You stood there in front of a packed audience and you stammered and stuttered and held your hands in a palsied fashion. The “what” of what you said is beside the point. You could have tried to refute his article by simply addressing the facts. Instead you chose to mock, not his words, but his disability.
It was foul. It was evil. It was mean. And it was not remotely presidential.
And your response is to deny it and try to trash Meryl Streep in the process.
How in the name of all that’s holy is anyone supposed to believe anything you say when you deny that you did things WE ALL SAW? When you stand there in less than two weeks and claim that you are going to defend the constitution–a document I would wager you have never read and know nothing of its contents–why are we supposed to think that you mean it?
This goes beyond the fact that you are (at least now) a Republican. This goes to the core of the man you are. A man stands up for what he believes and a man takes responsibility for what he does. You do neither. We do not know what you believe because it changes depending on who you talk to. We do know you refuse to own up to the things you say.
You are seventy years old and remain a cypher, and that makes you possibly the most dangerous individual ever to have high office.
For God’s sake: Grow the hëll up.
PAD
• 
And what have you done, Mr. Writer of Stuff? Failed novelist, loser! (Just channeling what the Trumpster would post if he knew about this post. I personally think he’s a clod who reminds me of the college student who should be studying for finals but instead decides to take a three-hour study break.)
Pre-empting the actual vengeance-tweet, you hope?
*looks further down the page…*
The Trump supporter side of this seems to be to link to a video where Trump is criticizing Ted Cruz. In that video he does an abbreviated version of the same mocking gesture. Therefore the talking point is just “that’s how Trump mocks people” as if somehow that makes things ok.
It’s honestly ridiculous we’ve gotten to this point. The man is a terrible human being. It’s a shame that politics have devolved to this.
It’s worse than that, he got elected the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!
If that’s not proof America has failed miserably, I don’t know what else it takes…
I have been blissfully out of touch as I’ve not read of the most recent horror out of Trump. His response to criticism seem like a classic example of gaslighting.
Also, while I agree that we in the U.S. need a President who will own up to the things he says, that is NEVER going to happen with Trump. He is a narcissist and nothing is EVER a narcissist’s fault. The rest of us are just actors in the TV show that they’re scripting in the their head and if we don’t perform the way they want, it’s because we are doing it wrong.
10 seconds after Meryl’s speech, I ask my wife “How long till Trump tweets a response.” The answer was first thing in the wee hours of the morning less than 8 hours later, and immediately after giving Rupert Murdoch a backhanded compliment.
PAD,
Have you seen this video from Keith Olbermann?
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/keith-olbermann-trump-supporters_us_586f0eede4b02b5f858825ca
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He points out something that should be obvious to just about everyone– Trump is “not well.”
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Trump’s mocking of the reporter is just one example of that.
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Olbermann also points out that it’ll fall to Republicans to remove him, either under the 25th Amendment or by impeachment. I’d forgotten about the 25 Amendment. I think it’s slightly more likely that he’ll be removed under that document than articles of impeachment because Trump’s behaving like an immature child in mocking that reporter (and in other immature behavior) shows that he most definitely is not well.
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Rick.
Since seeing two or three earlier Olbermann/Resistance/GQ videos, I’ve been avoiding the rest. For fear that I’ll fall right down the Lovecraft Syndrome hole.
Trump not only mocked that reporter, but he’s been mocking him for over ten years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8JqT2atxD8
It took that long for Trump, using that style of mockery, to finally find someone who was disabled in such a way that it struck home.
That wasn’t targeted at the reporter’s disability; it’s just how Trump makes fun of people. It’s just in this case, it hit a little close to home — like the time Joe Biden singled out a Missouri state senator to “stand up” for recognition — then was told that Chuck was in a wheelchair.
Here’s the full story of that incident:
Trump said he remembered seeing reports of large groups of Muslims celebrating on 9/11. The media went after him for that comment, and the Washington Post even wrote a detailed article lambasting that statement.
Then the Trump campaign came up with an article from the September 18, 2001 Washington Post by Serge Kovaleski that reported exactly what Trump said. Kovaleski was asked about that article, and he said he didn’t remember writing that.
So Trump made fun of Kovaleski’s selective memory, using his standard “duuuh, I don’t remember” and flailing hand gestures.
It turns out that Kovaleski has a disabled right hand. However, it doesn’t have spasms; on the contrary, its movement is very, very restricted. He couldn’t flail that hand around if he wanted to.
https://www.catholics4trump.com/the-true-story-donald-trump-did-not-mock-a-reporters-disability/
Yes, Trump’s a jerk. He’s a jerk in a lot of ways. For some reason, though, Trump haters can’t seem to find enough real ways to call him a jerk; they need to just make up crap about him.
Who had Jay Tea as the first apologist to reply?
Everybody?
I can’t wait for Jay to regale us with all the positive things our new puppetmaster, Comrade Putin.
Yeah, why bother to refute what I say when you can instead go for personal insults?
If I were to say that Todd McFarlane or John Byrne were jerks, I doubt our host would disagree with me. But if I were to say that McFarlane was a jerk because he tried to get PAD fired from Hulk and Byrne was a jerk because he hit on PAD’s wife, I’d expect for PAD to correct me on the details.
Trump’s a jerk. No argument there. And yes, he was making fun of the reporter (justifiably, in my opinion). But he wasn’t making fun of the reporter’s disability.
Yes, Jay, but you’re arguing he’s too oafish to realize what a áššhølë thing he did.
THAT still earns him condemnation in my book.
roger, the reporter’s disability does not involve flailing. In fact, it involves the opposite of flailing.
The reporter also said he didn’t remember writing what he wrote and Trump remembered reading.
The original story was “Trump made up the story about Muslims in New Jersey celebrating 9/11.” When Trump’s people came up with the Washington Post reporting Muslims in New Jersey celebrating 9/11, they had to trot out the reporter to say he didn’t remember what he had written.
So Trump makes fun of the guy denying his own article, and it turns out the guy’s handicapped, so now the story is “Trump makes fun of handicapped reporter.”
Never mind that Trump uses the exact same style of mockery of two other peole in the same speech, and the reporter’s disability is the exact opposite of Trump’s style of mockery (which he’s used for years), the story is “Trump’s bad,” so it’s cool to just make crap up about him.
Usually, I find PAD’s fiction entertaining. I guess because this isn’t his, but just some crap he’s repeating, that I find it lacking.
Jay Tea:
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That in his childish mugging Mr. Trump didn’t mock the the disabled reporter’s hand injury *correctly* is irrelevant — it’s that he mocked a disability AT ALL
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What president would stand at a podium and imitate “Frank Fontaine as Crazy Guggenheim” from The Jackie Gleason Show?
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Donald J. Trump is a schoolyard bully in an ill-fitting business suit. It’s no more complex than that, unless you wish to do the coin-flip of “narcissistic sociopath” or “sociopathic narcissist”.
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“What a maroon.” — Bugs Bunny
Yes, Trump’s a bully and a jerk. But, in a sense, proves he’s non-discriminatory — he’ll insult and mock anyone who attacks him.
Are you really ignorant of the whole story here? I’ll repeat it.
Trump was attacked by (among others) for saying he’d seen accounts of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the 9/11 attacks. It turns out that one place that reported that was the Washington Post. The reporter of that story, when asked about it, said he didn’t remember the story or the incidents he’d written about.
Then Trump, in a speech, mocked that reporter’s denial of his own words in the very same manner he’s always mocked people who backtrack and prevaricate — with the hand-flailing and “duh, I dunno” schtick.
In this case, the conveniently forgetful reporter happens to have a disability — one that, coincidentally, makes it physically impossible to make the gestures Trump made.
The YouTube video I linked to spells all this out. Trump didn’t single this reporter out for this style of mockery; this is how Trump does this style of mockery, for everyone.
It’s as ridiculous as saying that a writer who names hostile aliens after Passover dishes is some kind of crypto anti-Semite.
Yes, Trump’s a bully and a jerk. But, in a sense, proves he’s non-discriminatory — he’ll insult and mock anyone who attacks him.
Okay, here’s the thing:
Do you understand that THAT IS WRONG? That that is NOT PRESIDENTIAL? That HE is not Presidential?
The President of the United States is supposed to be the most powerful man ON EARTH. For the most powerful man on Earth to insult and mock ANYONE is wrong. It is inappropriate to someone in that position of power. He should be dignified and restrained and represent the best that the United States has to offer. He should not display the tactics and behavior of a schoolyard bully, and THAT is what Donald Trump does.
He is mentally unfit for the challenges and DIGNITY of the office, and not all your excuses are going to change that. For once: admit it.
Oh, and by the way, yes, I was indeed accused of being anti-Semitic for those characters in “Imzadi.” My response was to contact every person individually who thought that and complained to S&S about it, spoke to them, explained the origins of the joke and led them to understand that obviously I was not anti-Semitic. I made everything better. Trump’s response would have been to insult them and say they were stupid. THAT is the difference.
PAD
So, as Trump struck his pose, and said the words “look at him,” what, pray tell, was he inviting people to look at??
You seem real fond of leaving out certain facts, while accusing others of doing so. Let’s try these again:
Trump’s a rabid racist who had the first country club that opened membership to blacks, and has consistently associated with and hired and promoted blacks. – And went to court for racial profiling in his rentals.
He’s a rabid sexist who has consistently hired and promoted women, and entrusted his winning presidential campaign to a woman. – And bragged about committing sexual assault, and sneaking into dressing rooms.
He’s a rabid xenophobe who’s married to an immigrant, and appointed a daughter of immigrants as his ambassador to the UN. – And wants a muslim registry.
I could go on…
Jay…please…for once, get your nose out of Fox New’s ášš.
He was clearly mocking the reporter. He then subsequently denied knowing the reporter which was another lie because the reporter had interviewed him over a dozen times. The right wing’s hastily constructed talking point declaring, no, he always mocks people this way, is yet another lie.
You are being played by a master manipulator who lies and lies and lies and you and others like you need to start understanding that.
PAD
Sigh…
His whole speech from that incident is on video. In that speech, he mocks three people for prevaricating in exactly the same way — the stammer and flailing hands. (Not “palsied,” flailing.) The reporter with the all-but-paralyzed hand that can’t flail around is the third one he mocks.
Have you ever tried reconciling your opinions with facts?
Trump’s a rabid racist who had the first country club that opened membership to blacks, and has consistently associated with and hired and promoted blacks.
He’s a rabid anti-Semite who gets along famously with Israel’s prime minister, is a stalwart champion of Israel, has a Jewish daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren, and just named said son-in-law as a top advisor. (The above-mentioned country club was also the first in its area to be open to Jews, too.)
He’s a rabid sexist who has consistently hired and promoted women, and entrusted his winning presidential campaign to a woman.
He’s a rabid xenophobe who’s married to an immigrant, and appointed a daughter of immigrants as his ambassador to the UN.
He’s also a crude boor who flouts what you consider properly “presidential,” but he’s remarkably NON-discriminatory about who he’s a crude boor to. Basically, if you attack him, he’ll attack you back.
And he’s exactly what we got as a nation after being told that Mitt Romney was THE WORST CANDIDATE EVER, that John McCain was THE WORST CANDIDATE EVER, and George W. Bush was THE WORST PRESIDENT EVER.
We had two decent moderates up as the GOP nominee, and both were slandered and maligned and castigated totally unfairly.
So this time a lot of voters said “screw all that ‘decent’ stuff, it’s got us our áššëš kicked repeatedly. Give us a fighter who can win!”
So we got Trump. Going with nice guys (and you’d be hard pressed to find a national politician as “nice” as Romney) got us nothing.
Your side had chances to have “decent” Republicans as president, and destroyed them. So we sent one you couldn’t destroy.
And remember, Hillary and her campaign did all they could to get Trump the nomination, because they figured he’d be the easiest to beat. They underestimated him, too. So thank Hillary for President Trump.
Thank you, Jay. You have just absolutely nailed Trump on the head. In short, you have just reiterated, point by point, what I already said:
We have no idea what his beliefs are. We have no idea who he is.
He is a mass of contradictions. He’s a rabid racist because he has been prosecuted for discriminatory practices in leasing. He is an anti-Semite because he has no problems with accepting endorsements from anti-Semites and running anti-Semitic ads. He is a rabid sexist who boasts about grabbing women by the genitals and striding into changing rooms. All of these and more are indisputable.
And he is evil. He is indisputably evil. The fact that you are perfectly willing to embrace and accept all of that evil because winning is all that matters speaks volumes for you, because I can tell you without question that if he had remained a Democrat, run on the Democratic ticket and somehow managed to win the presidency while behaving in the exact same way he currently does, I would absolutely despise him and would seriously be considering becoming a Republican. I would abandon my party of over forty years before I would support this bášŧárd.
And you won’t. Because all you care about is winning and power, and that makes you utterly pathetic.
The ONLY thing you say that I agree with is that we were too hard on other GOP nominees. I could have lived with a Romney presidency. I was even considering voting for McCain the first time around before Bush shoved him over. But still, what it comes down to is that you are blaming the support he gets from racist áššhølëš on your side not on the racist áššhølëš, but on the Democrats. Because that’s what you do. That’s all you do. You and your ilk pass responsibility to others and you lie and embrace lies.
Because again: pathetic. You are a pathetic individual, Jay Tea.
PAD
Jay Tea: Then the Trump campaign came up with an article from the September 18, 2001 Washington Post by Serge Kovaleski that reported exactly what Trump said.
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Bûllšhìŧ.
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Trump said this:
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“I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down. And I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. Thousands of people were cheering.”
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Where as The New York Times article by Serge Kovaleski said this:
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In Jersey City, within hours of two jetliners’ plowing into the World Trade Center, law enforcement authorities detained and questioned a number of people who were allegedly seen celebrating the attacks and holding tailgate-style parties on rooftops while they watched the devastation on the other side of the river.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/09/18/northern-new-jersey-draws-probers-eyes/40f82ea4-e015-4d6e-a87e-93aa433fafdc/?utm_term=.0ae389a2266f
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So it wasn’t something Trump “saw”, and it wasn’t “thousands”, or even “hundreds” of people celebrating.
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Jay Tea : Kovaleski was asked about that article, and he said he didn’t remember writing that.
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Again, bûllšhìŧ.
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What Kovaleski said was:
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“I certainly do not remember anyone saying that thousands or even hundreds of people were celebrating…That was not the case, as best as I can remember.”
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2015/dec/02/new-information-doesnt-fix-donald-trumps-911-claim/
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Trump then distorted this by claiming that Kovaleski stated “Oh, I don’t remember!…..”
Thank you, Luigi, for presenting actual facts in the face of Jay Tea’s misleading argument.
Man, Republicans sure do get touchy these days when you point out what they voted for. It’s almost like they’re ashamed of themselves.
I would say it’s a bad case of buyer’s remorse, but most of them are proud of voting for him….
They have no remorse. Admitting a mistake is akin to being unmanly or suffering genital mutilation.
Trump doesn’t need to grow up, he needs to drop dead.
Pence is going to be in charge, regardless, so it might as well be made official.
TRUMP can’t control how millions of already biased people will interpret his comments and actions.
I find it humorous that many people act like they’re simply better than him as humans. If you’re better, then run for the Office yourself. Anybody can sit behind a keyboard and cast illusions as to their own moral superiority over others without being forced to actually prove it.
A couple of things. First, unless you’re a magician, the phrase is “cast allusions.” So even if you learn nothing from the rest of my response, at least you’ll have a new fact.
Second, you have completely fabricated an argument and attacked that. This technique is typically referred to as erecting a straw man. I personally have not declared this to be a case of moral superiority at any point. I am not holding myself up against Donald Trump or positioned myself as being better than him. Why? Because whether I am or not has absolutely nothing to do with the situation at hand. I am not the President-Elect. I will not be trusted with nuclear codes. I do not attack Meryl Streep early in the morning and have millions of ditto heads approving. I am not going to be the most powerful man in the world. He is.
And he is not worthy of it. Not remotely. Not even close. Neither am I. I’m not remotely fit to be President of the United States.
But unlike Trump, I didn’t declare that I was.
PAD
Fontaine: I find it humorous that many people act like they’re simply better than him as humans.
Rhetoric.
The issue is his behavior, and criticism of it. If you disagree with the criticism, then falsify it by explaining why it is unfounded, either by virtue of fact or reason. Barring that, the criticism of his behavior in this case (as it is in so many others, given his serial behavior), is valid. Trump is a despicable person, period. That’s a conclusion based on evidence and reason, and not the personhood of the one forming it.
This makes me absolutely furious and I’m not even American.
Interestingly I have read that right whingers and Brietbarters had started stating that its ridiculous that an actress use a platform to criticise this !!!!!! Trump used a platform to ridicule, isn;t that more ridiculous !!!!!
OK, I concede it. I now accept that Trump set up a style of mocking people over ten years ago JUST so he would have plausible deniability when he wanted to mock a disabled reporter. He even disguised it even further by making the mockery the exact opposite of the guy’s disability, flailing his hands around when the reporter’s hand is actually immobile, but you folks are just too cunning and saw right through it.
I bow to those of such great imaginations that they can actually overrule common sense.
You just keeping getting dumber….
I don’t think that’s possible. This shows the difference in the GOP mindset: admitting fault is not allowed, you need to blame someone else. Look at this example, recently a Muslim woman who claimed she was attacked turned out to be a hoax. I felt that she was wrong and should pay for doing so, and didn’t try to deflect to “oh, look what so-and-so did, too!” It doesn’t alter my worldview. But pointing out that Trump or any Republican did something wrong is akin to murdering a member of their family and they have to justify it or deny that something happened.
Jay Tea: “His whole speech from that incident is on video. In that speech, he mocks three people for prevaricating in exactly the same way — the stammer and flailing hands.”
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Luigi Novi: I carefully watched the entire one hour and 18 minute video of the speech (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hspJ90PP0eY). I watched everything from his bringing on stage the Trump supporter dressed like him on stage to when his promise to personally resolve the problem of race relations in the inner cities to his false claim that we found Osama bin Laden through water boarding, to his false claim that he predicted the threat of Osama bin Laden in his 2000 book, etc.
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Throughout all of this, I carefully looked for these other people you say he mocked, and I did not see this. What other people were you referring to? I watched as Trump criticized and/or mocked Hilary Clinton (7:30 mark; 16:30), John Kasich (8:19), Jeb Bush (13:33; 40:00), Frank L. VanderSloot (14:10), Obama (16:08; 37min; 43min), Karl Rove (20:00), Mitt Romney (20:39), Ben Carson (40:00), Marco Rubio (41min), “a total novice [CNN] reporter” (45:45), CNN Reporter Sara Murray (58:16), “some general” (1:11:10), etc.
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I did not see him level this criticism at anyone else, let alone with the gesture he used with Kovaleski.
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Could you please provide the time index at which he did this? I’d like to see it and it appears that I missed it.
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Jay Tea: “Trump’s a rabid racist who had the first country club that opened membership to blacks, and has consistently associated with and hired and promoted blacks. He’s a rabid sexist who has consistently hired and promoted women, and entrusted his winning presidential campaign to a woman. He’s a rabid xenophobe who’s married to an immigrant, and appointed a daughter of immigrants as his ambassador to the UN.
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Luigi Novi: Your argument seems to be predicated on the idea that bigots tend to be consistent. Obviously, this is not the case. There are those who don’t mind associating with blacks, as long as they don’t get to “familiar” or too “uppity”. Leni Riefenstahl was said to be Heinrich Himmler’s “favorite Jew” (http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2010/03/01/himmlers-favorite-jew/). So what? What matters are the instances which show that is a bigot, and not instances in which he is inconsistent in this regard. (A few instances are detailed here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-racist-examples_us_56d47177e4b03260bf777e83 )
Indeed, his problem with women (and this is just speculation) may be one of power: He has no problem with women as long as their subservient to him, or are otherwise beholden to him: His wife, his daughter, his employees, pageant contestants, etc. But we can see that he has a BIG problem with women who assert themselves to him, and dare to criticize him, even when the criticism is perfectly reasonable and phrased politely, as seen with his reaction to Megyn Kelly daring to question him about his behavior during the Republican debates, his insulting Carly Fiorina’s looks (later lying about by claiming he was talking about her “soul”), his “nasty” women comment to Clinton during the debates, etc. Even sexists, after all, have mothers, sisters, daughters, and wives. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t have a problem with women.
Jay Tea: “He even disguised it even further by making the mockery the exact opposite of the guy’s disability, flailing his hands around when the reporter’s hand is actually immobile, but you folks are just too cunning and saw right through it.
Luigi Novi: This is just hair-splitting, and is similar to your counterargument about Trump’s bigotry. You’re assuming that when one person mocks another, the recreation of the behavior being mocked has to have all the fidelity to the source of a Daniel Day Lewis performance.
Obviously, this is a silly requirement.
Trump is not a professional impersonator, comedian or actor, and indeed, even those people who are often imbue their imitations of people with exaggeration or other stylistic choices not derived from a desire to be perfectly identical to the target. The point is that Trump kept his right upper arm down, raised his right lower arm almost all the way to the top and bent his right hand down in a way that appears to be an imitation of the position into which Kovaleski’s arm has been rendered by arthrogryposis, and which contrary to your claim above, does not appear identical to the way Trump has mocked anyone else in that speech, or elsewhere.
Fake news! Fake news! Luigi, will you please stop muddying the waters with these facts of yours and just admit that Jay Tea is completely correct with his inaccurate explanations?
Sorry, I was feeling a bit feverish today. I started hallucinating that evidence and reason were the basis for forming rational conclusions. I’m feeling much better now, though, thanks.
Good! We can’t have you being rational. In a week, that’ll be a criminal act.
In that very careful and studious exam of that video, you missed 55:25-40?
So, when you do your Stephen Hawking impersonation, do you break-dance?
And one act of possible bigotry is absolute proof of bigotry, no matter how many examples of non-bigotry you can cite.
And that Huffington Post list is an embarrassment.
Example 1: Guy attacks Trump, Trump hits back. Which he does to pretty much EVERYONE whose attacks seem to reach a certain threshold of publicity.
3: Lawsuits against his company from over 40 years ago where Trump didn’t admit any wrongdoing.
4. Single-sourced quotes Trump has denied; conduct by people way, way below him in his company.
5. Cited very rare examples where, instead of denouncing racists, he just ignored them.
7. Treating ethnic groups like monoliths? Like how Democrats talk about “the black vote” and “the woman vote” and “the Hispanic vote?
(Lost count, but the Central Park Jogger case) Said that the people who raped, beat, and nearly killed that woman should be punished severely. Puffington Host then blames him for NY arresting and convicting the wrong people.
But back to the topic at hand: the same principle applies to Mr. Lewis as to Mr. Khan: if you take a very public stage to attack Trump, Trump will hit back. And he does not care how much “moral authority” you might have accumulated over your life. Once you enter the realm of attack politics, you’re going to get hit back.
There is nothing at 55:25-40 that is identical to the gesture with which he mocked Kovaleski. If you’re referring to that gesture he makes at 55:34-36, it’s not the same. When mocking Kovaleski, Trump keeps his right arm close to his body, raises his right lower arm, and bends his hand down at the wrist in a way that precisely mirrors the position in which Kovaleski’s right arm has been rendered by his condition. This other gesture at 55:34-36 involves Trump swinging his arms out, and then raising both of his lower arms up, not bending either of his hands, effecting the “hands up” position that cops instruct suspects when arresting them at gunpoint. The two gestures are not the same. That Trump was imitating Kovaleski with the earlier one is obvious, and is bolstered by the fact that he accompanied that gesture with the remark “You gotta see this guy!”, a remark he would only make if he wanted to draw the audience’s attention to something visual about Kovaleski’s appearance.
Denying blacks housing is not evidence of racism because it was 40 years ago, and because he didn’t admit to it? As opposed to what? All the types of racism that are only discernable when the racist admits it?
In general, Trump’s bigotry or tacit acceptance or exploitation of bigotry as an advantage to his interests is supported by an overwhelming amount of evidence, from his comments about Mexicans, his comments about Muslims, his refusal to condemn white supremacists, his lie that he “didn’t know” what white supremacy was or who David Duke was, even though he publicly condemned David Duke in both 1991 and 2000 (http://www.factcheck.org/2016/03/trumps-david-duke-amnesia/), etc.
By contrast, the hair-splitting and rationalizations with which people like you try to explain this all away is inane, and desperate.