# Post ts_117292605168784403

- Post ID: `ts_117292605168784403`
- Platform: Truth Social
- Posted: 2026-09-18T14:52:00.861Z (UTC)
- Deleted: no
- Repost: no
- Canonical URL: https://trump.fm/post/ts_117292605168784403
- Analysis page: https://trump.fm/post/ts_117292605168784403/analysis
- Audio narration: https://static.trump.fm/audio/ts_117292605168784403.mp3 (a synthesized voice reading the post text, not a recording)

## Post text

> Unwatchable and Failing CNN is so dishonest. Everything they say is slanted against the Republican Party. They are truly FAKE NEWS! Thankfully, very few people are watching! President DJT

## Engagement

- Likes: 17,049
- Reposts: 4,126
- Replies: 2,016
- Views: unknown
- Metrics collected: 2026-09-25T14:00:56.417Z (UTC)

# Analysis

_Machine-generated by trump.fm on 2026-09-18T14:55:56.790Z (UTC): a model's reading of this post, not his words. Its psychological terms describe the language, not a clinical assessment of him._

## A ratings insult, signed by hand

The post has five short sentences and does one thing: it attacks CNN as an institution. There is no segment, host, story or quote attached to the complaint, so the reader can't tell what set it off. The two earlier posts that day with text point in one direction. One promotes a Washington Post opinion piece on "disloyal leaks about Iran" and warns leakers, "When we find you, you will pay a big price!!!" The other shares a Newsmax column titled "A Rising Trump Lifts All Boats." CNN coverage of the Iran leak story is a plausible trigger. The text doesn't confirm it, so the trigger is coded as criticism from an unnamed source, with medium confidence.

## Why this reads as his own

At 14:52 UTC, the post went up at 10:52 a.m. Eastern. He had come back from the Ireland trip earlier in the week, and his Constitution Day demand to the Smithsonian on September 17 puts him in Washington. That is business hours, which usually points toward staff. Everything else in the post points the other way:

- The sign-off "President DJT" is the personal signature on his self-written posts, and it also closes the leak-threat post from the same day.
- "Unwatchable and Failing CNN" stacks two of his branded epithets in front of the proper noun. "Failing" has been attached to outlets he dislikes since 2017.
- "They are truly FAKE NEWS!" puts the capitals where the feeling is, not where a staffer would set a headline.
- "Thankfully, very few people are watching!" is his long-running ratings taunt, and the "Thankfully" adds a gloat that a press office would drop.

Nothing is in third person, and there are no statistics, bill numbers or precise attributions. The one thing that argues for an aide is the hour, and a clean, grammatical post of this length is well within his normal range. Attribution to Trump himself is medium-high.

## Everything, FAKE NEWS, and the audience that isn't there

The core move is **splitting**. "Everything they say is slanted against the Republican Party" makes the outlet all-bad with a universal quantifier, so no single report needs an answer. **Devaluation** runs through each sentence: "Unwatchable," "Failing," "so dishonest," "FAKE NEWS." The last line works as a defense. "Very few people are watching" shrinks the critic's reach, so the injury, whatever it was, counts for less because nobody saw it. That is where the ratings jab does its psychological work. It reframes being criticized as a critic losing.

The grievance is written on behalf of the party ("against the Republican Party"), not himself. This is the post's only communal gesture: he casts himself as the party's defender against a hostile press. In the Big Five terms that fit the post, the ones that show are low agreeableness (contempt, no modesty) and the angry-hostility side of neuroticism, delivered in extraverted, assertive declaratives. The dominant motive is status, measured in viewers.

Rhetorically, the post relies on **epithet branding**, **overgeneralization** ("Everything"), **ad hominem against an institution**, and the **"FAKE NEWS" label**, which asks followers to dismiss a whole information source in advance. That last device is the post's small contribution to epistemic closure. It isn't a denial of any specific event. It pre-discredits whatever CNN reports next. In archetypal terms, this is the Warrior against the press, with a trace of the Victim in "slanted against." On the order/chaos axis he attacks an establishment institution he treats as corrupt, and he lowers its status by pointing to its audience size.

## Next to the leak threat

The most useful reading of this post is comparative. The leak post from the same day contains an explicit threat of retribution against unidentified people ("you will pay a big price"). This one contains no call to act, no dehumanizing term, and no individual target. CNN is named as a brand, and the attack ends at ridicule. The contempt is routine for him and doesn't escalate into anything a follower could act on.

## Language

The post is fluent and coherent, with standard syntax and no word substitutions or topic drift. The epithets and the ratings line repeat formulas he has used for about a decade. That is branding, and it is not perseveration. Vocabulary and structure match his 2017–2019 media-attack posts. The post is too short and too formulaic to test anything about cognition beyond showing that the template is intact.

## Fact Verification

| Claim | Verdict | Evidence |
|-------|---------|----------|
| "Everything CNN says is slanted against the Republican Party." | **Half True** | Content analyses have found CNN's Trump coverage predominantly negative. Harvard's Shorenstein Center rated CNN's coverage of his first 100 days in 2017 at 93% negative in tone. The claim that 'everything' is slanted is an overgeneralization: CNN runs Republican guests and commentators, and much of its output is straight news with no partisan valence. |
| "Very few people are watching CNN." | **Half True** | CNN's linear TV audience fell steeply through 2024–2025, reaching some of its lowest ratings in decades and trailing both Fox News and MSNBC. It still averaged hundreds of thousands of prime-time viewers and reached far more people through digital platforms, so 'very few' is hyperbole on a real decline. |

Overall Veracity: 50%

## Authorship Analysis

**Self-Written** (score: 78%)

### Indicators

- 'President DJT' personal sign-off, matching the same-day leak-threat post
- Branded stacked epithet 'Unwatchable and Failing CNN'
- Emotional ALL CAPS on 'FAKE NEWS!' mid-sentence
- Signature gloat 'Thankfully, very few people are watching!'
- First-person voice with no third-person framing or statistics

## Psychological Profile

### Traits

**Big Five:**
- Extraversion: 70%
- Agreeableness: 10%
- Conscientiousness: 40%
- Neuroticism: 60%
- Openness: 20%

Strongest facet: Low agreeableness (contempt, low modesty)

**Motives:**
- Agency: 80%
- Communion: 20%

Primary drive: status

### Narrative

- **Role:** Party champion exposing a hostile, discredited press
- **Arc:** neutral
- **Contrasting:** CNN, cast as dishonest, biased and unwatched

**Identity Claims:**
- The one who calls out fake news
- Defender of the Republican Party
- 'President DJT'—office asserted in the signature

### State

**Mixed State**

**Trigger:** Narcissistic Injury — Criticism (CNN coverage, segment unnamed; possibly the Iran leak story referenced in a same-day post)

**Rage:** Intensity 35% targeting CNN
- Proportionality: 40%

Sentiment: -0.70

### Clinical

**Malignant Narcissism:**
- Narcissistic: 40%
- Antisocial: 10%
- Paranoid: 35%
- Sadism: 20%

**Defense Mechanisms:**
- devaluation (immature)
- splitting (immature)
- denial (pathological)

**Cognitive Complexity:**
- Complexity: 30%

**Parasocial Techniques:**
- Invites the audience to share contempt for a common enemy outlet
- Casts himself as defender of the followers' party
- Personal 'President DJT' signature signaling direct address

## Danger Assessment

**NONE**

### Gaslighting

- 'FAKE NEWS' label discredits all of an outlet's reporting in advance, without addressing any specific claim

## Fact Checks (2)

_The model's verdicts from 2026-09-18._

> Everything CNN says is slanted against the Republican Party.

**HALF TRUE**

Content analyses have found CNN's Trump coverage predominantly negative. Harvard's Shorenstein Center rated CNN's coverage of his first 100 days in 2017 at 93% negative in tone. The claim that 'everything' is slanted is an overgeneralization: CNN runs Republican guests and commentators, and much of its output is straight news with no partisan valence.

Sources: Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center, 'News Coverage of Donald Trump's First 100 Days' (2017)

> Very few people are watching CNN.

**HALF TRUE**

CNN's linear TV audience fell steeply through 2024–2025, reaching some of its lowest ratings in decades and trailing both Fox News and MSNBC. It still averaged hundreds of thousands of prime-time viewers and reached far more people through digital platforms, so 'very few' is hyperbole on a real decline.

Sources: Nielsen cable news ratings as reported by trade press, 2024–2025

Overall Veracity: 50%

## Tags

- media-attack (90%)
- CNN (90%)
- fake-news-label (80%)
- ratings-taunt (70%)
- devaluation (70%)
- splitting (60%)
- party-grievance (50%)

## That day

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

**CNN, MSNOW and Politico banned from the White House "effective immediately," with "Other Fake News Media Outlets to follow"**

Trump spent Thursday night posting Fox News clips of other people praising him, including a historian who ranked him behind only Washington and Lincoln. Just after midnight he threatened whoever leaked his advisers' warnings about the Iran conflict: "When we find you, you will pay a big price." On Friday afternoon his account put out fifteen identical endorsements in about twenty minutes, and several carried campaign videos with harsh personal attacks on Democrats, including one tying a Muslim-American Senate candidate in Michigan to Hamas and 9/11. Soon after, he banned CNN, MSNOW and Politico from the White House, said more outlets would follow, and posted a fan video of a lion that has to "show the jackals who he is." The evening turned to celebration, with a Greenland security deal he called "a dream come true" and a list of accomplishments from what he called his "Term Three."

Full digest for 2026-09-18: https://trump.fm/date/2026-09-18/analysis

## Citation

- APA: Trump, D. J. (2026, September 18). Unwatchable and Failing CNN is so dishonest.... [Social media post]. Truth Social. trump.fm. https://trump.fm/post/ts_117292605168784403
- MLA: Trump, Donald J. "Unwatchable and Failing CNN is so dishonest. Everything..." Truth Social, 18 Sep. 2026. trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_117292605168784403. Accessed 9 Oct. 2026.
- Chicago: Donald J. Trump, "Unwatchable and Failing CNN is so dishonest. Everything...," Truth Social, September 18, 2026, archived at trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_117292605168784403.

## 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_117292605168784403
- Analysis as JSON: https://trump.fm/api/analysis/ts_117292605168784403
- All citation formats: https://trump.fm/api/cite/ts_117292605168784403
- Same day: https://trump.fm/date/2026-09-18
- The record alone, without the analysis: https://trump.fm/post/ts_117292605168784403.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`._