Trump recently called his supporters “foolish” and “stupid.” Of course, Trump understands that all these characteristics that he now associates with his supporters are why they have remained loyal to him for so long.

As many have stated, there must be incriminating evidence in those Epstein files regarding Trump, as he is working hard to keep them hidden and to get his supporters to change the subject. He has blamed everyone from Bill Clinton to Joe Biden for the “fake” information contained in the Epstein file held by his Justice Department and FBI offices. The problem with this argument, however, is that Jeffrey Epstein was arrested and jailed during the Trump administration. In addition, when Trump calls something “fake,” you know it is real, as in the fake 2020 election results and the fake charges of sexual assault made against him.

Trump is always blaming Biden for something or another. Just the other day, he lamented about the appointment of Jerome Powell to lead the United States Central Bank. “He was a terrible chair. I was surprised he was appointed. I was surprised, frankly, that Biden put him in and extended him.” Of course, it was Trump, not Biden, who appointed Powell in 2017. But, hey, let’s talk about Biden’s state of confusion.

The president is grasping at straws as he can’t decide who to blame for the report, which he desperately wants to keep secret, including former FBI Director James Comey. Speaking of Comey, in the middle of all of this, the Trump administration decided that it was a good idea to fire federal prosecutor Maurene Comey, who helped to prosecute the case against Epstein and his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell. Well, that doesn’t look suspicious at all.

Trump follows the same patterns and routines when trying to establish his version of a story he doesn’t like. This is being played out today as he has filed a lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal for a story they broke about correspondence between Trump and Epstein that appears to show that Trump and Epstein shared, in Trump’s words, a “wonderful secret.” I wonder what that secret could be?

What isn’t a secret is that Epstein and Trump had been good friends for years and that, interestingly, Trump appointed Alex Acosta as his secretary of labor during his first administration after Acosta negotiated a very unusual plea deal with Epstein in 2008 that largely ignored the most serious charges against him regarding the alleged trafficking of young girls. Acosta allowed Epstein to plead guilty to state charges of soliciting a minor.

After he joined the Trump administration, however, the Miami Herald reported in 2019 that Epstein had abused dozens of girls and documented how Acosta shut down an FBI investigation of the more serious charges against Epstein. Sounds like a cover-up to me. After this was exposed, Acosta resigned from the Trump administration. But why did Trump give him the job in the first place?

Federal investigators in New York picked up the Epstein case, and he was arrested on multiple sexual exploitation and abuse charges involving young girls. While in jail, Epstein killed himself, according to the FBI.

What we know from the New York case, however, is that Epstein faced charges of sex trafficking of minors and the abuse of young girls at his homes in New York, Florida, New Mexico, London and a private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

For years since 2019, MAGA supporters, encouraged by Trump, pushed the idea that Epstein was trafficking young girls to Democrats, including Bill Clinton, and that Democrats likely had Epstein killed to protect their own. He also said that Democrats were keeping the Epstein file a secret to hide all of these facts. Today, however, we are learning that it is Trump who wants the Epstein file to be kept under wraps. I wonder why?

Meanwhile, the Justice Department seems to be working hard to protect Trump’s involvement with Epstein. Sen. Dick Durbin reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi pressured the FBI to put 1,000 personnel to work in 24-hour shifts to review approximately 100,000 Epstein records and flag any records in which President Trump was mentioned. I wonder what they are up to?

Many Democrats believe this will finally wake up Trump supporters to how Trump has manipulated them for the past 10 years. This is wishful thinking, at best. The MAGA crowd is unable to connect the dots. Trump says that they are “stupid” and “foolish.” They will likely prove him correct, again.

Tom Zirpoli is the Laurence J. Adams Distinguished Chair in Special Education Emeritus at McDaniel College. He writes from Westminster. His column appears on Wednesdays. Email him at tzirpoli@mcdaniel.edu.

As outlined by Robert Reich on Substack, “The United States government is no longer able to protect us from real hazards, such as flash floods, because it’s shifting funds to take hazards, such as a non-existent immigrant crime wave.”

Flood victims in Texas will have less support from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) because the Trump administration has diverted congressional funds designated for FEMA to building immigrant detention centers in the Florida Everglades. Good luck to the people of Florida when hurricane season arrives. Perhaps when their homes are destroyed, they can take refuge in one of FEMA’s detention centers.

The media has adequately outlined the number of missing personnel — a senior hydrologist, a staff forecaster and a meteorologist — at the National Weather Service San Angelo office near the Texas flooding. The National Weather Service office in San Antonio has also been without a warning coordination meteorologist and science officer, as stated by Reich, “who are supposed to work with local emergency managers to plan for floods, including when and how to warn local residents and help them evacuate.” All of these open positions are a result of people being fired or encouraged to retire by the Trump administration.
Maxine Joselow, writing for The New York Times, reported that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem did not renew contracts with four companies that FEMA uses to answer calls for victim assistance, resulting in hundreds of contractors being fired and leaving many flood victims without anyone to call for five days. As a result, “FEMA did not answer nearly two-thirds of calls to its disaster assistance line,” according to Joselow. And CNN reported that FEMA did not deploy search and rescue teams from around the nation to help local first responders for 3 to 4 days after the flood.

Trump is hiring 10,000 more ICE agents while reducing the number of staff supporting our nation’s air-traffic control system, cutting staff at our National Parks during peak tourist season, eliminating experts at the National Weather Service, and reducing the number of disaster experts at FEMA. He has reduced the number of Social Security offices and support staff, making it more difficult for seniors to access services or information about their benefits. His Medicaid cuts — which he promised not to make — will result in the reduction of hospitals and nursing homes in our rural communities over the next several years. Yet, he is spending $45 billion to build immigrant detention centers that look like concentration camps. None of these cuts will make us safer or stronger as a nation. They will, however, make life more difficult for ordinary Americans and leave many, such as those in Texas, vulnerable to national disasters.

MaryAnn Tierney, writing for The New York Times, has worked under both Democratic and Republican administrations for the past 25 years in emergency management and served as a former deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. She says that “the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, now warns of ‘rapid intensification,’ when tropical systems quickly escalate from mild to major hurricanes in a matter of hours. That compresses the time emergency managers have to evacuate communities, marshal resources, and respond. It leaves less room for error and demands more from the systems that protect us. And yet, the very system designed to meet this moment is being hollowed out.”

The “uncomfortable truth is this,” writes Tierney, “With each passing day, the federal government is becoming less prepared to face the next big disaster. And as the risk grows, the ability to deliver on its vital disaster response mission is shrinking.”

We all sympathize with the victims of the terrible flooding in Texas. But we can’t help but shake our heads as we realize that they are also victims of the local, state and federal government they voted for. In 2014, the Texas Republican Party declared that “Climate change is a political agenda … we urge government at all levels to ignore any plea for money to fund global climate change initiatives.” As a result, local officials refused to use the billions of dollars the Biden administration provided for an early warning system along the river.

The local Republican government ignored the fact that thousands of children regularly camp in a well-known flood zone, with a long history of deadly flooding, while refusing to invest in an early warning system to protect them. The local government stated that the cost of the system, $500,000, was too high. Do the math: $500,000 divided by 200 deaths = $2,500 per life possibly saved.

The people of Texas consistently vote for politicians who don’t want to provide even the most basic service for their citizens: helping to keep them safe. That includes being safe from natural disasters, which is a far greater threat to Americans than hard-working immigrants who are picking our vegetables or putting asphalt roofs on our new homes in the hot sun.

Republicans continue to vote for politicians who don’t believe in investing in their communities, state or nation, but then wonder why they can’t get the support and services they need when flood waters sweep away their home or when their children are drowned because an incompetent and careless government doesn’t seem to value their lives.

For many Republicans, no government is the best government, until they need help for themselves or their family. Then, they blame the government, the government they voted for, for not having the support and services they voted against.

Trump has stated that he wants to defund FEMA because he believes state and local governments should be responsible for caring for their citizens after natural disasters. This is a traditional Republican philosophy, but local and state governments lack the resources or capacity to respond to a billion-dollar flood or a five-billion-dollar hurricane. States like Florida and Texas would have to significantly increase their state tax rates to cover these new costs. Currently, Florida and Texas have no state income taxes, leaving their citizens to fend for themselves or rely on the federal government — and the rest of us — to bail them out after each disaster. In addition, even in flood zones, Texans are not required to purchase flood insurance, according to a report from Bloomberg News. If FEMA is defunded, voters in Florida and Texas will get to test out the reality of their “no government is the best government” philosophy. Hurricane season should be interesting.

Perhaps Trump is tired of bailing them out. As a citizen of a state who pays significant state income taxes to cover the services my family needs, I’m beginning to see his point.

Tom Zirpoli is the Laurence J. Adams Distinguished Chair in Special Education Emeritus at McDaniel College. He writes from Westminster. Email him at tzirpoli@mcdaniel.edu.

As Josh Bivens, chief economist at the Economic Policy Institute, stated, the Republican budget essentially dismisses any idea that the Republican Party is the party of the working class. “Their budget,” wrote Bivens, “says the opposite.”

In their budget, Republicans take money from the poor, including food from infants and children, and give it to the rich in the form of tax cuts. As Bivens outlined, “the spending cuts to health care and food assistance programs in the bill will average about $120 billion each year over the next decade, while the new tax cuts for households already making over $500,000 each year will average over $120 billion per year.”

One could possibly make a case for all the cuts if it were to address the nation’s growing debt. However, Trump’s budget transfers that money to the rich and grows the federal debt by several trillion dollars in the process.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the poorest 20% of households will experience income losses of nearly 4%. In comparison, the wealthiest 10% will see gains of over 2%. In terms of dollars, reports the Tax Policy Center, “millionaire earners will see an average after-tax income increase of $75,000 in 2026.”

As stated by Matt Labash, former national correspondent at The Weekly Standard, “It screws the poor and rewards the rich. Anyone still laboring under the illusion that this is a populist administration needs to understand that ‘for the people’ means ‘only some of the people,’ usually the millionaires and billionaires. Meet the new elitists, same as the old elitists.”

Compare Trump’s priorities in his “Big, Beautiful Bill” to what Democrats did in 2014 under President Barack Obama’s signature legislation, the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In 2013, 14.5% of the American population had no health care insurance. As a result of the ACA, by 2023, only 7.9%of Americans, including just 5% of children, were uninsured, with 44 million people enrolled in an ACA-related health coverage.

Last week, on July 4, after promising not to cut Medicaid, Trump signed into law nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid funding cuts. They also made significant changes to the Affordable Care Act, making it more difficult for Americans to enroll for coverage. According to independent assessments, between 17 and 19 million Americans are expected to lose their health insurance coverage when the entire law is fully implemented.

See the difference? Democrats try to make things better for ordinary Americans, while Republicans take care of their rich friends at the expense of ordinary Americans.

The Republican budget adds trillions of dollars to our nation’s debt. Adding to Trump’s tax cuts mainly for the rich during his first term, Trump will have added more to the national debt than any president in our nation’s history. This is from the “fiscally responsible” Republicans who like to talk about the debt problem, especially when Democrats are in the White House, but never do anything about it, even as they make the most significant cuts to social programs in the history of our nation.

For those who believe that Medicaid cuts only affect the poor, these cuts directly impact the health care of all Americans who use local hospitals, rehabilitation centers, long-term care facilities, and any health care program supported by Medicaid.

As reported by Ailia Zehra, writing for The Hill, the Community Hospital in Curtis, Nebraska, seeing the writing on the wall, “is shutting its doors after more than 30 years due to mounting financial pressures and looming federal cuts tied to Medicaid.” The announcement was made hours after the House passed the Republican budget. It isn’t just Medicaid users who will lose the services of this hospital; everyone in Curtis, rich and poor, will have to do without its services. This will be repeated in dozens of rural communities over the next several years as hospitals and long-term care facilities realize a reduction in their Medicaid reimbursements.

“Rural hospitals are especially at risk because a large proportion of their patient population is dependent on Medicaid funding,” said Michael Shepherd, a health policy researcher at the University of Michigan. A report by the Health Policy at Families USA said the Republican cuts to Medicaid will put at least 435 hospitals “with negative net incomes” and “at serious risk of closure.” A study by the University of North Carolina found that at least 338 rural hospitals are likely to close as a direct result of the Medicaid cuts.

On average, approximately 62% of nursing home revenue comes from the Medicaid program. The Republican budget will result in substantial reductions to nursing home funding, already inadequate, and the closure of many of these long-term facilities for the elderly and disabled.

While the United States needs more hospitals and long-term care facilities in the face of a growing elderly population, the Trump administration is, instead, spending $45 billion on immigrant detention centers. While the U.S. needs investments in education for our children’s future, Republicans cut education funding at all levels, including Head Start. They even added a tax on college endowments used to fund college scholarships for low-income and middle-class families.
Note their values and priorities.

The Republican budget is an attack on ordinary Americans. They changed Biden’s student debt repayment program for poor and middle-income families, forcing them to pay significantly higher monthly premiums. They reduced clean energy investments, putting the United States at a disadvantage in meeting future energy needs and competing with other nations for clean energy technology and jobs. As stated by the Clean Investment Monitor, “the United States has been experiencing a boom in clean energy investments, with $321 billion spent and $522 billion more on the way.” Many of these projects are located in Republican congressional districts and are expected to result in job losses.

Some Republicans are touting aspects of the bill that reduce some taxes on Social Security payments and tips for wait staff. However, these tax cuts disappear in 2028 and only apply to a small number of Americans (60% of Americans already pay zero federal taxes on their Social Security benefits). While Republicans made the tax cuts for the wealthy permanent, these minor tax cuts for a few ordinary Americans are short-lived.

Republicans are touting a record stock market. However, the stock market had already reached these record highs by the end of the Biden administration. It has taken the Trump administration five months to recover from market losses resulting from Trump’s tariff mishaps. Republicans are touting 147,000 new jobs in June; however, that is less than half the average job growth under Biden, who averaged over 333,000 new jobs per month over four years.

Inflation, under Trump, rose slightly from 2.3% in May to 2.4% in June, the same level it was when Biden left office. While Trump promised to lower prices “on day one,” economists expect inflation to continue rising due to higher health care costs projected as a result of the Republicans’ budget and Trump’s ongoing tariff war.

It was a good day for the rich, but not so much for anyone else. And that just about sums up Republican values and priorities.

Tom Zirpoli is the Laurence J. Adams Distinguished Chair in Special Education Emeritus at McDaniel College. He writes from Westminster. His column appears on Wednesdays. Email him at tzirpoli@mcdaniel.edu.

What Trump’s Justice Department, politicized to represent and defend Trump, not the American people or the Constitution, is doing to our nation’s great institutions of higher education is truly criminal. The impact of their actions against one of America’s true treasures, our institutions of higher education — the best in the world — has been devastating.

On June 27, we learned that the Trump administration’s Justice Department demanded that the University of Virginia’s president, Jim Ryan, step down as the school’s ninth president, citing, according to The New York Times, the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. It seems that for Trump and his Republican supporters, any effort to ensure that students, faculty and staff at UVA are treated equitably and fairly is inappropriate. Efforts to have a student, faculty and staff population that reflects the real world in terms of gender and race are also a sin.

Trump and his Republican followers argue that places like Harvard and the University of Virginia are sacrificing quality for DEI objectives. This is interesting, considering that Harvard is ranked among the top universities in the world, and the Princeton Review ranks UVA as the second-best public university in the country. If they are examples of DEI outcomes, may I suggest that everyone needs to do more DEI?

The other argument against DEI efforts by the Trump administration is that these efforts discriminate against white faculty, students and staff. This, too, is interesting considering our nation’s 400 years of discrimination against non-white faculty, students and staff. All of a sudden, some white people have decided that, after 400 years of receiving special consideration, no one should receive special consideration.

The Trump administration, through the Justice Department, threatened to cut off federal funding for UVA if Ryan did not resign. In his letter of resignation, Ryan said that he was “inclined to fight for what I believe in … I cannot make a unilateral decision to fight the federal government to save my own job. To do so would not only be quixotic but appear selfish and self-centered to the hundreds of employees who would lose their jobs, the researchers who would lose their funding, and the hundreds of students who could lose financial aid or have their visas withheld.”

While UVA’s Board of Visitors voted several months ago to end its DEI office to appease the Trump administration, Trump’s Justice Department was not satisfied. Of course, it did not help that Ryan was once the dean of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education from 2013 to 2018. Sadly, Harvard has been a prime target of the Trump administration.

Nor did it help that in 2017 the University of Virginia was the scene of neo-Nazis and white nationalists marching and chanting “Jews will not replace us.” Trump took a lot of heat when he defended the march by saying that there were “some very fine people on both sides.”

Ryan was brought in to tackle racial divide and increase diversity at UVA, and he was, by all accounts, a great college president who thought UVA could be, in his words, both “great and good.” Ryan is an expert in law and education. Before working at Harvard, he was a Distinguished Professor at UVA’s School of Law, one of the nation’s top law schools.

While dean at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, he expanded the faculty and established the Global Visiting Fellows Program, which attracted many international scholars to Harvard. While expanding Harvard’s reach and diversity of talent, he doubled the school’s revenue and raised $340 million in donations before becoming UVA’s president in 2018.

Ryan was also a successful fundraiser at the University of Virginia. In 2019, he launched the “Honor the Future” campaign, raising over $6 billion — $1 billion more than the campaign’s goal.

Multiple media outlets reported that Republican Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin and other state Republican leaders had encouraged the Trump administration to go after Ryan. While they were successful in the short term, Republicans face statewide elections this November.

The Democratic nominee for governor, Abigail Spanberger, a UVA graduate, is expected to win. After Ryan’s resignation, she stated that the threats from the Trump administration are “a clear infringement upon academic freedom and should concern every Virginian and American.” She ends her statement by saying that she “will work to restore a standard of leadership that puts academic excellence, Virginia’s students, and the strength of Virginia’s public colleges and universities ahead of any political agenda.”

Gov. Youngkin did, finally, issue a statement, although he failed to support Ryan or his state’s flagship university from Trump’s attacks. Youngkin is out of a job come November, and I’m sure he is hoping Trump offers him one. Bottom line, Youngkin is looking out for himself, not Ryan, not the University of Virginia, and not the citizens of Virginia.

Virginia’s two Democratic senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, however, called Trump’s actions “outrageous” and said that “this is a mistake that hurts Virginia’s future.” They called Ryan “a strong leader who has served UVA honorably and moved the university forward over ridiculous ‘culture war’ traps.”

Peter McDonough of the American Council on Education wonders if the Trump administration’s role in removing Ryan may “signal a historic disruption for higher education” as now universities will “need to align with the winner of the last presidential election” instead of “their collective strength from being independent and different.”

Armand Alacbay, senior vice president at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, referred to Trump’s demand for Ryan’s resignation as “governmental intrusion” and warned of the “grave danger to the quality and future of higher education if these types of decisions become a function of the federal government.”

The federal government’s involvement in the firing of a university president under pressure to withhold federal funds is both inappropriate and problematic. Where does this end? Will Republicans, quiet as a mouse today, be as quiet when a future Democratic administration goes after university presidents who don’t support their political agendas? Will our independent universities become another arm of the Executive Branch?

Authoritarian governments go after institutions of higher education because they are threatened by educated and informed citizens who can expose their corruptness. Trump doesn’t like informed citizens any more than he likes government intelligence agencies telling him what he doesn’t want to hear about Iran’s nuclear capability. As Trump said on Feb. 24, 2016, after winning Nevada’s Republican caucuses, “I love the poorly educated.” For good reason, I’m sure.

Tom Zirpoli completed his doctoral studies in special education at the University of Virginia. He is the Laurence J. Adams Distinguished Chair in Special Education Emeritus at McDaniel College. He writes from Westminster. His column appears on Wednesdays. Email him at tzirpoli@mcdaniel.edu

There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. This was a false charge by the Bush administration, as the United Nations’ inspectors on the ground in Iraq tried to communicate to Bush, and as his intelligence agencies tried to tell him. But Bush was down in the polls and determined to project strength. He was determined to invade Iraq regardless of all the reports telling him that Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction. This, of course, was proven again, after U.S. forces invaded and didn’t find anything. Bush’s miscalculation cost 4,431 American soldiers their lives, plus another 31,994 injured, plus 295,000 Iraqi lives.

Trump was told by his intelligence agencies that Iran was not close to developing a nuclear bomb and that it may have given up on that idea years ago. But Israel, under the corrupt leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, egged Trump into bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities. Looking weak in the polls — the lowest he has been since getting elected — Trump likely saw the opportunity to rally Americans around this false flag.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on CBS News that the intelligence reports that Iran did not have nuclear weapons were “irrelevant” because Iran had “ambitions” to build these weapons. When Trump’s Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard m reported in March that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon and that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, had suspended the program in 2003, Trump called her report “wrong” and said that he “did not care” what she said.

This was a significant win by Netanyahu, who initiated the attack on Iran. How easily Netanyahu was able to manipulate Trump into doing precisely what he wanted the U.S. to do and join in on attacking Iran. Netanyahu, like Vladimir Putin, has Trump’s number.

Trump was on the verge of an agreement with Iran. But, once again, it was an agreement that Netanyahu did not like. Thus, he pre-empted an attack on Iran, forcing Iran and the U.S. to break off negotiations.

This was not the first time Trump had reneged on an agreement with Iran. The first instance occurred in 2018, when Trump withdrew the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a 2015 agreement reached by the Obama administration and several other world powers, supported by the United Nations, that effectively limited Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions.

In this 2015 agreement, Iran agreed to limit its stockpile of enriched uranium, restrict the number of centrifuges and agree to monitoring and regular inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure compliance. The agreement was working until Trump withdrew the U.S. from it and reapplied sanctions against Iran.

Why did Trump pull the U.S. out of the JCPOA agreement in 2018, which, according to his intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency, was working? Because, he said, these reports of Iranian compliance were wrong. Apparently, Trump thought he knew more than they did. The real reason, however, was that President Barack Obama had achieved the agreement, and Trump thought he could reach a better one, which he was unable to accomplish.

By the way, Netanyahu did not like the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, either, and he encouraged Trump to withdraw from the agreement with Iran that was working according to all international assessments. Some things never change.

Once again, Netanyahu manipulated Trump to assist him in attacking Iran under pretenses not supported by the evidence. But then, Netanyahu is not noted for his compliance with international law, given his actions in Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians are currently starving because Netanyahu is blocking adequate food deliveries.

Has Iran been a good actor in world events? No. But has Netanyahu been a good actor in world events? Not by anyone’s standards, I would say, especially in Gaza. And doesn’t Israel have nuclear weapons? Indeed, they do. The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation estimates that Israel has at least 90 warheads and enough material to produce hundreds more. Yet, they don’t want anyone else to have such weapons.

One must ask, why should Iran want to negotiate with Trump again, after he reneged on them in 2018 and then, recently, pulled out of negotiations, which reportedly were going well, after being pressured to do so by Netanyahu? Why should Iran ever trust the U.S. or Trump again? One might think that they would be foolish to do so.

Like Bush in 2003, Netanyahu and Trump started an unnecessary war with Iran. The Iranians were negotiating in good faith with Trump and, according to Trump himself, were on the verge of a second agreement with the U.S., when Netanyahu, who did not want Trump to reach a deal with Iran, initiated their attack.

Trump then had a choice and, unfortunately, decided to follow Netanyahu off the cliff.

Tom Zirpoli is the Laurence J. Adams Distinguished Chair in Special Education Emeritus at McDaniel College. He writes from Westminster. His column appears on Wednesdays. Email him at tzirpoli@mcdaniel.edu.

His political rally at Fort Bragg reminded me of my time there during my four years of senior ROTC training. It took me back to August 1974, when I was returning from an eight-week summer training session at Fort Bragg, before the start of my final year of college. Richard Nixon was resigning from the presidency that month for crimes less concerning than Trump’s behavior over his first five months in office.

I recall being instructed by senior Army officers not to comment on Nixon’s resignation and being educated about the non-partisan nature of the U.S. military. It was important then, and it should be just as important today. Despite all his faults — and Nixon had plenty of them — he had more respect for the office he held and the military he served than Trump, who has little respect for his position as commander in chief and even less respect for our troops.

During a speech at Fort Bragg to a group of Army soldiers who we now know were selected for their physical fitness and Republican affiliation, Trump delivered what can only be described as a campaign-style, political speech that included insults to previous presidents and various federal and state politicians. As one Fort Bragg officer remarked, it was a sad day in the history of the U.S. Army.

The blame, of course, falls not to the troops but to the commander in chief, who not only encouraged such behavior among the soldiers but expected it. The hand-picked attendees were sure to give Trump the type of feedback he expected and the media pictures he desired.

The U.S. military’s rules on participating in political activities are clear and outlined in Department of Defense Directive 1344.10. The directive states that “active duty members are specifically prohibited from engaging in partisan political activity, and all members of the Armed Forces should always avoid actions that could reasonably be perceived as implying Department of Defense sponsorship, approval, or endorsement of partisan political activity.” An example included in the directive is any “activity supporting or relating to candidates representing or issues specifically identified with, national or State political parties.” The directive states that “military members must refrain from participating in political activity while in military uniform.”

Also, during Trump’s speech, at least one vendor was selling Trump and MAGA-themed merchandise on the base, another violation of DOD regulations. Asked about this, the Army issued this statement: “The Army does not endorse political merchandise or the views it represents. The vendor’s presence is under review to determine how it was permitted and to prevent similar occurrences in the future. The Army remains committed to its core values and apolitical service to the nation.” Unfortunately, the commander in chief doesn’t understand this concept of service to the nation. For him, it’s all about serving Trump.

Trump’s disregard and disrespect for our troops were also on display in Los Angeles. Tom Boggioni, a California journalist, wrote that in Trump’s “haste to federalize California National Guard troops … the Pentagon has dropped the ball on providing the paperwork that would get them paid and activate their benefits.”

In addition, due to the total lack of communication and coordination with the governor of California and local officials in Los Angeles, the troops were deployed with few provisions and no local accommodations for sleeping.

By the way, imagine if Trump were as strong against Russian President Vladimir Putin as he is with the governor of California. Trump, however, is weak with Putin and is losing respect and influence worldwide. His strong words to state governors and city mayors don’t hide his fear of Putin.

Trump is unnecessarily sending hundreds of Marines into California, again, without coordinating with state and local officials. Andrew Gumbel, writing for The Guardian, reported that “Three different advocacy organizations representing military families said they had heard from dozens of affected service members who expressed discomfort about being drawn into a domestic policing operation outside their normal field of operations.” Using the U.S. Marines for crowd control? Trump’s orders are insulting to state and local officials, but especially to the Marines.

Trump doesn’t care. For him, sending military units into Los Angeles is a distraction from his recent international failures with Russia, China, Iran and Israel. In just the past week, it has become apparent that Trump has little to no influence on other world leaders. Despite weeks of calling for a ceasefire in Ukraine, Trump has been ignored by Putin, who continues his aggression.

His efforts to reach a nuclear agreement with Iran were unilaterally disrupted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who initiated an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities and terminated Trump’s negotiations, which Netanyahu disapproved of.

Trump received nothing for the American people, except higher prices, from his tariff “negotiations” with China. Meanwhile, due to Trump’s failing tariff war, other nations, including our best trading partners in Canada and our European allies, are forming new trade partnerships without us, leaving the United States isolated, weaker, and poorer.

Trump recently told Fox News that being respected “all over the world” is a top priority for his administration. However, according to a recent 24-nation survey by the Pew Research Center, Trump is neither respected nor admired abroad. According to their report, “Majorities in most countries express little or no confidence in Trump’s ability to handle specific issues, including immigration, the Russia-Ukraine war, U.S.-China relations, global economic problems, conflicts between Israel and its neighbors, and climate change. When asked about Trump’s characteristics, most describe him as arrogant and dangerous.”

Like his friend, Putin, Trump mistakes being a bully with being strong and respected. He is neither of these, however. Strong presidents recognize the importance of fostering relationships and partnerships with other nations for the benefit of ordinary Americans and the global community. They don’t insult or threaten them. Strong presidents foster relationships and partnerships with state and local governments, rather than insulting them and bypassing their authority, especially when deploying troops.

Lastly, a strong president respects our troops and does not use them as a political prop or deploy them domestically as a distraction from his failures abroad.

Tom Zirpoli is the Laurence J. Adams Distinguished Chair in Special Education Emeritus at McDaniel College. He writes from Westminster. His columns appear on Wednesdays. Email him at tzirpoli@mcdaniel.edu.

When leaders from around the world seek medical treatment, they often travel to the United States. The Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, the Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, and the list goes on. Medical research and treatment centers in the United States conduct vital studies and clinical trials for cancer and other diseases and conditions, making the U.S. a global leader in medical research and scientific discovery.

At Johns Hopkins University, Trump’s cuts of $800 million in government research grants were followed by the layoffs of more than 2,000 people. Hopkins is a leader in the world for medical research, paid for by donations, private foundations and the federal government. Trump is defunding much of this research so that he can extend the tax cut he gave to his rich friends in 2017. Various estimates, including from the Congressional Budget Office, reported that the tax cut extension in the Republican budget proposal will add between $2.4 trillion and $3.8 trillion to the national debt. The CBO also estimates that their budget will kick 10.9 million people off of government health care programs such as the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid.

The Trump administration recently put a pause on new visa appointments for 6,653 new foreign-born medical doctors who graduated from non-U.S. medical schools and have been accepted by U.S. hospitals to complete a 3 to 5-year residency program starting July 1 of this year, according to the National Resident Matching Program. Hospitals desperately need these new doctors to complete their residency training in the United States so that they can practice medicine here. The American Medical Association says that by 2027, the U.S. will have about 124,000 physician vacancies. Without these new international doctors in the pipeline, many communities, especially in rural America, will be without doctors.

Our nation’s colleges and universities are the envy of the world. International students are more than willing to pay full tuition to attend an American university. Not only do they earn a degree, but they also learn about democracy and take these lessons back to their home countries.

During the 2023-24 academic year, 1.13 million international students were enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities, accounting for approximately 6% of the 19.1 million students enrolled in American universities. Twenty-five percent of them were Chinese students. I can only imagine the education these students received beyond the classroom by observing our democracy first-hand.

What are international students studying? According to the Open Doors 2024 Report on International Educational Exchange, 56% of international students are studying science, 25% are studying math and computer science and 20% are studying engineering. Many science, math and computer science programs in the United States are populated mainly by international students. Without them, these programs would not be available for American students. Many international students stay in the U.S. to support important American industries and research centers.

International students are a valuable economic asset to their American communities. They contributed approximately $45 billion to the U.S. economy during the 2023-24 academic year and supported over 378,000 American jobs, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. Twelve states, according to the National Association of Foreign Students Association (NAFSA), saw over $1 billion in economic activity related to international students within their borders.

Until Trump came into office, international students wanted to study in the U.S., and their numbers were on the rise. The long-term impact of his attacks on international students at Harvard University and other universities remains to be seen. Early data, however, suggests that Trump is scaring them away. This is a blessing to other nations and their institutions of higher education. “Competition for the world’s best and brightest is increasing,” said Fanta Aw, executive director and CEO of NAFSA.

As stated by James Glanz, writing for The New York Times, U.S. universities frequently secure the best and brightest students from India and around the world. However, Raj Ladher, professor at the National Center for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, stated that only one of his 30 graduates is heading to the U.S. this year due to the current political turmoil in Washington. Instead, they are heading to Austria, Japan and Australia.

“China and Europe are on hiring sprees,” reports Kate Zernike, writing for The New York Times. Meanwhile, applications for graduate and postdoctoral positions in the U.S. have “dropped sharply or dried up entirely since President Trump took office.” Zernike reports that France is creating new positions for American scientists whose federal grants have been canceled. Portugal reports that job inquiries from junior faculty members in the U.S are up tenfold over the last two months.

Zernike tells the story of neuroscience professor Ardem Patapoutian, who started a lab at Scripps Research in San Diego. His research won a Nobel Prize in 2021. Immediately after the Trump administration cut his lab’s funding, reports Zernike, “he had an email from China, offering to move his lab to any city, any university … with a guarantee of funding for the next 20 years.”

American talent is being recruited by other nations that see an opportunity to attract and welcome professors and graduate students away from the United States. As stated by Cole Donovan from the Biden administration, “Much of the U.S. power and influence is derived from our science and technology supremacy,” and the Trump administration is eroding this dominance.

While international students make significant economic contributions to their communities, they also enhance the educational environment of colleges for American students. The opportunity to interact with students from around the world for four years is a priceless educational experience, especially for American students who may not have had the opportunity to travel internationally.

Elon Musk began his professional career as an international student from South Africa at the University of Pennsylvania before obtaining an H-1B visa to work in the United States. Over time, Musk became an American citizen and, putting personality and politics aside, achieved great things. Another former international student from South Africa, Patrick Soon-Shiong, who went to medical school at UCLA, invented the cancer drug Abraxane to treat lung, breast and pancreatic cancers. Soon-Shiong, like thousands of immigrant students before and after him, was able to achieve great scientific discoveries in America, resulting in better medical care for millions of Americans.

Harming our medical centers of excellence and institutions of higher education will not make America great. Instead, it will diminish us as a nation and cause long-term harm to our competitive edge in medicine, science and technology, pushing the world’s best and brightest to seek other places to invest their knowledge and expertise.

Tom Zirpoli is the Laurence J. Adams Distinguished Chair in Special Education Emeritus at McDaniel College. He writes from Westminster. His column appears on Wednesdays. Email him at tzirpoli@mcdaniel.edu.

I think of this each time I read another Trump outrage. “Republicans would be screaming bloody murder if Biden did that,” I say to myself. There would be a dozen congressional investigations. For Trump? Silence

Can one imagine the Republican outrage if Biden accepted hundreds of millions of dollars of foreign government investment into a Biden digital coin? Trump’s cryptocurrency scheme was described by Brian Tyler Cohen as “yet another avenue for foreign governments and interests to funnel money directly to Trump.”

Imagine if Biden hosted a black-tie gala for the top 220 investors of his coin for a total take of $148 million. In addition to the top 220 investors receiving a dinner with Trump, the top 25 buyers of his coin were promised a private reception with him. According to NBC, the top buyer of the coin was Chinese-born crypto mogul Justin Sun, currently facing Securities and Exchange Commission fraud charges that were — interestingly — put on hold by the Trump administration. Interesting timing. NBC reports that Sun currently holds $22 million in the Trump coin. My guess is that Sun has nothing to worry about regarding those fraud charges.

Trump is handing out pardons left and right to contributors and supporters, no matter their sins. Multiple media outlets reported about Trump’s pardoning of Paul Walczak, a former nursing home executive who pleaded guilty in 2024 to tax crimes. No problem. Trump invited his mother to a dinner at Mar-a-Lago for a $1 million-a-plate fundraiser with the promise of a meeting with the president. She accepted, paid the $1 million, and three weeks later, Trump pardoned her son. A coincidence, I’m sure.

Can you imagine what Republicans would be saying if Biden pardoned the son of a supporter three weeks after she gave Biden $1 million? As Shapiro suggested, they would “be freaking out.”

This past week, the American people found out about Trump’s pardoning of a couple of reality TV stars, Todd and Julie Chrisley, who were serving time for defrauding banks of over $36 million and evading taxes for three years. Their daughter is well-connected within the Republican Party and spoke at the Republican National Convention. She visited Trump at the White House and made the pardon request for her parents. It certainly pays to be a Trump supporter these days.

Trump loves to pardon folks who have been found guilty of financial fraud and tax evasion. I wonder why?

As stated by Igor Bobic, writing for The Huffington Post, “Over the past few days, Trump, who was himself convicted of multiple felonies, pardoned a former Virginia sheriff who was convicted of trying to sell deputy’s badges, a Las Vegas politician who stole money intended for a memorial dedicated to fallen police officers, a tax cheat whose mother raised millions of dollars for Republican political campaigns, and a pair of Georgia reality television stars who were convicted of bank fraud and tax evasion. The pardon recipients all had one thing in common … they were vocal Trump supporters.”

As stated by Barbara McQuade, former U.S. attorney, Trump is telling folks that “if you were loyal to the president in the past, you will be rewarded, and if you are loyal now, you don’t have to worry in the future … As long as you support him, you will be pardoned for your crimes.”

Marc Short, a conservative commentator and former chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence, said of Trump’s pardons, “I think it’s been pretty gross.”
As if to emphasize the point that Trump’s pardons are, indeed, political favors, Ed Martin, the president’s pardon attorney in the Justice Department, posted on social media a few days ago, “No MAGA left behind.” I think his message is loud and clear. Martin also said that the Justice Department should investigate Trump’s adversaries, even if there is no evidence to use against them, for the purposes of shaming them. Who is weaponizing the Justice Department?

Trump likes to talk big about being the law-and-order president. But his pardons tell a different story. Of course, there are his pardons for more than 1,500 people convicted of storming the U.S. Capitol in an effort to stop the transfer of power after Trump lost his reelection bid. Over a hundred federal officers were injured and several died from the trauma of that day. Trump, however, has tried to rewrite this history by changing the narrative of the riots and “to minimize the actions of his supporters,” writes Glenn Thrush for The New York Times.

As stated by Thrush, “He professes to abide by the rule of law, but has often shown a willingness to do so only when he defines the rules and the law.”

Among his 25 pardons last week, Trump pardoned Larry Hoover, leader of the Gangster Disciples, a Chicago street gang. Convicted in the 1990s, Hoover was given six life sentences on conspiracy, extortion, drug and other criminal charges. He will stay in jail, however, because he was also convicted of murder in the state of Illinois and Trump can’t pardon state-level offenses, thank goodness. I’m sure Republicans would have nothing to say if Biden provided Hoover with a pardon.

Trump also said that he would “take a look at” pardoning the men charged with planning to kidnap Michigan’s Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020. He said that he watched the trial and “it looked to me like somewhat of a railroad job … Some people said some stupid things.” Yes, they said “some stupid things” as they planned the kidnapping of their state governor.

Trump has empathy for people who say stupid things. That’s interesting.

Tom Zirpoli is the Laurence J. Adams Distinguished Chair in Special Education Emeritus at McDaniel College. He writes from Westminster. His columns appear on Wednesdays. Email him at tzirpoli@mcdaniel.edu.

Trump’s argument that American colleges and universities are antisemitic, and thus he wants to cut off federal funding, has to be one of the most cynical displays of hypocrisy from this administration. First of all, the real victims of this attack on university research, mostly medical research, are the American people. Second, for Trump to voice this concern about American Jewish people is a joke. I seem to remember his calling the Nazi protesters in Virginia chanting “Jews will not replace us” as “fine people on both sides.”

Trump confuses his support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the ultra-conservative Israeli government with supporting Jewish people. He also believes, or pretends to believe, that anyone who protests the occupation of Palestinian land or the mass killing of innocent people in Gaza is antisemitic. It is a lazy argument.

All good people, especially Americans, should be protesting the killing of over 50,000 people, mostly women and children, in Gaza. This is not “pro-Hamas,” but pro-human rights, and something America once stood for.

Week after week, the world reads about another incident in Gaza where Israeli troops attacked a hospital or an aid group, including staff from the United Nations. I’m tired of hearing about the destruction of hospitals, schools and aid centers because, says Netanyahu, Hamas members may have been hiding there. Any reading of the Geneva Conventions will inform the Israeli military not to kill dozens of innocent children in a hospital to target the enemy.

Netanyahu’s response to these killings is uncaring and tone-deaf: “It happens in war … and we will do everything so that this thing does not happen again.” How many times has he said that? Unfortunately, former President Joe Biden did not insist that he be more careful, especially while using American-made bombs, and President Trump cares even less.

Americans must care, however. Thousands of children are starving as Netanyahu refuses to allow food into the area where refugees are housed in tents because most of the infrastructure has been destroyed. The other day, I heard on the national news that Gaza’s only functioning hospital — the others have been destroyed by Israeli bombs — was being bombed.

Americans should care that, according to the United Nations and reported by the Associated Press, “more than 13,000 children have been killed, an estimated 25,000 injured, over 19,000 orphaned, and at least 25,000 hospitalized for malnutrition” during this war. Because Israel has destroyed all but one remaining hospital, these injured or malnourished children have few medical resources. As stated by Britain’s deputy U.N. ambassador, James Kariuki, “Gaza has become the deadliest place in the world to be a child. The children of Gaza did not choose this war, yet they have paid the ultimate price.”

I’ve written in this space before, and I’ll write again. Either the Israeli military is incompetent, or they are committing genocide. Over 300 aid workers and U.N. staff have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, which began with the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Per the New York Times, “The United Nations has said that Israel has repeatedly struck its facilities in Gaza, including schools, shelters, and marked vehicles.” This is unacceptable, and American taxes should not be supporting it.

Kim Severson and David Ignatius, writing for The Washington Post, called the killing incidents “appalling sloppiness,” considering the capabilities of the Israeli military and intelligence organizations. When it comes to identifying targets in Gaza, they wrote that Israel refuses “to plan adequately for coordination of humanitarian assistance in Gaza or to make the safety of noncombatants a priority along with its effort to destroy Hamas.”

Again, this is unacceptable, and shame on America for being the primary provider of the weapons and ammunition used to kill these innocent civilians. Meanwhile, more than a million civilians are starving in Gaza, including tens of thousands of children, while Israel blocks access to food and blocks others, like the U.N., from providing food to starving innocents. Keeping food from civilians is a war crime.

Netanyahu has announced that Israel plans to permanently occupy Gaza, to keep Hamas from coming back, he says. I could have told you that Netanyahu was planning the occupation of Gaza from day one. This is why, I believe, he has purposely targeted schools, hospitals, water and power facilities, and other infrastructure necessary for the people of Gaza to remain. He is forcing them out by making Gaza an uninhabitable wasteland.

The student protests should have the support of all Americans because their protests are valid and speak to the morals of our nation. We should join them, not deport them.

Tom Zirpoli is the Laurence J. Adam’s Distinguished Chair in Special Education Emeritus at McDaniel College. He writes from Westminster. His column appears on Wednesdays. Email him at Zirpoli@mcdaniel.edu.

Trump and his family, however, don’t seem to abide by their America First philosophy. The most recent example is Trump’s willingness to accept a luxury Boeing 747 jumbo jet, outfitted by workers in Qatar and considered a “flying palace in the sky” for its opulence, as a gift from the ruling family of Qatar. Apparently, the current Boeing 747 outfitted by American workers and used by many previous presidents isn’t good enough for Trump.

Will Trump be paying a tariff on this $400 million import? Unlikely. Meanwhile, everyone else in America will be paying Trump’s import taxes. Interestingly and coincidentally, Trump’s Department of Commerce opened an investigation this month into the “national security implications of importing aircraft and parts” from international sources. Guess they didn’t know about Trump’s pending gift. Awkward!

There are, of course, major problems with this gift. First of all, presidents are not allowed to accept gifts from a “foreign state or its rulers, officers, or representatives,” according to the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Specifically, Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 8 of the U.S. Constitution. This may explain why Trump recently said that he “didn’t know” if he needed to follow the Constitution, even though he took a pledge (twice!) to uphold and defend the Constitution as president.

Specifically, federal law requires the president and all federal employees to report in annual disclosures any foreign gifts valued at over $480. Trump’s jet is valued at over $400 million. If the president wishes to keep the gift, he/she must formally declare their intent to keep it and pay federal taxes on it. Trump seldom pays any taxes, so I’m not going to hold my breath on his paying taxes on his new ride. Besides, the plane is not for him, says Trump. It will belong to the U.S. Air Force. Well, if it will belong to the Air Force, why is the plane going to the Trump library, a private entity, at the end of this term?

As Richard Briffault at Columbia Law School stated, the plane is “not really a gift to the United States at all if it’s going to end up at Trump’s presidential library.” The gift, says Briffault, is a “textbook case of a violation of the Emoluments Clause.”

Besides the legal issues of accepting this gift, the giver of the gift is problematic. Qatar is not a democracy. A single family rules it, something I’m sure Trump wishes for himself. Qatar is also considered by many to be a sponsor of terrorism, as they have close relationships and dealings with Iran and Russia. Qatar has funded Hamas to the tune of about $1.8 billion since 2007, according to multiple media sources. According to CNN, “Senior members of Hamas have long been based in the Qatari capital of Doha.”

A third variable regarding this deal is Trump’s family business dealings with Qatar and other Middle Eastern states, which make the “gift” even more questionable. The Trump family seems to focus on the Middle East for deals that benefit them financially, but don’t offer much for U.S. citizens.

Trump visited Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates last week. Interestingly, while he was in the Middle East, he did not visit Israel. Then again, what has Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu given Trump lately outside of a lot of frightening media regarding the treatment of the people in Gaza?

Trump has also not visited our largest trade partner, Canada, or any of our European allies. As predicted by Jon Gambrell and Tia Goldenberg of the Associated Press, “Trump will focus his attention on three energy-rich nations that are home to Trump-branded real estate projects or planned projects — places where he aims to leverage American economic interests to do what he revels in: making business deals.” “They’ll flatter him and not criticize him. And they’ll treat his family as past and future business partners,” said Jon Alterman from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Included on his tour of the richest nations in the world was the United Arab Emirates, which has invested $2 billion in Trump’s World Liberty Financial to invest in a crypto exchange benefiting Trump and his family. According to Brian Tyler Cohen, “Trump’s cryptocurrency scheme has been revealed to be overwhelmingly purchased by foreign buyers. According to financial analysis, foreign investors have poured hundreds of millions into Trump’s digital coins — yet another avenue for foreign governments and interests to funnel money directly to Trump.”

While Trump is killing investments in American education, medicine, research and infrastructure, his family is investing heavily in the three countries he visited last week. Apparently, “America First” doesn’t seem to apply to them. For example, the Trump family is investing in a Trump-branded golf course in Qatar and skyscrapers in Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, Trump is trying to defund programs for poor infants and toddlers in America.

Another point of interest is Attorney General Pam Bondi, who decided that a $400 million gift plane from Qatar, a country she lobbied for at a salary of $115,000 per month, was “legally permissible.” No conflict of interest there! When questioned about the arrangement, she said, “I think it’s frankly ridiculous that anyone in this room would even suggest that President Trump is doing anything for his own benefit.”

Perhaps Bondi should listen to fellow conservative Ben Shapiro who said on his podcast: “I think if we switched the names to Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, we’d all be freaking out on the right.”

Tom Zirpoli is the Laurence J. Adams Distinguished Chair in Special Education Emeritus at McDaniel College. He writes from Westminster. His column appears on Wednesdays. Email him at tzirpoli@mcdaniel.edu.