OK. First of all, I will reiterate like I’ve done in my past two posts: those generals didn’t give him an inch. Trump kept saying salacious shit and then pausing, as he did on the campaign trail, waiting for whoops and hollers and claps…. he got silence.

He did wax eloquent about bringing back the “real gold ink” on general’s commissioning papers (the ceremonial document for display), and then said everything Biden signed was by autopen except his son’s pardon, and the signature on that was so ugly the autopen actually looked better.

He once again mentioned the Nobel Peace Prize, saying he’ll never get it but the writer writing about the “brilliant mind of Trump” will get it. So they’ll give it to a writer but not me….

He again claims to have ended seven wars, eight “when” Hamas signs the agreement that was drafted without their presence or participation.

Again, he keeps asking leading questions like “Wouldn’t that be wonderful?” and pausing… to silence.

He then rambled about tariffs for a while, saying “My favorite word in the English language is tariff.” He also claimed an admiral came to him asking where $31B “came from” and Trump said, “Well check the tariffs” [as if there is a Tariff Bank Account somewhere] and the admiral was shocked that $31B appeared from tariffs for the use of the Navy? I’m not sure. He was not coherent here when relaying this “story”.

He then claimed our ships are made of material that “melts when it sees a missile coming” (our ships are and have always been made of steel) and then mentions he thinks battleships should be “brought back”. He then said our ships are ugly…

He claims the military was just full of “unqualified people” because of DEI and now the merit-based system will be better: “We’re bringing back a focus on fitness… we’re not going to be politically correct anymore.”

He then said $1T is going to be spent on the military in 2026 (he paused again here for applause and got silence), and then said the Navy is going to build NINETEEN NEW SHIPS NEXT YEAR (the shipyards in my area are about to explode with jobs, then, right??).

He claims we are not building ships anymore (again, I have a working shipyard in my area and the Navy has built new SMART ships over the past several years), he said the “stealth ships” are ugly and he doesn’t like the design but he does like the design of the stealth bomber. He really liked that. He talked about it for a moment like a kid breathlessly telling a parent about their favorite toy… then he randomly trashed CNN.

He said the nation is “all red with strips of blue along the side, and those will be gone soon.”

He said, “We need borders, an honest press, and fair elections,” before bashing the media for a hot minute.

He said, “We’re under invasion from within, and it’s more dangerous because they don’t wear uniforms.” Not super clear if he was talking about the “radical left liberals” he kept mentioning or from immigrants who he claims are all murderous rapists, criminals, and then doubled down blaming “radical left lunatics” for “allowing” violent criminals from the Congo and Venezuala, which opened its prisons and dumped the prisoners into America.”

He then pivoted to mentioning that Washington, DC, was the most dangerous city in America, “or even elsewhere”, comparing it once again to Afghanistan.

He said “Many cities are in bad shape, those run by radical left Democrats” and then mentioned a “war from within” again… so while he didn’t exactly phrase it connecting the democrats being the cause of the “war from within”, it was heavily implied.

He continued with rhetoric about Chicago before pivoting to Portland, saying it “looks like a war zone. This looks like WWII. it’s burning down. This place is a nightmare,” and then claiming “they took over big parts of Seattle” ( Dana DuBois, you doing okay over there since the “takeover”?).

He claimed people are spitting in the faces of soldiers standing at attention and he just knows those soldiers want to “knock the hell out of them” so he proposed a new tactic, “They spit, we hit,” asking, “How about that, Generals?” SILENCE ONCE AGAIN.

He claims bricks are being thrown at federal cars, vehicles, this was unclear as he mentioned electric, so like… federal electric cars specifically? I couldn’t quite understand him, but he said if someone throws something at a vehicle, “You get out of that car and you can do whatever the hell you want to do.”

He pivoted to Venezuela and said every single boat carries enough drugs to kill 25,000 people. He then acknowledged that someone said the people of Venezuela were afraid to go fishing, and he chuckled and said, “There’ll be no fishing, then.” Goes on to talk about fentanyl overdoses, 300K a year (this number seems to change every single time he talks about it).

He then spoke on the strike on Iran, asking the audience to “raise their hands if they don’t like what Kane [Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Kane] did,” and when of course no one raised their hand, he claimed victory, smiling and saying, “See, I see no hands, so you like it!” Weird and manipulative way of trying to claim “approval” from flag officers who said and did nothing to indicate agreement.

Says again, “As President, I will never hesitate to protect our people from the threat from within.”

Then he launched into how we were not respected under Biden because he kept falling down stairs. I don’t fall down stairs. I walk carefully, slowly. There’s no prize for getting there first! You know, they [who?] told me Obama had no respect because he walked down stairs like [mimed bouncing down stairs with elbows up] without holding the, uh thing.”

Then he kept repeating- said it four times total- “A year ago we were dead, a dead country, falling apart. Trillions are now flowing in.” Also claimed the UAE told him, verbatim, “One year ago you were a dead country and now you’re the hottest country anywhere!”, then repeated again, “We were a dead country a year ago.”

Then he said the generals and admirals must have been sad to go home to their families with recruitment so low (my spouse never cared about recruitment numbers when I was active duty) but now they’re going to have to turn people away because so many people want to join (fact check: the Navy had to lower their standards to get enough people to meet recruitment goals this year). “Last year they were talking about making the military smaller… we’re gonna make it bigger!”

Mentions the Board of Peace, which will rule over Gaza and he sits at the head and “everyone” wants to join.

Concluding with the phrase: “We will fight, fight, fight, and we will win, win, win,” the speech landed flatly like the pep rally for a lousy community college.

Officers stood for a BRIEF and muted applause. Absolutely no yells, cheers, or other signs of encouragement.

As I hoped, the flag officers behaved with the decorum and nonpartisan discipline we expect from them. The two “leaders” on stage made utter and total fools of themselves, and by extension, our nation with this colossal waste of time and taxpayer money.