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:

Click above to enlarge image

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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Related

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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.

Click above to enlarge image

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Donut Don tries to bloody his rival with an anti-Semitic nickname...

 By Hal Brown

Introduction:

Trump doesn't know anything about the Bible, but if he did this probably would be his favorite verse:

...

So far we have another entry in the stickiest nickname contest. The most recent nickname, Ron DeSoros (article), Trump has thrown to try to bloody his rival is clever enough though it looks like someone else thought of it.

Donald Trump Reveals A New Meatball-Free Nickname For Ron DeSantis

Trump shared a post combining the Florida governor's name with a favorite target of conservative outrage.

Former President Donald Trump, who has devised a number of nicknames for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has floated another — “Ron DeSoros” — linking his potential 2024 election rival to a favorite target of right-wing resentment.

Trump, in a Truth Social post on Wednesday, shared a Twitter user’s post that dropped the new nickname, adding to the former president’s other schoolyard attempts at ridicule, including “Ron DeSanctus” and “Ron DeSanctimonious.” Trump has denied calling DeSantis “Meatball Ron.”

Whether using a nickname that is a dog whistle to anti-Semites is wise can be debated. It may go over in Texas but might not in Florida where many Jews go to retire. Considering that the also Jewish Sheldon and Miriam Addison gave Trump's campaign for election $75 million it might be possible that if Trump continues with anti-Semitic tropes they could abandon him.

Even if Trump hadn't tried to tie DeSantis to Soros, he is hurling the same anti-Semitic trope against Alvin Bragg (from Yahoo News):

Trump claims Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg is backed by George Soros. Here's why that attack is an antisemitic trope.

As former President Donald Trump lashed out online ahead of a looming possible indictment, he slammed Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg this past Saturday in an all-caps Truth Social post for being "FUNDED BY GEORGE SOROS."

In the post, Trump went on to call Bragg "corrupt" and "highly political," and pointed to an increase in violent crime in New York under the DA's watch.

On Thursday morning, he took another all-caps strike at Bragg, writing that the criminal case against him should be dropped. 

"HE IS A SOROS BACKED ANIMAL WHO JUST DOESN'T CARE ABOUT RIGHT OR WRONG NO MATTER HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE HURT," he e-shouted at his followers.

My calling Trump a donut, and depicting him inside a bloody donut in my illustration, makes as much sense as Trump calling Ron DeSantis Ron DeSanctimonious or meatball Ron (although Trump claims he never considered the latter). I merely throw it out there because it sounds good and may evoke images of Trump being a fat fast food glutton. See:

When Trump Asked Not To Publish Unflattering Double Chin Pics, This Is How The Internet Responded from six years ago

Here's a Google Image search for Trump Glutton:

Click above to enlarge image

Related: 

This is from Trump on Truth Social:

Click to enlarge (does not link to Truth Social)

Addendum:

If you have a Twitter account you can promote this article by reposting my tweet here:

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Today's Trumpian tale of two tabloids

 By Hal Brown

Someone walking by news kiosks in New York today might mistake the cover page (below) for the Murdoch owned New York Post for it's competitor, the liberal Daily News:

I found out where the Post got the photo of Trump holding a bat (here). It was taken while was participating in a Made in America event with companies featuring their products in the Blue Room of the White House in July, 2017.

Both covers featured the embattled former president but the Post says he's deranged and "bat hit crazy" while the New York Daily News "merely" says he's dangerous. 

I would like to have been in the Post newsroom to see if anyone brought up the idea of spelling out the word "shit" thus making the cover look something like this and hear the pro and con arguments.

Click above to enlarge

The Daily News has a self-satisfied slightly sneering Trump on their cover today. They are known for their Trump covers which are far harsher:

Click above to enlarge

I don't know what to call the facial expression on the baseball bat holding Trump.

Here's the featured NY Post editorial.

I won't summarize the article (click above to read it) but will note it has one choice reference that anti-Trumpers have been using for years, saying that the emperor has no clothes (left).

Update Sat, afternoon: In Raw Story today Tom Boggioni highlighted the same reference here:

I note that there are two meanings of the word "won't" shown in the NY Post title but not in the article itself. "Won't" can mean a prediction about something that won't occur in the future. Alternately, it can be a word suggesting in this context that Trump can decide whether to change or not. Defining it this way misses the fact that Trump, being Trump, can't change.

Another way to put this is that Trump won't change because he can't change.

No matter how self-defeating, acting on his impulses to lash out at those he is fighting with words that go beyond intemperate to insane he is unable to control himself. 

Rather than rant and rave out loud or stew in his boiling juices in silent rage like a more-or-less normal person who feels their world crashing down around them, he vents his spleen though his fingertips when he types (now often in all caps) on Truth Social. 

Wait for Waco today when we'll see video clips of his doing it with his maniac mouth. (More on Waco rally.)

Who would have predicted that the liberal media and the right-wing media would both use words like crazy, deranged and unhinged to describe Donald Trump? For example, this is how HUFFPOST titled their article about the Post editorial today: 

‘Unhinged’: Trump Ripped In Withering Editorial From Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post

The previously pro-Trump tabloid offered some harsh truths for Trump supporters.

Considering that nothing makes it into a Rupert Murdoch owned publication as an editorial about Trump, whether it's The NY Post or The Wall Street Journal, that doesn't have the bosses approval. Fox News, which has far more influence with Republican voters than Murdoch's American newspapers, doesn't air editorials, at least not the way newspapers regularly do.

Now it is a wait and see game to see whether Murdoch forces the likes of Tucker Carlson so be ordered to throw Trump out the window or be defenestrated themselves.

You read it here.

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