OPINION | Arizona speech reveals a president who wants out

Donald Trump’s Tuesday night rally in Phoenix was yet another example of the president unplugged. Sadly, Trump unplugged has come to mean Trump unhinged, off-the-rails and wholly unfit to hold the office of the presidency.

This is nothing new and should not surprise us. The big question after last night however, will be even more pointed this morning: Will the GOP finally put country before party and call out Trump for the unstable, morally vapid, dangerous, unfit, lying president he proves to be time and again?

{mosads}All eyes will be on Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who the night before all too easily dismissed Trump’s Charlottesville debacle, as one where Trump simply “messed up.” How long can Paul Ryan use that excuse and then look the other way? Will Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) go public with his reported deep reservations that Trump will not be able to salvage his presidency?

Will Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), both of whom Trump insulted in their own back yard last night, come out strongly to disavow Trump’s comments and behavior? Trump is taking his supporters for absolute fools. He started out his comments last night by talking about unity, love and how if one American is hurting, all of us are hurting. Please.

Trump followed up that platitude with one of the biggest lies of his presidency thus far — and that is saying a lot.

The president repeated to his supporters what he supposedly said in Charlottesville in the wake of the tragic events two weekends ago, except he omitted the kicker line that has dogged him since he spoke it. Trump recounted to his supporters his condemnation of the hate and violence exhibited in Charlottesville, but he omitted his phrase at the end of that condemnation: “on many sides.”

Those three words have hounded Trump since that Saturday. Tuesday night, he pretended those three words did not escape his mouth. He pretended it was the media’s fault that his “condemnation” of the hate groups was not covered, that he didn’t get credit for disavowing the white supremacists and that he was a victim of the “very dishonest media.”

Donald Trump is victimizing the country by continuing to divide us. He is victimizing his supporters by belittling their intelligence and lying to their faces. He is victimizing the world by proving that it can no longer depend on America to defend basic, decent, humanitarian values. He is an embarrassment.

After last night, America’s enemies are laughing, and Americans are weeping.

On the CNN panel I was on right after the speech, I floated another theory: It seemed Trump did not want to be president and was looking for an exit.

On my same panel, former Defense Intelligence Agency Director James Clapper said the speech was “downright scary and disturbing.” Clapper questioned Trump’s fitness for office and went on to agree with me — he wondered out loud whether Trump was looking for a way out.

Trump seems to display the demeanor of someone who is miserable in his job. He can’t stand the dismal press coverage he is getting day in and day out. He obsessively watches cable news and feels victimized by it. He takes zero responsibility for his own dismal behavior, which is the cause of the horrific press coverage. 

He is acting like a prisoner looking for a way out. I believe he is setting up a situation either for his own resignation or impeachment so that he can exit stage left and blame “the swamp” for his failure. He will blame the elites, the insiders and the dishonest fake news for his own inability to lead and to make the “deals” he so vociferously promised his supporters he would make.

From a policy perspective, the speech was just as narcissistic, divisive, defensive, xenophobic and racist as Trump’s off-the-cuff words were.

Trump all but promised to pardon the former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was found in contempt of court for deliberate acts of racial profiling against Latino Americans simply because of the color of their skin, their accent or their last name.

Trump promised to build the wall, even if it meant shutting down the government to do so. He urged the Senate to get rid of the filibuster rule and go totally nuclear. He promised to pull out of NAFTA. He praised North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and he again boosted the white nationalist movement by criticizing those who want to get rid of “our history and our culture” in reference to Confederate statues.

It was the latest embarrassment from a man who seems to want to be president less and less every day. It was the speech of a whiner, not the “winner” he’s sold himself to be. It should be the last straw for those Republicans who have worn Trump beer goggles for way too long. All eyes are now on them.

Maria Cardona is a principal at the Dewey Square Group, a Democratic strategist and a CNN/CNN Español political commentator. Follow her on Twitter @MariaTCardona.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.