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Divided We Stand

Divided We Stand
New book about the 2020 election.

Monday, January 20, 2020

Trump and the Constitution: "It's Like a Foreign Language"

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's character and record of dishonesty.  He also has a weak understanding of the Constitution.  The 2019 update includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms.

In this Vanity Fair exceprt from A Very Stable Genius, Philip Rucker adn Carol Leonnig report on Trump's participation in an Alexandra Pelosi HBO documentary on the Constitution:

With LED lights on stilts in front of him, Trump took his seat. “You’re lucky you got the easy part,” Pelosi told him cheerfully. “It gets complicated after this.” But the president stumbled, trying to get out the words in the arcane, stilted form the founding fathers had written. Trump grew irritated. “It’s very hard to do because of the language here,” Trump told the crew. “It’s very hard to get through that whole thing without a stumble.” He added, “It’s like a different language, right?” The cameraman tried to calm Trump, telling him it was no big deal, to take a moment and start over. Trump tried again, but again remarked, “It’s like a foreign language.”
The section, like many parts of the Constitution, was slightly awkward—an anachronistic arrangement of words that don’t naturally trip off the tongue. Members of the crew exchanged looks, trying not to be obvious. Some believed Trump would eventually get it, but others were more concerned. The president, already bristling about his missteps, was getting angry. He chided the crew, accusing them of distracting him. “You know, your paper was making a lot of noise. It’s tough enough,” Trump said.