The president’s State of the Union address next week will focus on theatrics, not on political substance, his biographer says, following a perceived betrayal from the nation’s top court.
President Donald Trump, who was once considered to have the Supreme Court in his back pocket, had warmly greeted conservative justices on the high court ahead of his speech before a joint session of Congress last year. On Friday, the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, shut down Trump’s signature economic policy.
This will guide Trump’s SOTU address, author Michael Wolff argued on the latest episode of the Daily Beast’s Inside Trump’s Head.
“The important point is that it will no longer be about the Supreme Court basically humiliating him. It will then be about his theatrics in responding to this and his emotions. It’s incredibly effective,” Wolff explained.
The top court ruled Trump had exceeded his authority when he installed tariffs based on a “national emergency.” The president has been filled with rage since. He instituted a global 10 percent tariff immediately after the Supreme Court’s ruling on Friday and then raised it to 15 percent on Saturday. Two of the justices who ruled against Trump—Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett—were appointed by the president during his first term.
He lashed out at the two specifically, on Friday, by saying their “families would be ashamed.”
“He wears it all on his sleeve,” Wolff noted of Trump. “He has done that for years now.”
“The reason I’m on the edge of my seat about State of the Union, which is on Tuesday, is that at last year’s State of the Union, Donald Trump caused much Sturm und Drang. When he walked past Roberts, he shook his hand, he said ‘thank you,’” co-host Joanna Coles recounted. “Sturm und Drang” is German for “storm and stress.”
“He sort of murmured into his ear, and everybody was like, my goodness, my goodness. The two of them are working together. There was so much online drama about it,” she continued.
“He’s got a new enemy in John Roberts. And I’m sure during his speech, he’ll go after them, right?” Coles said.
Trump was seen visibly fuming during a press conference in which he called the justices who ruled against him “lap dogs,” a “disgrace to our nation,” and “disloyal to the Constitution.”
Coles said watching Trump’s angry press conference was like “watching a child.”
“‘I’m going to do tariffs anyway, 10 percent on all of them,’” Coles said, adding, “It absolutely is the mad queen from Alice in Wonderland. ‘Off with their heads, off with their heads.’”
Wolff noted that Trump’s erratic media strategy can he hard for the opposition to combat.
“It’s incredibly difficult if you’re a Democrat…how do you counter this?” Wolff said.
“Democrats have spent their whole life in politics know that caution is their, the chief virtue of a political life and a political career,” Wolff said. “That every word you say you want to hone, craft.”
Coles responded, “And here is a man who doesn’t hone anything. He doesn’t craft anything.”
Ahead of Trump’s Tuesday address, Wolff argued that there should be a distinction made between “boring and can’t stop watching.”
“Just think of those two things. Reduce the political world to boring, can’t stop watching,” Wolff said. “What does that get you? Well, it gets you Donald Trump.”
The White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment.
White House communications director Steven Cheung, whose weight the president has repeatedly highlighted and whom Trump outed as being on “the fat drugs,” has previously told the Beast, “Michael Wolff is a lying sack of s--- and has been proven to be a fraud.”
“He routinely fabricates stories originating from his sick and warped imagination, only possible because he has a severe and debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his peanut-sized brain,” Cheung said.
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