If Richard Nixon was called Dirty Dick for his boastful pronouncements, the current president of the United States, Donald Trump, has rightfully earned the title of trapacero (deceiver), which comes from the Portuguese word 'trapa,' meaning "trap."

There isn't a single gesture or word from him that doesn't lead to this. As he just demonstrated with his seemingly friendly words toward North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, because, according to his policy, one must talk with leaders of countries with nuclear weapons, especially if those weapons can reach American territory without being intercepted.

Any of Donald Trump's reckless actions and comments would rank among the most infamous things a president has ever done.

Trump has taken giant strides toward the presidency he always desired: one of unfiltered authority emanating from the presidential pen, destroying traditional institutions and providing a platform for demagoguery. Frequently, the incessant cacophony emanating from the White House seems expressly designed to stifle public understanding of each individual act planned to irrevocably change the country and the world.

He changes everything, indiscriminately, setting aside the judiciary he doesn't want in order to install one to his liking, one that could even distort the results of the November midterm elections that might be unfavorable to him. In this context, Todd Blanche, the lawyer who defended Donald Trump in his criminal trials, was confirmed as Attorney General.

This was undoubtedly the case on a day that fulfilled some of the fundamental objectives of Trump's base, but it also helped explain the plummeting presidential approval ratings, which have Republicans looking ahead to the midterm elections with trepidation.

This was the final straw for Trump. Nine years after the president asked for loyalty from James Comey—according to the fired former FBI director—one of his most loyal allies was nominated on Monday to a Senate-confirmed position at the top of the U.S. justice system.

Blanche stood by Trump during some of his most difficult moments, when he faced multiple criminal and civil charges before regaining the White House. Some of Trump's subordinates, such as former Attorney General Pam Bondi, faltered in their attempts to demonstrate their loyalty. But Blanche has already proven his loyalty, which is why his critics fear him and wonder if he will act as a spiritual successor to Trump's McCarthyist lawyer, Roy Cohn.

As Blanche was greeted with applause by staff upon returning to his agency, more of the president's men gathered around the Resolute desk. He was about to act, driven by an intuition he had harbored even before his endeavor to turn the Justice Department into his own law firm.

CHILDREN IN DANGER

Trump then signed an executive order aimed at reducing the number of childhood vaccines. And he uttered a new dose of scientifically unfounded falsehoods, claiming without reason that vaccines cause autism and that young children had been injected with doses the size of soda bottles.

At one point, he suggested that the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine could be “pretty lethal,” in a year when the United States has recorded its highest number of measles cases in more than a quarter of a century. It was hard not to recall his erratic press conferences on the COVID-19 pandemic.

But America’s most powerful public health official and vaccine skeptic, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., insisted: “This is what benchmark science means.”

Moments later, another long-standing norm was broken:

Trump confirmed that he had recently spoken with the new Federal Reserve Chairman, Kevin Warsh, but denied a Wall Street Journal report that they had held several conversations. The president has made it clear that he wants Warsh to lower interest rates. “If it were up to him, it would be different, but he has a board of directors,” Trump said, raising questions about the central bank’s independence.

He also commented on the victory of progressive and democratic socialist candidates in the Democratic primaries ahead of the midterm elections: “We have jihadists being elected everywhere.”

The president’s latest inflammatory comment about Muslim candidates appears to foreshadow a decidedly negative fall election campaign. He did not specify whom he was referring to, but his statement came a week after Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan.

By referring to Iran, the president demonstrated how the once complex process of U.S. foreign policy has surrendered to the whims of the commander-in-chief, who declared victory in a war that has already dragged on for six months. He also claimed that the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic oil export route effectively controlled by Iran, is “open.” The Windward Maritime Intelligence Operations Center reported on Monday that only seven vessels had crossed the strait in the previous 24 hours. Before the war, the strait typically saw more than 100 ships a day.

Each of these examples demonstrates how Trump has degraded U.S. government institutions and purged them of experts, bureaucrats, and officials who do not share his peculiar worldview.

Many Trump supporters argue that he is fulfilling his promise to dismantle a corrupt bureaucracy that has long thwarted the plans of conservative presidents. Others promote the idea of an all-powerful presidency and adhere to legal theories that hold that all government agencies must submit to the chief executive's vision.

THE SOLE AUTHORITY

In some ways, the flurry of business dealings that reigned in the Oval Office on Monday mirrored the deeply centralized decision-making process the president-elect had developed over years at the Trump Organization, where he was the sole authority. However, Trump's critics view his interventionist style as the behavior of a would-be authoritarian and argue that his intuition-based leadership is a recipe for disaster.

It’s difficult to argue that Trump's approach is working for anyone outside his most loyal base of support, despite his claim in an interview with Punchbowl News last week that “a lot of people say I’m one of the greatest presidents ever.”

In a recent CNN/SSRS poll, only 21% of Americans said Trump’s military action in Iran had benefited the United States. Many analysts believe it has brought the US to a standstill with a much weaker nation.

His crusade to control the Justice Department is one of the personal obsessions—along with his monument-building program—that help explain why a record 73% of American adults said in that same CNN poll that he has not paid enough attention to the country’s most pressing issues.

According to a survey by the nonprofit health policy organization KFF, 81% of American adults say they trust that the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine is safe for children. However, a small segment of Trump’s base has long supported the anti-vaccine movement.

Some members of the institutions Trump despises warned Monday night that his increasingly erratic presidency is dangerous.

“It’s simply astonishing that this administration continues to respond to measles outbreaks and the resurgence of other vaccine-preventable diseases by playing politics with children’s lives,” said Dr. Richard Besser, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

David Axelrod, who served as an advisor to Barack Obama, told CNN’s Erin Burnett that a president’s words “can mobilize armies and cause markets to crash.” But they can also “endanger people’s health, given the enormous power the president has… It’s really very dangerous.”

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff