Willie R. Tubbs, FISM News
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Tuesday night, after returning to his Florida home from New York, former President Donald Trump issued what might classify as the strongest-worded speech of his career.
In his first public remarks after being arraigned in Manhattan, Trump lit into his political enemies with such venom that ABC News eventually chose to cut the feed. MSNBC, the far-left cable network, chose not to air the speech live.
But, for the most part, anyone with access to online, cable, or terrestrial means of broadcast saw about 25 minutes of anger from Trump, who concurrently declared his innocence, lashed out at what he views as a politicized judicial process, and campaigned against President Joe Biden.
“I never thought anything like this could happen in America,” Trump said. “The only crime that I’ve committed has been to fearlessly defend our nation against those who seek to destroy it.”
He later said, “Our justice system has become lawless. They’re using it now, in addition to everything else, to win elections.”
“The only crime I have committed was to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it.”
Pres. Trump comes out swinging early in his speech at Mar a Lago.@OANN pic.twitter.com/vlM7SXbGIU
— Daniel Baldwin (@baldwin_daniel_) April 5, 2023
The former president did not specify if he was referring to Democrats in his use of the word “they” or if the pronoun was meant to apply to a larger group of people.
Trump repeated his criticisms of both Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Juan Merchan, the judge assigned to his case, both of whom Trump says have a political vendetta.
“A local failed district attorney charging a former President of the United States for the first time in history on a basis that every single pundit and legal analyst said there is no case — there’s no case,” Trump said of Bragg. “But it’s far worse than that, because he knew there was no case.”
Merchan he labeled as a “Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family whose daughter worked for Kamala Harris.”
“[Alvin Bragg] knew there was NO CASE.”
Pres. Donald Trump skewers the Manhattan DA for bringing forth such a weak case.
Trump calls for Bragg to be prosecuted because “he illegally leaked massive amounts of grand jury information.”@OANN pic.twitter.com/awxhrRR3Xa
— Daniel Baldwin (@baldwin_daniel_) April 5, 2023
However, the most frequent target of Trump’s anger was the Democratic Party.
“From the beginning,” Trump said, “the Democrats spied on my campaign — remember that they attacked me with an onslaught of fraudulent investigations Russia, Russia, Russia; Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine; impeachment hoax number one; impeachment hoax number two; the illegal and unconstitutional raid on Mar-a-Lago right here; the lying to the FISA court; the FBI and DOJ relentlessly pursuing Republicans; the uncontested judicial changes to election laws by not getting approvals from state legislatures.”
Other than declaring his innocence, Trump spent little time addressing the specifics of his 34 felony charges, all connected to allegations of improper business filings related to hush money payments to multiple women in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.
“This fake case was brought only to interfere with the upcoming 2024 election and it should be dropped, and immediately,” Trump said.
COMMENTS ON OTHER LEGAL BATTLES
Trump had harsh words for all of the people currently investigating him at the state or federal level.
He called New York State Attorney General Letitia James a “racist in reverse who also campaigned on ‘I will get Trump.’”
James is currently heading a civil lawsuit against Trump, members of his family, and his New York business.
Trump referred to Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Wilis as a “local racist Democrat district attorney in Atlanta who is doing everything in their power to indict me over an absolutely perfect phone call.”
The phone call to which Trump was alluding was one between himself and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in 2020 during which Trump urged Georgia officials to “find” more votes in his favor.
Special prosecutor Jack Smith, the man appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to handle the investigation into classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago, was not called a racist, but he did receive the label of “lunatic special prosecutor.”
“As president, I have the right to declassify documents. If I take them with me, it’s automatic declassify,” Trump said. He added, “They like to say that I’m obstructing, which I’m not, because I was working with NARA very nicely until the raid on my home.”
Trump also bemoaned the fact that individuals like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have never been indicted despite allegations of criminal behavior and that the Hunter Biden laptop story was censored in the weeks prior to the 2020 election.
ABC AND MSNBC’s BRIDGE TOO FAR
That a speech from the central figure in the lead story across the U.S. media was ignored or cut short by a pair of journalistic entities was a strange development, although certainly in keeping with the unique time in which we live.
ABC aired much of the Trump speech, but chose to cut away when the former president accused Biden of putting the nation and mankind on the road to “all-out nuclear World War 3” and began attacking Biden’s record on the economy.
After Trump claimed that Biden is going to start World War III, ABC News cut him off. pic.twitter.com/J1B93Cecci
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) April 5, 2023
As Trump spoke, an ABC News anchor said the network would “continue to monitor” Trump’s remarks.
MSNBC, by far the least sympathetic media outlet to Trump among legacy broadcasters, chose to have host Rachel Maddow speak during the Trump speech, which Maddow described as “basically a campaign speech in which he is repeating his same lies and allegations against his perceived enemies.”