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Axios declared that Trump became president today. Again. He’s “pivoted” :
Former President Trump has something rare, precious and definitional: a moment — a fleeting chance to redefine himself, this election, America.
Why it matters: Almost dying rocks perspectives — and people. Yes, Trump has shown little appetite for changing his ways, tone and words. But his advisers tell us Trump plans to seize his moment by toning down his Trumpiness, and dialing up efforts to unite a tinder-box America, when the Republican convention opens Monday in Milwaukee.
“I think it’s real,” Tucker Carlson — who’ll speak in prime time at the convention, and talks to Trump often — told us. “Getting shot in the face changes a man.”
- Trump — who landed yesterday in Milwaukee, just over 24 hours after the assassination attempt — brought a rare succinctness to a post on his Truth Social platform: “UNITE AMERICA!”
- It’s an echo of former President Ronald Reagan, who projected strength and humor after being shot in 1981. The late David S. Broder, legendary Washington Post political dean, recalled decades later that Reagan “was politically untouchable from that point on. He became a mythic figure.”
Trump said in an interview Sunday with the Washington Examiner’s Salena Zito, a Pittsburgh native who has long covered him, that he’s rewriting his Thursday convention speech to take advantage of a historic moment and draw the country together.
- “The speech … was going to be a humdinger,” Trump told her as he boarded his plane in New Jersey. “Had this not happened, this would’ve been one of the most incredible speeches,” aimed mostly at President Biden. “Honestly, it’s going to be a whole different speech now.”
- Zito writes that Trump repeatedly invoked God in their conversations. “It is a chance to bring the country together,” Trump told her. “I was given that chance.”
Uh huh.
Earlier today Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the classified documents case . Yep, she did it. Here’s the Great Uniter’s response:
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It didn’t even last the morning.
The good news is that this will break the short-lived truce that inexplicably forced the Democrats to become punching bags for the wingnuts to accuse them of inciting violence.
Fun fact: Cannon was appointed by Trump after the election when Mitch McConnell forced through a bunch of unqualified nominees to the federal bench, a very rare occurrence. It was especially hypocritical considering that he wouldn’t allow Merrick Garland to be confirmed more than 8 months before the election in 2016 saying that it wasn’t proper for an outgoing administration to fill such a seat until the people had spoken. (He did the same with Amy Coney Barrett.) The gravedigger of democracy just threw another pile of dirt on the coffin.