President Trump is in France celebrating Bastille Day
with French President Emmanuel Macron,
who declared war on Trump
by making him go to a museum with him.
And President Trump retaliated
by hitting on the French First Lady
in full view of everyone.
Something happened with President Trump,
comments he made that have now been posted
on the Facebook page, I'm told, of President Macron.
Let's listen.
Donald J. Trump does not give a (bleep).
(laughter)
In front of his own wife.
He's like, "Damn, girl.
You want some of this baguette?"
Like, I spent the whole afternoon,
I spent the entire afternoon
trying to figure out how in that moment
Macron didn't punch Trump right there.
But, then, no, no, but then I realized, I realized something.
Whenever Trump is overseas, the one advantage he has
is that people aren't hearing him in his native tongue.
Yeah. No, think about it. Think about it,
because everything he says
has to be interpreted by a translator,
So maybe today when Trump said,
(mimics Trump)' "You're in great shape,"
(normal voice): the translator said,
(with French accent): "He says you look well."
(normal voice): Right? That could happen.
Whereas if I were the translator,
I would have been like, "Yo, my dude wants to smash."
Which is more accurate.
It's way more accurate.
You see, translating Donald Trump
is a real challenge,
as our very own Desi Lydic reports.
LYDIC: America hears Trump in English.
I know words, I have the best words.
LYDIC: Well, sort of.
But the rest of the world doesn't hear Trump.
(translators speaking in foreign language)
LYDIC: The rest of the world hears...
The Translators.
We assembled five translators from all over the world
to hear their experiences when it comes to translating Trump.
Of all the people you've had to translate,
where does President Trump fall?
He's probably the worst that I've ever translated.
Trump is incoherent.
And he changes his mind in the middle of a sentence.
Sometimes his message is not quite grammatical
and seems a little bit uneducated.
I would say it's not particularly difficult
to translate Trump.
All right, get the (bleep) out of here.
Get this guy out of here.
Russian Kramer aside, how does one translate Trump
with all these obstacles?
Sometimes I lie.
-You lie? -I-I have to.
No, no, no, no, no, but you can't do that,
you can't do that, because, see, we are counting on you
to translate President Trump accurately
to the rest of the world.
Okay. I am accurate 97% of the time.
-97%, you translate Trump correctly. -Yeah. Yeah.
But the three percent...
Three percent you have to fake it.
-Three percent of the time you have to fake it. -To make sense.
Otherwise you're gonna look like an idiot yourself.
It makes us sound stupid.
Bing, bing, bong, bong, bing, bing, bing.
How would you translate that?
Bing, bing, bong, bong.
Interesting.
Okay, maybe that was a softball.
But how about this memorable quote?
Total and complete shutdown
of Muslims entering the United States
until our country's representatives
-can figure out... -(crowd cheering, applauding)
-...what the hell is going on. -What the hell's going on.
Uh, there's no equivalent to "what the hell's going on"
in Arabic.
That's unfortunate, 'cause it...
that would be a widely-used turn of phrase.
That's one of the main issues.
Trump's special vocabulary
doesn't always exist in other languages.
-TRUMP: You can do anything. -BILLY BUSH: Whatever you want.
TRUMP: Grab 'em by the pussy.
How would you translate "grab 'em by the pussy"?
I would say...
(speaks Japanese)
Meaning that "women can...
let me do anything."
That's very, very different, 'cause it could mean
"women let me do anything.
Like, treat them like a queen."
As opposed to "I can grab 'em by the pussy."
-Mm. -You know?
Unfortunately, it does not project the same way.
Is there a Japanese word for "pussy"?
Not in the exact sense of the word.
Is there a Japanese word for...
this?
Sure, that's... (speaks Japanese)
No, that's no gonna work. That's too cute, that's too cute.
Okay, how about this?
Tacos. We just say "tacos."
Okay, I'm getting a real sense of a language barrier here.
Is there a Japanese word for this?
Roast beef?
Kind of.
-Beef curtains. -Beef curtains. Mm-hmm.
(speaks Japanese)
Try that.
We will build the wall.
And Mexico is going to pay for the wall.
(speaks Spanish)
Okay, that is... No, there is warmness in your eyes,
you're smiling-- that is not the way he said it.
You have to do it like he does it.
People at home are gonna think he's joking.
People have a... sensitivity,
so you don't want to offend them
more than he already has, you know?
No, you got to give 'em the Trump.
Who's gonna pay for the wall?
No Mexico.
Yeah, no, I know Mexico's not gonna pay...
But Trump believes that Mexico's gonna pay for the wall,
so if you're gonna translate him,
you have to believe it, too.
Who's gonna pay for the wall?
Nobody's gonna pay for that wall in Mexico.
No, no, no.
What is wrong with these translators?
No one is capturing the true Trump.
It's not just his words. There's something more.
The poor guy-- you got to see this guy.
"Oh, I don't know what I said,
uh, I don't remember!"
He's going like, "I don't remember! I don...
Maybe that's what I said!"
Yeah, that's pretty accurate.
I think you kind of got the gist of that.
I'm Trump for the moment,
while I am interpreting his words.
This beautiful mime was right.
That's what these translators were missing.
They needed to embody Trump-- his tone,
his mannerisms, his sexism-- the whole package.
And down with the dumb face.
-Uh... -Uh...
Grab 'em by the pussy! Grab 'em by the pussy!
Sad. Sad.
-(speaks Spanish) -Sad.
After a grueling seven minutes of training,
these translators were ready.
With cojones.
LYDIC: There you go. Muy bien.
LYDIC: Nailed it.
LYDIC: Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
Okay, that's... that's good.
Thank you. Thank you. You can cut.
-Thank you, Desi. -(cheering, applause)