We use cookies to analyse traffic and improve your experience. See our privacy policy.
Trump handed out four medals, Reid Wiseman gave him a flight jacket, and that was it. The ceremony is now over. Only 6 words out of 19 were mentioned:
Everything else was a miss.
The news out of the ceremony is a new service academy. Trump signed an executive order to build one for the Space Force and NASA, said it has to be the equal of West Point and Annapolis, and said he has not chosen a location because too many people in the room are lobbying him for it.
He also said, "never been anything like it," about 81 stock market highs. That is not the phrase 'Never Seen Anything' needs either, and that contract is now on its second near miss.
Nearly half an hour of speaking, and four of the words traders came here for have not appeared. 'China' was 59%. 'Elon Musk' was 21% and 'SpaceX' 24%. Lastly, 'Alien' was 13%.
The medal citations are next, which are read out by an announcer. Trump's own speaking time is nearly done.
He has moved on to what the Artemis II crew actually did. They "crossed behind the dark side of the moon", he said, and saw sights "never seen before, never seen by human eyes."
Two contracts are hanging on that sentence.
'Far Side', 46% this morning, needs the words far side. It got dark side. 'Never Seen Anything', 67% and the third favorite on the board, needs those three words in that order, and 'never seen by human eyes' is not them.
It's unlikely he will mention them later, although there's still a chance. He has the medal citations left, and he tends to circle back.
'Communication' has just cleared, in the same passage, when he described the crew going silent behind the moon and said he was watching it happen. That one was 29%, a whopping 3x return.
"Don't forget I was the one that gave you space force," he said, "and we had no space force." He said it four separate times in the end: once to explain that people thought he was joking, once to say it is turning into one of the most important branches, and once about Venezuela.
'Space Force' was 89% before he mentioned it.
'Flag' went a minute later. Trump described giving Apollo 17's Jack Schmitt a flag that flew over the Capitol on the country's 250th birthday, then could not find it in the room. "Where is the flag? Oh, it's over there. It's hidden behind a lot of rockets."
'Smart' had already cleared on Ted Cruz.
They played God Bless the USA, Trump came to the podium, and the first thing he did was thank Jared Isaacman twice and call the Johnson Space Center a monument to grit.
Then he started talking about his family. He had an uncle, Dr. John Trump, who spent 41 years at MIT and loved space, and who Trump says "would throw in the word nuclear every once in a while."
'Nuclear' was 27% this morning. It was one of the cheapest live words on the board, and he settled it with an anecdote about a relative before he had finished his opening.
'Mission' had already gone on to the engineers who "helped make this mission a great success."
Trump speaks at NASA's Johnson Space Center tomorrow at 11 am ET, pinning the Congressional Space Medal of Honor on the Artemis II crew.
Polymarket has 19 contracts open on which words he uses. And traders think the most likely words Trump is going to say are:
