Trump was doing a fundraiser and got to talking about Steve Scalise, the Republican Congressman who got shot.
But then he came out with this gem of a line: “[Scalise’s wife’] cried her eyes out when I met her at the hospital that fateful day … I mean not many wives would react that way to tragedy, I know mine wouldn’t.”People who don't hate him know. It's obvious to me. He was paying attention to Scalise and being super-nice to him, then he said that Scalise's wife was crying. Virtually all wives can be expected to cry profusely when their husband gets shot, so he hadn't really said anything special about her yet. He could have spoken realistically and said, "Of course, she's his wife, she's going to cry, all wives would cry." Instead, hilariously, he flipped it into the absurd and said what's plainly untrue, "Not many wives would react that way to tragedy." The "to tragedy" makes it clear he's being silly. It's a tragedy, so you cry. Duh. But he said not many wives would cry. Then, soaring into the stratosphere of absurdity, he said, "I know mine wouldn’t." That's funny because it's daring and it's self-effacing and it's wildly vaunting Scalise's wife for loving him so much (even though she really only did what all wives do).
We can only guess that Trump said this in jest, of course. But that line can be read in so many ways that soon, it was an online talking point for people eager to share their views on his and Melania’s relationship.
Maybe he is saying Melania Trump hates him so much she wouldn’t even cry at his funeral. Maybe he’s saying that after all the strain that their marriage has gone through, she has no more tears left to give? Maybe he was genuinely being funny. Who knows?
But to Trump haters it's an occasion to talk about how Melania must hate Trump.
Now, I will give Poppy Noor credit. She's funny in her own way. She's collected videos of Melania avoiding kisses and hand-holding with Trump. There's some nasty fun in looking for evidence that a married couple actually hate each other. I'm not saying Noor has no sense of humor. I'm just saying I feel a little sorry for the people who are missing out on Trump's hilarity. And it's not just that they aren't getting some great and unusual laughs. It's that they're undermining their own capacity to understand the very strange person who is our President. Even if you want to keep hating him, you should try to understand him. Don't dumb yourself down. You won't fight too well if you don't know your enemy.
Posts
71 comments:
Hear hear! There is a lot about Trump to criticize but the mainstream media seems to focus on other stuff.
Trump is without a doubt our funniest President. If he was a liberal, the same people trashing him, would be cheering him like a Rock Star. But just wait. No doubt when the next Republican President is elected, the MSM will be saying "Well, at least Trump was funny"
"Even if you want to keep hating him, you should try to understand him."
I like the mini-disk and all, but you are so old-fashioned sometimes.
"Don't dumb yourself down."
Of course, they think refusing to be sucked into Trump's fun is smart and sophisticated.
"You won't fight too well if you don't know your enemy."
The Dems have been gambling for a while now that they can bulldoze their way to power. After all, besides the ass-covering motivation behind the initial dossier and Russia hoaxing, they calculated that even with no evidence they could turn the hoax into impeachment. They think they don't need the Althouses anymore.
FWIW, my wife believes that Melania avoids affectionate contact with Trump in public because that was the norm for respectable people in the culture in which she grew up.
It sounds plausible enough to me. I imagine she could eat these media types raw, for breakfast, but is content to let it be Donald's show.
Growing up under Communism, and surviving, tends to toughen you up a bit.
He sounds perfectly normal when he speaks. When I hear these controversies I wonder what type of people journalists are. Are they so disconnected from normal people, normal human interactions?
Sad!
Or perhaps he meant that Slovenians are very, very tough.
seems like you could Almost say something like
Trump supporters take him seriously, but not literally
Trump haters take him literally, but not seriously
??
I personally find him the funniest President, not just of my lifetime, but back to Lincoln
If you call a dog's tail a leg; how many legs does it have?
You can't fool all the people all the time
You need to find out what brand of Whiskey he drinks
You won't fight too well if you don't know your enemy.
You still haven't figured it out.
The Left doesn't fight well...they can't. That's why the Left spends so much time, resources and effort on either delegitimatizing, or out right silencing, their political opponents. (Who they consider to be enemies)
The media and the Left been delegitimizing the Right since at least Nixon in 1960. Every Republican is an evil, homophobic, racist fascist. At least until he is out of office, or dead (and preferably both) at which point he becomes a saintly figure that the current Republican doesn't live up to.
I believe in the beginning this was a cynical political ploy, but that today much of it is due to the fact that they believe their own hype. The anger and hysteria is because they know that they're right, and that Trump and his supporters are evil, or ignorant dupes at best. They live in bubbles. There's a reason the Left is concentrated on college campuses and in urban areas.
The Right knows the Left far better than the opposite in this country. That's why the Right are always trying to hold speeches and debates, while the Left spends their time shouting "shut up" and hitting people in the head with bicycle locks.
The political climate in this country will never improve until the Left, and the media elite, realize that they caused Trump. I'm not hopeful, because introspection isn't a strength of the Left either. (They're3 much better at projection)
Ronald Raegan was very funny. Something about a serious person making jokes.
It's kind of sad. I'm reading Poppy Noor...
Am I the only one who read that as "Poopy Noor"?
You have to appreciate the goodness of a man, or woman, that will make fun of himself, especially to elevate the standing of someone else. Well, at least I do.
Some of my wife’s family are on the left, some of them are on the demented left. When I point out how conflicted they are when they say one day “Trump is a big dumb dodo with a combover” and the next day “Trump is an evil genius who is going to ruin the country” they get all huffy and hang up/walk away. .....Shrug.
There's something rat-packy, Don Ricklesian with his humor, which is fine with me, I favor mordant mid Twentieth Century humor.
As Stalin said, humor is like food: not everybody gets it.
I’d love to see Althouse interrogate her aversion to the “weird” . . . in contrast to the ordered and regular, which the “weird” exposes as menacing and strange.
The Trumps not holding hands that much, etc, doesn’t seem that strange to me. Melania reminds me a lot of my partner, who is not that overly physically affectionate in public. It used to be that we might hold hands a time or two a month. Now, with her health issues, it is a lot more, but out of necessity. It’s taking a bit for me to expect it. Would she cry if I were in the hospital after being shot by a left wing wacko? I wouldn’t expect it of either of us. She lost her older brother to 3 years of cancer when she was 21, then her husband, when she had two young kids, three years later. I was with her when she identified the body of her older sister, a couple decades later, and by then, in her life, she didn’t really cry. If you asked her, she would tell you that she thinks more like a guy than most women do. And that is why, I think, that Melania reminds me a bit of her - they both seem to have a kind of tough masculinity under their beauty.
Then there are our kids. 2 of 3 are highly affectionate. They even go so far as feeding and being fed by their significant others. Ick. Of course, after 20 years together, my partner knows which foods to protect with her fork, when we are in public. It started when she stole a half inch of grilled onions on my burger. She said “look over there”, and when I looked back, they were gone. Game on. But on a regular basis? Never.
There is a saying, fuck 'em if they can't take a joke. The President clearly lives by that. It's a rousing sentiment in the Era of That's Not Funny, the most subversive thing you can rally behind. Chapelle's army.
Take my wife, please!
BTW, that joke is funny and it is awkward. It's not just absurd. The awkward is an important part.
Now you know that I know that you know.
NEWSFLASH:
Eastern European women may not act the same as American or British women.
You're welcome.
Awkward would be finding out that Melania has lined her nest in the Whitehouse's private quarters with the bodies of dead reporters.
Where there's a will, there's a way for the widows of billionaires to avoid excessive grief when their husbands die. I think that that was what Trump was referring to. He's in on the joke.....If you refer to the famous grab them by the pussy tape, he points out that, for all his fame and generosity towards her, the woman he was courting was neither impressed nor responsive by his suit.....I don't know what is the opposite of humble brag, but that is part of Trump's stable genius. Braggadocious modesty??
Tell me about it Birkel.
Makes me imagine Jack Benny as president. Trump should get a prop, perhaps a violin.
To understand him is to humanize him.
They’d rather not.
Melania can't possibly hate The Donald as much as Hillary hates Bill.
Gimme a break! So the First Lady and President don't paw at each other or look longingly in too each others eyes like teenagers in heat in public. That doesn't mean they don't like each other. Lame stream media making mountains out of mole hills.
President Trump has filed a change of residency form with NY. He's moving official residence to Florida
Stratosphere of ambiguity, rather than absurdity. He's old enough to be her father, now she's rich and free, and also a dig on the media for making you believe all that about them.
Ann is a progressive to her core. She is playing of the obama riff of casting stones. She is warning her fellow progressives to hold their stones because some may miss the mark but wait till we have all of his weaknesses and strengths figured out and then hurl all your stones at his weaknesses and not waste any on his strength. Cunning lawyer. Maybe getting consultant fees from Lawfare.
Trump's comeback when his over-the-top elevator come-on was shot down was comedically perfect:
Trump: "Wow. You are so gorgeous. I'm going to marry you."
Woman: "Gasp! I'm already engaged to Alex Rodriguez (or some other super rich athlete)!"
Trump: "Alex Rodriguez! I have MUCH more money than him."
"Don't dumb yourself down." - No.
Self-inflicted damage is not just appropriate, but should be encouraged when it comes from a wellspring of hate.
Awkward would be finding out that Melania has lined her nest in the Whitehouse's private quarters with the bodies of dead reporters
I love it/.
His humor isn’t my style but for the love of god I recognize the joke. As do normal Americans.
Now imagine Hilary making fun of herself...
Would like to see a poll measuring the % of voters who occasionally find the man funny.
I suspect it will exactly predict the outcome of the 2020 election.
The Left wouldn't get Rodney Dangerfield these days.
You would not believe the story I would tell you, so I took the trouble to do a search to find the Politico article I had read:
Politico
Trump’s ‘truly bizarre’ visit to Mt. Vernon
***The 45th president — no student of history — marveled at the first president’s failure to name his historic compound after himself.
"During a guided tour of Mount Vernon last April with French president Emmanuel Macron, Trump learned that Washington was one of the major real-estate speculators of his era. So, he couldn’t understand why America’s first president didn’t name his historic Virginia compound or any of the other property he acquired after himself.
“If he was smart, he would’ve put his name on it,” Trump said, according to three sources briefed on the exchange. “You’ve got to put your name on stuff or no one remembers you.”
The VIPs’ tour guide for the evening, Mount Vernon president and CEO Doug Bradburn, told the president that Washington did, after all, succeed in getting the nation’s capital named after him. Good point, Trump said with a laugh."***
Now that's an excerpt, but I swear to God the people that wrote it were just appalled at Trump's poor knowledge of history and his rampant narcissism.
I laughed my fucking ass off.
No accounting for taste.
I do love life since the Trumps.
Nasty Nancy I may pray for your soul tonight.
I saw a photo somewhere on social media the other day of Melania and Donald somewhere (definitely while president but not necessarily in the past few weeks) and she had apparently just pointed out or was pointing something out to him in conversation and laughing about it and he was exploding with that "near tears" laughter.
The photo made plainly obvious that those two are very, very fond of one another. I'd bet his clever self appreciates her intellect and vice versa. They look very happy together.
Most everything else is selective editing and wishcasting by a hostile press.
I mean not many wives would react that way to tragedy, Trump claimed without evidence.
"Awkward would be finding out that Melania has lined her nest in the Whitehouse's private quarters with the bodies of dead reporters."
You misspelled "awesome".
Reminds me of all those touching photos of Bill and Hillary walking hand in hand on the beach.
So in a moment of intense emotion one who is not socially awkward breaks that moment with a bit of levity. So we are speaking of a terrible time when you almost lost your life and your wife was at her most vulnerable. So I make a self-deprecating, made up comment about my marriage that's light and funny and immediately we are both back in the here and now, where you are not near death and your wife is not at her most vulneralbe.
This is really not rocket science. But it does lend to all sorts of BS if you want to act like 8th grade girls about it.
@Sebastian said...
"Even if you want to keep hating him, you should try to understand him."
In other words: Trumpsters are free to ignore his character flaws and criminal behavior while Never Trumpers must bite the bullet.
Bob Smith @ 8:11
People, more prevalent of people of the left, don't do introspection well. They never ask themselves about first principals. They are also poorly educated on a lot of basic things. Economics and history being two of the most common. Then they proudly display their ignorance and hold it up as revealed fact.
Minority Whip Party ?
That should be an acronym a.s.a.p.
' Whip Cream Party with a Kiss candy on top to the side. '
That's not racist, enough.
- WCPWAKCOTTTS
eddie willers said...
Washington did, after all, succeed in getting the nation’s capital named after him. Good point, Trump said with a laugh."***
I wish he'd said, “see, you leave it to someone else and they name a cesspit after you.”
"Mine" walks back to "wives," so Trump could be referring to three women.
“That doesn't mean they don't like each other. Lame stream media making mountains out of mole hills.”
Remember Al Gore making a big show of kissing Tipper? See how that worked out.
"'This is over a phone call that is a good call,' Trump, sitting behind the Resolute Desk, said in an interview with the Washington Examiner. 'At some point, I’m going to sit down, perhaps as a fireside chat on live television, and I will read the transcript of the call, because people have to hear it. When you read it, it’s a straight call.'"
Now *that* would be hilarious!
gadfly,
Please provide the criminal code Trump has broken and the evidence. You guys keep saying that like it’s some kind of incantation that will make it true.
Strom Thurmond 1973 “now I don’t want y’all to to think Nancy was late, it’s just that we have this new baby and he doesn’t like canned milk”
Hey, if the left weren't constantly outing themselves as hateful, deranged scolds, I would be much more concerned about the outcome of the 2020 election.
Trumpsters are free to ignore his character flaws and criminal behavior while Never Trumpers must bite the bullet.
First of all, there is no criminal behavior. That's an abject lie. That aside, it's actually the other way around. You Never Trumpers never see ANYTHING but character flaws, and ignore the good things that have happened under this president.
Skylark said...
"gadfly,
Please provide the criminal code Trump has broken and the evidence. You guys keep saying that like it’s some kind of incantation that will make it true."
Like the New Testament it is the revealed wisdom of the left
One of my favorite Trump routines is where he shows how easy it is to act Presidential at a rally in Tampa. I still laugh and I've watched it several times.
The Poor Man's LLR C**** And Failed Blogger (for obvious reasons) gadfly: "In other words: Trumpsters are free to ignore his character flaws and criminal behavior while Never Trumpers must bite the bullet."
Yes, Trumpsters are free to ignore all your made up crap and projection psychoses and the NeverTrumpers must continue biting down on the leftist billionaire lucre that sustains them."
Blogger Phidippus said... FWIW, my wife believes that Melania avoids affectionate contact with Trump in public because that was the norm for respectable people in the culture in which she grew up.
I believe the Phidippus' wife is correct. Public displays of affection are not the norm in many societies. You take your cues from your parents and how your culture is formed.
PLUS Melania being in a business where there is this public display of her form and face has also likely developed a thick veneer of untoucability in her personal, not professional model, life.
Who knows what really goes on in a marriage? In our marriage, we have many 'inside' jokes between ourselves that often raise eyebrows when we slip up and joke in public. Then we have to explain the stupid inside joke :-) Trump doesn't have time for this.
Trump IS very funny. Ironic. Sarcastic. A very good mimic. I really enjoy his animation and non verbal expressions. Hilarious.
My husband and I laugh hysterically at his press conferences. The guy is comedy gold! I too feel sorry for the people who are wound so tight they can't see the obvious humor in Trump. What a sad way to go through life!
Compared to the nanny-scold trio of Warren, Hillary and Obama, President Trump is a first-rate comic.
"So in a moment of intense emotion one who is not socially awkward breaks that moment with a bit of levity." (Unknown, 5:20 AM)
That was my immediate take on it as well. Trump is far more human than his critics. Regular people can relate to him.
Years ago I was with a friend who lost his grandmother. This woman had basically raised him. I spent the entire afternoon with him at the funeral home, as people came by for the viewing. Sometimes it was just me and him alone. He was very overwhelmed and distraught, but doing his best to maintain his composure. At one point we started talking about how weird it would be to work as a funeral director. What kind of screwed up business was this? What kind of sick person wants to be a mortician? We started making all sorts of inappropriate comments, and were cracking each other up. The fact is, he needed that. It helped him cope. Joking around gave him a little levity in the midst of his sadness. Some people overhearing us might have thought it in bad taste. But I think most people would have recognized it as a healthy conversation. It's how you deal with life sometimes. Trump gets that instinctively.
Or to use a TV example, Trump is like Lenny Briscoe cracking jokes after seeing the body.
Dear Trump critics: lighten up, people. And prepare to lose once again.
Am I the only one who read that as "Poopy Noor"?
Noo.
We started making all sorts of inappropriate comments, and were cracking each other up. The fact is, he needed that. It helped him cope. Joking around gave him a little levity in the midst of his sadness.
"A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants".
Trump's greatest strength in politics is that his opponents always underestimate him.
In the behind-the-scenes documentary "Trumped: Inside the Greatest Political Upset of All Time" that John Heilemann, Mark McKinnon and the now-disgraced Mark Halperin did for Showtime, there are some wonderful and tender moments captured between Donald and Melania that, to me, demonstrated they really do love each other.
It's also worth watching as Heilemann and Halperin put on a master class in the Media's pro-Democrat bias in the Election Night scenes (at other times too, but particularly there).
A point of clarification, please.
Steve Scalise, the Republican Congressman who got shot.
Scalise didn't just 'get shot.' He survived an assassination attempt by a Bernie Sanders supporter.
“Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment.” - Mario Puzo
Also, Gadfly, saying a thing that is not a fact, no matter how many times, does not make it fact. This goes way back.
“FWIW, my wife believes that Melania avoids affectionate contact with Trump in public because that was the norm for respectable people in the culture in which she grew up.”
It used to be called class.
My better half and I love Trump's pressers. The extemporaneous ones are the best. He says exactly what a large percentage of the public is thinking. And as another commenter indicated, marriages are a mystery. Body language tells me that DJT is always aware of Melania's presence. He's very proud of her. Melania is more difficult to read, even for another woman. She's self contained and reserved. The manner in which NYC and the press has treated those two is a huge lesson for the rest of the country. Backstabbing and hypocritical are just two words that come to mind.
Post a Comment