Day -8: Everything About Trump’s Press Conference Was Totally Insane

Yesterday, President-elect Donald Trump held his first press conference in 168 days. Most victors choose to have a press conference in the first few days after Election Day. Trump waited over two months.

His last press conference, ironically, was where he begged for more hacking on the DNC and Hillary Clinton.

Among the lowlights of yesterday’s shenanigans:

• Members of the Trump Tower staff being compelled into attendance and applauding and/or otherwise reacting to Trump’s comments and antics
• Future White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer lashing out at the media for having the gall to report about the Trump-Russia blackmail/love fest
• Trump interrupting his own press conference to invite his tax attorney — from a law firm that won Russia Law Firm of the Year in 2016 — to read a lengthy statement trying to justify Trump’s plan to avoid conflicts of interest with his business
• Trump insisting that he could run his company and the country at the same time, if he wants to
• Trump refusing to put his business in anything resembling of a blind trust
• Trump backing off his earlier claim that his company would not pursue new deals while he was in office
• Trump berating a CNN reporter and insisting he would not answer questions from the organization because of their “fake news”
• Trump denying the Russians hacked the Trump campaign and/or the RNC, despite the intelligence agencies’ affirmations they did
• Trump explaining that he never engaged in the urination-sexual allegations in Russia because he’s “careful” and a “germaphobe”
• Trump lashing out at intelligence agencies for leaking the blackmail/love fest dossier — though they have categorically denied they were the source of the leak — and comparing the situation to Nazi Germany (Note: In Trump’s delusional hypothetical, he’s implying, we think, that the intelligence agencies are the Third Reich’s higher-ups and Trump is a lower-level citizen that is being disparaged by propaganda)
• Trump announcing that Obamacare would be repealed and replaced, but offering zero guidance on what the replacement would be

A huge stack of files and papers sat next to Trump that he said the following about at the very end of his press conference:“I want to thank everybody. So this is all — just so you understand, these papers — because I’m not sure that was explained properly. But these papers are all just a piece of the many, many companies that are being put into trust to be run by my two sons that I hope at the end of eight years, I’ll come back and say, oh, you did a good job. Otherwise, if they do a bad job, I’ll say, ‘You’re fired.’”

Yes, Trump really ended his press conference in front of a stack of documents that were allegedly from some of his companies. Yes, he erroneously called having his sons run the company as putting the companies in a trust. And, yes, he concluded with the tagline from his reality television show, The Apprentice.

The best part, of course, is that the folders and papers were a farce. Reporters weren’t allowed to open any of the folders, and there were no labels on any of them, either. (Imagine having tens of thousands of folders in your “yoooge” company without labels on any of them; it might make finding things more difficult.)

The zoo of a press conference was occurring, not coincidentally, while one of Trump’s most controversial Cabinet picks, would-be secretary of state Rex Tillerson, was being grilled during confirmation hearings.

This is all the new normal: berating of the free press, grandstanding, calling anything critical “fake news,” propaganda ploys and distractions from other newsworthy events.

He’s not even president, yet.

It’s only going to get worse.

-8 days in, 1469 to go

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