Trump’s debate messages leave us scratching heads

Monday, Oct. 3, 2016 | 2 a.m.

Americans don’t always agree with their presidents, but they generally can understand them.

Although this would be needless to say in most elections, the ability to convey messages clearly is a fundamental qualification for the job. That goes for whether the president is giving a prepared speech — like on a battlefield in Gettysburg or in a fireside chat — or is working without a script.

Which brings us to Donald Trump.

In the first presidential debate, Trump proved once again that he’s an abysmal communicator. His syntax and speech patterns are often tortured to the point of incoherence, meaning he flunks one of the most basic tests on fitness to serve as president.

American voters have strived to elect a president who is more knowledgeable, more capable and, yes, a more able communicator than the majority of us because we recognize the president needs to represent the best of us.

In assessing Trump, a critical consideration is that the way people communicate reflects how they think. In Trump’s case, it’s clear his mind is a mess of images, fleeting thoughts and stray words. America can’t have a president who can barely complete a full sentence.

But judge for yourself. Take a look at the following excerpts from the transcript of the Sept. 26 debate and see if you can figure out what he’s talking about. Best of luck.

On his role in the birther movement:

I’ll tell you very — well, just very simple to say. Sidney Blumenthal works for the campaign and close — very close friend of Secretary Clinton. And her campaign manager, Patti Doyle, went to — during the campaign, her campaign against President Obama, fought very hard. And you can go look it up, and you can check it out.

Our comment: This was very simple to say?

On his company not paying contractors for services:

It’s an unbelievable company. But on occasion, four times, we used certain laws that are there. And when Secretary Clinton talks about people that didn’t get paid, first of all, they did get paid a lot, but taken advantage of the laws of the nation.

Our comment: Good thing the company didn’t use laws that are not there. As for the second part of the comment, maybe a little debate preparation wouldn’t have been a bad idea.

On reports that companies he owns are $650 million in debt:

I am incredibly underleveraged. The report that 650 (million dollars) — which by the way, a lot of friends of mine that know my business say, boy, that’s really not a lot of money. That’s not a lot of money relative to what I had. The big buildings that were in question they said in the same report, which actually wasn’t even a bad story, to be honest with you — but the buildings are worth $3.9 billion. And the 650 is not even on that. But it is not 650.

Our comment: Download a Trump-to-English translator app.

On the pullout of American forces from Iraq and the emergence of ISIS:

Or, as I’ve been saying for a long time, and I think you’ll agree because I said it to you once — had we taken the oil — and we should have taken the oil, ISIS would not have been able to form either because the oil was their primary source of income. And now they have the oil all over the place including the oil, a lot of the oil in Libya, which was another one of her disasters.

Comment: Take the oil? How? Assuming that the government or Iraq or any other nation won’t just tie a bow on its energy infrastructure systems and hand them to the U.S., this would likely entail the U.S. orchestrating a military takeover of pipelines, refineries, etc., and then becoming an occupying force.

On his comment about Clinton not having a “presidential look”:

I said she doesn’t have the stamina. And I don’t believe she does have the stamina. To be president of this country, you need tremendous stamina.

Our comment: Ah, and then there’s Trump’s tendency to lie. His exact quote about the issue, from an ABC interview: “I just don’t believe she has a presidential look, and you need a presidential look.”