Trump Politicizes the World Cup by Bullying FIFA Into Reinstating a US Player: An Executive Watch Roundup

Trump Politicizes the World Cup by Bullying FIFA Into Reinstating a US Player: An Executive Watch Roundup Our early-July selection of the president’s latest and greatest assaults on the rule of law We launched Executive Watch early in Trump’s second term, and it has been meticulously documenting this White House’s illicit actions ever since. Below is our biweekly selection of new entries. Bookmark this page, which contains a chronological scroll of the abuses. And also this post, which sorts and lists them under our 5 “P” categories: After reading the following entries, tell us: Which of these abuses is the most troubling, and why? July 6, 2026 Trump Strong-Arms FIFA to Overturn a Red Card Suspension Against an American Player in the World Cup Category: Political Corruption There’s nothing wrong with wanting a bad call fixed. By most accounts, the red card handed to U.S. striker Folarin Balogun during a challenge in the team’s win over Bosnia and Herzegovina—a red card means expulsion from the game and a suspension for the next one—was harsh. And fans, pundits, and even elected officials venting about it is perfectly fine and totally commonplace. That’s not what happened here. What happened is that Trump treated FIFA the way he treats any institution that’s supposed to operate independently of him: as something to be leaned on rather than persuaded, using the machinery of his office to get a result he wanted. After the red card, Trump called FIFA President Gianni Infantino directly. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, seated next to Infantino at the match, started working the phones almost immediately, and what reportedly followed were days of coordinated strategizing between the White House’s FIFA task force and U.S. Soccer’s legal team over how to build a case for reversal. The U.S. government reportedly supplied “additional evidence” that FIFA’s disciplinary committee then cited in lifting the suspension ahead of tonight’s Round of 16 match against Belgium—the first time since 1962 that a World Cup red card hasn’t resulted in a suspension. Remember: when Trump has power, he thinks he can do anything with it. As Berny Belvedere and León Krauze discussed on Zooming In before the tournament even began, that instinct has shadowed this World Cup from the start—visa policy, game locations, and, in April, a proposal to hand Italy a spot in the tournament it hadn’t earned. Italy failed to qualify, but Trump’s special envoy, Paolo Zampolli, floated giving them a berth anyway, pitching the idea to Trump and Infantino as a fix for Iran’s participation in a U.S.-hosted tournament in the middle of a war; reporting at the time tied it to patching up Trump’s own rift with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. CNBC reports: President Donald Trump on Monday defended making a phone call to FIFA President Gianni Infantino, which led to the soccer association overturning a one-game World Cup suspension of U.S. Men’s National Team striker Folarin Balogun. “I asked for a review because I didn’t think it was a foul,” Trump said, referring to a referee issuing Balogun a red card in his team’s victory last week over Bosnia and Herzegovina. “I didn’t know what the hell a red card was,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office of the White House. Two other lines from that same appearance round out the picture. Trump called the referee who awarded the red card “a little bit suspect if you check his past”—the same reflex he’s turned on judges who rule against him, baselessly questioning their motives or backgrounds rather than the substance of a ruling. And on what would have happened had the suspension stood, he said the game “would have a big mark on it, if we lost or if we won”—a framing that treats any result reached without his intervention as inherently suspect, regardless of the outcome. FIFA could have said no. It didn’t. But that’s a story about FIFA’s spine, not the executive’s use of power, and it’s the latter that’s the point here. July 4, 2026 Trump Puts His Signature on the $100 Bill, Breaking 165 Years of Precedent Category: Political Corruption Trump’s name and face already adorn national park passes, U.S. passports, and federal buildings around Washington. This week he added the nation’s currency to that list: the $100 bill now carries his signature alongside the Treasury secretary’s, breaking with a 165-year-old tradition of pairing the treasurer’s signature with the secretary’s. CNN reports: President Donald Trump posted a new image Friday of a $100 bill bearing his signature, months after the Treasury Department announced that, for the first time, a sitting president’s signature would be featured on US paper currency. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Saturday touted the president’s economic achievements and said it is “only appropriate” that currency bearing Trump’s signature be issued in honor of the nation’s 250th birthday. “There is no more powerful way to recognize the historic achievements of our great country and President Donald J. Trump than U.S. dollar bills bearing his signature, and it is only appropriate that this historic currency be issued at the Semiquincentennial,” Bessent posted on X. The image Trump posted shows the president’s signature above Bessent’s. Previously, the $100 bill featured the signatures of the Treasury secretary and the treasurer of the United States, but not the sitting president. … Trump has made it a passion project to get his name and likeness on an array of US documents and landmarks. His administration also has put his image, name or both on a commemorative US passport, national parks passes, banners on various agency buildings in DC, cultural institutions like the US Institute of Peace and special investment accounts for babies. Florida also renamed Palm Beach International Airport after him. … Some in Congress have wanted to go a step further and put Trump’s likeness on currency, introducing a bill to get his portrait on a $250 anniversary bill. That outcome is far less likely, given it would need the support of Democratic senators in Congress. This isn’t, fundamentally, about currency design. It’s about self-aggrandizement. It is driven by the same instinct that has already seen him attach his name or likeness on passports, park passes, and federal buildings. As our own Andy Craig wrote in April, Julius Caesar putting his own image on coinage was seen as an outrage, associated with assuming the title of dictator for life. Polling conducted when the change was first announced found nearly 6 in 10 Americans disapproved of Trump putting his signature on the bills. Of course, he did it anyway. No vote, no bill, no debate, no authorization from Congress. Treasury just changed the signature, and that was that. July 3, 2026 Trump Pardons a Major Republican Donor Along With Nine Clean Air Act Violators Category: Political Corruption Donald Trump, the pardoner-in-chief who has abused this presidential power incessantly since returning to office, just handed out a fresh batch of pardons. Nine were extended to individuals who installed or sold devices that disabled diesel trucks’ pollution controls, letting them spew illegal levels of exhaust fumes, and one to a major Republican donor who pleaded guilty alongside Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist whose bribery scandal became synonymous with Washington corruption in the 2000s, in a nearly $150 million fraud scheme. The New York Times reports: The president … pardoned Adam Kidan, a major donor to Republicans, including Mr. Trump. He had served about two and a half years in prison for his role in a fraud scheme involving the disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The Clean Air Act pardons benefited people who had sold or installed devices for diesel trucks that defeated their emissions controls, making them far more polluting. It was the latest move by the Trump administration to undermine laws intended to fight climate change and curb air pollutants that harm human health. … By 2020, the most recent numbers available, the E.P.A. estimated that the emissions controls had been removed from more than 550,000 diesel pickup trucks over the prior decade, or roughly 15 percent of all diesel trucks originally certified with those controls. The effect, the agency found, was the equivalent of adding more than nine million diesel pickups to American roads, spewing harmful nitrogen oxides at levels up to 300 times the legal limits. … Mr. Kidan had pleaded guilty in 2005 to conspiracy and fraud charges involving his purchase of a casino boat fleet with Mr. Abramoff, who became a poster child for Washington corruption in the pre-Trump era. Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Kidan were each sentenced to 70 months in prison and ordered to pay a total of $21.7 million in restitution related to the $147.5 million purchase of a cruise ship line in 2000. Mr. Kidan served less than half of that prison sentence and became an executive in the staffing industry. He has donated millions of dollars to Republican campaigns and groups over the years, including more than $270,000 to Mr. Trump’s political committees in 2024, according to campaign finance records. It is not clear whether he paid the full amount of the restitution. A pardon doesn’t just erase a conviction. It can erase restitution, too—and it’s not clear how much of the $21.7 million Kidan and Abramoff were ordered to repay he ever actually paid. What we do know is that being a major donor to this president definitely didn’t hurt. And that’s just not how pardons are supposed to work. July 1, 2026 DHS Is Tracking Down and Threatening Americans Who Criticize ICE Category: Power Consolidation Criticize ICE and you may get a visit from Homeland Security—anytime, anywhere. Federal agents have started showing up at the homes and even hotel rooms of ordinary Americans who criticized the agency online or by email, warning them that they may be under criminal investigation for constitutionally protected speech. NPR reports: David Streever was on vacation in Finland with his 7-year-old daughter last week when he noticed his doorbell camera back home had captured some unusual footage. In recordings from hours earlier, he could see what looked like two law enforcement officers in blue jackets waiting on his front porch in Rochester, N.Y. … The agents asked Hilary Streever to tell her husband to call them back and left a form for him to sign. It said “WARNING NOTICE” and “YOU MAY BE IN VIOLATION OF FEDERAL LAW” and described federal laws that make it a crime to threaten federal officials. Later, the Streevers would learn the same agents presented the same form to a Syracuse poll worker earlier that day, and accused her of threatening an ICE officer on her Instagram account. … Just a couple hours after Streever landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on Thursday evening, a third Homeland Security Investigations special agent tracked him to the airport hotel he was staying at that night. The agent left a business card with the front desk, raising questions about whether Streever is under surveillance. “This is clearly out of line,” said Adam Steinbaugh, an attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which advocates for free speech, about the investigation into Streever. The First Amendment protects the rights of Americans to voice their concerns to their government, Steinbaugh said. “The government doesn’t have to listen to those, but it doesn’t get to dispatch federal agents to your door and stalk you across the state of New York,” he added. Nobody was charged with a crime. Nobody made an actual threat. What connects these episodes is a government agency deploying the machinery of federal surveillance against its critics—ordinary individuals, at that, rather than public commentators or political officials—and counting on fears of a knock at the door to ensure future silence. July 1, 2026 ICE Arrested 10,000 People in Five Days After the White House Demanded Bigger Numbers Category: Policy Illegality After federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens during an unprecedented immigration crackdown in Minneapolis this past January, ICE quietly dialed back its splashy street operations. That restraint didn’t last. Internal documents show the White House pushed the agency to hit a new daily arrest target, and ICE more than doubled its pace in a matter of days—even sweeping up a nun on her way to Mass along with immigrants who had no criminal record and were seemingly following the rules. The New York Times reports: Federal immigration officials have detained more than 10,000 people in the last five days, a major surge that has stemmed from a push within Immigration and Customs Enforcement to increase arrest rates. Agency leaders in recent days ordered top ICE officials to focus more of their officers’ efforts on picking up immigrants they want to deport. … ICE officers have arrested people at check-ins with immigration authorities, during traffic stops and on the street. ... ICE officials were told that the White House wanted an increase in arrests, according to three officials with knowledge of the conversations. One of the officials said that it was unclear how long the pace could continue, but that ICE officials had been told that 2,000 arrests a day was the new standard for enforcement. ... In South Texas, Sister Letty Ugboaja, a Nigerian nun, was arrested on her way to church on Sunday morning, according to Sister Norma Pimentel, her colleague. Sister Letty is a local nurse who also helps at a parish in the region. Sister Norma called local leaders after learning of the arrest, and congressional officials soon got involved and pushed for her release. On Sunday, she was let go from ICE custody, and Sister Norma was there to greet her. Sister Norma said that Sister Letty was distraught upon her release. “It took her awhile to be able to talk — she was crying,” she said. None of the people named in the Times’s piece—a nun, a nurse, a father with a court date already scheduled for 2027, a man driving to a soccer game—were accused of violence or anything coming anywhere near the public-safety threats normally invoked to justify immediate enforcement. Their underlying immigration statuses may differ in ways that matter legally, but none of that actually impacted who got swept up. And, of course, that’s precisely what a quota facilitates; it pulls in anyone who can help hit the target—who they actually are is an afterthought. Except, as we’ve come to understand, “afterthought” may be too generous to apply to this administration. Senior White House aides have spoken openly about reversing immigration-driven demographic change. Stephen Miller, the right’s point person on purges, could not be more forthright about his desires for mass-scale deportation of immigrants. That’s why, for this movement, a policy that rewards volume over judgment isn’t an unintended side effect. It’s actually the mechanism that lets agents pursue a nativist vision of the country while justifying it through quota fulfillment. July 1, 2026 Trump’s Qatari-Gifted Jet Just Flew Its First Mission as Air Force One Category: Personal Grift Back in 2025, Donald Trump created controversy by accepting a gifted jet—a “gift” that may have cost American taxpayers up to a billion dollars to ready—from Qatar. This week, he put it into service for the first time: flying it to North Dakota for the dedication of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, with the jet slated to lead a Fourth of July flyover days later. MS NOW explains: The jet is meant to serve as a “bridge,” easing the strain on aging aircraft until two purpose-built planes enter service in 2028, the administration official and the Air Force spokesperson said. Trump has said that once he leaves office, the jet will be donated to his presidential library. … Just weeks before the president announced the gift, the Trump Organization announced a deal to build a luxury golf resort in Qatar in “collaboration” with a Saudi company and a firm owned by the Qatari government. ... “The president time and time again makes clear that he is willing to [accept] and actively seeking gifts from foreign governments where the American people have significant national security interests, and Qatar is perhaps the most glaring and tangible example of that,” [said] Donald Sherman, president of the government ethics watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics. It’s hard to keep track of Trump’s various scandals, controversies, and self-dealing (although we at the Executive Watch desk do our best to help with this!). He has so utterly flooded the zone with improprieties that episodes like this one barely register. Indeed, a sequence like this—Qatar’s $400 million jet “gift” arriving weeks after the Trump Organization signed its own deal with Qatari-linked money—might have been a crisis moment for a past administration. For this one, it’s par for the course. The Constitution, for what it’s worth, specifically provides that “no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under [the United States], shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.” June 30, 2026 Trump’s White House Ballroom Vanity Project Was Built on a Secret $500 Million No-Bid Contract Category: Personal Grift Trump has insisted, repeatedly and publicly, that his East Wing ballroom project wouldn’t cost taxpayers a single cent. It turns out that the White House quietly steered the half-billion-dollar construction deal to a favored contractor through an office specifically exempt from the competitive-bidding rules that normally protect taxpayers from getting overcharged. What’s more, Trump personally haggled over line items! The Washington Post has the scoop, but it’s paywalled. This Daily Beast write-up relies on the Post’s reporting: Officials steered the $500 million agreement with Clark Construction through the Executive Residence, an arm of the Executive Office of the President that ordinarily buys furniture and art, covers entertainment, and handles repairs at the mansion. … That office sits outside federal rules that require agencies to seek competing offers and to lay out spending publicly. Structuring the deal this way allowed Trump to dodge scrutiny of the arrangement and avoid exposing it to competition. Trump, 80, got personally involved in the haggling, records show. On March 4—days after launching his war with Iran—he talked down what a Clark subsidiary would charge for concrete, trimming $2.3 million from an opening figure above $47 million. ... A White House official told the Post the deal ran through the Executive Residence because that office “will be the primary support of the facility,” adding the Executive Office of the President “consistently executes contracts following the law.” ... Joshua Fisher, who directs the White House Office of Administration, said that bids were skipped because disclosing the project’s needs would “compromise national security,” echoing the president’s repeated efforts to cast the rebuild as a defense concern. “I would certainly expect them to compete a project of this size and complexity,” [said] Anthony Costa, a former General Services Administration official who handled federal real estate work across four administrations. Skipping competitive bidding is how governments overpay for things. That’s precisely why the rule exists. Doing it in secret, through an office designed to be exempt from scrutiny, for a vanity project the president promised the public they wouldn’t have to pay for themselves, has all the hallmarks of Trump’s particular blend of self-aggrandizement and self-dealing. June 30, 2026 Trump Personally Made Over a Billion Dollars on Crypto Last Year, All While Promoting and Deregulating It Category: Personal Grift Both as candidate and as president, Donald Trump has clearly identified crypto bros as potentially powerful sources of both political quid pro quo and personal enrichment. A new federal filing reveals that he has earned more than a billion dollars, split between World Liberty Financial and his Trump meme coin, at the same time as he is touting crypto and deregulating the market. The Guardian reports: Donald Trump has raked in more than $1bn from his crypto businesses since returning to the White House, according to financial disclosures, making him substantially richer and ringing alarm bells over a conflict of interest... While many of the president’s crypto ventures were startups when he took the oath of office, their revenue has now eclipsed much of his vast property portfolio. This rise has been fuelled by billionaire investors and Trump’s move to quash a federal crackdown on the industry. In his second term, the president and his family have invested heavily in digital money and crypto businesses, with Trump announcing at the start of last year that he wanted the US to be the “crypto capital of the world.” Trump has significantly loosened regulation and enforcement over the very industry from which he personally profits—the kind of overlap that would raise questions in any administration. Part of his actions in this area can be explained as his political interests in making a play for a wealthy constituency. But it’s also clear that he and his family have found ways to personally profit from policies he himself controls. As we previously observed at The UnPopulist, this is a way to let money flow directly to the politician’s coffers, without the pretense of a campaign donation. June 29, 2026 Two Weeks Before ICE Sought a $220 Million Taser Contract, Trump Bought Around $5 Million in Taser Stock Category: Personal Grift On Feb. 10, Trump bought stock in Axon Enterprise, the company that dominates the market for the weapon his own immigration enforcers are about to buy by the tens of thousands. Add it to the pile of Trump family investments that just so happen to line up with his own administration’s policy decisions. CNBC reports: President Donald Trump bought as much as $5 million in shares of Axon Enterprise — maker of Tasers, body cameras and policing software — two weeks before Immigration and Customs Enforcement sought a five-year, $220 million contract that experts told CNBC appeared tailored to the company’s weapons. On Feb. 10, Trump purchased between $1 million and $5 million worth of Axon stock, according to federal disclosures he filed in May. On Feb. 24, ICE posted a notice seeking roughly 17,800 new Tasers, along with unlimited cartridges and training. ... “The concern is that [Trump] bought into a company whose business could grow if his own administration expands immigration enforcement,” Jordan Libowitz, vice president of communications at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said. Deborah Fleischaker, a former acting chief of staff at ICE during the Biden administration and now a senior advisor at UnidosUS, said the timing “raises red flags,” while cautioning it is impossible from public records to determine whether anything improper occurred. “It is not smart to buy stock in a company that was impacted by the decisions you would be making at the agency,” Fleischaker said. The White House insists Trump’s assets sit in a trust run by his children and that there are “no conflicts of interest.” Except the president reportedly filed the disclosure himself, on a stock he apparently chose himself, two weeks before his own agency wrote a contract that reads like a shopping list for that company’s products. June 29, 2026 Trump Toady Pete Hegseth Is Quietly Continuing to Refashion the ’Department of War’ in His Boss’s Image Category: Power Consolidation Last year, Pete Hegseth removed every member of the Defense Policy Board. Now he’s reconstituting it with 15 new appointees, and—unsurprisingly—it’s full of ideologues, lackeys, and Trump’s rich pals. The Hill explains: The Defense Policy Board is an advisory committee that provides advice and recommendations to the defense secretary, the deputy defense secretary and the Pentagon policy chief on regional defense policies, strategic planning, policy implications of U.S. force structure and modernizations and others. ... Hegseth announced that venture capitalist Marc Andreessen will serve on the board. He is the general partner at Andressen Horowitz, a firm whose investments include OpenAI, SpaceX, Skydio, Hadrian and Anduril — all companies that have contracts with the Pentagon. Other members of the board include Blake Masters, a former Senate GOP candidate; and Michael Anton, former director of policy planning at the State Department. It’s never a good sign for a democracy—particularly one with a strong history of good civilian-military relations—when political leadership starts replacing experienced professionals with incompetent ideological loyalists (like Anton, of “Flight 93 Election” infamy, and Masters, who was such a weak candidate that Trump himself reportedly told him he’d lose a primary to Kari Lake) and self-interested heterodox billionaires like Andreessen. June 29, 2026 Massachusetts and Rhode Island Provide Financial Aid and In-State Tuition to Help Immigrant Students—Now Trump Is Suing Them Over It Category: Policy Illegality The Trump administration’s anti-immigrant policy extends far beyond his attempts to ramp up deportations and his (now-failed) attempt to end birthright citizenship. It also seeks to deny immigrants access to opportunity, resources, and basic equal treatment. Now Trump is combining attacks on several of his favorite targets: immigrants, higher education, and blue states. Courthouse News reports: The Justice Department claims in two lawsuits filed Monday that Massachusetts and Rhode Island are violating federal law by offering in-state tuition and scholarships to students who live in the state but entered the country illegally. “The Department of Justice is committed to fulfilling President Trump’s promise that illegal aliens will not receive taxpayer benefits or preferential treatment over America’s own citizens,” Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward said in a DOJ statement. “As our nation marks 250 years of freedom, we will continue to challenge state laws that place aliens over citizens in clear defiance of Congress’s commands.” ... Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston charges state residents less than $16,000 a year for tuition but students from other states pay $44,700. Rhode Island College charges state residents about $5,000 a year but out-of-state residents pay almost $14,000. ... Some 21 states have passed such tuition equity laws, and at least 14 states allow such students to receive state financial aid. One of the Trump administration’s favorite lies is that immigrants are undeserving of help and unable to succeed in the United States. It isn’t true, of course, but their policies are designed to make it true by denying immigrants access and opportunity. June 27, 2026 Trump’s Board of Peace Is Trying to Grant Itself Legal Immunity and the Power to Steal Palestinian Land Category: Power Consolidation Donald Trump’s Board of Peace has a modest ask before it gets to work in Gaza: total legal immunity for itself and its agents, plus the power to seize property, with almost no oversight attached. A draft resolution shows the group—which currently enjoys the blessing of the United Nations—wants to answer to no one but itself. The Guardian reports: The four-page resolution, labeled “sensitive but unclassified,” extends broad protections to every member of the Board of Peace and its administrative affiliate, the office of the high representative (OHR), as well as to the Palestinian technocrats, international military forces and nonresident contractors lined up to perform work in Gaza. It defines legal processes from which they would have immunity as “any arrest, detention or legal proceedings in the courts or other entities in Gaza.” ... Six lawyers specialising in US contracting law and international armed conflict reviewed the draft resolution for the Guardian. If the resolution goes into force, they said, it is unclear how Board of Peace officials, soldiers and contractors would be held accountable if there are shootings or accidents that affect Gaza residents, or even how the group might resolve routine disputes over business or land use there. ... The final section of the Board of Peace’s draft resolution, entitled “Premises of the Board of Peace, OHR, and ISF,” says that the group “shall be provided, free of charge, public premises and facilities needed for the accomplishment of the missions in Gaza.” Legal experts said that this singular phrase could open the door to illegal confiscation of Palestinian property. Lest we forget, the Board of Peace’s composition and actions are, by design, almost entirely within the control of Donald Trump—personally, not just in his current capacity as POTUS—until and unless he decides to give it up. Now he wants to give the people he controls legal immunity. Surely only for good reasons! June 26, 2026 Trump Is Snatching Money From America’s National Parks to Pay for His White House Vanity Projects Category: Political Corruption Donald Trump has made a lot of promises about his D.C.-area construction projects—about their quality, about how much they’ll cost, and about who’s paying for them. Most of those promises have turned out to be false, so it’s no surprise that American taxpayers are indeed footing the bill for Trump’s personal vanity. New reporting reveals where some of that money is coming from: America’s national parks. The Atlantic has the story: In order to pay for the president’s projects, the parks have had to cancel needed repairs, slash their budgets, and operate with fewer employees. Taxpayer spending on projects in the National Capital Region has increased 92 percent over the past year, according to the budget documents. The windfall draws on revolving maintenance accounts and more than $100 million in fees collected almost entirely from national parks elsewhere. Trump has ordered the refurbishment of fountains, the lining of the Reflecting Pool, and a $1.6 million Fourth of July fireworks display on the National Mall. He has requested billions more from lawmakers, who thus far have refused. ... Park Service employees I spoke with describe a quiet crisis unfolding as the Interior Department’s regular budget shrinks and political appointees redirect the dwindling funds. More than 900 Park Service projects that were expected to be funded this year never received the money, according to internal records. They include a $1.5 million roof-replacement project at the Yellowstone Center for Resources to halt pest invasions and water leaks, more than $3 million to continue operating the free-bus system in Acadia National Park, and a roughly $424,000 guardrail replacement on the cliff edge of Black Canyon in Colorado’s Gunnison National Park, a project needed to rectify a “significant safety hazard for visitors.” Cuts to the Park Service are far from the most headline-grabbing thing Trump is doing, but they’re a perfect encapsulation of the second Trump term: raiding accounts meant to serve the public to bankroll the president’s own pet projects. June 26, 2026 Trump Is Pitifully Lying About Crowd Size Again, This Time About His ‘Great American State Fair’ Category: Political Corruption Donald Trump has always been obsessed with the size of his crowds, and his attempts to turn America’s 250th birthday into a celebration of himself and his vision of the country are proving no exception. But as the lame-duck incumbent rather than the provocative challenger, he’s struggling to draw the enthusiastic crowds he once did. And he absolutely hates to have that fact pointed out. MS NOW reports: [Trump] delivered a campaign-style speech and made much of the gathering a celebration of himself, not the country. In case that weren’t quite enough, turnout for the event was — how do I put this gently — underwhelming. An NBC News report noted, “Roughly half of those in Wednesday’s crowd of more than 1,000 wore Trump’s slogans or likeness on their clothes. For them, America’s 250th birthday was secondary to an opportunity to see the president.” The Washington Post ran a related report that noted, in reference to attendees, “The crowd thinly covered an area about the length of the National Museum of American History, smaller than some summer outdoor movie screenings.” ... Five hours later, either trying to convince the public or himself, he published a follow-up item, which read in part, “Last night’s Rally was packed — 45,000 people.“ An NBC News report described the president’s claim as “false,“ adding that the actual total was “nowhere near 45,000 people.” The fact that Trump appears to have lied about a crowd size is pitiful but predictable. He has, after all, been doing this since literally the first day of his first term. Pitiful, indeed. June 23, 2026 Instead of Draining the Swamp, Trump Turned the Reflecting Pool Into One Category: Personal Grift Trump’s attempt to remodel the Reflecting Pool—cleaning it and painting the bottom blue—has instead turned into a massive mess. All this after one company that had previously worked on the Reflecting Pool turned the project down as unfeasible. Trump awarded it instead via no-bid contracts, including one for a water filtration system to one of his donors. Trump’s response was of course as measured as you’d expect, flinging unhinged and unsupported allegations of vandalism. The New York Times explains: President Trump says the peeling blue coating and algae blooms that mar his $16.4 million renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool are the fault of vandals working with “knives” in the “dark of night.” But government documents obtained by The New York Times show that while National Park Service workers found two cuts in sections of foam between the pool’s expansion joints, those were not directly related to the “American flag blue” coating that is now peeling, or to the algae that has turned the pool a bright shade of green. Even as the documents show workers were attempting to address deteriorating conditions, Trump administration officials were insisting publicly that the pool was pristine. ... On Saturday, Mr. Trump acknowledged the pool would have to be at least partially drained for more work. On Tuesday, the president said on social media that six people had been arrested, and seven others had been cited, for slashing the pool’s sealant with a “sharp knife or razors.” “It was purposefully and criminally done, and somebody had to work very hard, probably in the dark of night,” he wrote. Mr. Trump also told reporters on Monday, without offering evidence, that vandals had poured fertilizer into the pool to feed the algae. Neither the Interior Department nor the White House would provide charging documents, citations or the names of anyone arrested. Somehow a perfect metaphor for Donald Trump, both the man and the president. June 23, 2026 Trump Threatens to Sue ABC News for Reporting Honestly on His Reflecting Pool Fiasco Category: Presidential Retribution Fresh off blaming vandals for the algae and peeling paint plaguing his Reflecting Pool renovation, Donald Trump turned his fire on the press for covering it. He accused ABC News of “false reporting” for failing to credit past administrations’ spending on the pool, and vowed to sue. CNBC reports: U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to sue broadcaster ABC for its reporting on the cost of repairing damage sustained by the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington D.C. Trump said the network had not reported costs incurred by previous administrations in maintaining the landmark. In a post on Truth Social, Trump claimed that ABC “failed to report that their close ’friends,’ Dumocrats Obama and Biden, spent over 100 Million Dollars on the Reflecting Pool, and it never worked.” ... “We are preparing lawsuits against ABC for false reporting. I like their money, which will be given to the U.S. Treasury,” Trump added, also referencing $16 million that ABC paid to settle a defamation case he filed in 2024. The latest action against ABC comes as the company faces two investigations from the Federal Communications Commission, led by Trump appointee Brendan Carr.President Trump says the peeling blue coating and algae blooms that mar his $16.4 million renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool are the fault of vandals working with “knives” in the “dark of night.” But government documents obtained by The New York Times show that while National Park Service workers found two cuts in sections of foam between the pool’s expansion joints, those were not directly related to the “American flag blue” coating that is now peeling, or to the algae that has turned the pool a bright shade of green. Even as the documents show workers were attempting to address deteriorating conditions, Trump administration officials were insisting publicly that the pool was pristine. ... On Saturday, Mr. Trump acknowledged the pool would have to be at least partially drained for more work. On Tuesday, the president said on social media that six people had been arrested, and seven others had been cited, for slashing the pool’s sealant with a “sharp knife or razors.” “It was purposefully and criminally done, and somebody had to work very hard, probably in the dark of night,” he wrote. Mr. Trump also told reporters on Monday, without offering evidence, that vandals had poured fertilizer into the pool to feed the algae. Neither the Interior Department nor the White House would provide charging documents, citations or the names of anyone arrested. Threatening to sue a network for accurately reporting an embarrassing story isn’t a policy dispute; it’s an attempt to make honest coverage of his administration more expensive than it’s worth. ABC joins the Wall Street Journal, the BBC, and The New York Times on the list of outlets Trump has sued or threatened to sue in just the past year. © The UnPopulist, 2026 Follow us on Bluesky, Threads, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and X. We welcome your reactions and replies. Please adhere to our comments policy. You have asked your readers of Executive Watch to choose which of the president’s assaults on the rule of law is the most egregious. That is almost an impossible task. How can one choose a category in this catalogue of moral violations, criminal behaviours and impeachable offenses? Akin to asking which is worse, a pedophile who rapes children or a mass murderer! But there is one which trumps all the others and that is Power Consolidation on one pragmatic consideration. That is the category which will allow all the others to be pursued without accountability at the polls, making elections meaningless, a strategy dear to the heart of every successful authoritarian. It worked well for Victor Orban, until it didn’t.