This video touches just briefly on child abuse in that the republicans / clergy / highly religious do in the defense of the LGBTQ+ especially trans people accused of it. The Rev. Trevors is a real supporter of the LGBTQ+ and he doesn’t like it when Christians use his god / bible to harm others. Hugs
Idaho state Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen, R-Idaho Falls, has spoken up on behalf of migrant workers — a stand that attracted social media taunts and a call for Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids at her farms from a far-right political opponent.
A Report for America corps member, Daniel Walters covers democracy and extremism across the region. He can be reached at daniel@investigatewest.org
Mar 26, 2025
President Donald Trump’s second term was only in its second day when Ryan Spoon — vice chair of the local Republican Party apparatus in Idaho’s Ada County — turned the force of the federal government against a political enemy.
“Could you please send some illegal immigration raids to the businesses owned by Idaho state Rep. Stephanie Mickelson?” he wrote in an X post, misspelling Mickelsen’s last name and tagging Trump’s border czar Tom Homan. “She has been bragging about how many illegals her businesses employ.”
As his social media posts about contacting ICE began to rack up more than 2,000 shares, Spoon stressed that simply sharing on social media wasn’t enough. He was officially reporting Mickelsen’s farming businesses to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement tip line and website.
“You can report her, too!” he wrote in a post festooned with flexing muscle and American flag emojis.
Three days later, Mickelsen said, ICE agents appeared at Mickelsen Farms, where a slew of varieties of commercial and seed potatoes grow across thousands of acres in southeastern Idaho.
“They just showed up out of the blue Friday morning,” said Mickelsen, a moderate Republican legislator and the former director for the Idaho Farm Bureau, a lobbying group for the agriculture industry.
By Jan. 27, just one week into the second Trump administration, a Mickelsen Farms employee had been arrested by ICE. Records reviewed by InvestigateWest show that a Mexican immigrant who listed his employer as Mickelsen Farms on his Facebook page was being held at a Nevada Southern Detention Center in Las Vegas.
As the Trump administration attempts to carry out its campaign promise of mass deportations, it’s promoted the official ICE tip line as a vital part of its strategy. The phone tip line was so overwhelmed the day after Trump’s inauguration, Spoon wrote on X, that he hung up and submitted a tip on the ICE website instead.
Some on the right have wielded threats of ICE reports as kind of a gloating taunt — a way of rubbing Trump’s election in the faces of undocumented immigrants and anyone who supports them. A postcard sent to a Californian immigration non-profit, for example, touted the ICE tip line with the words “Have your bags packed — Trump’s coming” written on the return address line.
On X, Ada County Republican Central Committee Vice Chair Ryan Spoon has taken a scorched earth approach to those he sees as defending illegal immigration — including reporting at least one Republican state legislator to ICE.
Daniel Walters/InvestigateWest
But Spoon targeting a Republican state legislator by calling up ICE is particularly noteworthy – and all the more so because ICE responded within days.
“It’s so ripe for abuse,” Chris Thomas, a Colorado-based attorney with 28 years of experience practicing immigration law, said about the use of the federal tip line. “We’ve got the government under enormous pressure to respond to every tip they receive. … It’s just very clear that at all levels, this is a full assault on undocumented people in the country.”
Spoon, who moved to Boise from San Francisco in 2019 to work remotely as a loss prevention specialist, and Mickelsen, a state legislator who is one of the biggest potato producers in southeast Idaho, are on opposite ends of the state’s Republican Party. And immigration is a particularly incendiary flashpoint: Mickelsen argues migrants are an essential part of the agricultural economy, while Spoon portrays both undocumented immigrants and legal refugees as a sinister foreign invasion force.
Mickelsen had beaten back attempts by the hard right to defeat her in a primary — and even strip her of the Republican label. But Spoon’s tactics represented a new avenue of attack. For farm owners, it raises the possibility that speaking out — or running for office or backing the wrong bill — could trigger a political enemy to try to call down an ICE raid.
Mickelsen knows who the employee is, that he’s a father of three and that his criminal record was what got him deported. But even now, she said, she doesn’t exactly know the exact nature of the man’s immigration status during the time he worked for her family business. Employers of migrants can face legal risks if they inquire too aggressively into the immigration statuses of their employees.
Immigration is a complicated topic, Mickelsen wrote in a statement to InvestigateWest, but using the issue to “bully individuals and businesses trying to navigate complicated and often competing employee documentation laws is a disgusting and reprehensible way to act and should not be tolerated by anyone.”
She’s unsettled. She removed the names of her businesses from her campaign site, believing it would be unfair to subject her family to the same level of nastiness that politicians have come to expect.
“I’m being way more cautious in the bills that I’m standing up against, because I’m afraid of being targeted,” Mickelsen said. “Which makes me a less effective legislator for my community right now.”
Deportation glee
In early January, Homan, Trump’s pick for border czar, floated the immigration tip line as a “fresh idea.”
“I want a place where American citizens can call and report,” he told NBC News. “We need to take care of the American people.”
ICE, to be clear, has had a tip line for over two decades.
“The difference is, in many ways, the tip line in the past was a black hole,” Thomas said. “People would make tips and usually nothing would ever come of it.”
Thomas said immigration tips are always prone to be taken advantage by those with scores to settle — abused by bitter exes and business rivals. In the past, he’s defended at least three companies — a janitorial service, an agricultural company and a bakery — who were reported to ICE by competitors. But after Trump’s second inauguration, he said, the entire framework of the federal government was refocused on immigration-related offensives.
Ryan Spoon, vice chair of the Ada County Republican Central Committee, called for federal immigration raids at Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen’s farms in a series of posts on X just days after President Trump was inaugurated.
Ada County Republican Central Committee
“They have to arrest certain numbers of undocumented people each week,” Thomas said. “They need to serve employers each week with notices of inspection. … They’re even under pressure to conduct raids.”
Effectively, Thomas said, ICE was being forced to rely on the tip line and the online tip website to fill its quotas. ICE tips had been transformed from mostly inert to a live weapon.
While overall deportations have fallen due to fewer border crossings, Reuters reported, ICE arrests surged during the first week of Trump’s administration. In the weeks since, the agency indicated there’s been so much ICE activity that it’s too busy to provide many specifics about ICE activity.
Asked about Mickelsen, an ICE spokesperson said that because of their “operational tempo” and increased interest in their agency, they were not able to respond to queries about rumors or routine operations.
The news of actual ICE raids, along with the string of false reports and hoaxes, have made migrant farmworkers afraid. No matter their immigration status, many don’t want to come to work, much less attend protests or share their stories publicly.
“Nobody’s wanting to raise their head and speak up,” said Ben Tindall, executive director of Save Family Farming, a group representing farmers in neighboring Washington state. “Regardless of whether they’re here legally or not, they’re afraid they’re going to get a target on their back and ICE is going to come knocking on their door.”
Freddy Cruz, who tracks extremists with the Western States Center, said he’s seen a surge of white nationalist groups like the White Lives Matter Montana chapter encouraging people to report unauthorized immigrants to ICE.
“The ICE information tip line has come up more and more as a tactic,” Cruz said. “Almost like weaponizing a government agency to try to intimidate not just undocumented immigrants, but also organizations that might be providing immigrant-rights services to folks.”
Along with the Californiannonprofit, three offices of the United Farm Workers union were anonymously sent postcards featuring the phrases “Report Illegal Aliens” and “There is nowhere to hide,” along with the ICE tip line.
At ArizonaStateUniversity, the College Republicans United club teamed up with a Hitler-saluting neo-Nazi to sell club T-shirts with the phrase “ICE Volunteer” and began urging students to report “their criminal classmates to ICE for deportation.”
But Spoon represents a more influential and mainstream example of this trend. Last year, Spoon was the chairman of the Idaho Freedom PAC, the political action committee linked to the political machine of the Idaho Freedom Foundation, a historically influential think tank that purports to separate true conservatives from “Republicans in Name Only” — or “RINOS.”
When Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson co-sponsored a bill to expand the temporary farmworker visa program and give migrants a path to permanent legal status, he was accused by Ryan Spoon, the vice chair of the Ada County Republican Central Committee, of commiting “a literal act of treason.”
simpson.house.gov
In the last two decades, more radical Republicans like Spoon immigrated to Idaho from left-leaning states like California, flooding the local Republican parties. Many of them cared less about the bottom line of Idaho’s big businesses than culture wars and conservative purity — and immigration was a topic they were willing to drench with invective.
On X, Spoon accused those who argue that migrant workers are necessary for the region’s agriculture of being willing to pay anything “for cheaper blueberries” — “their daughters raped by illegals, their young people unemployed, foreign slaves exploited, drugs & crime flooding their communities.”
When Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson co-sponsored a bipartisan bill to expand the temporary farmworker visa program and give migrants a path to permanent legal status, Spoon accused Simpson of a “literal act of treason against the U.S., facilitating a foreign invasion.” Spoon argues he’s not anti-immigrant — his wife is a legal immigrant from Germany — just anti illegal-immigration.
“Americans across a broad spectrum of politics are really fed up with the illegal immigration issue,” he said. “The tone has definitely changed there, and people’s willingness to confront that issue has changed.”
The reactions he’s received for calling ICE on Mickelsen’s businesses, Spoon claimed, have been “overwhelmingly positive.”
But Mickelsen said she’s heard from a lot of legislators who were “completely disgusted” by his tactics.
“It’s probably very disturbing for them to see this kind of treatment of a fellow legislator,” Mickelsen said.
‘Now we’re playing offense’
Spoon has repeatedly accused Mickelsen of being a “Plantation Mistress,” taunting her that “we’re gonna take your farm slaves away from you.”
But he told InvestigateWest that it’s a “mischaracterization” to accuse him of going after Mickelsen. She’s the one to blame for the reports, he argued.
“Her own testimony drew attention to herself,” he said.
Mickelsen Farms operates potato farms and other agricultural businesses in southeastern Idaho.
Mickelsen Farms
Last March, during the debate about Idaho House Bill 753, intended to give local law enforcement and judges the ability to enforce immigration laws, Mickelsenbristledat what she felt was the denigration of the foreign-born workforce by her fellow legislators.
Pointing to the production chain involving everyone from construction companies to the hospitality industry, and “every food processor, probably, in the state,” Mickelsen declared that “if you think that you haven’t been touched by an illegal immigrant’s hands in some way … you are kidding yourself.”
To Spoon, it was practically a signed confession.
“While it is not reasonable to think that she is able to speak for every food processor, it is reasonable to think that she can speak for the food processor that she owns,” Spoon said.
To Mickelsen, she wasn’t saying anything that hasn’t been widely discussed: There likely are many unauthorized immigrants working for Idaho businesses. The Center for Migration Studies, a New York-based think tank focused on immigration issues, estimated that in 2021 there were roughly 10,000 unauthorized immigrants working in Idaho agriculture alone.
Mickelsen told InvestigateWest that their farming operation relies on the legal temporary seasonal guest worker program to hire migrant laborers — a program that has grown by nearly two-thirds since 2016.
“It would be wonderful if you could hire a domestic workforce. But the problem is, people don’t like to do farming jobs,” Mickelsen said.
Her son, Andrew, Mickelsen Farms’ chief operations manager, said in a statement that “we would never knowingly employ an undocumented worker” and that “our business cooperates with all authorities and supports our government’s efforts to secure the border and keep Americans safe.”
“We follow all applicable federal and state laws to stay in compliance,” Rep. Mickelsen said. “We want to be good neighbors.”
Farm owners like Mickelsen are caught in a pincer between two federal agencies, said Thomas, the immigration attorney: Either accept documents at face value — some of which may be fakes from unauthorized immigrants — and risk punishment by Homeland Security, or question documents too closely and risk being sued by the “wildly aggressive” Immigrant and Employee Rights division of the Department of Justice.
Ultimately, Mickelsen voted for HB 753. But that did little to appease her critics.
“Should we post RINO Stephanie Mickelsen’s (District 32) pro-illegal alien video every week until she is voted out of office?” asked the Stop Idaho Rino’s X account.
After Spoon bragged on X about reporting Mickelsen to ICE, one conservative Idaho commenter mockingly envisioned ICE listening to the “passion-filled speech she said on the House floor.”
“Bet once she talks they drop their badges and quit on the spot,” he snarked.
Spoon replied with wink and grin emojis.
Mickelsen is not the only legislator Spoon has gone after.
In September, Spoon targeted Rep. Jack Nelsen for the family dairy he’d worked on for decades, claiming on X that “Plantation slaves at the NelsenDairy in Jerome, ID are ILLEGAL immigrants.” (Nelsen no longer personally has a stake in the business.)
Spoon said he’s reported only Mickelsen’s businesses to ICE “so far,” but pressed about whether he planned to report others, would only say “I’m going to hold onto that for now.”
At what cost?
For Mickelsen, Spoon’s actions spurred restless nights.
“I laid in bed at night for two nights in a row, and I said to myself, ‘Am I willing to jump on this same bandwagon in the name of political theater, and not say anything? Not say ‘wait a minute, this is wrong?’” Mickelsen said. “Or am I just going to be silent?”
In her interviews with InvestigateWest, Mickelsen sounded energetically defiant at moments — floating the possibility of taking legal action.
Just a few days after being publicly reported to ICE, Mickelsen took another risky political stand on immigration: opposing a bill to require businesses to use E-Verify, a federal website intending to verify whether workers are legal. Mickelsen says that the program is plagued by inaccuracy, inconsistency and delays.
But at other moments, her frustration and exhaustion shone through.
“You have to say to yourself, as this rancor gets worse, at what point is it worth it for me to serve in the Legislature?” Mickelsen said. “If my family and everybody around me is at risk?”
On social media, Spoon has often relished the idea of making Idaho so miserable for “leftists” that they leave the state entirely.
That strategy sounds familiar to Mike Colson, chair of the GOP Central Committee in southeastern Idaho’s Bonneville County. Mickelsen helped Colson lead a wave of moderates last year to take back their local Republican party from hardliners with a similar approach to Spoon.
“That’s part of their playbook for these legislators, to make it so miserable and so uncomfortable for them that hopefully they won’t run again next time,” Colson said. “That’s what they’re hoping for. That’s what they want. They want us to quit.”
Mickelsen’s concern goes beyond any risk to her family’s business — it’s the worry that someone reading the vitriol online could do something drastic. She’s been reading a lot about white nationalists lately.
“I have to actually think about my physical safety in a way that I probably haven’t the entire time I’ve been in the Legislature,” Mickelsen said.
She said she was advised to carry a gun — she has a concealed carry permit. But she worried that if the gun was wrested away from her by a larger attacker, it could ultimately put her at more risk.
Today, Colson suspects Spoon’s ICE reports were part of “a coordinated attempt to send a chilling message to a number of persons that may not see eye-to-eye with some of their political allies,” he said.
But the immigrant ICE arrested from Mickelsen Farms was vulnerable for another reason as well. The Trump administration had been touting its focus on arresting “criminal aliens,” unauthorized immigrants with criminal records.
In November 2022, the Mickelsen Farms employee, Sajid Soto, had previously been charged with battery and drug possession. According to the Bonneville County Sheriff’s Department, he admitted to choking his wife during an argument and then, while being booked in the local jail, officers found a tiny amount of methamphetamine in his wallet.
Even a migrant with permanent resident status can lose that status as a consequence of a domestic violence conviction, Thomas said.
Soto had served his jail time, the restraining order had been lifted, and his felony possession conviction — which can cause a temporary agricultural visa to be revoked — had been dismissed after the farmworker completed probation.
“Now you have three children that are American citizens who are entitled to social benefits because their dad was supporting them and will not be any longer,” Mickelsen said.
“Works at Mickelsen Farms,” remains on the dad’s Facebook page. Scroll down, and his cover photo from six years ago, taken through the rain-flecked windshield of his truck, shows a long row of green-and-gold John Deere tractors and combines lined up on a stretch of farm soil.
“Listos para sacar papas,” he wrote.
Ready to pull out potatoes.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the family relationship of Andrew and Stephanie Mickelsen.
Does this keep us safe? What harm does washing her hands cause? What is more traumatic, a passing trans person in the bathroom washing their hands or the police barging in and arresting someone in the bathroom. I can see the mistake she made. She thinks they know in their hearts that it is wrong to make bans on trans people. No they are sure their god, one with the same name as her own god, but their god is the hateful vengeful fundamentalist Old Testament god while her is a loving Jesus. Hugs.
Left – Wikimedia Commons, Khrystinasnell // Right: Marcy Rheintgen, selfie
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When 20-year-old college student Marcy Rheintgen made her yearly spring break trip to her grandparents’ property in Florida, she said she felt at peace — until March 19, when police escorted her out of the bathroom of the State Capitol Building and placed her in handcuffs. Evidently, Rheintgen had violated a 2023 state law criminalizing trans people who use government-owned public restrooms that align with their gender.
Tampa Bay Times reporter Romy Ellenbogen accompanied Rheintgen to the Capitol. When they arrived, several officers were stationed outside the women’s restroom doors. They warned her not to enter the women’s restroom. Draped in a white, frilly dress and a pink bow, Rheintgen went in anyway and washed her hands.
That’s when police entered the restroom and told Rheintgen she was being detained. A devout Catholic, she had wanted to take a moment to pray the rosary, but she never got the chance.
After spending less than 60 seconds in the women’s restroom, Rheintgen said, she was charged with trespassing with a warning.
Meanwhile, her rosary was confiscated as an officer from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement handcuffed and detained Rheintgen, searched her person and her vehicle, and then shuttled her to the Leon County Detention Facility, where she stayed overnight in the men’s ward. If convicted, she could spend up to 60 days incarcerated.
The FDLE did not respond to a request for comment.
About a week before her trek, she sent about a hundred and sixty print letters to Florida lawmakers announcing she would engage in the time-honored practice of civil disobedience: She would use the women’s restroom at the Florida State Capitol. She named her date and time.
The letter sent to Florida legislators. Image courtesy of Marcy Rheintgen.
“I know that as a transgender woman, this means I will probably be arrested. I am violating laws because I personally believe it to be wrong.
“I’m not a political activist,” she told Erin in the Morning. “I’m just a normal college student who thinks this law is wrong.”
The letters included a photo of herself so that officials could identify her. “I understand I could go to jail for up to sixty days in a men’s prison, where if the statistics are true, I would likely be raped.”
She writes that going to jail would “uproot her life,” but this was a risk she was willing to take:
“I understand that if you’re receiving this letter, you’re part of the Florida Bicameral Legislature, which means you’re probably one of the people who wrote this law or voted for it. I know that you know in your heart that this law is wrong and unjust. I know that you know in your heart that it’s wrong to arrest me and jail me for sixty days for simply using the bathroom. I know that you know in your heart that transgender people are human too, and that you can’t arrest us away. I know that you know in your heart that transgender people are no different from you or anybody else. I know that you know in your heart that the same people that go to church with you, eat in the same restaurants, go to the same schools, root for the same sports teams, watch the same movies and pray to the same God as you cannot be all bad. I know that you know that I have dignity. That’s why I know that you won’t arrest me.”
Signing off, she added: “Pray for me.”
“I’m a really religious person,” she told Erin in the Morning. She’s a devout Catholic who describes herself as a political centrist, with an appreciation for “family values” but a soft spot for Dorothy Day, the prolific Catholic leftwing activist.
A police affidavit she shared with Erin in the Morning — with her deadname (blurred out below), and the wrong pronouns listed — otherwise corroborates most all of her story.
Photo Rheintgen’s affidavit, but her deadname has been blurred out for privacy. Image courtesy of Marcy Rheintgen.
Rheintgen’s telling is also corroborated by reports from the Tampa Bay Times journalist who accompanied Rheintgen to the bathroom.
A selfie. Image courtesy of Marcy Rheintgen.
“I actually wanted to move to Florida when I was older, growing up, but I don’t know if I can do that now, ” she said. She fondly remembers her favorite beaches and bologna sandwiches with her grandparents. But now, it seems, her “home away from home” isn’t safe for her.
“I don’t want attention. I just want people to see this law and how crazy it is to put people like us in jail. I was so terrified,” she said. She admits she hadn’t consulted legal or advocacy organizations before the endeavor; she didn’t know what to expect. “They were treating me like I murdered someone — but I just used the wrong bathroom.”
Rheintgen said she was motivated to act after seeing the anti-trans legislation surge throughout the United States, and when she read about Hunter Schafer, the Euphoria actress, who was issued a “male” passport despite being a woman. “She’s a personal hero of mine,” Rheintgen said. The fear and the vitriol she saw play out over the news cycle brought her to a breaking point.
While bills like bathroom bans and drag bans have been sweeping the country in recent years, the criminalization of gender diverse people is by no means new. Black and brown trans women, especially, have been routinely criminalized for decades under the guise of “solicitation” or “loitering” ordinances, even in a so-called liberal stronghold like New York. The phenomenon is so pervasive that it has been dubbed the “Walking While Trans Ban.”
Jon Harris Maurer, Public Policy Director of Equality Florida, emphasized that the bathroom bans are just the latest attempt by the state’s GOP to eradicate trans people from public life. “These are hard working, tax paying individuals who are our family, neighbors, and colleagues,” he told Erin in the Morning. “Weaponizing bathroom access in a place like the State Capitol is an antidemocratic effort to block them from directly participating in government while simultaneously stripping their rights behind closed doors.”
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Trump is putting tariffs on places where there are no exports…or humans. Read on Substack
The two major things about tariffs that Donald Trump doesn’t know are that tariffs are taxes and trade wars don’t work.
Trump may finally be starting to understand it’s American consumers who pay for tariffs, as he said in February that we may feel a little “disturbance” from them, and the “ultimate fruits of tariffs will be worth the pain.” In Trumpese, that means there’s going to be a HUGE disturbance (like living next door to a frat house) and pain, similar to a barbed wire catheter.
The people who don’t feel pain from tariffs are rich people, especially billionaire assholes like Trump and Elon Musk. Dickless fucos don’t have to worry about barbed wire catheters.
Trump called yesterday “Liberation Day,” which doesn’t make sense at all when it leads to Americans paying higher prices. By the way, I was in a grocery store last night, and the cheapest dozen of eggs was $5.35, and they got as high as $7 plus.
In yesterday’s announcement, Trump said, “For years, hardworking American citizens who were forced to sit on the sidelines as other nations got rich and powerful, much of it at our expense. But now it’s our turn to prosper and in so doing, use trillions and trillions of dollars to reduce our taxes and pay down our national debt.”
This is bullshit because the United States has the largest Gross Domestic Product (GDP). We have the largest economy in the world (thanks, Joe Biden). Our GDP is $90,000. By comparison with another rich nation, Germany’s is $58,000. This is also how Trump acts at tax time, crying that his buildings aren’t worth the amount he claims on loan applications.
Tariffs don’t reduce our taxes. It’s an additional tax. For the dunderheads who may be reading this, let’s say you increase tariffs on products coming from Heard Island, where only penguins live. Since penguins don’t actually export anything, we’ll have to make something up. Let’s say they export shiny rocks because I think I read somewhere that before a dude penguin can shag a nice lady penguin, he has to give her a shiny rock. So, these penguins are exporting shiny impressive rocks for wooing, and suddenly they have to pay a ten percent export tax to sell in the United States. The importer, NOT the exporting penguins, has to pay this tax. Do you think Walmart eats this ten percent? Of course not. You do, or whoever shops where they sell shiny penguin rocks from Heard Island (and McDonald Island.
Also, you can’t pay off the national debt with tariffs. The tariffs are designed to discourage Americans from purchasing foreign goods. If that works, then nobody’s going to pay those tariffs. The other idea is to force other nations to lower their tariffs, and if that works, then we lower ours again, and nobody’s paying for those high tariffs.
Ya see, kids, if the shiny rocks become too expensive for American consumers, then they stop buying them, and then the penguins will stop exporting them. That’s called supply and demand.
By the way, the shiny-rock trick works with humans, too. The rocks are just more expensive.
I’m not an expert on tariffs (nor shiny rocks), but it seems I understand it a lot better than the President (sic) of the United States. Feel free to correct me in the comments if I’m wrong on any of this.
Trump also said during his announcement, “The United States charges other countries only a 2.4 percent tariff on motorcycles. Meanwhile, Thailand and others are charging much higher prices, like 60 percent. India charges 70 percent, Vietnam charges 75 percent, and others are even higher than that. Likewise, until today, the United States has for decades charged a 2.5 tariff. Think of that 2.5 percent on foreign-made automobiles. The European Union charges us more than 10 percent tariffs.”
All that’s complicated as tariffs from a specific nation aren’t usually a flat rate, but are different per product. First, Trump’s numbers are wrong. Secondly, while we have low tariffs for imported cars, we charge a 25 percent tariff on pickup trucks, which is higher than what Europe charges for imported cars.
Trump ignores that Europe is our largest trading partner, and if they retaliate with “reciprocal” tariffs, then that hurts American manufacturers, and then DOGE won’t be the only one firing American workers.
Trump said, “Toyota sells 1 million foreign-made automobiles into the United States, and General Motors sells almost none. Ford sells very little. None of our companies are allowed to go into other countries.”
More lies. Our cars can go into other countries. China loves large American cars while Japan, which is a smaller nation geographically, does not. It’s not that our cars can’t be sold in Japan, but it’s that Japanese drivers don’t want them. Until two years ago, General Motors sold more cars in China than they did in the United States.
Trump said, “And with countries like Canada, you know, we subsidize a lot of countries and keep them going and keep them in business. In the case of Mexico, it’s $300 billion a year. In the case of Canada, it’s close to $200 billion a year.”
Lies. Our trade deficit with Mexico is NOT $300 billion but instead, it’s $172 billion. With Canada, it’s NOT $200 billion, but instead, $45 billion. These numbers are extremely easy to look up.
Trump said, “Canada, by the way, imposes a 250 to 300 percent tariff on many of our dairy products. They do the first, the first can of milk, they do the first little carton of milk at a very low price. But after that it gets bad, and then it gets up to 275, 300 percent.”
The truth is, this was the case, but it was renegotiated in the North American Free Trade Agreement during Trump’s first term (sic).
Trump also gave a history lesson. “Then in 1913, for reasons unknown to mankind, they established the income tax so that citizens, rather than foreign countries, would start paying the money necessary to run our government. Then, in 1929, it all came to a very abrupt end with the Great Depression, and it would have never happened if they had stayed with the tariff policy; it would have been a much different story.”
Trump sucks at history because the reasons are known. Lower-income people pay tariffs, so an income tax was added with the expectation wealthier Americans would take more of the burden, but as we have learned since 1913, Billionaire assholes aren’t all that ethical. I heard about one billionaire who doesn’t pay his contractors, lawyers, or taxes.
Trump says the Great Depression wouldn’t have hit if America “had stayed with the tariff policy,” yet it’s the tariff policy, the Smoot-Hawley Act, that raised tariffs, started a trade war that decreased world trade by 66 percent, and contributed to the Great Depression and World War II. Herbert Hoover signed Smoot-Hawley into law. The Northwest Progressive Institute ranks Hoover as our 39th best president. It ranks Trump dead last, and he hasn’t even started his depression and World War III yet.
Bragging about tariffs from his first term (sic), Trump said, “If you look at China, I took in hundreds of billions of dollars in my term.”
Lies. He took in $75 billion from China, paid by American consumers, and had to bail out American farmers at the cost of $28 billion to American taxpayers after China retaliated. What you wanna bet those farmers voted for Trump? Yee-haw, fuckers.
Now, what do penguins have to do with any of this?
Heard Island and McDonald Islands are among several “external territories” of Australia that Trump has hit with ten percent tariffs. The World Bank’s data says the United States imported $1.4 million of products from Heard Island and McDonald Island in 2022, nearly all of which were “machinery and electrical” imports.
What makes those numbers suspect is that it’s believed no human has set foot on either island in the past decade. With the islands closer to Antartica than to Perth, it takes a two-week boat ride to get to the islands (they don’t have airports). The life you find on these islands are seals and birds, and the birds are mostly four species of penguins. Those penguins are king, gentoo, macaroni, and eastern rockhopper. I did not know there was a macaroni penguin. That’s the kind of shit that distracts me from finishing a blog because I have to Google “macaroni penguins.” Holy crap, they have huge yellow eyebrows.
The tariffs on two of the most remote islands in the world where no products are exported from, or where humans don’t even visit, proves that the Trump administration hasn’t fully studied tariffs. If they’re placing tariffs on penguins, then how much have they studied the tariffs they’re placing on the French or British? How high are the tariffs on Thighland and Yo-Semite? Shit, don’t steal that for a cartoon, my political-cartooning colleagues!
Also, these tariffs are NOT reciprocal, as Trump claims. It’s not like those penguins were charging us a ten percent tariff to start this trade war.
Penguins are notorious for not paying their debts. If you loan a penguin ten bucks, you will never see that ten bucks again, and he’ll probably waste it all on anchovies. How are we supposed to collect tariff taxes from freeloading flightless birds? All those penguins in zoos are on welfare and don’t pay for food or housing. And I hear the seals aren’t much better. They do more arfing than tariff-paying. The Internal Australian Revenue Service has reported it has never received a payment from penguins, and not even in shiny rocks. Penguins are almost as bad at paying their bills as Donald Trump.
We’ll see penguins fly before we ever see a check.
Creative note: I would have done something on a McDonald’s tariff, Trump’s favorite food, if penguins weren’t a part of the story.
Republican lawmakers in the Sunshine State are advancing a suite of bills making it easier for employers to exploit society’s most vulnerable.
Snippet (there’s much more, also about other subjects, on this page -A):
Make labor law feudal again. The Florida legislature is rapidly advancing a suite of bills allowing employers to underpay subminimum-wage workers — including children. One measure proposes undoing key child labor restrictions, like rules regulating maximum hours per week, banning overnight shifts, and guaranteeing teens get meal breaks. Another bill would permit employers to misclassify full-time workers as interns and apprentices to circumvent the state’s new minimum wage law. Both bills are part of the business lobby’s long war to decimate labor rights in the state; proponents are citing ongoing labor market disruptions caused in part by the Trump administration’s mass deportation program.
Florida didn’t want this. In 2020, a supermajority of Floridians voted to pass a ballot initiative to raise the state’s minimum wage from $8.56 to $15 an hour by 2026. But business interests have tried to stop that law from ever fully going into effect. Last year, the legislature passed a carve-out for minor league baseball players, and this year, the business community is coming back with a more sweeping overhaul. The new bill exempts interns, apprentices, and work-study programs from the new wage standards, despite the fact that a minimum wage is supposed to raise the floor for the lowest-paid segments of the labor force.
Internships forever. Critics of the legislation point out that the bill text does not define any criteria for what differentiates an employee from an intern or apprentice. Without clear guardrails, employers could use this exemption to underpay just about any entry-level position that requires some training. All they’d need to do is require the employee to sign a form waiving their right to the state minimum wage.
Thanks, Florida Man. In a committee hearing earlier this month, the bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Ryan Chamberlin (R-Belleview), acknowledged that retailers like Target may exploit these loopholes as written. “It’s certainly not intended for Target to be able to do that,” he said in response to a Democratic lawmaker’s concerns, without denying that it’s a possibility. Meanwhile, critics argue that the legislation is patently unconstitutional and suspect that it’s meant to push for a ruling from the state’s high court, which is stacked with loyalists of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who has opposed the minimum-wage law. With a favorable ruling, business groups could weaken the law and undermine a guaranteed state minimum wage. (snip)
Donald Trump continues to bully one of the America’s longest allies.
Donald Trump just made the rationale for his tariff “Liberation Day” crystal clear: revenge.
In a post on Truth Social late Tuesday, the president said that the tariffs were his administration’s “fight” against Democrats’ “wild and flagrant push to not penalize Canada for the sale, into our Country, of large amounts of Fentanyl, by Tariffing the value of this horrible and deadly drug in order to make it more costly to distribute and buy.”
Approximately 0.2 percent of American fentanyl seizures occur at the Canadian border, according to federal statistics.
But Trump’s aggressive rhetoric and high levies on Canada have practically shattered the two neighbors’ long-standing allyship. On Thursday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that his country’s cozy relationship with the U.S. had come to an end, and that Canada would wean itself off American products and services “at speeds we haven’t seen in generations.”
Trump singled out four Republican senators in particular who have pushed back against his tariffs. “They are playing with the lives of the American people, and right into the hands of the Radical Left Democrats and Drug Cartels,” he said, referring to Mitch McConnell, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Rand Paul.
“The Senate Bill is just a ploy of the Dems to show and expose the weakness of certain Republicans, namely these four, in that it is not going anywhere because the House will never approve it and I, as your President, will never sign it,” Trump said. “Why are they allowing Fentanyl to pour into our Country unchecked, and without penalty. What is wrong with them, other than suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome, commonly known as TDS?”
Trump and his allies have frequently accused anyone that critiques their work of being mentally ill, effectively undermining the legitimacy of critical thought in the groupthink of his already sycophantic base.
“Who can want this to happen to our beautiful families, and why? To the people of the Great States of Kentucky, Alaska, and Maine, please contact these Senators and get them to FINALLY adhere to Republican Values and Ideals,” Trump said. “They have been extremely difficult to deal with and unbelievably disloyal to hardworking Majority Leader John Thune, and the Republican Party itself. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
(I find it rich that Trump thinks those Senators have not adhered to Republican values and ideals, especially McConnell and Collins. Paul is in a world of his own, most decidedly a Libertarian world. Sheesh. -A.)
Donald Trump wants to become a dictator, and he’s saying the quiet parts out loud.
Trump is already turning this nation into an authoritarian state. He’s deporting people for protesting, he’s cutting funds to universities that have allowed protests, he’s claiming certain language and ideology is improper and illegal, he’s ignoring the courts, he’s cleansing government and history of DEI, he’s installed an oligarch to override Congress, and he’s even concerned that animals at the National Zoo might be too woke. Now, he’s openly talking about serving a third term.
Right after the election last November, Trump mused about serving a third term, saying he was only joking. Now, he’s openly talking about finding “methods” to serve a third term, and this time, he’s not joking.
There’s only one thing standing in the way of Trump serving a third term, and it’s this little thing I like to call the United States Constitution. The 22nd Amendment says, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.”
That seems pretty clear, right? But wait, Republicans and people sick of democracy and want to give fascism a chance say it’s not. They point to the word “elected” in the 22nd. They believe that as long as Trump can re-enter office without an election, then he’s in. Their theory is that JD Vance can become the Republican nominee in 2028, install Trump as his running mate, win the election (after destroying the nation with MAGA fascism the previous four years), resign the presidency, and Trump will become president for a third time.
So far, this nation has had only one president who was not elected as president or even Vice President. Who was that? I’ll give the answer in the notes.
But wait. The 12th Amendment says, “No person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.”
Trump is NOT eligible to run for a third term. After his J6 insurrection, he shouldn’t have been eligible for a second. What’s scary is that nobody may try to stop him.
In France, Marine Le Pen is ineligible to hold political office after being convicted of embezzlement, but here in America, Donald Trump is talking about serving a third term even after a coup attempt. As Harry in Resident Alien would say, “This is some bullshit.”
The GOP has already caved into Trump. Corporate America has bent a knee to Trump, and now they’re throwing money at him. Universities are giving in to his demands. Even Chuck Schumer has adopted the philosophy that the best way to stop Trump is to give him everything he wants. We also know the voters are too stupid, too racist, and don’t care enough about this country to stop him.
You would think the courts are the firewall against Dictator Trump, but SCOTUS, with a 6-3 fucknut majority (with two open to bribes), has already ruled that Trump is immune to everything except syphilis and severe acne.
Nothing stopped Trump from violating the Emoluments Clause. Nothing stopped Trump from using the White House and Washington Monument during the 2020 convention. The Senate refused to convict him in both impeachments. The courts refused to prosecute him. Nothing is stopping him from grifting during his second term (sic). Nothing has stopped him from allowing DOGE to work as an unelected fourth branch. Nothing stopped him from being bribed by Elon for $277 million. So, excuse me if I’m a little nervous about him serving a third term. Do I have to repeat that the voters can’t be trusted anymore?
Trump says a lot of people want him to serve a third term, but none of those people are probably among the 56 percent polled to say Trump is doing a shitty job as president (sic). So maybe Trump, even under JD on the ticket, won’t be popular enough to win in 2028.
But wait.
Trump might believe he doesn’t have to win to serve a third term because, as we learned from history, he’ll just claim he won and make another coup attempt and then pardon everyone who participated in the coup.
So, excuse me for not trusting the safeguards in our republic and for being nervous. Do we have to wait for Trump to start his third term for us to become a banana republic, or are we already there?
Which president was never elected? Gerald Ford was never elected as president or vice president.
Creative note: I wasn’t sure if the quote on the sippy cup was genuine, so I Googled it.
I see this a lot on social media. Someone will post a quote they believe is genuine. I have a spider sense with fake shit on the internet. Usually, when I see something I suspect is fake on Facebook and people believe it, even liberals, I discover it’s a lie. People do this with quotes a lot, and most people don’t question it. Well, today I found a Hitler quote, but I wanted to make sure it was genuine.
I did a search, and it turned up in different forms, but that still doesn’t make it real. Proofer Laura looked it up, too. I decided to go with it because I found it on a university website, so I’m hoping they got shit together and fact-checked it for me.
Daily Cartoonist note: Last night, I saw a question posed to me four weeks ago at the Daily Cartoonist. A reader asked why he had to be a paid subscriber to comment here, and also said he would use it to post corrections to me. I would have replied there, but the comments were closed. I’m hoping he’ll see this here.
First, I don’t mind having corrections sent to me, but I don’t like them in the comments. Why not? Because it distracts from everything else. If you see a typo, please message it to me through whatever platform you prefer. You can email me at clayjonz@gmail.com. Trust me, people let me know when they see typos, and I make many. If you want to challenge me on a fact or dispute anything, I’m cool with that being posted in the comments, as it can encourage discussions.
Second, only paid subscribers can comment because they’re paid subscribers. They gotta have something for their money. That reminds me that I need to make more exclusive content for the people who financially support me.
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Corbin Hiar reports at the Scientific American that the big banks are now banking on a 5.4º F. (3º Celsius) rise in global temperatures above the pre-industrial average.
Morgan Stanley let the conclusion slip in a report on air conditioner sales, which it expects to double, what with the extra heat. Hiar says that especially after the election of Trump, the banks accept that that is just the way it is going to be.
Air conditioners run on electricity, and reliable electricity may be a problem if the average temperature of the earth’s surface skyrockets 5.4º F.
Remember, that is an average increase. In some places it may be 10º or 15º F. That’s not going to be a pretty picture in Phoenix, Az., Miami, Fl. or for that matter Orlando, Fresno, Ca. and a bunch of other cities that are already sweltering in the summer
I’ve lived a lot of my life in hot places. I was in Cairo once in the summer and there was an article in the Arabic newspaper al-Ahram [The Pyramids] about the heat in Aswan in Upper Egypt, where it was about 115º F. The article said that there was a big electricity outage because the insulation of the electrical wires melted.
There are lots of ways ambient heat can interfere with the transmission wires. It can melt the insulation, or it can overheat components, it can cause oxidation. And here’s the thing. Hot wire shows more electrical resistance, which reduces its efficiency.
Moreover, overheated wires or components can cause fires. California is a big tinderbox at certain times of year, with dry forests, which overheated electrical wires can set off. The smart thing to do will be to bury all the electrical wires, but that is an expense the power companies do not want to bear. Another possibility is that people will put up solar panels and use home batteries, and disconnect from the grid.
Hot river water causes nuclear plants to go offline because they can’t cool the rods. Heat and droughts reduce hydro-electric production. Just generating electricity for the air conditioners can be a challenge. Your best bet will be solar panels, an industry Trump is trying to crush, and the banks are happy to help because of their fossil fuel investments and their willingness to kowtow to Trump’s diktats.
Then there is the air conditioner itself. It isn’t magic. AC’s don’t function well at over 100º F. They may break down. They may not be able to displace the heat outside. Cooling down things by more than 26º F. is a challenge. So if it is 120º F. out, don’t count an getting lower than the 90s inside.
In fact, it has recently been discovered that a combination of 122º F. and 80 percent humidity will just kill you dead right there.
All this is not to mention the massive hurricanes that will repeatedly knock down the electricity poles. Already, Duke Energy filed with the state of Florida for $1.1 billion in compensation for all the grid repair work it had to do after the 2024 hurricane season. What if the costs rise so much that the state can’t bear them, and Duke Energy goes bankrupt? I mean, these are little dinky storms compared to the ones we’ll be having if temperatures rise another couple degrees Fahrenheit. Some scientists argue that the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, which only goes up to 5, is increasingly inadequate, and that we are already seeing sixes. Can force 7 hurricanes be far off?
Duke’s press release says, “Given the severity of these three storms, the filing covers a range of costs, such as deploying hundreds of Duke Energy crews from the entire span of the company’s service territories and acquiring significant mutual assistance from across the country and even Canada; standing up staging sites, basecamps and temporary lodging, while also providing meals for thousands of lineworkers and field personnel; and repairing, rebuilding and replacing critical infrastructure, including poles, wires and transformers, that were damaged and/or destroyed by catastrophic storm surge and wind.”
I don’t think they’re going to be getting that help from Canada anymore. And this is just the beginning.
Hurricanes are caused by warm ocean water. The oceans off Florida are already getting up to 100º F. in the summer. That kind of temperature whips up a lot of wind. It is now clear in the data that the intensity of hurricanes is increasing because we are burning so much coal, fossil gas and petroleum.
Not only will the hurricanes be fiercer, damaging homes and businesses and knocking down those made of wood, but they will dump more and more water, causing massive flooding.
Stefan Rahmstorf writes, “our planet’s current coastlines are home to more than 130 cities larger than a million inhabitants, plus other infrastructure such as ports, airports, and some 200 nuclear power plants with seawater cooling (such as Sizewell B on the British North Sea coast). Even 1 m [3 feet] of sea rise would be a disaster.”
Those banks that see a 5.4º F. temperature increase as an opportunity to sell more consumer goods such as air conditioners are not reckoning with the likelihood of climate chaos and climate breakdown at that level, of a sort that will make maintaining current levels of civilization challenging. We’ll survive it. We’re unlikely to survive it in style.
And the billionaires who think that they can sell us gasoline and coal and gas for another century and just protect their families with big mansions in the mountains or on islands are fooling themselves. The mansions will slide down the side of the mountain in a massive downpour, and the seas will swallow up the ones on islands with storm surges.
Booker began the all-night speech by making his intentions clear:
“I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able. I rise tonight because I believe sincerely that our country is in crisis.
“In just 71 days, the president of the United States has inflicted so much harm on Americans’ safety; financial stability; the core foundations of our democracy. These are not normal times in America. And they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate.”
While we were writing this piece, Booker was every bit as impassioned as he condemned the Republican budget plan that would slash Medicaid and the social safety net so billionaires and corporations could have (more) huge tax cuts, adding trillions to the US debt, asking, “If you’re a Christian conservative, how can you hurt the weak to benefit the rich and powerful? The people of the United States have to stand up and say ‘NO!’”
This man does not look like he’s been speaking for more than 14 hours. Here’s the AP’s live feed. Watching this, we’re even feeling some hope — especially if other senators follow up with marathon speeches of their own.
(And it’s still running! -A)
Also too, we’re going to go ahead and call this a filibuster anyway, if only because the Washington Postwent out of its way to explain in its subhead (archive link) that it’s not actually a filibuster because Booker isn’t delaying a vote on legislation. Just seems like the sort of nitpick best saved for the body of the article, which is where all the other outlets have placed it. So why did we mention it in our subhed? Because fuck WaPo is why.
Booker received help throughout the night — and still, this morning — from other senators, because he is allowed to take questions, which tend to come in the form of brief speeches ending with a question mark. But it’s not just a tactic to help him preserve his voice; it’s also a chance for fellow Democrats to show their unity, with multiple voices pointing out how completely not normal the last two months have been. Booker and other senators called out Trump and co-president Elon Musk for multiple assaults on democracy, like their attempts to shut down federal agencies created by Congress, to cancel spending authorized by Congress, to withhold grants to nonprofits that were already awarded, to fire large segments of the federal workforce without regard to worker protections, and to effectively dissolve America’s alliances by siding with Russia against Ukraine and our European allies. And much more.
We should also note that, unlike the longest talking filibuster on record, old racist Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond’s 25-hour filibuster of the 1957 Civil Rights bill, Mr. Booker doesn’t have the opportunity to take restroom breaks. Now that’s impressive.
“Senator McCain, I know you wouldn’t sanction this, I know you would be screaming, I’ve seen how angry you can get, John McCain. I’ve seen you tear people apart on this floor, Democrat and Republican, for doing the same stupid thing over and over again. Listen to John McCain explain why he voted ‘no’ the last time the Republican Party tried to unite and tear down health care with no idea how to fix it, threatening to put millions of Americans in financial crisis and health care crisis. I can’t believe we are here again.”
Booker returned again and again to that theme: Why on earth are we allowing this madness to happen? How on earth are we in a situation where a US president is threatening to invade our allies and help our adversaries?
As we wrap up here, Booker’s voice is beginning to get a little raspy, but his overall energy isn’t flagging so far. At the moment, he’s having a colloquy with Sen. Chris Coons (D-Delaware) about the importance of US foreign assistance, which Trump and musk have unconstitutionally slashed. Coons called attention to how those cuts have left us unable to provide help to the victims of the earthquake in Myanmar — and Booker immediately pointed out that by wrecking America’s soft power, Trump has handed all that influence to China.
We hope Booker keeps going a couple more hours. And that as many of his Democratic colleagues follow his example with filibusters of their own. (snip)
I didn’t intend for this to be a deep, thought-provoking cartoon when I started it, with the intention of it being drawn just for kicks and to take advantage of the fake holiday. I rarely ever do April Fools cartoons, and I’m sure this theme has been done in the past by other cartoonists.
But when I think about it, there is some depth to this cartoon as it highlights some of the many horrifying absurdities of Donald Trump. Every time I do cartoons like this, a reader will always tell me I forgot something. Well, duh. There’s only so much space in a cartoon. But let’s cover the issues in the cartoon.
Democracy over fascism: Trump’s talking about a third term. Nuff said?
Hiring weirdos: Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, RFK Jr, Linda McMahon, Kristi Noem, JD Vance, Tulsi Gabbard, Stephen Baby Goebbels Miller, etc, etc. These are all goons and lunatics, most of whom are not qualified for their positions. Case in point, the Signal group chat controversy where nobody has been fired yet. Trump’s asking around if he should fire Mike Waltz, his National Security Advisor, who added the journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg, to the chat. But I think too much time has passed for that. Trump could have come off as a tough guy who takes national security seriously if he had fired Waltz last Wednesday, not a week later, after asking for everyone’s opinion, from Sean Hannity to the janitor who empties his waste basket.
Who is Trump asking whether he should fire Walzt or not? Everyone in his vicinity was on the chat.
Obeying court orders: So far, at least two court orders have been violated by the Trump administration (sic). They won’t be the last.
Eat a salad: This is one where I encourage him to continue to eat hamberders and KFC. Trump is 78, and a single Trump meal from McDonald’s is around 2,000 calories. I’m not the healthiest eater in the world, but after a few days of meat, I need a salad…and I kinda hate salads. Boring. I look forward to my meals when traveling, but I know I’ll have to squeeze a salad or two in during a trip, especially in Chicago. And it doesn’t matter what I eat at McDonald’s (which can be a treat when in the right mood), I feel horrible after.
RFK Jr described Trump’s diet as “poison” and said the only options on the campaign plane were KFC and Big Macs. Corey Lewandowsky said his typical McDonald’s order was two Big Macs, two Filet O Fishes, and a large chocolate shake, but we’ve seen several photos with fries included.
His former chef said Trump would always say, “No garbage with it” when ordering a burned steak with ketchup. The “garbage” was garnish and vegetables. Ironically, it’s the chef who has passed away.
People are not all made the same. How people like Keith Richards and Ozzy Osbourne are still alive is a mystery of science. Maybe Trump is made like one of those people where he can live longer than Betty White on a diet of Adderal and hot dogs. I don’t wish death or any physical harm on anyone, not even Trump, but I won’t mind if he skips the salads.
My question here is, did he eat that entire bucket by himself? My hands are greasy just looking at the photo.
Nazis: Trump supports Nazis. He deports Muslims while pardoning Nazis. He claims good people march with Nazis who “Jews will not replace us” and “blood and soil.” Nazis vote for Trump. Trump hired a Nazi, who gave Sieg Heils at one of his inauguration events, to find “waste” and “fraud” in the government.
I’m almost guaranteed to be yelled at by a MAGAt each time I mention Nazis in Trump and Elon cartoons. A lot of the people screaming at me are repeat screamers. They’ll say, “Nazis were socialists because that word’s in the name.” And yes, Elon did give TWO Nazi salutes. Sorry, MAGAts.
Golf: Not only won’t he stop cheating at golf, but he won’t stop bilking us for his golf trips. His golf outings aren’t just expensive for taxpayers, but a lot of that money, over $26 million so far in Trump 2.0, goes to Trump’s resorts.
Threatening allies: He insults Canada’s sovereignty when he threatens to make our northern neighbors a third state. He talks out of ignorance when he threatens to take the Panama Canal. Now, he and his goons are talking about taking Greenland by force, as if it was taken from us. Trump talks about Greenland the way Hitler talked about Czechoslovakia.
Ogling Cats: Who wants to hear Grandpa talk sexually about women dressed as cats? That’ll make you leave the room. Trump described the time he saw the play, saying, “I walked in, I saw all these bodies, and then I noticed those bodies were gorgeous. They had silk tights on, and they were all ballerinas and women from Broadway.” Did he also notice they were made up as cats? Does this make Trump a furry? I didn’t think Trump could get creepier. He literally wants to grab them by the pussy.
Grifting: Every president absolves himself of his businesses, except Trump. Jimmy Carter sold his peanut farm, but Trump keeps grifting. He’s still selling merchandise and can even be bribed through his cryptocurrency. Also, re-read the paragraph on his golf grift.
Oligarchs: Elon, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and many others are oligarchs. This is not a good thing for a democracy.
DOGE being transparent: Despite the claims, DOGE is NOT transparent, which should concern us all.
Lies: Trump told over 35,000 lies during his first term (sic). Can he top that in his second? Don’t underestimate him.
Groping: If Trump isn’t groping now, it’s only because he’s in the limelight. At least 26 women have accused Trump of rape, kissing, groping, walking into teenage dressing rooms, and even looking under skirts. He’s a real-life Quagmire. Giggity. He has cheated on all three of his wives. He often compliments a woman’s looks when he speaks of them, as thought that’s all they’re worth. And we just learned you can’t leave him alone with your cat.
Tariffs: More tariffs are planned for all of our trading partners, starting tomorrow, which Trump is calling “Liberation Day.” Let’s hope that’s an April Fools joke because tariffs are dumb.
Now, I’ve created a challenge for myself, which is to re-do this cartoon for April Fools 2026 but with new issues.
Readers, tell me what I missed.
Creative notes: I started this cartoon yesterday, Sunday. I always want to deliver a holiday cartoon at least two days before a holiday, but since most editors weren’t in the office yesterday, they wouldn’t have received this until today, the day before the holiday. So I went ahead and did my deportation cartoon yesterday (and finished it very late in the day), then finished up this cartoon late last night. I spent my entire Sunday working except during dinner when I watched a couple of episodes of 30 Rock, which I’ve been trying to finish for a few years.
Idaho state Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen, R-Idaho Falls, has spoken up on behalf of migrant workers — a stand that attracted social media taunts and a call for Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids at her farms from a far-right political opponent.
Sarah A. Miller/Idaho Statesman
On X, Ada County Republican Central Committee Vice Chair Ryan Spoon has taken a scorched earth approach to those he sees as defending illegal immigration — including reporting at least one Republican state legislator to ICE.Daniel Walters/InvestigateWest
Ryan Spoon, vice chair of the Ada County Republican Central Committee, called for federal immigration raids at Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen’s farms in a series of posts on X just days after President Trump was inaugurated.Ada County Republican Central Committee
When Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson co-sponsored a bill to expand the temporary farmworker visa program and give migrants a path to permanent legal status, he was accused by Ryan Spoon, the vice chair of the Ada County Republican Central Committee, of commiting “a literal act of treason.”simpson.house.gov
Mickelsen Farms operates potato farms and other agricultural businesses in southeastern Idaho.Mickelsen Farms
