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These days Donald Trump isn’t so much giving speeches as he’s attempting to give speeches and failing miserably at it. In the same way that you wouldn’t pat yourself on the head and call it a karate move, the random strings of words coming out of Trump’s mouths aren’t actually “speeches.”

Worse, Trump is just straight up malfunctioning at this point:

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This isn’t a guy periodically getting tongue tied. This is a guy who’s too senile to even be able to read what’s on the screen in front of him without completely botching it. The guy’s a total goner – and it’s time for the mainstream media to finally admit it.

The post Donald Trump suffers malfunction during speech appeared first on Palmer Report.

After Donald Trump appealed his gag order in his Washington DC federal criminal trial, Judge Tanya Chutkan temporarily stayed her own order while she considered his appeal. This shouldn’t have been a big deal. But if Trump wanted any chance of winning his appeal, he’d have needed to behave while the stay was in place. He did not, and now he’s lost.

Judge Chutkan lifted the stay this evening, meaning the gag order is officially back in place. We’ll see if Trump decides to violate it, or if he decides to meekly cower like he so often does. That’ll be his choice. Either we won’t have to hear him ranting about the things that are covered by the gag order, or we’ll get to see him hit with penalties, and either of those things will be fine and dandy.

It’s important to understand that Trump didn’t “get away” with anything here. His social media posts about Mark Meadows this past week were textbook felony witness tampering, regardless of any gag order. If Jack Smith thinks he can get a conviction on it, he’ll tack on witness tampering charges against Trump for the trial.

If Trump mistakenly thought that the temporary stay on the gag order meant that it was legal for him to make social media posts about Meadows, then Trump is very, very stupid. Trump still seems to have no idea what it is to be a criminal defendant, and he just keeps digging himself a deeper hole.

The post Donald Trump’s gag order is back appeared first on Palmer Report.

Ever since Donald Trump left the hospital while still very ill with COVID an returned to the 2020 campaign trial, he’s never been the same. During the final days of that election he came off as someone who was in physical and cognitive decline. After he lost the election he mostly went into hiding for two and a half years, so most people didn’t notice how badly he was declining. But if you paid attention his occasional public appearances during that stretch, you saw just how bad of condition he was in.

Now that Trump is frequently putting himself out there under the guise of running for future office, everyone is starting to see it. Not only that, Trump’s ongoing decline is now accelerating at a rather jarring pace.

Over the past few weeks Trump has consistently come off as a dementia patient who doesn’t know what’s going on, can’t remember much of his own history, and lacks the cognitive ability to even read what’s on his teleprompter.

The Shallow State said it best: “Trump is in Las Vegas, and he is discombobulated. He sounds like he’s talking with an accent. He’s a physical mess, medicated to the max, narcissistically beaten to a pulp. He’s desperate for adulation, attention, applause, any kind of narcissistic energy before his kids testify … He is absolutely in decline.”

The question continues to be why nearly the entire mainstream media is continuing to completely ignore the fact that Donald Trump sounds like he’s three quarters senile and half dead.

The post Donald Trump is “absolutely in decline” appeared first on Palmer Report.

The U.S. Treasury is likely to boost the size of auctions for bills, notes, and bonds in the fourth quarter when it announces its financing plans this week to fund a worsening budget deficit, analysts said.

Investors are playing close attention to this week’s quarterly refunding announcement as a sharp jump in long-term Treasury yields has been partly attributed to concerns about the U.S. fiscal deficit. Since the end of July, the 10-year yield has climbed more than 100 basis points.

“The market has associated the rise in Treasury yields with deficit concerns and reflects worries about the sustainability of those deficits,” said Guneet Dhingra, managing director and head of U.S. rates strategy at Morgan Stanley in New York.

The budget deficit is increasing due to several factors, including higher federal government borrowing costs arising from the Federal Reserve’s interest rate increases and quantitative tightening.

Analysts at TD Securities expect the deficit to expand to $1.85 trillion in 2024 from $1.69 trillion this year and projects another $677 billion of bills that mature in a year or less coming to market and about $1.7 trillion in notes and bonds. So far this year, the Treasury has issued about $1.6 trillion of additional bills and roughly $1.04 trillion in longer-term debt.

The spotlight will also be on Monday’s announcement of borrowing estimates for the fourth quarter and the first quarter of 2024. It was the announcement on July 31 of $1.007 trillion in funding needs for the third quarter that spooked the bond market, leading to the sharp increase in auction volumes.

The Treasury will release its quarterly borrowing requirements on Monday at 3 p.m. ET (1900 GMT) and its refunding news on Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. ET (1230 GMT).

The Treasury is also likely to announce a buyback program for a possible launch in January, aimed at improving bond market liquidity, analysts said. The last time it conducted a regular buyback program was in the early 2000s, and it ended in April 2002.

The latest refunding could see the Treasury skew issuance to the shorter-term bills, while the increase at the long end could shrink due to concerns about the impact of additional supply on long-term yields, analysts said.

That would be a divergence from the August refunding when the Treasury aggressively raised the auction sizes for notes and bonds, which have longer maturities, after largely relying on the sale of short-term bills to raise its cash holdings and finance its growing deficit amid the debt ceiling suspension in June.

Morgan Stanley’s Dhingra, who expects the Treasury to rely on T-bills to finance its budget needs, said such a move could push the percentage of T-bills as a share of outstanding U.S. debt to around 22%. That is slightly higher than the 15% to 20% range adopted by the Treasury.

Tom Simons, U.S. economist at Jefferies in New York, said the current market environment should support a more elevated T-bill percentage for some time because of a still-healthy appetite for shorter-term investments.

The projected increase in longer-term deficits in the coming years, however, will keep Treasury raising auction sizes, analysts said.

“But the government doesn’t want to lean too heavily on the longer end of the curve to finance the deficit,” said Zachary Griffiths, senior investment grade strategist at CreditSights in Charlotte, North Carolina, adding that there was a need for a “balance-of-risk approach.

United Auto Workers union leaders approved a new tentative contract agreement Sunday with Ford Motor (F.N) that includes $8.1 billion in company manufacturing investments, while bargaining continues at General Motors (GM.N) without any deal.

The UAW-Ford contract could give workers up to $70,000 in extra pay over the 4- 1/2-year life of the contract, before enhanced profit sharing and retirement contributions, UAW officials told members in a video Sunday.

The top rate for workers will rise to $42.60 per hour by 2028, including estimated cost of living allowances. The company will also offer $50,000 buyouts for workers and the new contract eliminates all lower wage tier plants.

The UAW posted terms of its new contract deal with Ford after talks with local union leaders in Detroit, before taking the deal to all union workers for ratification.

Ford will add electric vehicles to existing assembly plants in Louisville and Ohio, according to the UAW summary of terms.

The Ford investments include several new hybrid models, including gas-electric hybrid versions of Ford’s largest SUVs, the Lincoln Navigator and Ford Expedition. Ford CEO Jim Farley has outlined plans to invest more in expanding the automaker’s hybrid lineup, even as it scales back plans to expand capacity for fully electric models.

The deal includes a $5,000 ratification bonus, special retirement incentive packages and gives newly-hired temporary workers a faster path to full-time status and the top union pay rate. Workers also get a $1,500 voucher toward a vehicle purchase and heftier company contributions for retirement benefits.

Existing Ford temporary workers immediately become permanent employees on track for top pay within three years and the deal creates a pathway for workers at joint ventures, battery plants, and Ford’s BlueOval city electric vehicle complex in Tennessee to join the union, and be covered under the master contract.

GM and Ford shares have fallen roughly a fifth since the beginning of the strike on Sept. 15. Stellantis shares are down just 1%.

It is not clear what derailed GM and the UAW’s progress toward an agreement patterned after earlier deals at Ford and Chrysler-owner Stellantis (STLAM.MI) but sources said one key issue was retiree pension costs. Those deals won workers a record 25% jump in wages over the 4-1/2-year contract and allowed the automakers to restart their profitable truck assembly lines.

UAW President Shawn Fain on Saturday ordered a walkout at GM’s Spring Hill, Tennessee engine and assembly plant, criticizing management’s “unnecessary and irresponsible refusal to come to a fair agreement.”

Fain met with union leaders on Sunday to go over the agreement before officials agreed to submit the deal to the full membership for a ratification vote.

GM said it was disappointed by the UAW decision to strike Spring Hill.

The Spring Hill walkout could hobble GM’s large pickup production as well as assembly of other popular GM vehicles. Ripple effects from an extended Spring Hill strike could boost the costs of the stalemate for GM well beyond the $400 million a week the company reported last week.

UAW counsel Benjamin Dictor on Sunday morning posted on the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter: “All my homies hate companies that won’t agree to fair contracts for their workers.” He later deleted the post.

GM is now the only Detroit automaker without a deal. Stellantis reached agreement with the UAW on Saturday and Ford on Wednesday.

At Ford, union leaders will now fan out to regional meetings to explain the deals to members, who will then vote on whether to approve it.

UAW leaders no longer can take ratification votes for granted. Last month, UAW workers at Mack Truck’s U.S. operations overwhelmingly rejected a deal recommended by Fain, while Mack said Thursday no new talks are scheduled. In 2015, UAW members at what is now Stellantis voted down a contract endorsed by union leadership.

Fain said on Saturday that local union leaders at Stellantis plants will come to Detroit on Nov. 2 before the agreement is sent to members for ratification.

A federal judge on Sunday reinstated a gag order she imposed on Donald Trump in the Washington case accusing him of trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat, denying his bid for a stay pending appeal.

The order prohibited Trump from targeting the special counsel prosecuting his case or witnesses who might be called to testify about his efforts to upend his election loss.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan imposed the gag order at the Justice Department’s request. She temporarily lifted it on Oct. 20 after Trump’s lawyers appealed. And she reversed that decision on Sunday evening, according to the court’s docket.

A copy of the judge’s order reinstating the gag was not immediately available.

Trump in the past has called Special Counsel Jack Smith a “deranged lunatic” and a “thug,” among other insults. Trump is facing four criminal cases and has made disparaging comments about prosecutors in each of them, as well as against the New York state attorney general who brought civil fraud charges against him.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to charges that he plotted to interfere unlawfully in the counting of votes and block the congressional certification of his 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

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