A lot of people—supposedly smart people—apparently felt that Donald Trump, the "I Could Stand In the Middle Of Fifth Avenue And Shoot Somebody” candidate, the man who never failed to inflate the size of his own rallies, the man who loves seeing his name in giant gold letters, that Donald Trump, would settle down once the mantle of power was draped over his shoulders. But there’s a basic problem with that assumption. With great power may come great responsibility, but (with apologies to Spider-Man) not if the person being handed great power is a totally self-obsessed ass.
In that case, you just get an even bigger ass obsessed over the smallest perceived slight, who pretends that even absolute disasters were some kind of triumph.
DAVID MUIR: Mr. President, I just have one more question on this. And it's -- it's bigger picture. You took some heat after your visit to the CIA in front of that hallowed wall, 117 stars -- of those lost at the CIA. You talked about other things. But you also talked about crowd size at the inauguration, about the size of your rallies, about covers on Time magazine. And I just wanna ask you when does all of that matter just a little less? When do you let it roll off your back now that you're the president?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: OK, so I'm glad you asked. So, I went to the CIA, my first step. I have great respect for the people in intelligence and CIA. I'm -- I don't have a lot of respect for, in particular one of the leaders. But that's okay. But I have a lot of respect for the people in the CIA.
That speech was a home run. That speech, if you look at Fox, OK, I'll mention you -- we see what Fox said. They said it was one of the great speeches. They showed the people applauding and screaming and -- and they were all CIA. There was -- somebody was asking Sean -- "Well, were they Trump people that were put--" we don't have Trump people. They were CIA people.
What does a man like Trump do when handed the vast powers of the presidency? Show what “pathetic” means, writ large.
This is the speech that Trump was bragging about.
In Mr. Trump’s rambling, 15-minute speech, he made only one reference to the memorial, saying, “The wall behind me is very, very special,” before pivoting to his familiar mode of narcissistic diatribe, peppered with the occasional misplaced joke.
In real life, that was Trump’s total discussion of the memorial wall. He devoted eight words to the dedication of the officers who sacrificed their lives.
How did that look In Trump’s mind …
TRUMP: I then went up, paid great homage to the wall.
To Trump, spending a whole sentence on something not about him is a great homage. But of course, the people at the CIA didn’t care about that old wall. They cared about what was far more important. They cared about Trump!
TRUMP: I got a standing ovation. In fact, they said it was the biggest standing ovation since Peyton Manning had won the Super Bowl and they said it was equal. I got a standing ovation. It lasted for a long period of time.
That most of the people were simply standing never even seems to have crossed Trump’s mind.
TRUMP: They never even sat down, most of them, during the speech.
When Trump was done repeating how much people loved his speech—it was not just a Super Bowl win, but a “total home run”—he got down to the real business. The business that is worth so many more words than fallen CIA officers—how the media isn’t giving him good coverage.
TRUMP: You and other networks covered it very inaccurately.
But there is someone who knows how to do it right. Someone who can instruct the other media.
TRUMP: I hate to say this to you and you probably won't put it on but turn on Fox and see how it was covered. And see how people respond to that speech.
That speech was a good speech. And you and a couple of other networks tried to downplay that speech. And it was very, very unfortunate that you did. The people of the CIA loved the speech. If I was going to take a vote in that room, there were, like, 300, 350 people, over 1,000 wanted to be there but they couldn't. They were all CIA people. I would say I would've gotten 350 to nothing in that room. That's what the vote would've been. That speech was a big hit, a big success -- success. And then I came back and I watched you on television and a couple of others.
And now, a few words about that speech from a former CIA agent.
He used my former agency to advance his own delusional vision of grandeur. ...
In my years of service, and since, I never imagined that it would be the president himself who would denigrate our very institutions and those who serve faithfully. Mr. Trump’s speech on Saturday was, for me, a terrifying display of the dangerous way in which he will govern. It also showed his complete disregard for the very people we rely on to keep us safe, including my friend Gregg Wenzel.
Donald Trump went to the CIA and didn't talk about the CIA. He bragged about himself …
TRUMP: You know, when I was young and when I was -- of course, I feel young. I feel like I’m 30, 35, 39. (Laughter.) Somebody said, are you young? I said, I think I’m young. You know, I was stopping -- when we were in the final month of that campaign, four stops, five stops, seven stops. Speeches, speeches, in front of 25,000, 30,000 people, 15,000, 19,000 from stop to stop. I feel young.
He complained of missed opportunities to commit a war crime and pondered a do-over ...
TRUMP: I always used to say, keep the oil. I wasn’t a fan of Iraq. I didn’t want to go into Iraq. But I will tell you, when we were in, we got out wrong. And I always said, in addition to that, keep the oil. Now, I said it for economic reasons. But if you think about it, Mike, if we kept the oil you probably wouldn’t have ISIS because that’s where they made their money in the first place. So we should have kept the oil. But okay. (Laughter.) Maybe you’ll have another chance. But the fact is, should have kept the oil.
And spent more time complaining about the reporting of his inauguration numbers than on any other topic.
TRUMP: But we had a massive field of people. You saw them. Packed. I get up this morning, I turn on one of the networks, and they show an empty field. I say, wait a minute, I made a speech. I looked out, the field was -- it looked like a million, million and a half people. They showed a field where there were practically nobody standing there. And they said, Donald Trump did not draw well. I said, it was almost raining, the rain should have scared them away, but God looked down and he said, we’re not going to let it rain on your speech.
In fact, when I first started, I said, oh, no. The first line, I got hit by a couple of drops. And I said, oh, this is too bad, but we’ll go right through it. But the truth is that it stopped immediately. It was amazing. And then it became really sunny. And then I walked off and it poured right after I left. It poured.
None of which actually happened. It drizzled before, during, and after Trump’s speech.
He was not illuminated in a ray of sunshine at his inauguration. He did not hit a home run at the CIA. No one gave him a prolonged standing ovation.
But Donald Trump spent hundreds of words, both in his speech and in his interview, talking up Donald Trump.