ROBERT HUBBELL

  

 

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There is nothing Trump cannot make worse.

August 15, 2026

Robert B. Hubbell Aug 15

 

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I often write that “The period of time between now and the midterms, measured in Trump years, is equal to infinity. Anything that can happen, probably will.”

 

The statement is a bit opaque, but the events of Friday illustrate it perfectly. As Democrats understandably worry about the possibility of election interference, we should take confidence from the fact that Trump works hard every day to make life more difficult for Republican candidates. At the same time, he is literally writing campaign ads that favor Democrats.

 

Time is the enemy of Trump and Republican candidates. Every day brings new waves of outrage and insults, infuriating an already angry electorate. If there is a negative story about Democrats, wait five minutes, and Trump will create a controversy of unthinkable proportions that diminishes the prospects of the Republican candidates in November.

 

Trump is historically unpopular and doing his darndest to become even more so. I say that not to make us feel better, but to rebut the notion that Trump has superpowers that exempt him from the laws of political gravity. Indeed, he is being pulled into a gravity well of his own making. He has become the black hole of the Republican Party, from which there is no escape, only the inevitable collapse of the party as it is crushed under the weight of Trump’s corruption and incompetence.

As congressional Republicans skitter away from D.C. in hopes of distancing themselves from Trump, he is making it impossible for them to escape. On Friday, Trump managed to make three bad stories for Republicans materially worse. Every Republican who entertained thoughts of meeting constituents over the August recess groaned as they heard the latest reporting about Trump’s out-of-touch, arrogant, and narcissistic behavior.

Trump’s comments on the USS Abraham Lincoln.

The story about the shabby and dangerous conditions on the USS Abraham Lincoln is gathering momentum. In any other administration, it might threaten the presidency. But for Trump, there is no bad story that he cannot make worse. And he did just that on Friday in a brief exchange with a reporter as Trump was boarding Marine One. Per Yahoo News,

 

When told by the same reporter that families of service members were concerned about conditions on board the USS Lincoln, Trump replied, “No, they’re not.”

When asked by a reporter whether the ship’s 9-month deployment had gone on too long, the president replied that it was “not nearly long enough”

See Yahoo News, Trump dismisses concerns about USS Abraham Lincoln, says record-setting deployment is ‘not nearly long enough’.

 

In a mere 15 seconds, Trump managed to call family members of the USS Abraham Lincoln crew liars and insulted every member of that crew by suggesting that the 9-month deployment was not long enough.

Any other president would have issued an abject apology. Not Trump. As he said later in the day (about high gas prices), “I’ll never apologize.” More about that in a moment, but the point is the same. Trump’s response to a mistake is to attack those who point it out. He will soon attack both the families of the crew members and the crew members themselves. But he has already treated them with contempt and callousness, calling into question the veracity of the family members and the dedication of the crew members.

The dire conditions on the USS Abraham Lincoln should be above politics. But when the president insults members of the military and their families, it becomes a political issue by definition—and we should make the most of it.

Trump’s comments about the high cost of gasoline

Trump managed to make the issue of high gas prices even worse, as well. At an appearance on Long Island for the Republican nominee for governor of New York, Trump addressed the issue of high gas prices and said,

So I just say this. So, for you to pay a tiny little bit more for your gasoline, just remember, you’re doing it so that a very evil country cannot have — a country, really, it’s the number one state sponsor of terror in the world, we don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon. So remember that. When you have to pay a little bit more, you’re at $4, it’s okay, I mean, it’s not — I’ll never apologize, I did the right thing . . . .

As with his comments about the USS Abraham Lincoln, Trump’s comments about gas prices are insulting. Gas prices have increased by about 35% to 39% since Trump started his war against Iran on February 28. That is not “a tiny little bit more for your gasoline.” For some Americans, that is the difference between driving to work or buying groceries—economic choices that Trump cannot understand.

Moreover, the lack of empathy in Trump’s statement that “I’ll never apologize” is the functional equivalent of “I don’t care about you and your economic problems.”

There are many ways to talk about high gas prices that are traceable to Trump’s war against Iran. Telling people to “suck it up” is the worst of them. And it is only going to get worse as the peak summer driving season approaches. I cannot imagine how Trump will make the situation worse, but I am sure that he will.

Trump asks US Supreme Court to allow construction of the ballroom to resume.

The grotesque ballroom that Trump is building on the White House grounds is a national symbol of Trump’s obsession with over-the-top displays of wealth and self-glorification. By a wide margin, the US electorate believes that Trump is spending too much time and money pursuing his own interests to the exclusion of the interests of the American people.

 

On the day that Trump insulted the crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln and their families, and told Americans to quit complaining about high gas prices, Trump filed an emergency application asking the US Supreme Court to allow construction of his gilded-age ballroom to resume. See USA Today, Trump seeks Supreme Court help for White House ballroom project.

 

Trump has tried to sell the ballroom as a military communications and command center, but no one believes him. The Supreme Court shouldn’t, either. Trump has described the ballroom in detail, including its marble floors, gold-plated chandeliers, and expensive draperies—none of which are necessary for a military command center.

Regardless of how the Supreme Court rules, it will be a loss for Trump. If the Court allows the construction of the ballroom to resume, the obscene cost of the ballroom and the renovation project ($900 million) will be a millstone around the neck of every GOP candidate seeking election. And if the Court rules against Trump, it will be yet another confirmation that Trump has no respect for the rule of law.

Most importantly, the ballroom is a powerful and instantly recognizable symbol of Trump’s corruption and ego. Trump will not let go of his ballroom; Democrats should accommodate him by reminding voters at every opportunity that Trump is spending nearly a billion dollars on completely unnecessary renovations while Americans are struggling to pay for necessities.

Here’s the point: On a single day, Trump undermined the prospects of Republican candidates across the country by making three bad stories significantly worse—and he has neither the temperament nor the skills to repair the damage. And most importantly, he will repeat that performance on Saturday and every day thereafter, until the midterms.

Our job is to make sure that every voter gets the message: Trump doesn’t care about you, your families, or your economic struggles. The signs and ads write themselves.

As always, none of this means we can relent. To the contrary, we must take these newest outrages and convert them into votes from disillusioned and angry voters. We can do that!

Concluding Thoughts.

About a dozen readers sent me this article by Harry Litman on Substack A Band of Plucky Protesters Nets One Against ICE.

The thesis of the article is this:

How can a citizen or band of citizens, with no title, office, or army of lawyers, achieve something concrete in the daily struggle against authoritarianism?

Litman then describes how a grassroots movement pressured Citizens Bank to stop lending money to private firms that construct ICE detention centers. In small towns across the country, people organized protests and lobbied the bank’s leadership to stop financing ICE facilities. Their determination paid off when Citizens Bank announced in July that it would wind down its financial relationship with the private firms that construct ICE detention centers.

The story is inspiring and instructive, especially in its affirmation of the power of small groups to coordinate and highlight the corporate actors who facilitate Trump’s authoritarianism. I recommend the article in its entirety.

Littman concludes:

So here you have an answer to the recurring question: what can we do in the face of authoritarianism? By all means, stay informed; call out the lies; keep the faith around the dinner table; join in communities such as this one. But the wreckage from the Trump policies lies all around us. Find the Delaney Hall and Citizens Bank in your part of the country. Then ready your slingshots.

STEVE SCHMIDT

Steve Schmidt, who ran John McCain's 2008 campaign for president, was interviewed on MSNOW. In response to a very general question regarding the Trump presidency, Mr. Schmidt spoke for two minutes and gave the most insightful and brutally honest response of what the Trump presidency has done to our great country. 

"Donald Trump has been the worst president this country has ever had. And, I don't say that hyperbolically. He is.

But he is a consequential president. And, he has brought this country in three short years to a place of weakness that is simply unimaginable if you were pondering where we are today from the day where Barack Obama left office. And, there were a lot of us on that day who were deeply skeptical and very worried about what a Trump presidency would be. But this is a moment of unparalleled national humiliation, of weakness.”

"When you listen to the President, these are the musings of an imbecile.

An idiot. And I don't use those words to name call. I use them because they are the precise words of the English language to describe his behavior. His comportment. His actions. We've never seen a level of incompetence, a level of ineptitude so staggering on a daily basis by anybody in the history of the country who’s ever been charged with substantial responsibilities.” 

"It's just astonishing that this man is president of the United States. The man, the con man, from New York City.

Many bankruptcies, failed businesses, a reality show, that branded him as something that he never was. A successful businessman. Well, he's the President of the United States now, and the man who said he would make the country great again. And he's brought death, suffering, and economic collapse on truly an epic scale." 

"And, let's be clear. This isn't happening in every country around the world. This place. Our place. Our home. Our country. The United States. We are the epicenter.

We are the place where you're the most likely to die from this disease. We're the ones with the most shattered economy. And we are, because of the fool that sits in the Oval Office behind the Resolute Desk."

Steve Schmidt

NATE WHITE

 Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England, wrote this magnificent response:

"A few things spring to mind.
Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.
For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace - all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.
So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.
Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing - not once, ever.
I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility - for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman.
But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is - his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.
Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers.
And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults - he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.
There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface.
Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront.
Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul.
And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist.
Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that.
He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat.
He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.
And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully.
That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead.
There are unspoken rules to this stuff - the Queensberry rules of basic decency - and he breaks them all. He punches downwards - which a gentleman should, would, could never do - and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless - and he kicks them when they are down.
So the fact that a significant minority - perhaps a third - of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think 'Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:
* Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.
* You don't need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.
This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.
After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum.
God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid.
He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart.
In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws - he would make a Trump.
And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish:
'My God… what… have… I… created?
If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set."
-Nate White

 

A Floating Nightmare

With so many billions appropriated, why aren’t our aircraft carriers in decent enough condition for sailors to not want to throw themselves overboard?

Photo courtesy of Yahoo News

A note to readers: This piece discusses attempted suicide and self-harm. Discretion advised.

Multiple sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln have reportedly attempted to jump overboard as the aircraft carrier’s deployment stretches past 260 days, one of the longest carrier deployments in modern Navy history. The Navy has declined to say how many such attempts have been made.

These attempts follow months of deteriorating conditions aboard the carrier and a deployment that was supposed to end in May but was instead extended repeatedly with no announced return date. Crew members have described broken toilets, moldy showers, laundry facilities down for weeks and meals that came down to half a cup of rice and two tortillas. Families of the roughly 5,000 sailors and Marines aboard say they have witnessed morale collapse in real time, through phone calls and the rare email that gets through.

The Navy has repeatedly downplayed the reports. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dismissed the first round of complaints over food shortages as “fake news” in April. He used nearly identical language this month to dismiss the latest accounts.

The never-ending deployment

The USS Abraham Lincoln left its home port of San Diego on Nov. 21 for what was initially planned as a routine Pacific deployment. In January, as the United States and Israel prepared to strike Iran, the carrier was redirected to the Middle East, where it has remained ever since. The war with Iran began Feb. 28.

The deployment was expected to end in May. Instead it has been extended multiple times, and the Navy has not given families a public return date. As of this week the carrier has been at sea more than 260 days.

In that time, the crew has set foot on land twice. The ship stopped briefly in Guam in December, though many sailors were not permitted to disembark, and it made a resupply stop in Oman in July, where sailors who did get off the ship were confined to a secure compound within the port. In early July, Lincoln broke the modern-day Navy record for the most continuous days at sea without a port call.

Six months at sea used to be the standard length for a carrier strike group deployment. A shrinking carrier fleet and rising demand across multiple theaters have made deployments like Lincoln’s increasingly common rather than exceptional.

Half a cup of rice and two tortillas

By the time families went public with their concerns in early August, the list of grievances had grown long. Relatives described non-operational toilets, moldy showers, laundry facilities that had been broken for weeks and extended stretches with no hot water for washing. The ship’s store often ran short of basic hygiene items, including soap, deodorant and toothpaste.

As Task & Purpose reported, the food complaints surfaced first, in April, when photos taken by family members and later published showed half-empty meal trays and small portions of gray, processed meat. One mother, Nicole Conrad, said her son at one point was served half a cup of rice and two tortillas for a meal. The photos prompted several members of Congress to call for investigations into conditions aboard Lincoln and the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli.

At the time, the Navy denied any shortage. The Office of the Chief of Naval Operations stated on social media that both ships had “sufficient food onboard to serve their crews with healthy options.” Hegseth went further, calling the reporting “fake news.”

The Navy took a similar posture on the plumbing and shower complaints at the family town halls this month. Leadership acknowledged what they described as a “stubborn clog” that had knocked out toilets in one zone of the ship for an extended period, but said sailors were trained to handle plumbing repairs and that most of the affected toilets were fixed quickly. On the showers, officials suggested what sailors took for mold might actually be mildew caused by the ship’s ventilation system, adding that industrial hygienists test the bathrooms to confirm the fans and airflow are working.

The Fifth Fleet’s spokesman, Cmdr. Joseph Hontz, put the wear and tear in the context of the deck’s workload: Lincoln’s flight deck has handled more than 10,000 aircraft sorties over the course of the deployment. “Though more than 250 days on deployment is challenging for the crew and their equipment, they remain resilient and ready to accomplish any tasking given to them,” Hontz said. “The ship remains fully capable of meeting all mission tasking.”

The Navy has also directly disputed the specific conditions families describe. Asked about the reports, officials said sailors have “continuous access to clean water, functional AC, and healthy meal options.”

Sailors nearly overboard

Against that backdrop, multiple sailors aboard Lincoln have attempted to go overboard. Annabelle Loma’s husband was one of those who made the attempt, and he is now back home on medical hold. In a separate incident, a sailor on watch saw a shipmate preparing to go over the side and pulled him back onto the deck before other crew members arrived to help. Lincoln’s command informed the crew of the episode in a shipwide announcement.

Per Stars and Stripes, other families described similar despair in their loved ones’ messages. One wife told Stars and Stripes her husband had texted her that he hoped he wouldn’t wake up the next day. A parent told the outlet that their son had said he and his shipmates thought constantly about jumping off the ship, just for the relief of it.

The Navy has not said how many sailors have attempted to go overboard or otherwise engaged in self-harm during the deployment. In statements to multiple outlets this week, officials disputed any rise in suicidal ideation aboard the ship. “Based on information available to the command, we have not identified an increase in reported suicidal ideation or suicide attempts aboard the ship,” the Navy told Task & Purpose. A similar statement went to CNN: “We have not observed an increase in suicidal ideations or attempts aboard the ship. We take every service member’s well-being seriously and have religious, medical and mental health professionals available to assess and address concerns as they arise.”

Families vs. the Navy

Roughly 200 family members packed a banquet room at Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego on Aug. 6 to confront acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao over conditions aboard the Lincoln and the lack of any announced return date. Cao has led the Navy as its top civilian since April, when Hegseth fired Secretary John Phelan following repeated clashes between the two.

Attendees described the meeting as tense and, at times, combative. Spouses of sailors were in tears asking Navy leadership what was being done to address mental health and exhaustion aboard the ship. One parent said her daughter believes she is never going to come home, and that she is going to die on the ship.

Cao told families the Navy is preparing the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group to relieve the Lincoln, but he could not say when that would happen, citing operational security. The Navy has since reportedly changed course, with the USS George Washington now expected to relieve the Lincoln. Meanwhile, families are left waiting without answers as their loved ones miss major life events at home, including births and funerals. One spouse, describing a baby born during the deployment, said, “My husband has gotten no time with her.”

Tensions carried into a separate virtual meeting later that night between Navy leadership and family members. Vice Adm. Joseph Cahill, commander of Naval Surface Forces, acknowledged the strain the deployment has placed on sailors and their families. “We hear you loud and clear regarding the impact this has on families, on service members and the long-term ability of us to stand, sustain our forces’ health,” Cahill said. He pointed to deployment-resilience counselors, chaplains and Human Factors Councils the Navy uses to review risks to sailors’ well-being.

Not the first time

The Lincoln is not the only carrier to have broken a modern deployment record in recent months. The USS Gerald R. Ford, the largest and most advanced carrier in the fleet, spent 326 days at sea on a deployment that took it from operations off Venezuela to supporting Operation Epic Fury in the Middle East, setting the modern-era record for the longest carrier deployment before returning to Norfolk in May.

The Ford suffered its own version of Lincoln’s plumbing failures, and its problems ran deeper and longer. The carrier’s sewage system was built around a vacuum-based design adapted from cruise ships to conserve water, but the narrow pipes proved inadequate for a crew of more than 4,600. The Navy has called for outside assistance with the toilets dozens of times since 2023, with the pace of those calls accelerating through 2025. During one especially bad stretch, engineering teams working 19-hour shifts logged 205 breakdowns over four days.

The Navy’s public posture on the Ford was similar to its present position on the Lincoln: acknowledge the mechanical problem while insisting it hadn’t compromised the mission. A spokesperson said repairs typically take between 30 minutes and two hours and that the rest of the system continues operating independently in the meantime.

And yet there is an inescapable bottom-line truth: Two of the Navy’s most capable carriers, deployed back to back into the same conflict, set extraordinary deployment records because there aren’t enough ships to replace them, and both began badly breaking down mid-mission.

How much money to “kill bad guys”?

None of this is happening for lack of funding, at least not in the aggregate. Congress authorized roughly $856 billion for the Pentagon in fiscal year 2026, part of a broader $891 billion national defense budget. On top of that, the administration has separately sought more than $200 billion specifically to fund the war against Iran. Asked about the number, Hegseth didn’t dispute it. “As far as $200 billion, I think that number could move, obviously,” he told reporters. “It takes money to kill bad guys.”

Glib and juvenile response notwithstanding, by July the money set aside for day-to-day Navy and Air Force operations was running out. Congressional aides said funding for ongoing military operations for both services was on track to be exhausted by the end of that month. To bridge the gap, the Pentagon began shifting money from elsewhere in its budget, including funds set aside for equipment, facility and maintenance work, while limiting or canceling training exercises that keep units combat-ready.

Those are the same kinds of maintenance and readiness funds needed to keep ships and crews functioning through prolonged deployments. Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) put the underlying complaint plainly: “We need to know what we’re purchasing and why we’re purchasing it.” The Pentagon has yet to send Congress a full accounting of what the war has cost so far.

Again, the bottom line is appalling: a Pentagon asking for hundreds of billions of dollars to sustain a deeply unpopular and increasingly unwinnable war finds itself, at the same time, unable to keep a carrier’s toilets working or its sailors fed.

Hegseth under fire

Democratic lawmakers have begun to demand answers. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, issued a formal inquiry to Hegseth and acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao requiring them to respond, by a date certain, to conditions aboard the Lincoln. The letter frames the crisis as a readiness question as much as a crew welfare one, asking “whether the Navy can sustain the operational tempo now being demanded of” it and noting the administration “has yet to adequately explain the objectives, end state, or anticipated duration of those operations.”

That follows an earlier round of congressional pressure. When photos of half-empty meal trays surfaced in April, several members of Congress called for formal investigations into conditions aboard Lincoln and the USS Tripoli. The accountability question also reached a committee room. At an April 29 House Armed Services Committee hearing on the Pentagon’s fiscal year 2027 budget request, Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine appeared to answer lawmakers’ questions. Ranking member Adam Smith (D-WA) pressed for accountability over how the Pentagon would manage a major budget increase alongside the Iran war’s mounting costs. Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA), who represents the Lincoln’s home port of San Diego, questioned Hegseth’s fitness for the job directly, telling him: “Maybe you are the one responsible for this failure, and the president should think about replacing you.”

Hegseth’s public response has been consistent. He dismissed the April food-shortage photos as “fake news,” rejected the war’s “quagmire” framing outright in March, and used nearly identical language (“more fake news”) to describe this month’s reporting on conditions aboard Lincoln.

“That is my job.”

As one Hill opinion columnist noted, by Hegseth’s own terms he is badly failing in his position. Hegseth once declared, “Warfighting, lethality, meritocracy, standards, and readiness. That’s it. That is my job.” The Lincoln deployment, and the Ford deployment before it, demonstrate just how off the rails things have gone.

The Pentagon’s own budget documents show training and maintenance funds being drained to cover war costs, even as the department seeks hundreds of billions more from Congress. Two of the Navy’s premier carriers have each endured extraordinarily long deployments within months of each other, both plagued by the same basic failures of plumbing, food and morale. And the war driving the Lincoln’s extension still has no publicly stated end date, objective or exit strategy.

The Navy has faced comparable crises of morale and public trust before. When nine sailors aboard the USS George Washington died by suicide between 2017 and 2022 during a prolonged shipyard overhaul, then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was pressed on the matter directly in a congressional hearing. His response was notably different in tone from Hegseth’s posture toward the Lincoln. Rather than disputing the reporting, Austin described the situation as unanticipated and said he expected Navy leadership to act on the findings of an investigation already underway. That investigation followed, and found systemic institutional failures rather than a series of unconnected incidents.

The Pentagon under Hegseth has announced no comparable investigation into conditions aboard the Lincoln.

An unbearable burden

Rep. Sara Jacobs said what worries her most about Lincoln’s sailors isn’t abstract. “I’m deeply worried about their exhaustion and mental health, because history has shown it can lead to serious consequences, including increased risk of suicide.”

For families like the Guevaras and the Lomas, that worry is daily. Manuel Guevara, whose son serves aboard Lincoln, fears that the deployment itself could cost him his son. “I don’t want to worry that the circumstances of this deployment will get the best of my son, and he doesn’t make it back home,” Guevara said. “That’s an unbearable burden on my heart.”

Annabelle Loma’s fear is more immediate. Her husband is already home on medical hold, after attempting to go overboard, and is now afraid of what comes next. “He thinks he’ll get a dishonorable discharge, and just because he was burnt out, his 13-year career is ruined, just like that,” Loma said. “That’s not fair, that’s not right. That’s not what he should be worrying about right now.”