Coming to a Donald Trump rally isn’t like most political events. Attendees know they’ll get the chance to yell at journalists in cages, select from the finest in racist and/or sexist T-shirts, and pass a series of sideshow-worthy exhibits featuring hanging Hillary and the invading immigrant horde. And in the center ring—a genuine raw and rambling Trump.
But possibly no rally crowd has gotten a more vivid slice of Trump than those who gathered in Billings, Montana, on Thursday night. In a speech that skipped and hopped around the subjects—and spent a lot of time talking about Ronny Jackson, the doctor who declared Trump super-fit and six-foot three—Trump genuinely brought his A-game. Where “A” is for “addled” and “agitated.”
Talking about the senators questioning Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, Trump heaped on scorn.
Trump: And one of them will likely be a candidate to run against your favorite of all time president, me. Me. But when I see the anger in their eyes … When I see the anger to … An intellect far greater than theirs, it’s not even a contest … But I see the anger and the hatred. What the … What are they doing?
On the subject of North Korea, Trump spent a lot of time talking about his relationship with Kim Jong Un, bragging that Kim “has faith” in Trump and “He likes me, I like him.” Which is what you want to hear when someone is talking about a murderous autocrat. Still, at least when talking about Kim, Trump managed to complete a couple of sentences.
Trump: Who knows what going to happen? But I can tell you what, the day before I took office … And even … I must say … because as you know the rhetoric was fairly tough … It’s interesting, with him I had very tough rhetoric and the fake news would say ‘It’s too tough, he’s going to get us into the war. It’s terrible, he’s being too tough. It’s horrible.’
And if the idea of Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court isn’t bad enough, Trump has a far, far more disturbing idea.
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Rolling off an attack on Senator Jon Tester (D-MT), Trump slid quickly into … new territory.
Trump: … they write more books now. I have books stacked up this high. Actually the ones that are really good are number one, two and three on the bestsellers list. Right? The ones .. the really good ones are by justice, you know, I call her justice. She’s judge, but she’s justice to me, Janine. We love her.
Pirro’s latest book is actually number #685 at Amazon, but the audiobook version is #13 in the hard-fought political commentary section … so close enough. The #1 book at Amazon is actually Bob Woodward’s Fear. The #2 book is also Fear, Kindle edition. But Trump would surely be happy to find that John McCain is hanging onto a top ten slot.
What does Donald Trump know about Jon Tester? Apparently just the Ronny Jackson thing, because Trump returned to it over and over, with each pass more ragged and more fact-free than the one before.
Trump: I have a lot of friends in Montana. I don’t get … I mean … How did he get elected? How did he get elected? Jon Tester … voted … for very liberal Obama judges 99 percent of the time. And yet, he would make it impossible for an incredible, distinguished admiral doctor … not to get in. Figure that one.
We can only try. But Trump’s best issues were still to come … for a very special form of the word best. First, Trump announced that if he was impeached, the response would necessarily be to impeach the next Democrat elected, cause not required.
Trump: Suppose a Democrat gets elected someday. Hopefully it’s a long time. But let’s say a Democrat gets elected. And let’s say we have a Republican House. We will impeach that Democrat, right? And then the Republic … we won by a lot. We won by a helluva margin. That’s a … That’s a lot … That’s a … That electoral college, we won by a lot. Okay.
Then after some bragging about the “great economy” and “phenomenal judges” Trump got down to the core of his pitch.
Trump: And you take that, and you do … You’re going to have a country that is going to turn into a third world country. Because if the opposite party becomes president, every time before he even starts, before you’ve even found out whether or not he or she is going to do a great job, they’ll say ‘We want to impeach them!’ and you’ll impeach them. It’s so ridiculous … But! We’ll worry about that if it ever happens. But if it does happen, it’s your fault, ‘cause you didn’t go out to vote.
Hands. Washed.
But even putting his impeachment on his voters wasn’t the real highlight of Trump’s evening. That came when Trump decided, as he’s done so many times before, to compare himself with Abraham Lincoln. And in particular, compared his rally appearances to the Gettysburg Address.
Trump: He took the horse and carriage up from the White House. He wrote it partially in that carriage and partially at a desk in the Lincoln bedroom, which is incredible by the way, in the White House. And he went up to Gettysburg and … he delivered that speech. The Gettysburg Address. And he was excoriated, by the fake news. They had fake news then. He was excoriated. They said it was a terrible, terrible speech. They said it was far too short.
First of all, Lincoln famously took a train to Gettysburg, not a “horse and carriage.” And he wrote the speech weeks before the event, only revising the final paragraph in Gettysburg the night before speaking. He didn’t write in a carriage, or on a train, and probably not in the Lincoln bedroom. And no one at the time complained about the length, because Lincoln was only called on to make brief remarks following a speech of more than two hours by orator Edward Everett. Finally, while it’s been popular to present the idea that Lincoln’s speech was roundly attacked, in fact many papers and observers—including Everett—praised it immediately. Attacks on the speech came mostly from southern sympathizers.
Think Progress reporter Aaron Rupar provides these and other amazing Trump moments in this long Twitter thread. But this has to be a highlight.
