Faced with a morass in Iran, sharply declining poll numbers and Republican elected officials starting to distance themselves from him to avoid an electoral cataclysm in a month, President Donald Trump did what comes most naturally to him: He sat for a lengthy interview with a legacy media outlet in which he spent most of the time badmouthing the media.
Makes perfect sense! This should solve all of his problems?
I went line by line through the transcript of Trump’s Time interview. Below I picked out the quotes from the president you really need to see.
To the Lines!
“They had dinner, and we were going to meet at 7:00. But I was at the big Presidents Cup. I was the chairman of it in Chicago at Marion, which is great. Actually, that was yeah, Medinah, at Medinah, last year, Marion, this time of year, it was really great, and so I called, I said, ‘Could we make it a little bit later?’”
The question was about Trump’s meeting with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei — and Amodei’s stated concerns about the dangers posed by AI. So, he talked about golf. And away we go!
“Now you do have to be responsible for yourself, and there aren't a lot of people that understand what's going on. This is a new one that is much different than people have ever seen before. But my attitude is, we're winning against the world by a lot, and I want to keep winning.”
This is definitely the sort of stuff someone says who truly understands the perils and possibilities that artificial intelligences poses in the world. Definitely.
“There are those that say it's bigger than the industrial revolution, and you would think not. But actually, if you look at the numbers—you ever see these numbers? They're like, they're like straight up in the air.”****“This is a whole new world, probably mostly good, but some bad too. And it's a very powerful world. It's a very—potentially really could be good for medical. I mean, some of the things they're coming up with now that they never even thought about. But with good comes bad, and we want them, we want all of them to behave for themselves.”
“Because I do respect the free press, but I don't respect fake news. I'll give you an example. CNN and MSDNC, which is MS Now—they changed the name because it does so poorly. But I won the election. I won it handily by massive numbers. I won the popular vote. I won all seven swing states. They said if you won three swing states, I won all seven. I won the counties. It's very important, 86% popular vote. Everything, and very conclusively, I haven't had a good story on CNN for years. They're incapable of being—they're fake news. Same thing on MS NOW.”
Trump seems to believe that because he won the 2024 election he is entitled to only positive press coverage? But that’s not how a free and independent media works. Is he unaware of that fact? Does he not care? Either way, it’s pretty worrisome.
