President Trump delivers his first address to a joint session of Congress on February 28, 2017.
Tuesday evening, President Trump delivered his first speech to a joint session of Congress. The speech was a far departure from the President’s “off the cuff” remarks in the days and hours leading up to the speech.
What we witnessed this evening was the malignant narcissist hidden under the veil of a TelePrompTer and behind the words of Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller. One need only look at some examples of the disconnect between the rhetoric that was delivered tonight and the actions undertaken by Trump in recent weeks.
Earlier on Tuesday, the President appeared to shift the blame for the death of Chief Petty Officer Ryan Owens to “the generals” and the previous administration and not to him as Commander-in-Chief. It was during this time in the speech (in which Owens’ widow, Carryn, received a standing ovation), that Trump went off script and allowed his narcissism to seep out. Rather than allow the Mrs. Owens to spend that genuine emotional moment with her husband, Trump interjected.
"And Ryan is looking down, right now, you know that?" Trump said. "And he's very happy, because I think he just broke a record."
In other words, Trump bizarrely implied that Owens’ ultimate sacrifice was somehow validated by the clapping of hands and that reflected positively on the President; the man who approved the ill-conceived Yemeni raid that led to the death of women, children, and Ryan Owens.
Also on Tuesday, President Trump suggested that the desecration of headstones in Jewish cemeteries and bomb threats to Jewish community centers were “false flag” attacks orchestrated by his opponents. Just a few hours later, President Trump, during the speech, read words condemning the acts of “hate and evil” and called for unity. This sounds good but is inconsistent with the racist history of his Attorney General, the nationalist history of his senior adviser Bannon, his lack of repudiation for domestic terrorist acts committed by extremist Americans, and his pursuit of a travel ban for as many as seven Muslim dominated nations.
A sticking point for the President’s ego has been his popular vote loss to Hillary Clinton and he has taken multiple opportunities over the past month to re-characterize the election results as an Electoral landslide (when in fact his margin of victory ranks 46th out of 58 documented elections). Whether or not Trump wrote this part of the speech or not, this point had to be raised again in his speech Tuesday night. This is how the President described his election
“a chorus became an earthquake—and the people turned out by the tens of millions and they were all united by one…demand…MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”
This is a self-serving, ego-protecting way of recalling an election in which he lost by almost 3 million votes, 93 million Americans did not turn out to vote, and there have been numerous protests in the aftermath of his Inauguration.
The speech this evening was a performance by a game show host (who has a Screen Actors Guild card) in which he read remarks that were a far cry from his typical vocabulary and speech patterns and were in direct opposition to his actual governing style and behavior.
The malignant narcissist may have been partially obscured from view this evening but he will be back very soon…as will questions about his Russian ties, his failure to divest business interests, his reluctance to release his tax returns, his violations of the Emoluments Clause, his offensive treatment of women, his delusional rejection of facts as “fake news,” and his lack of experience in governmental policy.
Update 3/2/2017 9:30AM: The wave of positivity expressed by the GOP and President Trump was almost immediately tempered when news of Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ potential perjury broke across media platforms. Stay tuned...