Trump's AXIOS Interview: His Swan Song or Another Black Swan Event?

I watched the full interview President Trump did with Jonathan Swan which was conducted a week ago and broadcast last night on AXIOS on HBO. 

I had previously seen the portion regarding Russian bounties paid to the Taliban to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan and commented accordingly. 

Rather than dissect the interview in its entirety my objective here is to ask whether the interview represents a swan song fro Trump or if it foretells another black swan event.

To illustrate this dynamic let me offer you a short excerpt from the interview. In the midst of discussing Trump's response to COVID-19 or lack thereof, the President went off on a tangent about China and tariffs:

We were beating China at every single point. We were beating them in trade. We were making progress like nobody's ever made progress. They had before the pandemic - they had the worst year, Jonathan, they've had in 67 years. You know that with the tariffs and everything else I did. We were taking in billions of dollars. I was giving some of that to the farmers. The farmers were doing well because I was targeting - they were targeting the farmers. I was targeting China.

This is typical Trump bullshit which he can't even keep straight. Trump used to say China was having the worst year in 57 years. So now it's 67 years. Next week it will be 77 years even if Communist China hasn't been around for that long. 

Trump also attempts to claim we were taking in billions from tariffs from China and, out of the generosity of his heart, gave that money to the farmers. The reality is that China wasn't paying those tariffs - our farmers were and the price for agricultural exports fell resulting in a 20% surge in farm bankruptcies. The Trump Administration was and still is bailing them out to the tune of $23 billion and counting. 

Now there a lot of people who don't believe a word of what Trump says up to an including if the sun is shining. But as Swan himself acknowledged there are a lot of people who dismiss him as "fake news" and only listen to Trump. For that segment of the American public they don't care whether Trump says China had the worst year in 57 or 67 years. Nor do they care that tariffs hurt American farmers more than it hurts China. All they care about are liberal tears even if liberal tears doesn't put food on the table. There is a segment of America for whom Trump's rhetoric is like food even if it's junk food because it tastes good.

For every liberal who thought Trump had a disastrous interview there will be MAGAT who believes Trump owned Swan from the moment he entered the room.The question is whether the audience who only listen to Trump has shrunk. Is the shift to Biden a genuine response to what has happened with the pandemic and the economic and social unrest which has followed? Or are Trump voters telling pollsters what they want to hear? 

If it is the former then Trump is in the midst of his swan song and is sinking fast. In which case, we will soon have a President who behaves like a decent human being with empathy for those who have suffered rather than a President who cares first and foremost about his ratings on Fox News. But if it is the latter and yet another black swan crosses the Delaware then we will have abandoned our ideals in favor of a lust for power, it spoils and the corruption which accompanies authoritarianism. 

We shall see how the river flows less than three months from now.