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There are press conferences, press gaggles, and media scrums. Then
there’s whatever happened on Wednesday night as Donald Trump wandered
into a press conference supposedly meant for John Kelly and conducted
what amounted to ten minutes of photo-bombing his own chief of staff.
Plus there were words. Some of the best words.
As reporters scrambled to adjust to the idea that the guy who hasn’t had a press conference in 11 months was actually going to answer a question or two, Trump rewarded those who sent words his way with a collection of his greatest hits, with a B-side of things that sounded like statements, but weren’t. For example, Trump repeatedly pulled the string that caused him to declare:
What do you know. Trump’s attorneys had a few issues.
But that was just one issue that Trump managed to make even more confused in his brief appearance. One of many.
The takeaway line that you’re sure to hear again was Trump’s re-definition of obstruction—which Trump hopes that he did.
As reporters scrambled to adjust to the idea that the guy who hasn’t had a press conference in 11 months was actually going to answer a question or two, Trump rewarded those who sent words his way with a collection of his greatest hits, with a B-side of things that sounded like statements, but weren’t. For example, Trump repeatedly pulled the string that caused him to declare:
"Here is the story: There has been no collusion whatsoever. There is no obstruction whatsoever."And paired it with what seemed like a definitive answer to words that the special counsel would like a nice sit-down.
“Oh I would do it under oath, yeah, absolutely.”But none of it was as clean as that makes it seem. Trump’s statements about collusion were wrapped around multiple unsuccessful attempts to get him to define what he meant by that word. His offer to testify under oath only came after after he tried to get reporters to say that he was better than Hillary Clinton—whose appearance before the FBI was not under oath … and also not an interview with a special counsel, so not at all the same. And even more critically that offer was tied to a coda that Trump would totally testify under oath—if his attorneys said it was okay.
What do you know. Trump’s attorneys had a few issues.
But that was just one issue that Trump managed to make even more confused in his brief appearance. One of many.
The takeaway line that you’re sure to hear again was Trump’s re-definition of obstruction—which Trump hopes that he did.
“There's no collusion. Now they're saying, "Oh, well did he fight back?" If you fight back—John. You fight back. You fight back, oh it's obstruction. So here's the thing, I hope so.”Redefining obstruction as “fighting back” puts everything that Trump has done to stop, block, delay and derail the investigation into a category that his “I’m punching this guy for Jesus” supporters can understand. From now on, expect everyone from Sarah Sanders to Sean Hannity to shrug off any instance of obstruction as just good-old fighting back.
But Trump’s appearance wasn’t limited to declaring how much he would love to talk to Mueller (No he wouldn’t—signed Trump’s legal team). He also came to remind us that:
The person in Mexico who carefully sorts every refugee attempting to get to the United States and arranges the schedule by which they attempt to swim rivers, crowd into airless semis, or curl up in trucks on a detailed government spreadsheet, is still not setting a high enough bar who he ships over. Plus chains are bad, lotterys are … oh, just read it.
“Chain migration we're going to create a good standard so that not everybody, you know not everybody that you ever met can come into the country. But you'll have wives and husbands and you'll have sons and daughters, and we'll talk about parents, parents is a tricky situation because they came here illegally. So you'll have that. But chain, where we get the lottery system is a broken system, they put people in a lottery.
They're not putting their finest in that system, you would not be in that system. You would not be in that system, they're putting some very tough—you know the lottery system gave us the killer of the West Side, eight people on the West Side Highway, and ten people that have been very very badly hurt. Nobody mentions the ten people that lost their arms and their legs, and people tend to forget but that, he came through the lottery system and he's another chain migration person.
"In the initial, we're putting chain, a negotiated chain, we're putting a replacement for lottery or an end to lottery, and it could be a replacement, we bring people in from various countries, that come in based on merit and various other reasons, and we are going to build a wall."Asked whether he trusts the FBI, Trump’s response had the disassociated grandiosity of someone who had assembled their thoughts around the commercials on Hannity.
“Well we're going to see, I mean, I am very disturbed, as is the general, as is everybody else that is intelligent. When you look at five months, this is the late great Rosemary Woods, right? A step. This is a large scale version.”So … no one trusts the FBI, and … something there is worse than Watergate.
Because everything these days is worse than Watergate. Except Trump’s collusion. Which …
“You're gonna define it for me, OK? But I can tell you, there's no collusion. I couldn't have cared less about Russians having to do with my campaign.
The fact is, you people won't say this but I'll say it. I was a much better candidate than her. You always say she was a bad candidate; you never say I was a good candidate. I was one of the greatest candidates.”It takes a great man to say he was one of the greatest men. Such good words.
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