LIES, misinformation, manipulation, deception, fascist propaganda, the typical BS spewed by NOT MY pres drumpf / trump. I have never watched or listened to one of his tirades because he has nothing good to say and I can't stand the sound of his voice coming out of his anus mouth. I will not miss him when he is gone and that can't be soon enough. From the New York Times.....
Trump Delivers Attacks and Deflects Blame for Americans’ Economic Worries
President Trump delivered an 18-minute prime time speech to the nation Wednesday evening, arguing that the economy under his leadership is in better shape than many Americans believe.
The president has been on the defensive recently over the issue of affordability, which congressional Democrats hope to use to sweep back into power during the midterm elections, capitalizing on voters’ concerns with the high cost of living in America. Wielding charts and figures, some of them misleading, Mr. Trump tried to make the case that the economy is improving or, at least, that the bad parts of it are not his fault.
“Eleven months ago, I inherited a mess, and I’m fixing it,” said Mr. Trump, who spoke loudly and at a fast clip.
The speech resembled comments Mr. Trump often makes while speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, full of self-praise of his own job performance while disparaging his predecessor, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. But he had a wider audience than usual with networks interrupting their regularly scheduled programming to carry his remarks.
“We’re the hottest country anywhere in the world, and that’s said by every single leader that I’ve spoken to over the last five months,” Mr. Trump claimed.
In a surprising moment, Mr. Trump announced what he called a “Warrior Dividend,” in which checks of $1,776 will be sent to some 1.4 million members of the military. The president said the money would come from tariffs he has levied on goods imported into the country.
“The checks are already on the way,” he said.
Mr. Trump promised the economy would improve in the next year and that his policies would cause “prices on electricity and everything else" to “fall dramatically.” He said mortgage payments “will be coming down even further early in the New Year.” And he said he would announce “some of the most aggressive housing reform plans in American history” next year.
The speech was Mr. Trump’s latest attempt to counter Democrats on the issue of affordability. At first, Mr. Trump called it a “fake narrative” and “con job.” Then, he decided to take his rebuttal to the issue on the road, delivering a 90-minute, often-meandering speech in rural Pennsylvania in which he claimed “our prices are coming down tremendously.” Government data, however, shows that inflation in September was close to 3 percent, about the same as it was at the end of the Biden administration.
Wednesday’s speech was a more focused version of that message, and Mr. Trump stuck to his script. But it remains to be seen whether the remarks will have any impact on the minds of voters.
A recent New York Times analysis of Mr. Trump’s approval ratings found a decline in support for Mr. Trump’s handling of the economy from July to November.
“President Trump’s speech just showed he lives in a bubble completely disconnected from the reality everyday Americans are seeing and feeling,” Senator Chuck Schumer, of New York, the minority leader, said in a statement. “People are feeling squeezed harder and harder every day and tonight Donald Trump took a victory lap.”
The president delivered the speech from inside the Diplomatic Room flanked by Christmas trees. His top aides watched him from inside the room.
After he was finished speaking, he turned to the press and said “You think that’s easy?” and then took a swig of Diet Coke, according to a pool reporter in the room. He then suggested to those in the room that his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, had told him he had to deliver the speech.
He asked how he had done. Ms. Wiles replied, “I told you 20 minutes and you were 20 minutes on the dot.”
Trump mentioned the recent war with Iran and his peace efforts in Gaza, and repeated his claim that he has ended eight wars since returning to office. What was barely mentioned, however, was his military campaign closer to home. The Trump administration has killed nearly 100 people in strikes on boats off the coast of Latin America. Trump has vowed a naval blockade on Venezuelan oil shipping, in pursuit of his stated goal of seizing Venezuelan crude, and has promised imminent military strikes against land targets in the country. Trump has signaled that he is on the warpath, but said nothing of a coming conflict in tonight’s speech.
One thing that might have been easily missed in that speech: The president said he planned next year to “announce some of the most aggressive housing reform plans in American history.”
Trump relied on a lot of old strategies in his remarks. He blamed his predecessor. He promised more relief if people just keep waiting — this time, until next year — to see the change in their paychecks. He floated a cash giveaway. The new thing here was his rushed and angry tone, which suggested the pressure he is under to provide the real economic relief he promised on the campaign trail. Americans are signaling they aren’t feeling it yet.
That was an 18-minute speech that will keep fact checkers busy for hours.
Trump tied his argument on the economy to his mass deportation campaign, asserting that pushing immigrants out of the country gives “more housing and more jobs for Americans.” Tuesday’s jobs report showed the unemployment rate rose in November to its highest level since September 2021, the year Biden took office and as the economy was emerging from the coronavirus pandemic.
One thing the president’s tariffs have succeeded in doing is generating revenue. The customs bureau announced Tuesday that the United States had collected more than $200 billion in tariffs between Jan. 20 and Dec. 15, up sharply from before Trump came into office.
Still, the president has promoted plans that would spend that revenue several times over, including using it to reduce income taxes, make payments to average Americans and compensate farmers for trade losses.
President Trump is promising, essentially, deflation. That is, not slowing inflation but reduced prices.
Trump has gone back to asserting that he cut drug prices by 400, 500 or even 600 percent. But a 100 percent price cut would mean a cost of $0.
Fact Check: Trump claimed that gasoline was now under $2.50 a gallon in much of the country and “hit $1.99 a gallon” in many states. Nationally, gas prices averaged $2.90 per gallon in the week ending Dec. 15, according to the Energy Information Administration, a government statistical agency. (Estimates from nongovernment trackers, like GasBuddy and AAA, were similar.) No state average was below $1.99, according to AAA.
The president said he would announce his pick to chair the Federal Reserve soon, saying it would be “someone who believes in lower interest rates by a lot.”
“It’s not the Republicans’ fault. It’s the Democrats’ fault,” Trump said, summarizing much of his argument on the problems facing the country. His party controls both chambers of Congress and the White House.
The president toured through some of the tax cuts included in the law Republicans passed over the summer. But despite his branding of “no tax on tips, no tax on overtime and no tax on Social Security,” those policies will not actually eliminate taxes in those categories entirely. The tips and overtime provisions will create a new deduction for those forms of income, but tips and overtime will still be subject to payroll taxes. The law offered a larger standard deduction to seniors, but some may still have to pay taxes on their Social Security benefits.
While the president is talking about handing out tariff revenue, he is also simultaneously facing a case in the Supreme Court that could force him to pay much of that money back. It’s not clear yet how the court will rule or whether refunds will be required to be sent to companies that paid the tariffs. But a ruling against the administration in the coming months could complicate any policies that depend on tariff funds.
In some ways, President Trump finds himself in a situation similar to what President Biden faced on the economy. Throughout the previous administration, Biden and his advisers frequently argued that the economy was in better shape than the public believed. Using charts and figures, Trump is attempting to make a similar case tonight.
The “warrior dividend’’ of $1,776 is supposed to come from tariff revenues, the president said. But those revenues are not for the president to spend; that’s the purview of Congress. He has also talked about giving $2,000 to all citizens except the wealthy, and claimed that over time income taxes will dwindle. The promises outpace the revenue.
Trump credited tariffs for many economic successes, saying they were helping to bring companies back to America “in record numbers,” adding, “They’re building factories and plants at levels we haven’t seen.”
In fact, spending on factory construction this year has fallen after reaching a peak in 2024. While tariffs benefit some companies, they hurt others, and there’s little evidence so far of a manufacturing renaissance.
“We are sending every soldier $1,776,” he promised. “The checks are already on the way.”
Trump said military service members would receive a “warrior dividend” before Christmas.
Fact Check: Trump claimed that he had secured $18 trillion in investments. This is misleading. His figure is almost double the $9.8 trillion his own White House press office has tallied. The figure also includes broad pledges and previously announced projects. And much comes from promises of investments from foreign countries that are probably unrealistic (for example, Qatar’s and the United Arab Emirates’ trillion-dollar pledges are more than their entire annual gross domestic products).
Fact Check: Trump claimed that more people were working today than at any point in history. Left unsaid: The number of people in the United States has also grown over time. The unemployment rate rose to 4.6 percent in November, the highest in four years.
Trump said he was bringing prices down “very fast.” However, while inflation has slowed since the peak of the Biden years, the cost of most goods have not declined, and affordability continues to be a problem.
Turning to the economy, the president continued attacking his predecessor and Democrats, claiming they had “looted our Treasury” and that his administration was “bringing those high prices down, and bringing them down very fast.”
On prices, in particular, we’re still awaiting the latest report on inflation, but prices nonetheless remain elevated — above the target of the Federal Reserve.
Fact Check: Trump claimed that the price of a Thanksgiving turkey was down 33 percent. Trump may have been referring to, and exaggerating, a report from the American Farm Bureau, which estimated that the cost of a turkey at the grocery store before Thanksgiving had declined by about 16 percent this year from last year. But wholesale turkey prices actually rose this year, according to data from the Agriculture Department and a Purdue University report. Turkeys are known as loss leaders, or items that retailers may sell at a loss to entice consumers to the store.
Trump is following a familiar playbook, blaming foreign countries for domestic problems. That has been a common theme with his remarks on trade, and it was on display recently at a roundtable he did with American farmers. Farmers have been hurt by trade clashes, particularly with China, and the president went around the table soliciting comments from farmers about discrimination from foreign countries.
The beginning of President Trump’s speech has been very similar to the comments he frequently makes when speaking to crowds, or to the media in the Oval Office — a combination of praising his own administration and blaming Biden for the country’s problems.
Against the backdrop of Christmas trees and cheery lights, Trump is on a tear. He has barely been speaking for three minutes and has spent most of that time attacking his predecessor, President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and Democratic policies.
Trump is delivering this speech from the Diplomatic Reception Room — not the typical choice for a prime-time address. He dove right in, speaking briskly. “Good evening, America,” Trump said. “Eleven months ago, I inherited a mess and I’m fixing it.” His tone is very abrupt and defensive.
Fact Check: Trump began his speech claiming that inflation was the highest in history under his predecessor. That is not true. Inflation did reach a four-decade high in the summer of 2022, at about 9.1 percent in June. But that was not a record; inflation was higher at points in the 1910s, 1970s and 1980s.
The timing of President Trump’s speech is important. It comes during a week in which we’re finding out more about the state of the economy, after the shutdown delayed the release of key federal data. On Tuesday, we learned that the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.6 percent in November, a four-year high.
Previewing his televised address tonight, President Trump told reporters that “we inherited a mess” and “our country is going to be stronger than ever before very soon,” suggesting Trump will continue to blame his predecessor, President Joseph R. Biden Jr., for rising costs for American consumers and other economic woes.
Tuesday’s jobs report showed the unemployment rate rose in November to its highest level since September 2021, the year Biden took office and as the economy was emerging from the coronavirus pandemic.
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