Dear Everybody:
Yesterday I thought Trump had hit bottom with his totally made-up story about being at Ground Zero after 9-11, bravely digging through the rubble to rescue people and having to be carried out against his will by two firefighters from an about-to-collapse building, but I was wrong. At a speech for families of the people killed on 9/11, he went even lower:
–This story needs a little background: One of the heroes of 9-11 was a 24-year-old guy named Welles Crowther who was on one of the top floors of one of the buildings which was hit. He was an equity trader who always wore a red bandanna around his neck. He immediately called his mother to tell her he was okay, and then made his way to one of the floors that was on fire to help guide people out. He found a bunch of them, administered first aid and put out fires and then led the group, including carrying an injured woman on his back, through the smoke and flames to the only safe way out and took them down 17 floors to where they could get an elevator that was still working. Then he went back up again and led another group down, by this time wearing his red bandanna over his nose and mouth because of all the smoke. He then went back a third time–and this time he didn’t make it out. He is thought to have saved the lives of at least 18 people, and is one of the most-honored heroes of the event.
–Trump was supposed to give Crowther’s mother a posthumous Medal of Honor. This is what he said before he gave it: “Then suddenly a rescuer appeared. They call him the Man in the Red Bandanna. Have you heard that term? The Man in the Red Bandanna became more famous than me. I don’t like it. (Ha ha.) Very unhappy about it. He’s become much more famous than me.”
–Jim Acosta: “He made the joke about a deceased 9-11 hero while his family watched from the audience.”
–Jared Shult: “A 9-11 hero can’t even have the spotlight for 30 seconds.”
–Socrates 2023: “What a horrible human being. Denigrating a hero.”
–Covie: “And this is why they won’t let him speak at the 9-11 memorial service.”
–Jim Stewartson: “Trump’s inability to stop himself from making every moment about his superiority is a symptom of a dangerous combination of malignant narcissism and frontotemporal dementia. The psychopathology demands narcissistic fuel. The dementia removes all inhibition. There’s no filter.”
–Sarah Ironside: “He is a disgrace to humanity.”
–(When I heard this, I was absolutely livid about it, and still am. It seemed to me FAR WORSE than his story about digging people out of the rubble, though for some reason it hasn’t gotten any attention. But to crack a joke (or not really a joke) about someone who died so bravely, sacrificing himself to save other people’s lives, and just a kid, really when he should have been honoring him seemed to me one of the most loathsome things he’s ever done.)
As I say, his horrible joke about Welles Crowther didn’t get as much attention (and outrage) as his digging people out of the rubble story, but that story got a TON of outraged responses:
–Mrs. Betty Bowers: “There have been so many impeachable offenses, but lying about how you wee a hero on a day that 2,753 people died in New York City in the 9-11 disaster when you were on the other side of town, safely calling local media to brag about how you now had the tallest downtown building, is such a despicable one.”
–The Geogre: “Donald remembers how he faced a hail of Japanese bullets but insisted on pushing up that flag on Iwo Jima.”
–Ron Filipkowski: “This is an absolutely insane lie. His whole story is a lie. I know he’s lied before about his non-role in 9-11 rescue/recovery before, but never this level of detail. Just total fantasy. Utterly disgraceful. Next he will claim he won the Medal of Honor.”
–Heather Delaney Reese: “Every year his stories get bigger and more grandiose. Every year he gets closer to rubble, works harder, stays longer, and of course saves more people.”
–Meesh: “During his speech today, Donald Trump recounted helping save Titanic victims.”
–George Conway: “More evidence that the President of the United States is psychotic. He’s been called out on this lie for many years. Once upon a time he knew he was bullshitting. But he has convinced himself of it now, as he has with all of the other fantasies in which he today soothes his fragile ego.”
The response was so bad that Republicans had to take to the airways to try to defend Trump’s story:
–Ted Cruz said, “September 11 was 25 years ago. Trump might not remember because it was so long ago, and it was a horrific event.”
–(Note: I can tell you exactly where I was and what I was doing that day. So can pretty much everybody else in this country, so no. Not an excuse.)
–Aaron Rupar: “Ted Cruz defends Trump lying about his response to 9-11 by suggesting he might not remember because it was so long ago.”
–E.B. Estes: “Funny, I remember every moment of that day.”
–Jeff Domingues: “Not remembering is far different than inventing something that didn’t happen.”
–Cruz also said Trump was sharing his feelings, “and when you’re sharing your feelings, your sentiments…”
–coloneltompeeping: “All Ted is saying is that 9-11 was a very traumatic event for the nation, so Donald Trump should be allowed to lie about it.”
–Adam Parkhomenko: “The White House is doubling down on Trump’s lies about September eleventh.”
–The White House: “The President was relaying his experience of a city reeling immediately after and in the days and weeks after the horrific attacks. The fact that the failing legacy media is using this to try to attack him is a disgrace…”
–And the New York Times wimped out and described them as “disputed claims.” (There is absolutely NO DISPUTE. He made the story up out of whole cloth.)
And Trump?
–He’s defending it by doubling down, accusing Democrats of showing deceptive clips and being Fake News .
–Trump: “Everything I said was exactly accurate.”
–Trump then posted a LONG screed repeating his lies and making all kinds of accusations against the press and particularly Maggie Haberman. No surprise there, but then he posted it again–the same screed–and again, and again. I counted six times in all.
–Here’s part of it: “The Failing New York Magazine wrote a story that I wasn’t down at the World Trade Center after the Tragedy of September 11th because nobody saw me there…I was there.”
–If you have the stomach for reading the whole thing, here it is:
In Trump dementia/madness news:
–In between endlessly repeated defenses of his made-up 9-11 story (I counted six),Trump continued to post deranged posts, including a photo of George Washington sitting in the Oval Office with Trump, JD Vance, and the rest of the cabinet.
–Amanda Marcotte on his posts: “It’s hard to imagine who all this is for, except himself. It suggests Trump (isn’t) able to cope with reality, and so he is instead burrowing himself into childish fantasies as an escape. –Trump’s hair today was somewhere between the awful brown of this weekend and his blonde hair, and it looked VERY thin and disheveled.
–Elizabeth Grey has a theory about Trump’s dyeing his hair brown. In all seriousness, she thinks it might prove to be Trump’s downfall. Grey: “If you haven’t seen his new hair color, gird your loins. It is an epic failure and has cheered me immensely. The new brown hair may bring him down for good…For Howard Dean, it was screaming into a mike. For George Bush, it was ‘Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.’ For Donald Trump, it’s Clairol’s Bad Brown.”
–Her argument is that even though Trump has always been totally vain about his looks–the piled up gold-colored hair, the makeup, the blue suits, the long red ties–he is now showing signs that he’s so frightened he doesn’t think it’s enough to save him and is trying to save it in the hopes that a new look will bring people back to him.
–Grey: “The more nervous he is, the closer he gets to the midterms, the weirder the hair gets.” First there was the obviously gold toupee, where he had tons more hair than the day before. That only lasted a day. Then he announced, “I don’t wear a wig,” and now his hair is brown. Grey: “All this hair business makes him look as ridiculous as he is, because with what’s going on in the Strait of Hormuz, with our economy, and the endless list of problems facing our nation, he’s worried about his appearance. So worried, he’s changing it. Dude, you’re trying too hard and it shows. It makes you look weak, and voters will notice.”
–Anonymous: “This is the kind of look a certain demographic tries on before escaping to Argentina.”
–Trump’s niece Mary and others have pointed out that when Trump’s father was in the late stages of dementia, he started dying his hair brown and his mustache shoe polish brown. That makes this move even more ominous.
Tonight’s the night Trump’s midterm convention, the Trumpapalooza, starts:
–The lineup of speakers is a true rogue’s gallery: Trump, JD Vance, Todd Blanch, RFK, Jr., Dr. Oz, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner, Karoline Leavitt, and Don, Jr. (Note: All of these members of Trump’s cabinet will be violating the Hatch Act by speaking at a political event, and Todd Blanche should be prosecuting them, but of course he’s speaking, too.)
–Senators Susan Collins and Senator Dan Sullivan are not attending. Neither are former senators (and current candidates) John Sununu and Mike Rounds. At this point, 45 of the 70 are definitely not going, and many more say they’re undecided.
–Amanda Marcotte: “In the past, most Republicans would have complied, ponying up both the money and time to placate the narcissist-in-chief, even though midterm conventions have never been a thing for the GOP and likely won’t be after Trump is gone. This year, though, a whole lot of candidates have discovered a sudden need to wash their hair.”
–GOP Rep Jimmy Patronis: “Dozens of Republican colleagues are skipping because they’re in their districts attending ‘parades.’”
–The administration originally priced tickets for attending the convention at $25,000, including for candidates and their families, but they’re now apparently really worried about filling up the 20,000 person arena, so they have been frantically trying to give out tickets.
–They’ve started a lottery for people to win free tickets and are giving out blocks of tickets to political operatives to distribute. (They all, however, come with a proviso that if the arena fills up, their free tickets won’t get them in.)
–The original prices for attendance were $25,000 for tickets for House Republicans, $100,000 for the VIP package, $250,000 to attend a roundtable with Trump, $88,600 to get a photo with Trump, $75,000 for a roundtable with VP JD Vance, and $35,000 for a photo with Vance. (I would LOVE to know how many takers they’ve had for any of those.)
–They are now announcing Surprise Guests! Who are they? Lara Trump, Michael Whatley, and Hulk Hogan.
–Daily Kos says they’re expecting “both a shit show and a major debacle.”
–GOP Senator Rick Scott was asked what his message will be at the Trumpapalooza, and he said, “We’re gonna do what Trump is doing.”
–Trump: “Everybody wants to be there, but we’re really asking only those candidates that are in tight Races, a little up, a little down, or even, to speak. We want to save the stage for them.”
–Trump: “Totally sold out!”
–(Note: I’ll have lots more coverage of the Trumpapalooza tomorrow, but for now, this quote from a Republican lobbyist will have to suffice: “The vibes are very bad. Democrats are salivating.”)
And here are a couple more possibly related stories:
–Today when Trump flew to the convention, his flight was delayed at Joint Base Andrews after the emergency rescue slide deployed on Trump’s new Qatari-gifted plane. They said it was an accident, but didn’t say what had caused the deployment, and they just rolled it up and took it away, which means the plane was then without an emergency slide.
–Trump was asked by a reporter whether he was sure the plane was safe to fly, and Trump said, “Yeah, I am, or I wouldn’t be on it.” He then said it wasn’t an accident, that they were just testing the slide as part of an inspection.
–And there was an incident earlier in the weekend as Trump arrived on his helicopter Marine One at the airport. Something went wrong as he got off at Bedminster. There was some sort of altercation with the pilot. You could see Trump inside yelling at someone and gesticulating at them. Then when he got off the helicopter, his jacket was unbuttoned, he looked disheveled, and he did not salute the Marine at the bottom of the steps. (When Obama failed to salute a Marine one time, the Republicans practically wanted to impeach him.)
Meanwhile, in economic news:
–Oil surged past $100 dollars a gallon and kept rising, all the way to $101.17 as I posted this.
–Diesel is getting close to $6.00 a gallon, a record high. (The reason for both of these is that the Iran war is escalating on multiple fronts.
–There’s a looming global ship fuel shortage.
–GOP Rep Van Orden–“Listen, the average American has been browbeaten into thinking that things are so much worse than they were under the Biden administration. That’s just a lie. Eggs were $9 a dozen. I went to Walmart the other day, it was a buck fifty.” (Note: Both of those numbers are lies.)
To calm you down (if you’re as mad as I am), here’s a lovely painting by Rob Gonsalves called “The Sun Sets Sail:”
And to put things in perspective, NASA released this gallery of galaxies. The photos were taken by NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Telescope and other telescopes:
In other news:
–30,000 pounds of Argentinian beef are being recalled after entering US commerce without the required federal inspections.
–Trump signed an executive order allowing ranchers to kill wolves, even though they’re on the endangered species list and killing them is illegal.
In other news:
–75% of Americans believe President Trump should be impeached, tried, and imprisoned.
–Trump has refused to hang President Obama’s official White House portrait.
–EPLURIBUS NUM18: “it is the first time in history that a sitting president has been so petty.”
In good news:
–Costco is teaming up with nonprofit insurance provider SCAN Health Plan to streamline healthcare for older adults.
–Hawaii just canceled $91 million dollars in medical debt for the residents of its state. A nonprofit will buy up debt for pennies on the dollar and then cancel it.
–More than 270,000 square miles around Easter Island has been made into an indigenous-managed ocean reserve, among the largest indigenous reserves anywhere in the world.
Best accidentally true slip of the tongue of the day, from Ted Cruz, talking about Trump’s made-up story about digging people out of the rubble of the World Trade Center: “I have every doubt that what he’s conveying there is what he experienced.”
Best comment of the day, from Amanda Marcotte: “Make-believe can only get one so far when the real world keeps intruding. Maintaining Trump’s bubble of flattery already looks like an exhausting task for his handlers. Their misery is only going to get worse.”
Keep calm and carry on,
Connie Willis
