Donald Trump’s unhinged moments you may need missed whereas all of us watched him bomb Iran

While we’ve all been glued to the carnage unfolding in the Middle East, a number of important and alarming developments from Trumpworld have gone slightly under the radar

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Donald Trump’s attacks on Iran have dominated the news this morning – understandably. But while we’ve all been glued to the carnage unfolding in the Middle East, a number of important things have gone slightly under the radar.

Things like Trump’s allies planning the basis of a coup d’etat. And Pete Hegseth finding the time to pit AI firms against each other to find out which is the least ethical. And the President congratulating a congressman accused of having an affair with an aide, who later died after setting herself on fire.

Here’s a few things you might have missed while you were watching Donald Trump blow up Iran.

1. Trump’s allies are plotting an ’emergency’ to seize control of elections

As we predicted weeks ago, people in Trump’s orbit have pulled together a plan to confect a “national emergency” in order to allow Trump’s White House to seize control of elections ahead of November’s midterms, in which Trump’s Republicans are expected to get a pasting. A 17-page draft executive order has been circulated that claims China interfered in the 2020 election. It uses that claim as a basis to declare a ‘national emergency’, under which Trump could seize more control over voting.

That would include mandatory voter ID across the country as well as banning postal voting. (Remember that Truth Social post a few weeks ago when Trump said Voter ID will be mandatory whether congress votes for it o not?)

Perhaps even more chillingly, the order would force every US voter to re-register, presenting proof of citizenship, in order to cast a ballot in November’s midterms.

2. Wait, what? China?

Not only does it claim China rigged the 2020 election, but that it did so on behalf of (check your bingo cards…) Hunter Biden.

Yeah, it’s all nonsense. Not a lick of evidence. But that’s because…

3. When we say allies…

…the figures so far linked to the draft order include:

• Michael Flynn – the former Trump National Security Advisor who served jail time for lying to the FBI about his contact with Russia ahead of Trump’s first term
• Mike Lindell – the MyPillow guy. Sitting somewhere between a QVC salesman and David Icke, Lindell was the last man standing in Trump’s fight to steal the 2020 election. As well as selling bedding for Nazi-dogwhistle prices, Lindell has founded Lindell TV, an online streaming service where he can hawk his favourite conspiracy theories. His “reporters” are frequently called upon for questions at White House events.
• Patrick Byrne – the former CEO of Overstock.com and another die-hard election denier. He resigned from Overstock in 2019 after it emerged he’d had an intimate relationship with Maria Butina, a Russian agent.

4. Trump says he knows nothing about it…but…

Trump was asked about this on his way to Texas to give a speech last night. Asked if he was planning to announce a national emergency, he replied: “Who told you that?” Which is one of the answers you least want to hear in response to that question.

He went on to say he knew nothing about it. But then, that’s what he said about Project 2025, on which he has based almost his entire policy platform.

5. Trump says he’s ‘entitled’ to one more term

“Time flies,” Trump said during his speech at a modestly attended rally in Corpus Christi, Texas last night. “Time flies…maybe we should …maybe we do one more term. Should we do one more? One more term. Well, we’re entitled to it, cos they cheated like hell in the second one. We would actually be entitled to it.”

For absolute clarity, he is not entitled to it, and “they” did not cheat in the 2020 election. He lost it to Joe Biden.

6. ‘Loving America’ should be mandatory for voting

Later in the speech, Trump suggested “loving America” should be a mandatory pre-requisite for the right to vote, which I suspect is not exactly what Jefferson had in mind.

7. He kept giving shout-outs to a congressman who reportedly had an affair with an aide, who later set herself on fire

Trump gave a big shout out to Tony Gonzales, the Republican …which prompted a smattering of boos from the crowd. Why? Because Gonzales is currently facing calls – including from Republicans – to resign over an alleged affair with an aide who later died after setting herself on fire.

8. Pete Hegseth’s WarGames

While top brass at the Pentagon and White House were apparently busy planning the attack on Iran, Pete Hegseth, the “Secretary of War” was busy starting a war between two of America’s biggest AI firms.

Anthropic, makers of the Claude chatbot (the one that has prompted a lot of idiots to buy Mac minis so they can get it to order groceries for them, or whatever), were in line for a big Pentagon contract.

But the whole thing blew up the other day after Anthropic refused to get rid of a few fundamental guardrails they installed in Claude to prevent it going haywire and acting out the 80s kids movie WarGames.

The bot can’t be used to operate autonomous weapons, nor can it be used for mass surveillance of Americans, Anthropic said – much to Hegseth’s displeasure.

Because they refused to change their minds, Hegseth threw his toys out of the pram and said he was going to declare Anthropic a supply chain risk – which makes it mored difficult for US government departments to use their services.

When Anthropic stood their ground, Hegseth announced the Pentagon would now be entering into a new deal with ChatGPT-makers OpenAI. Who apparently have no issue helping to make autonomous weapons or AI spybots. Nice.

9. CNN evacuated as Iran vows to retaliate

After Iran vowed retaliation for this morning’s strikes, CNN’s team in UAE was forced to evacuate their studio and head to a bunker, with alarms blaring in the Abu Dhabi studio, which was quite the moment of drama.