The president today wandered into a surprise White House press briefing already attended by border security suits to restate that he is, among other things, an expert on drone technology.
“You see what’s just been put out on social media,” Trump stated, referring to some unspecified post that may or may not exist, “where thousands of people are rushing the border. Having a drone fly overhead... and I think nobody knows much more about technology—this type of technology, certainly—than I do.”
It’s unclear whose drone, which people, what the drone was intended to do, or if those people were able to cross any borders. All we can say for sure is that should this drone’s operation need explaining to a graduate-level robotics class, Trump is the man for the job. We know it’s true because yesterday, during the first 2019 cabinet meeting, he said, “I know more about drones than anybody.”
Of course, the timing of the press briefing—directly following the swearing-in of the new House Democrats, in the midst of a government shutdown largely over Trump’s latest border wall tantrum—is not coincidental. And yet even in trying to punch left, he managed to land a wild blow to his own allies.
“Having drones and various other forms of sensors, they’re all fine, but they’re not gonna stop the problems that this country has,” Trump claimed, stating the need for a literal, physical wall-like structure—something even the Koch-funded Cato Institute decried as ridiculous. A border patrolled by, uh, “sensors” and other gizmos is, coincidentally, the exact despicable gamble disgraced Oculus founder Palmer Luckey is making with Trump booster Peter Thiel’s money. Whoops!
Trump, Sanders, and the rest of the briefing’s ghouls left without taking questions.
Disclosure: In 2016, Thiel secretly bankrolled a lawsuit against Gizmodo’s former owner Gawker Media resulting in the company’s bankruptcy.