Trump's Axios interview (2 Viewers)

[wardorican]

Jonathan Swan does a great job of being kind and respectful to Trump, but holding him accountability and asking simple followups.. "how", "why", "what books?"

Trump has a well documented mannerism of talking in non-specific ways. It's mostly meaningless fluff. It (this interview) does two good things. 1. It allows Trump to explain what he means. I'm ok with that, because I want to know what he really means. I even gave him the benefit of the doubt on an issue or two. I don't want to "think he means this", I want him to say it. and 2, it sheds light on his total bull, without being confrontational. It shows the clear lies.

"When I took over, we didn't even have a test"

Why would you have a test for something that didn't exist yet?"




But there was a part where he clearly got tired of it (when talking statistics, and ignoring the 1000 deaths a day.) I can't stop laughing at that. But for those that will get riled up by this, it's a pretty good interview. I think he's asking fair questions without going over the top for cheap hits. (to be fair, I'm not quite all the way through it)

 

[SaintForLife]

That's it? A 30 second clip?

That's what you contribution here is???

Lolol

That was Swan's retweet I posted. Talk to him about it.

 

[wardorican]

Swan seems as confused with Biden's interview like he was with Trump's:

I don't think you can make that comparison from a half hour of him questioning one guy and being constantly baffled by the lies, and a few question marks for a short clip.

Even though, I think I get what Biden was trying to say there.

 

[wardorican]

“We’re lower than Europe!” (shuffling through graphs and then hands to interviewer)

“Take a look. Take a look. Right here.”

(interviewer pauses to look at graph)

“You’re doing death as a proportion of cases. I’m talking about death as a proportion of population. That’s where the U.S. is really bad. Much worse than South Korea, Germany, et cetera.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Why can’t I do that?” (Trump's reaction to this reminds me of Nigel in This is Spinal Tap when Rob Reiner asks him why he just doesn't make the "10" setting on his amp louder)

“You have go by…” (flustered, starts shuffling through his graphs again) “You have to go by where– Look, here is the United States– You have to go by the cases of death.” ("But our amps go to 11, you see!")

Imbecile.

So, that's part of one thing I actually think was a fair point Trump was making.

First, you can normalize the deaths to population or deaths to cases. Both have pros and cons to them. I don't think it was fair of him to say "you can't do that" to Swan, both are valid approaches.

What Trump is saying, that our testing is so robust, we are catching those who other countries wouldn't necessarily be testing is very fair. It does 'pad' the numbers a bit, however, it also shows how grossly widespread this is and how badly we failed at initial containment.

If you cut back and testing, the death rate would go up.

But I agree with Swan, forget cases.. just look at Death's. They're too many.

One side note, I saw a short moment of a panel on CNN discussing the "you can't do that" line from Trump.. which, I took as "you can't look at the numbers that way, this is how you should", but they were making it out to be more like "you can't question me like that". I thought that was unfair. He's not trying to exert authoritarianism on the reporter, he's just trying to bullshirt him.

 

[GMRfellowtraveller]

So, that's part of one thing I actually think was a fair point Trump was making.

First, you can normalize the deaths to population or deaths to cases. Both have pros and cons to them. I don't think it was fair of him to say "you can't do that" to Swan, both are valid approaches.

What Trump is saying, that our testing is so robust, we are catching those who other countries wouldn't necessarily be testing is very fair. It does 'pad' the numbers a bit, however, it also shows how grossly widespread this is and how badly we failed at initial containment.

If you cut back and testing, the death rate would go up.

But I agree with Swan, forget cases.. just look at Death's. They're too many.

One side note, I saw a short moment of a panel on CNN discussing the "you can't do that" line from Trump.. which, I took as "you can't look at the numbers that way, this is how you should", but they were making it out to be more like "you can't question me like that". I thought that was unfair. He's not trying to exert authoritarianism on the reporter, he's just trying to bullshirt him.

From what I can tell US is about 14th in number of tests/1000s
I know it’s hard to imagine that Trump might not have an iron grasp on the correct numbers

And to your 2nd point, we have seen a plethora of examples of Trump berating credentialed media members about questions and reporting
There’s much more historical precedent to CNN’s interpretation than yours (even though I arrived at the same conclusion you did)
Interestingly I would say that inference is not on your side, even if yo happen to be correct

 

[efil4]

That was Swan's retweet I posted. Talk to him about it.

Why did you post it?

You inferred that ? Was for Biden reply... How did you arrive there? How do you know it wasn't meant for the interviewer?

Assumption?

 

[FullMonte]

Even though, I think I get what Biden was trying to say there.

And that...should be the end of it all. Yes, Biden makes mistakes when he speaks, probably more than a lot of people. Biden has been dealing with a speech impediment his whole life, and I'm sure that plays some (however little) part in his speaking problems.

But, at the end of the day, in almost every occasion, when Biden says something unusual, we know what he meant. When he said 150 million people had died from COVID-19, we all knew he meant 150 thousand. When he said he was running for Senate, we knew he meant President.

Alot of times, when Trump says things unusual, it's impossible to know what he was trying to say. When he was asked what his priorities for a second term were, and he talked about how he had never slept in Washington before, and he didn't know anyone there, but now he knows everybody....I have no idea what he was trying to say.

 

[MT15]

I saw a man on TV say something that has stuck with me, I am sorry I don’t know who he was. He said some Presidential elections are about contrasts in character and if you cannot draw the contrast between these two candidates, then you are truly lost. I am very much paraphrasing also, because I am old and cannot remember his exact words.

It doesn’t matter to me if Biden stumbles over his words, or has odd phrasing. He is a decent man, and he truly will serve all of America. He won’t demonize Republicans for political reasons. And most important of all, he’s not a malignant narcissist, with autocratic tendencies.

 

[barbar]

That was Swan's retweet I posted. Talk to him about it.

What about What about what about.

Do you have any thoughts about the Axios interview? That's what this thread is about.

 

[Yggdrasill]

So, that's part of one thing I actually think was a fair point Trump was making.

First, you can normalize the deaths to population or deaths to cases. Both have pros and cons to them. I don't think it was fair of him to say "you can't do that" to Swan, both are valid approaches.

What Trump is saying, that our testing is so robust, we are catching those who other countries wouldn't necessarily be testing is very fair. It does 'pad' the numbers a bit, however, it also shows how grossly widespread this is and how badly we failed at initial containment.

If you cut back and testing, the death rate would go up.

But I agree with Swan, forget cases.. just look at Death's. They're too many.

One side note, I saw a short moment of a panel on CNN discussing the "you can't do that" line from Trump.. which, I took as "you can't look at the numbers that way, this is how you should", but they were making it out to be more like "you can't question me like that". I thought that was unfair. He's not trying to exert authoritarianism on the reporter, he's just trying to bullshirt him.

It's actually worse. Trump doesn't grasp, I presume because he's not very quantitative (or thoughtful?), that having the highest total of deaths, and a relatively low death per infection rate, means that you must have a F*&^load of cases. And that's the thing that's hurting the economy, and that represents the real failure of leadership at the federal level: that the number of cases got out of control, that the spread of the infection was not contained.