Donald Trump: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?
Back in late May of 1980, I moved to Phoenix, Arizona, where I was about to begin work as a reporter for the NBC affiliated TV station.
Before I officially reported for duty, I had a little time on my hands.
So, I decided to fight the 100+ degree heat, and stand online (for two solid hours) at a local movie theatre to see the newly released Star Wars film – “The Empire Strikes Back.”
That was torture.
Not the movie, but the oppressive Phoenix heat pounding like a sledgehammer on my head.
Last week, I could certainly relate to the thousands of protesters who braved even hotter temperatures in hopes of making their feelings known about the president and his presidency.
Trump’s never-ending victory tour, has now found its way to eight cities, with eager crowds, and angry protesters at each of them.
Ironically, on the day of his Phoenix “performance,” the Washington Post’s diligent fact-checkers announced he’d set a record for the number of false and misleading claims he’s made in the seven months he’s been in office (1,057 to be exact).
But the day wasn’t over.
Within seconds of Trump taking the stage at the Phoenix Convention Center, he increased his falsehood total to 1,058.
“And just so you know from the Secret service, there aren’t too many people outside protesting, OK. That I can tell you,” he announced.
False.
In fact, anytime you hear Mr. Trump end a paragraph with, “That I can tell you,” be forewarned.
There’s a fib in there somewhere.
There were, according to several crowd estimates, as many as four thousand protesters baking in that Phoenix heat.
Inside the convention center, Trump was prepared to give one of his stilted “teleprompter” speeches.
That’s when he reads somebody else’s words as fluidly as if he’s reading the ingredients of a can of clam chowder.
That’s when he becomes Dr. Jekyll.
It’s obvious, though, he’s more himself, when he becomes Mr. Hyde, and he veers off-script, then tosses civility aside.
He did precisely that in Phoenix.
Oh, he reads a few words about “unity,” but he’s far more comfortable ad-libbing to his audiences about some petty slight he’s felt from somebody.
He wants everybody to know he’s the victim.
He hurled insults directed at Arizona’s two Republican U.S. Senators, John McCain and Jeff Flake; he verbally attacked his fellow Republicans in the U.S. House and Senate; and he saved his most brutal words for the media.
“For the most part, honestly, these are really, really, dishonest people. And they’re bad people. And I think they don’t like our country,” he told his cheering crowd about the supposed misdeeds of the people who cover him.
At one point, he pulled the typed pages of his three responses to the events that took place in Charlottesville, Va. from his suit coat.
Then he began to read them verbatim.
“I don’t want to bore you with this. Here’s what I said. Really fast,” he said.
There are two problems with those statements. He didn’t care if he bored people with it. And he didn’t read them “really fast.”
He spent a full 15 minutes reading what we already knew he’d said two weeks ago, while only omitting the parts that got him into hot water.
(That the violence in Charlottesville was “on many sides,” and that there were some “very fine people” who marched with the white supremacists)
Those two deliberate omissions, probably upped the Washington Post’s falsehood tally to 1,060.
But the Washington Post had more counting to do.
Mr. Hyde, er, Trump made sure, as he always does, to note that CNN was incensed by what he was saying, their cameras were being turned-off as he spoke.
“CNN does not want its falling viewership to watch what I’m saying tonight. I can tell you,” he told us.
That makes 1,061.
CNN covered that speech from start to finish.
While other networks, including MSNBC, cutaway mid-speech.
It was a performance, of which, Robert Louis Stevenson would have been mighty proud.
Edward A. Owens is a three time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.