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Trump’s ‘Enemies’ Rhetoric Deemed Disqualifying by Experts

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Donald Trump’s latest claim, that Russia, China, and North Korea, “might not be enemies,” but top Democrats, including Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Rep Adam Schiff are, has angered many on the left and led experts to issue warnings against the ex-president.

Continuing his refusal to grant interviews to non-friendly media outlets, Trump told Fox News’ Howard Kurtz on Sunday those three authoritarian regimes, the “outside people, the so-called enemies, if they’re enemies—and they might not be enemies.”

“You talk about the enemy within,” Kurtz had told Trump, “America’s enemies outside, [but] the enemy within is a pretty ominous phrase if you’re talking about other Americans. Who are you talking about?”

“I think that’s accurate,” Trump responded before attacking Pelosi and Schiff and promoting a series of falsehoods and lies.

READ MORE: ‘Exhausted,’ ‘Weary’ and ‘Decomposing’ Trump Keeps Canceling Interviews: Reports

“These are bad people. We have a lot of bad people,” Trump said. “But when you look at ‘Shifty Schiff’ and some of the others, yeah, they are to me, the enemy from within. I think Nancy Pelosi is an enemy from within.”

“But when you have people investigating my campaign, when you have people, you know, they spied of my campaign now, you understand that. That’s been proven,” Trump alleged, which Kurtz later was forced to say on-camera was “in dispute.”

“But they spy on your campaign, the Russia Russia Russia hoax was was all made up, and now it’s acknowledged that it was made up. All of these different things, you have the 51 different agents saying it was from Russia, and now they all say it wasn’t from Russia, okay, so we were like, all many other things, many, many, I could be you just don’t have enough time.”

“But what they’ve done is so terrible. Who’s ever heard of anything like this?” Trump baselessly alleged before attacking the two Democratic members of the U.S. Congress, again, with falsehoods.

“Adam shifty Schiff,” Trump continued. “He’s a crooked guy. He’s a crooked politician 100 percent. He’s going to be a senator now. Can you believe it? But again… he’s an enemy’s an enemy. He wanted to put my son in jail, and my son didn’t even know what he was talking about. He wanted to put my son in jail on a scam that he made up. Called Russia, Russia, Russia. He, Hillary Clinton, and a group of people made up a scam. And they came out of a room and they said, Donald Trump, Jr. will be going to jail over this.”

“That’s an enemy from within. That’s really – that is a threat to democracy. These are bad people. We have a lot of bad people. But when you look at Shifty Schiff and some of the others, yeah, they are to me, the enemy from within. I think Nancy Pelosi is an enemy from within. She lied. She was supposed to protect the Capitol,” Trump said, again, falsely.

READ MORE: ‘Wasn’t Born Smart’: Trump Attacks Harris’s Intelligence as He Gets Multiple Facts Wrong

“I want to drill down on this question of retribution, because against your political opponents, because you’ve had opportunities to walk that back,” Kurtz had also said. “And my question is this, are you prepared to say now that you will not use law enforcement to punish or prosecute your political opponents?

“Excuse me,” Trump replied. “That’s what they’re using on me.”

Nearly two weeks ago Trump had said he wants to use the U.S. military against Americans who oppose him, called his critics “the enemy from within,” and declared they are more dangerous than America’s greatest foreign adversaries, including Russia, China, and North Korea.

“I always say we have the outside enemy, so you can say China, you can say Russia, you can say, Kim Jung-Un,” Trump told supporters at an Aurora, Colorado rally. But, he added: “It’s the enemy from within, all the scum that we have to deal with. that hate our country. That’s a bigger enemy than China and Russia,” he said. “I think the bigger problem are the people from within, we have some very bad people, we have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the — and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary by the military.”

Dr. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian, professor, and scholar on fascism and authoritarian leaders and frequent MSNBC guest issued a warning in response to Trump’s remarks to Kurtz (clip below): “This is all you need to know to vote Democrat in 2024.”

Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, warned: “Putin is a not a ‘so-called’ enemy of the free world. He is the greatest threat to our allies and partners in Europe since Hitler. That Trump cannot grasp this basic fact makes him unqualified to served as commander in chief.”

In 2017, less than one month into his presidency, USA Today posted a report: “Donald Trump’s ties to Russia go back 30 years.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Aghast’: Trump Dodges and Dismisses Latino Voters’ Concerns at Univision Town Hall

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Vulgar Trump Boast Claims Credit for Olympics—and Blames ‘Rigged’ Race for Comeback

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May 20, 2025

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President Donald Trump’s remarks at the Kennedy Center board dinner Monday night included a vulgar expression, a conspiracy theory about the 2020 election, pointed criticism, unfounded self-congratulatory claims, and a suggestion of political retribution.

“What a group of good friends,” Trump told the Kennedy Center’s leadership at the White House event, The Daily Beast reported. “We’re gonna bring this place back. It’s not so good. I thought it was gonna be beautiful.”

Trump also “accused Kennedy Center’s previous leadership of wasting millions of dollars on ‘rampant political propaganda, DEI, and inappropriate shows.'”

“Who thinks of these ideas?” he asked. “We’re bringing our country back so fast.”

READ MORE: Leavitt’s Deficit Denial and the First Ever Trillion-Dollar Defense Budget Built on It

In remarks promoted by the White House Director of Communications, Steven Cheung (video below), an unleashed Trump did not hold back.

The President told the captive audience, “we got the Olympics, and then we got through Johnny, the boss, we got — he’s a friend of mine — we got the World Cup. I got ’em both. And I said, ‘Man, I won’t be president. I won’t be — I got the Olympics and the World Cup, and I won’t be president. And they’re gonna forget that I got them. Nobody’s gonna mention it, because, you know, a little bit, that’s the way life is.'”

Trump’s lament continued: “And then they rig the election.”

“And then I said, ‘You know what I’ll do? I’ll run again, and I’ll shove it up their a–,'” Trump said, to applause. “And that’s what I did, and all of a sudden, I then realized, I said, ‘You know what? I got the Olympics, I got the World Cup, and I got the 250th [anniversary].”

READ MORE: No Trump, No FEMA? Tornado Ravaged City’s Mayor Pleads for Federal Assistance

“So if they would have left us alone and wouldn’t have cheated on the election and wouldn’t have rigged it, I would have been retired right now. I would have been happily doing something else, and instead they have me for four more years. Can you believe it?”

HuffPost noted that Trump “appointed himself chair of the Kennedy Center earlier this year amid a pro-MAGA purge of the historically bipartisan organization.”

The video, posted to Cheung’s official account on X, has been viewed over 300,000 times in just 12 hours.

Watch below or at this link.

READ MORE: White House Scrambles to Clean Up Trump’s Walmart ‘Rage Tweeting’ Amid Upcoming ‘Standoff’

 

Image via Reuters

 

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Leavitt’s Deficit Denial and the First Ever Trillion-Dollar Defense Budget Built on It

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18 hours ago

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May 19, 2025

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Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is bragging that President Donald Trump has submitted the largest budget ever for the Pentagon: one trillion dollars, about $150 billion more than President Joe Biden’s final budget request. Critics are blasting the White House for insisting that the Republicans’ new budget—which guts Medicaid, reduces taxes (primarily for the wealthy), and eliminates the Department of Education, does not increase the deficit.

“He’s gonna be the first president to introduce a trillion-dollar budget,” Secretary Hegseth told Fox News’ Will Cain on Monday (video below). “That’s not just spending more. It’s also being serious about an audit. It’s also finding cuts where we pull out the Biden garbage and put in President Trump’s priorities. So we’re going to invest a generational investment in those capabilities.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked on Monday if President Trump is “okay with this bill adding to the deficit?”

READ MORE: No Trump, No FEMA? Tornado Ravaged City’s Mayor Pleads for Federal Assistance

“This bill does not add to the deficit,” Leavitt insisted, before claiming that it “will save $1.6 trillion.”

Economist Justin Wolfers appeared to disagree, posting a chart that shows that the GOP/Trump budget legislation increases the deficit by more than one-third.

The Hill reported that the “tax portion of Republicans’ wide-ranging bill full of President Trump’s domestic priorities would cost $3.7 trillion over the next decade, the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) found.”

“Tables from the JCT, which is the official revenue scoring body of Congress, show that extensions of the 2017 tax cuts and other measures will add about $5.6 trillion to the deficit, while cuts to renewable energy incentives and amped international tax enforcement will reduce the deficit by about $1.9 trillion.”

READ MORE: White House Scrambles to Clean Up Trump’s Walmart ‘Rage Tweeting’ Amid Upcoming ‘Standoff’

U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) commented, “It doesn’t ‘save’ a $1 trillion, it slashes it from programs like Medicaid and SNAP, kicking millions of Americans off their healthcare and nutrition programs You also forgot to mention the other $3-4 trillion being spent on tax cuts for the wealthy that’ll explode our deficit.”

The Wall Street Journal delivered more math, saying that the GOP “plan won’t reduce federal budget deficits and would make America’s fiscal hole deeper.”

“The current proposal would increase projected budget deficits by nearly $3 trillion through 2034, locking in tax cuts and spending increases that outweigh reductions in spending on Medicaid and nutrition assistance. While Republicans, who have vowed to reduce red ink, say higher economic growth will fill the gap, budget analysts across the political spectrum have panned the Republican plan, warning that it worsens the U.S. fiscal picture.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

RELATED: ‘Bonanza for Billionaires’: Johnson Celebrates ‘Victory’ of Medicaid-Gutting Tax Cuts Bill

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No Trump, No FEMA? Tornado Ravaged City’s Mayor Pleads for Federal Assistance

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May 19, 2025

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At least 28 people across three states were killed when tornadoes struck Kentucky, Missouri, and Virginia on Friday, with a governor and a mayor calling them among the worst they’ve ever seen. Unseen, however, has been any acknowledgment or support from President Donald Trump or, according to some reports, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

“What we need right now is federal assistance,” declared St. Louis, Missouri Mayor Cara Spencer on MSNBC (video below) on Monday, “we need federal assistance.”

“This is where FEMA and the federal government has got to come in and help communities,” Mayor Spencer urged. “Our city cannot shoulder this alone. The State of Missouri cannot shoulder this alone. We need partners at the national level, at the federal level to step up and help.”

Spencer explained, “this is what the federal government is for. We need your help, we need the help of the broader community.”

READ MORE: White House Scrambles to Clean Up Trump’s Walmart ‘Rage Tweeting’ Amid Upcoming ‘Standoff’

“FEMA has not been on the ground—we do not have confirmed assistance from FEMA at this point,” Spencer said. “I do want to say, however, every other level of government has been on the ground with us, helping in every capacity possible. But when you have a disaster of this scale, eight miles of just pure destruction, this tornado didn’t just touch down and leave, this tornado ripped through our community for a full eight miles in the city of St. Louis, and this is an area that has needed help, that we need investment, you know, our North St. Louis has been neglected for a long time, and we need the help of our partners here.”

At a news conference, Spencer had called it “one of the worst storms,” ABC News reported. She said that “the devastation is truly heartbreaking—and let’s not forget people have lost their lives. We are continuing to make sure that we are identifying all those that are injured, in addition to the massive amount of property damage that has taken a huge toll.”

Tornadoes were reported in three more states, bringing the total to six states and 26 tornadoes.

“Over 462,000 customers were without power across multiple states, stretching from Michigan to Tennessee.”

As of publication time, NCRM was unable to find anything from President Donald Trump on his Truth Social page about the tornadoes’ death and destruction. It does not appear he has offered support or guidance, nor has he suggested he will visit the areas.

“You can not only see the destruction, you can feel it,” Kentucky Democratic Governor Andy Beshear told reporters on Saturday as he toured his state, according to ABC. “Beshear, who declared a state of emergency ahead of the storms, said he’s been governor for at least 13 federally declared disasters related to weather and this storm was one of the worst in terms of loss of life and damage.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in a social media post made no mention of FEMA, but said that she had spoken to Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, “to offer federal resources and action for the deadly tornadoes and storms impacting Missouri, Kentucky, and Illinois.”

READ MORE: ‘Bonanza for Billionaires’: Johnson Celebrates ‘Victory’ of Medicaid-Gutting Tax Cuts Bill

She suggested that the federal government would take a back seat to local efforts.

“We discussed how while emergency management is best led by local authorities, we reinforced that DHS stands ready to take immediate action to offer resources and support,” Noem wrote on Saturday. “Local emergency managers should swiftly notify people in the affected areas to take action to protect themselves and their belongings. DHS stands ready to help when a state needs, requests, and declares an emergency.”

Fred Wellman, an Army combat veteran and host of the “On Democracy” podcast from the St. Louis area, on Saturday wrote: “Yesterday my hometown was hit with massive tornadoes. We weren’t expecting them in places that have never been hit before and have no idea who will help us. FEMA is all but dead and our state is run by Republicans that hate the city. This is the canary in the coal mine.”

On his Substack he noted: “A tornado went through my town yesterday, and no one in this entire country is going to help us….and the ones that should are fine with that.”

Monday morning he added, “here we are two days later and not one peep from Trump or even a response from FEMA at all. 5 dead, 5,000 homes damaged, $1.6B in damage and not even a s—– Truth social post or email from FEMA.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Deeply Fascist’: Massive Banner of Trump on Government Building Sparks ‘North Korea’ Vibes

 

Image via Reuters

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