The Man Who Solved Nine Wars (And Other Fairy Tales)

Inside a holiday week where Trump disappeared, the economy cracked, the GOP detonated, and the tech titans paid tribute.

Good morning! Donald Trump begins this short holiday week with what the White House insists is a “light schedule,” which is an elegant way of saying he’ll pardon two turkeys and then vanish faster than a GDP report in Trump’s America. And honestly, let’s savor the moment: for once, Trump isn’t pardoning a convicted felon, just two bewildered birds who haven’t yet been pressured into attending a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago.

After the ceremony, the president will reportedly flee to Florida, where his devotion to golf, pageantry, and wealthy donors remains inversely proportional to any devotion to, say, running the country.

You could be forgiven for assuming nothing major is happening. Trump certainly behaves like nothing major is happening. The problem is that everything major is happening, all at once, and the administration’s preferred emergency response is to hide the data, hide the president, hide behind AI press releases, and hide from the press entirely. The jobs report? Cancelled. The inflation report? Cancelled. The initial GDP estimate? Also cancelled, a first in modern economic reporting. The country is drowning in overlapping crises and the man in charge is hiding under his desk with a bottle of ketchup.

The economic storyline is now unmistakable, even in the carefully sculpted world of financial news, where reporters usually contort themselves into optimism. The Washington Post published what amounts to a chartless obituary for the real economy: the so-called S&P 500 looks healthy only because seven tech giants, the Magnificent Seven, are pumping out AI-driven numbers so inflated they practically require inflation-adjusted oxygen tanks. Remove them and you get what economists now call the S&P 493, which resembles a herd of dehydrated livestock limping across a desert. Capital expenditures outside of AI are flat. Small businesses are getting hammered by tariffs. Debt loads are rising. The Russell 2000 is shedding value like a mangy dog. And economists are politely screaming that the “AI boom” is the only thing propping up the stock market, and that it looks suspiciously like a bubble wired to the electrical grid of an already strained country.

Speaking of hot air: Bloomberg dropped its forensic takedown of Trump’s claim that he’s secured a miraculous $21 trillion in new investment for the U.S., a number equal to roughly 70 percent of our entire economy. Bloomberg’s economists went project by project and found that once you strip away fantasy, double-counting, trade agreements mislabeled as investments, and pledges padded with enough fluff to stuff a mattress, the real number is closer to $7 trillion. Still large, but nowhere near the cosmic scale Trump blusters about to impress Mohammed bin Salman. The Saudis, for their part, pledged numbers larger than their entire GDP while standing next to Trump on the South Lawn, only for their own officials to quietly walk it back the next day. In other words, the investment boom is real in the same way that a Hollywood set is real: beautiful façades, nothing behind them.

Don’t worry, though, Trump says he’s solved nine wars. And in the same breath that he’s declaring himself the greatest peacemaker since… himself, Reuters reports that his administration is scrambling in Abu Dhabi trying to flog a “peace plan” for Ukraine that reads like it was faxed straight from the Kremlin. The U.S. Army Secretary, now apparently a substitute Secretary of State, is shuttling between Russian and Ukrainian delegations trying to convince Kyiv to accept a 28-point plan so tilted toward Moscow that even Lavrov can barely hide the smirk. The plan would force Ukraine to cede more territory, freeze its military, and swear off NATO forever. In other words, it is not so much a peace deal as an appendix to Russia’s original invasion plans.

While these “talks” take place in luxury hotels, Kyiv is suffering some of the worst bombardment of the war: missiles ripping apart apartment buildings, power stations failing, children screaming for help from burning floors. Zelenskiy, weakened by scandal and battlefield losses, says that the “sensitive points” of the peace plan will be discussed “directly with President Trump,” which is the geopolitical equivalent of saying, “I will now consult the fox on how best to secure the henhouse.”

Europe, to its credit, is doing the screaming Trump won’t. Macron warned that France wants peace “but not capitulation.” Romania scrambled fighter jets overnight after Russian drones breached its airspace, again. NATO’s eastern flank is electrified. And Trump? He’s posting QAnon graphics of himself doing YMCA dances and then boasting online about how he cannot be bought.

A bold claim from a man whose tariff exemptions, abortion reversals, foreign policy stunts, and economic miracles all appear to be sold à la carte to the highest bidder, none more blatantly than at his now-infamous Silicon Valley supplicant banquet this fall. That September tech-CEO dinner, billed as a meeting of “the most brilliant people,” looked more like an auction held in the State Dining Room. Mark Zuckerberg was caught on a hot mic trying to guess what number Trump wanted him to say, “uh, at least $600 billion?”, like a schoolboy fumbling a book report. Tim Cook secured billions in tariff exemptions for Apple after pledging his own nine-figure “investment.” Microsoft, Meta, Google, every tech titan rolled up offering tribute, and magically, antitrust cases vanished, tariffs softened, investigations evaporated, and regulatory agencies that once snarled at Big Tech suddenly purring like housecats.

Trump may claim he can’t be bought, but the receipts are sitting on the White House website, written in $600 billion increments.

On the home front, the Republican Party is melting down in a manner so dramatic that even Punchbowl News, the Hill’s official stenographer of Republican dysfunction, is struggling to keep up. Marjorie Taylor Greene resigned on Friday, citing an institution that has “betrayed the American people,” which is stunning once you recall she was the institution. Punchbowl then reported that “numerous” other GOP members are considering resigning, and a senior House Republican unloaded in spectacular detail: the White House treats them “like garbage,” Mike Johnson has surrendered Congress to Trump’s tantrums, morale is at historic lows, and “the majority will be lost before this term is out.” When Republicans themselves call the House a tinderbox, you don’t need a match; you just need Monday.

This chaos is directly linked to the one thing Trump absolutely cannot do: govern. The White House tried, briefly, to roll out a health care proposal yesterday that would have temporarily extended ACA subsidies. The American people overwhelmingly support that. Democrats support that. Even Trump, for a fleeting moment of political clarity, supported that. But MAGA Republicans instantly revolted, called him on the phone, and threatened to resign if he dared show competence. CNN had a health policy professor live on air when breaking news arrived: the presser was canceled mid-broadcast. The plan evaporated before the cameras could even warm up.

The intra-MAGA circular firing squad continues to escalate. JD Vance is attacking Trump’s NATO-skeptical Republicans for supporting Ukraine. Don Bacon is accusing Trump of Chamberlain-level appeasement. Mitch McConnell, whose approval rating among MAGA sits somewhere below mold, is telling Trump that peace deals rewarding aggression “aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.” Steve Bannon is whipping up a revolt against Trump’s unregulated AI boom. And many Republican lawmakers are openly supporting Japan’s new Prime Minister over Trump in defending Taiwan.

And all of this is happening as Trump’s own approval numbers crater, especially on the economy, down 15 points since March, with even 40 percent of his base now admitting he lies about inflation. Deep red states like Florida and Texas have gone negative on him. Electricity shutoffs are skyrocketing. Delinquent car loans are rising. Farm towns are hollowing out because immigrants won’t risk being rounded up. People are dropping ACA coverage because they don’t know whether Congress will keep subsidies. Even the AI boom is now showing signs of bubble fatigue. The country feels like it’s balancing on a frayed extension cord.

And in the middle of this dizzying spiral, the White House’s top priority appears to be getting Trump wheels-up to Florida in time for cocktail hour, while the rest of us get a government running on vibes, propaganda, and whatever energy remains after the latest data center has slurped the local power grid dry.

Before we go, I should note that there is a certain salacious story dominating social media involving leaked messages, a reporter, and what RFK Jr. apparently considers “poetry.” I have conferred with Marz, who, as you know, has impeccable editorial instincts, and we agree that diving into those cringe-inducing “sonnets” would take this newsletter into territory too tawdry even for us. It’s already been covered elsewhere by outlets far more equipped to handle secondhand embarrassment at that scale.

Suffice it to say: we do not recommend that Secretary Kennedy pursue a post-government career writing Hallmark cards. Or anything involving words, or romance, or, God forbid, metaphors.

And with that, happy Tuesday.