Australian journalist sees Trump press conference for the first time, is taken aback by how much stupider he sounds than the press has reported. I know how she feels, even though I’ve listened to him babble extempore many times – he keeps surprising me even though I already know. He’s that bad.

But watching a full presidential Trump press conference while visiting the US this week I realised how much the reporting of Trump necessarily edits and parses his words, to force it into sequential paragraphs or impose meaning where it is difficult to detect.

That but also he sounds and looks so much more cracked than even a fully accurate transcript can convey, because of all the head-twitching and lips-funneling and smirking and other live-action habits.

The press conference I tuned into by chance from my New York hotel room was held in Otay Mesa, California, and concerned a renovated section of the wall on the Mexican border.

I joined as the president was explaining at length how powerful the concrete was. Very powerful, it turns out. It was unlike any wall ever built, incorporating the most advanced “concrete technology”. It was so exceptional that would-be wall-builders from three unnamed countries had visited to learn from it.

See? She’s summarizing too, and the mere words can’t convey the mannerisms and grotesqueries that go along with them.

The wall went very deep and could not be burrowed under. Prototypes had been tested by 20 “world-class mountain climbers – That’s all they do, they love to climb mountains”, who had been unable to scale it.

It was also “wired, so that we will know if somebody is trying to break through”, although one of the attending officials declined a presidential invitation to discuss this wiring further, saying, “Sir, there could be some merit in not discussing it”, which the president said was a “very good answer”.

The wall was “amazing”, “world class”, “virtually impenetrable” and also “a good, strong rust colour” that could later be painted. It was designed to absorb heat, so it was “hot enough to fry an egg on”. There were no eggs to hand, but the president did sign his name on it and spoke for so long the TV feed eventually cut away, promising to return if news was ever made.

The words alone don’t do it. The man in all his crazy and idiotic is the only thing that can.

In writing about this not-especially-important or unusual press conference I’ve run into what US reporters must encounter every day. I’ve edited skittering, half-finished sentences to present them in some kind of consequential order and repeated remarks that made little sense.

Yep. What I’m saying. He has to be seen and heard to be believed.

I’ve read so many stories about his bluster and boasting and ill-founded attacks, I’ve listened to speeches and hours of analysis, and yet I was still taken back by just how disjointed and meandering the unedited president could sound…

I’d understood the dilemma of normalising Trump’s ideas and policies – the racism, misogyny and demonisation of the free press. But watching just one press conference from Otay Mesa helped me understand how the process of reporting about this president can mask and normalise his full and alarming incoherence.

We know. We know.

The Post yesterday:

It is no secret that Trump and his attorney, Rudolph Giuliani, have been pressuring Ukraine to open a corruption investigation into Democratic front-runner Joe Biden. Their contention is that Biden, as vice president, encouraged the firing of Ukraine’s top prosecutor because he was probing a company that employed Biden’s son. Numerous journalists have shown that this accusation is bogus. The prosecutor was notoriously lax in pursuing corruption cases. So rather than fomenting corruption, Biden was fighting it. Trump and Giuliani have been acting in a highly improper fashion to induce a foreign government to lie on Trump’s behalf.

Notice how filthy this is. Biden and Obama were leaning on Ukraine to get corruption out of its justice system. A corrupt justice system benefits rich crooks, and no one else. Making a justice system non-corrupt is a good thing, not a bad thing. Trump and Giuliani see this and, instead of thinking “a good move for the people of Ukraine,” they think “we can flip this to smear Biden.” What kind of people think that and then go on to do it? People like Trump and Giuliani – and, apparently, Trump and Giuliani themselves. It’s filthy. Not content with corrupting everything in the US, they want to spread the corruption to the rest of the world, so that they can have more power and money and corruption.

Filthy.

On Sept. 5, The Post’s editorial page reported that Trump had put a hold on $250 million in U.S. military aid to Ukraine to force Zelensky to launch a probe of Biden. Several congressional committees are now investigating this explosive accusation for which there is considerable circumstantial evidence.

Kiev’s own readout of the call between Zelensky and Trump says that Trump urged Ukraine to “complete investigation of corruption cases, which inhibited the interaction between Ukraine and the USA.”…

Oddly enough, just as Congress began looking into these allegations last week, the White House finally released its hold on the $250 million for Ukraine.

Oh gee, I wonder why.

Trump’s defense — that he would not “say anything inappropriate with a foreign leader” knowing that others were listening in — is unconvincing, given how many inappropriate things he says with the whole world listening.

I’ve been thinking about that one. It’s an absurd defense, because he has no idea what’s inappropriate. None. Nearly everything he says is inappropriate. He has said thousands of inappropriate things on Twitter, knowing that others were listening in; of course he would do the same (and has) when talking to a head of state. He shoved the prime minister of Montenegro aside knowing that cameras were running; he has no clue how to behave or what not to say.

Trump has already won an election once with foreign help. If he is now misusing his office to force a foreign leader to help him in 2020, the House would be compelled to impeach, even if the Senate wouldn’t convict, simply to show that Trump is not a king who can violate the law with impunity.

Compelled how, though? Compelled by what or whom? It’s a very boneless, non-specific claim, especially when we the people have been yelling for impeachment until we are hoarse and cranky, and nothing ever happens. I think this idea of agentless “compulsion” is magical thinking.

I’d love to be wrong though.

Tensions rising.

Trump:

“It appears that an American spy in one of our intelligence agencies may have been spying on our own president. The complaint suggests that this intel agent was listening in on Trump’s conversation….….with a foreign leader. Was this person officially asked to listen to the conversation or was he or she secretly listening in?” @GreggJarrett

Joyce Vance:

I think we can feel sure that a whistleblower would not make a report unless he or she had legitimately accessed the information in question. This is ridiculous.

Martina Navratilova:

Just shut up already, this person is, unlike you, a patriot.

Neal Katyal:

This switch in strategy away from denial may mean Trump finally read something, the transcript of the call. Also …. isn’t this the same guy who 2 days ago denied the story because he knows his calls with foreign leaders are “heavily populated”? Now he’s saying the call wasn’t?

Walter Shaub:

Seems clear he extorted them, likely even offered a quid pro quo. But it’s not necessary to show he extorted them or offered a quid pro quo. The man used his high office to solicit foreign election interference. If that’s not enough, let’s drop the pretense of being a republic.

Bill Kristol:

Trump’s been tweeting away, attacking Joe Biden and our intelligence officials. But to my knowledge he hasn’t once denied that he repeatedly demanded of the president of Ukraine that he investigate Hunter Biden.

Onward with the Remarks. Time to talk about Spaaaaaaaaaaaaaace.

Q    Mr. Trump, can you talk about the exciting new space program to the moon, sir?  And what does that mean for both countries?

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  So we’re doing a great program.  We have — Vice President Pence is very much involved.  And we have a tremendous space program.  If you look at our facilities, they were virtually closed up.  There was crabgrass growing on the runways and now they’re vital.

And, you know, we’re doing — we’re doing — we’re going to Mars.  We’re stopping at the moon.  The moon is actually a launching pad.  That’s why we’re stopping at the moon.  I said, “Hey, we’ve done the moon.  That’s not so exciting.”  They said, “No, sir.  It’s a launching pad for Mars.”  So we’ll be doing the Moon.  But we’ll really be doing Mars.  And we’ll be — we’re making tremendous progress.

What they wanted to say, of course, was “No, you dumb fuck, did you not read any of the material? What the hell is wrong with you?”

Then they talk about minerals. Trump helps a lot.

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  It’s very important to Scott.  We talk about it a lot.  Because that business can get out of control a little bit, from the standpoint of environment.  And you have really approached it in an environmentally-sensitive way.

Coal, as an example: You’re the leader of safety in coal digging.  And we’ve actually studied it because we’re doing a lot of coal.  And you have very — literally, you almost have no — you know, you used to have a thing: black lung disease.  And in Australia, you almost don’t have it anymore.  You’ve got all of the dust down.  And, you know, they’re very — they become wet mines, basically.  But it’s great.

PRIME MINISTER MORRISON:  Well, it’s a very technologically-advanced industry in Australia.

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  Incredible.

PRIME MINISTER MORRISON:  All of that resources industry are — from the robotics that’s involved in the production and all the way through.

But that, critical metals, space — these are the things we’re going to be talking about because Australia has a wonderful partnership with the United States, not just militarily and not just strategically, but also economically.  And that’s going to be a big part of this conversation we have today.

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  And environmentally, I have to say —

Q    (Crosstalk.)

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  And environmentally, the things that they have done, environmentally, with digging.  Digging is a — you know, when you talk minerals, it’s about digging.  And what you’ve been able to do with environ- — with the environment, having to do with taking minerals out of the ground, including — and, you know, I would say even especially — because you’re leading on coal.

I will tell you: I sent a whole crew over, because you’re record is so good in terms of illnesses from digging.  Better than anybody in the world.  So we’re going to catch you on that, okay?

Digging. It’s about digging. I can understand digging.

Also let’s not forget the nuclear.

TRUMP: So, we’ll see what happens.  Look, the United States is in a class by itself.  We have the most powerful military in the world, by far.  There’s nobody close.  As you know, we’ve spent tremendous and hopefully — and we pray to God we never have to use it, but we’ve totally renovated and bought new nuclear.  And the rest of our military is all brand new.

The nuclear now is at a level that’s it’s never been before.  And I can only tell you because I know — I know the problems of nuclear.  I know the damages that — I know what happens.  And I want to tell you: We all hope, and Scott hopes — we all pray that we never have to use nuclear.  But there’s nobody that has anywhere close to what we have.

How about that UN, huh?

Q    What is your message at UNGA next week?

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  Well, UNGA is going to be very exciting, and we look forward to it.  We’ll be there.  You’ll be there?

PRIME MINISTER MORRISON:  Yeah, I’ll be later in the week.  Yeah.

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  And, for you, it’s a much longer trip.

PRIME MINISTER MORRISON:  It is a bit, yeah.

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  But we look forward to it.  We have a big message for UNGA.  We have a big message.  And I very much — I haven’t been back to New York in a long time.

We have a big message and he has absolutely no idea what it is. It’s probably something like:

It will work out, and that’s great, or it won’t work out, and that’s great. It always works out. It will be big. The nuclear will be there, and the moon. They told me, sir, the moon will be there. We’ll see what happens.

There’s a question about Iran and military action, and Trump takes the opportunity to share his biography with everyone.

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  The easiest thing for me to do — and maybe it’s even a natural instinct, maybe I have to hold myself back.  I remember during the debates, and when I was running against Hillary and the Democrats and the media — I view them all the same; I view that partnership very much the same.

But when I was running, everybody said, “Oh, he’s going to get into war.  He’s going to get into war.  He’s going to blow everybody up.  He’s going to get into war.”  Well, the easiest thing I can do — in fact, I could do it while you’re here –would say, “Go ahead, fellas.  Go do it.”  And that would be a very bad day for Iran.  That’s the easiest thing I could do.  It’s so easy.

And for all of those that say, “Oh, they should do it.  It shows weakness.  It shows…”  Actually, in my opinion, it shows strength.  Because the easiest thing I could do, “Okay, go ahead.  Knock out 15 different major things in Iran.”  I could do that and — all set to go.  It’s all set to go.  But I’m not looking to do that if I can.

And I think I’ve changed a lot of minds.  People are very surprised that — and many people are extremely happy.  Many people are thrilled.  And many people are saying, “Oh, I wish you’d hit the hell the out of them.”  Well, let’s see what happens.  But it will take place in one minute; I could do it right here in front of you and that would be it.  And then you’d have a nice, big story to report.

And I think it shows far more strength to do it the way we’re doing it.  And again, whether it’s next week or two weeks or three weeks doesn’t make any difference.  Whether it’s now or in three weeks doesn’t make any difference.  But I think the strong person’s approach and the thing that does show strength would be showing a little bit of restraint.  Much easier to do it the other way.  It’s much easier.

And Iran knows if they misbehave, they’re on borrowed time.  They’re not doing well.  I’d like to see them do great.  I’d love to see them do great, but they’re not doing well.  They’re doing very poorly.  They’re doing far worse than they’ve ever done before.  They’re having riots in their streets.  They’re having a lot of problems in Iran right now.  They could solve it very quickly.

But the easiest thing for me to do is say, “Okay, let’s go.  Let’s just do it.”  Very easy for me to do.  But it is interesting, because when I was campaigning, everybody here thought that I was going to be like — it would be one day.  But what I have done is I’ve defeated ISIS, I’ve rebuilt our military to a level that it’s never been before, spent a lot of money.  The budgets are not so hard to fix for me, but when you’re spending one and a half trillion [dollars], so far.  Now, another $738 million — billion — on the military.  But think of it: one and a half trillion dollars.  And we have the greatest in the world.

But I think restraint is a good thing.  I think it’s a good thing.

Well that’s all enormously reassuring. I very much get the sense that he’s fully aware of the weight of responsibility on him and all that could go wrong.

Also he’s punched Afghanistan harder than anybody ever has.

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  Yeah, well, we were thinking about having a meeting.  I didn’t like the idea that they couldn’t produce a ceasefire.  I wasn’t in favor of that.  I said, “No.  If they can’t produce a ceasefire, then why are we bothering?”  And they thought that it was a sign of strength to kill 12 people, wound others — badly wound some others.  And one of those 12 people was a young man — young soldier from Puerto Rico, from our country.  And when I heard that, I said, “I don’t want to deal with them anymore.”

We have hit — in Afghanistan, we have hit the Taliban harder than they’ve ever been hit in the entire 19 years of war.  They’ve been hit harder.  It’s come back to me through absolutely impeccable sources that they are saying, “Wow.  We made a mistake with this guy.  We made a big…”  They made a mistake.

Because he’s such a tough scary guy. Like Rambo but with goldy hair.

And as for North Korea, he’s done miracles there.

I was totally willing to have a meeting.  I’ll meet with anybody.  I think meetings are good.  I think meetings are good.  There’s no such thing as, “Oh gee, we shouldn’t.”  I really believe meetings are good.  Worst that happens, it doesn’t work out.  That’s okay.  Even then, you get to know your opposition.  Don’t forget, I’m looking at them like they’re looking at me.  You get to know your opposition.  You can see if they’re real.  Sometimes you develop a relationship, like we do, but sometimes you develop — and many times you won’t.  But you get to know your opposition.

I think the best thing that’s happened to this country is the fact that, at least for three years, the fact that I have a very good relationship with Kim Jong Un.  I think that’s a positive.  His country has tremendous potential.  He knows that.  But our country has been playing around for 50 years and getting nothing.  And we have a relationship.  There’s never been a relationship with them.

We’ll see what happens.  It might work out.  It might not work out.  I’m not saying it will, but in the meantime, he hasn’t been testing any nuclear.  You’ve had no nuclear tests since — since — for a long time.  And he has been doing some short-range missiles, but so does every other country — do short short-range missiles.  Every country is doing them.  They’re pretty standard fare.

Whew!! That’s that fixed then! What a relief!

Aaron Rupar watched Trump babbling:

TRUMP: “I defeated the caliphate … I defeated the caliphate, ISIS.” He then threaten to release ISIS fighters at the border of European countries if those countries don’t agree to take them back. “Then they’ll have to capture them again,” he says.

“Our media has become the laughingstock of the world … the media of our country is laughed at all over the world now. You’re a joke.”

“We’re going to Mars. We’re stopping at the moon. The moon is actually a launching pad. That’s why we’re stopping at the moon. I said, ‘hey, we’ve already done the moon. That’s not so exciting.’ They said, ‘no sir, it’s a launching pad for Mars.'”

There’s that “sir” again.

Trump on military strikes against Iran: “It’s all set to go. But I’m not looking to do that … I could do it right here, in front of you. And that will be it. And then you’ll have a nice big story to report. I think it shows far more strength to do it the way we’re doing it.”

Trump claims the Taliban is terrified of him because of how hard he’s hitting them: “It’s come back to me through absolutely impeccable sources that they’re saying, ‘wow, we made a mistake with this guy.'”

The Guardian sums up:

Typically confusing, and contradictory, statements from Trump just now.

Trump referred to the whistleblower controversy a “ridiculous story”.

And then: asked whether Trump discussed Joe Biden in conversations with Ukraine, Trump said: “It doesn’t matter what I discussed”. He added: “Someone ought to look into Joe Biden.”

Trump also said the whistleblower was “partisan”, before telling the White House reporter he did not know who the whistleblower is.

Dunno who whistleblower is, whistleblower is partisan.

Trump doesn’t think about epistemology much, does he.