January 11, 2016

"I guess we have bigger problems in this country, but I guess it was a little amazing that he was able to get an interview with a guy that everybody else was looking for, right?"

Trump on Sean Penn.

16 comments:

traditionalguy said...

Now Trump is also channeling Howard Cosell. Howard did the "Bronx is burning" line during the 1977 World Series. Ronald Reagan picked up on that for campaign points about politicians all being failures.

Sometimes when he is not channeling JFK, I think Trump intentionally imitates Howard Cosell.

Thorley Winston said...

There’s at least a couple of ways of interpreting that comment. One is that Penn was in cahoots with the drug lord or that they traveled in the same circles, which is why Penn was able to locate him or had contacts who could locate him for an interview when law enforcement could not find him before when they tried to arrest him. Another is that Penn was working with the authorities and helped set this guy up to be arrested. I personally think that the former is more likely to be true in that Penn probably knew people who had ways of getting in touch with him.

Joe said...

Makes you wonder if US Federal law enforcement is composed of incompetent dicks or something.

gadfly said...

traditionalguy said...
Now Trump is also channeling Howard Cosell.

An interesting theory from the traditionalguy - especially when you consider Howard's opinion of himself: "Arrogant, pompous, obnoxious, vain, cruel, verbose, a showoff. There's no question that I'm all of those things."

And of course, as is true in Howard's case, Will Rogers also never met Donald Trump.

Thorley Winston said...

Makes you wonder if US Federal law enforcement is composed of incompetent dicks or something.

Why would it since he was captured in Mexico by Mexican authorities?


mccullough said...

The Mexican government is corrupt but not stupid. They know they needed to grab him and to turn him over to the US to keep up some relations with the Obama administration. You can't have Sean Penn interviewing your top criminal without people like Trump using it as evidence that Mexico is a corrupt failed state.

350,000 illegal immigrants are in US jails and prisons out of 2,000,000 incarcerated. A lot of criminals coming across our southern border

SDaly said...

Trump's supposed casual, off-hand response is specifically calculated to make you think that the current government cannot be trusted to solve the country's problems, but to do it in a way that you come to that conclusion seemingly on your own.

Note the two parts to the statement: (1) there are big issues facing this country; (2) even on this smaller issue the government was less competent than Spicoli!

Read Scott (Dilbert) Adams "Master Pursuader" analyses of Trump's way of communicating.

SDaly said...

I don't think anyone would really believe that the US had been assisting Mexico in trying to find him.

averagejoe said...

Progressive democrat party members seem to be connected and sympatico with organized crime syndicates and enemies of free people like The Mafia and the Kennedys, the democrat party press and Occupy Wall Street, the New York Times and Stalin, the democrat national Committee and Black Lives Matter, Obama and Muslim theocrats, progressive democrat celebrities and Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, The Viet Cong, Hugo Chavez, Kim Jong Il and Un, and El Chapo Guzman... Can the same be said of republicans? What makes democrats so amenable to crooks, pimps, muggers, thieves, murderers and tyrants?

Howard said...

1) He must have wanted to get caught. He had to know that Penn would leave a trail.
2) The Mexican police knew where he was and had to take him because embarrassment.

Either case, El Chupa had to know where this was heading. In the short video, he says he is confident they would arrest him, not kill him.

Has Teh Donald taken credit for La Reconquista de su amigo con todo?

Matt said...

averagejoe
Nixon opened up to China when they were ruled by a Mao. Reagan supported dictatorships in Brazil, Chile and Guatemala while backing the brutal government in Salvador. His administration made [illegal] arms deals with Iran and the Contras. He also supported South Africa during Apartheid after Carter had place sanctions. Bush never hid his friendship with Saudi princes. Reagan and Bush helped create the Afghan Mujahideen [Taliban] back when it was fashionable to do such thing. [Check out a 1985 photo of Mujahideen in the White House. If Obama even thought of doing that conservatives would freak out]. The list goes on. Your point about Democrats as a party simpatico with leftist thugs is simply untrue. Note the Vietnam war was started by Democrats - as a party they were not friendly with the Viet Cong. Some people who are leftist support some of the people you name – but individuals like Sean Penn et al. do not represent the Democratic party.

Roughcoat said...

Why did Sean Penn want to interview El Chapo? Does he get a thrill from hanging out with bad guys? Does hanging out with bad guys make him feel like a tough guy?

walter said...

on that note..we need to send special agent Dennis Rodman back to N.K. Work to be done.

Wince said...

"I guess we have bigger problems in this country, but I guess it was a little amazing that he was able to get an interview with a guy that everybody else was looking for, right?"

That sentence explains a lot about the presidential campaign success of Donald Trump.

He looks at things always in terms of individual accomplishment.

And notice Trump didn't feel the need to judge Penn ideologically.

Trump saves his ire for those who cross him personally.

I think wide swaths of the voting public find that appealing.

William said...

There should be a Duranty Award given to that journalist whose ideological blindness causes him to miss the lede. I know many here would claim that Penn's probing questions about Guzman's relations with his mother makes him the clear winner of this year's Duranty......I would tell such people, however, that they are themselves blinded by their own ideology and bias towards celebrities. I would argue that this year's clear winner should be the German press who suppressed the fact that hundreds--and that's a low estimate--of women had been sexually assaulted on a single night........Of course, it's still early in the year. Who knows what gall stones the press will leave unturned in their coverage of Hillary's candidacy. But just at this moment the Duranty goes to the German press.

walter said...

so..what was the answer? Boxers or briefs?