A President Whose Words Have Not Aged Well - The New York Times - 0 views
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John McCain once said, “May the words I utter today be tender and sweet, because tomorrow I may have to eat them.” The current White House has served up a buffet, with the president as head chef.
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This was President Trump on Tuesday night, in Pennsylvania. “Please, please,” he pleaded. “I don’t have that much time.”Mr. Trump’s exhortation carried a certain abrupt desperation. It was reminiscent of Jeb Bush’s “please clap” to an audience before the New Hampshire presidential primary in 2016 or President George Bush’s “Message: I care” in 1992. Both were utterances that in retrospect served as epitaphs for doomed campaigns.
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Whether that proves true in Mr. Trump’s case is not yet known. But “will you please like me?” — which immediately went viral — seemed especially germane to the president’s predicament. To begin with, the appeal was directed at suburban women, who polls show have been particularly repelled by Mr. Trump compared with four years ago.
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“I did a focus group tonight with women who voted for Trump in 2016,” Ms. Longwell wrote. “Not a single one was planning to vote for him again.”
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In other words, Mr. Trump’s effort smacked of a too-late, too-lame apology to an ex who has long since moved on. It also underscored Mr. Trump’s special knack for making statements (or sending tweets) that are perfectly suited to being clipped, saved and hurled back in his face when facts contradict him later on, or in real time. Mr. Trump has proved himself, again and again, a grand master of delivering famous last words.
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He has said he is a “perfect physical specimen,” feels better than he did 20 years ago and is now “immune” from the disease — never mind that the course of the coronavirus has shown itself to be treacherous and unpredictable.
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It kicked off on Day 2 when the first of four Trump White House press secretaries, Sean Spicer, claimed that the crowd gathered for Mr. Trump’s 2017 inauguration was “the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period.” Overhead photos of Mr. Trump’s inaugural crowd next to Mr. Obama’s proved this remark to be ridiculous, period.
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He already boasted a long rap sheet of “unfortunate remarks,” all readily captured and spread via video, Twitter, TikTok and wherever else famous last words get immortalized these days.
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“We have it totally under control,” Mr. Trump said in January on CNBC, an opening salvo of denial that would soon be hung around his neck.
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Traditionally, presidents have tried to avoid making statements that might prove embarrassing later on
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Every president typically gets one or two shudder-worthy sound bites on their permanent record. President Barack Obama promised that “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor” under his health care plan, a proposition that proved false during the troubled rollout of the Affordable Care Act in 2013.
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“Politicians are always going to say things they regret,” said Victoria Clarke, a longtime Republican communications strategist who has advised several elected officials and administrations
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He continues to insist that the virus is “disappearing,” an assertion flatly contradicted by rising rates of infection across much of the country in recent days.
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But the response to the coronavirus has placed the White House’s pre-existing condition on, well, steroids.
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The current outbreak in the White House has been accompanied by a video parade of “unfortunate remarks” — or, depending on your point of view, a rampage of karma.
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Kayleigh McEnany, testing positive last week was accompanied by a now-infamous clip from a Fox News interview Ms. McEnany gave in February. “We will not see diseases like the coronavirus come here,” vowed the then-future press secretary.
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Likewise, when Kellyanne Conway, a former senior White House adviser, revealed her own coronavirus diagnosis, numerous news media outlets and Twitter feeds resurrected an oft-mocked statement she made about the still-emerging outbreak in March. “It is being contained,” vowed Ms. Conway
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“No president can go four years without making a comment that can be considered a ‘gotcha moment,’” said Erik Smith, a veteran Democratic spokesman and operative. “But this president seems to pile them up like cordwood and take joy in it.”
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It has lent the president a level of credibility as a “straight shooter,” even as he has been caught in thousands of false statements, dubious boasts and comical reassurances.
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“It affects virtually nobody!” Mr. Trump declared of the coronavirus at a packed rally in Ohio last month — another remark that would go literally viral. It did not age well.