Focus on mocking Trump and he may just win

President Trump’s widely scorned interview: did not show he has ‘scrambled egg’ for brains

It was Donald Trump’s “disaster” interview. “Shocking,” declared The Guardian. “Weak and flailing,” said CNN. “The president has a bad brain,” proclaimed one late-night talk show host, apparently without irony. So, after a few days, I sat down to watch this “car crash”. By the end of 40 minutes, I was, frankly, confused. Had I been watching the wrong video? Was there some segment I had missed? Did he fall off his chair after the cameras stopped?

Yes, the president made a number of preposterous claims. When he boasted about the brilliance of his pandemic travel bans, I felt irritated. When he cast doubt on South Korea’s

Covid data, without any evidence, I sighed. When he claimed that he had done more for African Americans than any president since Abraham Lincoln, I snorted.

And yes, the journalist asking the questions, Jonathan Swan of the website Axios, employed a more effective style than most Trump interviewers. He neither barraged the president with aggression nor fawned over him. He interjected useful follow-up questions and used facts. Many of Mr Trump’s answers sounded poor, but mostly in the usual politician way – “it never crossed my desk”, for instance, is almost Clinton-esque.

But where was the killer blow, the knockout humiliation all these clever commentators were crowing about? I started watching convinced that the US’S Covid record was dire. I came out of it still thinking so, but also surprised to hear that the country is conducting one of the world’s most extensive testing programmes (yes, this claim of Mr Trump’s does stack up). I began the video thinking that Mr Trump’s stance against postal voting was pure cynicism and ended up conceding that he does also have a point: postal voting on the scale being suggested for November sounds like mayhem. In short, I pressed “play” expecting all-out crisis denialism and instead heard the president concede things are difficult.

There wasn’t much there to convince an average viewer, who probably doesn’t follow Covid statistics or debates on intelligence briefings, that this was a man with “scrambled egg” for brains, as one Leftie “comedian” put it. Based on his character and his incompetence, he should be toast in November. But if the American Left is too busy sharing “hilarious” memes to understand how most of their fellow voters see the world, they may end up seeing an awful lot more of Mr Trump.