There could be something of value to an old tanker, but it wasn’t oil:Hannity: Did Vladimir Putin call you after the tanker was seized?
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 9, 2026
Trump: I don't want to say that but the fact is that the Russian ships -- there was a submarine and a destroyer, they both left very quickly when we arrived and we took over the ship and the oil is being unloaded… pic.twitter.com/ryreL8joy8
Despite not carrying any oil, the 300-metre-long ship is clearly of value. Theories for why range from speculation that high-value Russian weapons are hidden in the hull, to the ship’s potential to become a symbolic trophy in a transatlantic power struggle between Washington and Moscow.Trump simply can’t think straight:
The aging, rusting tanker, originally called the Bella 1, was sanctioned by the US in 2024 for operating within a “shadow fleet” of tankers transporting illicit Iranian oil.The Marinera was captured in the North Atlantic, roughly south of Iceland. It couldn’t possibly be in a U.S. port unloading oil by the next day, if it had oil to unload.
Last month the US Coast Guard attempted to seize the vessel while it was heading to Venezuela to pick up oil, then operating under the flag of Guyana. But the ship’s crew refused to be boarded and made an abrupt turn into the Atlantic.
...
The vessel was not carrying any oil when it was seized, according to analytics firm Kpler.
That’s in contrast with the Skipper and the Centuries, the other two tankers successfully intercepted by the Coast Guard in recent weeks as part of Washington’s pressure campaign on Venezuela. The US piloted both to Texas and is planning to seize their oil cargoes.
Trump is an unreliable narrator. He has no grasp of reality whatsoever.
I wonder but doubt it could be tested if people who led a lifetime of lying and being unattached to truth or reality are more prone to developing dementia. I remember listening on the CBC to a report about an order of nuns who had all donated their brains to be studied in a study of dementia. They said that those who tended to keep their minds busy tended to not develop plaques that they believed led to dementia, maybe they could study the brains of well known liars to see if they developed those at a higher than average rate. I recall they said one of the nuns who had extensive plaques in her brain never developed symptoms of dementia but they said she practiced a very full life of study and writing well into her last years and they thought that might have overcome those. Of course that was a couple of decades ago so who knows what they've decided temporarily since then.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Trump could help being demented even with the healthiest brain in the world because he's lived a lifetime of lying. Do that long enough and you become entirely untethered from what's real.