General Discussion

Primetime speech – delivered with shouty spirit but no cheer – betrayed a figure dogged by a cost of living crisis and the looming release of the Epstein files

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/18/trump-end-year-primetime-nation-address-opinion-polls-economy



It will go down in history as the “Bah! Humbug!” address. Surrounded by Christmas trees and garlands before a fireplace, Donald Trump on Wednesday gave a convincing rendition of Ebenezer Scrooge, the elderly miser who despises Christmas and blames everyone but himself.

The US president sounded like a desperate man, pointing an accusing finger at Joe Biden and spreading the opposite of charity and cheer on issues such as immigration. So much for ’tis the season to be jolly. Like Biden, Trump has abandoned the traditional end-of-year presidential press conference. He preferred to give a much-hyped 20-minute speech. If he had been sitting in the Oval Office, he might have got sleepy; instead he stood in the diplomatic room and ranted with monotone anger.

Wearing a blue suit, white shirt and red tie, Trump unleashed a shouty stream of consciousness with barely a pause or punctuation mark. Susie Wiles, his chief of staff, recently observed that he has an “alcoholic’s personality” but apparently this was a sugar high: just before the remarks started, according to a White House pool report, an usher brought in three Diet Cokes and ice.

“Eleven months ago, I inherited a mess, and I’m fixing it,” Trump said, starting as he meant to go on by telling a lie: he claimed that inflation was the worst in 48 years when he took office, when in fact it had come back down to 3%. He went on to place blame at the feet of Biden, previous trade deals, immigrants and what he described as a corrupt system. As at his campaign rallies, Trump painted a lurid picture of Biden forcing “transgender for everybody” and throwing open the border to criminals from insane asylums. He claimed to have “broken the grip of sinister woke radicals in our schools”.

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