Turning the government’s power to his own ends

He is spending tens of billions in taxpayer money to bail out farmers hurt by his own tariffs, which his own party has called welfare.

His tariffs cut farmers off from foreign buyers, above all China, so he is sending them federal checks to cover the losses: a $12 billion package announced in December 2025, on top of roughly $28 billion in his first term. “We’ve made so much money on Tariffs,” he wrote, “that we are going to take a small portion of that money, and help our Farmers.” Republican Senator Ben Sasse called the first-term version welfare (“At no point have I heard a farmer or rancher say we want more bailouts”).

SourcesThe $12B bailout (CNBC) · $28B in the first term (Investigate Midwest) · Sen. Sasse (R) calls it welfare (CBS)

He is spending tens of billions in taxpayer money to bail out farmers hurt by his own tariffs, which his own party has called welfare.
More on this
His Homeland Security signed a $464 million no-bid contract for planes it said it urgently needed to deport people, then let them sit parked for months, turned three into luxury jets, and lent one to the FBI director.His DHS waived dozens of laws to bulldoze a border wall through Big Bend National Park, over a cease-and-desist from Texas’s Republican land commissioner and the objections of seven former park superintendents.He ordered the Navy to rip out the electromagnetic catapults on its newest carriers and go back to 1950s steam, at a cost of billions, just as China put the very same technology to sea.

← Back to the full record