That’s why a link alone from NBC isn’t good enough alongside the cleaned-up excerpt. No-one should be forced to visit a Nazi bar infested with all manner of con artists if they want to verify that this unhinged statement is real.
I think so. Indeed reporters have gone further to interpret what Trump “really” meant by paraphrasing it to sound less stupid or drawing a connection between something stupid or ignorant that Trump said and more reasonable concerns. For instance Trump would babble something about Mexico and tariffs, and reporters would obligingly massage it into a non-moronic discussion of allegedly unfair trade practices.
This “IRONCLAD DISCLAIMER CLAUSE” is bullshit. Valid financial statements have to conform to international accounting rules by law.
You simply can’t publish a balance sheet full of made-up figures and make it legal by adding a footnote saying the figures may be all made up. It’s a crime called false accounting.
Bravely bold Sir Donald
Brought forth from Mar a Lago.
He was not afraid to lose
Oh, Brave Sir Donald!
He was not all afraid to be shamed
In bigly, bigly ways.
Brave, brave, brave, brave Sir Donald.
He was not in the least bit scared to be embarrassed on TV.
Or to have his hair mussed up,
And his makeup smudged.
To have his money seized, and his empire sold away.
Brave, brave, brave, brave Sir Donald!
His wall knocked down, and his hotels renamed,
His height revealed, and his taxes paid,
His sons in court, and his wife at home,
And his penis…
He simply does not understand the legal system as a means of regulating people’s behavior and trials as a way of determining what happened and whas a crime comitted. He simply sees it as a kind of cage match between lawyers.
It’s one thing when journalists eliminate verbal tics to make something spoken appear more like written text. Most of us occasionally use verbal placeholders and restate ourselves a bit in our speech and since written language tends to be at least a little more polished, directly transcribing somebody’s speech makes them look more incoherent than they are. Of course, Trump’s speech patterns exhibit much more of this than most people, so the sort of normal “clean-up” improves it much more.
But there is NO excuse to copy edit his written communications for him. If his writing comes across as unhinged random ramblings, that in itself is important, and any editing by others just ends up normalizing a person whose demeanor and cognitive abilities are deeply unsuited to the presidency.
Edited to add: When grammar teachers go to hell, they are forced to diagram his speeches.
Regardless of his completely unhinged rant, I think, “Screw you guys, I’m going home” was just about the best outcome his legal team could have asked for in terms of testimony. Yikes.
It boggles my mind that there are “swing” voters in this case. I know you’re correct because they respond to polls that way. Reasonable people can disagree on economic policy and the like, but thinking, “Well, mayyyybe a sociopathic dictator-wannabe who hates everybody is O.K., given the fact that Hunter Biden borrowed money from his dad to buy a truck. That’s pretty shady stuff if you ask me.” just hurts my brain.