“Give me a man who is handsome and strong, someone who’s stalwart and steady, give me a night that’s romantic and long, and give me a month to get ready.” These were lyrics sung by Granny, Irene Ryan from the Beverly Hillbillies, in the Broadway musical, Pippin. The character she plays is 66 years old and she ruminates comically, in this song and others, about the eternal soul and a youthful spirit that is housed in a mortal body that is aging. I enjoyed hearing it for the first time as a college kid and I enjoy it still, albeit from a totally different perspective.
What does this have to do with Donald Trump and his canceled rally in North Carolina? Quite a bit. This was completely expected, his no-show, only it was not expected to happen so soon. A presidential campaign is not a small thing. The rough and tumble of a campaign has been known to wear down the best of people. And heaven forfend if you do get sick, efforts are made to hide it. Hillary Clinton actually misjudged a situation, in my opinion, when she didn’t want to report a bout with pneumonia during the campaign. Instead, she unsteadily climbed into her limo one afternoon and then that got amplified by Alex Jones and the like as her being weak, frail, lying about her true condition, etc.
Donald Trump has been in court all week, except for Wednesday. He made an effort to get to Wilmington, North Carolina today. He could not make it and so he canceled the appearance at the last minute. He said there was a terrible “storm” coming. That’s news to the U.S. weather bureau who has guestimated a 50% chance of rain. Not chance of landfall for a hurricane but for precipitation.
So I, personally, am going along with other pundits who have weighed in before Trump’s last minute cancelation and I think he flat out just doesn’t have the stamina to sit in court and then go campaign on the weekends. And this was predicted. But as said, it was thought that he would hold up at least a couple of weeks. No such luck. This is from one and a half hours ago, around 6:30 p.m. EDT, or an hour before the rally was due to start.
See for yourself, it’s a partially cloudy day, which is normal when there’s 50% of rain. To be honest, I have seen it much cloudier here and with a 90% chance of rain predicted and then it blows off, to my chagrin. But then I live in the Mojave Desert and rain for me is a time of celebration. I have a covered balcony and nothing pleases me more than to go out and photograph a monsoon, should one be in progress. It’s an amazing light show, as the lightning takes place high up in the atmosphere, almost no thunder but an incredible strobe effect, in a sky that alternates between green and purple. Desert weather can be magical.
In fairness this does look pretty bad. But maybe don’t fly in 5 minutes before you start speaking. pic.twitter.com/IsfMKslSG0
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 20, 2024
He should have been on the ground and at the venue and in makeup long before this announcement was made. Now I’m going to tell you what I think. Trump has been falling asleep in court all week. That we know. He may be livid at Maggie Haberman for reporting it, but if she didn’t some other first-tier news outlet reporter would have. Things like that don’t stay secret. And as for the flatulence?
“Once he started snoring it wasn’t long before you heard him passing GAS very loudly…”
– dismissed juror #74 (h/t John Barrett II on FB)— Cheri Jacobus (@CheriJacobus) April 20, 2024
We can go over to Facebook and check it out. But this is somebody who was there, so either he’s corroborating what other sources have said, or he’s signing on to be a conspiracy theorist and spreading a lie about Trump. I don’t know. As I’ve said many times before, nobody hates Donald Trump more than I do, but I’m not going to spread lies about him. I’m going to fact check everything and so far, this is what you have. Some people say they have credible sources who were there. Trump’s campaign manager, naturally, shoots them down:
“None of these sources know what the hell they’re talking about and clearly have no access to any type of factual information,” says Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung. “These are the types of losers who will try to peddle fantasy as fact because they live miserable existences.”
Mr. Cheung, on the other hand, lives a life devoted to only the most noble of causes, that of getting the twice-impeached, defeated former president who incited a riot at the Capitol, back in office. If we define “miserable existence” as backing the most corrupt human being who has ever been in politics for a return engagement at the White House, albeit for a lot of money, then ironically Cheung is in fact qualified to speak about people who peddle fantasy as fact as part of a miserable life. That’s his job description.
The above quote was taken from a Rollingstone article about how Trump is furious with the court sketch artist, accusing her of “having it in for him.” Maybe she draws what she sees, stupid pompadour floofy haircut and all.
And God help the reporter, Maggie Haberman or otherwise, who actually reports first hand hearing or smelling Trump’s flatulence. That is a descriptor I wouldn’t want to have behind my name, “Washington Post reporter Joe Blow goes on record hearing and smelling the results of Donald Trump’s unruly digestive system, rumbling as he snores at the defense table.”
The snoring has been reported. And let’s face it, who among us knows if we’re passing gas when we’re asleep? I never thought I would introduce that as a topic of conversation on this blog, or anywhere for that matter, but in all fairness, these things happen. I’m not going to condemn Trump for something I might be doing myself every night.
But Trump has no business falling asleep in court and that is a problem. And it’s been a problem for four out of the past five court days. Now we are at Saturday and he couldn’t make it to his first rally post court. So what gives?
I just checked the weather report again. Still only 50% chance of precipitation. So what really happened? It could be a number of things. First of all, Trump is always jacked up at these rallies and it could be that they were having trouble with his medication. That’s pure speculation and I mark it as such.
Or, maybe the hair and makeup wasn’t going right. Or, maybe Trump simply fell asleep and could not be awakened in time, so he recorded that statement and went back to sleep. Again, pure guessing.
But what is not guessing is the fact that anybody and everybody who writes or comments on politics posed the exact same question over the past few months, which is: How is Trump going to do four days a week in court and only campaign on Wednesday or the weekend? What is that going to look like?
Now we know exactly what it looks like. He falls asleep in court with regularity and he couldn’t even make it to his first rally after one week of court. So what are we to expect? Some new tricks from an old dog? Is Trump suddenly going to begin taking care of himself, eating healthy, getting as much rest as he needs so that he can be bright and attentive in court and then pulling out some extra stamina from somewhere to campaign wholeheartedly on the weekend?
I don’t think so. What you have seen in the past three and a half years was an over the hill guy who spent time on the golf course and it was his call how many holes to play, what to do. He is surrounded by sycophants who cheer and applaud if he makes a ten foot putt. So for three and a half years we have seen Trump play golf and then occasionally show up to dinner, where he is cheered for walking to his table, and then he started doing primary campaign speeches. That’s all he had to do was show up maybe two places in one week and give a speech.
Now he has to show up in court four days a week, try to sit through it, which he’s not doing very well, and then go campaign on weekends. He can’t do it. Whatever happened today either in New York or onboard Trump Force One indicates that Trump.Can’t.Do.It.
Who knows? Maybe Ronny Jackson or a surrogate called it and said, “don’t let him go on.” In all events, there is no wild storm in Wilmington, North Carolina tonight (and if the U.S. Weather Service is calling that shot wrong, and you live there, will you please give us a holler?)
Trump can’t rage tweet, show up in court, and campaign. He’s been having problems getting through campaign speeches for some time. He might even be having problems standing up right now. We don’t know.
All we do know is that something happened, and since Trump is the Father Of All Lies, I don’t think it was a weather warning of 50% chance of rain (tomorrow is scheduled for 100% rain, and that’s how these things usually go.) Something else kept him off stage tonight.
“These are the types of losers who will try to peddle fantasy as fact because they live miserable existences.”
As always, more projection than an Imax Multiplex. We just know they are describing themselves.
After all, they’re led by the biggest loser of all, Mr Trump. Doesn’t it describe Dozy Donny to a tee?
🔨🔨 Today’s GOP: Gaslight. Obstruct. Project
Tired? Maybe. Alternatively he might be embarrassed. Shit is not going his way. He is REQUIRED to sit in a court room 4 days/week listening to people the majority of which loathe his orange ass. He has to read/hear reports he not only is low energy (sleeping/snoring) in the court room but he also is doing a Rudy (s) (hope that catches on). His BS social media company’s stock is tanking and very quickly will be worthless. Best of all many of his shills in congress have turned against him and voted to send billions to Ukraine. That had to leave a mark.
He’s almost 80 so, yeah, he might be effing exhausted but everything IS turning against him and that sure as all get out ruins his image to the world, his cult, and most importantly himself. He is finally discovering how hard it is to peddle the brand of a loser when everyone is finally coming around to the fact that he is indeed a loser.
Scott…..One to beam up.
What is comical about court is that ALL he has to do is sit. The lawyers and the judge are doing the work. The jury will soon be doing the work. But all HE has to do is sit –and he can’t do that.
It makes sense, though. We do in our older years some version of what we did as younger people. I always worked with a keyboard and I always was a fast typist. So I use those skills as a blogger. And it goes without saying that I read a lot, wrote emails, all that. Trump did a performance on The Apprentice and loads of it ended up on the cutting room floor. He never could have made it as an actual actor in a show with a schedule, all that, because he has no discipline. The best actors in the world have to show up on set, cope with retakes, do whatever is needed. Trump can’t go along with anybody’s program.
And yet he’s supposed to lead this country when he can’t stay awake. Dear God.
Never mind the discipline – his appearance in ‘Home Alone’ proved that he couldn’t act anyway
Hey, I suppose a four day work week with daily hours of 10am to 5pm with 1 1/2 hours for lunch is grueling for a fat slob that has never worked a day in his life.
*smirk*
He never worked. Not like you and I define that term. I remember working and putting myself through night law school and I put in 80-hour weeks. For five years. And I was in my 40’s, not a spring chicken. Trump couldn’t do one week of what I (and my colleagues, not me alone) did putting ourselves through law school at night. He couldn’t even do the physical showing up part, let alone the mental work.
“The first years are the hardest, much more than you know, with good friends to love us….” Ursula, I see and hear John Houseman right now “… but I teach you the law!” Trust me, you worked harder and more hours in the 4 years you were in law school than that fat tub of lard has worked in his entire lifetime!!!
Denis and I live in NC…so I’m sure he canceled due to the fear we would show up! By the way I only live 2hrs drive from Wilmington and it’s nice outside.
I checked out Spectrum News a while ago. It seems that there were some counties in the southern sandhills that had some pretty large hailstones falling but for those who don’t know NC that’s south central and well away from the coast. A look at the radar for the prior 12 hours didn’t show anything severe over near the coast. So they might have had some rain and even a bit of stormy weather but nothing that should worry an aircraft the size of Trump’s.
I’ll be interested to know if his plane was actually in the air, or if so anywhere over NC airspace when his message to the crowd was broadcast. I’m betting no. At least on the second point. It might be worth watching Morning Joe Monday morning because that’s just the kind of thing Scarborough will dig into and while he’s a blowhard it will be fun to see him ridicule Trump over this.
I am so glad that you chimed in. I was going to write Denis and ask him how close to Wilmington he is. And believe me, I know from him, and from my technical guy who lives in NC, that the weather there can get hellacious. I know about the hurricanes and the flooding, all that.
I just checked the weather service again and it is going to rain in Wilmington tonight (it’s around ten p.m. there now) or definitely tomorrow. So Trump would have been out of there.
Something else happened. Let’s see what happens again. It occurred to me that maybe the crowd just wasn’t big enough. He’s such an egotist that something like that could do it.
Don’t forget, Ursula, that this is the guy who couldn’t pay his respects to the fallen of 1918 because it was raining
That occurred to me as well. But he wears a MAGA hat to these things. Who cares if he gets rained on?
And on the Centenary, no less!
what respects? he has none.
Steven Cheung speaking about Donald Trump and his spokespeople: “These are the types of losers who will try to peddle fantasy as fact because they live miserable existences.”
Okay. MAYBE I took that a little out of context. But, hey, if THEY can do it, why can’t we? Especially when the basic gist of the statement as it stands is ACCURATE?
“And let’s face it, who among us knows if we’re passing gas when we’re asleep?”
Don’t see why we wouldn’t. I mean, your body’s still functioning at all basic autonomic levels including all digestive functions; after all, that’s the primary reason that the bathroom is typically the first stop for people after they wake up (if they haven’t had an “accident” in the middle of the night) and passing gas is a less distressing aspect of the digestive process. It may not be pleasant for others to experience during waking hours but while you’re asleep, it’s probably going to go unnoticed by anyone (unless they happen to wake up or the gas is just THAT noticeable).
For myself, I used to go to sleep if I sat and didn’t have anything to do especially when I was tired and working my butt off. Now with my normal heart rate of 40-50… I gots to move or nap time.