Trump Verbatim Quotes

Intensive mothering is the ultimate female Olympics: We are all in powerful competition with each other, in constant danger of being trumped by the mom down the street, or in the magazine we're reading. The competition isn't just over who's a good mother--it's over who's the best. We compete with each other; we compete with ourselves. The best mothers always put their kids' needs before their own, period. The best mothers are the main caregivers. For the best mothers, their kids are the center of the universe. The best mothers always smile. They always understand. They are never tired. They never lose their temper. They never say, "Go to the neighbor's house and play while Mommy has a beer." Their love for their children is boundless, unflagging, flawless, total. Mothers today cannot just respond to their kids' needs, they must predict them--and with the telepathic accuracy of Houdini. They must memorize verbatim the books of all the child-care experts and know which approaches are developmentally appropriate at different ages. They are supposed to treat their two-year-olds with "respect." If mothers screw up and fail to do this on any given day, they should apologize to their kids, because any misstep leads to permanent psychological and/or physical damage. Anyone who questions whether this is the best and the necessary way to raise kids is an insensitive, ignorant brute. This is just common sense, right?

Several times a session—and we had twenty-one of them in the general—just as he had warned, Philippe-as-Trump would say something so outlandish, none of us could quite believe it. Then he’d tell us it was almost verbatim from a Trump rally, interview, or primary debate.

I realized I was actually in some Hilton Garden Inn somewhere in the middle of America, and I had to remind myself of what I had been doing for the last ten months. Literally, step by step, campaign stop by campaign stop, I had to rebuild my memory. Think about that for a second. I had to remind myself of breaking up with my boyfriend, leaving my home, and following a man some call a maniac around, trying to keep up with the daily lies and outrages. He lies a lot. That sounds overly negative. But you have to understand something. Most people, even those who would qualify as political junkies, have other things going on in their lives. They follow politics—but they also go to work, pick up their kids, exercise, shop for groceries, daydream, and live a full life. I do not. I live the Trump campaign. That means I live every lie. And I live every controversy. And they pile up daily. Every time Trump opens his mouth in public, I get a verbatim log of it sent to my e-mail.

The number one rule for any debate-prep team is to make sure the candidate isn’t hearing, seeing, or feeling anything for the first time when he or she steps into the ring with an opponent. Because Trump was liable to say or do just about anything, that was an even bigger focus for Hillary’s aides. Klain and Dunn had curated a database of all the questions that had ever been asked in general-election debates. “I don’t think she heard any questions for the first time,” said one participant who noted that a question Klain asked behind closed doors about a possible no-fly zone over Syria was repeated almost verbatim by moderator Chris Wallace in the third debate.