Trump's kitchen cabinet is full of nuts

Trump's kitchen cabinet is full of nuts

by digby

So Trump said a lot of really dumb stuff last night in Sacramento. (I know. Stop the presses, right?) First he said that the crowd was 11,000 and officials said it was more like 2500. But whatever. He has huge hands.

He also issued a threat to the president that if he campaigns for the Democrats he's going to hit him too, just like "hit Bill Clinton". He called Obama a lightweight who doesn't have a clue. Which is funny coming from him. It's unclear if he repeated the nonsense he said a couple of days ago about there being no drought but perhaps someone warned him that he was likely to encounter some skepticism from people who are dripping in sweat in an airplane hanger in Sacramento.

It reminded me, however, of this piece by Rick Perlstein about where he got that information:

Donald Trump wrapped things up by telling Alex Jones “Your reputation is amazing.”

Trump keeps on upping the ante. Consider what he said at a rally last week in Fresno, on the subject of California’s apocalyptic drought.

Make that “drought,” for according to Donald J. Trump, there isn’t one. Never mind that the years between late 2001 and 2014 have been the driest in California history since record-keeping began; nor the 12 million trees that have died from “drought” in Southern California; nor predictions that the 2015 El Nino would bring relief, though the amount of rainfall actually decreased.

In Fresno, Donald approached the podium. He led off with a customary boast. (“What a crowd . . . I saw on television this morning, five o’clock in the morning, people were lining up. This is crazy, crazy!”) He referred to some real estate transaction he was working “probably 10 or 12 years ago” in their fair city: “They had a problem. You remember the problem, right? They had a problem, I think it was Running Horse, and I was going to take it over and do a beautiful job.” Then, in mid-thought, he pivoted incoherently into the subject on everyone’s minds in that parched agricultural region: “Fortunately, I didn’t do it, because there isn’t any water, because they send all the water out to the ocean, right?”

“I made a fortune by not doing it,” he said. The crowd cheered. Only in Trumplandia do the citizens cheer when they’re not afforded the benefactions of their orange-haired overlord. (I looked it up. His proposal to take over the foundering Running Horse golf course development apparently fell apart because the city refused his demand to dispossess homeowners over a nine-square-mile area through eminent domain.)

He commented that it was too bad he didn’t go through with the deal. Because: “I would have changed the water. . . . You have a water problem that is so insane, that is so ridiculous. Where they’re taking the water and shoving it out to sea.” Loud cheers.
He continued. “It’s not the drought. They have plenty of water. No, they shove it out to sea. Now, why? Because they’re trying to protect a certain kind of three-inch fish.”

“If I win, believe me, we’re going to start opening up the water so that you can have your farmers survive.” Then he moved on.

It made the news: “Donald Trump Tells Californians There Is No Drought.”

Then, however, reporters moved on to the next story, with no time to Google from whence Trump derived this crackpot notion about water taken from farmers and “shoved out to the sea.” The answer, apparently: InfoWars, the website of lunatic conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Who believes, for instance, that the school shooting in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, was staged by the government, using actors, in order to force gun control down the American people’s throats.

Perlstein goes on the discuss the deep ties between Trump and Jones as exposed by Rachel Maddow over the last few months as well as his own reporting.

Alex Jones.

This guy:

“The elite hate Trump, let me tell you. And if he is a psy-op, let me tell you, he’s the most sophisticated one I ever saw. And even if he is, he’s a revelation of the awakening . . . Humanity’s gotta get off-world, we’ve got to get access to the life-extension technologies . . . I want the advanced life extension! I want to go to space! I want to see inter-dimensional travel! I WANT WHAT GOD PROMISED US! AND I’M NOT GOING TO SIT HERE AND LET SATAN STEAL IT!

"@NeilTurner_: @realDonaldTrump Cruz & Rubio are scared! WATCH -> https://t.co/pWjLW1QBKo pic.twitter.com/W2r6mOzgkb"
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 24, 2016

His close confidant Roger Stone appears on the show regularly.

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