By Ben Meiselas
Merry Christmas, everyone!
As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve learned never to expect quiet from Donald Trump, even on Christmas morning. By mid-morning on Christmas Day, Trump was spiraling, and had already posted more than one hundred times on social media.
Post. Post. Post. Post. Post. If you have the misfortune of setting notifications for Trump’s account like I do, your phone battery was probably drained by the time you woke up. Each post was more psychotic than the next, with not a normal Merry Christmas message to be found.
Trump called for the prosecution of former President Barack Obama. He repeated long-debunked lies about the 2020 election. He boosted posts declaring that the Affordable Care Act should be abolished “right away,” even as millions of Americans are already terrified about losing health care coverage after subsidies were allowed to lapse. He falsely claimed the 2020 election in Michigan was fraudulent. He again defamed Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, women who endured years of threats after Trump allies targeted them and who later won their defamation case against Rudy Giuliani. If he were not the president, any objective individual would be calling for a 5150 hold.
Trump also amplified ICE accounts celebrating deportations and boasting that “ICE never sleeps,” while officials openly celebrated “Christmas deportations.” How’s that for the holiday spirit?
He promoted a conspiracy-laden video from Roseanne Barr claiming that COVID-19 was deliberately unleashed so Democrats could steal the 2020 election through mail-in voting. This was QAnon-style disinformation, pushed directly by the president on Christmas Day. He followed it with post after post attacking health care, immigrants, transgender Americans, and anyone he deems an enemy.
The volume alone should alarm anyone paying attention. Imagine someone in your life posting about a single topic two hundred times in a morning. You would ask if they were okay. This is not normal behavior. And yet this is the behavior of the person entrusted with nuclear codes, foreign policy, and the rule of law.
The contrast with other leaders could not have been clearer. Former President Joe Biden posted simple holiday photos with his family. Former President Barack Obama did the same. Trump spent Christmas morning rage-posting, spreading conspiracies, and inciting grievance.
And that meltdown did not happen in a vacuum.
As Trump flooded social media with chaos, the Justice Department quietly acknowledged the existence of roughly 1.2 million additional Epstein-related documents it claims it has never reviewed, coincidentally after MeidasTouch reported on the existence of said documents. These documents were referenced in emails years ago and only surfaced publicly after reporting forced the issue.
While Trump ranted online, Vladimir Putin continued brutal attacks across Ukraine on Christmas Day, striking Kyiv, Kherson, Kharkiv, Odessa, Sumy, and Donetsk. A bipartisan group of U.S. senators condemned the assaults, noting that Ukraine had agreed to a Christmas truce and that Putin rejected it, choosing violence instead on one of Christianity’s holiest days.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made it clear that this was not just another military decision, but a moral one. Russia rejected peace and escalated attacks, launching missile and drone strikes against Ukraine’s energy grid and civilian areas.
At the same time, the Trump administration moved to sanction European officials for enforcing consumer protection and anti-disinformation laws, while loosening pressure on Russian figures. Europe is punished for trying to stop fraud and disinformation. Russia is accommodated. This is the world order under the Trump regime.
European leaders increasingly view the United States as an unreliable partner, if not an adversary. Ukraine continues to fight for its survival with courage and success on the battlefield, even as Trump echoes authoritarian narratives and undermines democratic solidarity.
Trump’s Christmas meltdown should not be dismissed as noise. His words and his actions have real consequences, both in the U.S. and around the world.
Watch my full report above to catch up on today’s news, and thanks again for being a subscriber to the Meidas+ Substack. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and your family!
