News organizations continue to cherry pick quotes from Donald Trump’s speeches or press events. They also summarize and paraphrase in order to suggest that there is sense in the nonsensical.
Category: things I read so that you don’t have to.
On Saturday, Trump held a campaign rally in Schnecksville, PA, which is outside of Allentown and about 100 miles due west of New York City. It was his first campaign stop in Pennsylvania.
This example is from WHYY, public media (NPR/PBS) for the greater Philadelphia area:
Trump included electric cars as a signal of his disdain for environmentally conscious vehicles by asking everyone if they would want to buy an electric car, to which thousands shouted “no.”
What did Trump actually say (punctuation from Microsoft transcript)?
Before going any further, I want to say God bless the people of Israel, they’re under attack right now. That’s. That’s because we show great weaknix [1]. This would not happen. The weakness that we’ve shown in. Unbelievable. And it would not have happened if we were in office. You know that. They know that. Everybody knows that. But America prays for Israel. We send our absolute support to everyone in harm’s way. This is an attack that would not have happened. I mean, to think about, to think about what we have to go through and the things we put up with with the border with no energy independence with all electric cars. Would everybody like to buy an electric car for the rest of you [2]?
That’s stream of consciousness (to be polite) masquerading as a speech. Also:
You were president when Iran attacked American forces directly. https://t.co/S1OGYyZ5Ra
— Reed Galen (@reedgalen) April 14, 2024
News media should be reporting Trump’s almost routine gobbledygook.
Pennsylvania’s where our founding fathers declared American independence. So much history. I mean, you have so much history here. Just think of it. It’s where the army weathered its brutal winter… [reference to cold at the event] … It’s where the army weathered his [3] brutal winter at Valley Forge, where General George Washington led his men on a daring mission across the Delaware and where our Union was saved by the immortal heroes at Gettysburg, Gettysburg. What an unbelievable… [pause] … Battle that was the Battle of Gettysburg. What an unbelievable. I mean, it was so much and so interesting and so vicious and horrible and so beautiful in so many different ways it it represented such a big portion of the success of this country. Gettysburg. Wow.
Trump (1) implied that the battle of Gettysburg was part of the war of independence and (2) extolled it as being “beautiful in so many ways.”
The battle of Gettysburg, population 2,400, took place over three days, July 01-03, 1863. “With more than 50,000 estimated casualties, the three-day engagement was the bloodiest single battle of the conflict.”
From New York State licensed clinical psychologis Suzanne Lachmann:
Trump is increasingly losing his train of thought in the middle of sentences
.
Lies are us
There are too many lies to enumerate them all. Here are a few:
First up: a lie of omission
It was just announced that inflation is once again raging. It’s close to 4% again here we. Go when I. Left office, we had virtually no inflation.
When Trump left office, Covid19 was still “raging.” According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, the all-item inflation rate in January 2021 was “an annualized 4.2%.”
- The price index for gasoline and other motor fuel increased 7.4%. It had almost recovered from the 8.4% for the prior 12 months, the first year of Covid19.
- Prices for core goods rose at an annualized 5.3%.
- Prices for core services rose at an annualized 2.2%.
The Dallas Bank reports an inflation measure that “has been shown to outperform the more conventional ‘excluding food and energy’ measure as a gauge of core inflation.”
Then a lie about energy
Under my leadership, we had energy independence and soon we would have had energy dominance. We were gonna be dominant. We were bigger than Russia. We were bigger than Saudi Arabia,
We are importing less crude oil today than in the first three years of the Trump presidency; 2020 was an anomoly.
And a lie about the gag order in his New York trial about election interference
Trump is subject to a limited gag order that would be in place for anyone in a criminal case who had a large social and public media megaphone.
On Monday in New York City, I will be forced to sit fully gagged. I’m not allowed to talk. Can you believe it? They want to take away my constitutional right to talk.
Trump is prohibited from making any public statements about potential witnesses “concerning their potential participation” in the case…
Judges in three of Trump’s cases — two criminal and one civil — have imposed gag orders in recent months meant to constrain his inflammatory remarks about witnesses, court staff, prosecutors and others. In all four of his criminal cases, he’s also under conditions of release that prohibit him from intimidating potential witnesses against him.
I have barely scraped the surface. News organizations have a responsibility to present Trump as he is presenting himself, not a whitewashed version that implies his policies and rhetoric hang together.
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[1] “Weaknix” is what he said. The contrast with his repeating himself, saying weakness correctly the second attempt, is startling.
[2] I do not know what he meant.
[3] He said “his” not “its.”
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Known for gnawing at complex questions like a terrier with a bone. Digital evangelist, writer, teacher. Transplanted Southerner; teach newbies to ride motorcycles. @kegill (Twitter and Mastodon.social); wiredpen.com