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A WOUNDED TRUMP LASHES OUT AT PHOENIX RALLY
A week after the Charlottesville controversy, the president attacks the media, Obama and GOP senators.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/22/trump-arizona-phoenix-rally-241923

President Donald Trump spent much of last week hearing from friends, donors and aides that he needed to dial back some of his rhetoric in the wake of Charlottesville.

He gave his response on Tuesday night in Phoenix, with an angry, meandering and frequently disingenuous 75-minute rally address designed to soothe his ego, rev up his base, and remind the naysayers in Washington and New York that he can still command love from his crowd.

Aides said he had a carefully vetted message on a Teleprompter, but his eyes quickly wandered away for a discursive torching of the news media — who he said didn't care about the country.

The speech came after a tumultuous two weeks for Trump, who spent his summer break at his New Jersey golf club making news that distracted from efforts to streamline decision-making in the West Wing under new chief of staff John Kelly and to restart Trump’s stalled legislative agenda as September approaches.

A day after delivering a sober address on his Afghanistan strategy in Virginia, Trump left no doubt Tuesday that he has no plans to be the calm leader members of his own party want as Congress prepares to engage in negotiations over the federal budget, the debt and a major tax reform package that is one of Trump’s core legislative priorities.

He seemed to intimate onstage that his own people had encouraged him not to say certain things, but he forged ahead nonetheless — focusing on the roaring crowd that represents his voluble but shrinking political base.

He threatened a government shutdown, essentially promised to pardon a controversial sheriff, made false claims about the news media and his opponents, pushed for a legislative change that infuriates Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, criticized two Republican senators and intimated he would pull out of NAFTA.

He pulled out a paper to read his much-criticized first statement on the violence in Charlottesville more than a week ago, and said he was right and everyone criticizing him was wrong.

“I hit 'em with neo-Nazi, I hit 'em with everything. ... KKK. We have KKK, I got 'em all," he said.

Then, it turned into a grab bag of Trumpian proportions as he wound through his favorite topics, ignoring the screens in front of him and watching the crowd instead.

“I think he'll be just fine,” he said of former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was recently convicted of criminal contempt for flouting a court order to stop detaining people he suspected of being undocumented immigrants. Trump signaled he plans to pardon Arpaio but said he wouldn’t do it onstage because it would be “controversial” — an apparent reference to the crowds gathered outside the Phoenix Convention Center.

“Antifa!” he shouted, in a reference to anti-fascist protesters, after reading his initial, much-criticized statement on Charlottesville. He then wound into the debate over the removal of statues.

"In the proud tradition of America's great leaders, from George Washington — please, don't take his statue down, please," Trump said, bringing the crowd to a roar. “They're trying to take away our culture. They are trying to take away our history."

Trump adopted the rigorous us-against-them mentality that has dominated his presidency, as he ignores a large swath of the country and tends to only pay lip service to more bipartisan items, like an infrastructure package.

The speech showed that Trump continues to be unconcerned with much aside from satisfying his political base, even against the advice of his advisers.

"Nobody knows who the hell he is," he said of Sen. Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican who has criticized him, while also hitting ailing Sen. John McCain, though not by name, for casting the vote that doomed Obamacare repeal last month.

At dinners at Trump’s Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club, billionaire investor Tom Barrack and New York real estate tycoon Richard LeFrak both talked about his potential to have more support, administration officials and advisers said. Barrack, in particular, homed in on the president’s sagging poll numbers and encouraged him to govern past his political base, according to one person briefed on the conversation.

Trump, however, reminded them last week of his popularity with his base — and said that his presidency was successful so far because of Justice Neil Gorsuch and his deregulatory agenda, and that he planned to continue doing things his own way. He repeated those themes in Phoenix.

One friend who spoke to Trump on the phone said he was in “denial” about his poll numbers and “had no desire” to even make an adjustment.

“All of the comments about how great he is on the cuff and how smart he is to listen, that’s going to drive him more off the cuff,” said one adviser who speaks to him frequently.

“At some point, he’ll get tired of Kelly and being managed,” this person added. “And he will go back to the way that he was.”

So Tuesday night, Trump returned to the greatest hits — and to an adoring crowd. He derided The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN — the crowd chanted “CNN sucks!” — and “little George Stephanopoulos” of ABC.

The crowd roared along with each attack, as Trump was repeatedly interrupted by protesters, one of whom he berated for not having a “powerful voice.”

“There aren’t too many people outside protesting, that I can tell you,” Trump quickly added, before going on to marvel at the size of the crowd inside, and noting that some people were still in line waiting to get in.

Back in his natural element, revving up a convention center of supporters, Trump dispensed with any veneer of contrition and vigorously defended his response to Charlottesville just one day after his scripted, sober address about an increased American military presence in Afghanistan.

Trump seemed to be reveling in the crowd’s love from the moment he entered, clapping his hands as he made his way slowly to the podium, and before long he was enticing the crowd to rain boos on reporters.

“Wow, what a crowd, what a crowd,” were Trump’s first words at the microphone. He then repeatedly said, falsely, that television channels were switching away from his address and not showing the crowds.

“These are really, really dishonest people, and they’re bad people, and I really think they don’t like our country,” Trump said of the press. “The only people giving a platform to these hate groups is the media itself and the fake news.”

Trump did praise Fox News, and specifically conservative host Sean Hannity and the morning show “Fox & Friends,” which he said treat him fairly.

The visit came as Trump seeks a reset from the disastrous week that followed his “many sides” and "two sides" remarks on Charlottesville.

Those remarks were praised by some pundits, and by presidential advisers like Kellyanne Conway. For many, including McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan, there was a hope to see more.

"It was a somber but tough presidential address," Conway said Tuesday afternoon. "He deliberately weighed the facts and figures."

By Tuesday night, Trump seemed almost tired of all that. He said that many said he was crazy for taking the job, and sometimes, he agreed with them.
-POLITICO.com, August 23, 2017