**How should we remember Donald Trump when he’s gone? **One top Democrat has an idea, *What A Day *has learned: Record his assault on democracy in a museum.
President Donald Trump has remade Washington, D.C. in his image. Massive banners of Trump’s face cover the Departments of Justice, Labor, and Interior buildings. Trump’s team plans to
install signsoutside the National Museum of American History that warn viewers of so-called ideological bias (i.e., “woke”) in the exhibits.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) wants to take all that stuff down and put it in a museum, he told
What A Day. The proposed exhibit — which he’ll introduce under the Preserving and Remembering the History of Trump and other Tyrants Act — illustrates how House Democrats could attempt to correct the history books if they win power in the midterms.
Raskin’s bill would authorize $5 million for the Smithsonian to collect the Trumpian signs outside the American History Museum — and display them as artifacts “reflecting the rise of governmental propaganda, corruption, and authoritarianism,” according to the bill’s text.
The Smithsonian would also be instructed to collect all of the Trump banners, personal narratives from Americans who have resisted the Trump administration, and artifacts related to Trump’s “narcissistic self-worship and propagandistic assault on American history and American democracy,” the bill reads.
The Smithsonian would also be tasked with counter-programming some MAGA propaganda in real time. If Trump’s team places more signs outside the facility, the museum would be required to install equal-sized signage explaining that Trump’s signs “should be studied as the kind of authoritarian reaction to democracy that the American people have fought to overcome throughout our history.”
**Will you one day find yourself wandering the Mall, **deciding between a visit to the National Air And Space Museum, or the Trump Strongman Exhibits? You might!
Trump’s team
accused the Smithsonianof being run by radical activists. And there’s little telling how the museum system’s leaders will react to his aggression once he’s out of power. Pro tip: Don’t piss off the folks who will portray you in history!
Meanwhile, Democrats are carefully weighing how to fight back against the administration if they win control of the House in November, and which battles are worth fighting.
For instance, House Democrats
are dividedon how forcefully they should target corporations, law firms, and universities that courted Trump during his second term. “We don’t want to turn into a banana republic where you lose an election and it’s all about retribution,” said Rep. Bill Foster (D-IL).
Powerful Democratic figures are also urging lawmakers to choose wisely. Strategist James Carville
advised Democratsto avoid trying to impeach Trump for a third time, describing it as a distraction from other issues that matter. Former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, a likely 2028 presidential candidate,agreed thatanother impeachment attempt could spark a “return to the politics of fighting.”
Raskin, who served as lead impeachment manager against Trump, frames the bill as necessary to prevent authoritarianism in the U.S. for years to come.
“To avoid repeating this descent into authoritarianism, we must study this corrupt president’s actions and allow the public to learn about the numerous tools he deployed while attempting to remake American history in his own image,” Raskin told
What A Day.
**What else would you want to see in this exhibit? **Send your best (and worst) ideas to whataday@crooked.com.
** Democratic politicians slammed Donald Trump **after he made remarks at a rally last night that, in a not-completely-clear-word-salad-kind of way, could be construed as inviting Iran to blow up Los Angeles and San Diego. But he was speaking in fragments — and some observers cautioned listeners that, in this case, the craziest interpretation might not actually be the right one. “He was saying that what we’re experiencing NOW (high energy prices) is a small price to pay compared to the hypothetical of Iran getting a nuke and attacking a city,” one reporter
** Olympian David Hearn’s lawyers asked for an** internal government investigation into the Reflecting Pool debacle, and accused top Department of Justice officials of prosecuting him despite evidence that a contractor
** Trump approved an execution by firing squad** — the first in the United States since 1961 — for Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who fatally shot 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas in 2009.
** The Trump administration has a fresh way **to search for (nonexistent) voter fraud: Ask immigrants if they voted illegally! That’s a new question on an intake questionnaire provided by ICE. Those who say they voted illegally are asked if they voted by mail or in person.
** Eighty-six percent of Americans disapprove** of the Trump administration using taxpayer dollars to fund its new campaign-style ads ahead of the midterms, according to a new poll. That includes four out of five Republicans. Trump
** Conservative commentators are fuming about** a new campaign ad from Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders that depicted a welfare recipient as white. “Our government has systematically discriminated against white men for decades now, and yet now has the audacity to dishonestly mock young white men as welfare queens,” Federalist website co-founder Sean Davis wrote.
** Even Justice Samuel Alito, one of Donald Trump’s** closest allies on the Supreme Court, isn’t happy with the president’s criticisms of the court in his second term. “I personally am not pleased with that,” Alito told the Associated Press. “Everybody in this country has the right to criticize what we do. The substance of their criticism can be quite harsh. If we deserve it, then that’s fine. But rhetoric is a different story.”
** Belgian-American scientist Francis Halzen, who has spent **years trying to demystify tiny cosmic particles called neutrinos, won a Nobel Prize in physics. His work could help researchers better understand how the universe was created. “I am working on a proposal, and I hope that this prize will help [with] getting it approved,” Halzen half-joked during a speech.
** Being the middle child in your family doesn’t determine** your personality, according to new research. Nor does any rank in your birth order, apparently. That’s because people continuously change throughout their lives. Or, as one researcher put it: “People are really not ever fully baked.” (This researcher clearly never watched Cheech & Chong’s “Up In Smoke,” but I digress.)
** Many Americans are refusing to part ways** with older pieces of technology, such as iPhones with home buttons or old music players. The reasons vary: Some don’t want to adapt to confusing new interfaces, while others admit that they’re just too cheap to upgrade. One nurse still uses his 2003 iPod, “a subsequent model of which can be found in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History,” the
** Legendary investor Warren Buffet loves going down **YouTube rabbit holes, apparently. “We watched a really good documentary on Roy Cohn,” one of his friends told the
** Happy National Taco Day! **I hope this newsletter comes just in time for dinner, because there are tons of good deals at taco chains nationwide. Taco Bell is also giving away
** I asked, you answered!** 65
