What Is Worse Than Donald Trump?

More Donald Trump

Even when you begin to think that it can’t get any worse with Donald J. Trump as President of the United States the Orangeman does something that is so stupid and so reflective of a man who thinks only about himself that it makes one’s shudder in disbelief. Last week included some completely bizarre performances that could lead to nuclear war while also falsely promoting that our leader is a “man of peace.” That is in spite of the fact that it has become hard to imagine that Trump can even pronounce the word “peace” without an interpreter or the five letter word flashing up in boldface on his teleprompter screen. Let’s start with several recent developments about which there can be no real debate, though motive and expectations can be reasonably disputed. Consider for a moment the performance of a man who knows little beyond how to curse and harangue those who disagree with him as well as any skill beyond how to scribble a version of his own name in large letters with a marker pen.

Trump met last week with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and also with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which will be discussed in due course below, but somehow the absurdity of what really interests him and fills his time as president of the United States of America is what immediately comes to mind for the reader. That would be the various subsets of his glorification of himself far beyond any point that might be considered either dignified or befitting for someone who holds high office and is in theory responsible for the safety and well-being of the citizens of the country that elected him.

I was particularly appalled by the announcement that the “Arch of Tr[i]ump[h]” project, which has been under discussion for some months, will now be starting within the next two months. Trump was in the White House waving a model of the proposed arch in his tiny fist last week as he babbled about the great project. The arch will be in the middle of the traffic circle that adjoins the entrance road to Arlington National Cemetery on the banks of the Potomac River. The circle also connects to the Memorial Bridge which crosses the river to the Lincoln Memorial. Trump characteristically declared that the monument will be much more imposing than the similar triumphal arches in Paris and Europe that celebrate wars fought and won. What he did not mention, however, is the presumable intention that he has to use the monument to glorify himself with his name in large letters across the arch lintel even though he never fought in any war for his own country due to his alleged “bone spurs” ailment. Nevertheless, the arch will be a monument to Donald J. Trump, similar to the recent desecration inflicted by his name being added to the US Institute of Peace and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, even if the monumental arch does coincidentally also commemorate the 250^th anniversary of the founding of the United States of America.

And that’s not all that went down last week. Trump also took control of the three public golf courses in the District of Columbia, which had previously been managed by the National Links Trust, a nonprofit that has operated the courses on federal land. Without warning, the Department of the Interior terminated the 50-year lease agreement which has been in effect for the last five years. The presumption has to be that we will be seeing in the very near future Donald J. Trump golf courses taking their place as golf is one of those many things that Trump believes himself to be good at, though some who have had the pleasure of playing with him at any one of his several courses have claimed that he cheats.

Going back to one of the lead stories, there is a considerable controversy over the story that once week ago Ukraine launched 91 drones to kill Russian President Vladimir Putin at his country residence in Novgorod. The story broke due to a phone call between Putin and Trump shortly after the alleged attack, which produced an outraged response from Trump. By New Year’s Eve, however, a CIA investigation determined that the attack had not taken place as described. An Agency assessment briefed to Trump by Director John Ratcliffe on December 31^st concluded Ukraine was actually targeting a nearby military site. Trump quickly changed his tune, criticizing the Russians.

The important back story that is driving all the concern is that if the story had been true there would have been a distinct possibility that US intelligence was directly involved. That initial version presumed that the US and possibly some of the Europeans must have been able to pinpoint Putin’s whereabouts through the interception of the communications of the staff that moves with him. As Ukraine does not have the capability to carry out such sophisticated spying, this information was presumably passed on to Zelensky or his associates who feared that some kind of peace arrangement with Russia not to their liking was about to be forced upon them so they or he ordered the attack. The attack might have been intended to convince the Russians that they cannot trust NATO and the US to abide by any ceasefire or peace agreement that might be reached.

As the possible attack apparently took place while Zelensky was meeting with Donald Trump for the ostensible purpose of trying to craft a peace proposal for Russia, the associated question became was Trump in the loop in all of this, which would have made Washington totally complicit in trying to subvert its own peace agreement. In any event, Russia reportedly responded to Kiev’s drones with a massive drone attack of its own on New Year’s Day, hitting Ukrainian energy sites. To be sure, killing Putin would have altered that situation vis-à-vis Kiev and Moscow, but it could also lead to World War 3 using nuclear weapons depending on who was involved and how and what conclusions were drawn. What happened is nevertheless still somewhat disputed and under investigation by the US, Russia and the media.

But a bigger story which comes straight from the great man’s always open mouth and which guarantees war is the meeting between Trump and Netanyahu. It is not completely clear who called for the get together, but both men had agendas of sorts and Trump, at a recent White House Hanukkah party, himself confirmed as “true” that he is the “first Jewish president.” In spite of that possibly somewhat ambiguous admission, some apparently believed that Trump might actually ask the Israeli to cool it a bit in Gaza to let the “Trump Peace Plan” proceed. But even though that would have been an ego enhancing issue for Trump, nearly everyone expected that Bibi would call for an attack on Iran with the support of the United States and that is precisely what the leader of the Jewish state got, and more. Trump, who described to his face Netanyahu as a “wartime hero,” confirmed that Israel was doing everything right in support of the ceasefire with Gaza, which is a lie as Israel has in fact been openly violating the agreement from day one, killing over 400 Palestinians, not preparing to withdraw its troops, and blocking shipments of food and medical supplies. On New Year’s Eve it tightened its control by banning a number of international charities including the highly respectable Doctors Without Borders which had been helping the suffering Palestinians. If Trump’s brain were working, which is debatable, he would know that Israel is doing everything it can to increase the pressure on the Arabs both in Gaza and on the West Bank, hoping to eliminate both Christians and Muslims from historic Palestine. One crazed right-wing Israel parliamentarian Revital Gotliv has even called for nuking Gaza to put an end to the problem.

Netanyahu, who awarded Trump the “Israel Prize” at the gathering for his services to the Jewish state, also obtained from Trump a deadline to disarm Hamas, i.e. one month or something “truly horrible will happen” to the Gazans. Hamas for its part claims correctly that it needs some weapons to prevent the Israeli killers insofar as possible, but Trump and Bibi are not buying that argument. They are also setting their sights on Iran, with Netanyahu claiming that Tehran is not only harboring a secret nuclear weapons program, it is also developing an arsenal of new missiles which are threatening both Israel and US interests. What a surprise! Trump indicated that he would completely support Israel when something has to be done about the new threat from Iran and that he and the Jewish state together would join to “knock them down.”

If you want to ask “What has our president done to benefit the American people over the past couple of weeks?” the answer would of course be “Nothing!” unless one supports his shooting up fishing boats in international waters or hijacking tankers belonging to foreigners or sending an emissary to Greenland to force its annexation by Washington. Or maybe even it would include insulting mostly women journalists who are asking him questions that he either does not understand or which he thinks impugn the dignity of his office. But he would have to learn the meaning of “dignity” first as it apparently is an expression that has somehow been skipped over in his low-end Ivy League education.

Posted by Philip Giraldi on Jan 2 2026 . Filed under CNI Authors, Commentary & Analysis, Philip Giraldi . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 . You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.