Dem
47
GOP
53
Yesterday, in the midst of the many sh**storms that always seem to subsume this White House, Donald Trump whipped out his way-smaller-than-Elon's... social media platform to make this announcement:
My Fellow Americans: I will be giving an ADDRESS TO THE NATION tomorrow night, LIVE FROM THE WHITE HOUSE, at 9 P.M. EST. I look forward to "seeing" you then. It has been a great year for our Country, and THE BEST IS YET TO COME!
PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP
For some reason, he did not thank us for our attention to this matter.
Certainly, the framing makes it seem like he's planning to announce some sort of new initiative or plan. Something about jobs, perhaps, or health care, or inflation or something like that. If he does do that, then the next question will be: Is this new proposal anything of substance? And the answer will almost certainly be "no." He's got a habit of announcing vague initiatives that don't mean anything (recall the myriad "Infrastructure Weeks"), or that are entirely impractical and have no hope of getting through Congress.
Alternatively, this might be a messaging speech where he spends his time telling everyone that all is well and that the economy is doing great. There are certainly some voters out there who take whatever Trump says as gospel, but they are already on board with him. It is improbable that anyone else will be swayed, since they know full well that their paycheck isn't going as far these days.
Trump could also talk about his plans for Venezuela, which have just taken an aggressive step forward with his announcement that he's ordering a blockade of all "sanctioned" Venezuelan tankers, on the basis that the government of Venezuela is a "terrorist regime." When we wrote about the seizure of the first tanker, we wrote that it was "more legal" than the attacks on the fishing boats. Our intent was to make clear that the fishing boats remain more of an Achilles' heel than that tanker. Many readers were nonetheless unhappy, taking the view that we wrote (or at least implied) that the seizure of the tanker was legal. That was not our intent. In any event, we have little understanding of how an expanded campaign of tanker seizures comports with American or international law, other than the law of "might makes right." Perhaps Trump will be explaining his reasoning.
It is also possible this is a damage-control speech. We doubt he's planning to apologize for the Rob Reiner comments, but he could have a few things to say about the Susie Wiles interview (see above). He might also be trying to lay the groundwork for the Epstein files release, which is supposed to happen Friday. You know, get it out there that the files are "fake news" before the files themselves are out there.
It is equally possible that the speech is a distraction from the Epstein files (or any of the other myriad scandals unfolding right now), and that he's going to try to change the narrative going into the weekend.
Much will be revealed in the first 30 seconds, or so, of the speech. If he's sitting, he's probably reading from a teleprompter. And if that is the case, he will give a monotone, glassy-eyed performance of a message that was likely written for him by Stephen Miller or Marco Rubio or someone like that. If he's standing, and in particular if he's not looking at a teleprompter, then it's shoot-from-the-hip time, and literally anything is possible. As readers can see above, it's scheduled for 9:00 p.m. ET tonight; we presume the major news stations will carry it, and that Fox will have it, too. If you want to watch online, here is the CSPAN feed. (Z)