Week 45 — The Return

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

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

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

1. On Wednesday, Poland said it had detected 19 Russian violations of its airspace, and it had activated Article 4 of NATO’s treaty. Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala called it “a test of the defense capabilities of NATO countries,” while in the U.S. there was bipartisan criticism of Russia.
2. Trump posted on Truth Social, “What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones?” without condemning the incursion, which marked the first time in the history of NATO that its forces engaged Russian military hardware. European leaders spoke out forcefully.
3. On Thursday, Trump told reporters of the Russian breach, “It could have been a mistake.” Trump’s statement was rebuffed by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk who posted “it wasn’t,” and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte called the breach “dangerous and unacceptable.”
4. On Saturday, Trump demanded on Truth Social that other NATO countries “STOP BUYING OIL FROM RUSSIA,” before the U.S. would impose major additional sanctions on Russia.
5. On Sunday, Romania, also a NATO member country, said a Russian drone had entered its airspace. The European Union’s foreign policy chief called it a “reckless escalation.”
6. On Monday, NYT reported on direct ties between Trump and his Middle East enjoy Steve Witkoff with the U.A.E., including direct meetings in recent months. Trump and Witkoff benefit from multibillion crypto deals, while the U.S. agreed to sell the U.A.E. valuable computer chips.
7. On Monday, Trump sued the NYT and Penguin Random House for $15 billion over a 2024 book on how he squandered his father’s fortune, and three Times articles that were published in the run-up to the 2024 election. Trump announced the lawsuit on Truth Social on Tuesday.
8. The suit also claimed a “decades-long pattern by the New York Times of intentional and malicious defamation” against him, and its “deranged” front-page endorsement of former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.
9. On Wednesday, former acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll and former FBI officials Steven Jensen and Spencer Evans sued FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi, claiming Patel said he fired people who “his superiors told him to fire” in order to stay in Trump’s good graces and keep his job.
10. The suit also claimed Patel knew the firings violated FBI rules designed to protect agents from retaliation for working on specific investigations, saying he “knew the nature of the summary firings were likely illegal and that he could be sued and later deposed.”
11. On Wednesday, conservative influencer Charlie Kirk was shot and killed while speaking at an outdoor event at Utah Valley University, the latest example of political violence in the U.S. Similar to an assassination attempt on Trump, the shooter shot long range from a roof.
12. Kirk was one of the right’s most prominent and polarizing voices, known for extreme positions on race, feminism, LGBTQ rights, and immigration, and for amplifying false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. Trump was close to Kirk, and said he was like a “son” to him.
13. Hours after the shooting, Patel announced on social media that the person who shot Kirk was in custody. Patel’s claim was contradicted by local officials. After hours of confusion, the FBI clarified that two people had been questioned about the shooting, and both released.
14. Among the dozens of senior FBI officials forced out by Patel for not being sufficiently loyal to Trump was the former head of the agency’s Salt Lake City field office, Mehtab Syed, a highly regarded former counterterrorism agent. That office took the lead on the investigation.
15. NYT reported during the day, Trump’s grief turned to fury. In an evening video address, even before a suspect was found, Trump blamed the media and the “radical left.” He promised to find those responsible and the “organizations that fund it and support it.”
16. NYT reported mentions of the word “civil war” surged online on Wednesday, with more than 129,000 mentions on the social platform X, alone. The term was also used by right-wing leaders Alex Jones, Chaya Raichik of LibsofTikTok, and Andrew Tate.
17. Elon Musk posted about the murder on his platform X, in widely shared posts even before a suspect had been identified, “The left is the party of murder,” and “If they won’t leave us in peace, then our choice is fight or die.”
18. Reuters reported right-wing anger surging online, with many blaming the political left and their hostility towards the Make America Great Again movement for the killing, calling for vengeance, even before facts about the suspect were known.
19. On Friday, Trump announced on Fox & Friend that Kirk’s killer was in custody, and doubled down on blaming the “radical left.” He excused radicals on the right who he said were motivated by not wanting crime, but claimed “the radicals on the left are the problem.”
20. Even as the suspect was not affiliated with a political party, Trump blamed his political opponents, adding, “they’re vicious and they’re horrible,” and “they want men in women sports, they want transgender for everyone, they want open borders.”
21. Trump also baselessly blamed George Soros for fomenting political violence, saying, “We’re going to look into Soros because I think it’s a RICO case against him and other people because this is more than protests,” adding, “This is real agitation; this is riots on the street.”
22. Trump also said he would send National Guard troops to Memphis next instead of Chicago, saying, “Memphis is deeply troubled” and “The people will greet us,” and added of Chicago, “we don’t want to go into a hostile…” before trailing off.
23. Shortly after, in contrast to Trump, Utah Governor Spencer Cox urged civility, saying, “The problem with political violence is it metastasizes,” adding, “at some point we have to find an off ramp,” and for young people feeling rage, encouraged “we can choose a different path.”
24. MSNBC fired political analyst Matthew Dowd, who shortly after the shooting said it was a case of “hateful words” leading to “hateful actions.” The network’s leaders also apologized for his “inappropriate, insensitive and unacceptable” remarks.
25. Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post fired Karen Attiah, an opinion columnist, over social media posts expressing frustration with the lack of effort to curb gun violence and political violence, criticizing inaction from “white America,” and “racial double standards.”
26. NYT reported right-wing activists urged their followers to expose anyone on social media who in any way celebrated Kirk’s killing, or said negative things about him. The social media activism had already led to multiple firings, suspensions, and internal investigations.
27. NBC News reported Defense Department Sec. Pete Hegseth told his staff to identify anyone in the military who posted content celebrating or mocking the death of Kirk. Several service members were relieved from their positions.
28. Secretary of the Navy John Phelan posted on X that “any uniformed or civilian employee” of the Navy who “posts displaying contempt toward a fellow American who was assassinated” will “be dealt with swiftly and decisively.”
29. Transportation Department Sec. Sean Duffy called for the firings of American Airlines pilots he said had celebrated Kirk’s death, posting on X, “glorifying political violence is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE!” The pilots were fired. Delta suspended employees pending an investigation.
30. Employees at schools and universities and in the health care sector were also fired over social media posts. An Office Depot employee was fired over refusing to print flyers about Kirk for a customer.
31. Republican Rep. Clay Higgins said he would seek immediate lifetime bans from social media platforms for anyone who “belittled the assassination” Kirk, adding they should lose their business licenses, be kicked out of school, and have their driver licenses revoked.
32. While Trump ordered flags flown at half-staff for Kirk, Jon Green, chair of the Johnson county board of supervisors in Iowa, refused, saying he would not grant “honors to a man who made it his life’s mission to denigrate so many of the constituents I have sworn an oath to protect.”
33. NBC News reported that members of Congress from both parties feared for their safety after the assassination. Members of both parties moved events from outdoors to indoors, or canceled them altogether, saying they would no longer hold large town halls or public events.
34. NPR reported a record 37 members of Congress are not running for re-election in 2026, including 27 Republicans and 10 Democrats in the House and Senate. Several of the Republicans have clashed with Trump.
35. U.S. Circuit Judge Amy St. Eve, head of the U.S. Judicial Conference’s budget committee, lamented that a bill containing $88 million to bolster security for federal officials following the Kirk shooting did not add any new funding to protect courthouses that are increasingly at risk.
36. On Sunday, Fox News host Brian Kilmeade made a rare public apology over comments he made the prior Wednesday on his show, saying homeless people should be given “involuntary lethal injection.”
37. On Monday, Vice President JD Vance guest-hosted Kirk’s podcast, and suggested, without evidence, that Tyler Robinson, the alleged shooter, was part of a coordinated, left-wing network that was fomenting violence against conservatives.
38. Vance singled out Soros’s Open Society Foundations and the Ford Foundation and said both benefited from a “generous tax treatment,” and appeared to threaten their tax-exempt status, even though, similar to threats against universities, that would need to come from the IRS.
39. Two senior regime officials told the NYT that senior officials were working to identify organizations that funded or supported violence against conservatives, as part of a plan to label them as encouraging “domestic terrorism,” in a further escalation of silencing dissent.
40. Ironically, while praising Kirk’s efforts on free speech, Stephen Miller threatened on the podcast “to identify, disrupt, eliminate and destroy this network,” to exact a price against the “far left,” who they baselessly accused of fomenting violence.
41. On Monday, a website, which called itself the Charlie Kirk Data Foundation, published a searchable list of more than 63,000 people it accused of posting negative things about Kirk. As of Monday, more than 30 employers had fired employees over their social media posts.
42. Vance endorsed the mass doxing campaign on the podcast, saying people who “see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder” should “call them out,” adding, “Hell, call their employer. We don’t believe in political violence, but we do believe in civility.”
43. On Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News that his agency would deny visas to foreign citizens who posted messages on social media approving of Kirk’s killing.
44. On Monday, Attorney General Bondi told Fox News that she had directed the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division to “prosecute” any business that refuses to print Kirk’s pictures for vigils.
45. On Tuesday, Bondi said in a podcast interview, “There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech,” and that in the aftermath of Kirk’s death, the DOJ would “absolutely target” anyone who is “targeting anyone with hate speech.” The statement faced bipartisan criticism.
46. On Tuesday, Trump continued to baselessly suggest that Democratic organizations and protesters are part of a violent conspiracy against conservatives, telling reporters, “it hasn’t been fair, and the radical left has done tremendous damage to the country.”
47. On Tuesday, former president Barack Obama said the nation is in a “political crisis,” saying Trump and his allies were using Kirk’s death to sow division and silence debate about Kirk’s ideas, “calling political opponents ‘vermin,’ enemies who need to be ‘targeted.’”
48. On Tuesday, prosecutors filed a notice to seek the death penalty for Tyler Robinson, and released evidence including texts from Robinson saying he killed Kirk because he “spreads too much hate.” Prosecutors said he acted alone and there was no evidence of a coordinated effort.
49. On Wednesday, Education Department Sec. Linda McMahon ended $350 million in federal grants for colleges that serve minorities, claiming the programs support certain enrollment requirement that the regime say unfairly support minorities and are therefore ‘racist.’
50. On Friday, the University of California, Berkeley said it had given the Education Department about 160 names of students, faculty, and staffers in order to comply with the regime’s investigation of antisemitism on college campuses.
51. On Tuesday, University of California students, professors, and staff sued the Trump regime, saying it is using civil rights laws to curtail academic freedom and undermine free speech.
52. On Thursday, a federal appeals court ruled the Trump regime can cut off Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood, overturning a lower court ruling. The unanimous two-page order offered no reasoning.
53. On Wednesday, Senate Republicans blocked consideration of a measure to release the Jeffery Epstein files, in a 51–49 vote. Two Republicans voted with Democrats.
54. On Thursday, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer fired U.S. Ambassador Peter Mandelson, citing “the depth and extent” of his relationship with Epstein, which were revealed in emails released by the Epstein estate last week.
55. On Friday, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer told reporters that the Treasury Department will share financial documents related to Epstein, including suspicious activity reports related to Ghislaine Maxwell, with his committee.
56. Maurene Comey, the former federal prosecutor on high profile cases, including Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, sued the Trump regime, alleging her firing was unlawful and unconstitutional, as it was “without cause, without advance notice, and without an opportunity to contest it.”
57. WAPO reported internal documents at the National Guard show the activation of 2,300 troops in D.C. led to public views that the deployments are “leveraging fear,” driving a “wedge between citizens and the military,” and promoting a sense of “shame” among troops.
58. On Friday, a federal appeals court reversed a lower court ruling, finding the Trump regime can end temporary legal protections for around 430,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
59. On Friday, lawyers for five migrants deported to Ghana sued the Trump regime for wrongful deportations, saying the regime knowingly ignored court-ordered protections for their clients called “withholding of removal,” similar to what was given to Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
60. WAPO reported a contractually required inspection found ICE’s unfinished facility at the new detention center at Fort Bliss in Texas had subjected migrants to conditions that violated at least 60 federal standards for immigrant detention.
61. On Thursday, weekly jobless claims jumped to a seasonally adjusted 263,000, well above expectations, and the highest in four years. Consumer sentiment also fell, as economists warned of stagflation.
62. Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed consumer prices rose 2.9 percent, with grocery prices of goods like beef, eggs, and coffee increasingly by double digits. Trump ran on bringing costs down and creating jobs. The data could have major impact on midterms.
63. On Sunday, Trump made another push to the federal appeals court to allow him to fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook ahead of the next Fed meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday, claiming she had failed to dispute the regime’s claims.
64. Cook’s lawyer made a final argument against a stay, saying it would be “the first signal from the courts that our system of government is no longer able to guarantee the independence of the Federal Reserve,” and warning of a slippery slope with “dire” consequences for the economy.
65. Late Monday, a federal appeals court ruled 2–1, blocking Trump from removing Cook ahead of the Fed’s interest rate meeting on Tuesday, finding she “may not be removed prior to being provided ‘some kind’ of meaningful notice and opportunity to respond.”
66. The Trump regime said it would appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court on Tuesday. However there was no public indication that the regime’s lawyers had moved forward to ask the justices to intervene before the Fed meeting begins on Tuesday.
67. Although Cook was able to attend the meeting, so too was White House official, now Fed governor, Stephen Miran, who was confirmed by the Senate late Monday by a 48–47 vote margin, along party lines, shifting the composition to three Trump allies of the seven governors.
68. On Monday, the Trump regime sought to limit the fallout from its raid of a Hyundai plant in Week 44. Trump posted on Truth Social that foreign workers are “welcome” and in the U.S., adding, “I don’t want to frighten off or disincentivize Investment into America.”
69. Christopher Landau, a top regime U.S. diplomat, publicly expressed regret over the raid, and said that South Korean workers would face no disadvantages in reentering the U.S., and that the regime would work to prevent similar incidents in the future.
70. On Tuesday, Trump unilaterally extended the Congressional deadline to shut down TikTok for the fourth time. Trump said groups of companies want to buy the company’s U.S. operations. The regime used a potential deal as a negotiating chip with China.
71. Oracle, founded by Trump ally Larry Ellison, was picked by Trump to handle data collection if a deal goes through. Oracle has also been mentioned as a potential buyer. Ellison’s son David recently took over Paramount, which owns CBS News.
72. Reuters reported the U.S. Department of Agriculture is considering economic aid for farmers, after China, once the top buyer of U.S. soybeans, has halted orders due to Trump’s trade war. Farmer worried about a repeat of the financial losses of 2018, during the first regime.
73. On Wednesday, Democratic Senators raised concerns in a letter that David Sacks, Trump’s appointed crypto and AI czar, had well overstayed his 130-day as a Special Government Employees, warning it raised “additional ethics concerns” given the regime’s new rules in crypto.
74. On Thursday, Brazil’s Supreme Court sentenced Trump ally, former president Jair Bolsonaro, to 27 years in prison over his plotting a coup of the 2020 election. Rubio posted on X that the U.S. will “respond accordingly” to what he called a “witch hunt.”
75. On Friday, WAPO reported that Trump regime health officials planned to link the death of 25 children to coronavirus vaccines, as they seek to limit access to the vaccinations. Scientists said the findings were based on unverified reports of side effects or bad experiences.
76. A WAPO-Kaiser Family Foundation poll found 1 in 6 parents are skipping or delaying vaccines for their children, rejecting vaccine recommendations, over concerns with vaccinations. Nearly 1 in 10 are skipping polio or measles, mumps, and rubella shots.
77. The Environmental Protection Agency proposed ending a rule that mandated 8,000 facilities report their greenhouse gas emissions, saying it was too burdensome. The 2010 rule had impacted coal-burning power plants, oil refineries, steel mills, and other industrial facilities.
78. On Friday, a federal judge ruled that the Trump regime’s mass firing of probationary employees from 17 agencies was illegal, citing the firings of thousands of employees was done by the Office of Personnel, not the agencies where the employees worked.
79. The judge did not however order the regime to reinstate the thousands of employees, citing the Supreme Court had allowed the purge to proceed, and many employees have taken new jobs or their positions have been eliminated. The union and nonprofits that had sued called it a victory.
80. On Monday, the Trump regime ordered the removal of signs and exhibits related to slavery at multiple national parks, including “The Scourged Back,” a historic photograph take in 1863 of a formerly enslaved man showing scars on his back.
81. WAPO reported bipartisan members of Congress are pushing a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act, which would roll back Hegseth’s renaming Army bases named for Confederate leaders. Hegseth’s move had reversed a 2020 Congressional initiative.
82. On Monday, Trump posted on Truth Social that he ordered a military strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat, the second of its kind in two weeks, adding, “The Strike resulted in 3 male terrorists killed.” Critics have questioned the legal justification for this use of the military.
83. A Georgia Supreme Court refused 4–3 to hear Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ appeal of her removal from the 2020 Georgia election interference case against Trump and others. Trump celebrated “a great decision” and called the case “a rigged case to start off with.”
84. Willis said she would pass over the file and evidence to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia so it can appoint a new prosecutor to replace her. However, it is unlikely Trump could be prosecuted since he is now president.
85. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor evoked the notion of a “king” in remarks to law students about gaps in knowledge among Americans on democratic institutions, individual rights, and the rule of law, saying, “Do we understand what the difference is between a king and a president?”
86. Four were arrested on Tuesday, after projecting images of Trump alongside Epstein on Britain’s Windsor Castle, where Trump was set to be hosted by King Charles for an unprecedented second time during his state visit to Britain.
87. British television station Channel 4, a publicly owned broadcaster, announced that it would air Trump v The Truth on Wednesday as Trump arrived for his state visit, a marathon special chronicling the lies told by Trump during the first and second regimes.