By Ben Meiselas
This Thanksgiving was supposed to be a moment of pause for a country shaken by crisis, violence, and economic uncertainty. Instead, the President of the United States delivered one of the most deranged and dangerous performances of his term, a nightlong series of tantrums, slurs, and authoritarian threats that underscored how profoundly unfit he truly is for the job.
It began with a press conference where Donald Trump lashed out at a female reporter who asked a straightforward question about asylum vetting. She referenced publicly available facts: former President Biden’s administration conducted extensive screenings of Afghans evacuated in 2021, and it was Trump who personally granted asylum to the D.C. shooter in April 2025. Rather than answer, Trump exploded. “Are you stupid or are you dumb?” he shouted while slamming his hand on the podium.
Hours later, near midnight, Trump finally posted a Thanksgiving message. It quickly devolved into a hate-filled rant targeting immigrants, communities of color, and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. In the statement, Trump claimed the immigrant population consists of people from “prisons” and “mental institutions,” falsely asserted that Minnesota has been “taken over by Somalian gangs,” and smeared Representative Ilhan Omar as “probably illegal.”
Then came the most disgraceful line: Trump declared Governor Walz “seriously retarded,” a dehumanizing slur amplified by the official White House account urging Americans to “read every word.” No modern president has used language this bigoted or cruel. It was a public humiliation of the office and an assault on the dignity of millions of Americans.
But Trump didn’t stop at insults. He threatened to de-naturalize immigrants who have already become American citizens, claiming they are “non-compatible with Western civilization.” That is language pulled directly from the lexicon of 20th-century authoritarianism. To threaten the removal of citizenship from Americans because of national origin is fascism. There’s no need to mince words here.
Minutes after posting the screed, Trump returned to the Mar-a-Lago ballroom, where taxpayers continue to subsidize his vacations, and began dancing to “YMCA” for donors and guests. This juxtaposition reflects an administration lost in its own delusions of power.
By the next morning, the situation had escalated even further. Multiple outlets, including The Telegraph, reported that Trump sent his envoys to Moscow with a proposal to recognize Russian control over Eastern Ukrainian territory. Trump confidant Steve Witkoff, who was previously caught on audio coordinating Russian requests, was dispatched alongside Jared Kushner to signal to Vladimir Putin that “Putin’s war gains belong to Russia.”
A U.S. president does not have the authority to cede sovereign territory belonging to another nation. No European allies support this. Ukraine has not agreed to this. It is an act of appeasement so extreme that it raises profound questions about Trump’s loyalties. As one European diplomat reportedly said privately, it amounts to “handing Putin a victory he could not win on the battlefield.”
Meanwhile inside the administration, chaos reigns. Jeanine Pirro, the former Fox News host inexplicably placed in charge of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, took to television to blame Biden, again, despite clear evidence that Trump himself dismantled federal counterterrorism operations. Trump replaced experienced leadership with loyalists, including a 22-year-old Heritage Foundation intern placed in charge of FBI counterintelligence. While Trump built political detention camps and conducted mass raids, he neglected the actual systems meant to keep Americans safe.
Other officials followed the same script. Kelly Loeffler, now running the Small Business Administration, responded to legitimate concerns about a decline in small business optimism by blaming Biden. She offered no solutions. She simply deflected responsibility, as this administration does on every issue from inflation to crime to foreign interference.
All of this unfolded just days after Trump called one female reporter “piggy,” labeled another “ugly on the inside and the outside,” and bragged, absurdly, about winning “38 club championships,” even as he has spent 27 percent of his second term golfing. He even suggested he could eliminate income taxes using tariff revenue, a claim belied by the administration’s own numbers: tariffs bring in roughly $207 billion a year compared to the $2.6 trillion generated by income taxes. The debt and deficit are now at record highs. The US Treasury posted a $284.4 billion deficit in October, the worst opening month to any fiscal year in history. Those are the facts. And no amount of gaslighting changes the actual data.
This is not normal. It is not stable leadership. It is not democracy functioning as intended. It is the unraveling of a president who no longer pretends to respect the rule of law, the dignity of the American people, or the sovereignty of U.S. allies.
Thanksgiving should remind us of shared values—gratitude, reflection, humility. Instead, Trump spent the holiday screaming slurs, threatening citizenship revocation, lashing out at reporters, and advancing the Kremlin’s agenda.
The American people deserve better. They deserve a government that protects democratic institutions rather than weaponizing them. They deserve leaders who tell the truth, treat citizens with dignity, and defend allies rather than embolden dictators.
I hope you all had a very Happy Thanksgiving and that you have been finding these recaps helpful. Our team continues to work around the clock to ensure that you all are getting truthful information as quickly as possible. We cannot do it without your support, so thank you!
P.S. We released a special Thanksgiving edition of the MeidasTouch Podcast, which is available on audio platforms now. I hope you have a chance to listen on platforms like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and anywhere audio podcasts are found.
