Somehow, despite the great big mess Donald Trump has found himself in recently on top of having to pick a new nominee to the Supreme Court, has managed to carve out time to participate in three different campaign rallies over the past week. That run of rallies culminated in Wednesday’s event in North Dakota at which Trump tossed out a new level of whiny and weird material that Seth Meyers couldn’t help but mock Thursday night.
“Trump held yet another campaign rally last night in North Dakota. His third rally in a week. Now, we’ve been calling these rallies public therapy sessions, but it was never more true than it was last night. Watch as Trump airs his deepest insecurities about not being seen as smart, rich, or popular,” Meyers said to open “A Closer Look” Thursday night.
“Late Night” then cut together a montage of three bits from Trump’s speech in which he said — well, I’ll just put the quotes here:
“I meet these people. They call them the elite! These people. I look at them, I say, that’s elite? We got more money. We got more brains. We got better houses, apartments. We got nicer boats. We are smarter than they are and they say ‘the elite.’ We are the elite.
“And i thought that was so brilliant, I said, ‘Oh, I am so smart. I am the smartest person.’ My uncle was a great professor at MIT for 40 years. Can you believe, 40 years? I said, ‘But I’m smarter than him.’ I’m smarter than anybody.
“A thing comes out, a big poll, a couple of polls, a number of polls, that he’s the most powerful, most popular Republican in the history of the party.”
“Oh my god. Dude, get a therapist. I know you’re cheap, but get a therapist,” Meyers said, exasperated. “Trump is like a guy at a bar who acts as his own wingman. ‘My buddy thinks you’re cute. He’s smart and handsome and popular, and he’s me.’
“But you know what Trump says — he’s smarter than anybody, and he had a chance to show off those smarts while talking about the complex issue of trade during his rally. Trump was defending his tariffs. Now, this is Trump’s thing. It’s his big issue. The thing he claims to be expert on, and yet, when his aides slipped him a note during the rally about Canadian wheat practices, he seemed confused.”
You should probably just watch the video up top for this part to really feel the weirdness, but in case you cannot, here is Trump’s comment in response to being handed that note.
“I’ll tell you, John and Kevin gave me something. They just told me this,” Trump said in the clip, before reading the note. ” ‘Canadian wheat markets consistently discriminate against the United States wheat by grading it as feed.’ Do you know what that means? They know what it means. I don’t know what the hell it means. I just know it’s a bad deal. What the hell does that mean?”
“Great, that clears it up,” Meyers retorted. “Also, he yells out ‘Canadian wheat’ like he’s guessing in Pictionary. ‘Canadian wheat!’ Only Trump could brag that he’s smarter than anybody, and then in the same speech admit that he has no idea what he’s talking about. He’s like a doctor looking down at you before a surgery who says, ‘Don’t worry, I’m the best surgeon in the world. Now just tell me, what does a kidney look like?’
“Now, while he was nursing his various obsessions, Trump decided to return to another one — perhaps his greatest obsession — Hillary Clinton, during a rant comparing the size of his crowds to hers.”
The Trump quote in question: “If crooked Hillary would have won this election, and if she came here, which is about a zero percent chance after the election, she’d have 200 people in a conference room in a small hotel — and let me tell you, if our opponent, our wonderful opponent, when is she going to get over it? When does she get over it?”
When is she going to get over it?” Meyers asked, incredulous. “If you are still asking that question 20 months after the election you won, you are the person who is not over it. “Trump’s like a guy texting his ex two years after they broke up, ‘WHY CAN’T YOU STOP THINKING ABOUT ME?’ ”
You watch the full “A Closer Look” segment from Thursday’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers” in the video embedded at the top of this post — and you should, because there’s a lot more of this.