The establishment press spent the week breathlessly reporting on Trump's White House furniture preferences while a €100 billion European defense program collapsed — and American taxpayers got no closer to relief from carrying NATO's load.

This is the story that matters: Germany and France formally killed the crewed aircraft component of the Future Combat Air System after nine years and at least €4 billion spent, according to HotAir. Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced the end of the program at the ILA Berlin Air Show in Berlin. The project, Europe's most ambitious defense collaboration since the Eurofighter, could not survive the industrial rivalry between the partner nations. Spain had joined in 2019. None of it worked.

So what did CNN and The New York Times serve up instead? Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan hit the cable circuit to promote their new book "Regime Change," and anchor John Berman led with what he called "sort of this feud going on, or battle over decorations" between Donald and Melania Trump. Haberman confirmed Trump took decor items from the residence's center hall for his own use while Melania was absent early in the term. Swan added that Melania "was not thrilled" about the ballroom constructed after the East Wing was razed. HuffPost framed this as a "power play."

HuffPost buried the lede of its own reporting: Trump took over the Rose Garden — Melania's signature project from his first term — and "paved over it, put stones down there without her desired interest in his project," according to Haberman. That's a policy decision about a historic public space, not a marital spat. But the outlet packaged it as tabloid drama.

Meanwhile, the FCAS collapse has real consequences for Americans. European NATO members have been talking big about rearmament under pressure from Trump to carry their own weight. Germany's Merz positioned himself as the face of European defense modernization. The reality: after nearly a decade, Berlin and Paris couldn't even agree on a fighter jet. Now every NATO ally with aging Eurofighter Typhoons or Rafales faces a choice — join the UK-Italy-Japan Global Combat Air Programme, buy more American F-35As, or back a new German consortium called Team Gen 6. Two of those three options mean more American hardware and more American leverage, or more delay while Europe starts from scratch.

HotAir noted that concepts like "Bürger in Uniform" — quasi-unionization of German military forces — make it unlikely the Bundeswehr cultivates a strong willingness to die for country. Nine years and billions of euros later, the continent that lectures America about alliances couldn't build a plane together.

The establishment press would rather you not connect these dots. A failed European defense program raises uncomfortable questions about why American taxpayers continue to subsidize allies who can't deliver on their own commitments. A furniture feud, on the other hand, feeds the anti-Trump outrage machine and keeps viewers distracted.

The open question: with FCAS dead, will Europe finally buy American and ease the burden on U.S. taxpayers — or will Merz launch another decade-long boondoggle to avoid the obvious purchase?