Raw Story⁠96%

Trump faces dire ‘conundrum’ as desperation reaches ‘comic levels’: analysis ⁠76%

By Alexander Willis⁠96%

7/31/2026, 5:16:51 AM

BS Summary: This article contains 15 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Authority, False Dilemma, and Biased Writer Voice, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 38.9% saturation with 119 hits. Analysis detected 589 faulty-reasoning hits from 306 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 60.9% and a BS Rank of ⁠76% (6,706 of 27,320 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 75.50% of the article peer group.

The Trump administration has gotten itself into a dire “conundrum” as officials struggle to push two contradictory narratives at once, independent journalist Ken Klippenstein argued Thursday in an analysis published on his Substack. 
That “conundrum” was on full display earlier this week during a “ disastrous interview ” in which President Donald Trump’s United Nations ambassador both denied that the United States was running low on military stockpiles and blamed the shortages on the Biden administration. 
“Washington officials are stuck on this half-propaganda, half-operational conundrum. 
They both want more money for the military and they want to make clear that no weapons shortages are constraining the US from fighting Iran,” Klippenstein wrote. 
“This desire to have it both ways reached comic levels this week when U.N. 
Ambassador Mike Waltz said to 'Meet the Press' that Biden was to blame for the missile shortage, before immediately insisting there was no shortage and that whoever is leaking that there is should be prosecuted.” 
The New York Times recently reported that the brief pause in fighting between the United States and Iran was motivated in part by concerns of "dangerously" draining the Pentagon’s “already diminished stockpile of Patriot antimissile interceptors and other air defense munitions." 
During his interview with NBC News, Waltz said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “inherited a depleted situation” regarding military stockpiles, while also claiming that the United States had “everything that it needs.” 
He later called for “the people that are leaking this nonsense” to be jailed. 
The United States war against Iran has significantly depleted key American weapons stockpiles, according to Pentagon data and outside defense analysts. 
Researchers from the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated that fewer than 827 Patriot interceptors and fewer than 278 THAAD ballistic missile interceptors remain in U.S. stockpiles. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 8.8%Alexander Willis: 7.0%Rawstory: 7.9%Confirmation Bias8.8%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.5%Rawstory: 0.8%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 13.4%Alexander Willis: 6.4%Rawstory: 4.1%Availability Heuristic13.4%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.9%Rawstory: 1.1%Representativeness Heuristic0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.4%Rawstory: 0.9%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 9.2%Alexander Willis: 2.3%Rawstory: 2.0%Overconfidence Bias9.2%This article: 2.9%Alexander Willis: 16.1%Rawstory: 12.4%Framing Effect2.9%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.8%Rawstory: 0.5%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.8%Rawstory: 0.4%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.4%Rawstory: 0.2%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.8%Rawstory: 0.8%Optimism Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 3.2%Rawstory: 2.8%Pessimism Bias0.0%This article: 38.9%Alexander Willis: 26.8%Rawstory: 20.4%Negativity Bias38.9%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 1.0%Rawstory: 1.2%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 10.1%Alexander Willis: 2.5%Rawstory: 2.6%Fundamental Attribution Error10.1%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.7%Rawstory: 0.3%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 1.6%Rawstory: 2.4%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.4%Rawstory: 1.4%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.4%Rawstory: 0.5%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 1.2%Rawstory: 0.8%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 4.6%Alexander Willis: 2.2%Rawstory: 1.6%Recency Bias4.6%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.6%Rawstory: 0.6%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.1%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 3.7%Rawstory: 5.7%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.9%Rawstory: 0.6%Straw Man0.0%This article: 22.5%Alexander Willis: 4.3%Rawstory: 3.8%Appeal to Authority22.5%This article: 19.0%Alexander Willis: 2.8%Rawstory: 3.0%False Dilemma19.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 1.0%Rawstory: 1.4%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.2%Rawstory: 0.2%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 7.8%Rawstory: 10.7%Hasty Generalization0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 1.3%Rawstory: 0.6%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.9%Rawstory: 0.8%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 4.6%Alexander Willis: 9.9%Rawstory: 8.8%Appeal to Emotion4.6%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 1.3%Rawstory: 1.5%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 2.2%Rawstory: 3.4%Post Hoc (False Cause)0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.3%Rawstory: 0.5%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 2.0%Rawstory: 1.6%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.1%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.3%Rawstory: 0.4%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 14.1%Alexander Willis: 5.4%Rawstory: 3.4%Anecdotal14.1%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.1%Rawstory: 0.2%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 11.4%Alexander Willis: 2.5%Rawstory: 2.2%Ambiguity (Equivocation)11.4%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.3%Rawstory: 0.2%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.1%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.4%Rawstory: 0.4%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 11.4%Alexander Willis: 8.3%Rawstory: 4.9%Unattributed Quote11.4%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 5.0%Rawstory: 3.8%Quote-first Misdirection0.0%This article: 18.6%Alexander Willis: 11.7%Rawstory: 14.1%Biased Writer Voice18.6%This article: 2.9%Alexander Willis: 1.5%Rawstory: 3.0%Indoctrination2.9%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 6.3%Rawstory: 7.5%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.8%Rawstory: 0.9%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Alexander Willis: 0.3%Rawstory: 0.5%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

306 words analyzed.

Speakers

2speakers49%attributed speech156writer words
Selected voice

Mike Waltz

83%flagged-word coverage
80 attributed words53% of attributed speech100% writer coverage
0%22.5%45.0%Unattributed Quote+43.8 ptsWriter: 0.0%Mike Waltz: 43.8%43.8%Biased Writer Voice-36.5 ptsWriter: 36.5%Mike Waltz: 0.0%0.0%Indoctrination-5.8 ptsWriter: 5.8%Mike Waltz: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.