Donald Trump, a convicted felon who’s promised to be a dictator on day one if he retakes the White House, made an appearance on the All-In Podcast on Thursday. And Trump’s ramblings would almost be funny if he wasn’t running neck-and-neck to become the next president of the United States.
Trump’s appearance, which is available on YouTube, was actually fairly typical of his appearances these days, as the former president frequently stumbles over his words and misspeaks as he tries to form coherent sentences. But it was Trump’s attempt at sounding like he knows anything about artificial intelligence when things really went off the rails.
“We have a phenomena [sic] coming up right now and I was talking about it the other day to David and that’s AI, little things… simple two… little simple letters… but it’s big,” the 78-year-old Trump said, clearly failing to make the words line up the way he wanted.
Trump then mentioned a recent fundraising dinner at the home of All-In host David Sacks, an online influencer and investor who was previously the COO at PayPal.
“And I realized the other day, more than anything, when we were at David’s house and talking to a lot of geniuses from Silicon Valley and other places, they need electricity at levels that nobody’s ever experienced before to have to be successful, to be a leader in AI,” Trump said, again trying desperately to make the words line up properly.
Trump then segued into one of his common complaints about wind energy and dead birds.
“And a windmill turning with its blade knocking out the birds and everything else is not going to be able to make us competitive,” Trump continued.
The All-In Podcast, which features tech industry insiders like Sacks along with Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, and David Friedberg, has developed a reputation as a safe space for Silicon Valley Trump supporters, so it makes sense that Trump would appear while knowing he wouldn’t face any tough questions.
Most of the chat with Trump was filled with the typical lines you’d expect, including talking points about crime skyrocketing in cities with Democratic leadership, with the former president claiming at one point “Nobody lives there except the criminals.” Crime is down considerably, of course, according to the latest figures from the FBI.
Trump also said the U.S. spends the most on education per pupil of any country in the world (we’re fifth), which was a lead-in for insisting that American school kids would get better educations if spending is cut like he wants it to be. Trump also repeated a common lie about abortion where he said Democrats want to kill babies after they’re born.
Curiously, Calacanis is the lone guy on the podcast who has previously been a critic of Trump, but he folded like a cheap card table in the sight of the former president. Calacanis stated, as though it was guaranteed, that Trump was going to win in November, something that nobody can say with any certainty.
The reality is that it’s going to be a close vote, no matter how you slice it. The U.S. system is set up in such a way that this election is going to be decided in six or seven states. In 2020, Biden won Arizona by just 10,457 votes, he won Georgia by 12,670 votes, and he won Wisconsin by 20,682 votes. Those are incredibly slim margins, but they helped propel Biden to victory. And based on the most recent polls, it’s going to be just as close and could swing for either Biden or Trump.
Obviously, this latest podcast appearance isn’t going to make headlines, especially since Trump stumbling over his words and speaking incoherently isn’t unusual. But if you actually listen to the words coming out of his mouth and remember that presidents didn’t used to speak like this, it’s pretty stunning.
