If you want to gauge just how far Donald Trump has fallen, one can do no better than ask the man who stood in for him as Kamala Harris’s debate prepper. He watched Trump’s last seven debates in order to be the tan-man. But what the debate showed is that preparation must be done for Trump as he is, not as he was. He is clearly diminished.
Philippe Reines, a former Clinton staff member at the State Department, had the unenviable task of playing Trump while having to spar with Harris’s sharp and cutting edge.Reines delivers the body blow that Trump never could, nor see coming:
“Whatever was going on there, which looked like malfunctioning, was important to give her the space to talk about what she wants to do and to remind people, the guy had a record.”
Whether Reines meant the quote as double entendre, having a record and all, is best left to the consideration of the reader. And malfunctioning? When was the last time that cats played such an important role in a presidential debate? Fancy that, folks.
“You’d never know it listening to him that he served for four years and this whatever you want to call it, this amnesia that people are somehow having pleasant memories of his term is odd, and it’s important to really point that out a question for you along those lines.”
Well, many of us had a hard time believing he was president when listening during his one term – bleach, anyone? As for amnesia, that’s a natural defense mechanism, don’t mess with nature!After mentioning Trump’s use of stoccato (Genius) and his poor relationship with proper nouns, Reines says:
I think we’re all used to it, and there’s a lot of laughing, but that he is … think about it, and we all have friends with a laptop that’s a little old and they should be replacing it, it drains the battery a little fast and it’s heavier than it should be, and he is a different person.”
Trump doesn’t know how to spell “laptop” never mind use anything that runs on batteries but he’s clearly a different person. We all age with less and less grace but very few of us run for president. And don’t ask me to do it, I’m Canadian. So, even though we can be sympathetic to someone who is showing their age, we need not show anything when one considers relinquishing those nuclear code things. Last one and this borders on below the belt to borrow another fight phrase:
“That is hard to tell because he looks generally the same and he’s equally loud. Somehow being louder and tanner has been equated to health, and it’s just not there is something and, we saw today, irrespective of what the vice president did, what the former president did is very unnerving.”
Was there ever a point when Trump wasn’t very unnerving while caked in “tan”? Perhaps not, but that doesn’t diminish the current issues. So, there it is, from the mouth of a guy that studiously watched Trump’s last seven debates. Speaking of which, is there anyway to pay such a person enough? Given how well Harris did, Reines is a hero. And, because it’s Friday, we’ll take it out with David Bowie’s best rendition of “Heroes”… Please don’t say I never gave you anything…
God…you gotta give the man credit for entering Dracula’s castle and reviewing his evil to help drive a stake through the heart of that child murderer.