President Trump delivered a characteristic performance Thursday night in Minneapolis. His 100-minute rally speech was complete with scattered vulgarities, caustic attacks on political opponents, including former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter, and an accusation that Democrats who have begun an impeachment inquiry are carrying out “a brazen attempt to overthrow our government.”
For the president it was all in a day’s work. And ever since the first stories broke three weeks ago about Trump’s efforts to pressure the Ukrainian government to help find damaging information about the Bidens and about Hillary Clinton, there has been some version of the Minnesota performance virtually every day.
Many Americans have become inured to the president’s volatile behavior. Yet even by the standards of this presidency, Trump has been operating beyond his often-untethered bounds. His Twitter feed has been more frantic, his public comments angrier and more abusive, his sense of victimhood more visible than ever. Including his attacks on the investigation by former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, there may be no period in the entirety of Trump’s presidency comparable to the behavior now on display.
View the complete October 12 article by Dan Balz on The Washington Post website here.