I've covered Trump for years -- and I've never seen him this scared [View all]

I’ve covered Trump for years — and I’ve never seen him this scared
As the shutdown shifts the focus, JD Vance waits in the wings

By Brian Karem
White House columnist
Published October 3, 2025 9:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) I have never seen Donald Trump this scared.

....(snip)....

This is different. The government has shut down for the third time during a Trump presidency. Though Republicans control the House, Senate and presidency — and GOP appointees hold a majority on the Supreme Court — Trump says the budget impasse is still the fault of the radical left and former President Joe Biden. In other words, Trump is a victim — at least according to Presidential Pep Secretary Karoline Leavitt.

The president wants to use American cities as training grounds for the U.S. military. ICE agents are spreading chaos, beating and detaining American citizens. Trump is talking about nuclear war, calling it the “N” word. He has Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the minister of plagues, spreading disinformation about health care. Christian Nationalists are engaged in an ongoing purge of anyone in government who doesn’t see things their way. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Trump’s dog of war, has instituted some of the most racist regulations seen in the military since it was integrated nearly 80 years ago.

....(snip)....

Trump’s actions are those of a despot trying to seize total power. But there’s a deeper reason why recently he’s sounding even more maniacal. He is the proverbial New York sewer rat, cornered and lashing out in a desperate attempt to survive. He also knows he is becoming more vulnerable. But it’s not just his own mortality, shrinking mental acuity and the Jeffrey Epstein case that is scaring him.

Perhaps just as much, or even more, than Epstein, what most recently set Trump off is a criminal case he already beat in court but is still causing him to howl like a wild animal with its leg caught in a trap. On June 8, 2023, he was indicted on 37 felony counts in federal court in Miami. It was an historic moment — the first time a former U.S. president faced federal charges. Those stemmed from the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago in August 2022, which uncovered dozens of boxes of highly classified documents stored in insecure settings. ..................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/10/03/ive-covered-trump-for-years-and-ive-never-seen-him-this-scared/