Because three days after the worst school shooting in Texas history, what better place would a disgraced, twice-impeached, washed-up loser who wants to return to the White House be than delivering a speech at the NRA Convention?
The tl;dr version of this is: it’s mostly the same tired RW talking points about gun violence you’ve heard for the past 25 years, along with some of Donald Trump’s favorite campaign rally highlights. And if that sounds terrible, you’d be right.
I thought this speech was maybe 20 minutes, which is why I started transcribing it. And once I reached that point and it was still going on, I checked, and it was another 34 minutes long. Yes, I listened to over 50 minutes of constant bullshit from the most monotonously boring man in politics today. And transcribed most of it. I’m gonna be honest: I stopped transcribing the majority of the remainder when he went off script and started ad libbing. That was about 25 or 30 minutes in. So at that point (I’ll let you know when this happens), I mainly paraphrased him. There are still bits of verbatim transcription. Anything you see that follows and is in bold (like this–Trump:) is verbatim. The rest is paraphrase. Okay? Here we go…
The video I used to watch the speech and create the transcription was a livestream which included Cruz’s speech, along with a few others. Trump’s is in the last 54 minutes of the video. I’ve included some time stamps, so you can find where to go.
(2:39:28) Trump: Thank you.
Crowd still cheering.
Trump: Thank you very much. Thank you, everybody.
Crowd chants, “USA! USA!”
Trump: Well, thank you Wayne, and thank you, Jason; I’m honored to be here in the great state of Texas, with the wonderful patriots of the NRA.
Me: I gagged as I typed that.
Trump: And unlike some, I didn’t disappoint you by not showing up.
Me: Because whoring myself to the NRA was far more important to me than, you know, showing any empathy or compassion to the families whose children were butchered this week right here in Texas.
I’m assuming that was a dig at Abbott and others who decided that maybe showing up at an NRA, pro-gun rally might be in poor taste three days after 19 children were butchered in their classroom…
The crowd gets loud, cheering.
Trump: You gotta show up. Gotta show up.
Me: Because, God forbid anyone think you’re weak for giving into common decency…
Trump: For more than 150 years, the NRA has stood strong and tall in defense of our rights–
Me: Well, really just one right…
Trump: –our freedoms, our families, our law enforcement officers, and our sacred liberties–
Me: Excluding the ones protecting “life” and “the pursuit of happiness.” And, yes, I know those are in the Declaration, rather than the Constitution.
Trump: –as Americans. And together we’re going to be standing strong and tall for many, many years to come. I really do appreciate this incredible turn out.
Me: Because it literally always comes down to crowd size for this narcissistic ass with his dinky wee-wee.
Trump: I want to express my tremendous gratitude to each and every one of the proud citizens here today. You are the backbone of our movement, and you are the backbone of our country. You know that.
Crowd cheers, shouts, “Yes!”
Trump: I just heard him, he made a wonderful speech, Ted Cruz, senator, where are you? Thank you very much. Ted, thank you very much. Great job. Governor Kristi Noem is here, Kristi, thank you. Kristi. Doing a fantastic job in North Carolina there’s a hot politician, he’s a hot politician Lt. Governor Mark Robinson, I don’t know where you are, Mark. [Looks back and forth] I don’t know where Mark is, but he is fantastic; we just had a very good day, as you know, in North Carolina.
Me: Except for the loss of that other up-and-comer you backed, Madison Cawthorn…
Trump: As we gather this week, citizens across this state and across this nation are filled with grief in the wake of the heinous massacre of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.
Me: Oh, look. It only took him three+ minutes to get to the tragedy. And his tone says, “I don’t really care, do u?” But I gotta read this crap off my teleprompter, so here we are…
They obviously phonetically spelled out Uvalde for him, as he carefully pronounced all three syllables.
Trump: You know all about that, and what a horrible, horrible thing it was to see it, to watch it, to hear about it. The terrible murder of nineteen innocent children and two adult teachers, with many badly injured, was a savage and barbaric atrocity that shocks the conscience of every single American. So horrible.
Me: But it’s not like our shock and outrage will cause us to finally do anything to reduce such tragedies. Nope. We’ll express a little feigned grief and then move on.
He could literally be talking about the bad economy right now, if you were just listening to his tone of voice. He’s reading words off a teleprompter; there’s no feeling beneath any of it.
This isn’t surprising, as he was always this way. It just is jarring seeing it play out again.
Also, whoever wrote this speech for him sure did put their Thesaurus to good use! Way to show off those adjectives, guys!
Trump: I wanna ask for a brief moment of silence as I read the names of these beautiful people, all young, wonderful lives ahead of them. Their brave teachers whose lives were destroyed by an out-of-control lunatic. So we’ll start…
Me: He reads the list slowly, with a recorded bell tolling after each one. It’s tedious, and the least silent “moment of silence” I’ve ever seen. Only Trump would think that him making a moment of silence about himself would be a terrific idea…
Trump: And thank you very much, it’s a beautiful moment of silence for something that should never have even been thought about, let alone happened.
Me: Maybe that’s the trouble here. Maybe republicans just don’t spend any time thinking about this happening, and so it somehow surprises them every time it does. Or, maybe that’s being too charitable, and they simply don’t give a crap, as long as it happens to some other parent’s child.
Trump: Each precious, young soul that was taken is an incomprehensible loss, literally not comprehensible.
Me: Thanks. We didn’t know what “incomprehensible” means.
Trump: Stolen from us by a malice that no words can describe. Sickness. The monster who committed this crime is pure evil, pure cruelty, pule [yes, he said it that way] hatred, absolute pure hatred. And while those he’s slaughtered are now with God in heaven, he will be eternally damned, to burn in the fires of Hell.
Crowd cheers.
Me: The crowd cheering here seems wildly inappropriate, but somehow sadly fitting.
Trump: As we mourn for so many beautiful victims, I know that everyone here joins me in praying for the families who are suddenly missing the brightest light in their lives.
Me: Yes, the infamous, empty “thoughts and prayers” makes an appearance. Of course.
Trump: We see their agony–
Me: But we really don’t care, because we’re not going to do anything to prevent any more families from suffering through this same tragedy.
Trump: We ask God to ease their suffering and to heal their pain. And together we grieve, side by side, as one great, American family.
Me: I’m sure Tucker Carlson and Will Cain are loving this speech, as it’s everything (and only) what they said Biden’s speech should’ve been. All the meaningless trappings, without any compassion, and without any desire to change this so it doesn’t happen again. Perfect!
Trump: Now is the time to find common ground.
Me: Um, really? What common ground would that be? Something tells me we’re about to hear an attack on the left…
Trump: Sadly, before the sun had even set on the horrible day of tragedy, we witnessed, a now familiar parade of cynical politicians, seeking to exploit the tears of sobbing families to increase their own power and take away our Constitutional rights, every time a disturbed or demented person commits such a hideous crime, there’s always a grotesque effort by some in our society to use the suffering of others to advance their own extreme political agenda.
Me: Okay, I’m not going to mention how many expletives I threw while listening to this bullshit. But I’m sure neither Tucker Carlson, nor Will Cain, nor anyone else on the right will complain how Trump went from mouthing all the expected platitudes to attacking the other side. No one on the right will scold him for his tone or “divisiveness,” because it’s always different when one of their own breaks the rules.
He goes from saying “Oh, we need to be one great, American family,” to immediately attacking the other side. You know, the side that actually cares that 19 children were killed in their classroom. We’d like to see this end, dammit. We’re tired of having to grieve with families as they bury their children. This only seems to happen in America. We’re fucking exceptional at allowing children to be killed by guns. That’s now the #1 cause of death among children. Think about that. #1.
And what is the primary concern of the “2nd Amendment advocates” in this moment? What do THEY put ahead of the suffering they claim to care so much about? Oh, right. Their precious guns.
Most of Ameica isn’t saying “We want to take all the guns.” What we’re saying is, “For God’s sake, can’t you agree this is awful and we have to take meaningful action to stop this? Can’t you for once put someone else and their rights before you own? Because didn’t those children have a right to grow up? Can’t you work together with the other side to enact some commonsense gun laws?
What the hell is wrong with you that you don’t give a shit about that?
For crying out loud, the republicans won’t even do anything about mental health–you know, the reason they claim is at the heart of this. If you won’t even do anything to try to prevent guns from falling into the hands of mentally sick people and you won’t do anything to treat people before they reach the point where they’re going to massacre others, how can you even claim to care about that issue?
Get off your fucking asses and do SOMETHING!
Start talking to the other side and work on solutions, instead of circling your wagons once again. It’s time to prove you shits are really pro-life.
Okay… sigh I’m stepping down off my soapbox so that Trump can continue to attack the other side…
Trump: Even more repulsive–
Me: Because he hasn’t been repulsive enough yet…
Trump: –is their rush to shift blame away from the villains who commit acts of mass violence and to place that blame onto the shoulders of millions of peaceful, law-abiding citizens who belong to organizations such as our wonderful NRA.
Me: Getting enraged again here. Most people aren’t shifting blame from the shooter to members of the NRA. BUT, we are pretty pissed with an organization that’s been buying the loyalty of politicians for years, as well as the whoring politicians who take it. Because the NRA and those politicians put their agenda before the lives of our nation’s citizens. It’s the NRA and their bought politicians who refuse to work with the other side for meaningful solutions.
That needs to be called out.
Trump: When Joe Biden blamed the gun lobby–
Me: You mean the gun lobby which literally refuses to allow their pet republicans to support even commonsense gun laws, like universal background checks? Guess what? They DESERVE to be blamed! Shame on them! Shame on them for putting sales of weapons ahead of the lives of children!
If you want to know what these “wonderful” organizations and gun lobbies do to anyone who crosses them, read this.
Cole Wist was a Republican state House member in Colorado with an A grade from the NRA. Then, in 2018, he supported a red flag law, sponsoring a bill to allow guns to be taken away — temporarily — from people who pose an immediate threat to themselves or others.
Wist lost his seat in the legislature that year in the face of an intense backlash from Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, a gun rights organization in Colorado that boasts it accepts “no compromise” as it battles “the gun grabbers.” The group campaigned against him, distributing flyers and referring to him on social media as “Cole the Mole.”
Wist, an attorney, doesn’t regret trying to enact what he considered a measured response to an epidemic of gun violence in the United States. He acted after a mentally ill man in his Denver suburb killed a sheriff’s deputy. The bill didn’t pass until after Wist was out of office and his successor, Tom Sullivan, shepherded it through. Sullivan is a Democrat who lost his son in the Aurora theater massacre.
A Republican Tried to Introduce a Commonsense Gun Law. Then the Gun Lobby Got Involved., ProPublica, May 27, 2022
“No compromises.”
Yes, because, God forbid we move one inch from where we currently are when it comes to guns in America. God forbid we try to–even temporarily–remove guns from someone a doctor says might be a danger to himself or others.
They will not allow any compromise. Anyone who even wants commonsense gun laws enacted is a “gun grabber” and must be politically destroyed.
These gun lobbies are toxic and part of the root cause of our problem. But we’re not allowed to say that, because it’s “divisive.”
Trump: –he was talking about Americans like you. And along with countless other democrats this week, he was shamefully suggesting that republicans are somehow okay with letting school shootings happen. They’re not okay with it.
Me: Really? Because your actions and words prove you are okay with it. Oh, yes, you’ll send out a tweet or video yourself sending your “thoughts and prayers” and tell us how you’re “heartbroken and horrified.” But not enough to do anything to stop this. So fuck off with your condolensces.
Trump: This rhetoric is highly divisive and dangerous–
Me: Really? It’s dangerous to lay some blame at the feet of the gun lobbies which refuse to allow their pet politicians to enact commonsense gun laws? Really?
Fuck you.
Yes, I can’t hold my tongue any longer, sorry, not sorry.
Trump: Most importantly, it’s wrong and has no place in our politics.
Me: Says the guy who’s still claiming they stole the election from him a year-and-a-half later. While providing no evidence of this claim.
Trump: As always in the wake of these tragedies, the various gun control policies being pushed–
Me: Yeah, how terrible of us…
Trump: –by the left would have done nothing to prevent the horror that took place.
Me: Yeah, because America is somehow different than every other country on the planet, which don’t seem to have this problem that we have. I’m not saying it never happens in other countries, but it’s extremely rare. Why is that? Why are they spared and we aren’t? They have mentally sick people, too. They have fatherless children. They have waning church attendance, too. And, yet, somehow, they don’t have people killing people in theatres, schools, churches, and grocery stores. Maybe we should look at why that is… What could it be?
Trump: Absolutely nothing. Unfortunately, ever since Columbine, we’ve been inflicted by a contagion of school shootings that have been carried out by deeply evil, violent and mentally disturbed young men. Well we don’t yet know enough about this week’s killing, we know there are many things we must do.
Me: Let me guess: Harden the schools. Limit the doors. Mental illness!
Does that about cover it? Let’s see.
Trump: We need to drastically change our approach to mental health.
Me: Told ya. Not that they’ll actually fund treatment or anything. And not that they’ll pass laws to ensure the mentally ill can’t purchase or own guns. But, hey! We’ll shout “Mental illness!” and that will fix the problem!
Trump: There are always so many warning signs almost all of these disfigured minds share the same profile. When people see something, whether on social media or in school, they need to say something. Teachers, parents, school officials, and community members need to be recognizing and addressing these alarm bells promptly and very, very aggressively.
Me: That often happens now. And then what? The police can’t do anything, because no crime was committed. The healthcare system can’t do anything, because there’s no indication this person is dangerous. We need to fix this. What’s their plan? What will the GOP do to actually address this part of the problem? Oh, right. Nothing. Same as usual.
Trump: And our school discipline systems, instead of making excuses and continually turning a blind eye, need to confront bad behavior head-on and quickly.
Applause [color me not surprised that this crowd, yet again, gets off on the idea of punishment…]
Trump: And, clearly, we need to make it far easier to confine the violent and mentally deranged into mental institutions.
Me: That republicans will refuse to fund with taxpayer dollars.
Trump: We have also, very importantly, got to deal with the problem of broken families, because no law can cure the effects of a broken home. There is no substitute for a strong mom and a great dad.
Applause
Me: So how do we do this? This sounds great, but it’s the same damn chorus the right has been shilling since Columbine. And I have yet to hear any substantive suggestion about how we accomplish this. It’s just a meaningless talking point. Tick it off the list and move on to the next one.
Trump: But while we work to address these deep, complicated issues and deal with this scourge, all of us must unite–republican and democrat–in every state and at every level of government to finally harden our schools and protect our children.
Applause
Me: So, as usual, meaningless talking points with no real solutions behind them. No gun control laws at all. Same old, same old.
Trump: What we need now is a top-to-bottom security overhaul at schools all across our country.
Applause
Trump: Every building should have a single point of entry.
Me: Doors. They really think doors are the problem. Fire marshalls around the country just collectively slapped their foreheads.
Trump: There should be strong, exterior fences–
Me: As opposed to strong, interior fences? Why stop with fences? Why not “Build A Wall!”
Trump: –metal detectors, and the use of new technology to make sure that no unauthorized individual can ever enter the school with a weapon.
Applause
Me: Unless Charlie, the Cowardly School Guard hides and let’s them in anyway…
Trump: No one should ever be able to get anywhere near a classroom until they have been checked, scanned, screened, and fully approved.
Applause
Me: You know what the RW calls this when it happens at airports? Security theater. And they will do the same as soon as the scanners go up at the schools.
Trump: So important. In addition, classroom doors should be hardened to make them lockable from the inside and closed to intruders from the outside. And above all, from this day forward, every school in America should have a police officer or an armed resource officer on duty at all times.
Applause
Me: Generally speaking, they already do. Robb Elementary had one. He failed.
Trump: Moreover, at every police department in America we need a rigorous training on active shooter protocols to immediately locate and eliminate the target.
Applause
Me: Lot of good that does when they spend 75 minutes waiting outside the classroom door before they enter.
Trump: Took too long.
Applause
Me: Not because they didn’t know where the shooter was. They took too long because they were cowards.
Trump: And we need to expand funding, recruiting, and training for police departments nationwide. This is not a matter of money, this is a matter of will. If the United States has $40–
Me: He’s not going to go there, is he?
Trump: –billion—
Me: Yes, he is, with this tired talking point. Made all the more ironic because of the mouth it’s coming from. You know, the guy who tried to withhold aid Congress had already voted to send to Ukraine, all in an attempt to blackmail President Zelenskyy to lie to help him defeat his opponent.
Fuck him and the little donkey he rode in on…
Trump: –to send to Ukraine, we should be able to do whatever it takes to keep our children safe at home.
Thunderous applause.
Me: To quote President Zelenskyy, “This is a tragedy,” he said on Friday. “And we are living in those terrible times when American people express their condolences because of the death of the Ukrainians at war and we express our condolences because of deaths in peace. Accept my condolences, please.”
We shouldn’t have to shut our children into prison-schools in order to keep them safe from killers. Other countries don’t have to do this. The same people who thought having their children wear a mask to school was traumatizing don’t have a problem with children being put in school-prison? What the actual hell is wrong with them?
Trump: Thank you. Seriously! It’s true. We spent trillions in Iraq. Trillions in Afghanistan. We got nothing.
Me: Not even any oil!
Trump: Before we nation-build the rest of the world, we should be building safe schools for our own children in our own nation.
Me: America, first, last, and always, ammirite? Fuck this shit.
Trump: Right?
Applause
Me: One good thing about all these interruptions for applause: it means there’s less speech to listen to. I’m literally counting down the seconds until this torture ends. I’ve only been at this three hours so far…
Trump: Last year alone, Biden and congressional democrats sent $122 billion in so-called Covid relief funds to K-12 schools, even while they were keeping many of our schools totally shut down. No doubt severely worsening the mental health challenge of many youth. I mean, many of these young people really suffered very greatly and became very ill, they may have been ill to start, but they became very, very ill.
Me: Come on. You can blame Fauci more obviously than that!
Trump: Congress should vote immediately to take back every penny of unused Covid relief money. Take it back from the states and use that money to quickly establish impentrable security at every school across our land.
Applause
Trump: As many have noted, inner city schools rarely have these kinds of mass shootings, I didn’t know that until just recently. Think of that. They rarely have this kind of problem, despite being located in very tough neighborhoods, in many cases where there’s tremendous levels of high crime and violence. They’re much more dangerous outside the school than inside. The reason is that for decades, inner city schools have had much stronger security measures in place in the school itself. Including metal detectors, and yes, armed guards. They had guns!
Me: We have those measures elsewhere. It hasn’t helped. Maybe there’s another reason why inner city kids don’t generally shoot up schools.
Trump: Armed guards.
Tepid applause
Trump: Whatever our differences may be on other issues, what on earth is stopping democrats from immediately passing measures to ramp up school security.
Tepid applause
Trump: How many more tragedies will it take until they agree to set aside their far left political agenda and do what is really needed and what actually works.
Me: Hey, here’s a compromise: if y’all will vote to enact some commonsense gun laws, we’ll let you spend some more money on school security.
Trump: This is not about virtue-cycling [yes, he said it that way] and signing, this is about blaming your enemies. No, we don’t want to do that.
Me: He’s literally spent the last six minutes, at least, of this speech blaming the right’s political enemies. Fuck off, douchebag.
Trump: This is about saving our childrens’ lives. Yes, that’s what we want to do. Surely we can all agree our schools should not be the softest target, our schools should be the single hardest target in our country.
Tepid applause
Me: Harder than the Capitol and the White House?
What about grocery stores? Should we be hardening them, as well? Houses of worship? Movie theaters? College campuses? I mean, where does this end? But, boy, will the gun companies clean up supplying all these hardened targets.
Trump: And that’s why as part of a comprehensive school safety plan, it’s time to finally allow highly trained teachers to safely and discreetly concealed carry. Let them concealed carry.
Wild applause.
Trump: And again, they have to be able to handle it, they have to be highly trained, all of those things, but let them do that. It would be so much better and so much more effective, even from a cost standpoint. Because there is no sign more inviting to a mass killer than a sign that declares a gun-free zone. Most dangerous place.
Tepid applause
Trump: I know it sounds good, and it really does, doesn’t it sound wonderful? But it’s not. And statiscally, it’s a total disaster. Gun-free zone, look at that sign, and they say, “That’s where I’m going.” We cannot have that because if somebody goes into that building, all of those innocent people will be taken out, will be killed, will be tortured–
Me: Um, clearly he’s veered way off the written speech. Maybe the teleprompter is on the fritz.
Trump: Bad things will happen; have to get rid of it. As the age-old saying goes, “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun!” Have you ever heard that? No, you’ve never heard that!
Wild applause
Trump: And in the absence of a member of law enforcement, there is no one you would rather have nearby when a crisis strikes than an armed, expertly trained member of the NRA.
Me: Yeah, no…
Trump: True.
Applause
Trump: Let’s not pretend those on the left are just talking about limiting one class of gun or one category of ammunition–
Me: I see we’ve reached the outrageous fearmongering part of the speech…
Trump: –you know they’re not doing that. We all know they want total gun confiscation. You know that. This would be a first step. Once they get the first step, they’ll take the second step, the third, the fourth, and then you’ll have a whole different look at the second amendment, which is, by the way, totally under siege.
Me: Um… only in your minds.
Trump: But we stopped it for four years, and you’ve gotta stop it. Gotta stop it.
Applause
Me: Yeah, like commonsense laws to keep guns out of the hands of those who are dangerously mentally ill.
He did that less than two months into his presidency.
Trump: But even if every decent and honest American gave up their guns, criminals would never give up theirs, and they never will. They’re never gonna give up theirs. They would wreak havoc like never before on our country. The fact is, there will always be sick and demonic souls who wish to harm the innocent and see malice triumph over good. Gonna have that. But the existence of evil in our world is not a reason to disarm law-abiding citizens, who know how to use their weapon and can protect a lot of people. The existence of evil is one of the very best reasons to arm law-abiding citizens.
Applause
Me: We’re about 35 minutes away from the end of this speech, so I’m going to only transcribe the highlights from here on out, okay? If you see Trump: followed by words, that’s a literal transcription. Anything else is a paraphrase.
But before we skip ahead, there’s a guy Jack Wilson onstage who used his gun to save people in his church on Christmas Eve, 2019. Trump invites him to say a few words. Jack says, “Thank you, Mr. President, and you’re still my president,” to wild applause.
Yeah, I’m really sick at this moment.
[Big snip here]
Trump: As law-and-order conservatives, we have no higher goal than to reduce violent crime by the greatest degree possible.
Me: Sure, Jan.
Trump: And there’s no mystery as to what’s required.
Me: More guns in people’s hands, amirite?
Trump goes Blah, blah, the democrats’ “defund the police” blah blah.
He talks about the high crime numbers last year. There’s a lot of R-controlled towns on the list of the 100 most dangerous cities in 2021.
(3:05:29) He’s basically arguing for federal policing, prosecuting, and jailing of local crimes. We could reduce violent crime by half, and it would take place almost immediately.
Me: I guess he’s got an anti-crime magic wand he can wave…
Trump: When they started knocking down statues in Washington DC and other locations, I watched this in amazement. Lincoln, Jefferson, Washington, knocking ’em down.
Me: All this happened in Portland. So, one other location…
(3:07:00) He then says it all stopped when he signed his EO regarding defacing federal monuments.
Me: So laws do work? Interesting…
(3:08:00) Trump: But if I ever do it, namely, run for president, I would no longer feel obligated to do it that way. [Allow democrats to run their own cities and states where this crime is happening.] I would crack down on violent crime, like never before. [Applause] Which is the way I would have liked to have done it the first time, but in a certain way, I’m glad I didn’t. The easiest, simplest, most straightforward thing we can do to save thousands of American lives from violence is to hire more police, arrest more violent criminals, give them speedy trials–
Me: Preferably show trials?
Trump: –and get them into jail. [Applause] And we’ve now seen what the democrats do when they’re left to run the cities. So now it has to be done right.
Me: Tiff pointed something out that I thought about but didn’t write down, so here we go: Trump here is saying if he’s re-elected, he’s going to do what he tried to do in 2020 when he sent federal officers without insignia to Portland to crack down on the violence. Of course, he’ll only do this in democrat cities and states, and he’ll only do this against leftist protesters. So, that should be terrific and great!
(3:09:30) Trump: You really wonder, do the democrats even care? Now, the radical left democrats are continuing to push to abolish cash bail, and to strip our police officers of their qualified immunity. Just this week the Biden administration announced new policies threatening to hold law enforcement officers liable, not only for their misconduct, but even for the misconduct of other officers, a totally destructive policy that will only make our communities less safe.
Me: Yeah, because why should we hold officers who engage in criminal activity accountable? Why should we hold them accountable when their actions cause harm or death to the citizens they serve and protect?
BTW, I had some chocolate, which is the only way I can endure this torture. Well, that and my very wide masochistic streak…
Trump: What officer is going to get involved if they think they can lose everything, their family, their pension, everything.
Me: Just to be clear, does that mean the officers who stood around Robb Elementary for 75 minutes doing nothing while the killer was shooting teachers and students in the face should not face any repercussions for their inaction? I’m just curious…
Trump: It’s crazy what’s going on. Not even thinkable. If democrats truly care about stopping the bloodshed in America, the Biden administration’s war on police must end and it must end right now.
Me: He has the most annoying, grating, hypnotically boring voice. Even the crowd seems bored at this point.
More blah, blah, blah “we will no longer defund the police, and we will no longer mention defunding of the police.” blah, blah, blah. More talk about the cities being war zones. “You’ll be so proud to be an American” when we bring down crime.
Me: I can already hear Lee Greenwood’s song in my head right now…
(3:11:35) Trump: Under a new Congress next year we should pass legislation strengthening qualified immunity for our police officers. We have to do that.
Me: That’s if you retake the House and Senate, which I kinda don’t see happening, douchebag.
Trump: Who would ever take a job without that? Think of it, who would ever take a job, you ruin your life, have one bad story, that may be made up, because a lot of the stories are made up. One bad, made up story, and your life is over.
Me: sigh
Trump: Our law enforcement do their duty to protect us, and we must do our duty to protect them. Have to do it. [Applause] Earlier this week, the law enforcement officer who stopped the Texas shooter’s rampage was reportedly a member of the group Joe Biden has most viciously betrayed and demonized, the heroes of border patrol. He was very brave. [Applause]
Me: When did Biden demonize the border patrol? When did that happen?
Trump: Every day our amazing border patrol agents and ICE officers are risking their lives to keep our communities safe. And when we regain control of Congress–we MUST do that, please remember that–[Applause] We can stop socialism and communism at one time, wouldn’t that be nice? [Applause] We will once again give these great patriots the authority, the resources, and the respect they need and dearly deserve.
Me: But only when they’re busting the heads of lefties. They’d better not touch any marauding trumpers!
(3:13:14) Trump: There can be no doubt that the crime crisis fueled in part by the Biden border crisis, numbers of people coming in, at levels nobody’s ever seen before. Probably that no country has ever seen before.
Me: Talk to Ukraine about how much of their population has fled during the past three months…
(3:13:27) Trump: When I left office, we handed the new administration the most secure, by far, border in the history of the United States.
Me: Sure, Jan.
Blah, blah, blah… He starts mentioning all his accomplishments at the border. Funny, there’s one really significant policy he left out. Can you guess which one?
He talks about Biden cancelling the “stay in Mexico” agreement, and somehow immediately starts talking about cancelling pipelines and gas prices.
Oh my God… when will this nightmare end?
20 more minutes….
(3:13:59) Claims gas has reached $9.25 in some places. Where?
Then five seconds later (I mean this literally), he’s talking about deporting gang members and we built nearly 500 miles of “great, beautiful new border wall.” Then he claims he added almost another 200 to that.
Blah, blah, blah. We gave them the best border ever, and they turned it into the worst border of all time.
eye roll
(3:15:00) Trump: It’s even reported that the Biden administration is considering putting UN bureaucrats in charge of your second amendment rights.
Me: He’s talking about the UN’s Arms Trade Treaty, which has to do with selling small arms “designed to keep guns out of war-stricken countries and prevent dangerous situations from descending even further into chaos.”
So unless you’re planning on going to some war-torn country and selling off your collection of guns, this probably isn’t going to impact you and your 2nd Amendment rights.
Now he’s lying his ass off. So, this must be a day ending in -y, right?
(3:15:56) He’s completely off script now and is just ad libbing. blah, blah, blah…
(3:16:50) Trump: I remember in the early weeks of the Biden administration, Biden said, “We’re not gonna stand for America First.” Now, you know, even if you didn’t agree with our policy, you can’t say that.
Me: This is probably not going to shock you, but Biden never said that.
He drones on, “It is a great name, America First.”
Me: Yeah, which you cribbed from the American Nazi movement, so… take that however you like.
“The only thing better would be ‘Ultra MAGA.'”
(3:17:31) Me: he’s now launching into a tale of how great America was just two years ago… You know, when Covid was ravaging our country. There was “no inflation, the war with Russia going into Ukraine would never, ever have happened.” Right. Because you would’ve held the door open for Vlad and told him to take whatever he wanted, as long as he left a few spoils for you, you fucking jackass.
Trump: I spoke to Putin about it; would’a never, ever happened.
Me: Yeah, because Putin would never lie to you, huh?
This speech is seriously off the rails at this point. There’s no semblance of any rhyme or reason here. He’s attacking “sleepy-eyed Chuck Todd of ‘Meet the Fake Press’. ‘Deface the Nation,’ those shows.” And now he’s into the rigged election at (3:18:54)
He’s back to talking about gasoline. “We were on the way to energy dominance. We were on the way to being bigger than Russia and Saudia Arabia combined, by a lot!”
Now he’s lying about Afghanistan and how he was doing it better. I can’t even. I still have 15 minutes left…
(3:19:58) Trump: I believe that was the lowest point in our country’s history. [The pullout in Afghanistan.]
Me: Lower than the Civil War, you blockhead?
(3:20:02) Trump: I was the one who got it down to 2000 soldiers.
Me: And that’s why the pullout was such a clusterfuck, you dumbass. Because of YOU.
Blah blah, blah, Space Force. (Don’t ask me what the transition there was. I’m refusing to rewind and listen again…) Biggest tax cuts in the history of our country (For the wealthy and corporations.), even “right to try, you know what that is?”
He’s now bragging about having received the earliest endorsement from the NRA of any candidate in history. Big fucking whoop.
Me: I’m just going to mention that whenever a republican bitches about how the democrats are politicizing mass shooting deaths, just remember, the GOP seeks out endorsements from the NRA. They tout such endorsements, as well as their NRA rating in their ads. THEY make this political by taking the NRA’s and gun lobby’s blood money.
Interstingly enough, he’s not mentioning any of the financial scandals the NRA are currently involved in. Funny, that…
(3:23:29) Me: Now he’s back on the election and having gotten 12 million more votes in 2020 than he got in 2016.
He’s still going on about how great he was and how he got “three great new Supreme Court justices.”
(3:24:38) Trump: I cancelled the Obama administration’s exploitation of Social Security data to deny Americans their gun rights without due process of law.
Me: Just a reminder, this is what he’s talking about. Allowing seriously mentally ill people to purchase and own guns. People who are a danger to themselves and others. Don’t let the GQP tell you they’re going to do something about our country’s mental health crisis, because they literally UNDID something that had been done to keep guns out of their hands.
Ten minutes left…
More blah, blah, blah about his accomplishments.
(3:25:59) Trump: Everyone here today is united by one powerful bond: we’re all citizens of the United States of America, the greatest country in the history of the world. But we’re not, we’re not so great anymore. We’re gonna make it great. We’re gonna make it greater than ever again. Greater than ever again. Right now, right now we’re not respected by other parts of the world, leaders of the world. We’re not respected. We’ve never been in a position like this. And I think it started with the border. I actually really think it started more with the horrible surrender that we had in Afghanistan.
Me: You mean the surrender you negotiated with the Taliban? That surrender that you bragged about having reached and how you fixed it so that Biden wouldn’t be able to get out of it? That surrender?
He then says the failure in Afghanistan is what convinced Putin to invade Ukraine.
Jeeze, just shoot me now. There’s still seven minutes left…
(3:27:54) Trump: We have the right to very, very strong borders. I used to say “Without borders we don’t have a country.” Now I say, “Without borders and proper elections, we don’t have a country.”
Me: He’s going on about our rights.
(3:28:20) Trump: As our Bill of Rights says in those clear and immortal words, “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. [Applause] In times of hardship, crisis and turmoil, these core American freedoms have always been attacked by those who wish to turn citizens into subjects. Take more power for themselves. But, thankfully, our nation has always been blessed with Americans like you, you’re incredible Americans, in this room. Patriots who know that our rights are given up if we let somebody do the wrong thing. It’s very simple, it’s very precious. But we live by the hand of Almighty God and that no government can ever be taken away from us.
Me: Whut? Yes, that’s what he said.
Blah, blah, blah NRA… “people show me their [NRA] card”… “led by Ulysseus [Yes, that’s how he said it] S. Grant”…
(3:30:32) Trump: Down throughout history, time and time again, hardworking citizens have answered the call to save American freedom. And now, together, we are going to save American freedom once again. We have no choice, we’re gonna have to do it again. Because right now we don’t have American freedom. We are going to preserve our heritage, we are going to defend our rights, we are going to protect our communities, protect our schools, and protect our precious children.
Me: except not, really. And, btw, we all know what “preserve our heritage” is code for…
Trump: We are going to secure our liberties for ourselves and every future generation. In 2022 we are going to vote for tough on crime, pro-2nd amendment candidates in record numbers–get out and vote. Make sure the voting’s honest, by the way. [Tepid applause] Together, we’re going to take back the House, we’re going to take back the Senate, and in 2024, we are going to take back that great and beautiful White House that we love and cherish so much. [Applause]
(3:32:00) Trump: And then we’re going to make America safer, freer, richer, stronger, prouder, and greater than ever before.
Me: The End. Laughing maniacally… you didn’t think I could stick it out, did you? I fooled you! You don’t know what kind of masochist you’re dealing with!
And it only took me nine flipping hours.
If you read all that, give yourself a cookie, and give me one, too, down in the comments. This is an open thread, so feel free to discuss anything you like. And remember, my Blender friends, “Stay snarky! Because it’s the only damned way you’ll get through 54 minutes of torture!” LMAO