☕️ MEXICANS AND STANDOFFS ☙ Thursday, September 25, 2025 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Trump trolls Democrats with accurate presidential portrait; budget brinkmanship spawns a Mexican standoff; assassin Ryan Wesley Routh is convicted, adding dumb courtroom drama; more.

Good morning, C&C, it’s timeline Thursday, in which I attempt to prove Elon Musk’s prophetic warning about 2025: “The most entertaining outcome is the most likely.” It’s a slam dunk. In today’s roundup: Trump trolls Democrats with accurate presidential portrait and for once they don’t take the bait; another government shutdown threat looms and a Mexican standoff develops over the budget—who’ll blink first?; Trump assassin and dime-store international man of mystery Ryan Wesley Routh convicted of failed assassination attempts and creates dumb courtroom drama.

⛑️ C&C ARMY POST ⛑️

Travel notice: today I leave for Salt Lake City, Utah, where I’ll be speaking several times at a terrific medical freedom event. I have not missed the terrible synchrony of traveling to within spitting distance of where my friend Charlie Kirk was assassinated. Anyway, in addition to hotel blogging, I’ll be two time zones behind. Apologies in advance for tardy submissions.

🌍 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🌍

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Fox News Anchor Brett Baier seemed classically serene and traditionally unflappable yesterday when he mildy reported the same story that the Guardian ran under the headline, “Trump hangs autopen photo instead of Biden portrait in new presidential gallery.” The most surreal part was that they all covered it as straight news. No jokes, puns, or even irony. Come on!

CLIP: Just another day at the White House, old President Autopen (0:22).

I had to confirm this story from multiple sources to make sure it was real.

Trump’s staff created a museum-quality “Walk of Fame” —a sequential series of presidential portraits stretching from George Washington (1) to President Trump (47)— lining a hall just outside the Oval Office. But Biden’s picture was different. A couple weeks ago, Trump had joked about hanging Biden’s Autopen in the White House, but nobody believed he was serious.

He was, apparently, serious. Serious in a very hilarious way.

But liberals don’t get the joke, even though there’s so much material. Like the Autopen, the jokes practically write themselves: “Former President Biden’s Autopen, on loan to Kamala Harris for her book signing event, could not be reached for comment.” “Biden’s spokesperson confirmed it was a reasonable facsimile and insisted that other presidents have used the device to stand in for presidential portraits before.” “Presidential portraits made more diverse by inclusion of first mechanical-American.”

I can’t stop! “Biden’s official portrait is expected to be periodically updated when his staff replaces the ink cartridge.” “PolitiFact rated the portrait as mostly false.” “The Autopen portrait was initially hung slightly crooked, but White House aides assured reporters it would self-correct once the machine rebooted.” “President Autopen could not be reached for comment, since the scribbler was still on the charging station.”

But no. Not only couldn’t corporate media find a scrap of amusement, but they also surprisingly avoided outrage. They reported nothing about Democrat responses. Just robotic prattle about election denying and nonsense about how all presidents use the automatic scribbling machine. They refused to be insulted.

But the rank and file are furious. For instance, the joyless commenters on the WaPo’s version of the story fumed sullenly. (These are real.) “ It is a tragedy,” user DME1948 bleakly noted, “that so many of my fellow citizens think these pokes in the eye of civil behavior are what they want in the Oval Office.” Saturnine reader TeddyRoos2 said, “I liked it better when we had presidents that acted presidential. There is nothing he will not debase and defile.” Rvolpe mirthlessly mused, “It’s something I might have done when I was 11.”

Or, this one, which I present without comment, from the ‘mostly peaceful party:’

Boo hoo. Don’t get me wrong. I get it; whatever universe we are flying through —along with all these mysterious interstellar comets, UAPs, and near-miss asteroids— looks nothing like the pre-pandemic world we grew up in. The “norms and standards” of presidential dignity have been erased just like Monopoly millionaire’s monocle. And, just like the missing monacle: Was it ever really there?

You have to give the President some credit. Trump hung his own mugshot photo as his current portrait. It’s even-Steven. But as far as I can tell, the media arrogantly ignored that fair and balanced move.

More curiously, I reviewed at least half a dozen stories about Autopen-Gate, and not one of them quoted anybody. There were no hyperbolic expressions of outrage (or even mild disgust) from top Democrats. Just nothing. And they were curiously quiet on social media— nothing from Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Hakeem Jeffries, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, or even the DNC’s corporate account.

They didn’t even say they wouldn’t dignify it with a response.

I think the real reason Democrats are quiet as church mice about Trump mocking President Cabbage is because we all just experienced two weeks of Democrats mocking the political assassination of a conservative commenter. So, the timing isn’t too good for them to get upset over a photo.

I say: Unleash the Autopen.

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Next, we have a Trump tale told in headlines. It’s that time again; yet another tiresome fight over the budget. Three months ago, Democrat Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer decided to quietly vote for the Republicans’ ‘clean’ continuing resolution, which kept the government running for 90 days at then-current spending levels. He had his own reasons to avoid a ‘government shutdown’ but, for his trouble, Schumer was pummeled by purity-spiraling Democrats for not fighting hard enough. So this time, Democrat pols came out fighting. Axios, ten days ago:

Democrats demanded over $1 trillion in progressive pork in exchange for their help passing a continuing resolution through the Senate (where 60 votes are required to avoid the filibuster). They even wanted to fund Medicaid for illegal immigrants. It’s literally a Mexican standoff.

Trump said “no deal,” and told Republicans to just ignore them. So Democrats fought harder, insisting that President Trump at least negotiate with them. Al Jazeera, five days ago:

Yesterday, with the voting set to start on Monday, NPR reported that President Trump “shattered norms” by suddenly refusing to even meet with Democrats, properly labeling any meeting as an unserious waste of time:

Eight hours ago, the New York Times reported that Trump is actually looking forward to a shutdown, and the Democrats aren’t going to like it when it happens:

It only makes sense, right? It’s the question we’ve asked every time the government supposedly ‘shuts down’ or there’s a shutdown threat. When do the layoffs start? If private companies shut down, they have to do it, so why not the government? But every previous time, it’s only amounted to a paid vacation for federal workers. It’s about time they had some skin in the game.

The Times reported that in response, Senator Schumer “swiftly rebuked the White House” (oh, no) and called the threat of new layoffs “an attempt at intimidation.” Remember those words. I’m betting the Democrats fold, even though BlueSkiers are furiously demanding they call Trump’s bluff:

Trump is spoiling for this fight. In an Oval Office briefing six days ago, Trump told reporters that, “We’ll continue to talk to the Democrats, but I think you could very well end up with a closed country for a period of time.” Trump promised, “We’ll take care of the military. We’ll take care of Social Security. We’ll take care of the things we have to take care of.”

But … “A lot of the things Democrats fight for will not be able to be paid,” Trump added. “So we’ll watch and see how we do with that.” President Trump is clearly Clint Eastwood in this standoff. Who do you think will blink first?

I can’t wait.

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On Tuesday, NBC ran a story headlined, “Ryan Routh found guilty in Trump golf course assassination attempt.” After a two-week trial, a Florida jury took just two hours to convict Trump’s attempted assassin and Ukraine war fanatic Ryan Routh— on all counts. When they announced the verdict, Routh jumped up and tried to assassinate himself by repeatedly and dramatically stabbing himself in the neck with a bic pen. With the cap on. His self-assassination attempt failed just like his poor golf course effort. He didn’t even break the skin.

For context, if it only takes the jury two hours to deliberate, that means they’d immediately agreed unanimously on their initial straw vote. It takes about two hours to complete the forms. In other words, they never had a doubt and didn’t even need to debate it. Maybe the clincher was that 12-page letter Routh left behind, which started, “Dear World, this was an assassination on Donald Trump. I’m so sorry I failed you … it’s now up to you … I will offer $150,000 to whomever can complete the job.”

He had the money. He could’ve even paid it posthumously. FBI Agent Kimberly McGreevy testified that in March, 2024, a deposit of $162,000 went into Routh’s daughter Sara’s account, with a subsequent $160,000 transfer to another account in her name the same day. It remains a mystery where the money came from. (Maybe it was from one of Biden’s covid loans; in other words, our money.) And I’ll leave it to you to speculate whether Sara Routh was in on the plan.

We know for sure the money didn’t come from Ryan Wesley Routh; he was unemployed, had no job and no prospects, and testified in earlier proceedings that he had less than $3,000 to his name.

Anyway, Routh, demonstrating the kind of keen intellectual prowess that all Trump-deranged leftists are known for, fired his court-appointed attorneys and foolishly represented himself at trial. Routh isn’t a lawyer, and it showed. His witness questions were argumentative and irrelevant. His closing argument rambled worse than Joe Biden trying to tell a folksy story during a debate about his lifeguard days. So then I … well … never mind, that will take too long.

If I could boil it down, Routh apparently argued that he couldn’t possibly have legally attempted to kill the President, since he could’ve changed his mind right up till the very last second.

That is a silly argument that only a non-lawyer would come up with, since it includes an admission, and since evidence of attempt is proved through a series of carefully defined legal elements that do not require somebody to actually do the thing they’re accused of. If they did it, it sort of erases the need to prove their intent at all.

Obviously, if someone eats all the Oreos, they intended to pig out. It’s irrelevant that the cravings for Crisco and sugar were overwhelming. Cravings are just the reason you intended to get diabetes. Legally speaking, eating all the Oreos is not an attempt. An attempt happens before a crime, when you get caught standing in the pantry with the door closed and the package half open. It doesn’t matter if you could have stopped yourself before the second bite.

Anyway, the jury didn’t buy that stupid logic for a second. Now Routh faces sentencing with multiple potential life terms. Since the most important thing about failed assassinations is to discourage new efforts, the court will probably want to send a clear message with the sentence. Which means Routh will probably never again see daylight as a free man. (The death penalty doesn’t apply, since Routh never killed anybody.)

Routh is not stupid. Firing his lawyers and making his own ridiculous arguments is a silly strategy to set up an appeal, so he can argue that he lacked effective representation. (Reports say he winked at his adult children after trying to ‘stab himself.’) Judge Aileen Cannon (who coincidentally dismissed the Mar-a-Lago case) was extremely careful to create a clear record showing she gave Routh every possible chance to have free lawyers.

Routh’s dumb lack-of-counsel argument might actually work in a blue state like Hawaii, but it won’t work in Florida. Still, the fruitless appeals will give Routh something to work on in prison, to keep himself occupied for the first ten years. So, there’s that silver lining for him. Bye, Felicia.

His conviction is great and all. But I would still like to know how the unemployed contractor paid for all his international travel, full-time advocacy for Ukraine, vehicles, and weapons, and $150K assassination offer money though. I smell USAID and NGOs.

Have a terrific Thursday! Stay tuned for tomorrow morning’s C&C, where we continue catching up on the week’s marvelously entertaining news, like Google admitting in writing that Biden pressured YouTube to suppress free speech and influence the election. Progress.

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