Does Trump forget that everything is recorded nowadays and his characterization of an event can be compared with the event itself? I’m no fan of Obama, but the man handled himself excellently in this situation. A man was protesting. Obama defended his right to protest, and even took the crowd to task for booing him. Trump characterized this as screaming at the protester. Trump suggested that if he spoke to protesters in a similar way, the media would declare “he became unhinged.” I think he’s right: if Trump ever speaks respectfully to a protester instead of inciting violence against him, many would believe he was unhinged — because it would be so out of character for him.
How do we explain this? Either he lied or he has terrible trouble interpreting body language, tone of voice, and the linguistic content of an utterance. Or he takes his supporters for chumps and thinks, “Well, even if they do go back and check on this clip and see I’m making things up, I won’t lose supporters.” Of course, if he hasn’t lost a given supporter by now, he never will. He probably could, as he bragged, shoot someone and not lose a certain segment of his supporters.