“Death twitch of The Wall cult.”
“This speech wasn’t about saving his utterly fake wall. The $5.7 billion dollars he’s demanded as his vig for ending the shutdown isn’t even close to being seriously considered, and this speech was an overt admission he’s out of airspeed, altitude, and ideas. The crisis he proudly created will end without a wall, and he knows it.
“This speech was supposed to be about forcing the national dialogue to stay on the border wall. No such luck. He reeked of defeat, clearly didn’t want to be there, and it showed.
“Trump looked exhausted, squinty, and bored, reading in a near-monotone from the Teleprompter. It went over like a wet fart.”
— Rick Wilson, former republican campaign strategist. Read the rest at The Daily Beast (1/8/19).
*****
“This is an address he could have delivered on Fox News prime time and he would have reached his same audience,” Scarborough said. “He would have converted the same number of people, which is zero, because if they were watching him on Fox News, in prime time, chances are very good, they’d already be on his side. Last night, he converted no one. Last night, he made himself look even more inept. Last night, he made himself look even more lost.”
— Joe Scarborough, former GOP congressman and MSNBC ‘Morning Joe’ host.
*****
“The president gets right up to this as a national emergency. Well there is an national emergency, I would submit, and we saw it last night — it’s him.”
— Mike Barnicle, MSNBC commentator.
*****
“In his unfortunate remarks, the president ignored a genuine crisis: his administration’s vilification of vulnerable people fleeing persecution and violence in Central America.”
— Eric Schwartz, president of Refugees International.
*****
“Poll also illustrates Trump’s uncanny ability to dissuade people from his views. Competent presidents do the opposite.”
— George Conway, husband of White House Adviser Kelly Anne Conway.
*****
“”Yet privately, Mr. Trump dismissed his own new strategy as pointless. In an off-the-record lunch with television anchors…he made clear in blunt terms that he was not inclined to give the speech or go to Texas, but was talked into it by advisers” https://nyti.ms/2GY7VfY“
*****
“Our response to the #TrumpAddress: LIAR.”
— Public Citizen tweet.
*****
“This speech was such a nothing that it left some in the audience wondering whether the urgency the White House claimed was intended to distract from the raft of new revelations from Mueller’s Russia investigation. For Donald Trump, that’s a real crisis.”
— Jill Abramson, Trump’s Border Wall Address Was So Lame, Was It In Fact A Distraction?