Grandpa Trump looked like he was losing the pep in his step at the end of the year. But with him threatening the independence of the Fed, justifying the killing of an American in cold blood for teasing a federal agent, and toying with the idea of taking an ownership stake in oil companies, he's now dramatically ratcheting up his authoritarian tendencies.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey says ICE descended on his city with hopes of rounding up undocumented Somalis. When agents couldn't find any, they started driving around terrorizing people. And now with the killing of Renee Good, they are clearly making the city less safe. But federal officials are also lying about Good's actions before the shooting and her character—and with their bold claims of absolute immunity for ICE agents.

Most law enforcement departments train officers not to stand in front of vehicles—or shoot at moving ones—but masked ICE agents in Minneapolis did just that after descending on Renee Good's Honda Pilot and spitting out conflicting instructions to her. Not only did the president of the United States lie about the condition of the officer who shot her, Vance and Noem disparaged the deceased 37-year-old mother of three.

Biden and Merrick Garland thought Trump would just go away, but malignant narcissists must be made to leave. And with Congress not fulfilling its constitutional obligation to hold Trump accountable for running the country like a mob boss, newly minted congressional candidate George hopes to join those Democrats on the Hill who aren't afraid to investigate—and impeach—the president and his miscreants.

Trump wanted to alpha male and take some oil, Hegseth wanted to bomb something, Rubio wanted Maduro gone, and aggrieved Stephen Miller wanted to bully the weak. The White House eventually settled on Venezuela as the best place to take out its aggressions and drive home its anti-immigration message. And now the administration finds itself depending on an acting Venezuelan president who has a long history of being extremely anti-American.

Toppling the leader of Venezuela looks to be about greed and Trump's vanity. It's not about national security, and is likely to produce bad outcomes—including more repression of ordinary Venezuelans and more refugees fleeing the country. And even the monetary value of plundering a sovereign country's oil is vastly overstated.

Only six months ago, the wheels felt like they were coming off of America, and our democracy experiment. But since the Epstein case broke wide open, the wheels started to come off Trump instead. And he's not just lost his way in politics but in the broader culture too—with his despicable words about Rob Reiner, his trying to get Jimmy Kimmel fired, and his pedophile cover-up.

The DOJ is releasing random Epstein documents to distract the public, while also intentionally covering the faces of men in images. It's also pulling docs that reveal Trump's name. Epstein's victims think the government's messy release is all designed to protect their not publicly-known perpetrators.

After a campaign built on the promise that Trump was going to look out for his voters, he started his administration getting sidetracked by DOGE and Musk's phony ideas about saving money. After that petered out, he got distracted by his need to put his name all over the place. In the process, he's totally forgotten to help his people—or even fake trying to help them.

The year started with America's tech overlords kissing the ring at Trump's inauguration, and it's ending with the public fed up with the ostentatiously rich—and more distrustful of Silicon Valley than ever, particularly on AI.

Six months ago, MAGA world was strutting around with their chests puffed out. But now, many of them are having a blue Christmas over the infighting, the economy, the DOJ's inability to deliver revenge, and Trump's cover-up of child sex traffickers—one of the key things they really cared about. All Trump can think to do is plaster his name on another large object, including most recently a new fleet of warships.

On the Epstein matter, the current DOJ is not just putting its thumb on the scale for Trump. It's his defense team. Make no mistake: The top two officials at the Justice Department are executing Trump's wishes to cover-up the victims' statements and the details about Epstein's 2008 sweetheart deal. It's the president's cover-up, and the mainstream media needs to call it for what it is.

Of all the images of Trump, the only times he seemed to be authentically smiling in the presence of another person was when he was with Jeffrey Epstein. The two of them had the same interests, and other people in the 80s and 90s assumed they were best friends. Over in MAGA land, a proxy war has broken out among rightwing influencers—like Ben Shapiro, Tucker, and Candace—because the economy and the party are in trouble.

Trump's power of persuasion is failing him on the affordability issue. He even broke MAGA creed on live TV by calling on Americans to trust the word of foreign leaders—who supposedly claim the U.S. economy is golden—over the pain they're feeling at the supermarket and at the pump.

POTUS is firing or censoring the statisticians who collect data on health and climate, as well as the kind of experts who could verify his lofty claims of an A++++ economy. And while Vance says that Trump is really turning things around, job losses are rising from his destructive tariff and immigration policies.

The people running the Republican grassroots are nativist populists, and it’s a space where opposition to Israel thrives, along with a heaping serving of antisemitism. Candace’s wild theories about the Charlie Kirk assassination has had a big impact among the young who get their news from TikTok and Instagram.

From the shooting at Brown University, to the Oct. 7-style slaughter in Australia, and the shocking murder of Rob Reiner and his wife—it’s been one blow after another. But leave it to Trump to seize the moment to remind Americans what a disgusting human being he is.

Despite death threats and harassment, Republicans in Indiana delivered the biggest political setback to Trump since officials in Georgia wouldn’t help him find 11,780 votes in 2020. Turns out, some conservatives at the state level still have enough principles to not gerrymander on demand.

Republican disunity is being obscured by affection for Trump, but just below the surface, MAGA is being pulled apart at the seams. At the same time, the administration is busy committing war crimes while conducting an illegal, nonsensical war, and the FBI is investing progressive groups for their views. The state of free speech protections may be worse than during the Red Scare.

Big Boss Trump, who claims the power to run the whole government via executive order and pushes all our allies around, is a man suddenly with no agency when it comes to the economy. He says the high cost of living is a Democratic hoax, or in true Christmas spirit, he’s back to blaming parents for spoiling their daughters with too many dolls.