Monday Motivation: Plague, Power and a President’s Words

US army memorial at the Cumberland Monastery. Picture by George Sisca

By George Sisca II | SNN Commentary | Oct. 5, 2026

A suspected plague incident in Siberia and the reported suicide of an Epstein-related whistleblower. That is what caught my eye this weekend.

Then Monday night arrived, and the president of the United States spoke about letting Iran “take out” Los Angeles and San Diego.

Apparently, the weekend had not provided enough material.

I began writing about the difficulty of knowing whom to believe. Tonight, I am also asking how much Americans are expected to tolerate from the people entrusted with protecting them.

In Siberia, a worker at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute died after developing pneumonia of an undetermined cause. Reports of possible exposure to plague bacteria prompted international concern. Russian authorities denied finding evidence of a laboratory accident, while people who had contact with the worker were placed under observation. As of Monday, the World Health Organization assessed the risk to the general population as low, based on available information.

Annie Jacobsen, author of Nuclear War: A Scenario, has been sounding the alarm. Her new book, Biological War: A Scenario, published in July, explores a catastrophic biological threat. The overlap between her subject matter and the developing story caught my attention.

An author who writes about catastrophe is now commenting on a possible catastrophe. Her expertise may help explain the danger. The attention may also help sell books. 

Meanwhile, footage circulating from Russia has left me uneasy. Some videos are presented as evidence of an extraordinary emergency, while webcams in Irkutsk appear to show ordinary life. I want to know where those videos were recorded, when they were recorded and whether the descriptions attached to them are accurate.

If reports of FSB involvement are correct, how is footage getting out? Was it leaked? Was it permitted? Are we even looking at what people claim we are looking at?

During the early days of COVID, many people followed videos and reports emerging before governments fully acknowledged the danger. That experience helps explain why people are watching Siberia and its neighbors so closely now. It also makes a frightening rumor especially easy to believe.

The uncertainty in Siberia brings me back to a familiar problem here at home: What happens when governments have spent years giving people reasons to distrust them? Citizens deserve answers, and officials owe them more than reassurance. Our own history shows how much damage can accumulate before anyone in power is held accountable.

Different Presidents, the Same Question: Accountability. 

The Pentagon Papers exposed years of deception about Vietnam across successive administrations. Americans had been asked to accept sacrifice under claims that deserved far more scrutiny. Tens of thousands of American service members died, alongside vastly greater numbers of Vietnamese people.

Nixon’s resignation came later, through Watergate, the cover-up and the threat of impeachment. The revelations mattered because journalists, investigators, courts and Congress kept pursuing them. Eventually, his own political support collapsed.

Today, every new outrage seems to arrive with instructions to wait for the next election.

Then, at Monday night’s rally in Nebraska, Trump said  “Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego.”

I don’t usually parrot what this President says, but this should anger everyone. 

He was discussing the war with Iran and defending higher fuel prices as a small price for keeping the country safe. That context does not make his words acceptable. No explanation makes that language acceptable to me.

Los Angeles and San Diego are American cities full of American people. Families live there. Children go to school there. Veterans live there. People who voted for him live there, as do people who did not. Every one of them is entitled to a president who takes their safety seriously.

There is no acceptable partisan discount on an American life.

I served in Operation Iraqi Freedom. I know that decisions made in Washington impose consequences on people far from the podium. Hearing a commander in chief speak so casually about American cities being destroyed makes me angry in a way that another campaign insult does not.

To my ear, those words betray the responsibility of his office. I regard them as profoundly un-American. Whether they meet the legal definition of treason is a separate question; this statement alone does not establish that crime.

But Americans should not need a criminal conviction to recognize a disgraceful presidential statement.

Nor should we be expected to shrug, wait for an explanation and move on to tomorrow’s outrage.

After Jan. 6, I cannot take respect for democratic limits on faith. The approaching midterms can change control of Congress and the willingness to investigate this administration. They will not themselves remove a president.

That makes accountability between elections essential.

The boy who cried wolf should never have become the model for communication from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Repeated dishonesty poisons the public’s ability to respond when a real warning arrives. People begin searching every explanation for the concealed motive.

That is the atmosphere in which a suspected plague incident becomes a possible plot, and an author’s warning becomes a suspected sales pitch.

Could fear be exploited before an election? Yes. Have I established that Putin is manufacturing this scare to influence our midterms? No. That remains a suspicion without the evidence needed to publish it as a conclusion.

Tonight’s presidential statement presents a different problem. We have the words. The question is what standard we intend to apply to the man who said them.

Where does this end?

It should begin with refusing to let exhaustion lower our expectations. Demand answers about Siberia. Insist that the president explain his words.

And stop treating the safety of Americans as something he can casually invoke, discard or turn into applause.

Happy Monday.