How Trump Knuckles Journalists to Parrot His Doctrine
You’ve likely seen some clips from Terry Moran’s rather supine interview of Donald Trump.
Moran let Trump get away with a whole range of false claims uncontested. But they got into it over Trump’s efforts to portray Kilmar Abrego Garcia as a bad man.
The clips don’t do the exchange justice.
Trump and Moran went back and forth around 28 times, and then Trump returned to it for another six exchanges (I’ve included two excerpts of the fight over knuckles below).
I actually don’t think this exchange reflects dementia It certainly reflects Trump’s ego. It’s an instance where Moran, as credulous as he otherwise was, refused accept Trump’s chant, 2+2=5.
Close to the beginning of the exchange, Trump held up everything — wait a minute! — when Moran refused to accept Trump’s claim that the tattoos on Abrego Garcia’s hands were proof of his MS-13 membership.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: On his knuckles — he had MS-13 —
TERRY MORAN: Alright. There’s dis — there’s a dispute over that —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, wait a minute. Wait a minute. He had MS-13 —
TERRY MORAN: Well —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: — on his knuckles tattooed.
TERRY MORAN: — he — he — he — it didn’t say– oh, he had some tattoos that are inper — interpreted that way. But let’s move on
After Moran insisted on something obvious: that the photo of Abrego Garcia’s knuckles was clearly labeled both with interpretations of his tattoos and from that an annotation turning it into MS-13, Trump told Moran he could not state that because Trump gave him the break of a lifetime: “Terry, you can’t do that — he had — — he– hey, they’re givin’ you the big break of a lifetime.” That is, Moran could not state the truth because Trump had granted him this access. Moran tried to move on. Trump claimed this was not an interpretation. Moran tried to move on. Finally, Moran made a half concession.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: He’s got MS-13 on his knuckles.
TERRY MORAN: Alright. I —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Okay?
TERRY MORAN: — we’ll — we’ll take a look at it —
But that was not good enough for Trump. Trump asked Moran, “Why don’t you just say, ‘Yes, he does,’ and, you know, go on to something else –”
Minutes later, after Moran tried to move onto the Ukraine question he had been trying to get out, Trump took a question about Putin and turned it back to Moran himself.
TERRY MORAN: Do you trust [Putin]?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I don’t trust you. I don’t trust — I don’t trust a lot of people. I don’t trust you. Look at you. You come in all shootin’ for bear. You’re so happy to do the interview.
TERRY MORAN: I am happy —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And then you start hitting me with fake questions. You start tellin’ me that a guy — whose hand is covered with a tattoo —
TERRY MORAN: Alright. We’re back to that.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: — doesn’t have the tattoo, you know.
He repeated his claim that Moran is excited to have access, but then accused him of asking “fake questions,” all because he refused to say 2+2-5. That’s when Trump labeled Moran dishonest.
This is not dementia.
This is power.
This is precisely the purpose Trump reserves for mainstream journalists: As props in his performance of forced adherence to his reality.
And it works.
After all, Moran was willing to accept as given the last 8 years of forced doctrine, about Ukraine, about Joe Biden, about Trump’s grievances. Moran has already internalized lies Trump has told for years, and wildly grotesque claims about rule of law went uncontested, unnoticed.
Moran could have stood up and walked away when Trump insisted that he repeat, 2+2=5, but instead Moran tried to make a series of half-concessions so he could move on. But even then, Trump still used it as a means to suggest he — Moran — was less trustworthy than Vladimir Putin.
It’s with that background that I want to return to the other noteworthy part of this, where Moran tried to get Trump to concede that SCOTUS had ordered Trump to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return (NYT has a report that in the last week that discovery in Abrego Garcia’s case had been paused, the US requested and Nayib Bukele refused to return him, as well as an even more credulous report on how Stephen Miller dreamt up this entire plan over a year in advance, both of which I’ll return to).
When Terry Moran noted that Trump had the power to get Kilmar Abrego Garcia released, goading him to assert his own power, Trump complied (this was, in my opinion, the smartest thing Moran did in the interview, and it could backfire on Trump in the legal case).
TERRY MORAN: I’m not saying he’s a good guy. It’s about the rule of law. The order from the Supreme Court stands, sir —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: He came into our country illegally.
TERRY MORAN: You could get him back. There’s a phone on this desk.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I could.
TERRY MORAN: You could pick it up, and with all —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I could
TERRY MORAN: — the power of the presidency, you could call up the president of El Salvador and say, “Send him back,” right now.
But then Trump shifted to the slander against Abrego Garcia — to the Administration’s decision, reported by The Atlantic earlier this week, plan to impugn him rather than remedy their mistake.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And if he were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that.
TERRY MORAN: But the court has ordered you —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: But he’s not.
Here, several belief systems came into conflict.
At once, Moran was saying that Trump should return Abrego Garcia for two reasons, because the Supreme Court ordered he do so and because as President he absolutely has power to do so. In response, Trump disclaimed authority for making the decision. “We have lawyers,” the most powerful man in the world who appointed his defense attorneys to run DOJ said. And from there, Trump said he’s just following the law by doing whatever “the lawyers” tell him to do, not by doing what SCOTUS tells him to do.
TERRY MORAN: — to facilitate that — his release–
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I’m not the one making this decision. We have lawyers that don’t want —
TERRY MORAN: You’re the president.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: — to do this, Terry —
TERRY MORAN: Yeah, but the — but the buck stops in this office —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I — no, no, no, no. I follow the law. You want me to follow the law. If I were the president that just wanted to do anything, I’d probably keep him right where he is —
TERRY MORAN: The Supreme Court says what the law is.
There have long been increasing signs — the Signal chat is a great one, and this exchange from Time Magazine’s own 100 day interview is another — that Trump’s not-a-lawyer Stephen Miller is both making these stupid decisions and serving as a gatekeeper to Trump.
When you and I spoke last April. Are you still committed to complying with all Supreme Court orders?
Sure, I believe in the court system.
The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that you have to bring back Kilmar Abrego Garcia. You haven’t done so. Aren’t you disobeying the Supreme Court?
Well, that’s not what my people told me—they didn’t say it was, they said it was—the nine to nothing was something entirely different.
Let me quote from the ruling. “The order properly requires the government to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador.” Are you facilitating a release?
I leave that to my lawyers. I give them no instructions. They feel that the order said something very much different from what you’re saying. But I leave that to my lawyers. If they want—and that would be the Attorney General of the United States and the people that represent the country. I don’t make that decision.
Have you asked President Bukele to return him?
I haven’t, uh, he said he wouldn’t.
Did you ask him?
But I haven’t asked him positively, but he said he wouldn’t.
But if you haven’t asked him, then how are you facilitating his release?
Well, because I haven’t been asked to ask him by my attorneys. Nobody asked me to ask him that question, except you.
Remember, too, that Trump claimed that he didn’t sign the Alien Enemies Act proclamation that, NYT describes, Stephen Miller has been concocting for over a year.
President Donald Trump on Friday downplayed his involvement in invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport Venezuelan migrants, saying for the first time that he hadn’t signed the proclamation, even as he stood by his administration’s move.
“I don’t know when it was signed, because I didn’t sign it,” Trump told reporters before leaving the White House on Friday evening.
The president made his comments when asked to respond to Judge James Boasberg’s concerns in court on Friday that the proclamation was “signed in the dark” of night and that migrants were hurried onto planes.
“We want to get criminals out of our country, number one, and I don’t know when it was signed, because I didn’t sign it,” Trump said. “Other people handled it, but (Secretary of State) Marco Rubio has done a great job and he wanted them out and we go along with that. We want to get criminals out of our country.”
Two things are going on here, neither of them dementia.
First, Trump is either being compartmented from the most problematic decisions behind his detention program, or claiming to be. I would be unsurprised if the lawyers have compartmented him, but his public claim to CNN should be basis to claim the entire AEA declaration is invalid.
Second, Trump is enforcing a system of belief — inviting journalists in and grinding them down until they they publicly adopt Trump’s false claims — that justifies (in his mind) his detention program. It doesn’t much matter whether Trump really believes Abrego Garcia’s knuckles really say MS-13 based on false briefing from Stephen Miller or whether he’s just parroting the lines Stephen Miller told him to say because he hasn’t tested what Miller told him.
He did the same thing when he stated, “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in. They’re eating the cats,” and got elected anyway. He did the same thing when he adopted Miller’s false claim that Aurora had been taken over by Tren de Aragua, the fiction that Miller was crafting last fall to set up his use of AEA, the fiction that has been debunked by the Intelligence Committee.
It’s far too late to waste time on whether Trump believes the torrent of lies he tells, to ponder whether this latest lie is a sign of dementia when his false claims about winning an election were instead calculation. Trump’s utterances are always utilitarian anyway. Always.
Trump’s fundamental unfitness lies in his need to and success at creating his own reality. Is Stephen Miller managing that unfitness to his own ends? Undoubtedly. But Trump’s unfitness remains — the reason Miller has exploited his genius for propaganda.
Stand up, call him out for doing it, and walk away. Do not be the prop in this display of dominance.
No matter what you think the mental acuity of Donald Trump and his chief advisor is, the ABC interview yesterday displayed both roots of Trump’s power, his success at bullying others into parroting his doctrine, and his use of that to claim those falsehoods legitimize something wildly divorced from American justice and rule of law.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And you’ll pick out one man, but even the man that you picked out —
TERRY MORAN: He’s got —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: — he said he’d — wasn’t a member of a gang. And then they looked, and —
TERRY MORAN: Alright.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: On his knuckles — he had MS-13 —
TERRY MORAN: Alright. There’s dis — there’s a dispute over that —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, wait a minute. Wait a minute. He had MS-13 —
TERRY MORAN: Well —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: — on his knuckles tattooed.
TERRY MORAN: — he — he — he — it didn’t say– oh, he had some tattoos that are inper — interpreted that way. But let’s move on
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Wait a minute.
TERRY MORAN: I want —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Hey, Terry. Terry. Terry.
TERRY MORAN: He — he did not have the letter —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Don’t do that — M-S-1-3 — It says M-S-one-three.
TERRY MORAN: I — that was Photoshop. So let me just–
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: That was Photoshop? Terry, you can’t do that — he had —
— he– hey, they’re givin’ you the big break of a lifetime. You know, you’re doin’ the interview. I picked you because — frankly I never heard of you, but that’s okay —
TERRY MORAN: This — I knew this would come —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: But I picked you — Terry — but you’re not being very nice. He had MS-13 tattooed —
TERRY MORAN: Alright. Alright. We’ll agree to disagree. I want to move on —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Terry.
TERRY MORAN: — to something else.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Terry. Do you want me to show the picture?
TERRY MORAN: I saw the picture. We’ll — we’ll — we’ll agree to disagree —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Oh, and you think it was Photoshop. Well —
TERRY MORAN: Here we go. Here we go.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: — don’t Photoshop it. Go look —
TERRY MORAN: Alright.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: — at his hand. He had MS-13 —
TERRY MORAN: Fair enough, he did have tattoos that can be interpreted that way. I’m not an expert on them.
I want to turn to Ukraine, sir —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: No, no. Terry —
TERRY MORAN: I– I want to get to Ukraine–
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Terry, no, no. No, no. He had MS as clear as you can be. Not “interpreted.” This is why people —
TERRY MORAN: Alright.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: — no longer believe —
TERRY MORAN: Well.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: — the news, because it’s fake news —
TERRY MORAN: When he was photographed in El Sal — in– in El Salvador, they aren’t there. But let’s just go on —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: He is —
TERRY MORAN: They aren’t there when he’s in El Salvador.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: –there — oh, oh, they weren’t there —
TERRY MORAN: Take a look at the photograph —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: But they’re there now, right?
TERRY MORAN: No. What —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: But they’re there now?
TERRY MORAN: They’re in your picture.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Terry.
TERRY MORAN: Ukraine, sir.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: He’s got MS-13 on his knuckles.
TERRY MORAN: Alright. I —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Okay?
TERRY MORAN: — we’ll — we’ll take a look at it —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It’s — it’s — you do such a disservice —
TERRY MORAN: We’ll take a look. We’ll take a look at that, sir —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Why don’t you just say, “Yes, he does,” and, you know, go on to something else —
He then returned to it for another four exchanges when discomforted by Moran’s questions about trusting Putin
TERRY MORAN: You think he wants peace?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: — this is —
TERRY MORAN: You think Vladimir Putin wants peace?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I think he does, yes. I think he does–
TERRY MORAN: Still?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I think because of me —
TERRY MORAN: Even with the raining missiles on —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I think he really — his — his — his dream was to take over the whole country. I think because of me, he’s not gonna do that.
TERRY MORAN: Do you trust him?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I think —
TERRY MORAN: Do you trust him?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I don’t trust you. I don’t trust — I don’t trust a lot of people. I don’t trust you. Look at you. You come in all shootin’ for bear. You’re so happy to do the interview.
TERRY MORAN: I am happy —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And then you start hitting me with fake questions. You start tellin’ me that a guy — whose hand is covered with a tattoo —
TERRY MORAN: Alright. We’re back to that.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: — doesn’t have the tattoo, you know.
TERRY MORAN: Alright.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I mean, you’re being dishonest.
TERRY MORAN: No, I’m not —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Let — let– let me just tell you —
TERRY MORAN: No, I am not, sir.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Do I trust — I don’t trust a lot of people. But I do think this. I think that he — let’s say he respects me. And I believe because of me he’s not gonna take over the whole — but his decision, his choice would be to take over all of Ukraine.
Exactly. And thank you for an entire post about this.
It’s not dementia. It’s psychopathology due to malignant narcissism. The word salad and the “weave” and the lying are due to that. Dementia is mostly evidenced by memory lapses of various sorts. If he has any dementia at all, it’s at the early MCI (mild cognitive impairment) stage. The devious strategies and constant lying come from elsewhere.
My mother had dementia which got increasingly worse over a 4-year period. It started out with an MCI diagnosis after taking the same tests that Trump took (y’know “man, woman, person, camera TV”) and devolved into having perfectly normal-seeming telephone conversations, and then no recall of said conversations 10 minutes later. Oddly, she never forgot her kids’ names when she saw us, even when she was at her worst. Many people with a high level of dementia can’t remember anybody’s names or recognize them when in they’re standing in front of them. Guess I should be grateful it never got that bad with her, but believe me, it got plenty bad even without that.
So…Trump…feral, cunning, strategic, twisted, narcissistic – yes. Demented – not so much, not yet anyway.
His dementia shows up in using odd words and repeating the same phrases (sometimes nonsense) or words. His enablers can’t hide it when he’s in public, but they can control access to him.
I’ve known people with dementia and Trump most likely doesn’t have it. Is he a nasty piece of business with no manner, yes. is he a bully? Yes. \
I’ve dealt with people like Trump. First rule, don’t let him talk over you. just raise your voice and keep going. Don’t address him by title or sir, if they use your first name you do the same. Don’t show any
thing like respect for him or his position. If there is no way he will act in a reasonable manner, simply inform that person of it and get up and leave and be clear about why you’re leaving.
When Trump goes on some of these rants, the shape of his mouth actually changes. It becomes smaller. When there is a number of people around its like a circus. Its chaos. It maybe that is the form he is comfortable operating in. He doesn’t do normal, he does chaos. Its not a bad tactic because most people don’t deal with it. Had a friend, who had a relative who operated much like Trump and they were such a drag at family reunions and frightening to some. My friend never had any problems with him. asked how and they demonstrated. After I stopped laughing their line was when dealing with a ‘crazy” you just out crazy them. It just shocks them and they have to figure out what to do and usually can’t
Walking out of meetings with Trump when he gets into his routine is the best way of dealing with him. Remember reading something years ago which reported Trump’s father sent him to boarding school because he was such a disruptive influence on the family.. Trump’s behaviour is something he has most likely been doing since he was a child. No changing that.
It can be and probably is both… People with dementia often fight very hard to hide it and bullying can be an effective strategy.
[Thanks for updating your username to meet the 8-letter minimum. Please be sure to use the same username and email address each time you comment so that community members get to know you. /~Rayne]
Dr. Wheeler, thanks for spelling this out so clearly.
Trump is totally unfit for any public office, especially unfit to be Supreme Leader. Refusal to accept facts about reality ought to be disqualifying for any elected leader, and its really damning of American voters that they don’t hold their elected officials to this rather low bar.
Trump doesn’t live in reality–he browbeats others into accepting his false narratives about reality. Its extraordinarily dangerous in an office with as much power as the presidency.
Stephen Miller lacks Trump’s specific narcissism. Miller doesn’t crave public approbation; his agenda involves wrenching apart the lives of countless people through systematic dehumanization and a pre-planned sprint through legal barriers, designed to destroy as many “enemies” as possible before our laws can catch up. Miller also intends to cripple the judiciary however he can, working along with willing partners like Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi. Miller is fine playing the villain role.
And he knows Trump loves nothing more than imagining himself “run[ning] the country and the world.” Every encounter Trump can manipulate into serving as a gilded mirror of *that* self-image–King Trump–feeds (but never fully satiates) his narcissistic hunger. In the end nothing can fill the void that drives him to prove his power over the rest of us. I can only hope his encroaching dementia, which like EW I don’t see predominating now, turns out to be the pleasant, happy kind. Something tells me that’s not likely.
Ginevra, as you say:
“Miller also intends to cripple the judiciary however he can, working along with willing partners like Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi.”
Did you figure out whose hands I was referring to in the video clip of the meeting with Bukele and Trump in the Oval? They call her the Ice Maiden (no, not Noem.) So, just a reminder: Bondi and Wiles are besties ( according to J6 documentation.)
In that Oval Office meeting Bukele looks at Wiles, who moved her hands as if to signal him not to say something. And, I believe, he caught the clue. I say this because of the reporting in the NYT below:
“New details deepen questions about the deportations, showing that El Salvador’s president pressed for assurances that the migrants were really members of the Tren de Aragua gang.”
….
“As part of the agreement with the Trump administration, Mr. Bukele had agreed to house only what he called “convicted criminals” in the prison.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/30/us/politics/trump-deportations-venezuela-el-salvador.html
“Behind Trump’s Deal to Deport Venezuelans to El Salvador’s Most Feared Prison” – April 30, 2025
Ice Maiden works for Pam Bondi. I call her Dragon Lady, which refers metaphorically to a ruthless head of a Hong Kong trading company, as in a taipan, or secret society. (Their leaders would normally be men,) Taipan, incidentally, is also the word coined in Australia for its largest and most venomous snake, which works, too.
Bondi may look like a former cheerleader and beauty queen, but that’s window dressing for the male ego. Misunderestimating her would be a politically fatal mistake.
Bondi, Noem, and Wiles are Mean Girls. They give successful women a bad name because their brand of femininity is performative, covering innate cruelty.
Bondi’s not really smart enough to play Ice Maiden. She gets flustered by her own flim-flam; we see her doubling down in vituperation, not chill.
Susie Wiles does seem icy enough–not invested in her public image, that Narcissus trap Bondi seems drawn to; smart enough to send hand signals from across the room, without seeking the camera eye herself.
Savage Librarian seems to have a bead of Wiles. I would heed SL’s perspective on her.
There was a good segment on a recent “This American Life” (Episode 855, Act Two) where there is a decent discussion on how Trump is using lying as a bullying mechanism. The behavior is the same as one kid stealing another kids lunch, then looking them right in the eye and denying it. It was an interesting way to sum up that part of Trump’s behavior and worth a listen.
Bullying has served him well. I mean Bezos caved yesterday regarding the Amazon tariffs effect , the CBS 60 minutes suit. Have been some spectacular instances where it hasn’t worked like Harvard and certain law firms.
Link is here:
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/855/thats-a-weird-thing-to-lie-about
DARVO. He’s used it his entire adult life. It’s reflexive.
“That was Photoshop? Terry, you can’t do that — he had — he– hey, they’re givin’ you the big break of a lifetime. You know, you’re doin’ the interview. I picked you because — frankly I never heard of you, but that’s okay —”
(If only I were) Moran: Really? That was a bad strategy—if you’d have done any research at all, you’d know I’d never agree with a lie. This is kinda like that time you defaced a hurricane map with a sharpie, trying to make it agree with another lie you’d told. How did that work out for you?
This exchange doesn’t reveal dementia. It is a good example of Trump’s clever media manipulation, which requires him to be present mentally.
Perhaps every interview should begin with a warning that any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental. Or maybe just a constantly running chyron that the statements about to be heard require further verification.
What about not showing it live and when playing it, stopping every time he BSes to fact check him.
I’m sure he wouldn’t allow that and/or sue for damage to his ego.
“Stand up, call him out for doing it, and walk away.”
It’s that last part that is toughest.
Moran stood up for himself.
Moran called Trump out (respectfully, quietly, and repeatedly).
What he didn’t do was walk away.
If he walks out on the interview, it can’t be a spur of the moment thing. Just as he and his team prep for the questions they want to ask, and the way in which they will try to turn Trump’s avoidance against him to push for answers with follow-up questions, they need to prep for the walk away.
How much bull do we take, before we pull the plug?
Where do we draw the line on the lying?
When do we tell the bully we’ve had enough?
What will we say during the interview as a warning?
What will we say, if we decide to leave, to bring the interview to a premature end?
Most critically, what will we say — live on air — as soon as we’re out of the interview setting?
If they haven’t thought that through ahead of time, no reporter will walk away from a presidential interview. Ever.
I can easily imagine the thoughts going through the reporter and producer’s heads: “We worked hard to get this interview . . . we’ll never get another one . . . hell, maybe no reporter will get a one-on-one after this . . . he’ll just spin it into a ‘he said/she said’ and we’ll lose our credibility . . . it will be nothing but ‘lamestream media’ attacks from here to eternity . . . we better tough it out and stay.”
Lack of planning for a possible walk away hands all the power to Trump. But if the interviewers plan for the possibility of leaving, they are reclaiming their power and will not be as vulnerable to bullying during the interview.
“Mr. President, we are grateful that you agreed to sit down with us for an interview. But gratitude needs to go both ways. We are granting you a chance to address our viewers, at length, to let you respond to the concerns that are on their hearts. You can thank us by being responsive, by being open and engaging, and most of all, by being honest. But you haven’t done that. Instead, you have tried to bluster, to bully, to deflect, and to demean. Thank you, Mr. President, but we are done here.”
And then, the producers need to turn the tape around asap, so that by the time the reporter reaches the South Lawn of the White House, it’s ready to go.
Yes, Trump would pitch a fit. Yes, he and the Reich Wing Media would have a whole herd of cows. But here’s the thing: that won’t change anything. They do that every day and twice on Sundays. Trump’s response wouldn’t change a thing, but the Walk Away would change the way ordinary folks look at the media.
When Cory Booker gave his epic fillibuster speech — on message for over 24 hours in its attack — the reaction of ordinary folks was “FINALLY! Finally someone is trying to do something about all this crap. Finally someone is calling Trump & Co out. Finally someone seems to understand that obeying in advance or shrugging your shoulders is not acceptable. Finally, someone isn’t afraid to stand up to the bully.”
It wasn’t Moran. But it could have been. And it still could be, for the next reporting team that gets a one-on-one sit-down with the president. When Edward R. Morrow came for Joe McCarthy, the red-baiting homophobic bully of his day, Morrow didn’t do it on a whim or because he lost his temper. He planned, he prepared, and he was ready for whatever happened next. But you have to plan for it, if you’re even thinking about doing it.
I think Moran figured it was evident (to us non-cultists at least) that Trump was lying/wrong about the tattoo and would let that speak for itself so he could continue the interview. I’ve read some comments from MAGA cultists who still say Trump is right about the tattoo. Some men you just can’t reach.
Calling Trump out and walking away would have given starbursts to people already decidedly against Trump. Anything else? There’s this desparate need to find the 1 Weird Argument Turning Point that will make the scales fall from the eyes of people who support Trump or don’t think about him at all. I don’t think such a performatuve Turning Point exists. Joesph Welch’s “have you no shame” got in the history books but wasn’t the cause of McCarthey’s downfall.
I’d argue Moran performed a bigger service by documenting at length the mechanics of his need to have his lies approved by the media, and how easily he can be manipulated with flattery.
I think this is the way to go.
What are the news media’s goals in these interviews? Obviously, they are click bait. But, at least, a secondary goal should be to go further in depth with Trump on important subjects. So, part of the reporter’s job is to prepare adequately for interviews. With a known liar like Trump, the preparation has to be almost like that of a trial lawyer. Otherwise, these interviews are just a media opportunity for Trump.
Terry Moran knew that he was going to bring up the El Salvador issue. He or his producer should have had the photoshopped photo at the ready to show Trump and the audience. That exchange went on long enough for the producer to have provided the photo in question.
Jimmy Kimmel had a snippet of the black and forth between Trump and Moran on the photo and showed the photo in question. It was devastatingly effective.
THIS.
“Jimmy Kimmel had a snippet of the black and forth between Trump and Moran on the photo and showed the photo in question. It was devastatingly effective.”
I posit that most people who have seen anything about this interview have seen just that – snippets. It’s only when I get to emptywheel.net that I see just how bad the interview was.
I read stories about Trump interviews often enough to concern my wife, including this interview, and Dr. Wheeler’s write-up has more interchanges than any other story I’ve read. Most of the write-ups quote the “it says MS-13″/”it’s photoshopped”/”don’t do this” exchange, and then describe, but don’t quote, Trump returning to the MS-13 tattoo dispute for a total of four times.
I’m allowing for the possibility that Trump has seen just the one photoshopped photo and has never been told otherwise by his sycophants who don’t want to anger him by telling him the truth.
Even if you could corner Trump with irrefutable proof of Garcia’s MS13-less knuckles (say, a livestream video closeup) Trump will do any or all of the following.
1. Insist that the symbols mean MS13 and if you disagree then you don’t know what you’re talking about and you misunderstood what he said.
2. Insist that the tattoo doesn’t really matter because Garcia is still a bad hombre.
3. Attack the person for daring to challenge Trump and for defending the bad hombre and for wanting to keep criminals in the U.S.
4. Change the subject.
So in the end it doesn’t matter whether Trump was lying or was duped by the photoshopped image because he’s not interested in the truth.
Oh, my, I’m long past giving Donald Trump the benefit of allowance or doubt.
The president’s job, for example, includes asking questions about the information with which he’s provided, to assess its strengths, weaknesses, and reliability. Trump isn’t built for that job. He never questions information that agrees with his propaganda, never considers information that doesn’t, and doesn’t tolerate anyone who approaches information as if it were facts that mattered.
EoH, all I’m saying is whichever sycophant first showed that MS13 photo to Trump is not about to tell him, “Um, sir, I think we may have made a mistake.” But even if they did try to correct it Trump is not about to admit the mistake to a Nasty Person at Fake News ABC.
That “sycophant” was Stephen Miller. Miller also prevents any other images or information from getting to Trump, thus turning sycophancy into a control mechanism–which would be impossible without the willful ignorance of the President wholly lacking in any form of curiosity, except as to others’ reactions to him.
It’s the Power of Positive Thinking. He needs to have evidence that Garcia is a gang member so he sees evidence, and importantly everyone around him agrees with him. Voila, Proof! He simply focuses on what he needs to be true until it is true. You left out the part of his denial process where he complains that the questioner is not very nice and is not being nice to him. There’s something odd about that, and he uses it a lot.
In some previous interviews he’d walk out if he felt threatened, but he didn’t here.
What changed?
Is he more confident in the BS he spreads?
Trump is more confident that he can lie without being effectively called out and more confident that he can humiliate the interviewer. Owning the media is equal to owning the libs. He wants the news media cowed and one way to do that is to belittle them on national tv.
It is hard for me to accept that so many people have such hate in their hearts that they would applaud Trump’s juvenile assaults on the media, lawyers, universities, etc.
He can lie without being called out. He can lie without consequence. Sadly, the majority of voting Americans didn’t have a problem with it.
Timothy Snyder calls that hate-in-their-hearts phenomenon “sadopopulism”.
Trump’s base loves him because he promises to hurt the people they hate (liberals, cultural elites, minorities, whoever). He is their retribution.
They’re willing to worsen their own situations, even revel in it, because they think it will hurt others even more.
Here’s a good interview with Snyder, from before the 2020 election where he talks about sadopopulism, Trump’s fascist tendencies and more.
Like Trump, his base is also incapable of admitting an error and will always seek to deflect or double down when confronted. Basic Roy Cohn mentality. Also willingness to harm “others” is usually specific but unadmitted (but becoming more and more officially blatant every day).
ABC and the MSM generally seem obsessed with trying to make sense of Trump’s nonsense, his contradictions, his illogic, his refusal to accept any reality that does not fit his propaganda purpose of the moment, rather than reporting it as such.
As you elegantly point out, it’s impossible to make sense out of Trump’s contradictions. Insisting on presenting Trump’s comments as if they made sense amounts to lying about them, and defeats the purpose of providing news coverage. It makes purported news more propaganda for Trump.
They’re trying to reconcile Trump’s nonsense with reality, but it doesn’t quite fit. It’s understandable but a bad habit because what Trump wants most of all is reality to reconcile with him. That’s the whole point of having his minions repeat his lies on tv. As Robert DeNiro says repeatedly in Wag The Dog “Its true. I saw it on TV, its true”. That makes it true enough for Trump.
Way back when I recollect that we called that “sane-washing.”
Yep.
The man lacks accountability and responsibility playing the bully and victim. His followers believe and buy his BS.
Trump treats the press ” with contempt and disrespect at every turn. Calls them “ the enemy of the state”. But for some reason the press feels they need to treat him with some measure of respect. It is infuriating. When trump asked him if he wanted to see the picture, his answer should have been, “yes. Bring it here now so I can show you how it was photoshopped. “ could you imagine any democratic president being treated with such deference when caught in an obvious lie? They did the same for W. It is not just trump. Trump picked Moran because he is weak.
This interview… Almost as hard-hitting as the one the NPR guy, Steve Inskeep, did five years ago. I don’t know, maybe a tag team of Oriana Fallaci and Molly Ivins might have yielded better results.
Meanwhile: excellent interview with Jeff Sharlet by David Goodman at vtdigger dot com slash podcasts slash vermont conversation
subject: American Fascism & How a civil war is speeding up.
Oriana Fallaci after 9/11 was a different person than she was before. Fallaci before 9/11 would be the interviewer we’d want. Fallaci after 9/11 would be happy to support Trmp’s fear of others.
Trump is brilliant at beating down others to due his bidding. His geyser of lies tends to drown out any responsible journalist.
Likewise, he regularly somehow beats down his attorneys to self immolate for him. He has a trail of sanctioned and disbarred lawyers in his wake. I see in the interview where he is confronted with disobeying a Supreme Court order, he is putting the responsibility on “his lawyers”.
He may be getting bad info, but it is definitely his desires that are being fulfilled. He has more lawyers that seem to want to fly too close to the sun for him.
I watched a replay of the interview at a later time. I only watch to see how Trump continues his role as B F Skinner. Every performance he gives reinforces the opinion people that watch or who read about it (depending on the similarly self-reinforcing conditioning media people gravitate to). No minds are changed. People just become more certain, more reinforced, about their opinion of him.
It was only about viewership ratings for ABC. No one there is that stupid to believe Trump is going to answer anything outside of his unreality bubble. In fact ABC faced known danger for any accusations posed against Trump given Trump’s lawsuit against Stephanopoulos and, legally aware, would have cautioned Moran against pushing such a line of attack.
In https://bsky.app/profile/jamellebouie.net/post/3lo5ssb2h5s2b Jamelle says, I agree , Moran should have kept pressing Donnie on the ms13 tattoo to really see where Donnie would take it.
At May Day rally, counter protesters held up “lock her up” sign. I don’t know what to say.