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‘Kamikaze Pilots’: Trump Says Democrats Will ‘Take Down the Country’ After Big Wins
Appearing unmoved by voters’ message and showing no sign of changing course, President Donald Trump brushed off Democrats’ sweeping wins in Tuesday’s elections during a Wednesday White House breakfast for Republican senators, where he compared Democrats to World War II Japanese suicide bombers.
“I heard it after ‘Kings,’ you know, they said I was a king, and I heard it after ‘Kings,'” he said, referring to last month’s highly attended nationwide “No Kings” rallies and protests. “I heard it after a couple of other moments in time. And I said, ‘No, I don’t believe so.’ And now I heard it after the election. Don’t believe so.”
“I think they will, I think they’re kamikaze pilots,” Trump continued. “I just got back from Japan. I talked about the kamikaze pilots. I think these guys are kamikazes. They’ll take down the country if they have to.”
READ MORE: ‘Sick’: Hunger Caucus Head Slams GOP for ‘Starving Children’ by ‘Weaponizing’ SNAP
The President, his tone weary, repeated his pre-election call to end the Senate filibuster.
“It’s time for Republicans to do what they have to do, and that’s terminate the filibuster,” Trump told the Republican senators, who did not appear to react. “The only way you can do it.”
“And if you don’t terminate the filibuster, you’ll be in bad shape,” he warned, appearing concerned about the 2026 midterms and 2028 presidential election.
“We won’t pass any legislation. There’ll be no legislation passed for three and a quarter — we have three and a quarter years, so that’s a long time.”
The President urged Republicans, who hold majorities in both the House and the Senate to “do our own bills. We should get out, we should do our own bills.”
“Should open up” the country, he said, of ending the shutdown, now the longest in U.S. history. “We should start tonight with ‘the country’s open. Congratulations.’ Then we should pass voter ID. We should pass no mail-in voting. We should pass all the things that we wanted to pass, make our elections secure and safe, because California is a disaster. Many of the states are disasters.”
“But can you imagine,” he asked, “when they vote almost unanimously against voter ID?” he said of the Democrats.
“All we want is voter ID. You go to a grocery store, you have to give ID. You go to a gas station, you give ID,” he said, incorrectly.
READ MORE: White House Backpedals on Trump’s SNAP Refusal — and Blames Dems for Delay
“But for voting, they want no voter IDs. So, for one reason, because they cheat. We would pass that in 15 minutes. If you don’t get it, you’ll never pass that. You’ll never talk about mail-in ballots. Mail-in ballots make it automatically corrupt,” he alleged, a statement contradicted by numerous studies showing minimal fraud.
Trump again stressed the importance of killing the filibuster, telling Republicans that Democrats are going to “pack” the Supreme Court, “they’re going to make D.C. a state and they’re gonna make Puerto Rico a state. So now they pick up two states, they pick up four senators.”
“They’re gonna pick up electoral votes. It’s gonna be a very, very bad situation.”
But, he said, “if we do what I’m saying,” Democrats will “most likely never obtain power.”
Trump did acknowledge that the federal government shutdown was a factor in Tuesday’s elections — while claiming because he wasn’t on the ballot, Republicans lost.
“I thought we’d have a discussion after the press leaves about what last night represented,” he said. “And what we should do about it, and also about the shutdown, how that relates to last night. I think if you read the pollsters, the shutdown was a big factor, negative for the Republicans. And that was a big factor, and they say that I wasn’t on the ballot, was the biggest factor. But I don’t know about that, but I was honored that they said that.”
Trump on Democrats: “I think they’re kamikaze pilots. I just got back from Japan, I talked about the kamikaze pilots. I think these guys are kamikaze. They’ll take down the country if they have to.” pic.twitter.com/EE2T1xSWin
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 5, 2025
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
