“When Trump was fact-checked in real time, Trump’s flame-throwing interview technique fizzled. When Swan frustrated his scattershot attempts to jump to another subject, Trump wilted. Under pressure, he provided the kind of offhand remark that could define a political race if properly used by an opponent” writes CNN’s Stephen Collinson.
“‘It is what it is,’ Trump said, appearing callous and disconnected about a Covid-19 death toll that has reached 150,000 Americans. When he was challenged, Trump responded with nonsensical answers, grasping for a counter to simple questions about his handling of the pandemic. ‘We’re lower than the world,’ Trump said in an incomprehensible response when pressed on why the US has a death toll that averaged 1,000 a day in recent weeks and is expected to go ever higher. When he made the unfounded claim that there are ‘those’ who say there can be too much coronavirus testing, Trump bizarrely claimed ‘books’ and ‘manuals’ said so. The interview was unrecognizable from the friendly, unchallenging conversations he enjoys with Fox News opinion hosts and other conservative media figures, who play into the President’s craving for adulation that is also often provided by subordinates like Vice President Mike Pence.”