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"Ice Cream Man" is exactly what I want in a horror film: It's smart, energetic and includes some of the most memorable grotesque visuals this gore hound has ever seen.

Directed and co-written by Eli Roth (with help from Noah Belson), "Ice Cream Man" tells the story of a silent and evil purveyor of sweet treats whose colorful confections turn children into bloodthirsty and superhuman murderers. Set in the idyllic suburban town of Bayleen Bay, "Ice Cream Man" moves briskly — it clocks in at less than an hour-and-a-half — as protagonists Jared (Charlie Seltzer), Tommy (Shiloh O'Reilly) and Mia (Kiori Mirza Waldman) attempt to save the day from the titular villain and his new army of homicidal psychopaths. With caked ice cream stuck to their maws and a shocking combination of extreme strength and nigh-invincible resilience, the Ice Cream Man's child victims are a hybrid of the juvenile baddies from "Children of the Corn" and the zombified urchins from "Weapons."

Meanwhile, the unnamed Ice Cream Man himself (played by Ari Millen from "Orphan Black"), who we never hear speak, seems to infuse elements of iconic film characters like Conrad Veidt's Gwynplaine in "The Man Who Laughs" and David Howard Thornton's Art the Clown in the "Terrifier" series, with a dash of the Pied Piper thrown in for good measure. Unlike the evil ice cream man played by Clint Howard in the 1995 movie of the same name (with which this has no direct ties), Millen's Ice Cream Man is literally demonic, a fact that is made evident by the actor's unspoken mannerisms long before it is rendered explicit in the plot. He is among the more sympathetic gothic villains out there, mixing a sadistic glee in inciting brutal killings with a tragic backstory that reflects all-too-realistically on how corrupt institutions can railroad the most vulnerable among us.

Inside the mind of the Ice Cream Man

When I spoke to Millen after both watching the motion picture and writing the bulk of this review, I asked him if my read was on point, and he had an interesting observation about what makes the Ice Cream Man tick.

"When I read him, this is a man who was done wrong and his modus operandi has always been to bring joy to children," Millen explained. "And through what happened to him, the corruption of the minds of kids, he never wants that to happen again. We can argue whether how he goes about it is the right way to do it. But absolutely, his heart is very much in the place where he is here to maintain the innocence of kids and to not let adults or society sort of corrupt their innocence."

I also got a strong sense from that conversation, and from watching "Ice Cream Man," that this was a film in which everyone involved had a lot of fun. Shot in only 19 days with a cast and crew drawn heavily from Canada (a nation that Millen argues, and I agree, deserves more recognition for its tremendous talent pool of actors and filmmakers), you can feel the gusto for the material brimming from every macabre frame.

This is not to say that "Ice Cream Man" is for everyone. When I referred to myself as a "gore hound," it is because I am a longtime fan of the genre, and in particular of the type of blood-and-guts soaked fare that this filmmaker regularly serves to his audiences. If you are made squeamish by decapitations, mutilations, viscera and flying vital fluids, I urge you to stay away from "Ice Cream Man," as it will likely make you equal parts queasy and mentally scarred. For those with strong stomachs and a taste for this type of flick, however "Ice Cream Man" works for the same reason as Roth's best work: There is a brain beneath the exploitation aesthetic.

"Ice Cream Man" in context

Consider how "Ice Cream Man" stacks up against the other horror movies directed by Roth (each of which, as a Roth superfan, I have watched repeatedly). "Cabin Fever" was about how civilized behavior crumbles when humans face a crisis, with an infectious disease catalyst all too relevant after the COVID-19 pandemic; "Hostel" skewered Americans' ignorance of and false sense of superiority to the world around them; "Hostel: Part II" critiqued misogyny in ways that presciently predated the Me Too movement; "The Green Inferno" underscored the naïveté of political activists who act based on what is trendy online rather than what they have researched; and "Thanksgiving" satirized American consumerism and how powerful business leaders can dangerously skirt accountability. Even his non-horror movies, like his underrated "Death Wish" remake (which I reviewed for Salon), touched on issues like our gun-obsessed culture and how it can breed vigilantism.

With "Ice Cream Man," the intelligence comes from comprehending the innocence and cruelty that defines childhood, as well as how easily kids can be exploited by adults. "Ice Cream Man" captures all of that vividly, in no small part because a lot of the aforementioned fun seemed to come from the child actors who run wild. As Millen pointed out, kids get a "bad rap" as being "difficult to work with, but Charlie and Kiori and Shiloh are some of the most talented and dedicated actors, kids or adults, that I've ever worked with. They just have the benefit of still having a child's imagination." As such "they were in this world as soon as Eli called action. They were in that world. And that made my job that much easier because they just drew me in."

Much as the children pulled their weight, a large share of the credit must also go to Millen for his starring performance. Mute film baddies are hardly new, especially since the type was popularized by "Halloween"'s Michael Myers and "Friday the 13th: Part 2"'s Jason Voorhees, but usually the archetype wears a mask and seems literally inhuman. The Ice Cream Man, by contrast, has a constantly visible face and is terrifying in part because of his humanity. Like the best mimes (a comparison I use as a sincere compliment, not a backhanded one), he expresses a wide range of emotions — cruelty, a desire to be liked, even a twisted sort of kindness — without uttering a syllable. Like Robert Englund's Freddy Krueger in "A Nightmare on Elm Street," it is difficult to imagine anyone else in the Ice Cream Man role once you see Millen. As an asset to the film, he is irreplaceable.

Again, I must reiterate that "Ice Cream Man" is not for everyone. Like akutaq or black licorice ice cream, this is a genre picture for those with a very specific type of cinematic palate. If you oppose the use of Generative AI to create special effects, you may object to that aspect of the movie on principle. (Personally I didn't notice any moments that seemed AI-y; the animation and special effects seemed realistic.) Yet if you are a fan of Roth's best work like "Cabin Fever," "The Green Inferno" and "Thanksgiving," "Ice Cream Man" will not disappoint. Similarly, if you're in the mood for a scary movie that flies by fast and contains characters and images that stick with you, "Ice Cream Man" is two scoops of devious deliciousness that will go down smooth.

New rumblings are emerging about a new political party being concocted by betrayed MAGA luminaries, but according to the D.C. insiders at Pod Save America, these rumors actually pose a disaster for President Donald Trump and his allies, as well as "a gift to Democrats like you cannot imagine."

In the latest episode of the "Pod Save America" podcast, former Obama administration officials Jon Favreau and Dan Pfeiffer touched on the emerging rumors that ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson might be plotting a run for president, as well as the rumors about a new political party that might coalesce around him. The rumors went into overdrive after former congresswoman-turned-Trump critic Marjorie Taylor Greene shared a photo to X of herself at Carlson's Maine compound, alongside Rep. Thomas Massie and Joe Kent, along with the caption, "The movement has begun."

"MAGA was betrayed. We all were. It's time for a new path forward," she added in another post.

While Carlson has denied any presidential ambitions, he did last week release a "10-point plan for America," outlining his vision for the future of the country, something that Favreau, Obama's one-time director of speechwriting, said "sounds pretty 'I'm going to run in 2028.'"

The hosts of Pod Save America, especially former National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vieter, have long despaired about the possibility of Carlson running for president, given that his established popularity with the GOP base and his well-honed media skills could make him a highly effective "demagogue." In light of this news, however, Pfieffer, Obama's former senior communications adviser, argued that Carlson's political threat to Democrats was entirely neutralized and that he would instead become a major threat to MAGA Republicans.

"There's been a lot of talk of Tucker Carlson being a formidable presidential candidate because of his media skills, mainly because of his media skills," Pfeiffer explained. "That was always under the assumption he would be the Republican nominee, right? Tucker Carlson, a third-party candidate, is a gift to Democrats like you cannot imagine."

He continued: "There aren't a lot of potential John Ossoff, [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez], Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, Josh Shapiro voters who are voting for Tucker Carlson, but there are a lot of disillusioned Trump 2024 voters who might vote for Tucker Carlson. That's how you win. So that would be very good news. Like, we should encourage this. This would be great... It does speak to how much the MAGA coalition has truly fractured under Trump's second term, right? Because of Epstein of Epstein, apparently because of the war, there are these incredibly prominent people with large audiences who have soured on Trump."

President Donald Trump was once again golfing over the weekend, and according to a new report from The Daily Beast, his appearance on the links reignited concerns about his declining health.

Trump on Saturday made an appearance at a tournament put on by the controversial professional league, LIV Golf, which was hosted at his own property in Bedminster, New Jersey. While there, he was photographed with his arms exposed while wearing his typical white golf shirt, and appeared to have even more "mysterious bruising" than usual.

"Donald Trump looked a little worse for wear as he bared his bruised arms during a golf outing," The Daily Beast detailed. "Not one to spend too much time on foot while golfing, Trump was photographed slouching in a golf cart, decked out in his bright white, heavily-branded presidential merch."

It continued: "With his forearms exposed by a polo shirt, Trump revealed bruises of varying sizes, alongside what looked to be a couple of scrapes. Trump also sported Band-Aids on a couple of fingers of his right hand, which he rested on his knee while squinting forward at the route ahead. While Trump is known for suspicious bruising, usually it’s the president’s hands—not arm—which draw attention."

Trump has frequently been spotted with prominent bruising on the top of his hands, or with a conspicuous layer of makeup trying to cover it up. The administration's typical response to questions about this situation has been to claim that Trump is getting bruised by the many handshakes he does every day. They have also claimed that this tendency is worsened by his taking aspirin doses, which are meant to address his confirmed case of chronic venous insufficiency.

Other observers have suggested that the bruising is consistent with the bruises patients, especially seniors with weaker skin, develop when receiving intravenous medication through veins in the tops of their hands. Some have even suggested that he might be receiving a specific anti-Alzheimer's medication, Leqembi.

"Alongside the bruising, there are many other facets of Trump’s health which don’t always quite add up, including swollen limbs, chronic sleepiness, slurring, and bouts of emotional outbursts or confusion," the report added. "Despite speculation, the White House insists that Trump is in perfect health, with spokesperson Davis Ingle saying in April: 'President Trump is the sharpest, most accessible, and energetic president in American history. President Trump’s commitment is unwavering and he proves that every single day.'”

First Lady Melania Trump has maintained a "shockingly light" schedule of public appearances, according to an extensive "audit" conducted by The Daily Beast, revealing a major shift from past first ladies.

"The Beast has gone through her public appearances since her husband [President Donald Trump] was sworn in for a second time, and found that she has not come close to appearing publicly on 100 days in the more than year and a half of his presidency," the report detailed. "In fact, she has been seen in public on only 38 days of the year so far.

It continued: "The first lady was last seen in mid-July, when she attended the final of the soccer World Cup with her husband. But that was one of a tiny number of public appearances she has made all year. In July alone, she skipped three major events in as many weeks, bringing fresh attention to her status as one of the least-active first ladies in the country’s modern history."

According to the audit's findings, Melania Trump has only appeared at an official event or been photographed in public once every six days, on average, in 2026. Her busiest month so far was April, when she made nine appearances, after making eight appearances each in February and March.

Her schedule has slowed down considerably over the summer, as she made only four appearances in May, three in June and two in July, and has yet to make an appearance in August.

"Melania was seen in public at the World Cup Final in New Jersey on July 19," the report noted further. "She did not accompany her husband to the dignified transfer of U.S. soldiers killed by Iran on July 22, nor the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Dinner on July 24. She also did not attend the funeral for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham on July 28."

The first lady's schedule in 2026 does, however, appear to be in line with her overall cadence during her husband's second term, as she made only 47 total appearances across all of 2025, meaning that she might still eclipse that number by the end of the year. Despite that, her current schedule marks a notable shift away from those of past first ladies.

"Melania is also speaking publicly with less frequency than her predecessors," the report added. "She has delivered remarks just 29 times in MAGA 2.0, according to the University of California, Santa Barbara’s presidential database. A Daily Beast review found that in the equivalent period, from January 2009 to August 2010, Michelle Obama made 130 speeches. Jill Biden, who also worked as an English professor at Northern Virginia Community College during her time as first lady, gave 43 speeches in the same 18-month period upon moving into the White House."

President Donald Trump seems to be doing everything in his power to crash the GOP's chances of success in the midterms, and as a new piece for The i Paper argued, he already has an excuse ready to absolve himself of blame when it happens.

In the piece, published Sunday, journalist Sarah Baxter wrote that Trump remains committed to taking revenge on his perceived enemies, "Whatever it costs, whatever it takes," even as his fixations continue to sink the GOP's midterm odds, and now "all his dastardly plans for revenge are going wrong." Beyond payback, she added that he also remains focused on "glorifying himself with grandiose building projects in Washington," leaving him with the combo of "renovation and revenge," at the expense of anything that might show concern for the real issues impacting voters.

"Somewhere in... Trump’s brain there ought to be room for the kitchen table concerns of voters on the economy, inflation, fuel prices – the stuff of everyday life," Baxter wrote. "They’re feeling crowded out by his petty fixations. Monthly job figures have just been revised downwards, there has been no sign of a promised World Cup hospitality and leisure industry bump, and the Iran war has passed the five-month mark. According to a Quinnipac poll, 68 per cent of voters think Trump is not focused enough on addressing their problems."

The actions of the president are often enough for voters to revolt against their party in the midterms, but Trump's petty fixations, Baxter argued, now appear to be spreading amongst other elected Republicans. Earlier this week, the Senate Homeland Committee voted to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt for his use of the Fifth Amendment to refuse questions at a recent hearing, which he said was motivated by Republicans' obsession with getting revenge on him for COVID-19 restrictions. This, she added, was "all a ridiculous waste of time."

"Asking Trump to stop his petty behaviour is like asking him to stop breathing," Baxter continued. "His thirst for revenge has previously served him well in business and politics. The MAGA movement loves him for it. 'I am your justice… I am your retribution,' he vowed during his campaign to take back the White House."

She added: "But the Midterms are a chance for voters to say 'what about us?' They will be asking if the US is heading in the right direction two years into Trump’s presidency."

Baxter further highlighted recent comments Trump made in an interview with Puncbowl News, which seem to be a preview of the excuse he will deploy to deflect blame for Republicans getting wiped out in the midterms.

"They’re angry at Republicans, but they’re not angry at me," Trump said.

"Nothing is ever his fault," Baxter concluded.

A retired military officer and activist warned conservative commentator Bill Kristol on Sunday that President Donald Trump’s policies are dangerously weakening the American armed forces.

“In my retirement speech, I mentioned the fact that we were not being tossed away because we had failed in any way,” Col. Breen Fram, an American astronautical engineer and former colonel, told Bill Kristol. “It was because what we had done could not be hidden away if we remained in uniform. That we had done our job so well that we had won the respect of our friends, our colleagues, and the people that we worked for or led, that having us there continued to put to the torch the lie that they were saying about our character and our capability.”

She added, “The executive order basically said that we were dishonorable, undisciplined liars who lacked the humility required for military service. So that attack on our character on top of the attack that they made, the claim that we were undeployable because of medication that we were taking long-term. And I know we're gonna get into this, but it's pretty crazy that now we have Secretary Hegseth in his quest for a high-T Department of War saying that long-term hormone replacement therapy is a lethality enhancer for some, but is a clear readiness crisis for others. The hypocrisy behind all of this is overwhelming.”

Fram also called out Trump for purging people from the military who do not share both his views and those of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

“Not only is the science clear, but the military had embraced this—that it takes multiple perspectives,” Fram told Kristol. “Yes, there are certain situations where we know an order is important to be carried out immediately because lives are on the line, or we need a snap decision. But in most cases, we're planning for the future. We are building the force and our readiness, and we need to consider all the options. And if people are not willing to speak up, you get these hollow armies that look amazing but will collapse at the first sign of adversity.”

As one example, Fram talked about Trump’s Golden Dome proposal.

“My experience was with the Golden Dome proposal, which was originally Iron Dome, but of course, anything that Trump touches has to be gilded,” Fram said. “So it immediately turned to Golden Dome. And as this proposal came over for this worldwide missile shield, I with 23 years of service as an astronautical engineer, thought, maybe, maybe my input would be valued on this. But when I said that this was the least technologically feasible, highest cost way of accomplishing this mission, and I said, ‘Have we told the political appointees this?’ one of my bosses up the chain said, ‘We can only tell them yes.’”

She concluded, So in the end, it just, again, hits on building this hollow force—a force that looks strong, but we're weakening it out from the inside.”

Similarly, Fram described the problems with Trump’s proposed “Trump-class battleship.”

“The Trump-class battleship—this is a ship that is all about aesthetics,” Fram said. “It is about looking good. It is Trump, again, calling something his golden fleet. We retired our last battleship in the early '90s because they were obsolete. And yes, a ship that may have energy weapons and may have large storage capacity could have uses. But what we're really proposing to build is a floating target. And the Chinese, the Russians, know this. They won't be impressed by this gleaming ship on the horizon. They'll be tracking its signature from space and counting the number of missiles it takes to disarm it and to sink it. And that's what this is.”

She concluded, “It is a monument, just like the arch that's going up, uh, across the Potomac from Washington, as a monument to Trump. And a monument at sea will sink. And it will be a terrible disaster.”

Fram is far from alone in arguing that Trump is weakening the military. In July, Steve Schmidt, a former adviser to President George W. Bush, said that his abandonment of NATO hurts American foreign policy.

“NATO was built by men like Harry Truman and Dean Acheson, George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower, sustained by John Kennedy and Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton,” Schmidt said at the time. “It is the most successful military alliance in world history. It is what emerged from what Franklin Roosevelt called the United Nations — an alliance of free nations bound together by common defense, that says an attack on one is an attack on all. It is the greatest deterrent force in history, and Donald Trump despises it like he despises the values of these free nations.”

Similarly, in March, conservative foreign policy analyst Daniel DePetris said that by overthrowing the Venezuelan government, Trump has weakened the US from a geopolitical standpoint.

By successfully overthrowing the Venezuelan government, President Donald Trump believes he is flexing American strength — but, according to a right-leaning foreign policy expert, Trump may actually be “throwing it all away.”

“Unlike Russia and China, the United States has been blessed with advantageous geography and benevolent neighbors,” DePetris wrote for Reason Magazine. “Both have been sources of strength. The so-called Donroe Doctrine risks throwing it all away.”

Fram, Schmidt and DePetris were joined in their criticism in February by Joseph Bosco, who served as China country director under President George W. Bush’s Defense Department from 2005 to 2006. He called out Trump’s failure to remain loyal to American allies like Taiwan and Ukraine.

“History will brand the U.S. failure to ensure Ukraine’s victory and prevent Taiwan’s fall as the time when America fell from greatness and her ‘cunning’ but miscalculating enemies plunged the world into a new global conflict,” Bosco wrote in The Hill.

President Donald Trump went on a massive Truth Social tantrum about his perpetually embattled White House ballroom, and as his one-time biographer revealed, his real motivations are much simpler than anything else he has tried to put forward.

On Friday morning, Trump's ballroom received its latest and perhaps most debilitating legal blow after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled that it could not proceed with construction without congressional approval. As The Daily Beast noted on Sunday, Trump responded with a massive tirade on Truth Social that was almost 500 words long, in which he called the new ruling "horrendous, politically motivated and unlawful," and tried once again to insist that the structure served a "national security" purpose.

Michael Wolff, a longtime reporter and author who has extensively covered Trump in the past, argued in the latest episode of his Daily Beast podcast, "Inside Trump's Head," that arguments about national security and every other extra feature tacked onto the project are just attempts to cover the president's real and much simpler motivation: he just really, really wants the ballroom.

“In fact, he just wants the ballroom and is trying to say, ‘Well, if there’s this and there’s this and there’s this, it’s not just the ballroom,’” Wolff explained. “But Trump just wants the ballroom.”

Wolff further touched on the other aspects of the construction project that have been used to add deeper value to the ballroom, including a new bunker and suite of medical facilities underneath it. The author argued, however, that Trump is simply "adding on these things as justifications for the ballroom."

At the end of the day, Wolff explained, the ballroom is another extension of Trump's love of big crowds, and his desire to command as much attention as possible. As with most things he is now forcing onto the nation's capital, it is all about him, and nothing else.

“He wants the ballroom because he wants, you know, big audiences. Essentially what he’s creating is a venue. That’s what he wants. He likes big events. He likes big audiences. The bigger the better,” Wolff continued. “The more people, the more opportunities for Donald Trump to appear before an audience. So this is not about national security. This is about Donald Trump.”

He added: “I’m sure Trump already has the satisfaction of knowing that this has all gone too far, that he is already significantly ahead of any decision that is going to be made,” he said. “And now this goes, of course, to the Supreme Court. This is in the hands of Trump’s judges. And the Supreme Court is going to be, I think, pretty reluctant to make this decision.”

President Donald Trump has repeatedly drawn on the Civil War to bolster his presidency, whether it’s supporting Confederate statues or using statutes from that era to prosecute protesters. Now the author of an upcoming novel about the U.S. ceasing to exist, “The Breakup,” is arguing that a literal Civil War could be in the offing, and that the country is currently stuck in "a bitter, loveless marriage."

“Days after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, then-Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene reiterated her push for legally splitting up the country: ‘I want a peaceful national divorce. Our country is too far gone and too far divided, and it’s no longer safe for any of us,’” argued author Kurt Andersen for The New York Times on Sunday. “Polls since 2021 by universities, YouGov and others have consistently found that a third or more of Americans said they expected a civil war during the next decade or so.”

Andersen wrote, “A national divorce — let alone a civil war — is, for now, the stuff of fiction. But while loose talk from rabble-rousers has distracted us, the nation has sunk, almost unnoticed, into an unspectacular yet profoundly strange new arrangement. It’s not yet a divorce; it’s more like a bitter, loveless marriage in which the parties stay technically but less and less enthusiastically united because splitting up is too complicated or dreadful or expensive.”

Describing the status quo as “uncooperative federalism” and “soft secession,” Andersen pointed out that “during the past two Democratic presidencies, many red states and counties declared themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries, prohibiting their police forces from enforcing some federal gun regulations. (The term was a trollish play on Democratic sanctuary cities, which did the same for federal immigration policies.)”

He added, “Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas took it upon himself to override federal immigration policy, deploying the National Guard to string the banks of the Rio Grande with coils of razor wire and ordering his troops to prevent federal border agents from helping migrants who got tangled in them. More than two dozen Republican governors endorsed the show of anti-federal strength.”

Andersen also pointed out that Democratic-led states and cities are similarly soft seceding in the Trump era, such as “local police departments aren’t cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Many states passed laws to shield residents from prosecution if they are charged elsewhere with facilitating abortions, and several have stockpiled abortifacients in case federal law or regulations make them hard to get.”

He continued, “Various combinations of blue states have banded together to perform functions the federal government has abandoned or degraded: forming a climate alliance that participates in international forums the Trump administration won’t attend, creating de facto regulatory agencies for cap-and-trade carbon markets, issuing medically legitimate childhood vaccination recommendations. A coalition of a couple dozen attorneys general has sued the administration over birthright citizenship, tariffs and denial of federal funds to Democratic-controlled states.”

Ultimately, Andersen characterized this status quo as unsustainable.

“We can’t keep going this way,” Andersen wrote. “Escaping federal dysfunction and avoiding real hostilities over the long term will require some kind of radical shift. Perhaps states and regions could become much more independent. Like the regional autonomous communities in Spain, some of which collect nearly all the taxes their inhabitants pay and then forward a negotiated share to the national government. Or Switzerland, where cantons can divide or reconfigure and each one decides whether newcomers become Swiss citizens.”

He concluded, “Even that might not be enough. Someday down the line we may decide we have no choice but to call it quits. If so, I hope we could follow the lead of post-Soviet Czechoslovakia, whose 1993 breakup into two nations was so calm, it was called the Velvet Divorce, a kind of conscious national uncoupling. For our huge, heterogeneous country, it would be extremely difficult and painful. But in the long run, it might still be better for the kids.”

In July, renowned historian Timothy Snyder similarly argued that America may soon come to an end, in his case pointing to Trump’s authoritarian presidency.

“The fact that the U.S. exists and is celebrating 250 years doesn't mean that it'll exist in 5 years or 10 years or 15 years — states have a beginning and they have an end,” Snyder said. “I think that the Trump people are much more likely to wreck the U.S. as an entity than they are to succeed in generating some kind of homogeneous tyranny from the Pacific to the Atlantic.”

President Donald Trump has unleashed a "volcano of corruption" as he seeks to endlessly enrich himself in his second term, and according to a new report from The Atlantic, even dedicated ethics watchdogs are admitting that they were not prepared for how far he would go.

In a piece published Sunday morning, The Atlantic spoke with government ethics watchdogs in Washington, D.C., who said that they "thought they were prepared for Trump’s second term," having "quickly learned which possible misuses of taxpayer funds to focus on, which apparent case of profiteering off the presidency to anchor a report around, and which allegations of nepotism or self-dealing to try to pitch to journalists as worthy of a story," while monitoring the now "quaint" excesses of his first term. All of that preparation, however, has proven insufficient.

"This term, the watchdogs are even more alarmed by what they’re witnessing, and they are racing to keep up," the report explained. "Public Citizen added litigators and researchers, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) hired an expert in cryptocurrency. Last year, the Campaign Legal Center filed its highest number of ethics complaints in a single year and launched a tracker of 'corrupt transactions' to ensure that 'the exhaustion factor' doesn’t get in the way of keeping a careful count of such instances, even if the media no longer closely cover each one, Saurav Ghosh, the group’s director of federal-campaign-finance reform, told me."

“I think the big difference in this term is just how blatant all of it is," Jordan Libowitz, a spokesperson for CREW, told the outlet. "In the first term, there was at least a head nod towards Trump as president being separate from Trump the businessman. Now that’s gone."

The Atlantic noted how meager some of the scandals of Trump's first term now seem in hindsight, including things like Housing Secretary Ben Carson's family purchasing a $31,000 dining set, EPA Head Scott Pruitt spending $43,000 to install a phone boot amd Ivanka Trump endorsing Goya Beans after the company's leadership spoke out in support of her father. Considerable ink was also spilt reporting on his many first-term trips to his own properties and all the taxpayer dollars those trips burned through.

"A year and a half into his second term, Trump has made 270 visits to his properties, marking a 14 percent jump compared with the same point in his first term, according to the CREW tracker (which updates daily)," The Atlantic added. "Trump’s taxpayer tab for golfing trips hit $70 million last fall, HuffPost calculated. If he continues golfing and traveling at the current pace, the analysis showed, this term will run taxpayers $300 million—twice what they paid during his first term. Those costs include protecting the president and his family; the Secret Service spent nearly $100,000 at Trump-owned properties in the first five months of the second term."

It continued later: "But perhaps the most significant category of self-dealing allegations is the one with no first-term analogue. A few days before Trump’s second inauguration, an Emirati royal backed a deal to purchase a 49 percent stake in World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s primary crypto venture, for half a billion dollars. The deal, reportedly signed by Eric Trump, included $187 million up front and at least $31 million set to go toward entities linked to the family of Steve Witkoff, a lead Middle East negotiator for the administration and a co-founder of the crypto firm. A majority of the wealth that Trump has amassed this term, according to financial disclosures, comes from his family’s cryptocurrency businesses."

President Donald Trump has lost 21 out of 21 of his lawsuits to suppress voters, including in front of Republican judges. Now a legal reporter argues that as the president continues to suffer defeats, his tactics are getting “ominous.”

While reviewing Trump’s and MAGA’s voter suppression movements in Missouri and Texas, Democracy Docket's Zachary Roth reported on Sunday that “most ominously, Trump and his MAGA backers are already starting to target the Great Lakes State with their lies about illegal voting.” He quoted Trump on social media saying that his supporters should not “discount all of those fake mail-in ballots that will ‘surprisingly’ show up at the last moment. Get ready for another Rigged Election.”

Roth listed several methods Trump is using to try to rig the 2026 midterm elections in his favor, including “Trump’s order aimed at severely restricting mail voting, which the Supreme Court is now set to weigh in on; his administration’s effort to prod states into removing large numbers of voters from the rolls; and even a potential scheme by House Republicans to prevent Democrats who won their races from being seated.”

While it remains unclear whether these other efforts will work, Roth said that “still, it was another bad week for one major Trump administration anti-voting project: the Department of Justice (DOJ) crusade to obtain state voter rolls. Judges dismissed DOJ’s lawsuits against Colorado and Washington, D.C., bringing the department’s record in these cases to a frankly hilarious zero wins and 21 losses — or 22 if you count an appeals court defeat.”

Describing Trump’s repeated failures, Roth said that “one unfortunate DOJ lawyer was forced to admit this week in the lawsuit over Washington state’s rolls that nothing distinguishes that case from all the others that have been dismissed. He was reduced to arguing that all those federal courts — 20 at the time — had ‘misconstrued’ U.S law when they ruled that DOJ isn’t entitled to states’ unredacted voter rolls. Only the department, he suggested, is correctly interpreting the statute at issue.”

Speaking to AlterNet in June, Common Cause’s Senior Policy Director for Voting and Fair Representation Dan Vicuña argued that Trump’s anti-democracy measures can be traced back to the 2020 presidential election.

“What they all add up to is a desire to avoid any accountability to the voters in the midterm elections — to ensure, to preordain the outcome of a midterm that he thinks is going to go badly for him,” Vicuña told AlterNet. “We know, from the Big Lie of the 2020 election to spurring on a violent revolt to overthrow a free and fair election, that he has no respect for democratic norms, for the voice of the people. This is entirely about his own power and his own ego. He will even invest in protecting that ego and protecting his power at the expense of the needs of the public. People are suffering with high gas prices and affordability issues, and he does not care. All that matters is protecting his power, and he has no interest in whether he does that through democratic means.”

He added, “I think this all adds up to a desire to ensure that his party stays in power and his ability to do what he wants — to attack vulnerable communities — remains intact.”

After that article was published, the White House reached out to AlterNet with its own comment.

“President Trump is committed to ensuring that Americans have full confidence in the administration of elections, and that includes totally accurate and up-to-date voter rolls free of errors and unlawfully registered non-citizen voters," White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said. "The Civil Rights Act, National Voting Rights Act, and Help America Vote Act all give the Department of Justice full authority to ensure states comply with federal election laws, which mandate accurate state voter rolls. This campaign pledge from the President is why millions of Americans sent him back to the White House. The President has also urged Congress to pass the SAVE America Act and other legislative proposals that would establish a uniform standard of photo ID for voting, prohibit no-excuse mail-in voting, and end the practice of ballot harvesting. Noncitizens voting is a crime. Anyone breaking the law will be held accountable.”