This was the first solo press conference given by Donald Trump. Normally the president makes a few remarks about some issues that he wants to highlight and then asks for questions. Trump used his opening time to deliver a long, rambling, incoherent monologue largely praising himself and blasting the media for painting his administration in a bad light, before combatively engaging with the press and his ‘answers’ to the questions consisted of more self-praise and press-blasting.
There is no question that attacking the media is popular with his rabid base who cheer lustily when he does so. But as Trump the reality TV person should know, if you continue to do the same shtick over and over, ratings fall and even die-hard fans start to tune out. You need to either amp it up or introduce a new story line. Since it is hard to see how the former can happen, we will have to see the new performing monkey he brings out to keep his audience entertained.
Seth Meyers looks at what happened at the conference.
I gotta say, I’m warming to the theory that Trump’s got a diet pill addiction -- he talks too much like a few amphetamine-heads I’ve known. (Although the reports that he’s on phentermine don’t make sense -- phen-phen was taken off the market years ago. But there’s always another prescription diet pill and when you’ve got that kind of money you can get a scrip for anything.)
The second part of this sentence needs editing.
I’ve been reading some of the reactions to the conference, and one of the thoughts I had was “Is Trump capable of understanding that people are not monolithic?”
He was asked, by (black) reporter April Ryan if he would meet with the Congressional Black Caucus — and Trump responded “Do you want to set up the meeting? Are they friends of yours?” Because one African-American knows every other African-American person? They’re all the same person?
Similarly, Trump was asked about rising incidents of anti-Semitism, and he immediately responded as though he, Trump, had been accused of being anti-Semitic, despite the fact that the reporter went out of his way to emphasize that that was not what he was saying.
Now, I suppose it’s possible that Trump misunderstood or misheard, but then I wondered if Trump’s “logic” (or perhaps rather, emotional reaction) was something along the lines of “The question is about anti-Semitism in non-Jewish Americans; I am a non-Jewish American; therefore, I am part of the group being accused of being anti-Semitic; therefore, this question is accusing me of being anti-Semitic.” Or something like that.
Owlmirror, regarding his anti-Semitism reaction, to me it seemed like he didst protest too much.
There’s a reason why everyone got sick of hearing Jimmy Walker say, “Dyn-o-mite!”
Owl mirror @#2,
Thanks, I have done so.
That won’t be hard.
Fascism needs external and internal enemies.
Since Trump and the Trumpists hate everyone not them, they won’t run out of enemies.
A partial list would be uppity women, immigrants in general, the EU, Muslims, Hispanics, nonwhites, Democrats, the poor, children, old people, the MSM, nonxians, the wrong type of xians, and on and on.
So many people to hate, so little time.