On Fox News former GOP House member was horrified by Trump's Hannity performance

 By Hal Brown

This article (missing my illustration) was in The Hill (read article here): 

Trumpian vengeful word salad: Click image to enlarge.

Above is an article about comments made by a man whose name was familiar to me but I knew nothing about him. 

Click above for Wikipedia profile

It turns out that Chaffetz also made the news for these comments in other media:

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Here's the Salon article.

I thought that it wasn't really worth writing an entire blog about since the media was covering it and I had nothing original to say. 

The real reason thought to write this was that I made the illustration yesterday and tweeted it here:

No other president has been referred to in headlines as often as Trump with words like bizarre and unhinged when describing his words whether in spoken rants or on his Truth Social posts ("truths"). Therapists like me and others note he speaks in word salad.

I wanted to use my illustration again. I hadn't thought of anything else to write about so I figured I use this as my topic for the day, at least unless I later think of something else to use as my primary blog post.

 Here's an excerpt from the article in The Hill:

“I watched that and I thought, ‘Where is Donald Trump?'” Chaffetz said on “Fox and Friends,” adding, “I voted for Donald Trump twice. I have defended him countless times. I thought he was horrific. I think that was the worst interview I’ve seen the president do.”

Chaffetz further criticized Trump for “whining,” “playing the victim card” and complaining that someone he endorsed, like DeSantis, may be running against him in the GOP primary in 2024.

“I thought he was absolutely horrific,” he said. “He’s a former president of the United States. Act like it. He didn’t in that interview.”

This depiction of Chaffetz came to mind:

There's really nothing much more to write. In fact this drawing should say it all, but on the off chance that someone doesn't get it, my reaction is "in what world has this guy been living?" He's horrified by Trump now!

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I wonder what Chaffetz would say if he heard this interview with Trump (as reported on Raw Story here):

Addendum

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On a somewhat related matter, yesterday I wrote about how Sean Hannty scored a coup over Tucker Carlson by snagging this interview with Trump. Meanwhile over at the nothing-of-a station Newsmax, Greta VanSusteren managed to get, wait for it... Mike Pence... beating out Sean Spicer who is the only really well known of the hosts at the station. Even so, her interview also made the national news.

Click above for link

You read it here.

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Sean Hannity scores bigly against Tucker Carlson getting interview of rabid Trump

 Trump is a foxy rabid fox appearing as it happens on a phony news network called Fox.

Trump wasn't in rant mode. He was decidedly subdued. But consider this from WikiHow about animals who have rabies and whose bite can kill you:

Beware if an animal seems overly friendly. While infected animals may appear aggressive or anxious, others show signs of being friendly. Ultimately, friendliness in infected animals is one of the biggest dangers to humans or other uninfected animals, as contact with an infected animal can lead to infection.

• Stay away from stray or feral animals that seem friendly. A friendly animal can turn aggressive very quickly, especially if they are infected with rabies.
• Avoid approaching a wild animal because it shows signs that it is friendly.
• Some infected wild animals may seem unusually calm or even docile.

 By Hal Brown

Trump finally realized that despite his feud with Fox News he needed their audience to spew his venomous lies so he ended up granting the network an hour long interview, if one could call a one-sided exposition of grievances lathered with a generous helping of self-serving lies an interview. You can watch the "interview" here. 

Not only were Hannity's queries the very definition of softball questions but his facial expressions and head nodding showing agreement with everything Trump said were downright lovey-dovey. Not having watched much of Tucker Carlson I would venture to suggest he isn't capable to that kind of sycophancy.

Above, just one of many articles about this, not that there was anything significantly new in this. 

Here's another article:

5 things Donald Trump said in his interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity

Trump didn't make new news in this appearance.I think his allowing  Fox back into his good graces may portend his doing the same with Twitter. If he returns to posting there he'd probably ignore his contract with Truth Social where he agreed to wait six hours before posting anything political on other social media after posting there. After all, what are they going to do, sue him?

This would assure Truth Social went kaput.

What then did I find interesting in this appearance? 

Well, you read my title. 

Trump had two choices about whose show he'd grace with his divine presence and give the show a rating bonanza. 

These are the Adweek rankings from 2022:

 

Ruling out appearing on The Five because it really isn't an interview show, Tucker Carlson and Jesse Watters beats out Hannity.

For reasons incompressible to me the caustic lacking in charisma Jesse Watters beats out Hannity. He's not particularly well known outside of the Fox News universe.  However, compared to Carlson and Watters, Hannity is dull.

I figure that if the choice was up to Trump, and I assume it was, it would be between Hannity and Carlson.

I think the reason he chose Hannity is because he considers him to be as close to a friend as Trump is capable of having. Hannity, as these stories show, has had an actual relationship with Trump:

Most recently: CNN Exclusive: New text messages reveal Fox’s Hannity advising Trump White House and seeking direction

Trump, Hannity often speak several times a day: report

Sean Hannity Has Trump's Direct Phone Line And They Talk Multiple Times A Day: Report

Their relationship has had its up and downs:

Report: Sean Hannity Ended His Friendship With Trump After Becoming ‘Disgusted’ Over Election Lies

Friendship or not, everything is transactional with Trump when it comes to relationships and who he decides to do favors for.

I have a hunch as to another reason why Trump decided to go on Hannity's show rather than on Tucker's show.

I think it is because of Tucker's massive ego and how he tries to make all of his shows about himself. He could have Jesus Christ himself on the show and try to make it about himself. Hannity for his part, from what I can tell since I only watch clips of both shows on MSNBC, is a better interviewer who knows when to keep his mouth shut.

Addendum:

The beleaguered bastion of blowhard bloviators is bleeding but not dead yet:

You read it here.

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Methinks Trump protests too much in "horse face" Stormy WACO rant

 By Hal Brown

Horse Face (link) was approved as part of Unicode 6.0 in 2010 and added to Emoji 1.0 in 2015. I wonder if this comes up on Truth Social when Trump types it. It should.

When I read this part of Trump's speech...

Not a crime. Not an affair. I never liked horse face. Terrible. That would not be the one. There is no one we have a great First Lady.

... I thought this was the quote of the day.

I wasn't the only one:

In fact, looking up the line I found it was highlighted in numerous articles:

Click above to enlarge

Link above

In order to fully appreciate the looseness of Trump's rambling verbiage as he utters the above words you have to hear him say them as they come out of his mouth in a kind of stream of consciousness. Or not... I'd never urge my readers to inflict watching and hearing Trump on themselves, though since most of you are news junkies like me and  watch MSNBC or CNN you've probably heard bits of his WACA speech already. 

Unpacking just the quote of the day about two women not using their actual names, on the face of it is an unfiltered string of words showing a psychological pressure to express something without putting his words together in a sensible way. In psychology this is called pressure of speech (link).

There are certainly better and more believable ways he could have said this. For example, while still denying having had a sexual encounter with Stormy Daniels, he could have admitted he met her and said that while he thought she was attractive he would never cheat on his beautiful wife. 

Once again a famous Shakespeare quote applies to Trump:

Of course Trump is no lady, but then again, he's not a gentleman. He's not a queen, but he believes he's a king. 

On the surface what Trump is saying about having such a great wife is that he'd never mess around with another woman is hogwash. Note what he didn't say. He refers to Stormy Daniels' appearance but doesn't refer to Melania as being beautiful.

The serial womanizer and p-grabber wants to make you believe that unlike all the men who have "great" wives who still cheat on them he would never do such a thing. We're supposed to believe this? If he does end up in DA Bragg's court and sticks to this claim does he think a jury is going to believe this? 

Going back to calling Stormy Daniels horse face, it would be just about impossible to find a potential juror who doesn't know about his using this term to refer to her. 

No man, whether he preferred slim brunettes or buxom blonds, would compare Stormy Daniels' face to a horse's. Neither would a woman. Despite posters like this one, last I knew juries were composed of men and women.

Besides, I would wager that the majority of Americans like way horses look. 

Hopalong Cassidy and Topper, Roy Rogers and Trigger, Gene Autry and Champion, Lone Ranger and Silver

Trivia quiz: What was the name of Tonto's horse? Answer here. Double bonus, name the horse Dale Evans rode. Answer here.

Gold star award: Name the horses of the Cisco Kid, Tom Mix, Tex Ritter, Andy Devine, or any of the horses of any charters in old TV shows or movies. List here.

Update (excerpt from Politico)

Mercieca* judges that porn star Stormy Daniels has bested Trump over the course of her five-year public battle with him. Daniels refused to be intimidated by Trump’s threats (ad baculum) and shrugged off his lawyer’s attempts at coercion. She didn’t let Trump reduce her to an object (reification) of scorn or hatred. And when she retaliated against him, it was with the artillery of humor, insulting his manhood. “In addition to his...umm...shortcomings, he has demonstrated his incompetence, hatred of women, and lack of self-control on Twitter AGAIN! And perhaps a penchant for bestiality. Game on, Tiny,” Daniels tweeted.

Maybe Daniels should be running against Trump instead of DeSantis.

(The bestiality refers to his calling Stormy horse face.)

*Jennifer Mercieca, whose 2020 book, Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump, throws bright light on his dark rhetorical skills.

Addendum: 

Although highly unlikely, I wonder whether Melania will ever see that it is in her best interest to abandon Trump. Married to him she gets to live a lifestyle she no doubt is addicted to, but then again after her husband died Jackie Kennedy did alright. Emotionally I don't believe she or Barron are getting anything resembling love from a man incapable of empathy. She could certainly do better. It remains to be seen whether this enigmatic woman could turn her back on lover boy despite what's in the prenup.

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I posted this blog story on Booksie where this was the only comment. He has made similar comments on some of my other posts there. Troll or not I have at least one regular reader there.

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