Remember that Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader, and Hakeem Jeffries, Minority Leader in the House, wrote a sternly worded letter to Donald demanding a meeting. Why? Well, because Schumer is desperate to avoid a government shutdown he believes he would be blamed for, which is an absurd conclusion for him to reach.
As it turns out, Donald has no intention of meeting with them, and he wrote this on his failing social media platform:
After reviewing the details of the unserious and ridiculous demands being made by the minority radical left Democrats in return for their votes to keep our thriving country open, I've decided that no meeting with their congressional leaders could possibly be productive. I look forward to meeting with you when you become realistic about the things our country stands for.
After that little rant, Donald claimed that the Democrats are threatening to shut down the government of the United States over things like “dead people on the Medicaid roles,” and “transgender operations for everybody.”
That is the person for whom Schumer and Jeffries are willing to give up their leverage. These two have an opportunity here—the same one they had a few months ago and squandered. They can, first of all, prove to Democrats, who are desperate for leaders willing to fight for them, that they are leaders like that. Secondly, they can demonstrate to the American people that the Democrats who still believe in democracy and who still believe in our Constitution, will never make common cause with fascists. So Senator Schumer, leader Jeffries, that is not a very high bar. Here's hoping you can clear it. Let's dive in.
Hello everybody, and welcome to tonight's episode of Mary Trump Live. It’s great to have you here.
Let's start with what's clearly the biggest news of the day: Donald's deeply humiliating address at the United Nations. He spoke four times longer than his alloted time and his remarks were completely off the rails. I know we say that time and time again, but in this case he was truly more unhinged than in other recent appearances—even the fascistic speech he gave at the Charlie Kirk Memorial over the weekend.
Watching him, I could feel the standing and credibility of the United States plummeting before my very eyes. He told many, easily disproved, and in some cases dangerous lies. And he also said things that were utterly nonsensical:
It's interesting. In the United States, we have still radicalized environmentalists and they want the factories to stop. Everything should stop. No more cows. We don't want cows anymore. I guess they want to kill all the cows. They want to do things that are just unbelievable and you have it too. But we have a border strong and we have a shape, and that shape doesn't just go straight up. That shape is amorphous when it comes to the atmosphere. And if we had the most clean air, and I think we do, we have very clean air. We have the cleanest air we've had in many, many years. But the problem is that other countries like China, which has air that's a little bit rough, it blows. And no matter what you're doing down here, the air up here tends to get very dirty because it comes in from other countries.
Does it really? I defy anyone to tell me what he actually meant to say. The question is will the corporate media sane wash him? Which is to say, will they translate his gibberish into something that makes sense? Will they tell us what they think he meant to say as opposed to what he actually said, which was defamatory and incomprehensible.
I believe in protecting the environment. I love cows. I don't want to kill all of the cows. Because I'm not an idiot, however, I understand that one of our biggest problems is deforestation, which is motivated by people's desire for meat. And I'm not entirely sure how somebody who eats as many Big Macs as he does can actually claim to care about the fate of cows.
The “radical environmentalists” of his imagination are those of us who believe that climate change is something we must combat. We do not want to annihilate all of the cows. I would respond to the rest of what he said, but I didn't understand a word of it.
Then Donald offhandedly implied he’d sanction the murder of people who enter our country illegally:
Our message is very simple. If you come illegally into the United States, you're going to jail or you're going back to where you came from or perhaps even further than that. You know what that means.
Do we know what that means? I am guessing he meant hell, which is something of an escalation. In case you're not aware, my great-grandfather and great-grandmother, Donald's grandparents, were immigrants. My grandmother, Donald's mother, was an immigrant. Two out of three of Donald’s wives were immigrants. Both my Aunt Maryanne and my dad were anchor babies because my grandmother didn’t become a naturalized citizen of the United States until after they were born.
It is not enough to say that this person is an embarrassment. He's a dangerous, unhinged, unqualified, ignorant, bizarre demagogue who offers nothing. The fact that he is leading the most powerful country on the planet calls something as urgent as climate change a hoax and considers death an appropriate punishment for crossing the border is unthinkable. That's a problem about which the Republicans in Congress could do something—if only they cared.
Donald then threw a tantrum on his failing social media in which, as I referenced earlier, he canceled a meeting with Democratic leaders as a government shutdown looms. Just to put this in context, the Republicans control the government. They control the executive branch; they control both Houses of Congress, they control the Supreme Court and much of the judiciary.
While claiming that it would be a waste of time to meet with Schumer and Jeffries, he also said, falsely that Democrats, in addition to advocating for taxpayer funded transgender surgery, and so forth, also want higher taxes, open borders, no consequences for committing crimes, men in women's sports and more. All of that is untrue.
I fault Jeffries and Schumer for wanting the meeting in the first place, but the point of it was to avert the shutdown on October 1st.
This is what Donald does not seem to understand: He needs seven Democrats to vote on this funding bill. Republicans currently only have 53 votes and need 60 because of the filibuster. That is, in order to get a bill to the floor for a vote to allow it. At that point, to get the bill passed, it requires an up or down vote. So, welcome to the Senate, one of the most undemocratic institutions in our alleged democracy.
Donald seems to understand none of this. He doesn't seem to understand that the Republicans needs seven Democrats on board in order for his funding bill to get a vote in the Senate.
Jeffries, in response to Donald’s canceling the meeting, wrote:
Donald always chickens out. Donald just canceled a high stakes meeting in the Oval Office with myself and leader Schumer. The extremists want to shut down the government because they're unwilling to address the Republican healthcare crisis that is devastating America. Wow, that my friends is what they call a self-own extremists want to shut down the government.
What happens if Democrats stand strong and refuse to vote to allow cloture? Are Democrats extremists? Because you know the Republicans will do everything in their power to blame a shutdown on Democrats. They will co-opt the language Jeffries gave them to label Democrats extremists?
The Democrats should be better at this by now. They need to get their message straight. They continue to make common cause with fascists because they’re afraid of being blamed for something that would without question be the fault of the party in power.
But Jeffries just gave Republicans an opportunity to call Democrats extremists if you don't vote for a funding bill, that would be antithetical to the wellbeing of the American people. I'm running out of things to say at this point about our failed democratic leadership.
There is some good news tonight: Jimmy Kimmel’s show will return to the air a week after his program was put on indefinite hold because of comments Kimmel made about the Charlie Kirk’s alleged shooter and the Republican’s response to Kirk’s murderer. On the one hand, the return of Jimmy Kimmel Live! signals that Disney did yield to public pressure, but that doesn’t mean everybody will be able to watch it. CBS News reports that:
Jimmy Kimmel Live! returns to late night tonight, but millions of people still will not be able to see it. Nexstar and Sinclair, which together control about a quarter of all ABC affiliates, say they will not air the show after Disney reversed its decision to bench Kimmel. The suspension has prompted protests, boycotts, and debates over free speech across the country.
The broadcast affiliates have the right in some circumstances to say they don't want to carry a particular piece of programming, usually because they feel that it somehow offends their community standards. That's different than saying on an ongoing basis, we're not going to take ABC programming. They more or less have a contract that says, we have this license, we're going to work with ABC. We are going to show what ABC shows us.
Brendan Carr, who runs the FCC, has been pushing local broadcasters to push back against the folks like Disney. So a lot of this is sort of up for debate right now. It seems like for now Nexstar and Sinclair are simply not going to show the Kimmel show, and I don't know that Disney is going to do anything about that.
Essentially, outfits like Sinclair are holding us hostage. They are making sure that anybody within their orbit remains ignorant, ill-informed and subject to propaganda. You might be asking, what exactly does Donald have on these companies that's making them continue to bend the knee? As usual with him, you just have to follow the money.
Benjamin Mullen at the New York Times reports that for Nexstar:
The favor of the Trump regime is particularly crucial because the company has tried to close a $6.2 billion merger with another TV station owner, tegna, which requires the fccs approval. Nexstar has said that it did not run its decision to preempt Kimmel's show by the FCC.
I highly doubt that, because Brendan Carr is completely in the tank for Donald.These companies have no principles of any kind, let alone journalistic principles. They have no interest in making sure that the information their viewers consume is accurate, valid, verifiable. All they want is to gain favor by doing Donald Trump's bidding. If there's one thing we know about Donald, he's for sale to anybody who will throw money. This is because he is so greedy and so convinced on a very deep level of course that he is worth nothing that the only way for him to have any worth (because he's a Trump and he grew up in that hideous family), is to have money.
Unfortunately for him though, it's never going to be enough. That's also unfortunate for us, because Donald will stop at nothing to accrue more wealth and he will break whatever rules he has to break. Oh wait. I’m sorry, I misspoke.
Donald isn’t breaking any rules according to the illegitimate super majority of the Supreme Court.
Under Donald's leadership, Immigration and Customs Enforcement continues to terrorize immigrants of color. In an investigation by CNN's Blake Ellis and others, it was discovered that over 100 U.S. born children have been left behind after their undocumented parents’ arrests and deportations. These children are American citizens. They are, at least for the time being, protected under Section One of the 14th Amendment. That would be the birthright citizenship section of the 14th amendment.
There is no system in place to track and support minors who've been separated from their parents in this manner.
Who thinks that that is okay? Who thinks this is a reasonable outcome? Who supports these cruel and indefensible policies that separate children from their parents? Did we learn nothing after Donald kidnapped and incarcerated children during his first administration after exiling their parents?
Here's the problem. There are tens of millions of Americans who either don't know about this or who don't care because people in the Trump regime, like Stephen Miller, have done such an expert job of convincing people that immigrants are not fully human. Donlad himself has called them vermin. He's painted them as murderers, rapists, psychopaths. Should we be surprised, then, that far too many people are okay with this horror? This is America is now.
Meanwhile, ICE is continuing to round up people without respect for their rights to due process. The Department of Homeland Security released a statement calling for media and the “far left” to stopped their demonization of Donald, his supporters, and DHS law enforcement.
Oh really? Or what?
The statement includes a bit of gaslighting from assistant DHS Secretary Trisha McLaughlin:
Following the evil act of political violence in the country this week and two brutal assaults on our brave is law enforcement. Last week we were once again calling on the media and the far left who stopped? The hateful rhetoric directed at Donald, those who support him and our brave law enforcement. This demonization is inspiring violence across the country. Our ice officers are facing a more than 1000% increase in assaults against them. We have to turn down the temperature breach before someone else is killed. This violence must end.
Is she going to pick up the phone and tell Donald to tone it down?
The Trump regime is in the business of keeping the temperature turned up and keeping everything at a boil. It benefits them and suits their purposes. If ICE agents don't want to be targeted, maybe they should stop targeting innocent people. Maybe they should start respecting people's rights to due process. Maybe they should stop covering up their faces to hide their identities.
The Trump regime will continue to demonize anybody who voices dissent against them. They will continue to paint people on the left as those who lack civility, who are responsible for stoking hatred against others, all while they are the ones who lack basic human decency, empathy, compassion; all while they continue to terrorize other human beings for their own horrific ends.
