Trump Pleasures Himself

Photo: Ben Curtis/AP Photo

Before Donald Trump’s first joint address to Congress since returning to the White House, I wrote about what things he might do to increase support for his agenda in the big speech. These included “speaking to the nation, not to his base,” renouncing the chaos so many perceive his administration has engendered, asserting control over Elon Musk and DOGE, more closely relating his agenda to concerns, like rising prices, that Americans think he is inadequately addressing, and disclaiming responsibility for the government shutdown that may be just down the road. He didn’t do any of these things.

Instead, in the longest and by far the most partisan presidential address to Congress in history, Trump spoke strictly to his own partisans, aside from contemptuous dismissals of Democrats and interminable attacks on Joe Biden. He celebrated the chaos of his first days in office as the greatest beginning of any administration in history. He saluted Musk and cited many of the bogus anecdotal examples of “waste and fraud” DOGE’s novices had allegedly unearthed. He simply asserted his agenda would restrain inflation and didn’t even address the looming government shutdown. The speech was essentially a warmed-over 2024 campaign-rally speech that didn’t even attempt to persuade those not already persuaded that his administration was ushering in a “golden age … unlike anything ever seen.”

There were no substantive new initiatives announced, at all, and much of the address and its many human props in the galleries had little or nothing to do with the agenda he’s asked Congress to implement. Tax cuts, the beating heart of that agenda, were barely mentioned beyond dubious assertions about the magical effect of the tax cuts he promoted in 2017. The very specific budget cuts his allies are poised to enact went unmentioned as well, other than an absurd pledge to balance the federal budget. Trump didn’t even bother to repeat his promises not to go after Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Though he spent inordinate time on demonizing immigrants, he offered absolutely no specifics or timetable for his pledge to deport all undocumented people in the country, and didn’t even mention his radical proposal to end birthright citizenship. And despite his warm endorsement of DOGE, Trump never gave any indication of how far and how fast he intends to “drain the swamp” by firing federal employees and abolishing federal programs.

Those looking for reassurance that the radical beginning of Trump 2.0 might give way to something more orderly and less divisive were given absolutely nothing in this speech. Business leaders and farmers hoping for an indication that his program of tariffs was temporary and would not trigger a trade war were told once again that tariffs are beautiful and powerful and would remain as a major source of federal revenues and a centerpiece of Trump’s economic strategy, such as it is. Old-school conservatives looking for a vision of the kind of world an America First foreign policy might create were asked to cheer plans to take back the Panama Canal and grab Greenland “one way or the other” — agenda items many had hoped were a meme or even a joke. And despite the sycophantic welcome he received from Republican members of Congress, he gave them absolutely no direction on how to implement his many conflicting promises, and did everything within his rhetorical powers to ensure not a single Democrat will cooperate.

Since this speech was so very similar to what he said every day on the 2024 campaign trail, and repeated in his inaugural address and in the turgid, debased language of his executive orders and his administration’s memoranda and other public statements, it’s time to conclude that we can never expect anything different from this president. He has all but stopped communicating with those of us who aren’t wearing red hats and cheering his boasts and lies. This speech was supremely self-indulgent, and there’s no reason to believe he will exercise self-restraint until the courts or the midterm electorate denies him the power to do exactly what he wants.