Sunday School 11/18/18 (pt 2)

In part one of the president's guest lecture facilitated by Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday, the president was just getting warmed up, talking about how fabulous things are at the White House, and about the Mueller investigation, among other things.

Let's pick up after that, when the president talked about the horrific murder of WaPo journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of Saudi killers. Trump said he has not listened to the tape that we received from the Turkish government. There's no reason, he said, because it's a 'suffering' tape and he's been fully briefed.

Asked about his conversations with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, and whether MBS lied to him Trump's answer was, well, honestly, coming from a deal maker and an incredibly proficient liar himself, seemed pretty weak.

I don't -- I don't know. You know, who can really know? But I can say this, he's got many people now that say he had no knowledge..

Yes, he told me that he had nothing to do with it, he told me that -- I would say maybe five times at different points... as recently as a few days ago.

Wallace asked if Trump just lives with it because he needs MBS.

Well, will anybody really know? All right, will anybody really know? But he did have certainly people that were reasonable close to him and close to him that were probably involved. You saw me put on very heavy sanctions, massive sanctions on a large group of people from Saudi Arabia. But at the same time we do have an ally and I want to stick with an ally that in many ways has been very good.

Not, apparently, allies like the ones we have in Europe or North America, because those, we've been told, have been very bad, and Trump insults them and threatens them almost daily.

On the loss of 35-40 seats in the house, and Trump's reaction the day after the election that it was "almost a complete victory," Wallace was trying to get his questions answered and Trump wasn't having it.

I won the Senate, you don't mention that...

Excuse me - I won the Senate - I think they said 88 years...

Are you ready? I won the Senate and that's historic too because if you look at presidents in the White House, it's almost never happened where you wont a seat. We won -- we now have 53 as opposed to 51 and we have 53 great Senators in the US Senate. We won. That's a tremendous victory. Nobody talks about that. That's a far greater victory that it is for the other side. Number two, I wasn't on the ballot. I wasn't  - No, I said, look at me --

But I had people and you see the polls how good they are, I had people that won't vote unless I'm on the ballot, OK?  And I wasn't on the ballot. And almost everybody that I won --I think they said it was 10 out of 11. And I won against President Obama and Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama in a great state called Georgia for the governor. And it was all stacked against Brian and I was the one that went for Brian and Brian won.

Look at Florida. I went down to Florida. Rick Scott won and he won by a lot. I don't know what happened to all those votes that disappeared at the very end. And if I didn't put a spotlight on that election before it got down to 12,500 votes, he would have lost that election, OK? In my opinion he would have lost. They would have taken that election away from him. Rick Scott won Florida... 

He continued, mentioning Ron DeSantis (Florida Governor), "a wonderful man named DeWine" (Ohio governor). And then

I didn't run. I wasn't running. My name wasn't on the ballot. There are many people that think I don't like Congress, that like me a lot. I get it all the time, "Sir, I will never vote unless you were on the ballot". I get it all the time. People are saying "Sir, I will never vote unless you're on the ballot." I say "No, no, go and vote". "Well, what do you mean?" as much as I try and convince people to go vote, I'm not on the ballot.

Except we all saw the clips a vote for (her) is a vote for me, a vote for (him) is a vote for me, a vote for (everyone) is a vote for me, lather rinse repeat.

But what's especially important? Beating Barack Obama and Michelle Obama and Oprah in those Senate and gubernatorial races, and of course, pretending that losing the House was meaningless. Had he won the house and lost the Senate, you can be sure he would have been doing the same thing.

And all of those people who turned on him, the ones Wallace mentioned?

You lost in traditionally Republican suburbs, not only around liberal cities like Philadelphia and DC but also red-state big cities like Houston and Oklahoma City. You lost among suburban women. You lost among independents, and in three key states that I think you remember pretty well - Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan - you lost both governor seats and the Senate seats.

They don't matter either, I guess, because he beat Obama.

See you around campus.