Donald Trump Presidency discussion Thread VIII (threadbanned users listed in OP)

briany

TomOnBoard wrote: »

Just watched the Axios interview with Trump...

Oh my sweet Jeebus!

The interviewer was excellent, but OMG, Trump was off the wall, bat-**** crazy! I seriously think someone is setting him up at this stage!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zaaTZkqsaxY

All this interview is missing is the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme music.

It was only the other week that Trump did his rambling Fox interview. How did he or anyone on his team think that agreeing to another interview of the same type would be a good idea so soon after the previous one?? All I can think is that Trump genuinely believes he came off well in the Fox interview and is going to continue in the same fashion.

Also, and I know this is more ad-hominem, but that tan line is absolutely ridiculous. There are a good few close up shots of him in profile in this interview, and the combination of the brown face/white jowels and singular backcombed hairstyle would make it hard to take the man seriously, even if you didn't know all the other stuff about him. When you're POTUS, appearances matter.

Christy42

TomOnBoard wrote: »

Just watched the Axios interview with Trump...

Oh my sweet Jeebus!

The interviewer was excellent, but OMG, Trump was off the wall, bat-**** crazy! I seriously think someone is setting him up at this stage!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zaaTZkqsaxY

Couldn't watch it all the way through. It was really painful to watch. You nearly feel sad for him. He is obviously not fit for office. He seems pretty safe after leaving office as well. I can't imagine a judge watching some of those interviews and not agreeing that he requires psychiatric help.

I agree there are plenty pulling the strings behind the scenes. The man himself is not coherent enough to have come up with anything.

briany

Trump supporters asking if Biden has cognitive decline because he has stammered in speeches, while somehow giving Trump a pass on all the incoherent rambling he does every time he's interviewed. Ladies and gentlemen, the Cirque du Soleil of mental gymnastics.

Penn

briany wrote: »

All this interview is missing is the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme music.

It's Veep/The Thick Of It on steroids. It's why it's impossible to do shows like that any more because the reality has become so absurd that it's next to impossible to satirise. Most political satire now is just playing actual Trump clips and satirising the reaction to it.

I mean, the transcripts for this interview alone are just beyond satire.

Trump: “You know, there are those that say you can test too much. You do know that.”
Swan: “Who says that?”
Trump: “Oh, just read the manuals. Read the books.”
Swan: “Manuals? What manuals?”
Trump: “Read the books. Read the books.”
Swan: “What books?”

Trump: “We’re testing so much because we had the ability to test, because we came up with – Jonathan, we didn’t even have a test. When I took over, we didn’t even have a test.”
Swan: “Why would you have a test? The virus didn’t exist! How would you have a test?”
Trump: “I was going to say, there was no test for this new – we didn’t have a test, because there was no test.”
Swan: “Of course!”
Trump: “And in very short order, we got one test, we got another test.”
Swan: “It was broken, the first one.”
Trump: “Many of those tests are now obsolete, because you know, it’s called science, and all of a sudden something’s better.

Trump: “The point is, because we are so much better at testing than any other country in the world, we show more cases.”
Swan: “The figure I look at is death. And death is going up now. It’s a thousand a day.”
Trump: “If you look at death – take a look at some of these charts.”
The President reached over and picked up a few sheets of paper.
Trump: “Here’s one. Well, right here, United States is lowest in numerous categories. We’re lower than the world.”
Swan: “Lower than the world?”
Trump: “Lower than Europe.”

Swan: “Oh, you’re doing death as a proportion of cases. I’m talking about death as a proportion of population. That’s where the US is really bad. Much worse than Germany, South Korea, et cetera.”
Trump: “You can’t – you can’t do that.”
Swan: “Why can’t I do that?”
Trump: “You have to go by, you have to go by – look. Here is the United States – you have to go by the cases. The cases of death.”
Swan: “Why not as a proportion of population?”
Trump: “What it says is when you have somebody, where there’s a case, the people that live from those cases.”
Swan: “Sure. It’s surely a relevant statistic to say if the US has X population and X percentage of death of that population, opposed to some-”
Trump: “No, because you have to go by the cases.”
Swan: “In South Korea, for example – 51 million population, 300 deaths. It’s like, it’s crazy compared to other countries.”
Trump: “You don’t know that. You don’t know that.”
Swan: “I do. You think they’re faking their statistics? South Korea?”
Trump: “Ahhhhh, I won’t get into that, because I have a very good relationship with the country. But you don’t know that. They have spikes.”
Swan: “Germany, low 9000s?”
Trump: “Here’s one right here, United States. The number of cases – have a look. We’re last. Meaning we’re first.”
Mr Trump was brandishing another chart at this point.
Swan: “Last? I don’t know what we’re first in.”
Trump: “Take a look, it’s cases. And we have cases because of the testing.”
Swan: “I mean, a thousand Americans are dying a day. But I understand, on cases, it’s different.”
Trump: “No but you’re not reporting it correctly, Jonathan.”
Swan: “I think I am.”

briany

Christy42 wrote: »

Couldn't watch it all the way through. It was really painful to watch. You nearly feel sad for him. He is obviously not fit for office. He seems pretty safe after leaving office as well. I can't imagine a judge watching some of those interviews and not agreeing that he requires psychiatric help.

I agree there are plenty pulling the strings behind the scenes. The man himself is not coherent enough to have come up with anything.

If and when Trump is voted out of office, the good thing will be that Trump was such an embarrassment to many people in the States that his whole movement will shrink down to the hardcore deplorables for a while at least and they can thus be ignored while the US attempts to get on with something approximating normality. Trump's brand of politics and discourse will be associated with ineptitude, self-centeredness and short-term thinking. It'd be toxic.

But there remains a danger that the movement which backed Trump finds a new leader. Someone who's not afraid to appeal to the bigoted tendencies of the base, and is charismatic, but is also articulate and can actually plan. There are probably people on the right, or alt-right, planning their move for power as I write this. If they thought it couldn't get worse than Dubya, but it did, then it would be naive to believe it can't get worse than Trump.

marno21

It’s difficult to believe that someone thought the Jonathan Swan interview was a good idea

Absolutely demented stuff

https://twitter.com/jumoffit/status/1290513900111384577

The Lincoln Project etc will have a field day.

Timberrrrrrrr

marno21 wrote: »

It’s difficult to believe that someone thought the Jonathan Swan interview was a good idea

Absolutely demented stuff

https://twitter.com/jumoffit/status/1290513900111384577

The Lincoln Project etc will have a field day.

"Yes they are dying, It is what it is"

Donald Trump 2020


Let's see his zealots defend that.

briany

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

"Yes they are dying, It is what it is"

Donald Trump 2020


Let's see his zealots defend that.

Easy. "Those people would have died anyway."

Cody montana

briany wrote: »

Easy. "Those people would have died anyway."

“Technically, everyone dies.”

moon2

On of the frustrating things about "look at $other_country, they're having spikes, they're doing badly" type rhetoric is that it completely fails to take into account the size of the spike.

Ireland worries about a spike when there are 40 new cases a day. South Korea have fewer than 100 new cases a day, which they are concerned about. Here's the US president saying that 60,000+ cases a day is fine because of the spikes in countries such as South Korea. Somehow 60,000+ a day is comparable to 60.

Leroy42

And Trump is always comparing the US to other countries. For a man that believes that he was going to MAGA, he sure is quick to point out that other countries have issues as well and thus the US is not the worst.

They are supposed to be the best. When did MAGA become MANTWINW?

So what is other countries have spikes? What the hell does SK spike have to do with people dying in Florida?

Itssoeasy

I've only seen the clip of 2:30 that was released sometime this morning but Jesus h Christ someone in the White House wants trump to look as bad as possible. Why does he think getting A4 sheets and trying to find something that proves his point makes him look good. It was shown in the chris Wallace interview that because trump doesn't read or learn stuff that when he tries to explain something he looks worse. I can guarantee you he'd never seen those graphs before that interview.

He sounded like someone who's looking at photos(when you had get them developed) for the first time when asked does any photo show the beach and you respond "here's one."

Quin_Dub

moon2 wrote: »

On of the frustrating things about "look at $other_country, they're having spikes, they're doing badly" type rhetoric is that it completely fails to take into account the size of the spike.

Ireland worries about a spike when there are 40 new cases a day. South Korea have fewer than 100 new cases a day, which they are concerned about. Here's the US president saying that 60,000+ cases a day is fine because of the spikes in countries such as South Korea. Somehow 60,000+ a day is comparable to 60.

Indeed - Irelands "spike" at around 50 cases a day would be equivalent to about 3,300 a day in the US - So the US is running at 20X the rate that we are concerned about and are delaying re-opening or even rolling back as a result.

Itssoeasy wrote: »

I've only seen the clip of 2:30 that was released sometime this morning but Jesus h Christ someone in the White House wants trump to look as bad as possible. Why does he think getting A4 sheets and trying to find something that proves his point makes him look good. It was shown in the chris Wallace interview that because trump doesn't read or learn stuff that when he tries to explain something he looks worse. I can guarantee you he'd never seen those graphs before that interview.

He sounded like someone who's looking at photos(when you had get them developed) for the first time when asked does any photo show the beach and you respond "here's one."

The "Stats" that he has are so clearly spun to find any conceivable way to show a number that somehow looks positive for the US.

It's not that they are looking at a value for "Deaths per Case" that's the problem , it's the fact that he doesn't want to know about any of the other data points because they look worse.

And because he has surrounded himself with enablers there's no one to tell him the reality.

Look at his reaction to Birx the other day - She makes a valid accurate statement and he loses it on Twitter.

What was his reaction in person when he saw that?

Timberrrrrrrr

Quin_Dub wrote: »

Indeed - Irelands "spike" at around 50 cases a day would be equivalent to about 3,300 a day in the US - So the US is running at 20X the rate that we are concerned about and are delaying re-opening or even rolling back as a result.



The "Stats" that he has are so clearly spun to find any conceivable way to show a number that somehow looks positive for the US.

It's not that they are looking at a value for "Deaths per Case" that's the problem , it's the fact that he doesn't want to know about any of the other data points because they look worse.

And because he has surrounded himself with enablers there's no one to tell him the reality.

Look at his reaction to Birx the other day - She makes a valid accurate statement and he loses it on Twitter.

What was his reaction in person when he saw that?

In case anyone hasn't seen his Twitter rant.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1290282508303716352?s=19

amandstu

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

In case anyone hasn't seen his Twitter rant.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1290282508303716352?s=19

Not to excuse another of Trump's bad behaviour but was Pelosi's criticism of Birx justified?

Is Birx between a rock and a hard place and should we be glad that she has been able to hold onto her position by means of the discretionary part of valour (keeping her head down and living to fight another day and not giving Trump the excuse to replace her with some non entity)

She may not have the class or ability of a Fauci but is no deplorable.

Christy42

amandstu wrote: »

Not to excuse another of Trump's bad behaviour but was Pelosi's criticism of Birx justified?

Is Birx between a rock and a hard place and should we be glad that she has been able to hold onto her position by means of the discretionary part of valour (keeping her head down and living to fight another day and not giving Trump the excuse to replace her with some non entity)

She may not have the class or ability of a Fauci but is no deplorable.

When does discretion become the same as a non entity?

The US is in tatters at the moment and needs leadership if they want to stop the 1000+ deaths a day.

Dempo1

https://www.axios.com/full-axios-hbo-interview-donald-trump-cd5a67e1-6ba1-46c8-bb3d-8717ab9f3cc5.html

Just in case anyone has any doubt how incompetent trump is, take a look at his latest and by far his worst interview to date "it is was it is" was his response to over 150,000 deaths in the US as a result of Covid, but that's not all. Its a truly shocking and staggering interview and on a platform that's historically supportive of him. This the leader of the free world? Truly disturbing

briany

Does Trump give a question to One America News at every WH presser he does? They're basically the media wing of his presidency, replacing Fox News as the network he likes the most. Last night they just set him up to talk about his problem with mail-in voting.

Quin_Dub

briany wrote: »

Does Trump give a question to One America News at every WH presser he does? They're basically the media wing of his presidency, replacing Fox News as the network he likes the most. Last night they just set him up to talk about his problem with mail-in voting.

Given that every question they ask is an unbelievably trite tee up for for whatever the hobby horse of the day is, I suspect that yes he does indeed "give them a quesion" for each of his Pressers.

He also always calls them out by name explicitly - So he points at them and says "Question from OAN" instead of the typical silent point/no in a specific direction or maybe sometimes calling a journalist by name.

Pushing awareness of the brand constantly to drive viewership - Nothing whatsoever to do with his family investment on the station of course.

Penn

Quin_Dub wrote: »

Given that every question they ask is an unbelievably trite tee up for for whatever the hobby horse of the day is, I suspect that yes he does indeed "give them a quesion" for each of his Pressers.

He also always calls them out by name explicitly - So he points at them and says "Question from OAN" instead of the typical silent point/no in a specific direction or maybe sometimes calling a journalist by name.

Pushing awareness of the brand constantly to drive viewership - Nothing whatsoever to do with his family investment on the station of course.

After the Axios and even Chris Wallace interviews, I imagine he'll stick to Fox & Friends, Hannity and OANN for his interviews until the election, where he can just ramble unchecked and unchallenged.

briany

Penn wrote: »

After the Axios and even Chris Wallace interviews, I imagine he'll stick to Fox & Friends, Hannity and OANN for his interviews until the election, where he can just ramble unchecked and unchallenged.

Something of a wonder that he didn't go with that approach in the first place.

Quin_Dub

Penn wrote: »

After the Axios and even Chris Wallace interviews, I imagine he'll stick to Fox & Friends, Hannity and OANN for his interviews until the election, where he can just ramble unchecked and unchallenged.

briany wrote: »

Something of a wonder that he didn't go with that approach in the first place.

I suspect that it was part of a recognition on the part of his team that he needed to reach outside of his bubble for support.

Given the abject failure of that plan thus far , they may retreat to a safe space for now.

robinph

Quin_Dub wrote: »

I suspect that it was part of a recognition on the part of his team that he needed to reach outside of his bubble for support.

Given the abject failure of that plan thus far , they may retreat to a safe space for now.

This is a monumental failure of his team to have put him forward for interviews with people who are not going to worship him. If they need to get him exposure outside of his existing bubble then what on earth possessed them to think he was capable to jump in at the deep end first? They should have lined him up with more friendly interviewers before so that he could learn how to speak and answer questions. Then once he's learnt how to not make a complete show of himself gradually find some interviews with a wider range of people.

Trumps an idiot, we know that. But the team behind him is just as idiotic to be putting him in these positions.

Quin_Dub

robinph wrote: »

This is a monumental failure of his team to have put him forward for interviews with people who are not going to worship him. If they need to get him exposure outside of his existing bubble then what on earth possessed them to think he was capable to jump in at the deep end first? They should have lined him up with more friendly interviewers before so that he could learn how to speak and answer questions. Then once he's learnt how to not make a complete show of himself gradually find some interviews with a wider range of people.

Trumps an idiot, we know that. But the team behind him is just as idiotic to be putting him in these positions.

Not that I'm disagreeing at all with the logical elements of what you say , but when has Trump ever shown any willingness or ability to "learn"?

I can imagine Trumps reaction if someone said "We don't think you are ready for these interviewers yet, let's start easy with those other guys"

Trump genuinely believes that he is the greatest at everything , particularly in terms of Media/PR.

There would be no telling him.

Penn

robinph wrote: »

This is a monumental failure of his team to have put him forward for interviews with people who are not going to worship him. If they need to get him exposure outside of his existing bubble then what on earth possessed them to think he was capable to jump in at the deep end first? They should have lined him up with more friendly interviewers before so that he could learn how to speak and answer questions. Then once he's learnt how to not make a complete show of himself gradually find some interviews with a wider range of people.

Trumps an idiot, we know that. But the team behind him is just as idiotic to be putting him in these positions.

I'd also argue that it's his team who are presenting him with what they see as the best way to frame the numbers in terms of Covid deaths, but Trump then falls apart when that framing is in any way challenged. Whether they're doing it at his direction or just to keep him happy, they're skewing the numbers and Trump just regurgitates them and congratulates himself on America not being last when viewed under that particular metric.

Overheal

Quin_Dub wrote: »

Given that every question they ask is an unbelievably trite tee up for for whatever the hobby horse of the day is, I suspect that yes he does indeed "give them a quesion" for each of his Pressers.

He also always calls them out by name explicitly - So he points at them and says "Question from OAN" instead of the typical silent point/no in a specific direction or maybe sometimes calling a journalist by name.

Pushing awareness of the brand constantly to drive viewership - Nothing whatsoever to do with his family investment on the station of course.

I was already doing a little mock golf swing at home when I heard him call on OAN. Sure enough she opened him up to rant about mail in voting being bad but absentee voting is good etc. for the bulk of 2 minutes before swiftly fcuking off like the pigeon he is.

robinph

Quin_Dub wrote: »

Not that I'm disagreeing at all with the logical elements of what you say , but when has Trump ever shown any willingness or ability to "learn"?

I can imagine Trumps reaction if someone said "We don't think you are ready for these interviewers yet, let's start easy with those other guys"

Trump genuinely believes that he is the greatest at everything , particularly in terms of Media/PR.

There would be no telling him.

At which point it would be the job of the campaign people to tell him that they can't manage to arrange an interview with the other people, make some rubbish up about them not wanting and interview, tell him the interviewer tested positive for Covid, tell him the interviewer is foreign.

Or if they want any hope of a career after this is all over they need to walk away as having Trump2020 campaign written on your CV is not going to get you any jobs in the future. Trump will fire them in a rage tweet, and everyone else on the planet will know that you are incompetent at your job.

briany

robinph wrote: »

Trumps an idiot, we know that. But the team behind him is just as idiotic to be putting him in these positions.

I cannot believe that Trump is an idiot, although I can believe that he is a total blowhard and ignoramus. A true idiot would not have been able to build the business that Trump has done, for example, even if it's sort of built on sand, it's a most recognisable and lucrative brand. The business world has plenty of people who can take you for a ride if they feel you're slow on the uptake, and even though Trump started off with a large inheritance, a large inheritance can still be squandered. And if Trump were truly an idiot, then what does that make all the people he beat out for the presidency?

I think Trump just wants power and recognition. His ego demands it. But he just doesn't care about detail, at least where politics is concerned. I think the whole business bores him utterly. This makes him look utterly silly when asked to explain points of policy. This is what America gets when they vote in someone who is not of the political world - a rank amateur as president.

ArmaniJeanss

I reckon Jonathan Swan was actually picked as a moderately easy interview.
Has pretty much had a foot in the Trump camp over the years, and apparently one of the chosen journalists who get leaked to.

Probably picked as in-between option to decide if Trump goes up or down the leagues in future interviews.

Retr0gamer

briany wrote: »

I cannot believe that Trump is an idiot, although I can believe that he is a total blowhard and ignoramus. A true idiot would not have been able to build the business that Trump has done, for example, even if it's sort of built on sand, it's a most recognisable and lucrative brand. The business world has plenty of people who can take you for a ride if they feel you're slow on the uptake, and even though Trump started off with a large inheritance, a large inheritance can still be squandered. And if Trump were truly an idiot, then what does that make all the people he beat out for the presidency?

I think Trump just wants power and recognition. His ego demands it. But he just doesn't care about detail, at least where politics is concerned. I think the whole business bores him utterly. This makes him look utterly silly when asked to explain points of policy. This is what America gets when they vote in someone who is not of the political world - a rank amateur as president.

I would actually say he is an idiot. His business was probably built with daddy's advisors and then he sunk it after falling out with them and firing them and surrounding himself with yes men. Trump is the face of the business but I very much doubt he is the one making the big decisions, or at least only the ones that ended up tanking it when he disagreed with his consultants.