# Post ts_116598284369096086 - Post ID: `ts_116598284369096086` - Platform: Truth Social - Posted: 2026-05-18T23:57:06.303Z (UTC) - Deleted: no - Repost: no - Canonical URL: https://trump.fm/post/ts_116598284369096086 - Analysis page: https://trump.fm/post/ts_116598284369096086/analysis ## Post text _No text of its own. The post is its media, below._ ## What the media says **Image** (screenshot), described automatically; these are a machine's words about the picture, not the poster's: > A screenshot of a social media post (X/Twitter) from a verified account "Mark R. Levin" (@marklevinshow), showing an avatar photo of an older man with white hair. The post is a lengthy text-only statement (no photo beyond the profile picture) arguing about presidential war powers and the constitutionality of the 1973 War Powers Act, presented as a series of numbered "FACT" statements. The post is timestamped 8:22 AM · Mar 4, 2026, with 39.4K Views shown at the bottom. Text in the image: "Mark R. Levin @marklevinshow THE TRUTH ABOUT WAR POWERS -- DECLARING WAR, MAKING WAR, THE CONSTITUTION, AND THE WAR POWERS ACT FACT: No president, of either party, has accepted the constitutionality of the 1973 War Powers Act. Every president has viewed it as a violation of separation of powers -- the president's Article II plenary power to run foreign policy and his authority as the commander-in-chief. FACT: The Supreme Court has never ruled on the Act's constitutionality and likely never will. Indeed, Congress itself is split on the issue, with Democrats supporting Democrat presidents and Republicans supporting Republican presidents. The War Powers Act is nothing but a political tool used by members of Congress against a president of the opposite party -- and their arguments mostly switch from one side to the other depending on who is president. FACT: The first draft of the Constitution provided that Congress would have the power to MAKE war. The delegates at the Constitutional Convention rejected that language and changed it to DECLARE war, intentionally watering it down because they did not believe a body with numerous members was institutionally capable of making such decisions. FACT: To declare war does not result in making war, e.g., if Congress were to declare war and a president refused to accept such a declaration, Congress cannot force the commander-in-chief to execute such a war. Congress declaring war, which it has done a mere 11 times (mostly during World War II) since the nation's founding, is essentially the highest means by which it can proclaim its support for a war. It is not a condition precedent to making war and never has been. FACT: The only power Congress has to prevent a military operation is the power of the purse. That said, a president who, as commander-in-chief, has authorized military action will not sign such a bill for it is intended to prevent what he has already commanded. Therefore, Congress would need a two-thirds majority of both Houses to override his veto. In other words, a president has broad power to take military action. FACT: Other than the vice president, the president is the only federal official elected by the entirety of the people. In addition to the institutional impossibility of war powers and the institutional impossibility of war powers and decisions in the hands of a multi-member body like Congress, the president is the only official who was elected to, among other things, serve as commander-in-chief. 8:22 AM · Mar 4, 2026 · 39.4K Views" ## Media - image: https://static-assets-1.truthsocial.com/tmtg:prime-ts-assets/media_attachments/files/116/598/283/896/878/303/original/673c2923a573a83f.png ## Engagement - Likes: 14,827 - Reposts: 4,357 - Replies: 1,198 - Views: unknown - Metrics collected: 2026-05-20T00:01:13.335Z (UTC) # Analysis _Machine-generated by trump.fm on 2026-09-13T12:06:51.547Z (UTC): a model's reading of this post, not his words. Its psychological terms describe the language, not a clinical assessment of him._ **What was chosen, not written.** The post carries no caption — only a screenshot of Mark Levin's tweet laying out five "FACT" statements arguing that the War Powers Act is unconstitutional, that Congress's power to "declare" war was deliberately watered down from an original power to "make" war, and that the president alone holds "broad power to take military action." The selection lands three days after Trump threatened Iran with a "very bad time" and claimed the US, not Iran, controls the Strait of Hormuz, with aides reportedly weighing resumption of major combat operations. Read against that backdrop, the choice of artifact functions as pre-emptive legal cover: amplifying a pundit's argument that no congressional check binds a president who has already signaled he may resume strikes. **Motive and schema.** The selected text closes on the line that the president is "the only official who was elected to... serve as commander-in-chief" — a schema in which unilateral authority is not just practical but democratically superior to a "multi-member body like Congress" the image calls institutionally incapable. Publishing this without comment lets Trump assert that view by proxy rather than in his own words, consistent with a pattern of using surrogate content to state positions he can later disclaim as "just sharing." **Defense and rhetoric.** The mechanism at work is legitimation-by-proxy: outsourcing a rationalization for expansive war powers to a sympathetic commentator's "FACT"-framed argument rather than asserting it directly. Levin's framing is appeal-to-authority (structured "FACT" numbering to simulate legal certainty) and false-dichotomy (Congress's power of the purse is dismissed as functionally inert against a veto-proof two-thirds requirement). Trump's contribution is curatorial, not argumentative — no rebuttal, addition, or personal claim attaches. **Risk reading.** Nothing in the post names a target or calls for mobilization; the risk signal here is contextual rather than rhetorical — a legal argument for unchecked military authority surfacing while renewed strikes on Iran are reportedly under active consideration inside the administration. ## Authorship Analysis **Uncertain** (score: 55%) ### Indicators - No written caption accompanies the screenshot, consistent with Trump's habitual practice of reposting content unedited rather than staff-drafted announcements - Posted 23:57 UTC / ~7:57pm ET if at Mar-a-Lago or NY — early evening, neither clearly late-night impulsive nor clearly business-hours staff posting - No stylometric evidence available since there is no original text; attribution here concerns who selected the clip for posting, not who authored any words ## Psychological Profile ### Traits **Big Five:** - Extraversion: 50% - Agreeableness: 30% - Conscientiousness: 40% - Neuroticism: 30% - Openness: 30% Strongest facet: assertiveness (power orientation expressed via curated content rather than direct speech) **Motives:** - Agency: 70% - Communion: 10% Primary drive: power ### Narrative - **Role:** sole legitimate commander-in-chief - **Arc:** neutral - **Contrasting:** Congress, cast in the shared image as institutionally incapable of war decisions **Identity Claims:** - Implicit endorsement of the claim that only the president holds legitimate, unilateral war-making authority ### State **Grandiose State** **Trigger:** Preemptive Attack (Anticipated congressional or legal pushback against renewed military action against Iran) Sentiment: +0.10 ### Clinical **Malignant Narcissism:** - Narcissistic: 40% - Antisocial: 10% - Paranoid: 10% - Sadism: 0% **Defense Mechanisms:** - rationalization (neurotic) **Cognitive Complexity:** - Complexity: 0% **Parasocial Techniques:** - Amplifying a friendly media figure's argument to state a position without personal authorship or accountability ## Danger Assessment **ELEVATED** ### Indicators - Amplification of an argument for unchecked unilateral war-making authority coincides with reported internal consideration of resuming major combat operations against Iran ## Tags - war-powers (80%) - iran-escalation (60%) - wordless-repost (90%) - legitimation-by-proxy (70%) ## That day _From trump.fm's machine-generated digest of the day, not his words._ **Trump calls off a "scheduled" Iran strike at the request of three Gulf rulers, five hours after mocking how the press would cover an Iranian surrender** Trump spent the day before a big round of Republican primaries at the White House. He put out a long run of nearly identical endorsements, one every minute or two, while hammering Kentucky congressman Thomas Massie from mid-morning into the evening. Massie came up in his own posts, in videos, and in a repeated share of a Laura Loomer interview with Massie's ex-girlfriend. In the middle of all this he announced that he had called off a planned military attack on Iran because the leaders of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE asked him to wait. He kept a full-scale assault on the table. The tone was boastful and combative more than angry, the posting stayed within normal waking hours, and the day closed with a shared argument that presidents don't need Congress's permission to go to war. Full digest for 2026-05-18: https://trump.fm/date/2026-05-18/analysis ## Citation - APA: Trump, D. J. (2026, May 18). [Social media post]. Truth Social. trump.fm. https://trump.fm/post/ts_116598284369096086 - MLA: Trump, Donald J. "" Truth Social, 18 May. 2026. trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_116598284369096086. Accessed 9 Oct. 2026. - Chicago: Donald J. Trump, "," Truth Social, May 18, 2026, archived at trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_116598284369096086. ## 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_116598284369096086 - Analysis as JSON: https://trump.fm/api/analysis/ts_116598284369096086 - All citation formats: https://trump.fm/api/cite/ts_116598284369096086 - Same day: https://trump.fm/date/2026-05-18 - The record alone, without the analysis: https://trump.fm/post/ts_116598284369096086.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`._