Either a headline writer at FoxNews.com doesn’t know the definition of the word “spiel” or someone was taking a swipe at Donald Trump’s planned prime time address tomorrow night defending his #TrumpShutdown stunt.
Eagle-eyed reader Andrew S. captured this headline at the top of FoxNews.com not long after it was announced that Trump wants to make a prime time, televised address tomorrow night:
Merriam-Webster defines “spiel” as “a voluble line of often extravagant talk : PITCH.” In other words, P.T. Barnum-esque. Inadvertently or not, that sounds like a perfect description of what viewers are in for tomorrow evening. The Washington Post reports:
Tuesday’s speech shapes up as both a policy issue and a political stunt — an attempt by the president to persuade the public that his vision of a border wall trumps Democratic opposition to it.
According to The Post, it’s not even clear how many networks will air the address:
As of 3 p.m. Eastern time Monday, only the cable networks CNN, Fox News and Fox Business Network had confirmed that they would carry Trump’s speech. The major broadcast networks said they were considering the request or remained silent when asked for comment.
Someone at FoxNews.com realized that labeling the pitch as a “spiel” didn’t fit in with its Trump TV mission. The headline was subsequently changed:
The Pence White House does not seem to understand how weak their position here is. The reality should become clearer by the end of the week.
Again, maybe I’m completely wrong and Pence’s spokesman will instead apologize to everyone and demonstrate that he’s learned even a single lesson about his pointless attempts to bully the country.
It will be fascinating to watch the 5 Repug Justices on the Supreme Court twist and turn to find some legal justification for their President. They will likely succeed with Justice Brett “I don’t black out” Kavanugh writing the 5-4 decision.
Frankly, I’d rather see him take the latter tact – declaring the emergency, since that will mean he can no longer hold nearly a million federal employees hostage and will be compelled to just sign the budget bill the Senate already approved before his tantrum. Because if he doesn’t need the budgetary approval of Congress to take this action, there’s no need to force TSA, Border Patrol and Coast Guard to work without pay, to say nothing of the other hundreds of thousands of public employees currently being held without compensation. And after the employees have begun being paid again, the obvious litigation to come will demonstrate immediately that there is no actual border emergency, and that the Pence White House’s action was taken irrationally – which would potentially open the door to other remedies.
The point of all this is that there is no border emergency – only Trump’s panic that he will not be able to get anyone to pay for his vicious racist middle finger “Wall”. He has no way to compel Mexico to pay for it, and he can’t get Congress to pay for it. And if he tries to just do it anyway, he’ll be stopped in court – something one would think he’d learned his lesson about from his many failures in civilian business catastrophes.
On the other hand, maybe Trump will appear contrite tomorrow night and offer a heartfelt humble apology to the American people, especially those public employees he has disgraced, before backing down on this matter. But his track record does not indicate that this is anything of which he is capable.