A $250 bill and ‘WMAGA’: GOP lawmakers push legislation honoring Trump & The Republican squirm is in full swing 21JUN & 14MAI25

 THIS is disgusting, and it is also typical of politicians behavior around dictators. There will be a day when NOT MY pres drumpf / trump turns on many of these fools and they are so stupid, so ignorant, they will actually be surprised. From the Washington Post.....

A $250 bill and ‘WMAGA’: GOP lawmakers push legislation honoring Trump

Political experts say the bills, which include renaming Dulles Airport and Washington’s Metro after Trump, are unprecedented because they honor a sitting president.

June 21, 2025 at 6:00 a.m. EDTYesterday at 6:00 a.m. EDT

By Joe Heim

Late last month, Florida Republican Rep. Greg Steube introduced a bill that would halt any funding for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority unless its name was changed. Steube, whose southwest Florida district is about 950 miles from Washington, proposed WMATA be rechristened the Washington Metropolitan Authority for Greater Access or … WMAGA.

The legislation also called for Metrorail, the system’s flagship rail line, to be renamed the “Trump Train.”

The bill, Steube said in a statement, would signal a “cultural shift away from bureaucratic stagnation toward public-facing excellence and patriotism.”

Steube’s proposal is just the latest in legislative offerings this year paying tribute to President Donald Trump. House Republicans have proposed at least eight bills since January to honor the president or burnish his image. They would, among other things, put Trump’s portrait on U.S. currency, carve his face onto Mount Rushmore, rename Washington Dulles International Airport for him and make his birthday a national holiday. Two bills, both introduced by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia), called for the House to expunge Trump’s impeachments in 2019 and 2021.

Longtime political observers say the GOP’s legislative love fest for the president is well outside of congressional norms. While members have often proposed legislation that honors presidents, it is almost never while they are still in office.

“It is unprecedented and to be honest with you, it’s completely wild,” John White, professor emeritus of politics at Catholic University, said in an interview. “History shows that most things are named after presidents after they have either long left office or been deceased.”

Ronald Reagan was still alive in 1998 when Congress passed legislation renaming Washington National Airport for him. But by then, Reagan had been out of office for almost a decade and had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. White also pointed to the renaming of Idlewild Airport in New York for John F. Kennedy in December 1963, just a month after his assassination. But that was a decision proposed by New York City’s mayor at the time, not Congress.

In 2012, Congress passed bipartisan legislation that renamed federal buildings for former Democratic president Bill Clinton and former Republican presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

Steube’s proposal to rename the Metro was cheered by many from Trump’s’s base and met with derision by Democrats and other critics who saw it as a craven appeal to the commander in chief.

“WMATA is not a vanity project for Donald Trump to steamroll. It’s the backbone of our nation’s capital,” Sen Mark R. Warner (D-Virginia) posted on X. “When will House Republicans stop trying to suck up to Donald Trump and start focusing on lowering the cost of living?”

WMATA did not respond to a request for comment on the proposed change.

None of the current laundry list of Trump-praising bills are likely to become law, as they face a challenging legislative process and constitutional obstacles. But they do serve a purpose for the members who introduce them, said Casey Burgat, director of the Legislative Affairs masters program at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management.

“They’re trying to stand out amongst their peers of who can be the most supportive of a president who has a complete hold on their party,” Burgat said. “Attaching their name to something in their institutional capacity not only signals to their constituents that they’re doing this, but more importantly, probably, the president who’s looking for fealty.”

Three days after Trump’s inauguration in January, Rep. Addison McDowell (R-North Carolina) proposed renaming Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia to the “Donald J. Trump International Airport.”

“President Donald J. Trump, the greatest president of my lifetime, was just sworn into office for a second term after a historic landslide victory,” Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pennsylvania), a co-sponsor of the bill, said in a statement. “This legislation will cement his status in our nation’s capital as our fearless commander in chief, extraordinary leader and relentless champion for the American people.”

Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-New York) chose Valentine’s Day to submit a bill that would make Trump’s birthday, June 14, a national holiday along with Flag Day.

“Just as George Washington’s Birthday is codified as a federal holiday, this bill will add Trump’s Birthday to this list, recognizing him as the founder of America’s Golden Age,” Tenney said in a statement at the time. (A few days earlier, Tenney had introduced H.R.1216 — a bill that would end federal support for PBS and NPR. It is titled the Defund Government-Sponsored Propaganda Act).

“President Trump is arguably the most consequential president ever, and his place in history will be remembered for generations to come,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt in a statement. “These proposals from Republican lawmakers serve as further proof there’s never been a political leader in American history with such immense support from their Party as President Trump. The President appreciates the overwhelming support and these kind gestures from Republican lawmakers.”

Several lawmakers in the current session have served up bills that aim to make Trump’s face more ubiquitous.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Florida) introduced legislation directing the secretary of the interior “to arrange for the carving of the figure of President Donald J. Trump on Mount Rushmore National Memorial.” The National Park Service has previously said there is no suitable stable space on the monument for another face to be added.

Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) proposed H.R. 1790, the Golden Age Act of 2025, which directs the Treasury Department to print $100 bills with Trump’s portrait on them. That was just after Rep. Joe Wilson (R-South Carolina) introduced the Donald J. Trump $250 Bill Act, which would require the Treasury to print “Federal reserve notes in the denomination of $250 and such notes shall feature a portrait of Donald J. Trump.”

The $250 bill is meant to help the nation celebrate its 250 birthday next year, Wilson said in a statement, which concluded, “The most valuable bill for the most valuable President!” Numerous House members co-sponsored the bill including Steube, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-New York), Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-Tennessee), Rep. Ralph Norman (R-South Carolina) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California).

U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach, who was appointed by Trump, wrote to Wilson in late May expressing his support for the bill but acknowledging that the law does not allow living people to appear on U.S. currency. In a letter Wilson’s office shared with The Washington Post, Beach wrote, “I am willing to help in any way that I can to make this a reality.”

A spokesperson for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) did not respond to an email seeking comment. Spokespeople for other Republican representatives contacted for this story pointed to statements made when the bills were introduced.

Former Republican congressman Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, who served in Congress from 2005 to 2018 and was a chair of the House Ethics Committee, said he thinks the bills honoring Trump would probably make some current GOP House members uncomfortable and he doesn’t see much appetite for action on any of them.

“It’s better to name buildings and institutions and airports for politicians long after they’re out of office, after there’s been some time to reflect on their records and their place in history,” he said.

The various proposals honoring Trump this session are “being done to please the president,” Dent said in an interview on Friday. “I mean, he loves that kind of attention.”

Dent added that he thinks it is “ill-advised” to pass legislation bestowing honor on people in such a politically charged atmosphere.

“Usually when you do these types of honorifics, they are moments of celebration and joy to remember that individual,” Dent said. “I don’t think that’s what would happen today with the current president, certainly not while he’s in office. Maybe over time, after he’s long gone, maybe people’s views will shift on him. Who knows?”

GW’s Burgat says there’s a risk involved that the legislation introduced extolling Trump diminishes the institution’s reputation and its work.

A 2023 Congressional Research Service report on commemorations noted that beginning in the 1960s, Congress attempted to reduce legislative proposals for naming federal buildings, designating federal holidays and establishing monuments.

“These initiatives were in response to concern that the legislative time spent on commemorative measures was excessive,” the report stated.

“It undermines the job itself,” Burgat said. “Your job is to write laws, to study them. Not just memorialize the current president.”

By Joe Heim

Joe Heim joined The Washington Post in 1999. He is a staff writer for the Metro section.

The Republican squirm is in full swing

Amid extraordinary Trump gambits in recent days, Republicans are straining — hard — to avoid passing judgment.

May 14, 2025

Analysis by Aaron Blake

At times, it can seem as if President Donald Trump’s goal in life is to make his fellow Republicans squirm.

Through a multitude of controversies over the years, Trump has effectively challenged his allies to account for the latest norm-busting, legally dubious and often not-terribly-conservative proposal he has floated.

And few periods have been as squirmy as the last few days.

Trump and his top aides have floated suspending habeas corpus, pushed to accept a $400 million airplane from Qatar and sought to unilaterally lower prescription drug prices. All of these are legally dubious, and the first two are especially extraordinary.

Habeas corpus — the foundational constitutional right to challenge one’s detention in court — has been suspended only four times in American history (including during the Civil War). The Constitution requires a rebellion or invasion for its suspension.

The plane gift from Qatar poses both major security challenges and huge ethical and constitutional concerns. That’s because presidents are barred under the emoluments clause from accepting gifts from foreign leaders without congressional consent. (The plane would be used as Air Force One but then transferred to Trump’s presidential library foundation. He has claimed he wouldn’t use it personally.)

A handful of Republicans have spoken out against these proposals, especially the airplane from Qatar. But mostly their responses have been to avoid any personal judgments of the legality, advisability or morality of these moves.

And often they strain really hard.

Perhaps the most striking example was Rep. Richard McCormick’s appearance on CNN on Monday night. Anchor Kaitlan Collins peppered him with repeated questions about what he personally thought about accepting a plane from Qatar. He repeatedly volleyed back by talking about its legality and how others would render judgment.

“I’m sure that we’ll run it through the legal course, to make sure that it’s not going to be something nefarious,” McCormick (R-Georgia) said.

When pressed again for his personal view: “I can tell you that if it’s unethical, that will be up to the people to decide, or the president to decide.”

And again: “I’m not a lawyer. I’m a doctor. I’m in Congress. We’re not going to vote on this. … Whether it’s acceptable or not, that’s going to be — remain to be seen.”

After Collins noted that the Constitution explicitly says Congress must approve foreign gifts, McCormick allowed that Congress could vote on it.

Rep. Ryan Zinke’s appearance Tuesday on CNN went similarly. Zinke (R-Montana) repeatedly responded to questions about his personal views by asking questions himself — without offering firm answers.

“I understand it went through [Attorney General] Pam Bondi, so it’s legal, it’s ethical,” Zinke said, before adding: “Does it give the right message?”

“Is it a good look?” Zinke added. “Is it a good look to have a Qatari aircraft that now is the president’s?”

And: “But I understand, you know, our aircraft — is it a better aircraft? It must be. Now, to your point, does it provide a leverage [for] the Qataris?” (Zinke did answer this question with a not-totally-firm “I don’t think so.”)

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) also withheld judgment.

“Air Force One is the symbol of America,” he said. “When it lands or flies, it is America flying or landing, and I want to make sure this whole thing is kosher. Time will tell.”

And the GOP leaders of both the House and Senate offered very circumspect answers.

“It’s not my decision to make,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) told CNN on Tuesday. He emphasized the need for security checks and suggested the plane wasn’t a personal gift to Trump, but added: “Beyond that, it’s his decision. So I don’t have — there’s not a whole lot I can or should say about this.”

Johnson added Wednesday that the issue was “not my lane.”

(Not only are emoluments an issue of congressional approval, but as CNN reporter Manu Raju noted, Johnson is by trade a constitutional lawyer.)

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) toed much the same line Tuesday. He called it a “hypothetical” — even as Trump has made clear he wants to accept the plane and has detailed how the transfer would work — and said that “there will be plenty of scrutiny of whatever that arrangement might look like.”

When pressed for his personal view, Thune demurred: “There are lots of issues around that that I think will attract very serious questions, if and when it happens.”

Thune’s answer was similar when the news conference turned to Trump’s prescription drug executive order. He was again asked for his personal view, and he again fell back on talking about legal issues.

“My guess is that it’ll be the subject of probably multiple lawsuits, and I think the courts will probably have something to say about it,” Thune said, adding: “Again, we’ll see how it plays out.”

And perhaps none of these issues have produced squirming like top White House adviser Stephen Miller’s recent suggestion that Trump might suspend habeas corpus if courts continue to rule against the president’s expedited deportations.

Asked repeatedly on NBC’s “Meet the Press” whether he would vote to suspend habeas corpus, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyoming) repeatedly avoided the question — instead saying Trump would follow the law.

When asked a third time, Barrasso responded: “I don’t believe this is going to come to Congress.”

Former House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) engaged in much the same dance on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” Asked repeatedly for his view, he repeatedly cited the coming legal fights.

“It’s a very extreme measure, you know, to take,” McCaul said. He added: “So, I think the courts are going to decide this one as to whether this invasion, in fact, constitutes what would be a state of war. Some would say it would. … I think that will be a very interesting legal argument before the court.”

Indeed, it seems congressional Republicans, based on their public comments at least, regard much of what Trump is doing as an interesting legal effort — and little more.

It’s not exactly news that the Republican-controlled Congress has largely subjugated itself to Trump. It has allowed him to pursue an agenda almost completely focused on executive actions without seeking legislative input, even in areas that are supposed to be under its purview. That’s most notably the case on his tariffs, which are a power the Constitution expressly gives to Congress. (Congress enacted a historically low five laws in Trump’s first 100 days.)

But as remarkable is how little they venture opinions publicly. They seem content to suggest that maybe what Trump is doing is problematic, while hoping it will go away.

Perhaps that’s a strategy that works as well as any strategy could. Trump has at least scaled back on his tariffs, even without a GOP revolt.

But the downside is it reinforces just how irrelevant Congress is becoming. And the last few months suggest Trump is just going to keep making them squirm.

By Aaron Blake

Aaron Blake is senior political reporter, writing for The Fix. A Minnesota native, he has also written about politics for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and The Hill newspaper.

This is what happens when we have a morally lost president 16MAI25

 At this point in NOT MY pres drumpf's / trump's term we need the republican congressional "leadership" to stand before the nation and tell NOT MY pres drumpf / trump, NOT MY pres musk, NOT MY vp vance and their cabinet ENOUGH. They need to ask the Democratic congressional leadership to join them in impeaching and removing from power drumpf / trump and vance, then replace johnson as Speaker of the House with a true patriot who will then become President. Sadly this will not happen, most congressional republicans are afraid of their own shadows and have their heads so far up their asses they need snorkels to breath but they can't see the damage being done to America.

This is what happens when we have a morally lost president

What’s needed more than anything at this moment is to make our leaders moral again.

May 16, 2025

The Trump administration showed the world its true colors this week. Or, more accurately, its true color.

The president has halted the admission of refugees, including those who helped the U.S. military in Afghanistan and those fleeing war in Sudan and Congo. But he has made one exception: White South Africans.

“It is such an honor for us to receive you here today,” Christopher Landau, the No. 2 official in the State Department, told a group of 59 of these relatively wealthy migrants after they touched down at Dulles this week. He told the Afrikaners — the descendants of Europeans who ruled South Africa during apartheid — that “we respect the long tradition of your people and what you have accomplished over the years” and said of them: “When you have quality seeds, you can put them in foreign soil and they will blossom, they will bloom.”

The “quality seeds” phrase was straight out of the language of the eugenics movement — “Only healthy seed must be sown!” — from before the Second World War. Landau told reporters that Trump granted Afrikaners the exception because they had faced “egregious persecution on the basis of race.” Asked for examples, he responded with generalities, saying they “face the threat not only of expropriation but also of direct violence.” Trump himself claimed this week that the Afrikaners are victims of “genocide.”

But under the country’s “expropriation” law, no land has actually been taken from the Afrikaners, who are 7 percent of the population but own most of South Africa’s farmland. They face high levels of violence, but Black South Africans face even higher levels in what has been one of the world’s most violent countries for some time.

It’s hard to see this refugee policy, and the exception for Afrikaners, as anything but an assertion of white supremacy. What made the scene at Dulles even worse was the messenger. Landau’s father, George, and grandparents were Jews who fled Austria to escape the Nazis. In 2014, George Landau, who became an American diplomat, recorded a video for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in which he recounted that members of the family who stayed behind were deported to Poland and gassed.

Now, Christopher Landau is the mouthpiece for a policy that has closed America to refugees — except for the “quality seeds” of certain White people. I asked the State Department for a comment from Landau and was told by a spokesperson that the admission of the Afrikaners was a “tremendous accomplishment.”

This week, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Sean W. Rowe, announced that, “in light of our church’s steadfast commitment to racial justice,” the denomination would quit its participation in the refugee resettlement program rather than obey the administration’s command that it assist the White South Africans.

“It has been painful to watch one group of refugees, selected in a highly unusual manner, receive preferential treatment over many others who have been waiting in refugee camps or dangerous conditions for years,” he wrote. “I am saddened and ashamed that many of the refugees who are being denied entrance to the United States are brave people who worked alongside our military in Iraq and Afghanistan and now face danger at home because of their service to our country. I also grieve that victims of religious persecution, including Christians, have not been granted refuge in recent months.”

He asked church members to “pray for vetted refugees who have not been granted permission to come to this country.”

I am praying for them. And I am praying for us.

Trump, in his reign of selfishness, seems not to grasp that America is great because it is good. To see this, look no further than the election of America’s own Pope Leo XIV, with his long history of compassion for migrants and the poor. But Trump presents to the world the opposite: an America cruel to the least among us and indifferent to civilization’s struggle between freedom and oppression. What’s needed more than anything at this moment is to make America good again.

Last week, Bill Gates aptly characterized Trump sidekick Elon Musk and his destruction of the U.S. Agency for International Development, and with it the food and medicine needed by millions of people. “The picture of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one,” Gates told the Financial Times, saying Musk should “meet the children that have now been infected with HIV because he cut that money.”

This week, Trump abandoned any pretense of conveying the American values of freedom and democracy on his trip to the Middle East, supplanting them with the Trumpian values of greed and transactional relationships. In an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity aboard Air Force One, the president praised the representatives of the Houthis, who have been attacking Israel and shipping lanes (“very strong, very powerful, very good relationship with them”) and China’s Xi Jinping (“have always had a great relationship, a lot of respect for him”). Instead of encouraging his autocratic hosts to hold elections, he complained about American elections, again claiming that the 2020 contest was “rigged.”

In Saudi Arabia, Trump was supposed to give a “major foreign policy address.” Instead, it turned into a celebration of himself, attacks on his predecessor and effusive praise of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who, the U.S. intelligence community concluded, personally approved the murder and dismemberment of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi. “He’s an incredible man,” Trump gushed about MBS. “There’s nobody like him. … He’s your greatest representative. … I like him a lot. I like him too much. That’s why we give so much, you know? Too much. I like you too much. Great guy.” Trump said he was lifting sanctions against Syria’s government, even though its president once led a unit of al-Qaeda, at MBS’s request.

“Oh, what I do for the crown prince,” Trump told his Saudi hosts.

The week brought a jarring juxtaposition of morality. Trump, in the Middle East, kept insisting that he was entitled to a more luxurious 747, while back at home, House Republicans assembling his “big, beautiful bill” approved plans to leave millions without health care and nutrition assistance.

Trump seems determined to accept his $400 million plane from Qatar, because the current Air Force One is “much less impressive” and the United States “should have the most impressive plane.” ABC News, which broke the story, says Attorney General Pam Bondi, formerly a lobbyist for Qatar, is set to approve the gift. Even some MAGA lawmakers and commentators objected to what one of their own, Ben Shapiro, called “this kind of skeezy stuff.”

The president responded with lies. “The Boeing 747 is being given to the United States Air Force/Department of Defense, NOT TO ME!” he posted (it would go to his library when he leaves office), and he reposted a claim that the gift was akin to France giving America the Statue of Liberty (receipt of that gift was authorized by Congress, and the statue didn’t go to Grover Cleveland’s presidential library).

That was just the latest scheme, on top of the crypto schemes that are enriching his family and friends. A regulatory filing by Trump Media disclosed that the struggling business, parent of Truth Social, paid its CEO, former GOP congressman Devin Nunes, $47.6 million last year — even though the company’s total revenue was only $3.6 million, as Allan Sloan reported for Barron’s. Meanwhile, Trump ally Shahal Khan, accompanying the president in Riyadh, secured $15 billion in new investment commitments for his business from the Saudis this week.

Contrast that with events on Capitol Hill, where the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Trump’s tax package, as drafted by House Republicans, would cut $715 billion from health care, most of that from Medicaid, causing 10.3 million people to lose Medicaid coverage and 7.6 million to go uninsured. No less of a Republican than Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri called the Medicaid cuts “morally wrong.” Yet Rep. Andy Harris (Maryland), head of the right-wing Freedom Caucus, said the cuts don’t go far enough, calling the new work requirements in the bill “a joke.”

On top of this, the legislation cuts $290 billion from food stamps, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; that’s nearly one-third of the entire program. Also included: a 5 percent remittance tax to be levied on international money transfers such as the payments immigrants send to family members.

Though the trillions of dollars in tax cuts now in the legislation don’t significantly alter the relative tax burdens borne by the rich, the poor and the middle class, Republicans from high-tax states are pushing for an increased deduction for state and local taxes that would increase the tax cuts in the proposal by hundreds of billions of dollars. Almost all of that would go to households earning more than $200,000 annually.

Testifying before Congress this week, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continued to discourage people from getting the measles vaccine, even as more than 1,000 cases have been identified in the current outbreak. He claimed the vaccine contains “fetal debris,” that it wasn’t fully tested and that its immunity fades quickly. He suggested it is unsafe: “If I advise you to swim in a lake I knew there to be alligators in, wouldn’t you want me to tell you there were alligators in it?” (One should probably not take swimming advice from RFK Jr. in any circumstance; on Mother’s Day, he took his grandchildren swimming in D.C.’s Rock Creek, where bathing is banned because of bacteria and pollutants from runoff and sewers.)

Testifying to another committee at the same time, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem managed to convey equal disregard for the people in her charge. She has taken an expansive view of her job responsibilities, posing for photo ops wearing tactical gear, bulletproof vest, aviator jacket and firefighter’s uniform, and on horseback wearing a cowboy hat. But when asked about Andry José Hernández Romero, the gay makeup artist deported to a Salvadoran prison without due process, Noem said that it wasn’t in her job description to find out whether he’s still alive. “This is a question that’s best asked to the president and the government of El Salvador,” she explained.

The Founders believed that presidents would exercise a certain amount of self-restraint. There would, Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 68, “be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters preeminent for ability and virtue.” But self-restraint is not in Trump’s character.

This is why we see Trump and his aides threatening to sideline the rule of law. Top Trump lieutenant Stephen Miller, reacting to setbacks in court, said the president is “actively looking at” suspending the constitutional guarantee of habeas corpus if the courts don’t rule in Trump’s favor. Trump’s solicitor general, challenging the constitutional provision for birthright citizenship before the Supreme Court on Thursday, declined to commit the administration to obeying a ruling from an appellate court. In another case, Trump’s lawyers drew such an expansive view of his emergency powers (he has already declared at least eight national emergencies) that one judge, a Reagan appointee, remarked: “There’s no limit, is what you’re saying — there’s no limit.”

The lack of self-restraint is also why we see the Trump administration’s breathtaking assault on free thought at universities (it cut another $450 million in grants to Harvard University this week to punish the school for rejecting its meddling), on the planet (now there are plans to abolish the Energy Star program, California’s emissions standards and limits on “forever chemicals” in drinking water) and on the routine processes of government (the latest: sacking the librarian of Congress and blocking wire service reporters from Air Force One on the trip to the Middle East).

Above all, a president of more virtue would be more honest with Americans about the troubles they face.

“We just reached a historic trade agreement with the United Kingdom, and over the weekend, we reached a breakthrough agreement with China,” Trump boasted this week, saying he has “opened up” China. In reality, he has backed down from most of his tariffs, with little to show for it. The Wall Street Journal editorialized that “there’s scant sign of the substantial trade deals that Mr. Trump promises,” arguing: “As with last week’s modest British agreement, the China deal is more surrender than Trump victory.” Yet even with the retreat, the nation’s largest retailer, Walmart, said it would have to raise prices “even at the reduced levels” of tariffs announced this week.

Likewise, the vaunted savings from Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service, which Trump said could be “close to a trillion dollars,” and which Musk originally predicted to reach or exceed $2 trillion, have shriveled to peanuts. Total savings appear to be a small fraction of the $170 billion now claimed, as the administration has had to own up to “mistakes” and reinstate many contracts and government functions. Trump’s many claims about investments in the U.S. — an “explosion” of $10 trillion is this week’s figure — have similarly proved to be imaginary.

In a social media post this week about a new executive order, Trump proclaimed that “Prescription Drug and Pharmaceutical prices will be REDUCED, almost immediately, by 30% to 80%.” What he didn’t tell Americans was that a similar order he issued late in his first term achieved nothing; it was struck down by three courts before the Biden administration abandoned the doomed effort in favor of a legislative fix for drug prices. A Raymond James analyst said this order, too, would be “all bark, no bite.”

Yet the flimflam keeps coming. By the time he reached Riyadh, Trump had revised his figures on the prescription-drug order, saying, “We’ve cut our health care [costs] by 50 to 90 percent.” He further announced that “we have no inflation” in the United States and that the economy is “rocking.” Illegal border crossings, he said, are at “an all-time low, down 99.999 percent.”

His Saudi hosts had to know it was all nonsense, and it’s not clear why they would care about his silly boasts. But they were shrewd enough to respond with the one thing this president values almost as much as a free airplane: frequent applause.

By Dana Milbank

Dana Milbank is an opinion columnist for The Washington Post. He covers the White House, Congress and campaigns -- along with occasional essays about his misadventures in nature. He is a New York Times bestselling author and has written five books on politics, most recently "Fools on the Hill."