Trumps State Of The Union Speech Wont Be The Reset Pundits Desperately Want

Early insight  into the details of President Donald Trump ’s first State of the Union speech suggests his Tuesday address will be restrained and placatory, challenging his penchant for angry outbursts and divisive rhetoric.

Media figures, meanwhile, will be challenged not to give him too much credit for that. 

Unlike the off-the-cuff remarks Trump makes during his campaign rallies and press conferences, and the controversial tweets he fires off at all hours of the night, Trump’s State of the Union address has been meticulously prepared in advance and will presumably be read off a teleprompter.

He won’t call white supremacists “very fine people ” or call a protesting athlete a “son of a bitch ,” and, if the pattern continues, journalists and pundits will praise him for acting “presidential.”

That praise would be unwarranted, critics are saying ahead of the address. 

Yet The Washington Post has already suggested that toned-down rhetoric in Trump’s speech could be “a chance for reset” in a Saturday article titled “Can a divisive president flip the script ?”

There’s little evidence that he even wants to, regardless of what he says in his address on Tuesday. The Trump presidency has been marked by one divisive, exclusionary policy after another , and he continues to lash out at Democrats and other political nemeses on Twitter on a nearly daily basis. 

Trump has already made it very clear who he is with his behavior and policies, former Bush speechwriter David Frum said on CNN Monday.

“Look, you can train a seal to sit on the side of a pool for an hour and behave itself,” he said in reference to Trump’s upcoming speech. “That doesn’t make it no longer a seal.”

Despite this, pundits and journalists continue to tell Americans they should feel hopeful when Trump meets the bare minimum of decorum in his speeches. 

The Post published another widely panned op-ed  on Saturday from CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, who wrote that Trump’s prepared speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, was “forthright, intelligent and conciliatory, embracing the world rather than condemning it.” His speech, Zakaria continued, should leave us encouraged that Trump isn’t out to “destroy” the American political system after all.

That’s a remarkably low bar for being encouraged. Zakaria’s upbeat outlook in light of the Davos speech came just days after reports emerged that Trump attempted to fire Robert Mueller , the special counsel overseeing the FBI ’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, last summer. 

Even Zakaria conceded that the next day, Trump “might veer off in an entirely different direction.” By Sunday morning, the president was picking a fight on Twitter with rapper Jay-Z, seemingly over allegations that Trump had called Haiti and African nations “shithole countries.” 

Like Zakaria, many media figures had similar praise for Trump last spring when he addressed a joint session of Congress for the first time and roused emotions by honoring the widow of a fallen soldier. The prepared speech was widely celebrated as a turning point for Trump, who was lauded for finally finding his footing in the political sphere. 

“He became president of the United States in that moment, period,” CNN commentator Van Jones said .

“That was one of the most extraordinary moments you have ever seen in American politics,” he continued.

The White House website even has a page rounding up the positive praise for the February speech. It “Struck an Inspiring, Even Bipartisan Tone,” the Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote; a “Tone of Unity and Optimism,” according to the Deseret News; and was an “Optimistic Message to the Nation,” the Albuquerque Journal wrote.

But the new, presidential Trump didn’t last long. Less than a week later, Trump unleashed a series of tweets accusing former President Barack Obama of wiretapping him at Trump tower and called him a “bad (or sick) guy!”

Months later, media figures again praised Trump after he tweeted his sympathies and read measured remarks from a teleprompter following the mass shooting at a Las Vegas music festival. 

“He has been very low key about this one, very presidential, if you will,” CNN’s John King said.