After a tumultuous week marred by the events in Charlottesville, Virginia and criticisms over the President’s response, President Trump gave a campaign-style speech in Phoenix, Arizona last night. Vice President Mike Pence was at Trump’s side and Ben Carson, Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, was on stage.
The President’s speech was over an hour in length. He did not have it fully scripted but, at times, pulled out paper that he read from. As the Washington Post reports, “President Trump on Tuesday threatened to shut down the government over border wall funding, said the North American Free Trade Agreement is likely to be terminated and signaled that he was prepared to pardon former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who is anathema to the Latino community. . . . Trump’s freewheeling comments came at a boisterous campaign rally here during which he also went on an extended diatribe about the media, blaming reporters for the negative fallout he has received over his responses to the hate-fueled violence in Charlottesville.”
In what CNN’s Don Lemon characterized as “a total eclipse of the facts,” much of the President’s remarks focused on defending his response to the events in Charlottesville and claiming that the “fake news” failed to fully and fairly report what he said. CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post were attacked by name. Fox was lauded as being fair to the President.
The speech did not focus quite as much on immigration as I thought he would. It, however, was one of the few policy issues that the President went into any detail on in his speech, perhaps attempting to pivot from the focus on Charlottesville. President Trump appealed to his base and played his “greatest hits” of immigration, including his promise to build a wall along the U.S./Mexico border, increase enforcement to remove “the gangs” and protect Americans, etc. President Trump referred to MS13 members as “animals” deserving removal and spoke of the great job that his administration was doing on immigration enforcement.
Protesters marched in Phoenix and some reportedly were arrested. During his speech, President Trump stated that there were few protesters. CNN reported that there were “thousands.” Police used tear gas late in the evening to disperse the crowd.
President Trump’s remarks ended and were followed by the Rolling Stones’ song “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” I agreed with the song title at that moment and wondered what message the President hoped to send with that song.
KJ