# Post ts_110958073231982876 - Post ID: `ts_110958073231982876` - Platform: Truth Social - Posted: 2023-08-26T21:37:14.316Z (UTC) - Deleted: no - Repost: no - Canonical URL: https://trump.fm/post/ts_110958073231982876 - Analysis page: https://trump.fm/post/ts_110958073231982876/analysis - Audio narration: https://static.trump.fm/audio/ts_110958073231982876.mp3 (a synthesized voice reading the post text, not a recording) ## Post text > FoxNews lies. They are still pushing DeSanctimonious, saying he can beat Biden. Actually, he is losing to Crooked Joe in ALL of the Polls, and I am winning in ALL. FoxNews just doesn’t learn. This has been going on since 2016, saying I won’t beat Beautiful Hillary, and then I did! Look, Ron is a loser. He only won because of my Endorsement. He is a horrible campaigner, and his Florida numbers are being exposed. He loved Fauci, CLOSED THE STATE, and had 3rd MOST COVID DEATHS IN U.S. HE CAN’T WIN! ## Engagement - Likes: 27,757 - Reposts: 6,930 - Replies: 1,718 - Views: unknown - Metrics collected: 2026-02-01T01:19:51.401Z (UTC) # Analysis _Machine-generated by trump.fm on 2026-03-20T08:00:27.179Z (UTC): a model's reading of this post, not his words. Its psychological terms describe the language, not a clinical assessment of him._ ## Summary Published at 17:37 EDT from Bedminster — two days after his historic mugshot and amid the first GOP debate he skipped — this post represents a high-intensity narcissistic injury response to Fox News's continued promotion of DeSantis as a viable candidate. Authorship is highly likely authentic: stream-of-consciousness structure, self-coined nickname, ALL CAPS passages, and personal afternoon posting from confirmed location. Malignant narcissism features are prominent throughout: grandiosity ('I am winning in ALL'), paranoid attribution of a 7-year Fox conspiracy, ego-syntonic devaluation ('Ron is a loser'), and antisocial distortion of the rival's COVID record. Splitting and projection are the primary defenses — Fox is accused of lies while the post contains multiple verifiable distortions. The credit-claiming schema insulates self-esteem by attributing DeSantis's successes to Trump's patronage while delegitimizing any independent political standing. Multiple factual claims are false or misleading: 'loved Fauci' inverts DeSantis's actual political identity; the COVID death claim is decontextualized from per capita data; polling was not uniformly unfavorable to DeSantis. No danger indicators are present. Cognitive status shows no deviation from established baseline. The post is clinically notable for the density of malignant narcissism features and the transparency with which paranoid projection and reality distortion are deployed against a coalition rival — the same endorsement mechanisms used to elevate DeSantis are now weaponized to eliminate him. # Psychological Analysis — Trump Truth Social Post, 2023-08-26T21:37:14Z ## Context and Trigger This post was published at **17:37 EDT** on August 26, 2023, from **Bedminster, New Jersey** (Trump National Golf Club — confirmed by same-day posts announcing a Senior Club Championship win). The date falls two days after Trump's historic surrender and mugshot at Fulton County Jail (August 24), and three days after the first Republican primary debate Trump skipped in favor of a Tucker Carlson interview on X. Fox News had continued to cover Ron DeSantis as a viable alternative candidate throughout this period. The primary psychological trigger is a **narcissistic injury of moderate-high severity**: Fox News's persistent promotion of DeSantis as a competitive candidate represents a direct challenge to Trump's grandiosity schema and inevitability narrative. The injury is compounded by the simultaneous legal humiliation (mugshot, fourth indictment) and the implied rebuke of his debate absence. Paradoxically, the mugshot produced a fundraising surge ($7.1M), creating a volatile oscillation between narcissistic supply (millions raised, merchandise sold) and narcissistic injury (media presenting a viable rival, indictment framed as defeat). --- ## Authorship Attribution **Assessment: Highly likely authentic Trump (confidence: high, score: 0.92).** Multiple independent stylistic markers are consistent with direct authorship: - **Timing**: 17:37 EDT — personal afternoon hours at Bedminster during post-golf downtime, a confirmed direct-posting window based on same-day activity - **Nickname**: "DeSanctimonious" is Trump's own coinage, appearing consistently in authenticated posts - **Structure**: Stream-of-consciousness arc escalating from media grievance → historical vindication → personal devaluation → categorical ALL CAPS verdict — an emotional journey not produced by aides - **ALL CAPS passages**: "CLOSED THE STATE," "HE CAN'T WIN!" — typographic aggression consistent with unfiltered expression - **Historical digression**: Non-sequitur pivot to 2016 Hillary prediction — characteristic associative pattern that aides typically edit out - **Tone**: Visceral personal contempt ("Ron is a loser") without any softening language — inconsistent with aide management or communications strategy No aide-authorship indicators are present (formal grammar, event announcements, polished sentence structure, professional formatting). --- ## Multi-Level Personality Analysis (McAdams and Pals, 2006) ### Level 1: Dispositional Traits (Big Five) **Neuroticism (Angry Hostility) — Dominant (0.88)**: The post opens with "FoxNews lies" and escalates in an unbroken arc to "Ron is a loser... HE CAN'T WIN!" This trajectory — from perceived grievance to categorical verdict — is the post's entire emotional architecture. **Agreeableness (Inverse — 0.09)**: Marked contempt and hostility throughout. Zero softening language, zero acknowledgment of DeSantis's genuine achievements. The endorsement history is weaponized rather than recalled with any ambivalence. **Extraversion (Assertiveness — 0.81)**: Dominant, declarative, competitive. Every claim is stated as absolute fact. **Conscientiousness (Low — 0.27)**: Impulsive and internally inconsistent. Attacking DeSantis for briefly closing Florida in March 2020 while Trump himself promoted federal COVID guidance during the same period reflects a lack of deliberative self-monitoring. **Openness (Low — 0.17)**: Binary classification of all actors; rigid zero-sum worldview; no tolerance for ambiguity in electoral standing or media loyalty. **Dominant facet**: Angry hostility (N3) — operationalized as disproportionate reactive aggression in response to perceived status threat. ### Level 2: Characteristic Adaptations The post's dominant motive is **power and status maintenance** at near-ceiling intensity (agency: 0.93). Communion motives are virtually absent (0.04). Key schemas revealed: - **Zero-sum competition schema**: Any rise by DeSantis is experienced as a fall by Trump. Fox's coverage of a rival is not neutral journalism but an act of betrayal and attack. The schema admits no possibility of legitimate competition. - **Credit-claiming schema**: "He only won because of my Endorsement" — a characteristically defensive operation that simultaneously arrogates others' successes and delegitimizes rivals' independent political standing. This schema appears systematically across Trump's communications whenever a protege achieves independent visibility (cf. Kemp, Youngkin, DeSantis at multiple points). - **Paranoid media schema**: Fox News is not an independent news organization with pluralistic coverage but a deliberate adversarial actor — "This has been going on since 2016." The schema requires that media coverage unfavorable to Trump be explained by malice rather than editorial judgment. ### Level 3: Narrative Identity - **Protagonist role**: *Vindicated prophet and dominant warrior* — the one who was doubted, was proved correct, and will prevail again regardless of institutional opposition - **Narrative sequence**: Primarily **redemption** — contamination (Fox betrayal, DeSantis competition) is embedded within a larger redemptive arc crystallized by the 2016 Hillary precedent: "they said I couldn't beat Beautiful Hillary, and then I did!" The mugshot and indictments are not contamination sequences but further validation opportunities in this reading - **Identity claims**: "I am winning in ALL" / "I beat Beautiful Hillary when they predicted I couldn't" / (same-day post) "I am just a good golfer/athlete — I have won many Club Championships" - **Contrasting other**: DeSantis — systematically deconstructed as coattail-rider, poor campaigner, Fauci-aligned COVID mismanager, and constitutionally incapable ("a loser") ### Level 4: Clinical Indicators **Malignant Narcissism (Kernberg, 1984)** — All four components are represented: - *Narcissistic features (0.87)*: Grandiosity throughout; sense of special political destiny; entitlement to Fox's loyalty; interpersonal exploitation of past endorsement relationship; envy-driven devaluation of DeSantis's genuine achievements - *Antisocial features (0.56)*: Deliberate distortion of DeSantis's COVID record; disregard for factual accuracy as political tool; no evident remorse for false characterizations - *Paranoid features (0.68)*: Fox framed as engaged in a sustained, deliberate 7-year sabotage campaign; preoccupation with perceived attack; immediate disproportionate counterattack - *Ego-syntonic sadism (0.62)*: "Ron is a loser" and "horrible campaigner" delivered without conflict or qualification — suggesting pleasure in the diminishment rather than reluctant political necessity **Narcissistic Rage (Kohut, 1972)**: Present at intensity 0.73. The response is markedly disproportionate to the trigger (routine media coverage of a polling rival). Target is dual — Fox and DeSantis attacked simultaneously, intensifying the post's emotional load. The rage does not modulate; it escalates to ALL CAPS climax. --- ## Defense Mechanism Analysis (Vaillant's Hierarchy) **Splitting (Pathological)**: The most prominent and pervasive defense. Fox categorically lies; DeSantis categorically loses; Trump categorically wins. No gradation, ambivalence, or qualification is permitted. The world is partitioned into absolute good/bad domains with no intermediate positions tolerated. **Projection (Immature)**: Accuses Fox of lies and disinformation while the post itself contains multiple verifiable distortions. The subject's own epistemic behavior — misrepresenting DeSantis's COVID record — is attributed to the entity being attacked. **Distortion (Pathological)**: "Loved Fauci" constitutes a wholesale inversion of DeSantis's actual post-2020 political identity as the nation's foremost anti-mandate governor. This is not exaggeration; it is categorical reversal — grossly reshaping reality to serve the inner need to eliminate a rival's credibility. **Rationalization (Neurotic)**: "He only won because of my Endorsement" provides logical-seeming justification for dismissing DeSantis's competitive standing, insulating the self-concept from the threat posed by a rival's genuine electoral success. --- ## Rhetorical Analysis The post's structure follows a **prosecution-summation template**: 1. Accusation — *FoxNews lies* 2. Historical precedent establishing accuser's credibility — *they were wrong about Hillary in 2016* 3. Evidence presentation — *polls* 4. Character indictment — *loved Fauci, closed the state, COVID deaths* 5. Closing verdict — *ALL CAPS* This creates a logical-seeming scaffold for what is substantively an emotional dominance display. The "DeSanctimonious" nickname functions as a cognitive anchor — every mention of the rival is pre-loaded with mockery, making neutral evaluation cognitively difficult for the audience. Key propaganda techniques: false precision ("ALL of the Polls"); appeal to past success (2016 Hillary prediction retroactively disqualifies present Fox coverage by establishing conspiracy frame); credit-claiming then devaluation (endorsement given, achievement denied); reductive labeling ("loser," "horrible campaigner" as terminal characterizations requiring no evidentiary support). --- ## Cognitive Status No significant deviation from Trump's established Truth Social baseline. Writing complexity (0.27) reflects his authentic historical range — low but consistent. Perseveration on polling across same-day posts is thematically coherent given legal and electoral context rather than pathological. The logical inconsistency (attacking DeSantis for briefly closing Florida while Trump promoted federal COVID guidance in 2020) is a characteristic ideological inconsistency — a stable pattern in his communications rather than a new cognitive deficit. No word-finding difficulty, phonemic paraphasia, temporal confusion, semantic substitution, or confabulation detected. --- ## Fact Verification | Claim | Verdict | Evidence | |-------|---------|----------| | "DeSantis is losing to Biden in ALL of the Polls" | **Mostly False** | August 2023 polling showed DeSantis trailing Biden in most national polls, but not in all. Several polls showed the race competitive or within margin of error. The categorical 'ALL' is false. | | "Trump is winning in ALL polls against Biden" | **Mostly False** | Trump led Biden in several August 2023 polls including key swing-state surveys but was behind in multiple national polls. 'ALL' overstates consistency of his lead. | | "DeSantis only won because of Trump's endorsement" | **Mostly False** | Trump endorsed DeSantis in 2018 when he won by 0.4 points — endorsement was material. However DeSantis won re-election in 2022 by 19.4 points, demonstrating substantial independent political capital far exceeding any endorsement effect. | | "DeSantis loved Fauci and closed the state" | **Mostly False** | DeSantis followed federal COVID guidance briefly in spring 2020 but reopened Florida in May 2020 among the earliest large states. He subsequently became one of the nation's most aggressive Fauci critics, banning vaccine mandates, suing the Biden administration, and publishing a book attacking public health bureaucracy. The characterization fundamentally inverts his documented political identity. | | "Florida had 3rd most COVID deaths in U.S." | **Half True** | In absolute death counts Florida ranked among top states due to large population and elderly demographics. However on a per capita basis — the scientifically appropriate metric — Florida ranked substantially lower. Deploying absolute numbers without per capita context for a large elderly-demographic state is statistically misleading. | Overall Veracity: 26% ## Gaslighting and Reality Distortion The post employs DARVO-adjacent inversion: Fox News is characterized as lying while the post deploys distortions — the subject projects epistemic dishonesty onto the entity reporting accurately on polling competition. The retroactive reframing of 2016 media coverage as a failed conspiracy is a powerful gaslighting template: once followers accept that past coverage was conspiratorial, present coverage is pre-disqualified as more of the same. The epistemic closure is total — no independent verification is possible within the framework offered. --- ## Archetypal and Order/Chaos Analysis **Primary archetypes**: Warrior (enemies everywhere, constant combat) and Vindicated Prophet (doubted, proved right, will prevail again). The 2016 Hillary reference is the narrative crystallization of the prophet-vindication myth — the impossible triumph that legitimizes all subsequent claims. **Shadow projection**: DeSantis is assigned shadow elements Trump cannot own — the "loser" characterization, establishment compliance (Fauci), dependence on others' support. What cannot be integrated is projected outward. **Order/chaos positioning**: Trump positions himself as order restorer against the corrupt order represented by Fox's establishment media favoritism, with DeSantis as the establishment's chosen instrument. The chaos of multiple indictments is reframed as evidence of his disruptive threat to corrupt order. --- ## Danger Assessment **Danger level: None.** The post contains no eliminationist language, species-level dehumanization, stochastic terrorism indicators (target + grievance + implied action toward violence), or calls to mobilization. The attacks are political devaluation within extreme but non-violent competitive discourse. "Loser" and "horrible campaigner" remain within adjectival political attack rather than the dehumanizing language documented in posts targeting judges, prosecutors, or perceived enemies of the state. --- ## Longitudinal Notes This post is consistent with a well-documented Trump pattern across multiple protege relationships: credit-claiming schema (protege achieves independently, endorsement retroactively claimed as sole cause, protege turned on when competitive) has been documented with Kemp, Youngkin, and others. The paranoid media attribution extending Fox criticism to a multi-year conspiracy is a stable feature of his media schema present across the full archive. The mild hypomanic coloring of the same-day posting cluster — golf score announcement with grandiose framing, multiple political and legal commentaries, perseverated poll theme — is within the documented range for post-legal-event periods that simultaneously injure and supply narcissistic needs. No deterioration signal is present. ## Authorship Analysis **Self-Written** (score: 92%) ### Indicators - Posted at 17:37 EDT from Bedminster during personal afternoon downtime at Trump National Golf Club, consistent with direct posting - 'DeSanctimonious' is Trump's own coined nickname, hallmark of direct authorship - Stream-of-consciousness structure with intra-post emotional escalation from grievance to categorical verdict - ALL CAPS passages ('CLOSED THE STATE,' 'HE CAN'T WIN!') consistent with unfiltered emotional expression - Non-sequitur historical digression to 2016 Hillary prediction — characteristic associative pattern aides would edit out ## Psychological Profile ### State **Grandiose State** **Trigger:** Narcissistic Injury — Comparison (Fox News sustained promotion of DeSantis as viable alternative to Trump) **Rage:** Intensity 73% targeting Fox News and Ron DeSantis simultaneously - Proportionality: 22% Sentiment: -0.74 **Mildly Hypomanic** - Five or more posts on a single day spanning disparate topics: indictments, golf score, rival attacks, legal proceedings, media criticism - Golf championship announcement with grandiose framing ('I am just a good golfer/athlete — I have won many Club Championships') published same day as legal mugshot context - Elevated posting frequency with perseverated poll theme woven through all posts - ALL CAPS declarations and rapid intra-post emotional escalation to categorical verdict ### Clinical **Malignant Narcissism:** - Narcissistic: 87% - Antisocial: 56% - Paranoid: 68% - Sadism: 62% **Defense Mechanisms:** - splitting (pathological) - projection (immature) - distortion (pathological) - rationalization (neurotic) **Cognitive Complexity:** - Complexity: 27% **Parasocial Techniques:** - Direct apostrophe to Fox audience ('Look,') bypassing editorial filter - Shared enemy construction positioning Fox as betrayer of MAGA constituency - Historical triumph narrative binding followers to Trump's vindication schema - Poll citation as loyalty test inviting followers to validate numerical dominance claims ## Danger Assessment **NONE** ### Gaslighting - Characterizes Fox as engaged in deliberate lies while the post itself contains multiple verifiable distortions — DARVO-adjacent inversion of actual epistemic situation - Retroactively reframes 2016 media coverage as a failed conspiracy, providing template for disqualifying all present coverage by association - 'This has been going on since 2016' constructs a sustained conspiratorial narrative from ordinary electoral forecasting, demanding followers adopt paranoid media model - Fox-as-liar framing positions any favorable DeSantis coverage as inherently illegitimate, creating epistemic closure against independent verification ## Fact Checks (5) _The model's verdicts from 2026-03-20._ > DeSantis is losing to Biden in ALL of the Polls **MOSTLY FALSE** August 2023 polling showed DeSantis trailing Biden in most national polls, but not in all. Several polls showed the race competitive or within margin of error. The categorical 'ALL' is false. Sources: General knowledge of August 2023 Republican primary polling landscape > Trump is winning in ALL polls against Biden **MOSTLY FALSE** Trump led Biden in several August 2023 polls including key swing-state surveys but was behind in multiple national polls. 'ALL' overstates consistency of his lead. Sources: General knowledge of August 2023 presidential polling > DeSantis only won because of Trump's endorsement **MOSTLY FALSE** Trump endorsed DeSantis in 2018 when he won by 0.4 points — endorsement was material. However DeSantis won re-election in 2022 by 19.4 points, demonstrating substantial independent political capital far exceeding any endorsement effect. Sources: Florida 2018 and 2022 gubernatorial election results > DeSantis loved Fauci and closed the state **MOSTLY FALSE** DeSantis followed federal COVID guidance briefly in spring 2020 but reopened Florida in May 2020 among the earliest large states. He subsequently became one of the nation's most aggressive Fauci critics, banning vaccine mandates, suing the Biden administration, and publishing a book attacking public health bureaucracy. The characterization fundamentally inverts his documented political identity. Sources: General knowledge of Florida COVID policy and DeSantis's documented positioning 2020-2023 > Florida had 3rd most COVID deaths in U.S. **HALF TRUE** In absolute death counts Florida ranked among top states due to large population and elderly demographics. However on a per capita basis — the scientifically appropriate metric — Florida ranked substantially lower. Deploying absolute numbers without per capita context for a large elderly-demographic state is statistically misleading. Sources: General knowledge of CDC COVID mortality data and Florida demographic profile Overall Veracity: 26% ## Tags - DeSantis rivalry (92%) - Fox News hostility (78%) - narcissistic injury response (87%) - COVID misinformation (72%) - credit-claiming schema (68%) - primary election dominance assertion (83%) - splitting defense (80%) ## That day _From trump.fm's machine-generated digest of the day, not his words._ **48 Hours After Historic Mugshot, Trump Oscillates Between "DARK DAYS" Despair and "ICONIC" Defiance — While Jacksonville Burns Unmentioned** Two days after becoming the first former president to receive a mugshot, Trump spent the day swinging between raw grievance and defiant self-promotion. A burst of late-night posts attacked prosecutors as "thugs" and warned of "DARK DAYS," while daytime campaign blasts rebranded the mugshot as "iconic" and fueled a $7.1 million fundraising haul. He claimed a 67 in a seniors golf championship at Bedminster, preemptively rebutting cheating allegations with a memorable malapropism ("hanky/lanky"). The day closed with aggressive attacks on Fox News and DeSantis. Notably absent from all 20 posts: any mention of the Jacksonville white supremacist shooting that killed three Black people in Florida that same day. Full digest for 2023-08-26: https://trump.fm/date/2023-08-26/analysis ## Citation - APA: Trump, D. J. (2023, August 26). FoxNews lies. They are still pushing... [Social media post]. Truth Social. trump.fm. https://trump.fm/post/ts_110958073231982876 - MLA: Trump, Donald J. "FoxNews lies. They are still pushing DeSanctimonious,..." Truth Social, 26 Aug. 2023. trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_110958073231982876. Accessed 9 Oct. 2026. - Chicago: Donald J. Trump, "FoxNews lies. They are still pushing DeSanctimonious,...," Truth Social, August 26, 2023, archived at trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_110958073231982876. ## 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_110958073231982876 - Analysis as JSON: https://trump.fm/api/analysis/ts_110958073231982876 - All citation formats: https://trump.fm/api/cite/ts_110958073231982876 - Same day: https://trump.fm/date/2023-08-26 - The record alone, without the analysis: https://trump.fm/post/ts_110958073231982876.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`._