elease that Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan in some kind of a prisoner swap. Now here's the question that we must ask. Is the United States making a deal that it didn't want to make because it wants to prevent Trump from making this deal? I think that's all that's happening. I think the election is the reason the deal is getting done because I think that Biden's team said there's no way we can let Trump get in here and make this deal.

I also think Trump could have made the deal before the election. I don't know if that's legal, but he could have just threatened. He could have just threatened Putin. He said, look, when I'm president you'd better give them back or they better be back before I'm president. So I think that Trump's pending appearance, or at least potential appearance as president, might be enough to have caused this to happen. Now, I don't know if that means that we made a deal we didn't want to make, maybe gave up some people we cared about too much, but it's hard to imagine this would have happened just when it did, just the way it did, unless the election was right around the corner. So I think this is election-related.

Well, let's talk about Trump. He went to the, he agreed to talk to the National Association of Black Journalists, and I think he was quite alarmed to show up and found out that the BJ stands for Black Journalists, so not at all what he was expecting. I don't think. Now I'm just joking. It's the National Association of Black Journalists and they invited him. They also invited Kamala but she had a funeral to attend, so we shall take that as a reasonable excuse for not going.

And here is what everybody is saying, and I'll add my own interpretation to it. Number one, I love the fact that Trump was not afraid to go. He knew it was going to be hostile and he walked right into the middle of the monster, showed no fear whatsoever, and stayed Trump. He walked in as Trump, he remained Trump, and then he walked out as Trump. You tell me how many American politicians could have walked into the National Association of Black Journalists, acted exactly the same as they always do, and then walked out. Harder than you think, because the pulse to pander would be through the roof. You know, just to say what they want to hear. I don't think he said what they want to hear. That wasn't his regular stump message that he's good for the economy for everybody, but he did make some news. He did make his points.

I think that if you watched the whole thing you'd know that he's for securing the border, reducing that inflation that he blames on Biden and Harris, and restoring energy independence. And I think that those are very popular things within the public. So in terms of his messaging, I think he got it through. He said the important things he wanted to say to an audience that wouldn't normally hear it. So it's very hard to even get your message to break through into the other side of the media silo, but he got that through.

Here are the fun parts. Oh, there were a lot of fun parts. So the ABC host, whose name I can't remember, there were three Black female hosts. One was Harris. Why am I forgetting the last name from Fox News? Not Kamala Harris but Harris Faulkner. And she was polite and nice to him because they have an ongoing relationship. She had interviewed him before the event, etc. But the other two were a little hostile and the one that opened up was especially hostile.

Now I sat there and I thought, oh my God. She started her first question with a whole bunch of accusations. Any one of them could be the whole show. And I thought, what's he going to do? That's a laundry list of accusations. And I thought to myself, oh my God, he's trapped in this because if he starts to defend himself, if he defends himself against anything on that list, they'll just move to the rest of the list. So it's like a trap that nobody can get out of. Nobody can get out of that trap. Nobody in the world. No politician ever could get out of that trap.

So then he got out of that trap by going directly at her for how rude she was to invite him there. He comes there, he says that they were 35 minutes late, made him wait, their equipment wasn't working, and that she starts out totally rude. Oh my God, it was perfect. It was as good as the Rosie O'Donnell. In my mind this was as good as the Rosie O'Donnell play. Did he look nervous? Nope. Did he look completely comfortable the entire time he was under attack? Yes, he did. He looked like a guy who could take a bullet in the ear and stand up and pump his fist and say fight, fight, fight. That's the guy. That's the guy that showed up.

If shooting him doesn't make him stop, I don't think your list of insults will. But he did not address anything on the list, which is exactly what he should have done. Instead he addressed the rudeness from the host and how unprofessional and terrible it was. How much did I enjoy that? Ten out of ten. Ten out of ten.

Who changed the conversation about all of politics? Trump did. Trump did. Do you remember yesterday they had so little to talk about they had to say he's weird? Do you hear the word weird yet today? I haven't heard it once except when I said it. Nope. He managed to change the entire cycle from why are you being so mean to, from weird things in couches to why are you being such a... basically she was just a total and he just treated her like a... that's what happened.

Now if you want to throw in, oh she's also Black, I don't think it mattered. I think he treated her like a because she was acting like a. Had nothing to do with color. And how much did I love the fact that he treated her like a? I loved it. I loved it. What do you think the audience thought? Probably a little bit mixed. We'll talk about that. You could imagine that some of the people were acting like they were entertained, some of them were acting aghast. So it was sort of a mixed bag. But I suspect that the male opinions were different than the female opinions. You know what I mean? Because that was Trump coming home to an angry wife. You know what I mean? That's what I saw. I saw Trump coming home to an angry wife and he treated her like the that she was and went about his day. How much do I like that? I can't even explain how much I like that. I like that so much. It's the best thing I've ever seen in politics. That's how much I liked it.

Now it has nothing to do with politics either. It has everything to do with a human interaction where if somebody treats you the way she treated him, he should slap her. Not physically, not physically of course, but in terms of verbally he should slap her down like a and that's what he did.

Now if you tell me that the men sitting in the audience hated that, did they? Did the men hate that? I don't know. I don't think they're going to tell you if they liked it. I don't think they'll mention it. I don't think they're going to mention it to their wives. You know, I kind of like the... wait no no no no no. I think the men are going to get quiet. I think they're going to let the women lead and the men who are supporting the women I guess.

So what else did he do? He mentioned that the people coming in, the border crossing the border, are taking Black jobs. So then the host wanted to trap him. We're going to trap him. We're going to make you explain what these Black jobs are. Oh, are you suggesting that Black people can only have low-paying jobs? Is that what makes them Black jobs? And he just ignores her stupid question. He's like, you know, Black jobs like jobs everybody gets. A job everybody knows what he means when he says Black jobs. He means that the Black population, because of the current socioeconomic situation, means that the migrants may be competing a little bit more with the people at the lower end of the economic strata. That's where there's a disproportionate number of Black employees. Everybody knew what he meant. Nobody was surprised. Nobody was offended. But you have to act like it. Let's act like we're offended. So we're all going to pretend after it's over that you're offended. And that's the funny part. We'll talk about that in a minute.

Let's see. Then of course the best part was, yeah this is, you can't believe it went there but of course it's Trump so he did. So keep this context in mind. Kamala Harris was selected by Biden explicitly for being a Black woman. He said so. He said I'm going to pick a Black woman and then he did. And then Trump goes to an organization which is specifically for Black journalists, not for white journalists. It's an organization of Black journalists. So he's going into a world where the people are very clear on how race matters and race is central to not only their organization he was invited to, that was central to their organization, their race, but also the selection of Kamala Harris and certainly the energy behind her entering the presidency campaign is probably 50% because she's Black and 40% because she's a woman and 10% because policies or something.

So in the real world everybody knows it's about her being Black and female. Everybody. Everybody who is acting like they didn't notice or something, everybody, we're all on the same page. But some of us have to pretend we're not. So he mocked her for allegedly identifying more as an Indian-American earlier in her career. And there was lots of evidence where she sort of accepted that explanation when she was in different public settings. But of course she's always identified as both Black and Indian-American. So it's not like the reality matches exactly Trump's characterizing it, but he characterized it in a way that everybody understands what he's saying, which is that she's presenting herself as Black because there's an advantage electorally and that when she was presenting herself as Indian-American maybe that audience wanted to hear it that way. So she does present herself in the way that will get votes. And if that's the only thing that you're pointing out, that's totally fair.

Is that racist? Of course they wanted to make it racist because they wanted to make it, I mean basically it was a setup to get him to say some things they could interpret as racist. That's what the whole thing was. It was just a setup. So he did give them their red meat but he gave it to them in a Trump way which was so delightful I just can't tell you how much I enjoyed it. He gave them their quotes but it was in a Trump way. It wasn't anything that was really racist. It was everything that would make them talk about racism but they would have to hear his points while they're doing it. And his point is maybe you're selling yourself to a Black audience a little bit too hard.

What do you think the Black audience thought when they found out? I don't know if they found this out but somebody in the comments was saying she's 25% Black because she's got a white grandfather. Is that true? I don't know if that's true. So we're talking about half Black or 25% Black. I don't think it matters to me either way because I don't see her as either of those things.

Let me remind you the only smart way to look at anything. There's only one of her. There's exactly one of her. That's it. You don't have to talk about how Black she is or how Indian-American or how American or how female or what age. There's only one of her. She's completely different than everybody else just like everybody else. Everybody else is unique and 100% completely their own person. But if she wants to sell herself as part of a group she's going to have to explain why she's maybe not even a majority in that group. Isn't that a fair question? If identity is your primary game and that's what the Democrats are pushing, it's their primary filter, then you can talk about it. They're the ones who created the filter. Now him, if he had created the filter that would be really racist, wouldn't it? If Trump were the only one talking about somebody's race as they're running that would be racist. But he's not. That's their game. He's simply entering their own game and then winning at their game. They invited him to the home court and then he won the home court game. They don't like it.

All right. He did mention that, this is so funny. God he's funny. He mentioned that he would definitely take a cognitive test but he wanted Kamala Harris to take one too because he mentioned she failed the bar exam for her lawyer license the first time she took it. I guess she passed the second time, which is not that uncommon by the way to fail the first one. But I thought it was brilliant and funny that he worked that in there, that she should take a cognitive exam because she failed the bar. You can't forget that. Like it's impossible not to remember that.

So the things that you remember are that she was lying about her ethnicity, you know allegedly. The truth of it of course is more complicated but he can sell that interpretation. And that she didn't pass the bar exam the first time. So now the fun part is the reactions. If you didn't take some time to look at CNN and MSNBC to watch their horrified reactions you missed a good show. To my mind the gears of the machine are all very obvious now. You knew that this was a setup so that all the commentators could act aghast. So it was like a competition this morning to see who could act the most offended when none of them are offended. None of them in my personal opinion. Nobody was offended because they didn't hear anything offensive. It was just stuff that they thought they could interpret as offensive.

So Joy Reid said she watched in absolute horror as a person named Trump acted exactly like he always acts, saying normal things that everybody agrees with. God oh my God. And then there was Trump is coming after Black people like he always does is what Trump's coming after Black people. That's happened exactly zero times that I'm aware of. And then there was my favorite. I can't remember her name. Another one of the Black pundits on MSNBC said it was a shock and awe moment and it made my chest hurt. And I thought that's going to be tough to beat. So there was somebody who was in physical pain, much like a heart attack or chest hurt. Like all right let's see if you can top that for pretending to be offended.

So one after another everybody pretended to be offended. The AP said Trump falsely suggests Harris misled voters about her race. Well let me ask you this. If you were to poll Black voters what percentage of them would be fully aware of Kamala Harris's Indian part of her ethnicity? What do you think? I think 60% would know and 40% would not. 40% would say she's Black. Now is that misleading? I think so. To me that would look misleading. Now maybe not intentionally. I guess that would be more of an argument. But I would think that the Black public maybe is not fully informed about her ethnic background.

Now keep in mind that I'm not saying it should matter. I'm saying she's an individual like 8 billion other individuals, should be judged as an individual. But she's the one who made it part of the race. Joe Biden made it part of the conversation. I didn't. It wouldn't be part of the conversation if it were up to me.

Ari Melber on MSNBC said we're not going to re-air this now. I'm just going to put up some chyron because he made this false and racially incendiary claim. Now that's convenient isn't it? Simply say he made a racial incendiary claim but don't show it. Don't you think you'd show that? I'm pretty sure they showed everything else he said that they didn't like. Maybe it's because the news is fake.

And let's see this is what Karine Jean-Pierre said. The divisiveness and the disrespect. And let me just say the American people, guys, are better. Jen Psaki said it was repulsive and insulting. Nobody has a right to say what someone else is. And then somebody named Elinor. I was sitting in the room and people were stunned. To take you behind the scenes, people were stunned. People were gasping. Some people were shouting back at him saying that's a lie.

All right let me say it as clearly as I possibly can. I don't give a why any of them felt about it. You know why? Because there's not one of these people would give a what I feel about anything. Why do I care? I don't. I don't care whatsoever how angry they were. They wouldn't care if I were angry. Are they the magic group? Is the National Association of Black Journalists a magical group where their concerns and their problems are the special ones? No they're not. I don't give a about any of their problem