# Post x_987426984195174405 - Post ID: `x_987426984195174405` - Platform: X (Twitter) - Posted: 2018-04-20T20:25:13.000Z (UTC) - Deleted: no - Repost: no - Canonical URL: https://trump.fm/post/x_987426984195174405 - Analysis page: https://trump.fm/post/x_987426984195174405/analysis - Audio narration: https://static.trump.fm/audio/x_987426984195174405.mp3 (a synthesized voice reading the post text, not a recording) ## Post text > Can you believe that despite 93% bad stories from the Fake News Media (should be getting good stories), today we had just about our highest Poll Numbers, including those on Election Day? The American public is wise to the phony an dishonest press. Make America Great Again! ## Engagement - Likes: 131,814 - Reposts: 32,021 - Replies: 0 - Views: unknown - Metrics collected: 2026-01-31T23:43:13.403Z (UTC) # Analysis _Machine-generated by trump.fm on 2026-03-14T20:48:56.810Z (UTC): a model's reading of this post, not his words. Its psychological terms describe the language, not a clinical assessment of him._ ## Summary "Can you believe..." encapsulates Trump's reactive grandiosity template efficiently. Triggered by Comey's book release and sustained negative coverage following the Syria strikes, this post oscillates between victimhood (93% bad stories, unjust persecution) and triumphalism (highest poll numbers, public vindication). The typo confirms authentic authorship. Core defense mechanisms are denial — poll numbers in April 2018 were unremarkable, not historically high — and projection, labeling the press 'phony and dishonest' while making verifiably misleading claims in the same sentence. The 93% figure is real (Harvard Shorenstein Center, 2017) but stripped of context and weaponized as a blanket indictment of all press coverage in April 2018. Paired with same-session posts ranging from rage (Comey/Flynn) to cheerful (Naval Academy commencement), this post illustrates the rapid state-switching characteristic of the subject's documented pattern: wound → rage → grandiose vindication within a single afternoon. No danger indicators. Clinically, the post is a clean specimen of reactive grandiosity — the subject's consistent psychological move of converting criticism into a trophy of persecution-survived, requiring the wound as the foundation for the triumph. # Analysis: April 20, 2018 — "Can you believe that despite 93% bad stories..." ## Authorship Attribution **Confidence: High — Authentic Trump.** The typo "phony *an* dishonest" (missing 'd') is a strong authorship marker; professional aides do not publish typos. The conversational opener "Can you believe that..." is a recurring Trumpian rhetorical device. The mid-sentence parenthetical "(should be getting good stories)" reflects stream-of-consciousness composition. Timing is 4:25 PM EDT (White House, business hours), which is the lone counter-indicator — but Trump's daytime tweeting from the White House is well-documented and does not disqualify authentic authorship. --- ## Context and Trigger This post appears within a dense same-day cluster that includes a rage post about Flynn/Comey, a cheerful Naval Academy announcement, attacks on Pelosi, a rebuke of OPEC, and a counter-offensive on the DNC server. The emotional trigger is multifactorial: Comey's book *A Higher Loyalty* had just been released (April 17), depicting Trump as a mob boss in a "cocoon of alternative reality." Comey's Colbert appearance had extended the media cycle. Syria strikes and the Mueller investigation provided additional pressure. This post is best understood as **reactive grandiosity** — the subject converting the wound of sustained negative coverage into a trophy of persecution survived. --- ## Psychological State and Dynamics The post exemplifies **narcissistic oscillation within a single tweeting session**. The Flynn/Comey post registers the injury in the vulnerable register ("Is that really the way life in America is supposed to work?"). This post converts the same emotional energy into triumphalism. This compression — wound → rage → grandiose vindication, all within an afternoon — is consistent with the subject's documented emotional cycling pattern. **Trigger type:** Narcissistic injury (Comey book, sustained negative coverage, Syria "Mission Accomplished" media reception). **Narcissistic state:** Mixed — the post *requires* the victimhood premise ("93% bad stories") to function. The grandiosity ("just about our highest Poll Numbers") is explicitly reactive and comparative, not free-standing. This is the structural signature of **reactive grandiosity** rather than baseline expansive narcissism. **Rage:** Absent or sublimated. Unlike the Comey-directed posts from this period, this post channels hostility into an abstract target (the "press" broadly) rather than a named individual, and converts it into triumphalism. Emotional temperature is elevated but not rageful. --- ## Defense Mechanisms 1. **Denial (pathological):** Claims "just about our highest Poll Numbers" when April 2018 approval (~41-43% RCP average) was unremarkable. Reality is reshaped to meet inner needs. 2. **Projection (immature):** Labels the press "phony and dishonest" while making verifiably misleading claims about poll performance in the same sentence. 3. **Splitting (immature):** Clean binary — wise American public vs. phony/dishonest press. No gradation, complexity, or acknowledgment of heterogeneity within either category. 4. **Rationalization (neurotic):** The real Harvard 93% statistic is weaponized as a total explanatory frame, stripped of its methodological and temporal specificity, to justify dismissing *all* critical coverage as conspiracy rather than journalism. --- ## Rhetorical Techniques - **Pseudo-statistical authority:** The "93%" figure gives the post an air of empirical grounding while functioning rhetorically as blanket press-delegitimization. - **Parasocial intimacy:** "Can you believe..." recruits the reader as a co-aggrieved party. - **In-group flattery:** "The American public is wise" validates the audience for sharing the speaker's worldview, cementing tribal identity. - **Hedged superlative:** "just about our highest" provides a grandiose claim with built-in deniability. - **Slogan-as-punctuation:** MAGA appended as an emotional seal, converting a defensive post into a group identity affirmation. - **Epistemic closure construction:** By establishing the press as categorically "phony," only Trump-selected metrics (his characterization of poll numbers) remain available as legitimate truth signals for in-group members. --- ## Fact Verification | Claim | Verdict | Evidence | |-------|---------|----------| | "93% bad stories from the Fake News Media" | **Half True** | The Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center study (May 2017) measured 93% negative tone in coverage of Trump's first 100 days across major outlets. The number is real but: (1) the study's scope was the first 100 days of 2017, not ongoing coverage in April 2018; (2) the methodology measured tone not accuracy; (3) the researchers expressed concern their work was being misused. Applied as a blanket indictment of all press coverage in April 2018, the claim extrapolates beyond the data. | | "just about our highest Poll Numbers, including those on Election Day" | **Mostly False** | In April 2018, Trump's RealClearPolitics approval average was approximately 41-43%. On Election Day 2016, exit polls showed approximately 38% favorable/60% unfavorable. While April 2018 technically beats some Election Day measures using selected pollsters, 'just about our highest' is not supportable across mainstream aggregates and requires cherry-picking to defend. His post-tax-cut numbers in late 2017 were comparable. | Overall Veracity: 35% ## Gaslighting and Reality Distortion The post deploys two distinct gaslighting moves: 1. **Categorical press delegitimization** — framing all critical coverage as "phony and dishonest" preemptively, requiring no specific refutation. Any critical story is, by construction, fake. 2. **Misleading poll characterization** — presenting unremarkable approval figures as historically high, requiring the audience to accept a false empirical premise as a loyalty/membership signal. --- ## Narrative Identity (McAdams Level 3) - **Protagonist role:** Vindicated underdog persecuted by a corrupt press establishment, validated by the real American people. - **Narrative sequence:** Redemption — persecution (93% bad stories) → triumph (highest poll numbers). - **Contrasting other:** "The Fake News Media" as diffuse, powerful, and ultimately impotent villain. - **Identity claims:** "I succeed despite unfair treatment"; "I am aligned with real Americans against the establishment." --- ## Archetypal Analysis Primary archetype: **Warrior/Victim hybrid.** The subject positions himself as under siege (victim) but ultimately victorious (warrior). Secondary: **Order Attacker** — the press is framed as a corrupt institution whose authority must be dismantled in the public mind. The Trickster element is muted here; this is more earnestly combative than playfully disruptive. --- ## Cognitive Status Within established baseline. The typo is a production artifact of rapid unedited composition, not a language production deficit. Syntax is simple and paratactic but coherent and goal-directed. No tangentiality, confabulation, or temporal confusion. No deviation from baseline warrants notation. --- ## Danger Assessment **None.** No dehumanizing language, violent imagery, stochastic terrorism indicators, or eliminationist rhetoric. Standard press-delegitimization within the documented pattern. ## Authorship Analysis **Self-Written** (score: 82%) ### Indicators - Typo 'phony an dishonest' (missing 'd') — signature unedited composition error - Conversational opener 'Can you believe that...' — recurring authentic Trump rhetorical device - Mid-sentence parenthetical aside '(should be getting good stories)' — stream-of-consciousness composition - 4:25 PM EDT timing is business hours but Trump is known to tweet personally during White House afternoons - MAGA slogan appended as emotional punctuation — authentic closing pattern ## Psychological Profile ### State **Mixed State** **Trigger:** Narcissistic Injury — Criticism (Comey book release and sustained negative media coverage following Syria strikes and ongoing Mueller investigation) Sentiment: +0.20 ### Clinical **Malignant Narcissism:** - Narcissistic: 72% - Antisocial: 30% - Paranoid: 45% - Sadism: 10% **Defense Mechanisms:** - denial (pathological) - projection (immature) - splitting (immature) - rationalization (neurotic) **Cognitive Complexity:** - Complexity: 28% **Parasocial Techniques:** - 'Can you believe...' recruits reader into shared outrage as co-conspirator - Flattery of in-group ('The American public is wise') to cement tribal belonging - MAGA slogan as rallying cry converting defensive post into group identity affirmation ## Danger Assessment **NONE** ### Gaslighting - Attacks on others' perception: labeling all critical coverage 'fake' and 'phony' without specific refutation, requiring audience to doubt their own media consumption - Reality distortion: asserting historically high poll numbers when data does not support the claim - Epistemic closure construction: positioning the press as categorically untrustworthy so only Trump-approved metrics remain legitimate ## Fact Checks (2) _The model's verdicts from 2026-03-14._ > 93% bad stories from the Fake News Media **HALF TRUE** The Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center study (May 2017) measured 93% negative tone in coverage of Trump's first 100 days across major outlets. The number is real but: (1) the study's scope was the first 100 days of 2017, not ongoing coverage in April 2018; (2) the methodology measured tone not accuracy; (3) the researchers expressed concern their work was being misused. Applied as a blanket indictment of all press coverage in April 2018, the claim extrapolates beyond the data. Sources: Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center, 'News Coverage of Donald Trump's First 100 Days,' May 2017 > just about our highest Poll Numbers, including those on Election Day **MOSTLY FALSE** In April 2018, Trump's RealClearPolitics approval average was approximately 41-43%. On Election Day 2016, exit polls showed approximately 38% favorable/60% unfavorable. While April 2018 technically beats some Election Day measures using selected pollsters, 'just about our highest' is not supportable across mainstream aggregates and requires cherry-picking to defend. His post-tax-cut numbers in late 2017 were comparable. Sources: RealClearPolitics approval average tracker, April 2018 Overall Veracity: 35% ## Tags - media-delegitimization (95%) - reactive-grandiosity (88%) - poll-claim-misleading (82%) - fake-news-framing (90%) - supply-seeking (75%) - narcissistic-oscillation (72%) - pseudo-statistics (85%) - authentic-trump (82%) - maga-slogan (70%) - epistemic-closure (80%) ## That day _From trump.fm's machine-generated digest of the day, not his words._ **Delete, Repost, Repeat: Triple-Posted DNC Lawsuit Response Exposes a Day of Narcissistic Oscillation Under Compound Legal Threats** Trump's day was dominated by legal anxieties — first the Comey memos released the night before, then a new DNC lawsuit against his campaign. He posted the same combative response to the lawsuit three times across the day, correcting a name error on the third attempt, which stood out as an unusual sign of fixation. In between, he tried to project normalcy with announcements about a Naval Academy speech, tax cuts, OPEC, and North Korea diplomacy, but the legal grievances kept pulling him back. The mood swung rapidly between defiance and victimhood, with a brief flash of anger in an early-morning post casting Michael Flynn as a martyr and Comey as the real villain. Full digest for 2018-04-20: https://trump.fm/date/2018-04-20/analysis ## Citation - APA: Trump, D. J. (2018, April 20). Can you believe that despite 93% bad stories from... [Social media post]. X (Twitter). trump.fm. https://trump.fm/post/x_987426984195174405 - MLA: Trump, Donald J. "Can you believe that despite 93% bad stories from the Fake..." X (Twitter), 20 Apr. 2018. trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/x_987426984195174405. Accessed 10 Oct. 2026. - Chicago: Donald J. 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