What’s really pushed Donald Trump over the edge this past week

| 12:01 pm EDT October 21, 2021
Dear Palmer Report readers, we all understand the difficult era we're heading into. Major media outlets are caving to Trump already. Even the internet itself and publishing platforms may be at risk. But Palmer Report is nonetheless going to lead the fight. We're funding our 2025 operating expenses now, so we can keep publishing no matter what happens. I'm asking you to contribute if you can, because the stakes are just so high. You can donate here.

Since Donald Trump got kicked off Twitter and then kicked out of the White House, he’s largely remained in hiding, with very few public appearances – but he’s periodically released short “press releases” that are little more than thinly disguised Twitter-style rants. Here at Palmer Report we ignore most of these glorified tweets, because Trump was banned from social media for a reason. But now something has happened that’s worth noting.

Over the past week Trump has begun putting out more frequent press releases, more over the top in nature, more threat-filled, more insult-filled, and more frantic sounding than ever. Something has clearly triggered him. So what was it?

Let’s take a look at what Trump has been ranting about over the past week or so. He released a statement basically telling his supporters not to vote at all in 2022 and 2024 in protest of the fact that he hasn’t been reinstated. He also released a statement out of nowhere disputing the old “Pee Pee Tape” scandal, which later turned out to be an ahead-of-time response to a Christopher Steele interview that had been taped but hadn’t yet aired.

We all know that the “Pee Pee Tape” thing in particular has always agitated Trump. But is that it? As this week has gone on, he’s released a statement that seemingly called Liz Cheney ugly, and a separate rant about long-forgotten former FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. Trump is now doing all of his greatest hits, in the most histrionic fashion possible. So again, what gives?

On Wednesday night the news broke that the Westchester New York District Attorney is running a criminal investigation into Donald Trump’s finances that’s separate from the existing Manhattan New York District Attorney criminal investigation into Trump’s finances. It’s possible that the newspaper asked Trump for comment for the story a few days before it ran, so he knew it was coming. But is this what has set him off this past week?

Then there’s the criminal contempt referral against Steve Bannon, whose most likely (eventual) outcome will involve Bannon cutting a plea deal with the DOJ in exchange for cooperating against bigger fish in Trump world. Is this what’s set Donald Trump off?

Given the sheer number of things that have gone horribly wrong for Donald Trump in the past week, it’s a safe bet that he’s been so thoroughly triggered by a combination of all the bad news he’s received. Even as the media mostly continues to pretend that Trump is magically “getting away with it all,” even Trump’s own reaction gives away that he knows how overwhelmingly screwed he is – and how much worse things are rapidly getting for him at this point.