On
Monday, the White House said Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer was
leaving office. She was the subject of a continuing inspector-general
probe related to misused funds and a relationship with her security
guard. She has denied wrongdoing, but her problems didn’t seem to be
going away.
This came just
three weeks after Attorney General Pam Bondi was removed by President
Trump. Four weeks before that, Trump fired Homeland Security Secretary
Kristi Noem.
There is always some degree of
churn in a White House’s cabinet, but losing three secretaries in such a
tight span is somewhat remarkable. As Trump remains under stress
related to the uncertain outcome of the Iran war, there are other
leaders who are under enormous pressure.
Energy
Secretary Chris Wright, for example, drew a rare rebuke from Trump on
Monday when Wright’s recent comments about gas prices startled many in
Washington.
On Sunday, Wright said on CNN that gasoline prices might not drop below $3 a gallon until 2027.
On Monday, Trump told The Hill that Wright’s sentiment was “totally wrong.”
Everyone
looks around and wonders, "Am I next?" Tulsi Gabbard, Howard Lutnick,
Ka$h Patel, Pete Hegseth, etc. They all look around at one another. Nick Bryant (THE I PAPER) adds:
Washington
is abuzz with talk of a firing purge, as Donald Trump tries to reboot
his embattled presidency by restaffing his administration. Because of
the Iran war, his approval ratings have cratered. The Maga movement is splintering. His “Jesus of Mar-a-Lago” meme infuriated evangelical Christians. His battle with Pope Leo XIV has angered Catholics, who make up roughly a fifth of the US electorate.
This
conspiracy theorist-in-chief has himself become the target of
conspiracy theories. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was once
such a devoted cheerleader, has added her penetrative voice to those
within Maga raising questions about whether the July 2024 assassination
attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, was staged. Talk of a fake
assassination attempt is ludicrous. But it speaks of the turmoil in
Trumplandia that the instantly iconographic picture of the
then-candidate punching the air, with blood dripping down his face and
the Stars and Stripes fluttering in the background, is now being brought
into question.
Up until recently, a striking
feature of Trump 2.0 was that the administration was staffed by Trump
loyalists to whom the President remained loyal. Trump 1.0, by contrast,
felt more like The Apprentice, where the Oval Office had the feel of
Trump’s mahogany boardroom and the former reality TV star revived the
catchphrase which in the early part of the 21st century fuelled his
fame: “You’re fired!” A conga line of senior administration officials
lost their jobs.
Victims of that two-word
catchphrase included his first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, who
had once described the President as a “moron”. A string of White House
chiefs of staff, the second most important figure in any
well-functioning West Wing, were shown the door. Trump fired his FBI
director James Comey and his first attorney general Jeff Sessions, the
country’s two most senior law enforcement officials. Then, of course,
there was Anthony “The Mooch” Scaramucci, the star now of the hit
podcast The Rest is Politics: US, who survived as White House
communications director for just 11 days. Thereafter, a “Scaramucci”
became a unit of time. The longevity of White House appointees was
judged not only in the number of days but the number of “Scaramuccis”.
Now, the President is reverting to type. Since the beginning of the year, he has gone on a sacking spree.
And
with each firing, Mr. Chump has to wonder, "Is this the person who will
leak on me to the press?" And some will. Each firing is another
person who might be able to bring his card house down. He is already in
trouble as the midterms approach. Edith Olmsted (THE NEW REPUBLIC) notes:
White
House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles summoned dozens of Republican
political consultants from across the country for a meeting Monday at
the Waldorf Astoria, a person familiar with the plan told Politico’s
Playbook.
The gathering of Republican
operatives comes as the White House is developing its strategy and
aligning the broader party apparatus to face November’s midterm
elections amid Donald Trump’s rather unpopular “excursion” to the Middle
East.
[. . .]
Trump’s overall
approval rating has hit a new low of just 37 percent, according to an
NBC News poll Monday. Two-thirds of Americans disapproved of Trump’s
handling of inflation and the Iran conflict, which has upended global
trade and sent energy prices skyrocketing.
April is almost over. They have not prepared well for the midterms.
Tuesday, Apri 21, 2026. What did Chump do with the money donated for
his library, why can't he offer a consistent explanation for the war or
even for the gas prices, he's lost another Cabinet member, he wants to
put a structure up in DC that will dwarf and minimize Arlington
Cemetery, and much more.
Let's
start with a press release regarding Chump and disappearing money.
Senator Elizabeth Warren's office issued the following yesterday:
Paramount, ABC, Meta, X
indicated that they have no explanation or are unwilling to share
information about where millions in settlement money have gone — or
where it will go
As much as $63 million in settlement payments to Trump Presidential Library slush fund missing
“These are troubling
answers…particularly given the vast tide of corruption and
self-enrichment that has occurred during your Administration, and your
ongoing attempts to seek massive personal payments from the federal
government.”
Washington, D.C. – In new responses to U.S. Senators
Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and
Representative Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.), Big Tech CEOs indicated that
they have no public explanation for where as much as $63 million in
settlement money to Donald Trump’s now-dissolved Presidential Library
fund has gone. The lawmakers released
these responses today and sent a new letter to President Donald Trump
pressing for answers to solve the ongoing mystery of the missing
millions.
“These are troubling answers…particularly given the vast tide of
corruption and self-enrichment that has occurred during your
Administration, and your ongoing attempts to seek massive personal
payments from the federal government,” wrote the lawmakers.
The Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Fund, Inc. was incorporated
in late 2024 with a stated purpose “to preserve and steward the legacy
of President Donald J. Trump and his presidency.” From late 2024 to
mid-2025, four Big Tech companies — Paramount, ABC, Meta, and X —
contributed as much as $63 million in settlement payments to President
Trump's future presidential library." But in September 2025, the Fund
was administratively dissolved for failure to submit a mandatory annual
report, and in December, the incorporator filed articles of dissolution —
with no explanation.
The lawmakers wrote to the four companies in March 2026, seeking answers about the funds. Key points from the companies’ responses include:
ABC reported that its “parent company made a payment by wire on
December 19, 2024, to . . . the escrow account established by the
Plaintiff’s counsel” and that “[i]n response to our recent ask for a
status update, Plaintiff’s counsel, on Thursday, March 19, 2026,
provided written notice to us that the IRS has recognized the 501(c)(3)
status of ‘The Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Foundation, Inc.,’
and requested that we provide written authorization for release of the
funds to that entity.” This response appears to indicate that ABC had no
knowledge of the whereabouts of the contents of the Fund in the
immediate aftermath of its dissolution, and the response still fails to
provide clarity on whether the ABC settlement has been transferred to
the Foundation.
Paramount noted that it made a payment of $16 million and that
“[w]ith respect to your questions regarding the disposition of funds and
subsequent developments concerning the presidential library fund, the
Company’s involvement was limited to making the payment as specified in
the Settlement Agreement” — providing no answers about the disposition
of funds following the dissolution of the Foundation.
Meta confirmed that it paid $22 million “to support a presidential
library for President Trump . . . for the purpose of settling the
pending claims” but refused to provide further “confidential” details.
X likewise confirmed that it paid $10 million in a group settlement
that included President Trump but refused to comment further on
“confidentiality” grounds.
“The companies do not know or are unwilling to share their
information about what happened to the millions of dollars given to the
Fund,” wrote the lawmakers. “This leaves the public
completely in the dark about what happened to the Fund, whether there
was any money in it when it was dissolved, what happened to that money
upon the Fund’s dissolution, and why a second entity with the same
purpose as the Fund was created in the first place.”
There have been no disclosures about the Fund’s disposition of any
funds, and the White House press office has not responded to requests
for comment. There appears to be no individual taking responsibility for
the closure of the Fund and disposition of its money: no Fund board
members were ever appointed, and the only person to sign any of its
public documents has minimized his role.
In May 2025, a second nonprofit, the Donald J. Trump Presidential
Library Foundation Inc., was incorporated with the same stated purpose
as the Fund. Questions remain as to why the Foundation was formed when
the Fund already existed and whether any money held by the Fund was
transferred to the Foundation once the Fund was dissolved.
“You owe the public an explanation,” wrote the lawmakers to
President Trump, requesting answers to a series of specific questions by
May 1, 2026.
Donald Trump’s poll numbers have plunged to their lowest point of his second term, a brutal new poll has revealed.
The NBC News poll,
conducted between March 30 and April 13, found Americans are
particularly concerned about the economy, the continuing war in Iran,
and how the president is handling these issues.
With an approval rating of just 37 percent, Trump’s already dwindling popularity has dropped 10 points since last June.
Overall, 63 percent of adults said they disapprove of the president’s performance, with 50 percent strongly disapproving.
Peter Aitken (NEWSWEEK) focuses on another finding in the NBC NEWS poll, "President
Donald Trump is set to see his worst approval ratings of this second
term as new polling from the NBC News Decision Desk released Sunday
found that eight out of 10 Gen Z voters say the country is on the wrong
track. The poll, conducted powered by SurveyMonkey, found
that that not only is Trump seeing a 76 percent disapproval among voters
aged 18 to 29, but that young Republicans are driving the downward
trend, marking a troubling shift in a demographic largely credited as
key to the party retaking the White House." Kinsey Crowley and Kathryn Palmer (USA TODAY) also note his poor polling:
Trump's
approval rating has been net negative for about a year and has been
fluctuating but trending more negative over the last six months. Here is
Trump's average approval rating on April 20, according to aggregators:
A Quinnipiac University national poll
found 38% of voters approve of how Trump is handling his job as
president, compared to 55% who disapprove, comparable to the poll's
results from March 25. The poll was conducted April 9 - 13 among 1,028
self-identified registered voters with a margin of error of plus or
minus 3.8 percentage points.
The
poll also found a majority of voters (65%) blame Trump for the rise in
gas prices, while 34% don't blame him much or at all. It is split along
party lines, with a vast majority of Democrats blaming him and a
majority of Republicans not blaming Trump.
The poll also asked about Trump's threat to Iran that "a whole civilization will die tonight." Sixty-four percent of voters found it unacceptable, while 28% thought it was acceptable.
As Chump chokes in one poll after another, his attacks on Pope Leo last week didn't help and aren't helping. George Chidi (GUARDIAN) notes Catholics:
Many
expressed admiration for Leo’s uncompromising position against war as a
fundamental expression of Catholic doctrine, and said they viewed
attacks on the pope’s call for peace as absurd.
“The
president was saying that the pope wanted Iran to have nuclear weapons,
and I don’t think the pope said that. The president just says stuff
that people haven’t said,” said James Echols after mass at St Patrick’s
Catholic church in Norcross. Asked if he viewed the president’s comments
as an attack on his religion, Echols replied: “I don’t think he really
cares about religion. I think he just says things to try to get people
on his side.”
Echols voted for Kamala Harris in
2024. His wife, Maribic Echols, voted for Trump. The president’s
comments have caused her to reconsider her support, she said.
“I’ve
changed, because this is not what I was expecting when I was voting for
him – about the war, and about people being arrested who are not
supposed to be arrested,” she said.
About 55% of American Catholics cast a vote for Trump in 2024. Polls suggest Catholic support for the president is eroding as the war, high gas prices, the revelations in the Epstein files and a litany of scandals within the administration take their toll.
“I like Donald a lot, but he needs to calm down,” said Lola Reese after attending Sunday Mass at St. Patrick’s.
Growing up Catholic in New Orleans taught her the importance of the separation of church and state, Reese said.
The
president’s back-and-forth with the pope might hurt his relationship
with his supporters, she said. She called for the president to “back off
and kind of calm down his little bitty, tiny streak of a little
meanness here and there.”
Reese’s sentiment was
shared by several churchgoers, including those who said they had voted
for the president but saw his recent comments as out of line.
Anita Bauman, a Catholic Trump voter from Pennsylvania, said the president’s comments were “colossally stupid.”
“I
don’t think it helps the president at all,” said Bauman, who supported
the president’s actions in Iran, where in early April US-based rights
group HRANA said more than 3,600 people had been killed since a joint
US-Israeli bombing campaign began in February.
“I
do think that things needed to be done in Iran,” she said. “I think
that regime was dangerous, but I don’t think picking a fight with the
pope or trying to school the pope on theology is a good idea at all.”
A
new survey shows that nearly 60% of Catholic Republicans did not
believe President Trump was right to criticize Pope Leo XIV, as the
president continues an ongoing feud with the Vatican.
The
survey shows that 59% of Catholic Republicans disapprove of the
president’s attacks against the pope, a figure that differs greatly from
that of their other Christian Republican counterparts: 68% of
Evangelicals believed he was correct, while 63% of Protestants also
thought he was correct. Overall, 59% of Christians felt Trump was right
to criticize the pope, while 37% disagreed.
The poll, conducted by the Democracy Institute,
comes as the president had a very public feud with Pope Leo XIV in
response to the pontiff’s criticism of the war in Iran and appeals for
peace.
A
Catholic bishop who runs the Diocese of Palm Beach in Florida, which
encompasses President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, issued a public
rebuke of the president’s ongoing feud with Pope Leo XIV on Sunday.
Bishop
Manuel de Jesús Rodríguez, recently appointed to lead the diocese,
delivered the criticism during Sunday Mass by displaying a statement
onto a giant screen during the service.
“The
Diocese of Palm Beach stands firm with our Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV,
and strongly rejects the disrespectful and violent attacks that Donald
J. Trump has directed against the Holy Father,” it read, according to an
image shared online.
It continued: “These
attacks also constitute a grave violation of the religious freedom
enshrined in the Constitution of the United States and, as such, harm
the rights of the American Catholic faithful.”
Rodríguez concluded the message with a call to the congregation: “Please pray for the safety of the Holy Father.”
Traditionally,
that's the response. By that I mean, historically, as opinion settles,
it settles along those lines. Right now, it's still being formed. But
historically, as a flock has time to absorb an event and form an
opinion -- not a quick take, not a hot take, an actual opinion -- it
tends to be along the lines of what Father Rodriguez expressed.
And,
remember, there was also the image he posted of himself as Jesus Christ
healing people (he later insisted he thought he was a doctor in the
image). Fernando Alba (THE MIRROR) notes:
A new Democracy Institute-The Mirror US poll found that most Christian Republicans didn't buy Trump's defense of the AI image, which stoked backlash from prominent MAGA figures.
The poll found 57% of Christians surveyed didn't believe the president
when he said the image actually showed him as a Red Cross doctor.
Chump's
participating in a week long marathon of BIBLE reading -- he's already
recorded his portion -- and appears to think that will even things up. I
don't imagine many devout believers will feel that qualfies as enough.
[. . .]
Cracks
begin forming over the AI image. About 50% of respondents say the
social media post was wrong while 46% indicated it was a non-issue.
Catholics disapproved of the post the most at 57%, and protestants found
the least problems with it at 53%.
Patrick
Basham, founding Director of the Democracy Institute and former adjunct
scholar and senior fellow of the Cato Institute, said the poll appears
to show that Trump has lost his "Midas touch."
As gas prices continue to soar, Donald has a different claim every other week. Aaron Blake (CNN) provides a walk through:
President Donald Trump on Monday directly contradicted Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s comments just a day earlier
about how long gas prices could linger. While Wright had told CNN that
we might not see gas under $3 per gallon until 2027, Trump called him
“totally wrong.”
Days
before, Trump contradicted his own words on the very same subject.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has contributed to some inconsistent
messaging here, too.
In other words: It’s a
mess. The Trump administration doesn’t seem to have taken any care to
drive a consistent message that wouldn’t ultimately come back to bite it
in the backside. And the situation reinforces how Trump and his team
seemed to anticipate a much shorter war or at least underestimated how
much damage Iran could cause to the global oil supply.
Let’s recap.
On
March 8, about a week into the war, Wright told CNN’s Jake Tapper that
gas would be back under $3 per gallon “before too long.” When pressed on
how long, he indicated it was just weeks away.
“In the worst case, this is a weeks, this is not a months thing,” Wright said.
But
as the weeks rolled on and the Strait of Hormuz remained closed,
Wright’s prediction was proven false. More than seven weeks into the
war, gas remains around $4 per gallon, according to Gas Buddy.
By
April 12, reality seemed to set in. Fox News aired an interview in
which Trump said gas and oil prices might not even drop at all before
the November midterm elections.
“It could be [lower], or the same, or maybe a little bit higher, but it should be around the same,” Trump told Maria Bartiromo.
But when Trump spoke with Bartiromo just days later for her Fox Business Network show, his tone shifted dramatically.
He said that “gasoline is coming down very soon and very big.”
“I think they’ll be much lower before midterm,” he added. “Much lower.”
All of Chump's statements regarding the Iran War -- even on gas prices -- change repeatedly.
Meanwhile,
Donald Chump's Big Beautiful Give Away to The Epstein Class is allowing
them to pay less taxes while the average person, if they are lucky, are
getting a few dollars more in this year's tax refund. Due to inflation
under Chump, that money's not even going to register. Jordan Major (FINANCEBUZZ MONEY) notes what we all saw coming:
Tax
refunds are landing in bank accounts across the country, but for many
Americans, that extra cash may not go as far as expected.
Gas
prices have surged in recent weeks, cutting into household budgets just
as refunds are arriving. As of April 9, the national average price for
gasoline has climbed to $4.16 per gallon, marking the first time in four
years that prices have crossed the $4 threshold.
[. . .]
The
impact of higher gas prices adds up faster than many people expect. A
driver using about 15 gallons per week would now spend roughly $62 per
fill-up at the national average. Just weeks ago, that same fill-up cost
closer to $45.
The increase comes to about $17
per week, or nearly $70 per month. Over the course of a year, that adds
up to more than $800 in additional fuel costs for a typical driver. A
$3,600 tax refund could see a large portion absorbed by higher gas
expenses alone.
In other news, another Cabinet member has been fired by Chump.
Lori Chavez-DeRemer, President Trump’s embattled labor secretary, stepped down on Monday as multiple scandals and investigations closed in on her.
“Labor
Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer will be leaving the Administration to
take a position in the private sector,” Steven Cheung, a White House
spokesman, posted on social media. He said Keith Sonderling, the deputy secretary of labor, would serve as acting secretary.
Pressure on Ms. Chavez-DeRemer had mounted in recent weeks,
as investigators and congressional leaders homed in on questions about
her conduct in office, and that of her aides and members of her family.
The
Labor Department’s inspector general’s office is nearing the end of a
monthslong investigation into a whistle-blower’s allegations of
professional misconduct by Ms. Chavez-DeRemer and her closest aides. The
claims include that she was having an affair with a member of her
security team and used department resources for personal trips. Ms.
Chavez-DeRemer was expected to be interviewed in the matter in the
coming days.
Her husband was banned from Labor Department grounds after he allegedly assaulted two female staffers.
The
writing may have been on the wall for Chavez-DeRemer. After
unceremoniously firing ex-Attorney General Pam Bondi, Trump was
apparently on the warpath
against his own Cabinet. An administration official anonymously told
Politico at the start of the month that Trump was “very angry” with his
advisers and was looking to move some of them around or even axe them
entirely.
Chavez-DeRemer and Commerce Secretary
Howard Lutnick were at risk of losing their jobs “imminently,” three
anonymous sources told Politico at the time.
They addressed Chavez-DeRemer's departure today on MORNING JOE.
Three Vietnam War veterans and an architectural historian are suing
Donald Trump, according to 9News (1). They argue that his plans to build
a 250-foot "triumphal arch" near the Arlington National Cemetery's main
entrance lacks congressional approval, violates federal law, and would
be disrespectful of those buried there.
If erected, the triumphal arch — inspired by Arc de Triomphe in Paris —
would be the largest in the world. And critics worry that the sheer size
of it alone would dominate the landscape, leaving nearby landmarks like
the Lincoln Memorial — and our veterans — in its shadows.
"What has happened here is that the president has decided that he can
just unilaterally go ahead and erect this monument," Wendy Liu, who
represents the veterans who feel personal ties to the cemetery, told
9News. "The thought of being buried in the shadow of what they have
described as a vainglorious arch is profoundly disrespectful."
Let's wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:
Hegseth has made deep cuts in funding, personnel for civilian harm mitigation programs
More than 1,700 civilian
deaths, strikes on more than 30 schools, health care facilities since
the start of President Trump’s illegal war in Iran
Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren
(D-Mass.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) led nine senators in opening a
new investigation into Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s role in
weakening civilian harm prevention programs and the catastrophic
civilian impacts of President Trump’s war in Iran.
“The high human toll of this war reflects the administration's
broader disregard for the strategic, legal, and moral imperative to
minimize civilian harm,” wrote the lawmakers. ”We call
on the administration to immediately end the war in Iran and fully
restore Congressionally authorized programs and staffing to mitigate
civilian harm.”
Since the start of President Trump’s illegal war in Iran, attacks on
civilian infrastructure have led to more than 1,700 civilian deaths,
along with strikes on more than 20 schools and a dozen health care
facilities.
“We are concerned that these were all preventable tragedies…This is a
concerning pattern and raises questions about whether the
administration is upholding international law and the laws of war,” wrote the senators.
The Senators called on DoD to answer questions about reported attacks
on two separate elementary schools in Iran that killed more than 170
people, most of them children.
Prior to the war, Secretary Hegseth made deep cuts to the military’s
civilian harm mitigation and response (CHMR) programs, fired personnel
at DoD’s Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, and slashed CHMR
staff at the U.S. combatant commands “by more than 90 percent.” All the
cuts were reportedly made over the objections of veterans organizations and top military officials, including admirals, generals, and members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“We are also concerned that your leadership is further harming the
credibility of our armed forces, exacerbating threats to civilians and
U.S. servicemembers alike,” wrote the senators.
Secretary Hegseth has mocked “stupid rules of engagement” and
threatened to offer “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies” in Iran,
which would violate international law and the military’s own Law of War
Manual.
“These statements not only harm civilians and undermine established
standards, but also endanger U.S. servicemembers with greater risk of
reciprocation and erode good order and discipline,” warned the senators.
Senior military officials in the Trump administration agree that
mitigating civilian harm is vital for national security. Under Secretary
of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby wrote to Congress that, “it is in
the U.S. national interest, as well as morally right, to seek to reduce
civilian harm to the degree possible.” During his confirmation, chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine said that combatant commanders
who incorporated CHMR personnel into planning “see positive impacts from
the program.”
“Your attempts to gut DoD’s civilian harm institutions contradicts
more than a decade of bipartisan consensus and DoD-led reforms,
initiated during the first Trump administration,” noted the senators.
“The importance of protecting civilian life to the greatest extent
possible is central to effective military operations and differentiates
the United States from our adversaries…We call on the administration to
immediately end the war in Iran, fully restore Congressionally
authorized programs and staffing to mitigate civilian harm,” concluded the senators.
The lawmakers asked Hegseth to explain the cuts to civilian harm
programs and explain what steps the Pentagon is taking to protect
civilian lives in Iran by May 4, 2026.
Senators Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Mark
Kelly (D-Ariz.), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Bernie
Sanders (I-Vt.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), and
Peter Welch (D-Vt.) joined in signing the letter.
