A week after the Charlottesville controversy, the president attacks the media, Obama and GOP senators
By Josh Dawsey and Matthew Nussbaum | POLITICO
resident Donald Trump spent much of last week hearing from friends, donors and aides that he needed to dial back some of his rhetoric in the wake of Charlottesville. He gave his response on Tuesday night in Phoenix, with an angry, meandering and frequently disingenuous 75-minute rally address designed to soothe his ego, rev up his base, and remind the naysayers in Washington and New York that he can still command love from his crowd.
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Aides said he had a carefully vetted message on a TelePrompTer, but his eyes quickly wandered away for a discursive, meandering torching of the news media —who he said didn’t care about the country.
The speech came after a tumultuous two weeks for Trump, who spent his summer break at his New Jersey golf club making news that distracted from efforts to streamline decision-making in the West Wing under new chief of staff John Kelly and to restart Trump’s stalled legislative agenda as September approaches.
