Deranged, Deluded, Dangerous

October 6, 2026

Last night President Running-Scared took his “Pretend I’m on the Ballot” tour to Grand Island, Nebraska. He was speaking in his usual on-and-off-script manner, jumping back and forth between topics. He started with his usual spiel about all the great things he’s done, and how bad it will be if Democrats win. (Transcriptions below are mine.)

At about 0:04:30, he mentioned the war in Iran: “You know, by the way, uh, we’re kicking Iran’s ass. You do know that, right? And that’ll end soon. It’s going to end one way or the other. It’s going to end very soon, and your prices are going to come tumb—all your prices have been tumbling down. In fact, oil is less than it was under Biden, just so you understand. And we are saving this country from a problem. And the Middle East and Israel and everybody. We’re saving the world from what could be one of the worst tragedies ever. We’re not going to let them have it, and they won’t have. That’s—that’s decided. That they will not have a nuclear weapon. They understand that; they understand it. And that will end very quickly one way or the other very soon. Maybe a little after the election maybe a little before the—but it’s going to end very soon. When that happens the oil will come tumbling down. But I do want you to know what the job our Navy has done with the blockade. You know, we’re taking more oil out of the Strait now than we did before the war.”

Then he talked about how much damage we’ve done to Iran’s military and again how the war is going to end soon and prices will come down, but Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. And he went on about his customary campaign topics: the border, the fake news media, Kamala, the Democrats, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam. At around 0:12:16, jumping back to high prices yet again, the President of the United States said this:

“And again, remember: with the war, it’s just artificial. It’s little bit high. It’s a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe. They can take out a city. Let ’em take out Los Angeles. Let ’em take out San Diego. That’s—this is a very small price to pay, and it’s gonna be over with very soon. It’s essentially almost over with. And they might keep going a little long[er], you know. They always say they have a big threshold for pain. They need it, let me tell you, they need it. But it’s going to end very soon, and it’ll end one way or the other. And your gas and your gasoline and all of the things. And don’t forget, we also took on a country known as Venezuela. They never talk about that. They never talk about Venezuela. And we’re taking in hundreds of millions of barrels of oil every week. We’re pouring oil, we’re pouring oil into this country like nobody’s ever seen before. We took it over. China left. Russia left. They all left—because they wanted them to leave. But they all left, and we took over Venezuela. One hour and 48 minutes it took us. Nobody killed; nobody killed. They don’t talk about that.”

Then he started on his recitation of how long we were in other wars and how many thousands of people were killed. Then he comes back to Venezuela: “So we’ve been in Venezuela for 1 hour and 48 minutes, took over the largest oil supply outside of our own in the world. Think of that—and even our own. We were number 3 or 4 in the world; now we’re number 1. We’re twice the size of Russia and Saudi Arabia combined, without Venezuela, without. But they don’t talk about Venezuela. But it’ll end very quickly and prices are gonna come down very sharply. You might say, ‘Please, please, sir, it’s going down too fast.’ You watch, you watch what’s going to happen in a very short period of time.”

Those last two paragraphs were about two and a half minutes of speech, from about 0:12:16 to 0:14:38. The running theme was that the war will end very soon, one way or the other, and prices will drop quickly. But it was the two lines about Los Angeles and San Diego, followed by a repeat of “it’s a small price to pay” that caught people’s attention. The way his mind bounces around, it’s not clear whether he was referring to prices again or to Iran taking out Los Angeles and San Diego. The audience cheered those statements, by the way. And let Iran take out San Diego? Is he aware that we have Navy, Marine, and Coast Guard bases there? That’s a brilliant move by the not-mentally-fit-to-be Commander in Chief of our military forces.

The man cannot give a fully coherent speech. He cannot stick to his script. He ad-libs and takes off on tangents, which is when he shows his true colors. He also lies, of course. There were casualties in Venezuela. Venezuelan and Cuban security forces and some Venezuelan civilians died during the abduction of Maduro, the ostensible purpose of which was to hold him accountable for smuggling drugs to the U.S. But now Trump doesn’t mention Maduro; he talks only about how much oil “we” are getting out of Venezuela. Why else would he leave the rest of Maduro’s regime in place?

And while we’re on the subject of deranged, deluded, and dangerous, let’s talk about Low-T Petey. He gave a highly political speech to an audience of service members, who are supposed to be apolitical. Naturally, he covered his favorite topics: all the people he’s kicking out of the service—mostly because of what they look like. He claims the military is “color blind” and “gender neutral.” Yet he has removed men of color and women from promotion lists and fired others who were high-ranking officers. He is also establishing an Office of Religious Affairs, which has to be a violation of the First Amendment. It seems to me that Pete is trying to create God’s army in his own perceived “manly man” image.

Not only that, but now he has set up Project Meridian, a task force that will study the role of technology in warfare. This task force will include none other than Elon Musk. After all the damage Musk and his DOGE boys did to the federal government, why would anyone in their right mind . . .?
And you know who else will be on this task force? Newt Gingrich. Remember him (are you old enough)?
I didn’t even know Newt was still around. He’s older than President Methuselah! What can he possible contribute to this task force?

Our government is being run by raging idiots, and their complete lack of qualifications and competence makes them extremely dangerous. We must vote in order to stop this. Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate can at least put the brakes on the runaway train and begin the long process of holding people accountable for the damage that has already been done.

Vote early or on election day, but vote!


Video of full speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl8LVWpS9Wg

Casualties in Venezuela: https://apnews.com/live/us-venezuela-trump-maduro-updates-01-06-2026

Project Meridian: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/sep/30/pete-hegseth-elon-musk-taskforce-warfare