Your (Late) Weekend Message From The Master

(Editor’s note: Charles Pierce writes daily at The Esquire Politics Blog at Esquire.com. He is an award-winning writer and author, most recently Idiot America. Every weekend, he sends out a weekly newsletter to subscribers, of which, I am one. From now through the election, I will post his weekend musings on here)

August 12, 2024.

What in the hell conclusions are we supposed to draw from this? On Thursday, in the middle of a press conference better described in psychological terms as an “episode,” the former president* of the United States told a story so utterly impossible as to confuse the listener as to exactly where the lying ended and the dementia began.

You may recall that Howard Dean’s campaign ended when he yelled into a microphone, and that every dependent clause uttered by Al Gore in 2000 was turned into a weapon by his traveling press people. How fatal should it be, then, when a candidate with a vast record for outright lying tells the assembled media a tale like this one. From The New York Times:

Former President Donald J. Trump told a jaw-dropping story on Thursday about nearly dying in a helicopter ride with Willie Brown, the former California politician and ex-boyfriend of his rival, Vice President Kamala Harris…Mr. Trump’s errant account, delivered during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, came in response to a reporter who asked a leading question about Ms. Harris’s past relationship with Willie Brown, and whether Mr. Trump…