A guest column

When editorial meetings go worst

“Given [Donald] Trump’s belief that we don’t treat him fairly, we invite readers to read the full transcript or listen to the audio recording of our conversation, both of which we’ve posted online.” —Washington Post editorial

(printed here Wednesday)

BOY, READING the transcript of that Washington Post meeting with The Donald reminded us: It’s good not to be a part of an editorial board. One editorial rock star once said that more good ideas are killed at editorial board meetings than at the United Nations. The First Amendment says nothing about newspapers being required to have editorial boards, so why have them?

The answer may be to provide cover for a newspaper’s editors whenever on (rare and getting rarer) occasion an editorial says something that might offend. That way the angry callers can just be told, “That’s what the board decided.” When there are 12 lieutenants in charge, nobody’s in charge (as any former military type could tell you). And therefore nobody’s to blame. But many newspapers have such boards, and such meetings, and they’ll just have to manage. Not our problem.

But when the Washington Post invited the world to listen in on, or at least read the transcript of, the meeting with Donald Trump earlier this week, we were interested. The way you’d be interested in a car wreck.

Please, Gentle Reader, do yourself a favor and go to the paper’s website and be interested yourself. If all his insults and vulgarity and bluster and all-around gibberish haven’t convinced you that The Donald doesn’t need to be anywhere near the nuclear football, this interview will.

What was surprising, if anything can be with this person, is how uninformed and unprepared he was coming into an editorial board interview with the biggest newspaper in the nation’s capital. Didn’t one of his yes men tell him he might be asked a question on terrorism or immigration?

Consider the rest of this editorial a guest column. We’ll allow Mr. Trump to “explain” his “positions,” such as they are:

NATURALLY one of the first questions was about Mr. Trump’s claim that he’d “open up” the libel laws. His answer, partially:

“What I would do, what I would do is I’d—well right now the libel laws, I mean I must tell you that the Hulk Hogan thing was a tremendous shock to me because—not only the amount and the fact that he had the victory—because for the most part I think libel laws almost don’t exist in this country, you know, based on, based on everything I’ve seen and watched and everything else, and I just think that if a paper writes something wrong—media, when I say paper I’m talking about media. I think that they can do a retraction if they’re wrong. They should at least try to get it right. And if they don’t do a retraction, they should, they should you know have a form of a trial. I don’t want to impede free press, by the way. The last thing I would want to do is that. But I mean I can only speak for—I probably get more—do I, I mean, you would know, do I get more publicity than any human being on the earth? Okay? I mean, [Editor’s note: Trump points at the Post’s Ruth Marcus] she kills me, this one—that’s okay, nice woman.”

Would he use a nuclear weapon on ISIS?

“I don’t want to use, I don’t want to start the process of nuclear. Remember the one thing that everybody has said, I’m a counterpuncher. Rubio hit me. Bush hit me. When I said low energy, he’s a low-energy individual, he hit me first. I spent, by the way he spent 18 million dollars’ worth of negative ads on me. That’s putting—”

He was interrupted and asked again whether nuking ISIS was a possibility in a Trump administration. His response:

“I’ll tell you one thing, this is a very good looking group of people here. Could I just go around so I know who the hell I’m talking to?”

After the intros, the ISIS nuclear talk was dropped.

ONE OF the board members asked about the divisiveness of his campaign. And The Donald turned the discussion to his favorite subject, polls:

“Well, first of all, if you look at some polls that have come out, I’m doing very well with African Americans. I’m doing, actually if you look at the polls, a lot of the polls that came out, in the, um, what do they call it? Exit polls, like from Nevada and other places, I’m doing very well with Hispanics.”

Asked about those polls in which he doesn’t do so well, he said:

“We do, if it’s illegals, in other words, if it’s everybody, but people that are legally living here, I’m doing very well. In other words, people that are here, like Hispanics that are in the country, I’m doing very well. People that vote. Like people leaving voting booths and all, I’m doing very well with them. I want to be inclusive, but at the same time, people should come here legally. They should be here legally. And I think the reason I’m doing, that I will do well, especially once I get started, don’t forget I haven’t even focused on Hillary yet. And, and as you know, you know I’ve had polls that are against me, but I’ve had many polls that say I’d beat Hillary, but they’re not that, that, they don’t mean anything now because it’s too early. Because I haven’t hit her. I’ve only hit her once, and that was eight weeks ago, but, I haven’t started on Hillary yet, and when I do I think I’ll be able to make my points. I mean, you know, but, but I think that just to try and answer your question: Uh, I am the least racist person that you will ever meet. Okay. That I can tell you.”

One wonders if Mr. Trump, should he ever preside over a never-never Trump administration, would be better prepared with talks or negotiations with a Putin or a Xi or a Kim or a Khamenei or even a Trudeau or Pena Nieto. It is clear he wasn’t ready for the meeting with the Post.

No wonder so many Republican Party officials are trying to get to a convention floor fight. And why so many other Republicans are giving money to a Never Trump ad campaign.

For entertainment purposes, let’s put this man in the Senate, preferably in place of the humorless Chuck Schumer (D-New York). Because The Donald doesn’t belong anywhere near the Oval Office.