President Donald Trump issued a foreboding proclamation during a speech in Maryland on Tuesday, just hours after he predicted a “Midterm Surprise!” in a Truth Social post.

“Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vought, who’s fantastic, he’s on a job, we have some big surprises coming up in another few weeks. Right, Russ?” Trump said. “He’s gonna be one of the very important people in the history of our country, in my opinion. He’s got some great things happening.”

Trump did not expand on what these so-called “surprises” would be.

Outside his role in the Trump administration, Vought is the primary architect of Project 2025, the conservative Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a second Trump term.

While not mentioned specifically by Trump, many critics online speculated that Trump was referring to some sort of plan to interfere in the midterm elections.

“Between this and his ‘midterm surprise,’ the time to prepare for him to try to steal an election is now,” Fox News host Jessica Tarlov wrote on X.

Other commenters suggested that Vought could use his official capacity to interfere with the elections.

"I know nothing about Project 2025"

-Trump, 2024

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[–] 100 points 1 month ago (10 children)

I like how Trump can’t help but preemptively throw his sycophants under the bus just in case things go wrong and someone has to be held accountable

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  • [–] 60 points 1 month ago (8 children)

    Or, he will follow through on Project 2025 and nullify the election.

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  • [–] 24 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    This is what he will try to do, but we can't allow Schmuck & Jeffries to just accept it with stern rebuke. We have to SLAM every Representative ad Senator with intense pressure to fight back. Their phones should be ringing non-stop, their email inbox should be full, and they shouldn't be able to go ANYWHERE without citizens demanding action.

    If they still won't defend our Democracy, if they just let MAGA walk away with it, then they become as much the enemy as MAGA. The only way they'll act is if they are afraid of us, so we'll need to be extremely aggressive, and it will get ugly.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    Your solution to attempts to illegally coup the nation is phone calls to the side doing it to demand they support you instead?

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  • [–] 10 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Everyone knows that if your bpd violent ex is in the middle of setting your car and house on fire you resolve it by waiting patiently for cuffing season to begin again and then text them cordially to ask them to work with you so this behavior can cease and turn into something more productive.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    This is the inherit problem with democracy, or at least the American implementation of it.

    If the government "goes rogue" and starts ignoring the pleas and will of the people, it can no longer be fixed within the system itself.

    If the only solution is to work outside the system, then what is the point of democracy in the first place?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago*

    The Constitution has been overridden by the majority party in Congress that has ABDICATED ITS POWERS and relegated them to the executive.

    Stop and think about this for a second.

    Trump and his coup NEED the stolen election to be legitimized by Congress, full stop, or it just doesn't work. The failure to legitimize is what stopped J6.

    Addressing the minority Congressional leaders as well as doing all the other things we are already doing is exactly what needs to happen.

    At no point did Barney say that was the only thing, everywhere and ever, that any concerned American should ever think about doing.

    You brought that.

    For myself, I have nothing but contempt for those who clearly have no idea how much all the individual efforts of all sizes by so many Americans to push back has slowed Trump's roll.

    But you'd never concede that. You're here to shit on anyone who suggests anything other than a magical solution, as though the actual Americans among us have not heard this a billion times through the firehose of propaganda that has been aimed directly at us since 2015.

    If you had any interest at all in preventing a coup, you'd have written a dramatically different comment. But us actual living Americans who genuinely want this fascism to stop have many things we can each do to put pressure against EVERY PART of this oncoming coup -- including the legislators who will be required to legitimize the outcome should all other efforts fail.

    Your solution to attempts to illegally coup the nation is phone calls to the side doing it to demand they support you instead?

    And your solution is to be a part of the problem, quietly undermining anyone who suggests anything useful and helpful even as you display your own ignorance of how an American coup MUST work to be successful in the end.

    For the rest of us, ABSOLUTELY add contacting your federal representatives to your list of to-do items before the midterms, and make sure you are still registered to vote by contacting your local elections office directly, and beware of fake sites that are data hoovers.

    Barney's right. They need to hear us. And they don't . . . yet.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago

    They are criminals who verifiably attempted to steal every election Trumps been involved with. There's a reasonable chance they succeeded, and wouldn't have won any without the various direct and indirect election fraud tactics (that go by other terms but are just as criminal; some are "legal" e.g. gerrymandering).

    There is literally zero chance they don't attempt to steal all future elections. That's what psychopathic criminals do.

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  • [–] 59 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    Surprise everyone! Women can't vote anymore, nor can brown people.

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  • [–] 55 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    A literal coup, seizing voting machines and denying results, arresting Democratic candidates who won their elections. We've already established that the law and the constitution means nothing to this administration so everything is on the table.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Don't forget banning international voting oversight. I have no confidence in your election results.

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  • [–] 49 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    That's funny, the midterms are also in a few weeks. What a coincidence. I'm sure it's nothing about that right?

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  • [–] 75 points 1 month ago (9 children)

    Wild that a Fox News host is talking about him stealing the election.

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  • [–] 27 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    Not if you know who she is, she is a jewel in that shit-mire

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  • [–] 14 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    Say more please. I was confused as well. Will she get fired?

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  • [–] 25 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    No, if you can stomach the rest of that crew you will be very content with her actions. She is basically paid to be the "other" view point, the left. She is constantly attacked by the other 4 on that panel, Greg Gutfeld? mostly, and she attacks back. She is fun to watch but I can't for long due to the others. Check out the show she is on, I'm sure you have seen her if the news people you watch use clips.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    I wouldn't check out the show, unless you do it in a way that doesn't drive money into their pockets. It doesn't really matter how good she is if she's just a vehicle to peddle their bullshit.

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  • [–] 30 points 1 month ago

    "I don't know what Project 2025 is."

    - Donald J. Trump

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  • [–] 30 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    Vought is a little weasel. I hope he gets to see the inside of a prison.

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  • [–] 28 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    "Well, our Democratic governor took away our plastic grocery bags and last summer, suggested that people in big cities turn their AC down to avoid brown outs, so I'm OK with whatever Republicans can do to fix those things." - My low information voting family.

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  • [–] 27 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Oh, the project 2025 he had no idea about?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

    The P25 that the current VP wrote the forward to when it was published as a fucking book?

    The same P25 he said the only agenda he has is Project 47?

    Yes, that exact one that stated they were going to hack n slash Medicare/Medicaid (which they did), install a bunch of "loyalists" (which they did), eliminate the Dept of Education (which they've been slowly doing), eliminate unions and worker protections (which theyve been chipping away at)...

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  • [–] 51 points 1 month ago* (2 children)

    In other words:

    Stay tuned for his next totally illegal, but totally allowed grift of what’s left on American democracy.

    He raped kids. Lady Justice is not off-limits.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago

    Our legal system is broken. He should have gone to jail in the 90s over his rape cases. 13 times he'd been in court well before he was president over rape. Our justice system failed to hold him accountable. He shouldn't have his wealth either. All the shady real estate deals with with Russia and the blatant money laundering that was. Oh sure he bought properties for a few million and a Russian 'investor' buys them for 10s of millions a few years later. Not sus at all.

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  • [–] 25 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Remember when he claimed he had nothing to do with Project 2025? Yeah I know a mother fucker dumb enough to have believed that

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  • [–] 22 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    This is FALSE because Donald Trump TOLD ME he DIDNT know what Project 2025 was!

    -LITERALLY Republican Voters!

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  • [–] 43 points 1 month ago (28 children)

    Here’s a quick summary of what I think he is gonna do.

    1. Declare a state of emergency in order to prevent the midterms.
    2. if step 1 doesn’t happen then he will have armed guards at as many polling stations as possible, especially in blue/poor states.
    3. when the republicans are hopefully defeated in the midterms he will cry foul and that the democrats cheated. Calling for another January 6th across the nation.
    4. regardless of the outcome Donny will then invaded Iran.
    5. going into the Christmas holiday or the beginning of 2027 he will try to get the Supreme Court to give him the right to run a 3rd term.
    6. when that doesn’t happen (fingers crossed) he will still run for a 3rd term anyway.
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  • [–] 36 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    Good write up, but you left out the false flag terrorist attack that will allow him to declare a state of emergency.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    And banned International elections oversight. Oh, ice handed voter rolls to thiel... Oh ya. I have Russian levels of trust in your elections.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago

    even beforehand voting machines weren't audited and their software is very bad. and decades before that people just bought votes. it's a shit mountain built into a different, older, more respectable shit mountain

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  • [–] 13 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    The important point: Republicans aren't leaving office regardless of what happens.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (7 children)

    I genuinely don't see him invading Iran. It's a guaranteed belly-flop. Much more likely he continues pretending the US already won.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago* (6 children)

    Bibi will wave the tape, and then he will.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (5 children)

    I don't think so. It's not as if longstanding, bipartisan US policy isn't antagonistic towards Iran for its own reasons. I do think Bibi helped coax Trump into actually bombing Iran by giving him a rosy assessment, but even Trump won't fall for that twice.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    I hope you are right, ofcourse. But things are getting so unpredictable and illogical that I really don't know what to expect.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago* (3 children)

    I hear ya. What actually worries me is if Europe decides to involve itself militarily. I think the chance is slim, but that's the only way I could see any attempted invasion of Iran. They are in a very tight spot with energy, and they seem to be 100% against negotiating with Russia, while also 100% unable (or unwilling) to influence Trump regarding Iran. Hard to imagine they could dedicate any military resources towards Iran though, considering what they already send to Ukraine, or want to deter Russia with. Still, as winter comes and fuel costs rise, something will have to give.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 child)

    No, Iran invasion is pure fantasy. Europe can't change that equation, not enough troops to spare and they're not really built to fight outside of Europe in large numbers. Iran will need millions of soldiers committed. The US barely has 400,000 combat soldiers.

    For instance how are they even going to get the border of Iran? They can't go in from Pakistan or Central Asia and the US Navy is a hollowed out enshitified joke, so doing a naval invasion is even more absurd.

    So they'll have to invade and secure Iraq just to set the stage for an invasion of Iran. And that's assuming they could defeat a combined Iran-Iraqi force. But how are they going to build up an invasion force? 2003 Iraq Invasion force took a year to build and that was in peaceful conditions with full control of the gulf and had intact bases.

    The most that they can hope for is trying to take and hold the Islands in the strait. Which will fail and fail hard because Iran has had months and months prepare for it where as the US hasn't committed a single soldier to combat and yet it's logistics are at the breaking point and it's defensive munitions are already spent! Trillion dollars a year well spent!

    Militarily, the US is a barely a shadow of what it was just 20 years ago. It's been thoroughly Russified.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

    For the #1, I think "Iran" will attack Los Angeles and San Diego.

    Also Republicans will replace the clerk with a MAGA person and he will refuse call new winners in January.

    Since this is Vough this is definitively one of things he planned.

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    [–] 19 points 1 month ago

    From this to secret "mythical end of war after the mid terms" magic, the only reason for secrecy is that they would be horribly unpopular plans that would negatively impact mid term election results if they were done/disclosed now.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 month ago

    Hopefully it turns out to be the release of some new Trump-branded schlock people can buy directly from whitehouse.gov and everyone will just be like "of course."

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  • [–] 14 points 1 month ago (2 children)
  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 child)

    YES, the mid term elections are ongoing RIGHT NOW in the USA. If you're a US citizen and you haven't voted yet then do it, early voting is happening soon* check your state.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 month ago

    He most likely will try, but it's Trump. His track record speaks for itself: he will fuck it up. Bigly.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 month ago

    Based on comments by vought, I'm guessing national abortion ban.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    If they pull shenanigans, how far can a trebuchet launch Molotov cocktails towards certain buildings (in order to voice our displeasure)?

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  • [–] 9 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    You don’t need fancy tools. Anarchists across the world have shown all you need is black clothing and a mask.

    Interestingly it’s only anarchists that the FBI is now targeting as threats to the nation.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago*

    Interestingly it’s only anarchists that the FBI is now targeting as threats to the nation.

    Total bullshit. See NSPM-7: ANYTHING considered "antifa" is now the actual target, and "antifa" has never been tightly defined, by design.

    It's FAR from being "only anarchists" and has never been that limited. Even this newer National Security Memorandum designating "antifa" as terrorism is over a year old.

    Why are you deliberately spreading misinformation?

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