On Saturday night, The New York Times not-so-quietly published some Trump tax documents that revealed two things: (1) A $916 million 1995 loss; and (2) Possible tax avoidance for almost two decades. At about the same time, Trump delivered a batsh*t crazy campaign speech in the battleground state of Pennsylvania (in Manheim). In the above clip, he backtracked on his feigned concern about Hillary Clinton’s pneumonia spell by unveiling his impression of how she stumbled while overheated at the 9/11 Ground Zero ceremony. He added that she’s “at home resting” while he’s working, which could be an allusion to how his sexist 3:00 am Twitter rants “prove” he’ll always be awake to protect the country. He then shouted, “Folks, we need stamina!”
The rest of the speech included some real Trump doozies. He bragged about having a “winning temperament” and claimed that Clinton’s the real problem: “Now, she’s got bad temperament … she could actually be crazy.” And so much for Eric Trump’s claim that his father shows “courage” by choosing not to attack Bill Clinton’s infidelities. Not only did Trump go there, but he suggested Hillary was also unfaithful: “I don’t even think she’s loyal to Bill, if you want to know the truth. And really folks, why should she be, right?” He continued with what was less of a speech and more of a litany of complaints.
Trump’s been going off the rails all week during his Machado meltdown, and something both amusing and troubling happened in an afternoon caption. Fox News tried to get out ahead of things by captioning what would become a bonkers day as “Clinton takes day off.”
The implication here would be that Trump is careening downhill, but at least he’s got “stamina.” His Manheim speech shall go down as one of Trump’s most off-the-wall evenings, which is a dubious accomplishment. Stand-up comedy! You may watch the full speech below with a little more discussion after the video.
At one point during this speech, Trump addressed his claims of a bad debate mic. This is a big point of contention for him, as he tweeted on Saturday that he “won” the debate against Clinton, and any claims to the contrary were due to media “spin” and his faulty mic.
I won the debate if you decide without watching the totally one-sided "spin" that followed. This despite the really bad microphone.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 1, 2016
The so-called Commission on Presidential Debates admitted to us that the DJT audio & sound level was very bad. So why didn't they fix it?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 1, 2016
The Debate Commission did admit to “issues” with Trump’s mic. However, a source close to debate commissioners told Politico that Trump exacerbated the issue by fiddling with the microphone, which he was warned not to do because it was “calibrated exactly” to his voice. But nonetheless, Trump told the The New York Times (on Thursday) that he “spent 50 percent of my thought process” fretting over his bad mic. And that’s allegedly why he also kept sniffing throughout the evening.
(Via The Guardian, Politico & New York Times)
