I understand that Trump was acting strategically when he agreed to the recent New York Times interview. I get that. Trump was starting his newest task: trashing Jeff Sessions so that Trump could fire him and replace him with someone compliant, who will then fire special council Robert Mueller, so Trump and his kids don’t go to jail for their various crimes. He has stuff to do.
So, yeah. And on the main, it worked. The newspapers fell into line wonderfully, restating Trumps verbal trash dumps as if they had been clear and concise, while weeping about how unfair he was being. Most people assume that Trump voiced cogent complaints about Sessions’ ethics, along with Comey’s possible blackmail threats, and so on.
Is that what really happened?
Oh, hell no. Trump regurgitated a heapin’ helpin’ o’ crazy talk that was weird, creepy, and highly revealing. It’s something you should read for yourself. You’ll understand. Don’t just accept what other people tell you.
In my family, we deal with crazy a lot, and we’ve heard a lot of delusional people. I don’t mean to brag, but not only did we run an insane asylum back in the day, we were members, too. We had both sides.
This interview would have fit right into a family reunion. Talking about his Trumpcare failure, Trump, of course, blamed Hillary:
I mean, you think of Hillary Clinton, and you look, she went eight years — very capable — went eight years as the first lady, and could not get health care. So this is not an easy crack. The one thing I’ll say about myself, so, Obama was in there for eight years and got Obamacare. Hillary Clinton was in there eight years and they never got Hillarycare, whatever they called it at the time. I am not in here six months, and they’ll say, “Trump hasn’t fulfilled his agenda.” I say to myself, wait a minute, I’m only here a very short period of time compared to Obama. How long did it take to get Obamacare?
Interesting that Trump suddenly feels Ms Clinton is super-capable. He says that this sudden god of policy development had eight years to pass her healthcare bill, and couldn’t.
Right. Maybe because “First Lady” is a critical government position with super-duper legislative powers?
He talks about history as if every large event took roughly a day. Talking about his trip to France:
TRUMP: Yeah. It was beautiful. We toured the museum, we went to Napoleon’s tomb… [crosstalk] TRUMP: Well, Napoleon finished a little bit bad. But I asked that. So I asked the president, so what about Napoleon? He said: “No, no, no. What he did was incredible. He designed Paris.” [garbled] The street grid, the way they work, you know, the spokes. He did so many things even beyond. And his one problem is he didn’t go to Russia that night because he had extracurricular activities, and they froze to death. How many times has Russia been saved by the weather? [garbled and crosstalk] TRUMP: Same thing happened to Hitler. Not for that reason, though. Hitler wanted to consolidate. He was all set to walk in. But he wanted to consolidate, and it went and dropped to 35 degrees below zero, and that was the end of that army.
Jeeze. “Napoleon finished a little bit bad.” That’s Trump’s number one takeaway. “And his one problem is he didn’t go to Russia that night because he had extracurricular activities, and they froze to death.”
“…That night…” Oh. My. God. Trump’s conversation is disjointed and tormented, jiggering over his topics and tripping over the intellectual furniture. And this is the way he always speaks. Trump thinks that whole ‘stream of consciousness’ approach is great stuff.
The interview had pretty loose rules. Trump could make anything on or off the record. If he’d said, “That last part was off the record,” they wouldn’t have reported it. Instead, Trump thinks that drooling out historical malaprops make him look like a genius.
Trump rambles like a confused street bum. If someone talked like this in my living room… well, first, I’d assume they were family, but then I’d worry they were off their meds. Not only does he sound like he’s lost the thread of reality, he sounds indifferent to the fact.
Talking about his recent trip to France:
TRUMP: People were surprised because I’d just come back from Hamburg. So I was back for three days, and then I had to go out again. But when he [Mr. Macron] invited me, he and I have a very good relationship. I have a very good relationship with Merkel [Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany]. Do you know what happened with Merkel? So I am sitting in the chair. We’d been sitting there for two hours. So it’s not like, “Nice to see ya.” So the press comes in. So I guess someone screamed out, “Shake her hand, shake her hand!” I didn’t even hear. So I didn’t shake her hand, because I’d been with her for so long. I’d been with her for a long period of time. So I didn’t shake her — the next day, “Trump refused to shake…” [garbled]
_________
TRUMP: She actually called me, and she said, um, “You know, I think we get along very well.” I said we do, we really do. I said, “You gotta put more money into NATO,” No. 1. And No. 2 is like, our trade imbalance is ridiculous. You know, it’s a money machine.
Later, when asked :
BAKER: Will you go to Britain? Are you going to make a state visit to Britain? Are you going to be able to do that?
TRUMP: As to Britain?
BAKER: Yeah.
HABERMAN: Will you go there?
TRUMP: Ah, they’ve asked me. What was interesting — so, when Macron asked, I said: “Do you think it’s a good thing for me to go to Paris? I just ended the Paris Accord last week. Is this a good thing?” He said, “They love you in France.” I said, “O.K., I just don’t want to hurt you.”
(Wow. Sharp left turn, there, Bubba. Forget Britain?)
In the damp, dark space inside his mind, Trump is always loved by everyone, every time. Even (especially?) the people who have openly disdained or criticized him in real life. And they all agree that Trump is the best, ever.
And it’s so constant, so reflexive, Trump doesn’t notice it’s all nonsense. I swear, the man’s so crazy, he could be kin.
Trump fills every section with superlatives about himself. Trump has cut regulations “more than anyone else. … I heard that Harry Truman was first, and then we beat him.”
Talking about Poland, Trump instinctively goes to his happy place: “I have had the best reviews on foreign land. So I go to Poland and make a speech. Enemies of mine in the media, enemies of mine are saying it was the greatest speech ever made on foreign soil by a president.”
This is a conversation that would normally scare someone rational, but we’ve gotten used to Trump being that way. Not that it didn’t take time. At first, we assumed he was just playing a character on TV. Then we hoped that he was just pretending to be crazy for the red-meat campaign crowds. By the time we realized Trump wasn’t pretending or acting — he really, truly, no-fooling was that crazy uncle shouting from the recliner — we were too numb to make another fuss.
Talk to Trump about anything, and he’ll answer about how great he was, how everyone loves him, and how everything he’s done is more, and better, and stronger, and bigger than anything like it before. Despite all evidence.
Challenge Trump, and he’ll automatically blame Hillary. Press him about that, and he complains that Obama was worse. He even blames Nixon. Who next? Lincoln?
[Wait. No! He did?!?]So Trump has to be loved by everyone, a central figure to all other leaders, who all agree he’s the best person ever. Trump never accepts blame for anything, and every misstep is magically someone else’s fault.
Yeah, I’ve seen all of this before, Over and over, and tons of family get-togethers.
I’m sure we’re related.
Really, make up your own mind. Read the transcript of his New York Times interview. It’s all there.
