Here's the top deck at Trump's Thursday rally in Manchester, NH. It's almost empty. Trump claimed that not only was the arena full, but *48,000* people—what you're seeing is about 8,500 to 9,500—had wanted to come see him. He also falsely said dozens waited *60 hours* to get in.
PS/ Note also—all for accuracy's sake—that 60% of the floor seating is taken up by journalists, and that there are scattered empty seats even in the lower deck (suggesting that those on the floor might have been able to fit in those seats or in the lowest rows of the upper deck).
MEDIA/ Note that I harp on this for a reason: Trump is in *deep* trouble in New Hampshire, where he's underwater (-26) in popularity *and* couldn't draw a crowd bigger than this one—and many of those media interviewed were out-of-staters from Massachusetts.
He should be worried.
NOTE/ This disappointing crowd in New Hampshire comes at a time when Trump and the GOP are deciding whether to put on their New Hampshire ticket a man who's been accused of physically and sexually assaulting women and got into an altercation in the White House: Corey Lewandowski.
NOTE2/ A friend outside the arena during the event said there were 1,000 to 2,000 there. When gauging the deputy fire marshal's claim there were 11,500 inside, a) see the pic (and know 11,500 means only 270 empty seats) and b) consider he said there were "8,000 to 9,000" outside.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
I just woke up from a long nap, can someone tell me if Trump has already apologized to the nation for falsely blaming the Kirk assassination on the left when—as with both his assassination attempts and 85% of political violence this century per the data—it was a far-right nutjob?
He is a Groyper. The Groypers are a far-right, neo-Nazi cult made up of young far-right males who thought Kirk was insufficiently far-right. thedailybeast.com/charlie-kirk-s…
Bomb threats against the Maryland General Assembly. Bomb threats against the Michigan lieutenant governor and his family. Bomb threats against 5 HBCUs. Two arrests for violent assaults in Idaho.
In 24 hours.
All Democratic/left-leaning victims.
All suspected MAGA perpetrators.
And that wasn't a full list—not even close.
Bomb threat against the Rhode Island Senate President. Bomb threat against the Rhode Island Majority Leader. Bomb threat against the New Mexico Senate Majority Leader. Once again all Democratic victims, all suspected MAGA perpetrators.
There's no reason to have a conversation about political violence based in rhetoric rather than data.
I don't need to note that every bomb threat on Election Day in 2024 was a MAGA bomb threat.
I don't need to mention January 6, Paul Pelosi, or the two dead Minnesota Democrats.
There was significantly less political violence in America before the 2016 presidential campaign. We all know why.
That doesn’t change that what happened today—in both Utah and Colorado—were tragedies.
It just underscores that revisionist history won’t solve America's problems.
Donald Trump transformed politics into an ultraviolent Thunderdome.
He did it for his own advancement, and he didn’t care what the consequences would be.
It’s *also* true that since Trump poisoned our politics there’s been violence from both Left and Right, though mostly Right.
Both Trump assassination plots I condemned immediately and unreservedly. Both would-be assassins were Republicans. The assassin who killed Minnesota’s Speaker was also Republican. So was the man who plotted to kill Pelosi. But there have been leftist assassins too. I condemn all.
There's no lie Elon Musk and his racist friends won't tell to try to hurt nonwhites—or even, I fear, to try to get deranged others to *literally* hurt nonwhites.
And we know these racists want to cause pain because a two-second Grok search would destroy every one of their lies.
If you read the comments on Musk's racist post, it's person after person after person absolutely convinced that Muslims never migrate to other Muslim countries but only come to Europe or America and only do so as part of some sort of invasion. These folks are touched in the head.
The history of human migration, by whatever group—of whatever race or ethnicity or religion—is that sometimes migrants are looking for a very similar place, sometimes a slightly different place, sometimes a very different place.
That has been human nature for thousands of years.
The manifesto of the Minnesota shooter has been translated—and it's all about his hatred of Jews, Blacks, Mexicans, illegal immigrants, Somalis... none of this had to do with him being trans and major media *knows* it.
So why won't it say so?
1/ The manifesto uses the most vile slurs imaginable to describe Jews and Blacks, groups MAGA is hostile to.
The manifesto uses the most vile rhetoric imaginable to speak of illegal immigrants, another group Maga is hostile to.
And it uses 4chan-speak. 4chan is a MAGA hotbed.
2/ Everyone in America knows at this point that MAGA is a fascist movement and that the first group it wants to start treating like the Nazis did Jews are transgender persons. So the second the possibility the shooter was trans arose, all of us should have apprehended the danger.
1/ I recognize that I often say this when I am speaking of extremely deep-dive curatorial research into Trump and two discrete topics—Jeffrey Epstein and January 6—but it is true: what is in this book will shock you even if you believe you cannot be shocked on these topics.
2/ I want to issue a warning to those with sensitivities surrounding the subject of sex crimes and pedophilia. It is almost certain that this epic work will be triggering for you so, do read with caution or decide whether it even makes sense for you to read this at all.