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Notes -
Small update, but trump just tweeted that the execution livestream has been cancelled: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/117445309638266855
I guess it wasn't something they were really committed to, and they just threw out the idea in a tweet to test the waters, and took it back after it didn't go so hot. Either that or the logistics of doing the livestream and even coming up with a location to do it is pretty difficult. Since there are no existing areas to do the act, idk if it will be in a hastily constructed facility or they'll just strap in in the downrange area of an existing shooting range.
I think the idea was
Run up the idea as a trial balloon
If it doesn't float, Trump gets to look like he's reining in Mad Dog Hegseth.
Likely, and additional to that, another TACO instance. (Trump Always Chickens Out.) I’d claim my balls are blue but I lost faith with the Iran debacle.
As I recall, TACO was coined by Wall Street traders who predicted Trump would never really do tariffs, which he did do, then used to describe how he would never enforce his red line against Iran and bomb them, which he also did do.
it was more like he would slap a high tariff and then back down , either giving some ultimatum or reducing the duty. The "taco trade" was buying the dip whenever he initially slapped a tariff in anticipation of him backtracking or extending a deadline, which he always did.
Trump wrote an entire book about how when entering a negotiation you should always open with what you see as your maximalist demands and then adjust based on how your counterpart responds.
Yet people such as yourself insist on acting like a man doing exactly what he told you that he was going to do is somehow out of character.
If this is the framework you apply to putative instances of TACO, then a corollary of applying it to the would-be televised execution is that Trump also sees his relationship with the American electorate as an adversarial negotiation.
Trump has executed on more of his campaign promises than basically every other president of the last fifty years. It’s another thing if you don’t like what he’s doing.
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