"But this is a train wreck...."

I was going to point you in the direction of Digby and her valiant but doomed attempt to make Donald Trump make sense, but I made the mistake of first clicking on the source material, the transcript of the Trump interview with Bob Woodward.  Hoo-boy:

BOB WOODWARD: And the real first question is, where do you start the movie of your decision to run for president? Because that is a big deal. A lot of internal/external stuff, and we’d love to hear your monologue on how you did it.  

And I thought Barbara Walters asking public figures what kind of tree they would be was bad.  Then again, maybe that made Trump feel relaxed enough to, you know, talk:

DT: Yeah. You were shocked. Remember this crazy man, Lawrence O’Donnell — he’s a total crazy nut — he said, Donald Trump only made a million dollars with "The Apprentice." I said, "A million dollars?" You know, when you have a show that’s essentially number one almost every time it goes on, you can name it. . . . So anyway, when they added it all up — and these are certified numbers, because you have to do certified numbers — it came out to $213 million. Okay? That’s what I made on "The Apprentice." That’s just — and that’s one of my small things. That’s what I made. You know? So it was put at $213 million, and it was certified. And your friend Joe in the morning said, "There’s no way he only made. . . ." They had a big fight, and O’Donnell, Lawrence O’Donnell started crying. I never saw anything like it. Do you remember? He started crying. [Laughter] He actually started crying. But that shows the level of hatred that people have. But what happened is, I made — I had a very, very successful show. And they put me in polls, and I was essentially leading right at the top, without doing any work. Not one speech, not one anything. But any time I was in a poll, I did very well in the poll. Anyway, I decided not to do it. NBC called and Mark Burnett would call, and I did see if I could get out. I had another year on the contract. Because you’re not allowed, because of the equal time, you’re not allowed to have a show . . .  .

The interview at this point is still about why Trump decided to run for President.  Apparently we can blame Lawrence O'Donnell......

But then (as Digby quotes, too), there's the reason Trump decided to run as a Republican, and it's because the GOP is the party of Lincoln.  And Lincoln succeeded because:

DT: Well, I think Lincoln succeeded for numerous reasons. He was a man who was of great intelligence, which most presidents would be. But he was a man of great intelligence, but he was also a man that did something that was a very vital thing to do at that time. Ten years before or 20 years before, what he was doing would never have even been thought possible. So he did something that was a very important thing to do, and especially at that time. And Nixon failed, I think to a certain extent, because of his personality. You know? It was just that personality. Very severe, very exclusive. In other words, people couldn’t come in. And people didn’t like him. I mean, people didn’t like him. 

As Digby points out, a 7th grader who hadn't done their homework could give as good a response as this.  But cheer up, it gets worse!  Sanders is going to run the country by harnessing the power of individual donors and leading a revolution.  Trump is going to do it by channeling Vince Lombardi in the locker room:

The coalition building for me will be when I win. Vince Lombardi, I saw this. He was not a big man. And I was sitting in a place with some very, very tough football players. Big, strong football players. He came in — these are tough cookies — he came in, years ago — and I’ll never forget it, I was a young man. He came in, screaming, into this place. And screaming at one of these guys who was three times bigger than him, literally. And very physical, grabbing him by the shirt. Now, this guy could’ve whisked him away and thrown him out the window in two seconds. This guy — the player — was shaking. A friend of mine. There were four players, and Vince Lombardi walked in. He was angry. And he grabbed — I was a young guy — he grabbed him by the shirt, screaming at him, and the guy was literally. . . . And I said, wow. And I realized the only way Vince Lombardi got away with that was because he won. This was after he had won so much, okay? And when you have these coaches that are just as tough as him but they don’t win, there’s revolutions. Okay? Nobody. . . . But Vince Lombardi was able to win, and he got — I have never seen anything like it. It was such a vivid impression. You had this big powerful guy, and you had Vince Lombardi, and he grabbed him by the shirt and he was screaming at him, he was angry at him.

Behold the power of being a petty tyrant.  I guess.  If you can make sense of that, put your answer in a stamped envelope along with two dead creeping charlie addressed to:  Don't Think of Anything It Ain' Worth It, 3rd washroom along, Barren Way, BFE  00010.   Because, honestly, that's not even close to English:  that's just a language spew.  Makes me long for the days when Ronald Reagan remembered the black Navy cook who took charge of a .50 caliber machine gun on the deck of a ship docked at Pearl Harbor on that fateful day.

Reagan remembered that as historical fact; it was, of course, a scene from a movie.  Even so, Reagan was closer to reality than whatever that is Trump said.  Reagan also spoke in understandable English. Trump uses the language, but he sure doesn't use it convey ideas.  Reagan trafficked in cliches, admittedly; but Trump just traffics in word sounds.

No wonder Lawrence O'Donnell wept.