CNN host Jake Tapper has called out Donald Trump’s attacks on his Democratic rivals during his marathon State of the Union speech.
Trump, 79, spoke for a record-breaking 108 minutes on Tuesday evening. That easily smashed former President Bill Clinton’s 88-minute State of the Union speech in 2000.
While he awarded multiple military medals of honor and introduced the victorious American men’s hockey team after their Winter Olympics win, Trump did not reference the Epstein files, despite survivors of the late sex offender’s crimes being present in the House Chamber.
Speaking as soon as the lengthy speech ended, Tapper said on CNN that Trump gave a “rousing description” of the America he sees when he looks out the window, “even if it isn‘t the one that most Americans, according to polls, see, in terms of the economic prosperity.” Tapper may have been citing a CNN poll that found that only 32 per cent of Americans believe Trump has had the right priorities, while 68 per cent felt that he had not focused on the country’s most critical problems. The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll was also grim news for the president.
Tapper added that Trump made “Some very sharp, very partisan even nasty attacks on Democrats.”
Trump’s speech was not without its share of drama.
In one moment, he asked everyone to “stand up” if they believed “the first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.”
Looking at the Democrats who did not stand, including Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, Trump said “Isn’t that a shame? You should be ashamed of yourself, not standing up. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
As Trump continued to speak, Minnesota Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar and Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib heckled the president.
Trump repeated, “You should be ashamed of yourself” and said he was dealing with “sick people.”
After Trump claimed members of the Somali community in Minnesota “have pillaged an estimated $19 billion from the American taxpayer,” Omar and Tlaib called him a “liar.”
The president also repeated his claims to stop children from being able to change gender, stating “We must band it and we must ban it immediately.”
When he noted that some Democrats did not stand up to support his ban on trans rights, Trump shouted, “These people are crazy, I’m telling you! They’re crazy!”
“Democrats are destroying our country,” he said, “but we’ve stopped it just in the nick of time.”
Tapper added in his breakdown of the speech that, “I do not doubt that his supporters will absolutely love this speech and his critics will find much to hate about it.”
