President Donald Trump savors the attention of a televised spectacle and exploits those moments to tell America a story about himself that is predictably brimming with boastful bunk.

His address Tuesday evening to a joint session of Congress is, in theory, an opportunity to talk about his policies and plans for the next four years. But Trump, after a disjointed first six weeks back in office, will inevitably start trying to rewrite that short history as some sort of swift and sweeping victory.

Trump will be speaking to a nervous bunch of politicians. Republicans and Democrats have watched as Trump's opening salvos completely ignore the power the U.S. Constitution gives to Congress.

Republicans are feeling the heat back home from voters angry about immediate impacts from Trump's war on government agencies and federal employees. Democrats face growing disdain for the party's insufficient resistance to all that.

Expect lies. Lots of them. Distortions, too. Republicans cheering. And so much gaslighting.

Trump won back the presidency last fall with a campaign focused largely on the American economy. He pinned everything from inflation to prices for gasoline and eggs on President Joe Biden's administration.

In a December victory lap on NBC News' "Meet The Press," Trump declared "I won on groceries." On Monday, he announced at the White House an economic policy that will be a loser for the rest of us –

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