Instead of consuming pre-screened and specially curated clips of news events like Donald Trump’s rambling press conference Thursday, it would be good if Americans watched the whole thing.
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If you followed Donald Trump’s entire press conference from Mar-a-Lago Thursday, you know that he said a bunch of really bizarre things. For more than an hour, he often rambled on, told some lies, showed that he lacked command of some very elementary issues and, occasionally, managed to work some MAGA talking points into his hour-long performance.
And it is clips of these moments that Republican voters will get to see… and, as a result, they may possibly even feel pretty good about Trump’s performance.
On the social media platform X, the official “Trump War Room” account condensed the entire press conference into a few brief clips ranging from six seconds to a bit over a minute.
It is noteworthy that even these select soundbites include plenty of rambling and lies… because it has become nearly impossible to make Trump sound like a normal person.
Here, for example, is the former president lying about the Democrats’ position on abortion and confusing vice presidential candidate Tim Walz with former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam.
“The Democrats are really the radical ones on this because they are allowed to do abortion on the eighth and ninth months and even after birth,” Trump said. “And if you look at your new, ahhh, governor from Minnesota. He’s talking about, he’s like the governor previous, the former governor. I don’t want to get them mixed up.”
What?
Again, this is the beginning of a clip that the Trump campaign deemed worthy of highlighting.
Here is another example. This is the former president talking about President Joe Biden, who dropped out of the presidential race last month, and Vice President Kamala Harris, who was chosen as the Democratic nominee instead.
“But the fact that you can get no votes, lose in the primary system, in other words, you had 14 or 15 people, and she was the first one out, and you can then be picked to run for president seems to me actually unconstitutional,” Trump said.
Now, if you look at the clip, you will realize that the former president’s campaign did not include the part of his remarks in its quote in which he confuses the 2020 primary with the current election cycle.
Oh, and it goes without saying that it is nuts to think that this could possibly be unconstitutional.
Want another one?
Here is Trump on Elon Musk.
“So, Elon called me; as you know, he endorsed me full-throated. Great endorsement. I respect Elon a lot. He respects me,” Trump said. “Not easy for him to endorse, to be honest with you. It takes courage to endorse… people. Many people have courage, and many people don’t. And he does have courage. Elon endorsed me and he asked me whether or not I’d do a show on Monday, and I think it’s going to be Monday night, and I believe he’s the host of the show. It will be very interesting. A lot of people are talking about it, and I look forward to it.”
It really does bear repeating that all of these are clips his campaign sought to amplify, i.e., these are their highlights from an hour-long press conference (and we once transcribed the entire thing while the folks at Trump War Room made edits).
To be fair, there were some moments when the former president was lucid and did get his message across, like here when he talks about eliminating taxes on tips and Social Security, or here, when he touts his unworkable mass deportation plan.
However, most of what he said sounded like this:
“[Harris] is a radical left person at a level that nobody has seen,” he stated in his pre-Q&A remarks, i.e., in talking points that were prepared beforehand. “She picked a radical left, ahh, man that is, ahh, he’s got things done that… he has positions that are just, it’s not even possible to believe that they exist. He is going for things that nobody has ever even heard of. Heavy into the transgender world, heavy into lots of different worlds.”
That all makes perfect sense.
All kidding aside, every voter should really take the time to listen to an hour of this and make up their own minds as to whether they want this man anywhere near the White House again.
The answer for tens of millions of people will be “hell yes,” but at least then it is a more informed decision… and not based on a few pre-packaged soundbites from their own echo chambers.
This is something that goes both ways. Yes, Democrats are feeling pretty good about what they have heard from Harris and Walz. However, it would be best if they did not just watch, like, and share pre-packaged clips but rather watch an entire rally or, even better, an entire press conference… if Harris ever does one.
