Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.
President Donald Trump made a series of increasingly erratic posts throughout his weekend at his Palm Beach estate. The first one came late Friday evening when he posted an AI image of himself as the Pope after he had previously joked that he would like to replace the late Pope Francis.
Then on Sunday, Trump threatened to impose 100 percent tariffs on foreign films, supposedly to save the American film industry and address an unexpected “security threat.”
“This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda,” Trump said on Truth Social.
Lastly, late in the evening, Trump entertained the idea of re-opening Alcatraz, the notorious former prison on an island off the coast of San Francisco, which closed in 1963 – largely because it was too expensive to operate, according to the Bureau of Prisons.
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It later emerged that a local TV station in Florida, where Trump was at the time, had broadcast the Clint Eastwood movie Escape From Alcatraz, shortly before the president’s statement about the famous prison.
As if that weren’t enough, the official White House X account commemorated May 4th, Star Wars Day, with an image of Trump with a lightsaber, though, tellingly with a red blade, the color of the villainous Sith lords.
This came the same weekend that Trump had a largely disastrous interview with Meet The Press’s Kristen Welker, wherein he said he did not know if he had to uphold the US Constitution as his administration conducts its mass deportation strategy.
In the same interview, Trump repeated his threat to annex Greenland through military force. He also brushed off fears about a recession ignited by his trade war with China.
Where does Trump's latest BS — reopening Alcatraz, casting himself as the next pope, and not saying whether it's his job to uphold the Constitution — land on Jon Stewart's "OK or Not OK" chart? pic.twitter.com/1hTym9ndr0
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) May 6, 2025
