Donald Trump’s unhinged newest as he blurts out chilling plan to grab elections

Trump blurted out his plan to seize control of US elections on a podcast, he’s mostly planning to demolish the Kennedy Centre, and the cold weather ceasefire he personally asked Putin for is already over. Here’s all the most unhinged things that have happened in the last 24 hours

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A year and a bit ago, a few days after Donald Trump won the 2024 election, I appeared on a panel at an event – I genuinely forget who I was speaking to, I was quite jetlagged at the time.

But I recall suggesting the 2029 election was unlikely to actually take place. There was a ripple of nervous laughter from the audience – not to mention from my fellow panelists.

I usually love being proven right. It’s one of my flaws. It’s hard, though, to take much pleasure in this case.

Donald Trump is, slowly but surely, showing his hand – and nobody’s laughing any more.

Meanwhile in Trumpworld

• Trump says Republicans should ‘take over’ control of elections
• He’s going to (mostly) demolish the Kennedy Centre
• Peter Mandelson’s garden parties
• Everyone should just stop wasting time on the Epstein Files
• Trump is suing the taxman for a Dr Evil amount of money

Here’s what you need to know

1. Trump says Republicans should ‘take over’ control of Elections

Dan Bongino, who until recently was deputy Director of the FBI, has returned to his previous role as a podcaster.

And the first guest on his first show back? Donald J Trump.

Among the usual bluster of his interview, Trump made a fairly eye-popping statement, that might not be obviously obscene to people in the UK, so forgive me while I spell it out.

After claiming, again, falsely and repeatedly, to have won the 2020 election in a landslide, he suggested sweeping changes to how US elections are run.

Under the Constitution, the administration of elections in pretty much every part of the country except Washington DC and various overseas territories is reserved for individual state governments.

And for those not run by the states, they’re run by Congress.

So you’ll know understand what’s so particularly chilling about Donald Trump suggesting: “The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over. We should take over the voting in at least 15 places.’ The Republicans ought to nationalise the voting.”

He also suggested there would be “some interesting things” to come out of his FBI’s raid of an election HQ in Fulton County, Georgia last week.

It builds on a threat he made on Truth Social last Summer, where he claimed: “Remember, the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes… They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do.”

No such executive order has been published as of now, but I’d be amazed if it doesn’t happen sometime between now and November.

2. Okay…so why was Tulsi Gabbard at the Georgia raid?

Karoline Leavitt was asked this afternoon why Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, was at the Georgia raid – a domestic law enforcement action.

She said Gabbard has been “tapped by the president to oversee the sanctity and security of our American elections. She’s working directly alongside the FBI. This is a coordinated, whole of government effort.”

We mention for no reason whatsoever that the Wall Street Journal had a fascinating story on Sunday about Gabbard, about whom there is reportedly a whistleblower complaint which could have such dramatic repercussions for US National Security, and is so highly classified, that it has literally being kept in a safe for months while officials work out how to share it with Congress.

3. Trump’s winter ceasefire in Ukraine didn’t last very long

Late last week, Trump announced he’d personally asked Putin to stop bombing Kyiv for a week because of the cold weather.

Sadly, this detente did not last long, and bombardment resumed today.

Asked about it today, Leavitt said: “I spoke with the President and his reaction was unfortunately unsurprised. These are two countries that have been engaged in a very brutal war.”

4. Trump to mostly demolish JFK memorial

After a string of high-profile boycotts and failures, Donald Trump has apparently grown weary of trying to refashion the Kennedy Centre into his image, and has decided to demolish (most of) it.

The venue – which, let’s not forget, serves as a memorial to slain President John F Kennedy – will be torn down to the steel and rebuilt from scratch.

Trump said he needs the venue to shut down for two years for construction and other work without patrons and performances getting in the way.

Trump announced Sunday night on social media that he intends to temporarily close the performing arts venue on July 4 for about two years “for Construction, Revitalization, and Complete Rebuilding,” subject to board approval.

“I’m not ripping it down,” the Republican president told reporters in the Oval Office last night. “I’ll be using the steel. So we’re using the structure.”

5. Trump says DoJ should “move on” from Epstein

Because of course he does.

“I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein,” Trump said at an Oval Office event last night. “And in fact, if you look at the DoJ, they released 3 million pages, it’s like, this is all they’re supposed to be doing.”

In fact, the 3m pages is about half of what they’re required by law to release, and even that has been released in a heavily and haphazardly redacted form, six weeks after they were legally obliged to publish with minimal, careful redactions. Oh, and remember that bit in the Epstein Files bill where they DoJ had to submit a written justification for every single redaction? Yeah, no sign of that about.

Anway…I digress.

“Frankly the DoJ I think should just say ‘we have other things to do.’ Because that thing has just turned out – other than Bill Clinton and Bill Gates and lots of people that have a lot of questions about it but…nothing on me.

“It was even, sort of better than that, because they found that Jeffrey Epstein and this sleaze bag writer named Michael Wolff were conspiring against Donald Trump to lose the election. So Epstein was conspiring with a writer to make me lose the election. So right there you know that I had nothing to do with this guy. But yeah, it’s a terrible thing. The amount of time that’s being wasted.”

Remember that time Boris Johnson said money spent on investigations into historic child sexual abuse was being “spaffed up a wall”?

Trump continued: “You know, when Epstein was alive, like 10 years ago, nobody cared about him. But now it’s really hitting back on them because Bill Clinton is such a big part of it. The Democrats are pushing it. It’s turning out to be the Democrats who conspired with Epstein. So I think you’re probably gonna see a little pullback from them.

“But think of it, they were working together to try and make me lose this election, but hey, this is the Oval Office, so didn’t work out too well.”

6. Peter out

Peter Mandelson, who was until September the UK’s Ambassador to Washington, has “retired” from the House of Lords after the Mirror and others unearthed a plethora of scandals involving him in the Epstein files.

It’s usually a mistake to rule out Peter Mandelson returning to public life after a scandal, but this one feels like it could be a little more permanent.

Obviously we’ve been asking around sources in DC to see what, if any, nonsense he got up to in his brief period as our man in Washington. So far, very little.

“He mostly just wanted to throw afternoon garden parties,” one said.

7. Trump sues IRS

Trump is suing the IRS – the US equivalent of HMRC. He’s demanding another Dr Evil-style TEN BILLION DOLLARS from the taxman over the unauthorised leaking of his taxes in 2020.

Given the entire annual budget of the IRS is around $1t billion, you might be forgiven for thinking this lawsuit is frivolous.

But there’s a few things to note.

It’s the first time a sitting president has sued another part of the executive branch – which he has control over.

That doesn’t include Trump’s previous administrative claims against the Justice Department, launched before his return to office. By the by, Trump keeps claiming he “won” that case. He hasn’t, it remains unresolved.

It’s also worth noting – as the New Republic did today – that the leak of his tax returns happened during his first administration – so the President is suing the government over something that happened while he was running it.

The guy who leaked his tax records has since been tracked down by the IRS and prosecuted. He’s serving FIVE YEARS in prison for his act of whistleblowing.