CNN’s Chris Cillizza called it “an amazing moment” when President Donald Trump turned to the House gallery and pointed to North Korean survivor Ji Seong-ho, who triumphantly raised above his head the crutches on which he walked out of that horrendous tyranny.
Cillizza wasn’t alone among the legions of Washington and New York journalists who so visibly loathe the chief executive they cover, even as Trump presented his first State of the Union address as a stirring call to America to be America again.
NBC’s Savannah Guthrie called the speech “optimistic,” “bright” and “positive.”
Wolf Blitzer at CNN judged the address “very strong,” and even Jake Tapper had to concede that Trump delivered “inspirational stories” and “beautiful prose.”
Fox News’ John Roberts — who spent years at CBS before joining Rupert Murdoch’s outfit — found the Trump speech to be “very powerful” and “very patriotic.”
Something else about Trump’s lengthy time in the rostrum struck ABC’s Tara Palmieri, prompting her to tweet that “Trump making it difficult for Dems to stay seated with his broad-stroke patriotic comments.”
What a contrast it was to those sitting, sullen Democrats who remained in their seats most of the evening, including when Trump touted low unemployment rates for African-Americans and Hispanics, creating a path to citizenship for some illegal immigrants, lower taxes, ending an immigration visa program used by terrorists to enter the country, and much else.
What a contrast it was to those sitting, sullen Democrats who remained in their seats most of the evening.
The speech “worked” on social media, too. Sahil Kapur reported that “Per @Twitter, this is now the most tweeted #SOTU or Joint Session address ever, exceeding last year’s record of 3 million tweets.”
And it got through to the American public as well, at least according to a quickie post-speech poll by CBS, which found that 75 percent of the respondents approved and only 25 percent disapproved.
Senior editor Mark Tapscott can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter.
(photo credit, homepage image: Donald Trump, cut out, CC BY-SA 2.0, by Gage Skidmore)
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