On the one hand, this is yet another inexplicably trivial thing for him to be focused on 14 days out from Election Day. Whatever the campaign’s message was supposed to be today — the economy, presumably — he’s counterprogramming it with more media grievance drama that no one cares about except the people who were already prepared to crawl over broken glass to vote for him.
On the other hand, I’m always up for a little celebrity mask-shaming. She *should* be wearing one. She’s 78 years old!
And she’s at the White House! That’s the COVID equivalent of taking a vacation to the Congo at the height of an Ebola outbreak. What the hell was she thinking?
If you’re thinking there must be a backstory here, you are correct.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1318644698341408769
“60 Minutes” is interviewing both party’s presidential tickets this week for a “closing arguments” show that’ll air this weekend. A simple enough task for Trump/Pence.
But nothing is simple:
Biden and Harris were also interviewed by 60 Minutes & all are scheduled to appear in the same program. While Biden and Harris taped their interviews separately, Trump and Pence were scheduled to appear on camera together. They ultimately did not and Pence taped his separately.
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) October 20, 2020
Shot in the dark: Stahl grilled him on COVID, he got defensive, then decided to have a bit of revenge after Dan Scavino or whoever caught her on camera without a mask on.
“Ah yes, the traditional closing argument with voters, attacking Dr. Fauci and Lesley Stahl,” sneered Jake Tapper about today’s latest drama. It’s pointless to debate with MAGA fans whether there are more voters out there who love watching Trump throw endless tantrums about the press or more voters out there who hate it, but a nice thing about elections is that we get to find out. Some Americans will relish this, like they relished it when he attacked Chris Wallace and then Steve Scully and most recently Kristen Welker, the three moderators of the presidential debates, on Twitter.
And some Americans will find themselves completely exhausted by it. Test of strength on November 3. It’ll be real.
Here’s a fun clip from 2018 featuring Stahl describing a previous interview with Trump after he won the 2016 nomination. Why are you always ranting about the press, she asked? His (alleged) answer was illuminating. It’s not because they’re so unfair or because they’re predictable liberal hacks. It’s to convince his fans not to trust them when they tell the truth about him. I wonder what truth Stahl told about him during their interview that pissed him off.
Update: He should definitely spend the next few days obsessing about this, and probably use most of his debate time on Thursday to talk about it too.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1318675787973840896
