Jonathan Swan's Axios interview of Benedict Donald is shaking the interwebs about as thoroughly as that explosion in Beirut is rattling Lebanon. (Which apparently officials are saying was not a terrorist attack, thank goodness. It sounds like it could be Halifax 1917 Redux.)
We cats haven't been able to watch all 35 minutes of Trump sitting across from Swan on a tiny chair as if, as is his wont, he's perched on a toilet. He's either so depraved or so demented (or both) that we hope we can pick up all the hideous details from social and mainstream news media and just hang on until November 3. But it was packed to the brim with truly Trumpian awfulness. The families of more than 150,000 Americans might disagree that the COVID-19 death rate "is what it is."
It may have been another milestone in the destruction of Benedict Donald, one that — assuming he gets wiped out in November — people will look back on and say, "Here's where the bottom really dropped out." Of course, you could point to any number of previous incidents that way: saying the coronavirus will disappear, injecting bleach, "It's one person coming in from China," or the previous iteration of "It is what it is." But nice of Trump to remind people that he said it the first time.
The interview might also signal a change in the way the media cover Trump. Swan pushed back, corrected him, and was more combative than any reporter with a President since Dan Rather with Richard Nixon. Very satisfying — although probably only a white male journalist with a British-y accent could get away with it. But on the other hand, now that Swan has done it, will the floodgates open for everyone else? Will reporters feel free to push back against Trump's lies in real time, even if they have to interrupt him to do it?
We vote yes, in the hope that journalism — and the Presidency itself — can return to normalcy once Joe Biden's elected. That would make us cats PURR.
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