Yeah, everyone is saying this is him saying he's going to bail, and yeah I agree but I also read more into it. I saw it as a signal to his base that they have "a plan" to retreat and re-strategize or whatever. Why would he just give up and live quietly in Venezuela? If this dude loses, he will make Kamala's life a living hell.
And I bet there are Americans willing to follow him there (good riddance tbh).
He’s been shitting on Maduro, but aren’t his tariffs a large part of why Maduro is in power? IIRC, his tariffs basically allowed Maduro to consolidate money and power.
In 2022, it was reported that Vladimir Putin and his top leadership were developing a backup plan to flee to Venezuela if Russia were defeated in Ukraine.
I love dogs. See it as the one and only positive thing I can say about him. He seems loyal to at least Putin. Who in turn is a dog person himself. Shit, you made me say something good about Putin too. Thanks a lot.
"No, no, Agent! I am Donald...o Trump...ski. Famous Russian real estate guy and international lover of beautiful ladies. You don't need my passport because all your friends know me. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF DONALD TRUMP I'M THE PRESIDENT!"
As I explained earlier today, he was commenting about crime decreasing around the world and, if Kamala were elected, it would be safer to meet the person he was speaking with in Venezuela than in the United States.
"If something happens with this election, which would be a horror show, we'll meet the next time in Venezuela, because it'll be a far safer place to meet than our country," Trump said to Musk.
#"OK, so we'll go. You and I will go, and we'll have a meeting and dinner in Venezuela."
I don't know how you've twisted your brain in a fashion that makes apples look like pencils.
You and the media are misquoting him as saying he is going to flee the country, possibly to avoid criminal prosecution.
He is literally saying it would be safer to have a meeting in another country due to decreased criminal activity and the threat of a Harris presidency.
There's a valid conversation to have around his statement. We could be discussing the crime rates in the US compared to Venezuela and the rest of the world. We could be looking at Harris' record as a prosecutor and her political agenda to this point. We could easily be debunking what he's saying to pile on more evidence that he's a liar. Instead, the public wants to go on and on about something he actually never said or even hinted at.
Moreover, what my concern here is, the public's ability to read comprehensively is deteriorating at a rapid pace. People are disinterested in taking the time to read an article and obtain true facts in preference of engaging with others over their feelings.
Having genuine dialog with others is more about listening than it is interrupting them and spewing your ideas. Everyone's reading a headline and reacting without taking the time to listen to the story, digest its meaning, consider other factors and context, then responding in a meaningful, relevant manner.
I'm personally observing a world that's becoming less interested in having real relationships. People are struggling to interact with others in real life. Ragebait is just one value in a larger more complex experience that's changing our relationships and our reality.
There's a lot of noise in our lives today. Most of it serves as a distraction. It's the constant churning of the "news" and the endless instant streaming of "content" and the pings and buzzing of our devices. If it hasn't already, this noise is becoming an addiction. Without noise, we'd be faced with calmness and focused attention.
Trump is noise. It's noise crated by him and his brand and the media organizations and influencers pining for your attention and engagement. This story is a fabrication. The story about him slurring during the interview is a misleading observation. It's a money maker for content creators because we need noise. Musk saying there was a DDOS attack is a lie and a distraction. It's the noises he's injecting into the zeitgeist to pull our attention away from something else.
We all need to be better at reading comprehension and listening. Take a moment to understand what it is you're commenting on before you just become more noise and a cookie jar for advertisers.
It was in the midst of claiming Venezuela dumped all of its criminals in the US. In Trump’s view Venezuela is safer than the US since America let all the Venezuelan criminals in through that open border.
Yeah, but imagine if it were the 60s and that claim was being made about the USSR, that it's safer than the US because all the criminals were sent to America, so he's going to go to the USSR if he loses.
The Republicans are still stuck in "we hate commies" mode. So this is a very weird thing for Trump to say.
Venezuela is an authoritarian state (for the moment).
Venezuela is thus perfect for Trump.
It all makes more sense when you realize these people don't know what 'communism' or 'socialism' are. It's just an alternative word for 'bad' to them. I once heard a Republican blame companies raising gas prices at the pump on 'socialism'.
Evidently many Lemmy users don’t understand that this a threat, not a promise to leave. Direct quote from Trump:
"If something happens with this election, which would be a horror show, we'll meet the next time in Venezuela, because it'll be a far safer place to meet than our country," Trump said to Musk. "OK, so we'll go. You and I will go, and we'll have a meeting and dinner in Venezuela."
He’s implying the violence that will be unleashed on the US by his followers if he looses will make Venezuela (a country that is currently in revolt because of contested elections) seem safe in comparison to what his people will do here.
This is a classic “mobster” threat against anyone who opposes him that he just threw out.
I remember when the protests and people upset at the 2016 election were somehow ultra violent and murderous even though they never attacked anyone. I also remember when Charlie Kirk claimed that Republicans, unlike democrats, would not lose their shit if they lost. We all know how that went.
You need to remember something about Trump. He IS mobster in the end of the day. When he and his father were getting shit done at the start of his career they had to work with the mafia and build contacts with them. This is also why he was somewhat able to get stuff working in New York construction during the 80s. When he became a pariah the only people who still worked with him are basically criminal types and foreign governments who knew how easy it was to sway him.
That fucking mobster threat is his calling card. I received a trump email that was about voting and at the very bottom it had that sleeping with the fishes quote. Straight up didn't fit at all but they shoe horned it in there to try and scare people into voting for him.
I know he intended this as hyperbole but I 100% would not be surprised if the reason this popped into his head is because he's been making arrangements for exactly this.
If I were him I wouldn't want to hang around in the US after a loss in November. It's all or bust.
What is the protocol for that I wonder, if he is found guilty in the court of law and tries to go into hiding, what does their job tell them they have to do?
Yup, out on bail while he awaits sentencing for the 34 felonies. And more charges are tied up in courts until after the election, but prosecutors have already started proceedings so he’d also be considered a flight risk for those cases.
I'm not American, but my assumption was that the President's role was one for life, in that he will always have a presidential security detail with him, and while he can travel abroad it's probably only to countries with good diplomatic ties with the US.
A former President moving outside of a friendly jurisdiction could be a huge security issue that he couldn't just wave away.
If Trump were to move to Venezuela, for example, I can't imagine that they would support him both living there, potentially interfering as a man of influence, and retaining what is essentially a foreign militia on his grounds.
I'm sure that he could do what he wants by US rules, especially since there's probably no written rule somewhere that a former president can't just move abroad to retire, but what countries would afford him that kind of freedom, knowing that he supported a coup in his own country?
I hate Trump, but this framing is disingenuous. In the context of what he was saying, he was trying to make "a point" about South American countries sending criminals to the USA. He was claiming that if he doesn't win the election, it would be safer to have their next conversation in Venezuela because there would be no crime there as they'd have sent all criminals to USA.
So, you know, just more of his really stupid bullshit, but he wasn't really saying he would flee to Venezuela. For one, that would require him to believe he had done something wrong or to admit some kind of defeat, two things that I firmly believe he is incapable of doing.
Also every American country (North and South) have international extradition laws, aka they would ship his criminal ass back to prison where he belongs)
In the context of what he was talking about, it seemed like that was his weird way of trying to make Venezuela sound like a better place than what America would be under Kamala Harris. Best thing you can do really is just completely ignore this guy because he thrives on attention, negative or positive.
This is slightly at odds with many Republican legislators because many people fleeing Venezuela are firmly on the right. When DeSantis did his whole transporting Texas asylum seekers, one of the main issues was that money for that was not to be used for people fleeing Venezuela.
Imagine if the Project 2025 plans to question the results and bring it to the corrupt supreme court all failed because Trump impulsively fled? Would be hilarious
Yeah, there's no way. However, if he said if he wins he knows Kamala is going to flee the country, I would 100% bet everything I own he's taking off. Projection is real.
Can we all chop in for a ticket to send him now, save him the trouble of trying to come up with nicknames for Harris and Walz that they don't turn into positives? Like "Tampon Tim" ...."He's going to stop the red wave!" Which is how Trump ended up building Walz.
He can since he was convicted in New York and is registered to vote in Florida, Florida will follow NY's guidelines and permit him to vote. If he was convicted by a Florida court he would be ineligible to vote there, but I guarantee that DeSantis would have pardoned him to fix that.