Here are the biggest Trump stories I followed this month

Chris Brennan Paste BN

May is coming to an end but the mayhem around Donald Trump’s second term as president looks to just keep rolling on. This week, let’s check back on three columns I wrote this month to see how things are going now.

Remember Elon Musk? I started the month writing about how the world’s richest man had begun his Washington vanishing act, after his slash-and-burn approach to federal programs, employment and contracts made him deeply unpopular and his outside businesses took hits as collateral damage.

Trump and Musk have declared his work at the Department of Government Efficiency a success, despite the obvious problem of none of the math adding up there. How bad is it? Trump keeps declaring that he runs “the most transparent administration in history.” But he’s also begging the U.S. Supreme Court to keep DOGE records secret.

Again, it doesn’t add up. But Trump and Musk don’t care about that.

Did someone forward you this column? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Thursday.

I also wrote a column about Trump posting an AI-generated picture of himself as pope of the Roman Catholic Church, in response to the death of Pope Francis. Catholics were outraged. And that was the point. Trump was using that as cover for news that he had just told NBC that he’d be “OK” if America went into recession due to his disastrous tariff policies.

The College of Cardinals elected Pope Leo XIV – the first American in that role – and it didn’t take much internet sleuthing to determine the new pope is no fan of Trump or his policies. The pope’s brother – a Florida man, of course – is a big Trump booster.

You can pick a pope but you can’t pick your family.

I also examined Trump’s plans to accept a flashy 747 Boeing jet worth $400 million from Qatar, despite his frequent criticism of that country during his first term, which he often cast as a hotbed for terrorist organizations. Trump shrugged off the ensuing controversy, noting that Attorney General Pam Bondi had signed off on the gift. Small world here – Bondi had been a well-paid lobbyist for Qatar before Trump appointed her.

The overriding lesson of Trump’s second term is that he doesn’t care how bad his behavior looks and feels no need to be consistent about anything. His administration took delivery of the jet on May 22, using the cover story that it was now in the custody of the Department of Defense.

Trump has weaponized his alleged distaste for antisemitism, using that as a cudgel to beat up institutions like Harvard University for student protests about the widespread death and destruction Israel has visited upon Gaza and the Palestinian people. Ofir Akunis, consul general of Israel in New York, told Fox News on the day the jet arrived that he believes Qatar is funding the American college campus protests.

Trump would not care if Qatar is funding antisemitic protests that he uses for political attacks, as long as Qatar is also funding a luxury jet that he gets as a gift.

Here are the biggest Trump stories I followed this month

Read more from me and my colleagues: