HUH? Squeaker McCarthy Admits that He Ignored Subpoenas in His Denial that He Ignored Subpoenas

The new Republican majority in the House of Representatives is proving to be just as radically right-wing as feared. And true to form, it also unabashedly hypocritical. Both of those characteristics are evident in the Party’s impaneling of a comically named Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.

Click here to Tweet this article

Kevin McCarthy, Deep State

Expect this purely partisan committee to focus on bogus and pre-debunked issues like Hunter Biden’s stolen laptop and the FBI rigging the 2020 presidential election. A better name for the panel would be the Select Committee on Deep State Conspiracy Theories. Expect them also to ignore all of Trump’s vast array of crimes.

RELATED: LOL: Sean Hannity Thinks He’s Helping Trump By Scrolling a Long List of His Crimes on Fox News

Democrats are preparing for the onslaught of asininity that will emerge from the Committee. As reported by ABC News, Rep. Jerry Nadler addressed the matter saying that…

“Jim Jordan and Kevin McCarthy claim to be investigating the weaponization of the federal government when, in fact, this new select committee is the weapon itself,” New York Rep. Jerry Nadler, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said in a statement. “It is specifically designed to inject extremist politics into our justice system and shield the MAGA movement from the legal consequences of their actions.”

On Thursday morning House Squeaker Kevin McCarthy held a press conference wherein he was asked about the committee and how it would handle certain situations that were made more dicey due to the flagrantly dishonest and legally dubious behavior of Republicans in recent days (years). At one point a reporter posed an especially pertinent question…

Question: Are you concerned that the targets of potential subpoenas will use the argument that you used and Mr. Jordan used to ignore the subpoena you got, that this is just political?
McCarthy: No, because mine wasn’t ignoring the subpoena. I said I would gladly go if we got to appoint people to the committee. The thing was not political. You will find the fundamental difference of me being the speaker and Nancy Pelosi, the other side will get to name their members on the committee. It won’t be hand picked by me and denying the Democrats their voice. So whatever transpires out of the committee is with the Republicans and Democrats as we move forward.

The question that McCarthy so poorly evaded answering makes the excellent point that subpoenas issued by Republicans such as Jim Jordan, who themselves failed to appear when they were subpoenaed, are inherently invalid. Why should anyone respect their summonses when they were so brazenly disrespectful under far more credible circumstances?

Notice also that McCarthy is denying that he ignored the subpoena. However, his denial hinges on his conditions for why he actually did ignore the subpoena. Just because you have reasons, however lame, for refusing to comply doesn’t mean that you aren’t refusing to comply. Subpoenas aren’t issued with exceptions for conditions that the witness gets to invent.

What’s more, McCarthy’s excuse involves his complaint that Nancy Pelosi didn’t allow McCarthy to appoint Republicans to the Select Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection. Which is false. She only rejected two members (Jim Jordan and Jim Banks) because they were potentially witnesses, or even offenders, themselves. It was McCarthy who then withdrew all Republicans from the panel and refused to appoint any at all.

In addition to that, McCarthy is now saying that he, allegedly unlike Pelosi, is going to allow Democrats to assign their own members to the committee. However, he seems to be forgetting that he recently promised to remove Representatives Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, and Ilhan Omar, from any committees that they currently serve on. And unlike Pelosi, he has no good reason to do so.

Democrats are being given six seats on the “Deep State” committee, versus nine for Republicans. So the new Democratic Leader, Hakeem Jeffries, should make three of those appointments Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, and Ilhan Omar, and see how McCarthy responds. Odds are heavily in favor of him refusing to seat them. Because hypocrisy, unfairness, and rank partisanship are built in to the Republican code of ethics, or lack thereof.

RELATED: House Squeaker Kevin McCarthy Thanks Donald Trump for Being ‘All In’ on Making Him Speaker

NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly.

Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse
on Facebook and Instagram.

And check out my books on Amazon:

Fox Nation vs. Reality:
The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.

Thanks so much for your support.

Trump Renews Whining that Mike Pence is a Deep State Traitor for Not Overturning the Election

It’s only Tuesday, and yet this has already been been a terrible week for Donald Trump. It’s week that follows several wherein he has been brutally and deservedly chastised for having dined with racists and anti-Semites, and for calling for the “termination” fo the Constitution, and for hawking his ridiculous NFT trading cards.

Click here to Tweet this article

Donald Trump, Deep State

As if that weren’t enough, the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection that Trump incited has issued criminal referrals to the Justice Department citing at least four charges that they recommend be brought against him. Needless to say, he didn’t take that well.

RELATED: Crybaby Trump Throws a Tantrum in Response to the House Select Committee’s Criminal Referrals

True to form, Trump is lashing out wildly in every direction. He is attacking every perceived foe in his twisted mind, including the January 6th Committee, Special Counsel Jack Smith, the FBI (that was headed by his appointees), Hunter Biden, and the ever present and nefarious “Deep State,” that is supposedly populated by Democrats and Republicans conspiring to destroy Trump.

In a typically unhinged harangue Tuesday morning, Trump unleashed his rage at those responsible for what he still calls the “rigged and stolen” presidential election of 2020. Although now that Congress is about to pass the Electoral Count Reform Act, he is now focusing on that aspect, and the role that he believes his former vice-president, Mike Pence, had in betraying him and his tyrannical aspirations.

In a series of posts on his floundering Twitter ripoff, Truth Social, Trump laid out his laments over Pence choosing not to violate the Constitution by failing to certify the election results. Trump whined that…

“They said the Vice President has ‘absolutely no choice,’ it was carved in ‘steel,’ but if he has no choice, why are they changing the law saying he has no choice?”

And that…

“it is because the Vice President did have a choice, and looking back at it now, the 2020 Voting Fraud was far greater than anyone thought possible, with even our Government, through the FBI, changing the results of the Election by millions and millions of votes.”

And that…

“John Eastman and others were correct in stating that the Vice President of the United States had the right to do what should have been done. […] The whole thing is one big Scam!”

And that there was a…

“highly successful effort made by the FBI in illegally changing the results of the 2020 Presidential Election.”

Trump’s infamously ignorant grasp of government and laws is evident here as he demonstrates his failure to understand the Constitution’s directive regarding the vice-president’s largely ceremonial role in certifying the Electoral College count. Trump thinks that because a bipartisan majority of members of Congress seek to clarify some of the archaic language in the original Electoral Count Act of 1887, that the old law permits the vice-president to unilaterally discard any of those votes that he chooses.

That, of course, is absurd. And cleaning up the language is just being done in order to prevent future corrupt leaders like Trump from trying to misinterpret the law in order to assume dictatorial control of the government.

What’s more, Trump is alleging – without any factual basis – that the FBI played some sort of role in “changing the results of the Election by millions and millions of votes.” As usual, Trump doesn’t provide a shred of evidence to support his allegations. However he does manage to get his toadies in Congress to go along with him. James Comer, the incoming chair of the House Oversight Committee said this on the subject…

“We need to halt everything with the FBI. All funding. Until they come forward and explain to Congress exactly what they were doing, why they were doing it, and who gave them the authority to do it.”

So now Republicans are openly advocating to defund the police. Someone needs to ask them how an unfunded FBI will investigate Hunter Biden’s laptop. Or the election “fraud” that put Joe Biden in the White House. How will the FBI probe the FBI’s corruption on behalf of the “Deep State” cabal in the FBI? It’s all so very peculiar. Which, in the MAGA mind, is proof that it must all be true. And now according to Trump, it’s all Mike Pence’s fault.

RELATED: Mealy Mike Pence Tells Fox News that He is Against Indicting Trump – Who Nearly Got Him Hanged

NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly.

Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse
on Facebook and Instagram.

And check out my books on Amazon:

Fox Nation vs. Reality:
The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.

Thanks so much for your support.

Trump Spins a New Crackpot Conspiracy Combining an FBI Retiree, Mar-a-Lago, and Hunter Biden

He’s at it again. Donald Trump is posting feverishly on his floundering Twitter ripoff, Truth Social, about the avalanche of atrocities that have been accurately attributed to him. On this Tuesday morning he has pounded out more than 60 rage fueled rants, mostly reposts of random Truth Socialists and QAnon-sense accounts. And mostly with less than a 1,000 reposts on his thinly trafficked website.

Click here to Tweet this article

Donald Trump, Deep State

Prominent among Trump’s plaintive whining is his paranoid fixation on what he believes to be the world’s determination to destroy his MAGA dreams. His acute victimhood is now focused on a conspiracy theory about a retiring FBI agent who Trump and his cult disciples are convinced is serving some clandestine anti-Trump cabal. Trump spun a fantastical tale about a…

“‘Special Agent’ In Charge of the unprecedented and unnecessary Raid and Break In of Mar-a-Lago [who] was also involved in the hiding and suppressing from the Public and the Media, the ‘Laptop from Hell,’ the 2020 Presidential Election Scam, and so much more!”

Trump also insisted that this bogus “scandal” warranted that some amorphous, unidentified overlord “Declare [him] the rightful winner” of the 2020 election, or “have a new Election, immediately!” Which anyone modestly educated about the law and the Constitution knows that that is not how any of this works.

RELATED: Wannabe Dictator Trump Decrees a Delusional Demand that He Be Anointed American Messiah

What Trump is referring to is a report that Agent Timothy Thibault is retiring after 25 years of service to the FBI. This exceedingly ordinary event has been clutched onto by Republicans and the wingnut press as having some sort of secret and nefarious back story. Along with Trump, they are accusing him of having been in charge of the search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago bunker, as well as the investigation into Hunter Biden’s stolen laptop.

The truth, however, is quite different. Thibault is a relatively low-level staffer with the D.C. field office. He had no authority to influence either the Biden case or the investigation into Trump’s hoarding of highly sensitive national security materials at his Palm Beach resort/hotel. Also, the Biden case was actually run out of a different FBI field office and it is still ongoing.

In any case, the FBI would not have opened a politically charged case in October of 2020, so close to an election. Even Fox News reported that Thibault had nothing to do with Mar-a-Lago:

“Thibault was one of 13 assistant special agents in charge at the Washington field office. He was not involved in the FBI raid on former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate earlier this month at any level.”

Trump cultists have been busy maligning law enforcement for allegedly suppressing the probe into Hunter Biden. They complained that “Deep State” actors sought to portray the existence of his stolen laptop as Russian propaganda. However, news reports were not saying that the laptop didn’t exist, only that Russia was exploiting the story to foment distrust in American democracy. They were. And, not coincidentally, so was Donald Trump.

The Trumpies got their latest crackpot theory from an interview of Facebook boss, Mark Zuckerberg, by Joe Rogan. It’s rather telling that when Zuckerberg said that the FBI had warned him of a spike in Russian disinformation, the right-wing echo chamber immediately claimed it was about Hunter Biden, even though Zuckerberg never said that. It’s an utterly false narrative that is also being spread on Fox News…

Trump himself cited the Rogan/Zuckerberg interview as proof that, but for the “fake News” he “would have easily won the 2020 Presidential Election.” Which is a rare admission by Trump that he actually lost the election. And not because of a massive, nationwide campaign of voter fraud, but because of alleged misreporting about the travails of President Biden’s wayward son. Yeah, that’s the ticket! And with that we have hit a temporary bottom for Trump’s pathetic excuse-making. But don’t be fooled. He can still go much lower.

NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly.

Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse
on Facebook and Instagram.

And check out my books on Amazon:

Fox Nation vs. Reality:
The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.

Thanks so much for your support.

Is Trump Preparing to Expose Mike Pence as Part of the Fabled Deep State?

The psychotic decline of Donald Trump is rapidly progressing to the point where he is utterly incapable of recognizing reality. He continues to whine about having lost the election to Joe Biden, a candidate he maligned as a mentally deficient socialist, and still couldn’t beat him. What does that say about Trump?

Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram.

Donald Trump, Deep State

The debate over the mental soundness of Biden vs. Trump was decided by American voters who, according to a Fox News poll, said Trump was the most unsound. They reiterated that view by soundly rejecting Trump’s reelection bid. Trump, though, seems determined to affirm the Fox survey’s results with every new tweet he posts. Take this tweet Tuesday morning for instance…

Trump is reprising his remarks from Monday night at his cult rally in Georgia that was ostensibly to support the reelection campaigns of David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, although he rarely mentioned them. But he did mention his vice-president saying “I hope Mike Pence comes through for us, I have to tell you. Of course, if he doesn’t come through, I won’t like him quite as much.”

That would be totally in character for Trump, who is known for attacking his own staffers when he deems them less than 100% worshipful and obedient. Just ask the dozens of former administration officials he’s flipped on (i.e. John Kelly, Jim Mattis, John Bolton, Rex Tillerson, Jeff Session, etc.).

More recently, Trump has viciously turned on some other previously appreciated allies who he now regards as conspirators in the “Deep State” that, in his deep state of paranoia, he imagines are plotting against him:

For the record, Pence has no more power to decide who won the election than Oscar presenters have to decide who won an Academy Award. In fact, his role is nearly identical. He opens the envelopes and announces the result. The election was already decided, first by a decisive majority of voters, then by the certification of all fifty states. That, of course, includes the states run by both Democrats and Republicans.

Likewise, the Republicans in Congress who have announced that they will object to the Electoral College count have no power to effect a change. The only possibility of an upset would be if one or more states failed to certify a slate of electors. That, however, didn’t happen in any state. But even if it had, Pence would still have no power to alter the outcome. The House of Representatives and the Senate would both have to vote separately to uphold the objection and seat an alternate slate. And it’s highly unlikely that the Democratic majority in the House would vote to reject Biden electors and seat those committed to Trump instead.

It is also highly unlikely that Pence will stray from the purely ministerial role he has in this congressional session to certify the Electoral College vote. Consequently, Trump appears to be setting Pence up to expose him as a “Deep Stater,” bent on sabotaging what Trump thinks was his landslide victory. But the true leader of the anti-Trump cabal is really someone that nobody expects: Donald J. Trump!

After all, what do all of the conspirators have in common? They were all appointed by or staunchly supported by Trump. Open your eyes, Trumpians. There are no coincidences. How could Trump have been so integral to the configuration of the conspiracy without being in control of it himself? The absence (suppression) of any credible evidence is further evidence that it’s all true. It all makes sense now.

UPDATE: At the Trump rally in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Trump again implores Pence to take an action that he has no authority to take, and then whines that he’s “not hearing good stories” about Pence.

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Thanks for your support.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Marchers for Trump Chant ‘Destroy the GOP’ and Attack Deep State Fox News

The bottom is rapidly falling out of Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” campaign. The legal misadventures for his imaginary reelection victory have resulted in more than 50 losses at every court level. That includes the Supreme Court that he thought he had pretty well stacked. And in desperation he is planting thinly veiled incitations to violence.

Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram.

Donald Trump, Republican, GOP

Following the Supreme Court rebuke, Trump’s cult disciples staged a “March for Trump” in Washington, D.C. on Saturday. It was intended to persuade the feeble-minded faithful that their Dear Leader had, as he tweeted in all caps, “WON THE ELECTION IN A LANDSLIDE,” if you only counted the votes that were for him. The rally was a bizarre spectacle that featured the most devoted Trump-fluffing zealots this side of Mar-a-Lago. Among them was Nick Fuentes, a former YouTuber who got the axe for repeatedly violating YouTube’s hate speech policies. At the rally he ranted that…

“At the first Million MAGA march [which fell about 995,000 short of a million] we promised that if the GOP would not do everything in their power to keep Trump in office, that we would destroy the GOP. And as we gather here in Washington D.C. for a second Million MAGA march we’re done making promises. It has to happen now. We are going to destroy the GOP.”

Whereupon the crowd vigorously took up the chant, “Destroy the GOP!” So with that goal, Trump actually has produced some measure of unity among the right and the left. Fuentes went on to specifically call out the Republican candidates for the Senate in Georgia. “The GOP wants us to hold the line,” he hollered, “and vote for RINOs like David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.” The crowd responded again with resounding boos.

Also speaking at this event was that notorious political thinker and scammy telemarketer of crappy pillows, Mike Lindell. The MyPillow guy was equally irate at the establishment conservatives who he believes have let Trump down. Even worse, he accused Fox News of being in on the conspiracy:

“Why do you think Fox declared Arizona with only 14 percent of the vote in? They already knew what they did! They were in on it. I’m serious, they had to be in on it. You don’t know this stuff. I mean all this stuff…and you know what? It’s not just the ones that are behind this that are gonna wind up being…and they should all go to prison when they are found out. But how about the Republicans out there that didn’t back this great president and us as a people?”

First of all, Lindell is either lying or stupid. When Fox News called Arizona for Joe Biden about 80% of the votes were in. That blows up his paranoid conspiracy theory. But it still resonates among the Trump cultists who are convinced that Fox News, the network that put Trump in the White House, is part of the “Deep State” cabal aligned against Trump, freedom, and Gawd. Lindell concluded that these allegedly wayward Republicans, including the governors of Arizona and Georgia, “have to be hiding something.”

It’s also notable that Lindell’s MyPillow is a big advertiser on Fox News. Given his views, shouldn’t he pull those ads? He’s actually financing the Deep State evildoer that he believes is “in on” the conspiracy to steal the election from Hair Trump.

As for Fox News, they don’t intend to be shut out of this madness. On Saturday evening “Judge” Jeanine Pirro weighed in with her assessment that Trump’s hand-picked Attorney Genuflect, Bill Barr, was another traitor to the Trumpian cause (and not for the first time). “We now know,” she harangued, that “Bill Barr was the ultimate do nothing deep stater there to defend the status quo.”

That revelation makes this a profoundly nefarious and convoluted plot. It designates Trump himself as the Deep Stater-in-Chief, since he was the one who appointed Barr to lead the so-called “Justice” Department. Who would’ve thunk it?

These schizoid conspiracy crackpots are determined to bring down the Republican Party and the conservative establish that it represents. And they deserve all the help that Democrats can muster to accomplish that noble goal. They are the unwitting (unconscious) right flank of the progressive movement. And they are working in tandem with Trump who has been furiously waging warfare against Fox News, and Republicans who are less than unconditionally adoring, for most of his single term in the White House. It’s the textbook behavior of a malignant narcissist who is consumed by his addiction to non-stop adulation and the fear of losing it.

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Thanks for your support.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

In Fox News Meltdown, Trump Press Secretary Comes Out as ‘Deep State’ Conspiracy Kook

As the walls are crumbling all around him, Donald Trump is frantically trying to reinforce the White House bunker that is rapidly becoming his prison. His rants are becoming more incoherent. His tweets are getting more bizarre. And he is generally slumping into a haze of paranoia and victimhood.

Donald Trump, Deep State

Naturally, the Trump Bootlickers Brigade is marching obediently behind Dear Leader as he concocts ever more absurd tales of clandestine conspirators determined to destroy him. The latest soldier in this Battle of the Half-Wits is White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham. Her job title is a bit misleading since she has never held a press conference since assuming the position. But she does regularly submit herself to the brutal interrogations of Fox News Trump-fluffers.

On Thursday morning Grisham held court on Fox News to address a couple of critical matters of national security (video below). They began with a probing inquiry into Trump calling Republicans who occasionally dare to disagree with him human scum.” that’s a bold position to take against some of the GOP senators, and their colleagues, who will eventually sit in judgment of him at his impeachment. But it does reflect Trump’s shallow thought processes that ignore the fact that these are the same people who are supporting 95 percent of his agenda. So Grisham faced this issue head on in the following exchange with Fox’s Brian Kilmeade:

Kilmeade: The President yesterday called the “Never Trumpers” scum. Does he regret that?
Grisham: No. No he shouldn’t. The people who are against him and have been against him and have been working against him since the day they took office are just that. It is horrible that people are working against a president who is delivering results for this country.

So in Trump World, anyone who has different opinions than the “Stable Genius” are not merely political opponents, they are scum. Even if they are members of the President’s own Republican Nationalist Party. That’s because in aspiring totalitarian regimes like his, dissent is not tolerated in any form. Moving on, Kilmeade asked Grisham if the Intelligence Community that Trump has bitterly and falsely maligned for years, is “paying him back” saying that “It looks like the ‘Deep State’ has turned on the President.” Taking the bait in that loaded question, Grisham replied that…

Grisham: [Trump] has made no secret since the day he took office that this has been a “witch hunt” against him and there some really terrible people in the “Deep State” working against him and working against this country. This is dangerous for the country. […] The President has people working actively against him in his own government. And I just want to talk to the people of this country and let them know that that’s dangerous for them.

What we have here is the official spokesperson for the President of the United States telling a national television audience of glassy-eyed Deplorables that Trump believes that the government he is responsible for leading is harboring a cabal of subversives who are plotting to undermine him. It’s a de facto declaration of war against his own subordinates, most of whom are non-political career professionals. And Grisham is employing the familiar “Deep State” rhetoric of Fox’s primetime propagandists and the Internet’s conspiracy crackpot underground.

In the light of these ludicrous delusions, the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends went on to grill Grisham about Wednesday’s “Storming of the Impeachment Inquiry,” wherein Republican members of the House sought to illegally gain access to private hearings and breach national security while they were at it. In her response to this criminal and childish behavior, Grisham gushed that “I’m glad they did it. Again, the Democrats have been doing everything behind closed doors and in secret.”

Setting aside her dismissal of the flagrant lawbreaking, Grisham is completely wrong in her assessment of the hearings. The hearings are actually attended by members of both parties, who have equal rights to access the evidence and question witnesses. In fact, on the very same episode of this program, the Senior Legal Analyst at Fox News, Andrew Napolitano, schooled the Foxies on the matter:

“I read the House rules. And as frustrating as it may be to have these hearings going on behind close doors – the hearings over which Congressman Schiff is presiding – they are consistent with the rules. And when were the rules written last? In January of 2015. And who signed them? John Boehner. And who enacted them? A Republican majority.”

Napolitano also pointed out that the current hearings are analogous to a grand jury that is never done in public. The public stage comes after a vote on Articles of Impeachment and a trial is held in the Senate. The Republican Bitch Mob, as well as Trump and his press secretary, is purposefully lying about these matters of process that the Democrats are executing properly and lawfully.

The abject fear that is radiating from the White House is staggering. Trump is a severely paranoid individual who is utterly incapable of dealing with his psychoses. The nation has never had a chief executive who suspected his own intelligence agencies of plotting against him. And now it’s clear that other senior officials in his administration are taking up the mantle of his madness. Which makes impeachment all the more imperative. Because if neglected it is clear that this will not end well for America.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

SRSLY? Trump Dislikes the Term ‘Deep State’ Because ‘I’m Really Not a Conspiratorial Person’

It’s wonderful to have a president with a sharp a wit and a keen sense of humor. And maybe someday we will have such a president again. Until then we will have to get used to Donald Trump and his wacky lack of any self awareness whatsoever. He is a man that is so warped by flaming narcissism that he actually believes that he is loved by a nation where his polling is at historic lows. He even refers to himself as Your favorite President who “did nothing wrong.”

Donald Trump, Deep State

In an interview with The Hill, Trump spoke glowingly about his State TV (aka Fox News) Shadow Cabinet. Referring to the network’s most sycophantic Trump-fluffers, the President fondly singled out “the great Lou Dobbs, the great Sean Hannity, the wonderful, great Jeanie Pirro.” And you know the feelings are mutual. Trump cited them as the reason he declassified Russia-related documents that he didn’t even read. But you have to wonder what these conspiracy hounding crackpots will think when they find out that Trump has renounced their favorite theoretical label: the Deep State.

“I don’t like to use it,” Trump said, “because it sounds so conspiratorial, and believe it or not I’m really not a conspiratorial person.”

Really? That is such a megalithic distortion of reality that it’s hard to comprehend how he can be that delusional and still get through the day without stripping naked and skipping down Pennsylvania Avenue singing “I Feel Pretty.” Even the The Hill couldn’t let it stand without an instant fact check:

“Trump may not like the term, but he has used it more than once. At a rally earlier this month, Trump used it to refer to the anonymous author of an op-ed published in The New York Times, denouncing ‘un-elected deep state operatives who defy the voters to push their own secret agendas are truly a threat to democracy itself.’ He described the ‘deep state’ as a threat to democracy in the Sept. 7 speech.”

And that is just the beginning. Trump has referenced the imaginary “Deep State” on numerous occasions. He has long been convinced that there is a secret governmental cabal that is out to get him. He rants about it incessantly. It’s a conspiracy that includes the agencies he is currently overseeing as President, including the Department of Justice, the FBI, the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Department, etc. And it’s so pervasive that he can’t rely on these agencies, so he turns instead to his BFF, Vladimir Putin (who has recently been stoking the Deep State mythology in private phone calls with Trump). What’s more, it’s a regular feature of his Twitter feed:


https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/875888479942651909

Nevertheless, Trump now incomprehensibly asserts that he doesn’t like the term anymore. Notice that he doesn’t say that there is no Deep State. Only that he isn’t comfortable with that particular descriptor. Nothing can sway him from his long-standing conspiracy theories. After all, this is the same guy who pushed the Birther conspiracy for years. He believes that vaccines cause autism. He insisted that thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrated 9/11. He thinks climate change is hoax started by China. Most recently he decided that the 3,000 estimated deaths in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria was made up by the scoundrels at George Washington University.

But more problematic is the fact that the people Trump admires most – his Fox News Council of Propaganda – use the term even more than than he does. Hannity has made it into a brand that encompsses nearly everything he does on his program. What will they do now that Trump has expressed his disdain for the term? Will they drop it in deference to Dear Leader? Will they convince him that he should reconsider and embrace it? Will they go rogue and use it in defiance of his authority? Or will he forget that he ever renounced it and go on using as if nothing happened (that’s my bet)? Tune in next week for the shocking conclusion to this earth shaking dilemma.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.