Trump peppered his remarks with a more balanced mix of banal platitudes, lies, and characteristically offensive agitation than marked his inaugural address and other speeches—aimed more squarely at lazy pundits primed to celebrate Trump’s latest “pivot” than at insecure members of the Republican congressional conferences. […]But against a backdrop of severe congressional dysfunction, when his members are deeply divided over the substance and ordering of their agenda, nothing he said made their marching orders clearer. With his agenda on the brink, and his party in need of direction, Trump sought to shore up his personal tracking poll numbers.
That may very well work out for the White House in the short term, and given pundits’ praise, Trump’s woeful approval ratings may soon get a bump. But the fact remains he has a daunting to-do list — overhauling the American health care system, reforming the nation’s tax code, expanding the size of the American military, creating a massive border wall, rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure — and his shallow, dishonest speech brought him no closer to his goals.
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Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."