Honse

Its not explicitly ego like the other commenter said, but also facsist need to be constantly under attack, whether by immigrants or most likely now shifting to “anti American protestors” or whatever rhetoric they find effective to get their reactionary audience scared. They’ll trust their supreme leader will protect them from whatever the enemy of the day is. By campaigning he can do what he did to win the election, lie so much that the main narrative parroted across the consolidated media environment will be his fearmongering. Same strategy, differnet time. I’m certain the attacks will be directed to US Citizens now, political enemies, specifically.

deleted by creator

Nope. In this scene the Terminator (cop) has a picture of young John Connor, the kids friend, and is showing it around. The kid obviously knows its his friend, but lies to the cop because him and John are “troubled kids” (orphan in Johns case) and are usually up to some less than legal activities. The literal next shot in the movie is that kid going to warn John that a cop is in the arcade looking for him and rushing him out the back door.