When will it end?
Trump’s legal settlements, tax-audit protection and primary interventions fuel an opinion piece by B. Jay Cooper arguing that his power will end only through elections or Congress.
What you need to know
🔹 Donald Trump’s legal settlements and tax-audit protection show how far presidential power is being tested.
🔹 Court challenges over the settlement and tax addendum could continue for months or years.
🔹 Trump’s Republican primary interventions are risking the party’s congressional control.
🔹 Meaningful restraint may depend on Congress, elections, or the end of Trump’s term.
“When will it end??”
That is the comment I see most often on social media posts when the latest Donald J. Trump head-spinner is reported.
Example: The last two days when, first, the “settlement” in one of his suits against the government was announced and he won a $1.776 billion award that he now will pass along to those deemed (by his Acting Attorney General-appointed five-member board) worthy of an award for being unfairly treated by the Justice Department. Oh, and President Trump can replace any of those chosen five anytime he wants. So, don’t hold your breath, James Comey, for your windfall.
And, yesterday, when that Acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche, signed an addendum that absolves Trump and/or his family of any tax-avoidance schemes they or their companies perpetrated on their fellow Americans.
Those two announcements likely will be challenged in courts for months or years to come. The “settlement” was not submitted for review by the judge who’s been overseeing his original case. So, is it indeed a settlement of that case?
The “pardon” given to him and his family for any law-breaking in filing their taxes was awarded by his former personal lawyer (Blanche) by his current Acting Attorney General (Blanche) and will be supervised by (Blanche’s) hopeful next attorney general (Blanche).
“When will it end?”
Probably not until Donald J. Trump leaves office or his spineless Congressional supporters grow a spine (as likely as me winning the U.S. Open golf championship).
Meantime, Trump is forcing and winning primaries against his fellow Republicans because he deems them “not loyal” to him.
Because, Donald J. Trump cares not a whit for the Republican Party. He only cares about himself. Most of those he’s staging primaries against likely would have won in November, now it’s questionable if the GOP can hold most of those seats. Especially with Trump’s popularity at an all-time low, even for him.
There are, of course, many long-term consequences to what Trump is doing right now. Forget that the Congress is passing no legislation to help their constituents battle ever-rising prices and ever-stagnant wages.
Forget, too, that Trump’s selfish primaries against incumbents threatens the GOP hold on both houses of Congress.
And forget that Trump – who promised no more American wars – is fighting a war of choice in a region most everyone would have told hm is impossible to clearly win in – the Middle East, where religious zealots reign, meaning they will not be “logical” in resolving a war unless it matches their religious beliefs.
The U.S. is at a stalemate there as Trump draws down on our inventory of weapons while China gets stronger (and Putin now is in China in essence trying to maintain that relationship as he views America, and himself, as weakened).
How did we get here? How did Donald J. Trump win the presidency twice?
Well, his first election pitted Hillary Clinton against Trump. Clinton was probably the only Democrat that Trump could beat that year (on the other hand, Trump was probably the only Republican Clinton could beat that year). Skip ahead and Trump faced Vice President Kamala Harris who was weakened (further) as a candidate by President Joe Biden’s refusal to step aside until it was too late for Harris to run an effective campaign against Trump.
So, when will it end?
Probably not until the end of Trump’s term because Trump is who he is and isn’t changing.
His dominance may be challenged if the Democrats could win at least one and, more likely, both houses of Congress in November. But he still will be the President with a mindset that he is all-powerful until someone says he isn’t.
Once his terms ends, there is not another presence like Donald J. Trump in the Republican wings, yet. Many are trying to position themselves for that, but none is Donald J. Trump.
And that $1.776 billion-dollar pot may be a nice further down payment, like his pardons of nearly all the Jan. 6 criminals, for his militia to stay waiting in the wings.
GOING FURTHER
Trump administration is scrapping $1.8B fund meant to compensate president’s allies, Blanche says | Associated Press
Judge temporarily blocks payouts from Trump’s $1.776 billion ‘anti-weaponization’ settlement fund | Associated Press
US justice department ‘forever’ bars IRS from auditing Trump’s past tax returns | The Guardian
Under pressure, Trump administration drops controversial fund for Capitol rioters | Le Monde
Xi and Putin condemn ‘irresponsible’ US foreign policy at Beijing summit | The Guardian
Sources:
▪ This piece was first published in The Screaming Moderate and re-published in Europeans TODAY on 20 May 2026 under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. | The author writes in a personal capacity.
▪ Cover: Dreamstime/KORWEN.
