Sunday School 10/18/20

Folks, tonight I have for you an interview with Lara Trump who, along with Kimberly "The Best is Yet to COME!!!" Guilfoyle, is one of the $15,000-per-month hidden campaign payroll women who are close to Trump sons. 

Lara, who is Eric Trump's wife, sat down with Jake Tapper on CNN's State of the Union for a fascinating exercise in classroom futility. It started, as Tapper's recent sessions have, with his lament at the lack of availability of anyone - literally anyone - from the White House to talk about important things, or should I say, things related to the coronavirus. 

Tapper asked her about the president's rally the other day when Mr. Trump suggested that we "lock them all up" as the crowd chanted to lock up Michigan's Gretchen Whitmer. And what did Mrs. Trump think about all of that? Well, she said, "it was the president's Department of Justice that actually thwarted" the plot against Whitmer, and that in Michigan, she thinks people "still feel like they are totally locked down" and "want to get back to some normalcy."

When Tapper pointed out that policy disagreements are one thing, but this kind of rhetoric is unhelpful, and maybe "the president should tone it down when talking about people about home there have literally been threats against their lives," Trump said she can show him her own social media and threats against her and her children, and that "this is not just on one side..." Tapper said threats against her are detestable, but pointed out that Joe Biden isn't encouraging this kind of thing - and if he were, Tapper would be calling on Biden to tone it down as well. 

Seeing that her argument wasn't going anywhere, she turned to a different tactic.

Well, look, this is - he wasn't doing anything, I don't think, to provoke people to threaten this woman at all. He was having fun at a Trump rally... There are issues at hand here that are bigger than just keeping everybody locked down. So I think people are frustrated. And look, the president was at a rally. It's a fun, light atmosphere. Of course he wasn't encouraging people to threaten this woman. That's ridiculous.

That's one word for it, I guess. 

Tapper moved on to Trump's problem with women, like the ones in a video he shared who have concerns about how the president has handled the pandemic, and asked how she would respond to them. She hit all the required talking points, including slamming Biden on his "lucrative" connections to China, and added "we have therapeutics that the president, the president himself, has proven by using them and coming over COVID. He's done with COVID now, and they work." And, she added, "the president has done, actually, an incredible job, Jake, with the coronavirus."

Tapper tried to explain the numbers, including the highest death rate in the world. She said that "we're coming out of it, we're seeing the death rate decrease dramatically." And, 

We also have a huge population. Whenever you want to compare us to Canada, compare us to Europe. We're doing actually much better than Europe is... not only with the virus, but financially. We are. These are numbers. You can go look them up. 

"Look them up! Look them up!! Look them up!" Look up those pesky facts, if you want to. Perhaps she should?

And when she said "Joe Biden, with the socialist policies he's trying to implement, would actually ruin America," Tapper gave up and tried to shift to "some questions where we can get direct answers."

• "I assume the answer is yes," that the president tested negative before the first debate, but she wasn't there and didn't know for sure.
• "Again, I -- I don't work in the White House. You will have to ask the president that directly (whether he'll release a negative test for everyone to see before Thursday's debate). He just had COVID. He has now been cleared of COVID, so that means he's had a negative test. I'm sure he will have another one before he goes to this debate."
• "If we're asked to wear masks, we will absolutely do so" at the debate."
• "We know that people get out of the White House and they get very lucrative book offers. They get speaking engagements, where paid a lot of money, Jake, to go out and say very negative things about this president," regarding comments from General John Kelly.

Tapper moved on to comments she and the president had made about Joe Biden's stutter (here's my Sidebar on that), and asked her how it makes kids with stutters feel when she makes fun of people like them.

LT: First and foremost, I had no idea that Joe Biden ever suffered from stutter. I think what we see on stage with Joe Biden, Jake, is very clearly a cognitive decline. That's what I'm referring to. It makes me uncomfortable to watch someone on stage search for questions and  try and figure out an answer.

JT: You have no - you have - I can't -  it's so amazing - it's amazing to me that... "a cognitive decline." You...

LT: Well, when you're trying to tell me that what I was suggesting was stuttering... 

JT: I think that you were mocking his stutter.

LT:  ...I had no idea Joe Biden...

JT: Yes, I think you were mocking his stuffer.

LT: Of course I wasn't, Jake. Wow. 

JT; And I think you have absolutely no standing to diagnose somebody's cognitive decline, especially...

LT: I'm not diagnosing, I'm saying that we see the Joe Biden of today is not the Joe Biden of five years ago, of ten years ago.

JT: I would think that somebody in the Trump family would be more sensitive to people who do not have medical licenses diagnosing politicians from afar. Plenty of people have diagnosed (the president) from afar. I'm sure it offends you. You don't have any standing to say...

LT: I'm not diagnosing him.  What I'm saying, Jake...

JT: You just talked about a cognitive decline.

LT: ...is that we can clearly see that Joe Biden is struggling...

JT: I have one last question for your, Lara. You campaigned...

LT:  ... at many times on stage. And that's very concerning to a lot of people that this could be the leader of the free world. That's all I'm saying.

JT:  Thank you, Lara Trump.

LT.  I genuinely feel sorry for Joe Biden.

JT. I appreciate it.  I'm sure it was from a place of concern. We all -- we all believe that. Lara Trump, thank you so much.

And that was the end of their chat. 

Let me know your thoughts in the comments. Do you think Lara Trump is concerned about Joe Biden? Or do you think she's being a Trump and making the kind of comments her husband, brother-in-law, and father-in-law are known for? And how would we know for sure? Drop a comment, if you like.

See you around the virtual campus - masks on, of course.