Donald Trump may have looked across the pond today, seen the terrible night Keir Starmer had in the local elections and been confused. "Why doesn't he just do what I do?" he may have thought, by which he means, do everything in his power to rig elections to make it impossible for his opponents to win. That's what's happening in Tennessee, Louisiana and Alabama this week. Next week there'll be more - and they're not even trying to hide it.
Meanwhile, Trump has a pretty funny definition of ceasefire, he got weird with some kids and went full dictator with a gold statue. Here's your weekly roundup of the nonsense coming out of Trump's America.
1. Donald Trump has a funny definition of 'ceasefire'
On Thursday Donald Trump insisted the ceasefire in Iran was still intact, despite the US and Iran exchanging fire around the strait of Hormuz yesterday. The US said it was responding to incoming threats, while Iran accused the US of launching unprovoked attacks. None of this bodes well for the one-page document Trump wants Iran to sign off on to declare peace in the region and re-open the strait. Trump, who is definitely across all of this, dismissed the exchange of fire as a "trifle". And he said the world would know when the ceasefire was broken, because... "You're just going to have to look at one big glow coming out of Iran."
2. Marco Rubio met the Pope and it wasn't at all awkward
After Trump's dubious dalliance with pretending to be Christ, Marco Rubio was dispatched to the Vatican this week to try and smooth things over with the Holy See. The pictures tell the story all by themselves, but reports of what happened when they exchanged gifts sure helps. The Pope gave Rubio an olive tree branch, the "tree of peace", he noted. Rubio gave the Pope, who has taken a lifelong vow of poverty, a crystal football. The pontiff is said to have responded: "Wow. OK."
3. Trump went full dictator and erected a giant statue of himself
In perhaps the least surprising news of the week, Donald Trump has erected a giant gold statue of himself on one of his golf courses. Posting an image of the gaudy sculpture, he said on Truth Social: "The Real Deal - GOLD - At Doral in Miami. Put there by great American Patriots!!!" For the record, it's made of bronze, coated in gold leaf. On Friday there was a weird dedication ceremony. Definitely didn't scream "cult".
4. Donald Trump's palace in the sky is nearly ready to fly - but ...how?
Speaking of going full dictator, remember last year when Qatar gave Donald Trump a plane. Yeah, well apparently it's ready to fly. Which is weird. See, for a number of years, the US Air Force has been hard at work on replacements for Air Force One. The existing planes are old and creaky and in need of replacement, but you can't just take any old plane and put the President in it. The Air Force and security services have to add security features - and literally take it apart piece by piece to ensure there are no signs of sabotage or bugs. Which you'd think would be even more of a concern for a plane that has been generously given to you for free by a foreign nation that as recently as 2014 had been described as "Club Med for Terrorists" - allegedly providing financial support and a safe haven for the leaders of Hamas. But despite the conversion and upgrades to the new Air Force one taking an estimated eight years, they've managed to get this one ship shape in just one year. Weird, right?
5. More people believe in ghosts than want Trump's ballroom
Donald Trump has talked about Trump's ballroom on a third of the days this year, according to a new study by The Washington Post. White House insiders are saying it's like his comfort project. What he does to wind down at the end of a long day. When other people pour a glass of whisky, Trump thinks about his ballroom. But at a time when petrol prices are through the roof due to his war of choice in Iran, and people are feeling increasingly worried about their families future - the American people do not share his enthusiasm. And that lack of enthusiasm has not improved since people found out they would be picking up most of the tab. See, Trump initially said it would cost 200 million dollars, then that went up to 400 million dollars - and promised that would be covered by donations. But now the project responsible for the construction has asked congress for a BILLION dollars to pay for security features related to it. Now it's possible this is to do not with the ballroom, but with what's going to be in the massive basement they've dug beneath it. We just don't know. But what we do know is that Trump's ballroom is hysterically unpopular. To give you an idea of how unpopular, CNN's Harry Enten - Trump's favourite polling guru - noted that the proportion of Americans who believe in ghosts is 39%, more than 10 percentage points higher than the proportion who support his ballroom. Woof.
6. Trump's Republicans aren't wasting any time in setting up the means to rig the midterms
Republicans in Southern states have been moving quickly to try to capitalise on a recent US Supreme Court ruling in a Louisiana case that significantly weakened Voting Rights Act protections for minorities. Tennessee enacted new congressional districts yesterday that carve up a Democratic-held, Black-majority district in Memphis - making it almost impossible for a black candidate to be elected. The city of Memphis is 64% black. Currently it's covered by Tennessee's ninth congressional district. Under the new map, the city is split into three - with each seat containing a third of the city's black population. The state Democratic Party sued today, seeking to prevent the districts from being used until after this year's elections because of the tight time frame.
There were also unedifying visuals from the Tennessee Senate, where one Republican wore a Trump flag as a cape to gloat about using the Supreme Court-provided loophole to render the votes of black voters in Memphis meaningless. A Louisiana Senate committee considered several redistricting options from Republican state Sen. John “Jay” Morris that would eliminate either both or one of the current Black-majority US House districts. “Every one of these maps reduces Black voting power in every one of the districts. And I think that’s a problem,” Democratic state Sen. Sam Jenkins told Morris. Morris denied the proposed redistricting maps were racially discriminatory. He said his goal was to be “respectful of the traditional boundaries” of the state’s six congressional districts. “I don’t think we should care that much about race,” Morris said.
Meanwhile in Alabama, Republicans were so eager to approve a plan to re-draw electoral boundaries to benefit them that they rammed it through even as a tornado warning was blaring through the Senate chamber. And they passed a plan to allow a re-run of statewide primaries if the courts approve the new map. The move came the same day that the Virginia Supreme Court dealt a major setback to Democrats by overturning a redistricting plan that could have helped Democrats win as many as four additional House seats. Meanwhile, Republicans in South Carolina also presented congressional redistricting plans that faced staunch opposition from civil rights activists and Democrats.
7. Trump got extremely awkward with some children
Trump was exceedingly weird with a bunch of kids in the Oval Office. They were there to mark the relaunch of the Presidential Fitness Test, and they all looked extremely bored throughout - even though Trump kept saying things that you should probably never say in front of a child. He described in great detail how Iranian snipers targeted protesters, pointing to his forehead to drive the message home. One of the kids told him he wanted to pursue powerlifting next year, prompting Trump to go on his extended rant about transgender weightlifters. He asked the same kid if he thought he could take him in a fight. And at one point Trump looked around while discussing the people who run missile defence operations on US aircraft carriers and made a weird vocalisation with his tongue. "They say 'missile coming, missile coming'," he said, before letting out a theatrical sigh and fake typing on the desk in front of him, adding: "it's almost blablablablabla." Inevitably, Trump followed the kids outside to watch them demonstrate the sports at which they've shown aptitude. And it resulted in a bunch of schoolchildren crowded round an elderly man, teaching them how to do the weird dance he does to YMCA at the end of all his rallies.
8. Trump's refurb of an iconic landmark seems to be going very badly indeed
Regular viewers will remember that Donald Trump took one look at the multi-year, multi-million dollar plan to carefully and respectfully renovate the reflecting pool at the Lincoln memorial and decided...nah, let's turn it into a swimming pool. He proudly declared he'd scrapped the project and would be handing the care of the beloved landmark - the location of Martin Luther King's I have a dream speech - and also that scene from Forrest Gump - to some guys who used to fit pools in his hotels. And instead of repairing the granite surface of the pool, they're going to be painting it blue, with swimming pool surfacing material. When Trump announced this two weeks ago he said it would take one week and cost 1.5 million dollars. Now we don't know how much it's cost so far, but it's going to take a lot longer than a week. Two weeks on, they appear to have only completed about a quarter of the work. And while Trump insists it's going to be done in time for July 4th, when a huge fireworks display is going to happen nearby, at this rate they'll be cutting it pretty fine. And in case you thought all of this was sacrilege enough ....Trump drove his entire motorcade down the pool last night. Just to have a look.
That's it for this week - remember to like and subscribe if you've enjoyed it - let us know in the comments if there's a story you'd like us to cover. Have a good week, and try not to worry about it.
