Analysis: Can you believe Crooked Hillary said, ""We are going to put ...

10y ago May 6, 2016 at 5:57 AM

Can you believe Crooked Hillary said, ""We are going to put a whole lot of coal miners&amp,coal companies out of business."" She then apologized.

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AI Analysis

Machine-generated analysis of the post above on 2026-03-10. Not written by the author of the post.

Danger Level

None

Narcissistic State

Grandiose

Authorship

Self-Written

Intensity

52%

This 1:57 AM EDT post (New York, authentic Trump) arrives days after he became the presumptive Republican nominee and exemplifies his triumphant-grandiose mode. The rhetorical structure is precise: weaponize a documented opponent gaffe, strip contextualizing nuance, then reframe the apology as confirmation of guilt rather than mitigation — all in two sentences. "Crooked Hillary" appears in one of its foundational deployments, signaling the formal transition from primary to general election targeting. Psychologically, Trump operates from the expansive end of his narcissistic range: no injury, no rage, just predatory opportunism. Splitting and devaluation are the operative defenses. The coal miner appeal is instrumentally effective — Clinton's statement was a genuine liability in industrial swing states, and West Virginia's primary was days away. Quote attribution is largely accurate though deliberately decontextualized: her words are real, but the accompanying language about clean energy job creation was excised. The apology reframe is the most rhetorically sophisticated element: what might defuse the controversy becomes the prosecution's closing argument. No clinical alarm indicators; no danger markers. This represents Trump at his most controlled and strategically calculating — predatory rather than reactive, Trickster archetype catching the Queen-figure in an unguarded moment of candor.

Authorship Analysis

Self-Written

Indicators:

Post timestamp 01:57 AM EDT (New York, Trump Tower) — within authentic late-night window
Malformed HTML entity '&amp,' (comma not semicolon) — raw unedited posting artifact
Idiosyncratic double-quotation markup "".."" inconsistent with aide formatting
Signature 'Can you believe' rhetorical opener — documented Trump verbal tic across decades
Staccato addendum 'She then apologized.' — stream-of-consciousness punchy follow-on

Psychological Profile

▶ State

Grandiose State

Trigger: Supply Seeking (Hillary Clinton's documented coal statement)

Sentiment

-0.45

Mildly Hypomanic

Post arrives days after becoming presumptive Republican nominee — elevated mood state consistent with major recent triumphExpansive, confident attack posture rather than defensive reactionEarly morning posting (1:57 AM) during period of major life achievement suggesting reduced need for sleep or heightened arousal

▶ Clinical

Malignant Narcissism:

Narcissistic

55%

Antisocial

20%

Paranoid

10%

Sadism

25%

Defense Mechanisms:

splittingdevaluationprojection

Cognitive Complexity:

Complexity

32%

Parasocial Techniques:

Rhetorical question 'Can you believe' recruits audience into shared outrage, bypassing critical evaluationImplied identification with coal miners positions Trump as their champion without explicit statementShort punchy format optimized for emotional impact and sharing

Fact Checks (2)

"Hillary Clinton said 'We are going to put a whole lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business'"

Mostly True

Clinton made this statement at a CNN Democratic town hall in Youngstown, Ohio on March 13, 2016. The verbatim words are accurate. However, the full quote included language about bringing clean energy jobs and economic opportunity to Appalachian communities — context deliberately stripped in Trump's framing.

"She then apologized"

True

Clinton apologized to coal miner Bo Copley at a campaign event in West Virginia in May 2016, acknowledging her statement was poorly worded.

Receipts

No contradictions with other posts detected yet.

Analysis: Trump Tweet — May 6, 2016 (01:57 AM EDT)

Authorship Attribution

Verdict: Authentic Trump (High Confidence)

Multiple convergent indicators point to authentic authorship:

Timing: 05:57 UTC converts to 01:57 AM EDT in New York (Trump Tower), firmly within the authenticated late-night posting window
Malformed HTML entity: &, (comma instead of semicolon) is a raw posting artifact — an aide polishing content would not produce this encoding error
Double-quotation formatting: The "".."" style is idiosyncratic and unpolished, inconsistent with aide formatting conventions
Signature opener: "Can you believe" is a documented Trump verbal tic appearing across decades of his public speech
Staccato addendum: "She then apologized." as a one-sentence paragraph mirrors stream-of-consciousness punchy structure
No promotional apparatus: No hashtags, links, or event promotion — purely reactive/emotional content

Contextual Frame

This post arrives three days after Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee (Indiana primary, Cruz/Kasich exits). The pivot to general election mode is explicit: "Crooked Hillary" appears as the first target in what will become a sustained campaign. West Virginia's primary was days away — coal country is the precise demographic theater for this message.

Psychological State

Grandiose narcissistic pole. Trump is operating from triumph rather than injury. The post reflects expansive predatory opportunism rather than defensive wound-licking. There is a gleeful exposure quality — sadistic pleasure in catching an opponent — rather than rage response to perceived threat.

Trigger classification: Supply-seeking combined with preemptive attack. Having secured the nomination, Trump is building general-election narrative capital by weaponizing a genuine opponent liability.

Level 1 — Dispositional Traits

Extraversion (high, ~0.82): Assertive, bold, public-dominance seeking
Agreeableness (very low, ~0.12): No consideration for Clinton's context; pure attack posture
Conscientiousness (low, ~0.28): Impulsive 2 AM post, unpolished encoding
Neuroticism (low in this instance, ~0.22): Triumphant state suppresses anxious reactivity
Openness (very low, ~0.18): Rigid values framing; binary moral world

Level 2 — Characteristic Adaptations

Dominant motive: Power/Agency (0.88). The coal framing offers instrumental communion appeal — identification with workers as political currency — but communion is subordinate to power acquisition.

Schema revealed: The world is populated by elites who secretly hold the working class in contempt; Trump is the one who exposes this hidden contempt. Clinton becomes the avatar of establishment hypocrisy.

Level 3 — Narrative Identity

Protagonist role: The Exposer/Champion — catching elites saying what they really think and voicing outrage on behalf of the forgotten
Narrative sequence: Contamination — Clinton's implied promise of representation is revealed as betrayal ("put them out of business")
Identity claims (implicit): I would never dismiss coal miners; I see through their contempt; I alone tell you what they really think
Contrasting other: "Crooked Hillary" — the inside operator who privately despises the working class and dissembles about it

Archetypal reading: The Trickster archetype is operating here — catching the Queen-figure in an unguarded moment of candor, then broadcasting it. The Trickster's power is not to argue against the established order but to expose its hypocrisy. The name "Crooked" is the Trickster's epithet for the corrupt King/Queen.

Level 4 — Clinical Indicators

Malignant Narcissism Assessment

Component	Score	Evidence
Narcissistic features	0.55	Grandiosity, entitlement, lack of empathy for Clinton's contextual intent
Antisocial features	0.20	Selective quotation, context stripping
Paranoid features	0.10	Minimal in this post; no persecution narrative
Ego-syntonic sadism	0.25	Gleeful "Can you believe" exposure quality; pleasure in opponent's predicament

Defense Mechanisms

Splitting (immature): "Crooked Hillary" creates an all-bad object; implicit Trump-as-champion is all-good; no acknowledgment of Clinton's fuller stated intent
Devaluation (immature): The nickname pre-contaminates all future reception of Clinton's communications by attaching moral verdict to her name before any content comparison
Projection (immature): Attribution of "crooked"/dishonest character to opponent without self-referential acknowledgment of Trump's own documented record of deception

Rhetorical & Propaganda Techniques

The rhetorical architecture is a precise three-beat structure:

Expose — present the damaging quote
Condemn — "Can you believe" recruits audience into shared outrage parasocially
Close — "She then apologized" functions as the prosecution's closing argument, not mitigation

Quote weaponization is the operative technique. This is more sophisticated than fabrication — the words are real, which makes refutation difficult. Clinton cannot claim she didn't say it. The stripped context (her accompanying language about clean energy job creation) does the rhetorical work invisibly.

Apology-as-confession inversion is the most sophisticated move: what normally functions as dispute resolution becomes confirmation of guilt. Every future apology Clinton makes will be pre-primed by this framing.

"Crooked Hillary" as frame-poisoning: The nickname attaches a moral verdict to the name that will precede any substantive content in audience perception. This is linguistic pre-priming at scale.

Fact Verification

Claim	Verdict	Evidence
"Hillary Clinton said 'We are going to put a whole lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business'"	Mostly True	Clinton made this statement at a CNN Democratic town hall in Youngstown, Ohio on March 13, 2016. The verbatim words are accurate. However, the full quote included language about bringing clean energy jobs and economic opportunity to Appalachian communities — context deliberately stripped in Trump's framing.
"She then apologized"	True	Clinton apologized to coal miner Bo Copley at a campaign event in West Virginia in May 2016, acknowledging her statement was poorly worded.

Overall Veracity: 90%

Gaslighting Assessment

Not present. The quote is substantially real. This is selective quotation (reality distortion by omission) rather than denial of documented events or DARVO.

Cognitive Status

No deviation from 2016 campaign baseline. Vocabulary is elementary but consistent with established patterns. The &, encoding error is a technical interface artifact, not a language production marker. Sentence structure is simple, coherent, and purposeful. No word-finding difficulty, tangentiality, or perseveration.

Danger Assessment: None

No eliminationist language, no dehumanization, no stochastic terrorism indicators. Standard political attack rhetoric.

Longitudinal Note

This post represents a strategic phase transition — from primary dominance to general election targeting. The "Crooked Hillary" label, deployed here in a foundational usage, will become one of the most persistent rhetorical weapons of the 2016 cycle. Its deployment at 2 AM, authentically authored, reflects that Trump is genuinely excited by the find — this is not calculated aide-authored messaging but visceral opportunism operating in real time.