February 16, 2017: Donald Trump took to the podium – speaking very slowly and with the occasional slur of speech – to justify his own existence. His energy picked up some when “answering” questions, but overall his demeanor was a little sad.
Even knowing Steve Bannon’s master plan is to delegitimize news media, I still couldn’t help but feel sorry for Trump. His behavior was like an ostracized child trying to convince himself that he’s popular. Donald Trump is hurting – on a very personal level – because of the negative reporting that exists outside Republicanland’s echo chamber.
It also makes me worry. It’s rare to see a man, let alone a politician – let alone the President of the United States – act so wearily defensive:
“… There has never been a presidency that has done so much in such a short time… the biggest electoral win since Ronald Reagan (not true)… the administration is running like a fine-tuned machine…”
For the problems he casts blame elsewhere, “… The press has become so dishonest that if we don’t talk about it we are doing a tremendous disservice to the American people… the level of dishonestly is out of control…” The Trump Administration is in an all out war with news media – except Fox and Friends who he promoted from the East Room as, “the most honest morning show”, while CNN is “really fake news”.
Trump blamed “probably Obama people” for leaks while simultaneously calling his Russia problems fake news, and couldn’t stop saying he’s better than Hillary Clinton.
When on script, Steve Bannon’s words didn’t flow from Trump’s mouth so much as dribbled. When Trump recognized a word or phrase he’d repeat it: “catch and release… releassss… I inherited a mess… a messssss…”
Watching his brain struggle through the statement was unsettling. I’m not making paranoid claims like the Hillary Clinton conspiracy theories during the 2016 campaign, but I am saying Donald J. Trump appears emotional, bitter, and borderline mentally exhausted.
Let’s hope he either gets out of the way, or the GOP establishment manages to inject people into his administration who can prevent him from taking America off the cliff.
