Presidential perspective
Within mere hours of the publication of last week’s edition of ANR featuring my front page article chronicling President Trump’s campaign rally in Grand Island last Monday, the responses started rolling in. As expected, they were both positive and negative.
One local man, who had been in attendance at the rally, called to inform me that the top photo on Page 1 could not have been taken in Grand Island because the people he had seen in the gallery behind the president were not in the photo we published. After assuring him that I was absolutely sure the photo had been captured at the rally because I had taken it myself, I explained that a difference in perspective, some of which is caused by the use of a telephoto lens, could easily account for the differences between his vantage point and mine.
Another response came from an online follower who expressed upset that the article had not made reference to Trump’s “very serious statement to let San Diego and Los Angeles be bombed as a price to pay for world justice.”
In my online response, I explained that when covering an 80-minute speech which was part of a more than five-hour rally and writing under tight deadlines to publish the 1,200-word article in a little over 12 hours, many aspects were necessarily left out. (That’s partly why we decided to publish a followup article with local reactions in this week’s edition.)
Additionally, while the California comment did register with me at the time (to the point of my being somewhat taken aback), I did not think it rose to the level of more policy-oriented aspects of the speech, such as the signing of the executive order on red diesel, which I chose to make the centerpiece of the story’s lede, due to its potential impact on ag and transportation.
But still the comment remains and the internet has been buzzing hotly about it ever since. Was the president really saying that he was prepared to sacrifice two great American cities and the lives of up to 15 million Americans for the sake of defeating Iran’s nuclear program?
After reviewing the actual comment in context, I believe the answer is a definite no.
I’m fully aware that what I’m going to say next will please neither the MAGA movement nor those who despise Trump with a red-hot fury, but it needs to be said. At heart of the problem is Trump’s own often confused style of off-the-cuff rhetoric and his penchant for spewing out incoherent word salads in the heat of the moment.
Perspective was provided by the Facebook account Patriotic Peach, which posted video of the comment in context. She points out that the president was referencing the war with Iran and his efforts to make sure that country cannot build a nuclear bomb.
Mentioning the fact that higher fuel prices have been the result of that conflict, Trump went on to say about the price of gasoline and diesel, “It’s a little bit high. It’s a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe. They can take out a city. Let ‘em take out Los Angeles. Let ‘em take out San Diego.”
Those last two sentences were, of course, the ones Trump’s adversaries seized on to say, “See, he’s secretly hoping Iran will destroy two American cities and countless lives!” However, try as one might, you simply cannot make the paragraph say that.
Again speaking of high oil prices, the president went on to say, “This is a very small price to pay, and it’s gonna be over with very soon. It’s essentially almost over with. And they (the Iranian government) might keep going a little long. You know, they always say they have a big threshold for pain. They need it, let me tell you. They need it. But it’s gonna end very soon.”
As is his signature style, Trump immediately jumped to touting the U.S.-led military intervention in Venezuela and the removal of Communist President Nicolás Maduro in January. He said that operation would soon have billions of barrels of oil “pouring in every week,” which he suggested would bring down the price.
Looking at the California cities comment in context, it becomes clear the president was indicating what could happen if Iran became nuclear capable, not what he was in any way hoping would happen. However, with the awkward way it was phrased, to the person only half listening or waiting for him to say something incendiary, it could come across that way in the moment. And to be fair, from the cheers that arose from some in the audience when the names of those two cities were mentioned, it’s clear that a number of those in attendance also took it that way.
Let’s face it, for all of his glibness and ability to seemingly mesmerize a crowd, Trump is no Ronald Reagan (aka, the Great Communicator) when it comes to speech making. He often goes off script, inserting disconnected parenthetical statements in his sentences and occasionally forgets to come back to the main point of the statement. That’s what I believe happened in this instance.
The problem is it often makes him an easy target for his political opponents. For instance, in her video Patriotic Peach points out other instances where this same type of misinterpretation has occurred. Who could forget the April 2020 COVID task force meeting during which Trump asked whether the effects of disinfectants on the virus could somehow be replicated inside the human body. That was widely interpreted as the president telling Americans they should ingest or inject household disinfectants as a way to cure the virus.
On another occasion when the president referred to MS-13 gang members as “animals,” the epithet was reported as having been applied to all illegal immigrants.
It seems obvious that it’s the imprecise and often confusing nature of Trump’s pattern of speech coupled with his penchant for being provocative that leads to these kinds of misinterpretations. And they will no doubt continue.
At the same time, even his written communications can create controversy. Mere hours after his triggering comments in Grand Island, the president took to Truth Social and essentially labeled as “THE ENEMY” (his words and emphasis) anyone who uses the term “Artificial Intelligence” instead of his chosen moniker, “Super Intelligence.”
It would appear that in his mind, at least, the vast majority of us who are sticking with the term AI have now become the enemy. Confusing indeed.
RON BURTZ can be reached at newsregister@hamilton.net