Here he insists that farmers are not being hurt—or, anyway, do not object to being hurt—by his trade wars against China.

My farmers are—these are patriots, you know. On a network that doesn’t like me very much, which is most of them, but a network that didn’t—doesn’t really treat me very good, they interviewed farmers, and they got hurt because, you know, all of a sudden, China stops buying. By the way, they’ve started buying again. I don’t know if you’ve noticed. And soybeans are going up, and things are going up. And we’ve had very little hurt, from what I’ve done. In fact, the markets have gone up, and the farmers are going to do great. But ultimately—but they had farmers, and these guys are amazing. I love them, and they voted for me, and they love me. And they said, “We don’t care if we get hurt, he’s doing the right thing.”

So that’s a hug and a squeeze for the ego. But then—then come the malign, plotting, implacable theys:

They did the same thing with the Russia investigation. They tried to convince people that I had something to do with Russia. There was no collusion. Think of it. I’m in Wisconsin. I’m in Michigan. I say, gee, we’re not doing well. I won both those states. We’re not doing well. Ah, let me call the Russians to help. Does anybody really believe that? It’s a con job.

This was an answer to the question, “What about the message that’s being sent to the women who are watching?”

They will do anything, say anything, with no regard to logic or fairness.

In one case, they say, “He’s a fascist. He’s taking over the government. He’s the most powerful president ever. He’s a horrible human being. He wants to take over the entire government, and he’s going to do it. We can’t stop him.” That didn’t work. The next week, he said, “He’s incompetent.” I said, “Well, wait a minute.” In one case, I’m taking over the world, and the other case, he’s incompetent. They tried that for a week, that didn’t work.

Who is this they? Sometimes it is unnamed political opponents.

They’re not in love with me. They’re not going to beat me in the election. They know that. They’re not going to beat me. The people that I’m looking at are total lightweights. I—I dream of running against those people. Maybe I’ll come up with somebody … Question: But with your administration … That’s not—they’re not going to beat me. I’m against what they want to do. I’m in favor of law enforcement. I’m in favor of safety and security and low taxes. I want low taxes. I want borders. We’re getting another $1.6 billion in borders. I want borders. We’ve spent $3.2 billion, and we’re getting another $1.6 billion. And then, eventually, we’re getting the whole thing, and we’ll complete the wall. They don’t want that—they don’t want that. They don’t want the things that I have. Now I must say, I know many of the democrats. They’ll say things and then wink at me. And again, it’s the same old story. They’ll say things, they don’t mean it. It’s politics. The reason they don’t want me is because they want to run the show. They want it. It’s power, it’s whatever you want to call it. But what they’ve done here is a disgrace, a total disgrace, and what they do—I know it’s sort of interesting.

Sometimes the they is “the people in this room,” the media who surround the president.

Before I got here, everybody in this room thought you were going to war. And then what happened? It was funny. They said he was terrible. He was so rough with Chairman Kim, Kim Jong Un. He was so rough, it’s terrible. He’s going to cause—well, I had a great meeting with President Putin. And on that one, they said he was too soft with President Putin. I had a great meeting with—it lasted for two hours. We discussed everything, Ukraine, Syria, Israel and Israel’s protection, we had a great meeting. They wanted me to end up in a boxing match. And you know what? If I was killer tough with President Putin, they would have said he was too tough. You can’t win with these people, but you just keep going. In the meantime, we’re doing well.

Whoever is they at the moment, whoever in the president’s mind is scheming and hostile and out to get him, the important thing is: He is unflustered by it all. Trump the calm, Trump the imperturbable describes the cruelty and unfairness of the external world, its relentless victimization of himself, and then ends the story by explaining how little he cares about it all. “In the meantime, we’re doing well.” “It’s interesting.”

By the way, what President Moon said last night, I know you won’t report it, but Bret Baier interviewed him last night, and he asked him about me. I can’t say because you would say I’m too braggadocious, but what he said about me last night was an unbelievable thing. “It couldn’t have happened without President Trump, and it never would happen without President Trump. And nobody else could do it.”

Everybody loves him, yet somehow nobody will acknowledge it. He’s a huge winner, maliciously being depicted as a loser. He loves women, women love him, we all inwardly know that truth. Yet we will not admit what we know. Instead, lying women paid by his enemies falsely accuse him and somehow their stories get repeated by the very people who—Trump tells us—know those stories to be false.

I’ve had many false—I’ve had many false statements against me and if the press would have reported, I would have been very happy. I think John Roberts would tell you that you covered the story where the women were paid to say bad things about me. Sean Hannity covered it. I will tell you when I saw that on Sean Hannity, I actually called him. Believe it or not, I don’t speak to him very much, but I respect him. I called him. I said this is the biggest story, this is a big, big story. He agreed with me. The next day I picked up the papers, there wasn’t one word about it. The next day I watched ABC News, John, I watched NBC, I watched CBS, I didn’t watch CNN, but next time I’ll do it. Question: And are you okay with — I watched everything, there wasn’t one story other than Fox. And it’s a big story, it’s a shame. Okay, enough. Thank you.

Thank God for Sean Hannity, who can support the president’s assessment of what is fair and unfair coverage, what is and what is not a big story. How alone would the president feel without Hannity?