March 26, 2023

"The abuses of power that we’re currently witnessing at all levels of government will go down as among the most shameful, corrupt and depraved chapters in all of American history."

Said Donald Trump, quoted in "Trump Puts His Legal Peril at Center of First Big Rally for 2024/Facing a potential indictment, the former president devoted much of his speech in Waco, Texas, to criticizing the justice system, though his attacks were less personal and caustic than in recent days" (NYT).
Lamenting all the investigations he has faced in the last eight years that have — to date — not resulted in charges, Mr. Trump claimed that his legal predicament “probably makes me the most innocent man in the history of our country.”

Mr. Trump tried, as he has before, to link his personal grievances to those of the crowd. “They’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you,” he said.

I wish the Times — or someone — would provide a full text of the speech. I'd like to dissect it. I did listen to it, and I could re-listen — here — and pause and transcribe things, but I'm not up for that at the moment. I did want to say that, for me, the most successful part is when he lists and elaborates on his accomplishments as President. I suspect that the people who loathe him don't even remember — or would never have conceded — that he did anything positive.

68 comments:

Rusty said...

He's not wrong.

Dave Begley said...

Yes, the corruption is off the charts.

Douglas B. Levene said...

Thank you Ann, for paying attention to what Trump is saying and reporting it to us . All I can hear is the volume and I just tune out.

Enigma said...

His campaign resulted in endless, absolute establishment humor so his win thereby broke their minds. They have not recovered yet, and likely will die without ever recovering.

Youtube recap of 2016 media failures:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4J6JZVN4_4

RideSpaceMountain said...

"I suspect that the people who loathe him don't even remember — or would never have conceded — that he did anything positive."

Well yeah. That's always difficult to do when one is permanently foaming at the mouth and asking constantly to see the manager. Loathe is too kind a word for rabid suburban housewives with bad haircuts and middling IQs tuned constantly to MSNBC.

Leland said...

Google AI will admit Trump had positives, but then provide a long list of the negatives. Then again, Google AI will attribute "firsts" to Biden that he didn't even do. It puts the A in artificial intelligence.

I looked for a transcript, and all I found was opinion pieces chopping up Trump's statements. One even claimed it was a luke warm reception and boring speech. All I watched was Trump's plane coming into land, and there seemed a rather large crowd to greet him. Far more than I've seen for Biden, anywhere. Well, there would be a crowd to greet Biden in Ohio, but he won't go there.

John henry said...

I suspect that they would rather you don't read a transcript.

They want to be able to tell you what they wanted it to say, not have you read what he actually said.

John Henry

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

He did a lot of great things. All of it squandered by the corrupt left and Trump's dick-stepping & twitter obsession. While he was tweeting... the left were setting the traps.

Robert Cook said...

Donald Trump when happy: "Me! Me! Me! I'm the greatest and smartest President/Businessman/Human Being who ever lived! I can grab women's pussies and shoot men on 5th Avenue and I'll be allowed to do it all!"

Donald Trump when sad: "Me! Me! Me! Wah! Wah! Wah! I'm the most innocent and mistreated person who ever lived!"

Creola Soul said...

He’s not wrong about the abuses. The unwillingness to control the border is but one example. At the same time the Department of the Interior denies the permits for a Native Alaska village to build a one-lane, ten mile road through a wilderness area in order to have access to an all-weather airport for medical evacuations. Oh, and there’s already fire roads throughout the wilderness and they allow hunting in the wilderness. So the arguments about protecting wildlife are specious and it’s all about catering to the Washington greenies. It is one of the most egregious examples of blatant racism today.

Ann Althouse said...

At the very least, people should remember that he defeated Isis.

Third Coast said...

How different would the country be now if Hillary hadn't financed the Steele Dossier, the CIA and FBI hadn't started their illegal spying campaigns, the media hadn't constantly amplified the false info leaked to them by the intelligence community and government bureaucrats, no Mueller investigation, no impeachments, etc., etc.? Imagine if Trump only had to fight back against the usual BS the MSM and Dems throw at any Republican. We could've had four years of decent government policy with no wars overseen by a colorful president. None of this crap was Trump's fault.

Dogma and Pony Show said...

The success of Trump's policies is the reason for the left's unbridled hatred of him. Trump was the kid shouting that the emperor had no clothes. He was shouting to America, "Look, this globalist, 'environmentalist,' America-last policies path we're on is killing the middle class; there's another path forward; let's take it." He succeeded wildly in two respects. The first was in demonstrating that someone like him could be elected, i.e., that there's a huge segment of the electorate who don't agree with woke socialism. The second was in demonstrating that a rightward shift in government policies can make a big difference in people's lives, even in the short term. So naturally Trump presents an existential threat to the left and they need to pull out all the stops in seeking to discredit and marginalize him.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Under Trump -The economy was thriving.. People had hope.
Tax cuts gave large and medium sized companies room for raises. (the left conveniently forget that)

That's why the corrupt left used the virus - right on Q.


(Trump without Trump is still the best option NOW.. With tRump - we get more Crook Biden. More war. More lies, More Democrat Party fascism... etc...)

alanc709 said...

Wait, Ann.... I thought Obama defeated Isis. Obama ended climate change, too, didn't he? I remember a speech he gave where the oceans ended their rise, and a whole bunch of neat stuff. All Trump did was collude with Russia. No peace in the Middle East with Trump, endless new wars, a failing economy, blacks unable to find jobs.... do I need to mention I'm being sarcastic?

Milo Minderbinder said...

I agree with Trump. Castor oil doesn’t seem bad after Biden.

Bill R said...

Personally, I would be interested in Althouse's comments on why Trump was so hated,

He governed as a moderate conservative and his policies were generally successful.

But the raw, insane hatred goes on to this very day.

Jupiter said...

"Lamenting all the investigations he has faced in the last eight years that have — to date — not resulted in charges, ..."

I'm going to guess that was written by a woman. The author very clearly wants to have it both ways, and expects to get away with it. Prove me wrong!

Michael said...

The hatred for Trump is purely personal. Ask a Trump hater to name two policies he supported and you will get a combination look of bewilderment and fury.

jim5301 said...

"I did want to say that, for me, the most successful part is when he lists and elaborates on his accomplishments as President. I suspect that the people who loathe him don't even remember — or would never have conceded — that he did anything positive."

I have to admit - the last time a took a train it was on time.

BillieBob Thorton said...

"Personally, I would be interested in Althouse's comments on why Trump was so hated,"

He made the unforgivable sin of defeating Hillery!

Chuck said...

Althouse:

Searchable unofficial text/transcript from C-SPAN.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?526860-1/president-trump-holds-rally-waco-texas

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Personality matters.

Trump's personality repels more than it attracts. with that, the positives are drowned out.

wendybar said...

They are coming for us. Just look at how they treat his supporters that the Capitol police ushered into the Capitol. It isn't pretty. Gitmo terrorists are treated way better.

wendybar said...

Third Coast said...
How different would the country be now if Hillary hadn't financed the Steele Dossier, the CIA and FBI hadn't started their illegal spying campaigns, the media hadn't constantly amplified the false info leaked to them by the intelligence community and government bureaucrats, no Mueller investigation, no impeachments, etc., etc.? Imagine if Trump only had to fight back against the usual BS the MSM and Dems throw at any Republican. We could've had four years of decent government policy with no wars overseen by a colorful president. None of this crap was Trump's fault.

3/26/23, 9:24 AM

THIS!! 100% THIS^^^^^

BUMBLE BEE said...

Accomplishments matter. Personality is bullshit. See John F. Kennedy.

Ampersand said...

There's a defeatist vibe on the political right. People have given up on winning. Lots of Trump supporters, sensing that the odds are against them, derive a psychic reward from the Noble Defeat toward which they are dragging us.
Sad.

Dude1394 said...

As on just about every issue the last 6-8 years, Trump is correct.

I would literally like to see the republicans force a government default if the FBI is not disbanded and re-instituted. It is that important that the FBI ( and conversely the DOJ ) not continue to be the political hit team for the democrat party and the deep state.

hombre said...

Democrats demonize Republicans. It's all they have other than lawfare and the dole in one form or another.

Trump is a better target than most because of his excessive boorishness. He would be wise to tone that down and avail himself of the opprtunity to capitalize on his persecution by corrupt Democrats. Stopping the name-calling of other Republicans would be a good start.

cfs said...

wendybar said...
They are coming for us. Just look at how they treat his supporters that the Capitol police ushered into the Capitol. It isn't pretty. Gitmo terrorists are treated way better.

3/26/23, 10:35 AM

____

Read the article at the link below and tell me it doesn't make your blood boil at the blatant abuses by the prosecution.

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2023/03/25/new-video-shows-police-officers-inciting-crowd-on-january-6th-prosecutors-desperately-try-to-hide-footage-n721425

Dude1394 said...

"Blogger Bill R said...
Personally, I would be interested in Althouse's comments on why Trump was so hated,

He governed as a moderate conservative and his policies were generally successful.

But the raw, insane hatred goes on to this very day."

That would be interesting, but I think Schumer laid it out pretty neatly.

https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/27/schumer-intelligence-agencies-have-six-ways-from-sunday-of-getting-back-at-you/

Harder to address, though, is the other half of the story—something Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer spoke of in glee, in response to then-president-elect Trump’s criticism of U.S. intelligence agencies. “Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community — they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” Schumer told MSNBC’s host Rachel Maddow.

Joe Smith said...

Could anyone reading this post withstand such scrutiny?

PigHelmet said...

If you have the audio, you can always use OpenAI’s Whisper service (https://huggingface.co/spaces/openai/whisper) to create a transcript. Results are truly remarkable.

Yancey Ward said...

"There's a defeatist vibe on the political right. People have given up on winning. Lots of Trump supporters, sensing that the odds are against them, derive a psychic reward from the Noble Defeat toward which they are dragging us."

The purely political fight is over- the Left won. Mail-in-ballots guarantee there won't be Republican President again in my lifetime. The Democrats now have a firm lock on 270 electoral votes. The Republicans have a firm lock on only about 170. Without Trump on the ballot, the only state in the traditional midwest that is red is Indiana. Ohio and Iowa are, at best, still tossups.

The Senate is close to being unwinnable with the leftward shift of Arizona and the continuing drift left of North Carolina and Georgia. The House will follow as soon as the Democrats regain control of the Supreme Court and are allowed to gerrymander from the judicial bench.

narciso said...

well but they had already set out the hounds, a proof that the intelligence community so called has no real purpose, certainly not dealing with out enemies,

Rusty said...


Blogger Bill R said...
Personally, I would be interested in Althouse's comments on why Trump was so hated,

He governed as a moderate conservative and his policies were generally successful.

But the raw, insane hatred goes on to this very day.
A lot of people on the left don't reason. They just react. They are told by their betters that Trump is evil so they go around saying Trump is evil. It's not that they don't have the capacity to reason it's just that it's easier for them to have an enemy. As someone mentioned above name one policy of Trumps that has endangered our country and all you will hear are attacks on Trumps personality. They cannot give you a reasoned argument.
As an example look at what the resident progressives have written here.
I enjoyed the country being prosperous. I enjoyed the fact that we were drawing down our troops and getting them home. I enjoyed the peace in the middle east. Black unemployment was at the lowest it had been in 70 years. The price of gas was $2.00.
The blind, unreasoned hatred of the democrat left destroyed all of that.
What we have now is what the left has desired with all their hearts. The destruction of America.

Michael Fitzgerald said...

Gawd, these dingbats and their clueless takes on Trump's personality. Among other accomplishments, the guy was the star of a top-rated television program for years! I can't count the number of times I heard someone say You're fired! in a Donald Trump voice. Everyone loved Trump until he challenged the empire, then he became the subject of the most comprehensive character assassination in history. All the jackoffs who gave him awards for his work helping minorities started calling him racist. And the braindead just nod along....

lonejustice said...

I think one of Trump's great successes was the Abraham Accords Peace Agreement. It's about as close as we've ever come to bringing peace to the Middle East.

wendybar said...

cfs @11:11- It does make my blood boil...as do ALL the other things the Never Trumpers did to this man, who actually WAS trying to Make America Great again. The Politicians themselves couldn't handle that....that would just show how little they are really needed.

Mikey NTH said...

Geez, Ampersand, you nailed that one. A lot of people on the right seem to get a perverse joy out of perpetual DOOM!!!! that all they do is cry and whine and carp no matter what. If the news is bad, it is forever doom; if the news is good it doesn't matter because forever doom.

I can't live negatively and I don't ser how other people can orhow they get such glee out of it.

Temujin said...

His list of accomplishments as President are pretty substantial. And when you juxtapose them with the current clown show we have, who's priority seem to be getting pronouns correct, and placing mediocre people in highly important positions, and when they unsurprisingly fail, blaming in on 'the previous administration', well...it's massive downturn, in every sense of the world.

Lurker21 said...

Hatred for the other side is the thread running through all of our recent politics. It's a given, whoever is in the White House. That comes from the 24/7 access to opinion sources and the lack of balance in the media.

It's more intense with Trump. He's a larger than life figure. He seeks publicity and gets it even when he's not looking for it. A large part of the country sees him as a vulgarian, a larger than life vulgarian they just can't get away from.

Also, he's not part of the political Establishment, so the Establishment views him as a threat, and this is magnified into seeing him as a threat to democracy itself. Then it becomes a matter of finding or inventing a focus to make the threat to "Our Democracy" look real. First it was Russian collusion, now it's "the Insurrection."

Ann Althouse said...

Thanks, PigHelmet

I’ll have to try that sometime. It could help me a lot!

Chuck said...

Althouse you asked for a link to the text. I gave it to you. You posted a bunch of other comments, but not mine, so I'm not sure if you read my comment and got the link.

Ann Althouse said...
At the very least, people should remember that he defeated Isis.


I used the C-SPAN search figure to find Trump's single mention of "Isis." It's in the section of text that is captured at 0036:32. And that is also a section where Trump spends about three disjointed sentences on accomplishments (?!) of his Administration. In short order, he claims:
~ His polling lead. [He cites a Catturd -- I am not joking -- online poll of his readers] "69 for Trump. 18 or 19 for DeSanctimonious."
~He then immediately pivots to a couple of non-sequitur sentences; "If I never fought the Marxists, the lobbyists, the RINO's, and I fixed our military. We defeated Isis..."
~And immediately continues, "...and gave you the largest tax cut in the history of our country."
~"We gave you the largest regulation cuts in the history of our country. That is why our businesses were doing so well."

Now, Althouse; you can continue reading that section or watching the video recording. Trump goes on, NOT mentioning any of his oft-claimed administrative achievements, but rather more personal grievances about how he has been victimized. I'll let you judge for yourself, but to me, the people behind Trump were bored almost to senescence. "Tax cuts" got a muted cheer, (surprise, surprise) but that's about it. The Waco crowd wanted the culture war shit. I think that is what the Trump 38% wants.

Robert Cook said...

"At the very least, people should remember that he defeated Isis."

Did he, actually? All by himself?

It's more accurate to say that he finished a job that had been underway and significantly completed before he was elected President.

Jim at said...

I have to admit - the last time a took a train it was on time.

Oooh. The Hitler Card.
Fresh take.

Wince said...

To the establishment, Trump presented the inverse threat of Occupy Wall Street.

The establishment neutered the OWS movement by weaponizing racial divisions and stoking resentments as the new radical chic distraction and, as a bonus to the more clever, a viable rent-seeking career path. Divide and conquer. That, along with climate catastrophism.

As a counterpoint to both OWS's brand of Marxist redistribution and the establishment, Trump's selling point was a growing economy that raised all boats. No need for minorities to adhere to the Democrats in huge majorities any longer.

The appeal of Trump's free market, transracial populism was simply unacceptable to the establishment. Hence, Trump had to be made into a monster.

Robert Cook said...

This is the link I intended to post above regarding Trump having finished a job already underway before he became president.

Robert Cook said...

"It's more intense with Trump. He's a larger than life figure. He seeks publicity and gets it even when he's not looking for it."

There's never a time when Trump is not looking for publicity and attention.

"Under Trump -The economy was thriving.. People had hope.
Tax cuts gave large and medium sized companies room for raises. (the left conveniently forget that)"


Maybe because it's hard to determine how much--or even if--the tax cuts to companies were passed on in significant or sustaining salary increases for their workers. In short, whatever benefit workers realized appears to have been minimal, at best.

Rusty said...

lonejustice said...
"I think one of Trump's great successes was the Abraham Accords Peace Agreement. It's about as close as we've ever come to bringing peace to the Middle East."
That alone is mindboggling. That the middle east no longer has to march in lock step with the Palestinians. The more they come to terms with Israel the less we have to pay to keep the peace.

Rusty said...

Bob. When the economy is thriving workers have the opportunity to go where they are best treated. That happened under Trump.

Darkisland said...

One thing people never talk about is how President Trump, for the first time in our history, taxed wealth at the federal level.

You would think that the Cooks and other of that line would think that is a good thing.

Others will disagree that taxing wealth is good but that is a discussion for another day. Good or bad, President Trump was the first to ever figure out how to get around the Constitutional prohibition on taxing wealth.

Even he could not do it directly. He did it indirectly by limiting the amount of state and local property taxes could be deducted from federal income taxes.

One would think this would have made the fascists happy. It did not. They moaned and wailed about it. But their president Brandon was not restored the deduction, either.

So a lot of wealthy people in high tax states continue to pay the "Trump Wealth Tax"

John Henry

narciso said...

reason not take them seriously about anything after that, as if we did before, but the system doesn't reward right conclusions,

narciso said...

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/03/the_public_health_establishment_that_flew_too_near_to_the_sun.html

Mason G said...

"One would think this would have made the fascists happy. It did not. They moaned and wailed about it."

Progressives (okay- fascists) support high taxes. Just not on themselves.

Mike said...

He is such a whining baby. Everything thrown at him has been but a summer breeze compared to what most people experience from our legal system. If any of us had done some of this crap, we'd already be in prison and financially ruined. He is embodiment of one law for the elites; one for the rest of us.

Known Unknown said...

Cook splitting hairs between Trump and War Criminal Obama on ISIS is funny.

Mr Wibble said...

The more they come to terms with Israel the less we have to pay to keep the peace.

That's why they hate him: the global managerial class makes its money from building and maintaining these vast unstable networks and situations. They focused on the idea that "solving" the Palestinian issue because going that route creates lots of cushy jobs for the useless over-credentialed class. Lots of expensive foreign junkets. Lots of think-tank jobs.
Lots of book sales and speaking fees. Lots of "assistant to the deputy secretary for..." positions for sons of the donor class. You can apply it across the board, not just the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Nancy Reyes said...

re reading the speech.
You tube has a way to read the transcript on it's site for many(but not all) videos. Go to the right of "Share" and you will see three dots. CLick on it, and you will see transcript.
Paste and copy to note pad and voila, you can read it (with some mistakes due to poor diction of course).
''

n.n said...

Progressives (okay- fascists) support high taxes. Just not on themselves.

Trickle-down ("redistributive change") capital at Her pleasure.

traditionalguy said...

DJT WAS BY FAR THE BEST PRESIDENT IN OUR LIFETIME.

glacial erratic said...

I recall during Trump's presidency that the media would routinely say things like "Trump made another racist tweet today". But they never showed the actual text. We were just supposed to assume that their interpretation was correct.

Maybe, just maybe, the tweet wasn't racist at all. Maybe, just maybe, most of America would have agreed with Trump.

Achilles said...

John henry said...
I suspect that they would rather you don't read a transcript.

They want to be able to tell you what they wanted it to say, not have you read what he actually said.

John Henry


Robert Cook said...


Donald Trump when happy: "Me! Me! Me! I'm the greatest and smartest President/Businessman/Human Being who ever lived! I can grab women's pussies and shoot men on 5th Avenue and I'll be allowed to do it all!"

Donald Trump when sad: "Me! Me! Me! Wah! Wah! Wah! I'm the most innocent and mistreated person who ever lived!"

Ann Althouse said...

Nancy Reyes said "You tube has a way to read the transcript on it's site for many(but not all) videos. Go to the right of "Share" and you will see three dots. CLick on it, and you will see transcript. Paste and copy to note pad and voila, you can read it (with some mistakes due to poor diction of course)."

Wow! Thanks! That will be incredibly easy to do. The other method explain above wasn't intuitive for me. Couldn't get it to happen. Your method didn't work on the iPad, but where I need it to work is on the desktop (iMac) and I tried it just now and it work. Thanks so much!

driverdonald said...

I’m not really interested in all that stuff politicians talk about. I’m interested in money. Or should I say economic opportunity.
I do agree with Nikki Haley who says “both parties are spending us into bankruptcy”.

driverdonald said...

I’m not really interested in all that stuff politicians talk about. I’m interested in money. Or should I say economic opportunity.
I do agree with Nikki Haley who says “both parties are spending us into bankruptcy”.

Cappy said...

Well, he's right.

Robert Cook said...

"One thing people never talk about is how President Trump, for the first time in our history, taxed wealth at the federal level.

"You would think that the Cooks and other of that line would think that is a good thing."


I don't even know what you mean. The wealthy benefited under Trump more than the not-wealthy.