SONGS SUNG BLUE: Is that really what Donald Trump said?

TUESDAY, MAY 9, 2023

Initially, no one said so: It happened at 5:10 Eastern, last Friday afternoon, on the popular "cable news" TV show, Deadline: White House.

Earlier that day, videotaped excerpts from the deposition of Donald J. Trump had become publicly available. At 5:09 Eastern, Nicolle Wallace played a tightly edited excerpt from the 48 minutes of videotape. 

Below, you see the excerpt Wallace played at that time, in its entirety. Trump was speaking with Roberta Kaplan, an attorney representing E. Jean Carroll:

TRUMP: She faked it with great emotion. She actually indicated that she loved it, OK? She loved it, until commercial break. In fact, I think she said that it was sexy, didn't she? She said it was very sexy to be raped.  Didn't she say that?

KAPLAN: The question I'm asking is, Did she say in that interview that she loved being sexually assaulted by you?

TRUMP: Well, she said something to that effect. You'll have to take a look at that interview yourself. I believe she said rape was sexy.

Sadly, that was the full excerpt. 

As Wallace had indicated, Trump was speaking about an interview Carroll had given to CNN's Anderson Cooper back in 2019.  As he spoke, Trump misdescribed what Carroll had actually said, but he at least was willing to say that he was working from memory. 

Jumping in, Wallace called Trump "delusional" and quoted some of what Carroll had actually said to Cooper.  She then proceeded to misrepresent what Donald J. Trump had said!

WALLACE (5/5/23): I wonder, Maya [Wiley]. Again, this jury is going to hear him say that today, he thinks he's a star and can carry out the act of grabbing women between the legs. He's saying, "She loved what I did to her." I mean, it is really anything but a denial of the physical conduct that she alleges.

Speaking of delusional comments, Wallace now seemed to say that Trump had confessed to Carroll's allegations in that short, tightly edited piece of videotape. 

In Wallace's account, Trump had said this: She loved what I did to her. It was anything but a denial. the popular TV star said.

This statement by Wallace was so insane that a very rare moment followed. As Wallace threw to Maya Wiley, Wiley didn't voice agreement with what the host had just said.

It's one of the rarest possible moments in modern-day, segregated-by-viewpoint, partisan "cable news." 

Under current agreements, cable guests never fail to affirm whatever the host just said. Dearest darlings, it isn't done—but this is what Wiley now said:

WILEY (continuing directly): It is a denial of the physical conduct and a misrepresentation of what rape actually is...

It's possible that Wiley didn't hear what Wallace had actually said. Whatever the reason, you see there one of the rarest moments in modern partisan cable.

Good lord! Wallace said that Trump's remarks were anything but a denial of the physical conduct Carroll has alleged. In her reply, Wiley said his statement was a denial, then continued along from there.

(To see the tape of this exchange, you can just click here.)

Did Wiley hear what Wallace had said? We can't answer that question. At any rate, she flatly contradicted Wallace's statement, then proceeded from there.

Having said that, let us say this:

Disagreement with the host is not permitted in partisan cable. That said, Wallace may have gone so far off the rails at this point that Wiley chose to contradict what she had just said.

Did Wallace's account of what Trump said actually make any sense? Had Donald J. Trump actually said something like, She loved what I did to her. thereby implying that the alleged assault really happened? 

We're truly sorry, but no. In that moment, Wallace had moved from her normal propaganda-adjacent stance to a stance which was virtually insane. 

All through the 48 minutes of video excerpts, Trump denies—again and again and again and again—the claim that he ever encountered Carroll at all, let alone that he assaulted her.

In that tightly edited video clip, Trump was discussing what Carroll had said to Anderson Cooper. Forthrightly or otherwise, he was describing his recollection of the account she gave to Cooper that night.

That's what Trump was discussing in that tightly edited clip. At 5:10 on Friday afternoon, Wallace's claim that he was confessing to an assault moved over into the realm of the nearly insane. 

That may be why Wiley did what she did—why she broke every rule in the cable playbook. It may be that Wallace had finally made a claim so baldly absurd that even one of her favorite friends wasn't willing to go along with what had now been said.

As we noted yesterday, this 5 o'clock segment from last Friday's show consumed a full 22 minutes. At no point did anyone, Wallace included, ever return to the ludicrous claim Wallace made at 5:10 P.M.

Instead, the segment was dominated by an earlier claim—a claim Wallace had made right at the start of the segment. As we noted yesterday, she had played a video clip in which Kaplan and Trump discussed Trump's infamous statements from 2005 on the Access Hollywood tape.

After playing that video clip, Wallace started the segment with this:

WALLACE (5/5/23): Hi, everyone. It is 5 o'clock in New York. This is the front-runner for the Republican nomination for president, who thinks, as of today, that he is a star and that stars can do that.

It's part of the newly released deposition of the disgraced, twice-impeached, once-indicted ex-president, doubling down, under oath, and now in front of the entire country and world, on comments he first made, as far as we know, on the Access Hollywood tape about where you can grab women.

To watch this whole segment, click here.

According to Wallace, Trump had said that he still thinks that, because he's a star, it would be OK for him to "grab women" in the way he described on the Access Hollywood tape.

Did Trump really make some such statement that during his deposition? If Trump had made such a remarkable claim, it would certainly qualify as major news. 

Having said that, how strange!

During the course of Friday's segment, all four of Wallace's guests agreed with her characterization of what Trump had said. Indeed, they didn't simply agree with her claim—they effusively agreed, removing any possible doubt as to what was being alleged.

By the end of the segment, any hint of imprecision was gone from Wallace's initial claim. According to Deadline's Gang of 5, Donald J. Trump had said this in his deposition:

Because he's a star, it would be still be OK from him to grab women in the (criminal) manner he had described on the Access Hollywood tape.

Supposedly, that's what Trump had said in his deposition. Having said that, how strange!

Excerpts from the deposition were released last Friday. The excerpt in question had been played in court the day before.

Having said that, how strange! The Washington Post didn't report that Trump had made any such declaration. Neither did the New York Times or the Associated Press.

The BBC reported no such statement. Neither did NBC News in its online news reports. 

No such report was made on the major network evening news programs at the end of last week. Anderson Cooper said no such thing on his Thursday and Friday broadcasts.

On last Friday's Deadline: White House, all four of Wallace's guests effusively agreed with her interpretation of what Trump had said. But how strange:

It's hard to find a major news org which reported any such statement by Trump!

Let it be said that, as of today, a familiar process is underway. By the process known as "paraphrase drift," this initial claim from last Friday's program is now being widely repeated across the ranks of "cable news"—rather, across the ranks of blue cable.

Had Trump really "doubled down" on his Access Hollywood statement? Had he really said that, "as of today," he still believes that he has the right to behave in that (criminal) manner?

Wallace made the claim last Friday. Last night, Anderson Cooper repeated the claim, pretty much word for word. Neither he nor his guests had made any such claim last Thursday or Friday night.

Cooper recited the claim last night; so did Joe Scarborough this very morning. At least in cable's steamy blue bayous, the claim which nobody made in real time is becoming standard script.

We've discussed "paraphrase drift" in the past, without ever using that term. Long ago, we also discussed this very important point:

The power to paraphrase is the power to spin.

It's hard to say that a paraphrase is wrong. For people in thrall to Storyline, that is a source of great power.

Did Donald J. Trump really make the startling statement which has now entered widespread drift?

We'd call that a "song sung blue." We'd call it a giant stretch. 

Tomorrow, we'll discuss the merits of the claim which lies at the heart of this ballad. For now, we'll remind you of this:

We're offering pure anthropology here. Nothing will interfere with the pleasure derived from listening to our corporate stars as they hand us this latest song sung blue.

Tomorrow: Could anyone be more clueless?


45 comments:

  1. The second amendment is evil. If

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    1. I'm glad you added the "if", adds important context to your oft-repeated (some might say annoyingly so) observation.

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    2. Please describe the context that you think keeps the 2nd Amendment from being evil, AC/MA.

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    3. Sorry. The if was a typo. No ifs, ands, or buts. The second amendment is evil.

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    4. Nothing wrong with a well regulated militia in a young country.

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  2. Are Wallace's viewers so dumb that they can't distinguish between what Trump believes vs. what he said Carroll said?
    Do they not care that Wallace is grossly misleading them?

    My speculative answer is that Trump Derangement Syndrome may affecting how they think. Also, they may be more concerned with being the "good guys" than being accurate and logical. Anything that helps them feel superior to conservatives is welcome.

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    1. How do you know Wallace is misleading people and not Trump? Trump is the one who is a known liar.

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    2. Trump Derangement Syndrome. Congrats Dave, you’ve gone full asshole.

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    3. Yes, but your judgement is fucked up, David.

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    4. @12:53 PM - the Great Liberal Whisperer

      LOL

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    5. For the last two decades, Democrats have treated politics as a religion. It is their source of meaning and belonging. Of course that will not end well.

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    6. Because religions don’t end well?

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    7. Political institutions can't truly fulfill the religious impulse. It's actually insane but that's where we are.

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    8. Religion, including Christianity, is mass delusion, whatever impulse it may or may not fulfill.

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    9. If you believe that, why do you make the Democratic party your religion?

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    10. That would be a clever retort if "the Democratic party" was a religion, and if I treated it as such.

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  3. Republicans support statehood for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia.

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  4. There is a problem with the transcript of the deposition played on Wallace's show. The transcript is produced using speech recognition, but throughout, it gets words wrong. In the case of Somerby's quote from that deposition, this introduces a major problem. Somerby quotes:

    "TRUMP: She faked it with great emotion. She actually indicated that she loved it, OK? She loved it, until commercial break..."

    But the transcript of the deposition, made by a court reporter, has a very different sequence of statements. Speech recognition, lacking context, transcribes the beginning of the quote as "she faked it with great emotion" but that isn't what Trump actually said. Here is what he said, in the context of Kaplan asking him about his unusual word choice of "swooned", which means to "faint with great emotion." "Faint with great emotion" is what Trump actually said:

    "She completely made up a story that I met her at the
    doors of this crowded New York City department store
    and within minutes 'swooned' her."· "Swooned" is in
    quotes."

    It turns out Trump used the word "swooned" to avoid using the verb f*ck. Kaplan continues:

    "Q. Okay. I was curious when I read this.
    So I looked up the word "swoon" in the dictionary,
    and under the dictionary, it means "to faint with
    extreme emotion." That's not what you meant here?
    THE WITNESS:· Well, sort of that's what she said I did to her. She fainted with great emotion.· She actually indicated that she loved it. Okay? She loved it until commercial break."

    https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2023/01/trump-deposition.pdf

    Somerby most likely hasn' read the actual deposition. There are plentiful other mistakes, especially in the text of what Wallace and her guests actually said.

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  5. "Sadly, that was the full excerpt."

    The rest of the deposition doesn't go well for Trump. Kaplan makes clear that Carroll was quoting what other people think about rape -- that it can be thought of as sexy. Trump misremembers (to be charitable) what she said and attributed those thoughts to Carroll herself. Recal that Carroll is a long time advice columnist on matters of sex and relationships. Trump conflates her professional description of what other people may think with her own opinions. Kaplan, Carroll's attorney, pursed that with Trump in the actual deposition (not the video excerpt that Wallace showed).

    Interestingly, Trump, in the deposition, explains to Kaplan why he truncated his Truth Social commercial about Carroll to 5 minutes insted of 7 minutes. Somerby should have read that and then he might understand why Wallace might cut a video excerpt under the contraints of time on air.

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  6. "WALLACE: ...He's saying, "She loved what I did to her." I mean, it is really anything but a denial of the physical conduct that she alleges."

    Speaking of delusional comments, Wallace now seemed to say that Trump had confessed to Carroll's allegations in that short, tightly edited piece of videotape."

    Trump did attribute that to Carroll. He said that Carroll told Anderson Cooper that she thought rape was sexy and she loved what Trump did to her. Until commercial break, when he implies that Anderson Cooper got her to change her story.

    Here is what Trump said, not truncated:

    "TRUMP: She actually indicated that she loved
    it. Okay?· She loved it until commercial
    break. In fact, I think she said it was sexy,
    didn't she? She said it was very sexy to be
    raped. Didn't she say that?

    KAPLAN:
    Q. So, sir, I just want to confirm: It's
    your testimony that E. Jean Carroll said that she
    loved being sexually assaulted by you?
    A. Well, based on her interview with Anderson Cooper, I believe that's what took place.
    And we can define that. You'll have to show that.
    I'm sure you're going to show that. But she was
    interviewed by Anderson Cooper, and I think she said
    that rape was sexy -- which it's not, by the way.
    But I think she said that rape was sexy, and it
    was -- she actually said things that were very
    strange, and then she was a different person after
    the -- when he said "We'll take a break right now.
    We're going to take a break right now," he didn't
    like what she was saying. He was very upset with
    what -- and then she came back, and she was a much
    different woman in the second half, so to speak."

    Why would Trump hear something so different from what Carroll said to Anderson Cooper? Why would he remember this so differently? Motives can distort both hearing and memory. Trump may not wish to believe that any woman would find his advances so repulsive, traumatic. He may have heard what he wanted to hear -- that she loved it, just as some pedophiles are known to form a delusion that the child they have molested actually seduced them.

    Because what Carroll said on the Anderson Cooper show was so different from what Trump heard, this must be considered wishful thinking, and it is evidence against Trump because it reveals his thinking.

    There was nothing "insane" about what Wallace said. It IS odd to be as literal as Somerby is when searching for nitpicks. Most people recognize implications of statements. A narcissist who cannot stand the thought that a woman wouldn't want his "swooning" so he hears/recalls something different that supports his sexual legend, sticks out a mile away to most people, including Wallace and Kaplan, and hopefully the jury.

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    1. Well, you were wrong yet again.

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    2. He was convicted, asshole.

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    3. 3:24

      guilty of sexual assault and defamation, Carroll awarded $5 million,

      Yay! You win again, Magat.

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    4. It’s a civil case. He’s liable, not guilty.

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    5. He’s liable because he’s guilty.

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    6. How come the jury refused to convict Trump of rape today?

      Kind of contradictory, isn't it? That means they didn't believe her about the rape story.

      But that was her case. Her charge.

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    7. Lookee lookee, here is today’s Trump-rescue talking point, again.

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  7. "According to Wallace, Trump had said that he still thinks that, because he's a star, it would be OK for him to "grab women" in the way he described on the Access Hollywood tape.

    Did Trump really make some such statement that during his deposition? If Trump had made such a remarkable claim, it would certainly qualify as major news. "

    Yes, Trump did make that statement. He said that historically it had been true that stars could grab women's genitals, "unfortunately or fortunately". Then he was asked if he was a star and he said yes.

    Connect the dots.

    https://www.wsj.com/video/in-deposition-trump-says-historically-stars-can-grab-women-by-genitals/9925F3D8-9B68-45F9-9DC1-83467D65F42C.html

    This is major news -- not because of that statement but because a president is on trial for rape, one that he likely committed.

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    1. Trump never said that at all.

      What he said is that when you're a big star they let you do it. That doesn't mean he admitted to doing it.

      Also, if someone "lets you do it," then they have consented to you doing it. Which means that it's no longer sexual assault. It's allowed.

      So Trump then is not "admitting" that it's "OK" to sexually assault women when you're a star, which we've been hearing all day on TV. Even if he does do it.

      This little point is being clearly evaded here. He's talking about CONSENSUAL behavior when "you're a star." Whether you agree with him or not, they "let you do it."

      So what part of "let" isn't being understood here?

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    2. Trump has mistaken ideas about consent, just like @7:27.

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    3. Consent doesn’t consist of letting a man do something.

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  8. "Under current agreements, cable guests never fail to affirm whatever the host just said. Dearest darlings, it isn't done—but this is what Wiley now said:

    WILEY (continuing directly): It is a denial of the physical conduct and a misrepresentation of what rape actually is...
    It's possible that Wiley didn't hear what Wallace had actually said."

    Wiley is clearly responding to the point of what Carroll actually said to Anderson Cooper. She was trying to draw a distinction between rape and sex that made clear that rape is NOT sexy. Wallace was talking about Trump's misunderstanding of what Carroll said to Cooper.

    We cannot know what Wiley knew or heard, but she is NOT addressing what Wallace said about Trump and thus NOT contradicting Wallace, whose point is unrelated to Carroll's on that show.

    Somerby is pretending that Wiley contradicted Wallace because his goal is to discredit Wallace. Even if he has to say something incorrect to do it. Perhaps Somerby does not know what Carroll actually said to Cooper. Anything is possible.

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  9. Bob says it is not permissible to disagree with the host on these programs. Except they do fairly often, as we know from Bob using examples of such disagreements all the time to disparage the hosts.
    Beyond that, if Wallace’s pretty clear and understandable interpretation is wrong, he does not offer an explanation of what Trump WAS trying to say. It’s fair to speculate this is because he knows She is correct which only feeds his hatred of her.

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  10. His attitude toward Carroll is that he is outraged because she has dared to challenge him.

    Notice the hostility when Trump carefully points out that Kaplan is "not his type" either. Kaplan is Carroll's attorney, so the remark is not only gratuitous and totally inappropriate, but obviously hostile -- an attempt to demean her by reducing her to her female qualities, which he then rejects as "too ugly to swoon". It is a dominance move that is transparent. And why? Because Kaplan and Carroll are daring to threaten his right to do what he wants. He just starts kissing without even waiting. He also threatens to sue Kaplan and Carroll to the ends of the earth. Because Trump defends himself by lashing out at others.

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  11. The jury found no rape.

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  12. That doesn't mean there was none. It means there was insufficient evidence on that charge. This is how a lot of rapists go free.

    I'm sure Trump prefers to buy women instead of taking them by force. He just got fat and lazy.

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  13. Defund the Supreme Court.

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  14. Manafort gave rape data to Russian spies.

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  15. You think you are joking but rape is used in war.

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  16. I'm just making fun of how some people just make shit up when and investigation or trial doesn't go their way.

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  17. "The jury found no rape."

    "That doesn't mean there was none. It means there was insufficient evidence on that charge. This is how a lot of rapists go free."

    So how was there any more evidence on battery than rape?

    Hint: there was none. The verdict makes no sense. Her whole case was a rape charge.

    And it was the same evidence. If the jury believed her on one, why not the other? There was no other evidence leading to battery instead of rape. She said it was rape and she told others it was rape.

    Think about it. She was the case and that was the case she made. So why didn't the jury make it.

    'Tis a big problem. It makes no sense.

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  18. Trump said to Billy Bush and again his deposition that when you are a star women let you commit sexual abuse (insertion of fingers). He didn’t say that about rape. He said he had to keep kissing and couldn’t stop himself.

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  19. We live in a giant spiral galaxy.

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  20. 7:35, Apparently his dick was too small and she could not honestly testify if there was penetration with it.

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