Trump’s October 16, 2018 Schadenfreude Edition

Edition · October 16, 2018

Trump’s October 16, 2018 Schadenfreude Edition

A day of ugly optics, foreign-policy cave-ins, and campaign-grade cruelty from Trump world, with Saudi Arabia and Elizabeth Warren both getting dragged into the mud.

On October 16, 2018, Trump world managed the rare trick of making both foreign policy and campaign politics look petty and dangerous at the same time. The biggest mess was the White House’s soft, credulous handling of Saudi Arabia as the Jamal Khashoggi crisis deepened, with Trump publicly leaving room for denials that were collapsing in real time. He also used the day to launch a racist little tantrum at Elizabeth Warren over her ancestry claims, turning a bad-faith attack into a fresh round of backlash and embarrassment. It was a day when the administration seemed more interested in protecting friends and trolling enemies than in looking serious, which is usually when the blowback starts.

Closing take

October 16 was not a day of one-off gaffes. It was a small but vivid snapshot of the Trump era: reflexive cruelty on the campaign trail, moral blindness in foreign policy, and a White House that seemed to treat public responsibility like a nuisance. Both stories landed because they fit a larger pattern, and both carried consequences that kept growing after the day itself ended.

Ranked by how bad the fuckup was

5 stars means maximum fallout. 1 star means a smaller self-own.

Story

Trump Gave Saudi Arabia More Room to Lie on Khashoggi

Saudi cover-up Confidence 4/5

★★★★☆Fuckup rating 4/5 Serious fuckup

As the Jamal Khashoggi crisis deepened, Trump kept signaling that he wanted to preserve the U.S.-Saudi relationship more than pressure Riyadh for a clean accounting. On October 16, he said Saudi leaders had totally denied knowledge of Khashoggi’s fate, a line that helped buy the kingdom time while evidence and global outrage kept building. The optics were awful: a president publicly softening the ground for a government under suspicion in a brutal disappearance of a U.S.-based columnist.

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Story

Trump Turned the Warren Ancestry Fight Into a Fresh Self-Own

Racist swipe Confidence 5/5

★★☆☆☆Fuckup rating 2/5 Noticeable stumble

Trump spent October 16 going after Elizabeth Warren with the kind of racialized mockery that reliably turns a political argument into a credibility problem for him. He called her a fraud, repeated the old “Pocahontas” insult, and celebrated a Cherokee Nation response that did not actually vindicate his larger claim. The result was less a takedown than another reminder that he defaults to cheap shots when he wants to look tough.

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