28 August, 2017
As President Trump concluded his divisive 77-minute speech in Phoenix on Tuesday - attacking the media over its coverage of his reaction to the violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. - CNN's Don Lemon told viewers he wasn't sure what to say.
"For the most part, honestly, these are really, really dishonest people", Trump told a rally at the Phoenix Convention Center. "They are bad people". So they're having a hard time. "I don't believe that because I know what he believes in his heart", Christie said.
Critics said that Steve Bannon, Mr Trump's former chief strategist, had had an influence on the President's remarks equating white supremacists and new-Nazis with the left-wing demonstrators who opposed them at the rally. "The only people giving a platform to these hate groups is the media itself and the fake news".
"We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence", the president said, conveniently omitting his assertion that "many sides" were to blame - the remark that sparked the bipartisan firestorm in the first place.
Other stars slammed the president's supporters. The President will be joined on stage by Vice President Mike Pence and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson.
Trump's also spoke in Phoenix amid concerns he would pardon Joe Arpaio, the tough-talking former Maricopa County sheriff, of federal criminal contempt charges for violating an order to stop his crackdown on illegal immigrants.
Trump managed to assuage some of his detractors two days later - last Monday -when he condemned neo-Nazis and white supremacists by name.
I can not accept a president who believes there's a moral equivalency between George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who were founders of this country, and Robert E. Lee, who tried to destroy it.
Trump, who is fond of claiming television networks don't pan to show his crowds, took things a step further on Tuesday, claiming CNN had turned off its cameras altogether.
"But you know what?"
"I want to applaud the many protestors in Boston who are speaking out against bigotry and hate", he said.
Trump also took swipes at Flake and McCain, without naming them, encouraging supporters to lobby them to support repealing and replacing Obamacare.
Instead, Trump bemoaned that the Senate was only "one vote away" from passing a health care overhaul.
"And nobody wants me to talk about your other senator, who is weak on borders, weak on crime", he added, in an apparent reference to Flake.
He also bashed "the obstructionist Democrats" and vowed if "we have to close down our government, we are building that wall" on the southern USA border with Mexico. "Let me be very clear".
"(To) hear and see Americans embrace Nazi hatred, even though their numbers are small, is catastrophic to people who understand Hitler's evil", O'Reilly wrote.
Although Trump's high-profile warm-up acts suggested the president's speech would be about unity, the president was more intent on settling scores. What we have witnessed is a total eclipse of the facts: Someone who came out onstage and lied directly to the American people and left things out that he said in an attempt to rewrite history, especially when it comes to Charlottesville.
"And maybe - probably not, but maybe - something positive can come about".
