President Donald Trump was scheduled to hold his first press conference alone today in order to announce his choice of Alexander Acosta for Labor Secretary. USATODAY reported:
“Acosta, the first Latino Trump has picked for his Cabinet, previously served as a member of the National Labor Relations Board and as the U.S. Attorney for Southern District of Florida.
In addition to his position at the law school, Acosta also serves as chairman of U.S. Century Bank, which is headquartered in Miami and is billed as one of the largest Latino community banks in the country.”
Trump briefly addressed his nominee for Labor Secretary. After a brief comment about Acosta, he let the crazy fly. The Washington Post put out an annotation of the conference which in part stated:
“A new Rasmussen poll, in fact — because the people get it — much of the media doesn’t get it. They actually get it, but they don’t write it. Let’s put it that way. But a new Rasmussen poll just came out just a very short while ago, and it has our approval rating at 55 percent and going up. The stock market has hit record numbers, as you know. And there has been a tremendous surge of optimism in the business world, which is — to me means something much different than it used to. It used to mean, ‘Oh, that’s good.’ Now it means, ‘That’s good for jobs.’ Very different.”
Trump then began to name off all of the “incredible progress” he has made since taking office. He played all of his greatest hits. From the wall to taking unearned credit for job growth, Trump rattled off numerous things that he believes he’s done to #MakeAmericaGreatAgain.
Things really got interesting once he opened it up to questions from the media. He was repeatedly asked about his team’s contact with Russia. He said that it was Michael Flynn’s job to speak with foreign governments. He added that he did not instruct Flynn to contact Russia but said that he would have if Flynn wasn’t already doing it. A reporter asked if this was during his campaign and and although he said no, we already know it was happening before November.
Trump is still extremely focused on the same rhetoric from the campaign. He brought up Hillary Clinton multiple times, using her to justify why he would not condemn Russia for the recent power moves of the missile launching and spy ships directly off the American shorelines. He also blamed the media for these aggressive acts from Russia, saying that Putin probably doesn’t think there’s hope for an alliance.
Trump continued to call the majority of the room “fake news” and “dishonest media.” He said that reporters should be ashamed of themselves for reporting the “illegal leaks.” He said he would aggressively pursue the source of the leaks by using U.S. intelligence. As he cried about the leaks and the media, he posed a question. He asked what is going to happen when he’s dealing with high risk issues like North Korea. He asked if that would be leaked and reported, too. Oh the irony, considering the blundering idiocy we all saw unfold last weekend in Mar-a-Lago after North Korea fired a test missile.
Finally, a young Jewish reporter asked Trump about condemning anti-Semitic and racist acts done in his name. Trump seemed to get angry with the question and said that he is the least racist person he knows. He then went on to say that liberals are actually to blame for the actions of hate being reported in his name. He stated that his people wouldn’t make those anti-Semitic and racist signs. He said it was actually being done by the left. He refused to condemn these actions.
The man has no clue how to be a president – he only knows how to be a celebrity.
Featured Image via screen grab from Washington Post video.
