‘You Play Golf, Right?’ Donald Trump Rambled On While Commanders Tried to Interrupt

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In this daily series, Newsweek explores the steps that led to the January 6 Capitol Riot.

“The foundations are ready for one of the best years we’ve had,” Donald Trump said in a 45-minute video teleconference on Thanksgiving, Nov. 26, speaking to service members around the world, indicating of the second term. It will be a surprising performance, even for him.

“Our country is very good. It is the highest honor in my life to serve as your Commander-in-Chief,” he said. The president then summoned specific units and commanders in Kuwait, in the Red Sea, in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, and with his new Space Force, as he repeatedly repeated.

“You continue to watch around the world to see missile launches, space launches, and nuclear detonations while providing critical intelligence,” he told the commander of the 11th Space Warning Squadron in Colorado. “You are all pioneers in the newest branch of our armed forces.”

Donald Trump rambled about election fraud as military commanders tried to interrupt. Trump’s Thanksgiving teleconference with members of the United States Military, at the White House in Washington, DC, on November 26, 2020. ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images

“We’ve built up our military,” he boasted. “We’ve spent $ 2.5 trillion over the past three and a half years. And we’ve never had anything like it. … All new tanks and missiles and rockets,” all of which will be delivered over the next six to 12 months, “It’s all made in the USA.”

Speaking to commander and crew of the destroyer USS Winston Churchill, Trump said: “We’re making a lot of ships now, as you know, and you’ll get them soon.”

Speaking to a Coast Guard unit in Cuba, he said: “You have new Coast Guard ships, and I’m honored to get them for you.”

“You know, when we took over, our military was very depleted,” Trump said. “You already know that.”

“When I came in four years ago — hard to believe, almost four years ago — we were sad. And now we’re in phenomenal shape.”

“We went from old planes to new planes,” he told an Air Force commander in the Middle East, “from planes that are very clear to stealth, where you can’t see them.”

“A president — four years, no war,” he continued. “We stopped wars. And we won, as you know, 100 percent of the caliphate of ISIS in Syria and Iraq. We did the job.”

A half -dozen commanders around the world gave a solemnly prepared speech, thanking their men and women, describing their missions. Donald Trump barely paid attention to members of the armed forces, instead blustering about his own greatness and his claimed achievements. Nothing, other than the Space Force, can be credited to the president. The United States is still “at war” throughout the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia. No ships or tanks or planes were produced at speeds higher than in the previous three administrations. Trump is not responsible in any way for the stealth planes. And although President Barack Obama may have promised disarmament and defense spending cuts, there is no real reduction, and American troops are almost in the same state they have been in a decade.

At one point the president appears to wander around talking to himself. “Thank you so much,” he said. “Great. Really great. Are you a golfer? Do you play golf? You love it, right? That’s good. It’s so good. Thank you very much. The only form of exercise. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. And really, everybody, congratulations. “

When a soldier asked if the president had a plan for Thanksgiving, Trump continued to talk about the elections. “They find a huge difference in the votes. No one believes in those numbers. Those numbers are not correct numbers.” He spoke about false ballots and recounts and fake signatures; as he spoke, he became more and more lost in his own mind, moving repeatedly as the unbelievable members of the armed forces tried to intercept.

“But …” they said.

“Mr. President …,” they tried to say, asking more than once if the president would agree to the election.

Trump talked to them. “We’re like a third-world country. We have machines that nobody knows what the hell they’re looking at. I mean, look at all the mistakes they made.”

Michigan. Pennsylvania. Georgia. Wisconsin. Arizona. Texas. He mentioned them all. “We’ll see what happens. Nobody wants to see the kind of fraud that this election has … has really came to represent.”

“They want to remove‘ America First, ’he told soldiers, sailors, airmen and women, Marines, Coast Guards, and Space Force guardians on the call,“ I mean, they want to remove ‘America First. ‘They don’t want’ America First. ‘ You know why? Because China doesn’t want to. China expressed their demand: ‘Please leave “America First.” And the Biden administration said, ‘Oh, it’s okay. We will remove ‘America First.’

“So I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he continued. “One thing I do know: Joe Biden didn’t get 80 million votes. It was a rigged election — 100 percent — and people know it …. People say that votes are counted in foreign countries. “

Referring to the upcoming Senate runoff vote in Georgia, he mentioned the Democratic candidate, not remembering his name. “But he’s either a communist or a socialist. Probably a communist. It’s not for Georgia.”

At one point, the soliloquy was interrupted by an anonymous reporter in the Oval Office, who was watching the show.

“You won’t allow it?” he asked.

“It’s a possibility they’re trying to — look, between you people …”

“Just answer the question about the concession,” the reporter insisted.

“Don’t talk to me that way,” Trump said.

“I’m sorry sir, I’m just asking you to …”

“You’re a — you’re just a lightweight,” Trump sputtered.

“Answer the question about the concession,” the reporter repeated.

“Don’t talk to me — don’t talk to — I’m the President of the United States. Don’t ever talk to the president that way,” Trump said.

“Sir, I’m just asking you to answer the question about the concession,” the reporter said.

“All right,” Trump replied. “I’m going to go with another question. All right.”

But Trump never asked again. He continued speaking for another 10 minutes, talking about fraud and a stolen election as the reporter continued to ask his questions, asking several times about consent, about why the the president is not making actual fraudulent votes, about his departure from the White House. Donald Trump spoke. At one point he called Republican Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, an “enemy of the people”.

“If the media had been honest with this country — which, you know, for the most part, they weren’t — it wouldn’t have happened, he said.

“What they did was they used COVID to deceive the people of this country. And the whole world is watching and the whole world is laughing at our electoral process. The whole world is watching. And this is a very sad thing. A very sad thing. “

“You know it’s a tradition of previous presidents to go to the inauguration of the next president. So will you attend Joe Biden?” the reporter asked.

“I don’t want to say that yet,” the president replied.

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