Demented Old Imbecile tRUMP Has "Jumped The Shark"

Has Donald Trump finally jumped the shark?

As multiple US TV channels refused to run the president’s ramble about 
Chinese election interference, more Americans are learning that he cries 
wolf too easily, says Sean O’Grady
Saturday 18 July 2026 08:10 EDT
 
Trump says US networks not airing his speech should have licenses revoked

Donald Trump is waning. Not just because he dozes off in the middle of 
admittedly tedious meetings or rambles even more than he used to (yes, “the 
weave” is getting a little tangled), but because of the law of diminishing 
returns. Unlike actual laws passed by Congress, or even the constitution, 
this is one law he cannot break, evade or undermine. It is a law of nature, 
and of politics, and it is eroding what little authority he has left.

So it is with his half-hour televised address to the American people. Time 
was when such an event would command international attention, when the guys 
in the bar might ask for the volume to be turned up, and when families 
would gather round to learn what their latest war would mean to them.

Even in his first term, let alone under previous presidents, some chilling 
intelligence about Chinese government interference in US elections would 
have caused something of a crisis, a major geopolitical incident, and 
united Americans in indignation. It was always important, far from routine.

All the television channels would have run it, no question, and any 
reaction would have been of great consequence. Think of Kennedy in the Cuba 
missile crisis; Reagan in the Cold War launching the “Star Wars” defence 
system; the two Bushes commencing their respective Gulf wars; Obama 
announcing the death of Bin Laden. Two presidents (Nixon and Johnson) 
effectively quit in such a broadcast. Sensational. Historic. Not so much 
these days with Trump. Some of the TV networks, who’d gathered that it was 
another manipulative stunt and not, say, a formal declaration of war on 
Iran, refused to run the 25 minutes of predictable, unverified and unproven 
claims, indistinguishable in form and content from any of his self-
aggrandising repetitive rally performances.

They were right, of course. The claims were silly. The Chinese do indeed 
wish to influence US public opinion, and thus the outcome of elections or 
political decisions to their advantage – they always have and they always 
will. Of course. So do the Russians. Apparently, the sinister version of 
this truism is a bit of a Putin talking point, and this is how it might 
have been implanted in the mind of the president, always searching for ways 
to delegitimise any election he lost (ie the presidential contest in 2020), 
or may lose – the midterms in November being imminent.

As for Trump’s revelation that the Chinese Communist Party is in possession 
of personal details on the US electoral roll, well, such data is publicly 
available and great big files of it are routinely purchased by market 
researchers and political organisations. It doesn’t mean you can steal an 
election with it. There’s no evidence of Chinese involvement in election 
outcomes in America; and rather more of dedicated Russian attempts to 
pervert democracy and debate across the world.

But you don’t need me to point such things out, because the news coverage 
wasn’t “the president has told us something shocking about our nation” but 
rather “the president is trying to steal an election by softening us up for 
a later false narrative and he is making things up”. When Trump opens his 
mouth and says something, then you may be sure the opposite is the case, 
because it’s been increasingly clear for some time that he is not your 
favourite president, the smartest man to sit in the Oval Office, or someone 
who actually does know more than anyone about anything from taxes to women 
to outdoor pools.

We now expect Trump to twist the truth and resort to any tricks when he’s 
in a tight spot, and when he loses control of Congress, he will be in a 
spot tighter than any president before has ever been in, and it’s not even 
close. Multiple impeachments and a lame duck administration beckons.

More Americans, one can only hope, are learning that Trump cries wolf too 
easily and is gaslighting them. It is too easy to forget that the biggest 
attempt to reverse a free and fair election took place after the November 
2020 election, culminating in the infamous “stop the count” riots on 
January 6th, by Trump’s supporters. If Beijing, the Democrats and the “deep 
state” were able to rob Trump in 2020, why couldn’t they do it in 2016 or 
2024? Because they forgot? Changed their minds? Lost the Excel files? Just 
couldn’t hack it, so to speak? The old adage was that if a lie is big 
enough people will believe it; Trump has managed to break that by not 
making any sense at all and because we have heard it all before and it’s 
all been debunked before. The law of diminishing returns is vicious, and 
Trump hasn’t yet realised that he cannot repeal it with a meaningless 
speech or the stroke of a Sharpie.