I understand the heat of the moment and the desire on the part of liberals and progressives to feel good, to be righteous to gloat over their moral superiority. What I do not understand is where all this new found fervor ends and why did it take Pelosi thirty years to see what now is so offensive.
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Coming to the defense of Bannon.
Those who extol Obama have 8 years of favorable mass media to support their love affair.
Like the op ed writer, I do not know Bannon, never met him and have not read a great deal about him. I do know, because he was a lightening rod and helped Trump win the presidency, the mass media had to hate him if for no other reason than he made them look like fools. (See 1 below.)
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Trump in Arizona. (See 2 and 2a below.)
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I posted this in a previous memo but it was sent to me again and I thought it was worth another posting:https://www.facebook.com/Truth InsideOfYou/videos/11351049598 88837/?hc_ref=ARRT0x2uyNW64EnC d0VFAiRxrqYLqmKkUfb-F_xhWVPl5l gznk4F4VMMsmpLPZ1va3E&pnref=story
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Dick
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1) Has the Deep State Won?
The title of this column reflects the first thought I had on the news of Steve Bannon's resignation last Friday as President Trump's strategic advisor.
Although I do not know Mr. Bannon personally, the impression I have gotten from reading biographies of him, as well as my knowledge of his enunciated beliefs, his patriotism, and the pivotal role he played in galvanizing Donald Trump's presidential campaign, caused me to believe that he was the one individual with the intellectual firepower, intestinal fortitude, and strategic vision to check the unchecked growth of our government.
Now, with his resignation, I fear that that the barely-begun battle to retake control of the government and pare it back to something resembling sanity, is lost.
Could Britain have survived the Nazi onslaught if Churchill had resigned? Could America have held together had Lincoln quit?
Granted, Bannon was not the head of state. But he clearly had the ability to apply a deep understanding of historical events and inflection points to contemporary trends and issues. Trump, while seeming to have the gut-level instincts to recognize the erosion of the sources of America's greatness, has never demonstrated or articulated a strategic vision to get us back to the societal model envisioned by the Founders: that quaint notion that the government answers to the people, rather than the other way around. He needed someone like Bannon to provide that.
For someone whose career is now spent in the trenches of the war against the Deep State, I looked forward with great anticipation to the launch of the Trump administration. I expected many rapid victories once Trump assumed office. I was sorely disappointed. A couple examples will illustrate the point.
A seemingly easy early win, which it appears the Trump administration could have effected, would have been the many government records that Judicial Watch had been battling the Obama administration in court to release through its Freedom of Information Act requests. After all, it would seem to be in the Trump administration's ideological and political interests to have records disgorged which would have exposed the Obama team's malfeasance, incompetence, and criminality. Yet the Trump Justice Department and other agencies are as dug in as any good Obama apparatchik in denying the release of those records.
The Benghazi disaster is a case in point. Judicial Watch has been fighting for years to expose the purpose of the U.S. operation in Benghazi, the events that led to the 2012 attack on the U.S. compound there, the reasons for the non-response by the Obama team to our diplomats and intelligence operatives in extremis that day, and the reasons behind the subsequent cover-up.
We've had much success to date in certain aspects of the investigation by, for example, uncovering Obama's Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes's "talking points email," wherein Rhodes doctored talking points to show that the Benghazi fiasco was not a "failure of policy." Those revelations in turn forced John Boehner to constitute a House Select Committee to look into the Benghazi matter.
However, Judicial Watch has had to continue to fight the government, now Trump's, to provide other basic records surrounding that event. It was only under court order this month that Trump's State Department has been forced to review the official State Department email accounts of Hillary Clinton's aides Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin, and Jake Sullivan for communications relating to the Benghazi disaster and provide them to us. Why didn't Trump's secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, not call his Freedom of Information Act officers on his first day, in his first week, or even in his first six months in office and order the records released?
Another example of the Trump administration's seeming powerlessness or unwillingness to oppose the Deep State bureaucracy also comes courtesy of the State Department. As Judicial Watch reported recently, the State Department, through its Agency for International Development (USAID), has been funneling millions of dollars to George Soros-sponsored hard-left non-governmental organizations that seek to undermine pro-American governments in multiple foreign countries.
One such case we highlighted was Macedonia, which thanks largely to the United States, was a model of success after it threw off communism in 1991. It had a highly successful economy, strong free market policies and a conservative, pro-American government. That was until Barack Obama came along and started shoveling millions of U.S. tax dollars to some of Soros's 60-plus leftist, rabble-rousing organizations in Macedonia that sought to unite the members of the leftist SDSM party (former communists) of that country with the country's sizable Muslim minority population to undermine the conservative Christian government. Sadly, they were successful.
Obama's ambassador to Macedonia, Jess Baily, and his State Department colleagues at the U.S. Mission in Skopje, whom a Macedonian official described to me as being hardcore leftists in the mold of Barack Obama, have worked closely with the country's leftists. Yet Ambassador Baily is still in place, and the U.S. continues to funnel those millions of dollars to Soros's organizations there and in other countries through its Civil Society Project. Why hasn't President Trump replaced Baily and ended the money flow to Soros and Company? Soros’s organizations are receiving U.S. tax dollars in other countries as well, such as Albania, for the same leftist-fomenting purposes.
Perhaps I was naive to think that the Deep State, the Leviathan of Big Government, could really be brought to heel, even by a brash, successful businessman like Trump, who had zero experience, and even less of a vested interest in, the political world. But the presence in Trump's inner circle of a deep thinker like Bannon with a belief system rooted in the recognition of America’s unique and revolutionary founding principles, which exalted the individual over the state, was cause for hope. I should have remembered that hope was the thing the last guy in the White House was selling.
Has the Deep State really won? I hope my pessimism is unfounded and short-lived. And perhaps Bannon can be more effective from the outside, if rumors are true that he plans to build a media network (Breitbart or otherwise) to replace the increasingly liberal Fox News as the voice of Conservatism. After all, when God closes a door, he opens a window, right? Maybe a window will open from which we can toss the Deep State.
William F. Marshall has been an intelligence analyst and investigator in the government, private and non-profit sectors for over 30 years. Presently he is a Senior Investigator for Judicial Watch, Inc. (The views expressed are the author’s alone, and not necessarily those of Judicial Watch.)
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2)
How the Mainstream Media Operate
"Our leading media" are characterized by "indefensibly corrupt manipulations of language repeated incessantly."
Patrick Lawrence in The Nation, Aug. 9, 2017, on the media's reporting of the alleged collusion between Donald Trump's campaign and Russia
To understand America's crises today, one must first understand what has happened to two institutions: the university and the news media. They do not regard their mission as educating and informing but indoctrinating.
In this column, I will focus on the media. I will dissect one issue that I know extremely well: the national and local coverage of the invitation extended to me to guest-conduct the Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. The concert took place last week.
I am well aware that this event is far less significant than many other issues. But every aspect of the reporting of this issue applies to virtually every issue the media cover. Therefore, understanding how The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and NPR covered my story leads to an almost-perfect understanding of how the media cover every story where the left has a vested interest.
When it comes to straight news stories -- say, an earthquake in Central America -- the news media often do their job responsibly. But when a story has a left-wing interest, the media abandon straight news reporting and take on the role of advocates.
As I explained in detail in a previous column, the board of directors of the Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra and its conductor, Guido Lamell, invited me to guest-conduct a Haydn symphony at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. I have conducted regional orchestras in Southern California over the last 20 years.
Sometime thereafter, four members of the orchestra published a letter asking their fellow musicians not to perform, claiming, "Dennis Prager is a right-wing radio host who promotes horribly bigoted positions." They were joined by former Santa Monica Mayor Kevin McKeown, who announced, "I personally will most certainly not be attending a concert featuring a bigoted hate-monger," among others.
Then, The New York Times decided to write a piece on the controversy.
The first question is why? Why would the Times write about a controversy begun by a few members of a community orchestra in California?
I am quite certain that one reason was to protect the left. My original column on the issue, titled "Can a Conservative Conduct an Orchestra?" went viral. And it made the left look bad. Not only was the left trying to prevent conservatives from speaking; it was now trying to prevent a conservative from not speaking -- from just making music.
Therefore, it was necessary to show that the left in Santa Monica had legitimate reasons to try to prevent me from conducting. And the only way to do that was to reaffirm that I am a hater and a bigot.
The Times writer wasted no time in portraying me that way. He wrote, "a number of them are refusing to play the fund-raiser, saying that allowing the orchestra to be conducted by Mr. Prager, who has suggested that same-sex marriage would lead to polygamy and incest, among other contentious statements, would be tantamount to endorsing and normalizing bigotry."
Lesson No. 1: When the mainstream media write or say that a conservative "suggested" something that sounds outrageous, it usually means the conservative never actually said it. After all, why write "suggested" and not "said" or "wrote"? Be suspicious whenever anything attributed to a conservative has no quotation marks and no source.
Seven paragraphs later -- long after having mischaracterized my words to prime the readers' perception -- the Times writer did quote me on the subject. He said, "Mr. Prager suggested that if same-sex marriage were legalized, then 'there is no plausible argument for denying polygamous relationships, or brothers and sisters, or parents and adult children, the right to marry.'"
Though no context was given, the words quoted are accurate and a source was given. It was a 2014 column I wrote about judges having hubris for overturning voters in state after state who voted to keep marriage defined as the union of a man and a woman. I was responding to then-District Judge Vaughn Walker, who ruled on California's Proposition 8, which amended the state's constitution to say that defining marriage as "the union of a man and woman" is unconstitutional.
One of Judge Walker's arguments was that "Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis."
I wrote in the column, "If American society has a 'constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis,' then there is no plausible argument for denying polygamous relationships, or brothers and sisters, or parents and adult children, the right to marry."
Had The New York Times author been intellectually honest, he would have written the context and the entire quote. Or, if he had wanted to merely paraphrase me, he could have written, "Prager suggested that if same-sex marriage were legalized, there were no arguments against legalizing polygamy and adult incest."
But that would have sounded a lot less awful than saying I suggested same-sex marriage will lead to polygamy and incest.
So, for as long as human beings and the internet exist, people who wish to dismiss me or my views on same-sex marriage will quote The New York Times mischaracterization. Readers will not know that the quote about same-sex marriage and incest is not mine but that of a New York Times writer.
Lesson No. 2: When used by the mainstream media, the words "divisive" or "contentious" simply mean "leftists disagree with."
Both words were used in The New York Times piece. The writer wrote that my "political views are divisive" and that I've made "other contentious statements."
But the only reason my views are "divisive" and "contentious" is The New York Times differs with them.
During the eight-year presidency of Barack Obama, did The New York Times once describe anything he did or said as "divisive" or "contentious" (including his pre-2012 opposition to the legalization of same-sex marriage)?
Lesson No. 3: Contrary evidence is omitted.
Despite all the Santa Monica musicians who supported my conducting; despite the musicians from other orchestras -- including the Los Angeles Philharmonic -- who asked to play when I conducted; and despite the orchestra's conductor and board members who have followed my work for decades, not one quote in the entire article described me in a positive light.
Rather, the article is filled with quotes describing me in the worst possible way. Two of the four musicians who wrote the original letter against me are quoted extensively (calling me "horribly bigoted" and saying I help "normalize bigotry"); a gay member of the orchestra is quoted accusing me of writing "some pretty awful things about gay people, women and minorities" (for the record, I have never written an awful word about gay people, women or minorities); and the former mayor's attack on me was quoted.
Lesson No. 4: Subjects are covered in line with left-wing ideology.
The subject of the article could have easily (and more truthfully) been covered in a positive way, as something unifying and uplifting.
"Despite coming from different political worlds, a leading conservative and a very liberal city unite to make music together" -- why wasn't this the angle of the story?
Similarly, instead of its headline, "Santa Monica Symphony Roiled by Conservative Guest Conductor," the Times could have used a headline and reported the very opposite: "Santa Monica Symphony Stands by Conservative Guest Conductor."
That also would have conveyed more truth than the actual headline. But the difference between "roiled by" and "stands by" is the difference between a left-wing agenda and truth.
And even with the headline as it appeared in the Times, shouldn't the story have offered quotes from supportive musicians to balance the negativity? One was left wondering why the invitation to guest-conduct was offered to such a person to begin with.
Now let's go to the Los Angeles Times, which was as negative as The New York Times, though at least its two negative columns were opinion columns -- unlike The New York Times, they were not news stories, strictly speaking.
On Aug. 8, Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik, a Pulitzer Prize winner, wrote a column headlined "How right-winger Dennis Prager politicized his own symphony gig -- and declared himself the victim."
The mendacity of the title is quite something. Never in all the years I have conducted orchestras have I used the opportunity to say a political word. My sole purpose has been to conduct orchestras, raise funds for those community orchestras and bring new people to classical music. The only people to ever politicize my conducting appearances are a few left-wing musicians and politicians in Santa Monica.
Those people made my conducting a political issue. Yet Hiltzik writes that I am the one who did. "It's Prager himself who pumped up the political component of the controversy," he says.
This is a fine example of "the indefensibly corrupt manipulations of language repeated incessantly in our leading media."
It is also worth noting that every mainstream news source, like the Los Angeles Times, identified me as either "right-wing" or "conservative." Commentators and talk show hosts on the left, however, are virtually never identified as "left-wing" or "liberal." This is because in the closed world of the left, the left is the norm and the right is the aberration.
Hiltzik also wrote that "many in the orchestra find Prager's views noxious." That was after writing, "So far, seven musicians have said they won't perform ... leaving 70 still on the roster."
Apparently, about 1 out of 10 is "many." (Hiltzik also didn't mention the equal number of musicians from other orchestras who asked to play when I conducted.)
Then there was the column by the Los Angeles Times classical music critic, Mark Swed.
He wrote: "Can a divisive public conservative amateur musician conduct an orchestra? That's asking for trouble."
Note again the word "divisive" -- only conservatives divide because, again, in the mind of the left, left is normative. And in case you missed it the first time, Swed later wrote about my "militant polarizing of issues."
As a conservative, I am not only divisive; I am a militant polarizer.
Does Swed provide an example of my militant polarizing? Yes, just one: my "calling liberalism a cancer."
Like The New York Times article, Swed did not place the words he attributed to me in quotation marks, and for good reason. I have never in my life written or said that "liberalism is a cancer." What I did write recently is that "leftism is a terminal cancer in the American bloodstream."
But I always distinguish between leftism and liberalism because the two have almost nothing in common. Leftism is as anti-liberal as it is anti-conservative. But Swed knows that writing "liberalism is a cancer" renders me far more extreme-sounding than writing "leftism is a cancer."
However, what is most disturbing about Swed is not that he wrote a column against the Santa Monica Symphony inviting me to conduct. Hiltzik wrote a similar piece, after all. But as irresponsible as Hiltizk's piece was, Hiltzik is a political columnist. Swed is not. He is a classical music critic. What he did was one of the reasons I wrote that leftism is a cancer in the American bloodstream: The left damages virtually everything it touches -- the arts, education, religion, the economy, the news media and the military, among other areas of life.
When I was a young man living in New York City, I read every column the legendary New York Times classical music critic Harold C. Schonberg wrote. I do not recall him ever writing a political column. To this day, I have no idea whether Schonberg was a liberal, a leftist, a conservative or a Buddhist. He knew his role was to write about music. Swed, a man of the left, does not.
Finally, we come to NPR. It published a piece on Aug. 13 titled "Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra Confronts Controversy Over Right-Wing Guest Conductor."
Putting the title aside -- again, it communicates a negative story when a positive take would have been just as valid -- the piece was considerably more balanced than those of the Los Angeles Times or that of The New York Times.
But it had the usual media defect: It gave away its political bent. The second paragraph read: "Dennis Prager's day job, however, has members of the orchestra up in arms -- and laying down their instruments. He is a conservative talk show host who often targets multiculturalism, Muslims and LGBTQ people."
The writer gave an example in each case. For multiculturalism, she cited a column I wrote titled "1,400 Girls Raped by Multiculturalism." In it I described the kidnapping and sexual enslavement of over 1,400 English girls by young Muslim men over the course of more than a decade -- while the police and the media conspired never to divulge that the rapists were Muslim. The reason, as British authorities later admitted, was their commitment to multiculturalism.
But for a writer at NPR -- even one who did not go out of her way to portray me as a mean-spirited bigot, as The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times did -- the mere fact that I wrote a column against multiculturalism explains why members of the orchestra were "up in arms."
As for "targeting" Muslims, she cited my column titled "Yes, Muslims Should Be Asked to Condemn Islamic Terror." In NPR's moral universe, asking Muslims to condemn Islamic terror is equivalent to "targeting" Muslims. When the left demands that our white president condemn white-supremacist violence, is it targeting whites?
And the example the she supplied for my "targeting" LGBTQ people is my 2014 critique of judges who, I argued, overreached their authority when they overturned popular votes to keep marriage defined as the union of a man and a woman. The whole article was a critique of judges, not LGBTQ people. But on the left, merely disagreeing with judges about an LGBTQ issue is "targeting" LGBTQ people.
In summary, all mainstream media coverage of this one story was tainted, biased, often false and predicated solely on left-wing presumptions. Magnify what they did to me a thousandfold and you will begin to understand media behavior over the last two generations, and especially behavior today, when hysteria and advocacy have completely replaced news reporting.
The media pay little or no price among those who still believe them.
But I will pay a price. The New York Times lied when it wrote that I "suggested that same-sex marriage would lead to polygamy and incest." Yet that will be cited forever as if it were true.
It's already begun. On the night of the concert, the Fox TV station in Los Angeles reported: "A left wing attempt to boycott a performance of the Santa Monica Symphony due to a guest appearance by conservative radio host Dennis Prager backfired on Wednesday night; the event was a sellout. ... Prager has made controversial comments in the past, saying that he believes gay marriage would lead to incest."
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2) As Trump ranted and
rambled in Phoenix, his
crowd slowly thinned
PHOENIX — Just before President Trump strolled onto the rally stage on Tuesday evening, four speakers took turns carefully denouncing hate, calling for unity and ever so subtly assuring the audience that the president is not racist.
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson proclaimed that “our lives are too short to let our differences divide us.” Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King Jr., led everyone in singing a few lines of “How Great Thou Art.” Evangelist Franklin Graham prayed for the politically and racially divided nation and asked the Lord to shut the mouths of “those in this country who want to divide, who want to preach hate.” And Vice President Pence declared that “President Trump believes with all his heart … that love for America requires love for all its people.” Meanwhile, a supporter seated directly behind stage even wore a T-shirt that stated: “Trump & Republicans are not racist.”
Then Trump took the stage.
He didn't attempt to continue the carefully choreographed messaging of the night or to narrow the ever-deepening divide between the thousands of supporters gathered in the convention center hall before him and the thousands of protesters waiting outside.
Instead, Trump spent the first three minutes of his speech — which would drag on for 75 minutes — marveling at his crowd size, claiming that “there aren't too many people outside protesting,” predicting that the media would not broadcast shots of his “rather incredible” crowd and reminiscing about how he was “center stage, almost from day one, in the debates.”
“We love those debates — but we went to center stage, and we never left, right?” the president said, reliving his glory days. “All of us. We did it together.”
Over the next 72 minutes, the president launched into one angry rant after another, repeatedly attacking the media and providing a lengthy defense of his response to the violent clashes in Charlottesville, between white supremacists and neo-Nazis and the counterprotesters who challenged them. He threatened to shut down the government if he doesn't receive funding for a wall along the southern border, announced that he will “probably” get rid of the North American Free Trade Agreement, attacked the state's two Republican senators, repeatedly referred to protesters as “thugs” and coyly hinted that he will pardon Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff of Maricopa County who was convicted in July of criminal contempt in Arizona for ignoring a judge’s order to stop detaining people because he merely suspected them of being undocumented immigrants
Three times, the crowd burst into chants of “USA! USA! USA!” And once, at the mention of Trump's former rival Hillary Clinton, they chanted: “Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!” Several parents put their young children on their shoulders so they could get a good look at the president.
But as the night dragged on, many in the crowd lost interest in what the president was saying.
Hundreds left early, while others plopped down on the ground, scrolled through their social media feeds or started up a conversation with their neighbors. After waiting for hours in 107-degree heat to get into the rally hall — where their water bottles were confiscated by security — people were tired and dehydrated and the president just wasn't keeping their attention. Although Trump has long been the master of reading the mood of a room and quickly adjusting his message to satisfy as many of his fans as possible, his rage seemed to cloud his senses.
Early in his speech, when Trump still had the attention of his followers, he recited his definition of what it means to be a Trump supporter.
“This evening, joined together with friends, we reaffirm our shared customs, traditions and values,” Trump began. “We love our country. We celebrate our troops. We embrace our freedom. We respect our flag. We are proud of our history. We cherish our Constitution — including, by the way, the Second Amendment. We fully protect religious liberty. We believe in law and order. And we support the incredible men and women of law enforcement. And we pledge our allegiance to one nation under God.”
Minutes later, Trump transitioned to a topic that he would return to again and again.
“What happened in Charlottesville strikes at the core of America,” Trump said, appearing to read from the teleprompters placed on stage. “And tonight, this entire arena stands united in forceful condemnation of the thugs who perpetrate hatred and violence.”
Many in the crowd lit up at the use of the word “thugs” and applauded. Later in the evening, Trump would repeatedly use the same word to describe the protesters who showed up to his campaign rallies.
“But the very dishonest media,” Trump continued, “those people right up there, with all the cameras.”
He was cut off by loud booing. He smirked and nodded in agreement. A few people shouted, “Fake news!” A young girl in the crowd, who was wearing a white Make America Great Again hat, looked down at the handmade credential round her neck that stated in blue marker: "4th grade press.”
“I mean truly dishonest people in the media and the fake media, they make up stories,” Trump said. “ … They don't report the facts. Just like they don't want to report that I spoke out forcefully against hatred, bigotry and violence and strongly condemned the neo-Nazis, the white supremacists and the KKK.”
Trump reached into his suit pocket and removed a different set of talking points.
“I'm really doing this to show you how damned dishonest these people are,” Trump said, promising that this would take “just a second” and would be “really fast.”
Trump then took more than 16 minutes to read the various statements that he made about Charlottesville over several days, noting the use of all-caps for one word and skipping over the part where he said that “many sides” were responsible for the violence. After reading each snippet, Trump would detail why that response was not good enough for the media.
“Why did it take a day? He must be a racist,” Trump said, the first of the five times he imitated people calling him a racist.
Along the way, Trump defended his use of Twitter and bragged that he went to “better schools” and lives “in a bigger, more beautiful apartment” than those who are considered elites. He said the “failing New York Times … is like so bad,” mocked CNN for its ratings and accused The Washington Post of being “a lobbying tool for Amazon” because the newspaper is owned by Jeffrey P. Bezos, who founded Amazon. The crowd repeatedly booed the reporters in their midst and chanted: “CNN sucks! CNN sucks!”
At one point, Trump was interrupted by two protesters, who were quickly led out of the arena by security, giving Trump's supporters something to videotape and share on Facebook or Snapchat.
“Don't bother,” Trump said, as the crowd booed. “It's only a single voice. And not a very powerful voice.”
He returned to reading aloud his own statements and recounting the resulting media coverage, which led to commenting on CNN's panels of “real lightweights,” which led to him defending a surrogate who was fired by CNN earlier this month for tweeting the Nazi salute, “Sieg Heil!”
“And they fired Jeffrey Lord. Poor Jeffrey. Jeffrey Lord,” Trump said. “I guess he was getting a little fed up, and he was probably fighting back a little bit too hard.”
Without even taking a breath, Trump resumed reading a statement from Aug. 14 in which he condemned violence caused by “the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold true as Americans.” That statement came two days after the violence in Charlottesville.
“So they were having a hard time with that one, because I said everything,” Trump said, then flippantly launching into a laundry list of hate groups. “I hit 'em with neo-Nazi. I hit 'em with everything. I got the white supremacists, the neo-Nazi. I got them all in there. Let's see: KKK? We have KKK. I got 'em all.”
Trump eventually wrapped up this defense by saying, in part: “The words were perfect.”
The president then tried to connect this lengthy self-examination to his supporters. Meanwhile, a growing number of them were calling it a night and heading to the exits.
“The media can attack me, but where I draw the line is when they attack you, which is what they do. When they attack the decency of our supporters,” Trump said, without explaining what he meant. “You are honest, hard-working, taxpaying — and by the way, you're overtaxed, but we're going to get your taxes down.”
Trump would return to taxes later — but first, he had to blame the media for “fomenting divisions” in the country, “trying to take away our history and our heritage” and “giving a platform to these hate groups.” He called reporters “sick people” and “really, really dishonest” and accused them of turning “a blind eye” to gang violence, public school failures and “terrible, terrible trade deals.”
“You would think they'd want to make our country great again, and I honestly believe they don't,” he said. “I honestly believe it.”
Trump took a brief detour into immigration, prompting him to ask the crowd: “By the way, I'm just curious. Do the people in this room like Sheriff Joe?”
The crowd burst into wild cheers, thinking that Trump was about to pardon Arpaio — something the press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders had said just hours earlier would not happen that day.
“So, was Sheriff Joe convicted of doing his job?” Trump continued. “You know what? I'll make a prediction. I think he's going to be just fine, okay? But I won't do it tonight, because I don't want to cause any controversy. Is that okay?”
Back on his immigration talking points, Trump detailed a trip he made earlier that day to Yuma, Ariz., for a briefing on border security — and he casually threatened to “close down our government” to get funding for a wall along the southern border. He again called for getting rid of the filibuster rule requiring more than a simple majority — a change that congressional Republicans have said won't magically lead to the president's agenda passing. And he went after the state's two Republican senators without naming them.
“They all said, 'Mr. President, your speech was so good last night. Please, please, Mr. President, don't mention any names,'” Trump said, referring to a Monday night speech about Afghanistan. “So I won't. I won't. No I won't … I will not mention any names. Very presidential, isn't' it? Very presidential.”
Trump listed what he sees as accomplishments during his first seven months, including nominating a new Supreme Court justice and 31 federal judges.
“We've ended the war on beautiful, clean coal, and it's just been announced that a second, brand-new coal mine, where they're going to take out clean coal — meaning, they're taking out coal, they're going to clean it — is opening in the state of Pennsylvania,” Trump said, completely misrepresenting what clean coal is.
Trump noted that West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice switched back to being a Republican after a brief stint as a Democrat, which somehow segued into his thoughts on the removal of Confederate statues from many cities.
“They're trying to take away our culture. They are trying to take away our history,” Trump said. “And our weak leaders, they do it overnight. These things have been there for 150 years, for 100 years. You go back to a university, and it's gone. Weak, weak people.”
His next sentence: “We are going to protect American industry. We are going to protect the American worker.”
Trump apologized that it is taking so long to renegotiate NAFTA and commented that “we'll end up probably terminating NAFTA at some point.” He added for emphasis: “Probably.” Trump talked about climate change, adding jobs to the private sector, decreasing the unemployment rate and getting rid of regulations.
He acknowledged that he has had to disband some of his business advisory board following protests of his reaction to Charlottesville — although he claimed that some of these business leaders will still meet with him privately.
“These people just don't get it. They are calling, and they're saying, 'How about getting together privately?' They like it better. Why should they be on a council?” Trump said. “You know, that's the way it is, folks. That's the way it is.”
Trump finally got back to promising to pass tax legislation, along with a major infrastructure package, and called for Congress to help him with both.
“This is our moment. This is our chance,” Trump said. “This is our opportunity to recapture our dynasty like never before.”
He ended the rally by declaring: “Thank you, Arizona. God bless you. Thank you. Thank you.”
Those who still remained filed out of the convention center, stepping outside and into what at times felt like a war zone. Hundreds of protesters shouted: “Racists go home!” Police wearing riot helmets formed a line between the two groups. Further down the street, small clumps of supporters and protesters started heated debates, with each side holding up their smartphones to record the interaction. Police released pepper balls and made three arrests. A helicopter circled overhead as police warned that those who stayed in the area risked arrest.
“Oh boy. Oh Lord,” said Kelly Coombs, a 42-year-old data administrator from Phoenix, as she stepped outside, holding a pink sign saying “Women for Trump” and trying to ignore the things yelled. "Here We Go."
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