(CNN) Days removed from his hospitalization due to coronavirus, President Donald Trump called into Fox Business Network on Thursday morning to, uh, say some stuff.
And say some stuff he did! Lots of stuff!
I went through the transcript of Trump's interview with FBN's Maria Bartiromo. The lines you need to see are below.
1. "I beat him easily in the first debate, according to the polls that I've seen, but I beat him easily in the -- I felt I beat him easily. I think he felt it too."
Every reputable post-debate poll showed that viewers believed former Vice President Joe Biden won the first presidential debate. And away we go!
2. "No, I'm not going to waste my time on a virtual debate. That's not what debating is all about. You sit behind a computer and do a debate. It's ridiculous. And then they cut you off whenever they want."
"Debate" is defined by Merriam-Webster as "a regulated discussion of a proposition between two matched sides." That definition, you might have noticed, says nothing about the debate needing to be in person. Also, Trump revealed more than he meant to when he said that "they can cut you off whenever you want." As in, he knows that in a virtual debate with Biden he would not be able to relentlessly interrupt like he did in the first debate.
3. "And they tried to protect Biden. Everybody is. "
Trump appears to be under the mistaken impression that he won the first debate. Which, again, polls show he did not.
4. "(Biden) was raising his -- his very thin hand and he was fracking. And now all of a sudden he's not fracking."
"His very thin hand." What?
5. "They're lying to everybody. They're lying about so many different things."
Donald Trump once said four false things. In one sentence.
6. "Yes, well, first of all, I think I'm better. I -- when -- when -- to a point where I -- I'd love to do a rally tonight. I wanted to do one last night."
It may be worthwhile to note here that Donald Trump is not, in fact, a medical doctor.
7. "You know, no matter how good the security, you're not going to protect yourselves from this thing with just your standard anything unless you just literally don't come out."
This is patently false. Doctors and infectious disease experts -- not to mention scads of data -- have made clear that wearing a mask, social distancing and avoiding large crowds all can greatly reduce the spread of Covid-19. That Trump often didn't take any of those precautions likely played a significant role in him getting the virus.
8. "No, I don't think I'm contagious, but we still have to wait -- I don't think I'm contagious at all."
... said someone who is not a doctor.
9. "You catch this thing. It's, you know, it's -- it's particles of dust. It's tiny stuff."
Tell me more about these "particles of dust"...
10. "And, remember this, when you catch it, you get better. And then you're immune, you know? I -- as soon as everything goes away for me, you're immune."
Well, 211,000 Americans who caught Covid-19 didn't get better. They died from it. As to whether Trump, or anyone else who has had Covid-19, is immune from getting it again, the science is still very unclear.
11. "I'm back because I'm a perfect physical specimen and I'm extremely young. And so I'm lucky in that way."
He's joking. Right? He has to be.
12. "Perhaps a couple of pounds we could lose here and there, but, you know, because a lot of people in that category."
According to his 2020 physical, Trump has a Body Mass Index of 30.5, which puts him in the "obese" category. Also, terrific use of the royal "we" here.
13. "Now, what happens is you get better. That's what happens, you get better."
Again, 211,000 Americans did not get better.
14. "I think I would have done it fine without drugs. It -- you know, you don't really need drugs."
Not. A. Doctor. (Also: This sends a very dangerous message to Trump backers who may get Covid-19 and insist, like the President, that they don't need drugs to treat it.)
15. "I'm -- I'm glad because I'm the leader. And I can't be like Biden where I hang out in a basement every day. Sure, he -- if I wanted to hang out in a basement, I wouldn't catch it, but I meet a lot of people and I have to."
The idea that only real leaders catch a life-threatening illness is, well, wow.
16. "Sometimes I'd be with -- in groups of -- for instance Gold Star families. I met with Gold Star families. I didn't want to cancel that. But they all came in and they all talked about their son and daughter and father."
In which the President of the United States suggests, with zero proof, that he contracted the coronavirus by meeting with Gold Star families. Very normal stuff!
17. "They want to hug me and they want to kiss me. And they do. And frankly, I'm not telling them to back up. I'm not doing it. But I did say it's like -- it's obviously dangerous. It's a dangerous thing I guess if you go by the Covid thing."
"The Covid thing."
18. "I figured that you probably -- that probably at some point I'd catch it and I'll get better. That's what happened. I've caught it. I could've been out of the hospital in one day."
Actual doctors decided to keep Trump in the hospital for four days.
19. "I feel perfect now, Maria, otherwise I wouldn't be able to speak to you."
It was a phone interview.
20. "They were trying to get things and we were trying to get things and it wasn't going anywhere. I shut it down. I don't want to play games."
Isn't shutting down talks of a stimulus bill in Congress via Twitter basically the definition of playing games?
21. "Unless Bill Barr indicts these people for crimes, the greatest political crime in the history of our country, then we're going to get little satisfaction unless I win and we'll just have to go, because I won't forget it."
So, the President is ordering his attorney general to prosecute people for alleged crimes involving the 2016 FBI counterintelligence operation into Russian interference in the 2016 election? Totally fine and very normal! Also, what does this mean: "then we're going to get little satisfaction unless I win and we'll just have to go, because I won't forget it."
22. "But, it's still not that easy, you have a 'deep state,' you have a group of people that don't want to have documents shown, which tells you bad thing, you know, but they -- they have to give them ultimately and we're getting them, you know."
The attorney general who was appointed by Trump is part of a "deep state" that refuses to criminally charge people for their actions curing the 2016 election? Man, everyone is in on it!
23. "Well, I don't want to say that yet, he's been disappointing. He talks about, you know, even the voting thing that he doesn't see the voting ballots as a problem."
FBI Director Christopher Wray has disappointed Trump because he has been unwilling to say that there is widespread mail-in-balloting fraud because, well, there is no widespread mail-in balloting fraud. So, yeah.
24. "If you were running for office, and if you see thousands and thousands of ballots being thrown into rivers, and they have your name on it in some cases, in other words people -- we had military ballots where people voted for me, military, the military's going to vote for me because I -- I rebuilt the military."
It was nine -- yes NINE -- ballots that were found in Pennsylvania. And local officials said that there was no malicious intent to get rid of them.
25. "Actually, it was Joe Biden that called the military a bunch of dirty bastards and he said it on tape. He called them a bunch of dirty bastards and he said it on tape."
26. "We're in all these different sites fighting in countries that nobody ever heard of and it hurts us because we're -- you wear out your military."
"Fighting in countries that nobody ever heard of." -- The President of the United States
27. "Look, I sit next to Joe and I looked at Joe. Joe's not lasting two months as president, OK, that's my opinion. He's not going to be lasting two months."
Just the President predicting that Biden will die within two months of taking office, with no proof whatsoever to back up the claim other than he has sat in the same room with the former vice president.
28. "Pennsylvania will never go for him because Pennsylvania has a million jobs that are fracking."
Latest Pennsylvania poll: Biden 54%, Trump 42%.
29. "And I saved the chicken tax on the truck with South Korea. They were going to wipe out the chicken tax."
Ah yes, the chicken tax.
30. "I went to the farmers, I said look, we got to play a game with these people but I'm going to put tariffs on you, nobody even heard of tariffs."
"I don't want to play games." -- Donald Trump, in this exact same interview.
31. "We have a lousy phone here."
Honestly, same.
32. "I've never seen such liars as this, they're worse than crooked Hillary, (Kamala Harris) was worse in other ways."
Again, keep in mind that Donald Trump once said four false things in one sentence.
33. "If people delete emails in a regular court case, (Clinton) delete(s) 33,000 emails and nothing happens to her. Our justice system, nothing happens to her. With all of the pages of stuff, thousands of pages that we have on them, nothing happens to them. Nothing happens."
The 2016 election ended 1,430 days ago.
34. "Frankly, the Bush people, some of these losers that used to work for Bush, they're worse than -- they're worse than the Obama people."
Ladies and gentlemen, the head of the Republican Party!
35. "But, look -- and they're in the State Department, but Mike Pompeo is unable to get them out, which is very sad actually. I'm -- I'm not happy about him for that, that reason."
I think Trump is blaming the secretary of his State Department, one of his most loyal allies, for not finding and releasing emails sent by Hillary Clinton when she was at the State Department? Or something?
36. "And, you know, to be honest, Bill Barr's going to go down either as the greatest attorney general in the history of the country or he's going to go down as a very sad -- sad situation. I mean, I'll be honest with you, he's got all the information he needs."
Just the President running a pressure campaign against his own attorney general. This is fine!
37. "No, I'll -- I'll be tested pretty soon, but I'm -- I'm essentially very clean."
NOT. A. DOCTOR.
38. "They say it's over -- periods of six, seven days and I was -- I -- you know, it was amazing thing happened to me."
They don't say that, actually.
39. "I've got to be a leader. I can't -- Winston Churchill didn't sit in his basement for six months."
Oh so now we're comparing ourselves to Winston Churchill, are we?
40. "And I think at some point I would -- it's a very -- look, it's a tiny, tiny linking it to a tiny little microscopic piece of dust and it gets into your nose or your mouth or your eye frankly or something else or you touch something. So I understand and then you get better."
Yes, yes, he clearly understands exactly how Covid-19 works. That much is obvious.
41. "It's not even -- it's not a heavy steroid"
[narrator] It is a heavy steroid.
42. "But why isn't Hilary Clinton being indicted for terminating 33,000 emails that she got from Congress? Congress made a request to see them. Everybody else I know gets indicted when they don't give that."
What was the question that got Trump back onto Hillary Clinton's emails? "I'd love to come back to the White House," Bartiromo said. "I saw it up close and personal." At which point Trump interrupted her to make his point about Clinton's emails. Again.
43. "We have tremendous Black community support, men and women, by the way, because I've done more for the Black community than any president except Abraham Lincoln. And it's true."
"And it's true."
44. "He's not mentally capable. He's not mentally capable of being president. You know that. Everybody knows that. Everybody that knows him, he can't be president."
What evidence did Trump provide to back up a claim that his Democratic opponent is not "mentally capable" of being president? Oh, none.
45. "And this monster that was on stage with Mike Pence, who destroyed her last night by the way, but this monster, she says, no, no, there won't be fracking."
In which the president calls Kamala Harris, a California senator and the first woman of color on a major party ticket, a "monster" twice in the space of a single sentence.
46. "I'm making actually a play for the whole state. You know, I did well there."
Donald Trump isn't making a "play" to win New York in November. And he lost the Empire State by 22 points in 2016. So...
47. "I don't believe the polls because we've never had this much support. They have a vote thing, they have 5,000 votes. They have thousands of trucks all over the country."
"A vote thing?" "Thousands of trucks all over the country"? WHAAAAAAT.
48. "This country will go to hell, your taxes will double and triple and quadruple. Your stock markets will crash, we'll have a depression, the likes of which we've never seen before."
Yeah, this feels like a good place to end.