions in venture capital spending.

Which brings me to the subject of my book: not just the quest to live forever, but the quest to rule forever that runs right alongside it.

The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy is out soon. Early sales make a huge difference —click here to support local bookstores and this newsletter, or here for all other buying options.

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Bryan Johnson, ‘Don’t Die’ Network State Guru, Under FireBryan Johnson gained wide fame as the subject of a recent Netflix documentary. But now his carefully crafted image may be crackingMy Talk With Wajahat Ali

Earlier this week, I joined Wajahat Ali for a conversation about Elon Musk and other billionaire villains. We cover a lot of ground in this one. Click below to watch:

Elon Musk, America’s Worst Immigrant, Leads Silicon Valley’s Fascist Attack on DemocracyElon Musk openly promotes Nazi conspiracies and anti-immigrant movies as Silicon Valley billionaires are no longer hiding their end game to destroy democracy and replace it with techno-fascism.

A U.S. soldier who went missing in the Arabian Sea was declared dead just as Trump reignited his war on Iran.

The missing soldier was identified Tuesday as Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 5 commanding officer Gabriel Edwards. He and three other soldiers were forced to emergency-land their helicopter in the Arabian Sea on July 1. While the others were rescued, Edwards was declared officially dead after 102 hours—over four days—of searching.

“Commander Gabe Edwards was the epitome of selfless leadership, who dedicated himself to service and sacrifice for the last 20 years,” Captain Matthew Lewis said in a statement on Tuesday. “Our deepest gratitude and sympathy go out to his family, who should know that Gabe led his squadron, the HSC-5 ‘Nightdippers,’ with integrity and fortitude.”

The cause of the incident remains under investigation, but the Navy insists that Edwards’s death was not caused by a hostile act.

Nevertheless, Edwards’s disappearance and death coincides with a once again active war between the U.S. and Iran. President Trump on Wednesday declared any deal with Iran null and void, following the worst exchange of fire between the two countries since the memorandum of understanding, or MOU, was signed. Iran targeted tankers in the Strait of Hormuz and U.S. bases, and the U.S. bombed several coastal cities in Iran.

“To me? I think it’s over,” Trump said of the MOU at the NATO summit in Turkey. “They’re scum. You know what scum is? They’re scum. They’re sick people. They’re led by sick people, and they’re vicious, violent people. And if they had a nuclear weapon, they’d use it. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over.”

Thirteen U.S soldiers have been confirmed to be killed in Iran, although that number has been alleged to be an underestimate.

At least two of the U.S. military’s websites were hacked, with pro-Kurdish messages and attacks on President Donald Trump being posted before they were taken down. According to CyberScoop, the military was unaware of the hack until independent cybersecurity researcher Ronald Lovelace discovered the expletives about Trump and United States Ambassador to Türkiye Tom Barrack on two outward…

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Rahm Emanuel, a potential Democratic presidential candidate and longtime defender of Israel, warned Wednesday that the country has become increasingly isolated as its leadership has turned it into a “territorial pariah,” in a speech at Tel Aviv University on Wednesday. Emanuel’s condemnation of Israel’s leadership shows how far centrist Democrats have shifted away from historic support of…

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President Trump rejected FEMA disaster aid requests from four blue states last Friday, after accepting the aid requests of six red states just two days before, according to Politico. This continues his blatant trend of prioritizing petty political beef over sorely needed FEMA funding—putting Americans at risk in the process.

New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island were all denied after requesting a total of $227 million in aid following the brutal blizzard in February. All four states were well past the damage threshold required to trigger aid consideration.

“After months of waiting, President Trump today denied our request for a Major Disaster Declaration following the blizzard that pummeled New York City, Long Island, and the Mid-Hudson in February of this year,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul said in a statement last week. “New York’s communities … deserve to have access to every resource available to recover and rebuild. Instead they have a President who is turning his back on his home state.… We will appeal to ensure New Yorkers receive the federal assistance they deserve.”

Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and the rest of the state’s congressional Democratic delegation similarly condemned Trump.

“After months of inaction, on July 2, President Trump denied Rhode Island’s request for a Major Disaster Declaration related to the record snowfall and cold temperatures,” the delegation wrote on Monday.

The letter also noted that Trump bragged about granting over $846 million in disaster relief funds to Republican states on Truth Social the same day he denied their request—further proof of Trump purposefully withholding funds from blue states.

“Rhode Island’s Congressional delegation believes the Trump Administration improperly rejected the Ocean State’s request, pointing out that President Trump has politicized disaster assistance for states over the last year and made it exponentially harder for so-called ‘blue states’ to get disaster funding under the highly partisan Trump Administration than it is for so-called ‘red states.’” They demanded he reverse the decision.

The president also denied disaster relief requests from Vermont, Illinois, and Maryland last year, and from Colorado and California around that same time—all while continuing to deliver aid to states where more people voted for him.

The U.S. president has indicated that he’s done negotiating with Tehran, that the ceasefire between Iran and the U.S. is over, and that the public can expect more strikes to be exchanged between the two nations—a decision that is bound to rack up some monumental costs.

A new analysis of U.S. expenses through the four-month war thus far by Popular Information’s Stephen Semler found that Trump officials have dramatically lowballed Congress on the real cost of the conflict (Semler also co-founded the U.S. foreign policy think tank Security Policy Reform Institute).

Last week, Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought told the House Appropriations Committee that the U.S. had spent $30 billion on the Iran War. According to Semler’s estimates, the true cost is closer to $103 billion.

Semler argued that Vought himself must have been aware of the figure’s inaccuracy. Days before his House testimony, Vought wrote and signed a formal request “on behalf of the president” for $88 billion in supplemental funding from Congress, including a $72 billion increase for the war effort.

But even that $72 billion figure doesn’t offer a complete image of the war’s total price tag. Semler noted that Popular Information had previously calculated the war cost nearly that much—about $71.8 billion—during the first 60 days. The Trump administration is expected to ask for even more money to fund the conflict through upcoming reconciliation bills.

In order to build an independent analysis of the Pentagon’s expenditures, Semler analyzed procurement info, operating and support data, open-source intelligence, statements from U.S. officials, and media reports.

Over the first 120 days of the conflict, Semler tallied $28.5 billion in mobilization, administrative, and immediate combat costs; $46.7 billion spent on missiles, interceptors, and bombs; $20.3 billion on damaged or destroyed military assets; $2.9 billion spent on Israel’s bombs and interceptors; and an additional $4.8 billion on war costs to nonmilitary U.S. agencies.

Yet no one in charge of the government—from the White House to top congressional Republicans—has posited exactly how the U.S. will pay for the war. Whereas taxes were raised in previous wars (such as World War I, World War II, and the Korean War) in order to fund conflict, the current administration has so far offered no such solution.

Sen. Mitch McConnell is definitely still alive and definitely not in a vegetative state, Republicans said on Tuesday, with multiple GOP leaders claiming to have had 20-minute-long, very substantive conversations with the 84-year-old Kentucky lawmaker. The leaders all came out to say that they had spoken with McConnell after MAGA influencers said they were told that McConnell is “brain dead”…

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A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the release of the $5.8 million that President Trump owes E. Jean Carroll.

After the Supreme Court declined last week to hear Trump’s appeal of Carroll’s successful defamation case against him, the president has made excuses and tried to get out of paying her. Trump has already provided the money through a fund set up during the appeals process. However, interest has grown since then, raising the total sum past the initial $5 million verdict.

Shortly after Judge Lewis Kaplan issued his ruling, Trump appealed the decision.

In 2023, a jury found that Trump sexually abused Carroll in 1996 in a Manhattan department store, and defamed her after she went public with her story. The jury ordered $5 million in damages, and Trump put the sum, plus interest, in a court-controlled account shortly after losing the case.

Still, Trump insisted that he didn’t know Carroll and accused her of political and financial motives, and continued to defame her by claiming she fabricated her story. That repeated defamation resulted in another lawsuit that Trump lost, with a jury awarding Carroll $88.3 million.

Carroll is still awaiting payment from a man notorious for many years for not paying his bills. He’s pulling out all of the stops to avoid paying funds that he already deposited, and that are a tiny fraction of his net worth thanks to his successful efforts to use the presidency to enrich himself. Trump can’t admit when he’s lost, whether in court or at the ballot box, and he likes to hoard his ill-gotten gains.

This story has been updated.

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the US would continue strikes on Iran for a second night, and—if it had to—seize much of the country’s oil and target electric and desalination plants. 

The desalination plants are part of Iran’s vital civilian infrastructure, and, as I wrote in April, international law experts consider hitting these facilities to be war crimes because of the disproportionate harm targeting them would cause to civilians. 

On Wednesday, Trump also said that the US-Iran ceasefire agreement was over and that he would allow US officials to continue current negotiations to end the war, but they would be “wasting their time.”

Trump’s threats come amid multiple American strikes against Iran since it signed an interim deal with Iran on June 17. The US strikes came in response to Iranian attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz, a passageway that carried about 20 percent of the world’s crude oil and natural gas before the 2026 war began.

In late June, during the first major US strikes on Iran since the interim deal, Trump posted on Truth Social that if Iran continued its strikes, “we will be forced to military complete the job…if that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!”

As part of the US and Iran’s June agreement, Iran would allow ships to pass through without paying tolls for 60 days. But the country’s leadership has stated that oil tankers passing through the strait must use approved routes. According to a Wednesday report by the Associated Press, the ships Iran struck on Tuesday appeared to deviate from the designated route.

These recent maneuvers put more lives at risk. As of June 10, multiple Iranian government ministries reported that about 3,500 people have been killed in Iran since the war began in February.

Nate Swanson, President Joe Biden’s director for Iran at the National Security Council, told me two weeks ago what he considered the strategy at play here. The US doesn’t seem to be interested in making complex concessions to Iran, Swanson said, and Iran may be unwilling to agree to a deal with Trump specifically, given his support of the Gaza war and his strikes on the country in June 2025.

On Wednesday, Trump told reporters that Iran’s leaders were “scum” and “sick people.” “Based on their actions over the last week or two, they’re not doing a service to the people,” he said. “I’m not sure I want to make a deal with them.”

The Trump administration’s efforts to end the war appear to be going backward. Republican lawmakers criticized the June ceasefire deal with Iran as “the worst foreign policy blunder in decades.” While many publicly blamed JD Vance, whom Trump said was responsible for Iran negotiations, the war is extremely unpopular with his base, which could hurt the GOP’s chances in the upcoming midterms.

It was a bad idea, right?

Olivia Rodrigo is mobilizing her fans to vote against the Trump administration after Homeland Security officials used one of her songs as the soundtrack for their deportation propaganda.

“The Cure” singer launched a contest Wednesday that will offer fans a chance to win VIP tickets to her Daisy Chain Fields festival. The only entry requirement: prepping for the 2026 midterm elections.

Headcount Organization, the entity running the sweepstakes, partners with musicians and music events to help Americans understand their civil rights and register to vote. The winner will have all festival expenses paid for, including travel and hotel accommodations, according to Headcount’s website.

The nonprofit offers participants three buttons to enter the competition, labeled “Check your registration status,” “I’m not registered to vote,” or “Election info.” The page notes in fine print that actually following through on the vote is not necessary to win.

“You may enter the sweepstakes by clicking any button above without taking a civic action,” the page reads. “Voting, registering to vote, or being a registered voter is not required.”

Rodrigo’s massive, all-women late-August lineup will include Chappell Roan, Doechii, Santigold, Sarah McLachlan, Mitski, The Breeders, Bikini Kill, and Stevie Nicks. The event will also feature nonprofits sharing educational resources on a range of issues including reproductive rights, maternal health, economic empowerment, domestic violence prevention, and gender equity.

Partnering organizations include the Black Mamas Matter Alliance, the Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood, and the Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health, among others.

The sweepstakes come several months after DHS used Rodrigo’s song “all-american bitch” without her permission in a video calling for immigrants to “LEAVE NOW and self-deport.”

“I was just scrolling on my phone,” the three-time Grammy winner told Dazed last month, recalling the incident. “It was so deeply disturbing to see that propaganda, and the fact it was my song in there made me feel even more enraged. What they’re doing is so awful and barbaric and cruel. I am really sad to be in a country that thinks that’s OK.”

Nobody is buying President Donald Trump’s shady excuse for leaving Air Force One behind in Europe.

While taking questions from the press at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, on Wednesday, Trump was asked to respond to speculation that security concerns had forced him to ditch the newly-renovated, Qatar-gifted plane after the president scrapped his own ceasefire deal with Iran.

“You’ve spoken today, twice, about them possibly assassinating you, and possibly being successful. Did that concern have something to do with—” asked the New York Post’s Stephen Nelson, before the president interrupted him.

“Well, I speak about it a lot because, you know, the life of a president is very dangerous,” Trump replied, before comparing himself to a racecar driver and a bull rider.

“I like being number one on TikTok better, but I’m number one on the list for killing,” Trump added.

“But why aren’t you flying the new plane home?” asked The New York Times’ Shawn McCreesh.

“It’s flying to Europe to one of the big bases, two or three of the big bases, where we can show it to the people,” Trump said, explaining that the plane would be taken around “so the soldiers can see it, because it’s truly magnificent.”

But not everyone was convinced by Trump’s explanation.

“The most likely reason for this is that the ‘new’ ex-Qatari jet doesn’t have the self-defense capabilities needed when flying from Turkey while in a shooting war with Iran,” The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg wrote on X. “The actual VC-25 aircraft does have those capabilities.”

George Conway, an anti-Trump activist, suggested that perhaps the plane hadn’t received all the necessary security capabilities “because Trump wants to keep it if he leaves office.”

The Air Force said it spent around $400 million renovating the plane, changing the cabin layout, communications system, and security upgrades. That doesn’t account for the taxpayer-funded continued maintenance of the plane, either. The jet—one of the largest presidential gifts ever—is valued at $400 million, and will be moved to Trump’s presidential library foundation in 2029, where it may be available for him to use as a private citizen.

Moments after scoring Belgium’s fourth goal against the hapless US men’s national soccer team, Romelu Lukaku ran to the corner flag and joined his teammates in a mocking “Trump dance.” The scene was repeated soon after in the Belgium locker room, this time as they sang the Village People’s “YMCA”—a staple of President Donald Trump’s political rallies. It was a final humiliation on one of the worst days in US soccer history.

It was also a sign of how quickly things have changed—of how toxic the US president’s attempts to rig everything from the economy to soccer tournaments have become. Back in 2024, right after Trump was elected for the second time, his signature dance move was everywhere. NFL stars, third-tier British professional soccer players, and even Team USA’s Christian Pulisic and his teammates were seen celebrating with the stunted boogie. The dance’s cultural emergence was an indicator of Trump’s personal soft power as he reclaimed the White House in the wake of the January 6 insurrection and multiple criminal prosecutions. But now—18 months into a second term marked by chaos, corruption, and war—Trump’s brand has been reduced to a symbol of American failure.

WATCH: Belgium players do President Trump’s ‘YMCA’ dance after eliminating the US from the World Cup pic.twitter.com/dA2rAbDwRR

— Politics Global (@PolitlcsGlobal) July 7, 2026

But as this fiasco makes clear, Trump’s no longer able to convince the world to dance along.

The US men’s national team is not new to humiliation or drama. The team crashed out of World Cup group stages in 1998 and 2006 and failed to even qualify for the tournament in 2018. Its 2022 campaign ended in the bizarre “ReynaGate” controversy. But none of that compares to what happened in the week between the team’s triumph against Bosnia-Herzegovina and its lopsided loss to Belgium on Monday night.  

In the Bosnia-Herzegovina game, US striker Folarin Balogun received a controversial red card just past halftime, leaving the US down a man as it clung to a narrow lead. Throughout the rest of the match, the team showed a fight and grittiness that propelled it to a historic win. But the red card meant that Balogun—the team’s leading scorer—would miss the round of 16 match against Belgium. 

The next day, Trump called Gianni Infantino—the FIFA president who infamously awarded Trump a knock-off “peace prize”—to discuss Balogun’s red card, according to Politico. This was followed by days of lobbying and legal maneuvering as US government and US Soccer Federation officials explored arguments to convince FIFA to overturn the decision. This reportedly included White House FIFA World Cup Task Force Executive Director Andrew Giuliani and Scott Goodwin—a hedge fund founder who personally contributed the salary of US coach Mauricio Pochettino—researching other controversial calls from the referee who dished out the red card. Trump would soon describe the referee as “very suspect.”

Then came Sunday, a day before the Belgium game. Suddenly, FIFA announced that an independent committee had decided to “suspend” Balogun’s red card suspension and he would be allowed to play after all. As news spread about the lifted suspension, fingers started to point to Trump and his close relationship with FIFA—a relationship that Mother Jones’ Tim Murphy laid out in a recent Reveal episode about the World Cup. 

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FIFA’s announcement sparked an uproar. The Royal Belgian Football Association appealed the decision, and Belgium’s coach, Rudi Garcia, portrayed the fight as an existential one for the sport itself. Belgium was “defending football,” Garcia said. Europe’s governing soccer body, UEFA, said FIFA’s move “crossed a red line.”

“Where does this start and where does this end now?” England coach Thomas Tuchel asked reporters as he discussed the implications for other refereeing decisions in the tournament. One reporter asked, presumably jokingly, whether Harry Kane could persuade Trump to reverse a red card issue to an England fullback. “Maybe, yeah,” Tuchel said with a smile.

At the White House on Monday morning, Trump spoke triumphantly about the outcome, acknowledging that he’d reached out to Infantino but insisting FIFA made its decision independently. “All I did: I asked for a review because I didn’t think it was a foul,” the president said. “I didn’t tell him what to do.” Trump said it would be a “big stain” on the World Cup if the best players didn’t get to play. The president was apparently oblivious to the inevitability that it was his own actions that would leave the biggest stain on US soccer and the World Cup itself.

Trump: "I didn't know what the hell a red card was. When I found out, I said, 'You gotta be kidding!'" pic.twitter.com/SsTrMwLVDg

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) July 6, 2026

After the US lost in a 4–1 blowout, Belgian players said the scandal gave them additional motivation, with midfielder Nicolas Raskin stating that “there’s always a justice somewhere in life.” Announcers from around the world mocked Trump’s intervention. The Belgian football association tweeted, “Overturn this.”

It would probably be unreasonable to blame Trump for the US loss on the field. But the president’s attempt to insert himself into the game—and the international blowback it caused—was a far bigger blunder for the sport and the country than the shambolic defending by Matt Freese and Tim Ream.

Another look at Belgium's third goal pic.twitter.com/71ldzuhbAk

— FOX Sports (@FOXSports) July 7, 2026

Trump still has the ability to corruptly wield power. But as this fiasco makes clear, he’s no longer able to convince the world to dance along. After the game, Balogun approached Belgium’s coach and attempted to clean up at least some of the political stain. “It is not his fault,” Garcia told reporters, praising the US forward’s gesture. “He is not the one to blame.”

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the purported ceasefire with Iran has ended and that it is highly likely that the United States will pursue further military attacks against the Middle Eastern nation, which he confused with Japan. Speaking at the NATO summit in Turkey, Trump said that he no longer wanted to “deal with” Iran, and while discussing the ceasefire agreement between…

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