The Strip Diary, Day Twenty Five: Hey China, President Trump Will See You Next Tuesday

Day Twenty Five: New York, New York ($179)

The Huffington Post has a very strict, and admirable, policy against ad hominem attacks. I know this because a couple of weeks ago I submitted the first draft of a post calling for a boycott of Donald Trump's Las Vegas hotel and, an hour or so later, I got a phone call politely but firmly explaining that policy.

On that occasion, it was an easy fix -- a couple of tweaks so that I was hating the game and not the player. This time around, having sat in a ballroom at the Treasure Island last night, listening to Trump address a group of Nevada-based "Republican Women's Groups," my task is way harder.

In fact, after less than an hour in the same room as Donald Trump, I defy any right-thinking human being not to want to call him some pretty unpleasant names. After all, if Trump gets his way, America will immediately be plunged into a pit of political and economic isolationism that would make the Bush Jr years seem positively warm and fuzzy. As a foreigner who loves America, it took all of my reserves of self control not to heckle from my press seat.

"Motherf*cker."

That's Trump's word, not mine, obviously. My journalistic impartiality -- and the Huffington Posts rules -- explicitly prohibits me from calling Trump a motherf*cker. And so, accordingly, I will keep my opinion of the man -- whatever that opinion might be -- to myself. No, "motherfu*ker" is how Donald Trump referred to Chinese politicians. As in, "I'm going to say, listen you motherf*ckers, here's a 25% levy on Chinese imports..." Throughout his speech, Trump cursed like a tourettic Soprano. This despite the fact that the average age of attendee was close to triple figures, even allowing for the half dozen children I counted scampering around the room. On Iraq he cursed about how we can build schools in the war-blighted country ("schools, which they then blow up") but "we can't get a f*cking school built in Brooklyn"; On oil: "You have oil at this much a gallon because someone in Washington said 'You ain't gonna raise the f*ckin' price"; on Trump's lack of racism: "Some of my friends are Chinese; But now they're not talking to me. They're like '****, can you believe this guy?'"

And on and on. To the point that the AP reporter sitting next to me broke off her conversation with one of the organizers: "Sorry, I have to listen to this -- he's going to curse some more."

Between the f*cks and the sh*ts, though, lay actual concrete Trump policy; "The Trump Doctrine," as he straight-facedly referred to it. For a start, Trump promised to be tough on nature, and tough on the causes of nature. "Nobody knows more about the environment than I do. I receive a lot of environmental awards," he assured the crowd, to murmurs of approval. "Green technology is important. But what good is green technology here when China is spewing out crap. We gotta drill in Alaska. We gotta drill. There is so much oil."

That particular point caused the first of many confused audience reactions of the night. Conditioned to respond to clearly flagged platitudes and talking points, the crowd gamely tried to second guess the appropriate reaction to each word as it came out of Trump's mouth. In the above case, the response went like this...

"Green technology is important"

CHEER!

"But what good is green technology here when China is spewing out crap...?

CHEE... BOOOOO!

"We gotta drill in Alaska!"

CHEER!

Even more comical was the audience reaction to Trump's defense policy...

"We went into Iraq because there were weapons of mass destruction!"

CHEER!

"But there weren't any weapons of mass destruction!"

BOO!

"And people said it was all about oil"

BOO!

"And I say, well that would have been a good reason to go in!"

CHEER!

Make no mistake, Donald Trump loves oil, like the Cookie Monster loves cookies or the Republican Women's Groups of Nevada love hairspray. On Libya: "I say, we go into Libya and we take the oil. People say, Donald that's a sovereign nation. I say, there's no nation!" That one got a big cheer too. F*ck sovereign nations.

F*ck also America's inability to bomb one back to the stone age. "Out leadership is weak and pathetic -- we can't even take over Libya" Big laugh that time. America is weak, ho ho ho. Apparently, to Trump supporters, for all the flag waving and singing of the national anthem (the pledge of allegiance was recited too), America is only great when it's run by Republicans. The rest of the time: "America isn't a great country. We love our country, but it isn't a great country."

Really? I'm just a persistent visitor to these shores, but from where I'm sitting, it looks pretty great. I mean, where else but America would you find a system so democratic that it allows a clown like Donald Trump [to] run for office rather than, say, locking him in an asylum?

The next of Trump's weird semantic somersaults took him spinning towards his critics: "Some of the press is scum," -- and then away again, with a nod to the Fox cameras in the room -- "not all of the media -- but some of the media." Accordingly his mention of the New York Times elicited a boo, until it became clear that he was quoting a positive review of his own TV show, whereupon it turned instantly to a cheer. To this crowd it seems that, like America itself, the media is scum until the point you agree with what it says.

More contorted still was Trump's rhetoric on foreign goods: "Every time I buy a television -- and I buy a lot of televisions for the Trump hotel -- I look at the market and I end up buying LGs from South Korea."

The crowd waited for its cue. Where was Trump going with this, I wondered. If he attacked foreign goods, then he's tacitly admitting the TVs at his hotels suck. But he can't praise foreign manufacturing. Unless... "they're good televisions -- but why don't we make them?" Huge applause.

In fact, televisions form an important cornerstone of Trump's foreign policy. If South Korea wants American troops to continue to help defend it against the North, he explained, then they're going to have to agree to make their televisions in America. Problem solved. Big cheer.

China too will have to outsource its manufacturing to America, if it wishes to continue having the honor of owning American debt. "This year China is going to make from this country, $300 billion" exclaimed Trump. Again, the crowd didn't know how to react, so they let out a kind of collective "ahhh--oooh-eeeh" noise. But then came the punchline... "Why shouldn't we make $300 billion?" Why indeed, Donald? Except for basic economics, but let's not get dragged down by those. Let's also gloss over the fact that your tie pins and clips are made in China. Those motherf*ckers. "We had the president of China here and we gave him a state dinner. When people are screwing you, you don't give them dinner"

(For the record, I do like to give dinner to people who are screwing me. It seems only polite.)

And so the madness continued, for a good solid forty minutes -- all sound and fury, signifying nothing. Like some kind of grotesque burlesque dancer, Trump littered his speech with hints at a presidential run, being careful not to peel off his pasties and naming a date. "Run for president" shouted a woman in the crowd. Trump responded with a smile: "Thank you darling; I think I'm going to make you very happy."

Just don't expect dinner afterwards.
Find more by Paul Carr here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-carr ... 55794.html
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Really, what can one say... besides; Only in America!

your point being ?

I think Obama's riposte to Trump's probing over his birth certificate is good, not a f@cuk or sh&t in site...Trump is a grade A tool. Plays to the anti-everything mob in the US but not showing any policy on how to really deal with it.

Barack Obama takes revenge on Donald Trump in White House speech

President Barack Obama mocked his would-be rival Donald Trump at a Washington dinner, sarcastically deriding the "credentials and breadth of experience" of real estate mogul and reality television host as he watched stone-faced.

By Toby Harnden, in Washington 4:54PM BST 01 May 2011
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Mr Obama speaking at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, the annual gathering of the Washington political establishment and glitterati, revelled in what his aides view as a major victory over his critics last week by releasing his full birth certificate, as Mr Trump had demanded.

"Donald Trump is here tonight," said Mr Obama, beaming. "Now, I know that he's taken some flak lately, but no one is prouder to put this birth certificate to rest than The Donald. Now he can get to focusing on the issues that matter.

"Like, did we fake the moon landing? What really happened at Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?"

Roswell refers to an incident in Roswell, New Mexico, where, according to some theories, an object that crashed in 1947 was an extraterrestrial spacecraft carrying alien occupants. Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur were rap stars whose deaths are the subject of continuing controversy.

Mr Trump laughed initially but the smile soon faded from his face. "All kidding aside, we all know about your credentials and experience," Mr. Obama said.

"In Celebrity Apprentice, the men's cooking team did not impress the judges from Omaha steaks, but you recognised that this was a lack of leadership, so you fired Gary Busey. These are the kinds of decisions that would keep me up at night. Well-handled, sir. Well-handled."

At one point big video screens in the ballroom flashed an image of what was labelled "Trump, The White House," a take-off on the mogul's practice of naming buildings after himself.

The mock-up portrayed a hotel-casino-golf course at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with bikini-clad girls frolicking in the fountain that adorns the White House front lawn and gold columns substituted at the front for white ones.

Mr Obama used his speech to ridicule his opponents about the "birther" issue, the theory, seized on by Mr Trump, that he was not born in the United States and was therefore ineligible to become president. The full birth certificate confirmed he was born in Hawaii.

Mr Trump has fared well in early opinion polls of the Republican 2012 election field. However, party operatives dismiss his chances, pointing out his liberal stances, three marriages, donations to Democrats and penchant for the outrageous. Last week, Mr Trump spoke in Las Vegas and let fly with a string of expletives.

The White House appears to have calculated that the more it can portray the Republicans as the party of Mr Trump, the better.

Following a visit to Alabama on Friday, Mr Obama also spoke of the devastation in the state where 250 died when tornadoes struck.

He said: "It's going to be a long road back and so we need to keep those Americans in our thoughts and in our prayers. We also need to stand with them in the hard months and perhaps years to come," he added. "I intend to make sure that the federal government does that."