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https://scottritter.substack.com/p/ritters-rant-086-the-shorting-of

Ritter's Rant 086 — «The Shorting of America»: Риттер о военно-политическом тупике Трампа и теме ядерного приказа

Источник: https://scottritter.substack.com/p/ritters-rant-086-the-shorting-of

Краткое содержание

Очередной «Rant» Скотта Риттера построен вокруг одной метафоры: президент Дональд Трамп «шортит Америку» — то есть играет на понижение её институтов, политики и норм ради персонального бренда и личной наследственной легенды. Риттер разворачивает эту метафору в четыре слоя: биржевая игра на падении, связанная с тайминговыми постами президента в соцсетях; военный провал против Ирана; угроза применения ядерного оружия, якобы заблокированная председателем Объединённого комитета начальников штабов; и конституционный вывод — необходимость сместить Трампа через выборы и импичмент.

Биржевая метафора: «шорт» как бизнес-модель администрации

Риттер начинает с финансового определения: «шорт» — это ставка на падение акции или товара, механизм «заработка на чужой беде». Он напоминает истории AMC и GameStop как образцовые кейсы, когда хедж-фонды целенаправленно «сбивали» отдельные бумаги. Дальше он переносит модель на политику: посты Трампа в соцсетях, по его наблюдению, систематически «таймированы» под колебания рынка; инсайдеры, близкие к Трампу, заходят в короткие позиции заранее, а «качающий» твит выходит через несколько часов и даёт им крупный профит. Риттер называет это преступной моделью и обобщает её как природу администрации: «это культ личности, действующий не ради Соединённых Штатов, а ради Дональда Трампа — человека, бренда и наследия».

Ирано-американская война: поражение, которое нельзя признать

Центральная внешнеполитическая рамка — оценка Риттера о том, что первые 40 дней кампании против Ирана закончились стратегическим поражением США и Израиля. Он перечисляет «не-достигнутые» цели: не удалось провести смену режима; не удалось существенно подавить иранские баллистические возможности; не удалось закрепить Ормузский пролив; провалилась операция по захвату иранского урана, обогащённого до 60% — она, по Риттеру, обернулась «Desert One-style debacle» на одной из взлётных полос в центральном Иране.

Дальше идёт ключевое политическое наблюдение: вместо того чтобы выйти на дипломатический исход, Трамп, по Риттеру, не может этого сделать, потому что «проигравшим его видеть нельзя». Внутренний расчёт описан прямо: ноябрьские промежуточные выборы, высокий риск потери Палаты представителей, риск устойчивого импичмента в течение оставшихся двух лет и — при существенной потере Сената — риск осуждения. Отсюда логика «перекрасить реальность в победу»: Трамп якобы добился иранского согласия открыть Ормуз для всех судов, но сохранил собственную военно-морскую блокаду, распространив её дальше в Индийский океан, «чтобы выглядеть тем, кто диктует условия». Результат — срыв мирного трека.

Угроза «стирания цивилизации» и тема ядерного приказа

Риттер останавливается на публичной угрозе Трампа «уничтожить цивилизацию Ирана» и утверждает, что это была аллюзия на ядерное оружие. Ссылаясь на Ларри Джонсона и «два источника», Риттер пересказывает, что президент запросил у председателя Объединённого комитета начальников штабов разъяснения, как именно даётся команда на применение ядерных вооружений. Председатель, по этой версии, отказался авторизовать такой сценарий, назвав его нарушением международного права, норм пропорциональности и различия комбатантов и некомбатантов, — и прямо сказал, что приказ исполняться не будет. Через сутки Трамп опубликовал пост в соцсети, капслоком написав «NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS» — по логике Риттера, именно потому что накануне угроза фигурировала в обсуждении. Это важная содержательная фактура выпуска, хотя подтверждена она только ссылкой на публикацию Джонсона.

(Критическая рамка: утверждения о приватных обсуждениях между президентом и CJCS невозможно верифицировать по открытым источникам; Риттер опирается на второстепенные показания. Сам факт публичной угрозы и последующего её «снятия» в соцсетях — верифицируемы.)

Клинический и конституционный вывод

Риттер переходит в откровенно жёсткую рамку: Трамп, по его оценке, страдает злокачественным нарциссическим расстройством и утратил способность руководить. Любой, кто рассматривает ядерное оружие как инструмент в ситуации «не получается добиться своего», — угроза обществу. Именно через эту оптику Риттер и связывает «шорт» политический, экономический и институциональный: Конституция «шортится» наравне с валютой.

Конституционный сценарий у Риттера прямой. Формально предусмотрен механизм — 25-я поправка, позволяющая вице-президенту и кабинету отстранить президента, утратившего дееспособность. Но, по его оценке, вручную подобранный кабинет на это не пойдёт. Поэтому ответственность переходит «к народу»: в ноябре нужен массовый поход на участки, потеря республиканским большинством обеих палат — чтобы Демократическая партия получила возможность провести импичмент с осуждением и физическое отстранение президента. Риттер подчёркивает, что не призывает к насилию («ни гильотин, ни революции»), говорит об «использовании Конституции для защиты Конституции», и называет персонально Пита Хегсета и «большинство членов кабинета» как ответственных за нарушения Конституции и предательство доверия американцев.

Завершает выпуск Риттер личной нотой: он едет в Вашингтон на роды дочери — появление первой внучки — и размышляет о том, какой мир она унаследует. По его словам, шорт — это не замена чем-то лучшим; это уничтожение. Хорошие лидеры, в его формулировке, строят; Трамп оставляет «наследие разрушения».

Значимость

Выпуск фиксирует сразу три важных момента текущей обстановки: продолжающийся патовый сценарий между США и Ираном после первых 40 дней войны (военный проигрыш при невозможности его признать), публично озвученную угрозу «эраза цивилизации» Ирана и последующий быстрый разворот Трампа в соцсетях, и внутрикритическую позицию экс-военного аналитика, который прямо связывает риск ядерного приказа с личностным расстройством президента. Для внешней оценки важно учитывать, что Риттер — заявленно антитрамповский комментатор, а часть его фактуры (в частности, эпизод с CJCS) опирается на одиночный источник Ларри Джонсона. При этом экономическая метафора «шорта» и описание «культа личности» — аналитическая рамка, которую Риттер применяет последовательно к финансовой, военной и конституционной сферам, и выпуск имеет смысл читать как цельный этический манифест, а не как набор новостей.

🧾 Транскрипт (формат)

Ritter’s Rant 086: The Shorting of America

Источник: https://scottritter.substack.com/p/ritters-rant-086-the-shorting-of

Hello and welcome to this episode of Ritter's Rant. Today, we're going to be talking about the shorting of America. Now, shorting is normally a term that's used in the Wall Street business when you short a stock. Basically, you're betting on the stock or the commodity to fail. You're hoping that you get a collapse in the in the market value and because you shorted up front you're going to make a lot of money on the back end it's a way of profiting off of the um you know the bad luck of others uh but you know shorting isn't just about you know predictions of bad luck the way america works and the way the market functions is you know shorting is also a byproduct of collusion where uh people actively work to undermine a stock and then set it up for failure. And then people shorted at the right time and they make a lot of money. Hedge funds are known for doing this very sort of thing. People may have been following the trials and tribulations of AMC and GameStop before that, where, you know, the these two stocks were targeted for for destruction and heavily shorted by hedge funds.

You know, But shorty can take place in other ways as well. What we're seeing a lot lately is when it comes to this war and the president's tweets, the president's social media postings all appear to be timed for market intervention. And there seems to be a certain segment of the investor population close to Donald Trump who put in their short bids right on time. They'll they'll they're short. And then a couple hours later, the president will put out a social media post that will cause a swing in the market. And these make a lot of money. And it's basically criminal activity, but that's on par for this administration. This is a criminal administration. Everything about this administration is criminal. This administration operates in violation of the Constitution, in violation of the law. This administration has no appreciation for the norms and values that are normally attached to the office and the presidency, because this administration is a cult of personality.

It's not your normal you know, temporary stewardship that occurs in an election where a person assumes the title president, but shows respect for the office of the president. This is the office of Trump. That's it. It's not about the office of the presidency, the office of a man, Donald Trump, who is not, you know, acting in the interests of the United States, but acting in the interests of Donald Trump, the individual, Donald Trump, the brand and Donald Trump's legacy. um this is what it's all about and one of the key aspects of this is that donald trump cannot be seen as being a loser donald trump must win um and you know this applies to you know domestic policy this applies to the economy and it applies to foreign and national security policy right now we have a situation between the united states and iran where the united states is not winning by any measure the United States lost the first round of fighting.

The first 40 days ended in a decisive defeat of the United States and Israel, primarily because we failed to achieve any of our identified goals and objectives, especially that of regime change, but also suppressing Iran's ability to launch ballistic missiles and securing the Strait of Hormuz. We weren't able to accomplish any of this, not not only to mention the failure of the United States, apparently to snatch Iran's 60% enriched uranium, which ended up with a Desert One type debacle on a runway in the center of Iran. You know, so here we have a situation where, you know, the United States has lost this war, but this president, instead of doing the right thing, gracefully taking a diplomatic out to bring this disaster to an end, he can't because if he does that, He'll be painted as a loser. And right now he's in a very difficult domestic political spot. He has midterm elections coming up in November.

And if the Republican Party fails to hold on to the House of Representatives, Donald Trump's legacy will be that he'll spend the last two years of his presidency being impeached continuously by a Democratic-controlled House. And if things go really bad and Donald Trump loses the Senate by any wide margin, the impeachment could lead to convictions. And this is the absolute termination of Donald Trump as a political figure in the United States, an absolute disgrace, destruction of the brand, destruction of the person. Donald Trump, of course, can't allow this to happen. And so Donald Trump must spin reality into a way that he can create the perception of victory. And this one, he tried to achieve this by bullying the Iranians, agreeing to a deal, but then ensuring that he didn't abide by the deal because he had to be seen as being the one holding the upper hand. He was supposed to work with the Iranians to get the Strait of Hormuz open for all shipping.

Once the Iranians agreed to do that, then the president went ahead and sustained a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz carried further out towards the Indian Ocean just to say that he's in charge. He gets to dictate outcomes, not the Iranians. This has led to a collapse in the peace talks. You know, before the peace talks were consummated, you know, the president threatened Iran with civilization erasure. He said, we will eliminate the civilization of Iran. And there are many people who believe that this was an allusion to nuclear weapons, threatening to use nuclear weapons against Iran. There is indications that Donald Trump did float this concept and that he was opposed by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and others who recognized it as a war crime and refused to uh to carry out that order this led the president to send out a social media post the next day basically reneging on his threat to uh erase iran's civilization and pointing out in all capital letters no nuclear weapons now there was no reason for him to say no nuclear weapons unless in fact he was threatening nuclear weapons why is this important because Now the president is confronted with the fact that he will not be able to bully or intimidate the Iranians into submission.

And that if he simply repeats the aerial bombing campaign that we did for the first 40 days, the outcome will be the same. No meaningful impact on Iran, especially when it comes to their government, it comes to ballistic missiles, it comes to their nuclear. And Iran will continue to launch strikes that will be devastating for Israel, the Gulf of Arab states and American bases in the region. So the president apparently wanted to shortcut the system and go straight to nuclear weapons. And he called in the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This is reported according to Larry Johnson, who has two sources on this story, and asked how one would go about getting nuclear weapons released. And the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff reportedly told the president under no circumstances would he authorize this, that was a violation of international law a violation of issues of proportionality distinction and others and that this order would not be carried out um now why again is this important because we have a president who is clearly lost his ability to lead um this is a man who is sadly afflicted with disease.

He is a narcissist. He is he suffers from narcissistic personality disorder. He is malignant in this. He is antisocial in the extreme. Any man who wants to use nuclear weapons because he's not getting his way is a danger to society, American society and global society. This is a man whom if he was just an average citizen in the streets, you know, in certain states, including the state of New York, you know, could be committed to a state institution as a threat to society. This man is a threat to society. He's also a threat to the United States of America, to American democracy. We no longer function as a constitutional republic. We function as a cult of personality, which has led to the shorting of America financially, the shorting of America in terms of, you know, the processes that are related to war, but the shorting of America overall, the Constitution, who we are and what we are as a people.

Donald Trump is gambling everything or shorting everything to sustain his brand, to sustain his legacy at the expense of the United States of America. I'm going to be going down to Washington, D.C. tomorrow, actually. uh for the birth of uh my first granddaughter my daughter's giving birth um you know and I'm concerned about the world that she's going to come into um you know what are we leaving her we have a president who is in the process of destroying everything we stand for when you short something you don't replace it with something better um there's you know societies go through evolution all the time. We've seen societies crumble and rebuild. The best leaders are those leaders who have a vision and they build, they produce, they leave a legacy of construction. Donald Trump leaves a legacy of destruction. The shorting of America is the destruction of America. He is You know, enriching himself and others politically and financially by destroying the basic structures of society, the physical structures and the intellectual structures, the legal structures, the Constitution, first and foremost.

How do we stop this? How do we how do we prevent the shortening of America? You know, we've come to the conclusion, I've come to the conclusion that the only way to save America is to destroy Donald Trump. Now, I'm not sitting here saying that we have to have a French Revolution to bring the guillotines out. No, no violence. I'm talking about using the Constitution to defend the Constitution. This president must be voted out of office, but we don't need to wait two years because a lot can happen. He needs to be voted out indirectly. There must be a massive turnout of Americans in November who empower the United States Congress to remove this man from office, to impeach this insane, mentally ill individual, and to convict him, to have him physically removed from the presidency, to be replaced by somebody who may not articulate policies that we all agree upon, but who will at least hopefully respect the Constitution.

And then we can begin the process of rebuilding this nation, making this nation something worth living in. We have to stop shorting America. We have to stop shorting American democracy. We have to stop shorting American ideals, American values. We have to start investing in America. We have to start building America. But we can't build when the architecture is a mentally ill individual. Donald Trump must be defeated. Donald Trump must be eliminated. America must be preserved. Now, there's going to be a lot of people out there that say this is un-American, what I'm saying. How dare you articulate against sitting presidents? Well, the Constitution envisioned a president who loses the capacity to rule, and that's called the 25th Amendment. And if this cabinet, this vice president and these people who were handpicked by Donald Trump can't see that the president has lost the capacity to rule, then the 25th Amendment will never be invoked, which means it's up to us, the people of the United States, we the people, to take matters into our own hands and in November ensure that the Republican Party is routed from Congress so that the Democrats can bring to justice this individual who's brought so much harm to our country and others as well.

Pete Hegseth, most cabinet members, people who have violated the Constitution, people who have violated the trust and confidence that the American people put in them. The shortening of America must end. This has been my rant. Next time a thought crosses my mind, I'll be sure to let you know.

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Hello and welcome to this episode of Ritter's Rant. Today we're going to be talking about the shorting of America. Now shorting is normally a term that's used in the Wall Street business when you short a stock. Basically you're betting on the stock or the commodity to fail. You're hoping that you get a collapse in the market value and because you short it up front you're going to make a lot of money on the back end. It's a way of profiting off of the bad luck of others. But shorting isn't just about predictions of bad luck. The way America works and the way the market functions is shorting is also a byproduct of collusion where people actively work to undermine a stock and then set it up for failure and then people short it at the right time and they make a lot of money. Hedge funds are known for doing this very sort of thing. People may have been following the trials and tribulations of AMC and GameStop before that where these two stocks were targeted for destruction and heavily shorted by hedge funds. But shorting can take place in other ways as well. What we're seeing a lot lately is when it comes to this war and the president's tweets, the president's social media postings all appear to be timed for market intervention. And there seems to be a certain segment of the investor population close to Donald Trump who put in their short bids, you know, right on time, they'll they'll they're short and then a couple hours later, the president will put out a social media post. So it will cause a swing in the market and these make a lot of money and it's just it's basically criminal activity, but that's on par for this administration is a criminal administration. Everything about this administration operates in violation of the Constitution, violation of the law. This administration has no appreciation for the norms and values that are normally attached to the office and the presidency, because this administration is a cult of personality. It's not your normal, you know, temporary stewardship that occurs in an election where a person assumes the title president, but shows respect for the office of the president. This is the office of Trump. That's it.

It's not about the office of the presidency office of a man, Donald Trump, who is not, you know, acting in the interests of the United States, but acting in the interests of Donald Trump. The individual Donald Trump, the brand and Donald Trump's legacy. This is what it's all about. And one of the key aspects of this is that Donald Trump cannot be seen as being a loser. Donald Trump must win. And, you know, this applies to, you know, domestic policy. This applies to the economy and it applies to foreign and national security policy. Right now we have a situation between the United States and Iran where the United States is not winning by any measure. The United States lost the first round of fighting. The first 40 days ended in a decisive defeat of the United States and Israel, primarily because we failed to achieve any of our identified goals and objectives, especially that of regime change, but also suppressing Iran's ability to launch ballistic missiles and securing the Strait of Hormuz. We weren't able to accomplish any of this, not only to mention the failure of the United States, apparently to snatch Iran's 60 percent enriched uranium, which ended up with a desert one type debacle on a runway in the center of Iran. You know, so here we have a situation where, you know, the United States has lost its war. But this president, instead of doing the right thing, you're gracefully taking a diplomatic out to bring this disaster to an end. He can't because if he does that, he'll be painted as a loser. Right now he's in a very difficult domestic political spot. He has midterm elections coming up in November. And if the Republican Party fails to hold on to the House of Representatives, Donald Trump's legacy will be that he'll spend the last two years of his presidency being impeached continuously by a Democratic controlled House. And if things go really bad and Donald Trump loses the Senate by any wide margin, the impeachment could lead to conviction. And this is the absolute termination of Donald Trump as a political figure in the United States, an absolute disgrace, destruction of the brand, destruction of the person. Donald Trump, of course, can't allow this to happen. And so Donald Trump must spin reality into a way that he can create the perception of victory. And this one is he tried to achieve this by bullying the Iranians, agreeing to a deal, but then ensuring that he didn't abide by the deal because he had to be seen as being the one holding the upper hand. He was supposed to work with the Iranians to get the Strait of Hormuz open for all shipping. Once the Iranians agreed to do that, then the president went ahead and sustained a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz carried further out towards the Indian Ocean just to say that he's in charge. He gets to dictate outcomes, not the Iranians. This has led to a collapse in the peace talks. You know, before the peace talks were consummated, you know, the president threatened Iran with the civilization erasure. He said we will eliminate the civilization of Iran. And there are many people who believe that this was an allusion to nuclear weapons, threatening to use nuclear weapons against Iran. There is indications that Donald Trump did float this concept and that he was opposed by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and others who recognized it as a war crime and refused to carry out that order. This led the president to send out a social media post the next day, basically reneging on his threat to erase Iran's civilization and pointing out in all capital letters, no nuclear weapons. In fact, he was threatening nuclear weapons. Why is this important? Why is this important? Because now the president is confronted with the fact that he will not be able to bully or intimidate the Iranians into submission and that if he simply repeats the aerial bombing campaign that we did for the first 40 days, the outcome will be the same. And there is no meaningful impact on Iran, no meaningful impact on Iran, especially when it comes to their government, when it comes to ballistic missiles, when it comes to their nuclear. And Iran will continue to launch strikes that will be devastating for Israel, the Gulf of Arab states and American bases in the region. So the president apparently wanted to shortcut the system and go straight to nuclear weapons. And he called him the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This is reported according to Larry Johnson, who has two sources on the story and asked, you know, how one would go about getting nuclear weapons release. And the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff reportedly told the president under no circumstances would he authorize this, that it was a violation of international law, a violation of issues of proportionality, distinction and others, and that this order would not be carried out. Now, why, again, is this important? Because we have a president who is clearly lost his ability to lead. This is a man who is sadly afflicted with health disease. He is a narcissist. He is he suffers from narcissistic personality disorder. He is malignant in this. He is antisocial in the extreme.

Any man who wants to use nuclear weapons because he's not getting his way is a danger to society, American society and global society. This is a man whom if he was just an average citizen in the streets, you know, in certain states, including the state of New York, you know, could be committed to a state institution as a threat to society. This man is a threat to society. He's also a threat to the United States of America, to American democracy. We no longer function as a constitutional republic. We function as a cult of personality, which has led to the shorting of America financially, the shorting of America in terms of, you know, the processes that are related to war. But the shorting of America overall, the Constitution, who we are and what we are as a people, Donald Trump is gambling everything or shorting everything to sustain his brand, to sustain his legacy at the expense of the United States of America. America, I'm going to be going down to Washington, D.C., tomorrow, actually, for the birth of my first granddaughter. My daughter's giving birth, you know, and I'm concerned about the world that she's going to come into. You know, what are we leaving her? We have a president who is in the process of destroying everything we stand for. When you short something, you don't replace it with something better. There's, you know, societies go through evolution all the time. We've seen societies crumble and rebuild. The best leaders are those leaders who have a vision and they build, they produce, they leave a legacy of construction.

Donald Trump leaves a legacy of destruction. The shorting of America is the destruction of America. He is enriching himself and others politically and financially by destroying the basic structures of society, the physical structures and the intellectual structures, the legal structures, the Constitution, first and foremost. How do we stop this? How do we how do we prevent the shorting of America? And, you know, we've come to the conclusion, I've come to the conclusion that the only way to save America is to destroy Donald Trump. Now, I'm not acting, you know, I'm not sitting here saying that we have to have a French Revolution to bring the guillotines out. No, no violence. I'm talking about using the Constitution to defend the Constitution. So, this president must be voted out of office, but not we don't need to wait two years because a lot can happen. He needs to be voted out indirectly. So, there must be a massive turnout of Americans in November who empower the United States Congress to remove this man from office, to impeach this insane, mentally ill individual, and to convict him, to have him physically removed from the presidency, to be replaced by somebody who may not, you know, articulate policies that we all agree upon, but who will at least hopefully respect the Constitution. And then we can begin the process of rebuilding this nation, making this nation something worth living in. You know, we have to stop shorting America, we have to stop shorting American democracy, we have to stop shorting American ideals, American values, we have to start investing in America, we have to start building America, but we can't build when the architecture is a mentally ill individual. Donald Trump must be defeated. Donald Trump must be defeated. Donald Trump must be eliminated. Donald Trump must be eliminated.

America must be preserved. Now, there's gonna be a lot of people out there that say this is un-American what I'm saying, how dare you articulate against the sitting president. Well, the Constitution envisioned a president who loses the capacity to rule, and that's called the 25th Amendment. And if this cabinet, this vice president, and these people who were handpicked by Donald Trump, can't see that the president has lost the capacity to rule that the 25th Amendment will never be invoked, which means it's up to us, the people of the United States, we the people to take matters into our own hands. And in November, ensure that the Republican Party is routed from Congress so that the Democrats can bring to justice this individual who's brought so much harm to our country, and others as well, Pete Hegseth, most cabinet members, people who have violated the Constitution, people who have violated the trust and confidence that the American people put in them. The shorting of America must end. This has been my rant. Next time a thought crosses my mind, I'll be sure to let you know. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time.

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Hello and welcome to this episode of Ritter's Rant. Today we're going to be talking about the shorting of America. Now shorting is normally a term that's used in the Wall Street business when you short a stock. Basically you're betting on the stock or the commodity to fail. You're hoping that you get a collapse in the market value and because you shorted up front, you're going to make a lot of money on the back end. It's a way of profiting off of the bad luck of others. But shorting isn't just about predictions of bad luck. The way America works and the way the market functions is shorting is also a byproduct of collusion where people actively work to undermine a stock and then set it up for failure and then people short it at the right time and they make a lot of money. Hedge funds are known for doing this very sort of thing. People may have been following the trials and tribulations of AMC and GameStop before that where these two stocks were targeted for destruction and heavily shorted by hedge funds. But shorting can take place in other ways as well. What we're seeing a lot lately is when it comes to this war and the president's tweets, the president's social media postings all appear to be timed for market intervention. And there seems to be a certain segment of the investor population close to Donald Trump who put in their short bids, you know, right on time.

They're short and then a couple hours later the president will put out a social media post that will cause a swing in the market and these guys make a lot of money. And it's basically criminal activity but that's on par for this administration. This is a criminal administration. Everything about this administration is criminal. This administration operates in violation of the Constitution, in violation of the law. This administration has no appreciation for the norms and values that are normally attached to the office and the presidency because this administration is a cult of personality. It's not your normal, you know, temporary stewardship that occurs in an election where a person assumes the title president but shows respect for the office of the president. This is the office of Trump. That's it. It's not about the office of the presidency office of a man, Donald Trump, who is not, you know, acting in the interest of the United States, but acting in the interest of Donald Trump, the individual, Donald Trump, the brand and Donald Trump's legacy. This is what it's all about. And one of the key aspects of this is that Donald Trump cannot be seen as being a loser. Donald Trump must win. Donald Trump must win. And, you know, this applies to, you know, domestic policy. This applies to the economy and it applies to foreign and national security policy. Right now we have a situation between the United States and Iran where the United States is not winning by any measure. The United States lost the first round of fighting. The first 40 days ended in a decisive defeat of the United States in Israel, primarily because we failed to achieve any of our, um, identified goals and objectives, especially that of regime change, but also, um, suppressing Iran's ability to launch ballistic missiles and securing the Strait of Hormuz. Um, we weren't able to accomplish any of this, not, not only to mention the failure of the United States, apparently the snatch, uh, Iran's 60% enriched uranium, which ended with a desert one type debacle on a runway in, uh, in the center of Iran.

Um, you know, so here, here we have a situation where, you know, the United States has lost this war, but this president, instead of doing the right thing, take, you're gracefully taking the diplomatic out to bring this disaster to an end. He can't, because if he does that, he'll be painted as a loser. And right now he's in a very difficult domestic political spot. He has midterm elections coming up in November. And, uh, if the Republican party fails to hold on to the house of representatives, uh, Donald Trump's legacy, uh, will be that he'll spend the last two years of his presidency being impeached continuously by a democratic controlled house. And if things go really bad and Donald Trump loses the Senate by any wide margin, the impeachment could lead to conviction. And this is the absolute termination of Donald Trump as a, as a political figure in the United States, uh, absolute disgrace, destruction of the brand, uh, destruction of the person. Um, Donald Trump, of course, can't allow this to happen. And so Donald Trump must spin a reality into a way that he can create the perception of victory. Um, and this one is, he tried to achieve this by bullying the Iranians, uh, agreeing to a deal, but then, um, ensuring that he didn't abide by the deal because he had to be seen as being the one holding the upper hand. He was supposed to work with the Iranians to get the Strait of Hormuz open for all shipping. Uh, once the Iranians agreed to do that, then the president went ahead and sustained a, uh, naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz carried further out towards the Indian ocean. Uh, just to say that he's in charge, he gets to dictate outcomes, not the Iranians. This has led to a collapse in the, uh, peace talks. You know, before the, uh, peace talks were consummated, um, you know, the president threatened Iran with, uh, civilization erasure. He said, we will eliminate the civilization of, uh, Iran. Um, and there are many people who believe that this was an allusion to nuclear weapons, threatening to use nuclear weapons against Iran. Um, there is indications that, uh, Donald Trump did float this concept and that he was opposed by, uh, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and others who recognized it as a war crime. Um, and, uh, refused to, uh, to carry out that order. This led the president to send out a social media post the next day, basically reneging on his threat to, uh, erase Iran's civilization and pointing out in all capital letters, no nuclear weapons. Now there was no reason for him to say no nuclear weapons, unless in fact, he was threatening nuclear weapons. Why is this important? Because now the president is confronted with the fact that he will not be able to bully or intimidate the Iranians into, uh, submission. Uh, and that if he simply repeats, uh, the aerial bombing campaign that we did for the first 40 days, the outcome will be the same, uh, no meaningful impact on Iran, especially when it comes to their government, it comes to ballistic missiles, it comes to their nuclear and Iran will continue to launch strikes that will be devastating for Israel, the Gulf Arab States and American bases in the region.

Uh, so the president apparently wanted to, um, to shortcut the system and go straight to nuclear weapons. And he called him the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This is reported according to Larry Johnson, who has two sources on this story, um, and asked, uh, you know, how one would go about getting nuclear weapons release. And the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff reportedly told the president under no circumstances would he authorize this, that it was a violation of international law, uh, violation of issues of proportionality, distinction, and others, uh, and that this order would not be carried out. Um, now why, again, is this important? Because we have a president who has clearly lost his ability to lead. Um, this is a man who is sadly, uh, afflicted with health disease. He is a, uh, narcissist. He is, he suffers from narcissistic personality disorder. He is malignant in this. Uh, he is antisocial in the extreme. Any man who wants to use nuclear weapons because he's not getting his way, uh, uh, is a danger to society, American society and global society. This is a man whom, if he was just an average citizen in the streets, um, you know, in certain states, including the state of New York, um, you know, could be committed, uh, to a state institution as a threat to society. This man is a threat to society. Um, he's also a threat to the United States of America, to American democracy. We no longer function as a constitutional republic. We function as a cult of personality, um, which has led to the shorting of America financially, the shorting of America in terms of, um, you know, the processes that are related to, uh, to war, but the shorting of America overall, the constitution, um, who we are and what we are as a people. Uh, Donald Trump is gambling everything or shorting everything to, uh, sustain his brand, to sustain his legacy at the expense of the United States of America. Um, I'm going to be going down to Washington DC, uh, tomorrow actually, uh, for the birth of, uh, my first granddaughter, my daughter's giving birth. Um, you know, and I'm concerned about about the world that she's going to come into, um, you know, what are we leaving her? We have a president who is in the process of destroying everything we stand for. When you short something, you don't replace it with something better. Um, there's, you know, societies go through evolution all the time.

We've seen societies crumble and rebuild. Um, the best leaders are those leaders who have a vision and they build, they produce, they, they, they, they leave a legacy of construction. Donald Trump leaves a legacy of destruction. The shorting of America is the destruction of America. He is enriching himself and others politically and financially by destroying the basic structures of society, the physical structures and the intellectual structures, the legal structures, the constitution, uh, first and foremost, uh, how do we stop this? How do we, how do we prevent the shortening of America? You know, we've come to the conclusion, I've come to the conclusion that the only way to save America is to destroy Donald Trump. Now I'm not acting, you know, I'm not sitting here saying that we have to have a French revolution and bring the guillotines out. No, no violence. I'm talking about using the constitution to defend the constitution. This president must be voted out of office. Um, but not, we don't need to wait two years because a lot can happen. He needs to be voted out indirectly. Um, there must be a massive turnout of Americans in November who empower the United States Congress to remove this man from office, to impeach this insane, mentally ill individual, and to convict him, to have him physically removed from the presidency, uh, to be replaced by somebody who may not, you know, articulate policies that we all agree upon, but who will at least hopefully respect the constitution. And then we can begin the process of rebuilding this nation, uh, making this nation something worth living in. Um, you know, we, we have to stop shorting America. We have to shop, stop shorting American democracy. We have to stop shorting American ideals, American values.

We have to start investing in America. We have to start building America, but we can't build when the architecture is a mentally ill individual. Donald Trump must be defeated. Donald Trump must be eliminated. America must be preserved. Um, now there's going to be a lot of people out there that say, this is un-American when I'm saying, how dare you articulate against the sitting president. Well, the constitution envisioned a president who loses the capacity to rule, and that's called the 25th amendment. And if this, um, cabinet, this vice president, and these people who were handpicked by Donald Trump, um, can't see that the president has lost the capacity to rule that the 25th amendment will never be invoked, which means it's up to us, the people of the United States, we, the people to take matters into our own hands. And in November, ensure that the Republican party is routed from Congress so that the Democrats can bring to justice this individual who's brought so much harm to our country and others as well. Pete Hegseth, um, most cabinet members, people who have violated the constitution, people who have violated the trust and confidence that the American people put in them, the shorting of America must end. Pete Hegseth. This has been my rant. Um, next time a thought crosses my mind, I'll be sure to let you know. Thank you.