When G.W. Bush referred to Trump's inauguration as "some weird sh*t" was this the first time he was referred to as weird in some way? Or is there an earlier reference? That is known publicly. Any internet search just bring up the more recent Walz comment.
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1Where have you looked already? Please let us know what research you have done. Thank you.– Lars BosteenCommented Aug 19 at 5:12
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I've searched the internet for the first occurrence, just Walz comes up of course. Though that is more recent, people may have forgotten about Bush.– user68978Commented Aug 19 at 5:15
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5I'll go to my usual pushback on questions about "firsts". Are you interested only in the first person (we know of) in the world to use that phrase, or the first person who is a traceable influence on the current usage? Certainly he probably got called this in grade school by another child at some point (didn't we all?)– T.E.D. ♦Commented Aug 19 at 12:55
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2Well, a few months before the inauguration (July 2016), Madeleine Albright called him "weird" on Morning Joe. She was applauded. (link)– CDRCommented Aug 19 at 15:23
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2Sounds like a possible answer– user68978Commented Aug 19 at 18:00
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2 Answers
In July 2016 (some months before Bush made a similar comment), Madeleine Albright called Trump weird in an appearance on Morning Joe.
Reporter: Do you think Trump could be a fascist?
Albright: It's hard to label him anything except 'weird.'
After a few seconds of hooting, laughing, and clapping, etc., another interviewer quipped that "we have our quote of the day." And then they moved on.
She didn't cause much of a lasting splash, though; the video on youtube has less than 150,000 views, the clip a few hundred engagements on X, and only one article (from The Hill) thought it noteworthy enough to discuss.
You didn't limit your question to politicians, journalists, etc., so here is a technically correct (the best kind of correct) answer:
You Are Still Crying Wolf, Scott Alexander, Slate Star Codex, 16 November 2016:
I don’t think people appreciate how weird this guy is. His weird way of speaking. His catchphrases like “haters and losers!” or “Sad!”. His tendency to avoid perfectly reasonable questions in favor of meandering tangents about Mar-a-Lago. The ability to bait him into saying basically anything just by telling him people who don’t like him think he shouldn’t.
If you insist that Trump would have to be racist to say or do whatever awful thing he just said or did, you are giving him too much credit. Trump is just randomly and bizarrely terrible. Sometimes his random and bizarre terribleness is about white people, and then we laugh it off. Sometimes it’s about minorities, and then we interpret it as racism.
This is of course "only" a blog, and lots of things are written on blogs or other user-generated sites all the time, but this blog is notable enough for an English-language Wikipedia article.
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1This is an inappropriately stated question which should not be on the History Stack Exchange. I recommend that this question be closed.– AlexCommented Aug 20 at 17:41
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1I understood "That is known publicly" to mean "said by a public figure on record." Figured that's a good, charitable way to understand the question.– cmwCommented Aug 21 at 2:02