Is that what Donald J. Trump really said?

FRIDAY, APRIL 5, 2024

Paraphrase can never be perfect: Under current arrangements, denizens of Red America hear an array of statements and claims. 

Denizens of Blue America rarely receive those same presentations. This creates a type of Babel as our nation, such as it ever was, continues to split in two.

Case study! Yesterday afternoon, we showed you a fairly length transcript of remarks made by Candidate Donald J. Trump in Michigan this Tuesday. Once again, for better or worse, here's the (somewhat lengthy) transcript of that part of what the candidate said:

TRUMP (4/2/24): Just a few weeks ago, I met with the grieving family of Laken Riley. You know Laken, she was incredible. Top of her class. Everything was the top. She was the top of everything. She was incredible. I met the parents, incredible people.

The 22-year-old nursing student in Georgia who was barbarically murdered by an illegal alien animal. 

The Democrats say, "Please don’t call them animals, they're humans."

I said, "No, they’re not humans, they're not humans. They’re animals."

Nancy Pelosi told me that. She said, "Please don't use the word 'animals,' sir, when you're talking about these people. 

I said, "I'll use the word 'animal' because that's what they are."

I'll never forget my vow to her wonderful mother, father and sister, two weeks ago. I said, "I will deliver justice for Laken." 

I said that, and now today, I'm adding something. It's going to be for Laken, and it's also justice for Ruby. 

We're going to deliver justice for Ruby.  We're going to watch what happens with this thug. We're going to watch what happens. And we have all the law enforcement behind. They're going to watch what happens to this thug. He's not going to get away with it.

For better or worse, that's what the gentleman said. "Ruby" was Ruby Garcia, a young Michigan woman who was apparently murdered by an unauthorized migrant who had been her boyfriend.

When the posted passage begins, the candidate has already discussed Garcia's murder at some length. For better or worse, we're showing you, once again, this part of what he said.

Now the question arises. How should a responsible journalist report what Trump said? How should that passage be edited? Also, how should that passage be paraphrased? 

In particular, who was Donald J. Trump describing as "animals?" Fairly quickly, that turned out to be the question at hand.

Well over twenty years ago, we told you this: The power to paraphrase is the power to spin. 

That bromide was derived from the phantasmagoric way the mainstream press corps kept paraphrasing comments made by Candidate Gore, starting with this poisonous paraphrase triptych from March 1999: 

Al Gore said he invented the Internet! 
Al Gore said he inspired Love Story!
Al Gore said he grew up doing farm chores, but he really grew up in a fancy hotel!

Those acts of paraphrase were all inexcusable stretches. Eventually, the claim about the fancy hotel (sometimes referred to as the Ritz Carlton) was seen by all to be plainly bogus--so much so that even the mainstream press corps abandoned the claim, eventually inventing the ludicrous December 1999 claim which restored The Rule of Three:

Al Gore said he discovered Love Canal!

In some ways, that was the most ludicrous claim of them all. But the mainstream guild whose work we now trust kept it up right through to November, attributing additional peculiar claims to Candidate Gore right through the Bush-Gore debates.

Today, it's Candidate Donald J. Trump who is being paraphrased. For various reasons, he can be especially hard to paraphrase, in large part because his statements tend to be so fuzzy and so imprecise.

How has the passage posted above been paraphrased by Blue America's leadership cadres? In particular, the question which arose was this:

Who was Trump describing as "animals?" How should his statement be described on that particular count?

Last Sunday, the leadership cadre on Fox & Friends Weekend made an absolute joke of the modern world. How have blue leadership cadres been doing? You probably won't like how we score it. 

Paraphrase can never be perfect. How has Blue America's cable news leadership cadre chosen to describe Trump's remarks?

We'll plan to show you tomorrow. We think they haven't done a great job, and that Trump tends to win at this game.

Remember—it's all anthropology now! We asking you to think of this as a study in (vastly overrated) human capability.