Donald Trump's Very, Very Large Brain Held A Press Conference
And what the hell, Donald came along for the ride!
Donald Trump's id decided to holding a press conference after telling the world to Fuck Off, America First, at the UN General Assembly Wednesday. So Donald Trump's id held that press conference and absolutely CRUSHED IT. If by "it" you mean "any remaining illusions that the United States is led by a sane person." This thing was a dumpster fire in the middle of a flooded garbage dump, spilling into an overflowing river full of exploding foamy pigdoots . And the river is on fire, too.
Needless to say, Trump enjoyed every bizarre minute of it, and tease-threatened he might like to do more, like maybe every day. If you want a vision of the future, picture a ranting Alex Jones devotee spraying spittle in a human face, forever.
This was the first completely solo presser Trump has held in 587 days, and without the constraint of an actual world leader standing nearby to take the attention off him, he was in full lookatmeeeee mode for 81 minutes. He didn't so much "answer" reporters' questions as use the first seven words as a prompt from which he started improvising, like someone who's had three weeks of trombone lessons and has decided to do a free jazz concert.
To truly appreciate the full horrorshow, you'd have to watch the whole thing . But even that would be insufficient, since it would lack the immediacy of being part of a national audience experiencing the piteous meltdown in real time. But let's at least touch on some of the lowlights of this particular "presidential" rendition of The Aristocrats . As ever, we'll be making generous use of the Twitter chronicles by Aaron Rupar of ThinkProgress and Daniel Dale of the Toronto Star; you can also find a good annotated transcript at WaPo . (If you're paywalled out, there's an unadorned transcript at the White House website.)
Daniel Dale may have best encapsulated the essence of this thing in the middle of his fact-check thread:
This is like one of those private Trump performances you read about from 17 anonymous Washington Post sources, except he's doing it at a press conference.
Most of the questions were about the sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh. Trump replied -- often before an actual question had been asked -- in typically Trumpian style: It's all fake news, but he's willing to be persuaded otherwise, even though it's all a con job by Democrats. And there's no reason for the FBI to investigate, because obviously there's not enough information to investigate, at all (also, DC Press Corps, why didn't anyone say the name "Mark Judge" at all? )
Fox News' @johnrobertsFox begins the Q & A by asking Trump about Kavanaugh and why he won't ask the FBI to investig… https: //t.co/6GFtNmBx71
— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1537996028.0
But here there was nothing to investigate from at least one standpoint — they didn't know the location, they didn't know the time, they didn't know the year — they didn't know anything. And it's like, where do you go?
Also it's not for the FBI, if you look at what Joe Biden said, he said, "They don't do this," and he said it very clearly. So I think when you really look at it all, it's not going to change any of the Democrats' minds; they're obstructionists. They're actually con artists, because they know how quality this man is and they've destroyed a man's reputation, and they want to destroy it even more.
Oh, shall we nitpick? What Biden actually said during Clarence Thomas's 1991 hearing was "The next person who refers to an FBI report as being worth anything obviously doesn't understand anything. FBI explicitly does not, in this case or any other case, reach a conclusion, period. Period." (Chuck Grassley liked that one, too, this morning in his rambling opener to the hearing with Dr. Blasey.) Conveniently, Trump and rightwingers have emphasized only the first sentence of Biden's comment, when it was the second bit, about the FBI not making any final judgments, that matters. But the FBI actually did an investigation -- however rushed -- in the Thomas case, far more than the White House has allowed 27 years later.
Oh, yes, we also like Trump's explanation of why you do an investigation: to get votes, not the truth. But let us move along. After calling the allegations "a big fat con job," Trump wouldn't take the bait when asked if all three women are liars; then he explained that Barack Obama was just lazy, lazy lazy when it came to judicial nominations:
You know, it's very interesting I pick a lot of judges — I have a 145 judges I will be picking by the end of a fairly short period of time, because President Obama wasn't big on picking judges. When I got there I said, how is this possible? I have 145, including Court of Appeals, judges. And they just didn't do it, you know why? They got tired, they got complacent — something happened.
Gosh, we wonder what that could have been, we said to ourselves, looking at Mitch McConnell's one real achievement: blocking as many Obama nominees as humanly possible after Rs took the Senate. And then he wondered why nobody brought up the allegations when there was still time for the FBI to investigate, conveniently ignoring that the investigation of Anita Hill's claims against Clarence Thomas -- which was rushed, yes, but at least happened -- took three days. It's been 11 days since Christine Blasey Ford's interview with the Washington Post was published.
Trump then blew off a question about Cuba, because what the hell does he know or care about Cuba except that Barack Obama's diplomacy was bad? He does know he doesn't like what's happening there, though. Oh look! Now he's getting pissy at Jim Acosta, who asked him why he isn't calling on any women!
Along the way, Trump said he'd decide whether the three women are all liars after today's hearing, although if you want to get all "factual," only Dr. Blasey will actually testify today. Several times, Trump seemed to think all three would, because he is stupid.
The point here, is that Democrats would probably even find an excuse to not confirm George Washington to the Supreme Court. They are just THAT AWFUL.
Trump claims Democrats would vote against George Washington because "he may have had a bad past." https: //t.co/Izj9ET5TKb
— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1537996691.0
How about talking over CBS's Weijia Jiang, repeatedly, as she tries to ask a question? That happened too!
Trump brusquely tells a female reporter to "sit down" as she tries to ask him about the sexual assault accusations… https: //t.co/a1DPHdliSy
— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1537997116.0
The women who say Trump assaulted or harassed them -- all four or five of them (or really, well over a dozen) -- were just looking for money! Also shame on Jiang for being so long-winded!
Jiang: If I could just actually ask --
Trump: Go ahead, please.
Jiang: -- my question, Mr. Trump. You didn't let me ask my question.
Trump: You've been asking a question for 10 minutes.
Jiang: No, you interrupted my question.
Trump: Please sit down. Please.
Jiang: I'm asking how did those impact your opinions on the allegations --
And eventually he answered: You bet that impacts his opinions, because lying liars have lied against him just like the liars are lying now, not that he's calling them liars, but it's all fake news. Which Trump will consider with an open mind.
And now, a brief diversion! Donald Trump happens to know the Chinese are definitely interfering in the midterms (no evidence) and boy oh boy, do they respect his VERY VERY LARGE BRAIN:
Trump declines to cite any evidence to substantiate claim he made today that China is meddling in the midterm elect… https: //t.co/nNfXytDBvo
— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1537997265.0
President Xi Jinping may or may not be Donald Trump's best pal anymore, but at least he respects Trump, according to
Mr. Pillsbury, the leading authority on China.
He was on a good show, I won't mention the name of the show, recently, and he was saying that China has total respect for Donald Trump and for Donald Trump's very, very large brain. He said Donald Trump, they don't know what to do -- never happened.
MR. PILLSBURY, THE LEADING AUTHORITY ON CHINA!
That would be Michael Pillsbury, of the rightwing Hudson Institute, who did indeed go on Tucker Carlson's Television Fuck-Tussle to say Donald Trump is outsmarting China, but nah, never said anything about his huge brain.
Also, Trump said he won't fire Rod Rosenstein just yet, and may not even meet with him today, so as not to rain on Judge Kavanaugh's parade. He also lied some about our enemy, Canada,and what beautiful "magnificent" letters Kim Jong Un sends him, because unlike that snot Justin Trudeau, Kim is a fuckin'gentleman.
Oh, yes, and then there was that punk Obama, who was such a hothead that he almost got us into an all out war with North Korea, did you people know that?
Don't forget, that time they said, oh, Trump is saying these horrible things. He's going to get us into a war.
You were going to have a war -- if I wasn't elected, you'd be in a war. And President Obama essentially said the same thing; he was ready to go to war. You would have had a war and you would have lost millions, not thousands, you would have lost millions of people. Seoul has millions of people, 40 miles and 30 miles from this very dangerous border.
If I wasn't elected, you would have had a war. President Obama thought you had to go to war. You know how close he was to pressing the trigger for war? Millions of people. With me, nobody's talking about that. Nobody's talking about that.
No, nobody can find anyone who remembers anything of the sort, either among journalists or former members of Obama's national security team. But you know, Obama did tell Trump during the transition that North Korea was a serious threat, and that's exactly the same as Obama telling Trump "that he was very close to going into war."
Oh, there was so much more. There was the reporter from the crazy conspiracy site, f'rinstance.
OF COURSE they have a White House correspondent with a press credential. There were the Kurdish journalists, one of whom Trump named "Mr. Kurd," and who asked a question about Iraq policy that Trump couldn't answer. Miraculously, he didn't say we should take their oil. But instead, he slagged Obama on the Iran nukes deal again, lying once more about "giving" Iran money (which was actually Iran's frozen assets). He called on PBS's Yamiche Alcindor, thinking she was with the "Failing New York Times"; then he predicted all the mainstream media will endorse him because he's GREAT for ratings. When she informed him she was with PBS, he insisted "I know that. No, I know that."
Trump denies that the UN was actually laughing at him yesterday, instead claims "they were laughing with me." 😂 https: //t.co/WL9GaxFkTz
— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1537999330.0
Alcindor's actual question was about the UN laughing at him; like, really laughing hard? Trump then explained all the diplomats were really laughing with him when he said he'd achieved more than any other president -- because they were so bigly on his side:
I mean, it is true. And I heard a little rustle and I said it's true. And I heard smiles -- and I said, oh, I didn't know that's be like a -- they weren't laughing at me. They were laughing with me. We had fun. That was not laughing at me.
So the fake news said people laughed at President Trump. They didn't laugh at me. People had a good time with me. We were doing it together. We had a good time. They respect what I've done. The United States is respected again.
That's just obvious. Also, they all loved his beautiful new suit of clothes, and if you think he's just standing there bareass naked with his mushroom dick dangling, you must not be a very sophisticated smart person.
After a bit more lying, it was eventually time for a final question to Donald Trump and his great big brain, who interrupted the question twice:
"You're a father. What does this moment that we're in, the cultural moment -- [Trump interruption] Right. So what -- what messages do you have... [Trump interruption] ... for the young men of America?
It's not even clear Trump heard the "message for the young men" part, because god DAMN he had thoughts on the Cultural Moment, and those thoughts were: Bitches be LYING:
Trump, who once called for the execution of black teens for a murder they did not commit, ends with this: "In [Kava… https://t.co/ZqXq7jPCms
— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1538000517.0
The reporter tried to get Trump to answer what message he's sending to the young men, but that's pretty clear: Women are nasty liars who deserve to be heard before we ignore them.
[ Aaron Rupar on Twitter / Daniel Dale on Twitter / Fox News on YouTube / WaPo annotated transcript / White House transcript ]
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Donald Trump's Very, Very Large Brain Held A Press Conference
It could still apply.
"Sit down, Doogie, you're drunk!"(thought occurring to this 50-something-year-old doctor if some young punk extended his hand condescendingly at me like that in an empty and meaningless gesture.)