Thoughts on the Trump presidency

[najaB]

The "Arc de Trump" is 100% about the fact that they have one in Paris and Macron once made him look bad. So the USA has to have one, and it has to be bigger.

 

[edwin_m]

Let's be honest, any hypothetical military force that manages to overcome the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean and successfully invade the mainland United States is probably going to view snipers in an arch as child's play.

You're forgetting the risk of Canada sending a force down the Hudson.

 

[AM9]

You're forgetting the risk of Canada sending a force down the Hudson.

Having first turned the lights off in the north-east states.

 

[dgl]

Let's be honest, any hypothetical military force that manages to overcome the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean and successfully invade the mainland United States is probably going to view snipers in an arch as child's play. This along with a refurbishment of the Oval Office is just another fake gold-rimmed vanity project in Trump's game of playing tinpot dictator.

The finest gold Dulux can provide!

 

[najaB]

Let's be honest, any hypothetical military force that manages to overcome the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean and successfully invade the mainland United States is probably going to view snipers in an arch as child's play.

That said, those snipers might come in very useful in defending the White House from forces attempting to remove a former president who refuses to quit the building after losing an election.

Just a thought.

 

[Annetts key]

That said, those snipers might come in very useful in defending the White House from forces attempting to remove a former president who refuses to quit the building after losing an election.

No need to use force, just cut off the supply of fake gold and Big Macs etc.... When he's hungry enough, he will TACO!

 

[gg1]

The "Arc de Trump" is 100% about the fact that they have one in Paris and Macron once made him look bad. So the USA has to have one, and it has to be bigger.

And gold.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Monday at 13:20 ==

How long until either the 25th Amendment or a Big Mac put us out of his misery?

If he doesn't do an Elvis beforehand, I suspect the 25th amendment will be enacted not long after 20th January 2027. That's the point at which Vance could serve out the remainder of Trump's term and stand for two further terms.

 

[BuhSnarf]

I honestly cannot see a 25th amendment whilst Trump continues to make important richer.

The 25th can only be invoked by Vance and a majority of the cabinet and with how bigly the cabinet are dependent upon the Trump gravy train I just can't see it happening.

 

[ainsworth74]

Hmm, Trump's proposed triumphal arch is not likely to ever be used by the military. It would be too much of a target for precision artillery or a guided missile.

Never mind that if an enemy army gets that far, it almost certainly means the U.S. military is already in great difficulties... And some snipers are unlikely to make any significant difference.

But then, anyone in the military already knows this, so therefore, as per usual, Trump is just making stuff up to suit himself.

That said, those snipers might come in very useful in defending the White House from forces attempting to remove a former president who refuses to quit the building after losing an election.

Just a thought.

I reckon someone has reminded him that the Supreme Court gives Presidents and the wider Government a lot of latitude when it comes to national security. So if he can tie his arch to national security when the inevitable legal challenges come along he's given his tame Justices the wiggle room they need to handwave the challenges away on a national security basis.

 

[ainsworth74]

If he doesn't do an Elvis beforehand, I suspect the 25th amendment will be enacted not long after 20th January 2027. That's the point at which Vance could serve out the remainder of Trump's term and stand for two further terms.

Yes I've been saying that this the moment of maximum danger for Trump in terms of the 25th Amendment and I've not yet seen reason to change my opinion on it!

 

[SuspectUsual]

I reckon someone has reminded him that the Supreme Court gives Presidents and the wider Government a lot of latitude when it comes to national security. So if he can tie his arch to national security when the inevitable legal challenges come along he's given his tame Justices the wiggle room they need to handwave the challenges away on a national security basis.

As per the ballroom?

 

[ainsworth74]

As per the ballroom?

Exactly

 

[brad465]

If he doesn't do an Elvis beforehand, I suspect the 25th amendment will be enacted not long after 20th January 2027. That's the point at which Vance could serve out the remainder of Trump's term and stand for two further terms.

Trump is not doing an Elvis, if anything he's doing the opposite where it just comes out on its own.

 

[Killingworth]

I honestly cannot see a 25th amendment whilst Trump continues to make important richer.

The 25th can only be invoked by Vance and a majority of the cabinet and with how bigly the cabinet are dependent upon the Trump gravy train I just can't see it happening.

'And a majority of the cabinet' nust be happy to go along with Vance. Would they? We've 2+ years to find out.

Over 2 more years!! What a prospect.

 

[BuhSnarf]

'And a majority of the cabinet' nust be happy to go along with Vance. Would they? We've 2+ years to find out.

Over 2 more years!! What a prospect.

I don't think Vance stands a chance in the 2028 election. He lost all credibility after his backtrack over the no new wars and he has zero charisma. Say what you will about Trump but the reason he gets away with TACO'ing is that he does have a special type of "charisma."

 

[Harpo]

I don't think Vance stands a chance in the 2028 election. He lost all credibility after his backtrack over the no new wars and he has zero charisma.

Vance, and Reform’s Jenrick. Twinned by intellect.

 

[Strathclyder]

Free Speech latest:

Donald Trump says he is banning CNN, Politico and MS NOW from White House

The US president has had a tense and fiery relationship with the US media since returning to office.

www.bbc.co.uk

And they've now bit back, surprisingly enough. Surprising that they've suddenly managed to find something resembling a spine after months, no, years of letting him and his flying monkeys trample all over their 1st Amendment rights and remaining more or less silent as he insulted and denegraded reporters, mainly female ones.

CNN, MS NOW and Politico file lawsuit against Trump's White House ban

Major US networks later suspended White House TV coverage of Trump as he heads to New York for the UN summit.

www.bbc.co.uk

CNN, Politico and MS NOW have sued the Trump administration after the three US media outlets were barred from the White House.
President Donald Trump announced the ban on Friday, accusing the organisations of writing "fiction or lies" about his team. The companies said their reporters were denied access to the building on Saturday.
In a joint statement on Monday, they said they were pursuing legal action to "defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports".
Major US TV networks later announced they would suspend their White House pooled coverage of Trump, leaving a potential gap as he heads to New York for the United Nations General Assembly.


The First Amendment forbids the government from "abridging" the freedom of the press - language that courts have traditionally interpreted as preventing the government from discriminating against the media based on the content of their coverage.
The statement from CNN, Politico and MS NOW said: "Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists' credentials because it objected to our reporting.
"Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public's right to independent journalism free from government interference."
The media organisations filed the lawsuit on Monday in US District Court in Washington, asking a judge to quickly rule Trump's ban unconstitutional and prevent his aides from enforcing it.
Earlier, in a posting on Truth Social, Trump said the White House was not "instituting an assault on the Free Press" and that he was targeting "FAKE NEWS".
On Monday morning, major US TV networks pulled out of White House pool duties, which sees media organisations share material with each other to save on costs and space when broadcasting presidential events to the American public.
Fox News Washington bureau chief Bryan Boughton, who currently holds a rotating role helping to organise media TV crews covering the White House, wrote in an email seen by the BBC that "effective today, the TV pool will not be covering designated as pool coverage" of President Trump.
The message said the move followed the White House "preventing" CNN from fulfilling its pool duties for Trump's trip to New York and that "there will be no replacement pool put in place".
CNN - one of only five US news outlets in the White House press pool for live television - was originally due to cover Trump's trip to the UN General Assembly in New York on Monday and Tuesday.
But on Monday morning, the five-seat CNN booth in the basement of the White House press area - typically manned throughout the day from the early hours of the morning - was empty and closed. Screens and monitors inside were turned off.
Instead, a CNN crew was outside the secured area of the White House grounds, broadcasting live from a public pavement.
Five TV networks, ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC, issued a joint statement: "The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government.
"No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting."
Those five networks are considered the only ones with the money and infrastructure to distribute live coverage from the White House and presidential events.
For now, the White House media slot has remained vacant and instead the conservative TV outlet, Real America's Voice, was listed as "secondary" crew on Trump's trip to New York, where he will meet Mayor Zohran Mamdani and French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday.


Announcing his ban on CNN, Politico and MS NOW last week, Trump did not mention specific stories or reporting that prompted the move, but later said "it's really just cumulative stories over the last few years".
The US president added that there "may be others to join them".
When later asked by a reporter what he meant by this, Trump responded: "Others to come in terms of fake news? Well, you know, the New York Times is fake news, the Washington Post is fake news."
In February, the White House announced it was taking control of the press pool which has access to Trump and had for more than a century been managed by the White House Correspondents' Association.
The same month, the administration moved to bar Associated Press (AP) reporters and photographers from spaces where access is limited, such as the Oval Office or Air Force One, because of the outlet's usage of the term "Gulf of Mexico" instead of "Gulf of America". AP filed a lawsuit and the case remains ongoing.
There have been a few instances of other administrations attempting to limit certain outlets' access.
The Obama administration tried to exclude Fox News from participating in a press pool interview with an administration official in 2009.
But after pushback from the other four networks in the pool, Fox News was granted access. But unlike with Trump's exclusion of CNN, MS Now and Politico, the Obama administration did not try to bar Fox News from all pool coverage, just one specific interview.
Trump has been frequently critical of news organisations and his administration has launched legal action against a series of outlets, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the BBC.
Some of the lawsuits have resulted in media organisations agreeing to pay multimillion dollar settlements. Trump's lawsuit against the BBC is ongoing.

One easy to overlook upside of this: whinging, petulant, narcissistic twerps like him thrive on attention, which he'll be getting that little bit less of now, which will drive him up the wall. This is delicious irony that will be totally lost on him; then again he wouldn't know the meaning of that word if it smacked him upside the head with a wet kipper.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Monday at 19:34 ==

Vance, and Reform’s Jenrick. Twinned by intellect.

And by being world-class twerps with the smarmiest, most punchable faces on Earth barring Trump & Farage themselves.

 

[najaB]

Say what you will about Trump but the reason he gets away with TACO'ing is that he does have a special type of "charisma."

Had. These days even the most MAGA of MAGA-hats are seeing that he's tired and incoherent most of the time.

 

[BuhSnarf]

Had. These days even the most MAGA of MAGA-hats are seeing that he's tired and incoherent most of the time.

Sadly not, the MAGA faithful even now still think this is all part of some master plan and that Trump is playing some amazing 4D chess match.

 

[najaB]

Sadly not, the MAGA faithful even now still think this is all part of some master plan and that Trump is playing some amazing 4D chess match.

The ones who are completely coo-coo, yes. But it's notable that several previously pro-Trump, pro-MAGA congresspeople have deliberately and pointedly distanced themselves from Trump in this election cycle. For example:

In late January, when President Donald Trump endorsed his close ally Rep. Tom Tiffany in Wisconsin’s gubernatorial race, Tiffany said he was “especially honored” and promised to “make Wisconsin great again.”

But in recent weeks, he’s taken a different tone.

Tiffany responded to Trump renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America” by declaring “the Great Lakes are the Great Lakes,” brushing aside the edict. He broke with Trump’s pro-data centers position, criticized the easing of tariffs on beef imports, and deflected questions on the president’s proposed mail-in ballot reforms that the Supreme Court blocked earlier this week. And after years of questioning whether the 2020 election was rigged against the president, including supporting an FBI probe into Wisconsin’s votes in May, he’s now taken to sidestepping the issue.

Link: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/...epublicans-start-breaking-with-trump-01085159

 

[gg1]

'And a majority of the cabinet' nust be happy to go along with Vance. Would they? We've 2+ years to find out.

Happy isn't really the right word, more that will a majority of the cabinet reach the stage that they believe anyone is a better option than Trump?

With Trump's behaviour steadily becoming more unhinged, that likelihood increases with each passing day. Bear in mind they're probably not Trump zealots like the red hat brigade, many of them have only aligned themselves to him for the benefit of their careers (political or business depending on the individual) there's not much in the way of loyalty there.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Politico is owned by Axel Springer AG, owner of Bild and also now the Daily Telegraph. They’re a very right wing media organisation.

Axel Springer’s big boss, Mathias Döpfner, has some very interesting things to say about Muslims. Döpfner is also the one who overruled his staff and gave the Die Welt front page editorial to Elon Musk, who used it to explain why the AfD are brilliant.

A very interesting choice of media organisation for Trump to upset.

 

[Yew]

Let's be honest, any hypothetical military force that manages to overcome the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean and successfully invade the mainland United States is probably going to view snipers in an arch as child's play. This along with a refurbishment of the Oval Office is just another gold-rimmed vanity project in Trump's game of playing tinpot dictator.

I imagine this is more for the benefit of the Secret Service, I could imagine them having sinipers /surveillance drones based there could be something that makes sense?

 

[GusB]

Watching the Donald making his speech at the UN General Assembly, I had to chuckle when he announced that the future for America was very bright; it's certainly very Orange!

 

[najaB]

I imagine this is more for the benefit of the Secret Service, I could imagine them having sinipers /surveillance drones based there could be something that makes sense?

For some definitions of the word "sense" I suppose. I guarantee you that the Secret Service didn't ask for this, and I don't think that work for the "national security" exemption that he's gone for with the "military command complex" underneath the ballroom.

Watching the Donald making his speech at the UN General Assembly, I had to chuckle when he announced that the future for America was very bright; it's certainly very Orange!

I've not watched, and I'm not sure that I want to. Did he get laughed at again this year?

 

[GusB]

I've not watched, and I'm not sure that I want to. Did he get laughed at again this year?

I don't recall him being laughed at, but I zoned out after a while because it was just his usual nonsense about stopping eight wars etc., and it just became background noise. One thing I do recall was seeing some delegates walking out when Trump started going on about Cuba and there were quite a few "lord, make it stop" expressions among the audience. It's 40 minutes of my life that I won't get back!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Wednesday at 01:13 ==

Oh, I forgot to add that he has renamed AI, because "artificial" sounds like "fake". It's now to be called SI: Super Intelligence. You really couldn't make this up!

 

[najaB]

In the latest episode of "What is he talking about...?"

Over the weekend he announced that they were working on a deal to replace imports of Canadian potash (used as a fertiliser) with supplied from Belarus:

The US president says fertilizer from Lukashenko's Russia-allied regime will cost far less than Canadian supplies, the latest sign of Washington's warming relationship with Minsk.

US President Donald Trump said Washington was working on a "massive" deal to buy fertilizer from Belarus, despite Minsk's repression of dissidents and support for Russia's war in Ukraine.

Trump said on social media that the cost of the potash from Belarus would be "substantially less than we are currently paying to Canada," the US neighbour against which he has stepped up a trade war.

Source: https://www.euronews.com/2026/09/21/trump-promotes-massive-belarus-potash-deal-to-undercut-canada

This would have come as a great relief to US farmers who were already struggling to get sufficient supplies of fertilisers from Gulf state producers due to the disruption cause by the Iran War... excursion... operation, and who were now facing potential massive price increases for Canadian potash due to the trade war with Canada (Canada supplies about 80% of US needs).

Only one problem:

Belarus’s authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko said Monday that there are no available volumes of fertilizer to send to the U.S. This came after President Trump announced that he was working on a “massive Deal” to buy potash from Minsk at a steep discount amid the trade war with Canada.

“Even if we wanted to supply [potash] to other, Western markets, we simply do not have those volumes — everything is contracted,” Lukashenko said in remarks published by his office on Monday.

Source: https://thehill.com/policy/international/6102469-trump-lukashenko-potash-deal-clash/

 

[BuhSnarf]

Source: https://thehill.com/policy/international/6102469-trump-lukashenko-potash-deal-clash/

Clearly Lukashenko will be hailed as fake news shortly.

 

[Strathclyder]

I don't recall him being laughed at, but I zoned out after a while because it was just his usual nonsense about stopping eight wars etc., and it just became background noise. One thing I do recall was seeing some delegates walking out when Trump started going on about Cuba and there were quite a few "lord, make it stop" expressions among the audience. It's 40 minutes of my life that I won't get back!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Wednesday at 01:13 ==

Oh, I forgot to add that he has renamed AI, because "artificial" sounds like "fake". It's now to be called SI: Super Intelligence. You really couldn't make this up!

Even watching/listening to clips of the orange sack of senility's witless droning that passed as his UN speech as part of LBC's reaction to it was making me grip my head in frustration within 30 seconds. 40 uninterrupted minutes of that is just asking too much of me without serious risk of a rage-induced aneurysm.

 

[DelW]

In the latest episode of "What is he talking about...?"

Over the weekend he announced that they were working on a deal to replace imports of Canadian potash (used as a fertiliser) with supplied from Belarus:

Belarus’s authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko said Monday that there are no available volumes of fertilizer to send to the U.S.

Even if the supplies were available, making American agricultural production substantially or even partly dependent on Belarus's (and by implication Putin's) future goodwill and approval seems to fit oddly with MAGA's avowed aims.

Presumably it's just another un-thought-out scheme from Trump's imagination. Does he ever think anything through? Someone inculcating in Trump the old mantra "engage brain before operating mouth" would have saved America and the world a lot of grief.