Like a drunk man sitting alone at the end of a bar muttering nonsense to no one in particular, Donald Trump tore into a slurring and predictable 15-minute ramble about his 2016 victory in Pennsylvania.
The unstable but predictable commander-in-chief recounted the last presidential election – which he has done approximately 600 or so times – at a campaign rally in Wilkes-Barre on Thursday.
“Remember that incredible night in November,” Trump said. “And you remember that we were way up in Pennsylvania and there was only 2 percent of the vote left – and we were way up.”
“The fake news refused to call it, right?” Trump said as his adoring mob cheered on.
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After about 15 minutes, Trump finally remembered why he was there in the first place: to campaign for Republican Senate candidate Lou Barletta.
It’s a #TBT tonight in Wilkes-Barre as President Trump opens his campaign rally with an hour-by-hour recount of Election Night 2016. Pennsylvania was one of his biggest wins of all. Finally, 15 minutes in, he mentions the man he’s campaigning for: Lou Barletta
— Jeff Zeleny (@jeffzeleny) August 2, 2018
After spending a few moments talking about Barletta, Trump then returned to his regular and expected rantings about how unfairly he’s treated by the media.
It was textbook Trump – always playing the victim. The crowd, of course, loved it, but to everybody else, he came off as the same unstable and whiny president he has been for a year and a half.
The full speech, to the extent that it can be called a speech:
HAPPENING NOW: Pres. Trump speaks at a campaign event in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. https://t.co/Hc1JLnMGje https://t.co/6JNOtGdxFg
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) August 2, 2018
The media is tuning out
As Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania got underway, CNN and MSNBC didn’t even cover it, something that is becoming standard practice for the cable networks.
Instead, they carried on with their regularly scheduled programming – covering the ongoing special counsel investigation and the White House war against the media, which Sarah Huckabee Sanders escalated even further on Thursday.
At the end of the day, the American people appear to be tuning out. It’s a reflection of just how boring Trump’s act has become outside of his minority base of supporters. People just don’t have a desire to watch an incoherent president whine aimlessly for an hour.
Trump can pump up his base all he wants, but his increasingly deteriorating behavior isn’t winning him any supporters – and it certainly isn’t fazing special counsel Robert Mueller.
Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
