President Trump interviewed by Axios (Jonathan Swan)

[QAnonKelly]

HBO put up the whole vid for free.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Trump has always reminded me of this exchange in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

Trillian: I've just thought of something.

Zaphod: Yeah? Worth interrupting a news bulletin about me for?

T: You hear enough about yourself as it is.

Z: I'm very insecure. We know that.

T: Can we drop your ego for a moment? This is important.

Z: If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.

[Skye]

Quite literally 5 minutes in and Trump is already boasting about his ratings. Can't make this s*** up.

[afleitch]

It's because US reporters can't interview for sh-t.

You assume he knows the basics of government so he waffles around the nuances and his supporters think it's some 4-D chess. But he doesn't know the basics. And no one has asked him basic civics questions in six years.

Stop asking 'What do you think about Supreme Court decision on...' because he'll waffle and instead ask 'Do you know what the Supreme Court does' and he will fall apart.

[Badger]

This interview, especially the part when he tried to describe the graphs, was pure comedy.

Trump: (looking at the graph) "Right here ... United States is lowest in ... numerous categories. We're lower than ... the world--.

Swan: "Lower than the world?"

He can barely read.

But remember, Joe Biden is going senile.

[Thank you for being a friend...]

Trump is incapable to run a hot dog stand and yet 40% of Americans think he does a good job as president.

lol

[GP270watch]

HBO put up the whole vid for free.

 I tried to watch it and couldn't get through the whole thing. With all the intelligent and honest people we have in this country, the Republican voters of The United States of America decided that this is the best they have to offer. What a shame.

[Badger]

Interviewer is the most sloppiest smuggest piece of shaite I have ever seen. Look at his facial expressisions, his smirks at his gotcha questions, and how he mumbles when POTUS speaks. Totally unprofessional. Trump needs to ban this guy from future interviews.

Also, the camera work sucks too.

Yes, THAT'S the disturbing part of this interview.

[Middle-aged Europe]

That interview is like something taken straight from Saturday Night Live. Except that it's not. Because if it had been taken from SNL, Donald Trump would have been played by Alec Baldwin. But here, Donald Trump is played by Donald Trump.

[Mr. Illini]

It's because US reporters can't interview for sh-t.

You assume he knows the basics of government so he waffles around the nuances and his supporters think it's some 4-D chess. But he doesn't know the basics. And no one has asked him basic civics questions in six years.

Stop asking 'What do you think about Supreme Court decision on...' because he'll waffle and instead ask 'Do you know what the Supreme Court does' and he will fall apart.

It mostly has to do with who the WH allows interviews with. If they allowed an interview with, say, Katie Couric, she would easily be able to lay bare Trump's incompetence Sarah Palin-style.

[Battista Minola 1616]

Trump needs to ban this guy from future interviews.

Swan needs to stop interviewing this guy in the future (for the sanity of both).

Fixed.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

l
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24020899


Donald Trump - defending child sex traffickers and the Russian government at the drop of a hat, American citizens and soldiers, not at all.

[Crumpets]

It's because US reporters can't interview for sh-t.

You assume he knows the basics of government so he waffles around the nuances and his supporters think it's some 4-D chess. But he doesn't know the basics. And no one has asked him basic civics questions in six years.

Stop asking 'What do you think about Supreme Court decision on...' because he'll waffle and instead ask 'Do you know what the Supreme Court does' and he will fall apart.

It mostly has to do with who the WH allows interviews with. If they allowed an interview with, say, Katie Couric, she would easily be able to lay bare Trump's incompetence Sarah Palin-style.

Just once I want to see someone try to interview Trump on his terms. He's clearly the kind of person who is willing to let down his BS guard when he thinks someone agrees with him. Just throw him a couple of "so you're clearly a genius, why are you so popular?" softballs to start off with. Then after he's comfortable, ask him the tough questions. When people are clearly doing normal journalist interviews, Trump just shuts down and babbles his way through the whole interview and it's completely unwatchable - and I'm pretty sure that's by design.

[John Dule]

I actually agree with Woodbury that Swan came across as a bit pestering and obnoxious in this interview. Of course, when you're talking to someone like Trump who tells a lie every eight seconds, you basically have to choose between either constantly interrupting or letting him get away with misleading the public. So there's almost no point in conducting these kinds of interviews.

[Alben Barkley]

This was... surreal. Even by Trump standards.

[Progressive Pessimist]

I would love to say that this interview was the scariest thing I ever watched (though I didn't watch the whole thing, I would rather listen to that "Dance Monkey" song on a 10 hour loop than make my blood boil from one 38 minute Trump interview) but horror relies on shock and nothing he said here surprises me. Nothing he ever says can surprise me anymore. I will admit that he showed some record restraint in not talking s*** about John Lewis for as long as he did since his passing, but I knew it wouldn't last.

The only real bright side is that Democrats have even more fodder to run against Trump with from this interview until we forget about all of it by, like, tomorrow.

[ProudModerate2]

Trump is incapable to run a hot dog stand and yet 40% of Americans think he does a good job as president.

lol

All joking aside, the above comment is true though.
I have always been proud of my country and most of its people, but the last four years are an extreme embarrassment.

[emailking]

Jonathan Swan reveals the simple secret to exposing Trump's lies: basic follow-up questions

Who?
What?
How?
No.
In an interview that aired Monday night on "Axios on HBO," Swan demolished some of Trump's most dishonest talking points with a powerful tactic that has rarely been used by the people Trump has allowed to interview him:

...

Take their exchange about coronavirus testing. Trump uttered a version of his now-familiar refrain about how testing is overrated -- attributing this nonsense to unnamed "those that say." Swan pressed for details.
Trump: "You know, there are those that say you can test too much, you do know that."
Swan: "Who says that?"
Trump: "Oh, just read the manuals. Read the books."
Swan: "Manuals? What manuals?"
Trump: "Read the books. Read the books."
Swan: "What books?"

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/04/politics/fact-check-jonathan-swan-axios-hbo-interview-trump-coronavirus/index.html

[JA]

Jonathan Swan reveals the simple secret to exposing Trump's lies: basic follow-up questions

Who?
What?
How?
No.
In an interview that aired Monday night on "Axios on HBO," Swan demolished some of Trump's most dishonest talking points with a powerful tactic that has rarely been used by the people Trump has allowed to interview him:

...

Take their exchange about coronavirus testing. Trump uttered a version of his now-familiar refrain about how testing is overrated -- attributing this nonsense to unnamed "those that say." Swan pressed for details.
Trump: "You know, there are those that say you can test too much, you do know that."
Swan: "Who says that?"
Trump: "Oh, just read the manuals. Read the books."
Swan: "Manuals? What manuals?"
Trump: "Read the books. Read the books."
Swan: "What books?"

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/04/politics/fact-check-jonathan-swan-axios-hbo-interview-trump-coronavirus/index.html

It's amazing how this man is championed as a hero in his field for simply doing the basics of his job. It's a true indictment of America's "journalists."

[GeneralMacArthur]

I watched this whole thing, it's insane how dumb and selfish this man is.  He constantly interrupts the interviewer (Swan) and refuses to let him ask questions full.  As soon as Swan starts speaking, he starts spitting out his rehearsed monologue for whatever issue he thinks Swan is talking about, regardless of what Swan is actually trying to ask.

There are a few moments when Swan is actually able to get through to Trump and ask a real question.  Trump refuses to answer the questions.  He just says things like "people are saying this" or "well we'll have to see" or "well I think so" and then pivots hard to his rehearsed monologue.

One particularly revealing moment:  Swan tries to ask him whether he would meet with a Black Lives Matter leader, Trump obviously ignores the question but pivots into this monologue about BLM "getting off on the wrong foot with him."  And he says that the first thing he ever saw of BLM was the infamous "pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon" video.  Note that this is one video from one of thousands of protests and it's almost five years old.  But this is all Trump wants to talk about with respect to BLM, this one video from five years ago.  He spends a solid sixty seconds breaking down the phrase "pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon" in excruciating detail to explain to Swan exactly what it's supposed to mean.  And repeats himself constantly.  That's his answer on BLM.  That his rehearsed answer.  Swan asked him the "would you meet with a BLM leader" question like six times before Trump finally answered "none of them have asked to meet with me."

[Amanda Huggenkiss]

It's amazing how this man is championed as a hero in his field for simply doing the basics of his job. It's a true indictment of America's "journalists."

Trump at best would have barely made it to 15% in the Republican primaries if the debates had been led by, say, Jeremy Paxman and Andrew Neil.

[Dr. Arch]

This interview was a disaster for Trump, and he's in no short order of those recently.

[Landslide Lyndon]

It's amazing how this man is championed as a hero in his field for simply doing the basics of his job. It's a true indictment of America's "journalists."

That's what happens when Maggie Haberman becomes the poster girl of investigative journalism.

[BlueSwan]

This entire interview redefines the trainwreck. Not sure how anybody can believe that this man is fit for the office.

[JA]

This entire interview redefines the trainwreck. Not sure how anybody can believe that this man is fit for the office.

All he has left are the “trigger teh libz” folks. Any reasonable person could be forgiven for thinking that the number of those people was a lot smaller, but it seems to be around 40-45%.