God bless all of you who can watch the news at this point. I am not one of you. I followed this incident on Twitter as I was working on other things – Donald Trump was supposed to give a speech in the Rose Garden yesterday in the early evening. It was supposed to be about China and Chinese oppression of Hong Kong. What happened was Trump going wildly off-script and basically treating a White House speech as some kind of campaign rally, where he used the White House as a backdrop to “attack” Joe Biden. From the NY Times:
What followed instead was an hour of presidential stream of consciousness as Mr. Trump drifted seemingly at random from one topic to another, often in the same run-on sentence. Even for a president who rarely sticks to the script and wanders from thought to thought, it was one of the most rambling performances of his presidency.
He weighed in on China and the coronavirus and the Paris climate change accord and crumbling highways. And then China again and military spending and then China again and then the coronavirus again. And the economy and energy taxes and trade with Europe and illegal immigration and his friendship with Mexico’s president. And the coronavirus again and then immigration again and crime in Chicago and the death penalty and back to climate change and education and historical statues. And more.
“We could go on for days,” he said at one point, and it sounded plausible.
At times, it was hard to understand what he meant. He seemed to suggest that his presumptive Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., would get rid of windows if elected and later said that Mr. Biden would “abolish the suburbs.” He complained that Mr. Biden had “gone so far right.” (He meant left.) At another point, he took a jab at Mr. Biden’s mental acuity. “Let him define the word carbon, because he won’t be able to,” Mr. Trump said.
I have to laugh to keep from crying, my God. I was going to use the Washington Post’s coverage because they focused on the massively inappropriate “campaign rally” energy and detailed Trump’s attacks on Biden, but then I thought… “why even put that out there?” We need to get out of the habit of just repeating Trump’s unhinged attacks. Plus, I liked the NYT’s focus on how Trump just sounded like he was sundowning and demented.
Speaking of, Trump did a one-on-one interview with CBS News and this happened:
In an interview with CBS News on Tuesday, President Trump said the killing of George Floyd was “terrible” but appeared to bristle when asked why Black Americans are “still dying at the hands of law enforcement in this country.”
“So are White people. So are White people. What a terrible question to ask. So are White people,” Mr. Trump told CBS News senior investigative correspondent Catherine Herridge at the White House. “More White people, by the way. More White people.”
Police departments are not required to report comprehensive data on police killings, but researchers have compiled statistics showing Black Americans are more likely to die at the hands of law enforcement than White people. One study published in 2018 found that Black men are roughly 3.5 times more likely to be killed by law enforcement than White men. Another study released in 2019 found that one in 1,000 Black men in the U.S. can expect to die at the hands of police over the course of their lifetimes.
For what it’s worth, the argument of “cops kill more white people than black people” is proportionately false and not a pro-cop argument. Trump is basically making the case for why white people should be active in Black Lives Matter and defunding the police. He’s making a strikingly similar argument to BLM activists: that cops are out there, murdering everybody.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
He says it like that’ll make things better. It’s not ok for the police to murder any civilian ever. And he’s an idiot if he can’t understand the data about police and people of color.
“For For every 1 million Native Americans, an average of 2.9 of them died annually from 1999 to 2015 as a result of a “legal intervention,” according to a CNN review of CDC data broken down by race. The vast majority of these deaths were police shootings. But a few were attributed to other causes, including manhandling. That mortality rate is 12% higher than for African-Americans and three times the rate of whites.”
Exactly. Sadly, he’s not the only idiot that can’t understand proportional rates vs absolute numbers. I had a run in on facebook with a relative posting about more whites being killed by police than POC for exactly the same reason. AND, as you say, even if the police WERE killing more white people either in total numbers or as a proportion – how the hell would that be a defence of their behaviour? Like, WTF??
Sigh.
Well if you can only think in simple numbers hes correct. The FBI crime statistics show for 2019 latest stats) approximately 2491 blacks were killed vs. 3005 whites so if hes running his mouth based on that, he’s correct. But if you took the data and calculated percent of population it would show that a much higher percent of blacks were killed.
“cops murder white people too” is not really the argument that I think cops want him to be making.
I appreciate how twitter was divided between “he illegally used the rose garden for a campaign speech” and “he’s unhinged.”
Also, attacking Biden’s mental acuity is a really weird line of attack for the Trump campaign.
As ever, he seems to be attacking in his opponents that which he himself suffers from. The sad thing is that the supreme irony of Trump attacking Biden’s mental acuity in the world’s most unhinged ramblings will completely bypass his supporters. They’re like that Farside card which goes ‘What we say to dogs’ vs ‘What they hear’ and the latter is just ‘Blah blah blah’. They hear what they want and ignore everything else.
The Trump campaign and the Trump family do not understand “weird.” They are making arguments that Biden has dementia while Trump believes the British had airports during the Revolutionary War and forests should be raked to prevent forest fires and he can’t put simple sentences together. They argue that Biden is physically infirmed, based on God only knows what because the guy is in better physical shape than guys 30 years younger and Trump can’t walk down a ramp. They demand to know “Where’s Hunter” while Ivanka illegally uses her position as a White House adviser to have herself photographed in the White House, by White House staff, hawking a can of beans that she probably used tax money to buy – breaking at least five federal ethics laws in one fell swoop.
So…. you agree that the police are murdering people….
Police murdering people it’s something a President should feel ashamed of, and take the responsability of…
Now Eleonor, you know Trump doesn’t take responsibility. He said so himself.
Right. We have given the police too much reverence and too little training and far too little consequences for their behavior. There was a white man killed by police on film the same way George Floyd was a year ago. There needs to be major reform in the police department period. And DT’s “defense??” Please
Ok that’s probably true because there are more white people. DOESNT MAKE IT OK. In fact, that should galvanize the “all lives matter” crew to the cause.
A WashPo data project a few years ago showed that the actual number of white people killed by police is higher than the number of black people killed. It also showed that black people account for around 12% of the population, and therefore the number of black people killed by police in proportion to our percentage of the population is much higher than that of white people.
Anyway, it will not galvanize the All Lives Matter crew because they don’t actually care about all lives.
He missed his last color appointment. As vain as he is, I have to assume his advisors convinced him to dye his hair gray, telling him it makes him look more distinguished and trustworthy.
Presidents and presidential candidates have a history of dying their hair gray because studies show people equate gray hair with experience and wisdom, even if they don’t realize they’re doing it.
Gosh, I hadn’t noticed (I tend to speed right past his pics as much as possible), but since I’m used to see his repellent yellow hair, that grey looks awful! And I’m very pro-grey!
Crazy how his hair went completely grey in the 12 days since his address on the 3rd 😂
Changing his hair color…He must be getting desperate
HAHAHAHA I didn’t notice either because like Betsy I speed scroll past his photos…
But now I can’t unsee how badly his oompa loompa skin contrasts with this hair…. and that his hands are a completely different color.
LMAO!!!!
Wrong dumpy, the stats don’t lie. Black men die at the hands of police officers more often than white people. That’s a known fact.
Guess he failed statistics at Wharton or maybe had some kid take the class for him.
So then he agrees that the police should be defunded? Great.
Is there no way for the american People to get him removed from Office? He is a danger not only for his Country but the whole world. We cant do four more years with the orange monkey in the WH.
Cops DO murder more white people, but if you go by population size, black people are killed at a disproportionate rate. Moron.
Unhinged rally from the Rose Garden. He can no longer garner enough support from his 1 % to hold a rally in any city, and mayor’s do not want the mask less criminal in their cities. Mary Trump has one word for her sociopathic uncle, “resign.” This am he’s trying to direct Covid 19 information from the hospitals to CDC to HHS. Endless.
Mary is trolling him BIGLY and I love it.
This clown. He gets more moronic as each day passes. An 11-year-old can argue any topic better than trump.
110 days until the election. Let’s not lose focus. VOTE VOTE VOTE!
Is this what all white men do, speak half truths?? Do the math, the population of white men are significantly more in America, but it works on average we are killing more black men, duh. Vote Joe Biden! Vote Joe Biden and escape this hell!