Trump spars with black journalists …
… and what you think about what he said depends on what you think of Trump – because at the venue, Trump was his inimitable self.
The left will try to make hay of it. People on the right either sincerely believe, or perhaps merely hope, that Trump’s remarks will strike a chord with many black voters as well as others.
Here’s a lengthy discussion of the questions that were asked, and Trump’s answers, including videos. The quote that’s been discussed more than any other is this:
SCOTT: Those are the words for, “DEI,” Sir. I’m asking you a question, I’ve defined it for you. Do you believe VP Kamala Harris is only on the ticket because she is a Black woman?
TRUMP: Well, I can say, maybe it’s a little bit different. I’ve known her for a long time indirectly, not directly so much. She was always of Indian heritage and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn, “Black,” and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?
SCOTT: She’s always identified as a Black woman. …
TRUMP: You know what? I respect either one, I respect either one, but she obviously doesn’t. Because she was Indian all the way, and all of a sudden she made a turn and she became a Black person. And I think someone should look into that too, when you ask and continue in a very hostile, nasty tone.
SCOTT: It’s a direct question, sir, do you believe that Vice President Kamala Harris is a DEI hire?
TRUMP: I really don’t know. I mean, I really don’t know. Could be, could be. There are some.
At the link there is also evidence that on many occasions – such as when Harris was sworn in as a senator – on which she identified primarily as being of Indian ethnicity.
I find Trump’s communication style fascinating. It’s a kind of free-form jazz riff that seems haphazard but is usually crafted to give the intended message to those who are ready to hear it, often in an amusing and unique way. This passage is no different. But those who can’t stand Trump tend to hear him as a loudmouthed bigot. So that communication style is both his strength and his weakness, but either way it’s his signature approach.
The question, of course, was a “gotcha” one, as were nearly all the questions. How might he have answered instead? He could have given a more boring version of the same thing, such as: “Whether or not Kamala Harris is a DEI hire, she plays the ethnicity card very well, and the ethnicity she emphasizes changes depending on her audience: sometimes Indian, sometimes black.” Would that have helped? I don’t think so, because he wanted to get the attention of black listeners (or any listeners) who might be susceptible to his sort of plain speaking and then have them ponder what he was actually saying, which is that Kamala is a shape-shifting racial opportunist. Dramatic remarks are better for that than bland remarks.
Or he might have just dodged the question and said: “I don’t know. But whether she was or wasn’t a DEI hire, she has been an integral part of a failed administration and as VP has no accomplishments to her credit.” Would that have been better? Maybe; darned if I know. I doubt it would have gotten the widespread coverage he wants. His actual remarks certainly accomplished that.
The odd thing is that of course Kamala was a DEI hire and everyone knows it. How do they know it? Joe Biden basically said it when he announced that his pick needed to be a black woman. Not “the best person for the job,” but a person hired for ethnicity and sex. He was upfront about it.
So another response might have been to quote Biden on it. However, then the rejoinder would have been something like, “Are you suggesting that limiting the choice to a black woman means that by definition it wouldn’t be the best person for the job?” Another trap.
All questions asked by leftist media are traps for Trump. He negotiates them in the way he thinks will reach people who still might be reached.
ADDENDUM: More here from Ace.
However, then the rejoinder would have been something like, “Are you suggesting that limiting the choice to a black woman means that by definition it wouldn’t be the best person for the job?”
The best response to that would be, “That’s a question you should ask Joe Biden. As President, I always tried to find the best person for the job regardless of race, gender, or ethnicity, and will do so again when I am reelected.”
I question the wisdom of the “DEI hire” attack against Kamala. Just highlight her incompetence. Why add the loaded issue of “DEI hire.” Sure, it thrills the base, but at what cost?
Leftists are masters of making the debate about something other than the core issue. Here, the core issue is Kamala’s suitability for the presidency, not whether she was a DEI hire. (Yes, the two issues are related, but Trump doesn’t need to establish that she was a DEI hire to win the point, only that she is not qualified for the job.) So instead of talking about Kamala’s qualifications, we are talking about how to define a DEI hire.
Even given that he has made “DEI hire” an issue, he answered the question in the worst possible way. How about this:
“I’m just citing Joe Biden’s own words. He only considered African American women for the job. That’s a DEI hire. Now, DEI hiring only works if the best qualified candidate happens to have the race or other identity that you are looking for. Sometimes that is the case! But, if the best qualified candidate doesn’t happen to have the race or identity then you are selecting for, then you will not hire the best candidate. That’s the problem. But let’s talk about Harris’s actual record and qualifications . . . ”
Trump, as is his wont, couldn’t handle something like that. He raised yet another smokescreen issue – I.e., whether Kamala hid her African heritage or, somehow improperly, emphasized her Indian heritage over her African heritage.
And so while we should be talking about Kamala’s record and qualifications, we’re talking about DEI hiring and whether Kamala is authentically black.
If we’re talking about Kamala’s record, the GOP wins. If we’re talking about the definition of a DEI hiring, the GOP may be able to fight to a draw with a very deft candidate (which we do not have). If we’re talking about whether Kamala is authentically black, turn out the lights, the party’s over.
That is the problem with Trump.
Look how many DIE hires have gone down the drain. They think since they get hired they have free reign. Harris was the best Black woman he could come up with. Sure cuts the field down and not for the best person.
maybe the dei side is bad. But when trump seems perfectly fine in taking the bait of what race kamala is, seems odd he cant string together a coherent response as to why kamala was picked due to her race and gender.Its not a very difficult response
Biden made a deal with Clyburn someone I suspect Biden despises. Woman of color for VP and a black woman on SCOTUS. He chose clowns in revenge.
I’ve been criticizing Trump’s performance on the open thread. Before responding to neo’s post here I want to make two things clear; I think it’s great Trump agreed to go to the event and appeared there. Every serious Republican should be doing the same with areas in their districts where they don’t get a lot of votes.
The second thing, although I was critical, my guess is the overall effect of his appearance on voting will likely be minor, and, if anything, slightly in his favor. As neo wrote, the way he said some of what he said may resonate with less engaged voters and cause them to do more research, leading them to learn what a fraud Kamala Harris truly is.
It’s funny neo used the analogy of free-form jazz. I’ve had the same thought, and, like improvisational jazz, or improvisational anything, asking the practitioner to overthink what he or she is doing, or even explain it, can hinder the ability to be free, and produce great art.
What disappointed me about some of what he said, and the way he said it; I was hoping he had changed more. This Trump seemed no different from 2016 Trump.
Bauxite et al may not like what Trump did, but I found it fascinating. It certainly opened my eyes up to another disgusting aspect of Harris’ personality.
After reading the transcript and doing some research, thanks to Neo and others I found mounds of evidence of how she has claimed herself to be Indian, and rightly so. Now she’s suddenly African American?? She and Warren ought to have lunch and discuss their wonderful heritages.
My MotR wife, thanks to Trump also just discovered how Kamala is an idenity shape shifter and was not amused.
The MSM and the Ds will ALWAYS morph anything he says. But I wonder how many people had a bit of a revelation due to Trump?
It was a sh*t show. Trump hurt himself badly. He was stupid to go.
rael on August 1, 2024 at 3:41 pm said:
maybe the dei side is bad. But when trump seems perfectly fine in taking the bait of what race kamala is, seems odd he cant string together a coherent response as to why kamala was picked due to her race and gender.
She was picked because of her fabricated race.
Her mother was caucasian Indo-Aryan as stated on her birth certificate.
Her father of mixed but mostly white Jamaican slaveowning plantation heritage.
Trump now has made her fake ethnicity an issue.
And do you think that even if she were black, that not having african american heritage she should be able to benefit from affirmative action?
How is she different from the WASP from hell Elizabeth Warren or Dolezal, or the pretty but fake Indian on Yellowstone?
That transcript at Ace adds a lot.
Questions from Leftists are usually Gottcha ones so they can use them our of context
I really like Neo’s metaphor of Trump’s verbal style as a “free-form jazz riff”. Like jazz, his dialogue flows in all sorts of directions, but eventually returns to the original chord.
Did Trump’s answer about his goals to help the black community in his first administration get lost because of anything he did? Would the media ever have reported the answer I bold-faced in the following quote?
I think we know the answer to that. But it’s out there for people to discover.
I think Trump killed it. Kamala years ago DID identify as Indian-American, not Black, and Trump in his inimitable manner pointed out her hypocrisy. Laughter from the (Black) audience was with Trump and anti Kamala, BTW.
So we finally get a conservative (non-)pol who knows
how to beat the gotcha journalists at their own game
how to expose their subtext without getting bogged down in it
how to take the conversation where he wants to
how to address voters out there instead of the beltway pundits
how to respect his listener’s intelligence with a common touch
how to connect his message to people’s emotions and not appear a cold policy wonk
– and conservatives get their panties in a twist because he did not play the Romneyesque straight guy and answer the questions on their face value. Did not answer like a pedant or policy wonk.
You can all go to hell – you don’t deserve what Donald Trump and JD Vance are going to do for you if elected.
My guess is that most of you have never had to speak publicly – either scripted or impromptu – or field hostile questions on your feet
My guess is also that most of you do not understand how media works – how key Trump’s big, unique persona is to his ability to cut through our culture’s media static… and how much it diminishes the power of the media to tag and cancel him in the long term.
He is real, authentic, unapologetically puts it out there in a way that gets people thinking, and that real Donald is prevailing over the long haul. Just like the other people who managed to stare down the pooh-pooh mau-mau cancel-culture mob.
One trait we should admire and adopt from the Left – they close ranks and are loyal. They fight with the generals they’ve got.
For G-d’s sake stop trying to please the liberal professor/newscaster/neighbor/colleague/cool kid from college who lives rent-free in your head. Stop hedging your commitment to what Trump represents to appease your enemies who set the culture… and who bray that Trump (or Bibi) and other patriots are gauche and uncool even as they debase and corrupt every aspect of our lives.
SHUT UP AND STAY ON THE RIDE
The Internet never forgets, and there are a number of items/images on the Internet in which Harris portrays herself as of Indian descent/heritage, not black.
Then, when the political winds changed, Harris suddenly became “Black,” and the Indian persona she used to put forward and celebrate is suddenly shoved into the background.
It has got to be all around the fakest presidential election ever, hasn’t it?
The “black” Dem Presidential candidate, who has never won a primary, is a Tamil woman raised in Canada.
The “populist” GOP Presidential candidate literally craps in a gold toilet.
The “hillbilly” GOP VP candidate is a venture capitalist who went to Yale Law.
If Buttigieg is the VP selection, then we’d have a man who posed with his husband in a hospital bed when announcing their adopted babies, as though they’d given birth to them.
Niketas, which of the candidates are the most authentic.
I’ve got a problem if you say they’re all fake.
I agree with BenDavid. We need to circle the wagons, not form a circular firing squad.
The country is at stake.
Niketas Choniates:
Neither Trump nor Vance pretend to be something they’re not, nor do they hide those aspects of their lives that you mention. Trump has never professed to be a poor, regular guy or to hide the fact that he is mega-rich. In fact, he celebrates it. His populist appeal is real although it’s not based on some sort of lie about being a regular Joe. So in what way is he fake? And Vance wrote a book about his origins that made the point that his hard work took him far from those origins, including to Yale Law School and financial success. Not fake.
Trump is perhaps the most authentic candidate of my lifetime (born a few months before JFK was killed).
Obama dealt with his dual ancestry by denying and burying his mother’s heritage (and that of the grandparents who raised him). Harris deals with it by flaunting one or the other according to convenience.
Of far more importance is this fact that Harris is offering no explanation whatever for the sudden changes in all of her policy positions, held as recently as last year in some cases.
Megan Kelly talks with a couple of guys that are not dudes. 10 minute segment that puts the issue into a compelling strategy. How the narrative is shaped that Kamala is a fraud could decide the election.
“So all of my analysis come through the filter of– non-communist America has to desperately win this election…” – Steve Deace
Trump Questioning Kamala Harris’ Heritage – Smart Strategy? With Steve Deace and Delano Squires
https://www.youtube.com/live/QJhXSvowkMY
Niketas continues to be concerned, very, very concerned.
As to how the audience responded, it seemed to be better than they would have 10y before faced with a GOP nominee.
Watch the video, Neo, and listen to how the audience responds. I did not note any boos, and some positive applause, and some laughter.
How much of the laughter was Getting The Joke, vs. Derisive Dismissal, I can’t guess. But it is better, presumably, than boos.
https://x.com/i/status/1818718781931192485
Any time you find yourself saying the same thing as the Pravda Media, you should realize you’ve made a wrong turn somewhere.
I don’t care for Trump’s style. I much prefer an orator who can make his points more briefly and in a cogent fashion. Trump often goes around the mulberry bush a couple of times before getting to his point. I like Neo’s’ comment about a jazz riff. Aha, jazz isn’t my style, but it has many fans who love it. And so with Trump.
Instead of looking at his style, I keep remembering that this is a man who has done many great things in his life. He knows how to get things done. Even in a DC that tried to block him at every turn.
Style points are not a thing for me with Trump.
Is saying “DEI” means “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion” really defining it? If you ask for a definition wouldn’t you want someone to go into a little more detail? There’s a lot to unpack in each of those words.
When Biden was in the race we were told that he conducted long and searching “Socratic dialogues” with his underlings. It’s impossible to believe that he did indulge in such dialogues or could manage to have one. But here, strangely enough, Trump (of all people) gave Rachel Scott an opening for such a dialogue and she didn’t take it.
I noticed some shouting that was impossible to make out at the beginning of Trump’s talk. There were audience members objecting to what Trump was saying. Once he got going and the audience started laughing, that didn’t sound derisive to me. Trump got them laughing with him at some points. They were also laughing at his act, but they weren’t laughing at him out of contempt and ridicule.
Maybe we could use some Socratic dialogue over what it means to “identify” as something.
Growing up, Harris had much more to do with her mother and her mother’s Indian family than with her father and his Jamaican family, but when she got to high school she started to identify herself more as Black, and that continued when she went to Howard.
As a politician, though, she chooses which side of her heritage to emphasize and switches from one side to the other depending on her needs, so there’s bound to be confusion and disagreement about how Harris presents herself.
She can say that she identifies as Black or that she identifies with both sides of her background (and those answers are in conflict), but it’s hard for outsiders to ignore the pivots from one side of her ancestry to another as it suited her political career.
@ OBH > “listen to how the audience responds.”
Exactly.
The pontificating among US about Trump’s style as a negative or positive factor depends on how WE feel about such things.
He was not talking to us.
How the media presents his answers also depends on their own feelings and presumed audiences.
He wasn’t talking to them either.
To repeat Neo’s final point: “All questions asked by leftist media are traps for Trump. He negotiates them in the way he thinks will reach people who still might be reached.”
Kruiser’s take on Trump’s appearance and “style” —
https://pjmedia.com/stephen-kruiser/2024/08/01/the-morning-briefing-dems-dont-know-it-but-trump-is-steamrolling-kamalas-honeymoon-n4931236
Too true.
In re “listen to the audience not the pundits” — what about pundits who were in the audience?
https://twitchy.com/brettt/2024/08/01/tariq-nasheed-weighs-in-on-trump-at-the-nabj-conference-n2399138
*Grammar fail that is not unique; I have seldom seen the correct “had been” used in these attempts at the past perfect tense.
“Kate on August 1, 2024 at 6:37 pm said:
Obama dealt with his dual ancestry by denying and burying his mother’s heritage (and that of the grandparents who raised him). Harris deals with it by flaunting one or the other according to convenience.”
She has trial ancestry
half Indo-Aryan
25-30% anglo-Irish Jamaican slaveowner
20-25% black Jamaican.
Amazing how Trumps the only candidate or living president whose family didn’t own slaves
I think a lot of folks around here are high on their own supply. When the leftists are in total control of the United States in a few years, the fact that so many on the right have fallen down the rabbit hole of Donald Trump will be a big reason why.
CC™ has his ever ready answer for the left. Everyone but CC™ is bewitched by The Great Orange Whale.
Bauxite, in my view, the last chance for the “old” Republican leadership model to get control and try to fix things was 2012. When Romney lost, that was the end of that. In this past primary campaign, many of those same people were behind Nikki Haley. The voter base didn’t want her. The candidate I wanted, Ron DeSantis, is performing admirably as a conservative governor. Could he have beaten Biden, and now, Harris? I’d like to think so, but the leftist machine is powerful. In any case, what we’ve got is Trump, and he was a remarkably good president under extremely adverse domestic political pressure. If he wins, we have a chance to break the leftist stranglehold on the country. Get with the program and stop moaning about what might have been. It’s gone.
Kate nails it!
Kate – I’m not talking about the “old” Republican leadership model. The “old” Republican leadership model thought it was a good idea to get behind Jeb! in 2016. No thanks. And good riddance.
I’m simply talking about nominating a candidate who doesn’t . . . [I’m finding it difficult to complete that sentence without an insult, so I’ll just leave it.]
I’m tired of leftists winning elections because the GOP runs candidates who would rather play insult comic than actually try to appeal to voters outside of their own narrow base. We know exactly what is going to happen. We knew exactly what was going to happen when we nominated Trump again. And now it’s happening. We’ll have four years of Harris/Shapiro to ponder our folly.
@Bauxite:I’m tired of leftists winning elections because the GOP runs candidates who would rather play insult comic than actually try to appeal to voters outside of their own narrow base.
This thing you said is not why leftists win elections. They win elections because they have captured the institutions which are supposed to see them carried out fairly.
Trump appeals far outside of the traditional Republican base, and you’re trying to airbrush that away. He’s a flawed instrument, of course, but you have never been able to make the case that a real Republican, and not your imaginary Platonic ideal, would do better in the current environment. Partly because Republicans in aggregate don’t like any one out there better than Trump.
You cannot seem to honestly articulate why Republicans are going with Trump rather than some other Republican. If you’re so badly out of step with people whose interests you claim to be looking out for, that you can’t fairly represent their reasons, how can your judgment of who should have the nomination be trusted?
The Republicans have damaged their brand deeply over the last 30 years by running the kind of people you want to see run. The majority of the Republican office holders who you consider to be the adults in the party continue to damage the brand. I don’t think you let yourself see this. The dogs don’t like the dog food you are trying to sell.
I thought Trump was more restrained in the NABJ setting than I had anticipated. More than he’s been in the past.
People know hyperbole and they can deal with repetition. Shoving insults and accusations back at the origins does not horrify many people except those backing the originators–panelists in this case.
We’ve all been accused, in real life or by belonging to a group falsely accused of various political and social sins, been lied about. Seeing somebody not taking it not apologizing for the putative sin/crime is not as off-putting as some think.
@Richard Aubrey:Seeing somebody not taking it not apologizing for the putative sin/crime is not as off-putting as some think.
When they do take it and try to defend or apologize it just gets worse. Cf. Romney, Willard M.: “binders full of women”.
By apologizing or defending you concede the opponents’ premise.
Niketas Choniates – Trump appeals far outside the normal GOP base? Maybe, but what good is that if you’re still not winning elections? The GOP could win about 47% of the presidential vote with Mitt Romney. Against two monumentally awful opponents, Trump has pulled – about 47% of the vote. It’s a wash.
Trump is like the backup quarterback who came in and won the big game once and was then given a salary-cap busting contract. Except the GOP isn’t really stuck with him. For some un-worldly reason, we keep going back to him by choice.
Dems don’t seem concerned about real issues like crime or inflation or illegal immigration, just to cite two examples, they are concerned with second or tertiary issues,
Trump prompted cue card rachel, to defend die, of course she doesn’t anything past the initials, or worse they don’t care about the consequences,
they cleaned out the bank accounts, burned down the house and crashed the car,
@Bauxite:Except the GOP isn’t really stuck with him. For some un-worldly reason, we keep going back to him by choice.
If you cannot comprehend the reasons, sir, then how can you possibly know what we really need?
There are any number of pro-Trump people just here glad to give you their decidedly worldly reasons. But you won’t listen. You seem to have decided that you know better than we do what we should want and why. You seem to have decided that there cannot be a good reason and so do you not need to listen.
But until you learn to listen, you’re not going to get anywhere convincing anyone–if it is your wish to convince, rather than to vent.
Bauxite, remember many conservatives held their noses and supported McCain and then Romney. But we sure didn’t spend the election season telling everyone why they were terrible candidates.
It’s your turn. I’ll even send you a clothespin.
There will be plenty of time for shoulda’s after the election should Trump not be elected.
Brian E – And many conservatives held their noses and voted for George W. Bush twice, including this one. You don’t always get the candidate you want.
There’s a difference between a candidate who may not be exactly what you want or who makes strategic and tactical mistakes (i.e., Bush, McCain, Romney) and a candidate who deliberately, repeatedly, and predictably shoots himself in the foot by alienating the voters that he needs to win (Trump).
If I were Kamala, I would just stay out of the way over the next three months and allow Trump to keep talking. If she can pull that off, she will win.
Brian E:
I beg to differ.
I was blogging during 2008 and 2012, and there were tons of Republican commenters on this blog going on and on and on about how awful McCain and Romney were as candidates.
Neo,
I was reading your blog back then, though not commenting much here. I’ll take your word for it though I’m going to rely on “tons” still leaving the possibility of “many”! 🙂
I remember defending Romney once he was the nominee and Palin did make McCain palatable to many conservatives.
Shot in the foot depends on one’s perspective. Is Trump alienating potential republican voters? Or just democrats?
Bauxite, here’s the problem with your argument, IMO.
Bush, or McCain, or Romney were not palatable for policy reasons.
Your objections to Trump are largely personality differences and inability to manage a large organization (federal government).
Trump has run on the cheap– and the free publicity in 2016 allowed him to win the presidency while spending half the money Hillary did.
The media figured out how to counter that in 2020, while at the same time fortifying the election after someone accidentally unleashed a novel virus into the population.
The propaganda campaign for the last 8 years has created an enduring hostility (some variant to the Stockholm syndrome?) to Trump. His bombastic style doesn’t account for the fact that many of the stories about his faults prove to be narrative.
As to his management style– I think Trump in his second term will lay waste to the bureaucracy (to the extent that’s possible) to the wailing and gnashing of teeth by the GOPe.
I do believe Trump can/will win as events are likely to overtake the Democrat candidate.
The GOP has been in trouble since the Eighties ended. The West Coast and the Northeast are now solid Democrat, and the move to the Sunbelt hasn’t paid off for Republicans, since the urban and suburban areas have made some key Southern and Western states swing states or even reliably Democrat. So it’s not just Trump.
Republicans have had trouble breaking out of the box of reliably Republican states and getting enough electoral votes to win. There have been some gains — Florida and Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia are more reliably Republican — but also losses: Virginia and Colorado are now reliably Democrat, and Arizona and Georgia are trending that way, with North Carolina now a state in play.
Trump was the candidate who managed to break out of the box and win (so did George W. Bush, but his second win was due to the war and his first was razor-thin). Could an average Republican candidate or an ideal conservative candidate have been able to win states that the Democrats assumed that they owned and had a lock on?
I find Trump’s communication style fascinating. It’s a kind of free-form jazz riff that seems haphazard but is usually crafted to give the intended message to those who are ready to hear it, often in an amusing and unique way. This passage is no different. But those who can’t stand Trump tend to hear him as a loudmouthed bigot. So that communication style is both his strength and his weakness, but either way it’s his signature approach.
My points.
* neo is quite right and brilliant in her analysis. Trump is playing outside the box of a linear college debate competition. If we decided elections by rational debate, Victor Davis Hanson would be running for a second term.
* Trump was not trying to win a debate with the NABJ. Trump is trying to win an election in an extraordinarily hostile environment. This was just a stepping-stone in a much larger campaign.
* Trump is not a 3-D chess player. What he is doing is largely instinctual. But what great instincts and how well they work on multiple levels!
* Much of what Trump is doing is non-verbal. He shows up as a big man in his American flag-colored business attire. He is alone in that room, but entirely at ease and still aggressive. Make no mistake, he is the alpha dog and he lets the journalists and the audience know it.
* By showing up, Trump demonstrated that he is fearless to appear before a black audience. He was reminding those blacks that Harris hadn’t even bothered to show up for them.
* I’ve read that Trump was actually getting much laughter from the studio audience, though not his interviewers.
* Conventional conservatives decry Trump’s foray into race. But he wasn’t presuming to say Harris wasn’t black, he was saying she has been playing both sides of the street. Which may be news to many voters.
* Trump most certainly knew his racial remarks would create a firestorm — which would derail the media’s ongoing coronation of Kamala Harris, and could even be a turning point in the race. Trump can’t let Harris run out the clock.
I for one was impressed.
@ Brian E > “I remember defending Romney once he was the nominee and Palin did make McCain palatable to many conservatives.”
Same here.
I have since retired from defending Romney, who has given no uncertain signals that he is more fond of Democrats than of the Republicans who voted for Trump.
Too bad, so sad.
He would still have been less harmful than Obama.
(Pretty much ANYONE would have been less harmful than Obama, even Hillary.)
McCain did well to pick Palin, but it was illuminating (jaw-dropping, actually) to me to see how fast his own campaign staff undercut her, failed to defend her against the Democrat-media complex, and generally torpedoed the election, with McCain’s help.
I am not surprised at all that Trump won the GOP primary and 2016 election.
I was livid that he “lost” the 2020 election (yeah, election denier here; deal).
I hope he wins the 2024 election.
Bauxite’s concerns were valid and addressable up until the end of the primary.
They are fifth-column-level at this point because we don’t have any alternative candidate.
@ huxley > “I’ve read that Trump was actually getting much laughter from the studio audience, though not his interviewers.”
Cue the Zito maxim: The audience was taking Trump seriously, but not literally; the “journalists” were taking him literally, but not seriously.
Every point he lost with the “journalists” is one he gained among the audience, and that will multiply when they go home and talk to their friends and family.
In some circles, surviving the assassination attempt the way he did was the best thing that ever happened to him.
Which is why Google et al. are trying to bury the episode: they weren’t able to bury the man.
“
Donald Trump reminds me of another big, strawberry-blond, white guy — Larry Bird. Perhaps a thin reed upon which to base an argument.
Nonetheless, I’ve watched quite a number of black react videos on Larry Bird. Sure, they are in awe when they see Bird’s moves. But they love his trash talk and aggressiveness.
Bird is a BAAAD Man.
Why not? Bird learned that from playing street ball with blacks. And, of course, Bird could back his trash up.
I give Trump credit for recognizing there are black votes, especially from black men, a Republican can play for. But not in the usual nice, white guy, Republican style.
Benny Johnson has the receipts on black laughter at the NAJB, including the racial discussion of Harris.
–Benny Johnson, “BACKFIRE! Black Audience ROARS with Laughter As Trump DESTROYS Reporter LIVE: ‘You Are Nasty!’ ?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWveuBxGX-8
Really, watch Trump, listen to his answers and listen to the audience responses.
Notice how he casually steals the host’s water bottle at the beginning since he wasn’t provided with one.
Notice how relaxed Trump is, how his shoulders are down, how effortless his arguments. This is softball for him. Hilarious.
Could you do that? I couldn’t do that. Mitt Romney sure couldn’t do that.
Trump is a BAAAD Man.
That’s what “they” tell us.
Maybe we should embrace it.
@ huxley “Bird learned that from playing street ball with blacks. And, of course, Bird could back his trash up.
I give Trump credit for recognizing there are black votes, especially from black men, a Republican can play for. But not in the usual nice, white guy, Republican style.”
Trump is known for actually going out and talking with his employees, including on construction sites.
Wanna bet he’s traded quips with black workers in the past?
And, as he recited his record helping black people & communities & colleges, he was literally backing up his trash talk.
AesopFan:
I’m not the right guy to figure Trump out. I find him repugnant as a sort of 21C P. T. Barnum … at best.
However, beneath all his rhetoric about loving blacks, I think he is looking out for them and sincerely.
What Trump has been through is astonishing. That he is continuing, more so.
I see Donald Trump and Elon Musk as two ultra-status guys who are proceeding out of conscience.
As they say.
Weird.
Just thought I’d throw this in, as it is indirectly about some of Trump’s remarks at the NABJ meeting.
https://babylonbee.com/news/dei-hire-is-a-slur-explains-head-of-dei-hiring-department
I give Donald from Queens major props for just showing up at an event that he knew was 98% hostile to him. I wish he had thrown Joe Biden’s stated DEI qualifications for VP & SCOTUS back in their faces–“I don’t know, why don’t you ask Joe Biden?”–and I wish he would stop referring to “black jobs”, whatever that is. Say what you will about DJT’s style, he’s no phony packaged politician.
admittedly he was trying to be clever trying to get rachel scott to admit to her own
worship forms,
I have MSNBC in the background.
It’s bizarre, though not surprising, on how MSM is treating this. Right now they’re framing it as “Trump’s attacks on Harris’ race” and some liberal commentator is calling Trump racist. It’s been “Trump said this”, “Trump said that,” but barely anything about what Harris has said and done. It’s been what’s done to Harris by Trump. Harris the victim, of course.
Is it possible that she was called The First Indian Senator because “the ninth black senator and the second black female senator” is not very interesting?
Also maybe just maybe she is proud of her Indian heritage and her black heritage?