Trump’s 2-hour diatribe doesn’t address America’s true status 

Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution provides that the president shall “give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union” from time to time. Last week, President Trump did so in a speech that lasted one hour, 48 minutes — the longest on record.  

Filled with glitzy entrances and exits, awards, tear jerks and interactive sits to stands, the speech was long on vituperation but short on reliable information. It was a variety show worthy of P.T. Barnum, a harangue worthy of Cicero’s attacks on Cataline — and it was riddled with lies.

Seething with anger, Trump demonized the Democrats “These people are crazy,” he declared.  “Democrats are destroying our country.” Really?

Trump called Chief Justice Roberts’s decision invalidating Trump’s illegal tariffs “unfortunate,” as Roberts grimly glared at him, stone-faced. The rebuke was mild compared with the White House presser following the decision when he said he was “ashamed” of those justices who had ruled against him, calling them a “disgrace to our nation.” 

Sinking in the polls, even before his unpopular and risky strikes in Iran, Trump addressed the two issues of greatest concern to Americans, immigration and the economy. His moves in both areas have been largely unpopular. Having no proposed solutions, he prevaricated, bookending the fairness of U.S. elections and his false claim that he ended eight wars. Some were never wars; others never actually ended.  

On immigration, his basic theme was xenophobic. Migrants living in the U.S. illegally have “poured in by the millions and millions from prisons, from mental institutions,........

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