Category: News

Donald Trump doesn’t seem to have a good grasp of basic economics (see his lack of understand that tariffs raise prices or a about million other things), but he does feel that he should be able to dictate how the economy works to an incredible and concerning degree. That now includes the stock market. During a keynote address at luncheon for CEOS at Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference he said this:

But, you know, in the old days, when you announce good news, the stock market went up. You announce good news, the stock market would go up. Now, when you announce good news, the stock market goes down because think people say, “Oh, that’s terrible. You’re doing well. That’s terrible. Interest rates will go up.” So, they think because of that, interest rates will go up. It goes down. It’s inverse of what it should be. We’re going to go back to the way it used to be. When we announce good news, the stock markets are going to go up. And that’s the way it should be. And we’re going to really ride that very hard. And when we announce good news, we’re not going to have a Fed that’s going to raise interest rates because they’re worried about inflation in three years from now or something. When we announce good news, we want the stock market to go up, not to go down.

Among the issue with that, is that the economy has gone up this year, which would mean that there is continued bad news. Another issue is how exactly would you force the stock market to move in the direction you want in response to news.

The most reasonable interpretation of what he is suggesting is that he is going to force the Federal Reserve to not raise interest rates when that is warranted. So news that would prompt people to assume rates to go up, wouldn’t cause that for at time. (With harmful inflation likely to follow.) A less reasonable interpenetration would be that he wants to take action against stock market exchanges or investors.

On October 22, Donald Trump screamed on Truth Social, “BRING IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, AND BRING THEM IN NOW!!!” That was part of a post were he also stated “14 people were shot over the weekend in Chicago, four DEAD!” Surprising for him, those stats were accurate. In contrast, Donald Trump has continued to be silent on the shootings and homicides in Washington DC during his takeover of the DC police and during his continued deployment of National Guard. That silence is contrasted in turn by his claims just yesterday that DC is “as safe as there is anywhere in the country” and “[t]he crime is down to almost nothing.” He also claimed that ” crime is down to almost nothing and that only “took literally 12 days.”

The same weekend that four people were shot to death in Chicago, one person was shot to death in DC. As of the last census Chicago had four times the population of DC (Chicago’s population in 2020 was 2,746,388 and DC’s 689,545). So that was the same rate of those being killed. This weekend 12 people were shot in DC, including a five-year-old (at least one of the victims has died). That is the equivalent of 48 in Chicago. As noted before, Donald Trump not only has been silent on that, but has publicly claimed that DC is safe since then.

Reporters covering Donald Trump haven’t asked him about any of that. The only national outlet that appears to have covered the shootings online, Fox News, only mentioned Trump in this context:

The carnage comes as President Donald Trump has continued to deploy the National Guard throughout the city in an effort to curb instances of violent crime plaguing residents throughout the nation’s capital.

There was no mention of any of his many recent claims about the supposed safety of DC.

The press’ continued ignoring of the poor results of his crackdown on crime in DC is putting a lot of people at risk, as he is using the imaginary success as impetus to possibly place military forces in cities across the country.

Last week Donald Trump claimed that no one was coming across the border illegally:

Our border is secure, totally secure. We had nobody, zero, nobody in the last four months coming through illegally, which is actually hard to believe because they give me those numbers, but essentially, it would be just about nobody. They actually say zero. That’s actually hard to believe because when you had millions pouring across a year and a half ago, two years ago. But actually, we have it down to practically nobody.

This is a claim that he has been making for months, sometimes claiming that it must be true because there are “very liberal people that do the recordings.”

An obvious question is how would you know that someone crossed illegally, but you didn’t stop them from doing that? The explanation is that the number is actually the number of people the Border Patrol encountered at the border who were being released in to the US on parole.

There continue to be people being apprehended at the border. It is unclear how many people are illegally crossing the border, but the number Donald Trump is citing isn’t that. Does he not understand that? Who knows. Does he think the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency, which puts out the number, employs very liberal people? Probably not.

Last month, Donald Trump filed a Federal lawsuit against the New York Times, four of their reporters, and the publisher Penguin Random House. Four days later, a judge threw the suit out over violating a rule on what legal filing should involve. The suit was refiled nearly a month later, with one of the reporters, Michael S. Schmidt, no longer a defendant. The amended complaint also highlights Donald Trump’s sad acting career in trying to show that he was a successful entertainer before appearing on the Apprentice.

His lawyers highlighted a quote about his extreme willingness to make cameo appearances:

“He always played himself and so that was how powerful his brand was . . . Anytime you have a sitcom that needs that stock character, Trump was not only somebody that comes to mind but somebody that’s super willing to do it.” Rebecca Sun, Hollywood Reporter, cited in Inside Edition (May 12, 2016), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbdrr9w4e80 (last visited Oct. 16, 2025).

The cited video doesn’t help their case. At one point in that the narrator says “there [Donald Trump] is with Bo Derek in a movie very few people saw.” And they follow that up by mentioning that “Trump actually won an award, unfortunately it was a Razzie for the year’s worst supporting actor.”

They follow up that with this:

Wrote another commentator: “But politics aside, Trump was famous
for decades prior to entering the political fray, beginning in the 1980s, when he first became a prominent figure as a New York City real estate tycoon.” Michael Kennedy, ScreenRant, Ghosts Can’t Do It: Donald Trump Once Starred in a Supernatural Sex Comedy (April 23, 2020), https://screenrant.com/ghosts-cant-do-it-movie-donald-trump-appearance/ (last visited Oct. 16, 2025).

The cited story is about Donald Trump’s Razzie winning role. The end of the story references the “award”:

He even won a Razzie for his performance, and as was noted then, the worst Razzie is the one someone gets for playing themselves. Whether one loves Trump or hates him, he’s certainly a charismatic presence, but an actor he isn’t.

Later in the filing they choose highlight some of his roles:

Illustrative, non-exhaustive, and publicly available examples of the consistent demand for President Trump in popular culture—before The Apprentice— include: Ghosts Can’t Do It (1989) (playing himself in scenes with Bo Derek); Home Alone 2 (1992) (playing himself in a cameo with Macaulay Culkin); The Fresh Prince of Bel Air (1994) (playing himself in a scene with Will Smith and other cast members); The Little Rascals (1994) (playing the father of one of the characters); The Nanny (1996) (playing himself in a scene with Fran Drescher); The Drew Carey Show (1997) (playing himself in a sketch with Drew Carey); NightMan (1997) (playing a Marvel comics superhero version of himself); Spin City (1998) (playing himself in a scene with famed actor Michael J. Fox); Celebrity (1998) (playing himself in Woody Allen’s comedy); Sex In The City (1998) (playing himself in a scene with Kim Cattrall); Zoolander (2001) (playing himself in opening scene cameo of Ben Stiller’s comedy); Two Weeks Notice (2002) (playing himself in a scene with Hugh Grant); and The Ali G Show (2003)17 (interviewed by Sasha Baron Cohen).

What seems like the most embarrassing example to highlight is his appearance on NightMan. A syndicated superhero TV show that aired for two years. His lawyers described that as him “playing a Marvel comics superhero version of himself.” That is sort of accurate, as the show was based on a comic book character from Malibu Comics and Marvel Comics had acquire Malibu Comics several years before the show. (You can watch his appearance on the show on Tubi, it starts 16 minutes in to the episode.)

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) frequently criticizes the press on their X account. The criticism often involves them declaring “fake news” and then not actually disputing the story they are criticizing. Their criticism also suggests a lack of understanding of the difference between straight news coverage and propaganda. That probably isn’t surprising when you look at what is put out by the conservative press.

Yesterday, they went after CBS News. Questioning if they “[care] about innocent people” and saying that they are “covering for violent criminals.” That came in response to a story about Atlanta area pastors who “fear of ICE raids [are] keeping some congregants away from church.” It’s unclear how the story was “covering for violent criminals.” DHS did claim that they are “PROTECTING innocent people in our churches by preventing criminal illegal aliens and gang members from exploiting these places of worship.” It’s also unclear how gang members would harm other people also going to church.

What makes the criticism notable is that CBS is under new Trump friendly ownership, which brought in to CBS News a new leader, Bari Weiss.

In June, Donald Trump had his much derided and ridiculed military parade in Washington, DC. That occurred on Donald Trump’s birthday. That was also officially the 250th anniversary celebration for the US Army. Earlier this month the Navy had their 250th anniversary celebration in Norfolk, VA, which Donald Trump also attended. This weekend the Marines had their own 250th anniversary celebration at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in Southern California. Donald Trump didn’t attend that.

There appears to be have been no coverage of his absence at the Marines event and reporters so far have not asked him about his absence in public appearance. So it’s unclear why he didn’t attend. But we do what he was doing instead. He spent the weekend at Mar-a-Lago and played golf at Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach on both Saturday and Sunday. The White House declined to say who played golf with.

The Marines got the consolation prize of JD Vance’s attendance.

The now Bari Weiss-led CBS News posted on X on Tuesday that “President Trump announced the Pentagon is ordering 28 new B-2 stealth bombers.” There were numerous replies saying that they were wrong and that they were confusing the B-2 with the new B-21. Their post was based on something Donald Trump said the day before:

the United States military flew seven of those beautiful B2 bombers. They look so beautiful all of a sudden. They were always I thought they were pretty planes. I had no idea they could do what they did. In fact, we just ordered 28 more of them. A little update, a little updated version. We ordered a whole pile of them.

You could read that as referring to the B-21, but the day after their post Trump said “we just ordered about 20 brand new B-2 bombers.”

Production of the B-2 ended in the year 2000, which would make it difficult and expensive to build more. It’s also is unclear what the purpose of building more B-2s would be when the B-21 is being produced.

We reached out to the Pentagon earlier today about this. We haven’t received a response, but we will update the post if we receive one.

In response to new restrictions placed on reporters at the Pentagon, most of the Pentagon press corp turned in their badges and left the building last week. The outlets left are several right wing outlets and a smattering of foreign outfits. One aspect that seems to have been missed by even many in the news media, is that one basic element of the Pentagon press operation hasn’t been happening even before this. The Bulwark’s Tim Miller commented last week, “Imagine if you’re the Journal Korea blogger now who just gets the first question every day at the at the briefing.” So he was assuming there was a daily briefing going on. It isn’t a crazy idea, but it isn’t close to true.

In reality, there have only been two press briefings done by the Pentagon’s spokesperson Sean Parnell. That Sean Parnell isn’t the former Governor of Alaska, but another politician who got out of a Senate race because of domestic abuse allegations. He held his first press conference in March and a second in July.

A search on Sean Parnell’s name on the Department’s YouTube account only brings up three more appearances. Two of those involved students visiting the Pentagon. The final one is from a “weekly” video series that only has one video posted on YouTube (there have been more videos, but they haven’t been posted to YouTube for some reason).

As Congressional Democrats continue to put forward a clear message on the shutdown, the same can’t be said about the Trump administration and Congressional Republicans. They seem to be unable to come up with coherent strategy. The problem starts at the top where Donald Trump didn’t even realize he needed Democratic votes in the Senate.

In the last week the White House released a video featuring “everyday Americans” who all happened to be white telling Sen. Schumer he should end the shutdown. Three of the eight people featured were farmers, who realized they need the government now. Why Sen. Schumer would be swayed by that is hard to fathom.

Another move in the last week by the Trump administration has been for various government agencies to join Bluesky. That hardly seems like “essential” work during a government shutdown. It also hasn’t shown them to be really competent. Yesterday the DHS posted this:

Dear Democrats, it’s really simple:

Close the border.

Open the government.

So apparently Donald Trump has left the border “open” and that is bad, but Democrats have to close it somehow. It’s unclear how they would do that, despite the DHS saying it is simple.

On September 23, amid the United Nations General Assembly, Donald Trump posted on Truth Social, “I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form.” This was dubbed a u-turn from his previous position by various news outlets. Based on past history it was likely more of him agreeing with the last people he met with and he likely would be back behind Putin soon. And he was.

Yesterday, after belatedly meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, he posted on Truth Social, “They should stop where they are.” He later spoke with reporters after arriving in Florida for the weekend and said this:

they should stop the war immediately. You go by the battle line wherever it is. Otherwise, it’s too complicated. You’ll never be able to figure it out. You stop at the battle line and both sides should go home, go to their families, stop the killing, and that should be it. Stop right now at the battle line. I told that to President Zelenskyy. I told it the President Putin.

Considering that before Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014, there was a clear border, the least complicated thing would be for Russia to go back home and leave Ukrainian territory.