LOS ANGELES.–Speaking to an enthusiastic crowd of 7,000 in a Las Vegas park at 104 degrees, Trump showed his stamina only five days before his 78th birthday. Trump spoke off-the-cuff because his teleprompter malfunctioned, prompting the NBC “Apprentice” star to go into entertainment mode covering a wide range of topics. Trump unveiled to a new proposal to end taxes on tips, something that’s a cash-cow to the IRS, generating about $200 billion in tax revenue a year for the U.S. Treasury. While a popular idea with Las Vegas hotel workers, it would go over like a lead balloon in Washington, with a potential tax loss to the Treasury of $4 trillion over 10 years. But it certainly energized the crowd looking for as much red meat after Trump was convicted May 30 of 34 felonies in a Manhattan show trial. Trump finds himself locked in a tight race with 81-year-old President Joe Biden.
Biden was off to Europe for the 80th anniversary of D-Day, making more embarrassing statements about 71-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin. Biden and Ukraine’s 46-year-old President Volodymyr Zelensky like to call Putin the next Hitler, diminishing the role played in the conflict by the U.S. and NATO arming Ukraine on the Russian border. Trump is the only candidate that would pull the plug on U.S. funding the Ukraine War and return to normal post WW II diplomacy with the Russian Federation. Biden’s foreign policy has left the post-WW II order, especially peace, in shambles on the European Continent. Biden chose to fund proxy war in ending U.S.-Russian relations, but, more importantly, driving Russia and Communist China into a close economic, military and strategic alliance, all because Biden wrecked decades of diplomacy, détente and arms control.
Crowds at campaign rallies don’t like to get into the weeds on foreign policy so Trump tends to focus on pocket book issues, how his economic policies would help ordinary workers. “So, this is the first time I’ve said this, and for those hotel workers and people that get tips you’re going to be very happy because when I get to office , we are going to change taxes on tips people [are] making,” Trump said, reminding workers what the economy would be like under Trump. Trump wants workers to know how Biden’s runaway inflation, the worst in 40 years, has actually robbed them of any gains in employment and income. Inflation is a punitive tax on everyone earning a living, something known to low-wage earners. Ordinary workers know that life under Biden’s inflation has been difficult, whether paying high prices or paying high interest rates for consumer purchases or mortgages.
Trump complained about his teleprompter malfunction, something the cues him what to talk about at campaign rallies. But unlike Biden, that says almost nothing without a teleprompter, Trump is still capable of entertaining audiences, spending time on extraneous things like if the crowd likes the label of “Sleep Joe” or “Crooked Joe,” both labels he’s assigned to Biden. Tump ranted about Special Counsel Jack Smith who’s two pending cases accuse Trump of trying to overturn the 2020 election or harboring classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. Trump called Smith a dumb “son-of-a-bitch,” for his unfounded charges in two separate indictments. “He’s a dumb son-of-a-bitch,” Trump said about Smith, knowing his two cases won’t get to trial until after the November election, if at all. Trump paints himself as victim of weaponized government prosecution.
Trump’s audience agrees that the so-called deep state or Democrats in government have gone too far in prosecuting him without probable cause purely for politics. Trump accused Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg of running Soviet-style show trial, going after him with baseless charges, all to interfere with the 2024 election. Even legal scholars like emeritus Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz says Trump was convicted of nothing at all, he still can’t figure out his crimes. Trump was accused by Bragg of a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election. Dershowitz says paying hush money or enforcing a non-disclosure agreement is nothing illegal. So, whatever justice happened in Manhattan, Trump’s backers see it as weaponization of the criminal justice system, fake charges for political persecution or election interference.
Trump praises Hungarian Leader Viktor Orban for saying that Trump is the only one that can end the Ukraine War. Orban is often discredited by the press, calling him an authoritarian leader, when, in fact, he disagrees with the European Union [EU] policy of backing the Ukraine War. Orban is one of the few EU leaders willing to call out Biden or Zelensky for destabilizing peace on the European Continent for funding the Ukraine War. Orban recognizes that only someone of Trump’s stature can single-handedly end the Ukraine War and return the Continentto peace. Yet to the pro-war press, Orban his nothing more than a Putin-light dictator, despite being part of the EU. Trump showed he can take heat in Las Vegas, getting his message across without the help of a working teleprompter. What would have Biden done, other that end the speech quickly before more gaffes.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
