John Casey

There is an image burned into the minds of anyone paying attention to the machinations of Donald Trump, his Cabinet and advisors, aka his minions and sycophants. It is not the picture I bet you’re thinking of — the one of Donald Trump, bloodied ear and fist clenched toward the sky, wrapped in an American flag at Butler, Pennsylvania.

Nope, that’s not it.

The image that should haunt you is something different. More joyous? Loutish? It’s Kash Patel, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, standing in the locker room of the United States men’s Olympic hockey team, chugging a beer like a frat boy who stumbled into a party where he wasn’t invited, drinking beer he didn’t pay for.

Not only is he a cheapskate, but do I need to remind you that he is the country’s top domestic intelligence officer? You’d be hard-pressed to think of a man pining for a keg stand.

He is the man who runs the most powerful law enforcement agency in the world, surrounded by elite athletes who just won a gold medal, treating their locker room like he was the uninvited guest of honor.

No sense of gravitas. No self-awareness. No decorum. No suit and tie congratulating the players with a handshake instead of shotgunning a beer. Just Kash, a putrid person in over his head, beer, job and all.

That photograph alone told a story. The Atlantic then told the rest, with an investigative piece aptly titled, “The FBI Director is MIA.”

In a thoroughly reported, meticulously sourced investigation, The Atlantic laid out a damning portrait of Patel as a man who drinks heavily, publicly, and without concern for rolling out of bed with a hangover and trying to run the FBI.

The piece drew on firsthand sources, accounts from bars, restaurants, and Las Vegas clubs, and a pattern of behavior that would disqualify most people from managing an abandoned building, let alone a federal intelligence agency with 38,000 employees and a classified portfolio of state secrets.

It described heavy drinking, late nights that bled into workdays, and concerns among colleagues about his reliability and judgment. This was not gossip. It was journalism, and the kind that makes powerful people uncomfortable.

So what did Kash Patel do? He went on Fox News and sat down with Maria Bartiromo, where he imploded on live television.

Bartiromo asked him directly whether he had a drinking problem. It was a yes-or-no question. Patel answered it the way a hungover drunk answers when the answer is yes — he hemmed and hawed. He rambled. He told America how great the FBI is.

Then the bleary-eyed Patel said: “You watch. I’m gonna sue them.”

Well. On Monday, he did.

Patel has filed a $250 million lawsuit against The Atlantic, claiming malice. Two hundred and fifty million dollars against a publication that did what journalism is supposed to do — investigate a powerful public official and tell the public what it found.

Before we go further, I have a confession. “You can’t fool a fellow drunk.”

I have spent over 30 years in Manhattan, and I drank heavily for most of them. I quit over four years ago, but I know that if someone wrote about my drinking exploits, I’d do everything possible to not draw attention to myself.

I had a wildly successful career in PR; however, I went to work many mornings hungover, straining to be at my best. So the stories in The Atlantic rang true. They felt authentic because I did the same thing.

Patel should stick his head in the sand, but instead the arrogant, obtuse faux-FBI person is trying to blow it all up.

Actual malice, as established in New York Times v. Sullivan in 1964, means the defendant published something knowing it was false, or with reckless disregard for the truth. It is an extraordinarily high bar because the First Amendment does not exist to protect the powerful.

The Atlantic didn’t write a hit job. They investigated. They reported. That is the opposite of malice.

If Patel pushes this lawsuit forward, and if it somehow survives a motion to dismiss, discovery opens up. Depositions. Sworn testimony. Subpoenas. The sources, all those people in bars, restaurants, Vegas clubs, colleagues, even those in that locker room who saw what he did and how he acted, will all potentially be called to testify under oath.

Patel’s strategy to stop the world from talking about his drinking would require the world to talk about his drinking in a federal courtroom, on the record.

And the media will be all over it. What was said to The Atlantic is likely only the tip of the iceberg.

Here’s why I know that. When I get together with friends, once the stories about my drinking exploits start, they never end. They get worse, more detailed. If Patel is like any of us who partied hearty, then the proverbial glass is only half full right now.

The lawsuit will almost certainly be thrown out. The threshold for actual malice is high. This case is a stunt. Patel is trying to emulate his boss — to look like a fighter who blindly sues, like Trump.

But not only is Patel stupid for suing The Atlantic, he’s doubly stupid for following Trump’s lead. Trump loses almost every single time.

The Trump playbook is for other losers like Patel.

I’m almost hoping the case proceeds, because a trial would be scandalous. All that dirty laundry in a federal courtroom. All those witnesses. All those stories dragged into the public eye under the threat of perjury, where B.S. and Fox News talking points don’t help you survive.

And neither, by the way, does two aspirins, a Gatorade, and a greasy egg sandwich.

“The Strait of Hormuz isn’t social media. If someone blocks you, you can’t just block them back.” That snarky but perceptive taunt, posted by an Iranian diplomat on X shortly after Tehran reversed its decision to open the waterway, should be the epitaph for the Trumpian school of foreign policy.

It was intended as a slap in the face to Trump, who actually does treat the most volatile chokepoint on the planet like a digital word game on his smartphone.

For over four decades, prior administrations’ understanding of global macroeconomics warned that poking the religious extremism that is the Iranian bear would possibly lead to the shuttering of the Strait. They warned that Tehran’s leverage had the power to pull the plug on the global economy and plunge the world into an oil crisis or worldwide recession.

But Donald Trump thinks decades of advice about Iran consist of scrawling on a bar napkin to be disposed of. He relies solely on the “stable genius” that lives in his gut, the only decision-making process he thinks is relevant.

That unstable, moronic rotgut then transmits signals to his swollen fingers that punch out nonsensical blabber posted to Truth Social. He regards that as official policy procedure.

He does it all by impulse. He frantically spits out herky-jerky Truth Social posts at 3 a.m. with a demented mind that pontificates nonsense and typos, treating the Strait of Hormuz as just more content to be uploaded, alternating between calling it the “Strait of Iran” and the “Strait of Trump,” while misspelling “strait” itself.

He continually invites chaos and potential catastrophe by diabolical typing in ALL CAPS.

The offshoot of Trump’s recklessness is a terrifying pivot in the global balance of power. While the world has spent years obsessing over Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear warhead, Tehran has discovered a weapon far more effective and immediately deployable than any bomb — an absolute, unchecked leverage over the world’s oil super-highway.

And Iran now understands that Donald Trump is nothing more than a social media blowhard.

Because of Trump’s irresponsibility, Iran may find that it doesn’t actually need a nuclear weapon to bring the West, and the world, to its knees. Why bother with the international pariah status of uranium when you can simply prompt U-turns from cargo ships in the Strait?

By weaponizing the world’s oil supply in response to Trump’s digital diplomacy, Iran has found a way to bypass traditional diplomacy and upend carefully calibrated treaties, and what might be called the world’s decades-long slavish deference to Iran’s hold on trafficking black gold.

And the Iranians are clearly relishing the irony. Iran has reciprocated with Trump’s Truth Social negotiations by posting Lego-character AI videos of American and Israeli officials. They aren’t afraid of us, particularly if the dialogue initiated by Trump is a series of wacky Truth Social posts, some of which are more like 900-word opinion pieces.

Although his diatribes are not as thoughtful and articulate as this column.

Iran is mocking us. And the tragedy is that Trump, a man so thoroughly incapable of distinguishing between being feared and being laughed at, cannot tell the difference. And the evil empire that is Iran understands this about Trump.

That’s what makes them dangerous, because Trump has no understanding of Iran, its leaders, or its history.

The domestic fallout of this precarious situation is already gutting the proverbial American pocketbook. Seven weeks into this conflict, U.S. gas prices have soared past $4m a gallon, spiking grocery and other costs and causing a slump in discretionary spending.

Economists are now sounding the alarm about the risk of a global recession this year, with inflation proving impossible to dislodge as long as 20 percent of the world’s oil remains hostage to Iranian whims.

Meanwhile, our alliances are being shattered under the weight of Trump’s go-it-alone, social media–driven insults. When Trump demanded NATO allies “take care of” the passage, he was met with a resounding no (if they were responding like Trump on social media, it would have been in all caps) from nations across Europe and elsewhere, who refused to be dragged into his whim of a war.

While a fragile coalition of 22 nations led by the UK has agreed to help clear mines and restore traffic, the damage is done. Trump’s Truth taunts, calling our closest partners “COWARDS” and NATO a “paper tiger,” have only reinforced the idea that the U.S. is no longer a reliable guarantor of global security. Nations abroad are figuring out ways to move forward without the U.S.

Here is what our allies understand, and what Trump never will — the Strait of Hormuz is not a way to capture the latest news cycle. It is not a creativity award for AI-generated images. It is a 21-mile-wide choke point through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil flows every single day.

Nations have spent decades building entire military doctrines, diplomatic frameworks, and economic contingency plans around keeping that waterway open.

The moment you start treating it as a random opinion screed that you hope goes viral, you don’t just lose a negotiation, you lose years of carefully constructed diplomacy that held up global stability.

That is the once-and-future danger of the Trump doctrine. It isn’t just about the mistakes of today, but the unprecedented chaos that looms in the future.

When you treat a delicate strategy like a social media feud, you teach your enemies that the old rules of deterrence, steady diplomacy, and predictable consequences are out the window.

You teach them that the American superpower is the real “paper tiger,” because at its core it is just a very loud, knock-off Twitter-like account with a short attention span.

In other words, Iran is treating Trump like an obsessed teenager who can’t let go of his phone long enough to pay attention to the urgency of what’s going on around him.

Iran knows that in the real world, when the Strait closes, the block button doesn’t just silence an obtuse opponent. It blocks everyone.

The Iranians have learned something profound from this catastrophe that will linger: you don’t need a nuclear warhead to bring a superpower to its knees. You just need a stupid social media addict as the leader of its arch nemesis.

There is an old American idiom for a group so collectively inept they couldn’t organize a one-car parade, as another axiom goes. We call them the Three Stooges. They were a legendary comedy trio famous for their chaotic, physical slapstick and for being a cultural shorthand for lovable but total incompetence.

After watching JD Vance (Mo), Steve Witkoff (Curly), and Jared Kushner (Larry) stumble out of Islamabad empty-handed, having failed to end a six-week war, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, or extract a single meaningful concession from Iranian hardliners, the comparison feels apropos.

I’ve been reading comment sections of stories about Trump’s 21st century trio of clowns, and I’m not the only one who has labeled them after the indelible comedy trio.

With that said, let’s do a little review about the strengths - err weaknesses - of each of the foolish players.

JD Vance arrived in Pakistan as Vice President of the United States, a title he has held longer than he held his Senate seat, which he won a mere three years ago. His previous experience in high-stakes negotiation consists largely of brokering peace between childless cat ladies and their felines who took umbrage at his offensive jab.

In June of last year, Vance’s stupidity reared its bulbous, bearded head when he tried to explain the concern around the U.S. first foray into Iran. "I understand the concern, but the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents, and now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America’s national security objectives".

Well, of course we can laugh about Trump understanding national security objectives, but Trump was among the presidents during those last 25 years — along with other Republicans.

Then there is Jared Kushner, whose legendary negotiating prowess consists primarily of leveraging his proximity to his father-in-law to attract billion-dollar investment deals from foreign sovereign wealth funds to enrich himself. A chip off the old father-in-law.

In a January 2020 interview with Sky News Arabia, Kushner defended his qualifications to lead the Trump administration's "Peace to Prosperity" plan by stating:."I’ve been studying this now for three years. I’ve read 25 books on it." This from the same guy whose memoir was reviewed by the New York Times as a "queasy-making" slog that reads more like a college admissions essay than a serious political account.

And Steve Witkoff. As Trump himself might say, “Who in the hell is this guy?” Prior to Trump designating him a diplomatic savant, Witkoff was focused on luxury real estate development in Manhattan and Miami. Seemingly, it’s this background that presumably explains why he reportedly confused enrichment facilities with “industrial reactors” and referred to the Strait of Hormuz as the “Gulf of Hormuz.”

He and his boss just can’t get the lingo “straight” about Hormuz.

Somewhere among the rows of tombstones in Arlington National Cemetery, revered diplomat Henry Kissinger is pounding furiously on the lid of his coffin, demanding to be let out.

Just about everyone in the world is probably scratching their heads as to why these three numbskulls were leading the way on such consequential matters, and wondering what could have possibly been involved in the three’s preparation, and whether they truly understood the stakes and consequences of what they were doing.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, required two years of intense negotiation, a coalition of six world powers, teams of nuclear scientists, career diplomats fluent in Farsi and the theological contours of the Islamic Republic, and marathon sessions in Lausanne and Vienna.

In other words, it was exhausting and comprehensive.

The foundational principle, agreed upon by all sides, was that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.” The Islamabad talks lasted 21 hours before collapsing into mutual recrimination. Only a fool, or someone who has spent his career flipping luxury condominiums, or someone who thinks women should stay in violent marriages, would believe a nuclear and geopolitical settlement forged in decades of hostility could be resolved between sun up and sun down.

The backdrop to this failure is even more damning. Early in Trump’s second term, the State Department was systematically gutted - Middle East and Iran - with more than 3,800 employees shown the door, including the bulk of the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, its dedicated Iran office, 13 Arabic speakers, and four Farsi speakers.

The ambassadorships to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, and the UAE sat vacant as the region ignited. The institutional memory, the language skills, the quiet back-channel relationships that make diplomacy possible, were summarily dismissed because Trump’s “gut” knows more than they all collectively knew and understood.

What was sent to Islamabad in their place? A neophyte and narcissistic vice president, a money-thirsty son-in-law, and a real estate developer who surely spells “Straight of Hormuz” wrong like his boss.

The Iranian delegation was composed of ideologically committed, strategically patient officials who have spent decades enduring sanctions, threats, and negotiations. No one, besides China and Russia, are rooting for the Iranians, but let's be honest, they must have struggled to keep straight faces during negotiations.

Now here we are, with no hope in sight. The ceasefire deadline is not receding. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed. Iran remains firm in clinging to their uranium and nuclear program. The region sits on tenterhooks.

And, perhaps even more worrisome, the same three bumbling fools who walked away empty-handed in Islamabad are, as far as we know, still in charge of what comes next.

In the original Stooges shorts, the chaos always resolved itself. Someone got a pie in the face, furniture got destroyed, and by the final scene, everything was improbably fine.

That is the reassuring cinematic fiction of the undying genre of slapstick comedy. In real geopolitics, when the Three Stooges leave the stage, they truly look like a trifecta of losers. And their next foray into diplomacy will likely end in the same, proverbial pie in the face thrown at them by Iranian extremists.

Moe, Larry, and Curly always got another chance. So do these three stooges, and that prospect is more of a horror show than a comedy short.

“A whole civilization will die tonight.” Is this something Jesus would have said?

At a White House Easter event last week, Donald Trump’s spiritual advisor, Paula White-Cain, compared him to Jesus Christ, invoking betrayal, false accusations and even a kind of political “resurrection.” The remarks were blasphemous. So was Trump’s own doomsday threat to bomb Iran back to the “Stone Age.”

Trump is openly contemplating devastation so complete it would erase the basic infrastructure of an entire nation — its power, its bridges, its ability to function. His threat would cause immeasurable suffering and death, amounting to the destruction of a civilization.

This is where we are now. We are threatening civilizational collapse as if annihilation were just another Truth Social post from the “Jesus-in-Chief.” While Trump exalts in destruction, many conservative Christians remain conspicuously silent, seeking instead to view the war as a “holy” one.

For decades, the United States has defined itself in opposition to regimes like Iran’s, governments where religion and power are fused, where clerics hold ultimate authority, where divine law justifies repression.

Since 1979, Iran has operated under a system in which the Supreme Leader is both political authority and religious figure, claiming legitimacy that flows from God as much as from the state. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard has built an identity around martyrdom and sacred duty.

Fighters are taught that death in service to the Republic is not just honorable, but holy — sound familiar? A gateway to eternal reward. Dissenters are cast as enemies of God. Protest becomes heresy. Opposition becomes sin.

This is what we in the United States have long called fanaticism. It is what we have historically opposed.

And yet, as this war escalates, the language coming out of Washington is beginning to echo it.

Start with the effort to cast political leadership in explicitly religious terms. Influential figures within Trump’s orbit have compared his struggles to the suffering of Jesus Christ, not as a metaphor, but as a narrative of persecution and vindication.

I guess they forget that Trump was born in wealth, never suffered for anything, has a history of not sharing that wealth, for example the defunct Trump Foundation, and using that wealth to discriminate against Black people.

Then there is Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has described military operations in overtly biblical terms, turning real-world events into spiritual analogies. A downed American airman becomes “reborn,” his ordeal wrapped around Easter Sunday, his rescue framed as a miracle.

Hegseth invokes Jesus while speaking in the language of lethality, creating a dangerous fusion of faith and militarism. It’s an un-Godly version of Christianity that promotes power rather than humility — something Hegseth has none of.

Further, U.S. service members have alleged that commanders are casting the war with Iran as a divine “end-times” mission, presenting the conflict as part of a biblical prophecy and even suggesting Trump is “anointed” to carry it out.

In Hegseth’s official briefings about the war, he routinely invokes “divine help.” Calls for “overwhelming violence” are delivered in the name of Jesus Christ. Telling listeners to get down on “bended knee.”

For years, American officials pointed to this exact mindset within Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as evidence of extremism, and the belief that war is divinely ordained, that enemies are theological, that death carries sacred meaning.

That used to be called radicalization. Now the United States sounds like a religious fundamentalist government.

This is no longer a conflict between a secular democracy and a religious theocracy. It is more volatile, two sides invoking God, each claiming righteousness, each convinced that heaven is on their side.

To bottom-line it, it’s Jesus versus Allah. Victory for the righteous or annihilation for the heathens.

Which brings us back to Trump’s threat and the destruction of a “whole civilization.” Not a military target or a regime palace, but a civilization.

International leaders have warned that targeting civilian infrastructure on that scale would be a war crime. But in a conflict all about religious certainty, such warnings are dismissed as atheist.

History shows religious wars do not end well, if they end. They harden and expand. They become generational. From the Crusades to modern sectarian conflicts, once God is invoked to justify violence, the conflict becomes unbounded.

And once people are convinced God is on their side, it becomes nearly impossible to stop.

If we continue down this path, fusing military action in religious language, elevating leaders into instruments of divine purpose, framing war as sacred, then the line between “us” and “them” will disappear.

On Easter Sunday, Pope Leo XIV continued to speak out against the war. He tore apart the dangerous attempt to frame the war in Iran as a holy crusade of "Jesus vs. Allah," reminding the world that the Divine cannot be used to justify killing an “entire civilization.”

By declaring that "no one can use Jesus to justify war," the Pope stripped the conflict of its religiosity, exposing it instead as a failure of human diplomacy.

His chilling warning that God simply "does not listen to the prayers" of those whose hands are stained with the blood of combat, serves as a firm warning about weaponization of faith.

If we continue to invoke the name of Christ to justify the destruction of our adversaries, he said, we risk not only a global "irreparable abyss" but a profound spiritual bankruptcy where our prayers fall on deaf ears.

One of my closest friends emigrated from Iran to the U.S. in the 1980s. She is a respected physician in her field, and she texted me when she saw Donald Trump’s expletive-filled Truth Social post at Iran on, of all days, Easter Sunday.

“Do you know how unacceptable it is to swear in Iran? And what happens if you do? And he attacked Allah. That language might be worse than bombs,” she said.

There’s a reason real diplomats don’t spend their Easter mornings dropping F-bombs on social media. But then again, we don’t have a real diplomat in the White House, or in the Trump administration.

On Sunday morning, while most of the world was seeking a moment of peace and renewal, Trump was busy torching what’s left of American decency and credibility in the Middle East. In an expletive-laden Truth Social post, he threatened to attack Iranian bridges and power plants, writing: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran.”

Then he told Iran to “Open the fucking strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in hell - just watch,” and signed off with a very crude mocking of the Muslim religion, “Praise be to Allah.”

The ramifications of Trump’s language are chilling just at the surface. In the Middle East, where words carry the weight of centuries, these specific words are going to haunt us for decades.

In Iran, social etiquette - Taarof - is the backbone of society, built on mutual respect and the absolute avoidance of public shame. When Trump stooped to gutter-level profanity, he wasn't talking tough. He’s proving to the Iranian leadership, and the Iranian people, that he is a man of no character.

And that he is an imbecilic, insensitive idiot.

What makes this especially obscene is what profanity actually means under Iranian law. Under Article 608 of Iran’s Islamic Penal Code, swearing or using profane language is punishable by flogging of up to 74 lashes or a substantial fine.

Further, mocking religious figures can be prosecuted under provisions about “spreading corruption on earth” - a crime with punishments ranging from months in prison to execution.

An ordinary Iranian citizen who sent the exact same message Trump posted on Truth Social would face flogging or worse. A sitting American president has now communicated at a lower moral and legal standard than his own enemy’s citizens are permitted to speak.

And the UAE - a supposed regional partner - treats abusive language sent even in a private WhatsApp message as a criminal offense, punishable by hefty fines, imprisonment, and deportation.

Trump’s post would be prosecutable in the very region he’s trying to influence. Though Trump’s posts are often incendiary, laden with profanity and insults, mocking the invocation of Allah is likely to cause additional anger across the Muslim world.

Think about it this way. How would Christians react if Iran’s Supreme Leader put forth a statement that said something to the effect that Jesus was a phony? Nationalistic conservative Christians in the U.S. would go berserk.

Iran's Embassy in Thailand reacted to Trump’s insult, calling him a “teenager”, and then writing, “You don’t have to show your inferiority by this language. Allah is far greater and all-encompassing to be used by your Najis mouth.”

By using profanity-laced ultimatums, Trump has done something no skilled negotiator would ever do - he has made it impossible for Iran to back down without losing face in front of its own people. Again, imagine conservative Christians rebelling against Trump if he did nothing for a Supreme Leader who smacked at christianity.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations called Trump’s threats “a direct and public incitement to terrorize civilians and clear evidence of intent to commit war crimes.”

Iran’s parliament speaker fired back that Trump’s “reckless moves are dragging the United States into a living hell for every single family.”

Our allies have got to be utterly embarrassed to be seen near him. First, Trump launched this war without consulting European or NATO allies, and is now demanding they take responsibility for the damage.

A former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder said Europe did not want a war, “He decided to start a war without talking to Congress, without talking to the American people, without talking to our allies.”

Now, this week, every ally leader and their foreign ministers will likely be forced to answer questions about the “Open the F***in’ Strait” post. They will condemn it and put themselves further away from the U.S. say they are not contaminated by proximity to Trump’s vulgarity.

No democratically elected leader wants their citizens to see them associated with that language.

All this is inevitably leading to questions about Trump’s mental capacity. Only a delusional, demented madman would talk this way in the middle of a war. Senator Chris Murphy called the post “the ravings of a dangerous and mentally unbalanced individual” and urged Cabinet members to spend Easter “calling constitutional lawyers about the 25th Amendment.”

Murphy was being too kind. Trump clearly is completely off his rocker. This is the language of someone who can’t control their thoughts or anger. This is a clear sign of dementia, perhaps the most vivid display of Trump’s declining mental health. Because what else can possibly explain this horrific verbal aggression toward a dangerous adversary?

An article last month on The Atlantic was revealing about why we’ve never gone to war with Iran. The article’s main point is that nothing happening in the current Iran war is surprising, because U.S. leaders have long been warned that attacking Iran could trigger a wider regional war, disrupt global oil supplies and spike the economy, cause significant civilian casualties, provoke unpredictable retaliation through proxies and missiles, drag the U.S. into a prolonged conflict, and leave no clear or stable endgame.

Now, imagine how all of these dangers Iran poses have been compounded and multiplied because Trump brutally offended their culture and their religion.

We are now left to wonder - and worry - if we are about to pay a catastrophic price for a president who is losing his mind, and cannot control his impulses and his mouth. God help us.

There was a time when I genuinely loved Tiger Woods.

Almost 30 years ago, in one of my first PR jobs, I worked on the team that helped announce his partnership with American Express. In May 1997, shortly after his historic Masters victory, then 21-year-old Woods signed a groundbreaking five-year deal worth over $25 million. At the time, it was huge.

The deal positioned Woods as a global spokesman, featuring him in major campaigns that highlighted his rapid ascent as an icon. Our team worked to get that story in just about every major media outlet in the world.

Tiger’s father was managing him, and I recall he was very demanding — understandably so, given how quickly his son became a global superstar. Still, you couldn’t help but admire the phenomenon.

And for years after that, who could resist? If Tiger was in contention on the back nine of any major, you weren’t going anywhere. You were planted on that couch on a Sunday, watching him pull off miracles. He was singular. Extraordinary.

Then came the crash, literally and figuratively. In November 2009, Woods, in a drugged-up stupor, crashed his SUV near his Florida home following a confrontation with his then-wife, Elin Nordegren, who had discovered his infidelity. The incident triggered a massive scandal, revealing serial affairs and forcing him to step away from golf.

We learned Tiger had a sex addiction, and in light of his struggles with painkiller dependency, it’s become clear he’s someone vulnerable to addiction. It hasn’t been easy to watch. But I rooted for him. A lot of us did.

Until I couldn’t anymore.

My breaking point wasn’t the addiction. Last week, Woods was arrested for a suspected DUI after a rollover crash on Jupiter Island, Florida, where his SUV clipped a trailer and landed on its side.

Body camera footage shows a disoriented Woods saying he looked down at his phone before the “boom.” Police reported hydrocodone pills in his pocket, signs of impairment, and failed sobriety tests.

The video also shows him telling deputies he had just spoken to “the president,” later struggling to stay awake in the patrol car.

And in that detail lies the moment that erased my sympathy.

Woods walked away from the scene at one point. When ordered back, he said, only slightly paraphrased, “Sorry, I was on the phone with the president.” Presumably, he didn’t call his girlfriend Vanessa Trump, Donald Trump’s former daughter-in-law. He didn’t call his agent or a friend. He called the president.

Why?

He didn’t just name-drop Donald Trump. He used it like leverage. The implication was unmistakable: mess with me, and you’ll have Trump to deal with. That’s not a man battling demons. That’s someone who has bought into a world where power, and proximity to it, is everything.

And that’s when the bigger picture snapped into focus.

If you or I crashed our car and failed a sobriety test, we’d be cuffed and in a cell before we could call anyone. We’d get that proverbial “one call” from a payphone.

Tiger Woods is a billionaire. He has money, fame, and enormous cultural influence. Donald Trump gravitates toward people like that. Wealth and fame can blur lines that shouldn’t be blurred.

Donald Trump loves people like that. Woods’ money and fame whitewash his skin color. Woods would metaphorically be that one Black person at a MAGA rally that Trump would point to, but Woods gets an invitation to Mar-a-Lago, and that one Black rally guy gets a pink slip and higher gas prices.

Tiger Woods is a Black man in America during the bigoted Trump era, and instead of speaking out, he’s on the phone with the racist-in-chief in the moments before an arrest.

Black men are disproportionately stopped, searched, and arrested due to systemic bias in policing. These patterns, combined with socioeconomic inequality, create a cycle that’s hard to escape — even when behavior is comparable across races.

But not Tiger Woods. And it’s hard to ignore how invoking the president in that moment lands against that reality.

Woods embraces Trump, the man who stood in front of cameras after Charlottesville and called neo-Nazis “very fine people.” Who has referred to African nations in terms I won’t reprint here. Who traffics openly in the language of racist dehumanization about migrants, about cities, about entire populations of people. Who just shared a video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes.

So I keep asking: Does Tiger not see it? Or does he see it and simply not care?

I think it’s the latter. Extreme wealth can pull people into a separate universe, where the indignities faced by ordinary people no longer register. The Epstein files are teaching us again what we already knew - money doesn’t just insulate you from consequences, it can insulate you from your own conscience.

Tiger used to represent something. Not an underdog, exactly — he was always the favorite — but a kid who worked relentlessly to become the greatest golfer alive. That meant something to a lot of people, especially in the Black community.

Now he’s using Trump’s name to try to dodge a DUI.

I used to hope for a Tiger comeback. Even something modest like a win on the Senior Tour. Not anymore.

He’s in a dark place, made darker by the company he keeps and the values — or lack of them — that come with it. If Tiger Woods thinks invoking Donald Trump to a police officer is power, he has it exactly backwards. It’s the most pathetic thing I’ve ever seen him do.

Trump and Tiger can keep each other. The rest of us have moved on.

The word “bimbo” has been in the news lately. I don’t use the word lightly. I was raised by remarkable women. I’ve spent my career championing them, and they have carried me innumerable times.

The word carries a history of misogynistic dismissal that I find genuinely repugnant, and I’ve never had much patience for men who deploy it casually to diminish women they simply don’t like. I imagine Donald Trump talking this way about Kristi Noem, who he axed last month, and Pam Bondi, who today followed the glammed up Noem out the door.

But I’m going to use the word “bimbo” today. And I’m going to explain why.

A bimbo, in the truest sense, is not a woman who lacks intelligence. It’s a person who trades away their dignity, judgment, and principles for the approval of someone who will never deserve it.

By that definition, Pam Bondi is the fullest expression of the word, in how she carried herself after being sworn in as U.S. Attorney General last February.

And now, predictably, Donald Trump has fired her. And unlike Noem, she gets no consolation prize of another job.

I’ll be honest and bipartisan first: Bondi came into this job with real credentials. She served as Florida’s AG - she was a horrible and divisive AG in my opinion; nevertheless, she had legal experience. Compared to Pete Hegseth, and others, Bondi was a sigh of relief after Trump first nominated the reprehensible Matt Gaetz.

She had a leg to stand on. You could argue she was qualified. And that’s precisely what makes her tenure so damning. She didn’t use her credentials to uphold the law. She used them to demolish it. She arrived at DOJ not as its guardian, but as Trump’s most pliable judicial instrument,

She was Bimbo Bondi not because she was foolish, but because she suckled at the teat of the most corrupt man ever to occupy the White House and called it public service.

She made a mess of the Epstein files, playing them like a shell game. Look on her desk. Look in the redacted documents. Then try to find them in the last-minute “mysteriously vanished” two million pages that answered almost nothing while exposing survivors whose names were left unredacted.

I firmly believe that disclosure was intentional. Likely orchestrated by Trump, it was a last-ditch attempt to shame and scare survivors, and she enabled it. They continue to receive death threats. She bears total responsibility.

She promised transparency. She delivered the opposite. While survivors sat in a congressional hearing room in February, she prepared not to answer or apologize, but to attack Democrats with a “burn book” stuffed with oppo research and screenshots.

She tracked who viewed documents and when. She didn’t come to testify. She came to fight for Trump. And in the end, that burn book exploded in her hands.

She threw 23,000 criminal cases in the garbage while redirecting DOJ power at immigrants who’d committed no crime.

The DOJ has always maintained an arm’s-length relationship with the president. Not under Bondi. When Trump posted, she jumped. She became the obedient purveyor of his retribution tour. In a gesture so lacking in self-respect it defies description, she hung an enormous portrait of Trump outside DOJ headquarters.

She turned a blind eye when Deputy AG Todd Blanche met with Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted sex trafficker, and then sent her to a low-security prison.

Bondi supported Trump’s racist agenda. She disbanded the civil rights division. She spread racialized venom through the machinery of the most powerful law enforcement body in the country. She wallowed in Trump’s pigsty and then showed up to hearings to fling mud at Democrats.

She followed Trump every time, without hesitation. When he had a whim, she acquiesced.

Now he’s fired her. And we are supposed to be surprised?

We shouldn’t be. Nobody survives bending the rules for Donald Trump. Not Flynn. Not Cohen. Not Manafort. Not Noem - another who traded her soul for his favor and got dumped.

The trail of discarded loyalists stretches back years. Every one of them handed Trump everything and ended up cast aside. The pattern is so consistent, so merciless, so predictable, you wonder how Bondi believed she could be different.

Trump saw her “bimboness” a mile away, likely using the word himself behind her back. “Let me eat this bimbo alive,” he might as well have said.

That is the untold truth inside Bondi’s story. She watched others fall. She saw Trump destroy careers and reputations, even those closest to him. But she thought she could wrap him around her finger.

She likely thought hanging his portrait outside the doors of her building would save her job. She called him “the greatest president in history” under oath, with Epstein survivors sitting behind her. She thought it would protect her.

It didn’t. It never does. Everyone ends up burned. And Bondi has severe third-degree burns.

The scarlet letters D-J-T are now branded on her reputation. No one will take her tenure as AG seriously. She failed in her duty to the country and did no justice to the Justice Department.

She destroyed lives. She failed survivors. She gutted civil rights enforcement. She turned the DOJ into a personal law firm for a man who threw her away when he got bored.

.

April Fool’s Day, and the biggest fool in the U.S. - um, the world celebrated it in grand style...

In the morning, Donald Trump, cankles in tow, shuffled into the Supreme Court gallery like Tony Soprano checking on his crew at Satriale's Pork Store. Trump was convinced his lumbering physical presence would bully his own appointed justices into compliance.

Then, tonight, he capped “fools” day by wobbling to the cameras to deliver the old familiar lies, same contempt for our troops, our country and our allies.

Only a fool would believe Trump about the war he started, and take his word that all is good.

At the Court this morning, Trump watched Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, his justices, methodically dismantle his birthright citizenship case, barely disguising their skepticism in his presence. His hand-picked Solicitor General, doing his best RFK, Jr., gurgling through a series of weak arguments.

Trump fled after an hour and foolishly took to Truth Social to declare that America is “the only Country in the World STUPID enough” to allow birthright citizenship. Roughly 30 countries have it.

There is a through-line connecting this morning’s courtroom humiliation and tonight’s prime-time performance. And that is why? Why go to the court today and give the speech tonight?

Why this speech? And why now?

Prime-time presidential addresses about military action have a traditional purpose and timing. You give the speech before the war to build public support, to explain the mission, to lay out the strategy, to bring the country with you.

Trump gave no such speech on February 28th, just a video from ritzy Mar-a-Lago, when he launched this war. No Oval Office address. No coalition. No congressional authorization. No public mandate. He simply started a war and expected the American people to cheer him on.

They haven’t. His poll numbers are at record lows - across the board. And support is slipping quickly. And those numbers are going to drop even more after the baloney he served tonight.

Trump declared victory in Iran, insisting nuclear threats were eliminated and the war would end within weeks, while offering little evidence. He touted economic strength despite rising gas prices, contradicted himself on goals like regime change, blamed allies, and largely repeated familiar claims without answering key questions.

Rather than new information, the address recycled a stream of wild, rambling lies he’s been bombarding us with on Truth Social.

Thirty-three days in, public support is somewhere between thin and nonexistent. Tonight’s speech wasn’t a victory address. It was a desperate attempt to change a narrative that has already escaped him, and you cannot change a narrative without a strategy, and you cannot sell a strategy you don’t have, and you cannot build public support one month after the shooting starts.

Iran still controls the Strait of Hormuz. Over twenty percent of the world’s petroleum passes through that waterway. Trump threatened to bomb Iran into submission if they didn’t open it. They didn’t open it. He didn’t follow through. TACO II.

And now he’s telling European allies it’s their problem. Trump, a fool and a loser, is a man who embarrassingly picked a fight, lost the fight, and is loudly declaring victory.

Only a fool and a loser lifts sanctions against Iran. He started a war against Iran, and then surrendered the one non-military lever of economic pressure we had over Tehran. In return for what, exactly? Nothing. Iran got sanctions relief and kept the Strait.

Then there is NATO. Trump’s attacks on allies, calling them “cowards” for not joining a war they had no role in starting, are diplomatically crushing to us and alarmingly dangerous to the troops currently deployed in a region where America has never been more isolated.

When you are fighting a war, you do not simultaneously push off and upset your alliances.

You do not tell the people who might need to reinforce you, supply you, or extract you if things go bad to go to hell. Because our allies can tell him - and us - to go to hell, and all hell will break loose. Wait and see.

The American public is not fooled. They see the gas prices. They read and see more troops being deployed. They see the Strait still closed. They hear that the son of a murderous thug is a chip off the old block - and maybe even more brutal than his father.

Trump says regime change. But the reality is much, much, much worse.

Americans heard all of those contradictions tonight - the war is won, the war is still being fought; Iran is defeated, Iran still controls the waterway, and still firing rockets at its neighbors; we’re leaving in two weeks, we’re sending more forces.

Thirty-three days in, this president still has no coherent strategy, no public mandate, and no endgame. None.

Tonight he declared victory anyway. The war is “militarily won.” Troops home in two to three weeks. Gas prices dropping any minute now. Iran decimated. Regime changed. Greatest military triumph since Churchill.

It’s all lies upon lies upon falsehoods upon untruth, upon delusion.

Watching tonight, I couldn’t shake a grim and uncomfortable thought. Swap Trump’s setting for a checkered cloth and a different backdrop, and his speech tonight could have been broadcast from Tehran. A leader at a podium, assuring the faithful that the enemy has been defeated, that sacrifice was worth it, that the Supreme Leader’s wisdom carried the day, that glory is just around the corner.

And the audience comes away fearful and questioning the authenticity of what they just heard.

We were lied to tonight by a man who started a war without a plan, is prolonging it without a strategy, handing Iran sanctions relief while they kept the Strait, calls our allies cowards, and is now standing before the cameras on day 33 asking us to believe it all.

Folks, this is a war. A fatal one. An incomprehensibly dangerous one, with severe consequences. This isn’t some White House ballroom that needs to be redrawn, or used as a distraction. And only an unabated, unabashed fool would think and act otherwise.

Kash Patel is a joke. Seriously.

He’s the “Make-A-Wish Director,” according to former FBI senior executive Christopher O’Leary — a nickname agents allegedly gave him because they felt his tenure was about fulfilling personal desires rather than focusing on duty.

Comedian Nimesh Patel jokes that Kash is the first Patel he’s ever encountered who is disliked by other Patels. There’s also “Keystone Kash,” a jab comparing his disorganized management style to the Keystone Cops.

And perhaps the reason for all the jokes is that Patel treats the uber-serious role of FBI director like an Animal House frat party, making Donald Trump, by extension, the chubby Kent “Flounder” Dorfman character.

But all jokes aside, Patel is dangerous, not only to the security of the country, but to Trump as well.

Iran just hacked Patel’s personal email account, dumped his private photos online, and publicly mocked him as a “successfully hacked victim,” and I don’t know if it was just me, but nobody in Washington seemed particularly concerned about the irony, just the pundits on social media.

The Iran-linked hacker group Handala, which has been carrying out cyberattacks against U.S. interests since the bombing of Iran began, breached Patel’s personal email last week and posted photos of him posing by a sports car and puffing a cigar, along with personal documents and correspondence stretching back to 2011.

The FBI’s response was that the breach involved “no government information,” that it was all “historical in nature,” and, oh, by the way, we’re offering $10 million for anyone who can identify these hackers.

For anyone who still wonders why the FBI’s rank and file describe their bureau as a “rudderless ship” paralyzed by fear, consider the message this sends. The director of the world’s most storied law enforcement agency gets his personal email cracked by a foreign adversary. WTF, right?

Kash Patel is incapable of taking his job seriously because he was never hired to take it seriously. He was hired to be a hound dog sniffing out Trump’s enemies, and, of course, to hide anything damaging to Trump that might exist in the Epstein files.

In that sense, Patel is performing exactly as expected. But he’s also become a public embarrassment to the Trump administration with his party-boy, frat-brat behavior. Trump hates embarrassment, which raises the obvious question: why not fire him?

Because Patel is too dangerous to fire.

Patel once berated former FBI director Chris Wray over luxury travel. Now he treats a $60 million government jet like his own personal shuttle, hopping around the country to attend his girlfriend’s country music shows and hunting retreats.

The hypocrisy is obvious, but hardly unique. In a Trump administration full of overt hypocrites, Patel fits right in. They’re following the example set by their Dear Leader.

But here’s where Patel’s hypocrisy becomes something worse. He spent years promising to blow the lid off the Epstein files. He built his reputation on it. The moment he took the oath of office, he became their most devoted gatekeeper.

It’s a slap in the face to MAGA supporters who believed him, and especially to Epstein’s victims.

Patel’s vindictiveness knows no bounds. He published an enemies list in the appendix of his book and is now reportedly dispatching agents to dig up dirt on one of them, Rep. Eric Swalwell, pressuring them to release decade-old investigative files on a congressman who was never charged with a crime. FBI veterans are warning that doing so could compromise sources and investigative methods.

Patel doesn’t care. He’s not the director of a law enforcement agency; he’s a mafioso. And while he’s no capable Don, that doesn’t make him any less potent.

Patel knows where the bodies are buried, figuratively, and maybe literally. Trump knows that Patel knows, and Patel knows that Trump knows he knows. The Epstein files didn’t disappear; they’re sitting metaphorically in the glove compartment of Kash’s luxurious special, armored BMW X5.

That’s his leverage. And whatever his many deficiencies, Patel is smart, and vindictive enough to use it.

So instead of firing him, Trump lets him run wild.

Recall Patel’s appearance at the Winter Olympics in Italy earlier this year, where he was filmed chugging beer and champagne in a locker room with the gold medal–winning U.S. men’s hockey team.

It was cringe-worthy: a 45-year-old intelligence official getting hammered with 20-somethings on the government’s dime. Either he was drunk enough not to care, or oblivious enough not to realize the footage would go viral, and that his boss would see it.

As the Final Four tips off in Indianapolis, don’t be surprised if Patel suddenly discovers some “urgent national security matter” that requires his presence there. Because he clearly doesn’t care about the outrage.

Upcoming “national security matters” will no doubt include the Kentucky Derby in May. And if you need Patel in June, good luck! He’ll be busy hopscotching between the World Cup, the NBA Finals, and the Stanley Cup.

Patel is a beer-guzzling, country-music-loving sports fanatic who knows the rules don’t apply to him.

He knows the FBI’s career agents despise him. He knows morale is collapsing. He knows his personal email was hacked by Iran, and likely won’t be the last time. More to come. He knows allies and adversaries alike see him as unserious.

And he has decided, deliberately, that none of it matters.

What separates Patel from every other Trump cabinet official is simple - he has nowhere to go.

When Kristi Noem gets fired, she positions herself for 2028, or finds some political off-ramp. RFK Jr., Marco Rubio, Pam Bondi, Howard Lutnick. they can all be cut loose and still land on their feet.

They’re politicians and power brokers with reputations to protect. The incentive structure keeps them loyal, even after they’re gone.

Patel has no such future. Before Trump handed him the FBI, he was essentially a podcaster, a loud, self-promoting MAGA personality parroting Trump’s conspiracies. Strip away the title, and that’s what he returns to.

Except this time, he’ll have something new - firsthand knowledge.

A humiliated, cast-aside Kash Patel with a microphone, a grudge, and access to the most sensitive information in the country is the last thing Donald Trump wants. And Patel is vindictive, remember. He would “Kash in,” loudly and aggressively, on everything he knows.

That’s why Patel’s party-hearty tenure at the FBI will continue.

I live in Weehawken, New Jersey, directly across the Hudson River from Manhattan, where I spent 30 years of my life, and where, on any given Saturday, most of the action is. Normally, I’d hop on the ferry, cross the river, and join the hundreds of thousands marching through the streets of Manhattan.

But today, for No Kings 3, I decided to go local.

More than 3,300 events were planned across all 50 states as part of what organizers are calling the largest day of domestic political protest in American history. I knew Manhattan would be electric. What I didn’t expect was that tiny Weehawken, with a population of roughly 15,000, perched on the Palisades high above the river, would be electric too.

I walked up to Hamilton Park, with its postcard view of the Manhattan skyline, expecting maybe 100 people. What I found was several hundred, local elected officials standing shoulder to shoulder with their neighbors.

We marched down JFK Boulevard, framed by one of the most spectacular backdrops of any protest in the country.

If Donald Trump thinks the No Kings movement is “a joke,” as he’s said, then what I saw in Weehawken should give him serious pause. The message was “No Kings,” but virtually everyone I talked to had a different reason for being there, war, grocery and gas prices, ICE, grifting, airports, and more.

In other words, more reasons why there should be no King Trump.

“I am 62 years old, and I can’t remember the last time I’ve been involved in a protest of any kind,” a gentleman named Al said. “I sit in an office all day. I’m not a political guy. But I’m angry enough that I’ve gotten up off my chair, because I really think our country is going in the wrong direction in a big way.”

He paused, looking at the crowd gathering behind him. “It must be really bad if it got me and all of these other people out here on a really cold day.”

Karen Brady and Gayle Humphrey have been building North Hudson Resistance, one of the local organizers of No Kings, for a year. In that time, they’ve organized four marches, worked to protect immigrant communities, fought cuts to Medicaid and social services, and coordinated “Know Your Rights” trainings for residents who fear ICE.

“We’re doing everything we can to fight the Trump regime,” Gayle told me. “All the ineptitude, the cynicism, the cruelty, the corruption, the chaos. No strategy except getting rich.”

Karen noted the group is growing. “We’re getting stronger in our numbers,” she said. “A lot of people are outraged.”

Weehawken Mayor Richard Turner was there too, not just as a figurehead, but walking the route.

“I’m here for two reasons,” he told me. “One, to express what everyone’s expressing, to put an end to what’s going on in this country, especially with immigration. There are better, safer ways to do things. And secondly, to make sure everybody’s safe.”

Attending his third No Kings event, Turner praised the peaceful nature of the demonstrations and their national impact. “All these demonstrations across the country have an effect,” he said.

New Jersey State Representative Gabriel Rodriguez was also in the crowd, marking his first No Kings march in Weehawken. “There are some strong feelings, lack of safety, lack of protocol and process,” he told me. “That’s not very American.”

He pointed to recent legislation signed by Governor Murphy protecting immigrant communities in Hudson County. “We’re happy that people are on board in the name of safety and for our communities,” he said.

His colleague, Assemblyman Larry Wainstein, was equally direct.

“Everybody deserves to be treated with respect and dignity,” he said. “We’re working very hard to stand up against Trump and ICE because they’re treating our community with a lack of respect.”

What struck me most wasn’t just the anger, though it was real and palpable. It was how many people told me this was their first protest.

Ever.

A woman originally from my hometown of Pittsburgh stopped to talk with her husband.

“This is my first one,” she said. “Me too,” her husband added. “We are not the type of people to protest. But things have gone too far.”

Nearby stood Kathy, who told me she was “almost 80” and had been to “many, many, many” protests over her lifetime, as if passing a torch. Mario, a younger marcher, put it plainly: “We’re tired of the circus. We need this country to get back to what it used to be, a country of freedom. No fascism, no oligarchs.”

Dale, from neighboring West New York, had attended the previous No Kings events in Manhattan but chose Weehawken this time. “I can’t believe what he’s done, not only to us but to the world,” she said, her husband John nodding beside her. “We are the laughingstock of the world. People need to wake up.”

On my walk home, I texted a friend who had been marching in Manhattan.

“Where are you?” he wrote. “Want to meet up?”

He assumed, naturally, that I was in the city.

“I attended the march in Weehawken,” I replied.

“Weehawken had their own rally?” he shot back.

And that’s the point.

If a lifelong Manhattanite is surprised that Weehawken turned out in force, imagine how it looks from places like Indianapolis, Indiana, where upwards of 60 events were held across that red state.

This is not a big city phenomenon. It is now local. Like Weehawken.

What I saw Saturday in Hamilton Park - first-time protesters marching alongside veteran protestors, a mayor walking his own streets, state legislators showing up on a Saturday, and organizers who a year ago had never run a rally now building a real grassroots movement.

That’s not “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

It’s called democracy, and metaphorically, it’s now playing at a theater near you.

When the news popped up on our phones during an early dinner with friends on Thursday night that Donald Trump’s signature will go on U.S. paper currency, it drew guffaws, grrrs, and plenty of expletives around the table.

As someone who worked in PR for 30 years, I usually view Trump’s stunts through the lens of perception. So when I read the breaking news that his pubic-hair-like John Hancock will start appearing later this year on dollar bills, that’s when I laughed.

Only Donald Trump could think he’s doing something that will immortalize him, when in the end it will bring him scorn and shame. Not since the illegal fraud of Trump University have we seen something so destined to cause pain, humiliation, and trigger thoughts of ruin.

Trump’s stupidity about money will now extend to his failed attempt to brand it.

He has always had a pathological need to put his name on entities and things that end up “losers,” as he might say: buildings, steaks, that spurious university, bottled water, airlines, casinos - too many collapses to list here. All of them failed. All of them.

And now, in the most ominous act of authoritarian vanity since Saddam Hussein put his face on the dinar, Trump is putting his signature on American currency.

He ignorantly thinks this makes him immortal. He’s right about that! It’s just not in the glorious way he imagines.

In all likelihood, by the end of this year, right around the time those freshly signed bills start circulating through American wallets, cash registers, and proverbial pocketbooks, the American economy will be facing serious and significant headwinds, causing visible, undeniable pain.

It will also be around the holiday shopping season, where early predictions are already sluggish. That means perhaps even fewer dolls and pencils for kids this year.

Grocery store pain. Heating bill pain. Gas pump pain. Health care pain. Pencil-and-dolls pain.

The economic indicators are already moving in the wrong direction. They started shifting the moment Trump idiotic, brazen tariff whack-a-mole game began. Now the Iran war is pushing fuel costs higher, and they’re likely to stay elevated for months, even if the war ends relatively soon.

By the time consumers start seeing Trump’s pubic hair like scrawl on their money at the start of winter, home heating oil prices are likely to be exorbitant. Groceries like eggs, meat, bread, and the basics, will eat deeper into paychecks that aren’t growing fast enough to keep up.

The adverse effects on health care costs from the “Big Beautiful Bill” will be fully realized. Weak job numbers, which have worsened since the start of the year, are unlikely to improve. The war isn’t ending cleanly. The tariffs aren’t going away. And every one of these pressures compounds over time.

By December, at the confluence of these menacing trends, when Trump’s signature starts appearing on the dollar, Americans will already know something is deeply, deeply wrong.

And there it will be, in all its infamous glory, his name stamped on the very thing Americans don’t have enough of.

Trump wants to own money, and now he’s about to own what money can’t buy anymore. He’ll own the heating bill you can’t pay. He’ll own the embarrassment at the grocery line when you have to put something back. He’ll own your sickness because you’re rationing medication. He’ll own the humiliation of collectors coming after your unpaid credit card balance (Ask TSA agents about that.).

Every transaction, every crumpled and precious bill handed across a counter for something that cost less a year ago will carry his signature. It will be a metaphorical receipt for all the damage he’s done.

Narcissists who chase legacy never think about the long-term consequences. History, however, offers one example of success: Augustus Caesar put his face on coins during an era of relative peace and prosperity. His image conveyed stability.

Trump’s signature, on the other hand, will debut during an era of self-inflicted economic chaos. It will say something entirely different.

Think about that in the context of how we remember failed currency. Germany’s Weimar Republic marks were a miserable failure, as were Confederate bills. Currency can become a time capsule of the era that produced it.

With that in mind, future Americans, really meaning your kids and grandkids, may hold a bill with Trump’s signature one day and learn in history class about the rot of the Trump era: tariff wars, exploding deficits, a health care system gutted for tax cuts, grocery inflation, and a government run by a self-obsessed authoritarian fixated on seeing his name and visage on everything.

By signing the “check,” Trump’s dooming, disastrous loser-legacy of a name will live forever on American money.

The egomaniac genuinely believes his signature elevates him. We don’t have to assume that because we know how highly Trump feels about Trump. He thinks his signature on a bill places him alongside George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Andrew Jackson, whose faces appear on paper currency.

But those men built things meant to last, and things that still stand the test of history.

Trump has spent both of his presidencies tearing things down including institutions, relationships, alliances, and now the economic stability of ordinary American families.

Every Trump-signed dollar that passes through a working American’s hands this coming winter will tell the same story: this is what he did, and this is what it cost you, in an immediate, visceral way, the kind that makes people say, “I can’t believe how much this costs now.” It will change how they vote, think, and remember.

Donald Trump wanted his signature to be glorious. It will be inglorious. By the time his scrawl makes its debut, it will be a symbol for every American who reaches into their wallet and discovers they don’t have enough paper currency to pay the bill.