Well, I finally got around to watching yesterdays ‘press’conference’, and wow. I never wanted to know what a hybrid of a rally and an official briefing looked like, but now I do. And I bet today’s will be even worse. Here were the “highlights” for yesterday:
- Trump opened by talking about the latest measures taken against the “China Virus”. He said Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer want “radical left policies that have nothing to do with the China Virus”, and said they were holding the relief package “hostage”. He said that if an agreement can’t be made, he’ll sign executive orders to provide relief. He emphasized one aspect of the relief, which was temporarily suspending the payroll tax for the second half of 2020.
- Trump claimed that cases “continue to surge” in other parts of the world, despite the resurgence in most of them being much more mild than the one in the US. In a twist of statistics, Trump said “more than 80% of jurisdictions report declining cases”. He once again praised the efforts of Arizona, Florida, and Texas, which he won in 2016.
- Yet again, Trump claimed that the only reason the US has such high case numbers compared to the rest of the world is because of all of the testing the US does. This completely ignores the increase in hospitalizations and deaths related to the virus.
- Trump announced that he will be signing an executive order mandating that health insurance companies cover pre-existing conditions, an already existing tenet of Obama’s Affordable Care Act. This is presumably to cover the same principles of “Obamacare” while having Trump’s name on it.
- Trump said that he’ll be lowering drug prices for “the first time in 51 years”, saying no other administration has done it, and made sure to mention “the previous administration…It’s Biden, Biden won’t have a clue”. He also said that his regulations will go after the “middlemen”, who he never specified on, simply saying they “won’t be so rich anymore…I’m gonna lose a lot of friends, even though I have no idea who these people are”.
- Trump’s mention of the opioid crisis was to mention the border with Mexico. Like a previous briefing, he boasted about the 276 miles of the border wall built, despite the border being almost 2000 miles long. Despite this, Trump claimed the wall will be finished by the end of the year.
- The final part of Trump’s opening speech was about Portland, saying its mayor “abdicated his duty and surrendered his city to the mob”. He claimed the mayor’s denouncing of attempted arson was him “coming a long way”, from what he did not say. Trump also claimed Portland is the “radical left’s roadmap for America”. He said “If the radical left gets in, and they treat Joe Biden as a puppet, he’s merely a puppet, they see Portland as a thing that they want. Why? Who knows, doesn’t matter, different thinking”.
- Trump called the DHS and National Guard marching down the streets of Portland “an unfortunate view, but an incredible view of how to do things”. He said the Democrats want to completely defund every police department in the country, meaning “no city, suburb, or town would be safe”.
- When told that Russia is planning to hurt Joe Biden in the election, and that China is considering action to hurt him, Trump said “The last person Russia wants to see in office is Donald Trump”. When the reporter pointed out the intelligence says otherwise, Trump said “I don’t care what anybody says”. He also said “if Joe Biden was president, China would own our country”, and brought up Iran saying they would want him out of office as well. He once again said his common talking point, that if he didn’t win in 2016, “we’d be at war with North Korea”. He also said that all of the countries listed will make a deal with the US if he is re-elected, and that they will all try to interfere with the election if there will be more mail-in ballots.
- Trump called Democrats negotiating for a better relief package “an election enhancement”, and said that “the Democrats are cheating the election” via these negotiations, saying they’re an “unfair influence”. He also said “they don’t care about people, they care about their politicians who have done a terrible job running Democrat cities and states that are bleeding money”.
- When asked how the US government will provide unemployment insurance without Congress, Trump simply said “we have the money, we have plenty of money”, and moved on.
- In an unprecedented moment, when a reporter pointed out that Trump’s audience for this briefing weren’t wearing masks, the crowd watching in person began to boo. Trump did not dissuade the crowd, saying that the exemptions on mask mandate include political events, and jokingly called them a “peaceful protest” of the “fake news”, which led to the crowd cheering him. He then said “If the press in this country were honest, it wasn’t corrupt, it wasn’t fake, we would be so much further ahead”, and quickly left to the cheers of his supporters in the crowd.