Erasing History

It's hard to imagine there is a connection between the Greenland controversy and slavery once common in the American south. Consider, though, that since it first deployed soldiers in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, more than 18,000 Danish soldiers were deployed to Afghanistand and 33 were killed in action.

aA explained a couple of years ago on the 9/11 Memorial & Museum website

On September 12, 2001, the day after the 9/11 attacks, NATO met in an emergency session. For the first and only time in its history, NATO invoked Article 5. All 18 of the United States’s allies stated they would support America’s response to the attacks…

Since 2001, troops from the U.S.'s NATO allies have stood shoulder to shoulder with American soldiers in Afghanistan. More than one thousand of these soldiers have paid the ultimate price. In 2017, NATO inaugurated its new headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. Near its entrance, a memorial composed of a piece of mangled steel from the 107th floor of the World Trade Center's North Tower sits atop a pedestal. In front of it, an inscription on a plaque pays tribute to the singular use of Article 5 of NATO’s founding treaty. During a public program at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, Jens Stoltenberg, the current NATO Secretary General, reflected on the memorial. He remarked, “It serves as a powerful symbol of the enduring partnership and friendship between the United States and its NATO Allies across Europe and Canada. It is also a daily reminder of the deadly dangers posed by terrorism, the importance of standing together to protect our people and our values.”

And now, this:

Trump on NATO: "I've always said, will they be there if we ever needed them? That's really the ultimate test. I'm not sure of that. We've never needed them. They'll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan and this or that. And they did. They stayed a little back, off the front… pic.twitter.com/fA0i1S3LxY

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) January 22, 2026

This is a case not only of hostility toward allies but also of rewriting history. And so it is that  

Outraged critics accused President Donald Trump of “whitewashing history” on Friday after the National Park Service removed an exhibit on slavery at Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park in response to his executive order “restoring truth and sanity to American history” at the nation’s museums, parks and landmarks.

Empty bolt holes and shadows are all that remains on the brick walls where explanatory panels were displayed at the President’s House Site, where George and Martha Washington lived with the people they owned as property when Philadelphia was the nation’s capital. One woman cried silently at their absence. Someone left a bouquet of flowers. A hand-lettered sign said “Slavery was real”….

Workers on Thursday removed the exhibit, which included biographical details about the nine people enslaved by the Washingtons at the presidential mansion. Just their names — Austin, Paris, Hercules, Christopher Sheels, Richmond, Giles, Oney Judge, Moll and Joe — remain engraved into a cement wall.

The President of the USA insults our allies by stomping over the history of the Trans-Atlantic Alliance and the National Park Service "whitewashes" history by removing exhibits at museums, parks, and landmarks. Donald Trump also has demolished the East Wing of the White House and plastered a White House walkway with bronze plaques of each USA president. 

We are to believe that President Obama was "one of the most divisive political figures in American history" and that the Affordable Care Act was "highly ineffective."  And we're told that Joe Biden, represented by an autopen rather than a portrait, assumed office only "as a result of the most corrupt election evr seen in the United States and as President presided over the "worst inflation ever recorded." 

Ridiculous, but consistent with Donald's behavior throughout his presidency. Rewriting history, in the matter of describing ex- Presidents, removing cultural artifacts from public view, and lying about NATO history all are examples of rewriting history. 

A Philadelphian who recently visited Independence National Historical Park and lamented the purge of a portion of the nation's history remarked "You show all of it- the good, the bad, and the ugly." But that's becoming increasingly uncommon. Writing in 2021, one journalist noted that in dictatorships such as Russia and China, "a single version of history prevails, stamped and sealed by the leadership and imposed in classrooms, through culture, and on the internet."  Donald Trum is still in the early stages, but he understands this lesson well.

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Acquiescence, And We're Better Off for It

On January 11, the "showdown over Greenland" was

at a “fateful moment,” Denmark’s prime minister warned, as President Donald Trump renewed his threat to seize the Arctic island "one way or the other”….

Trump has insisted that the U.S. must take control of Greenland to prevent Russia or China from doing the same — an argument Beijing dismissed as "an excuse" to pursue his territorial ambitions.

“I am not going to let that happen,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One late Sunday of allowing America's geopolitical rivals to control the vast, mineral-rich territory.

Asked if there was any deal either Greenland or Denmark could offer to prevent military action, Trump said he would love to make a deal. “It’s easier,” he said, adding: “But one way or the other, we’re going to have Greenland.”

Europeans were not amused. Consequently, as of January 16, they had

begun to complement their strategy of engagement with deterrence. The idea is to raise the stakes of any forceful U.S. action on Greenland and demonstrate that annexing the island will not be an easy win, but have “unprecedented knock-on effects,” as French President Emmanuel Macron put it. Europeans hope that Trump is just testing the boundaries of how much resistance he will evoke, and that standing firmly united will make him back off.

To achieve this, European leaders are working with members of the U.S. Congress with the hope of future legislation that would make it more difficult for the president to make a move on Greenland. A bipartisan congressional delegation currently visiting Denmark and the island is meant to convey the message that there is no interest whatsoever for a U.S. takeover. In addition, Europeans are signaling to Congress that the possession of an island that is much smaller than it appears on the standard Mercator projection map is not worth the dissolution of NATO.

Europeans are also weighing their economic and military options to deter Trump’s threat. On the economic side, the use of limited sanctions, further punitive measures against U.S. tech companies, and the European Union’s (EU) anti-coercion instrument—which was already considered but discarded as a response to U.S. tariffs—are back as actions of last resort. However, Trump’s threat to use tariffs once again over Greenland may discourage some Europeans for fear of escalation.

On the military side, France, Germany, Norway, and Sweden have deployed a small number of troops to Greenland to deter a fait accompli from the U.S. side (and France has proposed sending more). However, Europeans are fully aware that a military conflict with the United States would be a disastrous scenario that they will only lose. Other “nuclear options,” like limiting U.S. access to bases in Europe, are technically available. But this tactic would assume that the transatlantic relationship is already irreparably harmed.

Donald Trump heard this loud and clear and after his speech at Davos, announced on Wednesday that he and NATO Secretary Mark Rutte had "formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic Region."   "One way or another, we're going to have Greenland," the President had said. Europe called his bluff, and now we've agreed to negotiate.

Yet Glenn Beck, asking "what is the key to what happened yesterday,"  holds fast to his crush, remarking

I can guarantee you he- Donald Trump- or someone said to Mark, a message from the President, "Mark, you've gotta make this happen, you've gotta tell the truth and I'm not making a threat. I'm making a promise to you.

You bet that wasn't a threat, if such a conversation did actually take place.  "One way or another, we're going to have Greenland," the President earlier had boasted, Europe countered, and Donald was in no position to make the threat for a second time.

According to Beck, Trump or his respresentative added

If we don't get Greenland, if this doesn't happen, if we don't find a way so that we have control over the things that we have to have control over in Greenland, I'm out of NATO and you won't survive.

If NATO had not survived that, Donald Trump would have been the assassin and Vladimir Putin the beneficiary. Beck continued

And I won't say that, embarrass NATO, I can't say it aloud but I'm telling you that this is the end game here. We're out of NATO because it's worthless. I can guarantee you that's what happened. Everything in me says that's what happened.

It’s just a theory, but I bet Trump promised NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte that the U.S. would leave NATO if a Greenland deal isn't made. That's how Trump changed NATO’s mind so fast: Negotiate or you're on your own. And Rutte would know he's not bluffing. pic.twitter.com/MaP7hRJdh8

— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) January 22, 2026

We can't be sure this did not happen, though clearly if it did, it was not Trump himself. "And I won't say that, embarrass NATO, I can't say it aloud" is something which never would be uttered by America's, nay the world's, leading narcissist. If Trump can't be the center of attention, he can't be anything.

If there had been no announcement of negotiations, er, uh, a "framework," for a deal, Glenn Beck and his fellow travelers would have proclaimed it a total victory for the great dealmaker. President Trump's confrontational style would have persuaded those awful people across the Atlantic to back down, we would have been assured.

But that's not what happened. Instead, someone stood up to the demonic force. As Beck argued, the military might of NATO minus the USA would not have been able to withstand an onslaught from the USA. However, that onslaught would have been short-lived, for a reason Beck overlooked..Had there been an American casualty, Americans would have been out. Death would have been the key.

After his visit to the White House last March, Bill Maher pleaded "one good thing about Trump: he really, really doe not like war." Yet, the President's aversion may be not to war itself, but to the possibility of Americans dying in battle. Sensitive to public opinion, he is keenly aware that the instinct to rally around the flag rapidly loses its appeal once American deaths enter the picture.

In either case, when NATO nations faced President Trump down, he backed down. His prior bluster was belied by the willingness to talk and make a deal for what the President could have achieved without the controversy and distrust his shtick incited. That was no problem for the man who must always be the center of attention. This will be a problem for allies and for the United States of America itself.

Oh, Trump will eventually declare victory, in his signature fashion, exalting himself and deriding others. However, notwithstanding what Glenn Beck contends, President Trump overplayed his hand. He (apparently) believed he could and would intimidate Denmark into capitulating to his demand to turn Greenland over, perhaps for mere pennies on the dollar.

Donald Trump didn't completely capitulate. But he did stand down and the coalition of the free, here (thus far) and abroad, weakened, survives for another day.

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Something Is Wrong with that Man

This is not quite the own Karolyin' Leavitt thinks it is:

No he didn’t, Libby. His written remarks referred to Greenland as a “piece of ice” because that’s what it is.

You’re the only one mixing anything up here. https://t.co/awRQO3eN3Y pic.twitter.com/pkAQysW06h

— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) January 21, 2026

Trump did not refer to Greenland as a "piece of ice."  At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he referred to Iceland as a "piece of ice."   

And I’ve until the last few days when I told them about Iceland, they loved me. They called me “Daddy.” The last time, a very smart man said, “He’s our daddy. He’s running it.” I was like running it. I went from running it to being a terrible human being. But now what I’m asking for is a piece of ice, cold and poorly located, that can play a vital role in world peace and world protection. It’s a very small ask compared to what we have given them for many, many decades.

But the problem with NATO is that we’ll be there for them 100 percent. But I’m not sure that they’d be there for us if we gave them the call, “Gentlemen, we are being attacked, we’re under attack by such and such a nation.” I know them all very well. I’m not sure that they’d be there. I know we’d be there for them. I don’t know that they’d be there for us. So with all of the money we expend, with all of the blood, sweat and tears, I don’t know that they’d be there for us. They’re not there for us on Iceland, I can tell you.

In those two paragraphs, the President referred to Iceland, not once but twice, and not at all to Greenland. He stated "now what I'm asking for is a piece of ice, cold and poorly located" and "they're not there fo rus on Iceland, I can tell you."

Given the immediate context and that of the past couple of weeks, Donald clearly was referring to Greenland. Leavitt protests that he was referring to Iceland because, well, "ice" and "Iceland."  If Trump were the jokester Leavitt and others have claimed he is when he says something absurd and is called out for it, he could have referred to the similarity between the two words.

If Trump had invoked the nation of Iceland for some sort of reason, it would be very troublesome. Iceland? Really? However, contrary to Leavitt's assertion, the President mixed up Greenland and Iceland.

Now, just imagine if President Joe Biden had made a similar error.  Biden was forced to renounce a bid for re-election when a victory in November seemed highly unlikely because he was widely viewed as a feeble old man.  

Imagine if President Biden had gone before roughly 1,000 world business and political elites and complained about a "rigged" election of five years earlier; referred to the Federal Reserve Chairman as Jerome "Too Late" Powell, as Trump did; or then-Representative Kevin McCarthy as a "fake congressperson, the description Trump gave Ilhan Omar; or a former President as "warmongering Ronald Reagan," comparable to Trump's "Sleepy Joe Biden."   Or if President Biden had said that he would be bringing drug prices down by 90 percent or "you could say 1,000 percent, 2,000 percent," which would mean the pharmacist might pay you for the prescription he filled.

The Republican Party in near-unison would demand that Biden resign and the media would follow by interviewing countless Republicans with that same message.Video of the Democratic president making those outlandish statements would run in a continuous loop.

Yet Democrats are silent as they are faced with a Republican president who alternatively appears crazy, ignorant, or plainly vile or suffering from dementia, aphasia, or another physical ailment. Donald Trump is suffering from a major physical, mental, or psychological ailment and Democrats don't want to press the point. We still don't know why President Trump suddenly went to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in November 2019 or whether he was hit by even a bullet fragment in Butler, Pennsylvania in July, 2025.

A scandal usually does not materialize on its own without help from partisans who would beneift from it. Something is wrong with the man and Democrats should settle on a message to get it out to the public.  Depending on a blogger or two to do it for them won't cut it.

 

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A Tale of Two Christians

I'll give her this-: she is having fun:

Karoline Leavitt always prays before White House Press briefing. — Lord Jesus, please give us the strength...

Say Amen 🙏 pic.twitter.com/57MgpNpLig

— Godly Nation (@GodlyNations) January 17, 2026

As far as I can tell, a broadly smiling Karolyin' Leavitt is "praying" "Lord Jesus, please give us the strength, the knowledge, the ability to articulate our words and have fun, all  this in Jesus' name. Amen."

That's quite a demeanor for someone sincerely praying, or would be if she were sincere. Paul warned the Galatians that the "fruit of the Spirit" includes "love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control."  In her press briefings, Leavitt never exhibits love, peace, kindness, or gentleness, and her only faithfulness is to the lies continually spun by her master, Donald Trump. Wisely, she usually conspicuously wears a cross, so calling her out would be politically incorrect.

By contrast, Jesus admonished "when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father... in secret" After some pro football games, many players- presumably many sincere and others insincere- join together in prayer on the field. Praying even before the game is not uncommon for Houston Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud.

Stroud played miserably in the Texans' loss on Sunday to the New England Patriots. After the game ended, he joined many of his fellow athletes in prayer. And then- without even donning a cross- there was this:

Perspective 🙏🏻🙌 C.J. Stroud played his worst game when the Texans needed him most. But he praises the Lord in the bad times, not just the good. pic.twitter.com/FbjiZELs55

— Faith On The Field (@FaithOnTheField) January 19, 2026

Thanking the Son for his great and good fortune and humbling himself without professing to be humble, Stroud remarked

The first,before I do anything, I want to give out glory to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Without him I'm  nothing and I just appreciate him giving me, the opportunity, this platform, to play this great game for this great organization 

We can be C.J. Stroud. Or we can be Karolyin' Leavitt, who can tell a reporter "it's funny to me that you actually consider yourself a journalist. You are a far left hack who nobody takes seriously, including your colleagues in the meda, they just don't tell you that to your face." But be sure to wear a visible cross at the same time so that your commitment to Jesus Christ is loudly proclaimed for all those naive enough to buy it.

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Joke, No Joke

This was a joke- a bad one, not at all funny, but a joke, nevertheless. On January 11

The commander-in-chief, 79, took questions from reporters but had to briefly pause the gaggle as he struggled to stand on his return from Mar-a-Lago to Washington DC.

The president then turned to his loyal press secretary Leavitt and blurted out that he needed to stop himself from falling down.

She looked around the flight cabin for something to prop the boss up.

'I'm looking for something to grab here. Because it's going to get rough. I think you did this to me, you put me in a position where there's absolutely nothing to grab,' Trump said, blaming reporters.

'So I'm looking for something to grab. And it's not going to be Karoline!'

Leavitt appeared to briefly pull back from Trump but smiled as she moved his hand toward a nearby curtain.

It was a very weak joke, followed by the press secretary giving Donald a little approbration as he'd demand. Leavitt then retreated slightly, appropriately.

Though not humorous, the remark was light-hearted and if Trump ever grabs Leavitt, it won't be in public, anyway, because he's too young for her.  It was not a matter of public interest, so the media ignored it and moved on to significant topics.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt snapped Thursday at a reporter who didn’t buy her attempt to dismiss President Donald Trump’s repeated mentions of canceling elections.

 

Four days later, this was no joke.

During a White House press briefing, a reporter asked Leavitt why the president kept mentioning canceling elections. Trump had pointed out while speaking to Reuters that presidents never do well in the midterm elections, and bragged that because his administration has already accomplished so much, maybe the democratic process wasn’t necessary at all.

“When you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election,” Trump said. The president had made a similar remark while speaking to Republicans at the Kennedy Center last week.

“The president was simply joking,” Leavitt said. “He was saying, ‘We’re doing such a great job, we’re doing everything American people thought, maybe we should just keep rolling.’ But he was speaking facetiously.”

The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg posed a follow-up. “Are you saying the president finds the idea of cancelling elections funny?”

“Andrew, were you in the room? No you weren’t. I was in the room, I heard the conversation. And only someone like you would take that so seriously, and pose that in a question in that way,” Leavitt replied.

 

 In June, 2020 a reporter for the American Journal noted eleven (11) times when Trump, according to a member of his team or himself, was joking, being sarcastic, or "needling." In the latter case, Marco Rubio was characterizing Donald's remark "China should start an investigation into the Bidens."

That was 5-8  years before ABC News recently listed the nine political opponents, past and present, of Donald Trump whom the President's Justice Department is investigating. (There also are three- James Comey, Letitia James, and John Bolton- who have been indicted, the first two at least because they resemble a ham sandwich.) They are Jerome Powell, Federal Reserve chairperson; Lisa Cook, Federal Reserve governor; Mark Kelly, US senator; Adam Schiff, US senator; Eric Swallwell, US representative; Chris Christie, former NJ governor; Jack Smith, former special counsel; Miles Taylor, former chief of staff to the Department of Homeland Security; Christopher Kres, former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

Donald is not joking, being facetious, or even (primarily) trolling when he muse about cancelling elections. Oh, he enjoys getting a response from his enemies, But that's not his purpose.

Trump wants to see the reaction when he throws something against the wall, to see if it sticks. He is floating an idea, testing the waters. If no one notices or if there is little discernible revulsion, he is confident that he can put something into effect at the right (for him) time.

And if the reaction is antagonistic and the response contentious, he or a spokesperson can claim the President was only joking or being facetious. Yet, at the same time, Donald has moved the goal posts and softened the public up for when he's more inclined to make a move.

Reporters need to know how to counter this strategy. Feinberg was ready when he shot back at Leavitt "are you saying the President finds the idea of cancelling elections funny?"  A reasonably effective variation might be "how is that joke (or facetiousness) funny (or amusing)?" It's tough to come up with something on the fly but the correspondents no longer have any excuse. They know if they ask a substantive question that the press secretary probably will say something nasty or reprehensible. 

Allowing DonaldTrump's mouthpiece freely and without dissent to mimic the President she so slavishly serves is no way to run a free press.

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Release the Records

He has me confused. Is Eric Erickson stupid, naive, or dishonest?  Erickson says

The New York Times pushed out a story just the other day after Renee Good got killed by the ICE agent, a multi-angled camera view to insist it did not look like the ICE agent got hit.... CNN echoed The New York Times, claiming that it did not appear that he got hit.

We now have the medical records of the ICE agent. I believe his name is Jonathan Ross- internal bleeding in his hip area from the impact of the 3,000+ pound car hitting him. He was hit by Renee Good.

 

The New York Times pushed out a multi-angle camera view claiming Renee Good did not hit the ICE agent. But now we have the agent’s medical records.

She did hit him. Where is the apology? pic.twitter.com/x1nnN6pGB7

— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) January 14, 2026

CBS Newson on Wednesday reported 

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who fatally shot Renee Good last week in Minneapolis, Jonathan Ross, suffered internal bleeding to the torso following the incident, according to two U.S. officials briefed on his medical condition.

It was unclear how extensive the bleeding was. The Department of Homeland Security confirmed Ross' injury, but has not yet responded to CBS News' requests for more information. This story will be updated as we learn more.

Videos from the scene showed Ross walking away after the incident.

Ross has not returned to work, one source said, but did not say why.

Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary, previously acknowledged that Ross was taken to the hospital after the shooting and was released the same day. She said he was recovering from his injuries, describing him as an experienced law enforcement officer who believed he was defending himself and fellow agents.

Not only is it unclear how extensive the bleeding was, it is unclear whether the injury was more extensive than a common, everyday household injury. As described by the Cleveland Clinic, this sounds a lot like internal bleeding:

“Ecchymosis” (pronounced “eh-chuh-mow-sis”) is the medical term for a bruise. A bruise, or contusion, is skin discoloration from damaged, leaking blood vessels underneath your skin. Even though there’s blood pooling underneath your skin, you won’t have any external bleeding unless your skin breaks open.

We don't know whether Ross was severely injured. However, we do know that "internal bleeding" can be no more serious than a bruise and that we cannot take remarks by anyone in this Administration about this incident as the gospel truth.

Soon after the shooting, Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem called Renee Good a"domestic terrorist."  She was not. 

Vice President J.D. Vance called the victim a "deranged leftist." There is no evidence that she was deranged or in any way mentally or psychologically deficient. 

President Trump almost instantly after the killing remarked that "the woman" was "very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE officer. She did not. (Good was leaving the scene when she eviently was shot three times and clearly did not "willfully and viciously" run anyone over.)

This Administration's record on the killing of Renee Good alread has been one of division and deceit, lying profusely to justify its inhumane and destructive policy toward both immigration and protestors. Nonetheless, we'll be able to determine definitively, hopefully, the extent  of Agent Jonathan Ross' injury once his medical report is released. That may be released simultaneously with the release of the alleged shooting of presidential candidate Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania in July, 2024 or release of the full Epstein files. When pigs fly.

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Contemplating His Options

This is a terribly dishonest piece but one which should bring to mind an important point.

Joy Behar says that ICE deporting illegals is strategy for Trump to win the next election...

Good to know Democrats are admitting that illegals voting were part of their scheme to steal an election...pic.twitter.com/Yz57uFQrHO

— Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) January 13, 2026

Obviously, The View's Joy Behar is not saying anything about illegal immigrants voting in "the next election" or any election. Ironically, she is talking about, well, non-election.  She states "I worry about that Trump is looking for this kind of pandemonium to go on like you just described so that he can declare martial law and also cancel the midterms."

He is, and he probably could. However, there is something else Donald could do, and he already has hinted at it.  In a recent interview with The New York Times, President Trump said

that he regretted not ordering the National Guard to seize voting machines in swing states after his loss in the 2020 election, even though he doubted whether the Guard was “sophisticated enough” to carry out the order effectively.

The remarks by Mr. Trump in the interview last week harked back to one of the most perilous moments from his first term in office, when he was urged by some advisers to order his national security agencies to take control of machines manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems in an effort to find evidence that they had been hacked to rig the election against him.

The statement also came as he has continued his attacks on digital voting machines, saying that he wants to “lead a movement” to get rid of them altogether in advance of this year’s midterm elections.

This was not a spur-of-the-moment thought. Rather

Mr. Trump has long been obsessed with voting machines, particularly those built by Dominion, a company that has figured prominently in conspiracy theories that technology was used to rob him of victory in his race against Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Allegations that Dominion machines were hacked in a plot to flip votes away from Mr. Trump swirled constantly in the chaotic period after the 2020 election and sat at the heart of several lawsuits filed by the pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell that sought to overturn the results of the vote in four key swing states.

The accusations about Dominion came to a head during a pitched Oval Office meeting on Dec. 18, 2020, when a team of outside advisers, including Ms. Powell and Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser, pitched Mr. Trump on a brazen plan: They wanted the president to use the military or federal law enforcement officers to seize Dominion machines in several states where he believed there had been fraud in order to conduct a recount of the vote.

The advisers went so far as to present Mr. Trump with draft executive orders that they claimed would grant him the authority to follow through on the outrageous plan.

Cooler, perhaps more democratic, heads prevailed as

Even proposing the idea of inserting armed federal forces into the administration of a presidential race shattered the most basic norms of American democracy. And it was vigorously opposed at the meeting by several of Mr. Trump’s top aides, including Pat A. Cipollone, his White House counsel at the time. The aides argued that Mr. Trump had no legal basis to seize the machines and they quickly called other top officials in an effort to persuade the president that there was no evidence that Dominion systems had been interfered with.

Still, Mr. Trump explored the possibility of seizing the machines. He raised the question separately with Attorney General William P. Barr, who immediately shot it down. And he directed one of his personal lawyers, Rudolph W. Giuliani, to ask high-ranking officials in the Department of Homeland Security if they could legally seize the machines. Again, he was rebuffed.

In the end, Mr. Trump did not move forward with the proposal — a decision he said in the interview with The Times that he regretted.

“Well, I should have,” he said.

It seems that Donald would hesitate only if he doubted the efficacy of such an attempt to steal an election because

Asked whether using the military to impound voting machines had been a viable option, the president questioned the sophistication of the National Guard.

“I don’t know that they are sophisticated enough,” he said. “You know, they’re good warriors. I’m not sure that they’re sophisticated enough in the ways of crooked Democrats, and the way they cheat, to figure that out.”

This is not ancient history nor merely theoretical as

Mr. Trump’s expression of regret, while somewhat vaguely worded, was nonetheless a warning sign that he had not given up on the idea that voting machines were dangerous or that they could be seized in an effort to curb fraud.

Just last week, he reposted several social media messages that continued to push the claim that Dominion machines had been rigged against him. And last month, he sought to pardon Tina Peters, a former Colorado county clerk who is serving a nine-year prison sentence on state charges of tampering with Dominion machines in an effort to prove that they were used in a plot against Mr. T

Every good and authoritarian plan can use a trial run. In this case

At the same time, Mr. Trump has not been shy in using the National Guard, deploying thousands of its troops in recent months to cities that he says are overrun with crime. He has argued that the deployments are necessary to restore law and order to the cities, despite the objections of state and local leaders, who have called the moves unnecessary and unlawful.

The president’s use of the National Guard during his second term has become the focus of a multistate legal battle. While some cases remain largely unresolved, in December, the Supreme Court ruled against Mr. Trump for his deployment of troops in the Chicago area, citing an 1878 law, which bans the use of the military for domestic policing.

Since taking office again almost a year ago, Mr. Trump has sought to expand the scope of his powers and has wielded federal authority to exact retribution on political enemies and push his domestic agenda. And he has said he is willing to invoke the Insurrection Act and federalize some National Guard units if he feels it is important to do so.

Donald may cancel the mid-term elections if there appears to be a reasonable chance that Democrats retake the House of Representatives and/or the Senate.There are other options for a lawless President. He could send masked immigration agents to polling places in Democratic precincts. If Republican losses result in their loss of the House or Senate, the President could "suggest" to Senate President John Thune or House speaker Speaker in Name Only (SINO) Mike Johnson that he refuse to seat newly-elected Democrats.

Or he could have National Guard soldiers, the military, perhaps even ICE officers seize voting machines. It would be overly dramatic but the actor known for "You're fired!" has a flare for the dramatic.  Draconian and tyrannical, it would be right up his alley and makes any prediction for the eventual, effectual outcome of the 2026 elections the most unpredictable ever, notwihstanding Nancy Pelosi's confidence.

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