# Post x_966998215592677376 - Post ID: `x_966998215592677376` - Platform: X (Twitter) - Posted: 2018-02-23T11:28:35.000Z (UTC) - Deleted: no - Repost: no - Canonical URL: https://trump.fm/post/x_966998215592677376 - Analysis page: https://trump.fm/post/x_966998215592677376/analysis - Audio narration: https://static.trump.fm/audio/x_966998215592677376.mp3 (a synthesized voice reading the post text, not a recording) ## Post text > MS-13 gang members are being removed by our Great ICE and Border Patrol Agents by the thousands, but these killers come back in from El Salvador, and through Mexico, like water. El Salvador just takes our money, and Mexico must help MORE with this problem. We need The Wall! ## Engagement - Likes: 125,750 - Reposts: 28,423 - Replies: 0 - Views: unknown - Metrics collected: 2026-01-31T23:43:13.405Z (UTC) # Analysis _Machine-generated by trump.fm on 2026-03-14T01:07:26.637Z (UTC): a model's reading of this post, not his words. Its psychological terms describe the language, not a clinical assessment of him._ ## Summary This post exhibits a clinically notable preemptive displacement pattern: posted the morning after a charged Parkland listening session on gun violence, it pivots abruptly to MS-13 and immigration — terrain where Trump holds maximum audience activation and faces no Republican pressure. The displacement is interpretable as anxiety management in response to Parkland-related reputational threat, consistent with the immature defense mechanism profile documented across Trump's baseline. The "like water" dehumanization metaphor is the most diagnostically salient element. It strips specific gang membership from a broader undifferentiated flow, effectively conflating MS-13 criminality with migration as a category. This rhetorical move — specific criminal label plus fluid dehumanization metaphor — is structurally consistent with eliminationist rhetoric studied in political violence literature, operating below the explicit threshold while generating measurable affective responses. Splitting operates cleanly throughout. The Wall functions as a fetish object — a concrete symbol for the abstract desire to stop the "like water" contamination — which is why factual implausibility is irrelevant to its rhetorical power. The post reflects the grandiose-paranoid narcissistic state consistent with Trump's documented baseline for this issue domain. No cognitive deviation from baseline is detected. Danger level is elevated due to dehumanization and target-grievance-urgency structure, but falls below the stochastic terrorism threshold. ## Psychological Analysis: February 23, 2018 — MS-13 / Wall Post ### Authorship Attribution UTC 11:28:35 on February 23, 2018 converts to **6:28 AM EST**. Trump was in the National Harbor / Washington D.C. corridor for CPAC (February 21–24), operating in Eastern Standard Time. A 6:28 AM post falls squarely within his documented early-morning posting window — the "executive time" block he reportedly used for television consumption and Twitter activity. The prose carries unmistakable Trump stylistic fingerprints: the capitalized epithet ("Great ICE"), the kinetic metaphor ("like water"), the punchy declarative sign-off ("We need The Wall!"), and the semi-coherent cascading grievance structure. No aide would draft "El Salvador just takes our money" — that clipped, personally aggrieved construction is idiosyncratic to Trump's voice. **Confidence: high** for authentic authorship. --- ### Contextual Trigger This post appears on the same morning as a School Safety Roundtable repost and a CNN attack tweet — all three in close succession. This cluster is diagnostically significant: Trump is in the middle of an acute reputational crisis over the Parkland shooting and the gun-control debate. The pivot to MS-13 and immigration represents textbook **displacement**: redirecting attention (his own and his audience's) from the politically costly gun debate to a terrain where his base is maximally activated and where he faces no internal party pressure. The Parkland listening session was the previous day; Rick Gates had just pled guilty in the Mueller probe. Displacement serves the dual function of anxiety reduction and supply-seeking (grievance-based engagement from core supporters). The post functions simultaneously as a **preemptive attack** — shifting the narrative battlefield from gun control to immigration before the gun debate consumes more oxygen. --- ### Level 1: Dispositional Traits (Big Five) - **Extraversion (high):** Forceful, assertive, commanding. Direct address to foreign governments ("Mexico must help MORE"). - **Agreeableness (very low):** Zero concession, accusatory, derogatory labeling ("killers"). - **Conscientiousness (low):** Sweeping causal claims ("like water") with no qualifying complexity; impulsive policy demand. - **Neuroticism (high):** Angry hostility facet prominent; the post vibrates with frustration. "just takes our money" is a small, personally wounded construction. - **Openness (low):** Ideologically rigid; The Wall is presented as singular, obvious, unchallengeable solution. --- ### Level 2: Characteristic Adaptations **Agency motives dominate overwhelmingly.** Power and control: demanding action from sovereign nations ("Mexico must help MORE"), presenting himself as the commanding authority over enforcement ("our Great ICE"). Achievement framing: the claim that removals are happening "by the thousands" is a performance metric Trump is taking credit for. **Schemas revealed:** - *Self*: Effective executive whose enforcement apparatus is working, but frustrated by structural failures outside his jurisdiction. - *Others (in-group)*: "Great ICE and Border Patrol Agents" — idealized, worthy servants of order. - *Others (out-group)*: MS-13 = "killers"; El Salvador = exploitative financial parasite; Mexico = delinquent partner. Classic splitting. - *World*: Fundamentally threatening, porous, requiring physical walls and strong men to contain chaos. --- ### Level 3: Narrative Identity **Protagonist role:** Warrior-King — commanding armies (ICE), issuing ultimatums to foreign states, identifying enemies, demanding physical fortification. **Contamination sequence:** The opening clause begins with success ("being removed… by the thousands") but immediately collapses into contamination ("but these killers come back in… like water"). This is a structural pattern: victories are always incomplete because enemies are inexhaustible. This sustains perpetual grievance and perpetual need for Trump as fighter. **Identity claims:** Protector of Americans from foreign predators; champion of law enforcement; dealmaker who will force compliance from El Salvador and Mexico. **Contrasting other:** MS-13 gang members — but notably the dehumanizing construction ("come back in… like water") bleeds the gang-specific label into a more diffuse immigration anxiety, conflating gang criminality with migration as a category. **Redemption sequence implied:** The Wall as solution — once built, the contamination sequence reverses. This is the standard structural logic of his immigration narrative. --- ### Level 4: Clinical Indicators #### Malignant Narcissism Components (Kernberg) - **Narcissistic features:** Grandiosity in owning enforcement success ("our Great ICE"); entitlement in demanding compliance from sovereign nations; no empathy toward migrant populations. - **Antisocial features:** Contempt for the complexity of immigration law; disregard for due process in the "removed by thousands" framing. - **Paranoid features:** The "like water" metaphor invokes unstoppable infiltration — a paranoid geography in which borders are perpetually violated and enemies are fluid, omnipresent. - **Sadism:** Mild; no direct cruelty, but the labeling of an entire nationality-associated group as "killers" carries dehumanizing pleasure. #### Narcissistic Dynamics **Trigger type:** Primarily preemptive attack (shifting battlefield from gun control to immigration before gun debate consumes more narrative space). Secondary: supply-seeking from base. **Narcissistic state:** Grandiose-dominant with paranoid undercurrent. The post is not vulnerable/wounded in tone — it is commanding and expansive — but the "like water" imagery reveals a paranoid substrate about uncontrollable penetration. **Rage:** Present at low-moderate intensity. Not explosive; more the cold, contemptuous register. Target: El Salvador, Mexico, implicitly permissive immigration system. #### Defense Mechanisms 1. **Displacement (immature):** Primary mechanism. Gun control crisis → immigration/MS-13. Textbook anxiety redirection. 2. **Splitting (immature):** "Great ICE and Border Patrol Agents" vs. "these killers." Clean moral binary with no gradient. 3. **Rationalization (neurotic):** The Wall as comprehensive solution reduces a complex transnational criminal ecosystem to a solvable engineering problem. 4. **Projection (immature):** Implicit — aggression attributed entirely to MS-13 and Mexico while Trump's own aggressive/domineering posture is framed as defensive necessity. --- ### Rhetorical & Propaganda Techniques - **Dehumanizing language:** "these killers come back in… like water." The water metaphor strips individual personhood — people become an undifferentiated flow, a natural force, pests or liquid. This is structurally parallel to eliminationist rhetoric in other historical contexts (Rwandan "cockroaches" framing operated similarly). - **Metonymy as conflation:** MS-13 (a specific gang) rhetorically substitutes for immigration broadly. This is deliberate conflation design. - **False solution framing:** The Wall is offered as the answer to a transnational gang network that operates via corruption, tunnels, visa overstays, and domestic recruitment. The logical disconnect is obscured by rhetorical momentum. - **Financial grievance weaponization:** "El Salvador just takes our money" — invoking the "America First" schema to frame all foreign aid as victimization. - **Hyperbole:** "by the thousands" — directionally plausible but inflated for emotional effect. - **Firehose model:** This post contributes to a high-volume day (multiple tweets) that collectively overwhelms the news cycle, particularly useful when gun control dominates coverage. - **Violent imagery:** "killers," back "like water" — visceral threat construction. --- ### Danger Assessment **Level: Elevated** The post identifies a specific out-group ("MS-13 gang members") but the dehumanizing "like water" metaphor structurally generalizes beyond the named group to the broader migrant population. The target identification + grievance articulation + implied moral urgency ("We need The Wall!") meets the lower threshold of stochastic terrorism patterning: it does not explicitly call for violence, but it amplifies threat perception about a named population and implicitly frames direct action as necessary. The danger is diffuse rather than targeted — but this type of rhetoric correlates historically with increased hate incidents against Hispanic/Latino populations. --- ### Cognitive Status Language is coherent and fluent. The "like water" simile demonstrates intact metaphorical thinking. Syntactic complexity is at Trump's documented baseline (approximately 4th–6th grade Flesch-Kincaid). No word-finding anomalies, perseveration, or temporal confusion detectable. **No deviation from baseline cognitive functioning** in this post. --- ### Gaslighting / Reality Distortion Minimal in this specific post. "El Salvador just takes our money" is a distortion of a complex bilateral relationship, but it reads more as ideological simplification than deliberate reality manipulation of the audience's own perceptions. **Epistemic closure:** The Wall framing demands that followers accept the premise that a physical barrier solves a transnational criminal network — a claim that contradicts law enforcement expert consensus. However, this is advocacy rather than overt gaslighting. --- ### Fact Verification | Claim | Verdict | Evidence | |-------|---------|----------| | "MS-13 gang members are being removed by ICE and Border Patrol Agents by the thousands" | **Mostly True** | ICE documented significant MS-13 enforcement operations in 2017–2018, with hundreds to low thousands of MS-13-affiliated arrests across those fiscal years. The 'thousands' figure is directionally plausible cumulatively but likely inflated for any short reference window. | | "El Salvador just takes our money" | **Mostly False** | The U.S. provided approximately $68M in foreign assistance to El Salvador in FY2017, but the bilateral relationship includes substantial trade flows, remittances from U.S.-based Salvadorans (which vastly exceed U.S. aid), and active security cooperation including anti-gang programs. 'Just takes our money' erases all reciprocal complexity. | | "MS-13 members come back in from El Salvador through Mexico like water" | **Half True** | Deportee recidivism and return migration is a documented phenomenon; some deported MS-13 members have re-entered the U.S. However, the 'like water' volume implication overstates the scale and ignores that MS-13's U.S. presence is substantially driven by domestic recruitment, not exclusively re-entry. | Overall Veracity: 50% ## Authorship Analysis **Self-Written** (score: 82%) ### Indicators - 6:28 AM EST — classic executive-time early morning post - Capitalized epithet 'Great ICE' — authentic Trump praise-branding pattern - Clipped personal grievance construction: 'El Salvador just takes our money' - Kinetic vernacular metaphor 'like water' — characteristic Trump vivid shorthand - Punchy declarative sign-off: 'We need The Wall!' — branded slogan close ## Psychological Profile ### State **Grandiose State** **Trigger:** Preemptive Attack — Criticism (Parkland gun control debate and Parkland listening session the previous day) **Rage:** Intensity 45% targeting MS-13, El Salvador, Mexico, immigration system - Proportionality: 30% Sentiment: -0.68 ### Clinical **Malignant Narcissism:** - Narcissistic: 65% - Antisocial: 45% - Paranoid: 55% - Sadism: 25% **Defense Mechanisms:** - displacement (immature) - splitting (immature) - rationalization (neurotic) - projection (immature) **Cognitive Complexity:** - Complexity: 100% **Parasocial Techniques:** - Collective ownership framing ('our Great ICE') — audience included as stakeholders - Financial victimhood appeal ('takes our money') — activates shared grievance identity - Threat amplification — 'killers' and 'like water' heighten perceived danger to in-group ## Danger Assessment **ELEVATED** ### Indicators - Dehumanizing 'like water' simile strips personhood from named group and structurally generalizes beyond MS-13 to migration broadly - Target identification (MS-13/migrants) + grievance articulation (they keep returning) + implicit urgency (We need The Wall!) meets lower stochastic terrorism threshold - Metonymic conflation of specific gang criminality with immigration as a category — a rhetorical move that correlates with increased hate incidents against Hispanic/Latino populations - Eliminationist undertone: 'these killers come back in... like water' frames the threat as requiring permanent structural containment **Dehumanizing Language Present** **Violent Imagery Present** ## Fact Checks (3) _The model's verdicts from 2026-03-14._ > MS-13 gang members are being removed by ICE and Border Patrol Agents by the thousands **MOSTLY TRUE** ICE documented significant MS-13 enforcement operations in 2017–2018, with hundreds to low thousands of MS-13-affiliated arrests across those fiscal years. The 'thousands' figure is directionally plausible cumulatively but likely inflated for any short reference window. Sources: ICE FY2017 enforcement statistics; DHS press releases on MS-13 enforcement > El Salvador just takes our money **MOSTLY FALSE** The U.S. provided approximately $68M in foreign assistance to El Salvador in FY2017, but the bilateral relationship includes substantial trade flows, remittances from U.S.-based Salvadorans (which vastly exceed U.S. aid), and active security cooperation including anti-gang programs. 'Just takes our money' erases all reciprocal complexity. Sources: USAID foreign assistance data FY2017; U.S.-El Salvador bilateral relations overview > MS-13 members come back in from El Salvador through Mexico like water **HALF TRUE** Deportee recidivism and return migration is a documented phenomenon; some deported MS-13 members have re-entered the U.S. However, the 'like water' volume implication overstates the scale and ignores that MS-13's U.S. presence is substantially driven by domestic recruitment, not exclusively re-entry. Sources: GAO reports on deportation recidivism; DOJ MS-13 threat assessments Overall Veracity: 50% ## Tags - immigration (90%) - MS-13 (85%) - dehumanization (80%) - The Wall (85%) - displacement (75%) - splitting (70%) - law_enforcement_idealization (65%) - Mexico (60%) - El Salvador (60%) - Parkland_deflection (70%) - grandiose_paranoid (65%) - authentic_trump (82%) ## That day _From trump.fm's machine-generated digest of the day, not his words._ **As His Former Campaign Deputy Flips to Mueller, Trump Retreats Into CPAC Adulation** Trump spent most of the day basking in the friendly reception at CPAC, delivering a long speech and tweeting patriotic highlights, while completely ignoring the biggest story of the day: his former campaign deputy Rick Gates pleading guilty and agreeing to cooperate with the Mueller investigation. The morning opened with a sharp early-hours attack on CNN over its Parkland town hall and a pivot to MS-13 immigration fears, but the rest of the day was strikingly calm and heavily staff-managed. The silence on Gates — not a single mention, dismissal, or "witch hunt" tweet — was arguably the loudest signal of the day, suggesting the legal pressure was significant enough to warrant total avoidance rather than the usual combative deflection. Full digest for 2018-02-23: https://trump.fm/date/2018-02-23/analysis ## Citation - APA: Trump, D. J. (2018, February 23). MS-13 gang members are being removed by our Great... [Social media post]. X (Twitter). trump.fm. https://trump.fm/post/x_966998215592677376 - MLA: Trump, Donald J. "MS-13 gang members are being removed by our Great ICE and..." X (Twitter), 23 Feb. 2018. trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/x_966998215592677376. Accessed 9 Oct. 2026. - Chicago: Donald J. Trump, "MS-13 gang members are being removed by our Great ICE and...," X (Twitter), February 23, 2018, archived at trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/x_966998215592677376. ## 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/x_966998215592677376 - Analysis as JSON: https://trump.fm/api/analysis/x_966998215592677376 - All citation formats: https://trump.fm/api/cite/x_966998215592677376 - Same day: https://trump.fm/date/2018-02-23 - The record alone, without the analysis: https://trump.fm/post/x_966998215592677376.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`._