Since Donald Trump and his minions love conspiracy theories so much, Samantha Bee decided to see what it was like to spread one of her own Monday night. And it already has its own hashtag: #TrumpCantRead.
As the Full Frontal host said in a segment that premiered on Facebook Live, Bee began by reviewing tape of a recently unsealed deposition in which Trump was repeatedly asked to read from legal documents and refused, first saying he didn’t have his glasses and then using the excuse that he’s not a lawyer. “Objection!” Bee said. “How can you expect someone who isn’t a fancy-pants lawyer to read words?”
“At first, I thought Trump was lying, but then it hit me,” Bee said. “You heard it here first: People are saying Donald Trump can’t read.” Over the next six minutes, she meticulously laid out the evidence, including the fact that the only book title Trump can recall when people ask him what he’s read recently is All Quiet on the Western Front and his unnerving practice of shouting things he wants to tweet at his staffers during the day. Even his signature is suspiciously missing recognizable letters.
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“Think about it, when Trump is on the campaign trail, what’s his biggest enemy?” she asked. “I mean besides knowledge, integrity and basic human decency?” Teleprompters, which he has spent months railing against and in one instance physically dismantled. The “most damning” piece of evidence, according to Bee, is a study that says reading improves empathy.
Bee assured her viewers that she’s not “definitively” saying that Trump can’t read, but instead is “just asking the question,” as Trump did for more than five years when it came to President Obama’s birthplace. In order to put the issue to rest once and for all, she challenged Trump to read aloud the president’s long-form birth certificate on video for all to see.
If he doesn’t, we’ll never know the truth.
