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Trump Knows He’s Toast….Open Thread for 1/20/2026

By 95 Comments

by kos

Daily Kos Staff

It’s a perennial argument: Does President Donald Trump know he’s lying, or is he just stupid or demented (or both)? For example, does he know he lost the 2020 presidential election, or does he actually believe the falsehoods he spreads about it?

Every once in a while, though, he slips up and tells the truth, revealing that he’s not entirely deluded. One of those moments came on Wednesday, when Trump admitted to Reuters that Republicans are headed for trouble this November.

“It’s some deep psychological thing, but when you win the presidency, you don’t win the midterms,” he said. And rather than lean on his go-to lies—supposed voter fraud or the vast conspiracy he claims robbed him and his party in past elections—he veered straight into authoritarian fantasy: “When you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election.”

No one is thinking that except Trump. But everyone is looking at the same numbers he clearly is.

As Trump tries to shore up the GOP’s fragile House majority through norms-busting mid-decade redistricting, the Cook Political Report has shifted its race ratings for 18 seats toward Democrats. The new ratings, published Thursday, look tough for Republicans.

Republicans are favored to take only three Democratic-held seats (North Carolina’s 1st, Maine’s 2nd, and Texas’ 35th districts). Beyond that, Republicans have few offensive opportunities, while some of the seats they tried to steal via redistricting remain highly competitive or still lean Democratic.

The pressure is even clearer on the Republican side. One GOP-held seat has moved to “Lean Democrat” and should flip in this environment: Nebraska’s 2nd District. And in the “tossup” category, the imbalance is striking: Just four Democratic seats are considered shaky, compared with 14 Republican seats.

This follows 11 rating changes in early November—10 shifting toward Democrats—and another four Democratic shifts later in the month. Virginia’s redistricting fight is still ahead, suggesting that Republicans’ exposure may grow.

And this is early. Unless the political climate unexpectedly shifts in Trump’s favor, more Republican seats should come into play. This cycle already features an extremely high number of congressional retirements. Of the 58 Senate or House members not running for their current seats, 32 are Republicans. Like Trump, they see the writing on the wall—though most aren’t demanding elections be canceled to save themselves.

Meanwhile, the Senate is suddenly, improbably, in play. Democrats are within range of erasing their 53-47 minority….

…

Trump is dragging them down. Are they really going to sink with him?

What Trump gets wrong, even in his moment of lucidity, is that this isn’t “psychological.” It’s material. Prices are still high. Wages aren’t keeping up. He promised affordability on Day 1, then pivoted to threatening Greenland, stealing Venezuela’s oil, demolishing the White House without a plan, promoting cryptocurrency scams, cozying up to dictators, potentially installing marble armrests at the Kennedy Center, renaming the cultural center, and sending federal agents to swarm American cities.

He’s so furious that affordability—the thing that got him elected—is hurting him that he’s started calling it a “hoax” and repeating the same mistake that doomed former President Joe Biden: refusing to acknowledge the public’s economic distress. All the while, Trump remains in violation of the law by refusing to release the full government files on accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. By slow-walking them instead, he’s dragging out the pain—for himself and his party.

This will be a bad year to be a Republican. Trump knows it. His party knows it. And that’s why he’s daydreaming about a future without elections—because elections are about to put the brakes on all this madness….

More….

image…AP

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  2. Quote of the Day

    “With Trump, you have to resist the temptation to intellectualize what he is doing. They’re emotional responses, flying all over the place.”

    — A former National Security Council staffer, quoted by the New Yorker.

  3. Trump Exhaustion Syndrome

    Ashley Parker: “A year into Trump’s second term, the emboldened president’s maximalist strategy—pushing every norm to its most elastic, and then a bit beyond, and from that new breaking point pushing yet again—conjures the boiling-frog theory, in which a frog placed in boiling water will immediately hop out, but a frog placed in cool water that is slowly heated will complacently boil to death. (And yes, I know that this amphibious metaphor for failing to notice incremental negative changes is apocryphal, but the lesson is still apt.)”

  4. Normal Politics Doesn’t Explain Trump

    Jonathan Bernstein: “Take Trump’s Greenland obsession. It’s pretty easy to use normal tools to explain that it’s terrible presidenting, that it won’t work, and that whether or not he gets his way the costs to his presidency are steep and not worth paying. But explaining that obsession and his willingness to act on it? That’s trickier.”

    “Trump, that is, simply doesn’t respond to the normal incentives embedded in the US government.”

    Bethany Albertson: “Presidents don’t float policies that are opposed by the mass public 86 – 9. This is not normal.”

  5. Mounting controversies, midterm fears strain Senate GOP’s relations with Trump

    President Trump’s slumping job approval numbers and the public controversies swirling around his second term in office are putting a strain on his relationship with GOP senators, who are looking for ways to distance themselves from the president heading into the November midterms.

    Republican lawmakers are pushing back on Trump and his administration on a dizzying range of issues, including the potential deployment of troops to Venezuela, the threat to seize Greenland, the criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, invoking the Insurrection Act in Minneapolis and capping credit card fees.

    And those are the disagreements have popped up just in the first two weeks of 2026, leaving some senators’ heads spinning.

    • Markets show turmoil over Trump’s Greenland demands

      Stocks dipped early Tuesday amid President Trump’s continued push to acquire Greenland.

      The Dow was down nearly 700 points as of 10:15 a.m. EST, with the S&P 500 down by more than 1.4 percent and the Nasdaq down by more than 1.7 percent.

      Early Tuesday morning, the president reiterated his interest in acquiring the semiautonomous Danish territory, a quest that has sent ripples throughout Europe. Trump wrote on Truth Social that he had a “very good telephone call” with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, during which the two agreed to meet with European officials in Davos, Switzerland.

  8. Don”the animal” Trump wants to make polls adverse to him a Federal offense.

    Anyone who supports this vicious animal obviously hates freedom and democracy.

    Which brings to mind,where does the hilariously misnamed House “:Freedom “ Caucus stand on this?

    Seems to fit right in with their authoritarian agenda.

  9. Federal regulators have dropped a long-running lawsuit against a prominent cryptocurrency firm with ties to President Trump, court records show, the Trump administration’s latest pullback in enforcement of the industry.

    In a filing made public on Friday, the Securities and Exchange Commission agreed to dismiss the case against Gemini Trust, a crypto exchange founded and run by billionaire twins, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss.

    The twins, who are among the president’s closest allies in the crypto industry, donated to a fund-raising committee that backed Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign and other Republican organizations. They also contributed to the construction of the new White House ballroom; were founding members of an exclusive club partly owned by Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son; and backed a crypto firm co-founded by Eric Trump, the president’s second son.

    The case stemmed from the implosion, in 2022, of a crypto investment product that Gemini offered its customers, some of whom lost access to their money for 18 months. They eventually recovered their investment, a development that the S.E.C. cited in its decision to drop the case against Gemini. The investors were made whole after a regulatory action brought by the New York Attorney General’s office.
    A spokesman for the agency declined to comment on Friday, referring to the joint agreement to dismiss. Gemini did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The dissolution of the case — at the time one of the S.E.C.’s highest-profile actions against the industry — reflected a broader retreat from crypto enforcement under Mr. Trump, who is himself a crypto mogul.

    Last month, The New York Times published an investigation into the S.E.C.’s backtracking from crypto cases, finding that the agency had eased up on more than 60 percent of the crypto lawsuits that were pending when Mr. Trump returned to the White House in January 2025. The agency paused some of its crypto cases, lessened penalties in others and outright dismissed several of the lawsuits.

    Gemini is the eighth crypto firm to have its lawsuit dismissed since Mr. Trump started his second term.

    Crypto firms with ties to Mr. Trump have fared well. The S.E.C. is no longer actively pursuing any cases against firms with known Trump ties, The Times found. The agency backtracked in investigating every firm that has relationships with the Trump family’s crypto businesses or has donated to Mr. Trump’s political causes. The agency’s only remaining crypto cases are against little-known defendants without clear ties to Mr. Trump, The Times found in a data analysis….

    The New York Times

  11. OMG

    The Democrats are talking about impeaching Kristi Noem.

    Won’t they ever learn?How damn stupid!

    Knowing there is absolutely NO chance she will be removed from office?

    Dumb, plain old dumb!

  14. Donald Trump is delivering the goods to anti-gun and anti-Second Amendment activists today. “You can’t have guns” is his stated position. Music to the ears of so many who been saying (or at least thinking) this for years and cannot believe their luck.

    I suppose Second Amendment supporters who stick by Trump will merely say that it does not affect them only those “on the other side” and will say they are fine with that.

    Of course, it will also be funny that a lot of other people with lengthy pro gun control history will now find themselves defending the Second Amendment but that is the world we live in where the entire political universe worldwide revolves around one man.

  15. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was sprayed with an unknown substance tonight at a Town Hall meeting. She appears to be ok and a man was arrested.

    Of course, the immediate reaction from MAGA online is that it was staged.

  17. The local Republican Headquarters, where I used to spend a lot of time was vandalized on Sunday night. Surveillance footage shows a man and and a woman writing profane messages and swastikas over a picture of Charlie Kirk, who is also from this area.

    Ugly times in this country. I hope the police find these people.

  18. While political types, from Trump on down, are trying not to escalate rhetoric as to the motives of Alex Pretti, MAGA supporters online are continuing to go to great lengths to attack him and justify his death. They are feeling the need to completely vilify him in every way which is certainly in contrast to how anti-Trump people are viewing him and I suspect the overall public opinion within the country.

    The base though drives the boat and I think Republican candidates running in primaries this year are going to feel the need to harsh in talking about Pretti and we will see all sorts of Republican candidates in crowded primaries or those who might be underdogs say that ICE needs to “double down” etc, in order to appeal to the base, or simply to try to somehow attract the attention of Trump himself, because an endorsement from him is easily going to be the most important factor in any 2026 Republican primary anywhere in the country.

  20. Yeah 2-4 inches of snow predicted for Charleston.

    Not much for you northern dwellers ,but quite unusual hereabouts .

    Everything closes and traffic essentially ceases.

  21. Whatever happened to the deficit?

    Remember that?

    Republicans talked about it unceasingly during Bidens presidency but upon the accession of Republican owner Donald Trump?

    All talk ceased.

    Why?

    • That is the standard conservative strategy of starving and shrinking the beast until it can be taken upstairs and strangled in the bathtub, first articulated by Grover Norquist.

      To show how AI can become a self-reflecting mirror, CoPilot referred me not only to Wikipedia but to an April 25, 2005 of mine about Project 2025 —and that post included an earlier search I had done on CoPilot. James know how to pull up old posts but here is what I wrote then:

      By means of MS Copilot, here’s a fuller exposition of the so-called “Starve the Beast” strategy:

      ¶ The phrase “Starve the Beast” refers to a political strategy aimed at reducing government spending by cutting taxes, thereby limiting the revenue available to fund government programs. The “strangle in the bathtub” metaphor was famously used by Grover Norquist, a political activist, who said he wanted to reduce the size of government to the point where it could be “dragged into the bathroom and drowned in the bathtub”2. This approach has been a topic of debate in discussions about fiscal policy and the role of government…

      DSD…..

      Starve the beast” is a political strategy employed by American conservatives to limit government spending by cutting taxes, to deprive the federal government of revenue in a deliberate effort to force it to reduce spending. The term “the beast”, in this context, refers to the United States federal government and the programs it funds, primarily with American tax money, particularly social programs such as education, welfare, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

      On July 14, 1978, economist and future Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan testified to the Senate Finance Committee: “Let us remember that the basic purpose of any tax cut program in today’s environment is to reduce the momentum of expenditure growth by restraining the amount of revenue available and trust that there is a political limit to deficit spending.”

      Before his election as President, then-candidate Ronald Reagan foreshadowed the strategy during the 1980 US Presidential debates, saying “John Anderson tells us that first we’ve got to reduce spending before we can reduce taxes. Well, if you’ve got a kid that’s extravagant, you can lecture him all you want to about his extravagance. Or you can cut his allowance and achieve the same end much quicker.”

      The earliest known use of “starve the beast” is in a 1979 newspaper article quoting Santa Rosa, California city councilman Jerry Wilhelm at a tax forum sponsored by the Libertarian Party.….

      …

      Lobbyist Grover Norquist is a well-known proponent of the strategy and has famously said, “My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”….

      And this is an unsurprising result of my Copilot research today:

      You’re referring to the “strangle in the bathtub” idea — a vivid metaphor tied to the conservative fiscal strategy known as “starve the beast,” which aims to force deep government spending cuts by deliberately restricting revenue.
      What the Strategy Means
      • The phrase comes from activist Grover Norquist, who said he wanted government reduced to a size where it could be “dragged into the bathroom and drowned in the bathtub.”
      • The underlying policy approach — “starve the beast” — seeks to cut taxes first, thereby creating large deficits that put political pressure on Congress to slash federal spending.
      • The logic: if you deprive government of revenue, it will be forced to shrink.
      How It Connects to Deficit Cuts
      Supporters argue:
      • Tax cuts → lower revenue → rising deficits → political necessity to cut spending.
      • This is supposed to “strangle” government growth.
      Critics counter:
      • Historically, tax cuts have increased deficits without producing proportional spending cuts.
      • Congress often continues spending anyway, leading to higher debt rather than a smaller government.
      Why the Metaphor Matters
      The “bathtub” line isn’t just colorful rhetoric — it signals a deliberate strategy to shrink government by engineering fiscal crisis, not by debating program-by-program cuts.
      It’s been influential in debates over:
      • Federal budget negotiations
      • Debt ceiling standoffs
      • Proposals like Project 2025
      • Long-term fights over Social Security, Medicare, and discretionary spending
      If you want, I can break down:
      • Whether the strategy has ever worked as intended
      • How economists evaluate its real-world effects
      • How it’s being invoked in current 2025–2026 policy debates
      • Or how it compares to other deficit-reduction philosophies (e.g., PAYGO, Bowles–Simpson, austerity models)
      Where would you like to take this?

  22. The Trump Administration is now advertising on X for lawyers to serve as Assistant U.S. attorneys.

    What used to be considered a plum position for any attorney is now nothing more than a political hacks position to enter the courtroom and begin spouting off the absurd positions of this administration of Republicans liars, cheats and thieves .

    How about Jim Jordan? Oh that’s right…he never took the Bar exam.Spent probably a hundred grand or so to attend law school but just never got around to taking it( heh,heh,heh) .

    • ALL the serious lawyers quit….

      BTW?

      Trump people are sending JAG Militarty lawyers to Minnesota to fill the holes and carry the legal load….

      Reality check….

      Trump & Co. say they have arrested thosands for protest’s?
      One would question those people roll RIGHT BACK out the door….
      As you well know ow Jack…
      The criminal justice system, like everything has a MAX capacity…
      Judges ARE instructed to NOT MAX it out….

  23. Has Tulsi Gabbard found all those Trump ballots that weren’t counted in Georgia six years ago?

    Even though the Georgia state government is almost totally controlled by Republicans,they all must have conspired to make sure those votes weren’t counted.

  24. For those keeping up with the Kennedy Center drama (personally I think we have far bigger problems going on) Trump just announced that he is shutting it down for approximately two years and that no events will be held.

    I guess that’s what happens when the public demand goes away. Will he try to do the same for the election?

      • While the current Governor of Pennsylvania is certainly well to my left politically, I was very impressed this past week by the communication skills and political acumen of Josh Shapiro while he was on his book tour.

        He was especially good with Bret Baier on Fox News and shut down Baier’s attempts to bait him during the interview.A huge contrast to Kamala’ Harris’s very bad performance in such an interview in 2024.

        • Oh, I agree he’ll provide cover to those who do NOT bad mouth him….

          But come January. 21, 2029 they ARE on their OWN…..

          And the next President IS gonna be a Democrat

          • We will have to see. You seem to think that Trump is about to drop dead any day now, so JD Vance would become the next President, and if he does, that might change the dynamic for 2028 itself.

            The Trumpworld will continue to exist in the media and political sphere after 2029, regardless of what party controls the levers of the federal government. A lot of these people will make a ton of money post-Trump.

  28. The pardoning and immunization of bad people began at least as early as Bill Clinton’s presidency which sold a get-out-of-jail pardon to Marc Rich and let [Rhode Island’s own] Laborers’ International Union of North America escape a trusteeship that it clearly deserved.

    However, many of Trump’s crew have law licenses that are not protected by the President’s pardon power. A precedent might be Bill Clinton agreeing to give up his license to practice in Arkansas as part of a negotiated plea deal with a state judge.

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