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Join today<\/a><\/p>\n \n Already a member? As we approach the midterms, Trump has been making a lot of sudden \u201cannouncements\u201d from the Oval Office<\/a> intended to draw attention to his achievements, such as building a factory or \u2014 as it was today \u2014 auto-enrolling eligible children into his new \u201cTrump accounts.\u201d And with each announcement, the cast assembled around the desk seems to get a little stranger: an increasingly eclectic collection of people smiling encouragingly at the president as he reads from a laminated sheet of paper, printed in enormous type.<\/p>\n Today, we opened with a lot of expected bluster about how kids with these basic savings accounts could become \u201crich by the time they\u2019re 18\u201d if they choose to put money into it and then bet on the stock market, which they could do with literally any other savings account. The situation is a little different for the set of children born in the past two years, who will have $1,000 deposited directly into their accounts and sourced from rich entrepreneurs like Michael and Susan Dell, but it\u2019s hardly revolutionary. It is, however, technically kind of socialist.<\/p>\n Trump seemed tired and low-energy this afternoon. He read from his script in a way that implied he was nervous about communicating without it. Its presence also implies that other people around him have advised him to keep his worst ad-libbing under control at such a delicate juncture.<\/p>\n But of course, there was ad-libbing. There was a claim that \u201cinstead of Americans sharing in the misery of communism,\u201d presumably under the Democrats, they\u2019ll get to be little capitalists instead. \u201cThey say they\u2019re not communist but their policies are communist,\u201d Trump added, still not having defined who \u201cthey\u201d were.<\/p>\n Everyone in the group behind the presidential chair looked both studiously happy and slightly concerned, and nobody more than Ted Cruz, who bobbed his head and grinned maniacally at every sentence that came out of Trump\u2019s mouth.<\/p>\n \u201cMr. President, congratulations!\u201d he said, when called to speak, in a tone that one might reserve for a kindergartner. He then added that \u201ctoday is a massive day\u201d and \u201cI\u2019ll tell you what\u2019s cool \u2014 your administration designed the app!\u201d Certainly if anyone can tell us what\u2019s cool, then it must be Ted Cruz. And the fact that the brightest minds in the American government managed to build an app? Astonishing!<\/p>\n Susan Dell then did a halting, painful speech about how we need to support the children, make the children rich and so on, a speech that was surpassed only in awkwardness by what happened next: \u201cWow, good job,\u201d Trump said, widening his eyes, and then turned to Susan\u2019s husband and asked: \u201cMichael, is she thinking about running for office?\u201d Well, you know what they say: if you want to know about a woman\u2019s career plans, you better ask her husband!<\/p>\n The extremely cringe moments kept on coming. \u201cMoms and dads are going wild with QR codes!\u201d was one of my favorite asides from the group, mainly because it sounds tantalizingly like a headline for a scaremongering article about small-town swinging. Another strong contender was when both Trump and Cruz riffed on the idea that children can now walk into McDonald\u2019s \u201csaying \u2018I want good service, I own this company\u2019.\u201d This does, undeniably, paint a picture \u2014 a hellscape picture of little Trumpian brats screaming with entitlement at service staff because they technically own a single share in a large conglomerate, but still. Evocative.<\/p>\n And then Trump gave out gold commemorative coins and pens to a bunch of kids while muttering to them about the eagle embossed on them, because why not? <\/p>\n Seconds after playing the kindly uncle in this way, the president answered his first question from the collected press by stating that \u201cMerrick Garland and his little group of thugs\u201d have been \u201ctracking my wife, my son\u201d and that Biden was \u201ca man who didn\u2019t know what was going on. Possibly he did know what was going on. I think he had a mean streak. Not smart, but mean.\u201d<\/p>\n On Russia and the potential lab leak of plague, we were told: \u201cThey don\u2019t say much but they say it\u2019s under control,\u201d and by the way, Trump added, \u201cToday is Vladimir Putin\u2019s birthday.\u201d<\/p>\n There was a long aside about Venezuela emptying their prisons into America, some vaguely disturbing stuff about how \u201cI could have done bad things to Hillary Clinton. I could have done very bad things<\/a> to Joe Biden. I could have done bad things to Barack Hussein Obama,\u201d and a long rant about the Nobel Peace Prize<\/a>, which will be announced on Friday and which Trump once again believes he should receive (\u201cIt would be a great discredit to them\u201d if they didn\u2019t give it to him, he added, since he \u201cdid things no one else has ever done before,\u201d including ending wars when \u201cno other president has ever settled any wars.\u201d)<\/p>\n There was also an interesting recurring theme in which both the president and his gathered brigade of sycophants noted that Democrats, including Gavin Newsom and \u201cAdam Shifty Schiff,\u201d have had good things to say about the Trump accounts. This was upheld as evidence among the group that the Trump accounts must be so astoundingly, earth-shatteringly brilliant that even Democrats can\u2019t work out how to criticize them \u2014 instead of evidence that the other side might simply be a little more normal, and criticizing policies based on whether they actually disagree with them or not.<\/p>\n The strangest moment of this press conference, however, came when Trump was asked about his hopes to turn his West Palm Beach golf club into a Camp David-style retreat for future presidents. It was a softball question, and Trump answered it with everything you\u2019d expect: that he would like it to happen, that the military think it\u2019s a great idea, that every president loves golf, and that \u201cyou don\u2019t have houses nearby\u201d or \u201chigh buildings,\u201d and that the golf club is also \u201cvery near to the airport,\u201d so it just makes sense.<\/p>\n Having seemingly finished his answer, Trump paused and the melee of reporters shouting questions began again \u2014 but then the president started talking, and as everyone quietened down to hear what he was adding, we realized that he was repeating the answer, almost word for word. The thing about the West Palm golf club, he said, is \u201cyou don\u2019t have houses,\u201d \u201cyou don\u2019t have high buildings looming over it, and the other advantage is it\u2019s right next to the airport.\u201d He seemed to have no recollection that he had just given this spiel seconds before.<\/p>\n The press conference continued as normal and wrapped up as normal, but it was a moment that lingered in the memory. Trump has seemed frail for a while now, and his verbal sparring has become noticeably less barbed and less funny. He\u2019s also losing coherence in his insults \u2014 really, Joe Biden is mean now, even though he\u2019s also supposed to have been a puppet? \u2014 and revealing too much in his random sentences, such as today\u2019s \u201cObama doesn\u2019t even know why he won\u201d the Nobel Prize.<\/a><\/p>\n And as the president repeats himself while everyone around him nods along like he\u2019s saying something new, Americans go to the ballots in less than four weeks. There\u2019s a war in the Middle East and an affordability crisis. It\u2019s astounding, really, that those might be the least of this presidency\u2019s problems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? 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Susan Dell earned kudos from President Trump for doing a \u201cgood job\u201d talking about \u2018Trump Accounts\u2019 for kids in the Oval Office Wednesday (AFP\/Getty)<\/p>\n![\"\u2018I](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/2298471301...jpeg\")
\u2018I could have done bad things to Hillary Clinton. I could have done very bad things to Joe Biden. I could have done bad things to Barack Hussein Obama,\u2019 Trump said when asked about facing impeachment if Democrats win in the midterms (AFP\/Getty)<\/p>\n