“I run the country and the world;” Bombs away
“I have the right to do whatever I want as president,” President Donald Trump said in July 2019.
“I run the country and the world,” Trump said in April 2025.
These claims are blatantly false and delusional.
Nevertheless, a combination of bullying, bluster, disdain for the rule of law and for the Constitution, a subjugated Republican-controlled Congress – and the world’s most powerful military – has allowed Trump to operate as if he has these powers.
This has resulted in countless Trump abuses of his office over the last year.
Bombs Away
Trump, who has been obsessed with seeking the Nobel Peace Prize, nevertheless has a “bombs away” mentality.
After bombing little boats in the Caribbean on the false argument they were sending drugs to the United States, Trump bombed Venezuela and captured the Venezuelan dictator, Nicolas Maduro and his wife. What he wanted all along, however, was Venezuela’s vast oil resources, which was obvious as soon as we saw that he left the rest of Maduro’s corrupt, repressive, and abusive regime in place.
Since he took office a year ago, Trump has bombed – in addition to little boats and Venezuela – Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. In addition, Trump, acting like a nineteenth-century imperialist, has also announced he wants to own Greenland, and has threatened and pressured Canada, Colombia, Cuba and Mexico.
“Donald the Dove,” as he was once labeled, is apparently running hard to win the “World Bully and Bomber” Prize of 2025.
A Pardon Trump Can’t Give
Trump, exercising his nonexistent “right to do whatever I want,” announced a pardon for Tina Peters, a former Colorado county clerk. Peters was convicted under Colorado state law for “tampering with voting equipment to prove false voter fraud claims,” and is serving a nine-year sentence.
There is only one tiny problem. Trump has zero power to pardon a person convicted under state law.
When Governor Polis refused any pardon for Peters, Trump switched to a favorite tactic, vindictive punishment against his fellow Americans.
First, the Trump administration moved to do away with Colorado’s National Center for Atmospheric Research, a recognized leading climate and weather research center. The research lab is managed by a nonprofit consortium of more than 130 colleges and universities on behalf of the National Science Foundation.
Then this week, Colorado became one of five Democratic states where the Trump administration indicated it is freezing up to $10 billion in child care and social services funding. These are essential funds for Colorado and the four other states. Trump couldn’t care less.
Trump’s willingness to punish Americans all over the country based on his personal whims is a hallmark of the unquenchable thirst for vengeance and retribution that has defined his presidency, and indeed his public life.
The 2026 Congressional Elections
Meanwhile, Trump remains fixated on his failed presidential coup. His White House put up a website on the January 6 anniversary of the mob attack on the Capitol that provides an absurd, false narrative of the events surrounding that day.
Try as he might to change the narratives, however, it is historians that write history, not participants. Trump will never be able to rewrite the history of his mob-inspired attack on the Capitol, or his failed presidential coup attempt.
The FACT is that no one – not the President, not his lemming-like associates, not Republican Members of Congress, not former Republican Members – has provided evidence to establish that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump.
Regardless, he’s almost certain to try again. Free and fair congressional elections in 2026 face serious risk. Trump goes into the 2026 election with nearly $300 million in cash on hand for his Super PAC, and that money can be focused on the relatively small number of competitive House and Senate races.
If a president can attempt a presidential coup to hold on to power, he is perfectly capable of trying to bend the 2026 congressional elections to his will to protect himself. Trump has already made clear his fear of a third impeachment if Republicans lose control of the House.
In a speech this week to a House Republican retreat, Trump said, “You got to win the midterms, because if we don’t win the midterms, it’s just going to be — I mean, they’ll find a reason to impeach me. I’ll get impeached.”
He’s right to worry. It is not just another impeachment that Trump can face if Democrats win control of the House. Trump and his administration would face subpoenas, investigations and congressional hearings on a nonstop basis.
Watergate was the worst political scandal of the 20th century. But that scandal pales in comparison to what Trump recklessly has done to the office of the presidency.
As America begins celebrating its 250th birthday, Americans have a profound choice to make, and the stakes are the constitutional order itself.
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Fred’s Weekly Note appears on Thursdays in Wertheimer’s Political Report, a Democracy 21 newsletter. Read this week’s newsletter, and other recent editions, here. And subscribe for free here and receive your copy each week via email.
