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Donald Trump promised his Reddit AMA would be great — it wasn't

Reddit users submitted hundreds of questions to Donald Trump on subjects ranging from immigration to marijuana policy to space travel — but he answered only a handful.
Photo by John Moore/Getty Images

After dominating Wednesday's political news cycle with his direct appeal to Russia to intervene in the US presidential race, Donald Trump held a Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) that he promised would be great.

"This is going to be SO huge and I'm looking forward to answering your questions," Trump wrote in a post before the AMA started. "I'm doing this in flight to visit the great people of Toledo, OH, so Internet connection might be spotty — I promise you, I'll answer all the questions I can."

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Unfortunately for excited redditors, that amounted to eight questions.

The AMA was scheduled to start at 7pm ET, but Trump didn't answer his first question until 15 minutes later. And whether or not it was because of that spotty connection, his answers lacked the rhetorical flair and gusto that he often displays on Twitter.

Trump supporters submitted hundreds of questions on topics ranging from marijuana policy to immigration to space travel. Trump responded mostly with one or two sentences that did not delve into policy specifics.

When asked how he planned to get money out of politics, Trump wrote, "Keeping Crooked Hillary Clinton out of the White House!"

In response to a "self-employed young American" who wanted to know what the candidate would do about the high cost of health insurance, Trump said, "One of the first things I will do is to repeal and replace disastrous Obamacare. I will put forward an amazing new plan, which will include many reforms, such as letting people buy insurance across state lines, increasing choice and competition, and bargaining for better, cheaper drug prices."

And in choosing to answer a question about the amount of time that has elapsed since Clinton last held a press conference, Trump said, "Crooked Hillary Clinton will not do press conferences because she cannot explain her illegally deleted 33,000 emails, or her disaster in Libya, or her role pushing TPP (which she would 100% approve if she got the chance), or her support for a 550% increase in Syrian refugees, etc."

It's not unusual for politicians and candidates to do AMAs — President Barack Obama did one during his 2012 reelection campaign — but Trump is something of a Reddit phenomenon. The subreddit r/The_Donald, which hosted the AMA, has racked up as many as 52 million page views a month, becoming a hub for some of Trump's most ardent supporters during the campaign.

"First Reddit ignored our sub," the moderators of the r/The_Donald page wrote in a post announcing the AMA. "Then Reddit laughed at our sub. Then Reddit fought our sub with Hillary's paid haters. And now we are winning with our God Emperor, the Nimble Navigator, Mr. Donald J. Trump!"

Follow Olivia Becker on Twitter: @obecker928