I think Trump is giving up campaigning, but I would very much doubt he’s giving up the race.
I would guess he’s thinking “we have a killer ratfuck plan, we have SCOTUS in our pocket, why bother with all the messy, dangerous work of campaigning.”
I wouldn’t go that far. He wants to campaign, but he can’t. He had to start doing outdoor venues because he’d stiffed so many arenas that nobody would book him anymore, but now he can’t do outdoor shows either because he’s traumatized by getting shot at. So he’s only doing a rally once every week or two and it’s driving him mad because he needs the attention the rallies give him and he isn’t getting it. That’s why he’s throwing random press conferences and having chats with Elmo.
Which he will announce in two weeks. 
As I’ve said, Biden’s resignation for the Presidency threw him for a loop.
He’ll keep on campaigning, within parameters now laid down by the Secret Service: no outdoor rallies, after the assassination attempt at an outdoor rally. And few to none will rent him an indoor arena/rally space, because he won’t pay his bills. That interview with Elon Musk was an attempt to campaign, but he came off as somebody who didn’t use the necessary amount of Poli-Grip on his dentures, and came off sounding like Daffy Duck.
Maybe that’s what the Democrats need to use along with “weird”: “Donald, you sound like Daffy Duck.”
And then when he goes off on “Indian or Black, Obama or Harris, Joe or Obama, or Obama or AOC,” and gets undoubtedly confused, Ms. Harris can just calmly say, “Pronoun trouble?” A subtle dig at him sounding like Daffy Duck.
Long-term is a risk everywhere.
But for a while — look for a strongman who is pro-Trump.
No one here is seconding me, but I still say El Salvador.
I can’t find this in mainstream media, but AFAIK the video clip, with Trump Jr. and Bukele, isn’t faked:
Watch: El Salvador’s President Tells Donald Trump Jr. “We Don’t Jail The Opposition”
From more reliable media:
El Salvador Welcomes Donald Trump Jr. for Bukele’s Inauguration Ceremony
So that brings up – Argentina. I’d think it more pleasant than El Salvador. But I suppose Trump’s arrival in Argentina would lead to street protests, and his plane might not be able to make it in one hop.
I’m surprised that Trump mentioned the possibility of fleeing the U.S. I still do not think he will flee, but after he himself said it, speculation is more reasonable than ever.
The campaign should emphasize that he’s just covering when he says he mispronounces her name on purpose. His inability to consistently say her name correctly is a symptom of his mental decline.
Stoopid brane. Venezuela <> Argentina
What I try to remember about trump is that his playbook is very limited and getting more so with every year. His only real need is for an endless bath of adulation, and nothing else matters at all. The presidency is one of the things that really doesn’t matter to him. He knows that it makes no difference what he says or does, as long as he revs up the hate in his audience. That’s what they crave, the tribal sense of rage against The Other, and he knows that perfectly well. He has no plan. He doesn’t strategize. He will keep doing what he’s doing, although he is now nearly unintelligible, for as long as he an audience. The only thing which would stop him is removing his vocal chords.
A narcissist can bullshit his way to the top. but once he gets there, he cannot hold onto it because he’s just not as smart as he has told us all of his followers. Their image to themselves is more important than anything else in the world at this point they will look for an excuse to bail out before they are totally exposed. They will blame other people they will blame the system they will blame anything but themselves. Narcissists are not nice people. They can never duplicate the peak they had attained and anything less feels like failure. I predict he will self destruct.
That is exactly what it is.
Yep its a direct allusion to this false claim of his
“Crime is down in Venezuela by 67% because they’re taking their gangs and their criminals and depositing them very nicely into the United States,”
The the key was what he said after claiming he was going to move to Venezuala, namely that if Biden got power Venezuela would be safer than the US.
Agree 100%
But that does not make him harmless if elected; rather the opposite.
Every wannabe authoritarian, eminence grise, and generally corrupt multi-hundred million level businessperson is jumping on the Republican bandwagon of being able to suborn, plunder, or both, the entire Federal government on trump’s blind-eyed watch. While similar actors are salivating at doing the same thing in red-leaning states once effective Federal oversight vanishes.
While at the same time trump himself pays attention only to his ratings on X, etc., and the small but rapidly growing secret police force dedicated to exacting revenge on his perceived enemies and former persecutors.
We can become 1980s Philippines under Marcos or present day Hungary under Orbán or Türkiye under Erdoğan very quickly.
That’s the dichotomy at the core of a trump win. He’ll be useless but will enable a very effective nearly permanent reactionary authoritarian / kleptocratic takeover of the Federal government and probably 30 states without much awareness of it on his part.
Then he’ll die and 120 years from now our great-great-great-great-grandchildren still be cleaning up mess he catalysed in the service of a toddler’s ego / id in an adult body.
And of course he had to fix that. He posted this on Truth Social last night.
It was the equipment’s fault, I don’t really sound weird so I created a perfect version to prove it. Well, it proves something Donnie.
Liberal commentator Jay Kuo never passes up an opportunity to heap dung on Trump … but he gave Trump a pass on the audio lisp thing:
My own theory about the lisp is less interesting and comes from experience with podcasting and microphones. Sometimes an audio compression issue can produce a distinct lisp on a mic or a recording that wasn’t present in person. This actually happened to me recently as I recorded an interview with my brother Kaiser’s Sinica podcast. Given that much of the subject matter was the birth of the gay community in Beijing, we decided a pronounced lisp would not serve the interview well. So I re-recorded it.
It’s not that he SOUNDS like Daffy Duck. It’s that he sounds like an idiot.
Well at least he’s just being himself.
“The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Donald Trump”
You gotta admit that’s worked pretty well for him for 70-some years.
One of the things the MAGAts most love about the OrangeFührer is their perception of his “genuineness”. Pure lies though it is.
He’s a genuine lying con man, I suppose.
As the old saying has it:
Sincerity is the key. Once you can fake that you’ve got it made.
The thing about his classic con of refusing to pay, and then offering pennies on the dollar- is that soon no one but fools and idiot will deal with you- note trumps current legal team.
Also towns are starting to refuse him a place to do a rally, since he has left unpaid bills- mostly for police overtime- all over the USA.
I can’t claim to have heard it, but enjoyed Marina Hyde’s take on it