More: "Where's Dan?" he asked, scanning the crowd. Dave McCormick, seated beside him, had to quietly inform him that all the representatives had stayed in Washington.

"Oh, they're in Washington working on our next bill? Good!" Trump replied. "Now I don't have to mention their names, although they're watching on television, I guarantee."

He laughed nervously as he said it, in quite an uncharacteristic way, and then trailed off while muttering, again, that it was "good" that "they" are working on something in D.C. It was oddly difficult to watch.

The 79-year-old president then struggled to pronounce the name of one of his own White House aides, before saying, "They tell me you're doing great." And, as the spicy dressing on the word salad, he added a bizarre aside about Unabomber Ted Kaczynski being a great student ("It didn't work out too well for him" in the end, however, according to Trump, a conclusion that clearly demands intellectual rigor beyond the everyday man or woman.)