If I asked you the question “Do you like ice cream?” it would probably take you about one second of thought and one second to say the word yes or no.
That’s just not the way things work with Donald Trump. If I asked him the same question, the answer would probably sound a little like this: “Well, as you know, Andrew, can I call you Andy? As you know, ice cream is the number one reason Mexicans are invading our borders. The Chinese are trying to copy our ice cream. If Sleepy Joe resigned right now, who would be left to fight the great ice cream war against Putin? Kamala? She knows nothing about ice cream.”
And so on and so forth.
Thus it was for poor Brian Kilmeade, who I’m pretty sure I’ve never felt sorry for a day it my life, Wednesday morning. Trump was on his radio show, and Kilmeade asked him a very simple policy question that any normal president or ex-president or candidate for president would take seconds to answer. It’s a big question, but it’s binary; yes or no: “There are people who believe you want to get out of NATO — is that what you want to do?”
Now, Kilmeade did kind of set himself up there for a tangent by saying “There are people who believe…” which just opens things up for Trump to spout conspiracy theories about the Deep State.
Then he asked for clarification on Trump’s stance, which releases the floodgates for Trump to say every word he’s ever heard on the topic.
So he did.
“I just want them to pay their bills, we’re protecting Europe, they take advantage very badly. Not so much worse, I tell you what, very badly, you look at China, you know China is terrible, but I straightened them out and then we had COVID and I had to focus on other things and we did an incredible job, we got it back. We saved the country, this country would have gotten into a massive depression if I weren’t president and I gave him a stock market that was higher than pre-COVID when COVID first came in. And what he’s done to the economy is horrible because of inflation. The costs have gone up at a level — I think it’s close to 50 percent, not 20 percent or 25 percent —
[Kilmeade tries to get a word in edgewise, going back to the question, “So you’re not looking to get out of NATO?”]
You know they don’t include the real costs, okay? When something really goes haywire like interest rates, they don’t include that in their cost of inflation. But what they’ve done with inflation and what they’ve done to this country by allowing millions of people, I think 20 million people will be the number by the time this guy gets out hopefully Nov. 5 is gonna be the biggest day, most important day in the history of our country. But you’re talking about 20 million people, many coming from institutions, mental institutions and insane asylums, coming from jails and prisons all over the world. Do you know that other countries have the best crime numbers they’ve ever had —
[Kilmeade tries again, unsuccessfully]
— because they’re sending all their criminal into the United States. Not just South America, they’re sending all of their criminals, Brian, into the United States. We’re going to have a problem and we’re gonna get ’em out.”
Kilmeade switched to a new tactic; he played Trump a clip of Biden talking about how well NATO is doing financially, and asked whether the president should be taking credit for that.
“Of course he shouldn’t,” said Trump immediately, proving that he KNOWS what a binary question is, he just doesn’t like answering them about himself. When it comes to Biden, his answer’s always immediate — whatever sounds bad about Biden.
But that didn’t stop him from going on another long-winded rant about WHY he so right about everything and everyone else is so wrong.
“They’re under attack. With me there was no attack, everybody felt comfortable. And I took in billions and billions, hundreds of billions of dollars. Stoltenberg, the secretary general [of NATO], said “Trump did something I didn’t think was possible.” I took in the money he’s spending right now. If I didn’t even take it in they wouldn’t even have a NATO to fight Russia. It was me that took in all the money. But they felt comfortable because frankly, uh, they weren’t going to be attacked. They knew Russia would never attack as long as I was president. When he became president, of course they’re paying right now, they’re under attack. If they didn’t pay right now, the United States, if they were smart, would say, “Well, I’m sorry, we can’t protect you.” ‘Cause they have the money to pay. But he makes a big deal out of it. Think about it, they’re under attack. He is such a dumb president it’s not even believable. Of course they’re paying they don’t want to be attacked, they don’t want, they want to make sure Russia, the United States, stays right behind them, Russia doesn’t attack them. But it’s real easy to get money when you’re at war with Russia.”
So there you have it, folks. Trump’s answer [?] to a yes or no question that takes a full quarter of the interview to never actually answer.
God help us all.