The weird news story of the day is something Trump said yesterday at a press conference in Florida.
Here’s the first place I saw it:
Salon, Nandika Chatterjee, 9 Aug 2024: “I call complete B.S.”: Trump made up a story about nearly dying in a helicopter crash, subtitled “The former president falsely claimed he almost died in a helicopter crash with Kamala Harris’ ex-boyfriend”
During a rambling news conference at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday, former President Donald Trump leveled his usual attacks against his political opponents but also shared a wild anecdote about nearly dying in a helicopter crash with Vice President Kamala Harris’s former beau, California politician Willie Brown.
As Trump told it, the pair were on a helicopter that had to do an emergency landing. His tale also included the convenient detail that Brown, former speaker of the California State Assembly, trash-talked his ex-girlfriend, Harris, some three decades after they stopped dating.
Nothing Trump said is true, according to an investigation by The New York Times.
The first problem: It was Jerry Brown, the former governor of California, and not Willie Brown on the helicopter.
And Joe.My.God: Trump Busted In Lie About Helicopter Nearly Crashing, which points to the main story:
NY Times, 8 Aug 2024: That Time Trump Nearly Died in a Helicopter Crash? Didn’t Happen., subtitled “In a news conference, the former president recounted a brush with death alongside Willie Brown, the former San Francisco mayor. A few aspects of the story don’t hold up to scrutiny.”
Then there’s Tom Nichols, who identifies the real point of the story, and chastises other news sources for downplaying it.
The Atlantic, Tom Nichols, 9 Aug 2024: The Truth About Trump’s Press Conference, subtitled “His obvious emotional instability is frightening, not funny.”
Concluding:
Reporters might listen to Trump and then understandably be reluctant to start typing stories that must feel like spec scripts for The West Wing pieced together by a creative-writing circle:
The former president, lying about abortion laws, said women murder their own babies in the delivery room. He megalomaniacally claimed that he gets bigger crowds than anyone in history, and compared himself to Martin Luther King Jr. He descended into fantasy by telling a story about surviving a helicopter emergency that never happened with a man who wasn’t there.
Instead, The New York Times ran this headline: “Trump Tries to Wrestle Back Attention at Mar-a-Lago News Conference.” The Washington Post said: “Trump Holds Meandering News Conference, Where He Agrees to Debate Harris.” The British paper The Independent got closer with: “Trump Holds Seemingly Pointless Press Conference Filled With False Claims,” but CNN went with “Trump Attacks Harris and Walz During First News Conference Since Democratic Ticket Was Announced.”
All of these headlines are technically true, but they miss the point: The Republican nominee, the man who could return to office and regain the sole authority to use American nuclear weapons, is a serial liar and can’t tell the difference between reality and fantasy.
Donald Trump is not well. He is not stable. There’s something deeply wrong with him.
Any of those would have been important—and accurate—headlines.
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Similarly:
Slate, Shirin Ali, 9 Aug 2024: Trump Is Delusional About Abortion
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Robert Reich, 8 Aug 2024: Why isn’t the media reporting on Trump’s increasing dementia?, subtitled “Today’s news conference should at least spur a serious inquiry”
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Media Matters, Eric Hananoki, 9 Aug 2024: Trump has frequently promoted a Truth Social account that’s shared material calling for Harris, Walz, and others to be killed
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Then there are these comments by John Bolton on CNN last night. This sounds about right.
CNN, via Joe.My.God, 9 Aug 2024:
“Trump can’t tell the difference between what’s true and what’s false. It’s not that he lies a lot because to lie, you have to do it consciously.
“He just can’t tell the difference. So he makes up what he wants to say at any given time. If it happens to comport with what everybody else sees. Well, that’s fine.
“And if it doesn’t comport with anybody else, he doesn’t really care and he’s had decades of getting away with it.
“So in his mind, the truth is whatever he wants it to be. And that’s what you heard today, yeah.” – John Bolton, last night on CNN.
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On the other hand, I noticed this passage from a piece about Chaya Raichik, who runs the “Libs of TikTok” account on X:
Joe.My.God, 9 Aug 2024: MN Paper Debunks The Cult’s “Tampon Tim” Claims
… You may recall that when she was recently called out in person for her lies, Raichik responded with “there’s no law against lying.”
Some of them lie quite intentionally.
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And some of these people are just not sane.
Hemant Mehta, Friendly Atheist, 9 Aug 2024: Christian “prophet”: Tim Walz fits in with the “wicked overlord lizard mafia”
If conservatives want to push back against the notion that they’re “weird,” then paying attention to a man who claims Democrats are part of a “wicked overlord lizard mafia” and “driven by their goblin masters” is probably a bad strategy.
That’s what happened this week on an episode of FlashPoint, a TV show that airs on scamvangelist Kenneth Copeland’s Victory Channel and bills itself as a venue for “tackling topics that mainstream media does not.”
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JOSEPH Z: … I believe very clearly the spirit of the Lord is making a way for the body of Christ to go through in this time. And, you know, even when we bring up guys like Tim Walz, and you look at what’s going on, people say he’s, you know, midwestern folksy.
I have another word for him, being from Minnesota myself, and it’s “weird.” The guy’s just weird. You see the way he hugs his wife. You see the way he does everything.
I believe the Spirit of the Lord is letting them overextend their reach. I believe he’s giving them a sense of confidence that’s actually going to be a surprise silver lining turnaround in this whole narrative. I believe the spirit of the Lord is going to bring victory and breakthrough.
What a terribly frightening, spooky world he must live in.
