With the resignation of press secretary Sean Spicer on Friday and Republicans in the House advancing a health bill by a large margin on Tuesday, you may have missed one of Trump’s most disastrous – and awkward – blunders of late
On Monday, President Trump made an uncomfortable and, at times, inappropriate speech to more than 40,000 youngsters at a Scout jamboree in West Virginia.
If you haven’t seen the speech then I’d recommend following the advice from Senator Murphy of Connecticut and not watch it.
As a Scout leader, my stomach is in knots about what Trump did today. If you haven't watched it yet, don't. It's downright icky.
— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) July 25, 2017
Why Trump or his staffers thought a speech by the President (who is not renowned for his public speaking skills) to thousands of youngsters who never voted for him in the election, was a good idea is anyone’s guess.
Though this audience was different to Trump’s usual crowd, the content of his speech was all too familiar. It was uncomfortable to watch, it was anger-inducing and it was desperate.
Here are four things (out of many) that were highly inappropriate about Trump’s speech:
1. He mentioned “fake news” almost instantly
Within the first 30 seconds of his speech, Trump had mentioned “fake news”. In his speech he said:
Tonight we put aside all of the policy fights in Washington D.C. you’ve been hearing about with the fake news and all of that.
This section of his speech lasted a whole two minutes and 50 seconds.
He also made a dig at the “fake media” for not publishing how large the crowd is, which relates back to the controversy surrounding his inauguration, during which several broadcasting companies in the US showed a small crowd at the ceremony.
I’m waving to people back there so small I can’t even see them. Man, this is a lot of people. Turn those cameras back there, please. That is so incredible. By the way, what do you think the chances are that this incredible, massive crowd, record-setting is going to be shown on television tonight? One percent or zero?
He continued:
The fake media will say: President Trump — and you know what this is — President Trump spoke before a small crowd of Boy Scouts today. That’s some — that is some crowd. Fake media. Fake news. Thank you.
CNN aired the entire broadcast live on Monday.
2. He referred to Washington as a “cesspool”
Much of Trump’s presidential campaign centred on the premise that he intended to “drain the swamp” of corrupt politicians in DC.
Though he has not stated how he intends to do this, some reports argue he has added to the “swamp” as many of his recently appointed cabinet members are billionaires and former Wall Street executives, such as recent appointee Anthony Scaramucci to head of communications.
In his speech, Trump referred to DC as a “cesspool”:
Today, I said we ought to change it from the word ‘swamp’ to the word ‘cesspool’ or perhaps to the word ‘sewer’.
3. He said 10 of his Cabinet members were Scouts, then immediately threatened to fire one of them
What better way to bring hope and a desire to succeed in life than to tell 40,000 all around the age of 10 that they too could work for the President some day?
Well that’s how the next section of his speech started out:
Many of my top advisers in the White House were scouts. 10 members of my Cabinet were scouts. Can you believe that? 10!
Then it all came tumbling down when he went on a rant about Tom Price, the Secretary of Health and Human Services:
Secretary Tom Price is also here. Today Dr. Price lives the Scout Oath, helping to keep millions of Americans strong and healthy… And hopefully, he’s going to get the votes tomorrow to start our path toward killing this horrible thing known as Obamacare that’s really hurting us, folks…
And he didn’t stop there:
He better get them… otherwise, I’ll say ‘Tom, you’re fired!’ I’ll get somebody… they better do it. Hopefully they’ll do it.
The vote didn’t pass and at time of writing Secretary Tom Price is still in his Cabinet position.
4. His election victory
Despite his audience consisting mostly of children, Trump used this speech to thank everyone for voting for him and made a verbal attack on the “dishonest people” that doubted he would win.
Do you remember that famous night on television, November 8, where they said — these dishonest people — where they said there is no path to victory for Donald Trump? They forgot about the forgotten people.
West Virginia, where the jamboree that Trump spoke at was held, voted 68.7% for the President. And he had not forgotten this, stating in his speech that his victory was “an unbelievable tribute to you all”.
So I have to tell you what we did, in all fairness, this is an unbelievable tribute to you and all of the other millions and millions of people that came out and voted for Make America Great Again.
Unbelievable indeed.