Transcript: Trump Erupts in “Mad King” Tirades as Presser Goes Awry

Sargent: Well, I do take some encouragement from the way people are talking about the “No Kings” rallies, which are set for this weekend. Folks, turn out at those, please. It’s really important. The bigger the show, the better, because they’re treating it as a kind of emergency moment. So Brian, do you take that sort of encouragement from the “No Kings” protests? Do you see them as a major stand in letting them know that we are going to absolutely insist on free and fair elections? And could it be effective in that regard to some degree?

Beutler: Yeah, I think so. I mean, you see Republicans—very senior Republicans, including the speaker of the House—essentially libeling or slandering the whole “No Kings” protest movement as being a hate-America movement, pro-Hamas, antifa-funded, all this nonsense.

And I think that there’s several reasons for that. I think that one is that they want to scare off people who are legitimately peaceful protesters. And I think they want to attract a more violent element—or violence-prone elements—on both sides of the political spectrum so that there’s a greater risk of a conflagration that Trump and Stephen Miller can then use as a pretext for a greater crackdown.

I also just think that they’re scared—that they saw the “No Kings” turnout in June, and they realized that that is a big political force to be reckoned with. It’s bigger than the Tea Party. And it’s much more normal than the Tea Party, right? It is the center. It is a bunch of, like, senior citizens who are insisting that their elections remain free and fair.