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Donald Trump’s press conference finally got some excitement to liven up the boring drone of the president poorly trying to read and recite the pre-prepared words that his aides put before him.
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Unfortunately, it took the Secret Service rushing him out of the briefing room due to a shooting that took place outside the White House to generate excitement today, with no sustained push back by White House correspondents to the president’s litany of lies, dystopian visions for America if the country does not re-elect him, and outrageously false allegations against his Democratic opponents.
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Sadly, Trump quickly returned to the podium after a short lockdown and continued to slather his verbal manure on the public.
Here are the highlights from today’s briefing, cheerfully compiled by Vox’s Aaron Rupar.
Trump began with a staple of his recent public comments, the incredible dangers of universal suffrage as enabled during this pandemic by mail-in ballots, a hyped-up, phony danger that he combined with another of his delusional predictions that the COVID-19 virus would disappear just in time for Election Day.
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🚨 Trump abruptly walked away from the podium after an aide approached and whispered something to him, ending his news conference after just a couple minutes 🚨 pic.twitter.com/VBZWooa1CY
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 10, 2020
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Despite speculation that the sudden presidential evacuation was another one of Trump’s distractive moves to get you to take your eye off the card that he’s about to palm in his political three-card monte game, the interruption turned out to be more legitimate than anything that was subsequently uttered by the president during the rest of the news conference.
Deep thoughts with Trump: "The world has always been a dangerous place. Not something that is unique. You look back over the centuries, the world has been a dangerous place, very dangerous place, and it will continue, I guess, for a period of time." pic.twitter.com/pQfjDSW6Xw
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 10, 2020
Add your name to demand Congress reject Trump’s dictatorial call to delay the election!
If only we had a president who was capable of making the world less dangerous rather than this virtual arsonist of a chief executive.
In an effort to hype the economy, Trump claims "a lot of car companies" are "moving in" to Michigan, which I don't think is true pic.twitter.com/hjb2w4malo
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 10, 2020
As someone born into enough wealth that he could squander his inheritance and still have enough money to play at being rich, Trump seems to think that every American has a stock portfolio and a 401K that will be greatly affected by his intentions to propose a capital gains tax cut yet again, a cut that will only benefit those who need the least assistance during the current crisis.
The president cried wolf again by raising the promise of a middle-class tax cut, the kind the Republicans somehow forgot to include in their last billionaire tax giveaway.
Trump still hasn't figured out that coronavirus testing does not cause Covid cases. People in America really have a disease that has killed 163,000 of them. pic.twitter.com/44mOwoNpzt
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 10, 2020
Rupar is giving Trump too much credit in attributing Trump’s stubborn insistence that coronavirus cases are somehow caused by testing to stupidity rather than self-interested malice.
Take his comparisons in the caseloads experienced by Japan and Australia to that here in the U.S.
Even a complete moron knows when one number is bigger than another, so intentional misinformation is the only explanation for this next comment. That and a stunningly low estimation of the intelligence of the American public.
Trump tries to shift blame to China: "We must stop politicizing the virus and instead be united in our condemnation of how this virus came to America, how this virus came to the world, & we are going to figure it out, and we are going to find out, and we are very angry about it." pic.twitter.com/Q5MQatlWXt
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 10, 2020
The president engages in revisionist history once again here.
Trump on February 7th: “Great discipline is taking place in China, as President Xi strongly leads what will be a very successful operation.”
Speaking of revisionist history, it takes a complete reversal of IQ to buy Trump’s claims that his payroll tax deferral instituted by yesterday’s executive order won’t damage Social Security and Medicare which are mostly funded by that income deduction. Believing what Trump says about that won’t be nearly as harmful, however, as accepting his cynically ignorant and damaging assertion that children are not harmed by catching coronavirus.
Funny, we don’t see him volunteering Barron to demonstrate the validity of his claims.
REPORTER: 97,000 children tested positive for coronavirus in the last week of July. Does that give you any pause about schools reopening for in-person learning?
TRUMP: No
REPORTER: So do you still think kids are essentially immune?
TRUMP: Yeah [this is false — kids can die] pic.twitter.com/5UCuRkOuRK
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 10, 2020
Ambulance-chasing lawyers are salivating as we speak over the class-action suits that this statement from the president will likely inspire…if the GOP isn’t successful in passing a liability suit ban as part of any negotiated pandemic relief bill — if one is even possible after Trump’s executive order antics.
Now it was time for the president to try to instill the fear of a nightmarish post-Trumpian world under a prospective Biden administration.
If Trump had any ambition to become the host of a TV horror anthology series in his dotage, someone should suggest that he abandon them immediately, since his scare tactics are so literally incredible as to inspire derision at their ludicrousness.
Trump claims that when he falsely claimed preexisting conditions aren't already required to be covered by law, he simply meant that there has never been an executive order reaffirming that 🙄 pic.twitter.com/zljDpfZGHd
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 10, 2020
Trump’s attempts to paint himself as the savior of those with pre-existing conditions when the Obamacare legislation currently in effect that already guarantees those protections is being assaulted in the federal courts by his own Department of Justice is an audacious move that further insults the intelligence of anyone with the slightest bit of civic awareness.
President Infowars claims without evidence that China "released" the coronavirus into the US pic.twitter.com/fFCbpXXAIc
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 10, 2020
With this number of lies packed into a brief press conference, Trump can certainly lay claim to preserving the jobs of media fact-checkers across the country.
Trump made sure to keep his Russian handlers happy with his next set of answers to the assembled press.
REPORTER: If 160,000 people had died on Obama's watch, would you have called for his resignation?
TRUMP: No
[Trump called for Obama to resign over ebola, which didn't kill anyone in the US!] pic.twitter.com/mkJ3T4r1vr
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 10, 2020
With few reporters daring to challenge the president’s nonsensical responses to their questions, Trump let the Q & A go on a bit longer than he has at most recent press briefings. He ended by deigning to take a question from a foreign reporter from Brazil and from one of the audience plants from OAN.
Trump wraps up the briefing with a question from Chanel Rion of ultra-bootlicking OAN and uses it as an opportunity to rub his favorite old sores about the Russia investigation pic.twitter.com/jFpV0zi3PE
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 10, 2020
There you have it. Your daily dose of that which makes you ashamed to be an American until we manage to oust this ignoramus from the seat of power.
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Now that he’s used a gunfight to liven up the festivities, Trump will have to come up with something new to distract the audience tomorrow.
Trained seals, perhaps? Nah, Trump never likes being upstaged by anyone smarter than himself.
Follow Vinnie Longobardo on Twitter.
Original reporting by Aaron Rupar at Vox.
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