Trump seems unbothered by the idea that Iran could attack a blue state that features metro areas teeming with immigrants, suggesting he doesn't rule the whole U.S., just parts he favors

Trump welcomes Natalie Harp to the stage (AP)

Americans who have been paying attention to current events over the past 20 months or so know that Donald Ttump, our president, is apt to say almost anything at any time. After Trump's campaign stop in Grand Island, Nebraska, on Monday night, we can take the word "almost" out of the equation. That is when Trump uttered the most abhorrent, depraved words to ever leave a president's mouth -- at least during the post-World War II media age. Trump suggested that a foreign adversary, Iran, could "take out" Los Angeles and San Diego -- two metropolitan areas that are home to almost 22 million people -- and he said it in a tone that suggested he would not be all that upset if such an event actually happened. In fact, he said it would be a "small price to pay to keep . . . our country safe."

A reasonable person might say, "Those are just the warped rantings of an 80-year-old man who has been showing signs for months that he is sliding into dementia." That statement probably describes part of what's going on. But I think something else is afoot, and it adds to the growing body of evidence that Trump is unfit to serve as president. Note that Trump picks out cities in California, a state that never has gone his way in an election. He also picks out cities with large immigrant populations; the population of metro Los Angeles consists of 33 percent immigrants, while the San Diego metro is made up of 23 percent immigrants. As a devout anti-immigrant politico, Trump would not see these numbers as favorable. As a believer in retribution, Trump likely sees significant chunks of the LA and San Diego pupulations as expendable.

It's doubtful Trump ever has given much thoughts to the duties of a president. I am probably among a massive group of Americanswho suspect Trump -- like many of his Republican brethren -- cannot govern and has no interest in even trying. His distaste for the work of government, I'm guessing, leads him to spend time on "vanity projects," such as the White House ballroom/military bunker, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and the Triumphal Arch (complete with sniper nests and ammunition depot.)

I don't think Trump realizes that his job entails serving all Americans, not just MAGA firebrands, and locked-in conservatives -- not just people who voted for him (even though many of those misguided souls now seem to regret it). He holds no interest for serving immigrants, so that probably is why the thought of a massive explosive that would decimate Southern California is not so horrifying to him. 

How did we get to a place where an American president would say out loud the words Trump spoke in Nebraska. A jointly published article at Daily Beast and Yahoo News! provides important background on that question, while showing that White House efforts to paint a more favorable version of what Trump was trying to say was merely an exercise in "defending the indefensible." Under the headline "White House melts down over Trump's bonkers war talk," Martha McHardy writes:

The White House has scrambled to defend Donald Trump after the president casually offered up Los Angeles and San Diego for Iran to "take out," prompting furious backlash.

Trump made the remarks Monday night at a campaign rally in Grand Island, Nebraska, where he was campaigning for Republican candidates ahead of the November midterm elections.

The president was discussing the economic consequences of the war with Iran, particularly higher gasoline prices, when he argued, in his typical rambling and clumsy fashion, that higher gas prices and other consequences of the war were a "small price to pay" to prevent Iran from potentially causing catastrophic damage, such as destroying a city.

But in doing so, he also appeared to inadvertently offer up Los Angeles and San Diego to Iran. 

Let's take a look at a word-by-word recital of the relevant section of Trump's speech. McHardy writes:

"Remember, with the war, it's just artificial. It's a little bit high," Trump told the crowd. "It's a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe."

Trump then appeared to pivot from the economic cost of the war to the potential consequences of allowing Iran to obtain nuclear weapons.

"They can take out a city—let 'em take, let 'em take out Los Angeles, let 'em take out San Diego. That's—this is a very small price to pay," he said, prompting cheers from the crowd.

"And it's going to be over very soon," Trump continued. "It's essentially almost over with. And they might keep going a little long, you know. They always say they have a big threshold for pain. They need it, let me tell you."

McHardy notes the irony of Trump making statements that feature a doomsday quality, while the press has created a virtual cottage industry of medical professionals who point to signs that Trump's physical, emotional, and mental health appear to be in decline. Such a story came out yesterday as Trump's garbled speech during a campaign swing through Alabama prompted a forensic psychologist to note signs of a possible brain lesion. From the DailyBeast/Yahoo! report:

The commander-in-chief, who is in control of the nuclear codes and whose cognitive health has come under mounting scrutiny, added that the seven-month-old war will end "one way or the other."

The comments immediately triggered a political firestorm, particularly in California.

McHardy provides details about a panicked White House effort to create a revisionist narrative -- one that did not make Donald Trump sound so much like Donald Trump:

The White House insists that Trump was not advocating an Iranian attack on American cities.

"The media freakout over President Trump's comments is not rooted in reality. He was clearly stating U.S. cities would have been threatened if a nuclear Iran hadn't been stopped. America is safer because of the President. Iran has no nuclear, no navy, no air force, and no money," White House communications director Steven Cheung said on X.

The White House Rapid Response X account added: "He was saying the U.S. is fighting to STOP Iran from having the ability to take out LA and San Diego with a nuclear weapon — which they would if they had the chance." 

Cheung & Co. essentially are trying to con Americans into not believing a president they saw with their own eyes, speaking words they heard with their own ears. Trump is a rambling, unorganized, off-the cuff orator -- one who mixes braggadocio with thinly veiled falsehoods. The speech in Nebraska was pure Trump, and any effort by the Cheung bunch to change that is likely to fail.

Gov. Gavin Newsom drove home a deluge of outrage from California politicos, McHardy reports:

California Gov. Gavin Newsom led the outrage to Trump's remarks.

"After sending the National Guard and Marines to occupy California, Donald Trump is now saying our foreign enemies should 'take out' Los Angeles and San Diego," Newsom wrote. "He is deranged and dangerous."

Newsom's press office followed up with an even sharper condemnation: "Let's be clear: The President is advocating for an attack on 10+ million U.S. residents in two of America's largest cities. This is not normal. None of this is."

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass also called the remarks dangerous, warning that Trump's words could have consequences for public safety.

"The President of the United States suggested that a foreign government attack Los Angeles," Bass said. "His statements against our city are dangerous and could potentially compromise our safety."

She added: "The role of a president is to protect the country, not to actively threaten it and encourage attacks on American lives." 

San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria rejected the suggestion that his city could somehow be treated as an acceptable sacrifice.

"San Diego is not collateral damage," Gloria said. "We are not expendable. And we are never a 'small price to pay'. Keep our city out of your reckless war talk."

Kennedy family member and former first lady of California Maria Shriver also chipped in: "This should outrage every American. This is the president of the United States telling Iran to bomb American cities. I live in Los Angeles, but that's beside the point. Tomorrow it could be your city. My fellow Americans, this is not normal. This is not funny. This behavior should ring alarm bells for us all!" she said on X.

In the end, Trump's comments were a case of very poor timing, McHardy writes:

Trump's characterization of the Iran war as a "small price" to pay lands particularly hard when measured against the toll already being paid by U.S. service members on the ground.

Pentagon figures show 861 U.S. service members have been wounded and at least 19 killed. U.S. officials told The Washington Post that at least three additional deaths are missing from the tally.

The war in Iran has caused energy prices to spike. AAA figures show the average price of fuel at $4.37 a gallon, while diesel stands at $6.32.

Food prices have also risen, with ground beef up 7.2 percent over the past 12 months, while seafood, sugar, and coffee are all up around 6 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

After spending last week tussling with Jack Smith over a failed perjury trap that made him the target of widespread mockery, U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) now faces queries from the Federal Election Commission

(Missouri Independent)

One week ago, U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) became a national punchline when he tried to lure former Special Counsel Jack Smith into a perjury trap that wound up exploding in Schmitt's arrogant mug. Today, he could be facing bigger problems than that.

Schmitt is one of at least five Missouri Republicans who might have irregularities in their campaign finance reports. One of the others is fellow U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO).

According to an article at The Missouri Independent, the reports contain a host of bizarre numbers that are tied to donors you would not expect to draw attention to themselves. The story comes under the following headline: "FEC questions thousands of donations to Eric Schmitt tied to prolific online donors." The story also includes a subhead that refers to Schmitt and reads "Thirteeen donors flagged in federal letters appear nearly 5,700 times in the Missouri senator's reports, highlighting questions about recurring online contributions."

Deputy Editor Rudi Keller, author of the article, says it likely is a sign of problems that can arise with  increasingly automated online political fundraising. Keller begins his story by focusing on a donor that you would expect to start out in low-key fashion and remain that way:

In December 2023, a woman living in a small community near Austin, Texas, made a $78.08 contribution through WinRed. A few weeks later, she made another.

Then came four more contributions in January 2024.

Those were the first six entries under her name in Federal Election Commission (FEC) records stretching back decades. Since then, her name has appeared 126,739 times — including 1,011 times in reports filed by U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri.

And she is one of 13 donors with numerous contributions flagged in three letters the FEC sent this year to Schmitt’s campaign committee asking about donations that appear to exceed federal limits and other issues with his reports.

Keller notes a number of oddities in the FEC letters, including the locations of the donors and the number of donations they made. Keller writes:

None of the 13 donors flagged in the FEC letters live in Missouri, and none gave to Schmitt when he sought election to his first term in the Senate in 2022. He has raised $4.3 million since the start of 2025 for the 2028 election.

Those 13 donors are, collectively, listed in Schmitt’s FEC reports almost 5,700 times, donating $85,672 after accounting for negative amounts entered for each donor in subsequent and amended reports. The totals for each donor range from just over the donation limit of $3,500 to more than $10,500.

The Independent unsuccessfully attempted to contact the donors to understand why their names had been listed so many times.

The records offer a window into the increasingly automated world of online political fundraising, where a small number of donors can generate thousands of transactions, and campaigns must keep track of whether those contributions exceed federal limits.

Online fundraising platforms can process recurring contributions automatically, and a single donation can generate multiple entries in federal records as money moves through a platform, a political committee,  and a candidate campaign. That can leave regulators sorting out whether unusual patterns reflect legitimate giving, reporting errors, or contributions a donor may not have intended to continue.

Keller points out that this is not a new problem in the Show-Me State. In fact, the 2026 docket for the Missouri Legislature included an effort to straighten out a messy picture. It remains unclear if legislators  succeeded. It does seem clear, however, that the Schmitt campaign is not anxious to address questions about the FEC queries. Keller writes:

The issue is familiar in Missouri. Lawmakers this year tightened state campaign finance rules after The Independent reported that a 92-year-old Nebraska veteran had become an unwitting recurring donor to former state Sen. Bill Eigel’s campaign for St. Charles County executive. State and local candidates now must obtain clear consent for recurring contributions, send a receipt after every donation, and stop them when asked or after the election. No such restrictions exist at the federal level.

Schmitt’s campaign did not respond to a request for comments on the FEC letters.

The first FEC letter raising concerns about Schmitt’s fundraising listed 10 contributors with at least 20 donations during 2025. The second, sent after Schmitt’s campaign filed its report for the first quarter of the year, included inquiries about seven donors, six of whom were also listed in the first letter. 

The third letter, sent after the report for the second quarter of the year, listed 10 donors, including eight listed in one or more of the previous letters.

Does it look like any person or entity has violated federal election law? So far, the answer appears to be no. But the muddled picture might not get any clearer for a while, Keller writes:

The FEC letters do not establish that Schmitt’s campaign or any donor violated federal law. They are requests from commission staff seeking corrections or explanations for apparent problems in campaign finance reports.

“It does not mean there’s been a violation of the law,” Bradley Smith, a former chairman of the FEC, told The Independent. “It does not mean there’s going to be a fine on the campaign. It’s simply saying you’ve got reporting problems, and we’d like to either have this corrected or explained.”

The letters raise other issues as well, including incomplete information about some donors, donors who made single or a handful of donations that exceed the limits, and information about the source of donations passed through a conduit to the campaign.

Given the hyper-partisan nature of today's political environment, a reasonable observer might ask: "Is something nefarious going on behind the scenes? Are these people being targeted for some improper purpose?" That might lead to questions about Bradley Smith's background. But Keller provides a look at Smith's biography, and it portrays a man who seems to be a fair-minded fellow, with a history of working  on bipartisan projects. Keller writes:

Smith was a Republican member of the FEC from 2000 to 2005 and was appointed chairman by President George W. Bush. After leaving the commission, Smith founded the Center for Competitive Politics, now the Institute for Free Speech, and his academic work was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Citizens United decision allowing corporations to spend directly in political campaigns.

The practices of both parties’ online fundraising efforts need to be investigated, Smith said.

“My sort of vague sense,” Smith said, “is that the FEC has probably not done enough to either investigate these items or ask campaigns to install certain safeguards to make sure that you don’t end up with people sending multiple contributions.”

What about the Missouri Republicans, besides Schmitt, who might receive scrutiny from the FEC? Keller provides background on them:

Schmitt is not alone in receiving recurring campaign donations. And four other Republicans from Missouri — U.S. Rep. Eric Burlison of Springfield, U.S. Reps. Jason Smith of Salem and Ann Wagner of St. Louis County, as well as U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley — have received numerous contributions from some of the same donors listed on the letters to Schmitt.

How has the Schmitt campaign responded to queries from the FEC? So far, it seems to be making a good-faith effort to stay on top of the matter, Keller writes:

Federal-candidate campaigns are allowed to accept donations of up to $3,500 from individuals for each election. A campaign can collect that amount for the primary election and again for the general election and can accept funds for the general election before the primary is held.

The letters said Schmitt’s campaign had the option of redesignating excessive amounts for the primary to the general, splitting the donations from joint banking accounts between the individuals on the account, refunding the money or, when the donor could not be reached, turning it over to the U.S. Treasury.

“Although the commission may take further legal action concerning the acceptance of excessive contributions, your prompt action to refund, redesignate, and/or reattribute the excessive amount will be taken into consideration,” the first letter stated.

In response to the first letter, Janna Rutland, Schmitt’s campaign treasurer, wrote that an amended report was filed addressing the issues. 

“After filing the original report, the committee discovered that a software error caused donor information to be mismatched, which resulted in reporting errors,” Rutland wrote.

The amended report included “any necessary reattributions, redesignations, or refunds,” Rutland wrote.

Rutland has submitted similar letters responding to the FEC’s other letters. 

With JD Vance leading the way, White House actually shows interest in reviving Watergate, apparently in an attempt to equate Donald Trump with Richard Nixon

(Hillary Clinton's post, Facebook)

Late last week, Americans were hit with a headline that seemed like something writer and comedian Andy Borowitz might have made up. Borowitz, who shares much of his work at Facebook, plus his independent newsletter "The Borowitz Report" at Substack, has become one of the most insightful political observers of this lawless and dysfunctional age. In fact, it seems the more 'out there" Donald J. Trump and his allies  become, the funnier Borowitz gets. That's a good thing because I suspect many anti-Trumpers, including yours truly, could use a daily dose of belly laughs to head off "Trump Derangement Syndrome," known clinically as TDS.

As for the headline in question, I'm not sure even Borowitz could have dreamed it up. Get a load of this from a jointly published report at MS NOW and Yahoo! News: "Decades later, Trump DOJ to review whether Nixon was mistreated during Watergate. Taken literally, those words suggest the Trump Department of Justice has nothing better to do than to reopen a criminal case that launched almost 55 years ago (June 17, 1972) and became such a cultural phenomenon that a book on the subject, All the President's Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, is widely considered a masterpiece of investigative journalism, earning a spot among TIME magazine's 100 best nonfiction books of all time (list published in 2011.) A film version of the book, starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford, won four Academy Awards and is seen by more than a few critics and viewers as one of the great movies of all time. To top it off, The Washington Post won the Pulitzer Prize for its reporting, helping to make the term "Watergate" a catchphrase any time a political scandal hits the news.

What does the Trump administration hope to accomplish by resurrecting Watergate? Most Trump insiders probably can't answer that question, so it's got to be a struggle for any sane person to take on.  But Steve Benen gives it a shot with his original piece at MS NOW. Let's take a look:

It's outrageous enough that Donald Trump's Justice Department has targeted the prosecutors who investigated the scandal-plagued Republican president. Though it seems hard to believe, it adds insult to injury to learn that the hyperpoliticized DOJ is also taking a fresh look at the prosecutors who investigated a different scandal-plagued Republican president.

The Wall Street Journal reported:

The department is reviewing whether the special prosecutor's office that investigated the famed Watergate break-in committed misconduct, according to people familiar with the matter, more than half a century after that scandal led to Nixon's resignation.

Geoff Shepard, a former Nixon aide turned Watergate historian and revisionist, recently gave a two-hour presentation at Justice Department headquarters that laid out his theory that the deep state took Nixon down. The title of his 78-page slide deck: "Watergate As Lawfare."

Let's note a few problems with the thesis that Shepard is pitching: 

(1) Watergate as Lawfare --  "Lawfare is defined as "the misuse of legal systems, courts, and laws . . . to harm, weaken, or delegitimize an adversary." In other words, Shepard claims Watergate was an illegitimate criminal case brought to weaken Richard Nixon. To borrow one of Donald Trump's favorite terms, Shepard wants us to believe that Watergate was a "hoax."

(2) How do knowledgeable critics and mainstream historians view Shepard's claims? They aren't buying it, and this is not new material from Shepard:

Shepard has for years advanced a revisionist account of the prosecution, using internal documents he says show Nixon and his associates were treated unfairly.

His claims differ from the prevailing historical account, which holds that Watergate was a constitutional crisis driven by abuses of presidential power. Nixon resigned in 1974 as impeachment proceedings advanced.

Timothy Naftali, a presidential historian and former Nixon Presidential Library director, has rejected efforts to portray Nixon primarily as a victim, calling evidence of abuses of presidential power "overwhelming" and pointing to White House tapes showing Nixon discussing efforts to obstruct investigations.

The review comes as President Donald Trump and some of his allies have drawn parallels between Nixon's experience and investigations into Trump. 

(3) Even the National Review isn't buying it -- As the leading conservative magazine in the U.S., the National Review might be expected to side with the Trump administration and and Nixon revisionists on this one. But it does not; Andrew C. McCarthy writes:

What I want to say in this post is that I am an admirer of Geoff Shepard, the Nixon administration official who reportedly made the big presentation to the Trump Justice Department. Geoff is a great lawyer who worked on Nixon’s defense of the special prosecutor(s)’ investigation, and I recommend his book, The Nixon Conspiracy: Watergate and the Plot to Remove the President (Bombardier Books, 2021). He makes a compelling case that the investigation of Nixon was abusive.

I’m not surprised that this theory has gotten a warm reception in the Trump administration, which makes the same fallacious contention made by Nixon’s more ardent apologists: The probe was patently politicized; ergo, he was innocent. As with Trump, Democrats politicized the Nixon probe, yet he was still guilty, at least of impeachable offenses. 

Let's return to Steve Benen's article at MS NOW for insight on how Shepard's pro-Nixon propaganda found an ear with the Trump DOJ:

According to The Journal's article, it was just last month when a senior Justice Department official invited Shepard to come to Main Justice and make his case before the Office of Professional Responsibility. A Justice Department spokesperson confirmed on the record that this actually happened. 

"The review is preliminary," The Journal said, "and it isn't clear whether it will lead to a full-fledged probe."

If this sounds at all familiar, it's because Team Trump has been focused on Nixon and Watergate quite a bit lately.

Just a few months ago, for example, Ed Martin, before he stepped down as the highly controversial U.S. pardon attorney, published a bizarre item to social media, arguing that the Watergate scandal was a "hoax" orchestrated in part by the CIA. (Gee, those words sound like they came straight from Trump's demented brain.)

Martin added, "The only thing worse than the lying CIA is the two-faced liar John Dean [who served as Nixon's White House counsel] and the fiction-writer [Bob] Woodward. May they suffer in eternity."

The idea that Richard Nixon was the victims of a CIA-driven hoax seems to be taking hold in Republican circles. That should not be a surprise, given that no one in the postmodern GOP seems capable of independent thought. Benen notes that it did not take long for some prominent Republicans to state that Martin had a worthwhile point:

The Republican activist's claims were ridiculous, but hours later they were nevertheless endorsed by Monica Crowley, a former Fox News personality who currently serves as the Trump administration's chief of protocol. "President Nixon was the target of a Deep State hoax," Crowley wrote online while referencing Martin's tweet. "He will be vindicated." 

Days later, JD Vance appeared at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in California, where the vice president kept the rhetorical campaign going.

After arguing that Nixon's legacy is "enjoying a bit of a renaissance," the Ohio Republican said, "As I joked … backstage, if Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be, like, a 12-hour news story. The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy."

Most folks who have been paying attention to current events likely know that JD Vance's words on most any topic should be viewed with a massive dose of skepticism. True to form, it did not take Vance long to go "there," equating Nixon's experience in Watergate with Trump's treatment at the hands of the supposedly evil Biden administration. Benen writes:

As part of the same comments, Vance argued in apparent seriousness, "If you look at the story of how the deep state took down Richard Nixon, it's not all that different from what the same groups of people, the same institutions, tried to do to Donald Trump in the first Trump administration."

There were all kinds of problems with Vance's pitch, including the simple fact that it's bonkers to think Nixon was brought down by nefarious government insiders who plotted against him. We have, after all, heard the tapes. Nixon chose to engage in systemic abuses. His crimes were his own, not the fault of "the deep state," whether Republicans choose to acknowledge reality or not.

Experts who actually have studied Wategate seem to be listening to Vance's words with mouths agape, Benen reports:

Historian and journalist Garrett Graff, who wrote one of the defining books about Watergate, described Vance's comments as "shockingly" ahistorical and an "immature understanding of what Watergate was and wasn't."

Timothy Naftali, the former director of the Nixon Library, told The Washington Post soon after that Vance "should know better as a well-educated lawyer."

Naftali, a presidential historian at Columbia University, went on to refer to recordings that contain thousands of hours of Nixon's Oval Office conversations.

"You can hear him suborn perjury on the tapes. He's telling an intermediary what to tell someone who's about to be interviewed by the FBI, what to say and what not to say," the historian explained. "You can hear Nixon being told that money had been found to hire Teamsters to go and break the bones of demonstrators. That's all illegal." 

"It's not as if it's a matter of partisan interpretation. The evidence is overwhelming," Naftali concluded during his interview with The Post while offering additional examples of Nixon's efforts to subvert legal protections.

Three months later, Trump's Justice Department is nevertheless prepared to take a fresh look at whether Nixon was some kind of victim of prosecutorial abuse — developments that would've seemed unthinkable a half-century ago.