This past week the Trump administration has put on a bravura display of impunity and seeming incompetence, but perhaps we can glean some insight into how they function.
As I posted last week, competence, corruption and control limit the powers of Team Trump, but their audacity and ambition mean they must be watched closely.
There is always an immense WTF factor when monitoring POTUS Trump and maybe the apparent impunity and incompetence is concealing other things.
Impunity
It doesn’t get much more flagrant than this, per MSNBC (of course it’s MSNBC):
https://t.co/0K6Hg9diWk pic.twitter.com/5zNXLjRsgg
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) September 22, 2025
In an undercover operation last year, the FBI recorded Tom Homan, now the White House border czar, accepting $50,000 in cash after indicating he could help the agents — who were posing as business executives — win government contracts in a second Trump administration, according to multiple people familiar with the probe and internal documents reviewed by MSNBC.
The FBI and the Justice Department planned to wait to see whether Homan would deliver on his alleged promise once he became the nation’s top immigration official. But the case indefinitely stalled soon after Donald Trump became president again in January, according to six sources familiar with the matter. In recent weeks, Trump appointees officially closed the investigation, after FBI Director Kash Patel requested a status update on the case, two of the people said.
It’s unclear what reasons FBI and Justice Department officials gave for shutting down the investigation. But a Trump Justice Department appointee called the case a “deep state” probe in early 2025 and no further investigative steps were taken, the sources say.
…In a statement provided to MSNBC, FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said, “This matter originated under the previous administration and was subjected to a full review by FBI agents and Justice Department prosecutors. They found no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing. The Department’s resources must remain focused on real threats to the American people, not baseless investigations. As a result, the investigation has been closed.”
White House Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson slammed the probe as a “blatantly political investigation, which found no evidence of illegal activity, is yet another example of how the Biden Department of Justice was using it’s resources to target President Trump’s allies rather than investigate real criminals and the millions of illegal aliens who flooded our country.”
“Tom Homan has not been involved with any contract award decisions. He is a career law enforcement officer and lifelong public servant who is doing a phenomenal job on behalf of President Trump and the country,” she added on behalf of Homan, a senior White House employee.
Megyn Kelly, formerly of Fox News, formerly of NBC, spoke up in defense of Homan and dismissed the caper:
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— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) September 22, 2025
Time magazine outlined the Trump administration’s plan to expand its attack on media companies to include NGO’s:
In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination earlier this month, President Donald Trump and members of his administration have openly discussed punishing left-leaning organizations they believe fuel political violence. Experts say one tactic that’s been mentioned could be especially harmful to some of the targeted groups: going after their tax-exempt status.
The charge was made most explicitly last Monday, when Vice President J.D. Vance singled out the Ford Foundation and the George Soros-funded Open Society Foundations while hosting Charlie Kirk’s podcast.
“We are going to go after the NGO network that foments and facilities and engages in violence,” Vance said, referring to non-governmental organizations.
Asked about the Administration’s plans, a White House official told TIME in a statement: “The White House is exploring a wide variety of options to put pen to paper to address left-wing political violence and the network of organizations that fuel and fund it. Specifics on what that looks like continue to be discussed.”…“The typical IRS investigations are based on how the money is being used and whether the money is being used to further exempt purposes or if overall the organization is not actually operated for its exempt purposes or providing private benefits or is self dealing, or something like that,” says Roger Colinvaux, professor of law at The Catholic University of America. IRS investigations, he adds, are not usually “targeted toward an organization’s viewpoint and really viewpoint shouldn’t come into it at all.”
Trump himself had other prosecutions on his mind. In a Truth social post that he might have intended to send as a direct message to Attorney General Pam Bondi, he called for scalps of his enemies:
https://t.co/upHJLkII7e pic.twitter.com/nSISdVeTCa
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) September 22, 2025
NBC News had more:
Alongside the extraordinary demand to prosecute his adversaries, the president also named his former defense attorney, now a senior White House aide, to replace the head of a key prosecutor’s office he forced out a day earlier.
…He said people were complaining that “nothing is being done” and name-checked some public officials with whom he has tussled: former FBI Director James Comey, Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Comey led the investigation into Trump’s possible ties to Russian leadership, which concluded that Trump’s campaign did not collude with Russian operatives.
Schiff, as a member of the House, led the first impeachment of Trump during his first term.
James brought a successful civil suit against Trump in 2022 that accused him of overvaluing assets, including real estate, in loan applications. The suit’s financial penalty against Trump was later voided.
In a follow-up post an hour later, Trump praised Bondi.
“Pam Bondi is doing a GREAT job as Attorney General of the United States,” he wrote.
In a statement to NBC News, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said: “President Trump appreciates all Attorney General Bondi is doing to Make America Safe Again. The President wants justice and accountability for the many corrupt criminals and politicians who weaponized our justice system against him and his millions of patriotic supporters.”
Perhaps I should have included the last example under the next topic header, but I promised bravura incompetence and I don’t want to disappoint.
Incompetence
Trump’s White House dropped the following “fact sheet” on Friday:
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— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) September 22, 2025
Points from the fact sheet:
The Proclamation restricts entry for aliens as nonimmigrants to perform services in specialty occupations in the H-1B program unless their petition is accompanied by a $100,000 payment.
It directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to restrict approvals for petitions from aliens that are currently outside the United States that are not accompanied by the payment, and allows case-by-case exemptions if in the national interest.
The Proclamation requires employers to retain documentation of payment remittance, with the Secretary of State verifying payment during the petition process and the Departments of State and Homeland Security denying entry for non-payment for the relevant aliens and taking other relevant steps needed to implement the Proclamation.
It requires the Departments of Labor and Homeland Security to issue joint guidance for verification, enforcement, audits, and penalties.
The Proclamation directs the Secretary of Labor to initiative rulemaking to revise the prevailing wage levels for the H-1B program and directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to initiate rulemaking to prioritize high-skilled, high-paid H-1B workers.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt immediately clarified in a tweet that drew the dreaded “Community Note” from X (nothing says impunity and incompetence like getting slapped by Musk’s community):
To be clear:
1.) This is NOT an annual fee. It’s a one-time fee that applies only to the petition.
2.) Those who already hold H-1B visas and are currently outside of the country right now will NOT be charged $100,000 to re-enter.
H-1B visa holders can leave and re-enter the…
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) September 20, 2025
Here’s the complete text of her tweet for those not wishing to click over to X.com to see the impunity and incompetence up close:
To be clear:
1.) This is NOT an annual fee. It’s a one-time fee that applies only to the petition.
2.) Those who already hold H-1B visas and are currently outside of the country right now will NOT be charged $100,000 to re-enter.
H-1B visa holders can leave and re-enter the country to the same extent as they normally would; whatever ability they have to do that is not impacted by yesterday’s proclamation.
3.) This applies only to new visas, not renewals, and not current visa holders.
It will first apply in the next upcoming lottery cycle.
Video from the announcement backed the community note, showing Sec of Commerce Howard Lutnick saying the $100,000 H-1B visa fee is annual, five times in a row seemed to back up the MSM’s accusations of impunity and incompetence:
pic.twitter.com/2xmbEQfCeh
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) September 22, 2025
Trump’s enemies at The New York Times and NBC News were quick to pounce on the perceived impunity and incompetence:
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— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) September 22, 2025
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— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) September 22, 2025
From the NYT, noted haters of Trump’s impunity and incompetence:
Wall Street banks and tech companies big and small were scrambling on Saturday to figure out how their tens of thousands of employees would be affected by President Trump’s proclamation imposing a $100,000 fee for visas granted to skilled foreign workers.
The change set off immediate confusion over the exact rules and how they would be enforced. Shortly after Mr. Trump signed the proclamation on Friday, employees at Microsoft, Amazon and JPMorgan received notices advising those with H-1B visas who were outside the United States to return before the new rules take effect at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time on Sunday.
The Trump administration sought to address the confusion on Saturday by saying that the fee would only apply to new applicants, and renewals or current visa holders would not be affected. In a post on social media, the White House said the change would “not impact the ability of any current visa holder to travel to/from the U.S.”
The Financial Times had more on the muddied waters of Trump’s visa policy:
Prominent members of Trump’s political coalition have previously expressed support for the H-1B programme, including his largest donor Elon Musk. But others such as former White House strategist Steve Bannon have called for the scheme to be abolished so that American workers are protected.
Garry Tan, chief executive of start-up incubator Y Combinator, said in a post on X that the decision by Trump was a mistake that “kneecaps start-ups” and represented a “massive gift to every overseas tech hub” including Vancouver and Toronto in Canada.
“In the middle of an AI arms race, we’re telling builders to build elsewhere. We need American Little Tech to win — not $100K toll booths,” Tan added.
Lawyers acting for major US companies told the FT that their clients were awaiting further clarification from the Department of State, which issues visas and had yet to make any statement on Sunday. Companies were also considering bringing a legal challenge to contest the proposed fees.
Reuters illustrated which countries Trump’s move impacts the most:
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— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) September 22, 2025
In that same Reuters piece, reporters Haripriya Suresh and Sai Ishwarbharath B elaborated on the impact on India and American multi-nationals:
India’s $283 billion information technology sector will have to overhaul its decades-old strategy of rotating skilled talent into U.S. projects following U.S. President Donald Trump’s move, opens new tab to impose a $100,000 fee for new H-1B visas from Sunday, according to tech veterans, analysts, lawyers and economists.
The sector, which earns about 57% of its total revenue from the U.S. market, has long gained from U.S. work visa programs and the outsourcing of software and business services — a contentious issue for many Americans who have lost jobs to cheaper workers in India.
…
Trump’s move to reshape the H-1B program will force IT firms with clients such as Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab, JPMorgan Chase (JPM.N), opens new tab, Walmart (WMT.N), opens new tab, Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab, Meta (META.O), opens new tab and Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google to pause onshore rotations, accelerate offshore delivery, and ramp up hiring of U.S. citizens and green card holders, experts said.
Insight?
Perhaps it was only the roll out which was incompetent.
Perhaps the H1-B visa policy change roll out was deliberately chaotic to make things harder on Indian nationals working in the U.S. and India in general.
Perhaps part of Trump’s perceived impunity and incompetence comes from his administration not caring what the MSM makes of their actions.
After all, Trump has repeatedly clashed with Modi, a feud that reportedly began when Modi refused to nominate Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize for, Trump claims, ending the brief shooting war between India and Pakistan earlier this year. India refused to let Trump mediate between them and Pakistan.
This was followed by Trump suddenly imposing brutal tariffs and pressuring the EU to cut off their imports of “Indian oil” (ie sanctioned Russian oil resold by India).
Trump has also cancelled a planned visit to India later this year.
So there may be a method behind the impunity and incompetence.
Trump’s State Dept. is also impacting India with new sanctions against Iran that will impact India’s Chabahar Port project, previously exempted from U.S. sanctions.
M. K. Bhadrakumar at Indian Punchline has more:
…what is at stake here as Trump 2.0 retracted from the Trump 1.0 decision of November 2018 to give a sanctions waiver for Indian operations at Iran’s strategic Chabahar Port is a fundamental shift. Although Washington flags it as a “maximum pressure” strategy towards Iran, the point is, Trump 2.0 has taken another overtly unfriendly stance of “secondary sanctions” towards India…
With the removal of the 2018 sanctions waiver on India’s Chabahar project, the Trump administration aims to complicate India-Iran relationship and to eventually stymie the prospects of a land route to India’s extended neighbourhood for Russian / Iranian energy supplies. It, therefore, becomes a vital part of Trump’s strategy to pressure India to buy more of US energy.
…the US sanctions on Chabahar will paralyse India’s capacity to be an effective presence in Central Asia in partnership with Russia and Iran. It is an unfriendly move inconsistent with Trump’s bombastic claims of friendship with Prime Minister Modi at a personal level, etc. and, curiously, it comes at a time when the US-Indian trade talks are reportedly reaching the home stretch.…Taking into account the recent Saudi-Pakistani defence pact, which has been noted approvingly by the US Central Command, the sanctions on India-Iran partnership can only be seen as a calculated step in a containment strategy aimed at blocking India’s access to the vast Eurasian hinterland that could provide it with strategic depth, and isolate it instead in the South Asian subcontinent.
The US is making a determined bid to return to Afghanistan and is working closely with MI6 to re-establish its intelligence presence. Notably, Trump’s dramatic disclosure that the US is demanding control over the Soviet era military base in Bagram followed his talks in London with the UK prime minister Keir Stammer.
Keir Stammer, he he. Good one, M.K.
John Helmer has some insight into how the Trump administration may work at Dances With Bears, explaining the impunity and incompetence:
President Donald Trump isn’t making the major domestic or foreign policy decisions of his administration.
Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff at the White House, is directing the militarization of domestic policymaking and propaganda; the Central Intelligence Agency and Pentagon are executing the foreign operations against Russia, China, Iran, Palestine, Yemen, Venezuela; Howard Lutnick and Scott Bessent, the Commerce and Treasury Secretaries, are directing the trade war schemes. Trump’s tweets, some directly authored by Miller, follow their action, stamping presidential approval after the event. Trump’s press remarks — staged in small bursts in front of media prompters — create the appearance that Trump is running the show. The show, yes; the operations, no.
To patch over the gap between what Trump’s men are doing and what Trump says he is doing, the president repeats catchwords, slogans, jingles: “I am disappointed in Putin”; “if Russia’s not selling oil, they have no choice but to settle”; “if Europe did something with respect to China, I think China would probably maybe force an end to the war”; “the United States has been a sucker long enough in the world in terms of trade. Now, we’re doing unbelievably well, and we’re making more money than we’ve ever made”; “I actually said, Charlie [Kirk], someday I think you have a good chance of being president. I think you will be president, maybe”; “the King of Saudi Arabia, a great gentleman — great gentleman, you all know him. He said, sir, your country was dead one year ago and now you have the hottest country anywhere in the world and it’s true.”
Since Trump’s men understand this is how Trump is deciding policy retroactively, and both the NATO allies and the Kremlin understand the same thing, it is everybody’s calculation to compel Trump’s acquiescence by forcing the action pre-emptively leaving him no alternative, and presenting the successful outcome of their operations in picture-book briefings which combine shock and flattery. Trump is the first president in US history to sign written decision memoranda after the options have been pre-empted. He cannot remember what they were because he hasn’t read the papers.
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, speaking on the Neutrality Studies podcast had a complimentary analysis of decision making, impunity and incompetence in the Trump administration:
Col Lawrence Wilkerson: Maybe Trump is so incompetent he doesn’t even know what’s going on because he doesn’t take National Security Council briefings. He doesn’t have a National Security Adviser who, by job description, looks over the entire inter-agency, particularly defense and state, and coordinates policy for it. (Trump) doesn’t have one.
(Secretary of State and nominal National Security Adviser Marco) Rubio is too busy attacking people in Latin America or trying to attack people in Latin America. He’s not even a good secretary of state. And he’s not a national security adviser.
So, who is coordinating policy in the Trump administration? On Monday, it’s the chief of staff. On Tuesday, it’s (Deputy Chief of Staff) Steven Miller. On Wednesday, it’s (Sec. of Defense) Hegseth. On Thursday, it’s Rubio. You take your pick.
Secretary of the Treasury weighs in every now and then. Director of the FBI weighs in every so often. There is no coordinated policy coming out of the Trump administration.
There’s just support for wars that he helped start in his first administration.
…There is no coordination of policy in this administration. Zero. It just flows out of Trump’s mouth when he tweets or does whatever he does. But the basic things that are happening are happening underneath him, and they’re happening with the various people who are doing what they can while he is oblivious to what they’re doing.
Or he’s orchestrating the whole thing all on his own. And it’s really kind of hideous what he’s doing both domestically and internationally. But I don’t believe that for a minute. This man is incapable of orchestrating action on his own. So what’s happening is we have chaos. We have chaos from one end of the administration to the other.
Given that the Trump administration is both dramatically more ambitious than the sclerotic Biden administration and arguably more effective than its predecessor, we shouldn’t be too quick to dismiss them for their impunity and incompetence.
Given that 340 million Americans are on board the ship of state piloted by Trump’s administration, such as it is, and roughly 7.75 billion other human beings have to share the planet with the rapidly declining hyperpower, we’ll continue to do our best to document the administration’s doings as events proceed and will try to filter out the seeming impunity and incompetence.
