"He was evil and his mouth was filthy"
by digby
David Gergen was on with CNN's Ashleigh Banfield this morning talking about Trump and saying that we need to see him more as a three dimensional figure. He says that people say he's delightful in person but very, very tough to do business with. Gergen said he'd had him into one of his classes and said "he mesmerized me" and said it was apparent to him that the public Trump is just "a theatrical persona." Ok.
Banfield also knows him and said this:
He was delightful to me personally for years until the one time I asked him a tough question and he turned into a viper. And he was evil and his mouth was filthy. And it was a real telling moment. It was frightening. I mean I truly was frightened and I was taken aback by it.
Gergen then said, "we need to know the complexity of the man."
Yes, I think we understand the complexity of him very well. They went on to discuss this morning's press conference in which Trump lied again about protesters "taking swings" at people in the audience and defended his supporters' violence:
We've had some violent people as protesters. They're not just saying "oh..." These are people that punch, these are violent people. I get the biggest crowds. By far. It's not even a contest. You know, you people don't like to report it. Actually the one good thing about protesters is you have to go into these massive stadiums with 25 and 30 thousand people because the cameras never turn.
Hey Ben, the cameras never ever turn and show the stadium. I always say turn and show the stadium and they don't. But when there's a protester up in the corner it's great because the cameras all turn.Because it's a negative as opposed to a positive so they turn.
But we've had a couple that were really violent and the particular one when I said to bang him, that was a very vicious guy who was swinging -- was very loud -- and then started swinging at the audience. And you know what? It swung back.
And I thought it was very, very appropriate. He was swinging. He was hitting people. And the audience hit back. And that's what we need a little bit more of.
Now, I'm not talking about just a protestor. This was a guy who should not have been allowed to do what he did. And frankly, if you want to know the truth, the police were very, very restrained.
The police have been amazing.
Banfield played that footage and said they went back to the Las Vegas rally where the protester was allegedly "swinging" and they didn't see any such thing.
Gergen said Trump needed to stop defending this violence or he would be unqualified to be president.
That's funny.
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