Sipu Jha
A Nobel may have eluded the Don, but he finally gets a peace prize – just made for him by FIFA!Donald Trump was getting restless. They hadn’t brought any executive orders for the POTUS, who has ruled by fiat with a record 217 decrees since his second coming to power, to sign in a week.
So trading his big black pen for a phone, he “terminated” all documents, including pardons by his predecessor Joe Biden “signed by Order of the now infamous and unauthorized ‘AUTOPEN.’” “Anyone receiving ‘Pardons,’ ‘Commutations,’ or any other Legal Document so signed, please be advised that said Document has been fully and completely terminated, and is of no Legal effect,” Trump proclaimed on his Truth Social mouthpiece.Trump’s unprecedented attempt to roll back a previous president’s actions on the flimsy pretext of using a mechanical device that Presidents of both major parties have often used, through a social media post left legal eagles scratching their heads over its validity.
Still twiddling his thumbs, Trump launched a five hour posting and reposting blitz that started at 7.09pm, went nonstop until almost midnight with 116 posts about things all and sundry, at an average of every two minutes.No wonder, Trump was seen catching a few cat naps at a two-hour-long marathon cabinet meeting next morning with his head drooping down at times before jerking back up. As Secretary of State Marco Rubio fawned over Trump’s “transformational” leadership, POTUS dilated on “fourth world war countries” and declared Somali immigrants to be “garbage” while making questionable claims about U.S. economy.Trump, who made a big deal of the high cost of living during his campaign, also dismissed ‘affordability’ as a con job and a Democrat scam while making tall claims about “unprecedented deals” to “slash drug prices by 200%, 300%, 400%, 500%, 600%, 700%, 800%,” quipping “Nobody has ever heard of it before.”Amid questions about the oldest person to be inaugurated as president caught sleeping on the job in public for the second time in recent weeks, the White House had a novel take.
Trump was “listening attentively and running the entire three-hour marathon cabinet meeting,” claimed the White House press secretary pointing to Trump’s xenophobic rant against Somali immigrants, as evidence of his vigor. During the cabinet meeting, the peace president also announced plans to expand operations against drug traffickers in some South American countries with missile strikes on land “very soon.”His policy was “taking those son of a bitches out” and would continue to do so despite questions from Democrats and some Republicans about the legality of strikes on smugglers’ boats in the Caribbean Sea.Even as a second military strike on an alleged drug boat in September reportedly killing survivors of the first strike, brought accusations of war crimes from some lawmakers, Trump and his secretary of war Pete Hegseth remained unapologetic.Yet amid the war on drugs, in an act that stunned his allies and some members of his administration, Trump pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández serving a 45-year prison term for conspiring with cartels to ship 400 tons of cocaine to the U.S.Then taking another swipe at Biden, Trump Wednesday pardoned Democratic Representative Henry Cuellar, who was awaiting trial on charges that he and his wife had taken roughly $600,000 worth of bribes from an Azerbaijani oil company and a Mexican bank.“Sleepy Joe went after the Congressman, and even the Congressman’s wonderful wife, Imelda, simply for speaking the TRUTH,” Trump posted, blaming the case on what he described as a weaponized Justice Department under the Biden administration. Meanwhile, the friendly neighborhood Supreme Court handed Trump yet another victory by clearing the way for Texas lawmakers to use newly redrawn congressional maps favoring Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections.The apex court’s ruling with three liberal justices dissenting came amid a tit for tat nationwide gerrymandering battle unfolding in Republican-governed and Democratic-led states involving the redrawing of electoral maps.The ever ebullient Trump, however, remained mum as slippery Vladimir Putin of Russia after snubbing his envoys over his Ukraine peace plan arrived in India to a lavish welcome to offer New Delhi “uninterrupted fuel supplies.”He also questioned U.S. pressure on India to curb oil purchases from Russia telling India Today, “If the U.S. has the right to buy our (nuclear) fuel, why shouldn’t India have the same privilege?” Putin even offered to discuss the matter with Trump.The blasted peace Nobel may have eluded him, but he finally got his peace prize at Friday’s FIFA World Cup draw in Washington that appeared to be tailored to one key player: Trump.The inaugural FIFA peace prize, the brainchild of the organisation’s president, Gianni Infantino, who has been ingratiating himself with Trump to help ensure a successful 2026 World Cup, predictably went to Trump.“This is your prize, this is your peace prize,” Infantino said, after Trump took the stage at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Friday to accept the trophy, a medal and certificate. “There is also a beautiful medal for you that you can wear everywhere you want to go.”Accepting the award, Trump called it “one of the great honours of my life”, before claiming to have “saved millions and millions of lives – the Congo is an example, over 10 million people killed and it was heading for another 10 million very quickly.”“India and Pakistan, so many different wars we were able to end, in some cases just before they started,” he repeated despite Modi’s stubborn refusal to accept any U.S. role. As Trump put his latest Peace Prize medal on himself, the Internet was flooded with jokes and memes with one X user writing, “I paid a lot of money for this fake PEACE prize.”Fake or not, for the dealmaker-in-chief, it was indeed a (expletive deleted) big deal!(By arrangement with The American Bazaar)
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