Watch Trump $hit When Fox News Runs These Anti-Trump Ads

This is shocking but not the least bit surprising. It’s not surprising that Fox News is gradually putting Donald Trump in the rear view mirror. They were in business long before the advent of the Trump phenomenon, they intend to be in business long after Trump is gone. So their posture makes complete sense.

Now the shocking part of it is this: How are they going to pull this off logistically? Fox News is airing a Trump Town Hall on January 10 from 9 to 10 p.m., in Des Moines, Iowa. Meanwhile, across town, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis will be participating in the CNN Town Hall. This will be the final appearance that any candidate will make before the Iowa Caucus on January 15. Now Fox News will be airing the following ad, if I understand all this correctly, so you tell me.

Thank you! I swear that many Fox News watchers literally have never heard the truth. When I try to discuss things with them, their response is “I never heard that before” and they tell me the opposite is true, because that’s what Fox and other RW outlets are saying.

— JoAnne Fernandez (@JoAnneSapelo) January 8, 2024

You just read the same description that I did, above. These ads will start running today, January 8, and they will keep running through the January 10 town halls. So what oh what is Trump going to do? Because here’s the bottom line: He looks pretty awful in that context but he looks as bad — if not worse — in events in which he’s participated recently. His last few appearances in Iowa have been absurd. You might want to print out a copy of this blog and carry it in your wallet. The next time a MAGA accuses you of being in the throes of Trump Derangement Syndrome, take this out and show it to them.

• Claimed that magnets don’t work if they get wet. “Think of it, magnets,” Trump said. “Now all I know about magnets is this, give me a glass of water, let me drop it on the magnets, that’s the end of the magnets.” (No, it’s not.)
• Called J6 rioters and seditionists “hostages” and demanded their release.
• Repeated conspiracy theories claiming that left-wing activists and/or government agents were responsible for the breach of the Capitol.
• “Rekindle[d] his rage against John McCain, taunting over POW’s broken limbs.”
  

  “Former President Donald Trump returned to mocking the late U.S. Sen. John McCain, alluding to the former prisoner-of-war’. “You know, without John McCain, we would have had it done,” Trump said. ‘John McCain, for some reason, couldn’t get his arm up that day. Remember?”

• Blamed Abraham Lincoln for not “negotiating” the Civil War. “So many mistakes were made. See, there was something I think could have been negotiated, to be honest with you,” Trump said. “I think you could have negotiated that. All the people died. So many people died.”

  Liz Cheney had some questions:

  “Which part of the Civil War ‘could have been negotiated’? The slavery part? The secession part? Whether Lincoln should have preserved the Union?”

• Began appropriating the word “insurrection” — suggesting that Biden Administration’s handling the border was the real insurrection. “When you talk about insurrection,” he declared in Iowa, “what they’re doing, that’s the real deal.” [Next up: Donald Trump, champion of Genuine American Democracy.]

Meanwhile…

We also learned more details about Trump’s inaction during the Insurrection. Via ABC:

[Trump aide Dan] Scavino told Smith’s investigators that as the violence began to escalate that day, Trump “was just not interested” in doing more to stop it.

Sources also said former Trump aide Nick Luna told federal investigators that when Trump was informed that then-Vice President Mike Pence had to be rushed to a secure location, Trump responded, “So what?” — which sources said Luna saw as an unexpected willingness by Trump to let potential harm come to a longtime loyalist.

And this seems like an under-covered story. Via WBEZ: “Trump did not sign Illinois’ loyalty oath that says he won’t advocate for overthrowing the government.”

“Trump did not voluntarily sign the state’s loyalty oath as part of his package of ballot-access paperwork submitted Thursday to the Illinois State Board of Elections. That omission is a departure from his presidential candidacies of 2016 and 2020, when he affixed his signature to the oath both times…

Biden and Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis both signed the oath…

In the latter part of the oath, candidates attest that they “do not directly or indirectly teach or advocate the overthrow of the government of the United States or of this state or any unlawful change in the form of the governments thereof by force or any unlawful means.”

I love the bit about destroying magnets with water. Such a grasp of hard science, it simply awes me, doesn’t it you? Is it possible that he’s gotten magnets confused with electrical wire? Maybe he goes around Mar-a-Lago pouring water on electrical wires and his handlers have him do that to give him something to do. Or, because they’re hoping that he’ll hit the wrong wire or plug and SHAZAM! He’ll electrocute his ignorant ass.

File drenching the magnets away with nuking the hurricanes, I guess. Or windmills killing whales — no, wait, that was windmills causing cancer but they drive whales “batty” and then they die of insanity. Or something.

This guy that sounds like your crazy uncle, the one you’re relieved to only have to see at holiday dinners two, three times a year, is the best that the GOP can come up with as a candidate for the highest office in our land. Never lose sight of that fact, folks. Meanwhile, I can’t wait to see how Trump reacts to these ads airing on Fox News.