Trump reveals something of what he knows/thinks about the drones (but declines to talk about whether he's received an intelligence briefing).

From a long press conference today: "The government knows what is happening. Look, our military knows where they took off from. If it's a garage, they can go right into that garage. They know where it came from and where it went, and for some reason they don't want to comment, and I think they'd be better off saying what it is our military knows and our our president knows, and for some reason, they want to keep people in suspense. I can't imagine it's the enemy because it was the enemy they'd blast it out. Even if they were late, they'd blast it. Something strange is going on. For some reason they don't want to tell the people, and they should, because the people are really — I mean they happen to be over Bedminster... they're very they're very close to Bedminster. I think maybe I won't spend the weekend in Bedminster. I've decided to cancel my trip."

He's asked, "Have you received an intelligence briefing on the drones?" and, unsurprisingly, he says, "I don't want to comment on that." But I think he has... and that ought to mean that he's not using that information to make the statement he is making. Ought to... but how would that work? He's saying "The government knows what is happening," but he's not tapping the information he's gleaned from the briefing? I'm guessing he might think, yes, I know that from the briefing but I also, independently, know that from using my brain and making inferences.

I've cued up the relevant part of the more than hour-long performance, but you might want to scroll back to the beginning and watch the whole thing. I've watched it all. At one point I said "He's doing a rally." He was covering so many subjects and brimming with proposals and promises. There are many explicit criticisms of the Biden Administration and there's also a big implicit criticism of it: President Biden and candidate Harris didn't give press conferences! I look forward to 4 years of press conferences like the one Trump did today.

 

ADDED: Maybe something he knows from the briefing is the reason why the government won't tell us what the military knows. In that case, he's dutifully excluding that information and speaking from the point of view of someone who hasn't been briefed and wondering aloud why won't they tell us? He knows, but he speaks as if he didn't know. And that works as political criticism.