In his first campaign, Donald Trump famously confused Jeb Bush with Ted Cruz during a debate.
Trump tried to reference the widely known conspiracy theory that George HW Bush was personally and directly involved in JFK’s assassination. It’s a classic conspiracy theory, as far as they go, with lots of great coincidences, reliance on the secrecy of the CIA and general distrust of government overall.
It was odd to see a presidential candidate bring it up, but he had already been bringing up things that candidates simply had not done. For example he pointed out in interviews that Israel had nuclear weapons and we all know that, which no candidate had done, because the US’s official position is to never comment on that, and the press happily stuck to the US position and gave him a pass.
When he bungled who Jeb & Ted were, he simply accused Ted’s dad of killing JFK. That’s nonsensical, unless of course you follow what the nutjobs are saying here and there. And anyone who does immediately knew he meant Jeb.
So what did the coverage focus on? “How will Cruz react to Trump calling his dad a murderer?”
Totally asinine way of looking at the flub. But it was a feeding frenzy clamoring for Ted’s response. I believe that they simply didn’t know how to highlight something they were afraid to touch. That conspiracy theory was too hot to mention without looking like a conspiracist too. I don’t recall a single reporter or news outlet asking Trump about wtf he was thinking. (They may have, but it didn’t rise above the din of Ted questions.)
There has been some improvement in coverage. Eight years ago I think we would’ve seen reporters demanding Biden respond to Trump’s confusion. The fact that this is raising tepid questions about Trump is a major change and a welcome one. There’s a long way to go in covering Trump’s idiotic rambling without cleaning up his quotes, but at least this one thing is finally breaking through the wall of deference that Trump has inexplicably enjoyed.
