# Post ts_110815809689829290 - Post ID: `ts_110815809689829290` - Platform: Truth Social - Posted: 2023-08-01T18:37:44.845Z (UTC) - Deleted: no - Repost: no - Canonical URL: https://trump.fm/post/ts_110815809689829290 - Analysis page: https://trump.fm/post/ts_110815809689829290/analysis - Audio narration: https://static.trump.fm/audio/ts_110815809689829290.mp3 (a synthesized voice reading the post text, not a recording) ## Post text > DeSanctus didn’t speak truthfully to Bret Baier about Fauci!MUST WATCH: DeSantis EXPOSED as MASSIVE COVID HYPOCRITE, repeatedly praised Fauci and his policies during the pandemic. ## What the media says **Video transcript** (2:38), transcribed automatically, so names and numbers may be wrong. Speakers aren't identified, so a voice in it may not be his: > arcade file. Andrew Kaczynski went back and he found DeSantis saying some very different things about Fauci. Here's DeSantis in March of 2020. And you have a lot of people there who are working very, very hard and they're not getting a lot of sleep and they're really focusing on a big country that we have. And from Dr. Birx to Dr. Fauci to the vice president who's worked very hard, the surgeon general, they're really doing a good job. All right. So Kay Fauz, Andrew Kaczynski as advertisers now out front. So Andrew, I just played one example of DeSantis praising Fauci, obviously very early on in the pandemic. You found that that is far from the only time that DeSantis praised the man, but he now bashes regularly. Yeah, that's right. It's more than one example. It's actually 10 examples at least that we found in which he either cited or praised Dr. Fauci. And what's interesting about this is he's citing him to put in place those policies early in the pandemic in Florida that he now criticizes as lockdowns. His campaign, Aaron, they've been criticizing Trump. They've been saying Trump supports lockdowns because he advocated those exact same policies at the same time as DeSantis. And this isn't some K-file hit in which the team is pulling something from 30 years ago. This was three years ago. We all remember Donald Trump very early on was calling in April and May to end those lockdowns. Right. I remember the churches were going to be open from Easter. Exactly. And he criticized Fauci earlier than DeSantis did too. He was retweeting calls to fire Fauci in April. He had some of his staff over the summer had some very direct hits on Fauci. He criticized Fauci about opening schools. Take a listen to these comments from DeSantis at some of those early Florida press briefings. The president's task force has been great. I mean, you call, you know, we've talked to Dr. Fauci number of times, talked to, you know, the surgeon, U.S. Surgeon General number of times, BP. You know, they've been really, really good and really, really helpful. I would defer to people like Dr. Fauci. I think Dr. Fauci has said nationwide you're looking at six to eight weeks of where we're really going to be having to dig in here. And you say there were at least 10 of those and if he continued to do that, even as Trump had turned on Fauci. So Trump turned first. Yeah, Trump turns on Fauci pretty, I mean, it was honestly, we all remember because we were there, there was sort of the height of the pandemic, especially here in New York City. And Trump is criticizing Fauci early spring and May right around that time. ## Media - video: https://static-assets-1.truthsocial.com/tmtg:prime-ts-assets/media_attachments/files/110/815/809/620/334/510/original/29cb34d63f3d3088.mp4 ## Engagement - Likes: 8,950 - Reposts: 3,138 - Replies: 311 - Views: unknown - Metrics collected: 2026-02-01T01:19:51.403Z (UTC) # Analysis _Machine-generated by trump.fm on 2026-03-20T06:57:00.300Z (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 is the fifth installment in a coordinated same-day campaign targeting DeSantis on the Fauci/COVID narrative, functioning as the rhetorical climax of a sustained devaluation sequence. The post's most clinically significant feature is textbook projection: Trump attacks DeSantis as a "MASSIVE COVID HYPOCRITE" for praising Fauci in 2020, erasing his own extensively documented identical behavior. This selective reality construction is not accidental — it requires actively suppressing one's own record while weaponizing the opponent's, a pattern consistent with both narcissistic defense mechanisms and deliberate gaslighting. The "DeSanctus" nickname confirms authentic Trump authorship of at least the framing sentence. The trigger is a compound narcissistic injury: DeSantis's continued primary polling competitiveness, his Fox News interview rewriting pandemic history, and — in background — the August 1 period in which Trump faced a superseding indictment adding obstruction charges. The five-post saturation pattern reflects Kohutian narcissistic rage seeking discharge through public humiliation of the rival rather than substantive counter-argumentation. Followers who accept the post's implicit framing must hold an asymmetric epistemological standard — one that disqualifies DeSantis for behavior Trump himself exhibited — constituting a mild loyalty test requiring acceptance of historical distortion. No danger indicators present; this is intraparty competitive attack content. # Psychological Analysis: Trump Truth Social Post — August 1, 2023 ## Overview This post is the fifth and final installment of a five-post same-day campaign against Ron DeSantis, centered on the DeSantis/Fauci narrative. Viewed in isolation it reads as a routine attack share; analyzed in the context of the same-day posting series, it reveals a sustained, escalating narcissistic rage sequence triggered by a combination of competitive primary threat and the legal pressure of the superseding classified documents indictment. --- ## Level 1: Dispositional Traits (Big Five) The post is maximally dominated by **inverse Agreeableness** — hostility, competitiveness, and contempt are the primary trait expressions. Extraversion is extremely high in its assertive-dominant facet ("MUST WATCH," the commanding imperative directed at followers). Neuroticism presents as angry hostility rather than anxiety. Conscientiousness and Openness are minimal; there is no deliberation, no nuance, no tolerance for complexity. --- ## Level 2: Characteristic Adaptations — Motives and Schemas **Dominant motive: Agency/Power.** The post's function is not informational — it is dominance assertion. DeSantis must be publicly diminished. The five-post series creates an overwhelming factual and emotional barrage, a power display through sheer informational volume. **Schema — self:** Truth-teller and dominant primary front-runner, implicitly positioned as the authentic anti-Fauci conservative by contrast with DeSantis's alleged hypocrisy. The self-schema is organized entirely around superiority over the rival. **Schema — other (DeSantis):** Fraudulent, dishonest, weak, a revisionist who cannot stand behind his own record. The schema admits no positive attribution. **Schema — world:** Political survival requires continuous surveillance of rivals and preemptive destruction of their narratives. Every rival is a potential betrayer. --- ## Level 3: Narrative Identity **Protagonist role:** The truth-wielding warrior who exposes fraud. Trump positions himself not as a debater but as a documentary exposé host — someone who merely surfaces what others try to hide. **Narrative sequence:** Contamination. The implicit story is: DeSantis was briefly a viable figure, but exposure of his Fauci hypocrisy contaminates and destroys that viability. Victory-to-betrayal-to-exposure. **Identity claims:** Authenticity as anti-establishment COVID skeptic (achieved retroactively, in contradiction to his documented 2020 record). Dominant front-runner who can afford to prosecute rather than debate. **Contrasting other:** DeSantis as the "DeSanctus" — a diminished, fraudulent mirror figure who validates Trump's superiority by his failure. --- ## Level 4: Clinical Indicators ### Narcissistic Dynamics **Trigger:** Compound narcissistic injury. DeSantis is both a peer competitor and a comparative threat in primary polling. His Fox News interview with Bret Baier, in which he apparently downplayed his own Fauci praise, presents a narrative Trump wishes to destroy before it consolidates. The superseding indictment in the background (July 27–August 1) likely intensifies the rage response by heightening Trump's sense of persecution and need for compensatory dominance displays. **Narcissistic rage:** Present at moderate-high intensity (0.62). The response is grossly disproportionate to the precipitant (a rival misrepresenting his own record) — the real driver is the competitive threat DeSantis represents to Trump's claim to Republican identity. **Narcissistic state:** Grandiose. The post enacts dominance rather than victimhood. Trump is the exposer, not the exposed. This is the grandiose pole of the narcissistic oscillation, though the five-post saturation suggests underlying vulnerability driving the excess. ### Projection (Clinically Notable) The most psychologically significant feature of this post — and the entire same-day series — is the **projection of Trump's own documented behavior onto DeSantis**. Trump praising Fauci in spring 2020 is extensively documented (White House press conferences, public statements). Attacking DeSantis as a "MASSIVE COVID HYPOCRITE" for identical behavior, while implicitly positioning himself as the authentic anti-Fauci figure, is a textbook projection: attributing to the other exactly what one cannot tolerate acknowledging in oneself. This is not merely strategic framing (though it is that too). The *energy* of the attack — the repetition across five posts, the "MASSIVE" hyperbole, the "MUST WATCH" imperative — reflects the psychological pressure of repressed recognition. The severity of the attack is proportional to the discomfort of the suppressed self-knowledge. ### Defense Mechanisms 1. **Projection (immature):** Assigns own Fauci-praise history to DeSantis as disqualifying character flaw. 2. **Devaluation (immature):** "DeSanctus" as a persistent nickname reduces rival to contemptible object. 3. **Splitting (immature):** DeSantis is purely bad, purely dishonest; Trump is implicitly purely authentic. 4. **Denial (pathological):** The framing requires active suppression of Trump's own documented record — not forgetting but actively erasing from the constructed narrative. ### Ego-Syntonic Sadism The "MUST WATCH" imperative functions as a performative summons to a public humiliation ritual. Followers are not merely informed; they are conscripted as audience for a shaming. The pleasure dimension of Kernberg's malignant narcissism construct is operative: the attack is not reluctant or tactical but is delivered with visible relish. --- ## Authorship Attribution **Assessment: 72% authentic Trump, medium confidence.** The opening sentence — "DeSanctus didn't speak truthfully to Bret Baier about Fauci!" — is authentically Trump. The "DeSanctus" nickname is his own coinage and a reliable authorship signature. The missing space before "MUST WATCH" suggests Trump typed the opening and appended a video share's caption without editing. The second sentence ("MUST WATCH: DeSantis EXPOSED as MASSIVE COVID HYPOCRITE...") reads as a video title or caption, likely from a reposted video rather than Trump's original prose. The posting time (14:37 EDT at Bedminster) is in the aide-accessible afternoon window, but the thematic obsession, repetition pattern, and nickname usage suggest Trump-directed content throughout. --- ## Rhetorical Analysis **Dominant techniques:** - **Devaluation through nickname mutation:** "DeSanctus" — persistent, contemptuous, diminishing - **Hyperbole:** "MASSIVE COVID HYPOCRITE" — removes all proportionality - **ALL CAPS intensification:** Emotional amplification substituting for argumentation - **Documentary authority appeal:** Video evidence framed as undeniable ("MUST WATCH," "EXPOSED") — the persuasive force is in the format, not the argument - **RAND Firehose pattern (volume sub-component):** Five posts in one day on the same target — saturation as persuasion, repeating the accusation until it feels established **Note on the underlying factual claim:** The charge against DeSantis — that he praised Fauci in 2020 but denied or downplayed this to Bret Baier — is *substantially accurate*. The CNN KFile investigation (linked in the prior post) documented this. The psychological excess is not in the factual charge but in its application: Trump commits the identical hypocrisy he attacks. --- ## Gaslighting and Reality Distortion **Gaslighting present (mild-moderate).** The post does not directly deny documented events; rather, it constructs an asymmetric reality frame. Followers who internalize it must: 1. Hold DeSantis's 2020 Fauci praise as disqualifying. 2. Not apply the same standard to Trump's identical, documented behavior. This is a loyalty-test gaslighting operation: acceptance of the asymmetric framing confirms group membership, even though it requires suppressing knowledge of Trump's own record. No single false claim is stated; the distortion is structural. --- ## Epistemic Closure **True.** The five-post series constructs a closed informational environment: DeSantis is the Fauci hypocrite; Trump is the authentic COVID skeptic; CNN evidence (typically dismissed as "fake news") is selectively deployed when it serves the attack. Followers are not invited to reason; they are invited to convict. The in-group knowledge structure requires accepting that DeSantis's Fauci praise is disqualifying while Trump's is non-existent. --- ## Danger Assessment **None.** This is intraparty competitive attack content with no eliminationist language, no dehumanization, and no stochastic terrorism indicators. The target is a political rival being attacked through documentary exposure, not mobilization. --- ## Fact Verification | Claim | Verdict | Evidence | |-------|---------|----------| | "DeSantis didn't speak truthfully to Bret Baier about Fauci" | **Mostly True** | DeSantis's 2020 statements praising Fauci are documented. In a 2023 Fox News interview with Bret Baier, DeSantis downplayed or denied the extent of his early-pandemic alignment with Fauci. The CNN article Trump shared earlier the same day (June 2023, from KFile investigation) documented DeSantis praising Fauci as 'really doing a good job' in spring 2020. The discrepancy between record and denial is well-established. | | "DeSantis 'repeatedly praised Fauci and his policies during the pandemic' (video title claim)" | **Mostly True** | Multiple documented instances of DeSantis praising Fauci in March-April 2020 are on record, including press conferences and interviews. 'Repeatedly' may overstate the duration but is directionally accurate for the spring 2020 period before DeSantis adopted an anti-Fauci posture. | Overall Veracity: 80% ## Archetypal Analysis **Primary archetype activated: Warrior/Exposer.** Trump casts himself not as victim (vulnerable narcissistic pole) but as the fighter who pulls back the curtain on fraud. The Trickster sub-pattern is present: selectively weaponizing CNN evidence (ordinarily "enemy media") disrupts the expected rhetorical frame and demonstrates transgression of normal rules. **Shadow projection:** The "COVID hypocrite" accusation is a shadow projection — the traits Trump cannot acknowledge in himself (Fauci praise, inconsistency on lockdowns) are projected onto and attacked in DeSantis with disproportionate intensity. --- ## Order/Chaos Dynamics **Order attacker (toward DeSantis's narrative); Order restorer (implicit self-positioning).** The post attacks the "false order" of DeSantis's rewritten COVID record while positioning Trump as the restorer of historical truth. The asymmetric standard (DeSantis's record scrutinized, Trump's elided) maps onto a hierarchical restructuring: DeSantis is being driven down the Republican status hierarchy. --- ## Longitudinal Notes This post is continuous with established patterns. The DeSantis/Fauci narrative will likely intensify through primary season as DeSantis remains a polling threat. The projection dynamic identified here — attacking rivals for behaviors Trump himself exhibited — is a recurrent structural feature across his post-2020 political communications. No cognitive deviation from baseline detected. The five-post saturation pattern is elevated but precedented during periods of acute competitive threat combined with legal pressure. ## Authorship Analysis **Self-Written** (score: 72%) ### Indicators - 'DeSanctus' nickname is Trump's own coinage and signature devaluation device — strong authentic marker - Missing space between 'Fauci!' and 'MUST WATCH' suggests Trump typed a brief intro then appended a reposted video title without editing - Afternoon posting (18:37 UTC = ~14:37 EDT at Bedminster NJ where Trump typically resides in August) falls in aide-accessible window, slightly reducing confidence - ALL CAPS promotional language ('MUST WATCH,' 'EXPOSED,' 'MASSIVE') consistent with Trump's authentic style but also common in repost-framing by aides - Part of a coordinated same-day multi-post series on DeSantis/Fauci — the thematic obsession and repetition pattern is authentically Trump-driven even if individual posts are aide-polished ## Psychological Profile ### State **Grandiose State** **Trigger:** Narcissistic Injury — Comparison (Ron DeSantis) **Rage:** Intensity 62% targeting Ron DeSantis - Proportionality: 35% Sentiment: -0.62 ### Clinical **Malignant Narcissism:** - Narcissistic: 82% - Antisocial: 38% - Paranoid: 41% - Sadism: 44% **Defense Mechanisms:** - devaluation (immature) - projection (immature) - splitting (immature) - denial (pathological) **Cognitive Complexity:** - Complexity: 28% **Parasocial Techniques:** - Directive engagement ('MUST WATCH') conscripts followers as an audience for the humiliation ritual - Performative exposure ('EXPOSED') positions followers as co-witnesses to DeSantis's moral failure - Repetition across five same-day posts creates saturation effect — followers receive a drumbeat rather than a single message ## Danger Assessment **NONE** ### Gaslighting - Implicit erasure of Trump's own documented Fauci praise history while wielding DeSantis's identical behavior as disqualifying — a form of asymmetric historical framing that would require followers to hold contradictory beliefs about the two figures' pandemic records ## Fact Checks (2) _The model's verdicts from 2026-03-20._ > DeSantis didn't speak truthfully to Bret Baier about Fauci **MOSTLY TRUE** DeSantis's 2020 statements praising Fauci are documented. In a 2023 Fox News interview with Bret Baier, DeSantis downplayed or denied the extent of his early-pandemic alignment with Fauci. The CNN article Trump shared earlier the same day (June 2023, from KFile investigation) documented DeSantis praising Fauci as 'really doing a good job' in spring 2020. The discrepancy between record and denial is well-established. Sources: CNN KFile investigation, June 2023; Fox News interview with Bret Baier, 2023 > DeSantis 'repeatedly praised Fauci and his policies during the pandemic' (video title claim) **MOSTLY TRUE** Multiple documented instances of DeSantis praising Fauci in March-April 2020 are on record, including press conferences and interviews. 'Repeatedly' may overstate the duration but is directionally accurate for the spring 2020 period before DeSantis adopted an anti-Fauci posture. Sources: CNN KFile, June 2023; Multiple contemporaneous Florida press conferences 2020 Overall Veracity: 80% ## Tags - primary-rivalry (95%) - projection (88%) - devaluation-campaign (85%) - DeSantis (95%) - COVID-revisionism (82%) - fauci (90%) - narcissistic-injury-response (78%) - saturation-posting (75%) ## That day _From trump.fm's machine-generated digest of the day, not his words._ **Indictment Eve: A 16-Post Displacement Storm as Trump's Most Serious Legal Reckoning Arrives** Trump spent the day deflecting from his historic federal indictment for January 6 election interference by flooding his feed with attacks on Ron DeSantis, Fox News, and former AG Bill Barr. A late-night posting session stretched past 1 AM, followed by an intense afternoon barrage that peaked with an all-caps denial of evidence in the Jack Smith case. DeSantis dominated the day's output -- seven of sixteen posts targeted his rival -- while the actual indictment received only grudging, dismissive acknowledgment. The mood swung from grandiose self-assurance to wounded persecution as the legal reality closed in. Full digest for 2023-08-01: https://trump.fm/date/2023-08-01/analysis ## Citation - APA: Trump, D. J. (2023, August 1). DeSanctus didn’t speak truthfully to Bret Baier... [Social media post]. Truth Social. trump.fm. https://trump.fm/post/ts_110815809689829290 - MLA: Trump, Donald J. "DeSanctus didn’t speak truthfully to Bret Baier about..." Truth Social, 1 Aug. 2023. trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_110815809689829290. Accessed 9 Oct. 2026. - Chicago: Donald J. Trump, "DeSanctus didn’t speak truthfully to Bret Baier about...," Truth Social, August 1, 2023, archived at trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_110815809689829290. ## For agents - Site overview: https://trump.fm/llms.txt - API specification: https://trump.fm/openapi.json - MCP server: https://trump.fm/mcp (search and fetch tools, no auth) - This post as JSON: https://trump.fm/api/posts/ts_110815809689829290 - Analysis as JSON: https://trump.fm/api/analysis/ts_110815809689829290 - All citation formats: https://trump.fm/api/cite/ts_110815809689829290 - Same day: https://trump.fm/date/2023-08-01 - The record alone, without the analysis: https://trump.fm/post/ts_110815809689829290.md?analysis=false _Markdown view of a trump.fm page. Post, analysis, date, feed, contradictions, search and about pages answer in markdown at their URL with `.md` appended (`/index.md` for the home page), or when sent `Accept: text/markdown`._