Donald Trump flew to Nebraska, one of the last places in the country that will still happily have him, for one of his favorite things on Monday, a rally where he could ramble in front of a microphone about everything and nothing and idiots will cheer him on.
If you haven't yet heard it, you can play the clip below of Trump's speech Monday night, one of a thousand at this point in which he rambles about how fantastic everything is as long as he's in charge, but one in which, for the first time in the history of the country, a president off-handedly suggests a foreign enemy could "take out" an American city and that would be a "small price to pay" for whatever it is he thinks he's accomplishing in Iran.
Trump seems to be conceding in the speech that things haven't gone that well in the war with Iran, and he goes so far as to say, "let 'em take out Los Angeles, let 'em take out San Diego, this is a very small price to pay and it's gonna be over very soon."
Setting aside the sheer insanity of these remarks, how is Trump's math even working here? The loss of an American city of nearly 4 million people is a "small price to pay" in a war in which Iran has lost a combined 10,000 or so military personnel and civilians so far?
There's no point in trying to rationalize Trump's remarks, which are unhinged and maniacal on their face. But that's what the White House is now trying to do! White House communications director Steven Cheung jumped on Xitter first thing this morning to downplay the "media freakout" over Trump's comments.
"He was clearly stating U.S. cities would have been threatened if a nuclear Iran hadn't been stopped," Cheung wrote, clearly grasping at straws because that does not sound at all like what Trump meant!
California Governor Gavin Newsom, who is all but certainly going to be running for president in a matter of months, also went on Xitter, almost immediately after Trump's speech went online Monday night, to denounce the president as "deranged and dangerous." This comes, Newsom notes, after Trump last year sent "the National Guard and Marines to occupy California."
So, too, did the mayors of Los Angeles and San Diego have their reactions to Trump's comments.
"His statements against our city are dangerous and could potentially compromise our safety," says LA Mayor Karen Bass in a statement on X. "The role of a president is to protect the country, not to actively threaten it and encourage attacks on American lives. In the face of irresponsible threats, as Angelenos, we know how to stand together and protect our city."
San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria also came out swinging, saying, "San Diego is not collateral damage. We are not expendable. And we are never a 'small price to pay.' Keep our city out of your reckless war talk."
Military leaders at bases in Southern California are rightly probably alarmed by the comments as well.
As the New York Times notes, San Diego City Councilmember Marni von Wilpert, who is running for Congress against Republican San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond, who has Trump's backing, has used the situation to go after her opponent.
Desmond took to social media Monday night to say, "I vehemently disagree with President Trump’s comments," and "As a Navy veteran, I served to protect Americans, not write off American cities as an acceptable price of war."
But von Wilpert responded, saying, "It’s indefensible that Jim Desmond continues to support Trump’s war and continues to be backed and funded by a President who jokes about the 1.4 million people in San Diego being ‘taken out’ by a foreign adversary."
It's sort of surprising that Trump didn't drop San Francisco into those remarks, as he, like most Republicans trying to telegraph their hatred of liberalism, has been wont to do in the past. But as we saw last year, billionaires like Jensen Huang have apparently convinced him to leave San Francisco alone, for now.
Previously: Marc Benioff Helped Talk Trump Out of Federal 'Surge' In San Francisco; White House Says 'We'll Be Watching'
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