Republican Les Hughey spent decades as a trusted religious leader in Arizona and California. He ran youth groups. He founded a church. He built a following.

Behind that, according to a police investigation, was a pattern of alleged abuse spanning more than 40 years and multiple states.

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Who He Is

Hughey worked as a youth pastor at Scottsdale Bible Church in the 1980s and 1990s before founding Highlands Church, also in Scottsdale. He resigned from Highlands in 2018 after allegations against him became public.

Bob Wade, another former Scottsdale Bible pastor, is also named in the police report in connection with an allegation of indecent exposure. Wade took over as lead pastor at Highlands Church after Hughey resigned and later served on staff at the Highlands Institute, a non-accredited theological program in Scottsdale.

What the Investigation Found

The Scottsdale Police Department forwarded a 100-page report to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office detailing a dozen allegations of sexual abuse, inappropriate touching, and indecent exposure against Hughey. The investigation drew on interviews with eight victims, most of whom were between 15 and 19 years old at the time of the alleged incidents, along with current and former church members and leaders.

The allegations trace back to the 1970s, when Hughey worked at a church in Modesto, California. The Modesto Bee first reported in 2018 that at least seven women said Hughey engaged in inappropriate conduct with them as teenagers during that period. According to that reporting, the church became aware of the allegations at the time and, rather than addressing them, moved Hughey out of the area. He later came to Scottsdale.

Scottsdale Police Sgt. Ben Hoster said the department’s investigation began roughly a year before the report was completed. Jurisdiction is complicated by the fact that none of the alleged incidents took place in Scottsdale. They occurred in Mexico, California, and northern Arizona, during church trips.

What Church Leadership Knew

The report raises real questions about oversight. Kory Schuknecht, a pastor with Scottsdale Bible Church since 1976, told police he had no knowledge of Hughey’s conduct and first learned of the allegations from the Modesto Bee’s reporting.

But the police report also includes an account from one alleged victim who said that after an incident at Hughey’s home, she told her mother, who was distraught and told her never to let it happen again. That victim said her father was a church elder and that her mother informed elders about the incident at the time.

Whether that information moved further up the chain, and what if anything was done with it, remains unclear.

What Happened Next

Both Scottsdale Bible Church and Highlands Church hired outside firms to investigate after the allegations became public. Scottsdale Bible also held a meeting for church members with police so that any victims or witnesses could learn how to file reports.

As of the police report’s forwarding to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, it was up to that office to decide whether to file charges. Given that none of the alleged conduct occurred within Scottsdale city limits, jurisdiction over any potential prosecution remained an open question.

The Bottom Line

A pastor who built decades of trust across two states and multiple congregations was the subject of a formal police investigation involving eight victims and a dozen distinct allegations. A previous employer allegedly knew and relocated him rather than addressing it. He continued in ministry for decades afterward.

The full police report was forwarded to prosecutors. What comes of it is a matter of public record the community has a right to follow.

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In 1991, Donald Trump was 45 years old. He co-hosted the Elite Model Management “Look of the Year” competition, one of the most prestigious modeling contests in the world. Contestants ranged in age from 14 to 19.

Video from that night recently resurfaced. In it, Trump’s comments about the participants are shocking, even for him.

The contestants he was describing included 14-year-old girls.

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What the Guardian Investigation Found

In March 2020, the Guardian published a major investigation into Elite Model Management’s Look of the Year competition, based on interviews with several dozen former contestants and industry insiders, as well as 12 hours of previously unseen behind-the-scenes footage.

The investigation found that the competition’s founder, John Casablancas, and other men in his orbit used the contest to engage in sexual relationships with vulnerable young models, some of whom were teenagers. The Guardian described accounts ranging from sexual harassment to rape.

The investigation is explicit that no such allegations were leveled against Trump. But it is also explicit about what he was doing there, how long he had been in those circles, and what some of the women who encountered him remember.

What the Women Who Were There Remember

Trump’s presence at Elite events was not new in 1991. He had been a fixture in those circles for years.

Patty Owen, an Elle and Cosmopolitan cover star, recalls seeing Trump at Elite parties as far back as 1982. “He would always be at the bar. That’s where he would stay and that’s where all the new models would hang out,” she says. “Whenever I saw him, I was always like: why does John have to invite him?”

Barbara Pilling, also then an Elite model, told the Guardian that Trump asked her out for dinner in the summer of 1989 at an industry party. She recalls Trump asking how old she was. “I said 17 and he said, ‘That’s just great. You’re not too old, not too young.’”

She was 17. His response, in his own words, was that her age was just great.

One former contestant at the 1991 Look of the Year competition described being told to walk for Trump and the other men present that evening. She said she knew she was not doing it as part of the competition. She was doing it for their entertainment.

What the Competition Looked Like

According to the Guardian’s reporting, girls who had traveled from around the world to compete boarded a chartered boat called the Spirit of New York. The contestants, some as young as 14, danced under disco lights. Older men joined them on the dance floor. One man on film wrapped his arms around two young models and looked into the camera: “Can you get some beautiful women around me, please?”

Trump attended multiple events connected to the competition. He was not a passive guest. He was a host and a judge.

The Guardian asked two questions that have never been fully answered. Did Trump know that Casablancas and others were sleeping with contestants? And why would a man in his 40s, whose main business was real estate development, want to host a beauty contest for teenage girls?

His Own Admission About Pageants

The Look of the Year is not the only context in which Trump’s behavior around young female contestants has been scrutinized.

In a 2005 interview, Trump admitted to walking in on partially dressed pageant contestants, saying he could “get away with it” because he owned the competition. Multiple former Miss Teen USA contestants have alleged that Trump walked into their changing room without warning. Trump’s representatives later denied this. The admission, in Trump’s own words, is on tape.

Miss Teen USA. Contestants who were, by definition, minors.

Why This Is Newsworthy Now

The video resurfaced in July 2025, at the height of public attention on the Epstein files. John Casablancas, the founder of Elite Model Management who ran the Look of the Year competition, appears in a widely circulated 1989 photograph alongside Trump and Jeffrey Epstein.

Trump has spent much of his second term trying to manage public attention around the Epstein files, at one point calling the controversy a Democratic “hoax” and lashing out at supporters who kept pushing for more transparency. The Wall Street Journal published a profile of the Trump-Epstein relationship that included details Trump vehemently denied. He threatened to sue.

It is in that context that the 1991 video went viral.

What the Record Shows

To be precise about what is documented and what is not: no criminal allegations have been made against Trump in connection with the Look of the Year competition. The Guardian’s investigation did not allege that Trump abused anyone.

What the record does show is this. Trump attended Elite Model Management events featuring teenage girls for nearly a decade before co-hosting and judging the 1991 competition. Women who were there remember him as a regular presence around new and young models. When a 17-year-old model told him her age at an industry party, his recorded response was that she was not too old and not too young. He admitted in his own words to walking in on undressed teenage beauty pageant contestants and said he could get away with it. He has spent his second term trying to suppress public access to the files of a man convicted of sex trafficking minors, a man he once called “a terrific guy” who liked women “on the younger side.”

Those are not allegations. Those are facts in the public record, that Trump himself has admitted.

The women who were in those rooms have been trying to tell this story for years. They deserve to be heard.

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Turning Point USA built its entire brand around telling young Americans that the left is a threat to their children, their families, and their values. Charlie Kirk held conferences. He sold books. He told his followers that Democrats are groomers and predators and degenerates.

A civil lawsuit filed in Maricopa County Superior Court says one of his own supervisors offered a male subordinate a job in exchange for sex, got drunk at a TPUSA election party, and then left with his 14-year-old daughter without his knowledge or consent.

TPUSA has said nothing. Turns out, the call was coming from inside the house.

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What the Lawsuit Says

On November 14, 2024, Turning Point USA employees gathered at a restaurant in Goodyear, Arizona to celebrate election results. Among them were the plaintiff, identified in court filings as John Doe, and his supervisor at TPUSA, Avondale City Council member Jeannette Garcia.

According to the lawsuit, Garcia became increasingly intoxicated over the course of the evening and began making explicit sexual advances toward Doe, who she supervised. She allegedly told him she could get him a job at TPUSA if he agreed to have sex with her. The advances became “more aggressive and explicit” as the night went on.

Doe declined. He left the restaurant just after midnight.

When he arrived home about 45 minutes later, his 14-year-old daughter was gone.

What Happened to His Daughter

According to the court filing, Garcia and other TPUSA employees, along with Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office deputies who were present that evening, allegedly told the girl that her father was intoxicated and might become violent, and took her with them.

Doe searched a friend’s house. He came home. He found sheriff’s deputies at his door who told him his daughter was safe and that she was with Garcia.

He tried repeatedly to reach his daughter and Garcia throughout the night. He got no response. He finally reached Garcia around 2:20 a.m. She confirmed she had the girl.

His daughter was not returned until the next day, after her grandmother called Garcia from an unfamiliar number and arranged to meet her at a restaurant to get the girl back. She had been gone for roughly 12 hours.

The lawsuit says the ordeal left the 14-year-old “depressed” and “terrified to leave her room,” with a marked decline in her schoolwork and extracurricular activities.

The Lawsuit Names TPUSA and Law Enforcement

The civil complaint, filed November 14, 2025, names Garcia, other TPUSA employees, and Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office deputies as defendants. The charges include sexual harassment, civil conspiracy, and false imprisonment. The suit alleges that the deputies present either failed to intervene or actively facilitated the removal of a minor from her home.

If the allegations involving law enforcement are proven, the case extends well beyond a workplace misconduct claim into a serious question about whether police power was used to help a connected political operative take a child.

No criminal charges have been filed against Garcia. The sheriff’s office declined to comment. The city of Avondale declined to comment.

Who Jeannette Garcia Is

Garcia is a member of the Avondale City Council and was employed by Turning Point USA as a supervisor during the 2024 election cycle, overseeing the organization’s candidate promotion efforts in Arizona.

This is not her first public controversy.

Earlier in 2025, the Avondale City Council formally censured Garcia after she posted on X: “Hey Pedo @tomhanks, not all MAGA hat wearing patriots are white. In fact, most racism comes from the elite democrats, you a-hole.” The post was a reference to a QAnon conspiracy theory falsely accusing the actor of being a pedophile. Garcia later claimed she meant the Spanish word for “fart.” The city council censured her anyway.

A woman who publicly pushed QAnon child predator conspiracy theories is now accused in a civil lawsuit of taking a colleague’s 14-year-old daughter overnight after he refused to have sex with her.

What TPUSA Has Said

Nothing.

Turning Point USA has not issued a statement about the lawsuit. The organization has not confirmed whether Garcia remains employed by them. When media reached out, they received no response.

Charlie Kirk, who has built a media empire accusing Democrats and the left of targeting children, has not addressed the civil lawsuit against one of his own supervisors.

The Bottom Line

Turning Point USA exists to tell America that the left is a threat to children and families. It is Charlie Kirk’s entire platform. It is the organizing principle of his conferences, his books, his podcast, and his political operation.

A civil lawsuit filed in Arizona state court says one of his supervisors sexually harassed a male employee, took his teenage daughter without his consent after he refused her advances, held the girl overnight while allegedly intoxicated, and misled law enforcement to make it happen.

Garcia denies all of it. She calls the allegations “outrageous and false” and says she was “helping a young girl.” She says she is considering legal action against those she claims are defaming her.

The lawsuit is a civil complaint. No criminal charges have been filed. Nothing has been proven in court.

But Turning Point USA, which has never been quiet about anything, has had nothing to say about any of it.

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In 2015, Bill Carns was the chairman of the Nye County Republican Central Committee in Nevada. He was arrested for impersonating a Las Vegas Metro police officer, allegedly using a fake badge number to avoid traffic citations on at least three separate occasions.

The Nye County Republican Party held an emergency meeting. They passed a resolution. They called the allegations “false and merit-free.” They expected his “full vindication.” They said he had “consistently led by example.”

On January 31, 2026, Bill Carns was arrested again. This time for child pornography.

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What He Is Charged With

Carns, now 56, was taken into custody by the Nye County Sheriff’s Office on a warrant charging him with five counts including:

Preparing, advertising or distributing materials depicting pornography involving a minor. Using the internet to control visual presentation depicting sexual conduct of a person under 16 years of age. Possession of a sawed-off shotgun. Manufacturing a firearm without a serial number. Possession of a dangerous weapon.

His bail was set at $45,000. He was released the same day.

What the Party Did in 2015

When Carns was arrested for impersonating a police officer a decade ago, the party did not ask him to step aside. They did not suspend him pending investigation. They passed a formal resolution of support.

“The Nye County Republican Central Committee supports Chairman Bill Carns in his efforts to fight what appear to be false and merit-free allegations by the Nye County Sheriff’s Office,” the statement read. “Chairman Carns has worked hard for the republicans of Nye County and all of Nevada for years and has consistently led by example.”

They called it a politically motivated attack. They expected his full vindication. And when Carns maintained his innocence and the charges did not result in a conviction, the party treated it as confirmation that they had been right all along.

They were not right. They circled the wagons. And they kept a man with a documented history of lying to law enforcement at the head of their party.

What the Party Did in 2026

This time, the Nye County Republican Party did not pass a resolution of support. But they did something almost as revealing.

They spent their statement drawing a careful organizational chart.

“Bill Carns is an organizer and leader of the Nye County Republican Club alongside Joe Burdzinski,” the party statement read. “The Nye County Republican Club has zero official standing within the Republican Party.”

In other words: not our guy anymore. Not officially. Not on paper.

Current Nye County Republican Party Chairman Leo Blundo, the same man who served as vice chairman in 2015 and helped draft the resolution calling the original arrest “false and merit-free,” told reporters this time: “I can’t believe the sheriff would do something to this gravity without going through the procedures, and I think the charges speak for themselves.”

Then he added: “The official GOP has no current association with Carns.”

He was their chairman. He attended their meetings. He was on their boards. He ran for their local offices. Now he is their former chairman and they have no current association with him.

That is the whole story of how this works.

A Pattern Bigger Than One Man

Carns is not an isolated case in Nevada Republican politics.

Jesse Law was the Clark County Republican Party chairman when he was arrested in April 2024 for domestic battery. The Nevada Republican Party’s own commentary on the Carns arrest noted that for too long, the party has protected its leaders when it should have shown them the door. “We talk about being the law and order party,” wrote Nevada Republican commentator Brittany Sheehan. “But when it’s one of our own, we circle the wagons. This has to stop.”

She is right. But the wagon-circling did not happen in spite of the party’s law-and-order brand. It happened because of it. The party of personal responsibility has a long and documented habit of suspending that principle the moment it becomes personally inconvenient.

In 2015, they vouched for Bill Carns. They put their name on the line for him. They called the sheriff’s office liars. And for a decade, nobody asked any harder questions about the man they had just publicly defended.

The Investigation Is Still Ongoing

As of May 2026, Carns had appeared in court but formal charges had not yet been filed. The Nye County District Attorney’s office said investigators are still analyzing metadata from computer storage and data retrieval in the case. “Charging decisions cannot be made until this detail is fully downloaded and analyzed,” District Attorney Brian Kunzi told the Pahrump Valley Times. The child sexual abuse image provisions were also recently amended, which will affect what charges are filed under the old or new law.

The case is still developing. Carns has not been convicted. He is presumed innocent until proven otherwise in a court of law.

But the voters of Nye County deserve to know that the man their Republican Party publicly defended and called a victim of political persecution in 2015 is now facing charges of distributing child sexual abuse material and using the internet to exploit children under 16.

The Bottom Line

In 2015, the Nye County Republican Party called Bill Carns a man of character who had been falsely accused. They passed a formal resolution saying so. They stood behind him.

In 2026, he was arrested on child pornography charges and they released a statement explaining that he does not hold an official position in their organization.

Both of those things are true. And together, they tell you everything you need to know about how this party handles accountability when the person being held accountable is one of their own.

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David Courvelle was 56 years old when he was hired as a contract detention officer at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, Louisiana. He worked there for seven months. During that time, he sexually abused a Nicaraguan woman who was being held in federal immigration detention and had no power to stop him.

On June 26, 2026, he was sentenced to three years in federal prison.

Three years. For sexually abusing a woman in federal custody.

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What He Did

According to court documents, Courvelle began what prosecutors described as a personal and romantic relationship with a female Nicaraguan detainee identified by the initials C.H., who was being held at the facility on an immigration matter. He smuggled gifts into the facility for her: food, jewelry, letters, and photographs of her daughter. He arranged for other detainees to serve as lookouts while he engaged in sexual contact with her, to avoid being detected by other staff.

In a statement to investigators conducted under the Prison Rape Elimination Act, the victim explained that she felt pressured to perform sexual acts on Courvelle while they were together.

On July 16, 2025, facility staff saw Courvelle and the detainee exiting a janitorial closet. He was transferred to another housing unit. He resigned on July 30, after learning investigators had obtained recordings of phone calls between him and the detainee. When ICE’s Office of Inspector General interviewed him in September, he initially denied the relationship before eventually admitting to it.

He pleaded guilty on December 29, 2025.

He was sentenced to three years.

This Is the Same Facility Where Multiple Women Have Filed Abuse Complaints

Courvelle’s conviction does not exist in isolation. It is the latest confirmed incident at a facility that has been the subject of serious and repeated allegations of sexual abuse, physical abuse, coerced labor, and medical neglect for years.

The South Louisiana ICE Processing Center is one of the largest ICE detention facilities in the country. It is run not by the government but by the GEO Group, a private prison corporation and ICE’s largest detention contractor. The facility houses women and detainees of various gender identities.

In September 2025, the ACLU of Louisiana, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, and the National Immigration Project filed formal complaints with DHS and ICE on behalf of four detainees who described repeated sexual harassment, sexual assault, physical abuse, coerced labor at $1 per day, solitary confinement used as retaliation for filing complaints, and denial of medical care. Three of the four complainants identified as LGBTQ and said they were specifically targeted by a former assistant warden named Manuel Reyes, who allegedly orchestrated a late-night forced labor scheme and enabled repeated sexual abuse against transgender and gender-nonconforming detainees.

One woman with epilepsy who was sexually abused at the facility and placed in solitary confinement after filing a complaint said: “I begged the U.S. government to help me. I filed complaints and grievances. I told ICE officers and medical staff. But they did nothing.”

DHS called the accusations false. A “hoax.”

The Complaints Were Ignored Until They Could Not Be

Attorneys for the detainees who filed civil complaints described a system designed to bury their clients’ allegations.

“These people screamed for help,” said Sarah Decker, a senior staff attorney at RFK Human Rights. “They filed grievances. They filed complaints under the Prison Rape Elimination Act. They filed verbal complaints through the Office of the Inspector General.” The complaints, she said, were “systematically ignored” and “buried.”

“There’s a deep underbelly of abuse that we haven’t fully uncovered yet,” Decker said.

GEO Group denied the allegations, calling them “baseless” and part of a “politically motivated, radical campaign to abolish ICE.”

Courvelle’s conviction is not a campaign. It is a federal guilty plea. He admitted to it in court.

The System That Enables This

The South Louisiana ICE Processing Center is a for-profit facility. GEO Group is paid by the federal government per detainee per day. More detainees means more money. Under Trump’s second term, ICE detention has expanded dramatically, with the administration pushing to detain as many people as possible as quickly as possible.

That expansion has not come with expanded oversight. It has come with reduced accountability, gutted civil rights enforcement, and a Department of Homeland Security that dismissed detailed abuse complaints from multiple women at this exact facility as a “hoax” months before one of its own officers pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a detainee there.

The women who filed those civil complaints had no legal status. No voting rights. No political power. They filed grievances and were put in solitary confinement for it.

What the Prosecutor Said

“Those entrusted with authority over detained persons must be held to the highest standards, and violations of that trust will be prosecuted,” said U.S. Attorney Zachary Keller.

That is true. It should be true. And Courvelle’s prosecution is real accountability that matters.

But the women who filed civil complaints about this same facility months before Courvelle was caught are still waiting. The assistant warden they accused of orchestrating systematic sexual abuse of transgender detainees has not been charged. The GEO Group, which runs the facility where all of this happened, continues to hold its federal contracts.

Three years for Courvelle. No charges for anyone else. A facility still open. A contractor still getting paid.

The Bottom Line

A detention officer sexually abused a woman who was in immigration custody and had no power to refuse him. He was convicted and sentenced to three years. He deserves to be in prison.

But the facility where he worked has been the subject of abuse complaints for years. Women have described sexual assault, forced labor, retaliation, and medical neglect. They filed complaints through every official channel available to them. They were ignored. One of them was put in solitary confinement for asking for help.

The Trump administration is detaining more people than ever, in facilities run by private corporations paid by the head, with less oversight than ever.

David Courvelle is going to prison. The system that put that woman in his power is still running at full capacity.

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Byron Donalds is the frontrunner to be the next governor of Florida. He has raised $67 million. He has Trump’s endorsement. He is leading his nearest Republican opponent by more than 40 points.

He also violated federal law more than 100 times and apparently hoped nobody would notice.

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What He Did

The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, known as the STOCK Act, exists for one reason: to stop members of Congress from using their positions to profit off information the public does not have. It requires lawmakers to disclose any stock trade exceeding $1,000 within 45 days.

Byron Donalds and his spouse made 108 stock trades between 2022 and 2023, totaling up to $1.6 million. He filed disclosure reports for exactly zero of them.

Not one. Out of 108.

In September 2024, the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog group, filed a formal complaint with the Office of Congressional Ethics urging an investigation. “The public has a right to know about potential conflicts of interest their elected officials may have,” said Kedric Payne, the group’s vice president and general counsel.

Why It Matters

This is not a paperwork error. Members of Congress write legislation that moves markets. They sit in classified briefings. They know things before the public knows them. The STOCK Act disclosure requirement exists precisely because of that power imbalance.

When you trade up to $1.6 million in stocks as a sitting member of Congress and tell no one, voters cannot see whether your legislative decisions and your investment decisions are pointing in the same direction. That is the whole problem the law was designed to prevent.

Donalds says he supports legislation banning congressional stock trading entirely. He just did not bother following the transparency rules that exist right now.

His Own Party Is Calling Him Out

This is not just Democrats raising alarms. Republicans in Florida are making Donalds’ stock trades a central issue in the gubernatorial primary.

Florida Lieutenant Governor Jay Collins, who is running against Donalds in the Republican primary, distributed a 13-page report on Donalds’ alleged liabilities to reporters and said directly: “I wish this race was simply about the issues. But there is too much at stake to ignore the reality of what’s in front of us.”

“These issues get talked about now or they get talked about in October,” Collins warned, “where we cannot risk this state falling.”

Even Governor Ron DeSantis took a thinly veiled shot at Donalds at a press conference, saying: “It’s really odd. You’ll have people get elected to Congress having never shown any investment acumen ever in their life, and then all of a sudden they...”

He did not finish the sentence. He did not need to.

His Net Worth Jumped Significantly

When Donalds entered Congress in 2021, his first financial disclosure reported a net worth between $69,000 and $984,000. His most recent disclosure lists his net worth as somewhere between $1.6 million and $7 million.

Collins told reporters Monday that Donalds’ undisclosed stock trading “coincides” with this increase in net worth. Whether those two things are directly connected is exactly what the ethics complaint was supposed to determine. The investigation has not yet been resolved.

Meanwhile, Donalds is running for governor. He has raised $67 million. And he is leading his Republican opponents by landslide margins.

The Law Has No Real Teeth

Here is the part that explains how someone can violate the STOCK Act 108 times and still be the frontrunner in a major gubernatorial race.

The maximum fine for violating the STOCK Act is $200. Per violation. For a man reporting up to $1.6 million in undisclosed trades, the worst-case financial penalty amounts to a rounding error.

Congress has the power to fix this. A bipartisan group of senators has advanced the ETHICS Act, which would ban members of Congress from trading individual stocks entirely and impose significantly higher penalties for violations. It has not passed. Members of Congress, many of whom are doing exactly what Donalds did, have not been in a rush to tighten the rules on themselves.

What Florida Voters Should Know

Byron Donalds is about to ask Florida voters to give him the most powerful executive office in the state. He would oversee a $120 billion budget. He would sign or veto legislation affecting 23 million people. He would appoint judges. He would set education policy. He would command the state’s emergency management apparatus.

He could not be bothered to file 108 stock trade disclosures he was legally required to file as a congressman.

His campaign’s response to all of this: “President Trump’s endorsed candidate Byron Donalds will be Florida’s next governor because he is the proven conservative fighter who can unite our party and make Florida safer and more affordable.”

Not a word about the 108 trades. Not a word about the $1.6 million. Not a word about the federal ethics complaint that is still open.

The Bottom Line

Byron Donalds broke the law more than 100 times. He says he supports transparency in congressional stock trading. He did not practice it himself. His own party’s lieutenant governor called him a liability. The current governor took a shot at him on the record. A nonpartisan ethics group filed a formal complaint against him.

He is still up 40 points in the polls.

Florida voters have a right to know what their frontrunner for governor did with his stock portfolio while he was supposed to be working for them. The ethics complaint gives them a good place to start.

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Three Florida Republicans were just charged with creating a fake voter guide to steal an election.

They did not hack the machines. They did not stuff the ballot box. They printed a fake Republican voter guide, made it look nearly identical to the real one, and mailed it to tens of thousands of voters before a 2024 primary.

It worked. An incumbent won by fewer than 1,000 votes. Now three elected officials in St. Johns County, Florida are facing criminal charges for it.

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What They Did

St. Johns County Commissioners Christian Whitehurst and Sarah Arnold, along with former St. Augustine Beach Mayor Dylan Rumrell, are charged with two misdemeanor counts each: conspiracy and misrepresenting a fake voter guide as an official endorsement slate from the local Republican Party.

Here is what the scheme looked like on the ground.

In 2024, the St. Johns County Republican Executive Committee officially endorsed a slate of newcomer candidates who were running against sitting Republican incumbents Whitehurst, Roy Alaimo and Henry Dean. The newcomers were critical of the incumbents for allowing rapid and unchecked growth in the county. The party made its choice. It picked the challengers.

So the incumbents printed their own voter guide and told voters the party had chosen them instead.

How They Built the Fake

According to Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigators, the fake voter guides were assembled at a rented house in St. Augustine being used as a campaign headquarters by political consultant Brianna Jordan, who ran reelection campaigns for Whitehurst, Alaimo and former County Commissioner Dean.

Jordan faces an additional felony charge of tampering with evidence.

Investigators describe the scheme in the charging affidavit: Jordan created a voter guide that mimicked the official St. Johns County Republican Executive Committee guide. She used the same logo. She reversed the color scheme from white lettering on a red background to red lettering on a white background. She did not include any of the legally required disclosure language identifying who created or paid for it.

The mailers were then sent out from Orlando and Jacksonville in early August 2024, in what investigators say was a deliberate attempt to conceal their origins. Whitehurst’s mother and Arnold’s children were present during the assembly. Rumrell was there too.

Tens of thousands of fraudulent mailers. Tens of thousands of dollars spent. Assembled at a rented house by a campaign manager, two county commissioners, and a former mayor.

It May Have Swung an Election

The fraudulent guide was not the only irregularity in those races. Several candidates also filed to run but appeared to not campaign at all, a pattern consistent with “ghost candidates,” a tactic used in Florida to siphon votes from targeted opponents.

When the votes were counted, some of the legitimately endorsed challengers won. Ann Taylor and Clay Murphy prevailed in their races. But Ann-Marie Evans, who had received the real Republican endorsement, lost her race against Whitehurst by fewer than 1,000 votes.

Evans told a local news outlet she believes the fake voter guide cost her the election. Murphy, who won despite the scheme, said at the time he thought it was the end of his campaign.

A race decided by fewer than 1,000 votes. Tens of thousands of fake mailers sent to voters. One of the men who sent them is still sitting on the county commission.

What Republicans Are Saying

This is not a case where the party is circling the wagons. Some Republicans in St. Johns County are furious.

Denver Cook, chair of the St. Johns County Republican Party, called the fake guide “an affront to every volunteer who serves our party and every citizen who casts a ballot.” He described it as “a shocking, calculated criminal conspiracy designed to subvert the democratic process and hijack the official, trusted voice” of the local Republican Party.

Ann Taylor, one of the candidates who won her race despite the scheme, did not mince words about what she thinks should happen next. “The mere fact that the State of Florida has officially filed criminal conspiracy charges against Commissioners Christian Whitehurst, Sarah Arnold and Dylan Rumrell completely shatters the public trust required to govern,” she said. “If there is any truth to these allegations, for the integrity of St. Johns County, they need to step down immediately.”

Clay Murphy, another winning candidate, put it plainly: “Free and fair elections are at the heart of our constitutional Republic and a bedrock of democracy, and I oppose anything that can taint those.”

What Comes Next

Arnold, Rumrell and Whitehurst are scheduled to be arraigned on August 3. Their attorney says they look forward to the conclusion of the matter and will have no further comment. Jordan, who faces the additional felony charge of evidence tampering, did not respond to requests for comment.

All three elected officials remain in office.

The Bottom Line

Three sitting Republican officeholders in Florida have been charged with printing a fake voter guide, impersonating their own party, and mailing it to tens of thousands of voters before a primary election.

One of the races those mailers targeted was decided by fewer than 1,000 votes. The candidate who lost believes the fake guide is the reason she lost. The man who beat her is still a county commissioner. He is scheduled to be arraigned in August.

Republicans and Democrats agree on this one: what allegedly happened in St. Johns County was an attack on democracy. The people who did it are still holding the offices they may have stolen.

That should not be acceptable to anyone.

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Most candidates running for governor talk about taxes. About education. About roads and crime and the cost of living.

Victor Marx talks about killing people.

He is the frontrunner in the Colorado Republican primary for governor. And when a local news anchor asked him last week how many people he has killed, he paused for ten seconds, looked up at the ceiling, and said: “Does it matter?”

It is a reasonable question to have about someone who wants to run a state.

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The Interview

Marx sat down for a 30-minute interview with 9News anchor Kyle Clark. Clark asked Marx about his previous claim that his abusive stepfather forced him to kill a man at age 7. “Is that the only person you’ve ever killed?” Clark pressed. Marx fell silent for more than 10 seconds, taking a deep breath and looking upward as if searching his memory.

“Well, I would say, as a child, yes. Without question,” Marx finally replied. “But I’ve been in other situations where, you know, possibly people or persons died as a result of me defending myself in other countries. There’s no count on that,” he added, before trailing off: “There’s no photos...”

There’s no photos. That was his answer. About whether he has killed people. Running for governor of Colorado.

It Got Stranger

Clark noted that Marx had talked about “the idea of killing people with some frequency,” pointing to Marx’s interview on a podcast last year in which he said: “Granted, some people have to get killed, some people have to die.”

Clark then asked: “You claim that you once called in a U.S. military airstrike that killed 70 ISIS fighters. I didn’t realize that civilians could essentially facilitate military airstrikes. Could you walk me through how that works?”

Marx did not walk him through how that works.

Clark noted that Marx served in the military but never deployed or saw combat, raising questions about where these stories actually come from. Clark wrote that “it’s not clear how much is true and how much is big talk to sell books and raise funds for his $7 million-a-year ministry.”

The Numbers He Won’t Give

The interview was full of questions Marx refused to answer with anything resembling a number.

Clark noted that Marx’s campaign website had previously claimed his nonprofit rescued more than 45,000 women and children, a claim that was later quietly removed from the site. “How many women and children have you rescued?” Clark asked.

“I would say it’s more than one, and less than a bunch,” Marx said.

More than one. Less than a bunch. From the frontrunner in a major American gubernatorial primary.

Who Victor Marx Is

Marx, 60, has built his political brand around a tough-guy image he calls the “Dangerous Gentleman,” which is also the title of his book. He runs a Colorado Springs nonprofit called All Things Possible Ministries, which claims to lead dangerous missions into foreign nations to deliver aid and restore victims of trauma. The nonprofit takes in about $7 million per year.

Marx is currently the leading candidate in the Republican primary for Colorado governor, a race that also includes state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer and state Rep. Scott Bottoms. Colorado has trended Democratic in recent election cycles, making Republican primary choices and their general election viability a subject of ongoing scrutiny.

The MAGA base in Colorado looked at their options and put a man who cannot say how many people he has killed at the top of the polls. That is the choice they made.

This Is a Pattern, Not a Coincidence

Victor Marx is not the only MAGA-aligned candidate running for governor while refusing to answer basic questions from the press.

Marsha Blackburn, the Republican frontrunner for Tennessee governor, is refusing to debate her Republican opponents and has not been giving media interviews. When a reporter from NewsChannel 5 approached her after a public event she spoke at, she stonewalled every question.

“We’re talking to Tennesseans every single day,” Blackburn repeated, over and over, as she backed toward an elevator trying to escape the reporter’s questions. The reporter asked if she would debate her opponents. “We’re talking to Tennesseans every single day,” she said again. He asked if voters had a right to hear from her. She said it again. He asked why she changed her mind and voted to certify the 2020 election after originally saying she would object. The elevator doors finally opened. She got in. She left.

One candidate won’t say how many people he has killed. Another won’t answer questions at all. Both are leading their primaries.

The Bottom Line

Victor Marx wants to be the governor of Colorado. He claims he has killed people but cannot say how many. He claims he called in an airstrike that killed 70 ISIS fighters but will not explain how a civilian did that. He claims his nonprofit rescued 45,000 people but removed that number from his website when anyone asked about it.

When a reporter asked him directly how many people he has killed, he paused for ten seconds and said: “Does it matter?”

Colorado voters will answer that question in the primary. They probably should.

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Every election day in America, something remarkable happens without most people noticing.

Hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens wake up before dawn, drive to a school gymnasium or a church basement or a community center, set up tables and voting booths, and spend the next 14 hours making sure their neighbors can cast a ballot. They check IDs. They explain the machines. They answer questions in three languages. They stay until every vote is counted.

They are poll workers. And right now, there are not nearly enough of them.

Visit https://www.powerthepolls.org/ to learn more about this crucial topic.

The Shortage Is Real

Over 772,000 poll workers served during the 2024 general election. And yet nearly half of all election jurisdictions in the country, 48%, reported having a very or somewhat difficult time recruiting enough of them.

In most election years, about half of all local election officials say finding enough poll workers is either very difficult or somewhat difficult. The concern is both about quantity and quality. When more of the poll worker corps is new, officials have to invest more in training and monitoring. When there are not enough workers at all, polling places get overwhelmed, lines get longer, and voters give up and go home.

That is not a hypothetical. That is what happens when a polling place is short-staffed on a busy election day. Real people, who showed up to exercise their constitutional right to vote, leave without casting a ballot because the line is too long and they have to pick up their kids.

That is a failure of democracy. And it is preventable.

This Is Not a Partisan Issue

Poll workers are not advocates. They are administrators. Their job is to make sure the process works for everyone, regardless of party, regardless of who they voted for, regardless of what they think about the candidates on the ballot.

“The best way to understand how elections are run in your community is to sign up to be a poll worker. This bipartisan representation of poll workers makes our elections more secure, and we need Americans from across the political spectrum to sign up nationwide,” said the four bipartisan commissioners of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission in a joint statement. “Not only are you helping your friends and neighbors have a positive experience when they cast their ballot, but it is also an opportunity to ensure elections are safe, secure, accurate, and accessible.”

If you believe elections should be fair, sign up. If you believe elections need to be more secure, sign up. If you believe your community deserves better representation at the polls, sign up.

The answer to distrust in the system is not to stand outside it and complain. It is to go inside and do the work.

What Poll Workers Actually Do

Being a poll worker does not require a law degree. It does not require prior political experience. It requires showing up, paying attention, and treating every voter who walks through the door with dignity.

Most jurisdictions task election workers with setting up and preparing voting locations, welcoming voters, verifying voter registrations, helping voters understand the voting process, demonstrating how to use voting equipment, and explaining voting procedures.

You get trained before election day. You get paid for your time, typically between $100 and $200 for the day, depending on your county. You serve alongside your neighbors. And at the end of the day, you go home knowing you did something that actually mattered.

The 2026 Midterms Are Coming

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission has recognized August 11, 2026, as National Poll Worker Recruitment Day, specifically to address the ongoing shortage ahead of the November midterms.

The 2026 midterms will determine control of the House and Senate. They will decide which governors lead states for the next four years. They will shape everything from healthcare to immigration to education policy at the state and local level.

Those elections will be run by your neighbors. Or they will be understaffed. The choice is largely up to you.

How to Sign Up

Power the Polls makes it simple. Go to powerthepolls.org, enter your zip code, and you will be connected directly to your local election office to sign up. The whole process takes about five minutes.

You do not have to be retired. You do not have to have any experience. You do not have to be affiliated with any party.

You just have to show up.

The Bottom Line

Americans argue constantly about elections. About security. About access. About whether the system can be trusted.

Here is the most direct thing any person can do about all of it: become part of the system. Sit at the table. Check in the voters. Help count the ballots. See for yourself how it works, and make sure it works well.

A well-trained and professional election workforce is vital to American democracy. Voters express higher confidence in the election system when they have a good experience and when poll workers are knowledgeable and professional.

Democracy does not defend itself. It is defended by people who decide it is worth defending and then show up to do the unglamorous, essential work of making it function.

Be one of those people.

Sign up at powerthepolls.org.

The presidential pardon was designed to correct injustice. To free the wrongly convicted. To show mercy when the law was too harsh.

Donald Trump has turned it into something else entirely.

On July 4th weekend, as the country celebrated its 250th birthday, Trump quietly pardoned 11 people. Among them: a business partner of one of the most corrupt lobbyists in American history who later threw a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago. Nine people who illegally disabled vehicle emissions systems. And a ranch owner whose pardon the White House justified in part by noting he lets NATO troops train on his land for free.

This is what justice looks like in Trump’s second term.

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Who He Pardoned This Time

Trump pardoned Adam Kidan, a former business partner of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. In 2006, Kidan pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges related to the purchase of a fleet of gambling boats and was sentenced to nearly six years in prison. Since his release, campaign finance records show Kidan has donated millions of dollars to Republican candidates and committees and hosted a fundraiser at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

He donated millions to Republicans. He hosted an event at Trump’s club. He got a pardon.

Trump also pardoned nine people convicted of violating the federal Clean Air Act. They were found to have either tampered with emissions control equipment in trucks or sold aftermarket parts that disabled those controls. Federal law prohibits removing or modifying emissions control devices in vehicles.

The pardons came days after Trump signed a memo telling the EPA that Americans should be able to fix their vehicles as they see fit, and referenced a diesel mechanic he had already pardoned for disabling emissions monitoring systems on hundreds of commercial trucks.

He announced the policy. Then he pardoned the people who had already broken the law the policy was designed to gut. In that order.

The Scale of What Is Happening

These July 4th pardons are not a one-time event. They are the latest installment in the most aggressive and most corrupt use of the pardon power in American history.

Trump has granted executive clemency to more than 1,700 individuals as of June 2026. In many cases, he also removed the requirement that recipients pay restitution and fines, costing their victims an estimated $1.3 billion. At least three individuals convicted in white-collar fraud cases who received clemency also had their pending SEC civil enforcement actions dropped as a result.

A June 2026 Reuters review of clemency decisions found that 96% of Trump’s clemency grants failed to meet longstanding Department of Justice guidelines for such requests. A large number of pardons were granted to people who used Trump allies to lobby for their cause. There was evidence of donations to Trump or payments to Trump allies to help achieve the clemency.

96%. That is not a rounding error. That is a policy.

The Pattern Is Impossible to Ignore

On January 20, 2025, Trump issued mass pardons to more than 1,500 people prosecuted for the January 6 Capitol attack. In November 2025, he signed a proclamation granting pardons to 77 people associated with the fake electors plot to overturn the 2020 election results.

The people who attacked the Capitol on his behalf: pardoned. The people who helped him try to steal an election: pardoned. The lobbyist’s former business partner who donated millions and threw him a party at Mar-a-Lago: pardoned.

Trump’s clemency grants have benefited allies, donors and loyalists, including Republican politicians and white-collar defendants with impressive campaign donation records.

The Justice Department used to run the pardon process. Career attorneys reviewed applications, checked records, and made recommendations based on evidence of rehabilitation and the merits of each case. Trump’s team bypassed all of that.

They Even Appointed a “Pardon Czar”

Trump appointed Alice Marie Johnson as his “Pardon Czar” to manage the volume of clemency requests flooding into the White House. Shortly after the 2026 Super Bowl, Johnson announced pardons for five former professional football athletes convicted of charges ranging from drug dealing to fraud to counterfeiting.

There is now a dedicated staffer whose entire job is processing the line of people trying to buy their way to a presidential pardon. That is the administration’s solution to the volume of requests. Not fewer pardons. A czar to handle them faster.

What It Costs the Victims

Lost in the political spectacle is what these pardons actually mean for the people on the other end.

By removing restitution requirements alongside the pardons, Trump’s clemency grants have cost the victims of pardoned offenders an estimated $1.3 billion. Those victims were defrauded, scammed and harmed by the people Trump is now setting free. They are not getting their money back. They are not getting an apology. They are getting a Truth Social post that says “I AM SETTING THEM ALL FREE, RIGHT NOW!”

$1.3 billion. Owed to real people. Wiped away with a presidential signature.

The Bottom Line

Donald Trump has issued more than 1,700 acts of clemency in 18 months. 96% of them failed to meet the Justice Department’s own standards. Millions of dollars in donations and payments to Trump allies are tied directly to pardon outcomes. Victims are owed $1.3 billion they will never see.

On the eve of the country’s 250th birthday, Trump pardoned a man who donated millions to Republicans and threw a party at Mar-a-Lago. He called it justice.

“I AM SETTING THEM ALL FREE, RIGHT NOW!” he posted on Truth Social.

The pardon power belongs to the American people. Trump is using it as a vending machine for his donors.

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Congress created a bipartisan commission in 2016 to organize America’s 250th birthday. It was called America250. It had funding, corporate sponsors, and a decade of planning behind it.

Then Donald Trump got involved. And according to a new report from House Democrats, what followed was a scheme to hijack the celebration, siphon the money, and hand it all to a Trump-controlled operation that reportedly defrauded donors in the process.

The report is titled: “From Vanity to Insanity: How the White House Cheated the American People out of their 250th Birthday.”

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What They Built to Replace It

When the Trump administration faced pushback from America250 over its demands to control the celebration, it created a rival organization. Freedom 250 was incorporated as an LLC in October 2025 under the National Park Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the National Park Service, whose board now includes a number of Trump loyalists, including Chris LaCivita, senior adviser on Trump’s 2024 campaign.

Freedom 250’s sole employee appears to be CEO Keith Krach, a wealthy Trump supporter who served in the State Department during Trump’s first term.

The White House lodged this shadow organization inside the National Park Foundation so it could exploit the credibility and donor relationships of a beloved public charity while operating outside the transparency rules Congress wrote into law for the commission.

In other words: they built a fake version of the real thing, gave it a similar name, put it inside a trusted institution, and used it to collect money they were never supposed to collect.

The Alleged Wire Fraud

This is where it becomes a potential federal crime.

According to sources interviewed by committee Democrats, donors who intended to donate to America250 were instead given wire instructions with Freedom 250’s banking information, including its routing number and account number, so that contributions would instead flow to Freedom 250. A gift solicited in the name of the nation’s nonpartisan birthday commission could thus be redirected without the donor’s knowledge by an entity created to serve the president’s priorities.

The allegation of potential criminal wrongdoing stems from fundraising by Meredith O’Rourke, who served as the national finance director for Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign and as a board member for the parent company of his Truth Social platform. Democrats say they have interviewed donors who were misled by fundraisers, including O’Rourke, into believing they were contributing to America250 but were given wire transfer instructions that routed their money to a bank account controlled by Freedom 250.

“I’m a lawyer, and I know better than to pronounce that a crime has been committed,” said Rep. Jared Huffman, the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee. “But I do know the elements of fraud, and there is evidence of all those elements here.”

They Also Pressured Corporate Sponsors

The alleged fraud was not limited to individual donors.

After the creation of Freedom 250, the report alleges, corporate donors were pressured to withdraw fundraising commitments to America250 and shift their financial backing to the new Trump-backed entity.

Freedom 250 conducted aggressive outreach to America250’s corporate sponsors, calling them and asking them to contribute millions of dollars to Freedom 250 instead. Some corporate executives were unaware of the differences between the two organizations. Certain prospective donors and sponsors who wanted to contribute to America250 were told by the Trump administration that they did not have a “green light” to do so.

The White House was telling donors they were not allowed to give money to the bipartisan commission Congress created. And then routing that money to Trump’s version instead.

They Starved the Real Organization of Federal Funds

The private donor scheme was only part of it. The report alleges the White House also cut America250 off from the taxpayer money Congress had already allocated for it.

Under Trump’s tax and spending cuts bill, $150 million in federal funds was allocated to the Interior Department for 250th anniversary events. America250 was expecting $100 million of that. It has received only $25 million. Freedom 250, meanwhile, emerged with significantly more visibility and federal funding. Federal records show $68 million has been sent from the Department of Interior to the National Park Foundation, which has the ability to distribute the funding to Freedom 250.

Congress allocated the money. The White House redirected it. America250 got a quarter of what it was promised.

They Even Solicited Foreign Governments

Democrats allege that Freedom 250 CEO Keith Krach traveled in January to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to personally solicit foreign government officials and business leaders for money to fund America’s birthday celebrations. Trump appointees at the State Department, including some ambassadors, also held fundraising events overseas and sent out written solicitations seeking foreign donations for Freedom 250.

Trump’s people were in Davos asking foreign governments to pay for America’s 250th birthday party. A party that was supposed to be organized by a bipartisan commission. A commission they had already defunded.

The Fair Nobody Came To

All of this money and maneuvering produced the Great American State Fair on the National Mall. A spectacle Trump hoped would define his legacy.

The fair has been plagued by poor attendance since its opening. CNN reported that Trump was left fuming after realizing how few people came to watch his speech on the National Mall. The lackluster turnout is now causing panic over whether Trump will draw a similarly small crowd for his July 4th speech as part of Independence Day celebrations.

They stole a bipartisan celebration, redirected tens of millions of dollars, allegedly defrauded donors, cut off the real commission from its funding, solicited foreign governments, and built a fair that nobody showed up to.

What Huffman Said

“I’m old enough to remember the bicentennial in 1976,” said Huffman. “No one cared about party labels or political agendas, religious agendas or anything else. Donald Trump stole that. He took this unifying America250 moment, and he made it all about himself.”

“Once you siphon off the funds and supplant the real bipartisan commission with this new entity and you award all these shady contracts to your friends, you can do anything you want,” Huffman added.

The Bottom Line

Congress created America250 a decade ago to give the country a birthday celebration that belonged to everyone. Trump took it over, replaced it with his own version, allegedly gave donors incorrect banking information to steal their contributions, cut the real organization off from its federal funding, and handed the contracts to his political allies.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment.

Freedom 250 called the report a “partisan smear.”

The fair is still mostly empty.

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On April 8, 2025, Donald Trump’s investment accounts went on a buying spree. They purchased 327 individual stocks, including Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon and Alphabet, worth up to $12.8 million, while the market was collapsing under the weight of his own tariff policy.

The next morning, Trump posted on Truth Social: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!”

Hours later, he reversed the tariffs.

The S&P 500 surged nearly 10 percent, one of its best single days on record. The market recovered roughly $4 trillion in value. Trump’s accounts had bought in the day before.

The public found out 14 months later.

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The Disclosure They Buried for Over a Year

Federal ethics law requires executive branch officials to report securities transactions exceeding $1,000 within 45 days. Trump filed no such reports covering the April trades. The maximum late-filing penalty is $200. The trades were not made public until July 1, 2026, more than a year after the legally required disclosure deadline.

He was supposed to report it in May 2025. He reported it in July 2026. The fine for blowing past that deadline is $200.

The 927-page disclosure, filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, is believed to be the longest financial disclosure ever filed by an American president. It shows $2.24 billion in 2025 income, driven largely by cryptocurrency ventures including the $TRUMP memecoin and World Liberty Financial.

The Pattern Goes Well Beyond April

The April trades are the most glaring example. They are not the only one.

Some of Trump’s busiest trading days came after announcements of policy shifts, especially around trade. His asset managers executed 616 trades on February 3, one day before tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China were scheduled to go into effect. There were 640 more trades a month later, after Trump lifted a pause on those tariffs. And a month after that, there were 446 trades on April 4 amid a selloff prompted by his Liberation Day tariff announcements.

Every major market-moving policy announcement. Massive trading activity the day before or the day of. Every single time.

On July 23, 2025, the same day the White House unveiled its AI Action Plan, Trump purchased between $1 million and $5 million each in six companies whose work with AI was directly impacted by the policy: Amazon, Apple, Broadcom, Meta, Microsoft and Nvidia.

He announced AI policy. He had already bought the AI stocks.

21,000 Trades in a Single Year

Trump executed over 21,000 securities transactions during his first year back in office, averaging 85 trades per market day. The total dollar value of the trades ranged from $600 million to $1.86 billion. Only 10 trading days accounted for approximately 25 percent of all trades made in 2025. Many of those days occurred during periods of heightened market volatility following Trump’s own policy announcements.

There was also a lack of coherence across Trump’s eight separate trading accounts. In over 200 instances, he purchased a stock in one account on the same day he was selling it in another.

The president of the United States made 21,000 stock trades in a single year. In a year he spent announcing tariffs, pausing tariffs, reversing tariffs and moving markets every time he opened his mouth.

Who He Was Trading

Numerous transactions involved substantial corporations with direct business dealings with the federal government. Trump holds stakes in Palantir, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Intel and Nvidia, as well as private prison operators GEO Group and CoreCivic. Lockheed Martin shares appear across six of his accounts. McDonald’s, Microsoft and Pfizer shares appear in seven.

These are not passive index fund investments. These are companies that receive federal contracts, federal policy decisions and federal regulatory treatment from the man whose accounts are buying their stock.

What the White House Said

“All of the President’s assets are held in fully discretionary accounts managed by independent third-party financial institutions. There are no conflicts of interest,” said White House spokesperson Anna Kelly.

The Trump Organization said trades are executed via automated, model-based portfolios and direct indexing strategies, and that Trump, his family members and his company do not participate in transaction execution and do not receive prior notification of the trades.

Trump himself said: “Purposely, I never speak to any of the people that run the money. You know why I’m profiting? Because the stock market’s going up.”

The stock market went up because he reversed his own tariff policy the morning after his accounts bought in. That is why he is profiting.

No Law Stops Any of This

This is the part that should make every American furious regardless of party.

No law prohibits the president of the United States from trading individual stocks while in office. The STOCK Act, which bans members of Congress from trading on insider information, does not apply to the president. The ethics rules that used to govern this were rescinded by Trump himself at the start of his second term.

Some on Wall Street likened his actions to market manipulation. No evidence has emerged that the trades violated insider trading law.

They did not violate the law. Because there is no law. Because he made sure there would not be one.

The Bottom Line

Donald Trump moved markets with his tariff announcements. His accounts were buying before the reversals. He disclosed it 14 months late. The fine was $200.

He made 21,000 trades in a year. He bought AI stocks on the day he announced AI policy. He bought oil stocks the day he announced Iran talks. He bought tech stocks the day before he told Americans it was a great time to buy.

The White House says there are no conflicts of interest.

The 927-page disclosure says otherwise.

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Congress passed a law requiring the release of Jeffrey Epstein’s files. Trump signed it. Then his Justice Department redacted huge portions of what it released, withheld millions of additional pages, and missed its own deadlines.

Now a federal judge has stepped in. And still, the Trump regime is directly refusing to release the files.

There’s only 1 reason why you wouldn’t release the files. And we know what it is.

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What the Judge Ordered

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan sided with an independent journalist who sued over the withheld materials, concluding that the Trump administration likely violated the terms of the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The Department of Justice has until July 2 to either turn over the documents with less redactions or explain why the redactions should not be removed.

Judge Sullivan also ordered the DOJ to publish a full log detailing every redaction it has made.

That is not a request. That is a court order. And the Trump regime is violating it.

What They’ve Been Hiding

The redactions are not random. The specific materials Judge Sullivan ordered released tell a story about what the DOJ has been protecting.

Among the documents included in the ruling, Judge Sullivan ordered the DOJ to hand over the underlying notes from the FBI’s interview with a woman who accused President Donald Trump of assault. Those claims were uncorroborated, and Trump has denied the allegations. The DOJ released the interview reports from some of those interviews but not the underlying notes.

The Trump administration was also ordered to reveal the sender and recipients of a series of emails referencing the recruiting of young women. One email sent to Epstein in 2015 read: “The key are the 14 to 15 year old girls -- i am a sexual pervert because i say they are now of a reproductive age? My heart goes out to you brother ... being called a sexual pervert is no fun.” Another, sent in 2017, read: “She is like Lolita from Nabokov, femme miniature :) So now I should send you her type of candidates only.”

The DOJ has been sitting on the identities of who sent those emails. A judge has now ordered them to stop.

Trump Signed the Transparency Law. Then His DOJ Violated It.

The DOJ began releasing thousands of pages of documents related to Epstein late last year, following the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act. But the department faced criticism from lawmakers who questioned whether it had violated the act by withholding materials and missing release deadlines. Democratic lawmakers also criticized what they called “completely unnecessary redactions” in some of the files.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has stated repeatedly that the DOJ complied with the law, even as he acknowledged that the department continues to withhold millions of additional pages he says are not relevant to the law’s demands, either because they are duplicates or contain explicit material.

Millions of pages. Still withheld. By the same administration that signed the transparency law.

The DOJ’s Own Watchdog Is Now Investigating

In April, the DOJ’s internal watchdog announced it was launching an audit into the department’s compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

The department’s inspector general is now auditing whether the department that is supposed to enforce the law is actually following it. That is where things stand.

What the Attorneys Fighting for Disclosure Said

The Public Integrity Project, the public interest law firm that brought the case, said the ruling will ensure “the public will finally get transparency around Jeffrey Epstein and his network.” Attorney Brendan Ballou put it plainly: “The government ignored a law passed by Congress and then refused to defend its own conduct in court, all for the sake of protecting the rich and powerful.”

Protecting the rich and powerful. That is what the Trump DOJ’s own opposing counsel said in open court. The judge agreed with them.

What This Means

Congress passed a law. Trump signed it. His DOJ ignored it. A journalist sued. A federal judge ruled that the journalist was right and ordered the DOJ to comply by July 2.

The files they have been sitting on include the names of people who sent emails about recruiting 14 and 15-year-old girls to Jeffrey Epstein. They include the underlying FBI interview notes from a woman who accused Trump of assault. They include a draft indictment with the names of co-conspirators that has never been made public.

The deadline is July 2. The public is watching.

The Bottom Line

The Trump administration signed a transparency law and then violated it. A federal judge has now ordered them to either release the unredacted Epstein files or explain in court why they should not have to.

The government’s own attorney said the quiet part out loud: they withheld these files to protect the rich and powerful.

Who those powerful people are is exactly what the documents are supposed to tell us.

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The Trump administration wants the name, address, date of birth, driver’s license number and partial Social Security number of every registered voter in the United States.

States have refused. Courts have agreed with the states. And the Justice Department keeps filing new lawsuits anyway.

On Monday, a federal judge threw out the case against New Hampshire. It was the tenth time a court has said no.

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What the Trump Administration Is Demanding

The Justice Department has sued to force the release of detailed state voter data in 30 states and the District of Columbia. The data they are demanding includes dates of birth, home addresses, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers for every registered voter.

The government claims it needs the data to ensure states are complying with federal election laws related to maintaining voter registration lists.

That is the official explanation. But you do not need the Social Security numbers and home addresses of every voter in America to check whether a state is keeping its rolls clean. States have election officials for that. States have auditors for that. States have courts for that.

What you need that data for is something else entirely.

What the Court Said

U.S. District Judge Joseph LaPlante, an appointee of President George W. Bush, dismissed the case against New Hampshire on Monday. He found that the Justice Department’s demand did not comply with the Civil Rights Act of 1960 and that the department failed to allege any actual violation under the Help America Vote Act. His ruling makes clear that federal law does not allow the attorney general unrestricted access to New Hampshire’s voter list to conduct a line-by-line audit based on a “possible” violation of a federal statute.

In other words, a Bush-appointed judge said the Trump Justice Department was not just wrong. It was not even close to right.

New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan, who twice rejected the Justice Department’s demands, said the ruling affirmed that he “fulfilled that commitment by upholding New Hampshire law and safeguarding your private information from disclosure.”

This Is Happening Across the Country

New Hampshire is not a one-off. This is a coordinated national campaign.

The dismissal in New Hampshire brings to 10 the number of states where the Justice Department has lost similar cases. Courts have also rejected the administration’s attempts in Arizona, California, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin. In Georgia, a judge dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit because it had been filed in the wrong city, prompting the government to refile elsewhere.

Ten states. Ten losses. The administration keeps filing.

Who Is Playing Along

Not every state has said no.

At least 13 states have either provided or promised to provide their voter registration lists to the department: Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming.

Every single one of those states is controlled by Republicans. Every single state that has fought back and won in court has been a state with officials willing to push back on the administration.

This is not a legal dispute about election administration. This is a map of which Republican officials are willing to hand Washington the personal data of their own voters and which ones are not.

What the DNC Said

The Democratic National Committee filed a brief in support of New Hampshire’s effort to have the lawsuit dismissed, arguing that “a Department of Justice that cannot be forthright with state officials cannot be trusted” with the personal information of every registered voter in the state, including nearly 270,000 registered Democrats.

That argument landed. The judge agreed.

Why This Matters

The Trump administration now has direct access to the personal data of every registered voter in 13 states, including their home addresses and partial Social Security numbers. It is trying to get the same data from 30 more.

There is no clear legal authority for this. Courts have said so ten times. There is no stated plan for what happens to the data once collected. There is no independent oversight of how it would be used. The same administration that has weaponized the Justice Department against political enemies, sued sitting senators and opened investigations into governors and their wives now wants a national database of voter information that it can access without restriction.

That is not voter roll maintenance. That is a surveillance operation.

The Bottom Line

Trump’s Justice Department has now lost in court ten times trying to collect the personal data of American voters. A Bush-appointed judge said their legal theory does not hold up. The Secretary of State of New Hampshire, a Republican, said no twice and won.

The administration is not stopping. It has active lawsuits in 30 states and the District of Columbia. It already has the data from 13 red states that handed it over without a fight.

Courts are the last line of defense here. So far, they are holding.

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Georgia Congressman Mike Collins is running for the U.S. Senate. He also has access to taxpayer-funded office expenses. He allegedly has decided to use one to pay for the other.

Collins spent over $400,000 in taxpayer money on TV ads that are virtually indistinguishable from his campaign ads, paid for using the same political firm that makes his campaign ads, and ran them right up to the legal deadline before his primary.

That is not a technicality. That is a scheme.

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What He Did

Collins paid for the ads using funds provided for the operation of his congressional office. House rules allow such funds to be used for communications to constituents, but the House Communications Standards Manual is clear: those communications “should not be used for political or personal business.” No campaign content. No material that praises a member on a personal or political basis.

Here is what Collins’ taxpayer-funded ad actually says.

Trump’s voice opens the spot: “Congressman Mike Collins. Mike, you were fantastic.” A narrator then tells viewers that “Mike Collins is protecting Georgia by working with President Trump to pass the Laken Riley Act.” The ad closes with Trump again. “He loves this state and he took this very personally. Thank you, Mike.” The only sign that this is not a campaign ad appears in small print for four seconds at the bottom of the screen: “PAID FOR WITH OFFICIAL FUNDS BY THE OFFICE OF MIKE COLLINS.”

No campaign content. No content praising a member on a personal or political basis.

He ran Trump praising him. For 30 seconds. On your dime.

His Campaign Was Running the Exact Same Ad

This is where it gets worse.

Collins’ Senate campaign is currently running an ad that is substantively identical. Both ads use the exact same Trump quote. Both use the same footage. In the taxpayer-funded version, a narrator says Collins is “protecting Georgia by working with President Trump to pass the Laken Riley Act.” In the campaign version, Collins says he “wrote the Laken Riley Act to protect Georgia families.”

Two ads. Same quote. Same footage. Same message. One paid for by taxpayers. One paid for by donors.

The Same Firm Made Both Ads

Both ads appear to have been created by the same political ad firm, Smart Media Group. On its website, Smart Media Group says it “powers winning campaigns” and is “trusted by all the top Republican committees.” The firm says it leverages data to produce ads that “help campaigns win elections.” The House Communications Standards Manual also prohibits the use of content developed using campaign resources in official communications.

Collins used a firm that exists to win elections. He used it to make ads. He paid for those ads with taxpayer money. And he paid the same firm with campaign money on the same timeline.

According to the House Statement of Disbursements, Collins’ House office paid Smart Media Group over $400,000 between October 2025 and March 2026, including a single payment of $307,160 on March 16, 2026. Then on May 1, 2026, his Senate campaign paid Smart Media Group $400,910 for an ad buy.

One firm. Two clients. One of those clients is the American taxpayer.

How Far Outside the Norm This Is

Over that same six-month period, the average congressional office spent about $33,000 on all mass communications combined. A Popular Information review of spending by every House member from 2020 to the present found that Collins’ $307,160 payment to Smart Media was the single largest recorded payment for advertising by any member in that entire period.

The average member spent $33,000. Collins spent $400,000. To the same firm making his campaign ads. While running for Senate.

The Timing Was Not an Accident

House rules prohibit taxpayer-funded mass communications within 60 days of an election. Collins’ ads ran through March 18, 2026, right before that cutoff ahead of the May 19 Georgia primary.

He ran the ads until the last legal day he could. Then he stopped. Then his campaign ran the same ad.

Nobody Stopped Him

All unsolicited mass communications must receive an advisory opinion from the House Communications Standards Commission. Collins’ ads were approved. But the approval process is a rubber stamp handled by commission staff. There is no public record of any communication ever being rejected or even elevated to the six-member commission for a vote.

The oversight body approved it. The oversight body has never rejected anything. Ever.

Collins’ office did not respond to a request for comment.

The Bottom Line

Mike Collins is the Republican nominee for one of the most competitive Senate seats in the country. He is running against Democratic incumbent Jon Ossoff in Georgia.

To get there, he spent $400,000 in taxpayer money on campaign-style ads, made by his campaign’s own ad firm, featuring the President of the United States praising him by name, right up until the day the law said he had to stop.

If Collins defeats Ossoff in November, he will have to change his conduct. The Senate has no framework allowing office funds to be used for television ads.

So he used the loophole while he had it. Taxpayers funded his primary campaign. Nobody stopped him.

Georgia voters deserve to know that before November.

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For the better part of two centuries, the story of American migration ran in one direction: inward. The United States was the place people came to. Not the place people left.

That is no longer true.

In its 250th year, America, land of immigration, is becoming a country of emigration. Last year, the U.S. experienced something that hasn’t definitively occurred since the Great Depression: more people moved out than moved in.

They’re calling it the Donald Dash.

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The Numbers

The U.S. experienced net negative migration in 2025, with an estimated loss of around 150,000 people, and the outflow will likely increase in 2026, according to calculations by the Brookings Institution. A Wall Street Journal analysis of 15 countries providing full or partial 2025 data showed that at least 180,000 Americans joined them, a number likely to be far higher when other countries report full statistics.

The Trump administration has pointed to the broader migration collapse as proof its crackdowns are working. But buried in the numbers is something the White House isn’t talking about.

Beneath the stormy optics of the immigration crackdown lies a less-noticed reversal: America’s own citizens are leaving in record numbers, replanting themselves and their families in lands they find more affordable and safe. “Previously, the Americans leaving were super-adventurous and well-credentialed,” said Expatsi founder Jen Barnett, a 54-year-old Alabama native who moved to Yucatán, Mexico, in 2024. “Now they’re ordinary people, like me.”

They’re Not Coming Back

This isn’t a gap year. This isn’t a sabbatical.

The U.S. government has a months-long backlog of Americans asking to renounce their citizenship, either to secure a foreign passport or to avoid taxation of their earnings abroad. In 2024, requests jumped 48% and likely outpaced that in 2025, immigration firms say. Americans are applying for British citizenship at the highest rate since records began in 2004, some 6,600 in the year to March 2025. They are securing Irish passports at a record pace: 31,825 in 2024, and an estimated 40,000 last year.

When Gallup asked Americans during the 2008 recession how many wanted to leave the U.S., the answer was one in 10. Last year: one in five.

One in five Americans. That is 66 million people.

Where They’re Going

In nearly all of the European Union’s 27 member states, the number of Americans arriving to live and work is at a record and rising. The total living in Portugal has jumped more than 500% since the Covid pandemic and grew by 36% in 2024 alone. In the past 10 years, the number of American residents has nearly doubled in Spain and the Netherlands, and more than doubled in the Czech Republic. Last year, more Americans moved to Germany than Germans moved to America. The same was true in Ireland, which welcomed 10,000 people from the U.S. in 2025, about double those who came in 2024.

In the cobblestoned streets of Lisbon, so many Americans are snapping up apartments that the newest arrivals complain they mostly hear their own language and not Portuguese. One of every 15 residents in Dublin’s trendy Grand Canal Dock district was born in the U.S., higher than the percentage of Americans born in Ireland during the 19th-century influx following the Potato Famine.

On a conference call last month hosted by Expatsi, a relocation company, almost 400 Americans signed up to learn how to move to Albania, a former Stalinist state that now offers a special visa allowing U.S. citizens to live and work there with no tax on foreign income for a year, no questions asked.

Who Is Leaving

The profile of the American emigrant has changed dramatically. This is no longer just young nomads and retirees.

Relocation agencies say their new clients include Midwestern small-business owners, architects, financial advisers and engineers saving on healthcare costs by living seven time zones east of their clients. Middle-aged divorcées are looking for a fresh start. Americans on disability or Social Security are trying to stretch their benefits. Strikingly, the new American migrant is more likely than ever to bring children in tow, relocation companies and realtors say, laying down roots and raising a set of Americans feeding into foreign colleges.

The new American emigrant includes a booming market of women. A Gallup poll last year found 40% of American women ages 15 to 44 would like to permanently move overseas if possible, a figure comparable to the 37% of sub-Saharan Africans who told the same pollster they wished to do the same.

“You don’t face the prospect of your 5-year-old going into a kindergarten and doing an active shooter drill,” said Chris Ford, 41, who works for a Dallas real-estate investment firm while helping run a kids’ baseball league in Berlin, whose roster has doubled in size for each of the past three years. “The wages are higher in the U.S. but the quality of life is higher in Europe.”

The Education Pipeline Is Reversing

International students coming to America fell by 17% last fall and are expected to decline more quickly in years to come. Meanwhile, the cohort of Americans obtaining a degree in Europe has doubled from 2011, rising 14% last year alone in the U.K. More than 100,000 young students are now enrolled abroad for a more affordable university degree. Prince William’s alma mater, Scotland’s elite University of St. Andrews, receives so many Americans it is now sometimes referred to as “mini-Nantucket.”

Of the 12 American students the Journal spoke to for this story, studying across Spain, Scotland and England, only one planned to return to the U.S.

“I’m of the perspective where I don’t really mind if I’m busing tables in London or something if I’m jetting off to Oslo or Berlin or Copenhagen on the weekend,” said Brody Wilkes, a second-year St. Andrews student from Santa Monica. “I think that’s a way of life that I would much prefer over trying to grind a corporate job in the U.S. or working in L.A. and dealing with crazy home prices.”

What They’re Finding

Europe has eased visa rules and passed tax codes that let U.S. citizens experience the continent on American-style tax rates. In return, it offers inexpensive healthcare, walkable cities, affordable and safe schools, and housing that remains comparatively cheap and plentiful. One Texan fintech specialist, watching his son play on a Madrid square some locals have nicknamed “Plaza U.S.A.,” expressed elation that by simply buying European private health insurance and canceling his American plan, he saved enough to afford tuition at one of the capital’s elite schools.

In Barcelona, Lia Mashaka runs a business helping Americans navigate visas and find pediatricians. Many arrive telling themselves they’ll only spend a year, she said. But “I’ve never had a client that has chosen to go back to the U.S.”

Kelly McCoy, 45, moved to Albania in the summer of 2024 from Buffalo, N.Y., where she had been struggling to make ends meet on her $80,000 salary as an insurance analyst. After she was treated for a concussion and a broken arm at a local hospital, she wandered the halls confused about why nobody was trying to charge her. She has since relocated to Romania and now works as a consultant helping other Americans with limited means join the emigrant wave. “You’ll still find people saying only rich people can do this. I have had 15 American clients move to Albania that have been on Social Security or disability or both,” she said. “In Albania, you can very easily right now survive on $1,000 a month.”

What It Means

“It undercuts this American exceptionalism, ‘we have the best quality of life, we’re the best country in the world, everyone wants to move here,’” said Caitlin Joyce, a researcher at Temple University who has spent years studying the trend. “Well, Americans move abroad and find they like life better abroad. They like the social democratic policies.”

In Trump’s rallies, he has mused about attracting Norwegian immigrants. But the number of Norwegians living in the U.S. has fallen over the past 10 years, and in 2024 it crossed a symbolic milestone: there are now more natural-born Americans living in Norway than Norwegian-born residents living in the U.S.

The White House’s response to all of this? A spokesman said the U.S. economy is far outpacing other developed nations and the administration was attracting “countless ultra-high net worth foreigners” who are “shelling out $1 million for a Gold Card to come settle in the United States.”

Ordinary Americans are leaving in the largest numbers since the Great Depression. The administration’s answer is that rich foreigners are buying their way in.

That is the trade they’re bragging about.

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Donald Trump ran for president twice promising to drain the swamp. He is now the swamp.

Since returning to the White House in January 2025, he has used the office to make himself and his family richer than any president in American history, and he has done it in the open, with no apologies and no guardrails.

Forbes puts his net worth at $6.2 billion today, up from $2.3 billion in early 2024. Investors have poured money into businesses tied to his family. The new White House ballroom is being paid for by donors who have business before the government. Agencies have handed no-bid contracts to firms friendly to the administration.

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The Family Business

It isn’t only Trump who has cashed in. By last September the whole family, including Melania, his children, and son-in-law Jared Kushner, was worth roughly $10 billion, nearly double its value at the time of the 2024 election. Donald Trump Jr. went from $50 million in November 2024 to $300 million a year later. Eric Trump’s fortune grew tenfold, to about $400 million.

These aren’t men with a track record of brilliant investments. They are the sons of a sitting president, and they have been collecting accordingly. ProPublica reported that the White House stepped in to secure a $620 million deal for an obscure rare-earth magnet company connected to Trump Jr. A drone company the older sons held a stake in also landed a Pentagon contract. Both have announced real estate and cryptocurrency deals across the U.S. and the Middle East.

Trading Stocks From the Oval Office

Trump’s latest federal disclosure showed more than 3,700 stock trades in the first three months of the year, worth tens of millions of dollars. No sitting president in the modern era has traded individual stocks like this.

The conflicts aren’t subtle. He bought more than $1 million of Dell stock early in the year, around the same time he was telling Americans to “go out and buy a Dell.” Dell’s founder and his wife had just pledged $6.25 billion to fund government “Trump Accounts” for children, and the Pentagon soon announced a $9.7 billion contract with the company.

Then there was oil. In March, about a month into the Iran war, Trump announced “productive” talks with Iran. Oil prices fell on the news. That same day, his brokerage account spent the session buying oil stocks. He moved the market, then traded it, in a matter of hours.

He Took Down the Rules First

None of this happened by accident. Trump dismantled the guardrails before he started cashing in. He skipped the ethics pledge he had taken in his first term and rescinded the ethics rules Biden put in place. Early in 2025 he fired the director of the Office of Government Ethics, which has had no permanent head since. The 2024 Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity, which shields a president from prosecution for “official” acts, can be read broadly enough to feel like a blank check. He has also staffed his second term with advisers not known for pushing back.

The IRS Fight

A settlement Trump secured would bar the IRS from auditing past returns filed by him or his family, a provision that could reportedly save him $100 million if he were ever found to have committed tax fraud. On May 29, a federal judge in Florida reopened his lawsuit against the IRS to weigh whether the whole thing was an abuse of the court system.

The Bottom Line

The White House insists there are no conflicts. “This is the same, tired narrative that Democrats have pushed against President Trump for a decade,” said principal deputy press secretary Anna Kelly. “President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public.”

So consider the record. His net worth tripled. His sons made hundreds of millions. Foreign governments put money into his crypto firm and got policy in return. He traded stocks on information only he had. He tried to wall off his own tax returns from the IRS. He fired the ethics director and tore up the ethics rules. If that is what acting in the best interests of the American public looks like, the public might want a closer look.

He ran on draining the swamp. Now he’s charging admission.

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Donald Trump wants his name on everything. His signature on the dollar bill. His face on government websites. His name on airports, warships, buildings, and the country’s 250th birthday celebration.

There is one thing he cannot brand: the next generation of Americans.

Parents are refusing to name their babies Donald. It has never been this bad. And we have receipts.

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The Numbers Are Embarrassing

In 2025, the baby name “Donald” hit its lowest point in U.S. recorded history. The Social Security Administration received fewer than 400 applications for babies named Donald last year, making it the 690th most popular baby name in the country.

690th.

To put that in perspective: parents looked at their brand new child, fresh from the womb, full of infinite possibility, and said “you know what, I’d rather name him Truce.” Or Eros. Or Neythan. Or Westley. All of which outranked Donald in 2025.

The name peaked in 1934, when more than 30,400 American babies got it. It stayed in the top 100 through 1990. It has been downhill ever since.

Every Milestone Made It Worse

Here is the part that should keep the MAGA communications team up at night.

When the first season of The Apprentice premiered in 2004 and Trump became a household name again, “Donald” had already fallen to No. 263. By 2013, the year WWE inducted Trump into its Hall of Fame, it sat at No. 415. The year he won the presidency, it dropped to No. 489.

It ticked up slightly in 2017, Trump’s first year in office, then resumed its decline for the next eight years, losing more than 200 spots by 2025.

Every time Trump got more famous, fewer people named their babies after him. Most celebrities inspire baby names. Trump apparently inspires something else entirely.

Even Florida Said No

You would think Florida would ride for him on this one. His home state. His people.

Florida parents produced exactly 21 baby Donalds last year. That puts Donald on par with Abner, Enoch, and Eros, and slightly behind Kash, Brandon, Maximus, and Truce.

Twenty-one. In a state with 23 million people that voted for the man twice.

They will put his name on a turnpike. They will not put it on a child.

The Bottom Line

Donald Trump has spent his entire second term slapping his name on everything he can find. The dollar. The airports. The navy. The birthday party. The golf courses, always the golf courses.

But you cannot executive order what a parent whispers to a newborn.

The most powerful man in the world cannot get Americans to name their babies after him. He is losing to Westley. He is behind Truce. He is neck and neck with Enoch.

The mandate, it turns out, has limits.

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Donald Trump is 80 years old. He is the most powerful man in the world. He has a wife. He has adult children. He has a full White House staff.

He also told his team that his personal assistant, a 34-year-old woman, was “the only one who loved him as much as his wife and his kids.”

Now her own brother is speaking out about her obsession with the president, including her letters to Trump in his personal spaces that read “You are all that matters to me.”

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Who Is Natalie Harp?

Natalie Harp is Trump’s executive assistant — a former OAN host who first entered Trump’s orbit in 2019 when she thanked him for signing the Right to Try Act, which she claimed allowed her to receive experimental treatment for bone cancer. The Washington Post has cast doubt on that claim.

She joined Trump’s team in 2022 without an official role and has since risen to become his most constant personal aide. She has earned the nickname the “human printer” — she follows Trump everywhere with a portable printer, supplying paper copies of emails, news articles, and documents so the 80-year-old president doesn’t have to look at a screen.

She is, by every account, never more than a few feet away.

What Her Family Is Saying

Preston Harp, 38, Natalie’s estranged brother, sat down with the Daily Mail and called Trump a “national embarrassment.” He said his sister’s relationship with the president is “very unhealthy.” His description was blunt: “She’s just like his fan club.”

Preston said he didn’t even know his sister was working for Trump until a friend showed him a Daily Mail article from March 2023 about Trump’s “glamorous new assistant.” He said: “I had no idea. And so it just kind of caused some cognitive dissonance. I don’t understand why my sister, or anyone, could want to work for Trump.”

What Two Separate Books Revealed

This is not just a family dispute. Two major books have now documented what people inside Trump’s world have apparently been talking about for years.

According to Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, Harp left gushing letters for Trump in his “personal spaces” before she even officially joined the White House staff. One reportedly read: “You are all that matters to me.”

The string of letters alarmed future White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, who reportedly asked herself, “Where am I?” after reading them.

Michael Wolff’s book All or Nothing also documented Harp’s behavior, describing her fixation on Trump as an open secret inside his operation. One letter she wrote to him around 2023 reportedly said she was “unworthy” of his support. The “aggressiveness” of her attention raised concerns within the Secret Service, which reportedly considered her a “potential danger” to the future president.

The Secret Service flagged her. His chief of staff was alarmed. Two separate books reported it. And she kept getting promoted.

What Trump Said About Her

Early in his second term, Trump told members of his team that Harp “was the only one who loved him as much as his wife and his kids.” He told other staffers: “All of you will go off and make money. She’ll never leave me.”

The President of the United States. To his staff. About a 34-year-old personal assistant.

What This Says About the Man Running the Country

Donald Trump is 80 years old. He does not use a computer. His personal assistant prints out his emails for him and follows him from room to room. He has told his staff that she loves him more than anyone except his wife and children. She leaves private love letters for him in his personal spaces.

And the people around him — his chief of staff, the Secret Service, two teams of veteran journalists, and now her own brother — have all raised alarms about the dynamic.

This is a portrait of a president whose closest working relationship is described by professional observers as a potential security concern, and by her own family as “very unhealthy.”

The man has the nuclear codes. He can’t read his own emails off a screen. And his most trusted companion is a former cable news host who reportedly wrote him letters saying he is “all that matters” and feeds him exactly the type of content he wants to see.

That is who is running the United States.

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