This exchange between Trump and hurricane victims sounds fake but it's very, very real

But, seriously, who owns the boat?
 By 
Marcus Gilmer
 on 
This exchange between Trump and hurricane victims sounds fake but it's very, very real
President Donald Trump tours a neighborhood impacted by Hurricane Florence, in New Bern, N.C Credit: Evan Vucci/AP/REX/Shutterstock

Is Donald Trump our first AI president?

It's hard not to think so after seeing his truly weird interactions with several victims of Hurricane Florence during his visit to North Carolina to survey the storm's damage.

The pool report of the exchanges on Wednesday read like something written by a neural network trained to talk like a president, but, no, they actually happened.


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Each moment is its own marvel, but most of the conversation revolves around a boat that ended up in someone's yard. During the course of the exchange, the president promises one homeowner to use the power of the presidency to track down the name of an insurance company... And then he congratulates them on the fact that a boat that didn't belong to them ended up on their property.

Puzzling, all of it.

Not to be overshadowed, though, is the fact that one homeowner's dog is apparently named after Donald Trump -- which lead to this excellent line: "Pool could not determine whether the name was Donald or Trump or Both."

Here's video of Trump meeting the dog and its owner.

It's all a lot to take in -- and yet it's much better than his infamous paper towel throwing incident after Hurricane Maria.

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Marcus Gilmer

Marcus Gilmer is Mashable's Assistant Real-Times News Editor on the West Coast, reporting on breaking news from his location in San Francisco. An Alabama native, Marcus earned his BA from Birmingham-Southern College and his MFA in Communications from the University of New Orleans. Marcus has previously worked for Chicagoist, The A.V. Club, the Chicago Sun-Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.

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