We could all use a reminder that public service is a noble cause, that there are people who enter public life because they want to make others’ lives better, not their own. This week’s opening of the Barack Obama Presidential Center fits that bill and is our reason to smile.

At a time when our politics have become a blood sport, it is restorative to witness a celebration instead of a fight, joy in place of angst.

The star-studded dedication ceremony was capped off with a group of A-listers performing for the Obamas, three other former presidents and their spouses, and the rapt crowd. For the last number, Stevie Wonder was accompanied by John Legend, Jennifer Hudson, Bruce Springsteen, Common, Christina Aguilera, and Eddie Vedder, backed by The Roots on his classic, “Higher Ground.”

Barack and Michelle Obama were very thoughtful about what they wanted the center to be, not just a traditional presidential library, filled with documents and a few mementos. It is the repository for the Obama presidency archives, the first fully digital presidential archive, but it is also meant to be a place where people can gather, talk, and play.

Built on the South Side of Chicago, where Mrs. Obama grew up and where President Obama was a community organizer, the $850 million center expects to draw millions of visitors every year. If you can get a ticket — the next available is for December — you will enter the museum and educational center through the John Lewis Plaza. You can then enjoy the full-sized basketball court, public park, garden, a playground, and borrow a book from a branch of the Chicago Public Library.

The center opened to the public on Friday, Juneteenth, the holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States and honoring the contributions of Black Americans.

Mrs. Obama spoke about the importance of the center at this moment in our history.

“The Obama Presidential Center was created as a beacon of hope, a monument to our unshakable values, the ones my husband has exemplified his entire life: equality, empathy, honesty, inclusion, fairness. And especially during these anxious and divisive times, it is so important that we remember that those values are not unique to my husband. They are the same ones that your husbands and wives, your parents and children, your friends and neighbors exhibit and pass on. Every single day, millions of people in this country wake up doing their very best to live decent and purposeful lives.”

President Obama talked about the power of our shared values.

“And it’s why the exhibits here focus not just on policies but on the shared values that make democracy possible. A belief in the intrinsic dignity and worth of all people, and that no one is above the law or beneath its protection. A belief in checks and balances in our government, and an accountability that comes with an independent judiciary, and a robust free press. A belief that our military and law enforcement owe allegiance not to any president or political party, but to the people and our Constitution. A belief in the peaceful transfer of power after the people have spoken in fair and free elections, recognizing that in a large, complicated society like ours, no group or faction gets its way 100% of the time. And a belief that qualities of character, honesty, integrity, kindness, compassion, a sense of duty and honor, those things matter in our public dealings, just as they do in our private lives.”

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Bombs and bullying didn’t cut it. Neither will real estate buddies as peace negotiators. Nevertheless, there is a deal to end it. Or so says the president.

With this war, as with almost everything else having to do with this president, skepticism is wise. For what it may be worth, we are told that after a 100-plus day war with Iran, it is over. By any objective analysis, Donald Trump lost. The buck and the blame begin and end with him.

American citizens lost too, those who voted for him and those who didn’t. Because of the president’s misguided adventure, we are all left with horrific inflation, much higher gas prices, and a country with diminished standing around the world.

If the deal was so great, why did they keep it a secret for days? It leaked, of course, and now we know why it was kept under wraps. What Trump is offering the Iranians is dangerously close to a white flag. Why? This war and its consequences are damaging the president politically and he wants out.

This war Trump chose to start and struggles to end cost Americans and the world dearly. What began with a barrage of bombs and triumphal bluster is ending with a whimper, if it is indeed ending.

More than 5,000 human lives were lost to this war. American, Iranian, Israeli, Lebanese, and Iraqi lives. An additional 35,000 people are estimated to have been injured.

Thirteen members of the American military have been killed and 413 wounded. Those are the official Defense Department numbers.

The financial cost is in the tens of billions of dollars. The Pentagon, no longer a provider of trusted information, puts the direct military cost of war at $29 billion. It has also requested $200 billion from Congress to cover shortfalls, war-related repairs, and equipment replacement.

The reputational cost to the United States is harder to calculate. Our (perhaps former) allies in Europe and Asia have ample reason to distrust their once stalwart partner. China, Russia, and North Korea figured to be emboldened by Trump’s loss.

None of those costs seemed to have been taken into account as Vice President JD Vance, Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and Steve Witkoff, the president’s friend, negotiated this latest deal to end the war.

The pending memorandum of understanding (MOU), a precursor to a final deal, will be signed on Friday in Geneva. The one-and-a-half pager is short on details and teeth. Here are the highlights:

• Extension of the cease-fire for 60 days as final details are hammered out

• Iran will open the Strait of Hormuz within 30 days.

• Iran will not charge a fee to go through the Strait of Hormuz for 60 days, though after 60 days is anyone’s guess.

• Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium will be “adequately addressed” (whatever, if anything, that may mean).

• Iran will be allowed to sell oil.

• Sanctions will be lifted and assets unfrozen (a tremendous haul of money for the Iranians).

• Iran will be given $300 billion for Gulf state neighbors to rebuild, provided the strait remains open and they promise to never produce a nuclear weapon.

A lot is missing from this agreement. For one, uranium won’t be seized. Trump defended that decision on Tuesday. “You could make the case, ‘Why are you even bothering?’ Because it’s not really valuable,” he said. The most glaring omission from the MOU is an enforcement mechanism, unlike the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, President Obama’s 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, which took two years to negotiate.

It restricted Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium, limited the development of new technology, dismantled several nuclear facilities, and, most importantly, gave the International Atomic Energy Agency authority to conduct inspections at will.

Trump called that “the worst agreement” and withdrew from the accord during his first term. This led to Tehran expanding its enrichment program, which in turn precipitated the U.S. bombing of Iranian nuclear sites a year ago.

Any mention of or comparison to Obama’s deal with Iran enrages Trump.

Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, said there is no comparison. The 2015 pact was “a very detailed and very technical agreement” with “implementation mechanisms and oversight… This [Trump] thing sounds like something that was pieced together over WhatsApp messages,” he told the Financial Times.

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None of the stated goals of the war, a moving target at best, will be achieved with this deal. Regime change? No, though the Ayatollah was killed, his even more hardline son took his place. Freedom for the Iranian people? No, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard put down any protests. Elimination of the Iranian nuclear program? No, only a promise to never acquire nuclear weapons. Destruction of terror proxies? No, Hezbollah and the Houthis remain largely intact.

In addition to not achieving his objectives, Trump seems to have lost the plot. On Wednesday, at the G7 Summit in France, he called the Iranian government “very rational people. They are nice to deal with, they are strong and smart people. They are not radicalized, and they are looking to help their country.” To be clear, Iran is a brutal authoritarian theocracy that has put down any attempt by its citizens to protest its hardline policies.

Almost no one is happy with the deal, including many Trump loyalists.

“Trump has surrendered to Iran.” - Erick Erickson, conservative radio host

“…all the makings of a humiliation after all of the president’s tough talk.” - The National Review editorial

Giving billions to Iran is like offering “the Marshall Plan to rebuild Germany while the Nazis were still in power.” - Marc Thiessen, Fox (News) commentator

“Unless you were homeschooled by a day drinker, no one’s confident that Iran is going to do anything.” - Senator John Kennedy (R-LA)

Even Iran war-fan and Trump enabler Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has reservations, though he suggested only “the architect of the deal, Vice President Vance” come before Congress to defend it.

Trump would like nothing more than to put his critics and this ill-conceived war behind him. But don’t think he is done dabbling in international affairs. He reportedly has his sights set on regime change in Cuba. And acquiring Greenland is not off the table.

With the midterms just months away and his status as a lame duck president looming, Trump is trying to stay relevant through one foreign move after another.

Meanwhile, even if the new version of a peace deal holds, we will be considerably worse off than we were the day before the war started. Most notably, the roles have been reversed with Iranians emerging more powerful, and our president more pathetic.

And more dangerous.

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One trillion dollars is an almost unfathomable amount of money. It is one million millions, a thousand billions. It would take someone spending $1 million a day for 2,700 years to unload a trillion dollars. It is also what Elon Musk is now worth, thanks to the initial public offering (IPO) of his space exploration company, SpaceX.

Musk is the first person ever to amass this level of wealth. Even by multi-billionaire standards, it is extraordinary. He is worth more than the next four richest people in the world combined. The average American is closer to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s net worth than Bezos is to Musk’s by three-quarters of a trillion dollars.

Musk didn’t get rich in a vacuum. He had a lot of help along the way, including assistance from the United States government and Donald Trump himself, whom Musk backed in his run for president to the tune of $270 million.

Prior to Inauguration Day 2025, there were 32 open federal investigations of Musk’s companies — for unfair labor practices, worker and vehicle safety issues, environmental damage, and conflicts of interest. Then, Trump tapped Musk to helm his newly established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk was now overseeing the very agencies investigating his companies. This may come as a shock, but none of those investigations led to any charges or fines.

He has also benefited directly from the largess of the federal government. SpaceX received a $500 million bailout in the form of NASA grants when the fledgling company was nearly broke. Tesla received a $465 million federal loan and profited from increased sales because of clean energy subsidies and tax credits.

It should come as no surprise that the SpaceX IPO broke a lot of rules, and not just on the record-shattering $75 billion it raised in the first day.

Before adding a new stock, market indices require a seasoning period for new companies, usually a year, to make sure they are profitable. The Dow Jones refused to lift this rule for SpaceX, but the Nasdaq agreed to Musk’s demand. Just 15 days after the IPO, SpaceX will join the Nasdaq.

This is why, even if you don’t want to spend $178 to buy a share of SpaceX, you may well become an investor. Your 401(k), pension fund, or mutual fund invests in index stocks, which hold all or a representative sample of stocks in an exchange. The Nasdaq is the second-largest stock exchange in the world. The New York Stock Exchange is the largest.

Employees and pre-IPO investors are typically barred from selling shares for 180 days, but Musk didn’t like the rule, so SpaceX wrote a new policy bypassing it, making the stock even more appealing.

Once a company goes public it almost always has increased oversight, transparency, and an independent board of directors. Not so with SpaceX. Musk has retained near total control with 85.1% voting power. And he can’t be fired.

The frenzy around this IPO was unprecedented, especially for a company that posted a net loss of $4.94 billion in 2025. And its stated mission, to colonize Mars, is years, likely decades in the future.

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Musk’s greed that spurred the SpaceX IPO is a by-product of the exponentially increasing wealth gap in America. The rich get richer because they want to get richer and they have the means to compound their wealth.

The president is a member of that club. Since taking office a second time, Trump’s net worth has nearly tripled from $2.3 billion to $6.2 billion, according to Forbes. His children have also seen their bank accounts bulge.

At a time when a majority of Americans are struggling financially, when a tomato costs almost twice what it did a year ago, when half of the country isn’t able to save for retirement, the richest man in the world wasn’t satisfied with his billions. He needed a trillion and hasn’t ruled out the possibility of becoming a quadrillionaire.

The wealth gap has existed since our country’s founding, but it has exploded in the last half century. In 1965, CEO to worker compensation was 20 to 1. In 2025 it ballooned to 285 to 1. For the top 20 companies with low-wage workers, like Walmart and Chipotle, the average is 900 to 1. The CEO of Starbucks makes 6,600 times more than the average barista.

Many of Trump’s policies and decisions have widened the financial chasm. The war with Iran has cost Americans more than $59 billion in extra fuel costs, according to Brown University’s Iran War Energy Cost Tracker. Trump’s tax and spending bill of last summer hurt the most vulnerable by cutting Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), while giving tax cuts to Musk and his billionaire friends.

And then there is Social Security. On Monday, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson called for cuts to the social safety net program that benefits 68 million Americans. Last week, a Social Security trustees’ report said that without congressional action, benefits would automatically be cut in 2032 by 22%, sooner than expected.

We have been told for decades that Social Security needs reform if it is to remain solvent. The president’s policies have moved that timeline up. According to the Social Security Administration, Trump’s tax cuts, expelling immigrants who pay into the system but receive no benefits, and other actions have significantly reduced revenues.

The biggest irony is that the president founded his MAGA movement on the promise to make America great again, whatever that meant. Seventy-seven million voters bought into his hokum. Many believed it would be a return to a simpler time. Trump’s billionaire oligarchy is not that.

Trump, Musk, and their billionaires brethren are getting richer by the hour, and left unchecked, their crypto, AI, and data center investment schemes could cripple this country’s workforce.

Meanwhile, it is the working class that is struggling. A quarter of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. A recent study by the Century Foundation, a progressive think tank, found “From health care to groceries, Americans can’t afford the basics of a healthy, stable life in Trump’s economy — leading many to take drastic measures to stay afloat.” Those measures include skipping meals and medicines.

Thinking back on all those rallies where Trump made all of those promises, to see where we are today, is tragic. MAGA is a big con — one of the biggest of all time — brought to you by a pretend populist who has demonstrated that he cares little or nothing for average Americans. He worships money, power, and the likes of Musk, but his loyalty is only to himself.

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The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, known by millions as The Kennedy Center, is a national treasure. Let’s not lose sight of its decades of work promoting and honoring the performing arts in America. It is this week’s reason to smile.

Conceived as a “living memorial” to President Kennedy, a lover and supporter of the arts, the Center opened in 1971. For 55 years, it has hosted dance performances, concerts, operas, plays, and musicals. It is the home of the National Symphony Orchestra and, until recently, the Washington National Opera. It also provides arts education and outreach locally and nationally.

It is best known for the Kennedy Center Honors, which are awarded annually to five artists for lifetime contributions to American culture and the performing arts. It is one of the most recognizable and coveted national arts prizes.

To date, 263 people or groups have received the honor — choreographers and dancers, singers and songwriters, performers, actors, and directors, in almost every performance genre. Together, they represent nearly every corner of the performing arts, from jazz, classical, pop, rock, and country music to ballet, modern dance, tap, ballroom, theater, comedy, musicals, and opera.

Among the highlights of the televised awards ceremony are the performances by big-name artists honoring their mentors. It was hard to choose just one, but we settled on a knockout performance of a rollicking musical number — Beyoncé’s tribute to 2005 recipient Tina Turner with her version of Turner’s hit, “Proud Mary.”

In case it wasn’t clear before, the Kennedy Center was named for the 35th president, not the 47th. Work crews removed the current president’s name from the facade, which he illegally added last year. It was taken down in the small hours of Saturday morning by court order. A tarp was draped over the scaffolding to block the public’s view. In a sense, the infamously thin-skinned president redacted his removal. Blocking out his name is not unusual for this administration. But rest assured, it is gone.

The legal wrangling over names and artistic direction is a shame that detracts from the Center’s mission of “bringing artists and audiences together through performances, education, and creative experiences that inspire communities across the country.”

Legal courts and the court of public opinion are helping to move the Kennedy Center back to its core values: the arts.

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For 507 days, you have had a front row seat to the wholesale dismantling of American democracy. Since Donald Trump was sworn in, he has commanded an executive branch riddled with corruption and incompetence, focused on gaslighting, aggrandizement, and retribution — not governing.

In the ensuing 17 months, the president pardoned convicted insurrectionists, imposed illegal tariffs, dismantled scientific and medical research, started a war of choice that he can’t seem to end, caused inflation to double, pushed millions off health insurance, and inflicted draconian immigration measures. He forced mid-decade redistricting because his party can’t win without cheating, granted himself and his family tax amnesty while seeing his net worth balloon by billions, all while continuing to discredit the 2020 election results.

The word unprecedented has become almost meaningless because most of what Trump does has not been done before, and for good reason — it is either immoral or illegal.

And yet, my Steady friends, we have learned to survive this. How? The power of perspective.

Living through the onslaught of norm-eroding maneuverings by this president is a daily trial. When you do a quick compilation, it’s staggering what he has wrought. So it is important to take stock and not become numb to his megalomania.

In just five months, you will be able to do something more than wring your hands, march in your communities, shake your head, call your congressman, or pull your hair out in frustration.

You will be able to vote — the most powerful collective action you can take.

Trump claims he “doesn’t care” about the midterm elections. He says he isn’t thinking “even a little bit” about Americans’ finances, or apparently, inflation.

As of this week, inflation hit 4.2%, the highest it has been in three years. In an Oval Office press availability, when asked about the new numbers, the president said, “I love it. The numbers are great. I love the inflation.”

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He may love inflation, but Americans don’t. In a new survey by IPSOS, one of the world’s leading polling operations, 72% of respondents disapprove of Trump’s handling of inflation. His numbers on the overall economy and the cost of living are similarly bad.

In an effort to spin the unspinnable, Speaker of the House and Trump lapdog Mike Johnson claimed the president’s remarks were taken out of context. What context? Trump said it just as it is written, in a room full of reporters with cameras rolling.

There are some other numbers Trump might nonsensically claim to love, but no doubt concern him. A Fox poll (yes, Fox) has Trump’s approval rating at 33%. That is 12 points lower than it was before the 2018 midterm elections, when Republicans lost 40 seats in the House.

Nothing on Trump’s political horizon assures that any of these numbers will improve dramatically.

The war in Iran, a war Trump chose to start, has caused a global financial crisis, one that many economists fear may lead to a recession. Trump promised the war would be quick. Two to three weeks, he said. We are 15 weeks in with what is still called a “ceasefire” crumbling amid new attacks from both sides.

Trump says the Iranians have “taken too long to negotiate a deal.” He threatened they would “pay the price” for not accepting one. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth clarified what that price would be. “If we need to negotiate with bombs, we’ll negotiate with bombs. And we’re very good at it.”

Trump tossed the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which was designed to suppress Tehran’s ability to acquire a nuclear weapon. It took the Obama administration 20 months to negotiate. Trump treats diplomacy like speed dating.

Even if the war ends tomorrow, which it won’t, the financial damage has been done. Undoing it will take months, if not years.

And now the Epstein files are back on the front page of The New York Times, at least. This week, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan reported on the administration’s freakout over the release of the files last summer.

In late June, Attorney General Pam Bondi promised to release the files and claimed to have the “client list” on her desk. It was a bluff. In a panic, top Trump administration officials gathered in the Situation Room, according to the Times, a place usually reserved for high-level national security meetings, to strategize. They needed to figure out how to control a massive story that could do significant harm to the president.

What followed was a bungled, slow-drip release of heavily redacted files. The president’s name is mentioned thousands of times. Why there is no smoking gun — either because it doesn’t exist or has been redacted — is anyone’s guess. Rightly or wrongly, the story continues to haunt Trump and the Republican Party.

Trump’s attempts to honor himself, because deep down he knows no one will do it when he’s gone, are hitting legal roadblocks. He didn’t get the congressional funding he demanded for his ballroom, while his triumphal arch is mired in procedural issues.

Perhaps the most encouraging story comes from the Kennedy Center in Washington, where a judge has ordered Donald Trump’s name removed from everything, including the website and building’s facade. The judge has demanded it be done by Friday.

In the grand scheme of Trump’s destructive acts, what’s happening at the Kennedy Center may be of less importance. However, the removal of the president’s name from anything in Washington is hugely symbolic for many frustrated Americans.

An arts nonprofit has installed a live camera trained on the Kennedy Center so everyone can watch when it happens. Stay tuned.

Trump has overplayed his hand. He still believes he can convince anyone of anything. But after a year and a half of broken promise after broken promise, only his most diehard supporters are still buying what he’s selling, even if they can’t afford it.

The midterms will come down to this: which candidates can get the electorate excited enough to turn out. Trump still has the power to do that within the base. But that base is shrinking.

To prevail in November, both parties need to expand their tents. Trump’s actions are making the Republicans’ tent smaller. His go-to issue, undermining faith in the election process, may only tamp down turnout, specifically among Republicans. Tamping down the electorate’s desire to stop Trump and vote in a Congress he can’t control may not be possible.

Especially if he keeps saying things like, “I love the inflation.”

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You may have seen a video of Sunday’s hostile interview the president had with NBC’s Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press.” He yelled at Welker and insulted her. No elected official, much less the President of the United States, should behave that way. Donald Trump has a problem with women, especially female journalists who ask tough questions.

Welker was asking about California’s primary election and the multi-day vote count when Trump began his rant.

While this behavior was beyond boorish, it carries a reminder of something more important — stay alert for the midterms because Trump gave away a big part of the Republican game plan. This president and his party will do anything to raise questions about the validity of your vote.

The laundry list of things that Donald Trump does poorly is a mile long. But one thing he is good at is sowing doubt. The more desperate he is, the more aggressive he gets. And he is desperate.

His approval ratings are abysmal. His “quick” war with Iran has dragged on for 100 days. Prices for most everything continue to rise. All of which points to the Republicans losing control of the House and possibly the Senate come November.

Trump knows he can’t win on the strength of his policies because they are very unpopular. Instead, he is returning to his 2020 playbook of preemptively casting suspicion about the integrity of elections. California is his current ground zero.

During the interview, Welker asked the president for evidence after he accused California of rigging its recent primaries. Since he had none to provide, he lashed out at her.

“You are either crooked or you’re stupid. You play right into their hands with this crap,” he spat at Welker. He had some other choice words, including damning legacy media outlets. “Your elections are crooked and you’re crooked, and ‘Meet the Press’ is crooked. And so is ABC and CBS and CNN,” he said as he unclipped his microphone and walked off the set.

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Trump’s disinformation campaign about California’s election integrity is off to a decent start, being parroted by the usual suspects in the right-wing media. It is important that the whole country understand why he is trying to undermine California and its unconventional voting process.

First, Trump hates the Golden State. The most populous state in the country is deep blue. It has 23 million registered voters, far more than second-place Texas, which has 18.7 million. The prosperous state is helmed by Governor Gavin Newsom, who has been an outspoken and cheeky thorn in the president’s side. The Trump-engineered Texas redistricting plan was neutralized by California’s own redistricting, which was orchestrated by Newsom.

Now, to California’s election procedure. The state employs what is called a jungle primary, in which the top two finishers move on to the general election, regardless of party affiliation. In an effort to get the highest voter turnout possible, the state mails ballots to every registered voter. Because of this, 80% of votes cast are by mail.

Mail-in ballots take longer to count. First, though they must be postmarked by Election Day, they have seven days to be received. Second, all mail-in ballots are checked by hand. If there is an issue with a ballot, say a signature does not match, the voter has 22 days to fix it.

Initially, in the governor’s race and the Los Angeles mayor’s race, Trump-endorsed candidates were doing well. They were in the top two in each race. As more mail-in ballots were counted, their percentages slipped, since Republicans are more likely to vote in person, while Democrats are more likely to vote by mail.

As of Sunday evening, Trump’s candidates had both dropped to third, and possibly out of their respective races. By no coincidence, it wasn’t until Sunday, five days after polls closed, that Trump cried foul.

The president has fixated on the time it is taking California to finalize its vote, suggesting, nonsensically, that the slowness of the vote count indicates the election is rigged. In reality, a place Trump seldom visits, slowness should suggest a more thorough count, not a corrupted one.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles announced it has opened “multiple election fraud investigations” related to the primary election. No other information has been provided. A federal prosecutor was sent to “monitor” vote counting at an election center in L.A.

Election fraud in the United States is extremely rare. A study conducted by the Brookings Institution found only 0.000043% of cases of fraud in mail-in voting, which works out to four out of every 10 million votes cast.

California has weathered criticism of its process for years. To curtail concerns surrounding this year’s primary, Newsom sent a letter to election officials warning that delays could lead to disinformation.

“We face an assault on our democratic values unlike anything we have seen in our lifetimes, and it’s our job to safeguard those values,” Newsom wrote.

He is right to be concerned. A National Academy of Sciences study found that trust in elections fell from 67% to 60% when there were unexplained delays in results.

Trump’s attack on California is just one part of his plan to undermine the 2026 elections.

His Department of Justice (DOJ) has attacked voting rights around the country. The Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. He issued executive orders giving him the power to take over elections, which is unconstitutional. He lobbied hard for the SAVE Act, a voter suppression bill. It failed in the House almost a dozen times. Meanwhile, 2020 election denialism has become a litmus test for his judicial nominees.

You would think someone who continuously cries wolf about election integrity would do what he could to ensure free and fair elections. But that is not what Trump wants. He wants to win by whatever means are available. And his best bets in the 2026 midterms are to suppress the vote when he can, then question the validity of the votes that are cast.

Here’s the unsurprising irony. According to political news website NOTUS, the DOJ has canceled all election integrity training and deleted its guide to prosecuting election offenses. There is no director of the Election Crimes Branch, and most of the lawyers in the Public Integrity Section have been fired. Normally, by this point prior to a national election, an election integrity command center has been established to address emergencies. There is no evidence that the command center will exist.

The country has witnessed this president’s thuggish behavior for more than a decade, and it’s beyond time for someone in his party to stand up and say, “Enough.” Odds of that happening are not encouraging, with Trump-backed candidates winning most of the Republican primaries.

Trump’s current conspiracy theories of election rigging in California are just a prelude to what he will do in November. Remember, democracy is not a spectator sport. The best defense against his disinformation campaign is action. Whether you are a Democrat, Independent, or anti-Trump Republican, these are things you can do to blunt his campaign: register to vote, encourage others to do so, then vote and stay informed. You can also volunteer with your election board or with voting-rights organizations.

This is one of the most important mid-term elections in the history of the country.

There is no excuse for citizen apathy.

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With the Tony Awards happening on Sunday, we thought we’d turn to the Great White Way for inspiration for this week’s reason to smile.

When “West Side Story” premiered on Broadway, no one could have predicted its enduring popularity and cultural significance. Or maybe they could, since the production team was the best in the business.

Jerome Robbins conceived, directed, and choreographed the show, a retelling of “Romeo and Juliet.” Leonard Bernstein wrote the music with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, his Broadway debut. The book was by Arthur Laurents.

The musical was such a success with audiences that it was made into a movie just four years later. The 1961 film was an even bigger smash, winning ten Academy Awards, including a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Rita Moreno as Anita.

The soundtrack for the movie hit No. 1 on the album charts when it was released in May 1962 and stayed there for 54 weeks. It still holds the record for the most cumulative weeks at No 1.

Robbins’ innovative choreography, his incorporation of jazz, and use of dance as a central storytelling device are all evident in the song “America,” which features Moreno’s Anita.

The musical has been revived on Broadway multiple times, and the movie was remade 50 years after the original. Ariana DeBose won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar also for playing Anita. The 2021 version of “America” does a fantastic job of simultaneously paying homage to the original and modernizing it.

The song is as timely now as it was in 1957 — an exploration of the immigrant experience and the pursuit of the American Dream.

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Dan

For anyone who watches the next season of “60 Minutes” this fall, understand this: It is not the “60 Minutes” we have all come to trust and respect. It will be a diminished, Trump-approved version.

There is a tendency to view this as a story about journalism and corporate finance. But more than anything it is about big business in bed with big politics to monopolize news for their benefit, not for the country as a whole.

It pains me to write this, but the president and the corporate billionaires who curry his favor have eviscerated the best news program in the world, one that I called home for many years. So far, three correspondents have been fired, one left, and the broadcast’s top producers were let go.

Sharyn Alfonsi, one of the three correspondents dismissed, wrote, “They fired the best of us and anyone wondering whether ‘60 Minutes’ is over can stop wondering. What’s left will carry the name, but without the spine or courage that made it matter.”

Going forward, every interview, every story, every shot should come with an asterisk superimposed on the screen right next to the CBS eye: *“This story was approved by Donald Trump.”

He won’t personally read the script or sanction the stories, of course, but the higher-ups know what Trump wants to see, and especially what he doesn’t. The president is no doubt thrilled at the demise of a journalistic nemesis that continually called his bluff.

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David Ellison, the CEO of Paramount Skydance, CBS’s parent company, may have pulled the trigger, but Trump, in effect, ordered the hit. Ellison and his father Larry are huge Trump supporters who have bent over backwards to make and keep him happy.

Remember when Trump sued CBS? David Ellison quickly came to heel, paying the president a $16 million settlement on a bogus suit.

Bari Weiss, the editor-in-chief of CBS News, is a bit player in this drama, executing decisions that are made far above her pay grade. Ellison paid $150 million for her conservative media company, The Free Press, before installing her at CBS. The former opinion writer, with no television news experience, is now working to move CBS News to the political right to garner Trump’s approval.

Scott Pelley, who was fired from “60 Minutes” on Tuesday, accused Weiss of “murdering” the broadcast. I agree and would add that it was premeditated. No objective-minded person would destroy something that has been the most successful news program in television history for almost six decades, made tons of money, and is the gold standard for broadcast journalism.

Just two weeks ago, Paramount issued a press release celebrating “60 Minutes,” which included the following accolades:

• 60 MINUTES closed out the 58th season as America’s #1 news program, for the 52nd straight season – extending its record-setting performance.

• 60 MINUTES averaged 9.1 million viewers in its 58th season, according to Nielsen most current ratings, up 9% from its season 57 average. The CBS newsmagazine is also up 5% in the key A25-54 demo.

• 60 MINUTES reached more than one in three Americans at least once this season on linear and live streaming.

• 60 MINUTES made the top 10 for every week this season and top five 12 times.

• Nearly 20 billion minutes of 60 MINUTES have been consumed this season across linear and streaming.

• The total video views across 60 MINUTES social platforms are up 185% year over year.

• The total engagement with our content across 60 MINUTES social platforms is up 137% year over year.

• Our views for TikTok are up 85% year over year.

• Our views for Instagram are up 65% year over year.

• The digital traffic for web articles on CBSNews.com is up 18% year over year.

The release also stated, “Tanya Simon is the executive producer of 60 Minutes.”

Well, not for long. That record, which would be the envy of ANY television producer, news or otherwise, wasn’t good enough. Simon and her top deputy were fired just days later. In a way, the success of “60 Minutes” is the issue. If it wasn’t as good as it is and fewer people watched, the president wouldn’t care as much.

With that covetable season, the nonsensical changes at the broadcast clearly are not because it is underperforming, though Weiss is trying to spin it that way. She claims the program must change to survive the “new media landscape.” Unless that landscape is on Mars, I don’t know what she’s talking about. You can see for yourself it wasn’t just surviving but thriving, before she blew it up.

The first episode of “60 Minutes” aired in 1968. More than 2500 episodes later, it is going strong. Why? Because we are a country that craves a national conversation and “60 Minutes” was often the catalyst for tough discussions about important issues, but ones that don’t have a Trump-sympathetic censor.

More than any other news program, “60” took us to undiscovered places and introduced us to insightful people with stories that needed telling, shot in that intimate, close-up “60 Minutes” style.

The news magazine’s talented corps of investigative producers and reporters found and executed stories no one else could. These stories are expensive and time-consuming to produce.

The “60 Minutes” formula is replicable, with the right people, enough money, and a platform willing to air it. We have heard from a former “60 Minutes” insider that such discussions are in the works. Fingers crossed. Until then, we are left with a sanitized “60” that will play well for an audience of one.

I’m left saddened by the knowledge that this American institution is being killed. Although it can’t be duplicated, I’m hopeful that efforts to build something like it may succeed.

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Dan

Two hundred fifty years ago, our nation’s Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence. The American Revolution was already underway, and we were five years from the decisive Battle of Yorktown, but that brave act of signing on July 4, 1776 is the one that has defined our country and our ongoing commitment to independence.

Plans to celebrate this anniversary have been in the works for years. In 2016, Congress established America250, “a nonpartisan initiative working to engage every American in commemorating the 250th anniversary of our country,” according to its website. Please note the word “nonpartisan.”

Apparently, the events being planned by America250 are not Trump-centric enough for the president, so he created his own competing organization by presidential decree. It’s called Freedom 250. Trump has ironically decided to replace the celebration of rejecting a monarch with festivities for himself, a self-proclaimed king.

What could have been an easy tip-in for a president with abysmal poll numbers — a convivial, patriotic celebration to bring a fractured country together — has turned into a colossal, partisan mess.

Within 48 hours of announcing the line-up for a series of Freedom 250 concerts, seven of nine artists canceled. “I was presented with an opportunity to perform at a nonpartisan event but that turned out to be misleading,” country singer Martina McBride wrote on social media. Rap artist Young MC had a similar experience. “The artists were never told about any political involvement with the event,” calling the concert a “bait-and-switch.”

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In true Trump style, he mocked the artists and pivoted to an even more partisan event.

“We should have a giant MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN RALLY, for 250, instead of having overpriced singers, who nobody wants to hear, whose music is boring, and yet who do nothing but complain,” he wrote on social media.

The litany of egocentric things Trump wants to commemorate for the anniversary is cringeworthy, going well beyond the banners of his scowling face hung all around the city.

He wants that same face on a new $250 bill. U.S. currency can not include the visage of a living person, so Congress is considering a bill to allow it. How do you think that vote will go?

He is erecting a massive cage on the South Lawn to host a mixed martial arts match and painting over the natural concrete of the Reflecting Pool with “American Flag” blue.

Trump’s love of all things gold, everything from escalators to Oval Office adornments, is well known. In his effort to “clean up” Washington, DC for the 250th celebrations, Trump is expanding his affection for gilt.

The White House has engaged a Maryland gilding studio in a no-bid contract to coat four massive bronze horse statues in Washington with a thick layer of almost pure gold. The cost? Five million taxpayer dollars, according to NOTUS. That political news website also reported that $20 million of the nearly $100 million the White House is spending to “beautify” the nation’s Capital has not been disclosed.

Trump’s obsession with control of America’s 250th is as disturbing as it is predictable. He prefers planning a party to governing a country. To actually govern, Trump would have to fight his narcissistic impulses and be a leader of all 340 million Americans.

He could have waited to announce his $1.8 billion slush fund for January 6 insurrectionists and other supporters, but he didn’t. Instead, he announced it the morning there was supposed to be an important vote on an immigration enforcement spending package. Incensed Senate Republicans decided to go home early instead of jeopardizing passage of the immigration bill by having to deal with the slush fund at the same time. On Monday, Politico reported that Trump has backed away from the fund, succumbing to mounting pressure.

Let’s call this rare political retreat by the president a birthday gift to America. Devising the slush fund was perhaps the most tone-deaf political move in the history of Trump.

What is going on with this president? Plenty have questioned his mental health because of his bizarre and endless social media rants. But it goes far beyond that.

Rather than staying out of mid-term election primary races, the standard for a sitting president, Trump supported candidates running against incumbent Republicans he doesn’t like. All of his candidates won, but most may now be in much tougher races that will cost the Republican Party millions of dollars.

Rather than sitting back and letting the Iran war plummet into month four, enough Senate Republicans may back a war powers act, which would be politically embarrassing for the president.

Trump rarely does anything expected or precedented, but his recent head-scratchers — backing challengers over incumbents, starting a war no one wanted and not finishing it, ignoring Americans’ economic suffering — make little sense as we get closer to the midterms. It has become increasingly evident that Trump may not care about holding on to the House or Senate for two reasons.

One, he needs an enemy with whom to do battle. Who better than a Democratic controlled Congress? It will make for great TV or clips on social media and indicate to his base that he will continue to fight for them.

Two, the wins by Trump-backed primary challengers show that he still has a lot of political clout among his MAGA coalition. For Trump’s post-presidency, that is what matters. It’s so he can maintain his vice grip on the Republican Party even when he’s no longer in the White House.

“What Trump would mind, what he does fear, is a Republican Party with a spine. He fears a Republican Party in which members of Congress begin to participate in the investigations of his scandals or they abandon him as his fortunes fall. And so he’s made his choice. He is showing them that to oppose him, even from the right, is to light your political future on fire,” Ezra Klein wrote in The New York Times.

As Trump celebrates himself, he is thumbing his nose at all those Congressional Republicans who have allowed him to run roughshod over the Constitution and American Democracy. He needs the support of his base to remain relevant. And nothing, no election, no partisanship, is likely to change his mind. It is and always will be all about him.

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Dan

This week marks the unofficial beginning of summer. Nothing reminds me of summer more than a family road trip. And every road trip needs songs you can sing along to at full volume. Roger Miller’s “King of the Road” should be at the top of any road trip playlist. It is this week’s reason to smile.

From the iconic opening snaps, Miller’s classic evokes America’s open road. It tells the story of a vagabond who, despite being a “man of means by no means,” revels in his freedom.

Miller, born in Texas but raised in Oklahoma during the Great Depression, was inspired to write the song when he saw a sign on the side of a barn that read, “trailers for sale or rent.” The phrase became the song’s opening line.

The song was a huge crossover hit, topping the country charts and reaching No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also won Miller five Grammy Awards in 1966.

Fun fact about Miller — while he spent most of his career as a country singer and songwriter, later in life he wrote the music and lyrics for the Tony Award winning musical “Big River,” an adaptation of Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” He played Finn’s father on Broadway.

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Dan

For those of you who seek the truth in these troubled times, what just happened at “60 Minutes” is a 5-alarm fire. But this fire was not accidental. It was arson, and Donald Trump lit the fuse.

On Thursday, Bari Weiss, the Trump-friendly opinion columnist put in charge of CBS News, took a match to “60 Minutes” as we know it. She fired two top executives of the broadcast and two correspondents and then hired a new executive producer with no broadcast television experience.

Why? The timing might seem odd, but, of course, it’s how Trump & Co. operate.

“60 Minutes” just finished its 58th season with a couple of Emmy wins but, more importantly, with viewers’ trust. It’s long been the highest-rated news program on network television, and this year the numbers were up.

According to Oliver Darcy of Status, “60 Minutes” averaged 9.1 million viewers per week, a 9% increase over last season. On social media, Status reports, the broadcast added 17 million new followers across platforms and generated a staggering 2.5 billion views.

If anyone else was at the helm of the company or the country, this would be celebrated as a banner year at the venerated news institution. Everyone should get a raise and an extra week off. Instead, this citadel of independent journalism is being destroyed, another victim of Trump’s vengeance campaign.

Because he can’t handle the truth, Trump hates the program and has long called for its demise.

I reported on Trump’s first run for president back in 1999 on “60 Minutes.” It was a tough but fair piece, and he hated it. Was Trump really running for president back then, or was it a publicity stunt to make money? We could easily ask the same question today. You will recognize some of the vitriol that’s become Trump’s trademark. Watch it here.

Over the years, “60 Minutes” has reported many hard-hitting stories on Trump, much to his chagrin. He walked out on a Leslie Stahl interview a few years ago.

Now, all these years later, Trump has leverage and he’s using it to destroy an American institution, a needed check on power and a big-time money maker in a fading industry, where it is increasingly difficult to be profitable. We don’t have a smoking gun, but I’d bet the house Trump let it be known he wanted changes.

And David Ellison no doubt jumped to comply. He is the chairman and CEO of Paramount, the new parent company of CBS. He and his father, Larry Ellison, the second richest person in America, need Trump as they seek to get even richer by acquiring another big Hollywood property: Warner Bros.

That’s a $110 billion deal for a family who are big fans of Trump. David recently hosted the president at a dinner in Washington D.C., which Weiss also attended. As Darcy wrote for Status, “It doesn’t take a brilliant mind to connect the dots.”

In her memo to staff justifying the bloodletting at “60 Minutes,” Weiss wrote, “We want stories that break news, expose wrongdoing, widen public understanding, and force accountability from every institution and every center of power. We want journalism that is surprising, agenda-setting, and impossible to ignore.”

This is nonsense. What does she think “60 Minutes” has been doing for the last six decades?

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The lesson here is not about ratings or profitability. “60 Minutes” has both. This is about making CBS part of a growing right-wing media machine. And if Paramount’s merger with Warner Bros. is approved, CNN could suffer the same fate.

Cecilia Vega, the first Latina correspondent at “60 Minutes,” was fired yesterday along with Sharyn Alfonsi. They are two courageous reporters who have my respect and admiration.

Vega, in a note to colleagues after she learned of her firing, wrote, “In recent months, my producing teams and I have experienced efforts to insert political bias into our stories. Reporting teams have held back on submitting story pitches about important news topics out of fear of the internal repercussions. This is censorship, both imposed and self-driven. It is dangerous for the program and dangerous for democracy.”

We need great journalism now more than ever. We need journalists with guts and the financial backing to report important stories. And there is plenty to report.

We have never witnessed governmental corruption of this magnitude — a president lining his pockets, a president with his own Justice Department whose purpose is to settle scores for the boss. The days of lounging on the couch while watching tough, investigative journalism on “60 Minutes” for free on CBS may be done.

But the spirit of the old “60 Minutes” and CBS News lives on. It is a beacon, a symbol that the country has got to take a stand and keep reminding each other that democracy cannot survive, much less thrive, under this level of big corporation and big government interference and intimidation in the news.

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Dan

If you were to drive down Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C. today expecting to catch a glimpse of the White House, too bad. Blocking your view is a temporary (we hope) television production set.

One of America’s most revered architectural treasures is becoming unrecognizable and for the time being, unobservable. The People’s House — inside and out — has become all about Donald Trump.

If anyone thinks this president is working full time to help average Americans, the above photo is evidence to the contrary.

Trump’s decision to host a mixed martial arts (MMA) cage fight on the South Lawn of the White House is a conspicuous reminder of his priorities.

For those who don’t follow MMA, it is a brutal, full-contact combat sport, where two people are locked in a cage and they fight until someone wins. This is not old-school Ali vs. Frazier boxing, but full-on brutal fighting where combatants can punch, kick, elbow, and knee their opponents and even draw blood.

It’s being held on the president’s 80th birthday and as a part of the celebration of America’s 250th. The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is a for-profit enterprise erecting an arena complete with an octagonal stage, a wire cage, seating for 4,300 people, all surrounded by a giant, stars and stripes-spangled claw, which dwarfs the White House.

This is just the latest example of Trump’s narcissistic desecration of the nation’s Capitol.

Gold plating the Oval Office wasn’t enough, nor was adding his name to the Kennedy Center, or paving over the Rose Garden, and tearing down the East Wing. Hanging banners of his scowling face from federal office buildings and erecting a massive arch in his honor also weren’t sufficient to stroke his gigantic ego.

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A spectacle celebrating brutality might do the trick. Oh, and the participants’ weigh-in will take place at the Lincoln Memorial.

The fights will be broadcast by CBS and Paramount+, which have been working overtime to please the president by decimating CBS News and dumping Stephen Colbert.

The price tag for this veneration to violence is reportedly $60 million paid for by the UFC, which says it is “an investment for the long term.” They won’t have to wait that long. You can’t buy the kind of publicity the president is providing.

He is personally deciding who gets tickets, many of which will go to members of the military. But don’t worry, Trump sycophants will be able to kiss the ring by purchasing “high roller” VIP packages costing $1.5 million each.

If you’re not lucky enough to garner a ring-side seat, you and 85,000 of your closest friends might be able to nab free access to the live simulcast on the Ellipse across the street from the main event.

The president’s penchant for showmanship rather than leadership is coming in handy. Like a carnival barker, he is calling the fight the “biggest event” the UFC has ever staged and he is hawking seats. “I have never seen anybody want anything so much as people want those tickets,” Trump enthused.

I am not disparaging MMA fighting nor its fans; however, the White House’s celebration of America’s semiquincentennial is not an appropriate venue for a violent commercial enterprise peddled by the president.

The South Lawn is usually home to family-friendly fare like the Easter Egg roll and the Christmas tree lighting. Past presidents have held events there too, but none supported a for-profit organization. Instead, they championed American arts and ingenuity. President Jimmy Carter threw a jazz concert. President Barack Obama hosted South by South Lawn, a technology and music festival.

Like Roman gladiators fighting in the Colosseum, Trump’s state-sponsored combat show advances the idea of the “warrior ethos” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is so fond of blustering about. Being entertained by grown men beating each other to a pulp is the president’s version of projecting strength.

As is usually the case, Trump has an ulterior motive for insisting on and promoting a White House cage match: playing to his base, or perhaps better put, shoring up his slipping base.

Young, white, non-college-educated men are the backbone of the MAGA movement. They propelled Trump to office, twice. But his vice grip on this group has loosened. Since returning to the Oval Office, Trump’s popularity among non-college-educated whites has dropped from 63% to 49%, according to a new CNN poll.

Guess who makes up the vast majority of the MMA fandom? Young, white men. And the sport’s popularity among that group is increasing. Trump and the UFC have a symbiotic relationship built on bloodsport. He is using the organization to wrangle his core demographic, while the UFC is galvanizing MAGA to grow its popularity.

The White House event is a politicized, openly partisan production meant to bring the boys back into the tent. It is also a recruiting ground for new blood. Far-right extremist groups enlist at MMA and boxing gyms and on online “fascist fitness” chat groups. As reported in The Guardian, these groups emphasize transforming their members into combatants who might be asked to commit acts of violence for the cause.

“These fitness groups frame individual self-improvement as a part of a wider political struggle, creating fresh motivation and a sense of purpose for people who believe that physical confrontation and violence are legitimate and necessary. They have become a space for far-right activists to mobilize,” said Patrik Hermansson, senior researcher at the anti-fascist group, Hope Not Hate.

Trump is not just celebrating the American revolution with this UFC event, he is trying to foment a new one of his own. If that sounds alarmist, remember that he has done it before, on January 6, 2021.

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Let’s cut to the chase — the president’s war in Iran is One. Hot. Mess.

After a thorough review, conversations with colleagues, and extensive research, that’s about as generous as we can be.

At Steady, we always strive to bring you context and perspective. The war in Iran demands plenty of both. Understanding what’s really going on in wartime was difficult enough before Donald Trump. Now it is exasperatingly complicated by a White House, and its accompanying public relations machine, that lies at will.

Will the American people continue to hold Trump accountable for this mess? It is easy to push it to the back burner, and with the ceasefire in place, that’s exactly where Trump wants it. But last night, the president broke the ceasefire with “defensive” air strikes in southern Iran. His hoped-for quick end is again in jeopardy.

Despite what you may read or see in the coming days, the United States is not, has not, and most likely will not “win” this ill-conceived war. We don’t even know what a win is meant to look like because of Trump’s moving target objectives.

If a framework ceasefire extension is reached, prepare yourself for what will be a dizzying blitz of disinformation from the president and his propaganda allies at Fox “News,” et al. We’ve seen this act before — where objective evidence be damned, just believe Trump, because he says so.

Anyone who claims victory in this disaster is insulting your intelligence.

If — and this is a very big if — the United States can somehow return to the pre-war status quo, it would be a stunning reversal of present realities.

Significant and near irreversible damage has been done. The Middle East is forever changed because of Trump. Our allies now look upon us with suspicion at best, derision at worst. Relationships are strained to the point of breaking throughout the region and Europe. Allied trust is gone, while in Iran the regime remains in control.

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Here’s one certainty: Trump would give anything to get out of this disaster, because it is weakening him politically. Tehran knows that and is prolonging the conflict as long as possible. That’s why the president is spam-posting about the war being near an end. “Proceeding nicely,” is how he keeps characterizing the peace talks.

In the meantime, the cost of Trump’s “short-term excursion” continues to balloon. The Pentagon’s last estimate in late April of $25 billion is woefully outdated.

And it turns out this war comes with a financial double whammy. Your tax dollars are funding billions in missiles, bombs and troops, while you also pay at the gas pump.

Researchers at Brown University have calculated that consumers have now paid more for the war than the government. Higher fuel prices have cost Americans $40 billion, which comes out to more than $300 per household.

“To put that figure in context, $40 billion could fund the entire federal Bridge Investment Program to repair more than 10,200 bridges nationwide, exceeds the estimated $31.5 billion cost of overhauling the U.S. air traffic control system, and is twice the $18.9 billion proposed for federal electric vehicle charging programs under the Biden administration.”

Higher fuel prices have inflated the cost of other items, like beef. Ground beef, once one of the least expensive meat options, is now coming in at seven bucks a pound and sirloin steak near $15. Those prices could jump another 18% by Christmas.

As for gas prices, they are not predicted to return to pre-war levels before late 2026, if then.

The biggest sticking point in the peace talks is the Strait of Hormuz, which was open to all ships and tankers before the war. To reopen it now, Iran is demanding money, and lots of it. The U.S. will have to hand over billions in frozen Iranian assets and end its blockade. As for Iran’s nuclear program, elimination of which was a major reason given for the war? It has been damaged, but not eliminated.

Iran looks to be very much in control, and therefore, much of the world will see this as an embarrassing if not humiliating defeat for Donald Trump. Russian and Chinese leaders are grinning.

Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei sounds confident. “The hands of time do not turn backward, and the nations and lands of the region will no longer serve as shields for American bases,” he said in a statement on Tuesday. “America, in addition to no longer having a safe place for aggression and military bases in the region, is moving further away from its former status day by day.”

At this juncture, Trump is trapped. He has no good options. Nonetheless, he will try to spin a win.

For the U.S. military still in the region, defending American interests regardless of politics, they and their families will continue to receive widespread public support. As they should.

As propaganda machines of various interests pour out lies and disinformation, what is a decent-intended citizen to do? Block out the noise, especially on social media, and stick with sources you trust. Thank you for trusting us.

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Stephen Colbert signed off from the Ed Sullivan Theater for the final time on Thursday night. Although the circumstances of his departure from the CBS airwaves were nothing to smile about, his grace and humor certainly are. He and his 11-year run as the host of the most watched late night talk show, “The Late Night with Stephen Colbert,” are this week’s reason to smile.

Colbert’s final weeks were a star-studded affair with guest after guest serenading the comedian with songs they had customized to the occasion, with rewritten lyrics.

Colbert, a singer in his own right, was a champion of music and musical theater. So it is not surprising that he ended his last show with a song. Not just any song, and not just with any guests.

Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello, Jon Batiste, his former band leader, and Louis Cato, his current one, joined Colbert in a joyous rendition of the Beatles’ ‘Hello, Goodbye,’ to bring the show to a close.

What a poignant moment it was with McCartney performing on the same stage where the Beatles made their American debut in 1964, on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”

In 2015, Colbert took the reins of “The Late Show” from the legendary David Letterman, who hosted the show for 22 years. The 2016 presidential election allowed Colbert to make a name for himself as a funny and insightful observer of American politics. He never looked back nor shied away from criticizing those in power.

While Colbert may be done with CBS, don’t think he won’t be back on TV soon and in a better place. As they say, please stand by.

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It is becoming increasingly clear even among Republicans that the president has lost interest in anything that doesn’t make him and his family richer or inflate his ego. The Republican Party abandoned hope months ago that Trump would tout “affordability” as the party’s message ahead of the midterms.

His economic message was a non-starter after he dropped the first bomb on Iran. Since then, prices are heading in the opposite direction of his popularity. So, now Donald Trump spends his time and our money on retribution campaigns and glorification projects.

All of this is terrible for Trump’s party, but it could be good for the country if his irresponsibility can be checked. In the meantime, my Steady friends, it’s incredibly difficult to watch this never-ending train wreck.

The words “criminal enterprise” have crept into the presidential conversation for the first time since I covered Richard Nixon.

Monday’s “settlement” between Trump and the Internal Revenue Service, creating a $1.8 billion slush fund to reward the president’s loyalists, was a startling low-point in a presidency swamped with low-points. Then Trump doubled down — down being the operative word.

On Tuesday, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche signed a “release of claims” form, an addendum to the original settlement creating the billion-dollar-plus fund to pay off the president’s pawns, including January 6 insurrectionists, even the ones who pleaded guilty are eligible.

The one-page document, posted on the Department of Justice website, states that the IRS is “forever barred and precluded” from pursuing “examinations” of Trump, his family, and his businesses. It specified “tax returns filed before the effective date” of the settlement, which was Monday.

The IRS audit of Trump, which started years ago when he hosted “The Apprentice,” will evaporate. Trump reportedly took the same losses twice and experts say he owes, with interest and penalties, more than $100 million.

Blanche signed away the ability of any federal agency to investigate, audit, or sue Trump et al., in the future and for perpetuity. It amounts to unbridled corruption in the guise of preemptive exoneration.

Trump effectively gave himself legal cover to never pay taxes again, since he cannot be audited. Remember those 3,700 stock trades he made during the first quarter of the year? He earned somewhere between $220 and $750 million dollars and is now free to pay zero taxes on those gains.

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In true Trump style, this is uncharted tax territory. “I am unaware of a single precedent where the IRS has agreed in advance to permanently forgo examination of previously filed tax returns for a specific person or business,” Danny Werfel, a recent IRS commissioner, told Politico.

Jennifer Ricketts, a former branch director at the IRS, told The New York Times that she had “never heard of the department ever being willing to grant blanket immunity. That seems blatantly corrupt. It’s a shocking gift to the president.”

Can this be legal? Likely not. According to Brandon DeBot, the director of the Tax Law Center Policy Director, the entire settlement is “a breathtaking abuse of the tax and legal system.”

Under U.S. law the president and most of the executive branch cannot ask the IRS to end an investigation. Because it was the acting attorney general who signed the order, Trump’s army of lawyers, both personal and governmental, will argue that they are on solid legal ground.

Blanche did not come up with this idea on his own. Trump was playing the long game. First, he brought a bad faith lawsuit against the IRS. Then, he had it dismissed before a judge could rule on its merits, so that he could negotiate a settlement that had nothing to do with the original suit.

The $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund also runs afoul of existing law. It violates a Trump administration directive put forward by former Attorney General Pam Bondi. It states that the government is prohibited from paying groups not involved in an underlying lawsuit.

The settlement has upended a lot of pieces on the political chess board.

On Thursday afternoon, Senate Republicans canceled a planned vote on an immigration enforcement bill. It should have been a slam-dunk since it is filibuster-proof, and thus needs only 51 votes for passage. With Trump always unwilling to abandon his personal political agenda, in this case the slush fund, the Republican leadership decided to pause rather than lose.

A bipartisan effort is underway in the House to kill the fund. Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA.) and Tom Suozzi (D-NY) are drafting legislation, according to Politico. Fitzpatrick said his constituents “don’t want a DOJ slush fund that has not been described or explained to anybody.”

As one might imagine, the editorial board of The New York Times takes exception with Trump’s latest chicanery. Thursday’s headline read, “There Has Never Been an Example of Presidential Corruption Like This.”

More surprising was Republican operative Karl Rove’s Wall Street Journal editorial, where he wondered about Trump’s “$1.8 billion slush fund that critics are concerned could go to Jan. 6 felons.” He argued that the only way Republicans can hold onto control of Congress is to rein in the president.

“The more undisciplined the White House messages on war and the economy, the more at risk GOP candidates will be. The more Mr. Trump thrusts himself into the campaign, the more damage he’ll do to Republicans and his own cause. The more he focuses on projects like his ‘world-class, beautiful ballroom’ or ‘Triumphal Arch,’ the more voters will conclude he’s unconcerned about them,” Rove wrote.

Rove is right, but no one in the current White House has the power or the guts to restrain their boss. The arch no one wants is inching closer to reality. On Thursday, the Trump-packed Commission of Fine Arts voted to approve the 250-foot arch that will block the intentionally unobstructed view of Arlington National Cemetery from the Lincoln Memorial. Several veterans are suing to stop construction.

Even though the $1 billion line item for Trump’s ballroom has been removed from the immigration funding bill, construction of the building (that Trump promised was being paid for solely with private money) is ongoing.

The nonpartisan parliamentarian of the Senate ruled that ballroom funding could not be included in a reconciliation bill, though Republicans reportedly didn’t have the votes anyway. For the rest of the year, the Senate is going to be a hard place for Trump to get his unpopular measures passed.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) is retiring and has been no friend of Trump. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) lost his primary this week, after Trump backed his opponent. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) may lose his primary next week since Trump endorsed his MAGA extremist challenger. And then there are all the incumbents in close races who need to distance themselves from the increasingly unpopular president. (see Rove above)

The absurdity of Trump giving himself a free pass from investigation by any federal agency should not be ignored or minimized. But Trump’s corruption is not wholly unchecked .

The courts, especially the Supreme Court, and both Houses of Congress have the power to at least slow him, if not stop him. But only if they have the courage to do so. Down the road, impeachment and conviction could become a factor, but we’re a long way from that.

All of which brings us to the fact that the final deciders are we the people and our votes.

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Dan

Donald Trump’s grift of the American people is not an open secret. Actually, there is absolutely nothing secret about it. He is looting the country in plain sight, with nary a concern that he will be called out for it.

Why should he worry when he holds such sway over enough Republican members of Congress to give him a free pass? It’s not even a Get Out of Jail Free card. It’s a Do Whatever You Want While We Look the Other Way card.

The news Monday of his latest swindle may take a moment to sink in. But it details one of Trump’s most audacious steals yet, and that is obviously saying a lot.

Among the many schemes to benefit himself, this ranks among the most harebrained and calls renewed attention to the fact that he is the most corrupt American president ever.

You may remember that Trump sued the Internal Revenue Service, an agency he controls, for $10 billion. The suit alleged that the IRS did not do enough to prevent a contractor from downloading Trump’s tax records and giving them to the media. Because of the disclosure, the suit claims, Trump and his family have suffered “reputational and financial harm,” as well as “public embarrassment.”

Apparently, they got over it. Early Monday morning, Trump’s lawyers surprised Judge Kathleen M. Williams of Florida’s Southern District by telling her the president was dropping the case.

Some thought he was doing so because of intense pushback on what may be the most galling lawsuit ever, or because of an outright con to create a fund of taxpayer money to compensate those who claim they were victims of President Biden’s justice department.

Not two hours later, the Trump Department of Justice announced the creation of that exact fund, worth $1.776 billion. Get it? 1776? Nothing like forking over nearly 2 billion taxpayer dollars to help us celebrate our nation’s 250th birthday. Happy birthday, America! Now, open your wallets.

The money is nothing more than a slush fund to pay Trump’s allies and acolytes, including the 1,600 people convicted of participating in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, or anyone else deemed to have a qualifying complaint against Biden, and “to provide a systematic process to hear and redress claims of others who suffered weaponization and lawfare.”

So, those who attacked the Capitol can now be paid for doing so. By you.

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Here’s the administration’s rationale: “The machinery of government should never be weaponized against any American, and it is this department’s intention to make right the wrongs that were previously done while ensuring this never happens again,” said Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, with no apparent irony.

The fund, part of an interconnected web of corruption, will be overseen by a five-person commission appointed by the attorney general, which will have broad authority to funnel taxpayer dollars to friends of Trump. The commission will have virtually no oversight, except that Trump can remove members. We may never fully know who receives payments, or how much they get.

Trump’s personal lawyers effectively performed an end run around the American justice system. By dropping the suit they keep Judge Williams from dismissing the case outright, which she was reportedly considering, or being able to approve (or not approve) a formal settlement.

In their filing, the lawyers said the dismissal meant that “no judicial analysis is appropriate” for the suit. In other words, no oversight.

Minutes after the announcement of the fund, 93 Democratic lawmakers filed court papers accusing the Department of Justice of colluding with Trump.

“Never in the history of the United States has a sitting president sought a monetary settlement from the government he leads — let alone sought many billions of dollars in taxpayer funds,” the lawmakers wrote in court documents. The filing is moot now that the suit has been dropped.

In an interview on ABC’s “This Week,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) called the fund “unconstitutional.”

“This, of course, is a political grievance fund that Donald Trump can use to pay off his friends. If these people have a valid cause of action, they should bring it to the court like every other American does, and use the system of due process, and proving things by clear and convincing evidence, or a preponderance of evidence, go and prove it. But the idea that Donald Trump can just pass it out like a pardon is absurd,” Raskin said.

As is so often the case, this is not Trump’s only egregious transgression of the past few days. On Friday, the president disclosed a flurry of personal stock trades made during the first quarter of 2026. His legally required financial filings revealed a whopping 3,700 trades totaling between $220 and $750 million. That’s more than 40 trades a day during the first three months of the year.

“This is an insane amount of trades,” Matthew Tuttle, chief executive officer of Tuttle Capital Management, told Bloomberg News. Tuttle said it looks more like the trading history of a hedge fund that buys and shorts stocks rather than a personal account.

The 2012 STOCK Act requires the president and members of Congress to disclose all commodity transactions. Because every other president who held securities since 2012 has put them in a blind trust, Trump is the first to trigger the requirement.

The reason presidents, other than Trump, put their holdings in a blind trust is because many public companies do business with the federal government. Most public officials, other than Trump, want to avoid conflicts of interest. Trump seems to embrace them, regularly mixing presidential duties with personal business.

Trump bought and sold stocks in dozens of companies he directly did business with as president, including Nvidia, Microsoft, Oracle, eBay, Uber, Meta, and Amazon.

Just last week, the Boeing CEO joined Trump on his trip to China, where President Xi Jinping agreed to buy 200 Boeing jets. His filings show Trump traded Boeing stock during the first quarter.

The disclosure forms showed six trades involving Intel, while the administration was working on an agreement to buy 10% of the company for $9 billion.

Trump bought and sold Netflix, Paramount Skydance, and Warner Bros. Discovery stock as his Federal Communications Commission considered the purchase of Warner Bros. by the two media giants.

Once upon a time, a president would get in trouble for insider trading.

Trump’s capacity to misuse his office for personal gain is astounding and it is blatantly wrong. But it is not without consequences. The New York Times released a new poll Monday that shows that the president is vastly unpopular and that he is losing support, even from his base.

His approval rating has shrunk to a second term low of 37%, with 59% disapproval. Almost two-thirds of respondents believe he was wrong to attack Iran. And that number jumps to 75% among crucial independents. He is down on all metrics including his handling of the economy and the cost of living.

This is not the kind of poll Republicans want to see less than six months before the midterms. And Trump’s continued grifting doesn’t figure to help their cause, no matter how often they redraw the maps.

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Ninety years ago this week, Walden Robert Cassotto was born in New York City. After adopting the stage name Bobby Darin, he became an award-winning singer, songwriter, and actor. He is our reason to smile.

He was one of the most versatile musicians of his generation, performing everything from swing to rock and roll to country music. And he could play the piano, drums, guitar, harmonica, and xylophone.

Darin got his break as a songwriter, initially penning hits for Connie Francis. Record executives quickly recognized his own talent as a singer and signed him to a contract. In 1959, Darin was the inaugural winner of the Grammy Award for Best New Artist. The following year, he won Record of the Year for “Mack the Knife.”

That same year, Darin sang his hit “Beyond the Sea” on the Ed Sullivan Show. Darin was not the first, nor the last, to sing the song, but he did popularize it. “Beyond the Sea” is an English-language version of the French song “La Mer,” by Charles Trenet.

The home of the Ed Sullivan Show is now the Ed Sullivan Theater, which until this week hosted the Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Last fall, Colbert had Jonathan Groff, the Tony-nominated star of the Bobby Darin musical, “Just In Time” on the show to sing, you guessed it, “Beyond the Sea.” Sixty-five years separated the two renditions. Do you have a favorite?

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We don’t say it often enough: thank you.

We appreciate you being a part of our collaborative Steady community. We recognize that reading Steady and other political news these days can be a struggle. Trying to understand a political leader whose behavior is anathema to the American ideal of a president is a challenge none of us want. As is trying to understand why he denigrates those who trusted him.

With gas prices inching toward $5 a gallon and inflation higher than it has been in years, much of it because of the president’s war with Iran, Donald Trump simply doesn’t care.

You might have heard him say as much on Tuesday. “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation, I don’t think about anybody,” he told reporters. “Not even a little bit,” he couldn’t help adding.

In case you are under the delusion that he was kidding, as the adage goes, ‘actions speak louder than words,’ and Trump’s actions are deafening. Rather than finding solutions to the affordability crisis, he is finding stunning new ways to aggrandize himself.

If Trump had a personal aphorism it might well be, ‘It’s easier to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission.’ This notion is evident in so many things Trump has done to put his stamp on the nation’s capital, all without asking and often under the cover of darkness.

He renamed and overhauled the Kennedy Center, embellished the White House with gold-plated everything, razed and paved over Jackie Kennedy’s rose garden, took control of a public golf course, and is painting the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool blue, making it, quite literally, less reflective.

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That’s all child’s play compared to what he is trying to build, to the chagrin of almost everyone.

The Arc de Trump

Trump must be aware that his latest, multimillion-dollar vanity project is unwanted — only 21% of the public supports the 250-foot arch beside the Potomac River. Because of the arch’s unpopularity, the White House is trying to skirt construction rules, a well-trodden strategy for them, to avoid scrutiny of its unwelcome projects.

With no fanfare or notice (and while the president’s trip to China dominated the media), engineers and surveyors suddenly appeared at the proposed site this week. Chain-link fencing was installed around the traffic circle where the monument may soon block the sun. Were permits secured? Public hearings? Environmental impact assessments? No, just Trump saying that he wants it.

Instead of following the legal process for hiring contractors, Team Trump is trying to piggyback on an existing and unrelated contract for work at the White House, according to the Washington Post.

The administration claims the workaround is a cost-saving measure. Actually, it is to keep the project from having to engage in a lengthy and public bidding process.

Speaking of costs, the estimate for the arch is $100 million. However, the White House included a $10 billion “Presidential Capital Stewardship Program” in the proposed fiscal 2027 budget. Several senators have voiced concern that this would be nothing but a slush fund to pay for things like the arch.

During a congressional hearing on Wednesday, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum argued that 68 foreign capitals boast arches, so why shouldn’t Washington? Trump was not quite as thoughtful. When asked who the arch was being built for he simply said, “Me.”

The Ballroom

Trump’s ballroom enjoys about as much public support as his arch. Multiple entities have filed suit to stop construction. In March, a judge ordered a halt to the project, but that order was stayed by an appeals court. Oral arguments in the case are set for June 5.

While the lawyers argue, the building continues to outpace funding fights and legal wranglings over the 90,000-square foot monstrosity, which will dwarf the White House itself. Construction of the ground floor was visible for the first time this week.

After the stealthy demolition of the East Wing, part of a national landmark, construction had been kept on the down-low, concentrating on the massive, underground military complex that was added to the plans.

Trump promised that he and his billionaire buddies would fund the project. The original price tag was $250 million, ballooning to $400 million in just a few months. Now, the White House is asking Congress for $1 billion to pay for the “The East Wing Modernization Project,” arguing that it is really a national security imperative.

Appetite for such an expenditure is waning on Capitol Hill. Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, included language in the current reconciliation bill that funds could not be used for “non-security elements” of the project. His spokesperson further clarified. “This bill does not fund ballroom construction,” she said.

Compulsory Appreciation
Last week, new banners started appearing around Washington that say, “Thank you, President Trump,” complete with a photo of Trump donning a hard hat, according to the Washington Post. Trump’s Department of the Interior is putting up the banners at D.C. parks being renovated ahead of America’s 250th birthday celebrations, which is estimated to cost $100 million.

The banners are not going over well in a city that voted for the last Democratic presidential ticket by more than 90%. “I assume this is what North Korea looks like,” quipped a piece on The Globalist website. Many of the banners have been defaced by graffiti.

Trump is well known not only for seeking credit but for insisting on gratitude. Apparently, any project, no matter the size, is an opportunity to be fawned over. Can you imagine if President Franklin Roosevelt demanded thanks for every New Deal project or program?

Trump has been transparent about his priorities and they don’t include the American people. He seems incapable of doing anything about the fact that more Americans are hungry, fewer have health care, wages have stagnated, and groceries cost more since he took office.

When it comes to things he does care about, like building edifices in his honor, he can get things done quickly and quietly.

Please consider supporting my team’s efforts to protect our democracy through the power of independent journalism by becoming a paid subscriber. It’s one of the best deals on Substack. I thank you for your support!

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Stay Steady,
Dan

The world is holding its collective breath as the most powerful man on the planet prepares to meet with Donald Trump. President Xi Jinping of China will host the Trump-led U.S. delegation later this week.

While the tenuous ceasefire with Iran is on Trump-proclaimed “life support” and renewed military action seemingly imminent, Trump is nonetheless packing his bags and heading to Beijing.

For a president who has sent his son-in-law and a real estate buddy to negotiate all over the globe, any mediations with Team Trump have low potential and high risk. Look no further than the current stalemate with Tehran. Or Russia and Ukraine. He promised that war would end on his first day in office. That was 476 days ago.

Now he has another war to end — one of his own making — that has upended the economic world order and downgraded the U.S. economy. We have soaring gas prices and all the impending downstream consequences, like higher food costs.

This is the second shot at this summit — the first postponed by the Iran war back in March. Because he views himself as the ultimate dealmaker, Trump heads to China with more bravado than is justified. His unpredictability, which has reached new heights recently, and Xi’s political acuity portend a meeting that will have significant global impact.

It’s hard to imagine, but in this upside-down political reality Xi is painting China as the safe and stable alternative to a volatile United States. And many international trading partners are buying it. But Trump is more concerned with Iran right now. And it so happens that China is the biggest buyer of Iranian oil. Hopes are that Trump can exploit that fact by urging Xi to pressure Iran to agree to the U.S. peace agreement.

China might do that, for a horrific price: Taiwan. Currently, America’s position on Taiwan, as negotiated by President Richard Nixon, is purposely ambiguous. But China wants to make explicit that the U.S. does not support a free and independent Taiwan.

That position would have been unthinkable in previous American administrations, but Trump’s inability to stay on script, and the fact that a free Taiwan versus a Chinese-controlled Taiwan has no material effect on him, could result in Taiwanese independence becoming collateral damage of the war in Iran.

The U.S. has historically sent billions in military assistance to Taiwan, which China claims to own. Washington has long seen Taiwan as a regional democratic counterbalance to Communist China.

If and when Taiwan is discussed, much less settled, the two leaders will likely move on to the economic battle simmering between the superpowers. The U.S. has attempted to slow China’s rise on the world stage, as a technological innovator and economic powerhouse. China has been doing its own pushing. Both countries are using steep tariffs, sanctions, and technology restrictions as cudgels in an ever-growing trade war.

Trump needs a win in China, considering the mess he has created at home. He lashed out at Tehran’s counter offer to the most recent U.S. proposal to end the war. “I would call it the weakest right now after reading that piece of garbage they sent us. I didn’t even finish reading it,” said the president to reporters on Monday, describing what was supposed to be a ceasefire.

Iran’s counteroffer is a limited agreement that would open the Strait of Hormuz and lift the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports. This half-measure is an effort to get global oil reserves moving again, as negotiations between the U.S. and Iran slog on.

The Iranian foreign ministry called their proposal “generous” and “reasonable.” Trump called it “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE” and suggested bombing could begin again soon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told “60 Minutes” that the current Iranian government’s “days are numbered — but it could take a lot of days.”

Trump has talked about having “all the cards” in these negotiations. I don’t know what game he is playing, but it may as well be Go Fish. He has few cards because the Iranian regime’s tolerance for pain is so high. With no accountability to their people and a ruthless military, the Iranian theocracy is ready and willing to wait out a flailing Trump.

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Writing in The Atlantic, Robert Kagan calls the situation a checkmate for Iran:

“The risk calculus that forced Trump to back down a month ago still holds. Even if Trump were to carry out his threat to destroy Iran’s “civilization” through more bombing, Iran would still be able to launch many missiles and drones before its regime went down — assuming it did go down. Just a few successful strikes could cripple the region’s oil and gas infrastructure for years if not decades, throwing the world, and the United States, into a prolonged economic crisis.”

None of this is going to help rising global oil prices. U.S. gas prices remain high, up $1.50 since the war began. To alleviate sticker shock, Trump reversed course on Monday and said he would endorse a suspension of the federal gas tax. This idea gets batted around Congress every time prices rise significantly.

The federal tax on a gallon of gasoline is 18.4 cents and 24.4 cents on diesel. While a “gas tax holiday” sounds like a good way to relieve pressure at the pump, it comes with a lot of downsides. This is why the president and congressional Republicans have been reluctant to propose it.

First, consumers would get some relief, but it won’t come close to offsetting the massive increase that will likely grow as the war continues. Second, the gas tax funds the national Highway Trust Fund, which is used for federal road maintenance.

The trust fund spends more than twice what the gas tax brings in, and it is getting harder to fund as cars become more efficient and consumers buy electric vehicles. A five-month tax moratorium would reduce the trust fund by $17 billion, or 46%, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Though it amounts to little more than a stunt, with the summer driving season about to get started and the midterms less than six months away, odds have increased that Republicans in Congress will push for it.

Trump is essentially borrowing from Peter, not to pay Paul, but to keep from getting impeached by an increasingly probable Democratic Congress in 2027.

Meantime, America’s strategic position in a world that grows more dangerous by the day grows weaker.

Please consider supporting my team’s efforts to protect our democracy through the power of independent journalism by becoming a paid subscriber. It’s one of the best deals on Substack. I thank you for your support!

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Stay Steady,
Dan

At the age of 62, Louis Armstrong dethroned the Beatles’ 14-week hold on the pop chart’s top spot with his vocal stylings and trumpeting prowess on “Hello, Dolly!” That was 62 years ago this weekend, and it is our reason to smile.

“Hello, Dolly!” written by Jerry Herman, is the titular song of the musical of the same name. The Broadway show won 10 Tony Awards, including Best Musical. While Armstrong’s recording topped Billboard’s Hot 100 Chart, it also earned Grammys for Song of the Year and Male Vocal Performance.

In 1963, the jazz great recorded a demo of the song to help promote the stage show. It was that recording that was released as a single and became Armstrong’s most successful of his long career.

The New Orleans native’s rich, gravelly voice is instantly recognizable from the first lyric. He went on to perform the song with Barbra Streisand in the 1969 “Hello, Dolly!” film, though I am partial to his original recording.

A fun fact about “Hello, Dolly!”: During his run for president in 1964, President Lyndon Johnson used the song on the campaign trail, though he renamed it “Hello, Lyndon!” At the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, I remember Carol Channing, the original Dolly on Broadway, singing the song to the nominee.

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Stay Steady and Happy Mother’s Day,

Dan