President Donald Trump’s efforts to physically redesign the White House and Washington, D.C., might satisfy his personal interests as a developer, but it certainly isn’t doing himself any favors politically.

About two-thirds of Americans aren’t happy with Trump’s highest-profile redesign projects, a new Washington Post-Ipsos poll finds, and these attitudes could have wider implications far outside the U.S. capital city’s skyline.

It’s not just that Trump’s renovations are poorly received, they’re also reinforcing some of his most negative personal traits and bolstering the narrative that congressional Republicans are incapable of checking his worst impulses ahead of the midterms.

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When independent gas stations rebrand from one supplier to another, it’s called reflagging. A 76 station might become a Sinclair, and its pylons, signs, and branding on its canopy get swapped out for the new brand, with a dinosaur placed out front.

Gas stations reflag to tap into a recognizable national brand with its own advertising and rewards program. For the 25 gas stations that recently reflagged as “Freedom Fuel Network,” though, it was about tapping into a flagging political movement with a new, star-spangled brand.

The White House announced new “Freedom Fuel” gas stations in Pennsylvania and New Jersey on its official social channels and website earlier this month, as if it was a government program, ironic since Trump’s recent line of attack against Democrats is to accuse them of communism. In the video, people fueling their cars thanked the president for lower gas prices at the station, implying White House affiliation. It did not explicitly indicate what entity owned or operated it.

Documents obtained by Politico, however, show that the mystery brand was incorporated just a week before the White House announcement by Randy Brown, a Trump supporter and senior special teams coach of the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens, and Yoni Gontownik, a former commodities trader who’s fundraised before for Republicans. Politico also reports that a gas station chain owner, Shamikh Kazmi, who’s been sued in federal court over not fully paying for more than $1.3 million worth of gas, is linked to Freedom Fuel.

Newly christened Freedom Fuel gas stations use a logo of a golden-winged bald eagle that’s been temporarily affixed to reader boards showing gas prices, and canopies are decked out in U.S. flag imagery. The stations offer gas for a reduced price of $3.47 a gallon, or about 50 cents cheaper than Pennsylvania’s average gas price, and the White House said the 47 cents in the price was for Trump being the 47th president.

A review of Google Maps images of the 25 Freedom Fuel Network gas stations show that while a handful were once stations for nationally recognized brands like Shell, Sunoco, Exxon, Phillips 66, and Valero, many were previously unbranded or branded for lesser-known chains, like Gas N Go or BJ’s Gas. For these stations, reflagging to a brand promoted by the president with lower prices amid a sustained price hike thanks to Trump’s Iran war can draw in more customers than their old generic names.

For Trump, Freedom Fuel is an attempt to appear he’s doing something to drive down gas prices. Rather than a sustainable solution, though, it comes across as little more than a marketing ploy designed for social media content and Fox News segments. While a small number of motorists in the Philadelphia area could save on gas temporarily thanks to this reflagging, it does nothing to address the problem of the Iran war increasing the costs Americans pay at the pump nationwide.

This story was first published in Fast Company.

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Trump won this parody “Participation Trophy” for the Iran war

Since President Donald Trump began the Iran war nearly five months ago, he has repeatedly said it’s almost over or that the U.S. has, in fact, already won. His resumption of the conflict is just the latest sign that neither of those claims are true.

While Trump’s antagonistic second-term foreign policy is unlikely to win him any actual peace prizes, he didn’t need to earn the new participation trophy on the National Mall. The oversized, satirical statue awards him a prize for just showing up.

Iran War Participation Trophy is a 10-foot-tall trophy made of wood, foam, and plaster by the anonymous protest art group The Secret Handshake. The group’s previous installations on the National Mall include a statue of Trump and Jeffrey Epstein frolicking hand-in-hand, and another that depicts the pair as if in the movie Titanic. The group has also created an arcade game about the Iran war that’s impossible to win. The trophy is up near the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the Tidal Basin.

The piece is a loving cup-style trophy with two tall decorative handles, “#1” written on the cup’s front, and “Participant” written on the base. A plaque affixed to the display says the award is made out to Trump “for his enthusiastic involvement in the Iran war. While some concern themselves with military strategy, diplomacy, or measurable outcomes, President Trump demonstrated the courage to participate regardless of the final score.”

Another plaque that’s part of the display invites visitors to bring their own trophies. Plastic trophies are already set along its base.

“We didn’t make up the idea of a big dumb trophy as being important. He did,” The Secret Handshake tells me in an email. “And he even admitted when he didn’t win the Nobel Prize that he doesn’t feel the need to think about peace anymore. And now we’re out there literally destroying a nation. Lives are being lost. Iranians and Americans. Over seemingly the pursuit of recognition and shiny gold things.”

The group says the purpose of the work is to visualize the stupidity of the war’s justification—and to do so in a larger-than-life way. Its work parodies Trump’s second term by mimicking Trump’s own ostentatious style and affinity for gold, as seen in the president’s various side projects under development in Washington, D.C.

This story was first published in Fast Company.

Have you seen this?

Yes, Jon Ossoff’s campaign also bought the web address for a misspelling of his name. Ossoff told CNN’s Jake Tapper that his team did buy up the web URLs for both electjon dot com and electjohn dot com with an H. [Acyn/X]

Political ad overexposure is burning out voters, survey finds. One-third of respondents said overexposure to political ads makes them annoyed with a campaign. That points to a real risk of wasted spend and inefficient frequency for buyers who aren’t tracking household-level reach carefully. [Campaigns & Elections]

The municipal golf course hidden inside a national park. Presidio Golf Course sits within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and it’s also the former site of a military base. Originally, play was restricted to military officers and private club members, but after the base was closed, the course opened to the general public. [Hypebeast]

At first, it looks like something went wrong during the production of a new cap for the Philadelphia Phillies.

The tan hat shows the team’s script letter P logo in white, but just to the logo’s left, a jagged stitching line scribbles its way up and to the side, with two small dots embroidered at the top of the line and near the bottom. On one side of the cap, there’s a jumble of words and letters that don’t immediately make sense.

You might wonder, Did the hat factory’s embroidery machine hallucinate in the middle of the job? And then it strikes you, like a clapper strikes a bell: The seemingly haphazard stitching is not a defect. It’s a historical reference to the most famous bell in the MLB team’s hometown.

New Era designed the custom Liberty Bell-inspired Phillies caps specifically for the 2026 MLB All-Star Game played this week at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, the cradle of liberty where the Declaration of Independence was signed 250 years ago this month. Available exclusively at the Phillies Store for the All-Star Game celebrations, New Era tells me the hats were already sold out on the eve of the big game.

“New Era led a design lab with the Phillies, and this cap design emerged from that process,” says John Mackowiak, a spokesman for New Era.

The Liberty Bell got its name beginning in 1835 from abolitionists who adopted it as a symbol in their fight to end slavery, and exactly when it got its famous crack is lost to history, but it had to be recast twice. It often rang out on national events, like the signing of the Constitution, and following the deaths of Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington, according to the National Constitution Center.

The bell was damaged following Washington’s birthday in 1846 and wouldn’t ring again. Though its sound is silenced, the bell still stands today as a symbol of America’s founding and the fight to make good on the Declaration of Independence’s words, “all men are created equal.” As a tourist destination, it attracts about 2 million visitors annually.

New Era’s cap faithfully re-creates the shape of the crack on the front, and the text on the side is actually a label that appears on the Liberty Bell about who made it, where, and when for its 1753 recasting. The words “Pass and Stow” reference metalworkers John Pass and John Stow, casters of the new bell; “Philada” is for Philadelphia; and “MDCCLIII” is 1753 in Roman numerals.

There are other Easter eggs designed into the cap, too. The year “1776” is stitched into the bottom of the bill, and on the inside of the cap there’s some funny, ahistorical artwork showing the Phillie Phanatic mascot at the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The furry, green, snout-faced mascot was voted the most-loved MLB mascot in a sportsbook’s national fan survey released last month.

New Era designed more than 500 hats and other products for America’s 250th anniversary, including sets that fill in team logos with stars-and-stripes patterns or a bald eagle carrying a U.S. flag in its talons. (Even the MLB’s lone Canadian team, the Toronto Blue Jays, got its own “USA 250” hat). None reference the country’s anniversary as cleverly or creatively as the Phillies Liberty Bell-inspired cap, though. For such a small shape, the crack on the front tells a larger story.

This story was first published in Fast Company.

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How Maine Democrats are retrofitting their campaign logos

On July 10, after allegations of sexual assault and mistreatment of women, former nominee Graham Platner formally withdrew from the U.S. Senate race in Maine. To pick a last-minute replacement, Maine Democrats are holding a nominating convention on July 25 in time for a state deadline to put forward a new candidate who will face off against Republican Senator Susan Collins in November. With no time to spare, would-be nominees are retrofitting old logos for the new campaign.

Nirav Shah, a former director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, was the runner-up in Maine’s Democratic primary for governor in June. He was the first candidate to collect enough signatures to enter this month’s Senate race; he’s keeping green and white as campaign colors and a logo that makes the letter A in his last name from a pine tree, a Maine state symbol.

Shah’s supporters recently took scissors to his old stickers, cutting off the bottom half that said “For Governor.” According to NBC News, supporters are also retrofitting campaign signs by taping over his old signs to write in “Senate” instead of “Governor.”

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who ran against Collins in 2014 and lost handily in a year less favorable to Democrats, dusted off her 12-year-old U.S. Senate campaign logo for another run. When Bellows ran unsuccessfully for the state’s governorship earlier this year, she used a logo that included a map of Maine and wrote out her name in a tall, sans-serif font.

Her new Senate campaign logo is a retread of her 2014 mark: Her name is in all-caps italics in white on a blue background, with a thin, horizontal orange line underneath and “U.S. Senate” written below. It’s minimal and to the point. (Back in 2014, long before he became the mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani had a Bellows for Senate laptop sticker.)

Other candidates are able to reuse old logos because their designs were generic to begin with. Former Maine state Senator Troy Jackson ran for governor earlier this year with a red, white, and blue logo that filled in the counter of the letter A in his last name with a Maine state map. It said “Troy Jackson for Maine,” instead of for the office he was running for, so no edits are needed.

The same goes for Jordan Wood, a former staffer for Democratic Representative Katie Porter of California. Wood briefly ran for Senate before dropping out to run unsuccessfully for a U.S. House seat in Maine last month. Perhaps the third time’s the charm for the “Jordan for Maine” logo now that he’s running for Senate again.

“We were previously a candidate in the Senate race and are using our original campaign branding as a result,” a spokesperson for Wood’s campaign tells me

Democrats did something similar in 2024 when then-President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and then-Vice President Kamala Harris took his place. Supporters lopped off the top half of Biden-Harris logo yard signs or brought back old “Kamala Harris for the People” ephemera from her 2020 presidential bid until a new logo and merch could be designed.

Without time for a full-scale creative and brand design process, last-minute campaigns like those for Maine Democrats are inherently resourceful and makeshift. This is no time for a rebrand. You work with what you’ve got. Voters are now deciding among a field of candidates who already have campaign experience under their belts, and the branding to prove it.

This story was first published in Fast Company.

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Logo blunder sparks instant backlash for Nebraska gubernatorial candidate. Less than 24 hours after Brett Lindstrom announced his nonpartisan bid for Nebraska governor, the former Republican state senator found himself under fire over a campaign logo featuring the shape of Nebraska with the southeast portion of the state lobbed off. The logo, which was used on a press release announcing his run, was replaced with a more accurate outline of the state on Tuesday. [Omaha World-Herald]

Fortune cookies have become the vessel for political messaging in Tennessee. A few days after Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn released a now-viral campaign ad where she smashes fortune cookies by way of demonstrating her intention to “stop Communist China,” Mayor Freddie O’Connell released one, too. [The Tennessean]

U.S. Mint produces a $1 coin bearing Trump’s face. The final design for the commemorative coin, being released in the fall, was approved earlier this year by the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, whose members were appointed by Trump. [Associated Press]

Barbie stamps make their debut. The stamps highlight the Barbie doll’s career journey, each featuring an era-appropriate doll dressed for a particular role: registered nurse, surgeon, astronaut, firefighter, paleontologist, sign language teacher, robotics engineer, judge, soccer player and musical artist. [USPS]

Once thought lost to time, George Washington’s personal wallpaper has been brought back to life at his Virginia home with what historians think it might have actually looked like when he lived there.

Walls that for years have been painted plain white at Mount Vernon just south of Washington, D.C., are now again decked out in wallpaper, and it’s all thanks to a surprising discovery, some clever work by researchers, and a U.S. company that creates replicas of popular 18th century wallpaper from America’s oldest ally, France.

Colorful wallpaper with ornamental patterns was popular in the late 1700s, and staff at Washington’s Mount Vernon home knew Washington ordered wallpaper in 1757 for the home. But the exact designs were seemingly forgotten and replaced by five rounds of paint.

That was until crews discovered small fragments of original plaster with small wallpaper fragments on them as part of a $40 million restoration project of Mount Vernon for the 250th anniversary of America’s founding. The discovery unlocked new clues about what Washington’s house used to look like, so for America’s big birthday, its first president’s estate has been re-wallpapered. We now get a fresh look at what Washington’s interior decorating tastes were really like.

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President Donald Trump’s name has never been less popular as a baby name than it is now, but he’s naming the next generation’s new savings accounts after himself anyway.

Fewer Americans named their children Donald in 2025 than any year in U.S. history going back to the 1880s, according to Social Security Administration data. But for kids born between 2025 and 2028, they’re now eligible for new tax-advantaged investment accounts for kids called “Trump Accounts.”Also known as 530A accounts, their official name in government communications and the law that created them is named for Trump, and that could prove to be a hindrance for parents turned off by the partisan association.

Just look to “Obamacare.”

After then-President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, into law in 2010, critics of the healthcare law began calling it Obamacare as a pejorative, but the nickname stuck and eventually was adopted by proponents too.

“I have no problem with folks saying ‘Obamacares,’” Obama said during a 2011 town hall. “I do care. If the other side wants to be the folks that don’t care, that’s fine with me.”

But what you called the law mattered when pollsters asked. A 2013 Gallup poll found that when respondents were asked about the ACA, it had a 45% approval rating. When it was called Obamacare, though, its approval dropped to 38%.

Regardless of party affiliation, majorities of Americans support ACA provisions like prohibiting private health insurance companies from denying coverage because of a pre-existing medical condition or to pregnant women. Calling it Obamacare, though, connects the law by name with a president some don’t like. Since Obama left office and the daily drubbing of partisan politics, though, the law’s approval has soared, reaching a high of 66% last June, per KFF Health Tracking polls.

Research shows citizens use partisan cues or shortcuts to form opinions, and naming programs after presidents creates an immediate shortcut that might turn off voters of the opposite party, even if they might otherwise show support under a different name.

Democrats have put forward their own ideas for investment accounts for kids before. A “baby bond” program under the proposed American Opportunity Accounts Act cosponsored by Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey would have been publicly funded and financially progressive, so the benefits wouldn’t most accrue to the wealthy who can most afford to fully fund the accounts to their maximum limits annually, as they can under the Trump administration’s program. (Though Booker’s proposal hasn’t passed, he has worked across the aisle with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to urge CEOs to donate to the Trump administration’s new accounts.)

To get their own version of an account for kids passed under Trump, Republican lawmakers turned to flattery. An early proposal for the accounts called them “Money Accounts for Growth and Advancement” accounts to make an acronym for MAGA, but the accounts were renamed “Trump accounts” for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed last year.

Trump has long worked to take credit for government programs and spending (even if he had nothing to do with it), and the Trump accounts are the latest example. If he really wants them to have the best chance of success, though, the best thing he could do might be to rebrand the accounts by a less polarizing name. Parents aren’t naming their kids after Trump these days. Perhaps the federal government could follow.

This story was first published in Fast Company.

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What if America 250 happened under a Democrat?

The opening of the Obama Presidential Center last month had an all-star lineup of performers, a bipartisan guest list, and speeches encouraging the country to rise to its highest ideals. On social media, some Democrats called it the real America 250.

In an alternate universe where President Donald Trump lost the 2024 race, and the East Wing tear down, tariffs, and Iran war never happened, America’s 250th anniversary would certainly feel much different. There were plans for a parade in Washington, D.C., a festival put on by the Smithsonian on the National Mall, and coins that were never minted.

Instead, we got a UFC fight, Trump rally, and a fair that’s drawn negative attention for its soft attendance. Under a President Kamala Harris, it could have looked different, according to Democrats.

Imagine a Beyoncé concert for 1 million people on the National Mall

“You don’t have to squint real hard to see a Beyoncé concert for literally 1 million people on the Mall,” one Democratic professional who requested anonymity because of their work on the Great American State Fair tells me about what a Democratic America 250 might have been like. “It’s not hard to see how that could have been.”

Plans for America’s 250th anniversary celebrations began a decade ago when Congress created the United States Semiquincentennial Commission, which then-President Barack Obama signed into law in 2016. Since then, the non-partisan group has been rebranded once, and it’s lasted through to both Trump administrations and former President Joe Biden’s term. Plans have evolved and changed.

The Smithsonian Institution’s Folklife Festival, held annually in Washington, D.C., wasn’t able to be hosted on the National Mall this year as it was for the 1976 Bicentennial since Trump’s Great American State Fair booked the space. Called “Of The People: The Smithsonian Festival of Festivals,” it’s now on the road for a national tour in cities from Detroit to Tucson.

There were plans for a D.C. parade with “diverse floats” and marching bands, as well as concerts across the country that capture “the nation’s cultural diversity,” according to a September 2024 playbook created by America250 and obtained by Time.

At the U.S. Mint, which approved designs for coins commemorating civil rights during the Biden administration, Trump’s administration scrapped those plans for coins focused heavily on America’s colonial and Revolutionary War eras.

A more inclusive, accessible approach

Trump’s handling of the nation’s anniversary polarized the festivities at a time when his approval rating has never been lower. When artists dropped out of performing for the state fair, some said it was because they had assumed it was a nonpartisan event, when in fact it was the product of Freedom 250, Trump’s own parallel organization that’s been planning semiquincentennial events.

An America 250 under a Democratic president who hadn’t created their own parallel commission—or even a different Republican president—may well have been more rigorously nonpartisan and attracted more big-name corporate sponsors and cultural institutions for partnerships.

Trump’s sponsors have included the prediction market Polymarket for the UFC fight, while trillionaire donor Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Northrop Grumman, a defense contractor, are among the relatively few non-state exhibitors at the fair. Instead of national name brands looking to reach a broad audience for these Trump-affiliated events, it’s businesses that have business in front of the Trump administration.

Rep. Jared Huffman, a California Democrat who’s accused the Trump administration of corruption, white washing history, and platforming Christian nationalism with the anniversary, said Trump is attempting to “hijack” it.

“The administration seems to be usurping this special occasion, shifting it to a gilded tribute to the president and rewriting of our nation’s history—but America is so much more than that,” Huffman said in a statement.

A branding exercise for sitting presidents

This isn’t the first time party plans for a big American birthday have changed from president to president. Ahead of the Bicentennial in 1976, Lyndon Johnson imagined a Worlds Fair to highlight Great Society and Model Cities policies and programming. When Richard Nixon succeeded him, his administration immediately tried to create a patriotic celebratory event that was targeted towards his constituency, says M.J. Rymsza-Pawlowska, an associate professor of history at American University. After Nixon resigned amid investigations into the Watergate break-in and cover-up, Gerald Ford ended up taking a less partisan approach to the celebration.

“What was different is that the American people really pushed back at this, leading Nixon to back off, so the final form of the Bicentennial, under Ford, was a decentralized grassroots affair,” Rymsza-Pawlowska says.

Presidential administrations typically view national commemorations as an opportunity to highlight their own policy and symbolically connect their administration to the direct legacy of the founding moment, she says.

Rather than bemoaning what could have been, many Americans are making the most of what they’ve got, more interested in how they’re celebrating America’s anniversary at home in their communities than what the president is doing in Washington.

Americans defining 250 for themselves

America250 says more than 1,200 grassroots celebrations are planned across the country, while “America Gives,” its nationwide service initiative, has racked up more than 38 million volunteer hours so far as part of an attempt to make 2026 a record-setting year of volunteer service.

And those concerts coast-to-coast that the Biden-era planning document called for? They still happened. Christina Aguilera was among the headliners at The One Philly: Unity Concert for America in Philadelphia, though she couldn’t perform due to the weather (which is shame, considering the outfits she and her dancers planned to wear) while the July 4th Benefit Show at the LA Memorial Coliseum featured Chris Stapleton and The Smashing Pumpkins. The Giving 4th Broadcast Benefit Show at One Times Square on Independence Day Eve also featured performers.

There might not be a Beyoncé concert on the National Mall. Still, the bipartisan America250 is carrying out its programming admirably, despite a funding shortfall and bad bad vibes (four in 10 Americans feel “proud” about the country’s anniversary, per an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll).

“We are grateful for all the support we’ve received from Congress, and from private organizations and individuals—and continue to work to raise the funds we need to complete our work on a celebration that is worthy of the anniversary it commemorates,” an America250 spokesperson says.

While Trump’s Freedom 250 has at times seemed to overshadow the bipartisan efforts to mark the occasion with spectacle, America’s 250th anniversary doesn’t have to be defined by programming catering to one man and his political base. At local block parties and service projects across the country, Americans defined the anniversary in their own communities for themselves by connecting with others and looking outwards.

This story was first published in Fast Company.

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The designs that defined America. More than 30 designers tell Fast Company what objects, ideas, and images define a country that’s constantly in flux, including “We The People,” the Coca-Cola logo, and the Empire State Building. [Fast Company]

New White House report alleges “anti-white” bias at Smithsonian. The 162-page broadside focuses on the National Museum of American History, while taking shots at key art institutions. [Artnet News]

Interior secretary says Trump administration will use the same company to repair Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool damage. The administration has faced scrutiny for awarding a multimillion-dollar, no-bid contract to a company that previously worked on Trump properties. [NBC News]

The White House on Friday unveiled a limited-edition U.S. passport design to mark the 250th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Dubbed the “Patriot Passport,” it features a portrait of President Donald Trump hunched over the Resolute Desk and scowling at the viewer, with the historic document partially obscured behind him.

Trump’s portrait is based on a photo by White House photographer Daniel Torok. His signature is shown below, written about as large as — if not larger than — John Hancock’s would be.

The opposite page shows detail from John Trumbull’s 1818 painting Declaration of Independence, and says “United States of America 250.” The back of the passport features a logo for “Freedom 250,” the Trump administration’s organization for commemorating the nation’s founding, which operates separately from the bipartisan, congressionally approved America 250 group.

The design is different from a previous design released in April that also showed a portrait of Trump. In a post on his social network, Trump wrote that the passport says “Welcome, but be good!”

Beginning July 6, the passport will be available at the Washington Passport Agency in Washington, D.C., as the default passport issued to any American who applies in person. The commemorative design is the sole standard-size passport that will be issued by the Washington Passport agency, and about 40,000 will be available until supplies last, a State Department spokesperson tells me. Standard passport fees apply.

The limited-edition passport design is just the latest example of Trump using the country’s anniversary as a personal branding exercise.

Despite federal law prohibiting living people from appearing on currency, the U.S. Mint approved a commemorative coin featuring the same portrait of Trump with his fists on the desk. Concurrently, Trump appointees have pushed to get a $250 banknote that bears his likeness.

Trump’s face is also on a National Parks pass, and Trump has tied some of his building and renovation projects to the commemoration, like his proposed arch and his troubled renovations at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. And the UFC fight on the White House lawn was ostensibly for the country’s birthday but scheduled on Trump’s birthday.

No design better captures this trend than the passport, though. By overlaying the Declaration of Independence with Trump’s likeness, the administration is effectively obscuring the nation’s ideals with an image of a statistically unpopular president.

This story was first published in Fast Company.

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A classic Postal Service logo was just mashed up with its current typography

A California clothing brand is bringing back an old-school U.S. Postal Service logo for a capsule collection that also makes use of current USPS typography and vintage postage stamps.

The Postal Reorganization Act dissolved the U.S. Post Office Department as a cabinet-level agency in 1970 and created in its place the U.S. Postal Service, or USPS, the semi-independent agency that we know and love and that delivers your mail today. The reorganization came complete with a handsome new logo designed by Raymond Loewy that replaced an old mark showing a rider on horseback with a standing eagle.

Loewy’s logo was used until 1993 when it was replaced with the Postal Service’s current “sonic” eagle, but the Laundry Room, an L.A.-based brand founded by brothers Joey and Jonah Pauline, dusted off the old eagle logo for their new 28-piece collaboration.

The collection uses both the previous logo, which wrote out “United States Postal Service” in a rectangle around the eagle with stars on the bottom, and current USPS wordmark, which spells out its name in forward-leaning sans serifs and uses crossbar-less As with an open triangular counter.

The collection features $198 jackets, $39 caps, and $59 tees that use the pre-1993 logo and post-1993 typography together, and some items pay homage to vintage stamps. The inside of their jacket is lined in a pattern made from postage stamps, like a 13 cent Airmail stamp that shows an envelope with wings, while the “I Love USPS” shirt arranges old airmail stamps into a heart shape.

Other long- and short-sleeve shirts make good use of a great Statue of Liberty stamp designed by artist Tom Engeman that was released in colorful issuances in 1994 and 1997, now rendered on fabric in black and white. The Laundry Room did not respond to a request for comment.

Like NASA, USPS licenses its branding to third parties, such as with the sharp, three-piece vintage-inspired collection from Ralph Lauren last year that used the pre-1970 rider-on-horseback logo from the Post Office Department days, or its sick 2021 collaboration with Vans. The collabs build goodwill for already beloved federal agencies by making their brand accessible and wearable.

To get a license, manufacturers and companies have to meet certain criteria, and supporting the USPS brand strategy is chief among them. Applicants must prove their ability to maintain and enhance the Postal Service’s image and brands, as well as show an ability to produce quality products, distribution capabilities in mass market retail channels, and a cogent business or marketing plan, according to the application.

With its collaboration with the Laundry Room, USPS is lending its assets to a company that’s previously collaborated with the likes of Diet Coke, Little Miss, and Marilyn Monroe, reaching young women and others with its branding both new and old, now reimagined in a new way.

Have you seen this?

There’s only us. There’s no them. It’s a big week. We’ve got a new Madonna album out on Friday and America’s 250th anniversary on Saturday. I was moved by what Ken Burns said about what he’s learned making films about the U.S.: “There’s only us. There’s no them.” Read to the end to see inside Dolly Parton’s Tennessee truck stop. [Whig by Hunter Schwarz]

“It’s dangerous and it’s going to erode trust”: Redesign of U.S. government websites stokes surveillance fears. The National Design Studio, staffed by DOGE veterans, installed visitor-tracking software on vital federal websites. [The Guardian]

Supreme Court loosens campaign finance laws, opening up flood of midterm cash. The ruling struck down limits on coordinated spending between candidates and political parties, and the change is likely to benefit Republicans, who brought the case and rely more on large donors. [Politico]

Neglected Frank Lloyd Wright house in Chicago gets a new lease on life. Frank Lloyd Wright’s J.J. Walser House, an architectural icon of Chicago’s Austin neighborhood that fell into disrepair and landed on Preservation Chicago’s annual list of endangered historic buildings last March, finally has a new owner after a local nonprofit, Austin Coming Together, bought the building. [Artnet News]

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani gave the NBA Championship-winning New York Knicks keys to the city last week, and while that tradition is centuries old, the keys themselves displayed something new.

The text written across the front was set in a new version of the serif typeface Empirica, custom made for the Mayor’s office and designed by the type foundry Frere-Jones Type (its founder, Tobias Frere-Jones, designed the typeface Gotham, arguably the most famous font in politics). Now, Frere-Jones and his team have adapted Mamdani’s campaign type for a new era of progressive leadership.

Empirica, originally released in 2018, was designed by Frere-Jones and Nina Stössinger with contributions from type designers Fred Shallcrass and Devyani Mahadevan. It’s based on references to Ancient Roman inscription forms, and later interpretations of those forms in France in the 1800s. But when Mamdani’s office reached out to Frere-Jones Type about typography for its public-facing communication, the foundry recommended a modified version.

“We talked about some sort of modifications to individual characters we could make to bring in some of that painterly spirit,” type designer Tobias Frere-Jones tells me, referring to the campaign branding’s original inspiration from New York City store signage. Now, the mayor’s office has a version of Empirica that’s all its own.

The foundry worked on the new version of the font with designer Aneesh Bhoopathy, who designed Mamdani’s campaign branding. The result sits somewhere between stiff, traditional Roman type and Mamdani’s more personable, signage-inspired campaign fonts designed by Matthew Hinders-Anderson that’s a bit more formal for official use.

“Empirica provides this very authoritative, historical sort of representative voice,” Stössinger says. The new edits made it more playful.

The team designed a new Z to be used in front of an O for “Zohran” that’s tilted to better fit the letters next to each other. The strokes of other letters have extra flourish and flare.

“If you look at the capital R, the way that the leg kind of swooshes out, there’s a joy in that that’s amplified in this version, and I think to me, that’s a really beautiful combination to what makes the city what it is,” Stössinger says.

While the type family was named for Roman Empire, it also, helpfully, looks like a lot of other typography around the city that gave us “Empire State of Mind.” Empirica is used at Manhattan’s Moynihan Train Hall, and its style is chiseled into buildings around the city.

“On a visual level, it kind of echoes a lot of patterns that are already visible in the city,” Stössinger says.

Mamdani’s modified Empirica made its soft launch at his first 100 days address where it appeared on signs and placards. It’s also appeared in videos on Link NYC kiosks, the “Put a Lid On It” campaign to put all trash in rat-proof containers by 2031, and in an apple logo that says “The Office of the Mayor.”

The keys given to the Knicks are decorated with an apple on the head of the key, and text that reads “The Mayor of the City of New York, Zohran Kwame Mamdani.”

The font isn’t just for logo type, signs, and mementos either; it works for heavy text too. The typeface is used in headlines and body copy in “Block by Block,” the housing plan Mamdani’s office released in May that calls for building 200,000 new affordable homes over 10 years and preserving an existing 200,000 units.

Typography played an important role in Mamdani’s distinctive campaign branding, spelling out his name and campaign promises in memorable lettering that was reminiscent of handpainted signs. But it’s rare to see a campaigning politician with good type take that same intentionality with them into office.

Mamdani’s mayoral fonts represent an evolution of his typographic voice from candidate to mayor. And while they by no means represent a complete rebrand, these nuanced refinements work well to both slightly adjust his positioning and create a visual throughline as he works to make good on campaign promises.

This story was first published in Fast Company.

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The CEO of Sticker Mule is running for Congress. These are his stickers.

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It was supposed to be his new Wollman Rink.

President Donald Trump framed his renovation plans for the Lincoln Monument Reflecting Pool as a common-sense repair for a perpetually leaky pool that Democrats just couldn’t fix, not unlike his framing for renovations at a Central Park skating rink 40 years ago.

Back then, Trump delivered repairs to the deteriorating skating rink under budget and ahead of schedule, blamed government inefficiency for not being able to do it earlier, and told the story in his first book The Art of the Deal. Wollman Rink was a success and part of Trump’s origin story.

The Reflecting Pool, which is going to be drained again, isn’t turning out the same way, and in fact, Trump’s failures are revealing the skills he showed as a real estate developer that he seems to have forgotten as president. It turns out Trump could learn a thing or two from Trump.

Like the Reflecting Pool, New York City’s Wollman Rink suffered from leaks. It opened in 1950, but plans for repairs in the 1970s were put off due to the city’s fiscal crisis, and it closed in 1980 for years after its floor buckled. The city’s efforts to repair the rink were plagued by problems, and Trump offered to rebuild the rink 40 years ago this month. He did, and it opened in November 1986 $750,000 under budget and a month early.

Four decades on, Trump’s attempt at pulling off a similar stunt with Reflecting Pool isn’t working. Here’s four lessons from Trump’s Wollman Rink project that help explain why:

1. Get permission. Trump reached an agreement with the city to repair Wollman Rink. Today, he’s making decisions about redesigning Washington, D.C., unilaterally, bypassing laws and processes meant to prevent any one president from playing SimCity with our nation’s capital every four years on the taxpayer’s dime. The nonprofit Cultural Landscape Foundation filed a lawsuit with the Interior Department Monday accusing the renovations of breaking the law by not consulting experts or the public.

2. Seek experts. Trump sought professionals who knew what they were doing for Wollman Rink, even if it meant looking abroad. “Since I knew absolutely nothing about building rinks, I set out to find the best skating-rink builder I could,” he wrote in The Art of the Deal, and he hired a Canadian firm out of Toronto. In contrast, for the Reflecting Pool, Trump claimed he knew a guy who’s done swimming pools to do the job, but a company owned by a donor got the gig in a no-bid contract. It reeks of out-and-out corruption, not a competitive process to find someone who will do the best job.

3. Try not putting your name on it. Trump’s tendency to name things after himself started early, with Trump Tower in 1983 and Trump Plaza in 1984. Two years later, though, Wollman Rink, which is named the Wollman family who funded its construction, opened without rechristening itself the Trump-Wollman Rink or some such nonsense. It was a public city rink, after all. Today, Trump is the most unpopular president in modern U.S. history, yet he can’t help himself in plastering his name and face on everything, negatively polarizing his projects. While Trump hasn’t suggested renaming the pool after himself (yet), he has made it all about himself.

4. Narrative is everything. Trump understood the storytelling value of going up against a city government that couldn’t get the job done on Wollman Rink. Now Trump is the state, and the narrative of his Reflecting Pool renovation is one of hubris and corruption. He’s falsely claimed former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden spent sums they didn’t spend to unsuccessfully repair the pool, and his own repair job now needs its own repair job. Trump said he was repainting the basin from a neutral gray chosen to maximize reflection to “American Flag Blue,” but the pool quickly became algae green. They arrested a U.S. Olympian. Ducks are dying. The administration’s story about alleged vandalism isn’t adding up. All of these omens are bad.

Trump said his success with Wollman Rink embarrassed New York City’s then-Mayor Ed Koch. Forty years later at the Reflecting Pool, he’s embarrassing himself.

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The next Winter Olympics logo is a mountain illuminated by light

The 2030 Olympics will be held in the French Alps, and the logos for the Games, unveiled last week, use triangular mountain shapes to set the scenes.

The logos for the next Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, which organizers are now calling “Alpes 2030” (instead of their old name “French Alps 2030”), were designed by a team led by the Games’s director of image and brand Mathieu Sakkas. They’re built around the idea of the meeting of rays of light and mountain peaks.

After the 2024 Paris Games became the first to use the same logo for the Olympics and Paralympics, Alpes 2030 is going back to dual logos, and they’re taking a complementary approach. Both logos use the same stripe effect and gradients, and one logo could fit into the other. For the Olympics logo, lines of increasing width from left to right give the shape a sense of perspective.

“Together, they embody our ambition: to give Olympism and Paralympism the same place, strength and visibility,” Alpes 2030 organizing committee president Edgar Grospiron said in a statement.

The French Alps don’t have their own Matterhorn, the Swiss Alps mountain with its distinctive, recognizable peak, so the generic triangle shapes works to evoke a generic mountain.

The color palette was inspired by the idea of ice and light, when the sun hits a snow-capped mountain. There’s midnight blue and azure blue on the dark end, and warm red and pink were chosen to represent alpenglow, the phenomenon when a reddish glow appears on the horizon opposite a rising or setting sun.

The typeface for the Games was also designed by Sakkas, the director of image and brand, and type specimen shown in a sizzle real show two sets of italics that lean backwards and forwards, allowing the text to match the slants of the lines in the logos.

As the Olympics move away from awarding hosting duties to single cities towards naming regions instead, like Milan-Cortina 2026 and Utah 2034, its logos aren’t meant to symbolize just one city.

“This choice reflects a clear ambition: to move beyond a simple geographical representation and create a symbol capable of embodying both the Olympic and Paralympic Games,” Grospiron, the organizing committee president, said at the unveiling, according to the French branding agency Grapheine.

The logo lays the groundwork for a larger, coherent visual identity for the Games built on lines, gradients, and light. The logos here are less about taking us to one specific place than they are about evoking a feeling and a moment: the magic of golden hour in the Alps.

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Trump’s new plane. The jet Qatar gifted to President Donald Trump has been painted and Trump’s planning on using it for a future presidential library. Meanwhile, former President Barack Obama opened his presidential library, and while there’s no Air Force One, Christina Aguilera did sing at the opening, which is actually cooler. [Whig by Hunter Schwarz]

I’m a Jon Ossoff rally truther. Candidates generally compete in the attention war nowadays by going long and somewhat unrehearsed, and Ossoff is currently running a gorgeous but hermetically sealed 2012-era production in the middle of all of it. [Chaotic Era]

Photos show Trump’s name removed from Kennedy Center facade. New photos of the Kennedy Center show Trump’s name has been taken down from the building’s facade after a monthslong court battle and the recent addition of a tarp blocking public viewing of the removed signage. [NBC News]

Nike’s Air Force 1 Low “Patent Demin” seals coastal blue denim beneath a glossy finish. Rather than replacing denim with patent leather or treating them as separate design elements, the “Patent Denim” build layers the gloss directly over the fabric, allowing the denim’s natural weave and the darker shading around the heel and side panels to show through. [Hypebeast]

The Obama Presidential Center, which opens to the public on Juneteenth, is a presidential library unlike any other, complete with an extensive art collection that former First Lady Michelle Obama said at the opening today she hopes visitors will “be inspired by.” The art also says something important about what the former first couple hope for the new center.

The museum includes 28 commissioned works of art that were curated by a former chief curator of art in U.S. embassies for the State Department, Virginia Shore. What started as “five or six artists” grew, according to Obama Presidential Center Museum founding director Louise Bernard, and the goal was to curate “not only established artists but emerging ones, a strong Chicago representation, and an international dynamic” and include “race, ethnicity, and queer representation,” Bernard told Galerie Magazine.

Julie Mehretu’s “Uprising of the Sun” is the painted window on the outside of the building, and it’s inspired by Obama’s speech at Selma for the 50th anniversary of the march there, the same speech that’s rendered in text on the facade titled “You Are America.” In the museum’s main lobby, “The Obamas: Springing Forth” by Njideka Akunyili Crosby is the first joint portrait of former President Barack Obama and his wife together. Mark Bradford’s “City of the Big Shoulders” (below) is a three-story map of Chicago.

For an art collection at a center named after a president known for his oratory, there’s a number of text-based works. Jenny Holzer “Freedom Riders” uses FBI files on the Freedom Riders, civil rights activists who faced violence when they challenged segregation, while Jack Pierson’s sculpture “Hope” (below) is made from found letters to spell out a theme of Obama’s campaigns. At a top floor space facing the window behind the building’s outer text, Idris Khan’s “Sky of Hope” is made from text of Obama praising Civil Rights leaders on the ceiling.

Nekisha Durrett’s “Hem of Heaven,” a sculpture made of ceramic tiles, is inspired by Harriet Tubman’s shawl, and “Book Bird,” a sculpture in the library garden, is sculptor Richard Hunt’s final work. The center’s artwork also includes wooden benches by Norman Teague and a stone sculptural water feature by Maya Lin. “Bending the Arc,” an arch sculpture by Martin Puryear in the John Lewis Plaza, is a reminder that the moral universe does not bend toward justice by itself.

Obama said as president that the arts “have always been central to the American experience.”

“They provoke thought, challenge our assumptions, and shape how we define our narrative as a country,” he said in 2018.

By curating artworks commissioned to convey optimistic themes from diverse viewpoints, the Obama center’s art is defining its own narrative about the country as a multiracial democracy that we build together. It also reinforces the center’s larger mission to inspire and empower now, not just look back. Rather than art as history, it’s a contemporary collection. Yes, we still can.

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This year’s U.S. Soccer’s World Cup kits reimagine the Stars and Stripes

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In this month’s issue we’ll look at…

• the multiplying metaphors in Trump’s Washington

• what the colors of the Pride flag actually mean

• and a mural that reimagines the Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride

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The best of Yello:

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Two Dan Sullivans are running for Senate in Alaska, and if their names aren’t confusing enough, you might want to take a look at their logos.

Sen. Dan S. Sullivan is an incumbent Republican who’s served in the U.S. Senate since 2015, while Dan J. Sullivan is a last-minute candidate who’s also running as a Republican. He entered the race just days before Alaska’s filing deadline.

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Save the flamingos.

The Trump family is no stranger to absurdist, animal-based protest to make a larger point. In President Donald Trump’s first term, there was an orange rat inflatable at some protests that the creators made to ridicule him, while during term two, some protesters have worn frog suits to look purposefully ridiculous.

Now, at demonstrations in Albania over a luxury development there that Trump’s oldest daughter and son-in-law are connected to, the flamingo has become a symbol of protest, though it’s for a literal and not just figurative reason. A foreign Trump family development has inspired species-specific environmental activism with the flamingo, and there’s hardly a creature more camp. A group of flamingos is called a flamboyance.

Some 3,000 flamingos and other wildlife live across from Sazan Island on the Adriatic Sea, where Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are developing a more than $1 billion luxury resort. Environmental activists say no environmental assessments have been done for their project so close to a feeding area for flamingos, Dalmatian pelicans, and endangered Mediterranean monk seals, per Courthouse News.

Environmental concerns aren’t the only knocks from critics against the project being developed by Kushner’s private equity firm Affinity Partners. There are concerns that the land wasn’t acquired by Kushner’s firm transparently, and protesters are also expressing discontent with the country’s Socialist Party government and Prime Minister Edi Rama, according to the BBC.

The flamingo has made a handy symbol to express all of that. It’s a charismatic species.

The Elton John of birds, flamingos don’t even have to show off like a peacock, they’re just naturally pretty like that, and the bird’s feathers get their pink color because of their diet of algae and brine shrimp. The flamingo makes for a good flagship species, or a single species that conservation groups use to center their efforts around, like “save the whales.” It’s done in hopes it will have an umbrella effect for other species too, but there’s disagreement over whether the single-species approach biases conservation efforts towards species that are cuddly or cute.

Studies have found these charismatic species attract more funding and create emotional resonance, and conservation and nature magazines tend to feature mammals and birds on their covers over invertebrates, fish, amphibians, or reptiles. It’s little wonder protesters in Albania have gravitated to a colorful bird.

In Albania, the flamingo has taken on the role of the flagship species in protests not just to protect the bird and other wildlife near Sazan Island, but to represent wider grievances against the resort proposal and government. In posters and social media posts, they call it a “Flamingo Revolution.”

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Inside the proposed design for a new Penn Station

The architectural firm behind plans to remake New York City’s Penn Station unveiled its design on Monday, and renderings show a station that’s meant to be bigger, brighter, and more welcoming to the public.

The design, which leaked last month before its formal reveal, would encase the circular form of Madison Square Garden with a classical-style, square-shaped station that’s designed to let light in. Inside, narrow walkways would be expanded and low-slung ceilings raised. Architects estimate the redesigned platforms will reduce egress time by more than a minute.

More details about the plans reveal a design blends a modern classical look with retro-inspired art deco forms that architects looked to for inspiration. The ceiling in the main hall is decorated as a map of Manhattan streets with a clock hanging in the middle where Penn Station is located on the map, and as a callback to the clock that was once displayed in the main concourse of the old Penn Station. The New York City skyline is depicted in decorative reliefs in the main entry space, and four original eagle statues from the original Penn Station would be placed at the building’s corner entries. Architects are using the original station’s foundations as much as possible.

“This is geeky but it’s really important because building new foundations at Penn when a train’s coming in every three minutes during the day is incredibly complicated and costly,” Vishaan Chakrabarti, the lead design architect and founder of PAU, said during a press conference. “So we’re trying to reuse and recycle foundations wherever we can.”

One entrance features a large display showing Trump’s name and a presidential seal. Criticism over it, Chakrabarti said, is “much ado about nothing.”

“This couldn’t be more commonplace. Federal buildings everywhere have presidential seals,” he said.

PAU and HOK are leading the architectural plans, and they worked with developers Halmar and Skanska and other partners including Severus Associates, ME Engineers, Lerch Bates, HNTB, and CBRE. Pentagram was named as the agency behind the station’s way finding, signage, and graphic design, and L’Observatoire would do the lighting design.

The proposed plan calls for removing the Infosys Theater at Madison Square Garden and turning that space into a grand entrance. In addition, there would be loading space inside for trailers so they no longer have to unload on the sidewalks outside. Sidewalks would be widened outside the station, creating what designers hope is a new public space.

“We think about how architecture and the city engage constantly,” Vishaan said.

The proposal is estimated to cost somewhere between $7 billion to $8 billion and be paid through federal grants and loans.

“There will be no fare hike to pay for this project, that’s not going to happen,” Andy Byford, special advisor to the Amtrak Board, said.

Byford denied the procurement process for the project was corrupt after elected officials including Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said it lacked transparency. Byford said the finalist design was selected from four letters of interest that were whittled down to three.

“This was without question the best technical proposal of the three they received,” Byford said.

This story first appeared in Fast Company.

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Who knew Hunter Biden was a natural-born poster? The former first son can’t stop tweeting, and some of it is funny. Plus: Mariah Carey released a Pride collection. [Whig by Hunter Schwarz]

Top White House historian says Trump’s UFC fight would have “repulsed” Founding Fathers. Edward Lengel, chief historian of the White House Historical Association during Trump's first term, said hosting “a vicious and violent sport” “sullies the image of this country.” [HuffPost]

The U.K.’s next banknotes might feature cute foxes and prismatic butterflies. Following a public consultation last year, the Bank of England has decided its next series of £5, £10, £20, and £50 bills will feature wildlife instead of historical figures. The financial institution is letting the public vote on which creatures will star on the paper currency. [Fast Company]

To save on space, the Library of Congress is packing what would otherwise be pages and pages worth of documents and other media from U.S. history into a single vial for the nation’s time capsule marking 250 years since the founding. The method that makes it possible is synthetic DNA.

The storage technique uses artificial DNA molecules like a hard drive by converting data sequenced in 0s and 1s, the binary language of computers, into As (adenine), Cs (cytosine), Gs (guanine), and Ts (thymine), the bases that make up a DNA molecule.

It’s not biological in any way, but it does use DNA structure to pack data more densely than other storage methods, and it lasts far longer than paper would. For a time capsule that’s not supposed to be open until 2276, it’s a smart way to preserve history for the long run.

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Cut some slack to the musicians who dropped out of the Freedom 250 Great American State Fair shortly after it was announced. With multiple organizations putting on commemorations for the 250th anniversary of America’s founding next month, it can be hard to tell them apart.

Nearly the entire lineup of the multi-day festival planned for the National Mall in Washington, D.C., dropped out except Flo Rida and Vanilla Ice. President Donald Trump suggested he headline the festival himself by holding a rally, then posted on social media Saturday that it should just be canceled. Artists who dropped out, like Martina McBride and Bret Michaels, explained that they felt misled that the event was not nonpartisan as they were told.

Confusion is everywhere ahead of the nation’s big birthday in July as separate organizations make their own plans, and McBride isn’t likely the only one unaware of the distinctions. Fifty years ago for the nation’s bicentennial there was a single brand that marked the occasion, but in 2026 for the semiquincentennial, it’s diluted between two brands from two different branches of government, America 250 and Freedom 250.

America 250 is the original, older and nonpartisan. Founded a decade ago in 2016 by Congress, its logo is a red, white, and blue ribbon that spells out “250” designed by Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv, the same design firm behind the Bicentennial logo for 1976.

Then you have Freedom 250, which is newer and founded by Trump in an executive order last year. Its logo is “Freedom 250” written in serifs inside a circle of 13 stars like the original U.S. flag.

America 250 has a head start and major placements at big events like NFL games, where it was stenciled on the field, and at Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Its initiatives include a time capsule, and America Gives, a volunteerism campaign.

Meanwhile Freedom 250 appears at events and activations put on by the executive branch and endorsed by Trump, like his UFC fight on the White House grounds or his Department of Transportation’s Freedom 250 train that included his name on the car. A promotional video for the forthcoming Freedom 250 Grand Prix race through the streets of D.C. shows a cartoon of Trump giving a thumbs up to a bald eagle in Marine One.

Though Freedom 250 has described itself as a nonpartisan nonprofit, the fact it was started by Trump through an executive order after a nonpartisan organization already existed makes that claim harder to justify.

The group’s events run parallel to other Trump administration efforts to put his name or likeness on government assets like currency and a monument to ostensibly celebrate the holiday. And Freedom 250 partners like PragerU, the Koch brothers’ group Americans for Prosperity, and the Museum of the Bible appeal especially to conservatives and evangelicals in Trump’s political base.

Tied to Trump, Freedom 250 appeals to his existing fans, but their numbers are shrinking as his net job approval ratings reach new lows. The Freedom 250 effort is pushing Trump’s toxic brand at a time when he’s never been more unpopular.

Publicly, America 250 is gracious about Freedom 250. “Together, we will ensure that our nation’s 250th anniversary becomes a unifying and unforgettable moment for all Americans,” America 250’s website reads. The Trump administration, though, has withheld tens of millions of dollars meant for America 250 while funding Freedom 250 with taxpayer money, according to documents obtained by NOTUS.

With a month to go until July 4, though, it’s not clear either brand has particularly penetrated the zeitgeist, nor does either have much time to do so. The brands are diluted, and for millions of Americans, the logo they may well associate with the commemoration next month could come from state-specific logos, or logos from corporate 250 tie-ins rather than the logos from the federal government. In an era of declining trust of institutions, it tracks.

This story first appeared in Fast Company.

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The U.S. Constitution is on the blockchain

Someone published the entire U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights, and all the Amendments on the blockchain all thanks to a change in data limits.

An unknown user spent about $83 to inscribe the Constitution in what’s basically the notes section of their Bitcoin transaction last Thursday that was spotted online by Bitcoin Magazine and others.

It’s not the first time the Constitution has been written on the blockchain — the Bitcoin mining company MARA Holdings published the document along with a portrait of then-President-elect Donald Trump last year before the inauguration — but last week’s 44.4 kilobyte transaction showed the data storage capabilities of crypto as a platform using the Constitution without promoting a business or politician too.

The OP_RETURN field in a Bitcoin transaction is a space where text can be included. Room was once limited to 80 bytes, so people used it to attach short notes or messages that fit. Last year, though, that cap was lifted, allowing for more text to be included in the field, like a whole Constitution.

In 2021, a group of more than 17,000 people called ConstitutionDAO tried crowdfunding enough cryptocurrency to win an auction of an actual physical copy of a first edition of the Constitution, but they were outbid.

Billionaire Ken Griffin bought the document for $43.2 million, a record for any historical document. Griffin now owns the only two privately held copies of the Constitution, one of which is now on display at the South Street Seaport Museum in Manhattan. It might not be a rare, physical copy, but writing the document in the OP_RETURN field of a Bitcoin transaction is much cheaper and will always be on display.

The U.S. Constitution is the most influential constitution in the world, but it’s “also among the oldest, a relic, as brittle as bone, as hard as stone,” author Jill Lepore argues in her We The People: A History of the U.S. Constitution. “But the U.S. Constitution is neither bone nor stone,” she writes. “It is an explosion of ideas. Parchment decays and ink fades, but ideas endure; they also change.”

Digital copies of the Constitution like at the National Constitution Center’s website leave in the document’s original language even if it’s referencing something that’s been amended, like a message in the blockchain that can’t be erased. But pop-ups over highlighted, outdated text provide additional information where Amendments are relevant, like Emancipation or the popular election of Senators.

From being written on parchment with ink to Bitcoin on the blockchain, the Constitution is a document that’s stood the test of time in no small part because of its capacity to be updated. Rooted in tradition with the capacity for change embedded into its very text (see: Article V), the U.S. Constitution is a document designed to adapt and endure.

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Jill Biden’s book tour begins. The former FLOTUS and English teacher is out this week with her new memoir View from the East Wing, and the only White House pet she mentions is Willow the cat, according to early reviews. Meanwhile, the view from where the East Wing once stood is an actual mess. Plus: Britney’s ex is an ally and he’s celebrating Pride. [Whig by Hunter Schwarz]

A Trump banknote is in the works, and it might be worth $250. The president has put his name and face on buildings, booze, and monuments. Next stop is your wallet. [Fast Company]

Democrats think their secret sauce in 2026 is targeting Trump and Republicans on “corruption.” “The idea is it’s an affordability cycle, and so everybody cares about affordability, No. 1, when you pair the message with the reason that your costs are going up is because politicians care more about themselves, they’re corrupt, they’re bought by corporate donors or they’re lining their own pockets, and that’s why they’re not looking out for you, that’s the most potent mix of the two arguments,” a national Democratic strategist said. [NBC News]

Val Kilmer’s icconic ‘Top Gun’ Iceman helmet is up for grabs. The auction house Goldin is selling the artifact with a starting bid of $25,000. [Artnet News]

Construction has begun on a giant, temporary fighting ring on the White House grounds.

President Donald Trump announced earlier this month that construction would soon start on an open-air mixed martial arts venue for a UFC fight, which is ostensibly to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the U.S. on July 4, but conveniently will be held on his 80th birthday on June 14.

Cranes and crisscrossing arches taller than the White House now stand on the South Lawn with an American flag pattern covering the lower half of the temporary structure. The venue is expected to seat about 5,000 people.

The event gives Trump ally and UFC CEO Dana White, who endorsed his reelection in 2024, a one-of-a-kind spotlight. It also gives Trump a helpful photo op. The fight night burnishes his tough-guy image and projects a sense of strength at a time when he’s never been more politically weak.

Trump’s disapproval rating has hit an all-time high as the young male voters who helped get him back into office — not to mention who might be the most interested in watching an MMA fight — are abandoning him in droves. A Harvard/IOP poll found just 28% of men ages 18 to 29 support Trump after 49% voted for him in the last election.

The price of bread and other staples is up, but the circus (or rather, the gladiator fight) is coming to the White House and will be streamed on Paramount+.

Whether the fight on the CBS streaming platform can win back young male voters ahead of the November midterm elections remains to be seen, but the Harvard/IOP poll found young people are most concerned with issues like rising prices, housing costs, healthcare, climate, crime, and Iran, none of which can be solved in an MMA ring. Either way, Trump’s hosted fights before, like a boxing match at his Atlantic City casino before it went bankrupt.

The UFC shared renderings of an octagonal stage under the crisscrossing arches, in which an American flag (notably missing some stars) is featured. The venue is built by Tait, a Pennsylvania-based live events production company, according to CBS affiliate WHP-TV in Harrisburg.

Tait’s work spans theater, malls, and media, like The New York TimesDealBook Summit, but it works often in live music. The company is behind staging for major artists such as Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour, Elton John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour, and U2’s concert residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas.

For the UFC’s White, an outdoor stage isn’t his preferred kind of venue.

“There’s two things I hate: I hate stadiums, and I hate — even worse than a stadium — is fighting outside,” he told NPR. “There’s just so many different variables you have to deal with,” like weather and bugs. D.C. in mid-June is often humid and muggy.

When asked whether the sport represents the president’s view of America and the world, White said, “Trump is the toughest, most resilient guy I’ve ever met,” adding during the interview that the sport “speaks to young men” and “we supported Trump.”

It’s not the first time an aging U.S. president has worked with CBS or its parent company to turn their birthday into a soft coverage opportunity before a crucial election. Ahead of his 66th birthday in 1956, amid his reelection bid, then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower faced mounting questions over his age and health. Needless to say, he got a huge boost from a celebrity-studded televised birthday tribute on CBS dubbed “Ike Day.”

Trump is 14 years older than Eisenhower was then, and more deeply unpopular than Eisenhower ever was, but he’s trying his hand at an even bigger stunt. According to White, the president’s eldest daughter, Ivanka, is running point for the project. But whereas Eisenhower threw a party, Donald Trump is holding a fight. If anything, he’s on brand.

This story was first published in Fast Company.

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The 2028 L.A. Olympics won’t have just one font, it has a whole font book

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After proposing a new design for its municipal logo on Facebook, one tiny Maine town faced backlash in the comments section when it admitted the mark was generated by A.I. The post and page are now private.

Newburgh, Maine, population 1,520, is some 25 miles from the coast, just outside Bangor. In its Facebook post late last month, the town didn’t hide the fact that its proposed farm-theme logo was A.I.-generated, and even asked for feedback.

“It’s time to update our town logo that we use on our letterhead,” the post read, according to Bangor Daily News. “This is what AI and I came up with as I am no artist. Also, attached is what our old logo looked like. We wanted to know thoughts on the new design and if it represents Newburgh.”

The logo shows a farmhouse with a silo inside of a round seal with hills in the background. In the foreground, there are rows of crops and a pine tree, a longtime Maine symbol. The A.I. authorship of the logo is obvious in text written along the bottom, where the two number 1s in “1819” are upside down and the letter I in “Incorporated” is a number 1.

Residents from the small town were not happy. David Aston, who lives in Newburgh and owns the nearby Timber Hearth Tattoo Co., offered to design a logo for the town.

“I think it’s important for local governments to go human-made because it reinforces the importance of design and art as a human endeavor that’s just as important as the other functions of government,” he tells me.

The A.I. logo was a take on Newburgh’s current logo, an illustration of a farmhouse that’s too detailed to look good when shrunken down. On town letterhead, the current farmhouse mark appears along with Word Art-style text in a concave shape that writes out its year of incorporation. It looks dated, and the town is well intentioned to consider a new logo.

Redesigning town or city logos is inherently fraught, though, since everyone has an opinion about graphic design, especially when it’s about where they live. When it comes to winning over the public, using A.I. is likely to make the process even harder.

A Pew Research Center survey released in March found nearly 40% of U.S. adults believe data centers are “mostly bad” for the environment and home energy costs.

That’s especially true in Maine, where growing backlash culminated in the first statewide ban on data centers in the U.S. The ban, passed by state lawmakers in April, lasts more than a year and covers data centers that surpass a certain size.

Representatives for Newburgh didn’t respond to a request for comment, but taking into account the small size of the town staff and government (its town manager, for example, serves as clerk, treasurer, tax collector, registrar of voters, and general assistance administrator), it’s perhaps not surprising they might turn to A.I. for logo ideas.

Graphic design experience is not a requirement for public service, and not every municipality has the budget or resources for design-forward government services. Still, the blowback in Newburgh is instructive.

Getting public input was smart, and what town officials found was that for many residents, an A.I. design doesn’t represent them. When it comes to branding the places we call home, a human touch is key.

This story was first published in Fast Company.

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How do you brand the campaign of a “warm body” for Congress?

The most important part of Kentucky Republican and congressional candidate Ed Gallrein’s campaign logo is the tagline, “Endorsed by President Trump.”

Gallrein is a U.S. Navy veteran recruited to primary the libertarianism Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), and he uses a logo that looks like the mascot for G League NBA team. A blue-and-gold bald eagle holds a triton in its talons as a symbol representing Gallrein’s service as a Navy SEAL, but the Trump endorsement really is the whole ball game here.

Gallrein’s candidacy is part of a wider effort by Trump to punish fellow Republicans he’s deemed insufficiently loyal, and so far he’s on a roll.

All five of Trump’s endorsed candidates for Indiana’s General Assembly won their races earlier this month, and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), one of the few remaining Republicans who voted to convict Trump of inciting an insurrection in 2021, lost his primary Saturday. Massie is Tuesday’s target. He co-sponsored the Iran War Powers Resolution and bill to release the Epstein files, as well as voted against Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act since it adds to the deficit.

Trump once called Gallrein a “warm body” (“Give me somebody with a warm body to beat Massie, and I got somebody with a warm body, but a big, beautiful brain and a great patriot,” Trump said in March), and the candidate’s campaign advertising, branding, and merchandise center on Trump’s backing.

The Gallrein campaign’s $25 “You’re Fired Thomas Massie” shirt shows Trump’s face on the front, and his ad “Complete and Total Endorsement” clips Trump’s praise of the candidate’s firm handshake and look. “He is central casting,” Trump says over B-roll of Gallrein shaking a cop’s hand. “Just elect him.”

While Gallrein has made Trump’s support part of his branding, Massie is keeping close to the president even as his adherence to conservatism over Trump is central to his appeal. One Massie commercial that started airing in the campaign’s final week opens with an old picture of Massie and Trump posing together with thumbs up for a photo, and the narrator calls Gallrein woke and “a Trump traitor.”

Trump’s never been more unpopular nationally than he is now, but among Republican Party primary voters, his endorsement still matters. It shows in this one U.S. House race. The Republican Party is Trump’s party.

Have you seen this?

You won’t believe what Michelle Obama just said about Trump voters. The former FLOTUS doesn’t want liberals pigeonholing Trump voters. Plus: Guess which Beyoncé song has been inducted into the Library of Congress? [Whig by Hunter Schwarz]

Everyone’s running anonymous political accounts now. Operatives on both sides of the aisle are using anonymous social media brands to boost their preferred candidates, drop opposition research, and amplify messaging. [Chaotic Era]

Here’s what I told the DNC autopsy. The report may never see the light of day—so the Harris campaign’s head of digital offers his candid breakdown of what worked, what failed, and what Democrats have yet to learn. [The Bulwark]

Relax! Spotify was never going to keep its disco logo. The music-streaming giant went full “discomorphism” for its 20th anniversary logo. The internet didn’t approve. [Fast Company]

Operation Epic Furious: Strait to Hell is a pixel-art-style role playing game by an anonymous group of public art activists that turns President Donald Trump’s war in Iran into an unwinnable arcade game that satirizes his presidency.

Physical, playable arcade cabinets loaded with the game went up this week on the National Mall at the DC War Memorial, and it’s by the anonymous group Secret Handshake who’s also behind other recent public protest art installations in Washington, D.C. Their work is aimed at skewering and parodying Trump, but their latest installation isn’t limited to D.C. tourists and locals, as the game is also available to play online.

Trump is the only playable character in Operation Epic Furious, which features three levels and tasks like burning Epstein Files and finding oil in Iran. But good luck beating it because the game’s makers say you can’t win.

“Much like most American conflicts in the Middle East, it is impossible to win,” a representative from Secret Handshake tells me. “But you can lose by trying to hold Melania’s hand,” since asking to hold first lady Melania Trump’s hand in the game triggers game over.

A plaque at the in-person installation says that the Trump administration knows that the best way to sell combat “is by making it a video game.” It’s a reference to social media content put out by Trump’s administration mixing actual war footage with scenes from video games and movies. The game uses Trump’s communications strategy against him.

Like Secret Handshake’s own “A Throne Fit for a King” installation poking fun at Trump’s gaudy D.C. remodeling projects or California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Trump parody schtick before it got old, the best satire for someone like Trump is simply holding up a mirror. Since Trump tries selling his unpopular war like a video game, the medium is a fitting platform for protest.

The group tells me they worked on the game “non stop for three weeks” and it features battle scenes plus cameos from top administration officials like Vice President J.D. Vance, while Russian leader Vladimir Putin is a centaur who asks Trump to go away with him to start a new life. There’s other Easter Eggs embedded throughout that will delight your most MS NOW-watching uncle, including past statues of Trump with Jeffrey Epstein on the White House grounds that Secret Handshake previously put up in D.C.

Designers have turned to video games as a form of playable protest or activism before. Just last month, one designer released Tax Evaders to make a point about the Trump administration cutting funding for priorities like healthcare, education, housing, and food. The intent was there, but the execution — a Space Invaders-style shooter — was stale. We’ve seen this game before.

Operation Epic Furious raises the bar for what a playable political game can look like. Rich, pixilated graphics and nostalgic RPG game play are matched by creative, satirical storytelling that anyone who watches Saturday Night Live can more or less follow.

Trump may treat war like a game, but it’s one the American people don’t want to play. Recent polling has found large, growing majorities of U.S. adults disapprove of Trump’s handling of the Iran war and don’t believe he has clearly explained why we’re in it. By making an actual arcade game out of the experience, the team behind Operation Epic Furious is showing how misguided Trump’s attempts to sell the war really are.

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Ralph Lauren designed this year’s flag stamp

The American designer known for turning the U.S. flag into a sweater is now turning that sweater into a stamp, and it’s at the very heart of a first-of-its-kind collection.

The U.S. Postal Service announced Tuesday that a photo of a 13-star knit flag designed by Ralph Lauren that says “1776 - 2026,” “USA Forever,” and “American Icons” will be 2026’s U.S. Flag mail use stamp. The designer also curated a whole sheet of stamps called American Icons coming out next month that celebrates Americana.

The 13-stamp sheet features photos that Lauren, 86, curated himself from his eponymous label’s archives and images that inspire him. It’s the first time in history the USPS has invited an individual to curate a complete official stamp issuance, according to the Postal Service.

The knit flag stamp in the center of the sheet, and other stamps in the collection show things like a baseball glove used by Jackie Robinson, wild horses, a cheeseburger, and a pickup truck. American flags abound, including one on an RL flag sweater worn by a teddy bear and others that flutter in the foreground of the Empire State Building, where Lauren once sold neckties from out of a single drawer. One stamp shows a pattern from a Diné blanket woven by Naomi Glasses, a Navajo weaver the label first hired to design a collection in 2023.

The designs of the stamps were selected to reflect the fabric of the nation and represent “freedom, independence, equality, opportunity, and the pursuit of happiness,” per USPS.

If any designer should curate a first-of-its-kind issuance about the flag, it’s Lauren. “His remarkable visual archive beautifully captures the aspirational spirit and shared values that have united Americans since before our nation’s founding,” USPS vice president of marketing Sheila Holman said in a statement.

Lauren designed the first flag sweater as an homage to American folk art, samplers, and patchwork quilts, and it debuted in his Fall 1989 collection on model Isabelle Townsend. He famously wore one of the sweaters himself at his label’s Spring/Summer 2002 show just 10 days after the 9/11 attacks, and before that, he donated $10 million through Polo Ralph Lauren to preserve the Star-Spangled Banner, the 1813 flag that flew over Fort McHenry and inspired Francis Scott Key to write that words that would become the lyrics to the National Anthem. This is a man whose brand bleeds red, white, and blue.

“I love America,” Lauren said in a statement.

Lauren’s clothes have been worn by first ladies of both parties, he’s outfitted Team USA Olympians, and in 2025, then-President Joe Biden awarded him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, making him the first fashion designer to receive the honor. His stamp sheet is another first, and by making his famous sweater a stamp, Lauren’s turned a fashion icon into a functional piece of government-issued art.

Have you seen this?

Golden idol. The same week the U.S. Secretary of State gave the Pope a crystal football, a golden statue of the president went up in Florida. It’s not a golden calf, a pro-Trump pastor said. Oh, I’m sure. Plus: The story of Xtina’s “Beautiful” recording session is a lesson for us all. [Whig by Hunter Schwarz]

Here’s Shepard Fairey’s take on Marilyn Monroe. The street artist is out with his take on one of the most famous icons in American pop art. Fairey’s Marilyn Sunrise and Marilyn Sunset are based on two photos taken of the actress by Milton H. Greene in 1956, and their release comes just ahead of what would have been Monroe’s 100th birthday on June 1. In a statement, Fairey mentioned Andy Warhol’s portraits of Monroe, which he called “superb,” but said his take “called for a much more delicate approach.” He said he hopes the prints “inspire an empathetic look at Marilyn’s complex humanity and remind us that we are all teetering between strength and fragility.”

DOGE used ChatGPT in a way that was both dumb and illegal, judge rules. The so-called Department of Government Efficiency’s cancellation of over $100 million in grants was unconstitutional, according to a ruling on Thursday that restores federal grants that were shut down for “DEI” prejudice. [The Verge]

What campaigns need to know about direct mail in 2026. “As campaigns contend with fragmented attention and rising digital skepticism, direct mail continues to serve as a trusted, powerful advertising channel for reaching voters,” reads a study from the American Association of Political Consultants and USPS. [Campaigns & Elections]

Since President Donald Trump named then-Senator JD Vance of Ohio his running mate in July 2024, his campaign logo has included both of their last names placed within a rectangular frame. In fundraising emails sent to the president’s mailing list last month, though, a different version of the logo included just one name: Trump.

Trump last used a Vance-less version of a MAGA Box logo during the 2024 campaign, but it reappeared in April in fundraising emails for an “Official Midterms Patriot Roster.” It’s one of a dozen or so logos used in fundraising emails over the past month by Never Surrender, Trump’s leadership PAC, which manages the mailing list from his most recent presidential campaign.

While variations of the Trump-Vance logo remain in circulation, a growing number of alternative logos and email header graphics don’t mention Vance at all. It’s a subtle branding shift that puts the sole focus on Trump, and comes amid growing questions over who the president might back as a successor in the 2028 race.

Trump-only logos started appearing in fundraising appeals as early as Trump’s first month back in office in January 2025, but their number has grown. The percentage of logos in Trump’s fundraising emails that are branded solely for him and not his VP has risen from 25% in March 2025 to a high of 42% in March 2026, according to a review of the Archives of Political Emails, a database. In April, it was more than 30%.

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The logo for the Florida airport that’s soon to be renamed after President Donald Trump looks more like the logo for a presidential library than an actual airport.

Palm Beach County officials voted today to advance an agreement to license Trump’s name and rename the Palm Beach International Airport after him. Brand guidelines for the new airport published in the naming rights and license agreement signed by Trump and representatives from DTTM Operations, his trademark company, show the mark they agreed on, and it looks like a presidential seal.

The logo shows a gold bald eagle positioned like the bald eagle in the seal, except the airport version carries olive branches for peace in both its talons instead of olive branches in one and arrows in the other. The logo uses visual elements from Trump’s brand, like the motif of five stars from his campaign logo, and the new airport name is spelled out in Trajan, a serif typeface used by Trump’s businesses.

It certainly looks Trumpian, but the problem is this isn’t how airports named after presidents are branded. From Abraham Lincoln to George H.W. Bush, no airport named after a president in the U.S. centers their namesake’s highest office in their visual identities. That Trump’s does is instructive of the larger conflicts of interest he’s pursuing in his second term with the airport and other ventures, like cryptocurrency and branded merch.

The soon-to-be President Donald J. Trump International Airport is unprecedented as no U.S. airport has been named after a president while he was still in office. In addition, no president has ever trademarked their name for their airport like Trump has, according to the New Republic.

The airport’s trademark deal obtained by the Miami Herald includes unusual language giving Trump’s family the ability to profit off the new name. Trump’s company can choose a list of approved retailers for the airport to buy its branded merchandise from, and the agreement leaves open the possibility it can sell its own airport-branded items off site. Trump also has the final say over how his image, likeness, and biographical information is used at the airport, per the agreement. Trust that if there’s a plaque by baggage claim about the airport’s namesake, it won’t mention Jan. 6, Trump’s two impeachments, or his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.

The logos for airports named after former U.S. presidents lean into the airport part of their names instead of the president part, with visual elements like swooping lines evoking wings and flight paths. There’s nary a presidential-style seal graphic in sight, which reads post-presidential, like in the logos for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library or Richard Nixon Foundation that both use seals with eagles in them.

Instead, JFK’s logo shows a globe, while a jet trail is pictured behind the Washington Monument and U.S. Capitol in the logo for D.C.’s Reagan National. The closest a logo actually gets to referencing its namesake is in Little Rock, Arkansas, where the mark for Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport shows a jet-style triangle making a double C. Then there’s the logo for the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, which doesn’t even have his name in it and just spells out its code IAH.

Trump’s airport logo doesn’t fit in with the rest when it comes to aesthetics, but neither does it fit in with the rest when it comes to precedent. For a president who flouts norms and uses the state for self promotion and self enrichment, a branded airport is just the latest example of Trump making government and public infrastructure all about him.

Naming an airport after an elected official was once an honor bestowed after a career in public service. For Trump, it’s a licensing deal now.

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This clever ad turns a bad reputation into a punchline

In “Not Like Most,” California gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter leans into two things she’s best known for: white boards and being a dick.

Pardon my language, but Porter, a Democrat who represents an Orange County district in the U.S. House, brings white boards to write on to make her point in House hearings, and she’s also earned a reputation as something of a tough boss.

Video surfaced in 2025 showing Porter berating a staff member to get out of her shot during a webinar with then-Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm in 2021 (“Get out of my f*****g shot!” she said), and anonymous accusations about how hard she is to work for have appeared on the Dear White Staffers social media accounts. In another incident caught on camera last year, Porter had a tense moment with a local TV news reporter and threatened to walk out but didn’t.

Rather than run from her reputation, Porter references it directly in her new ad. It’s a smart play for Porter, but it also highlights a larger point: in many of this year’s primaries, Democrats are looking for fighters, and having a reputation as one — even if impolite — can be a real asset.

“I’m not like most people who run for governor,” Porter says in the opening of her new 30-second ad. But instead of getting into how she runs her House office or berating her staff, she talks about her experience running a house in Trump’s America today.

“I actually get what you’re going through. A single mom of three kids, I know what it’s like to push the shopping cart. My minivan has almost 200,000 miles. I have a grown kid who may soon be living on my couch,” Porter says.

The visuals show her pushing a shopping cart through a grocery store aisle, pumping gas at a gas station, and at home with her grown kid, and through it all, background actors hold white boards with messages about costs like “Childcare Costs,” “Too Expensive,” and “Sky-High Gas Prices.”

In the closing scene, Porter’s in a park surrounded by people whose white boards show more pointed, political messages, like “Dump Trump #NoKings,” “Call Out Racism,” and “Abolish ICE.”

“To give Californians what they need, it’s going to take standing up to Donald Trump, calling out greedy corporations, and stepping on some toes along the way,” Porter says before getting to her punchline, directed to her supporters behind her: “Now, could you guys please get out of my shot?” They laugh. Fin.

The message is that while you might have heard a few things about Porter, she’s someone who’s ready to fight for you and against Trump. It’s an attempt to turn a potential liability into an advantage, and it comes at a time when being rough around the edges can be a plus.

Maine’s Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner, who’s called for investigations into Trump and his administration, outlasted his opponent despite a controversial tattoo and past Reddit posts, while in Illinois, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton won her primary race for U.S. Senate after airing a memorable “F*** Trump” ad that had to be censored for TV. In Trump’s second term, it’s clear voters are questioning the old rules of civil, courteous Democratic politics and electability. A 2025 CBS News-YouGov poll found 65% of Democrats want their leaders in Congress to oppose Trump as much as possible.

In this context, a video being mean to your staff once is less of a dealbreaker than it previously might have been. Democratic voters are increasingly fine if you step on a few toes, as long as you’ll stand up to Trump.

Have you seen this?

Apprentice II. Oh brother. Amazon is reportedly considering a reboot of President Donald Trump’s former reality show The Apprentice and getting his son Donald Trump, Jr., to host. What if we brought back The Simple Life instead? [Whig by Hunter Schwarz]

How Amy Sherald referenced her own work at the Met Gala. Attendees at the Monday gala dressed up like works of art for the theme “Fashion is Art,” and Sherald dressed up like her own work. Sherald wore a custom Thom Browne dress with white studded dots on one side and a red fascinator to pay homage to the outfit worn by the model she painted in 2014’s “Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance),” which is in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery collection. “I’m going to give all the credit to Amy, really, because this is her vision,” Browne told Vanity Fair. “It’s referencing, I think, one of her best and most important paintings to herself.”

LGBTQ+ candidates face increased threats, study finds. Nearly 9 in 10 candidates worried that running openly as an LGBTQ+ person would increase their risk of harassment or attack — and for most, those fears were quickly confirmed. About two-thirds encountered in-person harassment during their campaigns, while nearly 8 in 10 faced it online. One in seven experienced them in person. [Campaigns & Elections]

We’re all on Truth Social now. As a business, Donald Trump’s personal social network is insignificant. But it’s a potent tool for capturing the world’s attention. [Fast Company]

Editorial:

Hey, it’s Hunter. When Pantone named the white Cloud Dancer its 2026 Color of the Year, critics thought the color authority had finally run out of ideas. Actually, they’re just now catching up.

Some of the design projects I’ve …

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