We don’t yet know the full cost for America from Donald Trump’s irrational fixation on retribution in his second term as president. But we can see the financial impact that Trump’s fury had recently for one of his targets – U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat. Just take a look at the year-end campaign finance report Kelly filed on Jan. 31.

Kelly, who served as a U.S. Navy aviator and NASA astronaut, saw an astounding surge in campaign contributions after Trump sicced Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on him in November.

Kelly just reported a year-over-year increase in campaign donations of nearly 960% when comparing the last three months of 2025 with the last three months of 2024. And the senator isn’t even up for reelection until 2028. Fundraising strength like that could seriously bolster his recently expressed interest in seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination for president that year.

Here, Trump and Hegseth could make a legitimate claim to inspiring Kelly’s surge in donations and raising his national profile, though I doubt they will want credit for that. Like all of Trump’s efforts at retribution, this is driven by a thin-skinned, temper-tantrum reaction to........

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