President Donald Trump followed up his flop-filled Wednesday speech at the 2026 Republican midterms convention with an equally blunder-brimming sequel on Thursday. Even as many of Trump’s fellow Republicans urge him to stop focusing on himself during an election cycle when his approval ratings are under water by double digits, Trump’s speech to the still-sparse crowd — which came on the heels of an overlong, deadline-bursting oration by Vice President JD Vance and an off-key rendition by musician Lee Greenwood of his song “God Bless The USA” — continued his habit of self-promoting regardless of either political expertise or objective numerical metrics.
The humiliating highlights included:
1. He falsely insisted the convention was “packed” just like it was “packed last night.” The various images of empty seats on both occasions begged to differ. Later he claimed the “highest rafter” was packed and urged people to not go to the bathroom so the media could not capture as many images of empty seats. He went on to say the arena was “packed last night” with “thousands” waiting outside, then pointed to random parts of the arena that were supposedly full while ignoring areas that were empty. Later he admitted he shouldn’t have looked “back there” at one section where he didn’t like “the little bit of skin” showing in that section of the venue.
2. He coined the word “mutilization.” First in the sentence “I ended the transgender mutilization of our beautiful children — no more of that,” Trump repeatedly claimed that Democrats supported the “mutilization” of American children. Not only did this mischaracterize the reality of transgender medical treatment, but “mutilization” is not a word. He likely meant to say “mutilation.”
3. Repeating a claim that was met with a notably tepid response on Wednesday, Trump insisted that he had ended the era in which America is a “laughingstock.” Yet even as he claimed that America is more respected than ever, America is currently losing both its literal war against Iran and its trade war against Canada. In the former conflict, Trump is stuck in a quagmire because Iran has seized control of the Strait of Hormuz, raising prices on vital American goods such as oil and fertilizer; per the latter, Prime Minister Mark Carney has outmaneuvered Trump both economically and in the court of public opinion. As Dr. Richard Wolff, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, told AlterNet earlier this month, “It’s not just Mr. Carney, he is the expression of something that he knows as a politician is now a very popular view in Canada. He’s not going to be held to blame because this or that difficulty happens. If he can show, as he often can, that the United States’ hostility, tariff policy number one, is the root cause, then he gets a pass. The kind of anger that might often be addressed to a politician won’t be, because they correctly perceive that the problem is something else. And so they appeal to the politician when he comes up with solutions or attempted solution to keep workers’ needs in mind.”
4. Shortly before his “laughingstock” line, Trump said that “in 19 months, I’ve delivered on every single promise I made, and I think I delivered on far more. Joe Biden and the radical Democrats created the worst inflation in American history.” In addition to ignoring that Americans are spending on average $700 more due to inflation during Trump’s second term, and that his approval rating on inflation is worse than Biden’s ever was, in fact President Jimmy Carter had the worst year-to-year inflation of any president in American history. Speaking to Alternet in August, Dr. Robert J. Shapiro — an economist who worked for President Bill Clinton, who actually did preside over low inflation — broke down how Trump’s various policies have raised inflation. These include his ongoing trade wars with nations like Canada, his war against Iran and his bullying of the Federal Reserve.
“Trump has been attacking the Fed for as long as he’s been in office for not cutting interest rates,” Shapiro wrote. “But you don’t cut interest rates when inflation is rising, because cutting rates stimulates the economy — meaning you increase demand without increasing supply, so prices go up. Powell refused to cut rates because he said, in effect, ‘We’re in an inflationary period; once we contain inflation, we can cut rates.’ Trump has made that much harder by increasing inflation through both the tariffs and the effects of the war on Iran. Even [Kevin] Warsh, Trump’s handpicked successor to [Jerome] Powell, hasn’t cut rates. But the market believes there’s a significant possibility that he will, given the pressure Trump has been putting on him — and in anticipation of that, they’ve been driving long-term rates up.”
5. Near the end he closed by forcing the crowd to pledge an allegiance not to America, not to God, but to “the greatest president” who loves them “so much he can’t even breathe” to get out and vote for him, as well as get their personal networks to do likewise. He even said that if they don’t go and vote, presumably for him, they will “go to hell.”
Surely that will do much to disabuse the widespread perception that Trump is leading a cult.
