President Donald Trump on Tuesday gave a press conference in the White House Rose Garden where he gave a 63-minute monologue, attacking Joe Biden, China and European Union.
In the Rose Garden, in was what meant to be a press conference with journalists, turned out to be Trump giving an hour-long monologue attacking Biden on numerous fronts – for the state of the country’s roads and bridges, for a movement to “abolish the suburbs” and his involvement with “unbelievably expensive” Paris Climate Accord. He also claimed Biden’s “entire career has been a gift to the Chinese Communist Party.” Many of Trump’s accusations were misleading or made without evidence.
Trump also derided Biden’s mental abilities – something that he has been doing repeatedly, including earlier challenging him to take a dementia test.
“Let him define the word carbon, because he won’t be able to,” Trump said.
Another topic that Trump addressed was the European Union’s travel ban for U.S. citizens. In response, Trump said he “banned” Europeans from visiting the U.S. and then claimed without evidence that the European Union was formed “to take advantage of the United States,” adding that Europe “has never treated us well.”
Trump also boasted about withdrawing from “China-dominated WHO” and repeated his accusation, blaming China for their slow early coronavirus response
“And make no mistake: We hold China fully responsible for concealing the virus and unleashing it upon the world. They could’ve stopped it. They should’ve stopped it. It would’ve been very easy to do at the source when it happened,” said Trump.
Political experts compared Trump’s Rose Garden appearances to his MAGA rallies as he seemed to use the same strategy for both, turning what was meant to be a dialogue with reporters into a heated monologue.
“Never before has a president arrived in the Rose Garden with a blow torch,” said former President Barack Obama’s advisor David Axelrod. “Presidents may make announcements from the Rose Garden, they may make even oblique references to opposition, but no president has walked into the Rose Garden and basically delivered a one-hour excoriation about their opponent.”
Republican strategist Karl Rove, an informal Trump adviser, similarly evaluated the president on Fox News after Trump’s performance on Tuesday.
“Imagine,” he told Politico, “if the president had been focused only on Hong Kong and only on China and had made the point about what he is doing to confront him. Instead, we had the 64-minute campaign event. Don’t use presidential events as campaign events, try to turn campaign events into presidential events.”
