On Monday night, in an attempt to barge in on the coverage of Tuesday’s New Hampshire Democratic primary, President Donald Trump held a campaign rally in Manchester.
I went through the transcript and pulled out the lines you, uh, need to see. They’re below.
1. “I’ll tell you what, we have more in this arena and I hate to say this to you, we have more than this outside of the arena trying to get in.”
(narrator voice) He doesn’t hate to say it.
2. “But we have more in this arena and outside of this arena than all of the other candidates meaning the Democrats put together and multiplied times five.”
Trump spoke at an arena at Southern Hampshire University that has a capacity of just more than 11,000. Also on Monday, Bernie Sanders had a crowd of 7,500 for his final major rally before the New Hampshire primary. Which, because math, makes Trump’s prediction not right.
3. “And the fake news, these guys, will never report that. They’ll never report that.”
Just did.
4. “We have never had an empty seat from the day your future first lady and I came down the escalator. Never. Not one.”
5. “The most prosperity – we have got the most prosperity we’ve ever had.”
It’s not entirely clear what measure Trump is using to gauge “most prosperity.” If he is looking at Gross Domestic Product (the total value of all good and service produced by America), he’s right that it is the highest it has ever been. But GDP has also been on a steady upward trajectory since the 1960s.
6. “On Tuesday I delivered my address on the State of the Union. And I had somebody behind me who was mumbling terribly. Mumbling. Mumbling. Wha. Ho. Ha.”
Trump is referring here to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California. And it’s not clear that his claims about her mumbling are, well, true. Also, after Trump said this, the crowd started chanting “Lock her up” – although it’s not clear what specific crime they thought Pelosi had committed.
7. “I’m speaking and a woman is mumbling terribly behind me. Angry, there was a little anger back there.”
The President of the United States on the Speaker of the House. Normal stuff!
8. “We have the highest poll numbers that we have ever had.”
9. “We won the primary tremendously. We should have won the election but they had buses being shipped up from Massachusetts, hundreds and hundreds of buses.”
Trump narrowly lost New Hampshire to Hillary Clinton in 2016. While he has repeatedly blamed that loss on scores of Massachusetts voters being bused into New Hampshire to (illegally) vote for Clinton, he’s never provided any evidence to back up the claim. And fact-checkers have found the claim to be false.
10. “And now you get prosecuted if you do what they did. So it should be a lot different but we have done great.”
Again there is zero evidence “they” did anything.
11. “People come up to me, they say, ‘I want to thank you. My wife thinks I am a total loser, sir. She thinks I am the worst person with money, with financial. She thinks I’m just horrible. And the last three years, I’m up 94% sir. She thinks I’m a total genius when it comes to finance.’”
Two things: 1) People come up to Trump and admit their wives think they are total losers? 2) Being the “worst person with money, with financial” is an amazing quote.
12. “Man, look at all that television back there. Whoa. That’s – that’s bigger than those terrible Academy Awards I got to tell you. That used to be big, not so much anymore.”
No President has been more aware of (and focused on) the media than Trump. Which is what makes his whole “fake news” conceit so laughable.
13. “When he finally did awake I said, ‘Well, one thing I learned your wife loves you.’ ‘Why do you say that?’ ‘Because she was devastated.’ I know many wives that don’t get too upset.”
Trump tells this story about Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise regularly on the campaign trail. Scalise was badly wounded when a man opened fire at House Republicans practicing for the congressional baseball game in 2017. What’s weird about the story is Trump’s claim that many wives wouldn’t be “too upset” if their husband had been shot and might die. Really?
14. “He actually looks better now than he did before he got shot, Steve Scalise.”
What?
15. “Also a woman that not too many people know, very powerful, very smart, very beautiful even though I’m not allowed to say that because she’s my daughter, Ivanka.”
Super normal!!!
16. “We’re doing everything so it’s great.”
Yeah, this checks out.
17. “They want to destroy our countrysides, put windmills all over them. Watch your house go down in value. You ever see what happens? They build a windmill within distance of your house. You can forget about your house.”
Trump has been consistent on this one thing: He absolutely hates windmills.
18. “You want to see a bird graveyard? Go to the bottom of a windmill. Take a look. It’s a graveyard for birds. They kill all the birds, lowering utility bills and reducing prices at the pump.”
Like I said: Trump loathes windmills.
19. “Last month we ended the – you saw last month being bye-bye. I say Donald J. Trump, bye-bye NAFTA.”
(Nods head slowly)
20. “I said ‘Senator, I ran once and I won just once and we’re going to run twice and that’s going to be it.’ Although they think we’re going to run much more than that, you know that right? It scares the hell out of the fake news I will tell you. They can’t take a joke.”
Trump is term-limited out of office after two four-year terms. And he “jokes” about staying longer than that All The Time.
21. “And by the way, the virus. They’re working hard. Looks like by April, you know in theory when it gets a little warmer it miraculously goes away.”
Scientists say it is too early in the life of Conronavirus to accurately predict whether heat will impact its spread.
22. “We only have 11 cases and they’re all getting better.”
There are 13 confirmed cases of Coronavirus in the United States.
23. “It’s called, you know, you ever hear of the thing – you know with all the modern technology, all the new computers, the new genius, the new everything, cyber this, cyber that. Two things never change. Right? A wheel and a wall.”
So, yeah, OK.
24. “Read The Snake, The Snake. Does anybody – does anybody know what I’m talking about?”
The poem “The Snake” was a fixture at Trump’s 2016 rallies. And the daughters of the civil rights activist who wrote it have asked Trump to stop using it. He, uh, hasn’t.
25. “The Democrat Party wants to run your health care but they can’t even run a caucus in Iowa.”
This is a good line – and inevitable, given the cluster that was the Iowa caucuses.
26. “Actually I think they’re trying to take it away from Bernie again. I think Bernie came in second. Can you believe it? They’re doing it to you again, Bernie. They’re doing it to you again.”
It’s no secret that Trump’s advisers believe that the Vermont democratic socialist is the weakest opponent in November. And so, Trump has long been a “supporter” of the idea that the Democratic establishment is trying to keep Bernie from winning.
27. “We are protecting people with pre-existing conditions and we always will.”
28. “We should impeach President Obama.”
(raises hand tentatively) He’s not, um, the President anymore?
29. “We’re the hot party and we’re the party with all the enthusiasm.”
“New York’s hottest club is…..” – Stefon
30. “I love Concord. Oh Concord. You know how famous Concord is? Concord, that’s the same Concord that we read about all the time. Right? Concord. I love Concord.”
Trump appears to think that Concord, New Hampshire (the state’s capital) is the same Concord as the one in the famous Revolutionary War battle. That one is in Massachusetts.
31. “That swamp is a lot worse than anybody ever thought. That swamp is a dirty swamp.”
Tell me more…
32. “We have some really evil, dirty, horrible people.”
Quick reminder: Donald Trump is the president of all of America. Not just people who voted for him.
33.”We will land the first woman on the moon and become the first nation in the world to plant its flag on Mars. We’re very advanced.”
“We’re very advanced.”
34. “By the way, they’re going to take away everything. They’re going to take away your wealth. They’re going to take away your guns. They’re going to take away everything.”
To say this is irresponsible rhetoric coming from a President (or any politician) is to undersell it.
35. “From Nashua to Dixville, from Portsmouth to Plymouth, from Concord to Claremont and from Meredith to right here in Manchester, we stand on the shoulders of red-blooded American patriots who poured out their hearts, sweat and soul to secure our liberty and defend our freedom.”
Which Concord are we talking about now? And, yeah, this feels like a good place to end.