August 1, 2024 • 30 mins
In this episode of "Rambling Through the Brambles," Clark Taylor and Hobart Taylor delve into Donald Trump's contentious appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists. They discuss Trump's combative stance, his inability to appeal beyond his base, and the racial dynamics at play during the event.
Clark and Hobart analyze Trump's thin-skinned responses, the implications of his VP pick, and his overall strategy of playing to his core supporters. They also touch on Rachel Scott's direct confrontation with Trump and his defensive reactions. The conversation explores the authentic versus the performative aspects of Trump's persona and how his supporters perceive him.
The episode further examines Trump's transactional view of relationships and his outdated, categorical thinking. Clark and Hobart express their disappointment in Trump's continued dehumanization of individuals by reducing them to stereotypes. They also critique the panel setup and the roles of journalists like Harris Faulkner in the discussion.
Finally, the conversation shifts to the broader implications of Trump's rhetoric on American politics and journalism. Clark and Hobart reflect on the challenges of addressing Trump's evasive tactics and the potential impact on undecided voters. They conclude with thoughts on the future of American leadership and the importance of humility and genuine engagement in political discourse.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey, this is Clark Taylor, rambling through the brambles.
I had a chance with Hobart to talk about Trump's appearance at the National
Association of Black Journalists.
So what follows is our immediate take on the event. Thanks.
Trump is in a desperation mode.
(00:21):
I think they really feel like they are running out of political real estate.
He plays straight to his base constantly. He can't help himself.
It's like he's a comedian, basically, and a comic wants to play to his audience.
And if he's out of his element, if people don't know him or don't like him necessarily,
(00:43):
he's afraid of those situations. He doesn't do well in them.
He's combative and defensive and he's so thin skinned. And I think he's been
badly advised on his VP pick, or at least he feels like he was.
And you just see a man kind of thrashing around.
(01:04):
I deserve more respect. In fact, you know, you can just see the whole thing.
And the woman who led the discussion, Rachel Scott, I guess a reporter for ABC, she confronted him.
And I think fair or unfair, it's kind of like he's asking for this situation.
(01:28):
He's bumbled his way forward into this situation. And he doesn't seem to have
the ability to recover from insult, except by, you know, squaring off and fighting back.
Okay. Here's my take.
A Donald Trump that is authentic. And there's a Donald Trump show.
(01:56):
And from time to time, the authentic Donald Trump emerges through the Donald Trump show.
And the authentic Donald Trump actually appeals to a lot of people.
And I think that people, his supporters, understand the nuance.
And they understand that some of this is playing to his base,
(02:19):
that some of it is actually him.
Yeah, all politicians do that, right? And from their perspective,
he's the first one who sort of lets you see both the act and the actor doing the act.
So he was honestly offended by the fact that people don't give him deference,
(02:44):
that Rachel Scott didn't defer to him as the great white father,
which is how he sees himself.
He literally, by comparing himself to Lincoln and all the rest of it,
he thinks of himself as being actually a good guy.
And this tough guy act and all the rest of it is a way in which he can appeal to folks.
(03:11):
But he thinks on some level that why can't people just see that I'm all right?
You know, like, okay, I don't believe what these people say about abortion on the far right.
You know, that's why I want to give it back to the state, et cetera.
But, you know, I mean, I'll work them around, you know.
(03:37):
And it's basically this sort of wink, wink, nod, nod, trust me,
which some people are willing to sign off on. A lot of people are willing to sign off.
But this is rambling through the brain. And let's talk about the racial aspect.
My perception is he...
(03:57):
Really has not only black people and women, et cetera, but everyone in his mind as a category.
And he sees relationships as transactions.
And if people are really honest about their relationships, it's,
I've got this, you've got that, let's try and trade to make things work for
(04:24):
each other's advantage.
So, okay, I can appeal to people on immigration, and I will keep those Mexicans
from getting your jobs, and that's a deal we'll make, right?
I know who you are. I support you in that way.
And it's no ability to transcend the categories,
(04:51):
no recognition of the individual experience and circumstances that affect people's lives.
I'm ultimately greatly saddened that he's continuing the dehumanization of folks
by reducing them to categories.
(05:14):
But I recognize that he's of that generation that can't think beyond that.
He's actually a throwback to the well-meaning, ignorant liberals of the 50s.
And he's never gotten past the idea.
(05:36):
And I'm the one who can, you know, I know best, and I can take care of you.
So the only other thing I would add to the top of that whole comment,
because I think you're absolutely right on a bunch of that.
I'm lockstep with you there. Is that it's a little bit more meta than that, I think.
(05:56):
Is that I don't think he really has much of a thoughtful personality,
a thoughtful person in his own brain. He needs the categorizations just to get
through the day. You know, who are these people? What are they like?
Your transactional angle on it, I think, sets that all up.
But he's been told by his handlers throughout his political career,
(06:21):
which is very short, if you think about it, just phenomenal.
And he's been told that you are helping black people with their jobs.
And so that's something that he put on a chalkboard and memorized,
and he can't, as you say, understand why they don't agree with him on that and
(06:42):
break it into applause. laws.
And so it's a little more meta in that I think he's still this troubled human who's.
Ended up where he is due to unseen forces in crazy American politics.
And yeah, that's the only thing I would add to that.
(07:04):
I think you're right. I think just a lot of it is manufactured for him so that
he can even speak in a room of people without just roundly being angry at them for,
as you say, not being deferential to him.
He's so used to having everybody applaud when he enters a room and show him
(07:25):
love signs and heart shapes with their hands and all this stuff.
And he just seemed totally unable, but challenged, I guess.
Like, hey, I can walk into any room anywhere and make a speech,
and I'll handle it, you know.
And he couldn't handle the first minute.
(07:48):
Yeah, well, again, I agree with you.
He's not a thoughtful person. And so when he is presented with anything that
appears to be a hostile in tone,
he doesn't hear anything but the tone. He doesn't hear the words.
(08:08):
And when he doesn't receive the deference that he expects, he automatically
categorizes that person or those persons as being hostile.
Inferior, disrespectful, somehow beneath him.
And he shows up in the attic, as he tells, which he always starts off by saying.
(08:33):
So they come up to me all the time and say, Sir?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so there's that.
But the saddest thing, and this is the racial aspect of it, is that he doesn't
really individuate between people.
(08:58):
He sees these as the blacks.
And to the extent that he does see an individual African American,
it's Harris Fox, who is really, she's Fox and she's black, So he's in between.
(09:18):
Or Don King. He's black, but he's Don King.
So, you know, I mean, but it's still a reduction.
I don't think he ever would really just see any individual person as an individual
person outside of them being a type as well.
(09:39):
Probably right across the board, as you say.
It was interesting the way the panel was set up and that you had a fairly,
you know, you had Rachel Scott on right facing Trump, obviously,
you know, going to challenge him right off the bat.
Then I don't remember the lady's name in the middle, but she was kind of the balance of the two.
(10:03):
And then Harris Faulkner on the right side. And by the way, I think Harris-Fartner
was there only because that was the only way the campaign would appear,
would send Trump out there.
They needed him to have – because she's not a real journalist.
She's a commentator. She's a firebrand. I've seen her. I watch her often.
(10:27):
And she's the worst sort of, she's not a journalist.
She's not a reporter going to the field.
The only reason she was there was because I guarantee the campaign said,
well, said Donald Trump there, as long as Harris Faulkner or somebody like her
is on the stage with him. because she was there to catch him when he started
to fall, started to stumble, throw him some lifelines.
(10:50):
And it was hilarious to me that he could not hear her.
So she was asking him softball questions, those kind of long leading questions
where she gives him the answer before she asks the question, that kind of thing.
And he couldn't hear her based with some of their technical problems.
(11:11):
I think the campaign yanked in because it was such a disaster in a lot of respects
I don't think it had anything to do with timing I don't think it had to do with
the fact that he was just bombing they just wanted to get him out like I said
they got plausible deniability around that but.
They even had the visuals the visuals were very clear they had Rachel Scott
(11:34):
in blue on one end and Harris, Faulkner in red on the other end.
And Kadiya Goba, who's the politics reporter at Semaphore, she was in the middle,
in a black dress, all wearing solid colored, you know, dresses.
And Kadiya Goba was meant to,
(11:58):
to sort of balance the equation. Yeah, yeah.
Which she did. Yeah, she was a moderator, basically.
But that's another testament to the problem, or the perceived problem of American journalism.
Literally on the left side, you had a journalist, a real journalist,
(12:20):
asking a real question, but she's presented as a leftist force of opinion Because
she's asking truthful questions.
In the middle, you have the traditional American journalist,
which is both sides-ism, which is, you know, it doesn't matter what anybody says.
We just report what each side says without any real analysis.
(12:44):
And so that allows lies to sneak through.
And then on the right, you have the commentator posing as a journalist and defending
and supporting, promoting whatever the conservative candidate wants to say.
So, I mean, it was in microcosm. It was sort of the whole history of American
(13:09):
journalism since Trump came on the scene. Yeah.
And I immediately, as soon as it ended, I immediately flipped over to Fox News,
and they were speechless.
The reporters, because they're in their regular journalism day,
(13:29):
supposedly reporting the actual news and with dispassionate objectivity,
which, of course, is impossible for them.
Fair and balanced, right. Yeah, fair and balanced, right. Yeah.
And they were gobsmacked. I mean, they just couldn't, did not know what to say.
And eventually, Harris Faulkner was scurried over to the microphones to do her take on it.
(13:52):
And hilariously, the reporter asked her some pointed questions and actually
replayed some of the comments.
One of them being, I'm the greatest president for black people since Abraham Lincoln.
I mean, he actually said that out loud, right? Right. And Harris Faulkner didn't
answer the questions she prevaricated.
(14:15):
It was really fascinating to see Harris Faulkner hear a question and purposefully
not answer a question from a reporter from her own network.
Well, I guess, again, just obfuscate. Yeah, that's what Trump's contribution
has been to the American body politic.
(14:35):
Is the ability to conflate to when asked about the January 6th attack.
And, you know, Scott had specific examples of the injuries the officers sustained
and all of the stuff that had happened.
He immediately, you know, conflated it with other demonstrations.
(14:58):
Some more violent, some less violent, but in no way addressed the question at hand.
And to the extent that this is the modus operandi, it means that we can never
expect an answer to a question from a politician again.
(15:19):
We just get deflection, deflection, deflection. So, yeah, it was a regular,
old, standard shit show.
And I think that it... Here's the one thought I want to share, and see what you think.
(15:39):
In 1950, John Kennedy addressed the Houston Ministerial Association,
which was a bunch of Protestant ministers in Houston that did not like the idea
of a Catholic running for president.
And I don't know if Johnson set it up or what the deal was, but it was set up
in such a way that Kennedy was facing a hostile audience.
(16:00):
And the hostile audience was not exactly won over, but at least listened as
Kennedy explained who he was and how –.
He was not the threat that they assumed that he was, that he believed in separation
of church and state and went deeply into the origins of that doctrine.
(16:24):
And while he may or may not have moved the ministers, he moved the country.
And undecided voters and other folks began to say that, you know,
this person answered with candor, with courage, with charm, and addressed the
elephant in the room directly.
(16:44):
In contrast, Trump also went into an audience that was potentially quite hostile.
And rather than sort of acknowledge that and deal with in a measured and intelligent
way where they agreed and where they disagreed and explained himself,
(17:08):
he just went on the attack. and he went on the attack from the get-go.
And that's not going to help him with any undecided.
It's going to reinforce the base, but it's going to make anybody who had any
questions about whether or not there's a sane and not senile person here,
(17:30):
those questions are not addressed.
He's just doing what he's always done and everywhere else.
Uh yeah i i appreciate that
reference to kennedy's
having a similar situation that's great stuff i think
to answer to to add to that is that kennedy probably was being asked to humble
(17:57):
himself to a certain extent like show some humility show some understanding
that there may be other points of view that might not be good ones.
So stuck on my head on that.
What I thought Rachel Scott was doing, and yeah, it was tough,
was she was giving the entire litany, the entire list of,
(18:19):
of offenses he had committed against black journalists, black women.
She just went ahead and listed it all out there.
And she was putting it in one big box and saying, what is your response to this?
What do you have to say about this? All he has to do is may have culpa,
show some humility, recognize the error of his ways, et cetera.
(18:44):
In other words, it was, in a way, a peace offering done, yeah,
wasn't peaceful the way she did it.
And she confronted him with it straight off the bat.
But hey, politics, it's tough. It's a presidential campaign.
You got to, you know, strap it on. So, and he was completely offended is all he was.
All he heard was a black lady telling me I'm bad.
(19:07):
Yeah, I want to build on that. I agree with you. And she, I think she had a
reason to do that, Because this may be the only time in the whole campaign when
those questions get asked of him.
I mean, this is what should have happened in the debate when Biden folded.
But aside from that, you know, because it could be asked in the debate.
(19:29):
But aside from that, there's no other opportunity to actually challenge him.
And so she actually got the questions asked that he's been ducking and dodging
the whole campaign. bank.
The other part of it, though, is that you talked about humility.
I don't think he has to even say mea culpa or I was wrong.
All he has to do is say, okay, I see that you have a different perspective.
(19:54):
I think that your perspective may be warped by your own bias against you.
But, you know, I see things differently.
And my view is that we're all going to do better if we do these things,
if we drill, baby, drill, if we control immigration.
(20:16):
It's all for the benefit of all of us.
And, you know, you may not agree with me, but that's why I get the big bucks.
I get to make the tough calls.
And the tough calls I make, the way I see it, this is what needs to be done.
And then everybody shuts up. Yeah. And he bends himself into a pretzel in his
(20:40):
brain trying to figure out how to remind everybody that he saved black.
He, he, on the, on the rambly through the brambles thing angle where we are,
he, his, his idea of the black community is limited.
And he believes that he helped that immigrants are coming to take black jobs
and he can't get around that.
(21:01):
They've told him, sir, black people have all sorts of jobs in our society from
president right on down, if you will, to whatever else.
And they're all full of respect and power and work, et cetera.
So as soon as you say, hey, man, these illegal people are coming to take your jobs.
(21:22):
And so you can hear the people in a room full of black journalists,
all of whom have pretty good jobs and good educations and big lives and have for decades,
generationally maybe, probably a lot of them, are like, what jobs?
What jobs are you talking about? What are black jobs?
That is a question that cannot be answered and might have made sense in the
(21:47):
60s, I'm assuming, but now it just seems absurd.
It just really has an absurd sound to it. Well, it didn't even make sense in the 60s.
I mean, because basically what he's saying is that aliens are illegal aliens. His term, not mine.
Right, you gotcha. But these folks are going to,
(22:09):
you know, be running the elevators and sweeping the floors and shining the shoes
and pushing blacks out of all those jobs that are there. Theirs.
Their problems. Yeah, your jobs. Their place in the economy.
(22:31):
No, it's comically, and he tried so hard not to say that.
You could tell that he'd already talked to him from his campaign.
They're going, sir, you cannot say that they're coming to take black jobs.
But he's unable to not, that was the only place he could go,
which shows you his limited ability to, well, fight.
(22:55):
Call it what you want, lying or finding a position for himself.
But he's just unable to finesse these moments.
He's blustery. He needs to say things bigger and stupider.
His go-to is kind of big, dumb statements that then he can walk back or walk
(23:20):
around or explain better.
Okay. So here's our problem. I know that folks listening to this are either
going to fall into the category of agreeing with us entirely or dismissing us as liberal,
elite, or whatever, however we're dismissed.
(23:41):
But what can we bring that's new to the discussion?
And I think that we could maybe talk about our own perceptions.
We recognize, for instance, the nature of the attacks that Trump and Vance have
made against Harris are incredibly racist and sexist.
(24:04):
And Gorka's remark on Fox the other day that she's a candidate because she has a vagina,
that the allegations that she slept her way to the top because she may have
had a relationship with Willie Brown.
Just from a man who's not the example of moral rectitude in terms of his own private life.
(24:31):
And probably respects that sort of attitude about how to make the world work for you. Right, right.
That transaction. Yeah, yeah, that's transaction. That's right up his alleyway.
How is that a criticism?
And, you know, I think the whole attempt to demonize and categorize,
(25:01):
which, as we mentioned before,
is his way of seeing the world,
is finally going to backfire.
And it's going to backfire because so many people have been categorized in so
many different ways that they're going to begin to have more and more empathy
with Harris, the more and more they try and do it.
(25:22):
For instance, calling her dumb is not going to work because they can see with
their own eyes, you know, how articulate and precise and effective she is.
And evil, people don't see her as evil.
I mean, there's just no way that these basic demonizations are going to work
(25:48):
when they contradict the scene reality. Yeah, yeah.
Whereas calling Biden senile, that worked. Yeah.
Yeah. And I think we're now in a situation where everything,
the starkness of the separation has taken place now.
(26:11):
I mean, you've got the future blocking, right?
And you've got the past struggling to make a case for itself.
And so I think that ultimately Americans, this is what I believe.
I still have a giant problem with the electoral college being we're all stuck
in this universe where six states decide the election.
(26:34):
And so it comes down to this machinations all over the place.
And that's the only thing the Republicans are going to be thinking about from
now until Election Day is how to craft a victory out of defeat.
Feet that's really all they can because they're going to lose the popular vote
and trump's doing and he's helping no one by just preaching to the base preaching
(26:55):
to the base preaching to the base and hoping he doesn't lose them which is weird
because it's the one group he can't lose.
But he's gonna he's gonna just default i think to that and i'm just gonna say
that i think Americans love the new thing, and Harris is the new thing.
She looks like the new possibility, and Americans love that. They love that.
(27:20):
And thank goodness, from my perspective anyway, the early voting is right around
the corner, because if they can get,
you know, folks out to vote early while this enthusiasm is there and before
something drastic, some October surprise hits, then we can sort of have it baked in.
(27:46):
And because it's going to tighten as it always does at the end.
Yeah. I mean, I don't know where the Democrats can go wrong from now.
They just need to let Harris get out there, do her, get out there.
She needs to be out there actively pursuing this and making it fun again.
(28:07):
We've ground ourselves into a kind of a sad morass, I feel like,
you know, and America is trying to keep turning towards the good thing.
There's just a desire to aim for the flashing lights over on the right and head that way.
(28:29):
God forbid that somebody who crossed the border illegally goes into a shopping
mall and kills dirty people. Something like that can,
tilt things a little bit. Well, somebody tried to kill Trump.
(28:49):
But that's kind of yesterday's news. Yeah, yeah.
And the Democrats are doing exactly what I would prescribe, which is stay in
the news, stay in the news, keep Trump out of the news.
The longer you can do that, the worse it is for him, the worse he gets.
But the good thing about the attempted assassination was it wasn't somebody
(29:15):
that they could demonize.
They can't, like, use it as a rallying cry because it was a disaffected,
non-political white male, you know.
The usual suspect. The usual suspect. Right.
I'm sure if they could have found any real connection between him and anything
(29:39):
on the left, or if it had been somebody who's normally demonized,
Trump would have gotten a much bigger bump out of the events.
Wow! Yeah, it was just a quick response to Trump's face-off with black journalists today.
(30:01):
It was a giant fail for him, and I think, sadly, typical of his inability to
either grow into whatever it is they keep hoping he'll be,
some messianic savior of American primacy, instead of the actual future,
(30:25):
the actual way you move forward in a global society.
Society you know i don't know and jd vance has turned into just a fart somebody
well yeah yeah yeah well good good hanging with you and you know i hope we keep
doing this i i think the more we do it the better.
(30:47):
Music.
Hey, this is Clark Taylor, rambling through the brambles.
I had a chance with Hobart to talk about Trump's appearance at the National
Association of Black Journalists.
So what follows is our immediate take on the event. Thanks.
Trump is in a desperation mode.
(00:21):
I think they really feel like they are running out of political real estate.
He plays straight to his base constantly. He can't help himself.
It's like he's a comedian, basically, and a comic wants to play to his audience.
And if he's out of his element, if people don't know him or don't like him necessarily,
(00:43):
he's afraid of those situations. He doesn't do well in them.
He's combative and defensive and he's so thin skinned. And I think he's been
badly advised on his VP pick, or at least he feels like he was.
And you just see a man kind of thrashing around.
(01:04):
I deserve more respect. In fact, you know, you can just see the whole thing.
And the woman who led the discussion, Rachel Scott, I guess a reporter for ABC, she confronted him.
And I think fair or unfair, it's kind of like he's asking for this situation.
(01:28):
He's bumbled his way forward into this situation. And he doesn't seem to have
the ability to recover from insult, except by, you know, squaring off and fighting back.
Okay. Here's my take.
A Donald Trump that is authentic. And there's a Donald Trump show.
(01:56):
And from time to time, the authentic Donald Trump emerges through the Donald Trump show.
And the authentic Donald Trump actually appeals to a lot of people.
And I think that people, his supporters, understand the nuance.
And they understand that some of this is playing to his base,
(02:19):
that some of it is actually him.
Yeah, all politicians do that, right? And from their perspective,
he's the first one who sort of lets you see both the act and the actor doing the act.
So he was honestly offended by the fact that people don't give him deference,
(02:44):
that Rachel Scott didn't defer to him as the great white father,
which is how he sees himself.
He literally, by comparing himself to Lincoln and all the rest of it,
he thinks of himself as being actually a good guy.
And this tough guy act and all the rest of it is a way in which he can appeal to folks.
(03:11):
But he thinks on some level that why can't people just see that I'm all right?
You know, like, okay, I don't believe what these people say about abortion on the far right.
You know, that's why I want to give it back to the state, et cetera.
But, you know, I mean, I'll work them around, you know.
(03:37):
And it's basically this sort of wink, wink, nod, nod, trust me,
which some people are willing to sign off on. A lot of people are willing to sign off.
But this is rambling through the brain. And let's talk about the racial aspect.
My perception is he...
(03:57):
Really has not only black people and women, et cetera, but everyone in his mind as a category.
And he sees relationships as transactions.
And if people are really honest about their relationships, it's,
I've got this, you've got that, let's try and trade to make things work for
(04:24):
each other's advantage.
So, okay, I can appeal to people on immigration, and I will keep those Mexicans
from getting your jobs, and that's a deal we'll make, right?
I know who you are. I support you in that way.
And it's no ability to transcend the categories,
(04:51):
no recognition of the individual experience and circumstances that affect people's lives.
I'm ultimately greatly saddened that he's continuing the dehumanization of folks
by reducing them to categories.
(05:14):
But I recognize that he's of that generation that can't think beyond that.
He's actually a throwback to the well-meaning, ignorant liberals of the 50s.
And he's never gotten past the idea.
(05:36):
And I'm the one who can, you know, I know best, and I can take care of you.
So the only other thing I would add to the top of that whole comment,
because I think you're absolutely right on a bunch of that.
I'm lockstep with you there. Is that it's a little bit more meta than that, I think.
(05:56):
Is that I don't think he really has much of a thoughtful personality,
a thoughtful person in his own brain. He needs the categorizations just to get
through the day. You know, who are these people? What are they like?
Your transactional angle on it, I think, sets that all up.
But he's been told by his handlers throughout his political career,
(06:21):
which is very short, if you think about it, just phenomenal.
And he's been told that you are helping black people with their jobs.
And so that's something that he put on a chalkboard and memorized,
and he can't, as you say, understand why they don't agree with him on that and
(06:42):
break it into applause. laws.
And so it's a little more meta in that I think he's still this troubled human who's.
Ended up where he is due to unseen forces in crazy American politics.
And yeah, that's the only thing I would add to that.
(07:04):
I think you're right. I think just a lot of it is manufactured for him so that
he can even speak in a room of people without just roundly being angry at them for,
as you say, not being deferential to him.
He's so used to having everybody applaud when he enters a room and show him
(07:25):
love signs and heart shapes with their hands and all this stuff.
And he just seemed totally unable, but challenged, I guess.
Like, hey, I can walk into any room anywhere and make a speech,
and I'll handle it, you know.
And he couldn't handle the first minute.
(07:48):
Yeah, well, again, I agree with you.
He's not a thoughtful person. And so when he is presented with anything that
appears to be a hostile in tone,
he doesn't hear anything but the tone. He doesn't hear the words.
(08:08):
And when he doesn't receive the deference that he expects, he automatically
categorizes that person or those persons as being hostile.
Inferior, disrespectful, somehow beneath him.
And he shows up in the attic, as he tells, which he always starts off by saying.
(08:33):
So they come up to me all the time and say, Sir?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so there's that.
But the saddest thing, and this is the racial aspect of it, is that he doesn't
really individuate between people.
(08:58):
He sees these as the blacks.
And to the extent that he does see an individual African American,
it's Harris Fox, who is really, she's Fox and she's black, So he's in between.
(09:18):
Or Don King. He's black, but he's Don King.
So, you know, I mean, but it's still a reduction.
I don't think he ever would really just see any individual person as an individual
person outside of them being a type as well.
(09:39):
Probably right across the board, as you say.
It was interesting the way the panel was set up and that you had a fairly,
you know, you had Rachel Scott on right facing Trump, obviously,
you know, going to challenge him right off the bat.
Then I don't remember the lady's name in the middle, but she was kind of the balance of the two.
(10:03):
And then Harris Faulkner on the right side. And by the way, I think Harris-Fartner
was there only because that was the only way the campaign would appear,
would send Trump out there.
They needed him to have – because she's not a real journalist.
She's a commentator. She's a firebrand. I've seen her. I watch her often.
(10:27):
And she's the worst sort of, she's not a journalist.
She's not a reporter going to the field.
The only reason she was there was because I guarantee the campaign said,
well, said Donald Trump there, as long as Harris Faulkner or somebody like her
is on the stage with him. because she was there to catch him when he started
to fall, started to stumble, throw him some lifelines.
(10:50):
And it was hilarious to me that he could not hear her.
So she was asking him softball questions, those kind of long leading questions
where she gives him the answer before she asks the question, that kind of thing.
And he couldn't hear her based with some of their technical problems.
(11:11):
I think the campaign yanked in because it was such a disaster in a lot of respects
I don't think it had anything to do with timing I don't think it had to do with
the fact that he was just bombing they just wanted to get him out like I said
they got plausible deniability around that but.
They even had the visuals the visuals were very clear they had Rachel Scott
(11:34):
in blue on one end and Harris, Faulkner in red on the other end.
And Kadiya Goba, who's the politics reporter at Semaphore, she was in the middle,
in a black dress, all wearing solid colored, you know, dresses.
And Kadiya Goba was meant to,
(11:58):
to sort of balance the equation. Yeah, yeah.
Which she did. Yeah, she was a moderator, basically.
But that's another testament to the problem, or the perceived problem of American journalism.
Literally on the left side, you had a journalist, a real journalist,
(12:20):
asking a real question, but she's presented as a leftist force of opinion Because
she's asking truthful questions.
In the middle, you have the traditional American journalist,
which is both sides-ism, which is, you know, it doesn't matter what anybody says.
We just report what each side says without any real analysis.
(12:44):
And so that allows lies to sneak through.
And then on the right, you have the commentator posing as a journalist and defending
and supporting, promoting whatever the conservative candidate wants to say.
So, I mean, it was in microcosm. It was sort of the whole history of American
(13:09):
journalism since Trump came on the scene. Yeah.
And I immediately, as soon as it ended, I immediately flipped over to Fox News,
and they were speechless.
The reporters, because they're in their regular journalism day,
(13:29):
supposedly reporting the actual news and with dispassionate objectivity,
which, of course, is impossible for them.
Fair and balanced, right. Yeah, fair and balanced, right. Yeah.
And they were gobsmacked. I mean, they just couldn't, did not know what to say.
And eventually, Harris Faulkner was scurried over to the microphones to do her take on it.
(13:52):
And hilariously, the reporter asked her some pointed questions and actually
replayed some of the comments.
One of them being, I'm the greatest president for black people since Abraham Lincoln.
I mean, he actually said that out loud, right? Right. And Harris Faulkner didn't
answer the questions she prevaricated.
(14:15):
It was really fascinating to see Harris Faulkner hear a question and purposefully
not answer a question from a reporter from her own network.
Well, I guess, again, just obfuscate. Yeah, that's what Trump's contribution
has been to the American body politic.
(14:35):
Is the ability to conflate to when asked about the January 6th attack.
And, you know, Scott had specific examples of the injuries the officers sustained
and all of the stuff that had happened.
He immediately, you know, conflated it with other demonstrations.
(14:58):
Some more violent, some less violent, but in no way addressed the question at hand.
And to the extent that this is the modus operandi, it means that we can never
expect an answer to a question from a politician again.
(15:19):
We just get deflection, deflection, deflection. So, yeah, it was a regular,
old, standard shit show.
And I think that it... Here's the one thought I want to share, and see what you think.
(15:39):
In 1950, John Kennedy addressed the Houston Ministerial Association,
which was a bunch of Protestant ministers in Houston that did not like the idea
of a Catholic running for president.
And I don't know if Johnson set it up or what the deal was, but it was set up
in such a way that Kennedy was facing a hostile audience.
(16:00):
And the hostile audience was not exactly won over, but at least listened as
Kennedy explained who he was and how –.
He was not the threat that they assumed that he was, that he believed in separation
of church and state and went deeply into the origins of that doctrine.
(16:24):
And while he may or may not have moved the ministers, he moved the country.
And undecided voters and other folks began to say that, you know,
this person answered with candor, with courage, with charm, and addressed the
elephant in the room directly.
(16:44):
In contrast, Trump also went into an audience that was potentially quite hostile.
And rather than sort of acknowledge that and deal with in a measured and intelligent
way where they agreed and where they disagreed and explained himself,
(17:08):
he just went on the attack. and he went on the attack from the get-go.
And that's not going to help him with any undecided.
It's going to reinforce the base, but it's going to make anybody who had any
questions about whether or not there's a sane and not senile person here,
(17:30):
those questions are not addressed.
He's just doing what he's always done and everywhere else.
Uh yeah i i appreciate that
reference to kennedy's
having a similar situation that's great stuff i think
to answer to to add to that is that kennedy probably was being asked to humble
(17:57):
himself to a certain extent like show some humility show some understanding
that there may be other points of view that might not be good ones.
So stuck on my head on that.
What I thought Rachel Scott was doing, and yeah, it was tough,
was she was giving the entire litany, the entire list of,
(18:19):
of offenses he had committed against black journalists, black women.
She just went ahead and listed it all out there.
And she was putting it in one big box and saying, what is your response to this?
What do you have to say about this? All he has to do is may have culpa,
show some humility, recognize the error of his ways, et cetera.
(18:44):
In other words, it was, in a way, a peace offering done, yeah,
wasn't peaceful the way she did it.
And she confronted him with it straight off the bat.
But hey, politics, it's tough. It's a presidential campaign.
You got to, you know, strap it on. So, and he was completely offended is all he was.
All he heard was a black lady telling me I'm bad.
(19:07):
Yeah, I want to build on that. I agree with you. And she, I think she had a
reason to do that, Because this may be the only time in the whole campaign when
those questions get asked of him.
I mean, this is what should have happened in the debate when Biden folded.
But aside from that, you know, because it could be asked in the debate.
(19:29):
But aside from that, there's no other opportunity to actually challenge him.
And so she actually got the questions asked that he's been ducking and dodging
the whole campaign. bank.
The other part of it, though, is that you talked about humility.
I don't think he has to even say mea culpa or I was wrong.
All he has to do is say, okay, I see that you have a different perspective.
(19:54):
I think that your perspective may be warped by your own bias against you.
But, you know, I see things differently.
And my view is that we're all going to do better if we do these things,
if we drill, baby, drill, if we control immigration.
(20:16):
It's all for the benefit of all of us.
And, you know, you may not agree with me, but that's why I get the big bucks.
I get to make the tough calls.
And the tough calls I make, the way I see it, this is what needs to be done.
And then everybody shuts up. Yeah. And he bends himself into a pretzel in his
(20:40):
brain trying to figure out how to remind everybody that he saved black.
He, he, on the, on the rambly through the brambles thing angle where we are,
he, his, his idea of the black community is limited.
And he believes that he helped that immigrants are coming to take black jobs
and he can't get around that.
(21:01):
They've told him, sir, black people have all sorts of jobs in our society from
president right on down, if you will, to whatever else.
And they're all full of respect and power and work, et cetera.
So as soon as you say, hey, man, these illegal people are coming to take your jobs.
(21:22):
And so you can hear the people in a room full of black journalists,
all of whom have pretty good jobs and good educations and big lives and have for decades,
generationally maybe, probably a lot of them, are like, what jobs?
What jobs are you talking about? What are black jobs?
That is a question that cannot be answered and might have made sense in the
(21:47):
60s, I'm assuming, but now it just seems absurd.
It just really has an absurd sound to it. Well, it didn't even make sense in the 60s.
I mean, because basically what he's saying is that aliens are illegal aliens. His term, not mine.
Right, you gotcha. But these folks are going to,
(22:09):
you know, be running the elevators and sweeping the floors and shining the shoes
and pushing blacks out of all those jobs that are there. Theirs.
Their problems. Yeah, your jobs. Their place in the economy.
(22:31):
No, it's comically, and he tried so hard not to say that.
You could tell that he'd already talked to him from his campaign.
They're going, sir, you cannot say that they're coming to take black jobs.
But he's unable to not, that was the only place he could go,
which shows you his limited ability to, well, fight.
(22:55):
Call it what you want, lying or finding a position for himself.
But he's just unable to finesse these moments.
He's blustery. He needs to say things bigger and stupider.
His go-to is kind of big, dumb statements that then he can walk back or walk
(23:20):
around or explain better.
Okay. So here's our problem. I know that folks listening to this are either
going to fall into the category of agreeing with us entirely or dismissing us as liberal,
elite, or whatever, however we're dismissed.
(23:41):
But what can we bring that's new to the discussion?
And I think that we could maybe talk about our own perceptions.
We recognize, for instance, the nature of the attacks that Trump and Vance have
made against Harris are incredibly racist and sexist.
(24:04):
And Gorka's remark on Fox the other day that she's a candidate because she has a vagina,
that the allegations that she slept her way to the top because she may have
had a relationship with Willie Brown.
Just from a man who's not the example of moral rectitude in terms of his own private life.
(24:31):
And probably respects that sort of attitude about how to make the world work for you. Right, right.
That transaction. Yeah, yeah, that's transaction. That's right up his alleyway.
How is that a criticism?
And, you know, I think the whole attempt to demonize and categorize,
(25:01):
which, as we mentioned before,
is his way of seeing the world,
is finally going to backfire.
And it's going to backfire because so many people have been categorized in so
many different ways that they're going to begin to have more and more empathy
with Harris, the more and more they try and do it.
(25:22):
For instance, calling her dumb is not going to work because they can see with
their own eyes, you know, how articulate and precise and effective she is.
And evil, people don't see her as evil.
I mean, there's just no way that these basic demonizations are going to work
(25:48):
when they contradict the scene reality. Yeah, yeah.
Whereas calling Biden senile, that worked. Yeah.
Yeah. And I think we're now in a situation where everything,
the starkness of the separation has taken place now.
(26:11):
I mean, you've got the future blocking, right?
And you've got the past struggling to make a case for itself.
And so I think that ultimately Americans, this is what I believe.
I still have a giant problem with the electoral college being we're all stuck
in this universe where six states decide the election.
(26:34):
And so it comes down to this machinations all over the place.
And that's the only thing the Republicans are going to be thinking about from
now until Election Day is how to craft a victory out of defeat.
Feet that's really all they can because they're going to lose the popular vote
and trump's doing and he's helping no one by just preaching to the base preaching
(26:55):
to the base preaching to the base and hoping he doesn't lose them which is weird
because it's the one group he can't lose.
But he's gonna he's gonna just default i think to that and i'm just gonna say
that i think Americans love the new thing, and Harris is the new thing.
She looks like the new possibility, and Americans love that. They love that.
(27:20):
And thank goodness, from my perspective anyway, the early voting is right around
the corner, because if they can get,
you know, folks out to vote early while this enthusiasm is there and before
something drastic, some October surprise hits, then we can sort of have it baked in.
(27:46):
And because it's going to tighten as it always does at the end.
Yeah. I mean, I don't know where the Democrats can go wrong from now.
They just need to let Harris get out there, do her, get out there.
She needs to be out there actively pursuing this and making it fun again.
(28:07):
We've ground ourselves into a kind of a sad morass, I feel like,
you know, and America is trying to keep turning towards the good thing.
There's just a desire to aim for the flashing lights over on the right and head that way.
(28:29):
God forbid that somebody who crossed the border illegally goes into a shopping
mall and kills dirty people. Something like that can,
tilt things a little bit. Well, somebody tried to kill Trump.
(28:49):
But that's kind of yesterday's news. Yeah, yeah.
And the Democrats are doing exactly what I would prescribe, which is stay in
the news, stay in the news, keep Trump out of the news.
The longer you can do that, the worse it is for him, the worse he gets.
But the good thing about the attempted assassination was it wasn't somebody
(29:15):
that they could demonize.
They can't, like, use it as a rallying cry because it was a disaffected,
non-political white male, you know.
The usual suspect. The usual suspect. Right.
I'm sure if they could have found any real connection between him and anything
(29:39):
on the left, or if it had been somebody who's normally demonized,
Trump would have gotten a much bigger bump out of the events.
Wow! Yeah, it was just a quick response to Trump's face-off with black journalists today.
(30:01):
It was a giant fail for him, and I think, sadly, typical of his inability to
either grow into whatever it is they keep hoping he'll be,
some messianic savior of American primacy, instead of the actual future,
(30:25):
the actual way you move forward in a global society.
Society you know i don't know and jd vance has turned into just a fart somebody
well yeah yeah yeah well good good hanging with you and you know i hope we keep
doing this i i think the more we do it the better.
(30:47):
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