# Post ts_117294006211890226

- Post ID: `ts_117294006211890226`
- Platform: Truth Social
- Posted: 2026-09-18T20:48:19.083Z (UTC)
- Deleted: no
- Repost: no
- Canonical URL: https://trump.fm/post/ts_117294006211890226
- Analysis page: https://trump.fm/post/ts_117294006211890226/analysis

## Post text

_No text of its own. The post is its media, below._

## What the media says

**Video transcript** (1:50), transcribed automatically, so names and numbers may be wrong. Speakers aren't identified, so a voice in it may not be his:

> Look at this lion. He's the king of the jungle. Huge mane out there. For too long, a small group in our nation's capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. The jackals are heinous. The barking at them, laughing at them. We are transferring power back to you, the people. And if his toes leave the food that's in his domain. Tonight, New York State's Attorney General Letitia James saying she's prepared to seize Donald Trump's assets. Then I get closer and closer and bolder and bolder. Until one day, that lion gets up and tears his **** out of everybody. I know what I am. I can feel it coming in the air tonight. I know what I am. I'm waiting in this moment for my life, for my life, for my life, for my life. Whether we are black, or brown, or white, we all believe the same red blood of patriots. Because every once in a while, the lion has to show the jackals who he is.

## Media

- video: https://static-assets-1.truthsocial.com/tmtg:prime-ts-assets/media_attachments/files/117/293/999/961/954/452/original/aecb1473d6636c3d.mp4

## Engagement

- Likes: 23,428
- Reposts: 6,141
- Replies: 1,498
- Views: unknown
- Metrics collected: 2026-09-25T20:00:51.110Z (UTC)

# Analysis

_Machine-generated by trump.fm on 2026-09-18T21:06:33.683Z (UTC): a model's reading of this post, not his words. Its psychological terms describe the language, not a clinical assessment of him._

## Summary

He posted a captionless fan edit on the afternoon he barred CNN, MSNOW and Politico from the White House. In it a narrator describes a lion, "the king of the jungle," who puts up with jackals "barking at them, laughing at them" until he "tears his **** out of everybody." The edit cuts between that narration and his own 2017 inaugural lines about returning power to "you, the people," and it revives an undated segment of Letitia James threatening to seize his assets. The penalty behind that threat was voided in August 2025. By posting it he took on a grandiose self-image resting on a sense of persecution. The ridicule is the injury, and total retaliation repairs it. The closing line, "the lion has to show the jackals who he is," turns revenge into duty. The clip combines a dehumanizing frame for opponents, a named adversary, and a violent payoff that the office-holder casts himself as delivering. Nothing asks followers to act. The same-day media ban shows what institutional form the metaphor takes.

## A lion video on the afternoon the press was barred

The clip went up at 4:48 p.m. Eastern (20:48 UTC) on a Friday, probably from Washington, with no caption. It sits in a same-day run that includes three signed endorsements and the announcement barring CNN, MSNOW and Politico from the White House. That announcement gives the video its referent. A clip about jackals "barking at them, laughing at them" lands hours after he has named the outlets he considers to be barking.

The edit has three voices. A narrator describes a lion, "the king of the jungle," putting up with jackals until "that lion gets up and tears his **** out of everybody." Cut between the narration are lines that match his own 2017 inaugural address: "For too long, a small group in our nation's capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost," "We are transferring power back to you, the people," and the "same red blood of patriots" passage (transcribed as "believe"). A news fragment adds: "New York State's Attorney General Letitia James saying she's prepared to seize Donald Trump's assets." Phil Collins lyrics ("I can feel it coming in the air tonight") build the tension. The last line gives the thesis: "every once in a while, the lion has to show the jackals who he is."

## The self-portrait he adopted by posting it

The video hands him a self-image he didn't have to write. The lion is sovereign ("king of the jungle"), he has put up with a lot, and he is entitled to a delayed and total response. The story is a redemption sequence of the grievance kind: the setback is harassment endured, and the payoff is retaliation. The words "has to" in the closing line recast the strike as an obligation. That is a rationalization: a wish for revenge becomes a duty. The cast list does the splitting, with one lion, many jackals and no third category. The inaugural lines add a gesture toward the audience ("you, the people"; "black, or brown, or white"). In this edit they work as the lion's credentials, the popular mandate that licenses the attack.

The narcissistic state is grandiose, built on a sense of persecution. "Laughing at them" names the injury, which is ridicule, and the grandiose finale repairs it. The relish in "tears his **** out" is the post's closest marker of ego-syntonic sadism. It arrives in a narrator's crude idiom that he took on by sharing it, so it carries modest weight. The same-day media ban is acting out in the institutional register, and the video reads as its emotional soundtrack. The link between the two posts is inferred from their timing, at medium confidence.

## Letitia James as the named jackal

James is the only adversary the clip names, and the fragment is stale. Her talk of seizing assets belongs to the 2024 civil-fraud judgment. In August 2025 the Appellate Division threw out the roughly $500 million penalty. Posting the clip in September 2026 with its "Tonight" framing left in presents a threat that never happened as if it were current, and keeps an old grievance alive. This fits the paranoid feature of bearing grudges. The edit places her right before the narrator's "closer and closer and bolder and bolder," so she becomes the provocation that justifies the lion's strike. The claim about her belongs to the broadcaster, so it is discussed here rather than scored as his assertion.

## Violence in animal form

"Jackals" casts opponents as scavengers, and the payoff is violence to the body. The pieces of a stochastic pattern are present: a named target (James), a grievance (asset seizure) and a promised strike. The one who strikes, though, is the lion himself, and nothing in the clip calls on viewers to act. The implied retaliation belongs to him. Coming from someone with executive power, on the day he removed three outlets from the White House, it already has a concrete institutional form. The danger rating rests on that pairing of a dehumanized out-group with a revenge fantasy from the office-holder, rather than on any incitement of followers.

## Who picked it

With no written text there is nothing stylistic to measure, so the question is who selected and posted the clip. Two things point toward staff: the business-hours timestamp and the clip's place in a cluster of formula endorsements signed "President DONALD J. TRUMP." Two things point toward him. A revenge-themed fan edit went up on the day of a media ban that was personal to him, and his "LONG LIVE THE KING!" post of February 2025 shows the royal self-image is his own and not only his fans'. The only lines in his voice are nine years old and were read from a teleprompter, so the post shows nothing about his present speech.

## Authorship Analysis

**Uncertain** (score: 45%)

### Indicators

- Posted 16:48 EDT on a Friday, inside business hours
- Sits in a same-afternoon cluster of formula endorsements signed 'President DONALD J. TRUMP', a staff-produced format
- Captionless repost of a fan-made edit, a format both he and staff use
- Revenge theme matches same-day media ban he announced in the first person
- Royal self-image ('king of the jungle') echoes his own February 2025 'LONG LIVE THE KING!' post

## Psychological Profile

### Traits

**Big Five:**
- Extraversion: 80%
- Agreeableness: 10%
- Conscientiousness: 40%
- Neuroticism: 60%
- Openness: 25%

Strongest facet: Angry hostility fused with assertiveness

**Motives:**
- Agency: 90%
- Communion: 25%

Primary drive: revenge

### Narrative

- **Role:** Provoked lion-king who ends his long forbearance and strikes back
- **Arc:** redemption
- **Contrasting:** Jackals: the press barred that day, Letitia James, and the Washington 'small group'

**Identity Claims:**
- King of the jungle
- 'I know what I am'
- Returns power to 'you, the people'

### State

**Mixed State**

**Trigger:** Narcissistic Injury — Criticism (Press coverage from outlets he barred from the White House the same day (inferred from timing); a revived Letitia James asset-seizure segment)

**Rage:** Intensity 50% targeting Opponents cast as 'jackals': the press barred that day, and Letitia James by name
- Proportionality: 30%

Sentiment: -0.30

### Clinical

**Malignant Narcissism:**
- Narcissistic: 75%
- Antisocial: 30%
- Paranoid: 55%
- Sadism: 45%

**Defense Mechanisms:**
- splitting (immature)
- idealization (immature)
- devaluation (immature)
- rationalization (neurotic)
- acting out (immature)

**Parasocial Techniques:**
- Inaugural lines addressing 'you, the people' place the viewer on the lion's side
- Unity passage ('black, or brown, or white') recruits a broad in-group against the jackals

## Danger Assessment

**ELEVATED**

### Indicators

- Opponents dehumanized as 'jackals'
- Violent payoff: 'tears his **** out of everybody'
- Named target (Letitia James) placed immediately before the escalation
- Same-day media ban gives the retaliation metaphor an institutional form
- No call for followers to act; the lion himself is the actor

**Dehumanizing Language Present**

**Violent Imagery Present**

## Tags

- lion vs jackals (90%)
- Letitia James (70%)
- press retaliation (70%)
- inaugural address reuse (50%)
- grievance revival (60%)

## 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).  [Social media post]. Truth Social. trump.fm. https://trump.fm/post/ts_117294006211890226
- MLA: Trump, Donald J. "" Truth Social, 18 Sep. 2026. trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_117294006211890226. Accessed 23 Oct. 2026.
- Chicago: Donald J. Trump, "," Truth Social, September 18, 2026, archived at trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_117294006211890226.

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