Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago press conference, August. 8, 2024.Alex Brandon/AP

Have you seen any of those clips from Donald Trump’s rambling press conference this past Thursday? If not, count yourself lucky. Standing at a Mar-a-Lago podium, Trump did what he always does: equivocated, meandered among subjects, spoke in half-sentences full of non sequiturs, and lied relentlessly. Challenging questions were in short supply—a media fail. Then again, maybe just showing up was the bigger fail, given Trump’s inability to engage honestly.

But one has to try. Calling Trump out is our professional responsibility. The women who grilled him onstage at the National Association of Black Journalists conference—Harris Faulkner, Kadia Goba, and Rachel Scott—set a good example.

Apparently not enough of the Mar-a-Lago journalists got the memo.

Their questions weren’t mic’d, so they were barely audible in the video. But I cranked up the volume and listened carefully, transcribing as accurately as I could. Trump took roughly 40 questions. Most were uncritical softballs. Here’s a sampling, paraphrased:

There was a smattering of policy questions—which is fine, but lightweight. Some examples (these are semi-verbatim; watch the video for Trump’s full answers):

Only a handful of questions were at all confrontational:

In his response, Trump misleadingly claimed there had been a peaceful transfer of power “last time.” Another reporter, I believe it was Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, came back to that:

Here are 22 questions—I could easily come up with 22 more—that journalists should be asking this candidate, or at least asking of him. Granted, it might be the last time Trump ever took a question from you, but it’d be worth it.

Partisan divisions
A Pew analysis shows voters are about evenly split in favor of Democrats and Republicans. Yet you’ve called Democrats “treasonous,” “un-American,” “crazy,” “loco,” “rage-filled,” and “the party of crime.” You retweeted a video in which a supporter said, “The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.” You regularly use “us vs. them” rhetoric. Why should voters support a candidate who seeks to divide Americans?

Migrant crime
You’ve gone around claiming that nations are emptying out their jails, prisons, and, in your words, “insane asylums,” sending “millions” of criminals and mental patients across our southern border. That’s a pretty........

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