Space Monsters! “Golden Dome” Is the Biggest Hoax Ever Attempted
How the PayPal Mafia used psychological warfare and active measures to convince Donald Trump to start a new arms race and fill their pockets.
This afternoon, in one of most incredible displays of outright stupidity—and greed—I have ever seen, Donald Trump attempted to pledge $175 billion of taxpayer money to fund his “Golden Dome,” an absurd project that will purely serve to enrich his donors, and allow the worst people on Earth to tighten their grip around the lives of every human being.
This is, bar none, the largest and most dangerous hoax ever attempted.
I’m including the entire 22-minute Oval Office performance so you can experience it for yourself, should you be so masochistic. However, I will discuss the lowlights in detail below should you choose, understandably, to avoid listening to him.
I have followed this idea since Trump started saying he wanted a “Great Iron Dome” on the campaign trail. When he realized repurposing this name was not exciting enough, he changed it to “Golden” because, well, of course he did. The graphic they produced basically tells you how dumbed down they made this to sell him—a literal golden dome. Drunk rapist crusader Pete Hegseth, who was pushed on Donald Trump by Erik Prince, attempted to do his best Fox News pitch.
To understand how this happened, we should review a bit of important context.
On January 18, 2017, just before Trump’s first inauguration, Jeremy Scahill said this about Erik Prince:
Robert Mercer, the billionaire hedge funder, his daughter Rebekah runs, ran one of the most important super PACs to Trump, make America number one, super PAC, and Trump. And Erik Prince and his mother, Elsa, were two of the largest contributors to one of the most significant super PACs that supported Donald Trump.
Erik Prince is very close to Robert Mercer. Prince was also at the Heroes and Villains party that Mercer threw in Long Island after the election. And, in fact, there's a picture that Peter Thiel, the right-wing billionaire who destroyed Gawker, a picture of Peter Thiel, Donald Trump and Erik Prince that Peter Thiel says is not safe for the Internet.
But it's clear that Erik Prince through Betsy DeVos, through Robert Mercer, and through his very right-wing paramilitary crowd, has the ear of President-elect Donald Trump. And our understanding from a very well-placed source is that Prince has even been advising Trump on his selections for the staffing of the Defense Department and the State Department. [emphasis mine]
Without going through all of their history, the connection between Prince, Thiel and the Mercers goes back at least two decades, although they try hard to conceal how close they really are. Note that Erik’s mother Elsa was a former president of the Council for National Policy, a notorious theocratic activist organization dedicated to reuniting church and state, as tirelessly exposed by Brent Allpress.
The Mercers were also very active in funding antidemocratic operations in the 2020 campaign, including Breitbart and Parler, where much of the planning for January 6th took place. They also participated in funding the campaign of JD Vance, in concert with Peter Thiel—who has been effectively operating with the Mercers’ bankroll for many years. Recently, they relaunched Tucker Carlson by airing a fawning interview with Putin in Moscow where Tucker praised Russia’s grocery prices.
While Donald Trump has always been gullible, and has been a Russian asset since 1987 at the latest, his cognitive abilities are rapidly diminishing. In the Oval, he said there would be a $25 billion “down-posit” on the project, and went through a long mumbly tour of his “great office… one of the great places in the world.” When he got to James Monroe, he could not even come up with “Doctrine.”
“Monroe, from the Monroe… document.”
Trump then took questions, which were quite revealing about how this boondoggle got entrenched in his orange cranium.
REPORTER: “Have military commanders asked for this system specifically? Because NORAD had said previously that the current system was adequate. So what does this get the United States, this isn’t already been here before?”
TRUMP: “There really is no current system. We have certain areas of missiles and certain missile defense, but there's no system. We just have some very capable weapons that hopefully we never have to use, but we have some very capable weapons. Now, this is a different league. There's never been anything like this. This is something that's going to be very protective. I think you can rest assured there'll be nothing like this. Nobody else is capable of building it either.””
Trump first attempts to avoid the question of whether anyone asked him for the “Golden Dome.” He says there “really is no current system” although he allows that there is “a certain missile defense.”
REPORTER: “Was there something that military commanders asked you for? Did they ask you to do this?”
TRUMP “Well, let me put it differently. I suggested it, and they all said, ‘We love the idea, sir.’ The way it's got to be, right? I don't know if they ever thought they would be lucky enough to have it, but we were able to get it done. We have all the funding, so pretty much tucked away. I think most people feel it's very important to have.”
Pressed, Trump admits he “suggested it” to the military but provides a “sir” story to prove how much they love it. In classic authoritarian form he tells people how to feel—“most people feel it’s very important to have.”
Then Trump is asked the question that triggers the biggest wave of nonsense, a cacophony of bullshit salad designed to cover up the fact that he has no idea what the Golden Dome is, how it’s going to be paid for, or how immensely dangerous it is.
TRUMP: “When you first announced this idea, critics said it would be prohibitively expensive, potentially ineffective, and could trigger an arms race in space. What do you say to those critics about that?”
“Well, they're all about as close to perfect as you can have in terms of real production. Canada wants to be part of it, which would be a fairly small expansion. But we’ll work with them on pricing. I think it’s something that is great if you can afford to do it. We can afford to do it. You know, we took in $5.1 trillion in the last four days in the Middle East, and when you think about it, this is a tiny fraction of that. But we make it all here. We're going to make it all here.”
Trump answers this direct question with a story that equates to “Canada is going to pay for it.” He says it would be a “fairly small expansion” despite Canada being larger than the United States and says he will negotiate a price. He claims, without logic or evidence that “we took in $5.1 trillion… from the Middle East” which we did not. This is both an excuse for his $400 million Qatari jet fiasco, and a way to minimize how much $175,000,000,000 really is.
He was not done with this answer though. He rambled on and gave away the game.
“We have -- when I will tell you, an adversary told me a very big adversary told me the most brilliant people in the world are Silicon Valley. He said, "We cannot duplicate him. We can't.” This was somebody that I won't tell you it is, but you'd be amazed. We have the most brilliant minds in the world doing this kind of thing, the equipment, the space, the computers, everything. But I said that we just can't duplicate what you have there in Silicon Valley. We never have been able to. There's a very strong group of people and very strong minds, but they can't. So we have things that nobody else can have. You see what we've done helping Israel with that. You probably wouldn't have an Israel.”
Trump justifies his commitment to this enormous fraud by invoking Silicon Valley, which was descended upon by wannabe oligarchs in the 1990s as a quick source of money, and was ultimately corrupted into the primary source of American degeneracy today. The PayPal Mafia, and private military contractors like Erik Prince, are the primary beneficiaries of this project. Not the only one, however.
REPORTER: “Have you addressed Russia's ventures in space with a space-based nuclear weapon and told Putin to stop in your conversations with him?”
TRUMP: “We haven't discussed it, but at the right time we will. We always keep the good ones.”
Trump doesn’t see Russia as a threat. He is so beholden to Putin that he genuinely believes America will never be a target. He thinks he’s done a “deal” that will allow America to get away with this with no consequences.
REPORTER: “With the goal of keeping Americans safe with this, can you talk about the timeline, how long will this take to complete?”
TRUMP: “We think it's going to be about a little bit less than three years, and we'll have a big phase in very early. You know, we're starting immediately with $25 billion. It'll cost about $175 billion, completed. But we think in two and a half to three years.”
Asked about a timeline, Trump simply declares—much as he often says some document or evidence will arrive in “2-3 weeks”—that it will take “two and a half to three years” to finish, a notion so absurd it’s hard to imagine anyone else told him to say it. Launching hundreds of “attack satellites” into space capable of shooting down nuclear weapons in the next three years is just as likely as getting to Mars in the same period—absolutely impossible by the laws of physics.
REPORTER: “Are you confident that you can get the funding needed from Congress quickly?”
TRUMP: “It's amazing how easy this one is to fund. You know, some funding is tough, and some is easy. When we say we're going to save everyone's lives in a crazy world, it seems to be very easy to get…Yeah, we've already spoken to everybody who we have to speak to.”
Trump asserts, again with no evidence, that this is going to be “easy” to get Congress to fund. Trump is then asked about Russian military aggression and whether he intends to impose sanctions.
REPORTER: “Mr. President, on Russia, are you worried about the report on a military buildup along the borders towards Finland and Norway?”
TRUMP: “No, I don't worry about that at all. It'll be very safe. Those are two countries. It's going to be very safe.”
REPORTER: “Zelensky said today that he’s hoping for you to impose new sanctions on Russia. Are you considering that?”
TRUMP: “Well, that's going to be my determination. That's going to be nobody else's determination. We'll see how Russia behaves. We see what's going to happen. You know, we have a pretty -- we have a pretty critical time right now. I had a talk yesterday for two and a half hours with President Putin, as you know. I also spoke to all of the European -- or to many of them leaders, but they were representing the whole. And I think we had a very good conversation yesterday, please.”
Trump’s answer is again a combination of intentional deception and colossal ignorance. In reality, he’s feeding Europe to Putin while simultaneously creating a second Cold War in space to help out his friends.
When Trump is asked about specific contractors, the fear of tipping his hand is obvious.
REPORTER: “What companies about to be involved in building this system and have you decided on who will be building it?”
This is answered by a round robin of the Senatorial stooges Trump gathered for the performance, including Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) who can see Russia from his backyard, Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND), and Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) who recently told his constituent, a federal worker fired by DOGE, that he’s a “clown” who “probably deserved it.”
Trump then unleashed this whopper about the relative temperature of America between now and a year ago, a claim completely backwards from reality.
“Our country was cold as ice a year ago. And now we have the hottest country in the world. This is the hottest country in the world. Nobody even close. If you look at even this last trip that I made, the respect that is paid to our country. We went from being laughed at all over the world and now with the hottest country in the world by far.”
Wrapping up, Dan Sullivan makes it clear where this is going—Silicon Valley.
“And you said it earlier, Mr President, our technology sector is head and shoulders above any other place and the world, and they're going to be a key part of this. And I think that's why it makes it so exciting. I think, Mr. President, I didn't want to think that you alluded to this. The new autonomous space age defense ecosystem is more about Silicon Valley than it is about big, big metal, right?”
Trump gives the final word to Hegseth and provides an important clue about where the idea came from.
“Pete, maybe we'll close with you. We've been discussing this for a long time. Pete and I used to discuss it when I was going to go on a show that he did very well in tremendous ratings, but all he wanted to talk about was the military. He didn't want to talk about anything else. We used to talk about this.”
Pete Hegseth gave him this idea back when Trump went on Fox News. Hegseth groomed his way into this position. This is exactly the sort of operation that Peter Thiel and Erik Prince have been funding and directing for years. Hegseth has been acting like a glorified Project Veritas operative, sidling up to a gullible old man to tell him that he will be able to shoot space lasers at his enemies if Trump makes him Secretary of Defense and gives him $175 billion. It’s a long con.
Finally, as everyone is being ushered out of the Oval, someone asks the obvious question:
REPORTER: “Was Elon Musk going to be part of this, Mr. President?”
TRUMP: “Thank you very much everyone.”
Obviously, Elon Musk will be part of it. It’s part of the reason Musk been publicizing the lie that he is “stepping back from political donations.” Here’s Musk in Qatar today asserting that he’s “going to do a lot less [donating] in the future” because he “sees no reason to.” That’s because he’s already stolen our personal information, and installed his teenage DOGE employees across the federal government.
But when a reporter asks about Musk’s numerous reported communications with Vladimir Putin, he flies completely off the handle.
“Is there a worse publication on earth than the Wall Street Journal?”
Musk, Thiel, Prince and their minions like Pete Hegseth are all part of a world none of us can possibly imagine, a world where their psychopathy, ignorance, and recklessness is rewarded by billions. No one needs a “Golden Dome” or a second Cold War except the people who created companies to profit from them—companies like SpaceX, Palantir and Anduril, all run by the worst people on the planet.
By the time Trump is done infecting us with this collective psychosis, we’re going to need a reboot of the entire American system. Every bit of this needs to be wiped from the hard drive of the federal government. We’re going to need to chase every piece of software, every line of code, and every one of these treasonous fascists out of the government and military entirely.
You cannot negotiate with or appease this madness. It must be defeated.
Long live a free America. Glory to Ukraine.
I keep my articles free because my goal is to arm as many people as possible with information they can use. But if you are able to help me continue my work, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. It really means a lot. Thank you!
I have a Zoom call each Sunday for paid subscribers to answer questions and discuss everything happening around us. We have a wonderful, supportive community. Thank you for reading and sharing my work. Grateful for your support.
If you’d like to help me with expenses, here is my DonorBox. 💙
If you’d like to help with my legal fees: stopmikeflynn.com.
My podcast is @radicalizedpod & YouTube — Livestream is Thursdays at 4PM PT.
Bluesky 🦋: jim-stewartson
Threads: jimstewartson
TikTok: jimstewartson
Mastodon: toad.social/@jimstewartson
This is one article I don't think I can read entirely.
We have to find a way to mock this Golden Dome so much and so badly that no reasonable person could support it. Any contacts with Saturday Night Live producer/cast? I wish...
Reagan tried to get Star Wars in the 1980s and we barely escaped that give-away.
Don't know how to defeat Golden Dome but agree with you that it would be the worst scam in American history. It won't work. Whatever technology they use, some people will make it obsolete in the future if it isn't already. A gift to military and contractors and a TOTAL waste of taxpayer money. However, it would be a fitting death to America: those who live by the sword die by the sword. Diplomacy and co-existence was always free but was seldom chosen.
Thug administration has gone more than rogue. It's a parasite ripping through the body of America rapidly. Post cards and protests won't be enough. Maybe future general strikes won't even be enough.
America lost its mind and its heart when Trump was "elected" for a second term.
Maybe some Americans can find an inspirational answer to the late saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk's question: "Won't someone bring the spirit back?"
Excellent article as usual. I’m wondering how long Trump can live with such a level of dementia or similar symptoms. Malcolm Mance, for instance, noticed a massive degradation compared to a year ago. Lando Norris, the young F1 driver, met Trump at the Miami GP during 1h and didn’t report a massive confusion but he’s 25 and may have missed some symptoms.
I noticed another thing: Thiel is sweating a lot when speaking including during the Rogan podcast. Rogan wasn’t sweating at all. I checked if Prep, the HIV treatment, could cause it. It doesn’t seem to be the case. It’s a dead end for now.
The dome with SpaceX is impossible to do: the SpaceX satellites are extremely small with a life of 2 to 5 years. Only Starlink 2 could provide bigger satellites. They’ve to be launched with Starship so good luck to SpaceX.