A Breakdown Of Trump's First Joint Session Speech To Congress

Happy hump day folks and welcome to the breakdown of Trump’s first address to a joint session of Congress. In inauguration years, the President does not deliver a State Of The Union; instead, a combination of the inaugural address and the joint session speech serve as the opportunity for the President to cut through the clutter and lay out, with both the leadership and the people’s attention, his agenda for the near future. To lay out where he believes things are, where he would like them to be, and how he plans to go about getting there.

That what Donnie’s task last night; let’s see how he did.

Pregame

Around 8 pm, I threw on some network coverage and caught what could easily have been mistaken for the NFL Redzone countdown. Look at The Donald honing in.

It began, as is tradition, with this electric factory. I assume this guy has one job and one job only and boy does he crush it.

The Game

Let’s start with the top moment. Get your tissues ready. Many people are saying this was one of the most emotional, powerful moments ever witnessed in the chamber.

Not even Van Jones could disagree.

Trump came out of the gate squashing any uncertainty about his feelings towards recent anti-semitic acts across the country.

“Recent threats targeting Jewish community centers and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries, as well as last week’s shooting in Kansas City,” he said, “remind us that while we may be a nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all of its very ugly forms.”

He’d been taking heat over whether or not he condemned such acts; probably a smart move to immediately clear the air, whether that uncertainty was warranted or not.

He touched on many different policy areas. Health care — Trump said he endorses the majority of a Republican bill to replace Obamacare, urged bipartisan cooperation to hammer out the specifics, and then hilariously called Obamacare a disaster and pointed at Nancy Pelosi.

Immigration — Trump told journalists before the speech that he wanted comprehensive immigration reform, only to not mention legislation or specific reform during the speech. Interesting, probably means Congress will just chill on the issue until Donnie decides to mobilize on it.

He did say we’ll begin construction on the big huge beautiful wall soon tho.

Positivity. Optimism. These were themes that, in Trump’s previous major speeches, were staunchly absent. At both his RNC and inaugural addresses, he described the exact opposite. He talked about American carnage and essentially said we were the most fucked place on earth (unless he took over).

Last night was different. Look at this language:

“Cures to illnesses that have always plagued us are not too much to hope. American footprints on distant worlds are not too big a dream. Millions lifted from welfare to work is not too much to expect. And streets where mothers are safe from fear — schools where children learn in peace — and jobs where Americans prosper and grow — are not too much to ask…”

“American footprints on distant worlds are not too big a dream” … don’t think The Donald wrote that but sounds very nice.

Trump’s speech had plenty of length (60 minutes), plenty of ovations (90), and plenty of tears (millions), but its biggest and main criticism was its lack of detail. Its lack of specifics. This is not particularly uncommon in such addresses, but Donnie did discuss several agendas that cost billions and billions of dollars and offered little to no explanation as to how he plans on paying for them. The specifics weren’t there.

Again, that’s not wildly uncommon, but it is noteworthy. The folks like to know not just what we’re paying for, but how we’re paying for it (especially us folks in NYC where it oft feels like the percentage of our paychecks going to the government is triple-digits).

Postgame

Now, having said all that, the most important takeaway from all this is this — it’s just a speech. That’s it. The most important element is not what The Donald said in his speech; it’s how effectively the executive pursues the plan laid out in the speech. He has delivered the message; he has set the stage; he has mobilized the departments; now, his toughest task is to act, speak, tweet, etc. in a way that perpetuates that message.

He has sucked at this for the first six weeks. SUCKED. If he entertains petty confrontations on twitter and carries out bananaland press conferences, this speech will fade into obscurity. The adhesiveness of his speech to actual effectiveness is fragile; it won’t take much to bring it all down, to return to the chaotic uncertainty and abstractness with which his administration was running before last night.

But, to use a metaphor, if he sticks to the teleprompter and stays on message in his day-to-day running of the Oval Office, he really can get things done. He can implement the overhauls he campaigned on making, and we can actually see what the Trump Administration’s vision for America truly looks like. If he sticks to this idea…

“The time for trivial fights is behind us…”

…we could get a REAL look at President Trump being a REAL President. Will be interesting and pivotal to see how he handles the next few days.

PS — Don’t miss Democratic former Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear’s botched response:

lol.