The New Trump

This nearly felt like a new Trump, as if he pivoted and showed new colors of his oratory skill and charisma.

It amounted to a very different speech to his inaugural address to the nation, much moreupbeat in sections. Opponents criticize the President, who seemed to glimmer in a constantly slew of well-crafted clichés, that his policy details were thin and quite ungrounded.

The speech was ceremonial and an expensive speech (high on promises) full of glowing patriotic rhetoric and beautiful language that had the hint of action plans, with a few carefully chosen surprises. It showed a new sophistication of statesmanship that impressed many onlookers. Many of his emotional appeals were successfully embedded into the occasion.

Congress will be Worth Following in the Months Ahead

The relationship of the maverick populist President with congress will be one of the fascinating relationships in the evolution of many of the new policies of the new administration.

Last night Trump gave his first address to joint Congress, what did we learn? Trump truly felt presidential and is showing signs of the president he can become. This includes improving oratory flair, relationship with the press and him gaining experience in diplomacy. His tone was charismatic and inspirational, he spoke to the middle class voter.

There were not many details. He did not talk about Russia. He gave a campaign type speech, and was striking in it lack of impulse, but was uplifting and forthright with improved script-writing and delivery.

I’ve put some notes in bullet form, I do not verify their full integrity or the perfection of their translation. Though if you prefer, you can read the full text here.

The speech was high-minded and aspirational, but did not give many details as to the future policy changes, just the broad strokes most of which we had heard before.

Trump is redefining his role as the leader of the free world, and rejecting it in a sort of way, resigned and happily preferring to be simply, the leader of the United States.

Notes are in point form, so you can enjoy some of the natural language used.

Key Points of Address

• We must restart the engine of the American economy. We must make it much harder for companies to leave our country.
• The challenges we face are great, but our people are greater.
• Buy American, Hire American
• Everything that is broken in our country, can be fixed. Why not join forces to finally get the job done, and get the job done right?
• Delivering a message of unity and strength
• We are one people with one destiny, and we are all made by the same God.
• A new National pride is sweeping across our Nation
• We are witnessing a renewal of the American spirit
• Action is not a choice, it is a necessity. We must save Americans from thisimploding Obamacare disaster.
• I will not allow the mistakes of decades past to tarnish our legacy
• American footprints on distant worlds are not too big of a dream.
• What will America look like as we reach our 250th anniversary of Independence? (in 2026)
• I’m going to bring back millions of jobs and do this also by reworking our immigration system by introducing merit-criteria much like other countries have.
• We’ve watched our middle-class shrink, but have ignored the fates of our children
• We’ve spent trillions of dollars over-seas (actually $1.6 trillion from 2001 to 2014), while our own infrastructure suffered
• Families want a fair shot for their children and hearing for their concerns
• Dying industries will come roaring back to life (GDP rose at a 1.9 percent annual rate in the final three months of 2016)
• We’ll make our communities safer for everyone.
• Americans spent 6 Trillion dollars in the Middle East which made our own infrastructure suffer
• We must give our citizens the ability to purchase health insurance across State lines that will create a truly competitive market.
• My job is not to represent the world, but to represent the people of America.
• America is ready to forge new partnerships with those where mutual interests align. America is friends today with former enemies.
• The time for small thinking is over, the time for trivial fights is gone.

Key Policy Points

• We’ll rebuild our military and our infrastructure.
• We will repeal and replace Obamacare; with reforms that expand choice and reduce costs while promoting better healthcare.
• We’ll make child care affordable and that new families have paid family leave.
• 94 Million Americans are outside of the workforce. We’ve lost more than one fourth of manufacturing jobs since we joined NAFTA.
• We will be implementing one of the largest increases in National defense spending in the history of the country.
• We strongly support NATO, that defeated fascism and communism. But our partners, must meet their financial obligations.
• Our trade deficits were nearly 800 billion dollars.
• We will implement tax reductions that will stimulate our business sector.
• We will provide massive tax relief for our middle class.
• Free trade must be fair trade, we need to heed Lincoln’s advice and his words.
• America must put its own citizens first, because only then can we make America great again (applause)
• We’ll give our Military the resources our heroic warriors deserve
• Above all else, we will keep our promises to the American people
• New American pipelines will be made with American steel
• We’ve withdrawn the U.S. from the TPP
• We’ve formed a council with the Canadian PM, Justin Trudeau, to boost women entrepreneurs.
• We have formed a task-force to deal with the criminal cartels that have spread all across our Nation.
• We must restore rule of law integrity at our borders.
• We must work to bring down the artificially high price of drugs, and bring them down immediately!

Key Updates

• Many companies are investing Billions of dollars in the United States to create new jobs (Softbank, Wal-Mart, Intel and many others)
• We’re taking steps to protect our Nation from radical Islamic terrorism. The majority of terrorists have come from outside of our country.
• Stock markets have gained nearly 3 Trillion dollars in value since the election (a record)
• We’ve placed a hiring freeze on non-essential federal workers.
• We’ve implemented a five year ban on becoming lobbyists for officials.
• We’ve created a de-regulation task-force inside of every government agency
• For everyone one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated
• We’ve cleared the way for the Keystone and Dakota pipelines that will assist in the ceration of new jobs.
• We will begin construction of a great Great wall along our Southern Border
• We will work with our allies to extinguish our vile enemy ISIS from the planet.

Aftermath and Alternative Facts (cited from fact-checking sources)

• The national debt ballooned from $10.6 trillion to $19.9 trillion under President Obama, according to the Treasury Department, which is nearly more than all other presidents combined.
• On manufacturing, the U.S. has lost roughly one-third of its manufacturing jobssince NAFTA was approved, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
• According the U.S. Census Bureau, the trade deficit with the world last year was $734 billion.
• Every year since 2009, drug deaths have outnumbered deaths by firearms, motor vehicle crashes, suicide, and homicide, according to the DEA’s 2016 National Drug Threat Assessment. In 2014, approximately 129 people died every day as a result of drug poisoning.
• A report from the State Department in 2014 estimated the Keystone pipeline project, through direct and indirect spending, could result in over 40,000 jobs. But most of those jobs are not permanent — instead the State Department estimated that the Keystone jobs would mostly be four or eight months long, and many would not be construction-related.
• Of 82 people the government determined were inspired by a foreign terrorist group to attempt or carry out an attack in the U.S., just over half were native-borncitizens.
• On Tax Cuts for the Middle Class: The richest 1 percent would see an average tax cut of nearly $215,000 a year, while the middle one-fifth of the population would get a cut of just $1,010, according to the Tax Policy Center, a joint project by the Brookings Institution and Urban Institute.

Image credit:  (Jim Lo Scalzo/Reuters)

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Did you watch Trump’s speech to Congress? Where did it resonate with you? Did anything about it surprise you?