Oct. 7, 2025

Trump’s Navy Rave: Fighter Jets, Stair Jokes, and Lots of Unpaid Seamen

Show Notes
Transcript

Nothing says “Commander in Chief” like showing up late to a military party you can’t afford. Patrick Gutfield dives into Trump’s wild Norfolk Navy spectacle — complete with unpaid sailors, a fighter jet branded “Trump 45–47,” and a 45-minute speech about stairs. Oh, and the First Lady napped through it. America’s back, baby.

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Callaroga Shark media from Washington, d C. Where you can

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sail the seven Seas. This is vallot. Come out and

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join your fellow man. Let's hit this. I'm Patrick Gutfield

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and Trump spent Sunday surrounded by seamen as he gave

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a speech to ten thousand Navy sailors on Sunday, sailors who,

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by the way, aren't getting paid right now because of

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the government shutdown. And he showed up forty five minutes late.

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So these service members are standing in the sun, unpaid,

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waiting for the President to arrive so he can tell

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them about stairs. During his rambling remarks, the seventy nine

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year old president made a truly wild prediction. He admitted

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he will probably fall downstairs one day, which is not

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typically something you announced to the troops as a morale booster.

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He was talking about Joe Biden, because of course, he

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was saying Biden had no clue what the hell was happening,

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and that the chance of him walking down those stairs

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successfully were not good. Then he just casually threw in

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and I have to be careful because one day I'm

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gonna probably fall. He then revealed his personal stairwalking mantra,

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He says, he tells himself, walk down the steps nice

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and slowly. You ever notice I don't have to bop

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down the stairs, walk nice and slowly. And look, there's

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context here. Trump was filmed in July stumbling on the

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stairs to Air Force one. He's been diagnosed with chronic

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venus insufficiency, a condition where blood pools in the legs

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due to poor circulation. His cankles have been photographed. He's

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got a recurring bruise on his right hand. But earlier,

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in that same speech, Trump claimed that his former White

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House physician, Ronnie Jackson, said he was the best physical

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specimen of three presidents, better than Barack Obama and George W. Bush.

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He told the crowd that Jackson was asked who's in

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the best shape, who's the healthiest, who's the strongest, And

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Jackson's pro posedly said that's easy. President Donald Trump. Couple

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problems with that story. Jackson never publicly said that. Newsweek checked. Also,

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Jackson is the same guy who got demoted in twenty

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twenty two. Anyway, the Navy just threw Donald Trump the

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world's most expensive make good party in Norfolk, Virginia. This

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is after the Army's parade back in June, which was

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supposed to celebrate both America's two hundred and fiftieth birthday

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and Trump's seventy ninth, turned into what I can only

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describe as a thirty million dollar disaster on wheels. The

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June event was supposed to be this grand celebration, but

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instead it got overshadowed by massive no King's protests across

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the country. Millions of people showed up to those. Meanwhile,

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footage of soldiers marching completely out of step went viral,

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which when your military parade gets roasted on TikTok, that's

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not great. And Milania was caught on camera literally napping

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during the procession. The first lady fell asleep at a

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military parade honoring her husband. That's like falling asleep at

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your own wedding. So Trump was reportedly furious about the

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whole thing. The Wall Street Journal said he wanted a

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do over, specifically asking the Navy to give him a

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shimmering spectacle with seacraft, which sounds less like a military

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order and more like something you'd request for a gender

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reveal party, and the Navy delivered on Sunday, despite the

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government being shut down by the way. They gave Trump

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his own private air show. They had a fighter jet

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with President Donald J. Trump forty five forty seven printed

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on the side. They put his name on a fighter jet.

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That's not standard military protocol. That's a sweet sixteen party.

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Trump and Milania stood on the deck while Navy destroyers

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fired missiles into the Atlantic Ocean and seals dropped from

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helicopters the whole nine yards. Trump told the crowd of

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ten thousand sailors, I was just given a display with

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the wonderful First Lady, the likes of which I think

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few people have ever seen before. Then he launched into

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a forty five minute speech. Again, government shutdown happening. But sure,

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let's do a forty five minute victory lap. And here's

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my favorite part. During the speech, Trump forgot the name

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of his own book, the one where he claims he

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predicted Osama bin Laden would be a problem. He actually

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said in the book, I wrote, whatever the hell the title?

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I can't tell you. Trump walked off the stage to

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the Village People's YMCA. It's a shame the Village people

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don't have a song that would have worked for people

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in the Navy. The Federal Aviation Administration has a staffing crisis,

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and the culprit is something you'd never guess, government shutdowns.

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That's right. The reason your flight sat on the tarmac

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for two hours at Newark isn't because the pilot forgot

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where New Jersey was. It's because Congress keeps shutting down

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the government like a teenager rage quitting a video game.

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The FAA doesn't have enough air traffic controllers to control

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the nation's air traffic, which seems like a pretty fundamental problem.

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Airlines have been forced to delay, reschedule, or cancel thousands

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of flights. If you've been stuck in an airport recently

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wondering what went wrong, here's your answer. Repeated budget fights

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and shutdowns over the last fifteen years have prevented the

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agency from hiring and training enough controllers. Here's the thing

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about training air traffic controllers. It takes years. You can't

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just pull someone off the street and say here's a

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radar screen, try not to crash any planes. There are

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limits on how many can be trained at one time.

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When funding gets disrupted, the pipeline doesn't get fed, and

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the agency falls behind, then you end up stuck in

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Cleveland when you were supposed to be in Miami. Even

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with fewer flights, the FAA is stretched to its limits.

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The agency increasingly relies on mandatory overtime shifts and six

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day work weeks to cover staffing shortages. The overtime budget

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has increased by three hundred percent since twenty thirteen. So

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not only do we not have enough air traffic controllers,

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the ones we do have are exhausted and overworked, which

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seems like exactly the situation you want when people are

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guiding metal tubes full of passengers through the sky at

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six hundred miles per hour. And here's the fun part.

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The FAA relies on outdated technology that it struggled to

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upgrade or replace. Other countries use more modern systems to

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guide larger numbers of airplanes safely through crowded airspace, but

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in America, we're doing it the old fashioned way, with

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too few people working too many hours using technology from

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the Bush administration the first Bush administration. Government shutdowns are

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brief because Americans quickly remember that the government does important things.

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But the end of a shutdown doesn't mean everything springs

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back to normal. Some damage endures, and in the case

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of the FAA. That damage means your flight is delayed, canceled,

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or circling above Newark for two hours while an overworked

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air traffic controller running on six hours of sleep tries

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to find you a place to land. So the next

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time Congress threatens another shutdown, remember they're not just shutting

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down the government for a few days. They're shutting down

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training programs, research projects, and critical hiring pipelines that take

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years to recover. Portions of today's program were made with

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the help of the village people and AI