Trump finally showed up to the Correspondents’ Dinner, delivered an hour of dead air, got mocked for it in real time–and accidentally ran the best First Amendment demonstration you’ll see all year.
To me the best part was Wolf Blitzer giving awards to journalists for the accuracy, courage and journalistic convictions for their articles in front of the very big loser who did in fact have them subpoenaed for using their First Ammendment Rights to weite the truth about him. They, not He...emerged victorious!
Sher'...that's the image that outlasts ALL the flat jokes, isn't it; awards handed out for exactly the reporting this college graduate wannabe tried to punish...presented right in FRONT of him...all while he sat there and had to WATCH.
He even grimaced (made one of his dumb faces) and asked whether he got a say in those awards. He did NOT. That's the tell.
Sher'...you've got the scoreboard right. He brought subpoenas; they brought the WORK. The work...yeah...it WON...in his OWN ballroom...on his OWN night.
YES...they emerged victorious...it wasn't even close...and he had to applaud it!
Steven...a submarine CO...who knows the principle better than anyone in that ballroom did last night.
Command means the failure is YOURS, full stop. No blaming the crew...no blaming the orders...no turning around mid-mission to trash the people who handed you the plan.
Trump stood up, bombed...and reached straight for "the writers did it." You'd likely have RELIEVED a junior officer for less.
That last line is the entire spirit of the thing: especially if he tries.
The First Amendment isn't SELF-enforcing...it holds...because people like YOU, Steven... KEEP using it out loud...on the record...under your own name. Keep writing the comments. Keep writing the books. That's how the buck actually stops!
I come from a family that served.My dad was a paraplegic from WW II and had the first hand controls to drive. Back then they learned how to jump curbs that had 2 steps and to ge in and out of their wheelchairs for transfers alone and from the ground. I always said the only thing he could not do is walk. His younger brother was career Army with school at West point and taught there, 3 tours of Nam looking for mines before the troops went thru and ended career at the pentagon. A gate named for him at Ft Belvoir and grave overlooks the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I cringe whenever drumpf is in Arlington Cemetery or when he says he does not want to be seen with handicapped vets. Commanding a submarine must have had its challenges with the limited space and being underwater so much. I applaud you for it.
Thank you for that.Sadly both died in their 50's. You don't realize at 16 how much you would have liked to ask about their time in service. My dad never spoke about it. I found a diary he kept when he was in Alaska. I also found some pictures from that time period. He was 53 and had a brain stem malignant tumor found on autopsy. My uncle died about4 years later of a ruptured brain aneurysm. We did not see him much when Iwas growing up because he was out of the country so much.He was also in his late 40 to early 50's.
Steve thank you for your service…and being a Navy brat, I know that the families serve too, and that part is often forgotten…so I appreciate their service, too!
He looked like big buffoon in the short clips Dean showed on his substack. I wish the people that won the award that Wolf Blitzer had come up had not walked over and shook his hand. I am glad no one was laughing at anything. Some thought they had piped in laughter at times. I could not pick it up.
Teri...the handshake stung you for the right reason; after he tried to subpoena that exact work...a little MORE frost would've fit the moment. Though there's an argument the other way: shake the hand...take the award he grimaced at...and let THAT be the picture.
Grace in the room he could NOT win. Either way...the AWARD was the victory...not the handshake.
As for the piped-in laughter... I can't confirm it either...and I wouldn't put weight on it without the audio. BUT...what everyone DOES agree on...is the SILENCE...and silence...for this clown in a tuxedo... is the part that mattered.
A buffoon in a room...that won't laugh for him... the whole agonizing story for him.
I am sure his blood pressure was off the charts by the time he lift. It looked like he was doing everything he could to keep from going off like a bomb.
Nobody can count the number of times this doofus has stepped in it. He has never learned…brevity is the soul of wit, a little goes a long way, less is more, etc. Additionally, he has only three speeds to his intellect now - nostalgic, confused, and angry.
His second speech, second appearance at events, second EVERYTHING was already old stupid diarrhea. The fact we've as a country had to witness this painfully long process of this little pathetic man's reality tv show to finally see how empty he is, is what will bother me forever. HOWEVER, your point is quite pleasing to consider. I was especially happy that that piece of garbage had to sit there and hear about the Epstein reporting and see the award presented.
File the date: July 25, 2026. A head of state stood in a room built to flatter him, delivered a speech promised in advance as “unifying yet vicious,” and the room declined to laugh. Jack is correct that this is not merely an embarrassment. It is a data point, and data points accumulate into patterns, and patterns are what those of us who study the collapse of open societies are trained to watch for.
Note which instinct he reached for when the laugh did not come. Not silence. Not self-correction. He turned on the material — his own material, approved by his own office, delivered by his own mouth — and called it “this whole, frickin, stupid speech they wrote.” Note the grammar of that sentence. There is no “they” in a room a president built for himself and walked into alone. The reflex to invent an author other than himself, at the exact moment authorship became inconvenient, is not comedy. It is a tell. Rulers who cannot tolerate authorship of their own failures are, historically, rulers who eventually stop tolerating authors altogether.
Note also what he reached for at the end, once the old bits had failed to revive the room: the future term promised in a hat, the wink toward an amendment that says, in plain English, that the thing he was joking about cannot happen. A joke about the 22nd Amendment is not automatically a threat to it. But a leader who jokes about the limit on his time in office, in the same speech where he punished the room for laughing at everyone but him, is telling you what occupies his mind when the laughter stops. Authoritarians rarely announce their intentions. They rehearse them, in rooms they think are safe, as bits.
Here is where Jack is correct a second time, and where the piece earns its argument. The mockery itself — printed, broadcast, unpunished — is not incidental to the story. It is the story. In every regime I have studied that slid from competitive politics into something else, the first institution tested was never the courts. It was the room where the powerful could be laughed at to their face and walk home unharmed the next morning. That room existed on Friday night. The reporters who wrote “he bombed” went home. Nobody was arrested for the sentence. This is not a small fact. It is the fact.
This is where the reader should look past Friday night and toward the calendar. The WHCA exists for one purpose above all others: to keep the question of who covers the president answered by journalists, not by the government being covered — to defend correspondents’ ability to report on the presidency without fear or favor. That arrangement is not ceremonial. It was fought for in 1914, on the same principle now being tested again. Note that this isn’t only an outside observation. Longtime members of the association itself have said as much this week, arguing plainly that Friday’s dinner did not advance that founding mission and that the format itself needs rethinking. When the people inside an institution start questioning whether its own rituals still serve its purpose, that is usually the more important story than the ritual itself.
The current White House has already moved to claim authority over who gets access, informing reporters that the press pool would be determined by the White House press team rather than the association that has run it for over a century. The room held once, in public, with cameras running. The quieter fight — over who is even allowed back in the room next time, and whether the dinner itself still serves anyone but the powerful — is the one to watch. It will not be funny, and no one will be mocked for losing it in real time.
To me the best part was Wolf Blitzer giving awards to journalists for the accuracy, courage and journalistic convictions for their articles in front of the very big loser who did in fact have them subpoenaed for using their First Ammendment Rights to weite the truth about him. They, not He...emerged victorious!
Sher'...that's the image that outlasts ALL the flat jokes, isn't it; awards handed out for exactly the reporting this college graduate wannabe tried to punish...presented right in FRONT of him...all while he sat there and had to WATCH.
He even grimaced (made one of his dumb faces) and asked whether he got a say in those awards. He did NOT. That's the tell.
Sher'...you've got the scoreboard right. He brought subpoenas; they brought the WORK. The work...yeah...it WON...in his OWN ballroom...on his OWN night.
YES...they emerged victorious...it wasn't even close...and he had to applaud it!
-Jack
Every day, it feels like we may be getting closer to this entire mess being over!
Charli...it DOES. And...we ARE!
-Jack
From your lips to the higher power above's ears.
Bingo.
The buck stops with the President just like it stopped with me when I was the Commanding Officer of my nuclear submarine.
The first amendment allows me to write this comment and to publish my SUBSTACK and my two books.
This I will continue to do even if Trump tries to terminate the constitution and especially if he tries.
Steven...a submarine CO...who knows the principle better than anyone in that ballroom did last night.
Command means the failure is YOURS, full stop. No blaming the crew...no blaming the orders...no turning around mid-mission to trash the people who handed you the plan.
Trump stood up, bombed...and reached straight for "the writers did it." You'd likely have RELIEVED a junior officer for less.
That last line is the entire spirit of the thing: especially if he tries.
The First Amendment isn't SELF-enforcing...it holds...because people like YOU, Steven... KEEP using it out loud...on the record...under your own name. Keep writing the comments. Keep writing the books. That's how the buck actually stops!
-Jack
I appreciate the support
Thank you for your service.
I did it for people like you so you can keep speaking your mind. It was worth every minute.
I come from a family that served.My dad was a paraplegic from WW II and had the first hand controls to drive. Back then they learned how to jump curbs that had 2 steps and to ge in and out of their wheelchairs for transfers alone and from the ground. I always said the only thing he could not do is walk. His younger brother was career Army with school at West point and taught there, 3 tours of Nam looking for mines before the troops went thru and ended career at the pentagon. A gate named for him at Ft Belvoir and grave overlooks the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I cringe whenever drumpf is in Arlington Cemetery or when he says he does not want to be seen with handicapped vets. Commanding a submarine must have had its challenges with the limited space and being underwater so much. I applaud you for it.
I have the greatest respect for your father and his brothers. The front lines is different than being on a submarine.
Thank you for that.Sadly both died in their 50's. You don't realize at 16 how much you would have liked to ask about their time in service. My dad never spoke about it. I found a diary he kept when he was in Alaska. I also found some pictures from that time period. He was 53 and had a brain stem malignant tumor found on autopsy. My uncle died about4 years later of a ruptured brain aneurysm. We did not see him much when Iwas growing up because he was out of the country so much.He was also in his late 40 to early 50's.
They all died too young. You take care of yourself.
Steve thank you for your service…and being a Navy brat, I know that the families serve too, and that part is often forgotten…so I appreciate their service, too!
Christie
Is he ranting on truth social yet?
Great question, BG. While I don't know the answer...my guess is...YES. ;)
-Jack
He looked like big buffoon in the short clips Dean showed on his substack. I wish the people that won the award that Wolf Blitzer had come up had not walked over and shook his hand. I am glad no one was laughing at anything. Some thought they had piped in laughter at times. I could not pick it up.
Teri...the handshake stung you for the right reason; after he tried to subpoena that exact work...a little MORE frost would've fit the moment. Though there's an argument the other way: shake the hand...take the award he grimaced at...and let THAT be the picture.
Grace in the room he could NOT win. Either way...the AWARD was the victory...not the handshake.
As for the piped-in laughter... I can't confirm it either...and I wouldn't put weight on it without the audio. BUT...what everyone DOES agree on...is the SILENCE...and silence...for this clown in a tuxedo... is the part that mattered.
A buffoon in a room...that won't laugh for him... the whole agonizing story for him.
-Jack
I am sure his blood pressure was off the charts by the time he lift. It looked like he was doing everything he could to keep from going off like a bomb.
Nobody can count the number of times this doofus has stepped in it. He has never learned…brevity is the soul of wit, a little goes a long way, less is more, etc. Additionally, he has only three speeds to his intellect now - nostalgic, confused, and angry.
His second speech, second appearance at events, second EVERYTHING was already old stupid diarrhea. The fact we've as a country had to witness this painfully long process of this little pathetic man's reality tv show to finally see how empty he is, is what will bother me forever. HOWEVER, your point is quite pleasing to consider. I was especially happy that that piece of garbage had to sit there and hear about the Epstein reporting and see the award presented.
File the date: July 25, 2026. A head of state stood in a room built to flatter him, delivered a speech promised in advance as “unifying yet vicious,” and the room declined to laugh. Jack is correct that this is not merely an embarrassment. It is a data point, and data points accumulate into patterns, and patterns are what those of us who study the collapse of open societies are trained to watch for.
Note which instinct he reached for when the laugh did not come. Not silence. Not self-correction. He turned on the material — his own material, approved by his own office, delivered by his own mouth — and called it “this whole, frickin, stupid speech they wrote.” Note the grammar of that sentence. There is no “they” in a room a president built for himself and walked into alone. The reflex to invent an author other than himself, at the exact moment authorship became inconvenient, is not comedy. It is a tell. Rulers who cannot tolerate authorship of their own failures are, historically, rulers who eventually stop tolerating authors altogether.
Note also what he reached for at the end, once the old bits had failed to revive the room: the future term promised in a hat, the wink toward an amendment that says, in plain English, that the thing he was joking about cannot happen. A joke about the 22nd Amendment is not automatically a threat to it. But a leader who jokes about the limit on his time in office, in the same speech where he punished the room for laughing at everyone but him, is telling you what occupies his mind when the laughter stops. Authoritarians rarely announce their intentions. They rehearse them, in rooms they think are safe, as bits.
Here is where Jack is correct a second time, and where the piece earns its argument. The mockery itself — printed, broadcast, unpunished — is not incidental to the story. It is the story. In every regime I have studied that slid from competitive politics into something else, the first institution tested was never the courts. It was the room where the powerful could be laughed at to their face and walk home unharmed the next morning. That room existed on Friday night. The reporters who wrote “he bombed” went home. Nobody was arrested for the sentence. This is not a small fact. It is the fact.
This is where the reader should look past Friday night and toward the calendar. The WHCA exists for one purpose above all others: to keep the question of who covers the president answered by journalists, not by the government being covered — to defend correspondents’ ability to report on the presidency without fear or favor. That arrangement is not ceremonial. It was fought for in 1914, on the same principle now being tested again. Note that this isn’t only an outside observation. Longtime members of the association itself have said as much this week, arguing plainly that Friday’s dinner did not advance that founding mission and that the format itself needs rethinking. When the people inside an institution start questioning whether its own rituals still serve its purpose, that is usually the more important story than the ritual itself.
The current White House has already moved to claim authority over who gets access, informing reporters that the press pool would be determined by the White House press team rather than the association that has run it for over a century. The room held once, in public, with cameras running. The quieter fight — over who is even allowed back in the room next time, and whether the dinner itself still serves anyone but the powerful — is the one to watch. It will not be funny, and no one will be mocked for losing it in real time.
#HOLDFAST