Lawrence: Today Trump said, 'I don't want to be stupid.' Too late, Donald. Too late.

[0:00] Well, Donald Trump is now just 27 days away from completing the 80th year of his life. [0:08] And on this, the 338th day of Donald Trump's 80th year, he finally said, [0:20] I don't want to be stupid. [0:24] Too late, Donald. Too late. [0:28] The time to not want to be stupid is not when you are president of the United States. [0:33] The time to not want to be stupid is when you are in elementary school or at the very latest, high school. [0:41] And the solution to the problem of possibly being stupid is to do your homework, something Donald Trump has never done. [0:53] Donald Trump's ghostwritten first book tells stories of his life growing up as a spoiled, rich kid. [1:00] And in his school years, there is nothing about pulling all-nighters as final exams approach. [1:09] There is nothing about academic excellence or academic striving, [1:13] because Donald Trump was still sane enough to know in 1987, when the book was published, [1:21] that if he claimed to graduate from college summa cum laude, that kind of lie would be easily caught and exposed. [1:28] There is a story proudly told in that book of Donald Trump punching one of his teachers in elementary school, [1:40] which is a very strong indicator of being very, very stupid. [1:46] Because it's Donald Trump telling the story about him punching a teacher. [1:51] There's no reason to believe it, because Donald Trump lies about everything and he always has. [1:55] But either way, actually punching a teacher in elementary school or inventing a story about punching your teacher in elementary school is a mark of grotesque stupidity. [2:08] We in the news media are now struggling to keep up with two constantly expanding stories about Donald Trump, [2:16] the corruption and the stupidity. [2:18] And it has been impossible to really keep up with both of those stories, [2:23] because they are each so enormous and always expanding. [2:26] There is a new facet of Trump corruption and Trump stupidity revealed every day. [2:32] But at the same time, not all of the corruption is visible. [2:37] And not all of the stupidity is visible. [2:39] And some items in both categories just aren't big enough to make it into our coverage of the day. [2:45] One small example of stupidity that you will probably hear nothing about anywhere else [2:51] is the 90-day extension of the breathtakingly stupid waiver of the Jones Act that begins today. [3:00] The extension begins today, making Donald Trump's waiver of the Jones Act [3:05] the longest waiver in the history of that obscure law. [3:09] The Jones Act requires that all cargo shipping between harbors in the United States [3:16] must be carried on American-flagged ships, American crews. [3:21] No foreign-flagged ships are allowed to transport anything from, say, [3:26] New York Harbor to Boston Harbor or any other American port. [3:30] The law is designed to protect the jobs of American maritime workers on ships and working in the ports. [3:37] And Donald Trump has suspended that law because of his war in Iran, [3:44] which a New York Times poll, a New New York Times poll, says 64% of Americans believe was a mistake. [3:51] The poll doesn't use the word stupid mistake, just uses the phrase the wrong decision. [3:58] But surely tens of millions of Americans believe that Donald Trump's war was a stupid mistake by Donald Trump. [4:04] And to compound that stupid mistake, Donald Trump actually thinks that the price of gasoline in America [4:10] can somehow be made cheaper by suspending the Jones Act [4:14] and allowing foreign ships to transport goods and fuel and anything else from one American port to another, [4:22] even though there is absolutely no economic evidence that that could have the slightest effect [4:28] on the price of gasoline anywhere in the country. [4:32] Waivers to the Jones Act are rare and usually targeted at a specific emergency. [4:37] President Biden waived the Jones Act in 2022 to allow a foreign flag tanker, just one, [4:43] to deliver fuel to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Fiona. [4:47] That's a typical use of a limited targeted emergency use of a Jones Act waiver. [4:53] Donald Trump, who claims to be the American president more concerned with American jobs [4:57] than any other president in American history, now faces this objection from the seafarers union [5:02] to his waiver of the Jones Act. [5:05] Quote, America's maritime labor unions are deeply concerned about the administration's broad Jones Act waiver, [5:11] which undermines our national security, weakens military readiness, [5:15] and hands critical maritime work to foreign vessel operators. [5:18] For any other president, waiving the Jones Act for what will now be 150 days [5:25] would be a major story that would provoke emergency congressional hearings [5:29] that would clearly demonstrate the utter pointlessness of such a waiver. [5:33] But for Donald Trump, it's just a tiny entry in a long list of very stupid choices [5:41] and broken promises about his devotion to American workers and American jobs. [5:49] And the New York Times reporting on its poll showing Donald Trump at a new low [5:53] in the New York Times poll of a 37 percent approval. [5:58] Brent Klein Jr., a Republican who voted for Donald Trump in 2020 and 2024, [6:03] told the New York Times, quote, [6:04] he's not doing what he said he was going to do. [6:08] That's my biggest frustration with him. [6:09] Mr. Klein, 43, the owner of a cleaning company who lives in Branson, Missouri, [6:14] described himself as very pissed off with the president's decision to attack around [6:19] without seeking congressional approval. [6:21] I just want my family to live a good, healthy life, he added, [6:25] and to not have to constantly pay more and more for food products and stuff. [6:31] Speaking of history, Donald Trump is the first president in history [6:34] to publicly promise to commit war crimes, which is in and of itself a war crime. [6:39] He did it yesterday on social media saying, quote, [6:43] for Iran, the clock is ticking and they better get moving fast [6:48] or there won't be anything left of them. [6:52] Time is of the essence, exclamation point. [6:54] The world has come to ignore Donald Trump's written threats of war crimes. [6:58] The president of the United States yesterday said there won't be anything left of them. [7:04] That would mean that Donald Trump was planning to kill every child in Iran, [7:10] every baby, every pregnant woman, every person in the country. [7:17] And not one person in the world took Donald Trump seriously when he said that [7:24] because he has said it too many times before, more times than the world can keep track of. [7:30] And the world knows, as the Iranian regime surely knows, [7:34] that Donald Trump wasn't going to do it, [7:38] that it was just another empty threat from Donald Trump. [7:40] And sure enough, today on social media, Donald Trump said that he had decided, quote, [7:45] to hold off our planned military attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran, [7:50] which was scheduled for tomorrow. [7:53] He claimed that the dictators of other countries in the region urged him [7:58] not to commit any war crimes against Iran in the hope of concluding a peace agreement with Iran. [8:04] And Donald Trump said, quote, [8:05] This deal will include, importantly, no nuclear weapons for Iran, exclamation point. [8:11] In other words, it will include exactly what was included in the deal President Obama [8:16] and five other countries negotiated with Iran, [8:19] in which Iran promised not to make nuclear weapons, [8:22] not to pursue nuclear weapons in any way. [8:25] Donald Trump ripped up that deal, negotiated by Secretary of State John Kerry, [8:30] in his first term as president. [8:32] Donald Trump just dropped out of the deal. [8:34] Donald Trump withdrew the United States from an agreement [8:37] in which Iran said in writing, quote, [8:42] Under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop, or acquire any nuclear weapons. [8:49] And now Donald Trump has gone to war to desperately attempt to get Iran [8:54] to put that same sentence in writing again for him. [8:59] And Iran is refusing to do so. [9:02] At 5.37 p.m. today, Donald Trump said, quote, [9:06] We were getting ready to do a very major attack tomorrow. [9:11] I've put it off for a little while, hopefully maybe forever, but possibly for a little while, [9:17] because we've had very big discussions with Iran. [9:20] And we'll see what they amount to. [9:22] I was asked by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, and some others, [9:27] if we could put it off for two or three days, a short period of time, [9:31] because they think that they are getting very close to making a deal. [9:34] And if we can do that, where there's no nuclear weapon going into the hands of Iran, [9:39] I think, and if they're satisfied, we will be probably satisfied also. [9:45] That's the man who said, I don't want to be stupid. [9:50] So there is Donald Trump now saying the negotiations are up to Iran's neighbors. [9:57] And if they're satisfied, then we will be satisfied. [10:00] That's not what President Obama did. [10:02] That's not what John Kerry did. [10:05] Donald Trump has found an even weaker negotiating position with Iran. [10:10] The Iranian regime knows just how opposed to Donald Trump's war the American people are. [10:16] And that came up today in a Trump phone interview with the New York Post. [10:22] The New York Post reports, quote, [10:23] questioned about regional source claims that Iran is attempting to wait out Washington [10:29] on both the nuclear issue and reopening the Strait of Hormuz. [10:33] Trump said he hadn't heard that. [10:35] I'm not hearing anything, he said. [10:37] I can't talk to you about it. [10:39] It's a negotiation. [10:41] I don't want to be stupid. [10:42] There is no reason to believe Donald Trump is planning a major attack on Iran. [10:49] And knowing that the American people are opposed to that. [10:51] How stupid do you have to be to send your Secretary of Defense to Kentucky for a campaign event [10:58] when you want Iran to think that the Defense Secretary is planning the next big attack on Iran? [11:05] And Donald Trump says today, I don't want to be stupid. [11:12] Which is exactly the same as Donald Trump saying with his 80th birthday approaching, [11:17] I don't want to be old.