"The Hardest Thing To See Is What's Right In Front Of Your Nose"

Trump floods social media with 'explicit' and 'vengeful' memes after new indictment https://t.co/6oRrYeKlxe

— Raw Story (@RawStory) August 28, 2024

 Finally, an image Hillyard showed is a photo of when former President Barack Obama welcomed Trump to the White House after winning the 2016 election. The meme text claims: "All roads lead to Obama. Retruth if you want public military tribunals."

"This is Donald Trump in the last two hours," Hillyard explained.

But [Katy] Tur questioned whether it was real or possibly part of a different effort.

"It doesn't seem like these are posted by real people," she suggested. "The handles with the emojis on them and the quality of these AI images make you wonder if it's an individual somewhere posting this and creating this stuff on their own or done by a bot or some other agency that wants to influence things. Put that aside, this is the former president reposting images of his opponents—political opponents—in prison, big business leaders like Bill Gates."

Hillyard explained that none of this is new and that last month, Trump even suggested a military tribunal for former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY).

"We're two months out from an election, and for anybody to suggest retribution is not on Donald Trump's mind, go to his social media account because this is where he has direct control over what he can post and repost," he suggested.

Trump's allegations include "election interference," he says is happening at the hands of Google and the grand jury indictment. He also alleges the gag order ahead of his sentencing in the Manhattan trial is also part of that ongoing conspiracy against him.

I guess if it's not in the pages of the NYT, it's not real, Katy?

(Granted, the question could be rhetorical for the sake of letting Hillyard explain.  But what Hillyard is telling her is apparently "news."  Except, as he explained to Tur, "none of this is new," and some of the language comes straight from Trump (the horse's....mouth.) So....) 

And that's the mild stuff:

Trump reposted a vile attack on Kamala Harris today on Truth Social that said she used oral sex to advance her political career. Does any establishment media care to cover this stuff, or just focus on horserace issues, media access & debate rule minutiae? https://t.co/dDM56IpX9u

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) August 28, 2024

I can understand not "data muling" such things. But to be stone ignorant about them?  As Josh said:

Funny thing about stuff like this is that across the political spectrum anyone other than Donald Trump talking like this would be assumed to be mentally ill. pic.twitter.com/5deF2XZvUR

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) August 28, 2024

Funny, indeed.