'The noose is tightening': Linguist George Lakoff dissects exactly why -- and when -- Trump tweets distractions

Cognitive linguist George Lakoff explained to Meet the Press Daily host Chuck Todd how his Donald Trump tweet taxonomy can help citizens understand the thinking behind the commander in chief's tweets.

"You seem to ascribe a lot strategy behind the tweets. Many who know this man personally, and this new book by Michael Wolff actually seems to confirm what a lot of us have concluded in our dealings with him, there's never strategy. It's immediate, it's reactionary, that there is no grand strategy about it," Todd observed. "Do you worry you're ascribing too much strategy here?"

"Not at all, he's a master salesman, he's been at it 50 years. Everything he does is strategic to sell himself, to market himself, and this is one way that he markets himself by controlling the media," Lakoff replied.

"Right now, President Trump is in a noose," Lakoff suggested. "It's the money laundering noose that's tightening around his neck."

"It shows up not just in Bannon's point about money laundering and also in the Fusion point about money laundering in The New York Timesop-ed today, but also in the fact that the main money launderer, Ike Kaveladze, was at the Trump, Jr. meeting in Trump Tower, he's the eighth man there," Lakoff explained.

"You're saying you believe all of the tweet storm in the last two days is all about providing air cover to distract from this money laundering news?" Todd asked.

"The whole thing is distracting from money laundering, and from the fact that Kaveladze has been summoned by both by Mueller and by Congressional committees," Lakoff replied.

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