An animated discussion lit up the screens of early-morning CNN viewers Tuesday when a panel of Donald Trump voters convened to praise the President’s strategy in Afghanistan and — affectionately — call him a “troll.”
Here are the five best quotes from the panel discussion with “New Day” anchor Alisyn Camerota:
1) “This is what he said he was going to do.”
That’s what Bobby Viera said about the President’s plan to deploy more troops to Afghanistan, which Trump announced in a prime-time address Monday.
Only, that’s exactly the opposite of what Trump has said the nation should do, Camerota pointed out, showing tweets from then-citizen Trump in 2013 saying it was time for the United States to get out of Afghanistan.
Viera also said the war was “not taken that seriously in the last eight years of Obama,” prompting Camerota to note that President Barack Obama boosted troop levels in Afghanistan, earning him the ire of Trump at the time.
“He surged Afghanistan?” another Trump supporter asked.
“Yes,” Camerota said, adding, “I’m just trying to understand the consistency of, ‘It’s bad when President Obama does it; it’s good when President Trump does it.'”
2) “Kaboom! What are we waiting for?”
When the panel was asked about the President’s handling of escalating tensions over the nuclear threat in North Korea, supporter Daphne Goggins laughed, then suggested the US preemptively strike the nation before couching her apparent joke with a follow-up: “No.”
She praised Trump for his “tough” handling of reclusive leader Kim Jong Un “because he’s dealing with crazies.”
On that note, Camerota asked the voters about politicians who, like Rep. Jackie Speier, D-California, have questioned Trump’s mental stability.
3) “President Trump is smarter than anybody in this room.”
Jimmy Dozier was quick to dismiss Speier’s concerns and to praise Trump’s mental aptitude, which earned him an “Amen!” from another panelist.
“He has made millions of dollars. He knows what he’s doing,” Dozier said. “And for her to think he’s mentally … What in the world? Why would you think that guy’s mental? He ain’t mental.”
4) “Trump is the world’s biggest troll, and everybody falls for it every day: hook, line and sinker.”
Viera segued talk of Speier’s take on Trump’s mental acumen into a discussion of the President’s own Twitter feed by calling him a “troll.”
“He loves controlling the narrative,” Viera explained of Trump’s use of the platform.
“Yes, but how is this helpful to the country?” Camerota asked.
“I don’t find his Twitter productive, to be honest,” Trump voter Amanda Delekta said. “I think it drives away from what could be a really positive message coming out of his administration.”
5) “If Hillary was President, they would still be protesting the taking down of the statues.”
Throughout the discussion, Trump voters compared Trump and his 2016 campaign rival, Hillary Clinton. Her hypothetical handling of the North Korea crisis was questioned, as was the state of race relations in America, had she won.
Speaking as a white man who lived in Alabama during the civil rights movement, Dozier said the march of white nationalists and other far-right groups this month in Charlottesville, Virginia, was “nothing.”
Viera also said debates over the removal of monuments honoring Confederate soldiers would still be raging no matter who had won last fall.
