President Trump has surprised everyone again and again; when he ran for the White House, when he won the Republican primary and when he won the White House, to name only the three most obvious occasions. Nearly every week during the past 18 months, he has produced a statement or action that sends shock waves across the nation and around the world.
He did it again Tuesday night when he delivered the best speech of his political career, and presumably of his life. There were moments of genuinely fine oratory in his address to a joint session of Congress, and none of the meandering diversions with which he has ruined speeches before (notably his convention acceptance speech). He was, perhaps for the first time, truly and impressively presidential.
His success was not simply because he avoided blunders and was dignified and frequently powerful. It was also because he steered skillfully between the Scylla of vacuous platitudes and the Charybdis of wonkish detail that even many of his more experienced predecessors have failed to avoid.
Trump delved into policy without going through a boring laundry list, as President Clinton sometimes did. He spent time on the most important topics of replacing Obamacare, repairing our broken immigration system and reforming taxes. He offered specific directions for these reforms to take, mostly within the guidelines of orthodox Republican thinking.
Trump offered plenty of the sober conservatism that has been absent from many of his speeches. Importantly, he sang the praises and touted his nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court. This is a matter dear to conservatives but which he excluded from his nomination speech in July and his CPAC speech last week.
Get the Exclusive
05.05.2024