Crossposted on NewsBusters:
The following was aired on CNN’s January 20 coverage of Donald Trump’s Inaugural Address:
WOLF BLITZER: And so now the United States has a new president. The 45th President of the United States. There he is. Donald J. Trump. He takes office after delivering a speech, Jake. A speech that he could have delivered and he often delivered throughout the 18 months of his campaign. He delivered the speech that got him elected President of the United States.
JAKE TAPPER: It was very consistent to the Trump brand absolutely. I have to say, I think it’s fair to say this is one of the most radical inaugural speeches we’ve ever heard. It was purely populist. It talked about the forgotten people. It attacked Washington while standing inside the center of Washington, D.C. surrounded by Washington insiders. There was nothing really particularly conservative about this Republican president’s speech. It was pure populism. And in fact, it looked at the United States and the role of the United States in a way that departures greatly from what we’ve heard from all of his predecessors on the stage. Obama, Bush, Carter. It talked about America first as his priority. It was completely consistent with his brand I have to say. Had a nice part at the end talking about how whatever color you are like the soldier, black,
brown or white, we all bleed the red blood of patriots. But I have to say, I think it will go down in history as one of the most radical speeches ever given by a president.
...
BLITZER: And John, so many times the themes that came through during the campaign. When he says, when he wrote that speech, he clearly had a tremendous influence in writing those words.
JOHN KING: If you are a Trump voter, you heard from your new president what you wanted to hear consistent with the campaign. Every decision, he said, would be America first. Whether it’s a taxes decision, infrastructure decision, a border decision, a national security decision. Said everything would be through the prism of America first.
But it was a dark, a dark view. Even a pessimistic view of where we are at the moment. The statistics would tell you illegal border crossings are down. Didn’t sound like that from the speech. The statistics would tell you we have 4.7 percent unemployment. He talked about how terrible things were and how horrible it was in the country. He spoke of gangs and drugs and American carnage at a time, again, the outgoing president, I think, would tell you not that there aren’t problems in America but that crime is largely under control in America. So this is a trademark Trump. This is how he campaigned. It’s his brand of populism. And what a scathing indictment of this town writ large. Not just the Democrats. Of this Washington establishment, he said, and enriched itself and benefitted from politics but not the American people though. He’s off to a start that is very anti-establishment.