Trump and his 'Are you going to believe me or your lying eyes' press conference

Leon Wolf:

Donald Trump just held a press conference prior to a speech in Iowa which was – and I say this without exaggeration – the most bizarre thing I have seen in a lifetime of following politics. It was at once an illustration of why the media fixates on him, and also why the other candidates in the race cannot deal with him.

He opened the conference by yelling at Univision anchor Jorge Ramos, who he claimed asked a question without being called on. He continued to yell at Ramos at some length about being out of turn, then turned to one of his campaign staffers, nodded, and pointed at Ramos, whereupon the staffer removed Ramos from the conference. (Note: I would have zero problem on principle with throwing Ramos out of a press conference on the merits).

The next reporter’s question, naturally, was, “Why did you have him thrown out?” Amazingly, Trump responded to this question, I’m not kidding, by answering, “I didn’t have him thrown out, you’ll have to ask security, whoever they are.” When reporters pressed him with the obvious fact that the person who had him removed was on his staff (he appeared to be wearing a Trump button even, but I can’t swear to that), he immediately changed his tune to say that it was because the reporter was a “highly emotional person,” with no mention of the fact that 30 seconds earlier he had been denying that he had Ramos thrown out at all.

Things only got more bizarre from there. A reporter asked him whether he would self-fund his campaign. Showing a complete inability to grasp campaign finance law (or interest in the details), he said, in effect, “Well, you know, I could, I make $500 million a month, and then at some point the GOP has to come in and run things.”

Trump seemed particularly fixated on Jeb Bush, belittling his standings in the polls and calling him a “low energy person.” He also said, “You know, Jeb Bush has raised $114 million and no one knows who any of his donors are, you can’t find it out!” – apparently unaware that the FEC and numerous other sites contain easily searchable online databases of campaign donors.

Trump continued to field questions about the Ramos ejection. Bizarrely, Trump finally capitulated and seemed eager to field questions from Ramos. “Sure, bring him back in here, I’d love to have him, get him in here in two seconds.” During the middle of Ramos’ question, Trump essentially began bragging that he had sued Univision for $500 million dollars, stating that “I bet your company’s very worried about that.”

Trump’s answer, with regards to literally every other candidate in the race, was that he was leading them in the polls. When asked about Scott Walker, he responded, “When I got in the race, Walker was at 22% and I was at 10%, now I’m at 24% and he’s at about 6% and I think it’s because people got to looking at what is going on in Wisconsin.” That’s a paraphrase but I guarantee contained the absolute substance of the answer.
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His voters don't seem to care when he denies the obvious and continues to berate and insult the media and his opponents.   In many ways they are like the liberals who support Obama despite his own prevarications.  Both groups appear to be more satisfied by seeing their guy stick to people they don't like than searching for the truth.

It was interesting theater, but you have to wonder how long he can get away with saying things that are not so.  You can catch the performance here.  BTW, I do not think Ramos is a sympathetic figure, nor do I agree with his position on immigration.  As Jim Geraghty points out he is the flip side of Trump for many of the same reasons.