Brass Plaques, Empty Promises

Trump lies in prime time, lets healthcare costs explode, kills abroad without accountability, and mounts his grievances on the White House wall.

Good morning! Last night, Donald Trump interrupted prime-time television to insist that everything is fine, the economy is roaring, America is “the hottest country anywhere in the world,” and if you’re struggling it’s probably because you’re not appreciating him hard enough. The speech clocked in under twenty minutes, mercifully shorter than his usual hour-plus endurance tests, but managed to cram in an astonishing volume of falsehoods, distortions, and recycled campaign slogans delivered at micro-machine speed, as if accuracy could be outrun by cadence.

To be fair, and it feels strange to have to say this, the speech could have been worse. He could have used the moment to announce a new war, though experience suggests he’ll probably save that for a late-night Truth Social bleat. On the other end of the spectrum, he could have announced his resignation. Regrettably, that possibility did not materialize.

Instead, Trump stuck to a familiar script. He claimed he inherited the worst inflation in 48 years. He didn’t. Inflation was around 3% when he took office and is still hovering right around 3.1% now, having declined from its pandemic peak before flattening. He promised grocery relief while his own Agriculture Department quietly released data showing food prices rising faster than inflation. He boasted about factories and manufacturing while the country has logged seven straight months of manufacturing job losses. And he once again declared tariffs his favorite word, which, fair enough, may have been the most honest sentence of the night, while ignoring that even the conservative Tax Foundation says those tariffs amount to the largest tax increase, especially on the working class, as a share of GDP in three decades, costing households roughly $1,700 this year alone.

The most theatrical flourish came when Trump announced $1,776 “warrior dividend” checks for service members, a number that just happens to mirror the average annual cost of his tariffs per household. Congress, inconveniently, controls the power of the purse, not the president. But constitutional details tend to bog down a good infomercial, and this one was all about speed, volume, and the hope that confidence alone might pass for truth.

The Washington Post, to its credit, didn’t bother pretending this was anything other than what it was: a campaign rally dressed up as a presidential address, “full of false statements,” light on policy, heavy on grievance. Democrats openly questioned why broadcast networks agreed to hand over prime-time airtime for what amounted to a stump speech nearly a year into a second term. The media, after allowing Trump to lie uninterrupted, dutifully lined up afterward to fact-check him, better late than never, though still an odd way to do accountability.

New inflation data set to be released today is expected to show prices ticking up again, from 3% to roughly 3.1% year over year in November. Coffee prices were already up nearly 19% in September. Beef was up about 15%. Eggs, briefly, offered mercy. Job growth is slowing sharply, just 64,000 jobs added in November, and unemployment has crept up to 4.6%, its highest level since 2021. Retail sales were flat heading into the holidays. The Federal Reserve, boxed in between stubborn inflation and a weakening labor market, cut rates again last week and warned there is “no risk-free path” forward. None of that made it into Trump’s speech, which instead promised prosperity… eventually… in 2026.

On Capitol Hill, Republicans followed the same playbook: deny, delay, and then pretend the consequences are inevitable. Late Wednesday, the House passed a Republican healthcare bill that deliberately lets the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies expire, blocking a last-minute Democratic effort, joined by four uneasy GOP moderates, to force an immediate vote on extension. Speaker Mike Johnson refused to schedule that vote until January, running out the clock as Congress heads into recess. The result is now painfully clear: millions of Americans who buy insurance through ACA marketplaces are about to face sharply higher premiums starting January 1. Even Republicans admitted it on the floor. Rep. Kevin Kiley of California conceded that “22 million people are about to pay a lot more for health insurance”, and then voted for the bill anyway.

On Wednesday night, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the U.S. military carried out a “lethal kinetic strike” on another civilian vessel in international waters in the eastern Pacific, killing four people. No arrests or video, and certainly no transparency, just a press release and the word “terrorists” doing all the legal heavy lifting. This came one day after Trump announced a blockade of sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela, an act that looks an awful lot like an act of war. Since September, U.S. strikes on vessels off Venezuela’s coast have killed at least 99 people. The administration insists this is about stopping drugs. Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, was more candid, telling Vanity Fair that Trump wants to “keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle.” Murder as foreign policy, said out loud.

Against that backdrop, one moment of actual accountability landed with a thud. In a legal filing this week, the U.S. government admitted responsibility for the January helicopter–airliner collision near Washington, D.C., that killed 67 people, the deadliest plane crash on American soil in more than two decades. The filing acknowledged that an air traffic controller violated procedures and that Army helicopter pilots failed to properly see and avoid the passenger jet. Aviation experts say such an admission, this quickly and with so much liability at stake, is rare. It stands out precisely because it is so unusual in this administration: accountability only when courts demand it, never when cameras do.

Then there’s the part that feels like satire, except it’s bolted to the wall of the White House. Photos released this week show the new “Presidential Walk of Fame” installed near the Oval Office, complete with official plaques rewriting U.S. history according to Donald Trump’s personal grievances. The plaque for Joe Biden calls him “by far, the worst President in American history,” repeats the lie that the 2020 election was stolen, and promotes the autopen conspiracy as if it were settled fact. Barack Obama is labeled “one of the most divisive political figures in American history,” despite having the highest favorability ratings of any living president. Trump, naturally, gets two glowing plaques, one for each term.

This is pure, state-sponsored disinformation mounted in brass, turning the seat of executive power into a grievance museum. As one reporter noted, Trump’s prime-time speech sounded exactly like these plaques read, which tells you everything you need to know. This administration isn’t just lying about the present. It’s physically rebranding the past.

Put it all together and the pattern is unmistakable. Lies broadcast live, fact-checked later if at all. Healthcare subsidies allowed to expire by design. Inflation creeping back up while voters are told to clap harder. Violence abroad justified with slogans. Accountability offered only under legal duress. History rewritten in metal.

It feels heavy because it is, but it’s also clarifying. The noise is loud, but the through-line is not subtle anymore. And no amount of fast-talking infomercial cadence can drown that out, no matter how many plaques they install to insist otherwise.

I’ll leave it there for today. Marz and I are heading out early to stock the sleigh with a few last-minute gifts, a small, stubborn act of normalcy in a week that has offered precious little of it. There’s something clarifying about doing ordinary things in the middle of all this: about remembering who we’re doing this for, and why paying attention still matters. We’ll be back tomorrow. Until then, take care of each other, and don’t let anyone tell you that what you’re seeing isn’t real.