Mishmash moronic monarchical. Unhappy unhinged, whiny. Sibilant, shouting, lying, bigoted irrational tariff-happy termagant. Immigrant-bashing rant by and for the rich and shameless. More Gish gallop than Presidential address. Unhinged. Febrile feculent fool. Interrupting the season finale of Survivor. With what? Falsehoods, flummery, dupery, nincompoopery and oleaginous Trumpery, a sick man speeding through a sinister speech, full of pejoratives and self-promotion? From The New York Times:
Trump Delivers Attacks and Deflects Blame for Americans’ Economic Worries
The president gave a televised speech that featured repeated rants against Democrats and his predecessor, Joseph R. Biden Jr., along with boasts about gains that many Americans have said they are not experiencing.
President Trump delivered a 18-minute prime time speech to the nation Wednesday evening, arguing that the economy under his leadership is in better shape than many Americans believe.
The president has been on the defensive recently over the issue of affordability, which congressional Democrats hope to use to sweep back into power during the midterm elections, capitalizing on voters’ concerns with the high cost of living in America. Wielding charts and figures, some of them misleading, Mr. Trump tried to make the case that the economy is improving or, at least, that the bad parts of it are not his fault.
“Eleven months ago, I inherited a mess, and I’m fixing it,” said Mr. Trump, who spoke loudly and at a fast clip.
The speech resembled comments Mr. Trump often makes while speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, full of self-praise of his own job performance while disparaging his predecessor, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. But he had a wider audience than usual with networks interrupting their regularly scheduled programming to carry his remarks.
“We’re the hottest country anywhere in the world, and that’s said by every single leader that I’ve spoken to over the last five months,” Mr. Trump claimed.
In a surprising moment, Mr. Trump announced what he called a “Warrior Dividend,” in which checks of $1,776 will be sent to some 1.4 million members of the military. The president said the money would come from tariffs he has levied on goods imported into the country.
“The checks are already on the way,” he said.
Mr. Trump promised the economy would improve in the next year and that his policies would cause “prices on electricity and everything else" to “fall dramatically.” He said mortgage payments “will be coming down even further early in the New Year.” And he said he would announce “some of the most aggressive housing reform plans in American history” next year.
The speech was Mr. Trump’s latest attempt to counter Democrats on the issue of affordability. At first, Mr. Trump called it a “fake narrative” and “con job.” Then, he decided to take his rebuttal to the issue on the road, delivering a 90-minute, often-meandering speech in rural Pennsylvania in which he claimed “our prices are coming down tremendously.” Government data, however, shows that inflation in September was close to 3 percent, about the same as it was at the end of the Biden administration.
Wednesday’s speech was a more focused version of that message, and Mr. Trump stuck to his script. But it remains to be seen whether the remarks will have any impact on the minds of voters.
A recent New York Times analysis of Mr. Trump’s approval ratings found a decline in support for Mr. Trump’s handling of the economy from July to November.
“President Trump’s speech just showed he lives in a bubble completely disconnected from the reality everyday Americans are seeing and feeling,” Senator Chuck Schumer, of New York, the minority leader, said in a statement. “People are feeling squeezed harder and harder every day and tonight Donald Trump took a victory lap.”
The president delivered the speech from inside the Diplomatic Room flanked by Christmas trees. His top aides watched him from inside the room.
After he was finished speaking, he turned to the press and said “You think that’s easy?” and then took a swig of Diet Coke, according to a pool reporter in the room. He then suggested to those in the room that his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, had told him he had to deliver the speech.
He asked how he had done. Ms. Wiles replied, “I told you 20 minutes and you were 20 minutes on the dot.”
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