OKAY, LET'S ANALYZE THIS SHIT: episode II

Donald and his Deadly Digit 

                     
                                                 
               When we last saw Donald he was engaged in battle with the Evil Forces of Fake News in the lobby of his Fortress of Solitude itself.  Finding himself under a barrage of questions he fired back defiantly with answers, even to those which weren't even asked in full.  We continue with the engagement in progress......

QUESTION:  "Two questions - was it terrorism?  And can you tell us what you feel about your..."
CROSSTALK
TRUMP, speaking over the din, called the perpetrator "a disgrace to himself, his family and his country" explaining "And that is - you can call it terrorism.  You can call it murder.  You can call it whatever you want.  I would just call it as the fasted one to come up with a good verdict.  [Huh?  one persons definition of a "good verdict" is not necessarily the same as another's.] That's what I'd call it.  Is it murder?  Is it terrorism?  And then you get into legal semantics.  The driver of the car is a murderer.   And what he did was a horrible, horrible, inexcusable thing."  [well, so much for "legal semantics".]
QUESTION [taking a somewhat unusual detour]:  "Can you tell us how you're feeling about your chief strategist, Mr. Bannon?  Can you talk about that?"
[For the uninitiated, Bannon was a founding member of the board of Breitbart News and on the death of Andrew Breitbart in 2012 became it's executive chair.  During his tenure he took a more nationalistic view of it's agenda, at one point declaring it as 'the platform to the alt-right'.  In 2015 he began frequently referencing the controversial racist 1973 French novel, 'The Camp of the Saints', which describes Western civilization being destroyed by immigrants.]
TRUMP:  "Go ahead."
QUESTION:  "I would echo Maggie's question [see previous].  Steve Bannon..."
TRUMP:  "I never spoke to Mr. Bannon about it."  [About what?  just an example of answering a question that wasn't asked.]
QUESTION:  "But can you tell us broadly what you're - do you still have confidence in Steve?"
TRUMP proceeds to give a somewhat positive review of his chief strategist.  "Well, we'll see - and look, look.  I like Mr. Bannon.  He's a friend of mine. But [there's always a but] Mr. Bannon came on very late, you know that.", going on to explain it was after he (Trump) had vanquished all his foes in the primaries, reiterating"...I like him.  He's a good man.  He's not a racist, I can tell you that.  He's a good person....We'll see what happens with Mr. Bannon, but he's a good person, and I gthink the press treats him, frankly, very unfairly."  [Not exactly what I'd call a 'glowing endorsement but we've seen in the past what happens to someone after he states or tweet his 'full confidence'.  It's almost like the kiss of death.]
After a question that brings up H.R. McMaster [again a little zig to the zag], TRUMP appears to hear it incorrectly and goes off on a mini-rant about Senator McCain, incorrectly calling him "the one who voted against ObamaCare?" before catching himself to say "Who is...you mean Senator McCain who voted against us getting good healthcare?"
QUESTION:  "Senator McCain said that the 'alt-right' is behind these attacks...."
TRUMP [almost taking on an air of smugness with a touch of sarcasm]:  "Well, I don't know - I can't tell you.  I'm sure Senator McCain must know what he's talking about..." before continuing, asking if the reporter to "define 'alt-right' to me.  You define it, go ahead."  When the reporter begins to reply, TRUMP interrupts [maintaining that air of almost professorial smugness challenging a stuttering student for an answer], "No, define it for me, come on.  Let's go.  Define it for me."
QUESTION:  "Senator McCain defined them as the same group...."
TRUMP:  "What about the 'alt-left' they came charging...that they came charging with clubs in their hands, swinging clubs? [I waiting to see the pictures to back up THIS claim]."  Brushing aside any attempts to ask more questions, "As far as I'm concerned it was a horrible, horrible day.  Wait a minute, I'm not finished."
CROSSTALK
TRUMP:  "Wait a minute, fake news, I'm not finished.  This was a horrible day...."
QUESTION (off mike, unintelligible)
TRUMP goes on to explain that he "watched those very closely, much more closely than you people watched it [because he's more scrutinous of events than those who are charged with doing so in order to report them, right?  I'm guessing it's as long as he watches them unfold on Fox]...you had a group on one side that was bad, and you had a group on the other that was also very violent, and nobody wants to say that but I'll say it right now.  You had a group...you had a group on the other side that came charging in without a permit [because having a permit makes ALL the difference], and they were very, very violent."
CROSSTALK
TRUMP:  "Go ahead."
QUESTION:  "Do you think that the...what you call the 'alt-left' is the same as neo-Nazis?"
[With that the trickle that would turn into a flood began and I'm going to need full quotes for a while to illustrate as well as I can just how bad it got.]
TRUMP:  "Those people - all of those people - excuse me.  I've condemned neo-Nazis.  I've condemned many different groups.  But not all of these people were neo-Nazis, believe me.  Not all of these people were White Supremacists, by any stretch.  Those people were also there [or so they claimed]  because they wanted to protest the taking down of a statue, Robert E. Lee.  So - excuse me. And you take a look at some of the groups and you see -  and you'd know it if you were honest reporters, which in many cases you're not, but many of those people were there to protest the taking down of the station of Robert E. Lee.
So this week it's Robert E. Lee.  I notice that Stonewall Jackson's coming down.  I wonder, is it George Washington next week?  And is it Thomas Jefferson the week after?
You know, you all - you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?  But they were there to protest - excuse me.  You take a look, the night before , they were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee."
[For those of you keeping track, in the last answer/statement alone he mentioned taking down the statue three times and they were only there to protest taking it down.  We all know that's how it started out but when the nationwide call went out and speakers from across their radical spectrum were invited to attend, it became far more than that.  His referral to "the night before" proves it as they marched in torchlight shouting Nazi and anti-Semitic slogans;  at that point it was more than obvious it wasn't just a march to save a statue, as if there ever had been any doubt.  And for as much as he, to this point, has claimed that he has denounced all such groups, this 'answer' amounts to no less than a full-on defense of them and their actions.]
You could almost here a note of desperation in his voice as he continued, "Infrastructure question, go ahead" but no such luck quite yet.
QUESTION:  "Should the statue of Robert E. Lee stay up?"
TRUMP:  "I would say that's up to a local town, community or the federal government depending on where it's located."QUESTION:  "Are you against the confederacy?" [For some reason the transcript chose to capitalize confederacy.  I chose not to because, technically, it doesn't exist anymore so there's no reason to do so.  But that's just me.]
QUESTION:  "How concerned are you about race relations in America?  And do you think they've gotten better or worse since you took office?"
TRUMP:  "I think they've gotten better [Sure they have.] or about the same [How can something have gotten "the same"?] - look, they've been frayed for a long time [No shit, Sherlock.].  And you can ask President Obama about that, because he'd make speeches about it."   This question did allow him an opening to discuss, however briefly, his economic policies set [but not in stone] to benefit the residents of our inner cities by creating "millions of jobs", the result of "companies moving back into our country, mentioning "two car companies that just announced" and "Foxconn in Wisconsin".  As he put it "We have many companies I say pouring back into the country."  [However, except for the mentioning of Foxconn, no other specific details were mentioned, only that it was all due to him and what is being done under his watchful eye.]  Naturally, all of this "will have a huge positive impact on race relations.  You know why?  It's jobs.  What people want now, they want jobs.  They want great jobs with good pay.  And when they have that, you watch how race relations will be.  And I'll tell you, we're spending [Spending or plan on possibly spending considering essential programs don't get cut or become underfunded?] a lot of money on the inner cities.  We're doing far more than anybody's done with respect to the inner cities.  It's a priority for me.  It's very important."

Coming up, the conclusion of OKAY,  LET'S ANALYZE THIS SHIT.  Episode III or  WHEN IT REALLY HITS THE FAN.