Tips, Tariffs, and Third-Term Fantasies: Trump’s Latest Trick Bag
By Jenny Braddock — Bureau Chief, Department of Lost Causes
MARCH 31, 2025
I once wrote talking points for a senator who thought NAFTA was a kind of cheese. So trust me when I say: this is worse.
At a rally over the weekend, President Trump—solidly into his second term and already winking at a third—announced his latest brainchild: no federal taxes on tips. It landed like a shot of Fireball at a brunch shift. Service workers cheered. Cable hosts swooned. And somewhere, a Koch brother felt a great disturbance in the force.
But as always, the math doesn’t math. According to Axios, Team Trump is floating the idea of raising taxes on the rich to pay for it. Yes, that Trump. The one who shoveled tax breaks into the pockets of hedge funders like they were party favors. Now he’s pretending to be a populist because he saw it get applause in Reno.
Meanwhile, Trump’s long-running bromance with Vladimir Putin is on the rocks. Again. According to The Wall Street Journal, he’s “angry” that Putin floated the idea of replacing Zelensky with a Moscow-friendly puppet government. In response, Trump is threatening tariffs on Russian oil, which is the diplomatic equivalent of throwing your ex’s stuff on the lawn and blasting Fleetwood Mac.
And while he’s busy rage-texting Putin, he’s also ghosting NATO. His second-term foreign policy seems to involve flipping off America’s allies while flirting with autocrats. It’s petty, reckless, and deeply dangerous. Let’s just hope these dipshits don’t trigger nuclear annihilation before someone changes the Wi-Fi password.
This isn’t their first spat, of course. These two have been locked in a four-act will-they-won’t-they saga since 2016. One minute it’s flirty eye contact at a G20 summit, the next it’s economic threats and emotional damage. If they were any more unstable, HBO would option the rights.
But tantrums aren’t just for foreign leaders. Trump is also pitching something called “Liberation Day,” which sounds like a fireworks sale but is actually his plan to slap blanket tariffs on global trade in the name of American freedom. It’s not policy—it’s Revenge Economics: The Home Game™.
According to CNN, the fallout would be swift: price spikes, trade wars, supply chain chaos—basically the Trump Doctrine in spreadsheet form.
This isn’t leadership. It’s a second-term fever dream with a soundtrack curated by Ye, a trade policy written in crayon, and a geopolitical romance subplot that’s one vodka-fueled phone call away from reconciliation.
Filed from a bar in Eastern Market where three lobbyists just tried to Venmo her for oppo research.
