Trump upgrades his con to Category 5

 

  DANA MILBANK

Humans do not “control the weather,” as
Marjorie Taylor Greene believes, but they do
control their campaign schedules. So it was
a choice that Donald Trump made to be
holding a rally here Wednesday night at exactly the
moment Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida.
The timing was appropriate, in a sense, for the
former president, too, was unleashing a destructive
storm — on his supporters. He flooded them with a
13-foot tidal surge of BS He recorded wind gusts well
over 160 lies per hour. And he rained on them a
torrent of gibberish.
He absurdly alleged that after Hurricane Helene,
the previous storm, Vice President Kamala Harris
“didn’t send anything or anyone at all … as men,
women and children drowned,” and he claimed that
the Biden administration confiscated relief supplies
others tried to send. Trump aide Stephen Miller drew
a roar of approval from the crowd when he suggested
the reason for this fictitious nonresponse was that
the Federal Emergency Management Agency prioritizes
“illegal aliens” over U.S. citizens.
Trump falsely claimed that there are “over
13,000 illegal alien convicted murderers roaming
free in our country … that were released from jail
from all over the world,” particularly in the Democratic
Republic of Congo. Illegal immigrants, he said,
“have equipment that our military doesn’t have” and
are “taking over apartment buildings” in Colorado.
It’s all part of a “mass migrant invasion of murderers
and child predators and gang members, terrorists,
drug dealers and thugs.” He told the audience that if
“this crazy, incompetent” Harris wins, “this same
group is going to meet in Caracas, Venezuela, because
it’ll be much safer than your particular state.”
He proposed the ludicrous idea that public schools
are changing children’s genders. “Your child goes to
school, and they take your child. It was a ‘he’ and
comes back as a ‘she.’ And they do this, and they do it,
and often without parental consent.”
The unrelenting downpour of fabrications posed a
catastrophic threat to one’s sanity — and yet, Trump’s
storm was also completely unorganized.
He invited the state’s Republican Senate nominee,
David McCormick, to the stage by saying, “Come here
for, like, two seconds, because nobody wants to hear
you right now. … But we’ve got to get this guy into
office.”
“I’ll be quick,” the candidate assured Trump.
Trump repeated himself often. Around 8 p.m.,
Trump announced, falsely, that “I’m the only president
in 78 years that didn’t start a war.” Twenty-seven
minutes later, he repeated himself: “I’m proud to be
the first president in decades who started no new
wars.” Four minutes more elapsed, and he did it
again: “I had no wars. I had no anything. We had no
terrorists. We had no terror attacks.” (He had all of the
above.)
One moment, he was complaining about Whoopi
Goldberg: “Her mouth was so foul.” Two minutes
later, he was opining: “Women are going to like
Trump. I think they like me anyway. I think it’s all
bullsh--.” He falsely claimed the mayor of Moscow’s
wife paid Hunter Biden $3.5 million, and he called
Democrats “cheating dogs” who will try to steal the
election.
He informed his supporters that he could be on a
beach, with the “sun beaming down on this beautiful
body in a bathing suit.” And, of course, he boasted
about his crowd size at his “beautiful” rallies: “We
never have an empty seat — never have.”
As he spoke these words, the back quarter of the
7,200-seat arena was mostly empty. Hundreds more
trickled out before he finished the 80-minute speech.
It was typical of Trump’s recent speeches, which
have become darker, less coherent and almost entirely
fictitious. Peter Baker and several New York Times
colleagues published a computer analysis showing
that Trump’s rally speeches have gotten longer and
show attributes that “some experts consider a sign of
advancing age,” can be an “indicator of cognitive
change” and “could reflect what experts call disinhibition.”
The effect on his supporters is noticeable after so
many dark and stormy performances. Trump rallies
used to resemble reunions, where supporters would
sport the latest MAGA merchandise in a festive
atmosphere. But the messages on the T-shirts in
Reading were angry and dark — what might be called
assassination-chic:
“You missed, you f *ckers.”
“You missed. Nine lives, baby.”
“You missed — again.”
“If you come for the King, you best not miss.”
Everywhere (including on young children) were
“Fight, fight, fight” T-shirts with the image of a bloody
Trump raising his fist. Several others featured his
mug shot with the “never surrender” message. Newly
popular were T-shirts with images of Harris and the
words “Say no to the hoe,” and others with a rhyme:
“Roses are red/ Kamala’s not black/ Joe’s got demenformer

tia/And Hunter’s on crack.” Others echoed Trump’s
victimhood (“I’m voting for the felon,” “I’m voting for
the outlaw”), his conspiracy beliefs (“January 6th was
an inside job,” “Ready to beat them for a third time”)
and his vulgarity (“F--- your feelings”).
Before the rally, I wandered around the arena,
buttonholing attendees on their beliefs. I heard about
how murderers and rapists are pouring across the
open border. I heard about how the economy is in the
toilet and inflation is out of control. I heard about the
disastrous hurricane response. I heard about how
Harris is “dumb” and “incompetent.”
But I also heard something that made me feel that
these Trump supporters were victims of Trump’s
storm of deception rather than merely conduits.
More than one spoke of being confused: Was there
really fraud in the Pennsylvania election in 2020? Did
FEMA really divert hurricane relief funds to illegal
immigrants? Is the country really overrun by crime?
As a 61-year-old Reading resident who identified
himself as Tommy K. put it, “I don’t know what to
believe.”
In a sense, a number of Trump supporters are
stranded by his cyclone of disinformation. They
recognize that he says some outlandish things. But
they have also been persuaded not to trust the media
— not even Fox News — and so they are getting their
“news” from Rumble, Telegram and Facebook. “I’m
tired of all the lies. There’s so much disinformation
out there,” Janice Aruffo, in Trump T-shirt, sweatshirt
and cap, confided. “Everyone has their own truth. You
have your truth. I have mine. We all go by our
impression of the truth.”
In reality-based America, illegal border crossings
have plunged. Murders, rapes and other violent
crimes have fallen. Fentanyl overdose deaths are
declining sharply. Inflation has been tamed (September’s
consumer price index was up just 2.4 percent
from a year earlier), mortgage rates are falling,
employment is booming and the stock market has
been setting records. Fewer U.S. troops have died in
hostile action under the Biden administration than
under the Trump administration, and President Joe
Biden has been adding to the national debt at half the
pace Trump did. While Biden has rallied the world to
defend Ukraine against Russia’s invasion, Trump has
had as many as seven calls with Russian President
Vladimir Putin since leaving the White House, The
Post’s Bob Woodward reports in his new book.
But, in the alternate universe of Trump’s imagination,
13,099 “convicted illegal alien murderers are
now on the loose.” Trump proclaims that “some of
them had murdered 10 people” — and all were let in
during the Biden-Harris administration. (In fact,
most of these killers are now behind bars, and the
number reflects a time period of 40 years.) In Trump’s
telling, “You can’t walk across the street” in America
without getting shot, mugged or raped. In Trump’s
evidence-free fantasy, migrants are coming from
“insane asylums” and prisons. Kamala Harris has a
“phone app” that assists the heads of drug cartels. She
has opened the border and is trying to legalize
fentanyl. The Biden-Harris administration gave “almost
all of the FEMA money to Illegal Migrants.”
Those who lost everything in Hurricane Helene can
get no more than $750 from the government. They’re
eating the dogs! They’re eating the cats!
“He just makes it up,” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah)
said in an appearance at the University of Utah on
Tuesday. “And he is able to spew enough disinformation
that the Chinese must be smiling.”
Let’s review just a few recent days of Trump’s
output of Category 5 confusion.

Saturday

 
During a Trump rally in Butler, Pa., the scene of
July’s assassination attempt, billionaire and X owner
Elon Musk jumps up and down onstage, throwing his
arms in the air, his bare midriff exposed, then
pronounces himself to be “dark MAGA.” Musk later
tells Tucker Carlson in an interview: “Nobody’s even
bothering to try to kill Kamala because it’s pointless.”
“Totally,” Carlson agrees.
On the stage in Butler, Eric Trump says Democrats
tried to assassinate his father. (The would-be assassin
was a registered Republican with no identified political
motive.) “They tried to kill him,” Eric Trump says.
“And it’s because the Democratic Party, they can’t do
anything right.”
Trump himself says his opponents “have slandered
me, impeached me, indicted me, tried to throw
me off the ballot, and — who knows? — maybe even
tried to kill me.” He claims that Harris “vowed to
abolish” Immigration and Customs Enforcement
and that California “has banned any and all ID
requirements from voting and registering to vote.”
All nonsense.
After the rally, Trump talks with Fox News’s Laura
Ingraham about the July attempt on his life. He says
first responders examining him “probably realized
‘what a body this guy has.’ ”
Ingraham unsuccessfully tries to get Trump to
commit not to use the justice system for vengeance
against his opponents and critics. “A lot of people say
that’s what should happen, if you want to know the
truth,” Trump replies.

Sunday

 
Trump takes the stage in Juneau, Wis. He directs
aides to put up a photo of the “crowd we had last
night” in Butler, which he puts at 100,000 (other
estimates had it closer to 20,000). But the photo they
display is not the one he wanted. “They’re so stupid,”
he says of his staffers.
He rattles off fabrications so quickly there is little
time to absorb them: Among them, he proclaims that

German chancellor Angela Merkel “was
thrown out after about a year.” (She served for
16 years.)
Trump says he arranged for Musk to send “big
doses” of his satellite internet service, Starlink, to
North Carolina, even though “I don’t know what the
hell it is.” He says journalists “hate our country” and
Harris is a “dummy” who will “permanently erase”
borders and raise taxes “by 78 percent or something.”
He vows to take “the horrible people that we’re
allowing into our country,” and “shove ’em right
down their throat” of the countries they came from.
While he’s at it, he also complains that a fly is
bothering him, “a very aggressive sucker.”

Monday

 
On Hugh Hewitt’s radio show, Trump submits that
migrants are bringing inferior genes into the country.
Referring to the falsehood that the Biden-Harris
administration allowed 13,000 killers to enter the
country, he says: “You know now, a murderer, I
believe this, it’s in their genes. And we’ve got a lot of
bad genes in our country right now.”
He also purports that Harris is “a low IQ person —
she’s a stupid person” and he calls her “a front” for
“vicious communists and vicious fascists and Marxists
… the enemy from within.” He falsely claims to
have visited Gaza and he faults American Jews for
ingratitude even though “I did more for the Jewish
people than anybody.”
Trump also attends an event at his Miami golf club
marking the first anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023,
attack on Israel. He tells the audience he was “heading
into a hurricane” to be there and “I was watching
the airplane highways” and all the other planes were
heading the other way. (The storm was still 600 miles
away.)

Tuesday

 
Interviewed by Ben Shapiro, Trump says that both
Biden and Harris should be removed from office
under the 25th Amendment, but he draws a blank on
the line of succession: “Who’s third in line?”
In another interview, with radio host John Kobylt,
he keeps talking for 15 minutes after his aides said he
had to go. “You know what this is for me? Therapy,”
Trump says. “This is like some people go to a psychiatrist.
I don’t have time, so this is like my therapy.”

Wednesday

 
At a stop in Scranton, Pa., Trump expands on his
FEMA fabrications, saying the agency has “no money”
because “they gave the money to illegal immigrants
coming in, many of whom are killers.”
He gives the crowd his views on wind energy:
“Wind is bulls---.” He says people won’t be able to
watch TV when “the windmills aren’t wind.” The
creator of that perplexing comment also gives his
thoughts on Sunny Hostin, a host of ABC’s “The
View,” who interviewed Harris: “I’m sorry, women.
She’s a dummy.”
Trump plays a video mocking “the very woke
military that we have now.” It juxtaposes clips from
“Full Metal Jacket” with scenes of drag queens.
Next stop: Reading. One of the warm-up speakers
calls Harris a “ding-dong” and says Biden “inherited
the greatest economy ever.” (It had collapsed.) Another
speaks of “sky-high murders.” (They have declined
sharply in Pennsylvania.)
Then comes Trump. He says he wants to restore the
name of Fort Bragg, which honored a Confederate
general. He says that migrants are attacking “the
Black population jobs,” a twist on “Black jobs.” He
claims Harris “was an original creator of Defund the
Police.” He bemoans “the insane electric vehicle
mandate where everybody’s got to have an electric
car almost immediately.” He professes that Harris
“destroyed California” and now “wants to destroy the
United States.”

Thursday

 
Trump announces that he has uncovered “the
single biggest scandal in broadcast history” and calls
for CBS and all other networks to be stripped of their
broadcast licenses, which “should be bid out to the
highest bidder.” The cause of this extraordinary
threat to curtail the First Amendment? CBS’s “60
Minutes” apparently shortened one of Harris’s answers
during editing of her recent interview — a
common practice.

He then goes to Detroit and says at a meeting of
business executives that “your car industry is going
out of business” and that “our whole country will end
up being like Detroit if she’s your president.”
Detroit, like its car companies, is doing fine. But
that doesn’t matter to Trump. By the time people can
run down that fabrication, he’ll have invented an
entirely new one. 

WASHINGTON POST