President Donald Trump ditched the TelePrompTer during a wide-ranging campaign rally in Phoenix, Arizona Tuesday night, and set Twitter ablaze with hot takes.
The president began by relitigating his controversial remarks on Charlottesville—conveniently leaving out his comments about violence on “many sides”—weaved together with a lengthy tirade on the “fake” news media.
Trump’s dramatic reading of his previous statements, with copious and colorful running commentary, is pretty world-historically wacky.
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) August 23, 2017
Trump is rereading his remarks on Charlottesville and notably not including “on both sides”
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) August 23, 2017
My favorite part of the Trump rally was watching Trump tell me that CNN turned off the cameras as I watched the rally continue live on CNN.
— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) August 23, 2017
“CNN does not want it’s viewership to watch what I’m saying tonight, let me tell you.” — President Donald Trump, broadcast on CNN.
— Brendan Bordelon (@BrendanBordelon) August 23, 2017
At one point, Trump called out to Gen. John Kelly, his newly appointed chief of staff, to come to the stage and greet the crowd. Kelly, needless to say, did not appear.
“Where’s General Kelly, get him out here” pic.twitter.com/w2vNGtnytz
— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) August 23, 2017
John Kelly right now pic.twitter.com/6d15N8oz52
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) August 23, 2017
John Kelly watching this Trump rally pic.twitter.com/pDx8gsUCqa
— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) August 23, 2017
Trump also raised the possibility of pardoning controversial former Sheriff Joe Arpaio. “I won’t do it tonight because I don’t want to cause any controversy,” he said. “But Sheriff Joe can feel good.”
Trump’s gonna start slinging pardons like Oprah.
— Noah Rothman (@NoahCRothman) August 23, 2017
Trump suggests he will pardon Arpaio in the future.
Reminder Arpaio convicted for racially profiling Latino U.S. citizens & legal residents https://t.co/93MDtpdWTJ
— Adrian Carrasquillo (@Carrasquillo) August 23, 2017
The White House had said earlier Tuesday that there would “be no discussion” of the pardon and that “no action will be taken on that front at any point today.”
The president also made a not-so-subtle dig at Arizona senator Jeff Flake.
The ding of Flake but not by name: “Nobody wants me to talk about your other senator who is weak on border, weak on crime”
— David Catanese (@davecatanese) August 23, 2017
There was some policy talk amid the personal attacks. Trump did take time to address his plans for a border wall, for example.
BFD —> President Trump threatens to force a government shutdown if Congress doesn’t authorize funding for a border wall.
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) August 23, 2017
Toward the end, the president seemed to link back up to his prepared remarks.
Trump rushing through his prepared prompter speech after a series of extended riffs
— Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) August 23, 2017
It was a performance that launched a thousand eclipse jokes.
is it too late to stare directly at the eclipse
— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) August 23, 2017
Looking at live tweets of a Trump speech instead of watching the speech itself is my soul’s eclipse glasses.
— Mat Johnson (@mat_johnson) August 23, 2017
In case you didn’t watch, here’s the CliffNotes version:
TRUMP topics tonight
Gruber
Nazis
ACA
Racism
NYT
WaPo
CNN
Filibuster
McCain
Jeffrey Lord
Tax cuts
Obama
Wall
Intrastructure
Elites— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) August 23, 2017
