Thursday, December 18, 2025

Following Up

ROBERTS: If you cut something by 100%, the cost goes down to 0. If you cut it by 600%, the drug companies are actually paying you to take their product. So it raises the question -- how much of last night's speech was hyperbole?

LUTNICK: No. What he's saying is if a drug was $100 and you bring the drug down to $13, if you're looking at it from $13, it's down 7 times

ROBERTS: It's not a 600% cut

LUTNICK: But it's 700% higher price before. It's down 700% now. So $13 would have to go up 700% to get back to the old one. So it all depends on when you look at it.
My late father, the CPA, liked to explain the difference between a bookkeeper and an accountant. The bookkeeper says “2+2=4.” The accountant says: “What do you want it to be?”

Lutnick’s explanation of how percentages are calculated is not what my father was talking about. Mostly because Lutnick’s explanation is innumerate. He knows that, but Dear Leader cannot be failed. (And a decrease from $100 to $13 is a decrease of 87%, not 700%, as Lutnick’s implies.) As Sen. Kelly said, it’s 6th grade math.
I know, I repeat myself. But various stories about this still abound, and that makes it hard to wrap your head around it.

First, never take Trump at his word. He said he was giving out money, so immediately some said he couldn’t, Congress has to allocate government funds. (And wouldn’t it be just like him to spend money without authority? Well, it would be like him to say he did. Remember where we started.) That led to the revelation he was reallocating already allocated money (if not one, the other, right? Still violating the rule we started with.) Nope; not the answer, either.

Congress allocated the money, as a supplement to the housing allowance. Some of it has already been disbursed.

Trump has done nothing but SAY he’s giving out free money. He even made up the amount. Who’s actually going to check? By then, who will care? Trump got what he wanted: for everyone to take him at his word.

That’s some catch, that Catch-22.
The Kennedy Center was named after my uncle, President John F Kennedy. It was named in his honor. He was a man who was interested in the arts, interested in culture, interested in education, language, history. He brought the arts into the White House, and he and my Aunt Jackie amplified the arts, celebrated the arts, stood up for the arts and artists.

It is beyond comprehension that this sitting president has sought to rename this great memorial dedicated to President Kennedy. It is beyond wild that he would think adding his name in front of President Kennedy’s name is acceptable. It is not.

Next thing perhaps he will want to rename JFK Airport, rename the Lincoln Memorial, the Trump Lincoln Memorial. The Trump Jefferson Memorial. The Trump Smithsonian. The list goes on.

Can we not see what is happening here? C’mon, my fellow Americans! Wake up! This is not dignified. This is not funny. This is way beneath the stature of the job. It’s downright weird. It’s obsessive in a weird way. Just when you think somone can’t stoop any lower, down they go…
There literally is no bottom. And again, you take him at his word. How can you not? True. But even saying “Trump is not a king,” makes him the king. The king of attention, but that’s all he wants. As long as you’re talking about what he just said, he controls the narrative. Of course Trump can’t change the name of the Kennedy Center, any more than he can change the name of the DOD or the Gulf of Mexico. Who even cares about that last one, now? Stop taking Trump at his word. Or his EO’s. Yes, he can do damage; or try to. But it really should go without saying (again and again and again) that he is not a king.

What he is, is a demented old man, probably showing the early signs of Alzheimer’s (his father died from it). There is a theory abroad that his right hand is the site of infusions of a drug to treat the condition (swelling, the bandage, etc.). The MRI’s are a necessary diagnostic tool for the drug, too. And behavior and sleepiness line up with side effects. What’s certain, is that he is not stable or rational. He should be relieved of the office by the 25th, but that would require action by Trump, or Vance and a majority of the Cabinet. And even if that happened, the issue could go to Congress to decide if Trump stays sidelined, or not. It would take a tremendous effort by Congress to keep Trump out of office, and that’s not a vote-getter for re-election. Nor does it address the problems the country wants addressed. So let’s give the people what we want: more political drama for Twitter and TeeVee and the few blogs that won’t die.(Hello! 👋) 

Yeah; not a good idea.So forget the 25th. I don’t think Trump will be removed from office short of starting a war without authority. Anything short of that (because if Congress allows that precedent, they might as well go home and save us the cost of their salaries), it’s better to override his vetoes and work for the people for Trump’s last two years.

Politics is not a game of revenge. (Trump exemplifies that.) Nor is justice, vengeance. Succeeding at politics, in governance at least, is the best revenge. But governing is not about revenge, either. Not if you’re doing it right.
That’s his story, and he’s stickin’ to it.
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