Trump has pardoned more people, and almost certainly lied about what they did – meanwhile, he made a bizarre admission about his reading habits. Here’s a roundup of everything you need to know
Donald Trump’s Fourth of July extravaganza at the National Mall promises to be spectacular one way or another.
He’s promised the largest fireworks show in history to mark America’s 250th Anniversary – with the number of pretty explosives shot into the sky around 850,000. According to Freedom250, the display is going to last about 35 minutes. Or about 24,000 launches a minute. Or, to put it another way, it’s about 400 every second. Which seems either implausible, dangerous…or like you wouldn’t really notice the difference between it and the 17,000 or so shells normally set off at the July 4th celebration.
Meanwhile, in Trumpworld
- He slapped his name on another thing…this time it’s a biggie
- He’s pardoned more people, and probably lied about what they did
- He made shocking disclosure about his reading habits
- He hyped a firm he just bought shares in
- He suggested people voted for him because he’s corrupt
- A guy got indicted for allegedly “vandalising” the reflecting pool. He says he didn’t
- And the rubbish fair has been evacuated
Here’s what you need to know
He’s slapped his name on another thing…and this time it’s a biggie
Trump this afternoon posted a cryptic picture of a banknote to his Truth Social page. It took a while to notice the significance of it. But there it was, in the bottom left hand corner. For the first time – a sitting President’s name. His, obviously. For more than a century, the only signatures on US currency were Secretary of the Treasury and the Treasurer of the United States. But as of today, Trump’s signature appears above Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant’s name on the $100 bill.
He’s also planning to release a commemorative $250 bill with his face on it – thought this would be in contravention of a 1866 federal law which bans living people from appearing on currency for…you know…’King’ reasons.
He’s pardoned more people – and almost certainly lied about what they were jailed for
Trump tonight announced that he had pardoned six people who had been jailed under the Biden administration for nothing more than “fixing their cars.”
He wrote on Truth Social: “It is my Great Honor to have just signed Pardons for six people who were persecuted by the Biden Administration, and were in, or being sent to, prison, for “fixing their car.” While I know this sounds ridiculous, it is nevertheless a fact, and part of the Weaponization and Stupidity that our Country had to endure during four long years of Sleepy Joe Biden. I AM SETTING THEM ALL FREE, RIGHT NOW!
Now, at the time of writing the identities of the six pardoned persons have not been released. But he used exactly the same form of words to describe someone he had pardoned – and it wasn’t remotely true. In a speech on June 4th he referred to “them” having given a man “seven years in jail, actually, because he fixed his own car.” This appeared to be a reference to Troy Lake, a mechanic who was jailed and served seven months of a one year sentence after pleading guilty not to an act of repair…but of violating the Clean Air Act by disabling emissions monitors on at leas 344 commercial trucks.
According to the US Attorney’s Office, the effects of tampering with so many vehicles caused an illegal increase in pollutants of “at least 1,300 tons of excess nitrogen oxides, 30 tons of excess non-methane hydrocarbons, 600 tons of excess carbon monoxide, and 30 tons of excess particulate matter.”
So yeah, fully expecting it to turn out that the people Trump pardoned tonight did not, in fact, get sent to jail for fixing their own cars.
Trump made shocking disclosure about his reading habits
Many presidents have professed the importance of reading. Jefferson’s personal library was the seed of the Library of Congress. Theodore Roosevelt, whose Library Trump opened yesterday, was a voracious reader, inhaling a book a day even while serving as President.
Abraham Lincoln said books had shaped his mind, JFK said books were an essential took for a free society. More recently Barack Obama has frequently spoken of his love for reading fiction.
Donald Trump…not so much. He appeared on Second Lady Usha Vance’s podcast, in which guests read picture books to children. Like CBBC Bedtime Stories, but so much less wholesome.
Trump era from a book called “Presidents Play!” During his appearance on the imaginatively named “Storytime with the Second Lady,”, proving that he can, at the very least, read.
But when Vance asked Trump if he has much time to read for fun while serving as president, he gave a thoroughly bizarre answer.
“I usually read stories about myself,” Trump said, acknowledging that most of his reading material was from newspapers.
Which, you must know, doesn’t really mean newspapers. It means whichever articles from wacky far right blogs his staff could find to please him that morning.
Trump vs the old canoeist
A DC grand jury returned a felony indictment against a former Olympic canoeist yesterday, with the Justice Department alleging he “ripped a piece of recently installed sealant on the bottom of the Reflecting Pool at the Lincoln Memorial.”
Olympian David Hearn, 67, denied any wrongdoing in connection with the damage to the pool. “I didn’t vandalize anything,” he told The Washington Post. “I didn’t destroy or break or peel anything. By the time I realized what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs.”
Seems as good a time as any to remind everyone about the Grand Jury, and why they might have returned an indictment in this matter. Grant Juries are like our Crown Prosecution Service – they decide which police charges have enough merit to go forward to trial. Except that instead of being officials, they’re members of the public drafted in for sort of pre-trial trials. It is incredibly unusual for a grand jury not to return an indictment for trial – not least because grand juries only ever hear the prosecution case, not the defence. Like, 99.99% of grand jury cases return indictments. The old joke is that an American prosecutor could secure an indictment for a ham sandwich.
I suspect this case, if it sees the inside of an actual courtroom, will not be seen in there for very long.
Trump hypes firm he just bought shares in
Fresh from the news that he’s already made $2 billion from his related forms since returning to office, it seems like Trump is busy making even more money.
Today, Trump announced on Truth Social that a firm called Micron was “a GREAT American Company”, and that they had “announced that they are putting in 250 Million Dollars into the Trump Accounts for the future benefit of children”.
He also pointed out that “their stock went up 9 points today”.
Which is nice for Trump, because he’s a shareholder. He already held $1.67 million and $6.65 million on stocks before returning to office. But in March, as his administration was preparing to launch Trump Accounts – which are more or less Gordon Brown’s Child Trust Fund with corporate sponsorship and Trump’s name – Trump bought $215,000 and $550,000 in additional stock from the company.
But it’s OK because he’s given up his salary
Trump went on to plead poverty and financial selflessness in an interview with CNBC-who have spoken to their fair share of crooks over the years.
“I’m the only president that’s ever given up my salary,” Trump said, incorrectly. Hoover and JFK both gave their salaries to charity. Washington wanted to but Congress wouldn’t let him.
Trump added of his salary: “It’s a lot of…you know, by some standards it’s a lot of money.”
Trump suggests that people voted for him because he’s corrupt
In the same interview, Trump indicated that he believed people voted for him not in spite of his shameless, open corruption, but because of it.
“I’ve made a lot of money over the years. And one of the reasons I got elected was to have a business person,” he said.
“I don’t do anything having to do with my business. My kids run it,” This is, of course, not the same as putting it in a blind trust, which is what Jimmy Carter did with his iconic peanut farm.
“I have a lot of money,” Trump argued. “I made a tremendous amount of money. I let people invest it. I don’t even know who they are.”
The fair has been evacuated
Donald Trump’s Great American State Fair is, I regret to say, still going on. And most of the time, still, barely anybody is there.
And this afternoon, nobody was there at all – because it had to be evacuated because of the massive dome of heat enveloping Washington DC. Temperatures hit 39 degrees with 46% humidity this afternoon. And having been in DC last week when it was a mere 35 degrees, it’s absolutely no fun.
Similar temperatures are expected tomorrow – which has put a spanner in the works of Trump’s big July 4th party a little further up the National Mall. They’ve had to delay the opening time to deter people from turning up to the venue, which has essentially no shade whatsoever, before the sun starts to go down.