“Let Them Take Out Los Angeles. Let Them Take Out San Diego.” The President Told You His Plan.

This happened tonight. Watch the clip before the spin starts tomorrow.

What He Said in Nebraska

Tonight in Grand Island, Nebraska, President Trump stood in front of a rally crowd, defended the cost of his war with Iran, and said these words: “Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego.” He called it a small price to pay.

For context, he’s talking about having a good reason to drop nuclear bombs on Iran.

I couldn’t wait until morning to get this out to you. Watch the clip yourself, and pay close attention to his face, his voice, his timing and the way he lets the words sit, because you will see a man who was not laughing, not grinning, not winking at anybody, and not waiting on any punchline to arrive. He meant it.

He delivered the line in the flat, deliberate tone he saves for points he wants to land. By tomorrow morning his defenders will fill every network with the same excuse, telling you it was a joke. The tape settles that question for anyone willing to watch.

The Applause

The crowd cheered.

Sit with that for a second. A space full of Americans heard the man sworn to protect them offer up two American cities, along with every family sleeping inside them tonight, to a foreign enemy in the middle of a war, and they rewarded him with applause.

Any American who cheers that line has forgotten who lives in those cities. Frankly, anyone clapping for the destruction of their own countrymen belongs to a disgusting and pathetic cult. Tonight’s applause in Nebraska measures exactly how far this country has fallen with this man in office.

Sixteen Million People Live Behind Those Two Names

Picture the people behind those two names. San Diego is the principal home port of the Pacific Fleet, and tens of thousands of sailors and Marines live minutes from the base gates with their families. Los Angeles builds the aircraft and satellites that keep this country safe, and its plants turn out the defense systems our troops count on. Both cities run on teachers, doctors, nurses, firefighters and the healthcare workers.

More than sixteen million Americans live in those two places. Husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, children, teenagers, young single adults, grandchildren and grandparents. Each of them has a name. He offered every one of them up as an acceptable loss, and people in that room clapped.

A commander in chief who calls military families a small price to pay has told you exactly what their lives are worth to him. The story gets worse from here.

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I Know a Setup When I See One

I don’t think he was kidding. I have spent forty years watching people talk under pressure in depositions and mediations, and I have stood in front of juries reading faces for a living. You learn to tell a slip from a setup. This was a setup.

He was laying a foundation, the same careful way a trial lawyer lays one witness by witness before the key exhibit ever comes into evidence, so that when the moment arrives the jury already accepts the thing they would have rejected cold. He floated the idea in front of a friendly room and watched to see how it landed. The answer came back to him in the form of applause.

Where This Ends

I believe there was a message in those words. An Iranian strike on an American city is the scenario that solves every problem he has, and I am no longer convinced he needs Iran to cooperate. History has a name for the other version: a false flag, where a government stages an attack, or manufactures the appearance of one, and then blames a foreign enemy to justify whatever it wanted to do all along. I wouldn’t put it past this administration for a second. In fact, I’m legitimately worried about what Trump does next.

A real attack or a staged one hands him the same pretext for nuclear retaliation against a nation of roughly 90 million people. Tens of millions dead in an afternoon. Then he turns that emergency inward, standing at a podium with smoke still rising over the Pacific coast to announce a national emergency declaration and martial law, all of it timed for the weeks when you are supposed to be casting your vote. The result looks identical either way, and that should keep every one of us awake tonight.

The midterms sit four weeks away. The polls are running against him, and a burning American city gives him the excuse to stop an election he has no path to winning. A manufactured crisis is the oldest tool in the authoritarian kit, and tonight he pointed it at your hometown.

And one more thing. Spare me the line that he isn’t capable of this. This is exactly who he is. Nothing would please him more than to have a reason to drop multiple nuclear bombs on Iran, and the timing sits perfectly for him right now. He doesn’t care about you, me, our families or our communities.

Your Move

Act tonight. Watch the full clip before anyone on television tells you how to feel about it. Call your representative and both of your senators, and demand that they condemn this statement on the record (202-224-3121). Send the video to your family and friends and every military family, teacher, nurse and doctor you know in Southern California, and tell them plainly that the President of the United States stood on a stage tonight in front of a cheering crowd and named their city as an acceptable loss.

Sixteen million Americans deserve a Congress willing to protect them from this President, and in four weeks your vote decides whether they get one.

Mitch Jackson, Esq.

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