Trump is losing control. The signs are evident.

[Prairie Gates]

1. I'd really love to see the auspices and the mechanism whereby a shipping company pays 20%

of the value of its cargo to the United States government for passage through the Strait of Hormuz.

Like, seriously, I want the New York Times to fully break down how that would work - and I mean literally how it would function at the microlevel. I agree that this rambling nonsense shows Trump at his most deluded. The real scandal is that people are just happily reporting on his nonsense.

So, I have a ship on the wrong side of the Strait. I want to move it through. Who do I pay? How? How is the value of my cargo being determined? If the US government is taking payment, to what account? Who is keeping track of these payments, and where they're coming from, and when, and where the money is going? How can a citizen access this information? How can a news organization? How can a member of Congress? What is the status of these monies?

Of course, everyone knows that this statement will simply go away after a few days, so it's meaningless and none of these questions even have to be answered. It's just the usual Trump pile of bullshit. There will be some new "ceasefire" or "return to the MOU" in a week or two and everybody will have forgotten that Trump pledged to collect a 20% protection money fee from ships. The whole thing is completely off the rails, and surely Republican members of Congress understand that?