# Post ts_111648437091505431 - Post ID: `ts_111648437091505431` - Platform: Truth Social - Posted: 2023-12-26T19:45:50.775Z (UTC) - Deleted: no - Repost: no - Canonical URL: https://trump.fm/post/ts_111648437091505431 - Analysis page: https://trump.fm/post/ts_111648437091505431/analysis - Audio narration: https://static.trump.fm/audio/ts_111648437091505431.mp3 (a synthesized voice reading the post text, not a recording) ## Post text > Andrew C. McCarthy: “Yes, I believe the case should not have been brought at all, and that it should be postponed until after the election.” ## Engagement - Likes: 7,315 - Reposts: 1,751 - Replies: 89 - Views: unknown - Metrics collected: 2026-02-01T01:19:51.381Z (UTC) # Analysis _Machine-generated by trump.fm on 2026-03-20T15:02:17.398Z (UTC): a model's reading of this post, not his words. Its psychological terms describe the language, not a clinical assessment of him._ ## Summary A bare McCarthy quotation demanding the election-interference prosecution be dropped and delayed, arriving three days after Trump's immunity appeal filing. No original Trump text is present. The post is almost certainly aide-curated (midafternoon Mar-a-Lago timing, zero original voice, part of a five-post coordinated quote-amplification sequence). Psychologically, it represents the vulnerable narcissistic state's supply-seeking phase following Christmas Day's acute rage episode: borrowed credibility from a former federal prosecutor to externally validate the persecution narrative. The dominant defense is rationalization — McCarthy's prosecutorial authority launders the grievance into a sober legal opinion. The rhetorical move is efficient: quoting only the conclusion ("should not have been brought at all") without reasoning maximizes emotional punch while minimizing scrutiny. Notably, the embedded claim that prosecutions should yield to electoral calendars is a significant normative proposition dressed as neutral expert opinion. No danger indicators, dehumanizing language, or violent imagery present. Clinical significance is low in isolation; contextually, this post is one brick in a coordinated same-day legitimation structure. Cognitive analysis is not possible from this sample given the absence of original text. # Analysis: Truth Social Post — 2023-12-26T19:45:50Z ## Post Summary A bare quotation of Andrew C. McCarthy, conservative commentator and former federal prosecutor: the election-interference case should never have been brought and should be delayed until after the 2024 election. No original Trump text is present. --- ## Authorship Attribution **Score: 0.2 (aide-likely) | Confidence: Medium** Trump's probable location on December 26 is Mar-a-Lago (his customary Christmas-through-New-Year's venue). The UTC timestamp converts to **14:45 EST** — solidly within business hours. The post contains zero original text, no typos, no affective punctuation, and is the fifth in a coordinated same-day amplification series featuring Byron York (three posts) and Andrew C. McCarthy (two posts, this being the shorter concluding quote). This pattern — multi-source, tonally consistent, curation-style — is characteristic of a Scavino-led operation rather than impulsive authentic posting. The longer prior McCarthy post preceded this one; the sequence reads as structured messaging, not reactive scrolling. --- ## Contextual Frame The post arrives three days after Trump filed his presidential-immunity appeal with the DC Circuit Court (December 23). Multiple simultaneous legal pressures — the Jack Smith election case, the ongoing NY civil fraud trial, Colorado ballot-eligibility proceedings — create sustained narcissistic injury. The Christmas Day post cluster (including "ROT IN HELL" messaging) expressed the acute reactive phase; December 26's quote-curation series represents a shift to the legitimation phase: building an evidentiary-seeming case that the prosecutions are politically illegitimate. --- ## Level 1: Dispositional Traits (Big Five) *Note: No original text limits direct trait inference; inference is from selection behavior.* - **Neuroticism (angry hostility):** Suppressed in this post; the calm register is chosen deliberately — McCarthy's equanimity is part of the rhetorical value - **Extraversion:** Low in this post; the communication is delegated - **Agreeableness:** The choice of McCarthy (a credentialed, center-right voice with prosecutorial background) signals at least surface-level appeal to legitimacy norms - **Conscientiousness:** The systematic, multi-post curation is instrumentally organized — consistent with high *achievement striving* directed toward a legal/political goal - **Openness:** Rigidly closed; only voices confirming the persecution narrative are amplified --- ## Level 2: Characteristic Adaptations **Dominant motive: Power/Status preservation via delegitimization of legal threat** The goal schema is transparent: if the prosecution is framed as procedurally illegitimate (politically timed, not law-enforcement driven), then any adverse outcome can be attributed to political persecution rather than legal culpability. McCarthy's quote serves as an authoritative anchor for this schema. **Self-schema:** Victim of a rigged system; the "rightful" president (reinforced by the DCEnquirer "Person of the Year" post earlier this day) being persecuted by politically motivated prosecutors. **World-schema:** The legal system is a partisan weapon; "real" Republicans agree the cases are wrong. --- ## Level 3: Narrative Identity **Protagonist role:** Martyred-but-vindicated fighter — the persecution narrative requires no self-defense when credentialed outsiders validate it. **Narrative sequence:** Contamination → anticipated redemption. The good (presidency, poll leads, dominance) has been contaminated by illegitimate prosecution; the election will restore proper order. **Contrasting other:** Implicitly, Jack Smith and the judicial apparatus — unnamed here but made illegitimate by McCarthy's framing. **Identity claims (implicit):** "Even former federal prosecutors agree I am being treated unlawfully." This borrows prosecutorial credibility to invert the legal frame. --- ## Level 4: Clinical Indicators **Narcissistic state: Vulnerable** The Christmas Day "ROT IN HELL" posts expressed acute narcissistic rage; this post represents a regulated, supply-seeking follow-through — validation from authority figures to soothe the wounded self. The shift from explosive affect to curated expert opinion within 24 hours is consistent with the oscillation between grandiose and vulnerable narcissistic states. **Defense mechanisms:** - *Rationalization (neurotic):* McCarthy's legal opinion is deployed to rationalize the entire prosecution as procedurally void, bypassing engagement with underlying facts - *Projection (immature):* Political motivation is attributed entirely to the prosecution; no self-reflective acknowledgment of Trump's own political interests in the framing **Malignant narcissism sub-scores (this post in isolation):** - Narcissistic features: 0.4 (supply-seeking, persecution framing) - Antisocial features: 0.1 (minimal in this post) - Paranoid features: 0.3 (implicit — prosecution is politically motivated attack) - Sadism: 0.0 (absent) --- ## Cognitive Status **No original text available for cognitive analysis.** The post is a clean quote with no original production. Cognitive inference is not possible from this sample. No deviation from baseline detectable here. --- ## Rhetorical Analysis **Technique: Borrowed authority** McCarthy is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney for SDNY — his opinion carries prosecutorial credibility that Trump cannot self-generate. Quoting the conclusion ("the case should not have been brought at all") without the reasoning maximizes emotional impact while minimizing scrutiny of the legal argument. **Implicit framing:** The phrase "postponed until after the election" introduces a specific procedural demand — delay — that normalizes the idea that criminal cases against candidates should yield to political calendars. This is a significant normative claim embedded in what reads as a neutral quote. **No dehumanizing language, no violent imagery, no stochastic terrorism indicators.** --- ## Gaslighting / Reality Distortion Minimal in this post directly. The broader series constructs a reality-distortion field (prosecutions are wholly illegitimate, Trump leads everywhere, opponents have no formula) but this individual post is within the bounds of legitimate legal opinion quotation. --- ## Fact Verification | Claim | Verdict | Evidence | |-------|---------|----------| | "McCarthy stated the case should not have been brought at all and should be postponed until after the election" | **Mostly True** | McCarthy's documented positions as reflected in the prior post in this sequence, and his broader public commentary, are consistent with opposition to the prosecution's timeline and framing the case as having political rather than pure law-enforcement motivation | | "Implicit: the federal election-interference prosecution schedule is driven by the political calendar rather than law-enforcement concerns" | **Half True** | Legitimate procedural concerns about trial timing relative to the 2024 election have been raised by defense attorneys and some commentators. However, characterizing the entire prosecution as politically motivated rather than legally grounded is a contested claim not established by available evidence. | Overall Veracity: 65% ## Danger Assessment **Level: None** No violent imagery, no dehumanizing language, no target identification, no eliminationist rhetoric. This is a sober legal-opinion amplification post. --- ## Archetypal Frame **Primary: Martyred Hero / Victim awaiting vindication** The borrowed authority of a former federal prosecutor constructs the archetype efficiently: even insiders acknowledge the persecution. The Warrior archetype is notably absent from this post — the Christmas Day rage has been metabolized into the Victim-who-will-be-vindicated. **Shadow projection:** The "politically motivated" attribution projects onto the prosecution system the very political instrumentalization that critics argue Trump himself represents. --- ## Order/Chaos Dynamics **Order attacker (of the prosecutorial/judicial order) + Order restorer (promising election as the corrective mechanism)** The post implicitly argues that the *real* order — democratic election — is being distorted by the *false* order of a politically corrupted prosecution. This is a sophisticated inversion: the disruption-of-order charge is redirected at the system bringing charges. --- ## Longitudinal Note The five-post sequence on December 26 represents a shift from the acute reactive phase of Christmas Day (rage, profanity, direct attacks) to a legitimation/consolidation phase. This oscillation — explosive affect followed by curated intellectual validation — is a recurring pattern in the longitudinal record. The vulnerable narcissistic state is being managed through supply-seeking from credentialed conservative commentators. Poll numbers (Byron York posts) provide grandiosity-supply; McCarthy provides persecution-validation supply. The two together reconstitute the grandiose-but-victimized self-narrative after the Christmas Day acute rupture. ## Authorship Analysis **Aide-Written** (score: 20%) ### Indicators - Posted at 14:45 EST (business hours at Mar-a-Lago, where Trump customarily spends Christmas/New Year's) - Zero original text — pure quotation with no added commentary or emotional punctuation - Clean formatting, no typos or ALL CAPS, no stream-of-consciousness intrusion - Part of a coordinated same-day series of curated conservative-commentator quotes (Byron York x3, McCarthy x2), consistent with a staffed amplification operation - The prior McCarthy post was longer and more thematically substantial; this is its brief follow-up 'closer' — a pattern consistent with aide curation ## Psychological Profile ### State **Vulnerable State** **Trigger:** Narcissistic Injury — Exposure (Jack Smith federal election-subversion prosecution; immunity appeal filed December 23) Sentiment: -0.30 ### Clinical **Malignant Narcissism:** - Narcissistic: 40% - Antisocial: 10% - Paranoid: 30% - Sadism: 0% **Defense Mechanisms:** - rationalization (neurotic) - projection (immature) **Cognitive Complexity:** - Complexity: 0% **Parasocial Techniques:** - borrowed authority via respected conservative legal commentator - implied validation loop — audience reads expert opinion as confirming Trump's victimization narrative ## Fact Checks (2) _The model's verdicts from 2026-03-20._ > McCarthy stated the case should not have been brought at all and should be postponed until after the election **MOSTLY TRUE** McCarthy's documented positions as reflected in the prior post in this sequence, and his broader public commentary, are consistent with opposition to the prosecution's timeline and framing the case as having political rather than pure law-enforcement motivation Sources: Prior McCarthy post in same-day sequence > Implicit: the federal election-interference prosecution schedule is driven by the political calendar rather than law-enforcement concerns **HALF TRUE** Legitimate procedural concerns about trial timing relative to the 2024 election have been raised by defense attorneys and some commentators. However, characterizing the entire prosecution as politically motivated rather than legally grounded is a contested claim not established by available evidence. Sources: Known events: Trump immunity appeal filed December 23, 2023 Overall Veracity: 65% ## Tags - supply-seeking (70%) - borrowed-authority (80%) - persecution-narrative (70%) - legal-delegitimization (80%) - aide-authored (70%) - vulnerable-narcissistic-state (60%) - rationalization (70%) - jack-smith-prosecution (90%) - quote-amplification (80%) ## That day _From trump.fm's machine-generated digest of the day, not his words._ **Boxing Day Damage Control: 42-Post Defensive Barrage Conceals a Single Volcanic Eruption at Jack Smith** Trump's team ran a tightly choreographed content dump the day after Christmas, flooding Truth Social with over 40 articles and quotes defending against the Colorado ballot removal ruling from a week earlier. The posts alternated between grievance material framing the court decision as "lawfare" and flattering polls showing commanding primary leads. One post broke sharply from the curated tone -- a raw, all-caps tirade telling Special Counsel Jack Smith to "go to HELL" -- revealing the anger simmering beneath the managed surface. The overall mood was defensive but controlled, with staff doing the heavy lifting while Trump himself appeared to intervene only once, and explosively. Full digest for 2023-12-26: https://trump.fm/date/2023-12-26/analysis ## Citation - APA: Trump, D. J. (2023, December 26). Andrew C. McCarthy: “Yes, I believe the case... [Social media post]. Truth Social. trump.fm. https://trump.fm/post/ts_111648437091505431 - MLA: Trump, Donald J. "Andrew C. McCarthy: “Yes, I believe the case should not..." Truth Social, 26 Dec. 2023. trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_111648437091505431. Accessed 9 Oct. 2026. - Chicago: Donald J. Trump, "Andrew C. McCarthy: “Yes, I believe the case should not...," Truth Social, December 26, 2023, archived at trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_111648437091505431. ## 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_111648437091505431 - Analysis as JSON: https://trump.fm/api/analysis/ts_111648437091505431 - All citation formats: https://trump.fm/api/cite/ts_111648437091505431 - Same day: https://trump.fm/date/2023-12-26 - The record alone, without the analysis: https://trump.fm/post/ts_111648437091505431.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`._