Donald Trump ruins everything he touches

At 2:15 p.m. local time, the President of the United States emerged from the darkened hold of his new Qatari Air Force One in Ankara, Turkey. He carefully made his way down the stairs, gripping the handrail tightly and watching each step before placing his foot. Once on the tarmac, Donald Trump grasped his hands together and broke into a huge grin as he greeted Turkish President Erdoğan. The two shared a brief private exchange before beginning the ceremonial walk toward a line of Turkish military personnel waiting for the official welcome.

As they walked along the blue carpet, Trump repeatedly drifted from side to side instead of following the path directly ahead. At one point, he grew increasingly disoriented and stopped altogether, staring into the distance. Erdoğan quickly reached beneath Trump’s arm, redirected him back toward the carpet, pointed him in the direction they were headed, and continued guiding him forward until they reached the microphone. Still looking uncertain, Trump allowed the physical guidance from Erdoğan, on live television, without any hesitation or apparent awareness of the image it projected to the rest of the world. This unusual moment captured not just how confused and feeble Trump appeared, but also the close relationship between the President of the United States of America and one of the world’s longest-serving authoritarian leaders.

Within hours, the White House posted video of Trump’s arrival on social media. But the footage had been edited. The moments where Trump appeared lost, where Erdoğan had to physically steer him back into position, were cut. They were already covering for him before he had spoken a single word at the summit. And what he said, once he did start speaking, was far more alarming than what the world had just watched on the tarmac.

Seated beside Erdoğan in Ankara's presidential compound, a reporter asked Trump whether the United States was planning further troop drawdowns from Europe. He did not answer clearly. He was not thinking about the future of the alliance. He was thinking about one thing: that NATO allies refused to support the war he started against Iran without consulting any of them. "I was very disappointed with NATO," he said. "And frankly, if it weren't held in Turkey, where my friend happens to be a very strong leader, a very strong, uh, person, it's possible that I wouldn't have attended." Then he turned to Iran. "We weren't treated well because we did something in Iran," he said. "We don't need anybody's help. I didn't even want the help. They said they wouldn't be there, and we've invested trillions of dollars in NATO." The President of the United States nearly skipped the most important defense summit in the world. He only attended as a favor to an autocrat.

And Erdoğan collected his payment immediately. Trump announced that the United States would consider selling Turkey F-35 fighter jets, the most advanced aircraft in the American arsenal, despite the fact that Turkey was removed from the program in 2019 because it purchased Russian S-400 air defense systems. When a reporter asked whether he had concerns about American technology sitting alongside Russian weapons, Trump said: “I have no concerns at all about anything. I mean, he’s a leader of a country that he’s made a much better country, much more powerful country. You see it. I mean, it’s beautiful, you get off, the roads are beautiful, it’s an amazing thing.” He evaluated a major national security decision based on road quality. Erdoğan then told reporters that Trump had already promised him five jets. The White House would not clarify who was telling the truth.

On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went on Fox & Friends and urged the United States not to transfer the jets, saying that Erdoğan “calls openly for the annihilation of Israel” and that the sale would “upset the power balance in the Middle East.”

Trump also announced he would lift sanctions on Turkey imposed under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, a law specifically designed to punish countries that do business with Iran, Russia, and North Korea. “We’re going to be taking the sanctions off,” Trump said. “We don’t want to sanction friends. It’s very simple.” Simple. Sanctions designed to protect the United States from its most dangerous adversaries, lifted as a gift to a man who runs Russian air defense systems on NATO soil.

And then came his troubling comments about the war Trump promised he would end on day one of his presidency that is still going strong a year and a half later. When asked about Russia’s war in Ukraine, a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions, Trump said: “It doesn’t affect the United States.” Then he continued: “I’ve seen the battlefields. They send me pictures. I actually want to say, ‘Don’t send them to me.’ Pete Hegseth sends me pictures. I say, ‘Pete, you know what? It doesn’t help the look.’”

And then came Greenland, where Trump voiced new threats. “That’s what hurt my relationship with NATO,” Trump said, referring to the alliance’s refusal to help him take over a sovereign territory belonging to a fellow NATO member. “Greenland should be controlled by the United States, not by Denmark. We could remove all of our soldiers out of Europe. They better be careful.” He then warned Europeans to be careful with immigration and energy, adding, “if they’re not careful with those two things, you’re not going to have a Europe any more.” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen responded simply and directly: this is not going to happen. Finland’s president offered the best reply of the day: “Be more Arctic, be more cool.”

What we witnessed today in Ankara was not just one strange moment on a carpet. It was a preview of how Trump’s decline is reshaping the most important relationships on the planet. The opportunists are taking what they can. The allies are compensating for him. And the adversaries are advancing while he gives them cover.

There were three kinds of leaders in the world right now, and many were at this summit with Trump. Each one showing us something different about the danger we are in. The first were the opportunists. Erdoğan got almost everything he wanted today: access to F-35s, sanctions relief, legitimacy on the world stage, and a NATO summit where opposition journalists were denied accreditation while hundreds of Turkish citizens were arrested ahead of the event. The Council on Foreign Relations described NATO as having become “a collaborator in blatantly undemocratic conduct.”

The second group are the allies trying to hold the alliance together while managing a president who is visibly coming apart mentally and physically. European leaders are now being forced to think beyond the issues at hand and perform for a president that has to be handled instead of being an active participant in conflict resolution. He has lost the trust and is now seen as a liability. This summit was not really about advancing NATO’s mission. It was about surviving Trump’s presence at it. And every hour these leaders spend managing his ego, confusion, and his impulses was an hour they were not spending on nuclear proliferation, Arctic security, Ukraine’s air defense, or the stability of the Strait of Hormuz. His incapacity is not just embarrassing, it is consuming the bandwidth that should be protecting the world.

And the third category was the adversary who benefits most from all of it. Vladimir Putin received a ninety-minute phone call from Trump days before the summit, a call the Kremlin described as “business-like and constructive.” Then Trump walked into NATO and said the war in Ukraine “doesn’t affect the United States,” while also telling the world he does not even want to see pictures of the devastation. He is not simply failing to confront Russia, he is helping Russia by making Ukraine’s suffering sound irrelevant to American interests, and to the world.

The damage wasn’t limited to what was happening in Turkey. While world leaders were dealing with the consequences of Trump’s presidency overseas, his administration was creating new consequences for American democracy back home.

Trump’s DOJ sent letters to top election officials in all fifty states and Washington, D.C., warning they could face criminal prosecution over noncitizen voting and demanding a response within five days. The problem is that noncitizen voting is already illegal under federal law. Every state already has procedures in place to prevent it, and repeated studies have found it to be extraordinarily rare. The Brennan Center’s research found that it accounted for roughly 0.0001 percent of votes in the jurisdictions they examined. This was not a response to a genuine crisis. It was the creation of one to fit their narrative and to be able to point yet another fabricated crime in the direction of their favorite enemy, immigrants.

The purpose of these letters was not to improve election security. It was to plant doubt in the minds of the public and send a message to the people responsible for administering our elections. If election officials begin looking over their shoulders, worried that every routine decision could trigger a federal investigation, the system itself becomes weaker. You do not have to prove widespread fraud if you can convince enough people that it probably exists even with the proof proves otherwise.

Even Utah’s Republican lieutenant governor, Deidre Henderson, called the department’s behavior “truly bizarre.” Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes called it insulting to suggest that election officials were not already doing their jobs. This was about the federal government inserting itself into elections that have always been administered by the states.

The timing matters too. We are now less than four months away from the midterm elections. Last year, Trump repeatedly said the presidential election had to be “too big to rig,” encouraging overwhelming turnout because large participation makes election outcomes more difficult to challenge. Now his administration is moving in the opposite direction. Every headline about imaginary fraud, threat directed at election officials, and every effort to undermine confidence in the system risks making Americans less likely to participate and more likely to distrust the outcome before a single ballot has been cast. Smaller ballot pools also make whatever corruptions Trump may or may not be planning easier to carry out.

Even with all of the destruction and cruelty that Trump has unleashed on the world, we had a reprieve this past week with the World Cup reminding Americans and international visitors alike that the United States is, as said on CNN, “far more welcoming and complex than its bitter political caricature.” There was joy and connection. There was a moment where it felt like maybe we could come together for something beyond our leaders. Tim Ream, the American defender, called the team “a true representation of what America is. A melting pot of people, of personalities, of characters.” For a brief window, the World Cup gave people a chance to feel something good about this country again.

And then Trump took that from us too, when he called the FIFA President and pushed to overturn a red card issued to an American. He admitted, publicly, “I didn’t know what the hell a red card was.” But he wanted it reversed anyway. And FIFA, for the first time in more than sixty years of World Cup history, suspended the automatic one-match ban. Ted Cruz thanked Trump publicly for “getting rid of that ridiculous red card.” They had deployed the full apparatus of the federal government to overturn a soccer call.

It snapped everyone out of it. That brief window of connection and pride, that feeling that maybe the World Cup could exist beyond the ugliness of this moment, was gone. Instead of ending on a high note, Trump reminded everyone exactly who is in charge and how little the rules mean to him. And Belgium responded in the best way possible. Upon their win against the United States, the teammates broke into Trump’s embarrassing YMCA body-swinging dance. In the locker room afterward, they did it again, singing along to the Village People. The Belgian football association posted a photo on Instagram with two words: “Overturn this.”

“Trump Curse” trended on social media within minutes. People laughed about it, but the joke reflects something much deeper. The more Trump inserts himself into America’s biggest moments, the more those moments seem to become consumed by him instead of the people they were meant to celebrate. The more his presidency reaches beyond politics and into our finances, communities, institutions, sports, and even the small moments of joy we look forward to, the more Americans begin to recognize a pattern. Chaos and division follow him. Losses follow him. And eventually, the thing itself stops being about what it was supposed to be and starts becoming about Donald Trump. The World Cup was supposed to be one of the few things that could still bring people together. Instead, it created a greater divide.

But what it also did was wake up more people to the reality of what life is like under Trump. What the future holds not just for us, but the world. People who “didn’t follow politics”, but do follow sports, were enraged. They saw a deteriorating person who finds satisfaction in havoc, who has lost the capacity to engage with the world as it actually is, and who drags every room he enters down to his level. And in November they will remember this and vote. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather

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This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Picture of the day: I want to end tonight with a memory. Donald Trump once called Brussels a “hellhole.” I can tell you with certainty: it is not a hellhole. It is a beautiful city, full of history, art, warmth, and resilience. The people there are kind. The architecture is stunning. The chocolate alone is worth the trip. This is one of my favorite pictures from our time there. It’s not just my daughter having the time of her life. Although that would be enough. But if you look past her, you can see the adorable couple in the background also feeling so much love in this breathtaking city.

Sources:

President Trump Participates in a Bilateral Meeting with the President of the Republic of Turkey: YouTube Video

Trump Arrival Video: Facebook

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/watch-trump-says-in-erdogan-meeting-that-u-s-will-lift-turkey-sanctions-consider-selling-f-35s

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/07/trump-nato-turkey-russia-ukraine-spending.html

https://www.ms.now/opinion/trump-nato-russia-ukraine-doesnt-affect-united-states

https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/trump-doj-threatens-election-officials-with-criminal-prosecution/

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/7/us-says-strikes-launched-as-explosions-heard-in-southern-iran

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/05/trump-fifa-balogun-world-cup-red-card-suspension.html

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20260707-victorious-belgian-footballers-troll-trump-with-ymca-dance

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/04/politics/world-cup-america-250-july-4-analysis

https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/49270695/usmnt-true-representation-america-tim-ream

https://www.newarab.com/news/erdogan-gives-trump-opulent-greeting-ankara-nato-summit