The White House is bizarrely floating the idea of Donald Trump pardoning 250 people on June 14th, a number sinisterly tied to America’s 250th anniversary, a date that also happens to fall on Flag Day.
And what a stunning coincidence that June 14th is also the day Donald J. Trump turns 80 years old.
The idea that this is supposedly to celebrate America’s birthday is foolish. This is about Trump’s birthday, and his absolute, all-consuming terror of it. Terror at turning 80, becoming an octogenarian, and terrorized by the thought that it will become a media obsession.
So Trump has devised a distraction, like he does with everything else. When bad news closes in, Trump not only tries to pivot, he also detonates metaphorical Tomahawk missiles. He floods the zone with something so audacious, so jaw-dropping, so impossible to look away from, that the original story drowns in the chaos.
We all know the pattern by now of late-night social media tirades, wacky AI-generated images of himself, bizarre foreign policy lurches. He manufactures something so ridiculous it drowns out whatever inconvenient truth the media might fixate on.
Most notably, perhaps, Trump has gone nuts trying to change the subject of the Epstein files, using aggressive social media boloney, media attacks, and deflection to distract from damaging headlines.
And to hide Epstein, the Iran war quagmire and rising gas prices, Trump had the Department of Defense release UFO files. It was indicative of how Trump does things so outlandish to change the subject from negative news.
So what better way to bury all of it — especially the news most personally offensive to Trump, his 80th birthday — than 250 pardons dropped like a bomb on the national conversation?
Think about how far he would go to make that happen. Who are the 250? Could it be Sam Bankman-Fried, former CEO of FTX, serving a 25-year prison sentence for stealing over $8 billion from customers? Or, Jho Low, the alleged mastermind of the $1MDB fraud, one of the largest financial crimes in modern history, sentenced in absentia to 10 years by a Kuwaiti court and facing charges in the U.S., and still at large?
While we’re at it, and more furiously, why not Sean Combs? Or Ghislaine Maxwell? The sheer audacity alone would consume every cable news hour on June 14. And that, of course, is entirely the point.
You might say, “Oh, he’d never pardon Combs or Maxwell.” Wanna make a bet? On his first day back in office, he pardoned the January 6th insurrectionists, people convicted of violent assaults on law enforcement and on the democratic process itself.
Those massive J6 pardons were a harbinger. He went on to pardon scores of fraudsters, those convicted of public corruption, political allies, and gallingly, people like the reality show stars the Chrisleys.
He has reportedly discussed pardons for his own staff before leaving office. Trump could even pardon his sons Eric and Donald Jr. who have been busier than a one-armed paperhanger grifting through overt financial dealings, and cashing in on their dad’s presidency.
If Trump is capable of pardoning the people who attacked the Capitol on his behalf, there is no logical limit to what he might do on his 80th birthday when the entire press corps is watching. Pre-pardoning Eric and Don would cause outrage, and Trump would explain it away by saying, “Biden did it,” referring to the pardon of Hunter Biden.
Trump is acutely aware that 80 is looming because, very recently, he has been desperately trying to convince America, and perhaps himself, that he is not old.
Trump went to The Villages in Florida, the world’s largest retirement community, and stood in front of a crowd of senior citizens just two weeks ago and told them, “I don’t happen to be a senior. I’m much younger than you. I’m a much younger man than you. Look at you old guys. Wouldn’t you like to be my age? Young, vital, vibrant.”
Then came the fitness event on May 5th in the Oval Office, when RFK Jr. was rattling off cabinet members he considered thoroughbreds capable of a 50-mile hike before Trump interrupted him.
“What about me? You didn’t mention my name. I could do it,” the pathetic old man Trump sniffed.
Kennedy, ever the obedient sycophant, scrambled to include his boss, saying, “This guy walks nine miles a day on a golf course every weekend, so he could do it in a breeze.”
Trump’s response was revealing: “When I’m not using a cart.”
And at a maternal healthcare event in the Oval Office on Monday, when the subject of aging came up, Trump offered this gem: “I feel the same as I did 50 years ago. It’s crazy.” He then added: “Maybe junk food is good and the other food is no good.”
So, in the span of two weeks, Trump has bragged about feeling 29, exercising from a golf cart, and crediting McDonald’s for his vitality.
Mmm, the old man doth protest too much, methinks, about the implications of turning 80.
Because turning 80 is the one thing Trump cannot spin, pardon, or post his way out of. He can put his face on Mount Rushmore in an AI image. He can rage-post at 3 a.m. He can call himself “young, vital, vibrant” to a crowd of retirees who can see perfectly well what’s in front of them, like the rest of America.
But on June 14, 2026, Donald John Trump will be 80 years old, and there isn’t a distraction unhinged enough to make America forget that.
Well, except perhaps 250 pardons.
Imagine the uproar. Imagine the wall-to-wall coverage of who made the list and who didn’t. Imagine the debates among the punditry, the outrage, the speculation about Maxwell, about Combs, about the Trump boys or anyone else who’s on that list and shouldn’t be.
Now imagine how much of that day’s coverage barely mentions that Trump turns 80.