Getting real in the White House briefing room

If you've noticed, it's tough to get the DC media to put down its obsessions.

Good morning. I know you have a lot of questions, but first let me address some loose ends from last Thursday’s debate.

Specifically, we don’t feel that many of Donald Trump’s allegations and statements were either truthful or sensible. For instance, he claimed that undocumented immigrants were taking “Black jobs.” I’m waiting for someone to ask him just what a Black job is. Jazz singer? Basketball player? In truth, the group that employs more Blacks than any other is the service industry, in which 21.6 percent of Blacks are employed. Another 10 percent are in management. We feel this is another example of Trump’s lifelong tendency toward racism….

Yes. You had a question.

“Yes. Is the President taking a nap right now?”

I don’t think so. It’s 12:30 p.m. I just saw him a few minutes ago.

And then Trump claimed that more Americans have died of Covid-19 in the Biden administration than died in his administration. No doubt this is true. That’s because there was no Covid-19 in the United States until 2020, the final year of Trump’s tenure. On the day President Biden was inaugurated, there were 219,000 cases of Covid-19 in the United States. What Trump said would be the equivalent of saying there were more World War II deaths when Franklin D. Roosevelt was President than when George Washington was President. 

Yes. You have something?

“How long are the President’s naps? Does he snore? Does he need a CPAP machine or has he ever used one? And would he sleep better if he would give the New York Times an exclusive interview the way all the other Presidents have?”

I’ll try to get that information for you. But back to Trump for a minute. He said he had offered Speaker Pelosi 10,000 National Guard troops during the Jan. 6 domestic terrorist attacks and that the Speaker turned him down. That is a bald-faced lie. She and Sen. McConnell both asked for the Guard and other military personnel. The Capitol Police Board makes a decision on whether the Guard should be sent to the Capitol. It decided not to do so until the attack was well on the way. The Speaker, whose office was defiled and damaged by the terrorists, vigorously denies Trump’s statement. Trump also said that if he hadn’t brought in the National Guard to deal with riots that sprung from the death of George Floyd, the city of Minneapolis would have been destroyed. The problem is that Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota made that deployment. Trump did not.

“But is the President aware of where he is or who he is? And when he flew seven hours to Poland last year and then took a 10-hour train ride to Kyiv to meet with President Zelenskyy, how much did he sleep on that trip? Some donors in the Democratic Party are worried that he might go to sleep while he pushes the nuclear button, and that might send a missile to San Antonio instead of the intended target. Is there concern in the White House on his ability to keep his eyes open?”

I’ll attempt to keep that question in perspective as I think about Trump going to sleep repeatedly during his trial in New York, the one in which he was found guilty on 34 felony counts. But Trump also said Democrats are radical enough on abortion to take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month and even after birth. That has been unchallenged by most of you, even though you know that only one percent of American abortions are performed after 21 weeks. No state has passed a law that permits infanticide. 

“Does the President sleep on his side? If so, which one? Does he leave the TV on when he’s sleeping? How about the overhead lights?

Trump accused the President of “killing people with a bad border” and “flooding hundreds of thousands of people dying,” whatever that means, and also “killing our citizens.” Texas, the only state that tracks crimes by immigrant status, had a study that found “considerably lower felony arrest rates”  among those who are here illegally, when compared to legal immigrants or native-born Americans.

“But why doesn’t the President do more press conferences? And why is Jill on the cover of Vogue?”

You’ll have to check with Vogue on the last one. On the first one, the President would do more press conferences if the emphasis from the media was on what he actually says and does, not how he sounds or how many words are garbled. He is running against a person who goes into monologues about whether it’s better to be electrocuted or to be eaten by a shark, and who says windmills cause cancer. Beyond that, the debate hosts asked Trump repeatedly about opioids and child care, and he never addressed either topic. Instead, he kept railing about immigrants. He plans to either deport them or put them in concentration camps, according to Project 2025. This is either ignored in the media or dismissed as just a Trump thing, just like his inability to say “rebuttal.” Perhaps you feel it’s healthier for a 77-year-old to stay up until 3 a.m. while rage-Tweeting. Perhaps you’ve forgotten Trump’s schedule when he was President, which consisted of many hours of undefined “executive time.” Perhaps you might push for Trump’s medical records, because his former doctor, Ronny Jackson (or is it Johnson?), who’s now in Congress, estimated that Trump could possibly “live until he’s 200.”

That’s probably why the current President isn’t interested in press conferences. They get in the way of actually being President.

“Does he have an alarm clock to wake him up for all those naps, or does Jill come in and wake him up, or does Hunter? Does he wake up when George Soros calls? Does he know how to use the alarm function on his cellphone? Does he have a cellphone? Does he know how to use it? Or does he have a rotary dial phone?”

Well, that’s all the time we have for today. Sorry we didn’t get around to the economy. Just a reminder that unemployment has been under 5 percent every month since October of 2021, and was 6.4 percent when the President took office. The personal savings rate rose in 2023 for the first time since Covid. Total revenues are up $294 billion in the first nine months of the fiscal year. Just a few minutes ago we learned the economy created 206,000 more new jobs in June. We’ll have more tomorrow, but we’re waiting for our fact-checkers. They’re all taking naps. See you then.