The main story this week was continued political violence in the nation, as conservative activist Charlie Kirk was murdered while giving a speech on a college campus. While the killing was one in a long list of bipartisan violence and threats, Trump and his regime seized on it to baselessly promote conspiracy theories about a vast left-wing effort, including liberal groups, donors, and protestors.

As it turned out, the alleged murderer grew up in a Republican family, in a red district, and was registered as unaffiliated, but that did not stop Trump and his allies from threatening broad measures which would undermine the fabric of democracy and the rule of law, in an effort to score political points and silence dissent. Even the conservative WSJ Editorial Board criticized Attorney General Pam Bondi’s threats to prosecute hate speech, in an op-ed saying she “needs a free speech tutorial.” The public also didn’t warm to Trump’s behavior, as an Economist/YouGov poll found his approval at the lowest level of his second regime. The only benefit for Trump has been to drive the Jeffrey Epstein story out of the top news stories.

Much of Trump and his regime’s attempts to seize power and act unilaterally is a continuation of the increasingly autocratic behaviors we have chronicled in this project. This week we continue to see attempts to silence dissent, push boundaries to act without consent of Congress, use divisions as red meat for his base, and a reordering of the world order. The economy, a point of strength for Trump during his first regime, has become his weakest issue, other than his handling of the Epstein investigations. On his overall handling of the economy, his net approval was -17, while his handling of inflation was net -30.