Friday, June 19, 2026

Trashy Chump gets more disgusting

Our Convicted Felon Donald Chump is losing his mind a little bit more each day.  Kathryn Wilkens (MEDIAITE) reports:

An excerpt from The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan’s upcoming book, published on Thursday by the Daily Mail, revealed that White House staff allegedly needed to monitor President Donald Trump’s trash after it was discovered that “he was sometimes throwing out” sterling silver utensils.

The snippet came from Swan and Haberman’s new book on the first 14 months of Trump’s first term, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump. According to them, staffers responsible for maintaining the president’s private quarters were dealing with a variety of unusual housekeeping challenges.

“A nighttime snacker, the President would frequently leave an array of empty potato chip bags, Starbucks wrappers, and ice cream cartons in the trash, or on the floor,” they wrote.

That habit reportedly prompted closer scrutiny of the trash after aides realized valuable White House items were disappearing along with the food waste.

“The staff had to begin monitoring the trash after it was discovered he was sometimes throwing out White House sterling silver utensils,” Haberman and Swan added.


He is so trashy and disgusting.  They say at the end Richard Nixon would sit in chairs in the White House, completely naked, getting drunk.  And that always seemed tacky.  But Mr. Chump is worse than Tricky Dick.  And he proves it.  Throwing his snack trash on the floors, throwing away sterling silver spoons?

He disrespects the exterior of the White House, yes, but he also disrrespects the interior.  He is utter trash.  


And he is fading in the polls, he has lost so much support.  Adam Lynch reports:


MAGA news and propaganda sites have blossomed since President Donald Trump first descended his escalator and entered U.S. politics. But their success appears to still be inextricably connected to Trump — and they’re not doing well in Trump’s twilight months.

The New York Sun reports news publications “built on harvesting clicks from MAGA supporters are fading as President Trump begins his final act in American politics,” and their web traffic “is falling across the board."

“The trend is lending credence to the president’s prediction that the press will miss him when he’s gone, with those who advocate for his movement hardest hit,” reports the Sun, adding that an analysis by Similarweb found that a whopping 90 percent of the top right-wing sites saw drops in visits between May 2025 and May 2026.

“Traffic to all of the top 20 sites monitored by TheRighting, which aggregates headlines from conservative outlets, saw double-digit declines,” said the Sun. “The Daily Wire, Blaze, and Federalist suffered falls of 47, 46, and 52 percent respectively. The Washington Free Beacon’s visits dropped 38 percent and the Daily Caller’s 33 percent.”

The Chump fever has faded.  He is no longer worshipped.  He has a tiny crowd of supporters.  And that is all he has left.  This number will probably dwindle even further.  


Especially now that the country sees him as a failure on Iran.  His deal is far, far weaker than what former President Barack Obama negotiated.  But Mr. Chump tore up that deal, tossed it aside.  Insisting he could do better, when he could not, Mr. Chump started the war with Iran and then, in a desperate bid to save the economy, he was forced to try to end it and this resulted in a weak deal and now even the weak deal is in question.


This is C..I.'s "The Snapshot" for today:


Friday, June 19, 2026.  Chump's deal or 'deal' has already hit a snag, Republicans in the US Senate don't see themselves as Chump's drones, Pete Hegseth faces more problems, Kristi Noem's errors and mistakes continue to surface from her time as Secretary of Homeland Security, in Chicago Barack reminds how a real president conducts themselves and honors this country, and much more.

 


As Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) notes above, Israel's attacked Lebanon and it appears the 'deal' or 'memo' may be off.  


The nascent U.S.-Iran deal faced fresh challenges on Friday after Switzerland said that the next phase of talks had been postponed and as Israel launched new strikes in Lebanon following a deadly attack on its soldiers there.

Israel said its military had struck more than 80 targets belonging to the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia, killing dozens, in response to an attack on an Israeli tank crew that left four soldiers dead in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese Health Ministry reported that Israeli airstrikes overnight had killed at least 18 people and injured 33 others.

The upsurge of violence showed how Lebanon remained a major obstacle to the durability of the preliminary U.S.-Iran agreement. Israel is not a party to the U.S.-Iran talks, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has indicated that he is not bound by the deal, which calls for a cease-fire on all fronts, including Lebanon.

Mr. Netanyahu said on Friday that he had ordered the Israeli military to respond forcefully to the deaths of the tank crew, warning that Israel “will exact a very heavy price from Hezbollah for these attacks.”

Some lawmakers in Israel, and some Republicans in Congress, have strongly criticized the deal, which President Trump and President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran signed this week. Critics say it gives Iran significant economic relief while punting tougher negotiations, including on Tehran’s nuclear program, down the road.

Vice President JD Vance had been expected to fly to Switzerland for talks with Iranian officials, but the White House said late Thursday that his trip would be delayed. The United States was looking forward “to beginning technical talks as soon as possible,” a White House statement said.


Prior to everything falling apart, JD Vance was talking up the deal and inflating it.  Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Rebecca F. Elliott and Erica L. Green (NEW YORK TIMES) point out in great detail how JD was misleading everyone.  Malcolm Ferguson (THE NEW REPUBLIC) focuses on three lies about the nuclear aspect of the deal JD told.

MS NOW notes JD's trip is off for now and details some of the lies Miss Sassy has been telling about the proposed deal.



On  the 'deal,' 'memo,' 'cease-fire,' 'chain letter' Chump's been pimping as the greatest deal ever.  Holly Baxter (INDEPENDENT) notes that Vice President JD Vance tried to talk up the effort yesterday:

As he pointed out himself during this very press conference, he has absolutely zero experience in conducting diplomatic negotiations. “Progressive critics” say he can’t do “hostile negotiations,” he said, with a smile, “but just two days ago I went on The View.”

Nobody laughed. He tried again: “Joy Behar is way more hostile than the Iranians and she and I are best friends now.” The room remained silent. Notwithstanding the fact that Joy Behar seemed to quite openly dislike Vance when she encountered him on The View, this joke doesn’t really work unless you follow it up with solid proof that you actually do have good political credentials and the “progressive critics” are wrong. Instead, Vance merely moved on.

When pressed why this deal was better than Obama’s, Vance couldn’t offer a lot of specifics. He kept going back to the idea that “Gulf states like this deal” and they didn’t like the old one, “and I trust their judgment”. He didn’t seem to know exactly why they’d come to that judgment.

Is Cuba next? “You guys would have to ask Marco [Rubio] about Cuba,” he said, before adding that the administration is talking with the Cuban government and hopes they “make smart decisions.”

Is he still going on his promised trip to Switzerland Friday to sign the deal that has, it turns out, already been signed? Apparently not. There are other people going “on the ground” in Iran to do “technical negotiations”, possibly over the weekend, and the Geneva signing may or may not happen after that.

“So you’re not going tomorrow?” one reporter asked. Vance equivocated and, again, moved on.
Then we entered the weirder portion of the presser. When told that the Pope had hailed the end of the war, Vance said, in a tone of voice that skirted a little too close to sarcasm, “My response to that is: Praise Jesus!” When someone said they noticed his voice is hoarse, he said, “I’ve been on a book tour,” thus reminding everybody of the fact that the chief Iran negotiator has been wasting his time this week on daytime talk shows soft-launching a 2028 presidential run by shilling a book about Christianity.


Once, we had wars of choice. Today, we have wars of distraction.

Call the catastrophically misguided war in Iran and the blink-and-you-missed-it war with Venezuela the Epstein Wars.

These were not wars fought to defend U.S. national security. They were not wars fought to advance our national interests.
They were wars conjured up not by generals or seasoned foreign policy advisors but by a frightened old man and his public relations team to distract from a scandal he fears will be his undoing.

On the topic of Chump's dead friend the pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, Matthew Chapman (RAW STORY) notes:

President Donald Trump's director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons is firing back after a Democratic lawmaker accused the administration of giving luxury treatment to Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell.

Maxwell, who authorities said helped run Epstein's child trafficking operation for years, was controversially moved from a facility in Florida to an amenity-filled "prison camp" in Bryan, Texas generally reserved for low-level offenders, breaking the rules that usually would prohibit sex offenders from such a facility — right around the time the administration was trying to get her testimony to turn down the temperature on public outrage over the Epstein case files.
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, broke down the apparent injustice of it all in an interview on CNN this week.

"Oversight and Judiciary Dems visited Ghislaine Maxwell’s prison today, it is essentially a pristine park with fountains and ample green space," said Garcia, posting his reaction to X. "She’s the only convicted sex offender there ... this isn’t justice."
He demanded answers as to why then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, now Trump's acting attorney general and nominee for the permanent role, sent her to that facility.

This comes amid separate reporting that prison staff at the Bryan facility refused to answer basic questions from lawmakers on the tour.

The statement from the Federal Bureau of Prisons did not say anything that mattered or was factual.  And, as Tom Latchem (DAILY BEAST) notes, "The agency did not explain why a convicted sex offender was placed at a camp that, under its own rules, bars such inmates without a special waiver."

As you may recall, last July Blanche, who was serving as Deputy Attorney General, conducted a two-day interview with Maxwell while she was seeking clemency. After making favorable comments about Tr*mp, she wasn’t granted a pardon, but she did see her fortunes turn for the better.

From the minute Maxwell stepped into Camp Bryan, her presence “disrupted” the lives of her fellow inmates, all of whom are non-violent offenders serving much lighter sentences for far less serious crimes.

Last August, she was allowed to take meetings outdoors while the rest of the women had to stay inside. According to WSJ, the warden even scheduled a talk with other inmates after one incident where he warned that any aggressive behavior toward Maxwell would be punished. He also allegedly cautioned inmates not to speak with press about Maxwell, a move which, according to Jamie Raskin, violates the inmates’ rights.

“Every inmate I’ve heard from is upset she is here,” one reporter said of the facility where Theranos grifter Elizabeth Holmes is also serving time and where former Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Jen Shah recently finished 33 months.

Since the start of Maxwell’s sentence, she’s also had access to special meals, a specialized response team, and other privileges seemingly denied the other inmates, none of whom have committed crimes anywhere near the scale of Maxwell’s.

Money might be able to buy you plenty of privileges in prison, but they don’t buy you that much.

House Democrats have been asking Blanche what the deal is for months, when a Wall Street Journal investigation broke the story of Maxwell’s special treatment wide open. So far, they haven’t gotten any clear answers.


In other news . . . 

Time for Convicted Felon Donald Chump to preen and pose.  The ego maniac has set some new standards.  David Edwards (RAW STORY) reports:

President Donald Trump just broke three of his own records in a new poll, and none of them are good.
The NPR/PBS News/Marist Poll, conducted June 8–11 among 1,340 adults with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, finds Trump hitting simultaneous lows: his worst-ever economy approval rating, his worst-ever approval spread, and a disapproval rating that ties the highest ever recorded for him.
Just 33% of Americans approve of Trump's handling of the economy — the lowest Marist has recorded since it began asking the question in 2019. Sixty percent disapprove.
Trump's overall approval sits at 36%, with 59% disapproving — a 23-point gap that is the widest Marist has ever measured for him across either term.


He's a loser on a losing streak these days.  Jordain Carney and Katherine Tully-McManus (POLITICO) note:

President Donald Trump is calling for Republicans to pass a $350 billion bill to fund the military while notching conservative policy victories — and GOP senators aren’t exactly scurrying to action.

House Republican leaders and committee chairs have been meeting for weeks about what to include in a new party-line reconciliation package. Speaker Mike Johnson has also had conversations about the House’s vision with Senate Majority Leader John Thune.
But the Senate has taken no concrete steps toward advancing a bill, and GOP senators and aides said this week it was becoming clear any “Reconciliation 3.0” would be a House-led effort. Multiple Senate Republicans — including members of leadership — say they don’t currently see a path that could marshall 50 votes behind such a measure on their side of the Capitol just months before the midterms.

“Everybody has a different concept of what they want, which is going to be the problem,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said in an interview this week.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said a third bill “doesn’t look to me like it's got a lot of life in it,” while Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) separately warned that if his party was going to pass a third reconciliation bill, Republicans need to “saddle up and ride hard, because we’re running out of time.”

Wait.  They aren't marching in lockstep behind him?  Singing a hearty tune?  Chris Brennan (USA TODAY) explains there are hostilities currently:

President Donald Trump has groused repeatedly during his second term about the sometimes lengthy nomination process needed for key administration officials to be approved by the U.S. Senate.

Republicans who control the Senate this week were ready and eager to fast-track the nomination of Jay Clayton for approval as Trump's next director of national intelligence. There was a confirmation hearing set for June 17, creating the potential for a full Senate vote on June 18 that could have had Clayton on the job by the end of this week.
That was, until Trump derailed the fast-track with a petulant, early morning social media post just before 4 a.m. on June 17, catching his Republican allies in the Senate off guard hours before Clayton's hearing.
Those Republicans had a motivation not centered on Trump's past annoyances about nominations. They wanted to head off Bill Pulte, a federal housing official and enthusiastic participant in Trump's retribution efforts against perceived enemies, who is now set to take on the role of acting director of national intelligence on June 19.

That annoyed Trump, who lobbed his bombshell into the nomination process from the G7 summit in France on June 17, where the six-hour time difference meant he was tossing his tantrum about 10 a.m. local time while Senate Republicans were likely sleeping back home in America.




President Donald Trump is making life almost impossible for Senate Republicans — and these days fewer of them are willing to just let it slide.

Some lawmakers that were once happy to brush off impulsive and disruptive behavior by saying they hadn’t seen the president’s social media posts or that it was just “Trump being Trump” are increasingly willing to speak out against what they view as bad decisions that undermine their ability to deliver legislative wins as the midterms approach.
The latest irritation was the early-morning Truth Social post Wednesday that upended GOP hopes of quickly confirming a new director of national intelligence and reviving a surveillance bill that Trump already derailed earlier this month.

The chaos that followed Trump’s sudden U-turn on Jay Clayton’s nomination, just hours before a scheduled confirmation hearing, further loosened tongues in the Capitol hallways — even from lawmakers who tend to be reliable allies.

“The president’s timing and communication needs improvement,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said. “I think it’s unfortunate. It throws a kicker into the system when we get going and then we have to readjust.”

Asked about frustration within the conference about the recent lack of coordination, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) added, “Well, duh.”

Kennedy added, “No, I don't,” when asked if Trump takes senators into consideration: “He wants what he wants, and until he gets it, he just keeps pushing.”

This ill will has been percolating for some time now. Lindsay Wise, Meridith McGraw and Siobhan Hughes (WALL STREET JOURNAL) note:


President Trump wants Republicans in Congress to do exactly as they are told.

But recently he has been hearing a lot of “no” from John Thune, the Senate’s top Republican.

That has led to open conflict as Trump tries to push through a voter-ID law that he has said is crucial to Republicans’ winning the midterms but lacks enough support to pass. It is one of a series of disputes that have intensified pressure on Thune, the lanky South Dakota conservative who finds himself in an increasingly difficult political position just months ahead of the elections.
[. . .]
Thune has had to deliver a series of unwelcome news to Trump. Before they agreed to pass a recent $70 billion border-security package, Senate Republicans rejected funding for Trump’s White House ballroom and forced the administration to scratch a $1.8 billion fund that could have been used to compensate Trump’s political allies. Also, lawmakers loudly objected to Pulte in the role as interim director, saying he lacked national-security experience and airing concern that he would politicize the position.


Republicans are at a "boiling point" over tensions between President Donald Trump and Senate GOP leadership, Punchbowl News reported on Thursday morning.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has been "bearing the brunt of the fallout from Trump’s erratic behavior, expressing his frustrations with the president in an intentional but very reserved manner," said the report.
For the last week, the report noted, Thune "was being stiff-armed by a White House that was refusing his request for a briefing on the U.S.-Iran ceasefire agreement" — then things kicked into high gear after Trump publicly blew up a hearing for one of his own critical nominees and triggered a standoff.

Things have gotten so tense that Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) told reporters Trump is "taking shots" at Thune, and lamented, “Who doesn’t like John Thune? If you don’t like John Thune, you don’t like golden retrievers.”



Let's turn to one of the charm experts from Chump's cabinet.  Lorne Cook (AP) reports, "U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth lashed out at NATO allies on Thursday, announcing a six-month Pentagon review of American forces in Europe whose outcome will depend on how fast the Europeans take responsibility for their own security. The threat of a review was yet another surprise for European allies and Canada as they learn to deal with an increasingly unpredictable ally. U.S. officials and senior military officers had promised to coordinate closely with the Europeans as America draws down."  Fresh from disgracing the United States at Normandy, Hegseth's just spreading the ill will around,  The man who only got confirmed in the Senate thanks to JD Vance's tie breaking vote has been a serial screw up going back to the Signal chat.  Remember that?  Remember when the report from the Pentagon's Inspector General found that, in that chat, Hegseth gave out the exact timelines, launch sequences and even the specific weapons that would be deployed in the strike on Yemen. 

Yet he remained in the job.  Loose lips Hegseth?  He's apparently the cold sore America can't get rid of.  Tom Boggioni (RAW STORY) reports:

While Donald Trump is being excoriated by Republicans over his Iran deal, which one GOP lawmaker called “… a tremendous foreign policy blunder,” MS NOW’s Bill Rohde stated on Thursday morning that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth can expect that his role in advising the president to launch the war has put his job at risk.
Discussing the blowback Trump is facing over the war that, for the moment, has ended in a stalemate, Rohde claimed that Hegseth is already a prime target instead since he is already on the outs with a substantial number of Republican lawmakers.
“At some point. President Trump is the person most responsible for this strategic defeat and failure,” Rohde told the "Morning Joe” co-hosts. “But I would argue the person second most responsible, who is in the most dangerous position politically, is Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. He repeatedly lied to the American public in his press conferences about the progress of the war, and he also refused to give basic information to members of Congress. There's a lot of ill will among senators and House members towards Pete Hegseth.”

Senators and House members have ill will towards Hegseth?  That would explain what Eren Waris (MEAWW) reports: 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is facing a bipartisan congressional rebuke as lawmakers move to restrict his travel budget over long-running complaints that the Pentagon has kept Congress in the dark.

The proposed restriction comes as senators demand records related to military strikes that have drawn scrutiny from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. The effort turns months of frustration over limited access to information into a direct funding measure aimed at forcing greater transparency from the Pentagon.
A Republican-led Senate Armed Services Committee proposal filed Tuesday would block Hegseth from using more than 25 percent of his travel budget until the Pentagon turns over key documents related to military operations.

Under the defense policy bill, lawmakers are demanding "unredacted civilian harm investigations" and other records connected to strikes in the Middle East and Latin America.
Committee members, led by Republican Sen Roger Wicker, highlighted the April 2025 strikes in Yemen that resulted in dozens of casualties and the February 2026 strike on the Minab girls' school in Iran that left at least 150 students and staff among the reported casualties.

Hegseth is notorious for so many things -- most of them hideous.  That would include his refusal to wash his hands.  Hygiene isn't a big thing with Hegseth nor are vaccines.  And that's coming back to haunt him.  Greg Jaffe and Maggie Haberman (NEW YORK TIMES) report:

A major flu outbreak has sickened nearly 160 troops at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas less than two months after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that U.S. troops would no longer be required to be vaccinated for the flu, defense officials said.

The outbreak at the base in San Antonio raced through an Air Force Basic Military Training wing, where new recruits sleep on bunk beds in open bays and share meals at large communal tables.

A trainee in his sixth week of basic training died after falling ill on Friday and being taken to Brooke Army Medical Center, the Air Force said in a news release. It was not immediately clear whether the death of the trainee, Keon McDaniel, was related to the flu outbreak.

A comprehensive medical review into his death is underway to determine the cause, according to the Air Force.

In the weeks since Mr. Hegseth’s vaccine policy took effect on April 21, only about 40 percent of Air Force trainees have opted to take the vaccine, which had previously been mandatory, an Air Force official said.

And this is happening right now.  Imagine what awaits come winter.  Hegseth, ruining America just a little bit more each day. 

As James Ball (THE I PAPER) observed yesterday, "Hegseth is not a serious man, so few European leaders take him seriously."


Moving over to air head Kristi Noem.  As Chump's Special Envoy to the Shield of the Americas, Kristi continues to screw up.  She was laughed at earlier this week when asked which country in South America would qualify as the US' best friend and she responded, "Well, we've worked so much with El Salvador and migration issues and third country agreements. But also Ecuador's been fantastic; we did a joint operation with them with the Department of War against the cartels in their country. We work very well with Argentina; their economic policies line up with ours. Costa Rica's been fantastic; they have a new president" -- Stop.  El Salvador and Costa Rica are not South American countries, they are part of Central America. 

It's the sort of mistake a freshman in high school could make but not one that the Special Envoy to the Shield of the Americas should be making.  Prior to her current role, Kristi was the Secretary of Homeland Security where she did so many things wrong.  This included buying up facilities to turn into ICE prisons.   Hamed Aleaziz (NEW YORK TIMES) reports:

The idea was meant to supercharge President Trump’s mass deportation plan.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement would purchase more than a dozen empty warehouses across the United States to massively expand its capacity to detain people deemed to be in the country illegally, which in turn would spike deportations. A year into Mr. Trump’s term, it had bought 11 facilities at a cost of $1 billion.

But in a major turnabout, the agency is planning to offload seven warehouses purchased for more than $700 million by either giving them to other federal agencies or selling them outright, according to documents obtained by The New York Times.

The decision to sharply scale back the warehouse plan is a rejection of a signature initiative under the previous homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, who pushed the boundaries of what the government can do to aggressively round up potential deportees. The new secretary, Markwayne Mullin, who had privately expressed skepticism about the plan, has said publicly that he wants the agency to be quieter about how it carries out immigration enforcement.


Yesterday, America was reminded of what a president can be as Barack Obama spoke in Chicago. 



The opening of the Obama Presidential Center drew thousands, including A-list celebrities, to celebrate the facility honoring the 44th president's historic legacy.

Former President Barack Obama, joined on stage by his wife, former first lady Michelle Obama, and their daughters, oversaw the grand opening ceremony that also featured other living former presidents: Joe Biden, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

"Everybody's got an opinion, and that means getting stuff done, involves reconciling the demands of a couple of 100 million people," Obama said as he reflected on America's political history. "Democracy can be frustrating, it can be slow, it can be inefficient, and yet more than anything, I hope this center will serve as an affirmation of just how special, how precious our democracy truly is, and remind us what we can achieve when we embrace our shared responsibilities as citizens."

Michelle Obama also commemorated the former president's work during a speech about his tenure and the center's many community-oriented amenities: "You were unflappable at every turn, always focused, always calm, always looking at the long view," she told her husband.




The entertainment was first-rate.






People came together and did so with a purpose that was beyond greed.  It was a reminder of what the country could be -- and will be again once Chump is out of the White House.

Let's wind down with this from Senator Tammy Duckworth's office:


[WASHINGTON, D.C.] — U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL)—Ranking Member of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Aviation—is demanding the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reject any pressure to rubberstamp President Donald Trump’s latest taxpayer-funded vanity project, the so-called “Triumphal Arch,” that could jeopardize the safety of the flying public. In a letter to FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford, Duckworth warned against wasting time and resources reviewing the proposed 259-foot “Triumphal Arch,” which would be constructed in one of the most complex and congested airspaces in the country.

Aviation Subcommittee Ranking Member Duckworth wrote, “President Trump choosing to force the FAA to invest limited staff and resources into a distracting review of his gaudy and disgraceful arch is merely the latest example of Trump putting his pet projects first, while neglecting America’s needs. This wasteful and dangerous project is particularly irresponsible given the FAA’s ongoing efforts to implement safety enhancements in and around DCA following the preventable DCA collision in late January 2025, the deadliest domestic air crash since the 2009 Colgan tragedy.”

In the letter, the Senator underscores the critical importance of exercising the highest level of caution in DC airspace after the tragic DCA collision claimed 67 lives. Initial reviews of the Arch project were conducted on an expedited timeline, raising concerns about undue pressure from the Trump Administration to advance a needless project which could put people’s lives in danger.

“Your mission is to provide the safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world. Accordingly, the FAA must commit to upholding the highest safety standards and be firm in rejecting any improper or irresponsible pressure from President Trump to prioritize the construction of his gaudy, vanity arch over the safety of the American people,” concluded Ranking Member Duckworth.

Full text of the letter is available on Senator Duckworth’s website and below:

Dear Administrator Bedford:

I write to demand the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) uphold the highest safety standards and reject any efforts from President Donald Trump to pressure the FAA into wasting time and resources modifying the complex National Capital Region (NCR) airspace as part of a wasteful campaign to rubberstamp Donald Trump’s newest vanity project, the so-called “Triumphal Arch.” The Trump arch—which Donald Trump’s arch designer noted is a distinct memorial because unlike the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, President Trump’s arch is intended to celebrate the living—would offensively desecrate the hallowed symbolism of Arlington National Cemetery by destroying the historic sightline between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington House that has symbolized post-Civil War unity for decades.

Furthermore, the vanity arch’s proximity to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA)—which, as the Trump administration is well aware, is one of the most complex, constrained and airspaces in the National Airspace System—reflects a flagrant disregard for the operational integrity of the airspace, aviation safety and the priorities of the American people.

President Trump choosing to force the FAA to invest limited staff and resources into a distracting review of his gaudy and disgraceful arch is merely the latest example of Trump putting his pet projects first, while neglecting America’s needs. This wasteful and dangerous project is particularly irresponsible given the FAA’s ongoing efforts to implement safety enhancements in and around DCA following the preventable DCA collision in late January 2025, the deadliest domestic air crash since the 2009 Colgan tragedy.

As you know, the FAA has failed to secure full funding for the Trump administration’s “Brand New Air Traffic Control System” despite Republicans controlling the U.S. House of Representatives and the United States Senate since 2025, and jamming through not just one, but two, massive partisan Republican reconciliation spending bills. Some may brush off wasting millions, if not billions, of taxpayer dollars on Trump’s vanity arch as only an annoying nuisance. However, FAA should know better than anyone that such flippant dismissals are reckless and wrong.

The NCR is an extremely challenging airspace because of complicated flight paths, restricted airspace and complex civil-military operations. Even minor disruptions can have cascading, fatal effects—a sobering reality that our country witnessed just last year when a midair collision involving a commercial aircraft and an Army Blackhawk helicopter killed 67 people. The DCA midair collision underscores the consequences of inadequate coordination and the need for extreme caution when evaluating any new obstruction in this environment.

The FAA’s initial feasibility study was a “limited review” and far from the required full aeronautical study that must be conducted. However, even this limited examination confirmed that the proposed 259-ft Trump vanity arch structure requires red lighting because it constitutes an obstruction under Title 14, Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), Part 77. FAA’s initial review appears to have been completed on an expedited timeline, raising questions as to whether Donald Trump or his White House aides are already improperly pressuring FAA to prioritize rubberstamping Trump’s vanity arch over public safety.

Importantly, the finished structure is not the only potential hazard Donald Trump is forcing into this highly congested, complex DCA airspace. The National Park Service (NPS) indicated that construction of Trump’s vanity arch would require cranes reaching 300 to 320 feet in height and NPS estimated construction could last 20 hours per day for two to three years. On final approach to DCA, commercial jets can fly as low as 500 feet above ground level (AGL). Introducing construction equipment approaching the AGL limit in an already congested airspace raises additional operational and safety issues.

There is already evidence that the Trump administration is dismissive of, or simply avoids, advanced aviation safety planning in coordination with FAA experts. In addition to the Trump administration’s chaotic testing of Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems in the NAS, commercial pilots reported that during evening approaches to DCA, the bright lights from Donald Trump’s personal UFC playground—which was installed on the White House lawn for his taxpayer-funded birthday party—impaired pilot visibility as they worked to navigate one of the most challenging approaches in the NAS.

Your mission is to provide the safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world. Accordingly, the FAA must commit to upholding the highest safety standards and be firm in rejecting any improper or irresponsible pressure from President Trump to prioritize the construction of his gaudy, vanity arch over the safety of the American people.

-30-




The following sites -- plus Ann's "The money grubbers," Marcia's "Even Nancy sees Chump's decline" and Mike's "Deranged Chump"  -- updated:


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