President Donald Trump traveled to Tennessee on Tuesday night to boost the Senate candidacy of Rep. Marsha Blackburn, delivering a speech packed with the over-the-top rhetoric, distortions and just plain oddities that have come to be his trademark.
I went through the speech and picked out the 45 most, um, unforgettable lines. They’re below.
1. “Do we love Tennessee? We love Tennessee!”
Is Tennessee in the hoooooooouse???
2. “You know Trace won ‘The Apprentice.’ Trace is a winner.”
This quote, about country music singer Trace Adkins, does two classic Trumpian things: 1) Remind people about a successful Trump product (“The Apprentice”) and 2) tout the importance of being a winner. Trump, as you may have picked up, likes to associate himself with winners.
3. “I love country music.”
I did not know that!
4. “This is a big crowd of people. This is a lot of people.”
Another regular feature of any Trump speech is a recognition of the massive crowd size – whether or not it is massive.
5. “I’m the only politician that produced more than I said I was going to produce, and we’re only one and a half years in.”
It’s very hard to fact-check claims like these – what does he mean by “produced” and how can we quantify it? But, here is a good Time magazine piece on the promises Trump kept (and broke) during his first year as president.
6. “Scott DesJarlais. The most beautiful name in politics.”
DesJarlais’ name might also ring a bell because earlier this decade, his divorce records leaked, showing that he carried on relationships with a number of patients (he was a doctor) and advised his ex-wife to seek abortions – despite being stridently anti-abortion rights as a public official.
7. “We all kept hearing, ‘He can’t get to 270.’ Remember, you need 270, Electoral College.”
The 2016 election ended 568 days ago.
8. “I went to Maine. I love Maine.”
Hello, Portland! Bangor, where you at!!
9. “There they are, right back there. Fake. They are fake. Look how many of them. Oh, boy. That’s a lot of people back there. That’s a lot of people. Fake news.”
What’s remarkable about this line from Trump is that he is simultaneously a) lambasting the news media as fake and b) touting how many reporters are there to cover him. It’s the equivalent of saying: This food is awful – and such small portions!
10. “There has never been an administration, and even some of our enemies are begrudgingly admitting this, that has done what we have done in the first year and a half.”
Two things here. First, Trump refers to people who disagree with him as his “enemies.” Second, it’s hard to calculate whether Trump has done more than any other president – as I mentioned above. He often touts that he has signed more bills than past presidents as evidence of all he has done. The problem with that claim is that it’s not true.
11. “Tremendous talent in this room. It’s a big room. This stadium. This arena.”
Big. Huge. YUGE. The point Trump wants to get across is that lots and lots of people are coming to see him.
12. “We truly are making America great again. Look at all those hats.”
If you want to make your own Trump hat, my former colleague Philip Bump has created a tool that allows you to do just that!
13. “Who is he? I never heard of this guy. Who is he?”
Trump is referring to Phil Bredesen, Blackburn’s likely opponent in the fall Senate election. And Bredesen is a former two-term governor and two-term mayor of Nashville. So …
14. “The MS-13 lover, Nancy Pelosi. She loves MS-13.”
Trump says this a lot about the House minority leader. It doesn’t make it any more true.
15. “They are more interested in taking care of criminals than they are in taking care of you.”
This claim, about Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, seems to also take some liberties with the facts.
16. “Crooked Hillary.”
Remember that Trump’s rallies are a sort of greatest hits album. He ticks through the bits he knows the audience loves. And there is no more beloved call-and-response among Trump’s supporters than him calling the 2016 nominee “Crooked Hillary” and them chanting “Lock her up!”
Did I mention the election ended 568 days ago?
17. “How do you like the fact they had people infiltrating our campaign? Can you imagine?”
[narrator voice] They didn’t.
18. “Is there anybody in this big, beautiful arena right now that’s infiltrating our campaign?”
The arena, in case you hadn’t heard, is both “big” and “beautiful.” Also, very, very crowded.
19. “In all fairness, I’m no fan of crazy Bernie Sanders. I’m no fan. But I want to tell you, he got screwed.”
Hey, look, I hate that crazy son of a gun. But, man, Hillary did him dirty!
20. “The only way she filled up the arena was to get Jay-Z. And his language was so filthy that it made me like the most clean-cut human being on earth.”
Worth noting: The crowd booed when Trump mentioned Jay Z’s name. Must not be hip-hop fans! Wait …
21. “He would stand up there before those crowds. And, by the way, without any musical instruments.”
Jay Z’s greatest crime was not that he supported Hillary Clinton. It was that his music didn’t require musical instruments, according to Trump. THE HORROR.
22. “Phil Bredesen supported her. He supported her ideas. Border wall. We have already started doing it.”
I didn’t edit this or splice sentences together. This is exactly what Trump said. He went from attacking Bredesen to saying the words “border wall.” Just like that. [looks around in amazement]
23. “You go to the hospital. You have a broken arm. You come out, you are a drug addict with this crap.”
This feels like an oversimplification of the opioid epidemic. Also of hospitals. And broken arms.
24. “You ever have second thoughts about something?”
Literally every second of every day.
25. “I have property in California that I don’t care about anymore.”
Same.
26. “I can tell a contractor. I can smell a contractor, believe it or not.”
Tell me more …
27. “Our laws are the worst laws of any country anywhere in the world.”
… said the President of the United States.
28. “Nobody leaves in the Senate.”
He’s not wrong …
29. “In the end, in the end, Mexico is going to pay for the wall. I’m just telling you that.”
“President @realDonaldTrump: NO. Mexico will NEVER pay for a wall. Not now, not ever. Sincerely, Mexico (all of us).” – Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, last night.
30. “They are going to pay for the wall and they are going to enjoy it. OK? They are going to enjoy it.”
“President @realDonaldTrump: NO. Mexico will NEVER pay for a wall. Not now, not ever. Sincerely, Mexico (all of us).” – Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, last night.
31. “These are people different from me in the sense that they want to run. I don’t want to run. They want to run.”
The Trump theory of exercise is one of the least appreciated parts of his life philosophy. “Other than golf, he considers exercise misguided, arguing that a person, like a battery, is born with a finite amount of energy,” writes the New Yorker’s Evan Osnos in a Trump profile in May 2017.
32. “And they go and they work hard and they want to look good.”
“I get exercise. I mean, I walk, I this, I that. I run over to a building next door. I get more exercise than people think.” – Donald J. Trump.
33. “He was working those tears. He was trying so hard.”
In which the president of the United States accuses the Senate minority leader of fake-crying.
34. “You won’t have a Second Amendment if the Democrats take over. You won’t have a Second Amendment.”
A regular Trump claim that has been debunked time and time again.
35. “This is why we call the bloodthirsty MS-13 gang members exactly the name I used last week. What was the name? [Crowd: “Animals!”]
Trump has turned a controversy over his referring to people – even gang members – as “animals” into a call-and-response with the crowd at a campaign rally. This is politics in 2018.
36. “Phil whatever-the-hell-his-name-is.”
It’s “B-r-e-d-e-s-e-n.”
37. “Democrats running for office, many of them are saying great things about me.”
[narrator voice] They’re not.
38. “We have pride in our history.”
This is a very interesting line. What is Trump referring to as “our history”? And who?
39. “I want it to be called the tax cut cut cut cut plan. Four cuts.”
Admittedly, if the tax cut law had been named the “Tax Cut Cut Cut Cut Plan,” that would have been something.
40. “And then early in the morning, somebody turned their hand in the wrong direction. [crowd boos] That cost our country a lot.”
The “somebody” is John McCain, who voted against the Republican effort to repeal and replace Obamacare. McCain, who the crowd booed, is currently fighting brain cancer.
41. “He said every president, Bush. Bush, $7 trillion in the Middle East. Great. Great. Great investment. A lot of death. Death and blood and money.”
Trump isn’t a big fan of the Bush family. This may be news to you if you have spent the past three years living on another planet.
42. “They think he is so nasty and so tough that I have to hold him back. OK? Pretty great.”
This is Trump on his national security adviser John Bolton. And, as Trump makes clear, he loves that people think Bolton is too tough. Loves it.
43. “So beautiful. Leather. Most expensive leather money can buy. You know. Thing probably cost $2,000.”
“Ode to a Leather Binder,” by Donald John Trump.
44. “It’s totally beautiful. The finest stones, the finest marbles, the best location.”
Donald Trump on the new American embassy in Jerusalem. Or, Donald Trump on the new Trump hotel. You decide.
45. “We have triumphed over evil like nobody has seen before.”
The best evils. The biggest evils. Believe me.