At 11:50 this morning, the President of the United States made a special stop on his way to promote his private golf course in Doonbeg, County Clare, Ireland. For exactly 35 minutes, a rambling Donald Trump stood at the podium inside the 250-year-old Deerfield Residence in Dublin, Ireland, to speak to a room full of our Embassy personnel, Irish business leaders, and government officials. For exactly the next 35 minutes, the president read from the cheat sheets in his three-ring binder, he compared Kamala Harris to cage fighting, gave the room a lesson on how golf games are scored, complained about NATO and threatened that there would be an announcement about that soon, joked that the first lady chose to stay home because the flight was too long, before saying to a room full of Irish people, apparently thinking he was being funny, “Let me tell you, you are some of the most vicious bastards.”
As someone of Irish descent, I took his insult as a compliment. My maiden name is Delaney. I have written under Heather Delaney Reese since the early 2000s because I am proud of my family name and that heritage. When I heard him say that, standing inside a magnificent Georgian mansion, directly across from the Irish president’s own residence, in the very building that has played a pivotal part in the growth of the US-Ireland diplomatic relationship for nearly a century, I felt something I did not expect. I was proud. Because if there is one thing I know about the Irish, it is that they do not take anything from anyone. He called them vicious bastards with their business negotiations, but what I really heard was that they can see right through him and have been playing him like a violin from the very start. Thousands of them have proved him right this weekend. Those Irish “vicious bastards” have flooded the streets of Dublin, calling him a warmonger and a racist. They have been flying balloons of Trump in various lewd positions to ridicule and humiliate him. That is who the Irish really are. They do not mince words; they never have, and they never will.
My travel writing days have taken my family to Ireland multiple times, and each time it felt a bit like going home. People talk about the rolling green hills and moody skies when they think about Ireland, and that is true, but that has never been what I think about. I’ve always thought about the people. I think about the perseverance they carried through some of the most devastating periods in European history. I think about the centuries of occupation, how they never lost hope even through famines that killed over a million and forced another million to flee. I think about the bravery of what it took to make those journeys and leave everything behind.
There are now over 32.4 million Irish Americans in this country; about 9.5 percent of our entire population identifies as coming from Irish roots. That is more than six times the entire population of Ireland itself. So being Irish American is not at all a unique experience in the United States. But that means there is a rather large percentage of Americans who align with, or recently did with, Donald Trump. Whereas the Irish still in Ireland seem to be the ones who easily see Donald Trump for exactly what he is. They see his meddling in foreign governments, the far-right movement he is building, and the authoritarian agenda he is trying to bring into their country and across the whole of Europe. The Irish did not line the streets with welcome banners for the president. They instead took to the streets today by the thousands and told him how they really feel about him and everything he stands for. Seeing the resistance they showed today reminded me that the Irish spirit still lives in us.
While Donald Trump made that stop on his government-funded vacation to promote his own golf course, Ireland didn’t let him or anyone else forget how they feel about him, not even while he was giving his erratic speech. He opened his remarks with a lengthy explanation about how he gave the United States Ambassador to Ireland, Edward Walsh, the job because he is a good golfer.
Then he spent some time telling a story about how the Secret Service treats everyone around him as “collateral damage,” and that “they don’t give a damn about you.” He laughed as he said it. His story was, “I was with the head of the biggest company in the world. We’re playing golf and we have, you know, hundreds of Secret Service all over the course.” And then, “But the guy said, ‘Well, you know, I’m a very big executive, so if something happens with the president, they see all these trucks and tanks. This is a big deal.’ And he said, ‘What about me?’ ‘Sir, I’m sorry. You’re considered collateral damage. You’re on your own, sir.’ He didn’t feel too good. He wasn’t sure he should finish out the round, actually.” The people in the room laughed along with him.
Then came another odd moment where Trump said something about himself that he says others ask too, “Does Trump cheat?” He continued with, “I can’t cheat. You have 250 Secret Service agents running down. It’s not that I wouldn’t cheat, but you can’t move the ball.” He once again admitted something so many of us have known for as long as we can remember. Donald Trump cheats, and the only reason he doesn’t as often on the golf course lately is because, by his own admission, there would be too many witnesses. He didn’t say that he had a moral objection to cheating, or that he didn’t because cheating is wrong. He said he doesn’t cheat right now because of how easy it would be to get caught. Those were words from the sitting President of the United States of America.
He also chose to disparage former President Joe Biden, a man beloved by many Irish, while on a visit to the Emerald Isle. Biden’s family has deep roots in Ireland, going back to his great-great-grandparents who came to America during the Great Famine. During a visit Biden made in 2023, the Irish parliament told him he was “one of us.” There were thick crowds of people lining the streets, even in the rain, shouting “Welcome home, Joe,” as he went by. He received a standing ovation at Dublin Castle. And in Trump’s remarks today, he called the United States “dead” under Biden, saying, “We had a president who didn’t know who the hell he was. Couldn’t walk down a flight of stairs. Couldn’t walk up a flight of stairs.”
Then came the most dependable part of any speech Trump gives. The cover for the deeply embarrassing wound he suffered when he lost the 2020 election. It’s the one thing he always says, as if lying will make anyone forget the truth. “We had a rigged election, as you know. It was totally rigged. Because I won three times. I didn’t win twice. I won three times.”
When he should have been focused on diplomacy in a foreign country, he instead went to military violence and the time he kidnapped a foreign leader. He focused an entire section of his speech around Venezuela and other places he has brought terror to. “We had a short military conflict, I call it,” he said. “They said, ‘Could you maybe not use the word war?’ Because when you use the word war, it’s a little different.” Then, barely a minute later he said, “We took that over. We won the war. We paid for the war many, many times over.” One section he said these were each a “military conflict,” and then suddenly they were a “war,” the very thing he said he has been told not to say. He also took a moment to brag about 65 billion barrels of oil, as he said it was “good for five hundred years,” and described finding oil in Venezuela like looking for new real estate to buy. “You just look at the ground, you see oil all over the place. You say, ‘That looks like a good location to start.’”
He spoke about Iran in the same light. “I think Iran is a military conflict. We’re knocking the hell out of them.” He then described how the United States is ramping up weapons production, forcing defense companies to build five and six new plants, before describing Gatling guns that can create “a wall of lead” and lasers that melt drones until “they look like they got poured out of a hot plate.” Maybe the worst thing he said today was that NATO allies refused to help in the Strait of Hormuz, and that, “You’ll be hearing that later.” A threat and a warning all in one.
Towards the end, he went into a tangent about how he has been reading stories about communism in Ireland and that “we’re shutting it down pretty good.” He said, “We’re not going to have any communists running our country. That I can tell you.” In just a few minutes, he bragged about two wars, threatened NATO allies again, and tried to insert himself and his disinformation and drama into a sovereign democratic nation’s politics.
When he was done speaking, “YMCA” by the Village People was blasted through the speakers, and he started pretending to take golf swings.
Earlier that morning, he held a press conference with Taoiseach Micheal Martin (the Irish Prime Minister) at Farmleigh House, where a reporter asked his view on Irish reunification. Unable to understand the gravity of what he was being asked, and how his answer would be received, Donald Trump did not hesitate to respond. “I don’t want to cause any problems, but I will tell you, I’d love to see it unified,” he said. “It’s going to happen eventually. It may as well happen now.” British Prime Minister Andy Burnham had said just weeks earlier that a referendum was “off the table.” Trump does not care who he destabilizes or the consequences that come with his words.
When Barack Obama visited Ireland in 2011, 25,000 people filled College Green in Dublin and cheered for him. He visited Moneygall, a village of about three hundred people, where his great-great-great-grandfather was born. They painted every single house on the main street ahead of his visit. People handed their babies over security barricades so that they could be in pictures with President Obama. He told the Irish people, “There’s always been a little green behind the red, white, and blue,” and he talked about the centuries-old bond between our countries and about peace. He said Ireland was a model for the world. In stark contrast, today, thousands flooded the streets of Dublin and called Trump a warmonger and a racist. They loudly chanted, “Donald Trump not welcome here” and “Irish government, shame on you.”
To those of you in Ireland, and around the world, who protested today or in the past, I want to thank you. This is not your fight; it is ours. But when you refuse to welcome him as if everything is normal and you march in protest against him, you are telling your own people that what Trump is doing is wrong, and you are also giving hope and inspiration to those of us in the States as well. You are also sending a message that this far-right rot cannot be allowed to spread. You are telling us Americans that we are not standing alone, and in this moment, I can’t put into words how much this matters and how much we need to see all of your protests and resistance.
Everywhere we look, the resistance keeps breaking through. Just a couple of days ago, Jimmy Kimmel announced that his interview with James Talarico, the Texas Democrat running for the US Senate against Ken Paxton, was not going to be allowed to air on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” “Out of consideration for our local stations, especially our ABC affiliates in Texas who would have to deal with this nonsense.” He was referring to Trump’s FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s continued threats of regulatory action against networks and their local affiliate stations over guest bookings and programming that they do not like. Jimmy Kimmel told his audience that “my interview tomorrow with James Talarico will not air on television. It will be posted on YouTube instead.”
And they posted it and used the title, “Jimmy Kimmel’s Interview with James Talarico That the FCC Doesn’t Want You to See.” As of the writing of this post, that video has now been viewed over 7 million times. In contrast, Trump’s “desperation” speech at the Republican Midterm Convention on Fox has only 2.5 million views. The Talarico-censored interview drew almost three times the views of Trump’s speech. This was the second time a Talarico interview had to be cut from late-night TV. Back in February, his interview with Stephen Colbert was also cut from a CBS program after FCC threats, and it too was posted to YouTube instead, where it reached more than nine million views and raised $2.5 million for his campaign in the first 24 hours. The Trump administration still hasn’t learned that nearly every time they try to demand silence, it finds a way through, bigger and better. The voice they suppress is always heard louder.
Censorship is here. We are no longer trying to just hold it off. It has already happened multiple times now. A network once again pulled an interview with a political candidate because the FCC threatened its affiliate stations because the President does not want that candidate to win. It is as simple as that. This is a direct attack on our First Amendment. It is a government censoring what we are allowed to see, and that is a hallmark of authoritarian regimes. And it is just getting started. We will see more of this the closer we get to the midterm elections and over the next two years of Trump’s remaining presidency.
So much of what Trump has said and done in just the past few days would have been career-ending for any other president. He practically slept through a 9/11 memorial. He attacked another reporter on the tarmac for asking about his $5,000 bribe checks to voters if his party wins the upcoming elections. He admitted he would cheat if he could get away with it. At any other time in history, most of those moments would have meant wall-to-wall news coverage, congressional hearings, impeachment proceedings, and possibly even criminal ones. The lack of mainstream and legacy media coverage has been abysmal, caused by the intimidation and threats from his administration and his FCC.
This is a reminder that we must protect and support our access to alternative ways of getting information at all costs, especially heading into the midterms, and in the two years that follow. We are going to have to get used to getting our news from sources and platforms that this regime can’t touch or control as easily. We are going to have to normalize going to trusted sources outside of the nightly news and to places like Substack, YouTube, and social media platforms. This will take more time and care on our part to make sure they can be trusted. But the biggest takeaway from what we saw from the Talarico interview is that using alternative means of publishing, like on YouTube, is how we will have to think about the sharing of information going forward. Their quick thinking and action by still posting it there, and not just what he posted during his normal programming, kept millions of people informed this week. At the same time, we also have to consider the reality that YouTube is part of Google, and there is no guarantee they will not change their algorithms or bend to the same censorship pressure the TV networks already have.
If you haven’t already watched the interview, please do, even if you are outside Texas. I share often about my monetary protest, where I have been working hard for months now to move as much of my spending to people and companies on the right side of history. It’s not perfect. There are some products and services that I use for which I am still searching for alternatives, but every dollar I move is another vote of sorts against the authoritarian takeover of our country. I’ve also been paying for new subscriptions to as many people as I can find who are speaking out, sharing the news as it is happening, countering disinformation, and standing up for what is right and against what is wrong. As always, thank you all for supporting me in this way. Your paid subscriptions are how I keep everything that I write free for everyone and never behind a paywall. Please think beyond just supporting me. Please support the other people you go to day in and day out for what is happening in our country. We need as many people speaking out in this moment. Tonight I want to add another option that doesn’t cost any money because these are hard financial times for so many in our country and around the world, and nobody should ever feel pressured to spend money they don’t have when there are other ways to show support. Earlier, I pointed out how many views the Talarico interview received. Those viewership numbers send an important message, and we can help increase them, along with the numbers on the next interview that will inevitably be posted. We can do that just by watching the video.
Even if some days it feels like things are getting worse by the day, the reality is that everything we are doing is working. The protests are still happening, and the international community is holding the line. The censorship they have unleashed keeps backfiring. We are not backing down, and we continue to find new ways forward. We have proven over and over again that we will never give up on our fight against this authoritarian takeover. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.
I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather
PS. You can make a significant difference right now by subscribing to my Substack. Your support helps me cover more ground and keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in this country.
This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.
Picture of the day: On one of our visits to Ireland, my parents flew out to meet us, and we spent the day exploring with no real plan. Around lunchtime, we started looking for a pub I had been told about by local friends. We never found it. Tired and hungry, we wandered into this one and had, by far, our favorite meal of our entire time there.
Sources used in the writing of this post:
Jimmy Kimmel’s Interview with James Talarico That the FCC Doesn’t Want You To See: YouTube Video
President Trump Delivers Remarks to U.S. Embassy Personnel and Business Leaders: YouTube Video
https://www.thejournal.ie/trump-speech-deerfield-7160701-Sep2026/
https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2026/0912/1591251-trump-visit/
https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/12/politics/president-donald-trump-arrives-ireland
https://www.thejournal.ie/donald-trump-ireland-visit-4-7160902-Sep2026/
https://newrepublic.com/post/215324/trump-falls-asleep-september-11-ceremony
https://cdn.www.census.gov/newsroom/facts-for-features/2026/irish-american-heritage.html
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-gets-exuberant-reception-in-ireland/
Dear Heather,
Thank you for another informative message! Without you and others like you, I'm certain that we in the UK would know very little about the ins and outs of DT's shenanigans.
I've spoken to friends and family about it but sadly, quite a few say, 'What can we do about it?' or 'How do you know what's going on?' and 'We can't change anything'.
Well, I know because I make it my business to find out! Thankfully, I've always had an enquiring mind; when my children were learning about the internet in the 1980's, I didn't want to be left behind, so I went to my own classes and loved every minute of it! I've always been frustrated by the 'sit by the window and watch the world go by' brigade. What a waste of time!
Anyway, I digress - you'll have to excuse me, as I'm popping over to YouTube to watch the Jimmy Kimmel interview...
Love from the UK.🇬🇧
Wherever Trump goes he leaves a slimy trail of hurt and discontent. In the meantime Mark Carney is seeing President Zelensky and helping him with a deal that suits them both.
I watched the James Talarico interview and was blown away by it. What a charming funny gentle soul he is, but with a real ability to cut through the rubbish and hype to get his message across.
I am not religious but this man said all the things that religion should be and he left me feeling just a little bit better about what at the moment seems like a very rotten corrupt world. I pray he wins in Texas and that you guys make it happen. You need him to clean up the rotten mess left by Trump.