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As the fate of his mega bill is hanging in the balance on Capitol Hill this week, Donald Trump spent Monday night displaying the entire bandwidth of his personality on social media. As part of his endless campaign to monetize the presidency, he hawked a line of perfumes, told some lies about the legislation, and then threatened Elon Musk with retribution for opposing it.

And while it is troubling that the president of the United States is a vengeful grifter, what is even worse is that all of these things, which happen in plain view, barely merit a shrug anymore from a corporate media that has been worn down by Trump’s constant lies, threats, and insanity.

But don’t worry, we’ll keep telling it how it is.

So, let’s get to it.

First, instead of calling senators to get them to vote for his mega bill or, you know, governing the country, the snake oil salesman-in-chief pitched his new “Trump Fragrances.”

According to the president, they are “all about Winning, Strength, and Success.” While we don’t know about that, we know that they are gaudy, golden, and overpriced, i.e., right on brand for Trump.

If you are wondering how ethical or legal it is to use the presidency to make a buck, your guess is as good as ours because there hasn’t been a president this corrupt since Abraham Lincoln marketed “Abe’s Cure-All” to Civil War soldiers.

We made that last part up, of course, to show how ridiculous this is… but the part about Trump being the most corrupt president in history is indisputable.

But Trump isn’t just a con man; he is also a compulsive liar.

In his next post, he made up a massive tax increase that would supposedly hit Americans if the mega bill that was still stalled in the Senate in the early morning hours of Tuesday were not to become law.

“The failure to pass means a whopping 68% Tax increase, the largest in history!!!” wrote Trump, a big fan of superlatives.

Where does that figure come from? Nobody knows.

“You’re going to go up 68 percent,” the president said during an Oval Office press conference with Elon Musk a month ago. “That’s a number that nobody’s ever heard of before.”

This is one of the rare cases where Trump wasn’t lying because nobody had ever heard of that number before since he had made it up.

Speaking of Musk, the entrepreneur was reminded anew on Monday night that crossing Trump comes at a cost.

In this case, that cost may just be the federal dollars that his companies are pocketing.

While Musk played a major role in getting Trump elected, he has more recently committed the cardinal sin of publicly opposing him.

Specifically, he has come out in strong opposition to the mega bill because it will add trillions of dollars to the national debt.

In this case, that is a principled stance because the legislation would give billionaires like Musk a massive tax cut.

Of course, Trump, who has no principles and cannot understand why somebody would support something that does not benefit them personally, suggested that Musk’s opposition is based on the elimination of subsidies for electric cars like Tesla.

In his final social media post of the night, the president threatened the man who poured more than a quarter-billion dollars into his 2024 campaign.

“Elon may get more subsidy than any human being in history, by far, and without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa,” Trump railed. “No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production, and our Country would save a FORTUNE. Perhaps we should have DOGE take a good, hard, look at this? BIG MONEY TO BE SAVED!!!”

While a feud between Trump and Musk would both be entertaining and beneficial to the country, having a president who openly threatens a citizen with retribution in this way is clearly not good… and worse if the media just shrugs and says: “Well, that’s just Trump being Trump.”

But, don’t worry, casual reader who stumbled upon this column, we will stay on the case. And if you want to follow us, you can sign up for our newsletter.

In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often humorous analysis you won’t find anywhere else. For more from Klaus, follow him on Bluesky or subscribe to his Substack, Unraveling Politics.