The British Broadcasting Corporation is struggling to cover the inauguration of the 45th president of the United States. “The success of Donald Trump may, uh, recalibrate the definition of success,” one commentator says. Furthermore, people appear to have come from “different parts” of the United States to attend. The journalists who are speaking leave long gaps between clauses. Melania Trump is “Slovenian; tall,” they observe.
“As your hat says,” a BBC reporter on the ground says to a Louisianan man named Rob, “you are a Donald Trump supporter.” Rob doesn’t seem to understand her accent. Michelle Obama walks out onto the inauguration platform and you can hear the smiles in the commentators’ voices return.
As Trump’s speech ends, the BBC observes that it was 20 minutes long. “I don’t know why we thought that Donald Trump would do a standard political speech,” one BBC woman muses. She observes that the camera is panning now across “all those establishment people that Donald Trump has just told off.” The camera lingers on Elizabeth Warren’s face with all the tenderness a machine can express.