Each time Donald Trump has been asked about the Iran war so far at the UN, the president has floated a bizarre reason for the war continuing. Trump keeps saying that Iran will not make a deal to end the war until after the midterm election.

That part kind of makes sense.

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It’s the second piece of Trump’s answer that the joke is on Iran because he isn’t running in the midterm election. The midterm election doesn’t matter to him and is irrelevant to when the war ends.

Ending the Iran war before the midterms might not matter to Trump, but the ongoing war is crushing Republican candidates and causing members of Trump’s own party to sour on him.

Iran might not want to make a deal to help Trump and the Republican Party before the midterm election, but it would make more sense if they used the election as a deadline and tried to get Republicans to agree to a deal under a time deadline. It makes absolutely no sense that Iran would agree to a deal after the election.

What is clear is that Trump’s support among Republicans for the Iran war, and Trump’s approval on foreign affairs, have cratered.

America Hates Trump’s War

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Days after Donald J Trump banned members of the press from The People’s House, the TV press corps boycotted him, resulting in the most pleasant Trump event coverage of his two administrations: a silent one.

No sound.

The people rejoiced.

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Never content to have an even momentarily happy populace, the Trump White House (what’s left of it, anyway) had a response. They launched a 24/7 video stream dedicated to Dear Leader called "Trump TV: The Essentials Station".

Shortly after the announcement that Trump was so desperate for “good” coverage that he hijacked the White House’s official You Tube account to begin an autocratic fellation of his presidency, his effort was compared to North Korean state TV.

Press freedom advocates, lawmakers and legal experts labeled it an authoritarian attempt to control public information by replacing independent media with state-run propaganda, much as we warned everyone yesterday in respect to Trump’s press ban, which happened before Trump’s sudden announcement of Trump TV.

Watch more about out of control Trump’s media ban:

Trump’s former White House Press Secretary during his first term Stephanie Grisham, compared Trump TV to China, Iran and Russia on Twitter/X, “You know who else does this? Russia, China, and Iran to name a few…”

“First, Trump banned independent news from the White House,” Newsom posted on Twitter/X. “Now, he’s launching what is quite literally state-run TV to try drowning out the fact that he and his corrupt administration are failing the American people. This is truly autocratic behavior from a failed President.”

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan, tweeted in response, “We just want cheaper gas, man.”

Trump is not just attacking the press with this move. More importantly, he is attacking the fundamental right of The People to be informed.

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Donald Trump is jealous of Putin. Trump is jealous of authoritarians around the world. Trump despises the limits that democracy places on him. The president believes that there are no checks and balances and that the Executive Branch rules above the Legislative and Judicial Branches.

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This was not the way the American system of governance was designed, but it is what Donald Trump wishes that it could be because only then could he have the unlimited power that he seeks.

Trump and his party are about to be handed an election defeat in a matter of weeks that could be historic in its size and scope. When Trump is faced with any defeat that shatters his self-delusion that he is a “winner,” the president gets desperate, as if his mind can’t handle any breach of his delusion bubble by reality.

Watch Sarah Jones talk about Trump being out of control:

Trump’s reporter/media ban is relying on a familiar playbook, and his presidency slips away. Trump is embracing Putin’s tactics.

Trump Goes Full Censorship

Video on Trump’s tactics:

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Pete Hegseth appears to be living on borrowed time as the Secretary of Defense. Rep. Thomas Massie filed articles of impeachment that were headed for a vote on the House floor until Speaker Mike Johnson shut down the House to avoid what would have looked like a vote to impeach the president’s Secretary of Defense.

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House Democrats haven’t made up their minds on impeaching Trump. Democrats at all levels agree that Trump’s corruption needs to be investigated by the House, but whether or not that results in a new impeachment will be determined by the evidence, and maybe by whether or not Democrats win control of the Senate, because some House Democrats have no appetite for sending another Trump impeachment to a Republican Senate majority to die.

Democrats have changed tactics and made it very clear that they are open to impeaching members of Trump’s cabinet.

Impeachment threats caused Trump to fire Kristi Noem, and Pam Bondi, so House Democrats intend to turn up the pressure if they win the House majority in less than two months.

Pete Hegseth Looks To Be As Good As Gone

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Donald Trump and his first administration got away with lying so often because they often lied in ways about things that could easily be proven false. The term sanewashing came into play when describing the coverage of Trump because reporters would often interpret the statements of the White House in the most generous way imaginable.

Trump and his first administration cumulatively may have lied 100,000 times, and they still lost the 2020 election because when they tried to lie about the pandemic, people could see that the lie did not match up with their reality.

One might think that the second Trump administration would have learned from the first that there are limits to what they can get away with, but with roughly 6 weeks to go until the midterm election, the administration has chosen to lie about inflation.

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Trump economic adviser Kevin Hassett said on Fox News:

 We've got a big reduction in inflation, but prices are higher because of the huge inflation that we inherited from Joe Biden. But inflation is way down, again, over the last three months, we're right at the Fed's target. A- and, and it's dropped sharply despite the what's going on in the Middle East. And, and so I think that, you know, I go to the grocery store every weekend, and I just noticed, as an example, that the hamburger for my barbecue yesterday was down $2 from a couple of weeks ago. And so I'm seeing prices move in the right direction.

Video:

Hassett also had an explanation for Trump’s terrible polls.

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The White House itself was reportedly taken by surprise when Trump posted on Truth Social that he was banning reporters from CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House.

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When it is referred to as a White House ban, that is slightly inaccurate because, when Trump has done this previously, the reporters were banned from covering him. The ban would cover Air Force One, Trump’s travels, or events Trump is appearing at.

It is more than access to the White House. Trump could potentially cut off access to covering his presidency.

Republicans are trying to defend Trump banning reporters, but haven’t been able to come up with a logical answer for why trampling the Constitution and violating the First Amendment is a good idea.

When all else fails, Republicans can always turn to their favorite standby of blaming Joe Biden.

ABC’s Jon Karl asked House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise on ABC’s This Week, “Do you support him banning these news organizations because he doesn't like what they're reporting?”

The answer from any true conservative who supports the Constitution should be a loud no.

Scalise went into the soft shoe of praising Trump:

And first of all, I don’t think we’ve had a president that’s been more open to the press.

Look, I’ve been at -- you go to a bill-signing with President Trump and the first thing he does before he even signs the bill is he brings in the press, and everybody gets to not only take pictures, but ask questions.

Trump only deals with the press in very controlled or limited environments, and he has handpicked much of the White House Press Pool and diluted it with supportive outlets, but Scalise’s next claim was outrageous.

Scalise Tries To Blame Biden For Banning Reporters, And Gets Shot Down

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The Republican Party’s problem in the midterm election is that they have put a man in charge of the party who doesn’t care about the fate or future of the party.

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Anyone who has observed Donald Trump since the 1980s should have known better. When Republicans first turned control of their party over to Donald Trump in 2016, they did so because after 8 years of losing to Barack Obama, they wanted to win.

What Republicans didn’t realize was that once Trump got control of the Republican Party, he would view it as his, and only those who were the most loyal to him would get any of the benefit.

When Trump returned for the 2024 campaign, things were different.

Donald Trump would be term-limited if he won. He no longer needed Republicans or their voters.

Trump didn’t have to pretend to care. He could do whatever he wanted and let his party get hammered with the fallout, and that is exactly what has happened.

As Republicans face electoral doom in less than 50 days, the White House isn’t even trying to pretend.

Donald Trump doesn’t care if Republicans win or lose.

In fact, he might be happier if his party lost.

Trump Doesn’t Care About The Midterm Election

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Donald Trump and JD Vance are so toxic that not only are House Republicans making ads breaking with Trump, but even when Vance shows up somewhere, there is now a chance that top Republicans in the state will refuse to be seen with him.

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By objective standards, Rep. Ashley Hinson is not a bad candidate and is not running a terrible campaign. Hinson is one of those Republicans in a red state who, in a normal midterm election year, would probably win the election for Iowa’s open US Senate seat and keep it in Republican hands.

Hinson is not Ken Paxton in Texas.

The problem is that 2026 is far from a normal midterm election year for Republicans.

Donald Trump and JD Vance have turned the 2026 midterm elections into a hellscape of anger and rage that is being directed at Republicans.

Some GOP candidates have told the White House they don’t want Trump in their states or districts. Others have chosen to campaign with Trump and Vance, but it is telling where Trump and Vance have been campaigning.

Lately, JD Vance has been going to red states. Donald Trump has gone to places he won in 2024, but that are more purple, like Georgia and North Carolina.

A map that should have Republicans on offense shows Trump and Vance playing defense.

Things got really awkward in Iowa, as Rep. Hinson didn’t show up at the rally, but JD Vance tried to campaign for her anyway.

Ashley Hinson’s Lame Excuse To Dodge JD Vance

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Trump’s desperation has transcended from trying to attach himself to a popular president to trying to replace the living memorial for a beloved president with an honor for himself.

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Trump threw a fit that was described as f-ing crazy by those on the call after he was blocked for a second time from adding his name to the Kennedy Center. Trump does not have the legal authority to add his name to the Center, or to make any changes without congressional approval.

Congress will never provide that authorization, so the president has taken the center hostage and is threatening that if he doesn’t get his name on the building, the building will be destroyed.

In a new court filing, Kennedy Center board member Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH) alerted the court to new evidence that Trump is planning to demolish the building.

The Evidence That Trump Wants To Destroy The Kennedy Center

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Watching Republicans literally wheel Mitch McConnell back into the US Senate, when the Kentucky Senator does not seem to know what is going on, should add fuel to the debate about term limits for members of Congress.

McConnell looks like a shell of his former self and clearly like he should not be in the Senate or taking votes right now, but Republicans are engaging in a charade with what remains of Mitch McConnell because of rules that McConnell pushed Republicans in Kentucky to adopt so that he could never be replaced by a Democrat.

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At McConnell’s urging, Republicans took the power of naming his or any other Kentucky senator’s successor out of the hands of the governor. Instead, the governor must select the appointee from a list approved by the state legislature.

There are also rules about special elections and elections to fill the remainder of a senator’s term.

Republicans in Kentucky aren’t worried about a Democrat filling McConnell’s seat. They are worried about Rep. Thomas Massie, who was chased out of his House seat by Trump because of his efforts to get the Epstein files released.

Massie is why McConnell is being dragged around and the country has to witness scenes like what happened during the Farm Bill markup on Wednesday.

Mitch McConnell Is Not Well

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Donald Trump and JD Vance don’t have anything that they can sell to the American people as a success in the midterm elections.

Midterms are about the American people judging how the current party in power is doing, and by any metric, Trump and Vance are not doing well.

Inflation is high. Costs and prices are high. Job growth is flat. Diesel prices are at a record high. Gas prices are high. There is a war in the Middle East, and Donald Trump has started a trade war with Canada and other US allies.

When Trump promised America a golden age, he apparently meant that this would be a golden age for billionaires, and that he was going to cover everything that he saw with gold.

The golden age has not been extended to the American people.

JD Vance is out there trying to sell the first two years of the administration and it isn’t going great.

Vance appeared on the All In Podcast recently, and this is what he offered up as a midterm message:

You know, I guess I have two basic messages there is a lot of good that we’ve done over the past 18 months. We cut taxes bigly. We cut taxes on overtime, Social Security,

and tips. Those are tax cuts for middle American workers, not just for the elites in Washington and New York City. We’ve had an amazing success with the border and immigration.

We’ve pursued H-1Breform that prioritizes American workers over foreign nationals.

Vance also tried to sell America on the idea that none of this was the administration’s fault.

Vance Begs America For Another Chance

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When people think about investigations of the Trump family, their thoughts can get clouded by the immunity given to Donald Trump by the conservative Supreme Court majority.

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Democrats have decided on a different strategy if they win back power in less than 50 days. Of course, they will investigate Trump, but they are also going to take a very close look at the people surrounding Trump, including his family.

The Trump family does not have any immunity. The Trump family is also not covered by executive privilege, which is what made Sen. Jon Ossoff’s comments about a Russian oligarch paying for parts of Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding so interesting.

Jen Psaki asked Sen. Ossoff on MS NOW, “ I mean, there's no question, as you've just outlined here, that D- Donald Trump and his family members, as you've just talked about, um, have profited from their success and will continue to profit from the success of AI companies if left unchecked. What question should a Democratic majority be asking them?”

Ossoff answered:

 Well, look, first of all- the outrageous conflicts of interest, whether it's another 1789 Capital portfolio company, Vulcan Elements, getting a $620 million taxpayer-funded loan from Pete Hegseth's Pentagon at the request of Peter Navarro, the convicted criminal who runs trade and manufacturing policy in the White House, or Don Jr.'s wedding being apparently funded by a Russian oligarch with close ties to the Kremlin.

These things have to be urgently investigated, and you should expect hearings and subpoenas next year on these and other subjects related to the Trump administration and First Family corruption.

Video:

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In my decades of covering congressional hearings, I have never seen a witness try to end their own hearing because they didn’t want to answer a question.

That is what Kash Patel did at a Senate FBI oversight hearing on Tuesday.

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Sen. Schiff tried to get an answer out of Patel on a question that Sen. Cory Booker asked earlier.

Schiff asked, “ Mr. Booker tried to get an answer from you, a very simple answer, about the reporter who wrote an article about potential misuse of an FBI SWAT team by yourself.”

Patel interrupted, “Didn't happen. Total lie.”

Schiff continued, “And what he asked you, so let me repeat it, because you didn't answer his question.”

Patel interrupted again, “You're gonna repeat a lie… so I'm not gonna answer it.”

Schiff appealed to Chairman Chuck Grassley, “Mr. Chairman, uh, we're gonna have to extend time the more he does this.”

Patel, “We don't have to extend anything.”

Schiff, “So I'm trying to ask my question, Mr. Chairman.”

After some back and forth, Patel had the nerve to ask Grassley to end the hearing while Schiff was questioning him.

The administration is so confident in its control of Congressional Republicans that it asks for hearings to be ended when it doesn’t want to answer questions.

Patel went on a whining monologue where he played the victim.

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Donald Trump has tried to rig the 2026 midterm election through gerrymandering, legislation (The SAVE America Act), and finally through an executive order and new USPS rules on mail-in voting.

The Postal Service was going to refuse to deliver ballots in any state that did not turn over its voter data to the Trump administration.

Acting on an executive order from Trump, the USPS put in a series of mail-in ballot rules. A coalition of states sued to block the rules. Lower courts issued injunctions blocking the implementation of the rules, so the Trump administration made an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court has ruled that the injunction blocking the rules from being implemented will remain in place.

The court ruled, “The application for stay presented to JUSTICE JACKSON and by her referred to the Court is denied. The Government is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to the District Court’s preliminary injunction. And the equitable factors applicable for obtaining emergency relief from this Court do not favor a stay.”

The Trump plan is dead for 2026, but that doesn't mean that the threat is over.

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Donald Trump can always count on the mainstream corporate press to take the bait. Trump floated giving every American $5,000 if they vote to keep Republicans in control of Congress. The media didn’t care that Republicans in Congress shot the idea down right away.

The media ran with it and began asking Democrats why they don’t support the “stimulus” of giving every American $5,000 if they vote for Republicans.

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The obvious answer is that Trump’s scheme isn't stimulus because it depends on the partisan outcome of an election. A stimulus plan isn’t a quid pro quo. Every Democrat who appeared on a Sunday show was asked why they didn’t support bribing voters to help Republicans win elections.

This trend continued into Monday, when Peter Alexander asked Sen. Angela Alsobrooks on MS NOW, “ Do you support a $5,000 check for Americans? I ask because Democrats helped with coronavirus relief several years ago. Why wouldn't this serve as a, as a good stimulus plan?”

Donald Trump’s policy choices of tariffs, tax cuts for the rich, trade wars, and a war with Iran are not the same as a global pandemic.

Sen. Alsobrooks responded by brutally explaining why this is all Trump’s fault.

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It appears that there is no such thing as too low when it comes to Donald Trump and the Kennedy Center. The Kennedy Center was intended to be a living memorial to former President John F. Kennedy, and that was the purpose that it served for decades.

Through service to the arts and culture, the Kennedy Center helped to keep the spirit of Camelot alive.

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The Kennedy Center was a venue that honored the best in the arts, and it was viewed as a privilege to perform there.

For decades, presidents and members of Congress viewed themselves as non-partisan trustees of the Center, but all of that changed when Donald Trump was elected to return to the White House.

Before Trump returned to office, he reportedly had his eyes on the Kennedy Center. Much of Trump’s purpose for his second administration was to build a legacy for himself by building or putting his name on as many things as possible.

When Trump took the unprecedented step of putting himself in charge of the Kennedy Center, many people smelled a rat.

Trump handpicked a new board, which then voted to add Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center.

The president added his name to the Kennedy Center, but was sued, and a judge ordered it removed.

Trump responded by covering the front of the building with a tarp.

The courts want the tarp gone, so Trump’s latest ploy is to threaten to close the Center unless his name goes on the building.

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Few Democrats navigate the pitfalls of access-driven mainstream media better than Pete Buttigieg. The former Secretary of Transportation has won admirers for the way he is able to turn around the mainstream press’s both-sides form of questioning and make reasonable points that appeal to a broad number of Americans.

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One of my personal criticisms of Democrats during this midterm election campaign is that it appears much of the DC elite Democratic leadership doesn’t spend much or any time around real people and understand their life concerns.

There seems to be a good bit of talk about the issues that matter most to voters, but it also includes buzzwords and talking points. I don’t always sense authenticity from some Democrats.

A lot is gained when a person is able to travel around the country and talk to real people about their lives and needs.

Kristen Welker asked Buttigieg on Meet The Press to respond to the allegations Trump made about Democrats at his convention.

Pete Buttigieg said:

Look they're doing that because they cannot defend their results, and they cannot defend their unpopular agenda. I just heard on your program Speaker Johnson hemming and hawing because even he can't endorse what President Trump has been saying, like this idea that everybody's gonna get $5,000.

I think that tells you everything you need to know, that's just not going to happen. And the tragic thing about it is that extra cash would mean a lot to a lot of families that are hurting in the Trump economy.

….

 You can't fool people about what's going on in their own lives. They see that this economy is worse. Diesel right now is at the highest price ever recorded in American history. And they've seen so many broken promises from Speaker Johnson, House Republicans, and this White House, that they are ready for change even in districts where I didn't think we'd be able to compete if you had asked me six months ago.

When Welker asked Buttigieg about Sen. John Fetterman, he turned the tables.

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Donald Trump won Kansas by more than 16 points over Kamala Harris in 2024. It is not the sort of state that an incumbent Republican US Senator would be expected to struggle in, but that is exactly what is happening in 2026, as Sen. Roger Marshall is finding himself in an election contest with Democrat Rev. Adam Hamilton.

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Kansas had one of the most interesting and fun environments for a Senate debate, as hundreds of residents filled the bleachers at the Kansas State Fair to watch the Senate candidates debate, and those in attendance were very vocal about their displeasure with Donald Trump and the Republican Party.

The most recent poll found Marshall leading Hamilton 49%-44%, even though Hamilton is not getting top-tier resources and support from Senate Democrats.

The election is close, and voters at the state fair made it very obvious that they are angry.

Sen. Marshall was asked, “ Do you think the president's tariff policies have worked, and are you concerned about long-term ramifications to America's global standing in agriculture?”

Marshall answered, “Look, look, you know, the, the, the, these tariffs were meant to bring manufacturing jobs home, and they improve our exports. And, and guess what? It's working.”

The crowd booed.

Once again, Trump won Kansas by 16 points less than two years ago, and one of his biggest Senate defenders got booed, but this was far from a one-off.

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One lesson Donald Trump learned after his first administration was that government employees are loyal to the country, not to him.

If Trump were to make his authoritarian fantasy come true, he would need to break the civil service and shift the loyalty of government employees from serving the American people to serving Donald Trump.

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Trump has been able to turn his cabinet and political aides into a group that puts him over the needs of the country.

The president tried to break the civil service first by turning Elon Musk loose and having him cut government agencies and fire employees. Step two of the plan was to replace the fired government workers with Trump loyalists.

The administration’s mechanism for doing this was to add a loyalty test to the federal job application.

A group of public sector unions sued the administration over the loyalty test, and a federal court has blocked Donald Trump and JD Vance from using it.

The court described how the administration tried to test the loyalty of potential government employees:

The plaintiffs in this civil action—several labor unions—have sued the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (“OPM”), its director, Scott Kupor, and the United States to challenge the lawfulness of a question that has appeared in thousands of job applications to fill vacancies with the federal civil service.

The question asks, in relevant part, that the applicant “[i]dentify one or two relevant Executive Orders or policy initiatives that are significant to [the applicant], and explain how [the applicant] would help implement them if hired.” (Compl., Ex. A at 10 (dkt. no. 1-1).) The plaintiffs assert that the challenged question violates the Administrative Procedures Act (“APA”) and the First Amendment to the United States Constitution because it seeks to assess the applicant’s “loyalty” to the administration of President Donald J. Trump.

People who expressed loyalty to Donald Trump were more likely to get hired. If successful, Trump’s loyalty question would have wrecked the civil service.

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Trump was already blowing off the Ground Zero ceremony in New York because, reportedly, he refused to attend after being denied the opportunity to give a speech. Trump’s big plan was to go to the Pentagon and give a speech before he goes to his club in Ireland to watch a golf tournament.

The 80-year-old president gave a speech in Dallas on Thursday night, so it was guaranteed that he would be exhausted even with the very limited schedule of one event to appear at on 9/11.

This is how completely exhausted Trump opened his speech, “ Secretary Hegseth, Secretary Rice, First Lady of the United States, Chairman Cain, members of the United States military, distinguished guests, and my fellow Americans 25 times we have gathered at this hallowed place and at Ground Zero in New York and a lonely field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.”

Video:

The speech was a pile of gibberish, with the key exception of Trump completing his transition from anti-war in the Middle East president to full Middle Eastern war monger, but even this wasn’t as bad as the disrespect that Trump showed 9/11 victims by falling asleep at the Pentagon.

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