Every so often we get introduced to a new rhetorical bludgeon from Donald Trump, American president. Political speech is not, in the president's view, primarily a vehicle for persuading a majority of the population that his ideas are the best course of action. In the Age of Shamelessness, it doesn't matter if it's true or makes a lick of sense. Rhetoric is a weapon to cudgel the various Enemies of the Movement for the satisfaction of The Base, which has organized itself around the belief that it is the singular manifestation of Real America.

The latest of these is "Read the Transcript," which made it onto ubiquitous T-shirts at Monday night's Trump rally in Lexington, Kentucky. The point of the line is not to actually get people to read the transcript—it's to beat them with blunt-force rhetoric until they give up and shut up. After all, the "transcript" is not actually a transcript—it says so on the first page of the document. Alexander Vindman, an Iraq War veteran with a Purple Heart who serves on the National Security Council, testified under oath that the readout omitted key parts of Trump's conversation with the President of Ukraine.

But even what's there is damning: when Volodymyr Zelensky brought up military aid in the form of Javelin missiles Ukraine wanted to buy to defend itself against Russian aggression, Trump immediately responded that he needed a "favor." We now know the favor was for Ukraine to announce—and the key was the announcement, so Trump could use it as a political weapon—investigations into a company tied to the Bidens and 2016 election interference. This was designed to muddy the waters around Russia's intervention to help Trump. We know the president was not actually interested in "corruption" generally because Rudy Giuliani was working behind the scenes to get the Ukrainians to mention Burisma, the company tied to the Bidens, specifically. It was about getting political dirt for Trump's personal benefit.

None of this is relevant to Trump and his supporters, though. "Read the Transcript" is just a blunt object. He's banking on the fact that basically nobody will actually read The Transcript, even if it's a lot shorter than The Mueller Report, which extremely no one read. It's just an all-purpose response when people point out that a parade of career civil servants—and Trump appointees!—have come forward to confirm Trump's abuse of power in the Ukraine caper. Like "Build the Wall" or "Lock Her Up," it is a device for lashing out and affirming allegiance to the movement. So, too, are calls to "out the whistleblower" (or the president's bizarro one-line tweets asking, "Who is the Whistleblower?"), a chorus that Kentucky Senator Rand Paul joined at the rally last night.

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Here's Rand Paul calling for the media to out the whistleblower at last night's Trump rally in Kentucky pic.twitter.com/PxFLXb9boU — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 5, 2019

Neither Brush-Stack Sonny Liston here, nor Trump, nor any of his supporters give a damn about whether or not what the whistleblower said is true. They're not actually interested in having them cross-examined in good faith by members of Congress. The parade of witnesses have already confirmed much of the whistleblower's complaint. The whistleblower is old news, but a shadowy government operative is a better target for Trump's conspiratorial attacks than someone like Alexander Vindman. (They did try Vindman, however.) Whether the president's conduct was improper or illegal is not at issue, because if Donald Trump did it, it's not illegal. What they want is for the whistleblower to face retribution. Never mind that whistleblowers who follow the appropriate protocol, as this one did, are entitled to protection under federal law. And never mind that Trump mused to some donors about treating the whistleblower's sources..."differently."

But who said anything about the law? It does not apply to the president, or at least that's what his lawyers have argued, time after time, in court. Most recently, they suggested he could shoot someone in the street and law enforcement would be barred from even launching an investigation. This pairs well with their blanket position that Congress has no power to provide oversight of the president. The thinking here is that literally no one is allowed to provide any kind of check on his behavior! Very convenient when he is constantly breaking the law and abusing his power. And here's the president joking last night, for the 146th time, about serving more than his constitutionally limited two terms in office.

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Trump deadpans about shredding the Constitution and serving as much as 21 more years in office. Do you still think he's kidding? pic.twitter.com/jiXQgUO4yx — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 5, 2019

The president likes to say he does this—and he does it all the time—to drive the media crazy. Triggering the Libs is a core value of The Movement, a way to needle alongside the bludgeons. But Trump also uses "jokes" to inject ideas into the mainstream. Even if you leave out the rally episode where a supporter called for migrants to be shot and Trump joked in response, Trump's aides have an extensive record of defending his behavior along these lines. "Don't take him literally, take him seriously." And then there was the time that, as a candidate, he volunteered his views on reporters: "I hate some of these people, I hate 'em," he told a rally crowd. "I would never kill them. I would never do that." Why the hell would you even say that?

No need to worry, though. The president who is trampling the separation of powers and intimidating witnesses in public and pressuring foreign governments to interfere in our elections and blatantly monetizing his office while creating a constant stream of conflicts-of-interest just wants you to Read the Transcript.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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