Despite accusations of falsehoods from the opposition, former Republican Senator, Rick Santorum, called President Trump’s primetime speech from the Oval Office, a “win” for the president.
Speaking on CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time” immediately after the speech, Santorum described the address as “a win for the president, and on several fronts.” While being met with scoffs by left-wing pundits on the same panel, Santorum spoke over their attempted interruptions explaining that he felt Trump deserved praise for showing “a softer side,” and for making “a more compassionate argument” for his wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
“We need this, the presidential Donald Trump, the Donald Trump who thought through this speech, worked with people, worked with his Homeland Security people and put a presentation together,” added Santorum, before being drowned out by his opposition on the panel.
“A Crisis of Heart and Soul”
Instead of using his first ever address from the Oval Office to declare a “national emergency” as many suspected the president would. Instead, he described the mounting tensions at the southern border as a “crisis of the heart and a crisis of the soul.”
Overall, as Santorum said, we saw a “softer” side of Trump throughout the speech, where he stressed the human cost of what he called the “growing humanitarian and security crisis” of surging illegal immigration.
He also showed a far more willing to compromise on the stalemate that has forced the government shutdown, than his Democratic opposition, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, who gave their uninspiring rebuttal to the president, looking like the “murder twins” from The Shining.
Failing to recognize the many points in the speech where the president showed empathy for the families at the border, and a willingness to bend to the will of the Democratic House on specific issues of border security, Pelosi and Schumer stood their ground in their rebuttal presentation. Pelosi opens their remarks by saying, “Much of what we have heard from President Trump throughout this senseless shutdown has been full of misinformation and even malice…” What followed was mostly a criticism condemning Trump’s rhetoric and what they called his “obsession” with building a border wall.
Incidentally, the president did not mention “the wall,” until close to the end of his speech, and even then, backed off of the “concrete wall,” he had been so adamant about on the campaign trail and talked of a “steel barrier,” such as the Democrats want.
Divides Deepen
Despite Santorum and many others feeling that the president did everything he had to do in the speech, given the Democratic response to it, it seems it accomplished little more than deepening the divides between the two sides, and drawing still another line in the sand ahead of talks to reopen the government, scheduled for today.
Most analysts agree that when all was said and done, neither the president’s emotional speech nor the Democrat’s stoic rebuttal did anything to move either party any closer to ending the 18-day partial government shutdown.
“Nobody convinced anybody,” tweeted well-known and respected conservative Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, moments after the conclusion of the Democratic response from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer.
