ARRIVALS: What kinds of troops came over the walls?

SATURDAY, JULY 5, 2025

Trump and Noem declaim: Speaking live and direct from Des Moines, President Trump decided to issue another one of his "Truths."

He was speaking at his July 3 "Salute to America" rally event, The next day, back in Washington, he was going to sign the mega-bill, which had now been passed by the Senate and the House.

Lee Greenwood sang the president onstage at the Des Moines event. For the record, this is the official way the event was being billed:

America 250
A New Era of American Greatness
July 3 Kick-Off Celebration

Lee Greenwood sang the president onstage at the start of this new era of American greatness. "There ain't no doubt I love this land," he sang as the president watched.

(For C-Span's videotape of the whole event, you can just click here.)

We don't question Greenwood's sincerity—but then, the president started to speak. He spoke for an hour and ten minutes—but quickly, at the nine-minute mark, he voiced an important theme.

He praised the bill he was going to sign the next day. And then, sure enough, he said this:

PRESIDENT TRUMP (7/3/25): I got to tell you—I want to thank Republican congressmen and -women because what they did is incredible last night. And the Senate—the Republican Senate. We got not— 

With all the things we did—with the tax cuts, rebuilding our military—not one Democrat voted for us. And I think we use it in the campaign that’s coming up, the midterms. Because we’ve gotta beat them. 

But all of the things we’ve given, and they wouldn’t vote only because they hate Trump. But I hate them too. You know that?

[Cheers] 

I really do. I hate them. I cannot stand them because I really believe they hate our country.

(To view the videotape of these remarks, click here for the report in Mediaite. For C-Span's videotape of the whole event, you can just click this.)

President Trump hates the Democrats! And the reason why he hates the Democrats is because they hate our country!

Who was the president talking about when he made those remarkable statements? 

Was he talking about Democratic senators and representatives—Democratic Party office holders? Or was he speaking of the tens of millions of citizens who are registered as Democrats and who vote for Democratic candidates? 

The president spoke in a sweeping manner. Even as the audience cheered, there was no way to know exactly what he meant.

Lee Greenwood loves the United States—but as we start this era of American greatness, the sitting president may hate roughly half the country's adults. Or so it seemed, this Thursday night, at the Iowa State Fairgrounds on the east side of Des Moines.

In the past week, we've been looking for ways to describe who or what came over the walls when the latest arrival occurred—when Candidate Trump descended the escalator, touching off the ongoing MAGA movement.

One of the things which came over the walls was this free-floating anger and hatred. As we've noted again this week, the same hatred was present at the dawn of the west when the rage-fueled Achaeans came over the walls and took down sacred Troy.

We'd trace that part of the current arrival straight back to the Iliad. For a second part of the current arrival, we'd think instead of the portrait which was comedically presented in the feature film, Men in Black.

Comedically, that film advanced the notion that very strange extraterrestrial beings may be living in secret among us. We remind you of the comical framework as we remind you of Secretary Noem's recent appearance with the Fox News Channel's ludicrous Jesse Watters.

We remind you here of what was said. This too came over the walls as part of the current arrival:

SECRETARY NOEM (6/27/25): Listen, Jesse, you calling these guys "bad hombres"—they really are. I was talking to a U.S. Marshall just yesterday, and he was talking about the fact that they were deporting a planeload of illegals and one of them was a cannibal.

And he kind of said it off-handed, and I said to him, 'What do you—what do you mean, it was a cannibal?" And he said, "Well we put him on the plane, put him in his seat, and he started to eat his own arms, he was such a deranged individual."

This is the kind of people that President Trump is getting off of our streets—people who are murderers and rapists and, and are deranged individuals, that we are working to get out of the country as fast as possible.

[...]

WATTERS: Secretary, was this bad hombre handcuffed to something, and he was trying to chew his arm off so he could escape? Or was he just hungry?

SECRETARY NOEM: No, what bothered me the most was that this U.S. Marshal just said it like it was normal. These are the kinds of people they have to work with every single day when they're deporting people out of this country.

So they had him—put him on the plane and had him in shackles for the flight because he was such a dangerous individual. When he got back to his seat, and put another individual in the seat close to him, he said he was literally eating his own arms—that, for him, that is what he did. He called himself a cannibal, ate other people, and ate himself that day.

That too is part of the current arrival. For a fuller report on this strange event, click here for Wednesday's report.

Are very strange beings hiding among us, as Men in Black imagined? In this case, Secretary Noem showed no sign of understanding how improbable this highly improbable story was surely going to seem. 

Last Friday night, she told this story on the second most-watched TV show in American "cable news"—and no one said a word about it! This Tuesday, she repeated the story at a major press event, with President Trump at her side. 

This time, her improbable story was briefly flagged by several major news orgs—and then was completely dropped. In such ways, the strange cognition of people like Noem is wed to the fury of President Trump, but also to the insouciance of Blue America's press corps.

Two days ago, out in the heartland, the sitting president rushed to say that he hates something like half the country. Earlier, the sitting Secretary of Homeland Security didn't seem to realize that her improbable story was going to seem very strange.

It's amazing to see the way our major news orgs have failed to report the president's statement about his sweeping hatred. Such expressions of hatred have been almost completely normalized at this late stage in the game.

The president's declaration of hatred has gone almost wholly unreported. So did Noem's extremely peculiar story, which she told, two separate times, without even blinking an eye.

With this pair of presentations, the Iliad marries Men in Black. Completing the rule of three, we ourselves will hereby join these manifestations to the silence of the lambs—to the silence of the finer people in Blue America's mainstream press.

Hatred, peculiar cognition, but also insouciance? For better or worse, all three came over the walls as part of the latest storm.