Tylenol, Terrorists, and Trash

Trump bans an adjective, blames a painkiller, and leaves America holding the garbage bag.

Good morning! America woke up this morning to find that the president has officially named an adjective a terrorist organization and a pain reliever the root of a global conspiracy. Yesterday Donald Trump signed an executive order designating antifa, shorthand for anti-fascist, i.e. a vibe or more accurately a tactic, as a “terrorist organization,” a move with no statutory footing but plenty of surveillance perks. Now the FBI gets to subpoena bank records and track activists’ finances, all under the guise of fighting an “organization” that by definition doesn’t exist. In Trump’s America, the First Amendment has been repurposed as Exhibit A for domestic terrorism.

But the authoritarian theater didn’t stop there. The White House had teased a “historic announcement” on autism, which turned out to be Trump mainstreaming decades of crank science. Flanked by RFK Jr., Dr. Oz, Jay Bhattacharya, and a gaggle of MAGA medics, Trump declared that Tylenol use during pregnancy causes autism, advised mothers to “tough it out,” and offered the Amish and Cuba as case studies in pharmaceutical abstinence. “There are certain groups of people that don’t take vaccines and don’t take any pills that have no autism,” Trump boasted, citing the Amish. Then, with the confidence of a man mistaking correlation for causation, he added: “Cuba doesn’t have Tylenol … and they have virtually no autism. Okay, tell me about that one.”

He wasn’t finished. Trump recommended breaking up vaccines into five doctor visits “instead of one giant horse shot,” railing that doctors “pump so much stuff into those beautiful little babies, it’s a disgrace.” He revisited his favorite anecdote about a Trump Tower employee who “lost her perfect blond-haired boy” after a vaccine sent the child’s fever to “107, 108 … fried.” His solution? “Don’t take Tylenol. Don’t give Tylenol to the baby. When the baby’s born, they throw it at you, here, give him a couple of Tylenol. Don’t do it.” As Stephen Colbert cracked in response, if Trump keeps this up, “the makers of Tylenol might soon be named Plaintiff A.”

The supporting cast only amplified the carnival. RFK Jr. thundered that past NIH research was “like studying the genetic drivers of lung cancer without looking at cigarettes,” accusing scientists of “politicized corruption.” Bhattacharya promised that “exposomics” and machine learning would “arrest and reverse the autism epidemic.” Marty Makary of the FDA told the audience, “Treating a fever can prolong the duration of illness … why are we doing this?” before announcing that acetaminophen labels would change. And Dr. Oz, in his familiar salesman’s cadence, reassured families that Medicaid and CHIP would “rapidly” cover the new folate-based treatment for autistic children.

By the end, it looked like a live infomercial, Trump as the pitchman, RFK as the hype man, Makary as the doctor-with-a-story, and Oz as the closer promising that the product will ship in 6–8 weeks and insurance will cover it. Quackery as governance, broadcast from the Oval Office.

And then came the encore from White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt, storming into the briefing room to scold reporters for daring to show skepticism. “The autism epidemic is real,” she snapped, before accusing the press of gaslighting the American people by dismissing or downplaying Trump’s claims. With a tone equal parts scolding nanny and campaign-rally hype act, Leavitt declared the administration was finally telling “the truth” while casting journalists as the real villains.

Her delivery is like fingernails on a blackboard: shrill, cloying, and so saturated with bad-faith spin it could make a seasoned stenographer gag. Every line dripped with superlatives, “the greatest economy in the history of the world,” “one of the greatest acts of grace this world has ever seen,” “gold standard science”, as though sheer volume of adjectives could plaster over the rot underneath.

And then the sanctimony: equating Charlie Kirk’s memorial service with a religious revival, while damning Democrats as too radical to condemn violence “in the strongest possible terms.”

Beneath the syrupy flattery lurked the dangerous tells: Trump’s DOJ enemies list rebranded as “accountability,” an autism announcement framed as “gold standard science” under the guiding hand of RFK Jr., and open threats to Democrats smuggled in as talk of fiscal responsibility.

In the end, it was projection distilled to its purest form. Leavitt isn’t just accusing the press of gaslighting, she is the gaslighter-in-chief of this administration, the smiling face of doublespeak, turning every lie into a lecture and every question into an attack. Next, Trump will declare satirism a national threat.

The cruelty runs deeper than bad science. By labeling autism an “epidemic” to be “cured,” the Trump administration isn’t just peddling quack theories, it’s erasing the dignity of millions of autistic people who live, work, and thrive in society. Neurodivergence does not mean brokenness. Yes, some families face profound challenges with severe forms of autism, but framing every autistic person as a crisis to be solved is both dishonest and destructive. My own granddaughter is autistic. She is not a problem to be “fixed.” She is a full human being, living her life on her own terms. That reality is invisible in Trump’s Oval Office carnival, where autistic people themselves were absent, replaced by politicians, salesmen, and spokespeople treating them as props.

Trump’s bid to silence Jimmy Kimmel backfired. Disney’s suspension of the late-night host triggered protests, artist boycotts, subscriber cancellations, and a stock slide. Within 48 hours, the company reversed course, effectively admitting it had caved to political pressure before realizing the public wouldn’t stand for it. As John Oliver warned, “Giving the bully your lunch money doesn’t make him go away, he just comes back hungrier.” Quinta Jurecic called it the paradox of the moment: an administration consolidating authoritarian power while looking remarkably weak.

And then there was the Charlie Kirk memorial. Ninety thousand attendees, Trump and his MAGA cabinet all taking the stage, followed by a tidal wave of litter that left the stadium grounds looking like a post-apocalyptic tailgate. “It goes beyond disrespect,” sighed Sam Seder. Emma Vigeland twisted the knife: “Stephen Miller says, ‘We’re the ones who build.’ Looks like it’s mountains of trash.”

But perhaps the most damning contrast of all is what happens elsewhere. In Britain, Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, was stripped of a children’s hospice patronage after her emails, written after his conviction, with Jeffrey Epstein surfaced. Peter Mandelson, once a heavyweight in Labour politics, was forced out of public life after revelations of his Epstein ties. In the U.S.? We elect the guy who partied with Epstein president, and then let him stand at a podium to declare Tylenol a national security threat. Abroad, association with a predator can end your career. Here, it gets you a Cabinet seat.

So, to recap: in the span of 24 hours Trump designated an adjective a terrorist group, elevated Tylenol paranoia to national policy, failed to cancel a comedian, oversaw a garbage-strewn mega-memorial, and remained mired in scandals that would sink any politician in a functioning democracy. The emperor has no clothes, just a heap of trash, a fistful of empty Tylenol bottles, and Epstein’s ghost rattling in the background.