Trump's DNC counterprogramming got predictably outlandish


President Trump called into Sean Hannity's Fox News show during the final night of the Democratic National Convention to paint a picture of absolute bedlam under a Biden/Harris administration, forcefully — and falsely — asserting that they will "without question" dismantle the Second Amendment.
Earlier in the hour, the network had the DNC on in a smaller screen, but Trump received Hannity's undivided attention. He did his best to scare his supporters into going to the polls by declaring that the "Second Amendment is gone, you can forget about the Second Amendment if we lose the election. And your taxes will be doubled, tripled, and quadrupled. Your jobs will be gone. You're going to have a depression if that happens."
As images of tear gas being used against protesters and people getting punched in the face played on the screen, Trump stated that police "aren't allowed to do their thing, they're all good police, they don't want to lose their pension." He also said suburban women are "really going to want to support me" because "we're for law and order, we're for safety and security, and [Democratic presidential candidate Joe] Biden is not."
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Hannity told Trump that Biden "seems frail to me, weak to me," and Trump demurely responded that he "didn't want to get into that," adding that "when you deal with President Xi [Jinping] of China, which I do all the time, [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin ... they're very sharp. They're at the top of their game. If you're not at the top of your game, it's not going to be a pretty picture. ... If you're not a great chess master, you're going to have a problem."
Trump also said he has "watched some" of the DNC, and panned former first lady Michelle Obama for recording her address. He said the Republican National Convention next week will have more live parts, because it will be "boring" otherwise.
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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