Trump’s bizarre attack on McCain

“They’ve gone on to greener pastures ... or perhaps far less green pastures.”

Trump gave a dizzying, rambling speech to an evangelical group on Wednesday, including a very weird aside about the late Sen. John McCain, who he seemed pleased to say has “gone on to greener pastures ... or perhaps far less green pastures.”

McCain, who died last August, cast the decisive vote against repeal of the Affordable Care Act in the summer of 2017, which is still a personal sore spot for Trump.

“We needed 60 votes and we had 51 votes, and sometimes, you know, we had a little hard time with a couple of them, right? Fortunately they’re gone now. They’ve gone on to greener pastures,” Trump said, as some groans could be heard emanating from his Faith and Freedom Coalition audience, although with chuckles. “Or perhaps far less green pastures, but they’re gone ... very happy they’re gone.”

While Trump has long made bizarre appearances, they’ve seemingly become a more regular occurrence in the days since he launched his campaign for reelection with a rally last week in Orlando — a troubling sign of what the next year and a half of campaigning could look like.

His speech before the Faith and Freedom Coalition on Wednesday was no exception:

He tried to blame former President Obama for the “zero tolerance” policy his administration implemented in April 2018 that led to migrant and asylum-seeking families being separated.
He claimed — without evidence — that foreign governments try to send “very bad people” to the United States in migrant caravans.
Despite it being June, Trump declared victory in the supposed “war on Christmas” — “we’re saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again, you notice?”
He told some jokes about becoming a dictator that doubled as a way for him to bash the media.

Trump’s speech to the Faith and Freedom Coalition came hours after he called in to Fox Business for a rambling phone interview that was especially incoherent.

After it ended, he returned to the White House, where he took a few questions from reporters before taking off for the G20 in Japan, where he’s expected to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Asked by a reporter what he plans to say to Putin, Trump admonished her that “what I say to him is none of your business” — a somewhat odd line given not only the controversy that’s swirled around secretive meetings with Putin he’s had in the past but also because the president is supposedly conducting diplomacy on behalf of the United States.

https://www.vox.com/2019/6/26/18759973/trump-faith-freedom-coalition-mccain