First of all my inner jarhead is smiling tonight because the Naval Academy won the annual football game against the U.S. Military Academy. It was classic Army-Navy, hard fought to the end and as is typical one of the best examples of competition in all of sports. However there was some weirdness, starting with the coin flip which even with my blurry eyesight (surgery at the end of the month) allowed me to see Trump wasn’t even able to flip the freaking coin to determine who got the ball first! Just how bad IS is right hand he can’t even use his thumb to flip a large commemorative coin?
For those who don’t know, at the beginning of any football game the opposing team captains meet at mid field. The referee explains the visiting team should “call it” (usually heads or tails but sometimes there’s a special coin and the ref has to explain which is which first) and uses his thumb to send the thing spinning up into the air and let’s it come to rest on the ground. The winner of the toss gets to choose whether to kick off or receive, and the loser decides which goal they’ll defend to start. (It matters when the wind is strong). So the today the ref explained to the captains which side of the commemorative coin was heads and which was tails, and with the President there gave him the honor of ‘making the toss.
As this article from Mediaite tells us Trump attended the game. He’s not the first Prez (who is after all Commander-in-Chief) to do so and won’t be the last. It would be perfectly natural for him or any President to head out to mid-field for the coin toss and for the referee to offer a President the chance to actually flip the coin. (I wonder if Trump was pissed they didn’t use a Trump ‘challenge coin?’ He is after all that petty) Anyway things went for a bit like these things always go, at least until the ref held out the coin and asked Trump if he’d ‘like to do the honors.’
That’s when things got weird and in turn got the internet buzzing. It seems a ton of people saw the same thing I did, and had the same WTF was THAT reaction. If you look at the title picture Trumpty’s hand is way up in the air like he’s releasing a bird! Watching the tweets of the moment you see him grab the coin from the ref with his left hand which seemed to work ok. His fingers curled around it, then he transferred it to the palm of his often discussed (because of the extreme swelling and not always hidden bruising on the back of it) right hand.
Did he then make a fist, turn it sideways and work the coin to the top so he could send it spinning into the air with a flick of his thumb? Nope. He just quickly lifted his hand up to send the thing into the air. It didn’t appear to complete a single turn, at least while in the air. (Maybe it turned over once or twice when it hit the ground) Well, I’ve never seen a coin toss like that one and it seems no one else has either. So, as I said the internet lit up and the tweets started coming. But it’s hard to figure out how Trump could flub a freaking simple thing like flipping a coin. See for yourself
President Trump with the unprecedented coin toss that doesn’t appear to flip at all. pic.twitter.com/6jY9Uhq6n6
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) December 13, 2025
Reading the linked article about the reaction I’ve got a good defense if any of Politizoom’s conservative lurkers accuse me of ‘blind Trump hatred’ causing me to imagine things and make up mean things to say. I’ve got millions upon millions of people out there who saw the same thing I did and while I don’t know how many have commented on Xitter and other social media I’ll wager it’s well into the the thousands and the number of likes if WAY more!
As for the game itself as I said it’s as pure a sporting event as you can ever watch. Both teams put everything they have into it and most of the time the games are hard fought and in doubt until if not the very end, then past the midway point of the fourth quarter. This one got off to an old-school start that any old-time football fan would love. Army won the coin toss and deferred to the second half. Navy, which had the better record and an amazing quarterback elected to receive and made a old fashioned running game drive down the field for a touchdown. Army matched it with one of their own and the final play of their drive that tied the score didn’t happen until the first minute of the second quarter. It was impressive from both teams.
***Update*** Not that Trump noticed. As The Daily Beast has reported he was jabbing those thumbs (that couldn’t flip a coin!) on his phone, sending out pictures of some of his more recent tacky blinging out of the White House. Including a full Truth Social post during halftime. It will take time for the players and others at their respective academies to learn about THAT. It makes me wonder how much respect his brushing off actually getting into the game, this wonderful sporting event so he could show off his gaudy, tacky and tasteless revisions to the WH will sit with the Corps of Cadets at West Point and the Brigade of Midshipmen at Annapolis. One can only imagine the shudders if a meme of Trump tweeting that crap during the game was themed with Trump telling them he was going to ‘fix up” THEIR grounds! All those historic buildings, steeped in tradition but to Trump they’re just ‘shithole’ boring places that need sprucing up – Trump style!***
Now for more weirdness in a version of ETTD-Lite. As in the jinx I mentioned earlier. By tradition when a President or VP or even a SecDef attending on the President’s behalf they sit the first half with the Superintendent (and other top brass attending the game) of one Academy, and after a ceremonial walk across the field (at the 50 yard line) pass over to be the guest of the other Academy for the second half. President’s might admit (if a grad) to preferring their alma mater win but custom dictates they be neutral observers. Even say Eisenhower (West Point/Army) or Carter (Annapolis/Navy) ‘played it neutral.
Still I saw the game turn from an impressive display of execution to some unexpected sloppy play. In the second quarter from Navy and their star quarterback in particular who suddenly seemed to be somewhat off his normal excellence. Guess which side Trump was sitting with? Then, after the half and transferring over to the Army side of the field it was Army who’d been so impressive almost the entire first half that seemed to lose some of ITS excellence. It was still a helluva game but given what we saw from both sides in the opening quarter the fumbles and turnovers (both fumbles and interceptions) as well as mis-throws and dropped passes as each offense was forced to pass a little more than (for them) normal it wasn’t quite the almost perfect game we assumed it would be after the first quarter.
The point is that in both the first half and second, the Academy that hosted Trump as honored guess was a little more sloppy. Hence my developing the belief he was an equal opportunity jinxer!
On a more serious note however his right hand has been the subject of an awful lot of talk for months now. The swelling. The bruising and all the makekup they cake on to try and hide it. Plus his efforts to keep it hidden whenever his sitting behind his desk or at a table, say during one of his Cabinet meetings. Something clearly has been wrong. Today, his inability to perform a simple coin flip that didn’t just get widely notice but set tongues a wagging.
I’ll freely admit there’s some deliberate snark in the way I’ve written about this but I’ll close on a serious note. Why? For all the wisecracks (you really should check out the link which includes numerous quips) it’s clear something is wrong with Trump. His body is increasingly betrayed him. It wasn’t just the large audience of Americans that tuned into the Army-Navy game today. The feed goes out around the world.
Countries older than ours don’t have anything quite like it. And even though it’s a sporting event, a game it’s an expression of the best of America and our military. Hard fought at the game is every year the “good game” exchanges from opposing players is genuine. The knoe that the time will come when the won’t simply be on the same team, but leading soldiers, sailors and Marines and ensuring that all inter-service rivalries take a back seat to accomplishing the mission.
In well established countries military traditions exist and they matter. Not all are good one but for the most part they are traditions for good reason. Military leaders from around the world look at the tradition of the Army-Navy game with a mix of wonder and envy. They and plenty of their own troops watch. For the leaders and their civilian bosses the Army-Navy game can provide some reassurance even with Trump in the WH. Assurance that some traditions and norms are still holding.
Seeing a U.S. President that can’t physically handle a coin flip is anything BUT reassuring. It’s not like Trumpty-Dumpty was full of vim and vigor when barely enough of voters but almost half of them in this country put him back in the White House. ALL our allies lamented how effed up what once was derisively called “The Great Experiment” was unravelling if after the fist Trump term AND the insurrection ho fomented he got back into power is falling apart. They might well be saying amongst themselves that the term The Great Experiment they used to mock our country was right all along.
I’ll guarantee you they are trying to sort out what happens if we all of a sudden Trump’s clearly bad health either kills him or forces him from office, perhaps laying in a coma at Walter Reed and/or suffering a stroke or heart attack that forces invoking the 25th Amendment. I can assure you they worry as many of us do that as bad as Trump is, Vance could turn out to be worse and in addition to existing planning for a world in which the U.S. is no longer the clear leader, if a leader at all they now have to factor in Vance.
I can guarantee you top military officials with every ally has shown that video of Trump being unable to do a coin flip to THEIR civilian leaders!
Friends, I know everyone begs you for money. I promise, among all those asking for spare change, we are the smallest and the hardest working. We’re a group of old, disabled people, except for one writer in his mid-50s. The rest of us are in our sixties and seventies, and this is a labor of love. All we’re asking for is the chance to keep telling the truth about Trump and help ensure democracy survives. If you can help, please do. Thank you. Ursula
ETTD