What’s the Real Reason Trump Gave that Yawner from the Oval Office? (Hint: Think Russia)

On Tuesday night Donald Trump gave a much anticipated address from the Oval Office, his first as President. There was rampant speculation about what he might say. Some pundits wondered if he might take the opportunity to declare a national emergency in order to reallocate federal funds to his idiotic and useless vanity wall. Others just considered it a ploy to get the public to pressure Congress to pay his ransom for reopening the government.

Donald Trump, Subway

As it turns out the speech was a tiresome affair that featured Trump solemnly reciting from his TelePrompTer and sniffling as he has been known to do after snorting Adderall. There was nothing that could be called newsworthy. Trump offered no solutions to the shutdown impasse. He made no overtures to Democrats on border security legislation. There wasn’t anything different about this speech than what he’s been saying for the past three weeks on this subject. And of course, that means he was repeating the same old lies that he and his surrogates (including Surrogate-in-Chief Mike Pence) have been foisting on the public since the Trump Shutdown began.

So there was no reason for this speech to be carried live by the news networks. No news value would have been lost by delaying it for half an hour so that it could be fact checked – a practice that should be in effect for everything Trump says or does. What the speech did contain was Trump’s now tedious routine of fear mongering and blame shifting to Democrats.

He amped up the emotionally charged fears of violence allegedly committed by undocumented immigrants with examples that included murders, rapes, and even beheadings. Never mind that this immigrant population is far less likely to commit these or any crimes than are native born citizens. The purpose of this overtly racist argument, as employed by Trump and his shills on Fox News, is to demonize people who are largely peaceful and law abiding.

So why did Trump take the extraordinary step of demanding primetime television access to the nation in order to bore them with rote repetitions of his commonplace cult rally ravings? He must have known that there was nothing in his remarks that would change anyone’s mind. Nor would it move the needle on resolving the shutdown problem. The only thing that it would be certain to do is dominate the news cycle for a short period of time. And therein lies a clue to what might have been his true intention.

Absent this speech, the most prominent stories that came out the same day concerned the ongoing investigations into Trump’s collusion and conspiracy with Russia. One of those stories featured the chairman of his presidential campaign, Paul Manafort, who was found to have been sharing proprietary polling data with a suspected Russian intelligence operative. That information corresponds with the sort of data used by Russia to interfere with the election, and links Trump’s campaign to the Russian conspiracy more closely than ever before.

The other story concerned the Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, who famously met with Manafort, Don Jr, Jared Kushner, and others, in Trump Tower. That was the meeting where they discussed acquiring “dirt” in the form of stolen emails from Hillary Clinton and her associates. Veselnitskaya was indicted yesterday for obstruction of justice in a case that revealed her close ties to the Kremlin.

Given the bombshell quality of these stories, it would have been a fortunate coincidence if something else arose that might distract the media and the public from focusing on them. Could Trump have been tipped off about these impending legal disclosures? Perhaps by Manafort or his lawyers who have already been discovered to have secretly briefed Trump’s legal team And might Trump have had an incentive to schedule a rare Oval Office address that was completely devoid of substance in order to execute that distraction? Can anyone supply another reason why the President would embarrass himself with that empty televised spectacle that was the oratorical equivalence of dropping his pants on the subway to draw attention away from a worse crime?

Who knows with this president? This might be a step too deep into conspiracy theory. But it is well within the bounds of plausibility for a president who is openly considering a declaration of a national emergency – which does not exist – just so he can build a wall that most Americans don’t want. It is not far-fetched for someone who lies with such ease about things as easily verifiable as whether past presidents told him that they should have built a wall; or that 4,000 suspected terrorists were caught crossing the southern border; or that Democrats request that Trump change his wall construction from concrete to steel.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

None of those things were true. And that tendency for flagrant falsification is what makes anything possible with this president. Including a plot to wave a shiny Oval Office speech in front of the press to get them to ignore the fact that he’s pantless. But fortunately, it doesn’t seem to have worked. The other stories are still being sell covered (less so on Fox News) and are likely to make headlines on Wednesday and beyond. So Trump embarrassed himself, and wasted the nation’s time, in vain. The only problem with that is that it might make him more likely to actually declare a national emergency, out of anger and/or vengeance, in order to distract from the failure of this distraction. Stay tuned.

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6 thoughts on “What’s the Real Reason Trump Gave that Yawner from the Oval Office? (Hint: Think Russia)

  1. I can’t figure out if Trump wants a wall as a memorial to himself or if he plans on skimming some of that 5.7 billion. I find it hard to believe he really thinks it will deter immigration.

    • He doesn’t really expect it to. He wants his memorial; he wants a giant wall with TRUMP in ninety foot neon letters.

      And if it permanently keeps out everyone with darker skin than him, well, then that will please our racist Pee-Resident too….

  2. After 9-11 Bush declared a national emergency that led to the disgrace on the soul of America that was Guantanamo. Now we have an equally rotten person in the Oval Office who is not afraid to assume war powers that override the fundamental aspects of treaties and international human rights law.

    I’ d to see the Rethug party torn to shreds and left in the gutter. But I try to be humane. So would extend membership in the Democratic Party to any Rethug who asks forgiveness and shows some signs of being reasonable about all those “others” the Rethugs loathe so much. The south of the border refugees are as much victims as any I’ve ever seen. But we didn’t do too well by Euro Jews under dems, so there is room for improvement all over. Damed if we do, damned if we don’t. Sigh.

    • There is no republican principle in the Trump Worshiper Party. I maintain that the Party will not be missed. Just like what happened with the Whig Party: the Trump Worshiper Party is in the process of purging its membership of all but the most rabid Trump Worshipers, and the equivalent happened with the Whigs. And the Whig Party was gone within two years, leaving us with the modern Republican Party.

      I have always said that the Republican Party was created for Abraham Lincoln, who would be horrified at what’s happened to his party, and the Democratic Party was created for Andrew Jackson, who would be disgusted at what’s happened to his.

      And here we are.

  3. Hint Mark NC is stupid. There is no Russian Collusion. The investigation has been going on for 2 years, with nothing to show. Yes, people are going to jail, but for completely unrelated things, such as lying or tax issues. That’s not quite compelling evidence. If there was something of substance, we would have known about it by now. Democrats are really really upset that they don’t have the white house, and can’t seem to move on. Their answer: Vast consipiricy theories about collusion. Well, they are right, there was collusion, but not with Trump. The Clinton campaign colluded with Russia for the Steel dossier, Uranium 1, The Boeing 737 scandal, the state departments push for Cisco, google, intel, etc to set up shop in Skolkovo, etc.

    These are facts. Facts don’t lie, nor do they care about your feelings. What you have is conjecture, in hopes that it just has to be true because Trump is such a bad guy. While what he says is stupid, what he does is very middle ground. Pay attention to what he does, not so much what he says.

    • Wow. That’s some heavy duty cult dogma.

      There is abundant evidence of conspiracy with Russia. He and dozens of his associates have had numerous contacts that they all lied about. And Mueller has the facts, which he will disclose when the probe is complete. He’s already indicted dozens of people and several have pleaded guilty. Tump has been identified as an unindicted co-conspirator. Get your head out of the sand.

      All that bull about Uranium One, etc., has been debunked. And none of the Steele dossier has been proven untrue, but much of it has been verified.

      I usually don’t bother responding to delusional crap like this, but I was just so moved by how badly these deceptions have seeped into people like you. So sad.

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