By The Ghost of HST, Senior Correspondent for National Delusion
January 23, 2025
Welcome to the second coming of the orange messiah, and not a goddamn moment of grace in sight. January 22, 2025: President Trump’s first major interview since dragging himself back into office — this time with Sean Hannity, naturally, like old mobsters meeting up at their favorite diner to decide who gets whacked next.
If you were expecting restraint, statesmanship, or anything resembling a strategic rollout, you haven’t been paying attention. What we got instead was a barrage of vengeance, delusion, and policy-by-spleen. This wasn’t a reboot — it was a blitzkrieg. Executive orders flying so fast the printer caught fire.
Top headline: cut off the money.
Trump told Hannity he’s ready to choke off federal funds to sanctuary cities like New York — places he says are “harboring criminals.” And not even in some policy memo. He floated it live, on-air, like a mob boss musing about breaking kneecaps. Hours later, Pam Bondi was at DOJ pulling the trigger. Federal funds? Frozen. Just the start.
Then came the pardons — 1,500 of them.
Proud Boys. Oath Keepers. The full January 6 cosplay crew. Trump shrugged it off as justice for “patriots” who got a little rowdy. “They’re being treated very unfairly,” he told Hannity, as if the Capitol insurrection was just a protest with a bad Yelp review. No remorse. No recalibration. Just the open rehabilitation of sedition — because this time, he doesn’t have to pretend to care.
Editor’s note: The exact number of pardons has not been formally released. Reporting suggests hundreds to possibly over a thousand.
He’s also coming for your voter rolls.
Proof of citizenship to vote. Mail ballots must arrive by Election Day. And states that don’t play along? Say goodbye to your federal funding. In other words: vote how we say, or starve. Voter suppression wrapped in executive legitimacy, signed with a Sharpie and a snarl.
Meanwhile, he nuked DEI programs across the federal government. Staff suspended, offices gutted, meritocracy restored — if your merit just happens to look like a mirror of the President. And if you thought this was just a public sector purge, think again: the FCC opened an investigation into Disney’s diversity efforts. Not a joke. Mickey Mouse is under federal scrutiny for being too inclusive. If they frog-march Goofy out in cuffs next week, don’t say you weren’t warned.
And in case this all felt too domestic, 1,500 active-duty troops are being deployed to the southern border. Not to fight a war. To pose for the cameras. To turn immigration into an armed stage play for Fox & Friends and the ever-thirsty base.
This isn’t governing. This is revenge fan fiction—and it’s canon now.
We are two days in and the wheels are off. The driver is screaming into a mirror. And the passengers are too doped on culture war fentanyl to care.
This is the second Trump administration.
Strap in or get eaten.
Filed incognito from the bar at the Capital Grille in D.C., where the martinis are Belvedere, the steak is well-done, and every booth is bugged with bourbon and ambition.
