From Dongles to Dictatorships: This Week in Trump’s Golden Ballroom Republic

A bigger monitor, a smaller moral compass, and a MAGA meltdown, CPI sleight of hand, tariff theater, “drill, baby, drill” drift, DC’s anti-fascist crowds, Epstein’s lingering shadow, and MTG erupts

Good morning! I’ve spent the last week cranking out these roundups on what can only be described as a postage stamp disguised as a monitor, squinting like I was proofreading the Dead Sea Scrolls. While I was certain I had ordered the dongle, a word that makes my kids collapse into giggles every time I say it, apparently I hadn’t, and the result has been a crash course in micro-font journalism. But today, friends, the adapter arrives. No more magnifying glass. No more hunching over my desk like a Victorian watchmaker. Just me, a normal-sized screen, and the comforting knowledge that I can now see exactly how many typos I’m making in real time.

The July CPI came in at 2.7% year-over-year, a hair under market expectations, which in normal times might pass for good news. But these are not normal times. Donald Trump has gutted the Bureau of Labor Statistics, fired its career commissioner for reporting job numbers he didn’t like, and handed the reins to Heritage Foundation loyalist E.J. Antoni, a man whose résumé consists of five post-PhD years, one published economics paper, and the kind of tariff illiteracy you usually only find in YouTube comment sections. This is the guy who’ll now be in charge of the data that determines whether seniors and veterans get a cost-of-living increase. Nixon may have been paranoid enough to accuse “the bureaucracy” of cooking the books, but even he didn’t hand the ledger to a partisan intern with a Sharpie and a prayer.

Meanwhile, Trump’s economic “strategy” continues to play like a late-season reality TV arc. Just before the tariff clock struck midnight, he announced another 90-day U.S.–China trade truce, freezing American tariffs at 30% and China’s at 10%. Both sides claimed “progress” while accusing each other of cheating, the diplomatic equivalent of “We were on a break.” This extension conveniently tees up the possibility of a Trump–Xi summit later this fall, where the substance will be thin and the gold-plated chairs thick. The Goldman Sachs forecast is already baked in: core inflation headed to 3.2% by year’s end, with U.S. consumers picking up two-thirds of the tariff tab. So much for “China’s paying for it.”

Over in the tech-tycoon sideshow, Elon Musk has decided this is the moment to threaten Apple with a lawsuit over alleged App Store favoritism toward OpenAI. “They didn’t just put their thumb on the scale,” Musk posted. “They put their whole body.” The screenshot of the post is a work of art in its own right, part corporate grievance, part soap opera monologue, and fits perfectly alongside Musk’s growing résumé of overpromises, underdeliveries, and courtroom cosplay. As with Trump’s tariff threats, the real performance is in the bluster; the follow-through is just another press cycle away from being quietly dropped.

And how’s that “national energy emergency” going? On Inauguration Day, Trump promised to “drill, baby, drill.” Seven months later, the Baker Hughes rig count has fallen from 580 to 539. Oil prices at $64 a barrel, coupled with Trump’s own tariffs on steel and equipment, have oil companies sitting on their hands. As energy analyst Robert Rapier points out, drillers answer to shareholders, not campaign slogans. Yes, efficiency gains mean production can hit records with fewer rigs, and the U.S. did just that in 2023 and 2024, but growth is slowing, and 2026 could bring the first annual drop in three years. Energy markets, it turns out, run on economics, not executive orders shouted at a rally.

In Washington, tens of thousands of residents took to the streets this week to protest Trump’s authoritarian takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department, a stunt draped in the false pretext of a “massive crime wave” in the city. In reality, DC crime is down, unlike in the red states Trump pretends not to notice. Protesters carried signs reading “No Trump Gestapo in DC” and “Release the Epstein Files,” marching all the way to the White House gates. They’re just in time to see Trump’s planned demolition of the East Wing to make room for a 90,000-square-foot golden ballroom. He even admitted part of his “security” rationale was to impress Putin before his upcoming trip to Russia, which he described as “going to Alaska.” His press conference quickly collapsed into a slurry of Kremlin talking points, including irritation at Zelensky’s refusal to hand over Ukrainian territory without a national vote.

While the streets of DC filled with chants of “Freedom, not fascism,” Trump’s detention empire in Florida was making its own headlines. At Alligator Alcatraz, the immigration detention center where 72% of detainees have no criminal record, a former guard has come forward describing “inhumane” treatment, including detainees left in sweltering, poorly ventilated cells, medical complaints ignored, and food so spoiled it triggered mass illness. Inmates’ own accounts back her up, alleging physical abuse, retaliation for complaints, and round-the-clock lights to deprive them of sleep. These aren’t hardened criminals; many have no charges against them at all. A federal judge has now halted new construction at the facility, at least temporarily. For all Trump’s “law and order” bluster, his operations keep tripping over that pesky constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment, not that the administration seems to view the Constitution as binding when there’s profit to be made from cages.

And then there’s the Epstein file problem. Trump claims he “kicked Epstein out” of Mar-a-Lago long before the financier’s arrest. But the club’s own records show Epstein’s account remained open until October 2007, more than a year after his indictment and release on bail. The discrepancy fits neatly with the polling data: a recent Daily Beast survey found 48% of Republican voters would still back Trump even if he were directly implicated in Epstein’s crimes, and only 24% said such evidence would change their vote. We are talking tribal devotion with the moral guardrails stripped away, the kind of faith that will excuse anything, from tariff whiplash to alleged complicity in sex trafficking, so long as the hat stays red and the enemy list stays long.

And now, in case you were wondering whether MAGA could eat itself, the answer is yes, and it’s going for seconds. Marjorie Taylor Greene has decided she’s had enough of Trump-world’s boys’ club and its “America Last” spending habits. She’s calling for the Epstein files to be released, ripping Speaker Mike Johnson, and accusing party leaders of treating Republican women like disposable props. The response from Trump’s orbit has been pure scorched earth. Laura Loomer, a close Trump ally who’s been pulling strings inside the administration, unleashed an unprintable tirade about MTG’s personal life, while Mark Levin called for her to go to prison. Trump, asked about Loomer’s attacks, brushed them off and called her a “patriot.” Greene, in turn, is accusing Trump’s inner circle of being dangerous grifters with the president’s ear.

This is MAGA 2025: the president fudging the economic scoreboard, cutting trade deals that go nowhere, trying to cosplay as an oil baron, seizing city police forces for Putin photo ops, hiding the Epstein paper trail, and presiding over a movement now so fractured that its top lieutenants are hurling middle-school insults at each other in public. If there’s a plan in here somewhere, it’s hidden deep under the marble floors of that future golden ballroom.