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Trump campaign materials: "He's not a patriot!"
Photo:
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
We didn't know all of this just yesterday: Donald Trump is accused, among other things, of influencing the election, being involved in the storming of the Capitol or paying a porn star hush money from campaign funds.
He has already been convicted of abusing and defaming the author E. Jean Carroll and faces a fine of hundreds of millions of dollars for incorrectly valuing his real estate.
And yet: the man has many fanatical followers.
Why actually?
What is going on in these people's minds?
The team of US talk show host Jimmy Kimmel has now tried to approach these questions in a television prank.
The action is pretty funny and very, very bitter in a deep way: During the Republican primaries in South Carolina, an interviewer confronts Trump supporters in the state with crazy statements that are said to come from the former president or things that are accused of him .
However, with a little twist: She blames all of this on Joe Biden.
The interviewer asks a woman in an orange dress whether she could ask a few questions about the incumbent - and then wants to know: "What did you think when Joe Biden suggested that Corona could be cured with bright rays of light?" She says with a mocking face the woman: "It's really unfortunate, but Joe Biden is obviously a dementia patient." And his alleged statement that he got through the 1980s without an HIV infection is his "personal Vietnam"?
The woman has to think for a moment before saying with a disgusted expression that that was “uneducated.”
Then the interviewer apologizes because she got the quotes mixed up - she has to start again.
And she asks: “What did you think when Donald Trump suggested that Corona could be cured with bright rays of light?”
And the woman in the orange dress says: “It depends on the technology.”
Next question: What is the “personal Vietnam” that Donald Trump claims to have experienced in the 80s?
“I don’t believe that,” says the woman after thinking for a long time.
It goes on like this for a while.
Unsuspecting interviewees are initially invited to complain about Joe Biden as they please.
That's what they do - and as soon as they're confronted with who it's really about, they immediately change their minds.
But not the one about Donald Trump.
But about the question.
“How can he do that?” one man muses in response to claims that Joe Biden paid a porn star $130,000 in hush money.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, lets it get away with it.
"My father also had affairs and I still respect him," he says.
“Not a patriot,” complains a woman when she is told that Biden pushed through a heel spur before going to Vietnam.
"He's not an American." Trump, however, admits that you can't go into a combat zone with feet like that.
After all, her stepbrother also had flat feet.
As impressive as the consistency with which the interviews are carried out is, what is even more impressive is how naturally the interviewees adapt their attitude to the questions.
None of the people seem seriously surprised by what is being accused of the former US president.
They just don't seem to care.
Sol