(Editor’s Note: We have Throwback Thursday and Flashback Friday for posts that take us through the wayback machine, but I didn’t want to wait to put this up. So I made up a term. (Get it?))
With Donald Trump’s CPAC speech being described as “bewildering” (the Atlantic), “bizarre” (the Guardian), and “the discordant ramblings of a brain long since turned to pudding by amphetamines and syphilis” (a rough summation of left Twitter), I think it’s time to remind folks of one of my favorite “Trump’s brain no longer functions” moments, especially since it got such little coverage at the time. It comes to us from some remarks he made a little over a year ago at Republican retreat.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4712658/trump-forgets-acknowledged-john-cornyn
(The embed feature wasn’t working.)
Notice that Trump introduces John Cornyn near the beginning of this clip, then by the end seems to have forgotten having done so. The official White House transcript seems to confirm it:
But they’ve become very good friends, and we’re now in battle together and in friendship together. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. (Applause.) Thank you, Mitch. Great guy. (Applause.) That was a big win we had, Mitch. Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn. John, thank you. Great job. (Applause.) House Majority Whip Steve Scalise. Again, Steve, thank you. (Applause.) House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Kevin. (Applause.) Chair John Thune and House Conference Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers. (Applause.)
Did they forget your name, John? I don’t know. What’s going on here? (Laughter.) John Cornyn, everybody knows. They didn’t put his name up, but that’s okay. That’s the first time that’s ever happened. Hey, John, that will never happen again. (Laughter.)
Our big wet boy president completely forgot about something he said thirty seconds ago. I think it’s the starkness of how obvious it is that put a lot of people in denial about it, or left them not wanting to cover it. (I suspect that, as always, our mass media leans to preserving the appearance of normality among the powerful.) But after his CPAC moments included such gems as meeting a general named “Raisin Kane, like the fruit,” one of his most blatant examples of cognitive failure seems worth revisiting.