It may only be Wednesday, but it’s been an odd week for presidential speeches. On Monday, Donald Trump spoke at the annual National Peace Officers’ Memorial Service, where his remarks veered in some unusual directions. He noted, for example, that police officers supported his campaign “big league,” which seemed inappropriate, given the context.The president also thought it’d be a good idea to use the memorial service to toss a hat during his remarks to the son of a fallen officer. The hat featured a big “45” in honor of himself (Trump is the 45th president).Today, Trump spoke to graduating cadets at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and took the opportunity to whine about what a victim he is.
“Over the course of your life, you will find that things are not always fair. You will find that things happen to you that you do not deserve and that are not always warranted. But you have to put your head down and fight, fight, fight. Never, ever, ever give up. Things will work out just fine.”Look at the way I’ve been treated lately, especially by the media. No politician in history — and I say this with great surety — has been treated worse or more unfairly.”
Presidents don’t usually feel sorry for themselves in front of large audiences — public whining and self-pity tends to undermine a sense of stature — but Trump doesn’t care. He feels put upon, gosh darn it, and he wants the graduating cadets at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy to know about his hurt feelings.And so, in what was supposed to be a congratulatory speech for Academy graduates veered into the president complaining about his detractors, the press, and others who fail to appreciate his perceived awesomeness.’I’ve accomplished a tremendous amount in a very short time as president,” Trump added, pointing to, among other things, his willingness to roll back “the strangling environmental chains that were wrapped around our country.” He went on to tell the Coast Guard cadets that he wants lots of tax cuts and his preparations for a border wall are “going along very, very well.”They’re really not.The president went on to say, “I won’t talk about how much I saved you on the F-35 fighter jet. I won’t even talk about it.” That’s great because (a) the Coast Guard doesn’t use F-35 fighter jets; and (b) he’s lying.Taken together, there was no real reason for the president to even be there. He could’ve whined about his grievances and grudges, bragged about his imagined accomplishments, and made up a bunch of misplaced boasts from the White House. Why force the Coast Guard Academy’s graduating class to endure such a vanity exercise?Postscript: Even the venue was a curious choice, given how severely Trump wants to cut the Coast Guard’s budget. This detail was not mentioned in his remarks.
Recommended
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."