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

  • WanderWisley@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    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.
    • takeda@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 day 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.

    • totesmygoat@piefed.ca
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      2 days ago

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

      • story@lemmy.zip
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        1 day 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

    • Psiczar@aussie.zone
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      2 days ago

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

    • aceshigh@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      You forgot about Elon. He was just hired back. I expect him to play a major role again.

    • electric_nan@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

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

        • electric_nan@lemmy.ml
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          2 days ago

          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.

          • YouTalkinToMe@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

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

            • electric_nan@lemmy.ml
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              2 days ago

              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.

              • bthest@lemmy.world
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                21 hours ago

                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.