printTwenty eight minutes and 27 seconds into this YouTube of his press conference in Bismarck, North Dakota, Donald Trump emerged to take questions: He has reached and surpassed the 1237 delegate threshold. Behind him stand “the folks, delegates, who got him over the top.”
Trump sounded masterful—and mirthful. If only he put on this hat all the time:
* About Obama badmouthing Trump at the G-7 summit: “It’s good, although Obama used a business term, rattled, and he known nothing about business. It’s good that world leaders are “rattled” by him, Trump. As for Obama’s assessment of his, Trump’s, ignorance, basically who’s he to talk? “Obama has done a horrible job. He’s got to say something. Every time he has a news conference he talks about Trump. Obama has not done a good job; we’re divided, we have tremendous difficulties.”
* VP: We are not going to pander and get a woman or minority just for show. We’ll have women involved, as we do now, but “we’re looking for absolute competence.”
* Hillary: No I don’t want her out of the race.
#StateDepartment watchdog: #Clinton use of private email server & months of missing records from her tenure violated policies & practices.'
— Ilana Mercer (@IlanaMercer) May 25, 2016
I want to have her in the race. The report is devastating. She’s skirting on the edge. This is her history of bad judgement. I love watching Hillary fight. She can’t close the deal.
* Message to Suzanna Martinez. Nothing much.
* The HuffingtonPost; I don’t read it. Do they cover politics?
* Muslim ban: We’ll look at the solutions. (As of this moment, the ban, it would seem, stands.)
* I’d love to debate Bernie Sanders … for charity. The problem with debating Sanders is that he is going to lose the nomination, as the system is rigged.
* Debating process: We’re not debaters, we businessmen; we put people to work. We businessmen don’t talk, we do.
* Regulating energy: The Federal government should get out of the way. They’ve put the coalmines out of business—which is what Hillary has promised. Energy independence and exporting energy is what Trump promises. Coal can be restored, if regulations are reduced. All I can, says Trump, is free-up coal and let the market work. Market forces are a beautiful thing.
* Give the people of the US a piece of the profits from the Keystone Pipeline and other such projects.
* Lower taxes are key to economic vitality. America is over-regulated. Regulation is even more of a problem than taxes, which will go down.
* About Elizabeth Warren aka …
#DonaldTrump calling Sen. #ElizabethWarren #Pocahontas is brilliant. She falsely claimed Native American lineage. https://t.co/qu6IW8eden
— Ilana Mercer (@IlanaMercer) May 25, 2016
* On first-day duties: Trump will be “unwinding various executive orders,” not least the ones affecting the porous border on the country’s Southwest.
* Intends to make use of the Republican campaign-infrastructure machine.
* “I won’t forget Indiana.”
* Fracking and our feathered friends: Bernie will ban it; Hillary will ban it. We’re going to open it up. Solar is expensive. It has a 30-year payback. And it’s killing all the eagles in California, one of the most beautiful and treasured of our birds.
* Blessed be the Farmers.
* Accursed is the New York Times, which doesn’t need Donald’s help in discrediting itself.
So what if Trump forgot to bless the cheese-makers: