You might have thought Donald Trump reached peak Donald Trump yesterday, when he defended alleged sexual harasser Bill O’Reilly from criticism, despite the entire country having listened to Trump describe his own habits of assault back in October. But no, while that instance was definitely worse, a new statement from Trump is somehow even more painfully emblematic of how his bullshit artistry works.
In an interview with the New York Times, Trump insisted that Democratic Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, in the Oval Office, told him, “You will go down as one of the great presidents in the history of our country.” To figure out whether or not that’s complete nonsense, you can just take a quick glance at Cummings’ Twitter feed, where his feelings about Trump are on full display. He’s also called White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon a “white supremacist-type person” and called on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to resign, if you needed further proof.
Or, you can listen to Rep. Cummings’ own statement on the matter, which he supplied to the Washington Post:
“During my meeting with the president and on several occasions since then, I have said repeatedly that he could be a great president if … if … he takes steps to truly represent all Americans rather than continuing on the divisive and harmful path he is currently on.”
Who cares about those pesky conditions for success? Let’s focus on the success part!
In true Trump fashion, he listened to the part about being great and discarded the important context that would inform him on how to accomplish the goal. That’s exactly how Trump makes all of his assertions; he rips them away from context until they all just become meaningless words, and then he assigns them whatever meaning is most convenient to him. As usual, it’s style over substance in repeating only the things that sound good without the necessary context, because who wants to focus on bummers like that?
That’s how Trump has operated on every policy issue throughout his tenure in politics; he promises greatness and fixing every problem, but he’s so focused on saying so that he discards the context necessary to understand how to get to the solutions—and it doesn’t seem to be changing any time soon.
(via Angus Johnston on Twitter, image: NBC, via)
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