Hartmann Report

A palace rising on public ground while the affordability crisis tightens its grip isn't just bad optics, it's a betrayal of the idea of America… The White House has always mattered because of what it represents. It was never supposed to be a palace; it was meant to be the people's house, a physical reminder that power in America is borrowed, temporary, and accountable. That's why the news that Donald Trump is turning it into a 400 million dollar monument to himself should stop every American cold. This isn't a routine renovation. What Trump first floated as a ballroom has ballooned into a massive two story complex with sweeping staircases, private residential quarters, and a secure bridge connecting it directly to the presidential residence.

A stark look at the speech that blurred the line between leadership and losing control on the world stage… Let me take off my psychotherapist hat and simply speak as a parent, an adult, a businessman, a citizen, and a human being. There is something deeply and fundamentally wrong with Donald Trump,

When politicians hand the gun industry a liability shield, they're not "protecting freedom,"they're protecting a business model built on body counts… America's 465th mass shooting in 2025, this one at Brown University in Rhode Island, should remind us all that it's insane that the GOP passed and Bush signed into law the so-called Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) in 2006 that largely gives immunity from liability lawsuits to the gun industry (and only the gun industry). It's time to end the predator-state coalition in America, of which this is just one glaring example.

Trump calls it "Trump Derangement Syndrome" when we object to cruelty and division. The real story is what that hate is doing to America's democracy, and when we finally push back… I have Trump Derangement Syndrome and so does much of America and much of the world. That's not a confession of mental illness: it's an indictment of a political era defined by cruelty, division, and the deliberate poisoning of democratic life. "Trump Derangement Syndrome" is the phrase Donald Trump and his followers love to fling at anyone who dares to object to his behavior. But the truth is simpler and far more damning: if millions of Americans and people across the globe are reacting with alarm, anger, and outrage, it's because Trump has spent years earning that reaction.

In 11 months, we'll have an opportunity to retrieve our democracy from the clutches of the morbidly rich, the ideologues who deify them (and have for millennia), & their bought-&-paid-for politicians… The idea is as old as western civilization: "The morbidly rich are born to rule the rest of us." And now, with a billionaire as president, 13 billionaires in his cabinet, and rightwing billionaires installing and spiffing Republican Supreme Court justices, it's become the operational assumption of the GOP.

"There is absolutely nothing to be said for government by a plutocracy, for government by men very powerful in certain lines and gifted with “the money touch,” but with ideals which in their essence are merely those of so many glorified pawnbrokers." —Theodore Roosevelt, 1913 letter to Sir Edward Grey Make no mistake: Trump wasn’t president because of his policies, his qualifications, or even primarily because of his base. He was president because America’s wealthiest class funded his rise, protected his power, and enabled his worst instincts, at least so long as he delivered the goods..

The Best of the Rest of the News. — The Trump Grinch that stole America! — MAGA, meet the pothole: Trump floats withholding road money and refusing to pave roads in the Red states of his own base. — Grand Theft Retirement: Trump’s GOP war on Social Security and Medicare rolls on. — “Who is Antifa?” FBI Director can’t say because it’s not a membership club. — Merry Christmas: the EU just kicked Trump and Putin in the nuts. — Detained for “looking Somali”: ICE goon grabs a U.S. citizen in Minneapolis. — What happened to Republican’s love of states’ rights? — Not a Palace: National Trust sues to stop Trump’s “Presidential Ballroom.”

As America slides into recession, this is a struggle over who owns America's future: a broad middle class—or a locked-in economy run by the richest few… America is in or on the verge of a seriously bad recession and the Trump regime is hiding the numbers; the signs are everywhere. His incoherent tariffs, massive tax breaks for billionaires, and gutting the Inflation Reduction Act are kneecapping our economy. In response, Trump visited Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania this week and tried to pitch himself as a champion for the little guy, the middle class, small farmers, and working people. Which raises the question: who do Trump and the GOP really work for? — Putin was furious that the Biden administration had been providing Ukraine with weapons systems, including air defense munitions and HIMARS rockets, so in March of this year Trump abruptly suspended delivery of most US military aid and Republicans in Congress never restarted it.

The convergence of pro-Kremlin policy, tech giveaways to rivals, and rising domestic repression is a five-alarm warning that we ignore at our own peril… Many of us have long suspected or even predicted that Donald Trump would betray America, gut our democracy in favor of a police state, and align us with Russia. You know, the country that the Financial Times reported this week tried to launch multiple terrorist attacks against the United States and Europe over the past year. We're now there. It's the most under-reported story of the year, perhaps of the century: under Trump, the United States is abandoning advocacy of democracy (shutting down Voice of America, etc.), abandoning our democratic allies in Europe, and for the past year has abandoned Ukraine to the tender mercies of the Butcher of Moscow.

If we allow a network of secretive, cruel, detention facilities for one set of powerless people today, tomorrow it will inevitably turn those same systems against anyone who challenges their power. Amnesty International's new report on the U.S. detention sites Alligator Alcatraz and Krome is a warning flare for every American who believes in the Constitution, the rule of law, and the basic dignity of human beings. We've seen governmental cruelty before in our history, but these facilities mark a new level of calculated dehumanization on U.S. soil, and Amnesty is calling it what it is: torture, enforced disappearance, and a deliberate system designed to break people.