DCUM Weblog

Yesterday evening, the CBS show "60 Minutes" broadcast an interview with cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump. Only about a third of the interview was actually included on the show, but a transcript of the full interview was published on the CBS News website. I decided to go through the full transcript and comment on parts that caught my eye.

The start of the interview was about trade with China and mostly consisted of Trump spouting his usual talking points. He stressed how much he likes the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, Xi Jinping, and how much Xi likes him. Trump turned the conversation toward tariffs, which is perhaps his favorite topic. I've always suspected that, despite his fixation on tariffs, Trump doesn't really understand them. This suspicion was increased when Trump stated:

The wealthy and the powerful are increasingly living in fear. The rich obviously realize that the immense and growing wealth gap presents a danger to them. If they had not already seen the signs, the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson made their peril eminently clear. But rather than take steps to reverse inequity, they are building luxurious bunkers and hiring military-style security to protect them from what they expect to be a societal collapse. Leery of the loyalty of paid security staff, some billionaires hope to replace humans with armies of robots. Those with the greatest wealth plan to rocket off to another planet entirely, leaving the rest of us to deal with the mess they helped to create. They view the average person not as a fellow human being, but rather as a resource to be exploited. They dread the day that the masses might be pushed too far and rise up. Now, the American political elite is demonstrating similar concerns and engaging in similar reactions. Two recent revelations demonstrate that top Republicans in particular are preparing for a potential mass upheaval.

As I have repeatedly written in these blog posts, with authoritarian government comes incompetence. There is a common belief that dictatorships, notwithstanding their otherwise negative characteristics, can at least get things done. In reality, such governments are generally filled with corruption and incompetence and do a very poor job performing. The administration of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump is fitting this pattern perfectly. Trump has appointed incompetents who either through their incompetence or their disregard for the law, repeatedly act in ways that are not lawful. In the case of U.S. Attorneys, this has been coming back to haunt the administration. In example after example, courts have been ruling that Trump Administration U.S. Attorney appointments have not been lawful. Not only does this potentially remove a Trump appointees, but it endangers any cases in which the unlawfully appointed officials were involved.

Even during his first term in office, cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump was talking about a third term as president. For instance, speaking at a campaign rally in August 2020, Trump said "We are going to win four more years and then after that, we’ll go for another four years because they spied on my campaign. We should get a redo of four years." Trump would go on to lose the election three months later, but that would not stop him from talking about serving three terms. In May 2024, while campaigning again for the presidency, Trump told a meeting of the National Rifle Association that "You know, FDR 16 years — almost 16 years — he was four terms. I don’t know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?" Many in the audience answered "Three." Days after winning the November 2020 election, Trump met with Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives and, again, brought up the topic of a third term, saying "I suspect I won’t be running again unless you say, ‘He’s so good we’ve got to figure something else out.’" In a statement yesterday, Trump appeared to have given up on the idea of a third term. But, has he?

On Friday, I wrote a post titled "ICE is Recruiting Out-of-Shape Morons" in which I described how the surge in hiring by Immigration and Customs Enforcement was resulting in the recruitment of large numbers of candidates who were unable to pass the physical fitness test (which is very easy) or the written exam (which is open book). Yesterday, Garrett Graff, a blogger who has long followed federal law enforcement matters, posted a new article titled, "ICE’s Hiring Surge Is Already a Disaster" in which he went into greater detail on the same theme. It is worth revisiting this topic in light of the new information Graff reports and due to some significant developments involving ICE yesterday afternoon.

I have written multiple posts arguing that cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump has suffered serious cognitive decline. The problem with such posts is that as soon as they are posted, they become out-of-date because Trump continues to provide additional evidence of his neurological deterioration. In the past few days, Trump has shown a nearly complete disconnection from reality and clearly allowed his cognitive state to interfere in public policy. To put it clearly, Trump's mental decline is having a negative impact on the United States.

Trump's cognitive decline and disconnection from reality is frequently demonstrated through his posts on his Truth Social social media network. In recent days, there have been multiple examples of such posts. For instance, on October 24, Trump wrote:

Back in July I wrote about the dangers of the massive expansion of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that was funded by the One Big Beautiful Bill law. The law provides funding for doubling the size of ICE's staff. There are many examples of rushed efforts to hire large numbers of law enforcement personnel running into trouble, including the 1989 expansion of the Metropolitan Police of the District of Columbia that produced a notorious number of bad cops. Given some of the behavior we have been witnessing from ICE agents recently, the agency may also be recruiting its share of bad apples. However, recent media reports suggest that things could have been even worse.

An article published in The Atlantic this week says that more than a third of ICE recruits have failed the personal-fitness test. This is remarkable given that the test is relatively easy. According to the article, it is nothing more than being able to "do 15 push-ups and 32 sit-ups, and run 1.5 miles in 14 minutes." A career ICE official quoted in the article described the situation as "pathetic" and said that the ICE training academy's standards have already been lowered to boost recruitment. Despite my probably being at least 30 years older than the average ICE recruit, I thought these requirements were pretty doable and, just to prove it, I did 15 push-ups and 32 sit-ups before writing this post. Based on my normal workout routine, I am confident that I can easily run a mile and a half in less than 14 minutes. In addition to being old, I am overweight and not in that great of shape. Therefore, I would hate to see the folks who are not able to manage these things.

Some of the authoritarian steps taken by cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump are pretty obvious. For instance, unilaterally deciding to tear down the East Wing of the White House without telling anyone, let alone consulting with others. In fact, Trump lied about his plans and claimed that the original structure would not be touched. Similarly, Trump has ordered the military to destroy boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean without clear legal authority to do so. When two victims of one such attack survived, the Trump administration apparently did not have any evidence with which to charge them with a crime, and the individuals were, instead, released to their home countries. This draws into question the validity of administration claims that the boats are being used to smuggle drugs. In other cases, however, Trump's authoritarian efforts are less visible. Today, I am going to discuss how Trump's treatment of federal employees during the government shutdown is strengthening his autocratic rule.

I ended my blog post yesterday with a brief mention of demolition work that was taking place at the East Wing of the White House. Later in the day, Chris Geidner of the Law Dork blog published new photographs showing that the East Wing had been totally destroyed. It simply no longer exists. It appears that the response by cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump to the "No Kings" rallies was to demonstrate that, in fact, he is a king.

As I wrote yesterday:

Trump alone decided that a new ballroom should be built on White House grounds. Trump alone arranged funding for the development. Trump alone has authorized expenditures on the work. While Trump once said that the project would not touch the existing building, Trump alone apparently approved the demolition of part of the historic structure. The White House is on the National Register of Historic Places, and as such, changes of this sort require approval from Congress, the National Park Service, the White House Historical Association, and the Commission of Fine Arts. This ensures that an important aspect of American history will be preserved. Trump simply ignored all of that and, like a king, ordered that the demolition begin.

Yesterday, the Republican reaction to the massive "No Kings" rallies continued. Leading up to the demonstrations, Republicans had repeatedly warned that participants would be limited to Hamas supporters, Antifa, Marxists, and other unhinged leftists whose message would be that they hate America. When the rallies turned out to mostly consist of normal people, many waving American flags and otherwise celebrating America, the Republican reaction was to become even more extreme in their rhetoric. The Republican Party is now mostly a cult devoted to cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump. For his part, as I wrote yesterday, Trump's immediate reaction was to post a video showing him wearing a crown while piloting a fighter jet and dropping feces on rally attendees. Trump, whose cognitive abilities show obvious decline, is increasingly disconnected from reality. This left Republican leaders largely rudderless and forced to navigate the post "No Kings" waters without much in the way of leadership from Trump.