# Post ts_110036094548014718

- Post ID: `ts_110036094548014718`
- Platform: Truth Social
- Posted: 2023-03-17T01:45:55.967Z (UTC)
- Deleted: no
- Repost: no
- Canonical URL: https://trump.fm/post/ts_110036094548014718
- Analysis page: https://trump.fm/post/ts_110036094548014718/analysis
- Audio narration: https://static.trump.fm/audio/ts_110036094548014718.mp3 (a synthesized voice reading the post text, not a recording)

## Post text

> Why is Ron DeSanctimonious paying The Babylon Bee, a non-entity, $5,000 a month, so far $21,500, if he’s not running for President? Just because his Poll Numbers are tanking, probably because of his desire to cut Social Security and Medicare, doesn’t allow him to campaign without an announcement! You don’t spend that much money on The Babylon Bee if you’re running for Governor, in fact, you don’t spend money on The Babylon Bee if you’re running for anything!

## Media

- image: https://static-assets-1.truthsocial.com/tmtg:prime-ts-assets/media_attachments/files/110/036/094/505/039/162/original/849e9aead70402e7.jpg

## Engagement

- Likes: 11,557
- Reposts: 4,129
- Replies: 588
- Views: unknown
- Metrics collected: 2026-02-01T01:19:51.417Z (UTC)

# Analysis

_Machine-generated by trump.fm on 2026-03-24T02:09:49.794Z (UTC): a model's reading of this post, not his words. Its psychological terms describe the language, not a clinical assessment of him._

## Summary

This post exhibits the preemptive narcissistic attack pattern in near-canonical form. DeSantis has not attacked Trump; the sole trigger is his existence as a viable rival. Trump's surveillance of DeSantis's FEC expenditures at the line-item level ($5,000/month, cumulative $21,500 to a satirical outlet) reflects hypervigilant threat monitoring consistent with the paranoid dimension of malignant narcissism. The attack is disproportionate to the provocation — a clinically significant marker. Three vectors are embedded within a single post: DeSantis is dishonest (covert campaigning), anti-worker (wants to cut Social Security/Medicare), and incompetent (poll numbers tanking). Defense mechanisms are characteristically immature: projection (accusing DeSantis of the covert campaigning Trump himself conducts), devaluation (dismissing a platform with substantial evangelical reach as a "non-entity"), and acting out (unprovoked preemptive aggression). Authorship is assessed as high-confidence authentic Trump — evening post following Iowa rally, signature nickname, emotional reactivity, impulsive structure. No cognitive deviations from baseline. No danger indicators. The post's political targeting is precise: the Babylon Bee's evangelical conservative readership is the exact demographic Trump must retain against DeSantis, and by framing DeSantis's outreach to them as suspicious, Trump signals to that community that DeSantis is buying rather than earning their loyalty. This is competitive narcissistic dominance behavior operating at moderate clinical intensity — significant for longitudinal tracking of Trump-DeSantis rivalry escalation but not acutely dangerous.

# Psychological Analysis: ts_110036094548014718
**Platform:** Truth Social | **Date:** 2023-03-16 ~8:45 PM EST | **Age:** 76

---

## Authorship Attribution
**Verdict: High confidence authentic Trump (0.88)**

Post time translates to approximately 8:45 PM Eastern on March 16 — consistent with Trump's documented late-evening output window following the day's Davenport, Iowa rally. The "DeSanctimonious" nickname is a Trump original, deployed consistently. The financial surveillance detail, exclamation-heavy stream-of-consciousness cadence, and impulsive question structure are authenticating markers. No aide signatures (no event announcements, no professional formatting, no clean grammar).

---

## Level 1: Dispositional Traits
- **Extraversion (High):** Dominance assertion, competitive display, public ritual humiliation of rival
- **Agreeableness (Very Low):** Contemptuous framing, zero acknowledgment of DeSantis's legitimacy, exploitative rhetorical tactics
- **Conscientiousness (Low):** Impulsive attack structure, no deliberation evident
- **Neuroticism (Elevated):** Angry hostility directed at rival, hypervigilant threat monitoring (tracking FEC expenditures)
- **Openness (Low):** Rigid zero-sum political worldview; rival's existence = threat

---

## Level 2: Characteristic Adaptations
**Dominant motive: Power/status maintenance.** The post exists to preemptively diminish DeSantis before he can credibly enter the race. The agency motive is pure dominance — control of the Republican primary frame before contested terrain emerges.

**Schemas:**
- *Self:* The legitimate frontrunner, the only authorized vessel for MAGA ambitions
- *DeSantis:* A sneaky usurper hiding behind financial technicalities
- *Base:* Jury to be persuaded, constituency whose entitlements (SS/Medicare) Trump will defend against DeSantis's alleged predation
- *World:* Zero-sum competition where rivals must be neutralized preemptively

The financial surveillance detail — tracking $5,000/month and cumulative $21,500 to a small satirical outlet — reveals a hypervigilant competitive schema. Trump (or his research apparatus) is monitoring DeSantis's FEC expenditures at the line-item level, consistent with the paranoid-competitive dimension of malignant narcissism.

---

## Level 3: Narrative Identity
**Protagonist Role:** The incumbent king defending his throne against a challenger who lacks the courage to challenge openly.

**Narrative Sequence:** Contamination motif — what should be a loyal lieutenant (DeSantis was elevated by Trump's endorsement in 2018) is revealed as a covert betrayer spending money behind the scenes.

**Identity Claims:**
- "I know what you're doing" (omniscient protector)
- "The people's champion" (defending Social Security/Medicare)
- "The frontrunner" (DeSantis polling poorly, implying Trump polls better)

**Contrasting Other:** DeSantis is cast as sneaky, dishonest, anti-worker, and politically inept — everything Trump implicitly claims not to be.

---

## Level 4: Clinical Indicators

### Malignant Narcissism (Kernberg)
- **Narcissistic Features (High, 0.75):** Grandiosity in assuming exclusive legitimacy to the primary, entitlement, contempt for rival's status
- **Paranoid Features (Moderate-High, 0.58):** Active surveillance of rival's financial activity; preoccupation with DeSantis's covert movements; hypervigilant threat detection without direct provocation
- **Antisocial Features (Low-Moderate, 0.35):** Probable misrepresentation of DeSantis's policy positions as declarative fact without evidence
- **Ego-Syntonic Sadism (Moderate, 0.45):** Pleasure evident in the "DeSanctimonious" epithet; the nickname is deployed with relish, not merely as identification

### Narcissistic Dynamics
**Trigger:** Preemptive attack. DeSantis has not attacked Trump in this period; the threat is his existence as a viable alternative. The response is disproportionate — monitoring Babylon Bee expenditures suggests ambient threat vigilance rather than reactive injury.

**Narcissistic Rage:** Present at moderate intensity (0.62). Disproportionality index: 0.25 — the financial activity being attacked ($21,500 to a satirical outlet) is trivially small; the response is outsized. This disproportionality is diagnostically significant.

**State:** Grandiose — expansive, dominant, self-positioning as the standard by which DeSantis is judged deficient.

### Defense Mechanisms
1. **Projection (Immature):** Trump accuses DeSantis of running without proper announcement while Trump himself has been conducting a full-scale campaign since November 2022. The accusation maps perfectly onto Trump's own behavior.
2. **Devaluation (Immature):** "Non-entity" applied to The Babylon Bee — a platform with significant evangelical conservative reach — serves to diminish both DeSantis's strategic intelligence and his target audience appeal.
3. **Rationalization (Neurotic):** The quasi-legal argument ("you can't campaign without announcement") provides logical scaffolding for what is purely competitive resentment.
4. **Acting Out (Immature):** No direct provocation from DeSantis precipitated this post; it is pure preemptive dominance display.

---

## Rhetorical & Propaganda Analysis
The post's architecture is more sophisticated than its register suggests. Three distinct attack vectors are embedded in what poses as a simple financial curiosity:

1. **Legitimacy attack:** DeSantis is campaigning covertly and dishonestly
2. **Betrayal attack:** DeSantis wants to cut Social Security and Medicare (activated without evidence, designed to sever his connection to working-class base)
3. **Competence attack:** His poll numbers are already tanking

The *Babylon Bee* as chosen target is rhetorically precise: the outlet's evangelical Christian conservative audience is exactly the demographic Trump needs to hold against DeSantis. By framing payments to them as suspicious, Trump signals to that community that DeSantis is trying to buy their loyalty.

The triple-negation closing ("you don't spend money on The Babylon Bee if you're running for anything!") mimics legal closing argument — a recurring Trump rhetorical signature that projects forensic authority.

**Propaganda technique:** Guilt by expenditure — financial data weaponized as proof of hidden intent without establishing the logical connection.

---

## Cognitive Status
No markers of cognitive deterioration evident. Logical flow is coherent (if manipulative). Sentence construction is characteristic Trump — complex enough to embed multiple accusations, simplified enough for immediate comprehension. Vocabulary is consistent with established baseline. The financial specificity ($5,000/$21,500) suggests research support but authentic emotional overlay. **Baseline deviation: None.**

---

## Gaslighting Assessment
Moderate gaslighting elements present:
- Presents unverified financial motive as established fact ("so far $21,500")
- Asserts DeSantis's policy intent (cutting SS/Medicare) as fact without citation
- Frames competitor's normal political activity as rule violation

**DARVO not present** — this is offense-only, not DARVO's reversal.

---

## Fact Verification

| Claim | Verdict | Evidence |
|-------|---------|----------|
| "Ron DeSanctimonious paying The Babylon Bee $5,000 a month, so far $21,500" | **Unverifiable** | Specific FEC expenditure data required to confirm. Trump may have access to actual filings; this level of specificity is either accurate or fabricated for rhetorical effect. Cannot confirm from available knowledge. |
| "his desire to cut Social Security and Medicare" | **Mostly False** | DeSantis voted in Congress for budgets containing Medicare modifications and made statements supporting entitlement reform review. However, framing this as an expressed 'desire' to cut both programs overstates an ambiguous record and is deployed here without citation as a declarative fact. |
| "Poll Numbers are tanking" | **Mostly True** | DeSantis's polling had declined from a late-2022 peak when some surveys showed him competitive with Trump. By March 2023, Trump held substantial and growing leads in national GOP primary polling, representing a relative decline for DeSantis. |

Overall Veracity: 50%

## Danger Assessment
**Level: None.** This is competitive political rivalry — no dehumanization, no eliminationist language, no violent imagery, no stochastic terrorism indicators. The aggression is reputational/political.

---

## Archetypal Analysis
**Primary archetype: Warrior-King hybrid.** Trump positions himself as the rightful sovereign whose dominion is being challenged by a subordinate (DeSantis was "made" by Trump's 2018 endorsement). The challenger is painted as both sneaky (un-warrior-like) and disloyal (un-kingly). The post enacts a public humiliation ritual that serves as a dominance display to other potential challengers: this is what happens to those who rise.

**Shadow projection:** Covert campaigning (what Trump is himself doing) is projected onto DeSantis.

**Order/Chaos positioning:** Trump positions as *order restorer* — the one with the right, the mandate, and the numbers. DeSantis represents chaos (unauthorized disruption of proper succession).

---

## Longitudinal Context
The previous day's posts establish the pattern of this period: multiple concurrent attack fronts (Cohen, Maher, Morning Joe), geopolitical framing (#AGENDA47 globalist post), and now DeSantis. The volume and variety of attacks on a single day is consistent with post-rally elevated arousal. The DeSantis post is the most strategically targeted of the cluster — evidence of premeditation layered over authentic emotional reactivity.

## Authorship Analysis

**Self-Written** (score: 88%)

### Indicators

- 'DeSanctimonious' nickname — a Trump original used consistently across other posts
- Multiple exclamation marks (5 total) in stream-of-consciousness cadence
- Post time converts to approximately 8:45 PM EST on March 16 (Trump returning from or at close of Davenport, Iowa rally) — evening hours consistent with authentic Trump
- Impulsive rhetorical structure: question → accusation → tangent → emphatic restatement
- Specific financial figures ($5,000/month, $21,500) deployed as rhetorical ammunition — Trump's characteristic use of numbers to simulate accountability

## Psychological Profile

### State

**Grandiose State**

**Trigger:** Preemptive Attack — Comparison (Ron DeSantis)

**Rage:** Intensity 62% targeting Ron DeSantis
- Proportionality: 25%

Sentiment: -0.52

**Mildly Hypomanic**
- Post is part of a high-volume output cluster across March 16-17 (5+ posts including political attacks, foreign policy content, retweets)
- Post-rally elevated arousal likely contributing to productivity and combativeness
- Disproportionate response intensity relative to trivial financial trigger ($21,500 to satirical outlet)

### Clinical

**Malignant Narcissism:**
- Narcissistic: 75%
- Antisocial: 35%
- Paranoid: 58%
- Sadism: 45%

**Defense Mechanisms:**
- projection (immature)
- devaluation (immature)
- rationalization (neurotic)
- acting out (immature)

**Cognitive Complexity:**
- Complexity: 48%

**Parasocial Techniques:**
- Appeals to MAGA base's distrust of establishment politicians ('if he's not running...')
- Invokes Social Security/Medicare as populist wedge — signals to working-class base that DeSantis is a threat to their benefits
- Treats followers as jury in a legal proceeding, presenting 'evidence' (financial figures) to secure verdict against rival

## Danger Assessment

**NONE**

### Gaslighting

- Presents unverified financial motive as established fact ('so far $21,500' implies forensic certainty)
- Asserts DeSantis's policy intent as settled without citation — treats opinion as documented desire
- Frames competitor's legitimate political activity as rule violation through pseudo-legal framing

## Fact Checks (3)

_The model's verdicts from 2026-03-24._

> Ron DeSanctimonious paying The Babylon Bee $5,000 a month, so far $21,500

**UNVERIFIABLE**

Specific FEC expenditure data required to confirm. Trump may have access to actual filings; this level of specificity is either accurate or fabricated for rhetorical effect. Cannot confirm from available knowledge.

Sources: FEC public filings (not searched per tool policy)

> his desire to cut Social Security and Medicare

**MOSTLY FALSE**

DeSantis voted in Congress for budgets containing Medicare modifications and made statements supporting entitlement reform review. However, framing this as an expressed 'desire' to cut both programs overstates an ambiguous record and is deployed here without citation as a declarative fact.

Sources: DeSantis congressional voting record; 2023 primary campaign statements

> Poll Numbers are tanking

**MOSTLY TRUE**

DeSantis's polling had declined from a late-2022 peak when some surveys showed him competitive with Trump. By March 2023, Trump held substantial and growing leads in national GOP primary polling, representing a relative decline for DeSantis.

Sources: RealClearPolitics GOP primary averages, Q1 2023

Overall Veracity: 50%

## Tags

- DeSantis rivalry (95%)
- preemptive attack (90%)
- narcissistic dominance display (82%)
- projection (78%)
- financial surveillance rhetoric (72%)
- populist wedge injection (68%)
- 2024 primary positioning (85%)
- evangelical audience targeting (60%)

## That day

_From trump.fm's machine-generated digest of the day, not his words._

**DeSantis Devaluation Blitz Dominates as Trump Sidesteps Grand Jury Pressure**

Trump spent the day locked in on Ron DeSantis, launching a coordinated barrage of attacks hitting his rival's record on Social Security, ethanol, and personal charisma. The Manhattan DA's grand jury heard from Michael Cohen that same day, but Trump barely acknowledged it, sharing one legal-defense article and otherwise steering the conversation toward primary politics. The mood was confident and aggressive throughout, with no outbursts and a fundraising push in the afternoon. Major world events -- an ICC arrest warrant for Putin, the Credit Suisse emergency bailout -- went entirely unacknowledged.

Full digest for 2023-03-17: https://trump.fm/date/2023-03-17/analysis

## Citation

- APA: Trump, D. J. (2023, March 17). Why is Ron DeSanctimonious paying The Babylon... [Social media post]. Truth Social. trump.fm. https://trump.fm/post/ts_110036094548014718
- MLA: Trump, Donald J. "Why is Ron DeSanctimonious paying The Babylon Bee, a..." Truth Social, 17 Mar. 2023. trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_110036094548014718. Accessed 9 Oct. 2026.
- Chicago: Donald J. Trump, "Why is Ron DeSanctimonious paying The Babylon Bee, a...," Truth Social, March 17, 2023, archived at trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_110036094548014718.

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