On the Hill, Trump Promises 'So Much Winning' and an End to 'Stupid' Leaders

The day after the head-count­ing ended, the talk­ing head ar­rived.

With Pres­id­ent Obama hav­ing se­cured enough Demo­crat­ic sup­port to bar a bill that would im­per­il the Ir­an nuc­le­ar deal from even com­ing to his desk, Re­pub­lic­an front-run­ner Don­ald Trump walked on stage Wed­nes­day be­fore the Cap­it­ol’s West Lawn to R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (and I Feel Fine).” He came at the in­vit­a­tion of an­oth­er GOP pres­id­en­tial can­did­ate, Sen. Ted Cruz. 

Trump de­livered his Trump­isms. He was blunt but brisk, speak­ing for only five-and-a-half minutes. He called Amer­ic­an lead­ers “very, very stu­pid people.” He said “you may get bored with win­ning” if he is elec­ted pres­id­ent be­cause “we will have so much win­ning.” Then, in a rare mo­ment, he caught him­self. “I agree—you’ll nev­er get bored with win­ning. We nev­er get bored!”

And Trump made a prom­ise con­cern­ing four Amer­ic­ans held in Ir­an that re­called memor­ies of when Ir­an re­leased host­ages on the same day Ron­ald Re­agan be­came pres­id­ent. 

“I will say this,” said Trump, dressed in a trade­mark red tie, white shirt, and blue suit be­fore an audi­ence of hun­dreds swel­ter­ing in a 91-de­gree heat. “If I win the pres­id­ency, I guar­an­tee you that those four pris­on­ers are back in our coun­try be­fore I ever take of­fice. I guar­an­tee that. They will back be­fore I ever take of­fice be­cause they know that’s what has to hap­pen, OK? They know it. And if they don’t know it I’m telling them right now.”

There were dozens and dozens of cam­er­as cap­tur­ing Trump. His speech—amp­li­fied by two dozen speak­ers—was so loud that it bounced back upon the crowd. And there were protests; United We Dream, an im­mig­rant youth net­work, held signs and tried in­ter­rupt­ing Trump to no avail, cheer­ing, “Don­ald Trump has got to go! Hey hey! Ho ho!” When asked who they were, one self-de­scribed Trump sup­port­er said they were “prob­ably some f—-ing stu­dent group who got ex­tra-cred­it points by their Lat­in teach­er to come out here.”

Be­fore the rally, there was a line of Or­tho­dox Jews chant­ing “Juda­ism yes. Zion­ism No” across the street. The Or­tho­dox Uni­on then dir­ec­ted speak­ers to them and began singing the Is­raeli na­tion­al an­them.

In­side the Cap­it­ol, the House Re­pub­lic­an lead­er­ship post­poned a pro­ced­ur­al vote ad­van­cing a res­ol­u­tion of dis­ap­prov­al. Out­side, ra­dio host Mark Lev­in said, “Barack Obama makes Neville Cham­ber­lain look like George S. Pat­ton.” Former GOP pres­id­en­tial can­did­ate Sarah Pal­in claimed that Obama didn’t carry a big stick but a selfie stick. A cam­ou­flage head­band-strapped Phil Robertson said, “You know why I love Is­rael? They wrote the Bible, that’s why I love ‘em.” 

Out­side, staffers at the Amer­ic­an Con­ser­vat­ive Uni­on wandered the lawn car­ry­ing a fake over­sized check from the White House to Ir­an for $150 bil­lion, the high-end es­tim­ate of sanc­tions re­lief awar­ded un­der the deal. Re­tired pat­ent at­tor­ney Jim Mc­Don­ald, 70, called his massive Trump sign (over 12 feet tall) a “chick mag­net.” The boos for Sen­ate Ma­jor­ity Lead­er Mitch Mc­Con­nell and House Speak­er John Boehner—ex­tend­ing for 15 seconds be­fore Rep. Dave Brat, who beat former Ma­jor­ity Lead­er Eric Can­tor last year, cut them off—were as loud as any against Hil­lary Clin­ton. And a guy wore a shirt that said, “I’d rather be wa­ter­board­ing.”