Well, Donald Trump went to Mexico. And while it wasn’t the comedy of errors we were hoping for, the trip was not without its high points. Specifically, the fact that Donald Trump sounded exactly like a man who’d been popping Quaaludes since dawn.
Especially compared to Trump’s usual frenetic diction, this new, intensely relaxed Trump was jarring. Not because it was particularly presidential or firm, but because Trump seemed to have significant trouble both a) catching his breath and b) reading the words on the page directly in front of him.
In the same fragmented sentences we know and love (just delivered semi-catatonically), Trump told us that he happens to “have a tremendous feeling for Mexican-Americans. They are amazing people.” One of our future President Trump’s goals? To “keep manufacturing wealth in our hemisphere.” Like the classic saying goes, hemisphere first!
Other than his new hemisphere-centric philosophy, the speech was more or less what you’d expect:
Peña Nieto, for his part, may not have delivered the impassioned rebuke people were hoping for, but that would also have been an insane thing to do. Instead, the Mexican President quietly, but firmly, contradicted pretty much everything Donald Trump has said about immigration throughout the entirety of his campaign.
He noted that “undocumented immigration from Mexico to the U.S. had its highest point 10 years ago and has slowed down since” as well as the fact that “illegal weapons” flow “in both directions.” In the latter case specifically, arms from the U.S. come across the border, which benefits drugs cartels and fuels violence in Mexico.
Despite rumors to the contrary, Trump apparently couldn’t help himself and decided to take a few questions, most notably about his fabled wall. When asked whether or not the two men were able to get the whole payment issue sorted out, Trump said that they “did discuss the wall. We didn’t discuss payment of the wall.”
And then, of course, there was this:
All in all, an incredibly low-energy showing from Lil Donny.
Update 8:30 p.m.:
Folks...
...the system is rigged.