Donald and Melania Make It Weird During Naval Celebration

“You have that salt water,” the president told a crowd of 10,000 sailors. “Don’t let the doctors change it.” OK??

By Danielle Han  |  October 6, 2025 | 11:38am
Photo: Getty Images Politics
Donald and Melania Make It Weird During Naval Celebration

Welcome back to Barf Bag.

The U.S. government is in shutdown mode, the economy is stuck in stagflation, and American democracy is in peril. But none of that stopped the Trumps from shrugging off these worldly burdens and celebrating the U.S. Navy’s 250th anniversary with pomp and balderdash in Virginia on Sunday. As first lady Melania Trump said to the world’s most powerful maritime fleet not once, not twice, but three times: “Hooyah, Navy!”

In his own speech, in classic Donald Trump fashion, he declared that what was meant to be government business was in fact feeding his cult of personality: “Let’s face it. This is a rally.” He then seemed to confuse the crowd of 10,000 uniformed mariners with mermen, rambling, “Every part of this globe are sailors have fought with courage in their hearts, patriotism in their souls, and salt water in their veins. You have that salt water. Don’t let the doctors change it.” 

Perhaps the most outlandish part of the president’s speech was when he gave himself brownie points for predicting 9/11, and Osama bin Laden’s involvement in it. 

“Please remember I wrote about Osama bin Laden exactly one year ago, one year before he below up the World Trade Center, and I said, ‘You’ve got to watch Osama bin Laden,’” he said. 

Referencing a book he published in 2000, Trump continued, “I can tell you there’s a page in there devoted to the fact that I saw somebody named Osama bin Laden, and I didn’t like it, and ‘you’ve got to take care of him.’ They didn’t do it. A year later, he blew up the World Trade Center.” If you’re having déjà vu, you’re not going crazy: Trump bragged about this in 2015, and his claims were debunked then (but “truth” has never been a concept he’s really cared about, even a decade ago). To be fair, Trump did mention bin Laden in the book—but not as a warning, merely as a passing reference to various headlines of the day.

Later in the speech, Trump issued an ominous warning: “We have to take care of this little gnat that’s on our shoulder called the Democrats,” he said, flicking his hand across his shoulder. “They want to give all of our money to illegal aliens that pour into the country.” 

The spectacle comes just days after Trump and his Secretary of Warmongering Pete Hegseth delivered speeches to military generals, vowing to end the age of “politically correct” policies. After that event, one retired general in attendance called it “one of the most bizarre, unsettling events I’d ever encountered.”

  • “Well, they suck and we’ll win, and God will bless us and we’ll stand and be proud of ourselves at the end of the day, and they won’t be able to sleep at night because they don’t know what they believe. And they’re so weak, we’ll fix it,” Kristi Noem said of the NFL. Girl. (Hollywood Reporter) 
  • Trump shared an AI-generated music video starring Russell Vought as the grim reaper. (Independent)
  • ICE announced it’s building a social-media team to surveil digital platforms. (Wired)
  • Kash Patel reportedly fired an FBI agent for having a pride flag on his desk. (Them)
  • Karoline Leavitt changed the White House voicemail to blame the shutdown on Democrats. (ABC)
  • Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) is investigating reports of “nearly naked” children zip-tied by ICE officers. (WBEZChicago)

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