Donald Trump unleashed more destruction on the United States today

Jul 16, 2026

At 3:31 this afternoon, Donald Trump stood on the stage at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, swaying back and forth as “God Bless the USA” echoed through the auditorium. Soaking in the attention with a huge grin on his face, he rocked gently to the music, moving his hands back and forth while a room packed with members of the military, defense industry executives, billionaire financiers, Cabinet officials, and government leaders rose to their feet, clapping and cheering. When the song finally ended, Trump lowered himself into his chair, leaned toward the microphone, and opened his nearly 55-minute remarks with, “Wow, what a great... wow, what a great song that is. We’ve all heard it. It became hot. Lee became very wealthy.” Referring to the man who sings the anthem that has become the opening soundtrack to nearly every one of his public appearances.

The purpose of the 2026 Pennsylvania Defense and Innovation Summit was straightforward: strengthen America’s military, announce billions of dollars in defense investment, showcase advances in emerging technologies, and prepare the workforce needed to build them. It was supposed to be a serious discussion about the future of our national defense.

Instead, the President of the United States spent his time talking about magnets. “I’ll tell you how to make money: do magnets.” Then came Caterpillar tractors. “I watch more tractors than any human being on Earth,” he said, describing how they “rip right through rock.” He moved on to windmills, then to a wealthy friend who bought an expensive private plane he did not need because, as Trump explained, “You can write that sucker off in one year. Can you believe it?” He called affordability, one of the biggest economic concerns facing American families, a “fake word.” He mocked Joe Biden as the audience laughed. “Don’t fall down the stairs like Biden.” He invented a story claiming companies had to hire transgender executives to qualify for CHIPS Act funding. And at the U.S. Army War College, he drifted into the Battle of Gettysburg and observed, “What a war that was, when you read about it.”

He made a juvenile joke about Democrats and the letter “B” in the word “dumb.” He praised Pete Hegseth because “all he wanted to talk about was war,” before joking about pardoning service members convicted in high-profile war crimes cases, including one involving the killing of a young girl. At one point he paused to ask the room, “I hope I’m not boring anybody,” while also telling the room, “I’ll tell you how to make money: do magnets.”

And as animated as he became whenever it was his turn to speak, the moment someone else took the podium, his eyes grew heavy. His face went blank. He repeatedly appeared to nod off during the rest of the summit, at one point only seeming to regain his attention after Pete Hegseth addressed him directly: “President...”

The President of the United States was at the U.S. Army War College, an institution founded in 1901 to educate the nation’s most senior military leaders. It is where strategy is studied, doctrine is written, and the lessons of every American conflict are preserved so future generations don’t repeat the mistakes of the past. On a day when the United States was already engaged in what many are calling our newest forever war against Iran, a conflict that has reportedly depleted stocks of Tomahawk cruise missiles and Patriot and THAAD interceptors to levels analysts say could take years to replenish, Donald Trump used the moment to campaign for the midterm elections, attack his political opponents, and repeat claims that had nothing to do with the reason everyone in that room had gathered.

Today was also the day CBS News reported that senior Pentagon officials have been quietly examining military options for a potential assault on Cuba, including an operation involving thousands of soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division. It was the day the man nominated to lead the Department of Justice sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee and accidentally referred to himself as the president’s personal lawyer. It was the day the man nominated to oversee the nation’s intelligence community refused to say who won the 2020 election. And it was the day Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced mandatory testosterone screening for male service members over thirty, proudly branding it “The High-T Department of War.” It was another day under the reign of Donald J. Trump.

And when he was not talking about magnets, he was telling the room how his friend, a man who had never flown on a private plane in his life, went out and bought a very expensive one he did not even need, just for the tax write-off. Then he turned to JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon and said, “Jamie can expand his bank,” and pointed to the building and said, “You can write that sucker off in one year. Can you believe it?” And then he complimented a steel contractor on the construction. “I want to know that steel contractor. He did a good job, a great job actually.”

He called affordability a “fake word.” He said Democrats invented it. This is the president of the United States dismissing the single biggest economic crisis facing American families as a linguistic trick, minutes after bragging about a friend’s unnecessary private jet, in a room full of people who will never have to choose between groceries and rent.

He praised a journalist he called “Selena,” who is Salena Zito, a national political reporter for the Washington Examiner and special contributor to the Washington Post. “That’s only because she writes so well about me,” he said, grinning. “You know, if she wrote badly, I’d say, ‘Get her the hell out of here.’ Selena, thank you, honey, very much.” He said this at a defense summit, out loud, on camera. Write favorably and you are “honey,” “a talent,” “a really amazing person.” Write honestly, and you are “stupid,” “nasty,” or a “Piggy,” which is what he has called reporters in the past.

He attacked Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, saying, “Shapiro doesn’t have what it takes.” And then he added, reading directly from his script, “I tell the truth.” From a man who lies about everything, constantly. That line was no doubt added for him to read because his enablers know how repetition with propaganda works. You say it enough times, in enough rooms, and it stops sounding like a claim and starts sounding like a fact to the people who want to believe it.

But maybe most damning was his accidental admission about who is running the war machine they are building. “Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. He’s been amazing. Pete, thank you very much. Great job. He’s been really amazing. You know, he used to do interviews. All he wanted to talk about is war. Sir, would you give a pardon to 19 soldiers? Why? Why? Well, they killed a lot of people. They were trained to kill and that’s what they did. And he pardoned a lot of people, but they’ve all been well behaved, right? Okay, good. Otherwise, it’ll be a big story. Trump shouldn’t have let him go. But I’m blaming you, Pete.”

He was laughing as he said it. Joking. At the Army War College about pardoning people who killed civilians. Some of the people Trump pardoned or reversed demotions and restored ranks, at Hegseth’s lobbying, included a Navy SEAL who was turned in by their own fellow SEALs for a series of crimes they said they witnessed in Iraq, where a young girl and an old man were shot with a sniper rifle. The same SEAL allegedly also walked up to a wounded teenage fighter who was being treated by a Navy medic and stabbed him to death with a hunting knife. They were acquitted of the murder charge but convicted of posing for a photograph with the dead teenager’s body. Trump reversed their demotion after Hegseth, then a Fox News weekend host, lobbied for them on air and in private. The former SEAL went on Fox and Friends afterward and thanked Hegseth and Fox News for “being with us from day one.”

Another was an Army First Lieutenant, convicted in 2013 of second-degree murder for ordering his soldiers to open fire on unarmed Afghan civilians. Nine members of his own platoon testified against him at trial. One of his subordinates told the New York Times, “One of the first things he said to us was, we are going to go in Gestapo-style with night raids, pull people out of houses, make them afraid of us.” He was serving a nineteen-year sentence at Fort Leavenworth when Trump pardoned him.

A third was an Army Major, a Green Beret charged with murdering an unarmed Afghan detainee in 2010. He took the man off base, shot him, buried the remains, then later dug up the body and burned it in a trash pit. He admitted to the killing during a CIA interview.

In all three cases, Hegseth personally lobbied the president. He called them “warriors, not war criminals.” He said on air that pardoning them would be “heartening for guys like me” and that it “could’ve been me.” He said, “You train someone to go and fight and kill the enemy, then they kill the enemy the way someone doesn’t like, and then we put them in jail.”

That is who is running the Department of Defense. A man who was chosen because “all he wanted to talk about is war.” The man who announced that the Pentagon will begin mandatory testosterone screening for all active-duty male service members over thirty, branding the program “The High-T Department of War.”

I support gender-affirming care. Testosterone replacement therapy is hormone replacement therapy, and hormone replacement therapy is health care. The Pentagon did not respond to questions about whether female troops would be screened for estrogen; so far, they appear to be excluding women entirely. This is the same Defense Secretary who has said women should not serve in combat roles, who has blocked military promotions for women, and who has fired senior women in military leadership.

Senator Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran who lost both legs in combat, called the announcement “gender-affirming care to me.” Representative Chrissy Houlahan, an Air Force veteran, said it “proves that Secretary Hegseth takes direction from the far corners of the manosphere.” Both called on Hegseth to make hormone testing available for women. He has not.

Current medical guidelines recommend against blanket testosterone testing. Accurate readings require fasting and morning blood draws. Testosterone replacement therapy can create lifelong dependency by shutting down natural production. When treatment is stopped, men can experience withdrawal, severe depression, and the permanent inability to naturally produce testosterone. The Pentagon did not respond to questions about what research or studies support the program.

The logic of a government chemically enhancing its soldiers for battlefield performance is not new. During World War Two, the Wehrmacht distributed Pervitin, a methamphetamine, to millions of German soldiers. Military physiologist Otto Ranke championed the program, saying it would help “defeat the enemy with chemically enhanced soldiers, soldiers who could give Germany a military edge by fighting harder and longer than their opponents.” Between April and July of 1940 alone, German servicemen received more than thirty-five million methamphetamine tablets. The Temmler factory pressed as many as 833,000 per day. The framing was identical to what Hegseth said today: maintaining the “biological foundation” to fight, keeping troops on the “leading edge of lethality.” The consequences were devastating. Exhaustion. Psychosis. Heart failure. Suicide. Lifelong dependency. The government decided that soldiers’ natural biology was insufficient and intervened chemically, and the long-term health consequences were downplayed or ignored. The substances are different. The logic is the same.

And while Hegseth was announcing testosterone screening for men and excluding women from the program entirely, he was also personally blocking the promotions of seven senior Navy officers to two-star admiral. Five of the seven were women or people of color. All seven women selected by the promotion boards were removed. No white men were removed. For the first time in more than a decade, no female active-duty naval officer will be promoted to admiral this year. Among those blocked was Rear Admiral Amy Bauernschmidt, the first woman to command a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. For the first time in nearly two decades, there are no active-duty women serving as four-star generals or admirals in the United States military. Hegseth fired Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead the Navy and the first woman to serve on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He fired Admiral Linda Fagan, the first woman to lead a military branch. He fired two additional female three-star admirals. No explanations were given for any of it. When the New York Times asked for comment, the Pentagon accused the paper of having “a toxic obsession with race and identity.”

He is not building a stronger military. He is building a boys’ club with a war machine attached to it. And he is hollowing out the force by driving out a quarter of the talent pool while simultaneously planning new wars with the portion that remains.

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, the two confirmation hearings that ran simultaneously with the summit revealed the other half of the project: filling every position of power with people whose loyalty runs to one man, not to the Constitution.

Todd Blanche, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee at a desk draped in black cloth and flowers honoring the late Senator Lindsey Graham. When Republican Senator John Kennedy asked Blanche point-blank whether he and the president are friends, Blanche replied without hesitation: “I’m his lawyer.” He caught himself and corrected the tense, but the truth had already left his mouth. Senator Chuck Schumer called it “an all-time Freudian slip and completely disqualifying.” Senator Dick Durbin told Blanche, “Your tenure can be summed up in the four words you said: ‘I love you, sir.’”

And when pressed on whether he would commit to keeping federal agents away from polling locations in November, Blanche stopped short of making that pledge. He said he was “not aware” of armed agents at polling places. That is not a commitment. That is a non-answer designed to leave the door open.

His confirmation is not assured. Graham’s death left the Judiciary Committee with just one Republican vote to lose. Senator Cornyn has not committed. Senator Tillis, who is not seeking reelection, has not committed. Mitch McConnell remains out for health reasons. More than twelve hundred Department of Justice alumni have signed a letter opposing Blanche’s confirmation.

In another committee room, Jay Clayton, Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, sat before the Senate Intelligence Committee and was asked repeatedly, by multiple Democratic senators, whether Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. Clayton said he was “not an election denier” and that Biden “was certified” as president. But he would not say who won. He also said, “The audit trail that we have available for our elections in a number of places is not the kind of audit trail that you would expect in something that is this important.” That is the man who would oversee the entire intelligence community, including its election security assessments, validating the foundation of Trump’s fraud narrative while carefully avoiding the words that would make it explicit.

Clayton also defended his role in authorizing subpoenas of New York Times reporters over the weekend, after the outlet reported on security concerns regarding Trump’s new Air Force One. He said he was “absolutely committed to and respect our First Amendment” while simultaneously going after the reporters who exercised it.

Tonight I stood in my kitchen for far longer than I should have, trying to figure out what was safe to feed my family. It is the middle of July. This is peak season for fresh fruits and vegetables. Normally we would have a big salad and berries or grapes with dinner. Instead, I found myself standing there thinking through what to have instead and reaching for frozen vegetables instead of fresh. Not because of a drought or a supply chain crisis. But because the government that is supposed to track the safety of our food supply decided it was not worth the money.

Nearly 7,000 confirmed or suspected cases of cyclosporiasis have now been reported across thirty-four states. One hundred and forty-one people have been hospitalized. No definitive source has been identified. Michigan health officials point to lettuce and salad greens, but nobody knows for certain, because the tools that were supposed to tell us have been taken apart.

When the Trump Administration said smaller government and less waste, most Americans heard “less red tape, more personal freedom.” But that is not what smaller government means to this administration. What it means is fewer people doing the work we need to stay healthy. Fewer food safety inspectors. Fewer scientists tracking parasites in the food supply. Fewer independent agency heads. Fewer career professionals at the Department of Justice who might refuse an illegal order. Fewer guardrails between a president and unchecked power.

Smaller does not mean freer. Smaller means easier to capture and control. And once you capture it, you can do whatever you want with it. They are tearing down everything that serves the people. Food safety. Environmental protection. Voting rights. The independence of the courts. The Department of Justice. The intelligence community. The career federal workforce. And they are building up the one thing that serves power: the war machine.

That is their whole strategy. When they talk about shrinking government, they are not shrinking the government’s power. They are shrinking the parts of government that serve the public and act as a check on the people in charge. If the only people left leading the departments that remain are Trump loyalists, there are fewer people who can push back, expose corruption, refuse an illegal order, or tell the American people the truth. Those jobs don’t simply disappear. They are either left vacant or filled by people chosen because they are loyal to the administration rather than to the mission of the agency.

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