Another perspective from another poster:
The video of this 35 minute appearance should be required viewing. It reflects all of the Trump trademarks.
The first question asked him why black voters should consider voting for him after he has pushed false claims about rivals like Nikki Haley and Barack Obama, has told black Congresswomen who were born in America to "go back where they came from" and used words like animal and rabid to describe black district attorneys.
His first words of response: "I don't think I have ever been asked a question in such a horrible manner." Later in that first answer... "Are you with ABC? Because I think they are a fake news network...."
The second question asked him if he thought comments from Republican leaders about Kamala Harris being a "DEI hire" were appropriate.
Trump's first reaction was to ask the reporter to define her terms. Of course, that at first might SOUND like a clever politician ensuring any purposeful / tricky ambiguity on the part of the reporter is clarified before diving in. Of course, it might also double as an attempt for Trump to hear a few more buzzwords -- "diversity, equity, inclusion" -- to find the right sound byte because he couldn't remember the meaning of the DEI acronym.
The reporter simply spelled out DEI as diversity, equity and inclusion and repeated her question.
IMMEDIATELY, Trump's tone switched. He basically said he wasn't sure, he's known Kamala at a distance for a while but not closely but she used to strongly identify as Indian then suddenly, "she went black a few years ago," saying the word "black" with the same strange, sarcastic lilt he uses for trigger words in stump speeches. He rambled on that path for 40-50 seconds and the reporter re-posed her question again. At that point, he attacked the reporter and claimed the event started 35 minutes late because "you couldn't get your equipment to work" and "it was a very nasty question" and "it's a disgrace."
In short, the fact that
a) a REPORTER
b) who was BLACK
c) and a WOMAN
d) asked him a TOUGH QUESTION
literally pissed him off and triggered his classic angry response.
The next question was a softball posed by Harris Faulkner from Fox about inflation and its impacts on the black community. Faulkner's question included a lot of detailed facts and figures (of questionable validity but that's not important to this point...) but was long enough it should have given Trump time to think, re-organize his thoughts, pick out something from Faulkner's question to tie to a previously memorized talking point and go from there.
Instead, Trump began talking over Faulkner towards the end of her question, claiming audio problems were preventing him from hearing everything she said and making it difficult to understand her question. Then... He pivoted by stating the audio problems were due to the fact that clearly the first reporter didn't know anything about setting up a stage. As if ANY of the reporters on the stage were responsible for the "roadie" work to set up the venue.
Why would anyone assume that? If they do, they're an idiot and likely expressing some inner bigotry along the lines of "you can't be on stage as a deserving reporter suitable for interview ME, you must be the help." If he knows better, it doesn't actually help his case because it demonstrates his inability to compartmentalize and MOVE ON. He cannot let go of any perceieved offense, no matter how slight or imaginary.
Based on opening remarks, this appearance was scheduled to last one hour. The exact scheduled start and end times of this event are not clear, it isn't clear if the event did start on time or late and it isn't clear what the sound quality was like on stage. The sound quality of the video clip was not good but video quality is not synonymous with house audio quality. What IS clear from the video is that Trump cannot "perform" in any unscripted setting, especially one involving those not 100% aligned with his twisted reality, without converting independent qestioning into "attacks" which then tie to his deeply seated and barely disguised contempt for pretty much anyone who isn't him. His handlers seemed to recognize this and signaled to the producers they were yanking their candidate off the stage after 35 minutes.
We need to do the same in November.
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