With his perma-tan and showman’s smirk, Donald Trump tried every trick in the book to win over the country.
Come on in. Come on down. You get a Purple Heart. You get this, you get that.
Stand up if you believe in America, and shame on you if you sit on your hands.
You almost expected Trump to tell the disgruntled Democrats in the Chamber that they were fired.
Television is Trump’s world, and he sees everything through its lens. It’s why he gets so mad when the media doesn’t like what he says.
But no amount of posturing or Bob Barker catchphrases was going to change the direction of the president’s Wheel of Fortune after a disastrous end to a tumultuous year of Trump 2.0.
Trump, of all people, should know that when you shout so loud it breaks the microphone, then the show is jumping the shark.
He walked into the joint session of Congress just before 9 pm, his Zoolander grin frozen, his make-up (on face and hands) dabbed dry, and his eyes implacable. The words of Susie Wiles were undoubtedly still ringing in his ears, telling him to stick to the script.
But Trump was never one to listen to the voice of reason in his ear. He’s old school TV. More Groucho Marx (You Bet Your Life) than Ryan Seacrest.
His set pieces were supposed to evoke sympathy and support. A brave little girl with gaps in her teeth, sports, and military heroes and survivors of terrible injustices.
But Trump couldn’t help turning them into TV “bits.” A game show host who is jealous of his guests, so determined is he to hold the spotlight.
With his popularity plummeting and his signature tariff policy in ruins, the president needed a ratings triumph. No TV man likes a drop in the polls.
But he came off a little too desperate. Even his attacks on the Democrats were tamer than in the firebrand first few months, when he was swashbuckling around Washington with sidekick Elon Musk, opening all the boxes and setting them ablaze.
His attempt to taunt Democrats by urging lawmakers to stand if they believed the first duty of government was to protect Americans over undocumented immigrants came off as cheesy.
He kept shaking his head and looking mock disgusted while the Republicans in the audience tried to work out when they could stop clapping.
It was the longest State of the Union speech in history at one hour and 50 minutes. Perhaps he thought that if he stayed in the game long enough, he would win the prize.
But Trump should have known that the first law of showbusiness is to leave when you’re on top. Nobody loves an old ham.
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