Trump’s recent comments at rallies and interviews should give all Americans concern about his stability as he faces four criminal trials with 91 indictment counts. The pressure of a presidential campaign while being the defendant in four criminal cases gives concern about statements he makes and whether he has the mental stamina and clearheaded demeanor to again be president and commander in chief.
So let’s look at the recent record.
This weekend at a rally in Dayton, Ohio, Trump was talking about the competition in the electric vehicle market from China, where Tesla is second but BYD, a Chinese company, has become the world leader in sales of EV cars, even building its own ship to transport its EV cars around the world. So Trump says that if he is elected he would impose a 100% tariff on Chinese EV cars, and he claims Chinese companies are building massive assembly plants in Mexico for sale of EV cars in the U.S. He then said that Biden would not impose any tariffs, even though Biden continued the Trump tariffs on various Chinese products in place, and unless he were president, the auto companies would suffer a bloodbath.
But then his mind wandered, and he followed saying that unless he were elected president, the whole country would suffer a bloodbath. That is a rather outrageous statement by a major party candidate, and it is another Trump threat against the people of the United States. After his fomenting the January 6 insurrection, there can be no doubt that Trump would mobilize his cult to cause a bloodbath.
Shifting to immigration, Trump said that some of the people coming across the southern border were not human but were animals.
Trump repeated his claim that the in-migration of people would harm the blood of the U.S., a paraphrase of statements made by Hitler.
As the New York Times reported:
Former President Donald J. Trump, at an event on Saturday ostensibly meant to boost his preferred candidate in Ohio’s Republican Senate primary race, gave a freewheeling speech in which he used dehumanizing language to describe immigrants, maintained a steady stream of insults and vulgarities and predicted that the United States would never have another election if he did not win in November.
What did that last statement mean when he said if he did not win we would never have another election? That seems to be a threat that he will tear down our democracy. Trump’s threat is treason. Here is a man running for president who threatens our very democracy.
Trump started his Dayton rally by hugging and kissing the U.S. flag, and then he had the audience stand in honor of the hundreds of January 6 insurrectionists and rioters who are now justly convicted of crime and serving time in prison. This was his prelude to playing an altered version of the Star Spangled Banner.
The Republicans used to call themselves the party of law and order, but now their presidential candidate threatens our government and democracy and pays tribute to his incarcerated criminals who responded to his call to attack the Capitol on January 6.
Videos of Trump’s Dayton performance shows him slurring his words. Since he claims not to drink alcohol, what was the cause of the word slurring? Is there some Trump mental defect appearing before our eyes and ears?
Trump put members of NATO on edge with his statement that if NATO countries did not adopt military-defense budgets in amounts Trump thought acceptable, Putin could do whatever he wants to them. Trump is using Putin as his mafia enforcer to bend NATO countries to Trump’s will. Trump ignores the Section 5 obligation of all NATO countries to defend each other, and he does not recollect that the only time Section 5 was invoked was when the U.S. was attacked on 9/11 and NATO came to our aid.
Then there are Trump’s insults to judges, prosecuting attorneys and court staffs in his various criminal trials. Trump thinks he is smart, but his constant attacks on Judge Engoron and law clerk, which most lawyers would convince their clients is foolish and detrimental behavior, helped result in a judgment against Trump of $355 million and increased to $455 million with accrued interest. Now Trump, after posting a $91 million bond from Chubb on the defamation judgments won by E. Jean Carroll, is going to have a much harder time finding an insurer or security to provide the $455 million bond he needs to appeal the NY fraud judgment.
Trump’s attacks on judges are reckless and stupid, and he pays the price for his lunacy and acting out in front of judges who hold his finances and property in their hands. Most parties in court proceedings know to be respectful of the judge, but not Trump, who thinks he can run his mouth without consequence. Well, what happens when he cannot raise the $455 million to bond the NY fraud judgment? NY Attorney General James has promised immediate execution on the judgment and selling his property to pay it. So smart is Trump.
And then there are the poor fools who contribute to his political PACs thinking Trump will use the money to advance his candidacy, but instead he uses the money to pay his legal fees from his various prosecutions and civil trials. A little bait and switch routine here.
Then there is the issue of cutting Social Security and Medicare: the political third rail, as Paul Ryan can attest. But Trump walked himself right back into the mine field, as reported by Politico:
“I’m not going to cut Social Security like every other Republican and I’m not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid,” Trump said in Iowa in 2015.
But now, thanks to an unforced error, Trump has effectively opened the 2024 general election campaign with a return to the third rail he sought to abandon almost a decade ago. Asked in a CNBC interview Monday whether he’d changed his outlook on how to handle entitlements, Trump argued in a word salad-heavy answer that “there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting and also the theft and the bad management of entitlements.”
How does one decipher Trump’s word salad? Is this the commentary of someone seeking the presidency who often uses word salad responses to obfuscate, particularly when he has backed himself intro a corner?
Then there is the TikTok flip. During his presidency Trump sought a ban on the Chinese app TikTok, owned by the Chinese firm Byte Dance, due to national security concerns that China would use data obtained through TikTok to harm our national security. Then a bipartisan bill passed the House to force Byte Dance to sell TikTok in 6 months or it would be banned in the U.S. But Trump had a meeting with a Republican mega donor, Jeff Yass, and Trump then did the TikTok flip, saying that he did not support the bill to force a sale of TikTok. What caused the Trump change of view? Was it the potential of a major campaign contribution, aka a PAC contribution, by Yass to the Trump campaign? Does this show Trump can be bought and sold?
Still unanswered is the question whether he sold or bartered any of the national security documents he stored at Mar-a-Lago to foreign interests. One has to wonder at his fascination in keeping what he knew where classified documents that he did not want to relinquish. Knowing Trump, there is a possibility he monetized the documents by selling copies to foreign governments or individuals. Jack Smith, the Special Counsel, has not charged him with document sales, but did he investigate to learn if any were sold?
So there is our 45th president now seeking another term, but many Americans have grave concerns about Trump’s behavior and speeches including those containing overt threats.
Many hoped the criminal trials would result in verdicts before the election, but the delays caused by the Supreme Court in the presidential immunity case, Judge Cannon in Florida on the national security documents case, Fani Willis’ entanglements harming the Georgia case, and the SDNY U.S. Attorney delay in producing documents until the eve of trial on the hush money case, leading to a delay in the start of the trial, have all delayed the four criminal cases making jury verdicts before the election difficult to forecast.
As some have said it is up to the voters to decide Trump’s fate, not the courts, but perhaps a deus ex machina will come down and save us. But I doubt it.