Articles & Videos

The ruling called a DOJ official’s sworn statements “at best, deceptive, if not intentionally and knowingly false.”

Would it be legal for President Donald Trump to effectively order a major U.S. government agency to hand over huge piles of taxpayer money to a group of his political allies? We may be about to find out.ABC News reports that Trump is likely to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service as part of a new settlement that amounts to one of his most corrupt schemes yet. It would create a new $1.7 billion fund to compensate allies supposedly victimized by the Biden administration’s “weaponization” of the legal system—potentially including the January 6 insurrectionists.According to ABC, the settlement would create a “commission” with “total authority” to settle “claims” brought by those who allege such weaponization. Per ABC, this not only includes the insurrectionists; it could even settle purported claims by “entities associated with President Trump himself.” By all indications it would operate with little-to-no congressional oversight.“This is a shocking new betrayal of the Constitution,” Representative Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, told me.This saga captures something essential about how the political economy of Trumpism really functions. It helps explain why his supporters stick by him through one episode after another of the most corrupt self-dealing we’ve seen from any U.S. president in modern history. To recap: In January, Trump sued the IRS over an unauthorized leak of his tax returns when he was president the first time, demanding $10 billion in damages. This lawsuit is absurd on the merits, as my colleague Timothy Noah demonstrates, functionally inviting Trump’s own government to settle a lawsuit massively in his favor, a ground-breaking innovation in self-dealing.Indeed, in recent days, we learned that the White House has entered into talks with the Justice Department—which is theoretically supposed to defend the government against the lawsuit—to settle Trump’s claim. Trump controls the DOJ, so functionally he’s been “negotiating” a “settlement” with an entity he controls, in which that entity would direct taxpayer money to Trump or his associates or pet causes.Enter this ABC report. The new MAGA slush fund would be drawn from the Treasury Department’s Judgment Fund. That’s something the federal government uses to pay settlements and court judgments, but in this case, Trump would wield quasi-direct control over that money.That’s because ABC also reports that under the settlement, Trump can remove commission members overseeing the new fund without cause. And it wouldn’t be required to disclose its decision-making involving who gets awarded compensation:Trump’s proposed commission is expected to be composed of five members who would issue monetary awards based on a majority vote, and the process for awarding money and the identities of the recipient could be kept private, according to sources.In short, Trump’s own DOJ is reaching a “settlement” with him that sets up a new MAGA slush fund of over $1 billion in taxpayer money. It’s overseen by people who can hand out the loot with no transparency, people whom Trump can fire for any reason—say, for not giving money to whoever Trump wants them to give it to. Including his army of insurrectionists.In our interview, Raskin pointed out other glaringly corrupt aspects to this. He noted that Treasury’s Judgment Fund is supposed to dole out its settlements and lawsuit judgments in accordance with actually existing court or administrative proceedings involving genuine victims of the government. As Raskin’s staff notes, depending on the details, the relevant agencies and government officials must sign off on these payments, and they’re disclosed to Congress and the public.But with the new fund, it’s not clear the payments will look anything like this. It appears to transfer control over its payments to Trump alone, Raskin’s staff says, and decouples them entirely from all those agency processes.“The Judgment Fund exists to settle valid judgments against the United States government,” Raskin told me. Trump and his allies, Raskin said, are “trying to take money from the Judgment Fund while eliminating any controls and oversight” and putting it under Trump’s “direct unilateral control.”On top of that, Raskin added, this circumvents Congress in another way, since Congress never voted to create a fund structured this way. Which potentially renders it unconstitutional, too.“Congress never would have passed a $1.7 billion slush fund for his friends—this is completely outside of our constitutional framework,” Raskin said, called this “an outrageous desecration of congressional power of the purse.”There’s still more. Raskin notes that the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the government from assuming any “obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States.” Raskin said that if this fund hands money to the January 6 rioters, Trump will be “using federal taxpayer dollars to compensate people who participated in insurrection.”If Democrats take back one or both chambers of Congress, Raskin said, they will move to shut down this new fund. And they will seek to compel it to release all the details on any payments it makes between now and 2027. So even if Trump thinks this fund is handing out money under cover of darkness, these payments might eventually see the light of day. Raskin also said he will invite Republicans to legislate against this fund right now. Let’s see how Republicans defend refusing to act against this.Ultimately, this story also helps explain the sordid political economy of MAGA fascism. As writer John Ganz has explained, Trump uses the government in various ways to support his coalition’s “material basis.” For instance, the massive scaling up of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Ganz notes, functions as “an employment program for the Trumpenproletarian mob,” as a key component of the “class composition of actually existing fascism.”This new MAGA slush fund seems very much in this vein, particularly if it hands out payments to January 6 rioters. As Raskin put it to me, Trump and his lawyers “are figuring out a way to refund the January 6 militia, presumably to get them ready for the next round of battle.”It’s hard to believe that Trump thinks of members of his street thug wing as victims of injustice in any meaningful sense. For Trump, there’s no such thing as justice or injustice. Outcomes reflect power and nothing more—who is winning and who is losing, who is dominant and who is supplicant.So at bottom, payments from this fund might ultimately serve as a form of coalition management: They’ll keep large swaths of his coalition persuaded that a win for Trump, no matter how illicit or ill-gotten, is a win for them. That his corruption isn’t just in his own interests, but in theirs, too. Because, after all, they’re getting a cut of the spoils.

MAGA Representative Jim Jordan got caught in his own lie while trying to argue that it was actually no big deal that Americans are experiencing skyrocketing gas prices and inflation at the hands of President Trump. Jordan was questioned by CNN’s Kaitlin Collins on how the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran has negatively impacted U.S. consumers. “What about his promise in 2024 that if he was reelected, gas would be under $2 a gallon because of his policies?” asked Collins.“Well, gas prices were coming down until we had to deal with this situation. But, you know, that’s life. That’s dealing with the world and, you know, the world we live in,” Jordan replied. “I think the country gets the fundamental fact – and I know I understand this – President Trump makes decisions that are in the best interest of our nation, 250 years, greatest country in history.”“But if someone’s listening to you and they were paying $2.98 a gallon gas before the war started, and now they’re paying $4.53, I mean, saying ‘that’s life’ might not, you know, make them feel better,” Collins replied. “Those are– those are your words. Not mine. I’m saying–”“No, you said, ‘That’s life’ just now.”COLLINS: But if someone was paying $2.98 a gallon before the war, and now they're paying $4.53, saying 'that's life' might not make them feel betterJIM JORDAN: Those are your words, not mineCOLLINS: You said that just now. I quoted you. pic.twitter.com/RMWo3sKKtQ— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 15, 2026“This is the situation. This is the situation. They were pursuing a nuclear weapon. They wanted to get there. President Trump said, “I’m not gonna do that.” He ran on that, and he’s taken the appropriate action that I think you want your commander-in-chief to take for the security and safety of America.”“But he also ran on bringing gas prices to under $2 a gallon.”“Hopefully, we’ll get there soon. I want– I want gas prices low, too. I mean, we all want gas prices low. Who doesn’t, for goodness sake?” Jordan’s response was widely ridiculed as a moment that represented the Trump-induced fugue state that many republicans seem to be in, particularly of late as prices get higher and higher with no end to the war in Iran in sight. Just two days ago Vice President JD Vance denied that Trump stated that he didn’t care about Americans’ economic situations “even a little bit” even as there is readily available footage of him saying exactly that.CNN split screen of Trump saying he doesn’t think about Americans’ financial situation and Vance claiming that Trump didn’t say that. pic.twitter.com/7ACtYu9ImE— Acyn (@Acyn) May 13, 2026

As a Palestinian born in the 21st century, I am the generational product of Nakba survivors and the trauma that came with it. As distant as it may seem, I am only two generations removed from the 1948 Catastrophe of Palestine, where over 750,000 Palestinians were displaced from their land, and thousands were massacred. Zionist [...]

Donald Trump says China agreed to buy 200 jets from Boeing. He crowed about it on Fox News Thursday night. But funny thing: A spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs was asked specifically about the jet deal after Trump spoke, and he said nothing about any such agreement. Wanna take bets on whether it actually happened?Three points here. First of all, we should stop quickly to note that it’s sad that it’s come to pass that we just automatically believe a foreign government—and China’s no less—over the president of the United States (sad about him, that is, not us). Second, let’s remember that Boeing is an American company in a deep and sustained crisis that was brought on by basic greed: As David Goldstein explained in Democracy journal in 2024, after its acquisition of McDonnell-Douglas in 1997, the historically proud engineering culture at Boeing was destroyed as the company became more anti-union and outsourced more of its production.And third, assuming that Trump is lying or at least exaggerating, well, we’ve just learned again for the jillionth time that Mr. Art of the Deal is a total fraud. Let’s review.Remember how, in his first term, Trump was going to bring North Korea to its knees? Remember how he consistently heaped praise on Kim Jong Un and his “beautiful vision for his country”? Well, it’s not a “beautiful country” to the people who live there, and meanwhile, its nuclear progress has been steady over the last decade—during most of which, of course, Mr. Art of the Deal has been the president of the United States. Experts think the nation has assembled about 50 warheads.Remember also that he was going to solve the Russia-Ukraine war on his first day back in office? In late March, a UN expert testified that the violence was “worse than ever.” We—that is, most decent people—are heartened by Ukraine’s resilience and wowed by its innovative drone technology. But that “we” doesn’t include the president of the United States, who obviously is cheering for his pal Putin—over whom he has zero leverage.The 2025 tariff war on China totally backfired. China responded to Trump’s tariffs by limiting exports of rare-earth metals, and Trump backed down. Today, U.S. soybean exports to China are down (they peaked during Sleepy Joe’s “disastrous” presidency), as are auto exports. The first Chinese EVs are landing in Canada even as we speak. These are ultra-luxury cars that sell for $10,000 or even $20,000 less than their American equivalents.Speaking of Canada, why isn’t it the 51st state yet? And speaking of Northern annexation, why isn’t Greenland part of the United States yet?How’s that world-class Gaza resort coming along?U.S. relations with Europe are at an all-time low. And it isn’t because of anything Europe did. Last December, the Trump administration released a security strategy paper calling Europe a bigger threat to the United States than Russia or China because of its progressive social and immigration policies, which threatened the continent with “civilizational erasure.”  And finally, of course, there is Iran. The economic impact of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz will be felt for months ahead. The latest wrinkle? In India, where they apparently lap up Diet Coke, there’s a shortage of the beloved elixir because there’s an aluminum shortage (Diet Coke is sold only in cans there). The Middle East accounts for 98 percent of the global aluminum supply. Stock up on that Reynolds Wrap. Joking aside: There are and will be dozens of such shortages, some far more serious than Diet Coke. A UN official told AFP in Paris this week that up to 45 million people in the developing world could face hunger or even starvation because of the global fertilizer shortage.  All the above adds up to this rather grim reality, contained in a survey conducted by the Alliance of Democracies Foundations and unveiled last week. The United States ranked 128th in how it is viewed by survey respondents across 85 countries. We netted out at -16. That’s behind Russia, Syria, and Myanmar, to name a few notables. But hey, we’re ahead of Iran! By a point.Trump can fool himself, if he wants to, that Xi Jinping was talking about the Biden years when he referred to America’s decline and the suddenly famous “Thucydides Trap.” But everyone knows the truth. He was talking about the United States in general, under both parties—a country that is by now pretty much owned lock, stock, and barrel by a handful of greedy Robber Barons whom the GOP worships and the Democrats haven’t had the stones to stop.And he was talking about the United States under Trump specifically. Xi may be a ruthlessly immoral tyrant. But one thing he isn’t is dumb. He sees very clearly what the United States is doing to itself, having reelected a low-I.Q. kleptocrat, adjudicated sex offender, and psychologically damaged sociopath who spends the wee hours firing off batshit tweets and obsessing about a ballroom the way the Sun King did over Versailles. That man, not Joe Biden, is why China now tops the United States in global approval ratings.The United States always led China in those kinds of polls because at the end of the day we could say well, at least we’re a democracy. The way things are going, we’re not even going to be able to say that soon. But hey, he’s a great dealmaker, right?This article first appeared in Fighting Words, a weekly TNR newsletter authored by editor Michael Tomasky. Sign up here.

Our feature-length documentary, After Oil, was born in 2020 out of a series of essays published on this site, centered around climate justice, tax justice, and extractive economies on the African continent. It was edited by Grieve Chelwa, and we called it Climate Politricks. The documentary came about as an idea to expand the audience for such [...]

Golden originally co-sponsored the resolution but was the deciding Democratic vote against it in a 212-212 tie.