Donald Trump the Megathread part II - Mod Warning added to OP 10/1/26

Mad....he was probably drunk.

What an absolute shitshow.

How anyone can support these ejits is beyond me.

Do you have a shred of proof for anything you have said?

Other countries might produce more, what other English speaking country in the EU does though?

There is no grade inflation, prove it or I am just dismissing that.

This is all conjecture, yet again. Provide evidence or we can all just dismiss this nonsense.

Aka the Arsene Wenger response...

Who would have thought that hiring incompetent sycophants would cause security issues???

Not often the president of the US is caught out in a brazen attempt to stonewall the media publicly with B/S and lies. His "I know nothing" bare-faced lies don't and wont wash now. Putin must be in a mix of laughing and crying now, the first for Trump's fix: does he have to publicly fire Waltz or let him resign, the second for fear that Trump may not be able to walk away from this unmarked. Where else would the President's National Security Advisor screw up so badly on matters of warfare plans against an enemy except as a team member of Trumps cabinet?

It’s so pathetic, always attack what ever the media outlet it is that is asking the question or deny knowledge. Journalists should be prepared for this nonsense and go back at him or be equally unprofessional and call him Donald or make a fun of him being senile or incontinent or covered in orange paint, if he isn’t going to be serious then neither should journalists.

“Oscar's first line speaks truth, here”

Ta!

In fairness, the republicans ran the sort of campaign that was hard to beat using normal election tactics, speeches or indeed policies. I was never in favour of MAGA taking power, but I could see that their relentless and extreme narratives, no less blatant lies and scaremongering made it very difficult to successfully refute using standard language and communication channels.

The same thing is happening now- however for me the question is- can this pace of change and smoke/mirrors explanation approach hoodwink a whole population over the medium term?

I’d like to think it can’t but history is not on my side on that one.

We’ve seen Trump this afternoon blatantly lie when confronted with the text messages war plan fiasco to a journalist - a massive incompetence story that would have buried Biden or indeed Harris - I’d doubt it will even dent Trump and MAGA- and who knows, it could have been deliberate for whatever bizarre reason.

America voted for Trump, MAGA and Project 2025- they’ve gone in with their eyes wide open- they know the playbook, the lies, the racism and the insults- they voted for this, ergo they want it. Thats probably something we should all remember - not all of the 70+ million voters who asked for this are “thick” numb-nuts- it’s easy to blame MAGA- but there are also 10,s of millions of Americans who want this regime in place - for me, that’s probably the more frightening aspect - I don’t see how the population can U turn on their decision - I think they’ll start to get used to their POTUS as the world bully boy- and might even start liking it.

Lock him up?

Must have assumed it was one of Putin's assets. (this too will pass )

It's an administration in a hurry. It will be wanting to get past the point where their power cannot be challenged by the time the 2026 midterms roll around.

And when you look at how much progress has been made in just over two months and realise that there are another 19 months until those midterms and also see how ineffective the Democrats have been at opposing Trump's agenda, you can't say that total power by that point is an unrealistic aim.

The last thing really in his way is the courts, and he's already taking aim at them. Trump vs the US Supreme Courts and specifically its chief justice John Roberts could be the epic final battle that decides which direction the US goes in. Personally, my money's on Trump because even if the US Supreme court maintains its integrity in deciding against Trump on various cases, Trump will just remove the mechanisms by which their rulings are actually enforced, cutting the legs out from under them.

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Yeah, but the time to do this was really ten years ago in the sense of doing it without creating pain and uncertainty domestically. Obama and Biden might have been more amenable to the idea of Europe decoupling if only because Obama and Biden would have known how crazy the US could possibly get.

But that never happened. So now, Europe is caught in the room with a killer and our leaders feel the best option is to tiptoe around, being all nicey nice with him until the cops show up, i.e. hoping the Democrats get re-elected, but maybe not considering that the killer has cut the phone line.

Just on the subject of intelligence alone, we probably don't even know the full amount of US intelligence assets around Europe with access to every level of information and communication channels. I doubt even our national governments know the scope of it. Things like this would be the reaping of 80 years of chronic underinvestment in our own defence. If Europe becomes hostile to the US right now, those assets will be used against us all much more whether we like it or not.