LINCOLN, NEBRASKA—I see that the Bedminster Improv opened early on Thursday.

"Frankly, the people who were questioning that statement, was it too tough? Maybe it wasn't tough enough. They've been doing this to our country for a long time, for many years, and it's about time that somebody stuck up for the people of this country and for the people of other countries. So if anything, maybe that statement wasn't tough enough. And we're backed 100 percent by our military, we're backed by everybody and we're backed by many other leaders. And I noticed that many senators and others came out today very much in favor of what I said. But if anything that statement may not be tough enough… Sure, well always consider negotiations. But they've been negotiating now for 25 years. I talk. Somebody has to do it.

The people of this country should be very comfortable, and I will tell you this. If North Korea does anything in terms of even thinking about attack of anybody that we love or we represent or our allies or us, they can be very, very nervous. Ill tell you why. And they should be very nervous. Because things will happen to them like they never thought possible, OK? He's been pushing the world around for a long time."

And, of course:

"I would like to de-nuke the world."

And, of course, Richie Rich as party leader.

"I just want him to get repeal and replace done. I've been hearing repeal and replace now for seven years, but I've only been doing this for two years, and I've really only been doing this for six months, but I've been running, so now it's almost two years and all I hear is repeal and replace. And then I get there and I said, Where's the bill? I want to sign it, first day. And they don't have it. And they passed repeal and replace, but they never had a president, frankly, or a Senate that was going to it, but they never had a president so it didn't matter. So I say very simply, where is repeal and replace? Now I want tax reform and tax cuts. We're going to reduce taxes for the people. We pay more tax than anybody in the world. And we're going to reduce taxes.

So I say, tax cuts, tax reform, and I want a very big infrastructure bill, where we're working on that very hard already. And we can do that. And we may even get bipartisan on infrastructure, but we want to have it. But I said Mitch, get to work and let's get it done. They should have had this last one done. They lost by one vote. For a thing like that to happen is a disgrace and frankly it shouldn't have happened, that I can tell you."

And about that "transgender thing":

"I have great respect for the community I think I've had great support, or I've had great support from that community. I got a lot of votes. But the transgender, the military's working on it now. It's been a very difficult situation and I think I'm doing a lot of people a favor by coming out and just saying it. As you know, It's been a very complicated issue for the military. It's been a very confusing issue for the military, and I think I'm doing the military a great favor.

Hey, the FBI woke up Paul Manafort? Remember him?

"I thought it was a very, very strong signal, or whatever. I know Mr. Manafort. Haven't spoken to him for a long time, but I know him. I thought it was a very you know, they do that very seldom, so I was surprised to see it. I was very, very surprised to see it... I've always found Paul Manafort to be a very decent man. He's like a lot of other people, probably makes consultant fees from all over the place, who knows, I don't know, but I thought it was pretty tough stuff to wake him up, perhaps his family was there. I think that's pretty tough stuff."

[Ed]

But Putin threw out our diplomats.

"I want to thank him because were trying to cut down our payroll, and as far as I'm concerned I'm very thankful that he let go of a large number of people because now we have a smaller payroll. There's no real reason for them to go back. I greatly appreciate the fact that we've been able to cut our payroll of the United States. We're going to save a lot of money."

I hear the late show is completely different. That's frightening.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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