Sleep well tonight. President Donald Trump is working on many of our problems here at home and some big ones around the world. Two of his major goals are to end Russia’s war against Ukraine and create a Middle East Riviera in Gaza.

Trump administration officials are supposed to be meeting this week with European officials about the war. The New York Post reported that Trump had a phone call with Russian leader Vladimir Putin to discuss a negotiated solution.

Asked about his phone call, Trump declined to discuss it. He said, “I don’t want to do that. We’re trying to end that war. It’s a war that would have never happened if I were president, it would have never happened, but we’re making progress. But I can’t tell you.”

Trump had earlier given up his Gaza plans, but it’s back on his agenda. The administration has said there would be no American boots on the ground in Gaza and the United States wouldn’t have to pay to rebuild the demolished Gaza Strip. Here is what Trump said Sunday:

“I’m committed to buying and owning Gaza. As far as rebuilding it, we may give it to other states in the Middle East to build sections of it. Other people may do it through our auspices. But we’re committed to owning it, taking it, and making sure Hamas doesn’t move back.

“There’s nothing to move back into. The place is a demolition site. The remainder will be demolished.”

Egypt and Jordan don’t want the Palestinians who have been displaced to move to their countries and the Palestinians don’t want to go there. But that is another one of those problems that Trump says he can fix.

The Advocate reported Monday that while Trump was flying to the Super Bowl in New Orleans his plane flew over the Gulf of America. You may remember that is the large body of water off our coast that used to be called the Gulf of Mexico.

Now, a bit of bad news.

The president is trying to dismantle USAID, which has been providing food aid to other parts of the world since 1968. Louisiana rice is some of that food and state farmers may be major losers.

The Associated Press reported that Trump signed an executive order to halt offshore wind lease sales in federal waters. Louisiana has some wind projects scheduled in the Gulf. If the president ends wind power efforts, unemployed oil and gas workers hoping for wind energy jobs would be out of luck.

While talking about workers, 40,000 of them in the federal government workforce have accepted Trump’s retirement offer that if they leave their jobs early he will pay them until September.

And just imagine what it must be like to not know whether or not you are on the next hit list. Government workers who are being fired are losing their health care and other job benefits and others can’t sleep and eat.

FBI workers who were assigned to cases involving the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, have to be worried about becoming Trump targets. Officials like the attorney general who have been confirmed by Trump for the Cabinet are making some promises they aren’t keeping.

There is some good news, but will it last? Here is what USA today said about more than 30 suits that have been filed against what Trump is doing:

“In recent days, judges have pumped the brakes on Trump’s efforts to freeze spending, cull the federal workforce, end automatic citizenship for children born on U.S. soil, send transgender women to men’s prisons,  access federal payment systems, and dismantle the United States Agency for International Development.”

Vice President JD Vance doesn’t think those suits are legitimate, saying judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power. Elon Musk has also suggested some judges should be impeached.

The courts will have an answer for that Vance claim, but, unfortunately, the courts move awfully slow.

When all of this turmoil ends, if it ever does is anyone’s guess, but there is one welcome development. Trump said he has directed the U.S. Treasury to stop minting those pesky pennies.

Jim Beam, the retired editor of the American Press, has covered people and politics for more than six decades. Contact him at 337-515-8871 or jim.beam.press@gmail.com.

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