When asked what Donald Trump spoke about at CPAC on Saturday, I would ordinarily be tempted to say “About two hours,” not as a put-down of the president but because of my own limited attention span. When someone talks politics at me for hours on end, I tend to tune it out after while.
But not Trump at CPAC yesterday. He treated his viewers — and I say this without exaggeration or malice — to an honest-to-goodness stand-up comedy routine. I found myself actually laughing out loud at times, and so did attendees of the annual event.
If you missed the performance, much of it improvisational, I strongly urge you to watch the speech in its entirety, which can be found here beginning at 4:14:11. If nothing else, watch the clip below, which runs only a little over a minute. The subject is the Green New Deal, and his observations are hilarious.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
.@realDonaldTrump on the Green New Deal. #CPAC2019 #WhatMakesAmericaGreat pic.twitter.com/ZvqysB8C5r
— CPAC 2019 (@CPAC) March 2, 2019
Lest I be accused of underestimating the power of the speech, I should emphasize that it was the sort of message that can resonate with independents, a group that shied away from Trump during the midterms. Libertarian Nick Gillespie characterized the speech at Reason as “a bedazzling mix of bravado, B.S., humor, and positive vision no Democrat will be able to top,” adding:
There is simply no potential candidate in the Democratic Party who wouldn’t be absolutely blown off the stage by him.
I realize of course that Trump’s detractors — even those who were entertained by Barack Obama’s occasional attempts at wit — will accuse him of being unpresidential, but they would do that regardless of what he said and the manner in which he said it.
Spoiler alert: The best line from the above clip in my view is “When the wind stops blowing, that’s the end of your electric. … Darling, darling is the wind blowing today? I would like to watch television.”
