Trump was posting more than once a minute last night in an online spree that is going to set that bruise on his thumb absolutely raging – meanwhile the White House made an admission about the Venezuela boat strike
Donald Trump, in the middle of last night, went on a bit of a posting spree on Truth Social, his own social media website. And by “spree”, we’re not talking about him live tweeting the Grammies, or retweeting a few too many people praising him. He posted more than 160 times in the course of the evening. He’s going to need an extra layer of concealer today, because that bruise on his right thumb is going to be raging. Buried in the avalanche of nonsense, videos and reposts was a weird conspiracy theory about Michelle Obama being in charge of Joe Biden’s autopen for a few days, originally posted by the founder of Bed, Bath and Beyond. Many of the posts were shared twice. Another video, titled “MAKE CHRISTMAS GREAT AGAIN”, included Trump’s much maligned bit part in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. For a while he was posting at a rate of more than once a minute. Now, I’ve never been one to diagnose someone’s mental state based on their social media behaviour. I am, after all, not a medical professional. And I’ve been known to tweet quite a lot. But if I posted 160 times in one night, I’m pretty sure someone would carry out a wellness check on me.
Meanwhile in Trumpworld
- Second boat strike happened – but it wasn’t Hegseth’s order
- Also, firing on the burning wreckage of a boat was self defence
- MAGA influencers have a fun day cosplaying as Pentagon journalists
- There are several problems with Trump targeting Somali “migrants”
- Kash Patel accused of meltdown over FBI jacket
Here’s everything you need to know
1. Leavitt admits second strike on Venezuelan boat, but claims it was in self defence
Karoline Leavitt, at last night’s press briefing, confirmed the military conducted a second strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat that had two survivors clinging to the side of it. But she denied “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth had given an order to “kill everyone”, as had been reported – and would have constituted at best murder, and at worst a war crime. Admiral Frank M Bradley, who at the time was the Commander of Joint Special Operations Command, gave the order to launch the second deadly strike, Leavitt claimed, in “self-defence”, and it was targeting the boat, not the men clinging to it.
She said Admiral Bradley had “worked well within his authority and the law directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated.”
Quite how much of a threat the burning hull of a boat that had just suffered a direct hit from some pretty hefty American hardware, and was almost certainly 10km or more away from its destination posed to the United States is unclear.
2. It was probably still illegal, by the Navy’s own rulebook
A reporter noted that the Navy’s own manual of war specfically prohibits firing on survivors from a wrecked vessel, something the service would consider a war crime. Asked how the second strike was legal, Leavitt repeated: “The strike was conducted in international waters and in accordance with the law of armed conflict.” She also said Hegseth had met with members of congress who had expressed concerns about the strike in order to soothe their anxieties. She did not say if he was successful.
3. Trump releases “MRI results”
Trump released a letter from his Doctor saying not only was it totally normal that the President should have an MRI done as part of a routine checkup, but that it was one of the greatest MRIs ever undertaken by man or beast. His arteries are smooth and not at all pudgy. His heart chambers are all the right size (ruling out Grinch Syndrome). And all his organs are “well-perfused”, which is a word you almost never hear. Handsome too, no?
4. Two-tier fraud
At last night’s press briefing, Karoline Leavitt did her best to explain why Trump keeps having a pop at people of Somali heritage so often – particularly in the last few days.
“Somali immigrants have been ripping off American taxpayers. 86 people have been charged in a widespread fraud scheme spanning multiple programmes in Minnesota,” she said. “Of those 86, 78 of those people are Somali. 91% of them charged. So far 59 of those people have been convicted for their role in fraud plots that have stole $1bn from taxpayers.” All of which is true, and was detailed in a New York Times piece over the weekend.
Another person who committed a large amount of fraud was a guy called David Gentile. He used to be the CEO of GPB Capital, an investment firm, and was convicted in August of being behind a multi-year scheme to defraud more than 10,000 investors by misrepresenting the performance of private equity funds. The Justice Department, prosecuting the case, described it as a “Ponzi scheme” built on a “foundation of lies”, and said the company made $1.6 billion while using investors cash to pay dividends to other investors.
Gentile was convicted by a jury in August, and sentenced to seven years in prison for his crimes. Why bring this up now? Well, obviously because 12 days into his prison term, Donald Trump commuted the remainder of his sentence and set him free. Defending the decision at last night’s press briefing, Leavitt made many of the same arguments his defence made during the trial – chiefly that it wasn’t a Ponzi scheme, guv, and even if it was, that was made clear to investors when they bought in. These arguments didn’t convince the jury back in August, but apparently the President has decided they were wrong.
5. Leavitt keeps talking about crimes committed by “Somalian migrants.” There’s just one problem
Leavitt punctuated her attack on “Somalian migrants in Minnesota” last night with a declaration that “it is more important than ever to finish carrying out the president’s mass deportation operation.” She continued: “America cannot allow millions upon millions of illegal aliens to be rewarded with amnesty after they broke our nation’s laws to come here. They must go back to their home countries.”
Problem with that is that almost all of the 78 people of Somali heritage that Leavitt mentioned in her rant are American Citizens, either by birth or naturalisation. They are already in their home countries.
6. MAGA Influencers play in the Pentagon
Back in the 90s, Eureka!, the National Children’s Museum in Halifax had a working TV studio that kids could play in, pretending to read the news, present the weather, pretend they were anchoring Pebble Mill At One, or something like that. It was nice harmless fun, and gave kids an exciting taste of what it might really be like to have a job in journalism, maybe even inspiring them to pursue one.
Well, that’s basically what MAGA influencers have been doing the last couple of days, except that instead of children, they’re grown-ass adults, and instead of pretending to read the news at a museum, they’re literally sitting in the Pentagon cosplaying as journalists.
You’ll recall a few months ago, the entire Pentagon press corps walked out en masse, after “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth tried to get them to sign a contract promising they wouldn’t commit acts of journalism on the premises. Well, they’ve been replaced by (deep breaths) Trump whisperer Laura Loomer, Alex Jones’ Infowars, far-right blog Gateway Pundit, Epoch Times, a propaganda outlet owned and operated by a Chinese religious cult, and the streaming channel run by conspiracy theorist and pillow magnate Mike Lindell. And it seems like they got their passes through yesterday because they’ve all been posting pix of their new desks. Literally in the Pentagon.
Those principled members of the former Pentagon press corps should take heart in the fact that almost no journalist ever got a really good story from having a pass to a government building.
7. They all seem to have been assigned the same desk
As well as several of them posting videos from the Pentagon briefing room that were so overexcited they were basically grown men going “sqweeeeeeee Pete Hegseth”, at least three different influencers tweeted that they’d staked a claim to the desk formerly occupied by Dan Lamothe, a staff writer for the Washington Post. Another one had a beer on the go.
8. The White House has made a journalist s**t list, it immediately became a badge of honour
Speaking of journalism, the White House has made a whole new section of its website to “call out” “fake news”, listing by name and outlet examples of reporting it thinks are unfair or inaccurate.
Quite apart from being a pretty good, if slightly delayed, aggregator of information about many of the most egregious actions taken by the Trump administration, being named on the list has immediately become a badge of honour for those covering the White House. Step aside, Pulitzer. Inclusion on this list is when you call mom and tell her you’ve finally made it.
9. Mike Kelly hits back
Mike Kelly, the former astronaut and fighter pilot who has been the target of attacks from Trump and Hegseth after he appeared in a video reminding troops they didn’t have to follow illegal orders, gave a stirring speech last night hitting back at his tormentors.
“I will not be intimidated by this President, I am not going to be silenced by this President, because I’ve given too much to this country to back down to this guy,” Kelly said. “In 1991 when Donald Trump was driving the Taj Mahal casino into bankruptcy, I was getting shot at over Iraq and Kuwait. In 2001 after Donald Trump said the collapse of the twin towers meant that he now owned the tallest skyscraper in manhattan, I was carrying flags honouring 9/11 victims into space on a rocket ship. In 2003, when Donald Trump was writing birthday greetings to the monster Jeffrey Epstein, I was the first on the scene to recover the bodies of my fellow astronauts, who died when the space shuttle Columbia exploded during reentry. In 2011 when Trump was hosting a reality show and peddling conspiracy theories about President Barack Obama, I was sitting next to my wife’s hospital bed as she recovered from a gunshot wound to the head.
“My point is this,I’ve been through a lot worse in service to my country. The President and Pete Hegseth are not going to silence me.”
10. Kash Patel is very precious
There was a downright hilarious report overnight about Kash Patel’s behaviour on arrival in Utah following the murder of Charlie Kirk. According to a leaked report, purportedly put together for Congress committee members by former and current FBI agents, he refused to leave the plane without wearing an FBI raid jacket.
Since he did not have his with him at the time, FBI agents who were busy working in the aftermath of the shooting had to “stop and ask around to find an FBI raid jacket – a medium sized one – that would fit” Patel. Apparently there were “many large and extra-large FBI raid jackets available”, but none in his size. Finally they found one that would fit, which belonged to a female agent. It was delivered to him on the plane, but he noticed two areas on the upper sleeves that did not have Velcro patches attached…and he refused to leave the plane until he had two patches to cover those areas. According to claims in the report, which have not been corroborated, SWAT team members took off their patches and ran them over to Patel at the airport, at which point he felt dressed up enough to leave the plane. Sure enough, if you look at photos from the day, he was wearing a remarkably ill-fitting jacket, with a Salt Lake City FBI swat patch on the shoulder – a very odd thing for the Director to be wearing. Still, Patel is in good company. One wag on Twitter pointed out the storied history of male FBI directors wearing women’s clothing.
