Trump Christmas message: 'The USA is dying from within'

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Former US President Donald Trump launched, on his Truth Social platform on Sunday, a holiday rant that concluded with the phrase "The USA is dying from within!!!"

“On this very cold but beautiful Christmas Day, look at our Nation NOW on the Southern Border compared to only a short time ago during the Trump Administration,” he wrote on his Truth Social Platform, characterizing current conditions as a “horror show.”

That message came after one from Saturday in which he had wished a Merry Christmas to everyone and said, "LOVE TO ALL!" in between, but had otherwise attacked his usual targets and congratulated himself. Trump, who is running for president once more, once referred to himself as "clairvoyant" without further explanation.

Trump had responded via video to the 845-page final report of the House select committee looking into the Capitol incursions on January 6 on Friday. He criticized the committee's objectivity and its conclusions, which were harshly critical of him.

The report said: “The central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, whom many others followed. None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him. The committee report followed criminal referrals to the Department of Justice from that nine-member committee."

The report also recommended that Trump never be allowed to run for the presidency again. 

The recommendation comes against the backdrop of recent criminal referrals that were issued against Trump for breaching the Capitol and inciting violence.

The report which was the result of an 18-month investigation and included interviews with 1000 witnesses contains several other recommendations that are intended to prevent such an episode from ever repeating itself.

"Our country has come too far to allow a defeated president to turn himself into a successful tyrant by upending our democratic institutions (and) fomenting violence," the panel's chairman Bennie Thompson said on the day the report was issued.

The report further calls on lawmakers to speed up on legislation to prevent Trump and others who are "engaged in insurrection" to be barred from holding office - "whether federal or state, civilian or military."