President Donald Trump held a White House summit on social media on Thursday. And almost none of it was actually about social media.
The summit was widely expected to be an hour of Trump and other conservatives complaining about so-called “censorship” by social media giants such as Twitter and Facebook (neither of which were invited to the summit).
But naturally, Trump was incapable of staying on script and instead chose to ramble about a variety of topics, from the predictable (negative media coverage) to the truly bizarre (his hair).
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Who “Died”
At one point, Trump complained about being replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger on his reality TV show “The Celebrity Apprentice.”
“Big movie star,” Trump mocked. “Well you know what? He died. He died.”
“I was there 12 years, 14 seasons, then they pick a movie actor and he dies on us,” he continued.
Then Trump said he’d rather have Schwarzenegger “die at it” than be successful on the show.
(Schwarzenegger is very much alive.)
His “Real Hair”
Though it had rained during Trump’s July 4 “Salute to America,” the President claimed the poor weather was “beautiful in one way.”
“They learned it was my real hair that day because I was drenched,” Trump said. “Well, that is the one good thing. I ran and they learned it’s my hair because I’ve been through every windstorm, sandstorm, ‘Let’s go over here, let’s go this one, that one, this desert, let’s go to this ocean and get out of the plane. Sir, the wind is blowing at about 70 miles an hour.’ I said ‘Boy, it’s gotta be mind.'”
The Golan Heights
After first complaining about seeing his Twitter follower count go “up and down,” Trump suddenly pivoted to his controversial decision to recognize the Golan Heights as under Israeli sovereignty.
“I gave representation in the strongest form of the Golan Heights Israel. They’ve been looking at it for 52 years. For 52 years they couldn’t get it,” Trump said while describing how there’d been “many summits where people would fly in, talk about the Golan Heights, and then fly out.”
“They fly in, they fly out,” Trump said. “Some had beautiful planes, some didn’t. Some probably didn’t get there by plane.”
Antifa
Yep, the right-wing boogeyman somehow made a cameo during Trump’s speech.
At first, it wasn’t clear who or what Trump was talking about when he started rambling about how “they” pick on “certain people.”
“They don’t go after Bikers for Trump. You ever notice that?” Trump asked, still without indicating to whom he was referring. “They don’t go after our construction workers, who love us. They don’t go after the police.”
He said “they” live in “the basement of their moms’ home” and mocked the size of “their arms.”
“But they have the black masks on, and they have sticks and they hit people,” Trump continued. “They hit people in the face. In the head.”
Then Trump finally clarified who he was talking about: “This Antifa.”
China
What better time than a social media summit to tout tariffs on Chinese imports?
“I want everyone to do well, but [China’s] got to treat us fairly,” Trump said. “Everyone has to be treated fairly. Their side, our side. We all have to be treated fairly.”
Which then lead to a tangent about farmers and how much Trump loves them.
“And you know, the farmers say ‘We just want a level playing field.’ I love the farmers,” Trump said. “They’re patriots and China, as you know, targeted the farmers because they think they could get to me by hurting the people that I love and that we take care of.”
2020 Democrats
Trump went on a McCarthyite diatribe against the Democrats running for president, accusing them of “looking at pure socialism, or worse than socialism.”
“You know, there’s a word called ‘Communism’ too,” Trump added. “They don’t like to use it. Very rarely do you hear that. But there’s a word called ‘Communism’ and they’re trying to get socialism over the line. But these people are–this is beyond socialism to a large extent. And I think we’re gonna have a tremendous success.”
Media Coverage
Although the summit was supposed to be about social media, the President seemed to focus primarily on the second half of that phrase.
During his speech, Trump randomly veered off into several incoherent rants about negative media coverage on his presidency. One such rant went like this:
“I can tell you, that I deal with the media and the spin they put on it or sometimes they’ll leave it out. And then if there’s something slightly negative they’ll make it headline news, they’ll put it down as headline news. Or even covered up by the media. They were broken up by citizens and you’ll take a look at what’s happening and you see stories that should be phenomenal, big, beautiful stories and it turns out that they don’t get covered.”
Telling Summit Attendees Some Of Them Deserved To Be Banned
The point of the event was to discuss social media “discrimination” against conservatives, but even Trump admitted some of the far-right hardliners deserved to be banned–and told them so right to their faces.
“Some of you were taken off for absolutely no reason,” Trump said. “I mean in all fairness, some of you I could almost understand. I mean some of you guys are out there.”
“But even you should have a voice. But some of you, no, some of you deserve…” Trump trailed off while shaking his head. “I mean it’s genius, but it’s bad.”
Bonus: The Fly
While Trump was bragging about the military, a fly began circling around his face.
“How did a fly get into the White House?” Trump asked as he swatted at it. “I don’t like that. I don’t like flies. I don’t like flies.”
