Americans finally got a chance to watch a Democratic debate consisting of only serious candidates (plus Andrew Yang) on Thursday evening.
That might have been a great opportunity for voters to get better acquainted with the field now that it’s been narrowed down, but Donald Trump decided to undermine the whole thing by giving a speech literally at the same time.
And that’s not even the punchline. Rather, the punchline is that Trump’s remarks were delivered in Baltimore, a city he called a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” with a homicide rate “higher than Afghanistan” a scant two months ago.
Specifically, Trump spoke at a GOP retreat held at the city’s Marriott Waterfront Hotel in Harbor East, where protestors showed up dressed as rats to greet him. There was even a giant balloon of a rat dressed as Trump clutching a cell phone.
Demonstrators also changed “President Street” to “Barack Obama Avenue”.
To say Trump was undeterred would be an understatement.
The president was in rare form, and that is most assuredly not a good thing, although to be completely honest, his performance on Thursday evening was the stuff comedy specials are made of – frankly, I would have probably paid to watch it.
We’ll just run through some clips in no particular order.
In an apparent effort to counter what he knew would be all manner of references to the suffering middle class during the Democratic debate, Trump conjured a tax plan that almost surely does not exist.
“We’re now working on a middle tax — uh, we’re working on a tax cut for the middle income people”, Trump began, adopting a weird cadence around the words “middle”, “income” and “people”, that indicates he thinks of them as a strange breed.
True to form, Trump didn’t just make up a middle class tax cut, he proceeded to extoll the virtues of that which doesn’t exist. “[It’s] going to be very, very inspirational”, he said of his make-believe plan. “It’s going to be something that I think is what everyone is really looking for”.
The ETA on this “very inspirational” plan that “everyone is looking for” is apparently “sometime in the next year”. So mark your 2020 calendars for “sometime”.
Trump talked a bit about cowboy hats, his majestic blonde mane and somehow managed to do a hard pivot to a critique of Mayor Pete.
“A great guy got on in Texas, and he’s wearing this big cowboy hat, this big, beautiful hat, I wish we could wear ’em”, he explained, referencing God only knows what. After a ridiculous spiel about his hair “beautifully blowing in the wind”, Trump got around to Buttigieg. To wit:
Donald Trump has won, the state of Texas. And for like six months. And then today I heard it again. I think. I think. It was Boot-edge-edge. Boot-edge-edge. They said ‘Think of it as Boot and then Edge, Edge’ because nobody can pronounce this guy’s name. They say ‘Boot-edge-edge!’ And Trump. And what I’ve done for energy. If anybody beat me in Texas. I don’t think anybody can beat me in Texas. I don’t think Rockefeller can beat me in Texas. The real Rockefeller! The first Rockefeller. I think he’d have a hard time beating me in Texas. But anyway, Boot-edge-edge!
It was wholly bizarre.
Trump also acted out a home invasion in an effort to make a point about guns. “Democrats want to confiscate guns from law-abiding Americans”, he claimed, before getting down to the theatrics.
“I’m defenseless, whatever you want”, the president whispered, holding up his hands for dramatic effect.
He told the story about Mexican gangs and knives again – this one is a Trump mainstay. He took it up a notch on Thursday, though. “And ICE runs into their nests”, he said of MS-13 hideouts. “You know they call them ‘nests'”.
Then he resorted to the macabre. “They take young women, they slice ’em up with a knife”, Trump detailed, moving his right hand back and forth to illustrate. “They slice ’em up — beautiful, young — in a case, two 16-year-old young girls walking home from school, they took ’em and they sliced ’em up”.
While regaling the crowd with his take on the Democratic field, Trump went way off script, bringing in his Xi Jinping impression for good measure.
“Can you imagine those two guys in a room?”, he asked, of a hypothetical physical confrontation between Xi and Joe Biden during trade talks. “Here’s Xi: ‘Hhrnnhrh!'”, Trump said, making a bizarre grunting noise while flexing his muscles.
Trump faulted energy efficient light bulbs for his orange-ness. “The bulb that we’re being forced to use, unfortunately, the light’s no good, I always look orange!”
If you can make it through that clip, you’ll find Trump claiming that if you break an energy efficient bulb in your house, your property is “considered a hazardous waste site”.
He also joked that if the Democratic debate was being powered by wind, it would go dark. “If you happen to be watching the Democrat debate and the wind isn’t blowing, you’re not going to see the debate”, he said.
“Charlie, what the hell happened to this debate?”, the president asked, mimicking a conversation between two upset viewers.”The goddamn windmill stopped!'”
Suffice to say this went on, and on, and on. And, unfortunately, you’d be hard pressed to say it wasn’t infinitely more entertaining than the Democratic debate which, at least as of two hours in, hadn’t necessarily told Americans anything they didn’t already know about Trump’s potential challengers.
As far as the Baltimore speech’s place in Trump history goes, it’s got a solid claim on a top-10 spot on a list of wildest spectacles.
Vox’s Aaron Rupar summed it up best. “Trump is really on one tonight”, he marveled. “This is arguably weirder than his rally speeches”.
Why is Andrew Yang not a serious candidate?
Coz he’s kinda clown
He made it three debates in. He’s serious. Will he win? I’d wager no, but he made himself a lot of money with future book deals and speeches and I predict the universal basic income will be a mainstream, bipartisan idea inside of two decades.
So bizarre. A stream of unconsciousness.