Trump is well known for patterns of speech that are pure gaslighting, a form of psychological manipulation in which he has purposely sown confusion in the minds of the public— distorting reality as a means to gain power and control. His gaslighting led people, particularly simple rural people to question their own judgment and intuition. Listening to the advance snippets from Meet the Press has made me question if Trump is actually still purposely gaslighting or just doing it by rote now that he’s senile and no longer has the ability to put together a coherent response to a question.
His unscripted statements are rambling and incoherent, jumping from one topic to another without making any clear points, full of irrelevant information. His words and phrases are often not connected in any logical way, and they do not seem to have any clear purpose. It’s difficult to understand what he’s talking about and fact-checkers’ heads explode when they try.
He’s still the world’s best known projectionist, a psychological and linguistic technique used to accuse others of his own faults and shortcomings. It’s one of his most commonly used defense mechanisms, used to avoid guilt or shame and to deflect criticism and avoid accountability. He uses it to rally the MAGAts and to create a sense of us-versus-them. These days almost everything he says about Biden is pure projection.
Read this transcript from tomorrow’s Meet the Press and tell me if this is a man with all his marbles:
WELKER: I want to ask you about something President Putin said about you this week. I don’t know if you’ve seen it. This was very recent. President Putin said, quote, “We surely hear that Mr. Trump says he will resolve all burning issues within several days, including the Ukrainian crisis. We cannot help but feel happy about it.” What do you make of that? Do you welcome this support?
TRUMP: Well, I like that he said that. Because that means what I’m saying is right. I would get him into a room. I’d get Zelensky into a room. Then I’d bring them together. And I’d have a deal worked out. I would get a deal worked out. It would have been a lot easier before it started. Essentially, for four years, I kept them from doing anything. Because you know what? I will tell you this. I’ve never said this. Ukraine was the apple of his eye. I said, “Don’t ever do it. Don’t ever do it.” He would have never done it. But again, oil prices. He wouldn’t have done it because of me, but oil prices. The prices were so high that he had so much money. So he had all this money to prosecute the war. The one who drove up the prices was Biden.
WELKER: Given that President Putin has bombed maternity wards…
TRUMP: Terrible.
WELKER: 20,000 kids kidnapped…
TRUMP: It’s all terrible.
WELKER: Mass graves. Do you welcome his support, his all but endorsement?
TRUMP: Look, I had a very good relationship with him. And yet nobody was tougher on Russia than me. I stopped Nord Stream 2. You never heard of Nord Stream 2. That was the pipeline until I got involved. I said, “Nord Stream 2.” People that were sophisticated, military people and political people never heard of Nord Stream 2. I had it ended. The pipeline was dead. Biden came in and he approved it. There was nobody tougher than me with Russia. And yet I got along with Putin. Let me tell you, I got along with him really well. And that’s a good thing, not a bad thing. He’s got 1,700 nuclear missiles. And so do we. But, look, that’s a good thing. Getting along is okay. But I got along through strength.
He’s clearly delusional and his statement on NordStream 2 are false and misleading. I don’t think he’s trying to mislead. I think he’s confused and suffering from dementia. He claimed to have stopped Nord Stream 2, but this is false. He started talking about Nord Stream 2 in 2018, but he did not take any action to stop (ineffective sanctions). By that time, the pipeline was nearly complete. Biden has never approved Nord Stream 2 and if anyone took effective action to stop it, it was him. No one knows for sure who blew it up— but it certainly was not Trump, unless he did it from Mar a Lago. The pipeline was completed in September 2021, but it was suspended by the German government in February 2022 in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. He claimed that nobody had heard of Nord Stream 2 until he became president, but this is also nonsense and it just means that he hadn’t heard of it ’til he became president. The pipeline was first announced in 2011, and it was widely covered in the media. He also claimed to be the toughest president on Russia, but this is also not true. He repeatedly praised Putin and met with him multiple times, despite the fact that Putin is a murderous dictator who has been responsible for numerous human rights abuses.
He’s confused and doddering—his cognitive decline is far more severe than Biden’s. Listen:
But yet he knows how to bully and is now going after the justice system to get his MAGAts to turn against it just like he did with the Big Lie. In this way he is very successful and has the whole Republican party scared shitless of him. In this vein he sure knows what he’s doing. Don’t underestimate him. He excels as a strongman.
dementia is a funny thing. trump drifts and rambles. I've known people like that who were NOT suffering decline... just unable/unwilling to focus and colossally stupid.
I quit watching teevee punditry because the pols always round back to scripted talking points no matter the question... that nobody ever answers honestly. In this way, trump is not special at all.
biden, otoh, seems to not even know where he is... or IF he is... at times. His stamina in conversations gets less and less. Even in photo ops, he forgets where he is and what he's doing in about 7 minutes.
NEITHER pos should be in public service in any capacity. ever. their whole lives. But absolutely not now.
yet one…