While speaking in Latrobe, PA, on Saturday, presidential candidate Donald Trump made vulgar comments about gold legend Arnold Palmer; used profanity in describing presidential candidate Kamala Harris; and stopped mid-speech to announce he needed to “recomb [his] hair.”
Trump goes on long confused ramble: “Arnold Palmer is all man. I mean no disrespect to women, I love women, but he was all man. When he took showers with the other pros they came out saying ‘Oh my God.’ I had to say it… I had to tell you the shower part because it’s true” pic.twitter.com/Xq8BDbqXJU
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) October 19, 2024
The rally speech contained the normal Trump lies about immigration and how tariffs are a budget savior. He went a step further, however, by “compar[ing] his proposed tax deductions to the invention of the paper clip.”
This has been a week of spectacle: 39 minutes of a town hall swaying to music instead of taking questions; claiming to be the father of IVF; and calling the January 6, 2021 insurrection a “day of love.”
It has also been a week of cancellations: a CNBC interview on Squawk Box; speaker at “Defend the 2nd” a National Rifle Association event in Savannah, GA; and an interview with Christine Romans, NBC News business correspondent. He had already backed out of a CBS 60 Minutes interview.
Unlike all the rambling, disjointed, and nonsensical speeches that have come before, this speech has generated widespread and appropriate news media reporting: “Trump kicks off a Pennsylvania rally by talking about Arnold Palmer’s genitalia” and “Donald Trump targets steelworkers, riffs on golfer’s anatomy in Pennsylvania rally.” The predominantly male newsrooms seem shocked, shocked I tell you.
However, the New York Times continued its sane-washing: “Trump crudely talked about golf legend Arnold Palmer’s penis. Here’s how N.Y. Times sane-washed it.”
Donald Trump opened his rally at the Arnold Palmer Airport in Latrobe, Pa., with a 10-minute monologue about the golfer for which the airport is named and who grew up here. In the most pivotal battleground state, with election day in just 17 days, the former president spent the entire opening telling Arnold Palmer golf stories before finally launching in on the border.
You can see from Memeorandum (screenshot below) that the NYT approach was outside the norm.
Certainly, this headline is new, even though this is not Trump’s first profane attack: Trump calls Harris a ‘s— vice president’ as personal attacks escalate.
His decline is where critics of campaign coverage should focus their blitz from now to November 5. https://t.co/EByajYMVjj Themes:
That the press unloaded on Biden for less is crucial. "Balance" means a common standard must prevail.
Vetting is a job they already see as theirs.… pic.twitter.com/NbSUTuL4Oe
— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) October 20, 2024
Maybe, just maybe, news organizations will begin widely reporting these rallies honestly. Americans deserve to know the state of Trump’s mental acuity.
Update, 7:53 am Pacific: The NYT has revised its approach.
Update, 9:49 am Pacific: Politico also sanewashes Trump
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The stakes in November have never been more urgent, nor the choices more extreme.
Remember: you are not voting for one person. You are voting for a team.
I’m voting for Team America not Team Russia-Hungary-North Korea.
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