“Lord, I was born a ramblin’ man,” sang the Allman Brothers Band back in 1973. If anyone can identify with that, it’s Donald Trump.
President Ramblin’ Man struck again on Monday night at a rally in Grand Island, Nebraska. Here’s the relevant portion of Trump’s remarks from Roll Call’s transcript, in which he opined about Iran, high oil prices, nuclear weapons, Los Angeles, and San Diego:
But I want, I wanna see, I wanna see a tremendous victory. You wanna see a tremendous victory, because it verifies all the things we did. And again, remember, with the word, it’s just artificial, it’s a little bit high. It’s a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe.
They can take out a city. Let them take, let it, let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego. That’s, this is a very small price to pay, and it’s gonna be over very soon. It’s essentially almost over with. And they might keep going a little long, you know? They always say they have a big threshold for pain.
They need it, let me tell you. They need it. But it’s gonna end very soon, and it’ll end one way or the other, and your gas and your gasoline and all of the things. And don’t forget, we also took on a country known as Venezuela. They never talk about that. They never talk about Venezuela. And we’re taking in hundreds of millions of barrels of oil every week.
We’re pouring oil. We’re pouring oil into this country like nobody’s ever seen before.
The New York Times notes, “The audience cheered when he said ‘let them take out Los Angeles; let them take out San Diego,’ and the moment instantly went viral.” The Times isn’t wrong that some in the crowd cheered, though it was nowhere near the whole audience. The story has the video, so judge for yourself. The cheering is, to put it mildly, unfortunate. I’m no fan of LA or San Diego or anywhere else in the Democrat-run People’s Republic of California (go Braves, go Brewers), but cheering for even the vague idea of America’s enemies taking out an American city just shouldn’t happen.
Neither should an American president be so careless with his words, but that’s breaking news from 2017. This is vintage Trump — entertain a crowd with his Ramblin’ Man routine to make his black-and-white divide between how terrible his opponents are and how great he is. Some people love him for it. Others are suffering Trump fatigue.
But for the love of Pete, as the context about oil, Venezuela, and so forth makes obvious, everyone should know that Trump did not mean Iran should take out LA and San Diego.
Yet that’s exactly what Democrats accused him of saying.
“After sending the National Guard and Marines to occupy California,” California Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom posted on X, “Donald Trump is now saying our foreign enemies should ‘take out’ Los Angeles and San Diego. He is deranged and dangerous.” Elsewhere, he called the president’s comments “treasonous.”
Newsom’s press office then posted, “Let’s be clear: The President is advocating for an attack on 10+ million U.S. residents in two of America’s largest cities.”
Kamala Harris’s “Headquarters” Bluesky account posted, “Trump on Iran: Let ’em take out Los Angeles and San Diego, it’s a small price to pay.”
LA Mayor Karen Bass, who let her city burn while she traveled to Africa last year, was “just shocked” by Trump’s comments and huffed, “It would really be helpful to our city if you would apologize.”
San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria chimed in, too. “San Diego is not collateral damage,” Gloria wrote on X. “We are not expendable. And we are never a ‘small price to pay.’ Keep our city out of your reckless war talk.”
Other Democrats piled on, too, but give me a break. Even the leftists at FactCheck.org get it.
Democrats know full well that Trump’s point, however buried in the word salad, was that high gas prices are a small price to pay to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon with which to take out an American city.
It’s that simple. Why can’t Trump say it that clearly? I have no idea, but Democrats and anyone in the media who amplified it are reprehensible for distorting his comments.
Trump’s military action against Iran is meant to protect America. One terrorist on an Israeli flight nearly did terrible damage. One terrorist with an Iranian nuke could do unthinkably worse.
Republican Congressman Darrell Issa is among those who understand this. “For five decades,” he said, “Americans on American soil have shed blood and lost their lives at the hands of Iran and its terrorist proxies. Where the Obama and Biden Administrations appeased Tehran, paid them billions in bribes, and put them on a glide path to having nuclear weapons, President Trump has taken historic and concrete action to eliminate the nuclear threat, protect every inch of our homeland, and ensure Iran never threatens America or her allies ever again.”
Exactly.
Maybe “Democrats don’t believe the polls,” wonders The Wall Street Journal’s James Freeman. “The leadership of the Democratic Party is so confident of success in November’s elections that they’ve launched an all-hands-on-social-media effort to promote an unbelievable characterization of President Donald Trump’s remarks,” he wrote. “This is not the behavior of people who think they are coasting to victory.”
He may have a point. Yes, Trump rambles and it can be hard to follow, but he clearly was not saying what Democrats accuse him of saying. If they’re so desperate to regain the levers of power in Congress that they’re willing to lie so egregiously about something so simple, what else are they lying about to win an election?
