Trump’s speech was his Joe Biden moment

I was, quite literally, stunned. For a few moments I simply couldn’t form words. This is not a common occurrence for me — at least so I’ve been told on occasion. Yet, there I was, shocked into silence. 

The president of the United States stood up and, in a nationally televised primetime address on Wednesday night that ran close to 18 minutes, sounded as if he had been shot out of a cannon — or was more than adequately caffeinated for an entire infantry division.

What had I just seen? A man who wanted to desperately get through a speech so he could go to the bathroom? A rabid timeshare marketer? A used car salesman, or a bad high school football coach? Maybe it was the principal from “Back to the Future?” Then as he droned on like a dentist drill hitting bone, he began to sound like a South Carolina auctioneer at a county fair. 

Whatever it was, it came at you fast, and with the appeal of a Kentucky bourbon-induced hangover. The aftertaste was bitter, acrid and polluted.

The old Donald Trump would have made this speech in front of 5,000 followers on the tarmac at the airport near Monroeville, Pennsylvania, or in a multipurpose building in Charleston, West Virginia. He wouldn’t have appeared manic, and the cameras would have been at a respectful distance. He would have played to the crowd like a preacher at a rural Kentucky tent revival. It would have been well packaged, featuring that brand of Trump that appealed to critics and fans — frightening the former and drawing cheers from the latter — for a variety of reasons.

This time, no one wanted to see what he produced. Gone are the rallies. Gone is the fear and the cheer. Now, the cameras are too close. There’s no crowd of adoring fans. On Wednesday, the president obviously wanted to be anywhere other than the White House’s Diplomatic Reception Room. Behind him, strung up on the wall and across the mantel, was enough garland to make one wonder if it was product placement for Trump Christmas Decorations that could be found on the official White House website.

“It was an odd way to begin holiday remarks, standing in what appeared to be an enchanted forest,” White House reporter John T. Bennett told me on the “Just Ask the Question” podcast shortly after Trump abruptly signed off from his rapid-fire speech. “He was jacked up. But it wasn’t the best visual. It didn’t look as good as it could have.” 

The only visual I saw was Grandpa Simpson shaking his fist at clouds. 

“It’s his MAGA Christmas present: his greatest hits,” Bennett explained. He wasn’t wrong, but Trump also reminded me of the John Gill character in the “Patterns of Force,” an episode of “Star Trek: The Original Series.” “Everywhere preparations forward toward the Final Decision!” he says. “Death to Zeon! Long live the Fatherland! Long live the führer!” 

Melakon, the Ekosian deputy führer, pulled John Gill’s strings. Who pulls Trump’s? We will get to that. But the speech sounded like pure Stephen Miller.

As old Donald babbled on like a platypus on meth, my childhood came rushing at me. But my fascination with “Star Trek” aside, Trump is really just a circus performer — or a televangelist. His national reality show is failing. On Wednesday he was an automaton, almost like a windup toy. There was no break, and he had no brakes. There was no throttle, just the consistency of panic, complete with sniffing and pivoting. He looked so desperately uncomfortable you almost felt sorry for him. Almost. It isn’t an overstatement to say that no one — not the Democrats, not even the Republicans — wanted to see what we saw. No cheers and a lot of fear from both sides of the aisle. 

It was the Republican version of Joe Biden’s collapse at the first 2024 presidential debate.

Everything was the fault of the Democrats, or “sinister woke radicals,” a term fresh from the cartoonish — and boring — fascism only a Trump team member could conjure. The worst thing Biden did was “the invasion”, which sounded like a bad version of pod people. “An army of 25 million people,” Trump told us before pivoting to talk about men playing in women’s sports, crime everywhere, “the worst trade deals ever made.” It’s the Democrats fault, the Democrats fault, the Democrats fault, d***it. 

I was prepared for Trump to say he’s renamed the Affordable Care Act the “Donald Trump Care Act,” and by changing the stationery, he was claiming authorship of the ACA. He didn’t do it. But for about the 25th time this year, Trump told us gas was at $1.99 a gallon. I’m sure he believes it each time he says it, even though it’s never been true. 

He took pleasure in telling us people were leaving the country. I say they are actually fleeing, but it matters little. They’re going. Since when is people leaving a country a good thing? Every person past the age of reason understands that people actively avoiding a country is not a good look. It is usually the sign of a country in decline.

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Trump, of course, doesn’t think so. In the past eleven months he has brought “more positive change to Washington than any administration in American history,” he fired at us.

He told us he was great. Who is he trying to convince? Himself? No one listens to his words anymore; they usually don’t make sense. Even his closest friends say they don’t listen to him, and then they try to explain what he really means. Why? He’ll tell you that he’s achieved more than anyone can imagine. He is the most successful president in history. The very best. None better. Trump is at the top of the heap. A heap of what is up for debate. 

His yammering all seemed extremely forced — a constipated act of a politically desperate has-been. He tried to convince the American people of his strength and relevance through the sheer force of his voice and his staccato delivery. But Donald Trump isn’t the man he was even a year ago. 

“Let’s look at the facts,” said the man who never does unless there’s something in it for him. 

He tried to buy off the military rank-and-file with promises of $1,776 Christmas bonuses. There was a not-so-hidden message: Surely if you take the money, you’ll follow orders, even if you think they’re wrong. 

Trump was not the best Trump he could be Wednesday night. I don’t know who he was, but then again, maybe he doesn’t either. He remains as scared and angry as I’ve ever seen him. “That’s the opening speech for the 2026 campaign?” Bennett asked. “His supporters wanted to see a steady hand. That didn’t come across at all.”

He appears mentally unstable and physically feeble, clinging to his lectern as if it were a walker. As he descends deeper and deeper into the darkness during the holiday season, he remains focused on one thing over any other: revenge.

He wants revenge on Biden because Biden beat him. He wants revenge on the Democrats because they rejected him. He wants revenge on reporters who ask him questions he doesn’t want to answer and those who write things he doesn’t like. He wants revenge on those who’ve challenged him, prosecuted him, questioned him or simply didn’t agree with him. Like Johnny Ringo before him, he wants revenge for being born.

Nelson Mandela declared that the mentality of revenge destroys nations, while the mentality of forgiveness builds them. Donald Trump is dedicated to not only destroying the nation, but also to reducing it to rubble. 

Don’t take my word for it. According to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles in a recently published Vanity Fair article, she tried to convince the president to end his score settling. She said she forged a “loose agreement” with Trump to end his revenge tour after three months, but he hasn’t done it yet. She also said Trump isn’t constantly thinking about revenge, but “when there is an opportunity he will go for it.” That sounds pretty constant to me. 

You can see it in the callous, cruelly conniving comments made by the president regarding the death of actor-director-producer Rob Reiner. You can see it in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, and in the antagonizing of Venezuela for no reason. You can see it in how Trump has abandoned European allies, and embraced Russia and Vladimir Putin. Revenge, power and money are behind everything Trump does. According to Wiles, Trump has an “alcoholic’s personality,” while Vice President JD Vance is a hopeless “conspiracy theorist.”

If you think that paints a rosy picture of this country’s leadership, I won’t go into what she thinks of Stephen Miller, Russell Vought, Karoline Leavitt and a host of other Trump officials. However, I will mention that the words “right wing” and “zealot” and “micro-dosing” were part of the narrative.

Whatever Wiles said about Trump, it really doesn’t matter. I don’t think she’s going anywhere. Trump already came out and defended her, and blamed Vanity Fair for everything he didn’t like about the article he didn’t read. Wiles ultimately pulls all the strings for Trump, and she is the only one that can do it. Moreover, no one has the ability to step into her shoes. She’s more adult, and she understands the game far better than the administration’s wild mutts on leashes. 

Wiles is a facilitator. She may disagree with the president, but he gets to decide a course of action, while she’s the one who makes it happen. Your wish is my command, sire. I sense some football strategy in her background. She’s a good team player. The coach makes the call and the quarterback runs the play. Wiley is a very good quarterback for a very flawed coach. She is the only reason the Trump team is still on the field.

It certainly isn’t because Trump turned in a stellar performance in his speech Wednesday night.

After sniffing, snorting and blasting heated bile from the pits of his imagined hell where the demon Democrats rule, the president ended his speech with an equally rapid and perfunctory season’s greetings.

It was then I blinked. I could have sworn I heard Boris Karloff speaking while voices in the background sang, “Your heart’s an empty hole. Your brain is full of spiders, you have garlic in your soul…the words that best describe you are as follows, and I quote: stink. Stank. Stunk.”

He’s a mean one — Mr. Grinch.