The Trump presser

Eighty-one minutes?!?  He must have been wound up from being on stage at the UN.  And thinking they were laughing at his jokes.




You read 'em.  I can't.  (click on the graphics to go to the articles)

The best I can do is give you some of the tweets from the indispensable Daniel Dale.

Trump is doing a press conference. He begins by talking about how big the crowd of media is.

Trump lies that China "put out an announcement today" that they want him to lose the election. That did not happen.

Trump says Democrats will see in the midterms that they've damaged themselves with this Kavanaugh saga. He says of Democrats: "It's a big, fat, con job. And they go into a room, and I guarantee you: they laugh like hell."

Asked why he always sides with the accused man over the accuser, and whether it's because he's been accused, Trump says, "I wasn't happy with Roy Moore, let's get that straight. But Roy Moore was a Republican candidate, and I would have rather had a Republican candidate win."

Asked again if he thinks all three women are liars, Trump says, "I can't tell you, I have to watch tomorrow." He adds of Avenatti, "Her lawyer is a low-life."

Trump: If I have to find a replacement nominee, and it's a woman, people could accuse her of sexual assault also.

Democrats would vote against George Washington -- "and he may have had a bad past, who knows?...Didn't he have a couple of things in his past?"

Trump interrupts a question about the accusations against him to rant about a New York Times story during the election about his alleged mistreatment of women. Told by the female reporter that she hasn't asked: "You've been asking a question for 10 minutes. Please sit down."

Trump says that the accusations against him "absolutely" affect his thinking about the Kavanaugh accusations: "I've had a lot of false charges against me, unfortunately." He says he's a "famous person" and has had to deal with this "many times."

Trump says a top expert on China, Michael Pillsbury, went on a "good show" he won't name - it was Tucker Carlson's - and said China has total respect for "Donald Trump's very, very large brain."

Trump asked if he'll fire Rosenstein: "I'm talking to him. We've had a good talk. He said he never said it...he said he has a lot of respect for me. He was very nice, and we'll see." He says he'll certainly "prefer not doing that (firing him)." He adds, "No collusion."

Trump says he might delay the Rosenstein meeting because he doesn't want it "competing" with the Kavanaugh hearing.

For the time being, Trump is just ranting about North Korea as if he was at a campaign rally. There hasn't been a question for many minutes.

Asked why he needs a second summit with Kim Jong Un so soon, Trump says, "Because he'd like it."

Trump just called a Kurdish reporter "Mr. Kurd."

Trump mocks "Little Adam Schiff" for taking a call from a Russian prankster who pretended to be a Ukrainian politician. This happened more than a year ago.

Asked about the message he's sending to young men, Trump ranted about false sexual assault allegations. "It's a very dangerous period in our country," he said.

"I've always said women are smarter than men...women are incensed at what's going on," Trump says. (He means that women are incensed at what is being done to Brett Kavanaugh.)

Trump said China's stock markets have dropped "would you say 30%...I think it's actually 32" over the last four months. The Shanghai Composite has dropped about 10% over the last four months.

Trump says it "doesn't matter what world leaders think on Iran: Iran's going to come back to me, and they're going to make a good deal." Then he adds: "Maybe not. Deals! You never know."

Trump said: "Everything's always been for 20 years: 'Oh, China's so great! China's so great!' You don't hear that so much anymore...you know who's great now? We're great now."

Trump provided an fictional account of what happened when leaders laughed at him at the U.N., calling it "fake news" and claiming it was reported as "fake news." He insisted, "The United States is respected again."

Trump falsely claimed it cost "less than $500,000" to open the embassy in Jerusalem in the existing U.S. diplomatic building. The renovations will cost at least $21 million, likely more.

Trump said he can't say what South Korean PM Moon said about him, because he'd seem "too braggadocios." Then Trump said what Moon said about him.

Trump told another egregious lie about trade, saying about soybeans, "We've had very little hurt from what I've done...in fact, the markets have gone up." He said "my farmers" say they don't care if they get hurt.

"A lot of people don't know exactly what it is. They don't know how to define 'tariff.' They don't know it is really different than a tax, though it's getting close."

I think we all know who doesn't know what a tariff is.