In Post-Arraignment Speech, Trump Delights in the Eye of the Storm

Those hoping that indictments will humble President Trump are waking up to the reality that he remains the personality he always was — and if he responds, as he did, to even this dark American Tuesday with a glittering, gold-plated speech following his arraignment, don’t expect him to fold up the circus tent any time soon.“I was born for the storm,” President Jackson said, “and a calm does not suit me.” Mr. Trump, who hung Old Hickory’s portrait in the Oval Office, thundered at Mar-a-Lago, upbeat and full of sarcasm, railing against corruption of the American judicial system that prompted ridicule from the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele.“Imagine if this happened,” Mr. Bukele tweeted, “to leading opposition candidate here.” He was referring to banana republics where, as my former boss and pollster, Dick Morris, once told me, advisors to losing candidates flee the country as soon as the election ends.Mr. Trump described his employees and family being threatened with jail time unless they turn on him as “right out of the old Soviet Union.” The speech demonstrated rare discipline with only short mentions of his claims that the 2020 election had been stolen.This restraint was not because armchair campaign advisors have long urged him to move on or show the evidence, but because he acts on instinct, and in this moment — with the eyes of the nation fixed on him at the eye of the storm — he couldn’t waste a single lightning bolt.Mr. Trump mocked charges such as mishandling classified documents — being dealt with by federal prosecutors, who haven’t handed up charges yet — by laying out a case against his foes, including other former presidents and Secretary Clinton, who he insisted ought to have been prosecuted for her unsecured server.It’s noteworthy that Mr. Trump refrained from sparking the “Lock her up” chant, looking instead to 2024 with an eye on President Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, the suppression of Hunter Biden’s laptop, and other vulnerabilities.“Right now,” Mr. Trump said, “the U.S. is a mess. Our economy is crashing. Inflation is out of control. … China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea have formed together a menacing, destructive coalition. … Our currency is crashing and will soon no longer be the world standard.”The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, who brought the 34 felony indictments, was almost lost in the blinding rain. Mr. Bragg is, Mr. Trump said, a “radical left, George Soros-backed prosecutor … who campaigned on the fact that he would ‘get President Trump.’”Mr. Trump also went after the judge in the case, Juan Merchan — who had warned him to restrain his rhetoric — calling the jurist “a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family whose daughter worked for Kamala Harris” and alleging he “receives money from the Biden-Harris campaign.”Potential indictments were subjected to prebuttals, including those by the district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, Fanni Willis, investigating whether he broke the law by insisting the state “find the votes” he alleged had been lost to ballot shenanigans.“This fake case,” Mr. Trump said, “was only brought to interfere with the upcoming 2024 election, and it should be dropped immediately.” The Department of Justice special counsel, Jack Smith, leading the classified documents investigation — which Mr. Trump labeled “the boxes hoax” — is, the former president said, “a lunatic threatening people every single day.”New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, Mr. Trump said, “also campaigned on, ‘I will get Trump. … What is fueling me now is Trump. … We are definitely going to sue him. We are going to be a real pain in the ass.’”The threat recalled an interview Mr. Trump gave to Playboy in 1990. “When they’re after my ass,” he said, “I push back a hell of a lot harder than I was pushed in the first place. If somebody tries to push me around, he’s going to pay a price.”A strain of America loves its outlaws and anti-heroes — and, like Old Hickory and Mr. Trump, they delight in a storm. The 2024 forecast now calls for more dark clouds, disappointing those who hoped indictments would bring a return to the blue skies of Washington’s status quo, leaving them no choice but to batten down the hatches.

In Post-Arraignment Speech, Trump Delights in the Eye of the Storm

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