George Stephanopolous spent 30 hours with Donald Trump last week, but just a small amount of their conversations appeared on ABC. Today, though, we are getting a chance to read the transcripts of the interviews. Seeing the words in print offer more of a perspective about how Trump framed his answers and how Stephanopolous questioned him and sometimes corrected him.
OMG, we are desensitized to the sound of it, in his voice. But when you READ it, the unfathomable illiteracy, the crutch of banal repetition, the lack of a single complex thought, let alone anything beyond a third grade sentence… it all SCREAMS at you. https://t.co/EURIQ7e1Yf
— Randi Mayem Singer (@rmayemsinger) June 17, 2019
It’s possible — and it’s happening more and more — to read 15,000 words of Trump interview transcript and not learn a single thing
— Jeremy Barr (@jeremymbarr) June 17, 2019
Look, we’ve kind of normalized this now, but GS corrects him twice and Trump still gets how tariffs work wrong. He literally doesn’t know how they work. This is insane. @ABC https://t.co/zv51nGousS
— John Rogers (@jonrog1) June 17, 2019
ABC has also released some behind the scenes clips, like this one where the president scolds his acting Chief-of-Staff, Mick Mulvaney, for coughing.
This is a great clip: President Trump is talking about his finances, then pauses to tell the ABC crew he’d like to re-tape his answer because his staffer was coughing in the middle of it. “I don’t like that. You know?” https://t.co/h1jEo2aSZi
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) June 17, 2019
Watch more of this interaction above.