On Thursday night, Donald Trump gave an extremely low-energy, late-night speech to the National Religious Broadcasters convention, in which he slurred his way through 75 minutes of right-wing tropes and miscellaneous nonsense. But because he was doused in spray-tan, The New York Times will no doubt impute to him a rare, very presidential vitality.
Time was when media outlets would have been well advised to ignore the nonsense that regularly disgorges from Trump’s nougat-y noggin, but since he’s now on a glide path to the GOP nomination, it makes sense to put this shit front and center. Because Americans need to see it. Voters need to witness him decompose in real time so they can see that all the things they never liked about him are even worse now, and that he needs to be stopped tout de suite before he starts picking out asbestos drapes for his volcano lair.
Before we get to the speech, it’s important to note that according to its website, the “NRB is a unique group of people, united by purpose and message: to spread the life-changing truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ through every electronic medium available.” Additionally, their “member outreach touches every continent through Christian radio, television, Internet and other platforms.” These are the evangelical podcasters flooding the zone on Antarctica, in other words.
Trump’s speech was astounding. Really. It’s bizarre that anyone in the media—or anywhere else—could watch even two minutes of this and think, “Joe Biden’s mental acuity is what should most concern us.” It was as if the world’s laziest Oompa-Loompa had stumbled onto Willy Wonka’s secret weed-edible chocolate river. Honestly, if anyone had turned on a microwave within 10 yards of Trump, popcorn would have started shooting out of his ears.
But seeing is believing—and believe us: This really needs to be seen to be believed. Here are 10 of the most stunning moments.
1. Democrats legalized baby murder.
It’s one of Trump’s favorite zombie lies:
Even after birth, even after birth. You remember the governor, that former governor of Virginia, that said the baby will be born and we will decide to kill the baby after birth. We will make a decision with the mother. This is the first time I heard that, but there’s legislation in some states where you actually have the right to do that. So they’re the radicals. You’re not the radicals, we’re not the radicals, they’re the radicals. And you have to say that. Politicians have to say that. Because nobody believes that after a certain period of time, nobody believes that you should be doing this, it’s like 97% agree.
Personally, I’ve never met a single Democrat who advocates for infanticide. This is simply not a thing. But Trump keeps talking about it, so the only reasonable conclusion is that he wants to make killing children after birth a thing.
In which case, Eric Trump might want to move into a ranch house without any windows or backyard wells to accidentally fall out of/into.
2. Hunter and Mueller and laptops oh my!
It’s hard to keep track of all the collusion.
Russia, Russia, and let’s get on to running the country. But that went on for two and a half years, and then they had the Mueller report and it came in, no collusion, but I could have told them that on day one. And they would have known that on day one, they should have known it, because they had the laptop from hell, so they should have known it. That was, you have to say, that truly was the laptop from hell, wasn’t it?
Here’s your friendly, semi-regular reminder that Russian collusion was definitively proven. Also, as Trump’s brain continues to crumble like freeze-dried feta, he appears to be having trouble keeping his Russian active measure campaigns straight. The OG Russia-Trump collusion scandal that Robert Mueller investigated occurred during the 2016 election cycle. The Hunter Biden disinformation campaign was the 2020 sequel. They’re four years apart—or roughly four minutes in mental-fog years.
And if I wasn’t leading by a lot—you see the polls today, I’m up by 12 points and 14 over Crooked Joe Biden. And in a national poll, I’m up by 91 points on, on—I won’t use the term because some people think it’s a little bit nasty, but some people you don’t like very much. Haley. Haley. I’m up 91 points. That’s a lot. And in South Carolina, Nikki Haley is losing to me, looks like she’s going to lose by 25 or 30 points. That’s a lot, she’s governor. But people don’t like her too much, and she’s hurting the party, but I don’t care. Let her run.
FACT: Donald Trump is not beating Nikki Haley by 91 points in any poll.
Maybe he’s having a hard time keeping his mind off those 91 felony indictments. Or maybe he’s thinking about Biden’s gaudy winning margin in the South Carolina primary. Weirdly, in the very next breath, Trump says he’ll win South Carolina—Haley’s home state—by as little as 25 points. And yet he somehow thinks he’s ahead by 91 nationally. This, to be blunt, is not normal.
4. Unity with radicals, eh?
And I was able to bring this issue for the first time in 54 years back to the states, where everybody agrees on both sides, everybody agrees that’s where it should be, back in the states. It was so important. Everybody on both sides. And they are the radicals, remember this.
Yes, simply everyone agrees with Trump on abortion. Everyone. Kumbaya, motherfuckers! We’re going to unite this horrible, radical, Marxist, fascist country one rapist’s-baby forced birth at a time. And all the Alabama couples who can now no longer access IVF treatments will come up to Trump, with tears in their eyes, saying, “Sir, thank you so much, sir. We’re so happy this issue has gone back to the states, where it belongs. Look at the big, beaming smile on our eight-celled embryo’s frosty mug. She agrees, too. Everybody agrees. On both sides. You truly are a stable genius. No one knows more about stables than you, believe me.”
5. What is the the deal with parts of speech?
Hear enough about pronouns. What is with pronouns? If you really study it and look at it, it’s sick.
Well, now we know why Trump so often refers to himself in the third person. Pronouns are sick. Also, worst Jerry Seinfeld impression ever. The inflection is all wrong. Sir, try it like this, sir: “What is the DEAL with PROnouns?”
6. Does he even own a map?
But I did it, and Israel therefore became the capital, and it was a big thing. And on Monday I’d call back the biggest leaders in the whole world—richest leaders, biggest leaders, I said, “Hi, what’s up?”
Israel is the capital of Israel. And Kansas City, Missouri, is in Kansas. And Thighland is a real country somewhere on Planet Smurf.
If Biden ever said any of these things, reporters would be rappelling down his chimney from news helicopters.
7. Worst knock-knock joke ever.
They’re taking the parks from children—no more baseball fields, no more soccer fields, no more anything. It doesn’t sound very serious, knocker fields and baseball fields, very serious. Their way of life has changed.
Psst. New York Times: The front-runner presidential candidate for one of America’s two major parties just said one of the most pressing issues facing our country is the wholesale elimination of knocker fields. I don’t know. Might be worth mentioning.
8. Who will think of the Catholics?
You heard the J6 hostages, you saw the spirit that these people have. The spirit—you would think they wouldn’t have any spirit left, but they have tremendous spirit. What’s happened to them has probably to that extent never happened in our country before. They’re weaponizing law enforcement to target parents, conservatives, and Catholics. Catholics!
So Biden, a devout Catholic, is weaponizing law enforcement to target himself and his faith. He really is playing 10-dimensional chess, isn’t he? It's diabolical. And the people who attacked our Capitol and tried to overthrow our democracy are persecuted heroes, not gormless losers who violently assaulted police officers because a former reality TV star who kept insisting the election would be stolen suddenly decided, out of the blue, that the election really was stolen.
Donny Trump story time is a blast, isn’t it?
They end up getting killed, they end up getting shot mugged. Terrible things happen, and it can’t be that way. Can you imagine foreign leaders coming in from other lands, they hear all about Washington, the United States, and they’re driving in dirty roads, potholes all over the place, medians that are falling down into the road, and crime, and graffiti. Graffiti all over those beautiful marble columns. Swastickers [sic]. Can you imagine what they must think about our country. And I worked hard on that, you know, when I was … any time I’d drive, when I saw like one or two tents starting to form, I said, go out there immediately and take down those tents, because it was easy when you have two or three or four.
Well, if people really are putting “swastickers” on marble columns in Washington, just peel them off. Should be easy. Or maybe Trump’s still looking for Nazi-themed potstickers for his next party. They’ll go great with Marjorie Taylor Greene’s secret Monterey Jack-booted gazpacho!
Also, Trump used his time as president to get homeless people’s tents removed? Seems like a pretty low priority for the leader of the free world, but it does explain a lot.
10. Read the room.
Love of Christ, the stories of the Holy Bible, and the voices of famed evangelical people, and E-Vangelis, evangelists like the late, great Pat Robertson, who was a great gentleman. Got to know him very well.
Reminder: Trump was speaking to a bunch of evangelicals.
But “e-Vangelis?” Why does that automatically make me think of old-timey white dudes running in slow motion on a beach in their underwear? I mean, pretty much everything Trump says or does these days evokes that image, but this comment in particular stands out.
Oh, yeah. Now I remember ...
Psst, New York Times: You really need to have a reporter shadow Trump and scoop up these noxious, all-too-ubiquitous brain droppings. It would be an easy gig. Certainly much easier than assigning a gaggle of writers to comb through his speeches for the things that make sense.
Or maybe y’all think reporting from a fascist America led by the functional equivalent of a disembodied brain in a vat of strawberry Yoo-Hoo would be a real gas. But I guess we’ll cross that bridge to hell when we come to it, won’t we?
Oh, and here’s the full speech, just in case you’re a glutton for whatever the fuck this is.
Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link.
