Speaking for over 30 minutes live on national television in his first official speech after a jury convicted him on 34 felony counts, Donald Trump late Friday morning spewed numerous lies attempting to spin the details of his five-week trial, including the false claim he could go to prison for “187 years,” while vowing to appeal.
Echoing his infamous speech announcing his first run for president in 2015, and even using the phrase, “not good people,” Trump began Friday’s remarks by claiming “millions and millions of people are flowing in from all parts of the world, not just South America, from Africa, from Asia from the Middle East. And they’re coming in from jails and prisons. And they’re coming in from mental institutions and insane asylums. They’re coming in from all over the world into our country. And we have a president and a group of fascists that don’t want to do anything about it.”
Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, continued his anti-immigrant theme, claiming “people are allowed to pour in from countries unknown, from places unknown. From languages that we don’t even that we haven’t even heard of. We have people sitting in schools, with languages where very few people have ever even heard of these languages. It’s not like Spanish or French, or Russian. Language is unknown. We have people coming from all corners of the globe. And many of them are not good people,” he said, while claiming “record levels of terrorism. record levels of terrorists have come into our country, record. They’ve never seen anything like it.”
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The ex-president’s remarks quickly devolved further, randomly complaining about crime, and “migrants…taking over luxury hotels” and “destroying our country.” He also ranted about his opponents, his impeachments, the January 6 Committee, the story about what happened with his Secret Service agent driving him from his January 6 speech, Venezuela, and “veterans living on the streets like dogs.”
“They want to raise your taxes by four times,” Trump insisted. “They want to stop you from having cars with their ridiculous mandates that make it impossible for you to get a car.”
On Friday Trump admitted on-camera he didn’t testify because if he lied he would be charged with perjury.
Critics blasted Trump, and called him “not coherent.”
Other critics quickly weighed in.
“Polluted stream of consciousness. Dude needs a nap and a team of neurologists,” observed foreign policy, national security, and political affairs analyst and commentator David Rothkopf, adding, “Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.”
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“Whoever thought this was a good idea for Trump (and it was for sure only Trump) was deeply wrong. A complete trainwreck,” Rothkopf also declared.
“This press conference is not helping Trump,” observed constitutional law professor Anthony Michael Kreis. “He’d be better just keeping quiet but he’s begging for incarceration at this point.”
“With badly fading hair dye, Trump is currently rambling incoherently about ‘confliction’ and being ‘literally crucified’,” said The Bulwark’s Tim Miller.
Other critics slammed the news networks.
“Why are cable networks right now airing the full, live speech of a convicted felon, a hardened criminal?” asked SiriusXM host Michelangelo Signorile.
Media critic Mark Jacob added, “Trump is lying unchallenged on national television right now, with the assistance of the news media.”
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