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[-] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 203 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

This is a clickbait headline from Tom’s, as that’s not how the speech was worded. Per their own cherry picked quotes

Trump continued, "I said, 'Who the hell is he? What's his name?' 'His name is Jensen Huang, Nvidia, ' I said, 'What the hell is Nvidia?' I've never heard of it before.

The context being he had never really heard of Nvidia before they got so high profile, like most of the US population.

Tom's does this all the time; they’re notorious for it in the PC Hardware news community.


Yes Trump is an idiot and his speeches are stupid, but can we please not have ragebait stretching it even more?

I’m sorry to keep bringing this up and getting so sour, but I feel like Lemmy's information hygiene is deteriorating, and we're happily upvoting it away. Big community mods need to put their foots down and put up basic soft rules, like:

[-] PapaStevesy@lemmy.world 61 points 1 week ago

Trying to put Trump quotes into context is like trying to read a Pollock, it's not possible and it's not supposed to be. Your interpretation really didn't change any of the meaning for me, and it certainly didn't contradict the headline.

[-] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 40 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Here's the actual video source, skipped to the relevant context:

https://youtu.be/BrTT7dX0mcQ?t=851

And if you don't want that, a clip of the auto transcript I ripped from YouTube:

...And a very special thanks to some of the top industry leaders including somebody that's amazing. I said, "Look, we'll break this guy up." This is before I learned the facts of life. I said, "We'll break them up." They said, "No, sir. It's very hard." I said, "Why?" I said, "What percentages of the market does he have?" I said, "He has 100%." I said, "Who the hell is he? What's his name?" His name is Jensen Wong. Nvidia. I said, "What the hell is Nvidia? I've never heard of it before." He said, "You don't want to know about it, sir." I figured we could go in and we could sort of break them up a little bit, get them a little competition. And I found out it's not easy in that business. I said, "Supposing we put the greatest minds together. They work hand in hand for a couple of years." He said, "No, it would take at least 10 years to catch him if he ran Nvidia totally incompetently from now on." So, I said, "All right, let's go on to the next one." And then I got to know Jensen, and now I see why. Jensen, will you stand up? What a job. What a job you've done, man. Great. It's a great He's a great guy, too. Lisa...

Trump's clearly referencing learning about Nvidia in the past, and getting to know Jensen. He's telling a story about pondering breaking up Nvidia and putting together a government chip development effort before he learned the finer details on what they do. Tom's headline, on the other hand:

President Trump threatened to break up Nvidia, didn't even know what it was — 'What the hell is Nvidia? I've never heard of it before'

Is worded to imply Trump 'threatened' Nvidia blindly, or that he didn't know who Nvidia is during or just before the speech, cherry picking a quote with no context. It's technically plausibly deniable.

Call it what you want, but that is classic tabloid journalism from Tom's.

The headline contradicts what Trump was saying. It sort of contradicts their own article.

[-] Habahnow@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 week ago

Thanks for all the info. He talks about learning about Nvidia in the past, and mentions talking about breaking it up. That doesn't sound like a business man talking about getting involved in the company, or competing against it, that sounds like a politician wanting to address a very strong company. Trump has only been a politician for the past 9 years. So Trump just found out about the largest chip designer in the world 9 years ago... That seems absurd to me.

[-] PapaStevesy@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

If it was so clear, we wouldn't be having this conversation because I disagree. Like I said, even all that context doesn't actually give any context because nothing Trump says really has any meaning. When he says something happened "in the past", it could mean it happened at literally any time previously, it could mean he expects it to happen soon and as such is an inevitability so he just says it already happened, it could mean it never happened and never will. But even taking him at his word, nothing from that "context" makes me any less likely to believe he found out what Nvidia was minutes before taking the stage. And even if he did know what Nvidia was "in the past", he did try to break it up without knowing what it was, so where's the contradiction? I don't see how that headline is implying any kind of timeframe, inaccurate or otherwise.

[-] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

nothing Trump says really has any meaning.

This is reductive. Why report on anything he says then? But for the sake of argument let's go with that.

When he says something happened “in the past”, it could mean it happened at literally any time previously, it could mean he expects it to happen soon and as such is an inevitability so he just says it already happened

So how do you go from that to concluding:

othing from that “context” makes me any less likely to believe he found out what Nvidia was minutes before taking the stage

You're not making any sense. You're saying "nothing Trump says really has any meaning," effectively refuting his whole quote, while somehow holding up the conclusion that he "found out what Nvidia was minutes before taking the stage" with, per your own standards you just emphasized, zero evidence, out of thin air.

So which is it? Is his whole quote invalid?

[-] PapaStevesy@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

You very conveniently left out the "But taking him at his word" part of my comment, which kind of negates everything you're complaining about. See, that's a good example of taking a quote out of context and changing the meaning, unlike this headline. I do agree that we shouldn't report onanything he says though, just report on the administration's actions.

[-] wewbull@feddit.uk 3 points 1 week ago

That's just the same as the article. Same quotes.

[-] 0x0@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 week ago
[-] Batman@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

It powers a tesler

[-] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

There might be typos from the auto-transcription.

[-] 0x0@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 week ago

No, that's how he pronounced it in the video (to my ear).

[-] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago

That must be it. No way OP spelled that right.

but they got high profile in like the 90s three decades ago

[-] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

To PC gamers and hardware nerds. Not to the average person or the high levels of US politics.

As I often say, Lemmy skews really techy, but most people don’t know anything about this stuff.

[-] forrgott@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I think it was a couple of years ago, I made a reply on a thread where people were accusing the average Reddit user of being a bot or a shill (rightly so) - anyway, my position was that Lemmy is already being infected by similar.

Oh man did people get salty; but I swear it's only been getting worse.

[-] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I’m not accusing anyone here of being a bot or shill.

But I think information hygiene is super, super important, lest the Fediverse meet the same fate as the rest of the internet.

[-] forrgott@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 week ago

Oh for sure!

It doesn't take very many who participate in bad faith, though, before information hygiene, as you put it, starts going by the wayside.

But, my apologies if it sounded like I was trying to hijack your message; was not my intent! Whether it's bad actors or just people giving in to emotional reactions instead of reasoning out the argument, it is for sure important to be careful of misinformation. I'm sure a distressing amount is spread quite unintentionally.

[-] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

No worries, I got the idea (and was a tad blunt clarifying). And yeah, for sure.

To expand on my perspective, I’ve encountered genuinely curious comments about link sourcing, questionable but popular sites and such. It reminds me there are young folks or newcomers still learning those concepts and “characters” of the internet, and I mean that with no intended condescension to anyone.

[-] forrgott@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 week ago

I have a bad habit of being condescending myself, I appreciate the reminder.

Some time back I saw a blog post where the author was making the claim that the only possible way to deprogram someone who had been radicalized starts with compassion. Real, honest compassion for the person; which can be hard with the hateful ideals that are spread so freely these days! But he is right. Without compassion, whoever you are trying to communicate with has no honest reason to listen.

Anyway, thank you again for sharing your perspective!

[-] artyom@piefed.social 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I mean I realize we're talking about a moron here but grammar is important:

"I've never heard of them" vs "I had never heard of them"

So no, not clickbait.

[-] floofloof@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Trump continued, "I said, 'Who the hell is he? What's his name?' 'His name is Jensen Huang, Nvidia, ' I said, 'What the hell is Nvidia?' I've never heard of it before.

The journalist pretty clearly put the quotation marks in the wrong place. It should be this:

Trump continued, "I said, 'Who the hell is he? What's his name?' 'His name is Jensen Huang, Nvidia, ' I said, 'What the hell is Nvidia? I've never heard of it before.'

He's quoting himself, in the past, saying "What the hell is Nvidia? I've never heard of it before." He's not saying that he hasn't heard of NVIDIA in the present moment. The context makes that clear, because in the next paragraph he describes how he got to know Jensen Huang and learn about NVIDIA. But the journalist closed the quote too early, making it a bit nonsensical. On this rare occasion, Trump was not being 100% incoherent.

[-] artyom@piefed.social 3 points 1 week ago

I dunno. I feel like trying to make sense of anything he says is like trying to make sense of Bible verses. The only person who knows is the one who said it but they're incapable or unwilling to clarify.

this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2025
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