President Trump 2.0

As of this morning, we know that Kamala Harris has enough endorsements from Dem convention delegates to say that the nomination will be hers. So we know that the presidential race will be Harris v Trump.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c51ywewzpz2o

So, from this point on, all discussion about the campaign should go in this thread … the Joe Biden thread should be used now only for discussion of the remainder of his presidency. The Trump thread ideally should be kept for his ‘troubles’ - i.e. any developments in the many prosecutions he is facing.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Chris

Trump is clearly suffering dementia and is declining noticeably.

I don't see that.

I saw a man get his ear shot off and have the wherewithal to get back on his feet immediately, tell his secret service detail to let him get his shoes on, and then punch the air for what will be one the most iconic photo ops of the 21st century.

I look forward to him debating the much younger Harris and see where we're at.

Originally Posted by Pierre

I don't see that.

I saw a man get his ear shot off and have the wherewithal to get back on his feet immediately, tell his secret service detail to let him get his shoes on, and then punch the air for what will be one the most iconic photo ops of the 21st century.

I look forward to him debating the much younger Harris and see where we're at.

Then you’re wilfully blind. His campaign speeches over the past 6 months have been ever longer and ever more rambling. His acceptance speech last week was the longest in US history. His word salads and lost trains of thought - which occur as and when he goes off script - are classic dementia symptoms.

He needs his shoes because he has orthotic insoles (you can see them flying across the platform on some videos of the incident). He can barely walk straight even while he’s wearing them.

[jfman]

Originally Posted by Chris

Trump is clearly suffering dementia and is declining noticeably. It no longer matters how healthy he is compared to Joe (though you’d be forgiven for thinking so, if you read what Trump and his lickspittles have been spewing out over the past 48 hours - it’s almost as if they don’t quite believe he’s going).

All the questions the Trumpers have been demanding of Biden have always applied to Trump too. It’s just that previously they could reasonably be directed at the man who looks much more physically frail. Now, though, they apply uniquely to Trump, and Trump can’t hide behind the thin excuse of being younger and fitter than the other guy. He might (just) be able to string a sentence together now, but what about late 2025? What about 2028, when he’ll be turning 82 (assuming he lives that long)?

I appreciate it no longer matters for the purposes of the election but I was responding to a comment that make a clearly incorrect statement.

I do think if you are of the opinion that Trump is noticeably in decline and genuinely believe he can “(just) string a sentence together” you are seeing what you want to see. He’s been giving unhinged press conferences and rallies since he ran the first time.

Democrats are walking a tightrope - they can’t say “ah but in 4 years he could be just as bad as Biden” while not invoking the 25th Amendment. It raises more questions about how long the President has been in decline, who has been covering for him and ultimately who is running the country?

Had Biden not been found out at the debate who would have been running the country for the next 4 years had he won?

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Pierre

I don't see that.

I can understand that you don't want to see it, in a similar way that Biden didn't want to acknowledge his cognitive issues by stepping down.

I don't think even you could interpret his infamous electric boat waffle and pretend that it somehow did not demonstrate signs of cognitive degeneration.

[papa smurf]

Harris is too young for the job

Originally Posted by jfman

Had Biden not been found out at the debate who would have been running the country for the next 4 years had he won?

The same people who have been running it since 2020. I’m not an expert but the part of it I’ve watched most closely has been the administration policy on Ukraine, where it is evident a group of academic “escalation managers” led by Jake Sullivan have had the running. I assume similar to be the case in other policy areas.

I still believe the original intention was to parachute Harris into the job just short of this election so Biden would see out one term (more or less) while giving her the advantage of incumbency going into November 2024. But at some point those close to him have realised they quite liked running the country and persuaded themselves - and then him - to fight on. Presumably the idea then was to hand it over to her at some point mid the next term.

[jfman]

It’s not the greatest counterargument to deep state conspiracies to essentially admit there’s a deep state tbh.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

I can understand that you don't want to see it.

It's not that I don't see it, I can't see it.....yet.

I didn't see any signs of decline during the debate, it was night and day between the two of them.

Well we'll see, if he declines to the level Biden is at, it will be obvious to all, it just isn't to me as yet.

When Biden ran last time, it was already obvious he was in decline.

Trump has always rambled with circular talk when he goes off, and indeed on, teleprompter. I haven't noticed any difference. The same rambling when he was off on the "injecting bleach" incident (which he didn't say) from four years ago.

A question that probably some of you are thinking of if you’re totally into that world, which I find to be very interesting. So, supposedly we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. (To Bryan) And I think you said you’re going to test that, too. Sounds interesting, right?"

"And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning, because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that, so that you’re going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me. So, we’ll see, but the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute. That’s pretty powerful.

If you took a pure text transcript of most, if not all, his speeches. They're all over the place, that's the way he talks.

---------- Post added at 12:19 ---------- Previous post was at 12:12 ----------

or when he was talking about the Charlottesville, he's all over the place:

Reporter: "Let me ask you, Mr. President, why did you wait so long to blast neo-Nazis?"

Trump: "I didn’t wait long. I didn’t wait long."

Reporter: "Forty-eight hours."

Trump: "I wanted to make sure, unlike most politicians, that what I said was correct -- not make a quick statement. The statement I made on Saturday, the first statement, was a fine statement. But you don’t make statements that direct unless you know the facts. It takes a little while to get the facts. You still don’t know the facts. And it’s a very, very important process to me, and it’s a very important statement.

"So I don’t want to go quickly and just make a statement for the sake of making a political statement. I want to know the facts. If you go back to --

Reporter: "So you had to (inaudible) white supremacists?"

Trump: "I brought it. I brought it. I brought it."

Reporter: "Was it terrorism, in your opinion, what happened?"

Trump: "As I said on -- remember, Saturday -- we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence. It has no place in America. And then it went on from there. Now, here’s the thing --"

Reporter: (Inaudible)

Trump: "Excuse me. Excuse me. Take it nice and easy. Here’s the thing: When I make a statement, I like to be correct. I want the facts. This event just happened. In fact, a lot of the event didn’t even happen yet, as we were speaking. This event just happened.

"Before I make a statement, I need the facts. So I don’t want to rush into a statement. So making the statement when I made it was excellent. In fact, the young woman, who I hear was a fantastic young woman, and it was on NBC -- her mother wrote me and said through, I guess, Twitter, social media, the nicest things. And I very much appreciated that. I hear she was a fine -- really, actually, an incredible young woman. But her mother, on Twitter, thanked me for what I said.

"And honestly, if the press were not fake, and if it was honest, the press would have said what I said was very nice. But unlike you, and unlike -- excuse me, unlike you and unlike the media, before I make a statement, I like to know the facts."

(crosstalk)

Reporter: "The CEO of Walmart said you missed a critical opportunity to help bring the country together. Did you?"

Trump: "Not at all. I think the country -- look, you take a look. I’ve created over a million jobs since I’m President. The country is booming. The stock market is setting records. We have the highest employment numbers we’ve ever had in the history of our country. We’re doing record business. We have the highest levels of enthusiasm. So the head of Walmart, who I know -- who’s a very nice guy -- was making a political statement. I mean -- I’d do it the same way. And you know why? Because I want to make sure, when I make a statement, that the statement is correct. And there was no way -- there was no way of making a correct statement that early. I had to see the facts, unlike a lot of reporters. Unlike a lot of reporters --

Reporter: "Nazis were there."

Reporter: "David Duke was there."

Trump: "I didn’t know David Duke was there. I wanted to see the facts. And the facts, as they started coming out, were very well stated. In fact, everybody said, ‘His statement was beautiful. If he would have made it sooner, that would have been good.’ I couldn’t have made it sooner because I didn’t know all of the facts. Frankly, people still don’t know all of the facts.

"It was very important -- excuse me, excuse me -- it was very important to me to get the facts out and correctly. Because if I would have made a fast statement -- and the first statement was made without knowing much, other than what we were seeing. The second statement was made after, with knowledge, with great knowledge. There are still things -- excuse me -- there are still things that people don’t know. I want to make a statement with knowledge. I wanted to know the facts."

Reporter: "Two questions. Was this terrorism? And can you tell us how you’re feeling about your chief strategist, Stephen Bannon?"

Trump: "Well, I think the driver of the car is a disgrace to himself, his family, and this country. And that is -- you can call it terrorism. You can call it murder. You can call it whatever you want. I would just call it as the fastest one to come up with a good verdict. That’s what I’d call it. Because there is a question: Is it murder? Is it terrorism? And then you get into legal semantics. The driver of the car is a murderer. And what he did was a horrible, horrible, inexcusable thing.

(crosstalk)

Reporter: "Can you tell us broadly what your -- do you still have confidence in Steve?"

Trump: "Well, we’ll see. Look, look -- I like Mr. Bannon. He’s a friend of mine. But Mr. Bannon came on very late. You know that. I went through 17 senators, governors, and I won all the primaries. Mr. Bannon came on very much later than that. And I like him, he’s a good man. He is not a racist, I can tell you that. He’s a good person. He actually gets very unfair press in that regard. But we’ll see what happens with Mr. Bannon. But he’s a good person, and I think the press treats him, frankly, very unfairly."

(crosstalk)

Reporter: "Sen. (John) McCain said that the alt-right is behind these attacks, and he linked that same group to those who perpetrated the attack in Charlottesville."

Trump: "Well, I don’t know. I can’t tell you. I’m sure Senator McCain must know what he’s talking about. But when you say the alt-right, define alt-right to me. You define it. Go ahead."

Reporter: "Well, I’m saying, as Senator --"

Trump: "No, define it for me. Come on, let’s go. Define it for me."

Reporter: "Senator McCain defined them as the same group --"

Trump: "Okay, what about the alt-left that came charging at -- excuse me, what about the alt-left that came charging at the, as you say, the alt-right? Do they have any semblance of guilt?

"Let me ask you this: What about the fact that they came charging with clubs in their hands, swinging clubs? Do they have any problem? I think they do. As far as I’m concerned, that was a horrible, horrible day. Wait a minute. I’m not finished. I’m not finished, fake news. That was a horrible day --

" I will tell you something. I watched those very closely -- much more closely than you people watched it. And you have -- you had a group on one side that was bad, and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent. And nobody wants to say that, but I’ll say it right now. You had a group -- you had a group on the other side that came charging in, without a permit, and they were very, very violent."

Reporter: "Do you think that what you call the alt-left is the same as neo-Nazis?"

Trump: "Those people -- all of those people – excuse me, I’ve condemned neo-Nazis. I’ve condemned many different groups. But not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch. Those people were also there because they wanted to protest the taking down of a statue of Robert E. Lee."

Reporter: "Should that statue be taken down?"

Trump: "Excuse me. If you take a look at some of the groups, and you see -- and you’d know it if you were honest reporters, which in many cases you’re not -- but many of those people were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee.

"So this week it’s Robert E. Lee. I noticed that Stonewall Jackson is coming down. I wonder, is it George Washington next week? And is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know, you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?

"But they were there to protest -- excuse me, if you take a look, the night before they were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee. Infrastructure question. Go ahead."

Reporter: "Should the statues of Robert E. Lee stay up?"

Trump: "I would say that’s up to a local town, community, or the federal government, depending on where it is located."

Reporter: "How concerned are you about race relations in America? And do you think things have gotten worse or better since you took office?"

Trump: "I think they’ve gotten better or the same. Look, they’ve been frayed for a long time. And you can ask President Obama about that, because he’d make speeches about it. But I believe that the fact that I brought in -- it will be soon -- millions of jobs -- you see where companies are moving back into our country -- I think that’s going to have a tremendous, positive impact on race relations.

"We have companies coming back into our country. We have two car companies that just announced. We have Foxconn in Wisconsin just announced. We have many companies, I say, pouring back into the country. I think that’s going to have a huge, positive impact on race relations. You know why? It’s jobs. What people want now, they want jobs. They want great jobs with good pay, and when they have that, you watch how race relations will be.

"And I’ll tell you, we’re spending a lot of money on the inner cities. We’re fixing the inner cities. We’re doing far more than anybody has done with respect to the inner cities. It’s a priority for me, and it’s very important."

Reporter: "Mr. President, are you putting what you’re calling the alt-left and white supremacists on the same moral plane?"

Trump: "I’m not putting anybody on a moral plane. What I’m saying is this: You had a group on one side and you had a group on the other, and they came at each other with clubs -- and it was vicious and it was horrible. And it was a horrible thing to watch.

"But there is another side. There was a group on this side. You can call them the left -- you just called them the left -- that came violently attacking the other group. So you can say what you want, but that’s the way it is.

Reporter: (Inaudible) "… both sides, sir. You said there was hatred, there was violence on both sides. Are the --"

Trump: "Yes, I think there’s blame on both sides. If you look at both sides -- I think there’s blame on both sides. And I have no doubt about it, and you don’t have any doubt about it either. And if you reported it accurately, you would say."

Reporter: "The neo-Nazis started this. They showed up in Charlottesville to protest --"

Trump: "Excuse me, excuse me. They didn’t put themselves -- and you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides. You had people in that group. Excuse me, excuse me. I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name."

Reporter: "George Washington and Robert E. Lee are not the same."

Trump: "George Washington was a slave owner. Was George Washington a slave owner? So will George Washington now lose his status? Are we going to take down -- excuse me, are we going to take down statues to George Washington? How about Thomas Jefferson? What do you think of Thomas Jefferson? You like him?"

Reporter: "I do love Thomas Jefferson."

Trump: "Okay, good. Are we going to take down the statue? Because he was a major slave owner. Now, are we going to take down his statue?

"So you know what, it’s fine. You’re changing history. You’re changing culture. And you had people -- and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists -- because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists. Okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly.

"Now, in the other group also, you had some fine people. But you also had troublemakers, and you see them come with the black outfits and with the helmets, and with the baseball bats. You had a lot of bad people in the other group."

Reporter: "Sir, I just didn’t understand what you were saying. You were saying the press has treated white nationalists unfairly? I just don’t understand what you were saying."

Trump: "No, no. There were people in that rally -- and I looked the night before -- if you look, there were people protesting very quietly the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee. I’m sure in that group there were some bad ones. The following day it looked like they had some rough, bad people -- neo-Nazis, white nationalists, whatever you want to call them.

"But you had a lot of people in that group that were there to innocently protest, and very legally protest -- because, I don’t know if you know, they had a permit. The other group didn’t have a permit. So I only tell you this: There are two sides to a story. I thought what took place was a horrible moment for our country -- a horrible moment. But there are two sides to the country.

"Does anybody have a final --

Reporter: "What makes you think you can get an infrastructure bill? You didn’t get health care --

Trump: "Well, you know, I’ll tell you. We came very close with health care. Unfortunately, John McCain decided to vote against it at the last minute. You’ll have to ask John McCain why he did that. But we came very close to health care. We will end up getting health care. But we’ll get the infrastructure. And actually, infrastructure is something that I think we’ll have bipartisan support on. I actually think Democrats will go along with the infrastructure."

Reporter: "Mr. President, have you spoken to the family of the victim of the car attack?"

Trump: "No, I’ll be reaching out. I’ll be reaching out."

Reporter: "When will you be reaching out?"

Trump: "I thought that the statement put out -- the mother’s statement I thought was a beautiful statement. I will tell you, it was something that I really appreciated. I thought it was terrific. And, really, under the kind of stress that she’s under and the heartache that she’s under, I thought putting out that statement, to me, was really something. I won’t forget it.

"Thank you, all, very much. Thank you. Thank you."

[jfman]

I want to be clear from page 1 of the thread:

I want Harris to win
I want the Democratic nominee, if it’s not Harris (unlikely), to win.

[Mr K]

Americans can't concentrate more than 3 seconds. If he can punch the air shout 'fight', and make a fascist salute. He'll still get the moron/hillbilly vote It's still questionable how much longer he'll be able to do even that though.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by jfman

I want to be clear from page 1 of the thread:

I want Harris to win
I want the Democratic nominee, if it’s not Harris (unlikely), to win.

I'll also make it clear, my position hasn't changed.

That I really don't care that much, but just for entertainment value I think it would be hilarious if Trump won, just to see everybody lose their minds over it.

[Mr K]

Originally Posted by Pierre

I'll also make it clear, my position hasn't changed.

That I really don't care that much, but just for entertainment value I think it would be hilarious if Trump won, just to see everybody lose their minds over it.

The World becomes a much a more unstable place, with a dictator given a free hand, to walk through Europe. Hilariously entertaining...

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by Mr K

The World becomes a much a more unstable place, with a dictator given a free hand, to walk through Europe. Hilariously entertaining...

Yeah, it is pretty depressing to know that there are people who want such a person in power just for kicks. Pretty moronic in my opinion. To support someone because you like their policies and respect the candidate's values is one thing, however to support someone because you just want to wind people up is another.

Originally Posted by jfman

I want to be clear from page 1 of the thread:

I want Harris to win
I want the Democratic nominee, if it’s not Harris (unlikely), to win.

I look forward to your even-handed critique of both nominees/candidates…