Less than 24 hours before he was set to be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States, Donald Trump held a rally in downtown Washington on Sunday to, well, celebrate.
All of the luminaries of MAGA world were there — with Megyn Kelly and Dana White (as well as a number of incoming Trump administration officials) doing turns on the stage.
I got my hands on the transcript of Trump’s speech and went through it line by line. The lines you need to see are below. (And, yes, before you ask, I am absolutely going to do this same thing with Trump’s inaugural speech today!)
I put these “lines” posts behind the paywall because they take considerable time to do and because I am, as far as I can tell, the only political journalist doing this sort of careful reading of our politicians’ words.
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To the lines!
“We won. We won. We won.”
This guy knows his stuff! And away we go!
“We like winning, don't we, eh?”
“We're going to unlock the liquid gold that's right under our feet -- liquid gold.”
The liquid gold is under lock and key? Is it in, like, a Chamber of Secrets?
“And 75 days ago, we achieved the most epic political victory our country has ever seen. That's what they say.”
Who, exactly, is “they”?
“We won the popular vote for the first time of any Republican in many, many years.”
It was 20 years.
“We made it too big. Oh, and they tried. They tried. It was too big. Around 9:02, they just said, let's get the hell out of here. This isn't working.”
Ok, so Democrats tried to steal the election this time but decided, just after 9 pm on election night, to stop trying to steal the election? What a weird strategic decision!
“John Thune is fantastic.”
“And someday, in 30 years from now, 40 years from now, 50 years from now, some of these young people are going to say, I remember Donald Trump, he did a good job.”
Remember this: For all of his seeming lack of care, Trump is DEEPLY interested and invested in how he ranks (and will rank) in history. He believes himself to be a consequential man — and wants history to remember him that way.
“But starting tomorrow I will act with historic speed and strength and fix every single crisis facing our country.”
Every single crisis. Every one. No crisis left un-fixed.
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