In this era of Brexit, the European parliamentary elections, and a host of other matters of great geopolitical urgency and mutual interest, President Trump has embarked upon a state visit to America’s closest ally, Great Britain.
The focus of America’s press corps? Trump called the Duchess of Sussex “nasty.”
Except he didn’t. Let’s ignore issues that matter, and recap what actually happened.
On May 31, The Sun, a British tabloid, published an interview with President Trump, in which the reporter asked him what he thought about comments Meghan Markle made about him when he was running for president in 2016. Here is the complete segment from that interview:
Sun: Meghan who is now Duchess of Sussex, we have given her a different name, she can’t make it because she has got maternity leave. Are you sorry not to see her because she wasn’t so nice about you during the campaign? I don’t know if you saw that.
Trump: I didn’t know that. No. I didn’t know that. No, I hope she is OK. I did not know that, no.
Sun: She said she would move to Canada if you got elected. It turned out she moved to Britain.
Trump: A lot of people are moving here. So what can I say? No, I didn’t know that she was nasty. I’m sure she’ll do excellently. She’ll be very good. I hope she does well.
This innocuous bit of dialog has been used by nearly every major media outlet to smear Trump yet again. His crime? He called her “nasty.” And apparently, according to the anti-Trump media, by “nasty,” Trump was saying Meghan Markle was herself “nasty,” in the most obscene, sexually degrading, offensive meaning of that word.
Except he did not. Trump wasn’t using the word “nasty” to describe Meghan Markle as a person. He was describing the tone of her remarks about him. Clearly, the intent of Trump’s remark was that he didn’t know she had said nasty things about him. The definition of “nasty” that would apply to Trump’s comment, according to Merriam-Webster is “lacking in courtesy.”
But don’t try telling that to the mainstream anti-Trump media. As CNN has helpfully reported, “Meghan Markle is the new ‘nasty’ woman on President Trump’s list.” And the story gets juicier.
In response to Trump saying he did not call Meghan Markle nasty, because he was referring to comments she made, not her, the media offered proof. As ABC News anchor Tom Llamas breathlessly reported on June 2, “we have the president’s remarks on tape.” Or, as Time puts it “President Trump Denies Meghan Markle ‘Nasty’ Comment Despite Recording.”
Now there’s not only a crime but a cover-up. But not to worry, because it’s all on tape. And, of course, Americans never heard the whole transcript, because the media reports typically only played it up until the word “nasty” is uttered. The rest of Trump’s comment is not heard, where he says “I’m sure she’ll do excellently. She’ll be very good. I hope she does well.”
What we have here is a tawdry parody of the entire collusion-obstruction storyline. The crime that didn’t happen followed by the cover-up that wasn’t.
And this nonstory continues to generate “breaking news.” Prince Harry, a man who once titillated his aristocratic colleagues by wearing Nazi regalia to one of their swanky soirees, has “snubbed” Trump after he “branded” Meghan Markle “nasty.”
This would all be hilarious except for the fact that it works. For a while, painstaking clarifications of what really happened will bubble up here and there through the swamp of lies. But come 2020, this latest Trump transgression, along with countless other media concocted lies and distortions of Trump’s words and deeds, will stand as truth.
So it is in 2020 the establishment media aims to have successfully swayed the minds of just enough soccer moms and other undecided voters, driving them into the pastures of the partisan progressive herd.
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