Well, I know two things for sure after that: Donald Trump has no idea what mifepristone is, and he couldn’t remember the name Tim Walz for three days.
He’s not complaining? He is always complaining. He’s been complaining since 2015 at least. That’s what his followers like about him. He isn’t changing “strategy” because he doesn’t have a strategy, unless “complaining” and “complaining louder” count.
But as I’ve been saying all week, our wealthy media class has by some incredible coincidence decided that actually they’re not board-certified geriatric neurologists after all. It’s almost as if something happened two or three weeks ago that inspired them all to change their minds, but I just can’t imagine what it could be.
And more seriously, I can’t more highly recommend watching Lawrence O’Donnell from last night. He pointed out, even more clearly than I’d realized, that our wealthy media class has absolutely no problem cutting Joe Biden off in the middle of a sentence and yelling “You’re not answering the question!” and they have never, ever done that with Donald Trump.
Thank you for the link. I was out last night so missed the first 10 minutes and came in as Lawrence was speaking of tffg's response to the Mifepristone question. It was crystal clear to me from that response that tffg had no recollection of what Mifepristone is. I also greatly enjoyed listening and watching VP Harris speaking to the UAW as she thanked them for their endorsement.
I keep thinking about a woman who posted a comment on FB about Harris that she can't stand listening to her voice so mutes or turns her off. Does that person, or others who diss Harris, ever actually listen to, hear, the words that Harris is speaking? I doubt it.
That's a crazy comment on FB. She's got a fabulous voice, almost an announcer's voice, and a great laugh. I left FB a long time ago. It's almost as much of a cesspool as Twitter.
I agree and it's especially evident in her talk at the UAW event.
As for FB, it's useful to me for many local reasons plus I share lots and lots of news articles with information I think readers need to know about, particularly related to politics and the upcoming election & election interference efforts. No idea how many of my 500 'Friends' read them but I do get positive feedback and thanks from many I know in 'real life'
Oh, I'd never urge others to get rid of FB. Especially someone like you who is disseminating good info. So many use it for family and friends. I've found workarounds for that. Even when I had it, it was a private account. Only friends and family. So it's just a personal decision, and it helps me stay off social media when I'm off FB and Twitter because I do like to rant. Staying out of the fray is a form of discipline for me.
I wonder if this FB poster has ever listened to Cheetolini spew his whiny lies?? His voice is significantly less pleasant than fingernails on a chalkboard, and he seems incapable of assembling a coherent sentence.
I wondered that myself. I'm inclined to think that poster may be a Cheetolini supporter and this was her way to disrespect the Democratic candidate. As for voices, I mute TFFG anytime he shows up on the screen.
Thank you for posting Lawrence O’Donnell video. He’s great!! I missed it last night. I saw Trump talking and talking and talking while I was doing things in the house - but it was the same old gibberish.
The only difference I noticed was that trump seemed to be deteriorating mentally even more. My family (both sides) is long lived but eventually many suffer from cognitive impairment - so I have watched this repeatedly. Trump is going downhill at increasing speed.
Supposedly Project 2025 will allow “auto sign” so Trump doesn’t have to be mentally functional if he is installed as President.
Perhaps the media owners are more concerned for their own futures if the MAGA’s pull off a coup then anything related to truth in journalism.
Yes. Trump harnessing the media to spout his lies, propaganda, bigotry, xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny, and insane conspiracy theories is just another step in the Hitler handbook on our to insert fascism into democracy and eventually destroy it. The media is playing their role all too well. If the media does not course correct, the fourth estate will be very much to blame for the destruction of our country.
Lawrence O'Donnell certainly skewered the news media with his comments. I really appreciated his devoting time to airing Vice President Harris's amazing speech at UAW, where she neatly tied the idea of collective bargaining to the common good. That in itself was worth the price of admission.
One thing I haven't heard anyone mention from the press conference (perhaps because it was overshadowed by the plumes of smoke and blatancy of the lies) was Felonious Trump's response to a question (at about 1:00:45 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYusch8ghtQ) about how his ear was doing. He said, "...I got lucky that it just hit the lobe, as they call it..." and then gestured to the top of his ear, where the bandage had been.
Stable genius? Mr. Ed was a stable genius.
p.s. The fact check in Jay's piece about the price of gas is not quite correct; Felonious T said, "7, 8, 9 dollars a barrel" for gas prices, apparently meaning gallons instead, but still wrong. NYT's fact check picked up the number inflation but not the units of measure. A barrel is 42 gallons, and the current price for crude is about $80 per barrel, so $9 would be a bargain.
I was rather intrigued by a notion put forward by Jeff Tiederich, that Donald Trump's handlers have been keeping him out of public view deliberately and that he went off the rails and called this press conference all on his own; entirely without their recognizance or preparation. He simply could not bear to be out of the spotlight. He CERTAINLY took it back.
You know, at the risk of mistaking Donald Trump for a human being, a bullet came close enough to him to send a piece of broken glass into his ear. There’d be no shame in admitting he was nervous about getting back out there.
But of course he can’t admit that or show any sign of humanity. (He can’t even tell the truth about the shooting.) So F him.
People keep saying TFG has dementia and he doesn't. Every bit of his behavior can be and is explained by his malignant narcissism. He's severely mentally ill. What you're seeing is what happens when a malignant narcissist can't hold the illusion together anymore. The cognitive dissonance is overwhelming. He dangerous and unfit, but extremely predictable.
I read this too. Agreed with it. I have had the misfortune of having to deal with multiple narcissists during my life. This is why Trump is SO dangerous. He is a malignant narcissistic who is deteriorating mentally. He can be manipulated by those who know how to handle narcissistic personalities because of his mental deterioration. I read that Project 2025 has an auto sign option built into it. So Trump doesn’t even necessarily have to sign a piece of legislation??? It can just be explained to him in the most “flattering” manner. Then given the narcissism and reduced cognitive ability he will hawk it to his cult and the media - the same media that doesn’t question Kamala Harris “turning black”.
It's called narcissistic collapse. That's what we're seeing now. I have been saying this since before 2016. I was the only Psychology major in one college class where I was laughed at for bringing up the fact that his textbook malignant narcissism made him unfit and dangerous just after the 2016 election. I explained with examples why it was bad and I was right. That professor messaged me to apologize to me a few years ago. He still a registered Republican, but he's not voting for Republicans now. TFG stand like he does because of the lifts in his shoes. The man can't even tell the truth about his own height. He's incredibly predictable. TFG is also a known drug addict who uses uppers during the day and downers at night. This has been confirmed by multiple sources over the years including the WH pharmacy recently. Every last bit of his behavior noe is the result of narcissistic collapse and drug abuse.
Yes, Dr.Gartner is extremely convincing, and I agree completely that trump is far from his original baseline and even from his baseline of 2016, putting him significantly past the early stages of dementia.
I've seen dementia up close and personal and I think it's both. He's always been a narcissist. But listen to an old interview, for example with Howard Stern from long ago. He was coherent and could stay focused on subject matter for a long time. He was a narcissistic jerk, but he was coherent. Now, he can't stay focused at all, He can't put together 4 or 5 coherent paragraphs when he is speaking without veering into completely unrelated subject territory. That's where his dementia shows up.
I completely agree with you, Mr. Bastille. I dug up an interview that a much younger Trump did with Howard Stern and a second interview in 1989 on CNN. The difference from those days to now is astounding.
He was focused, he answered questions completely, his vocabulary was whole levels better than currently and he could go for entire paragraphs on the same subject without repeating himself.
I'm not an expert, but whether we are seeing the dissolution of a malignant narcissist or a rapid decline in cognitive ability due to some form of dementia...the man is not well and isn't getting better. Do we need to worry that the puppeteers who control the strings of their very own Pinocchio will install him and rule through him?
If they think they can control him, they're probably misguided. If they could control him he wouldn't tweet so much weird stuff on Truth Sociopath or even hit the campaign trail, although he hasn't been doing much of that so, who knows?
True--he is difficult to control or we wouldn't be seeing him at all, probably. Dementia sufferers can get quite obstreperous, for various (and usually very valid reasons, although it doesn't make taking care of them easy, by any means.)
I don't really see the debates as being terribly useful as far as laying out policy differences and how they would--or potentially would--affect people. Politicians haven't held that sort of debate for a long time. And as for Trump--he NEVER answers the "debate questions"--even when they are simple and lobbed softly in his general direction. But you are correct; Two or three minutes does favor Trump--that is about the maximum possible for his gnat-like attention span and often he makes it a condition of his acceptance of participation that there be no live or real-time fact-checking. I say don't give him the air time--that's all he wants.
He's been on drugs for several decades. It used to be cocaine and now it prescription drugs. That's part of the reason for his mental decline. The rest is narcissistic collapse.
Trump has had years to come up with a coherent, principled position on abortion, yet he couldn’t or wouldn’t say how he would vote on Florida’s constitutional amendment on abortion. He said he would tell us soon, but why the delay? His position paper must be on hold behind the better and cheaper Obamacare replacement plan or amendments and the irrefutable proof that the last presidential election was stolen.
There’s no delay— this is his doublespeak. Say everything and nothing at all.
He has no policy, just whatever is expedient at the time. Whatever serves him and his cabal of billionaires, sycophants,corporations and Christofascists.
TRump reminds me of the Laurence Olivier character, Archie Rice, in the film "The Entertainer", who went from a headliner to performing in second-rate venues, and getting heckled in the process. Hang 'em up, tRump, your day is done.
When Jesse Watters and Newsmax proclaim how flawless & strong he is, I get strong, strong vibes of the emperor's new clothes, one of my favorite childhood stories. And I wonder if and when some "child" on the right is sudddenly going to say, "but he's naked."
Because, as he keeps saying, he doesn't need the votes. No one needs to vote, or it's the last time 'they' will need to vote, whichever he says in the moment, it's "fixed".
I think his racism will not allow him to not make asinine statements like those. He has to feel superior to Dr. Martin Luther King and black people in general. I think that’s why he struggles so much with running against Vice President Harris and often calls black women “low IQ individuals.” Those women are unequivocally more intelligent and more competent than him, and his narcissism can’t handle that.
My favorite part was where he said he protected Hillary Clinton from being prosecuted, because he didn't want to see the wife of a former president in jail.
Oh, and he didn't seem to remember Gov. Tim Walz's name.
Chris, thank you so much for elevating this very misogynistic and diminishing comment from Trump. I think it may have flown over many reporters' and readers' heads because he neatly slid his snarky woman-dismissive comment into how he didn't throw the book at her (or whatever insane idea he had to punish her like he's being punished in his mind).
Trump characterizing Secretary Clinton, who won the popular vote for President of the United States in her own right in 2016, as the "wife of a former president" is beyond insulting. As women, we are used to being marginalized as accoutrements to our husbands (trust me on this one), but Sec. Clinton absolutely deserves MUCH better than age-old Trump's White Male Christian Nationalist crap.
Please continue to call out these types of direct aggressions against women and all -- whether they be major or micro -- when you see them. Thank you!
While I understand what prompts these kind of comments, and I can't really say I can argue with them, it doesn't make much sense.
Corporations will be much better off under a Kamala presidency than a Trump presidency. Especially media corporations. It makes no sense for them to do this.
To get a view into how lefty states are better for business, look at the deal Illinois governor JB Pritzker made, along with "socialist" mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago, to repurpose the long decayed U.S. Steel South Works site, which is now set to become a huge quantum computing research park with a multibillion dollar deal for an anchor tenant.
It makes no sense that the media doesn't cover this kind of stuff. All kinds of money is being spent around the country on projects like this thanks to Biden's infrastructure program. This stuff HELPS big corporations a lot more than Trump's simple minded tax cuts.
So if they want to follow the money, well, there it is. In Kamala's and Joe's hands, dropping into laps of business CEOs all over the country.
As a former corporate drone, I've never known a business to operate in the best interest of the business, only in the interests of the executives' personal portfolios. It became not only routine but expected that any business I worked for would be temporary... the executives would push employees to build up various business models only so they'd be attractive to larger corporate buyers and screw the employees who helped make their fortunes and were then not only out of a job but in no way shared in the benefits of their labors. No wonder unions are making a strong comeback.
Mel, you are 100% correct. The greed is unbelievable--and stupid. I've seen the same thing over and over. Who gets hurt? The working stiffs, the peons. Getting tired of being peed on!
The saddest part of all this is how these corporations push the 'we are family' bull on their employees. It always made me feel sorry for those executives' actual families.
I guess so, but it still doesn't make sense. Anyone with more than a working brain stem knows he'll wreck the country, and investment portfolios, just like he did the first time. Why do these businesses forget what happened during Covid? He was directly responsible for that.
Yup. It's all about short-term profit (or tax give-aways) for these wealthy slimeballs. They figure they are rich enough to isolate themselves and their family for the chaos to come and really don't care about anyone else. . .
His dementia was on clear view back in 2017-onward. It’s described in Nancy Pelosi’s new book: The Art of Power. I’m reading it on Kindle. It’s found in chapter about when she became speaker .
Thank you for this post! But when they asked him about his ear and the recovery I feel that the reporter should have asked him why haven’t his medical records for that been released. I think that is important for us to know too as to what exactly happened to his ear.
Anyway yes it was full of lies and the same old garbage that he always talks about. I watched it but I’m glad you pointed out all the lies and I’m glad the NYT did too.
Ever consider the possibility that Mitch McConell engineered this press event to force other Republicans into making Trump step down? Is he not as savvy a political actor as everyone says Pelosi is? Surely he can read the polls and see his party is doomed in November. Time for Clint Eastwood to write an op ed for the NYT saying Trump is too old and impaired to run. (Unnamed sources have said this, I’m told by other unnamed sources.)
Not a chance that McConnell has that kind of pull anymore. His chance to free the GOP was the second impeachment. But he chickened out and didn't want the blood on his hands.
It is a thought, but I think you are giving them and Moscow Mitch too much credit. Mitch has cognitive issues of his own. And one of the hallmarks of reactionaries is that they cannot ever admit they were wrong or made a mistake. And, the RNC is owned lock, stock, and barrel by The DonOld. I could be wrong, but I think they will stick with Donnie Depends and the Couchfucker.
Moscow Mitch is, and always has been, a despicable coward that only cares about personal power. The GQP has moved on from him at this point and is just waiting for him to fade away . . .
Remember: McConnell was *roundly booed* at their Coronation, I mean, their Convention.
All of the more normal Republicans have been or are being cast aside for MAGA. Basically, the TEA Party types of a decade ago have now consumed/subsumed the former Republican party. Now it's the Trumplican party.
It's going to come as a terrible shock to them when the Blue Wave, powered by angry women and pet companions, devastates the GOP except in its reddest and most traditional redoubts, come November.
I deeply hope this election will be a reckoning for the Republican party, acknowledging the stark realism that they went WAAAAY too far right, and WAAAAY too often, misled by the Orange Pied Piper.
I am really looking forward to Kamala and Tim's inauguration, yet when I see it in my mind's eye, the National Guard are out in force in my native Washington, DC, especially but not exclusively in the federal city. Sigh......
Don’t doubt for a minute they have a plan to dump TRmp if they can just get him over the finish line— they intend to INSTALL their new poster boy. The young spineless shill, Vance.
This. If Trump gets in they will “suddenly discover” his cognitive decline and invoke Amendment 25 within minutes of him taking the inaugural oath. Then it’ll be full steam ahead with Project 2025 and probably worse even that that.
Nah - they'll keep him where he can be seen, but not heard, while others do the dirty work of implementing P2025. And when it is absolutely necessary to trot him in front of the cameras, watch for signs of AI.
There will almost certainly be no possibility he will actually respond to Q&A in person IRL. The 25th would be invoked later on, after they've gotten things properly arranged.
Agreed 💯! Rachel Maddow made some good points (conspiracy theories aside) that he’s saying he doesn’t need your votes out loud because he’s got: a) full legal teams in place to challenge the results in courts across the country; and b) *many* state voting officials changing the rules to make it easier for them to refuse to certify their elections (RE Georgia, their new “rule”, and Trump calling out the 3 MAGA board members by name for thanks at his Atlanta event).
I’m fairly confident now that Harris-Walz will win, having been *very* worried about Biden-Harris losing in a landslide, but the potential for MAGA trying to steal the vote has me back to sleepless nights…
Jay, you keep trying to show news clips as featured links on twitter. I fired twitter after Musk took over and the hate groups starting oozing back in. twitter is a toxic cesspool, and I will not use any links that take me there.
I am on Mastodon. Could you please start posting links that take you to Mastodon instead of twitter? Mastodon has lots of users, and it is not owned by any anti-democratic billionaires. In fact, it isn't owned by *anyone.* There are no ads, no tracking, and no manipulative algorithms.
Please consider dumping twitter and using Mastodon instead.
I’ve addressed this question several times but I’ll do it here again in case you and others didn’t see it.
I agree that, in a better world, I could also be free from having to go to Elon Musk’s toxic platform to do my daily work.
The sad fact is, all of the journalists, analysts, data scientists, legal experts, politicians and political pundits that I follow daily are on Twitter and have not migrated consistently to any other platform. I was hoping that Threads could take Twitter’s place, but so far it is only a sliver of the content that I need to create and write my daily pieces. I keep checking and hoping!
Most other writers are in the same pickle. The best news and analysis, especially breaking news, still happens on Twitter, so substack writers such as Heather Cox Richardson and Joyve Vance, for example, who also write daily, are still on Twitter. My collection of funnies each Saturday would not be possible to do on any other platform so long as the content creators do not migrate.
That said, I now am trying to at least find comparable videos on other platforms before I publish my Saturday collection! It’s a time consuming process, and I’m not sure it’s worth doing yet, but I am trying.
I hope that explains the unfortunate situation. I wish there were a workable solution. But for me to continue to do this work, I could not leave Twitter, at least not yet. Think of me and send your sympathies, however, because I have to put up with right wing MAGA comments and posts all day long just do my work!
Jay isn't the one that directs the sources as to where they post the items he includes in his feed. Sadly, until the media decides to cut X out of the picture, it will still be a resource.
Perhaps it would be helpful if you did some searching to locate each of these stories on Mastodon and provided the links in your comments?
I've never used Twitter, FB, or anything except Instagram, and even there all I follow are cute dog stories. I don't mind following links to stuff on X if it illustrates what I want to see. Plus, "The Dodo" often has animal stories posted on X and occasionally FB. I watch the videos and then back out of it.
tRump's sole motivation is to (1), steal the spotlight, and (2), hog it. Well, he did both, but that window of opportunity closes fast these days...it's not 2016, nor even 2020, and even for the MSM, always looking for tRump-driven clicks and eyeballs, yesterday's - LOL, "presser" - was so yesterday that even the "fact-checking" seemed pro forma and without any "what he's saying!" kick to it.
Sure, the moron lives by the WWE credo of "heat", but his attempts to generate any fell flat, and when that happens, the promoters look for a new guy to head the card...which I suppose falls to Hillbilly, as his attacks on Tim Walz's service record show. Strong pushback there, and what we are seeing in real time is the public turning away from a stale act and looking where the action is, and that is the Harris-Walz ticket, full stop.
Oh dear the great leader of the MAGA Cult has finally gone completely utterly undeniably out of his mind! The slimy Swiss Cheese that is what is left, after the syphilis has eaten its way from side to side and from the top down; poor old Donald has become a demented little shell of a man.
Well, I know two things for sure after that: Donald Trump has no idea what mifepristone is, and he couldn’t remember the name Tim Walz for three days.
He’s not complaining? He is always complaining. He’s been complaining since 2015 at least. That’s what his followers like about him. He isn’t changing “strategy” because he doesn’t have a strategy, unless “complaining” and “complaining louder” count.
But as I’ve been saying all week, our wealthy media class has by some incredible coincidence decided that actually they’re not board-certified geriatric neurologists after all. It’s almost as if something happened two or three weeks ago that inspired them all to change their minds, but I just can’t imagine what it could be.
And more seriously, I can’t more highly recommend watching Lawrence O’Donnell from last night. He pointed out, even more clearly than I’d realized, that our wealthy media class has absolutely no problem cutting Joe Biden off in the middle of a sentence and yelling “You’re not answering the question!” and they have never, ever done that with Donald Trump.
The mainstream media has been committing journalistic malpractice for nearly ten years now.
It’s clear who they work for.
If we want to put this country back together, we must have a reliably informed and fair press.
This one has an agenda. It’s despicable.
Lawrence O'Donnell called them out on it big time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD-oTJ49nls&t=3s
Thank you Charles, I was going to post this! I think everyone should watch this video!
Seems Laurence O’Donnell is the only journalist who is willing to call them all out !
Thank you for almost posting it! :-)
Thank you for the link. I was out last night so missed the first 10 minutes and came in as Lawrence was speaking of tffg's response to the Mifepristone question. It was crystal clear to me from that response that tffg had no recollection of what Mifepristone is. I also greatly enjoyed listening and watching VP Harris speaking to the UAW as she thanked them for their endorsement.
I keep thinking about a woman who posted a comment on FB about Harris that she can't stand listening to her voice so mutes or turns her off. Does that person, or others who diss Harris, ever actually listen to, hear, the words that Harris is speaking? I doubt it.
That's a crazy comment on FB. She's got a fabulous voice, almost an announcer's voice, and a great laugh. I left FB a long time ago. It's almost as much of a cesspool as Twitter.
I agree and it's especially evident in her talk at the UAW event.
As for FB, it's useful to me for many local reasons plus I share lots and lots of news articles with information I think readers need to know about, particularly related to politics and the upcoming election & election interference efforts. No idea how many of my 500 'Friends' read them but I do get positive feedback and thanks from many I know in 'real life'
Oh, I'd never urge others to get rid of FB. Especially someone like you who is disseminating good info. So many use it for family and friends. I've found workarounds for that. Even when I had it, it was a private account. Only friends and family. So it's just a personal decision, and it helps me stay off social media when I'm off FB and Twitter because I do like to rant. Staying out of the fray is a form of discipline for me.
I wonder if this FB poster has ever listened to Cheetolini spew his whiny lies?? His voice is significantly less pleasant than fingernails on a chalkboard, and he seems incapable of assembling a coherent sentence.
I wondered that myself. I'm inclined to think that poster may be a Cheetolini supporter and this was her way to disrespect the Democratic candidate. As for voices, I mute TFFG anytime he shows up on the screen.
We saw that last night and thought smoke was going to come out of his ears - and rightly so!
Thank you for posting Lawrence O’Donnell video. He’s great!! I missed it last night. I saw Trump talking and talking and talking while I was doing things in the house - but it was the same old gibberish.
The only difference I noticed was that trump seemed to be deteriorating mentally even more. My family (both sides) is long lived but eventually many suffer from cognitive impairment - so I have watched this repeatedly. Trump is going downhill at increasing speed.
Supposedly Project 2025 will allow “auto sign” so Trump doesn’t have to be mentally functional if he is installed as President.
Perhaps the media owners are more concerned for their own futures if the MAGA’s pull off a coup then anything related to truth in journalism.
Yes. Trump harnessing the media to spout his lies, propaganda, bigotry, xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny, and insane conspiracy theories is just another step in the Hitler handbook on our to insert fascism into democracy and eventually destroy it. The media is playing their role all too well. If the media does not course correct, the fourth estate will be very much to blame for the destruction of our country.
Agree about Lawrence O'Donnell, he was spot on.
Lawrence O'Donnell certainly skewered the news media with his comments. I really appreciated his devoting time to airing Vice President Harris's amazing speech at UAW, where she neatly tied the idea of collective bargaining to the common good. That in itself was worth the price of admission.
One thing I haven't heard anyone mention from the press conference (perhaps because it was overshadowed by the plumes of smoke and blatancy of the lies) was Felonious Trump's response to a question (at about 1:00:45 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYusch8ghtQ) about how his ear was doing. He said, "...I got lucky that it just hit the lobe, as they call it..." and then gestured to the top of his ear, where the bandage had been.
Stable genius? Mr. Ed was a stable genius.
p.s. The fact check in Jay's piece about the price of gas is not quite correct; Felonious T said, "7, 8, 9 dollars a barrel" for gas prices, apparently meaning gallons instead, but still wrong. NYT's fact check picked up the number inflation but not the units of measure. A barrel is 42 gallons, and the current price for crude is about $80 per barrel, so $9 would be a bargain.
“Stable genius? Mr. Ed was a stable genius.”
😂😂😂😂 Now, THAT’S genius!
Yes! O’Donnell was on fire!!
I was rather intrigued by a notion put forward by Jeff Tiederich, that Donald Trump's handlers have been keeping him out of public view deliberately and that he went off the rails and called this press conference all on his own; entirely without their recognizance or preparation. He simply could not bear to be out of the spotlight. He CERTAINLY took it back.
You know, at the risk of mistaking Donald Trump for a human being, a bullet came close enough to him to send a piece of broken glass into his ear. There’d be no shame in admitting he was nervous about getting back out there.
But of course he can’t admit that or show any sign of humanity. (He can’t even tell the truth about the shooting.) So F him.
Whiny, senile, wierdo . . . Seems fitting.
People keep saying TFG has dementia and he doesn't. Every bit of his behavior can be and is explained by his malignant narcissism. He's severely mentally ill. What you're seeing is what happens when a malignant narcissist can't hold the illusion together anymore. The cognitive dissonance is overwhelming. He dangerous and unfit, but extremely predictable.
I interviewed an expert on the question of Trump’s mental health. He was quite convincing: https://open.substack.com/pub/thinkbigpicture/p/john-gartner-trump-cognitive-decline?r=1zr8b&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I read this too. Agreed with it. I have had the misfortune of having to deal with multiple narcissists during my life. This is why Trump is SO dangerous. He is a malignant narcissistic who is deteriorating mentally. He can be manipulated by those who know how to handle narcissistic personalities because of his mental deterioration. I read that Project 2025 has an auto sign option built into it. So Trump doesn’t even necessarily have to sign a piece of legislation??? It can just be explained to him in the most “flattering” manner. Then given the narcissism and reduced cognitive ability he will hawk it to his cult and the media - the same media that doesn’t question Kamala Harris “turning black”.
I think you hit all three points. A malignant narcissist who is mentally deteriorating and is consequently being manipulated by third parties.
It's called narcissistic collapse. That's what we're seeing now. I have been saying this since before 2016. I was the only Psychology major in one college class where I was laughed at for bringing up the fact that his textbook malignant narcissism made him unfit and dangerous just after the 2016 election. I explained with examples why it was bad and I was right. That professor messaged me to apologize to me a few years ago. He still a registered Republican, but he's not voting for Republicans now. TFG stand like he does because of the lifts in his shoes. The man can't even tell the truth about his own height. He's incredibly predictable. TFG is also a known drug addict who uses uppers during the day and downers at night. This has been confirmed by multiple sources over the years including the WH pharmacy recently. Every last bit of his behavior noe is the result of narcissistic collapse and drug abuse.
Yes, Dr.Gartner is extremely convincing, and I agree completely that trump is far from his original baseline and even from his baseline of 2016, putting him significantly past the early stages of dementia.
I've seen dementia up close and personal and I think it's both. He's always been a narcissist. But listen to an old interview, for example with Howard Stern from long ago. He was coherent and could stay focused on subject matter for a long time. He was a narcissistic jerk, but he was coherent. Now, he can't stay focused at all, He can't put together 4 or 5 coherent paragraphs when he is speaking without veering into completely unrelated subject territory. That's where his dementia shows up.
You are correct Charles. I worked as a nurse in a long term care facility with many dementia patients. My mother also had dementia.
I completely agree with you, Mr. Bastille. I dug up an interview that a much younger Trump did with Howard Stern and a second interview in 1989 on CNN. The difference from those days to now is astounding.
He was focused, he answered questions completely, his vocabulary was whole levels better than currently and he could go for entire paragraphs on the same subject without repeating himself.
I'm not an expert, but whether we are seeing the dissolution of a malignant narcissist or a rapid decline in cognitive ability due to some form of dementia...the man is not well and isn't getting better. Do we need to worry that the puppeteers who control the strings of their very own Pinocchio will install him and rule through him?
If they think they can control him, they're probably misguided. If they could control him he wouldn't tweet so much weird stuff on Truth Sociopath or even hit the campaign trail, although he hasn't been doing much of that so, who knows?
I sort of see a Weekend at Bernies scenario.
True--he is difficult to control or we wouldn't be seeing him at all, probably. Dementia sufferers can get quite obstreperous, for various (and usually very valid reasons, although it doesn't make taking care of them easy, by any means.)
I wish the debates were a different format. 2 or 3 minutes actually helps him. Especially if they don't fact check.
I don't really see the debates as being terribly useful as far as laying out policy differences and how they would--or potentially would--affect people. Politicians haven't held that sort of debate for a long time. And as for Trump--he NEVER answers the "debate questions"--even when they are simple and lobbed softly in his general direction. But you are correct; Two or three minutes does favor Trump--that is about the maximum possible for his gnat-like attention span and often he makes it a condition of his acceptance of participation that there be no live or real-time fact-checking. I say don't give him the air time--that's all he wants.
He's been on drugs for several decades. It used to be cocaine and now it prescription drugs. That's part of the reason for his mental decline. The rest is narcissistic collapse.
Does the 25th Amendment apply to presidential candidates?
Funny, I was just wondering if 25A could somehow be applied to Supreme Court Justices!
Trump has had years to come up with a coherent, principled position on abortion, yet he couldn’t or wouldn’t say how he would vote on Florida’s constitutional amendment on abortion. He said he would tell us soon, but why the delay? His position paper must be on hold behind the better and cheaper Obamacare replacement plan or amendments and the irrefutable proof that the last presidential election was stolen.
It’s like infrastructure week and his tax returns
We'll see it all in 2 weeks! I'm on the edge of my seat in anticipation!! HAHAHAHA
It's going to be announced at the same time as infrastructure week. :)
There’s no delay— this is his doublespeak. Say everything and nothing at all.
He has no policy, just whatever is expedient at the time. Whatever serves him and his cabal of billionaires, sycophants,corporations and Christofascists.
TRump reminds me of the Laurence Olivier character, Archie Rice, in the film "The Entertainer", who went from a headliner to performing in second-rate venues, and getting heckled in the process. Hang 'em up, tRump, your day is done.
When Jesse Watters and Newsmax proclaim how flawless & strong he is, I get strong, strong vibes of the emperor's new clothes, one of my favorite childhood stories. And I wonder if and when some "child" on the right is sudddenly going to say, "but he's naked."
Jesse Watters and Newsmax did what we've come to expect from Jesse Watters and Newsmax - say the opposite of the truth!
I’ve been thinking that for years.
Great analogy to The Emperor's New Clothes!
But he’s weird is almost there. Baby steps. Alas it’s not a bedtime story.
Does he really have no clue that falsely comparing his crowds to MLK Jr's is deeply offensive to the people he needs to win over?
No awareness
And OMG! His crowds are bigger than the 250,000 estimated for MLK's great speech?!?
The man's dreaming.
Because, as he keeps saying, he doesn't need the votes. No one needs to vote, or it's the last time 'they' will need to vote, whichever he says in the moment, it's "fixed".
I think his racism will not allow him to not make asinine statements like those. He has to feel superior to Dr. Martin Luther King and black people in general. I think that’s why he struggles so much with running against Vice President Harris and often calls black women “low IQ individuals.” Those women are unequivocally more intelligent and more competent than him, and his narcissism can’t handle that.
The stupid is SO STRONG with Cheetolini. . . .
Correct. No clue
My favorite part was where he said he protected Hillary Clinton from being prosecuted, because he didn't want to see the wife of a former president in jail.
Oh, and he didn't seem to remember Gov. Tim Walz's name.
Chris, thank you so much for elevating this very misogynistic and diminishing comment from Trump. I think it may have flown over many reporters' and readers' heads because he neatly slid his snarky woman-dismissive comment into how he didn't throw the book at her (or whatever insane idea he had to punish her like he's being punished in his mind).
Trump characterizing Secretary Clinton, who won the popular vote for President of the United States in her own right in 2016, as the "wife of a former president" is beyond insulting. As women, we are used to being marginalized as accoutrements to our husbands (trust me on this one), but Sec. Clinton absolutely deserves MUCH better than age-old Trump's White Male Christian Nationalist crap.
Please continue to call out these types of direct aggressions against women and all -- whether they be major or micro -- when you see them. Thank you!
Why do billionaire owned media outlets hide Trump’s dementia? Follow the money!
https://thedemlabs.org/2024/08/08/billionaire-owned-media-outlets-hide-trump-dementia-follow-the-money/
While I understand what prompts these kind of comments, and I can't really say I can argue with them, it doesn't make much sense.
Corporations will be much better off under a Kamala presidency than a Trump presidency. Especially media corporations. It makes no sense for them to do this.
To get a view into how lefty states are better for business, look at the deal Illinois governor JB Pritzker made, along with "socialist" mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago, to repurpose the long decayed U.S. Steel South Works site, which is now set to become a huge quantum computing research park with a multibillion dollar deal for an anchor tenant.
It makes no sense that the media doesn't cover this kind of stuff. All kinds of money is being spent around the country on projects like this thanks to Biden's infrastructure program. This stuff HELPS big corporations a lot more than Trump's simple minded tax cuts.
So if they want to follow the money, well, there it is. In Kamala's and Joe's hands, dropping into laps of business CEOs all over the country.
Charles, you are correct.
The plutocrats are not voting with the best interests of their *businesses* in mind.
They are *voting with their INVESTMENT PORTFOLIOS* in mind.
The siren song of tax breaks is all the GOP really has to run on. It's pathetic!
As a former corporate drone, I've never known a business to operate in the best interest of the business, only in the interests of the executives' personal portfolios. It became not only routine but expected that any business I worked for would be temporary... the executives would push employees to build up various business models only so they'd be attractive to larger corporate buyers and screw the employees who helped make their fortunes and were then not only out of a job but in no way shared in the benefits of their labors. No wonder unions are making a strong comeback.
Mel, you are 100% correct. The greed is unbelievable--and stupid. I've seen the same thing over and over. Who gets hurt? The working stiffs, the peons. Getting tired of being peed on!
The saddest part of all this is how these corporations push the 'we are family' bull on their employees. It always made me feel sorry for those executives' actual families.
I guess so, but it still doesn't make sense. Anyone with more than a working brain stem knows he'll wreck the country, and investment portfolios, just like he did the first time. Why do these businesses forget what happened during Covid? He was directly responsible for that.
Two words: short sales.
Yup. It's all about short-term profit (or tax give-aways) for these wealthy slimeballs. They figure they are rich enough to isolate themselves and their family for the chaos to come and really don't care about anyone else. . .
Not just tax breaks. Personal, for them and their families, tax breaks. Those are the only tax breaks they’re interested in supporting.
His dementia was on clear view back in 2017-onward. It’s described in Nancy Pelosi’s new book: The Art of Power. I’m reading it on Kindle. It’s found in chapter about when she became speaker .
Thank you for this post! But when they asked him about his ear and the recovery I feel that the reporter should have asked him why haven’t his medical records for that been released. I think that is important for us to know too as to what exactly happened to his ear.
Anyway yes it was full of lies and the same old garbage that he always talks about. I watched it but I’m glad you pointed out all the lies and I’m glad the NYT did too.
Typical softball question from the cowardly "press" . . .
Ever consider the possibility that Mitch McConell engineered this press event to force other Republicans into making Trump step down? Is he not as savvy a political actor as everyone says Pelosi is? Surely he can read the polls and see his party is doomed in November. Time for Clint Eastwood to write an op ed for the NYT saying Trump is too old and impaired to run. (Unnamed sources have said this, I’m told by other unnamed sources.)
Not a chance that McConnell has that kind of pull anymore. His chance to free the GOP was the second impeachment. But he chickened out and didn't want the blood on his hands.
It is a thought, but I think you are giving them and Moscow Mitch too much credit. Mitch has cognitive issues of his own. And one of the hallmarks of reactionaries is that they cannot ever admit they were wrong or made a mistake. And, the RNC is owned lock, stock, and barrel by The DonOld. I could be wrong, but I think they will stick with Donnie Depends and the Couchfucker.
Moscow Mitch is, and always has been, a despicable coward that only cares about personal power. The GQP has moved on from him at this point and is just waiting for him to fade away . . .
Remember: McConnell was *roundly booed* at their Coronation, I mean, their Convention.
All of the more normal Republicans have been or are being cast aside for MAGA. Basically, the TEA Party types of a decade ago have now consumed/subsumed the former Republican party. Now it's the Trumplican party.
It's going to come as a terrible shock to them when the Blue Wave, powered by angry women and pet companions, devastates the GOP except in its reddest and most traditional redoubts, come November.
I deeply hope this election will be a reckoning for the Republican party, acknowledging the stark realism that they went WAAAAY too far right, and WAAAAY too often, misled by the Orange Pied Piper.
I am really looking forward to Kamala and Tim's inauguration, yet when I see it in my mind's eye, the National Guard are out in force in my native Washington, DC, especially but not exclusively in the federal city. Sigh......
Don’t doubt for a minute they have a plan to dump TRmp if they can just get him over the finish line— they intend to INSTALL their new poster boy. The young spineless shill, Vance.
This. If Trump gets in they will “suddenly discover” his cognitive decline and invoke Amendment 25 within minutes of him taking the inaugural oath. Then it’ll be full steam ahead with Project 2025 and probably worse even that that.
Nah - they'll keep him where he can be seen, but not heard, while others do the dirty work of implementing P2025. And when it is absolutely necessary to trot him in front of the cameras, watch for signs of AI.
There will almost certainly be no possibility he will actually respond to Q&A in person IRL. The 25th would be invoked later on, after they've gotten things properly arranged.
The Shillbilly Apology? He'll implement every single item in Project 2025 and intensely enjoy every moment of the rollout.
I’m not certain mcconnell would want trump back. He’s served his purpose.
I’m still a little worried about the “I don’t need your votes - I’ve got enough votes” thing he said …
Agreed 💯! Rachel Maddow made some good points (conspiracy theories aside) that he’s saying he doesn’t need your votes out loud because he’s got: a) full legal teams in place to challenge the results in courts across the country; and b) *many* state voting officials changing the rules to make it easier for them to refuse to certify their elections (RE Georgia, their new “rule”, and Trump calling out the 3 MAGA board members by name for thanks at his Atlanta event).
I’m fairly confident now that Harris-Walz will win, having been *very* worried about Biden-Harris losing in a landslide, but the potential for MAGA trying to steal the vote has me back to sleepless nights…
He probably feels all the votes he needs is six.
Six SCOTUS votes for some spurious claim of voter fraud.
Thank you for documenting an example where Maggie Haberman *almost* said Trump lied, Jay. There's always next time!
It also continues to amaze me that Fox, Newsmax, and others prioritize profits over truth. I get they put all their money on red, but my God.
Jay, you keep trying to show news clips as featured links on twitter. I fired twitter after Musk took over and the hate groups starting oozing back in. twitter is a toxic cesspool, and I will not use any links that take me there.
I am on Mastodon. Could you please start posting links that take you to Mastodon instead of twitter? Mastodon has lots of users, and it is not owned by any anti-democratic billionaires. In fact, it isn't owned by *anyone.* There are no ads, no tracking, and no manipulative algorithms.
Please consider dumping twitter and using Mastodon instead.
Regards,
I’ve addressed this question several times but I’ll do it here again in case you and others didn’t see it.
I agree that, in a better world, I could also be free from having to go to Elon Musk’s toxic platform to do my daily work.
The sad fact is, all of the journalists, analysts, data scientists, legal experts, politicians and political pundits that I follow daily are on Twitter and have not migrated consistently to any other platform. I was hoping that Threads could take Twitter’s place, but so far it is only a sliver of the content that I need to create and write my daily pieces. I keep checking and hoping!
Most other writers are in the same pickle. The best news and analysis, especially breaking news, still happens on Twitter, so substack writers such as Heather Cox Richardson and Joyve Vance, for example, who also write daily, are still on Twitter. My collection of funnies each Saturday would not be possible to do on any other platform so long as the content creators do not migrate.
That said, I now am trying to at least find comparable videos on other platforms before I publish my Saturday collection! It’s a time consuming process, and I’m not sure it’s worth doing yet, but I am trying.
I hope that explains the unfortunate situation. I wish there were a workable solution. But for me to continue to do this work, I could not leave Twitter, at least not yet. Think of me and send your sympathies, however, because I have to put up with right wing MAGA comments and posts all day long just do my work!
Thank you for trying (and for the valuable work you do).
Cheers.
Jay isn't the one that directs the sources as to where they post the items he includes in his feed. Sadly, until the media decides to cut X out of the picture, it will still be a resource.
Perhaps it would be helpful if you did some searching to locate each of these stories on Mastodon and provided the links in your comments?
Same. I don’t,never used Twit- land or Tick Tack.
I suggest everyone drop the Musk platform like a hot fascist.
Mastadon por favor.
I've never used Twitter, FB, or anything except Instagram, and even there all I follow are cute dog stories. I don't mind following links to stuff on X if it illustrates what I want to see. Plus, "The Dodo" often has animal stories posted on X and occasionally FB. I watch the videos and then back out of it.
Ditto. I quit the Twit because of the owner and the manipulation. Anything but Twitter!
tRump's sole motivation is to (1), steal the spotlight, and (2), hog it. Well, he did both, but that window of opportunity closes fast these days...it's not 2016, nor even 2020, and even for the MSM, always looking for tRump-driven clicks and eyeballs, yesterday's - LOL, "presser" - was so yesterday that even the "fact-checking" seemed pro forma and without any "what he's saying!" kick to it.
Sure, the moron lives by the WWE credo of "heat", but his attempts to generate any fell flat, and when that happens, the promoters look for a new guy to head the card...which I suppose falls to Hillbilly, as his attacks on Tim Walz's service record show. Strong pushback there, and what we are seeing in real time is the public turning away from a stale act and looking where the action is, and that is the Harris-Walz ticket, full stop.
Like to say it's over, but not just yet.
Is Jesse Watters blind and can't hear?
I would like to see the texts flying behind the scenes at Fox from the likes of Lara and Hannity on how they *really* feel that press conference went.
Most of them are. Anyone still supporting him certainly are
Both. Willfully so.
Jeez, what a pathetic old white man. 🤷♀️
Oh dear the great leader of the MAGA Cult has finally gone completely utterly undeniably out of his mind! The slimy Swiss Cheese that is what is left, after the syphilis has eaten its way from side to side and from the top down; poor old Donald has become a demented little shell of a man.