Fiery Trump bolsters supporters in Florida
Takes aim at media in campaign style speech
MELBOURNE: President Donald Trump turned back the clock on Saturday with a bold and aggressive Florida speech straight out of his 2016 campaign playbook, enthralling fans while insisting all is well in the White House despite weeks of turbulence.
He also took aim at his favourite foil, the “dishonest” news media that he said has become “part of the corrupt system”.
At the end of a stormy first month in office, the populist billionaire took the power of the presidency on the road, revisiting the style and substance of the campaign trail.
After stepping down from Air Force One to a deafening cheer, he entered a packed hanger and was drawn into the collective bosom of several thousand of his dearest followers — mostly white, mostly male middle-class US residents who feel they have been left behind by the country’s shifting economy. “I’m here because I want to be among my friends and among the people,” he admitted.
Mr Trump employed a loud and muscular delivery to assure US citizens he is fulfilling his promises to shrink government, rebuild the military, restrict immigration and repeal and replace healthcare reforms enacted by predecessor Barack Obama.
“This will be change for the ages,” the new president said at the event in Melbourne, a sun-bleached city on Florida’s Space Coast.
But Mr Trump was completing his first month in office with his administration under a cloud back in Washington, where lawmakers pledge to further investigate his possible pre-election ties to Russia, his national security adviser was forced to resign in disgrace and a cabinet nominee withdrew amid controversy.
“The White House is running so smoothly, so smoothly,” Mr Trump stressed, before going on an extended rant about the US media.
“I also want to speak to you without the filter of the fake news,” Mr Trump said.
“They’ve become a big part of the problem. They are part of the corrupt system,” he said, continuing the open warfare with the media that has marked his young presidency.
Aside from the fact that the businessman is now leader of the free world, the event was eerily similar in style to Mr Trump’s campaign — from the layout, to the recorded music, to the president’s largely impromptu delivery.
About the only thing missing was attacks on his 2016 Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
Mr Trump reiterated his pledge to crack down on terrorism, saying he has “ordered decisive action to keep radical Islamic terrorists the hell out of our country”.
And he said his administration would submit “in a couple of weeks” a plan to repeal and replace “the disaster known as Obamacare”.
Republican leaders in Congress have said they will unveil their healthcare plans in the coming weeks as well.
Meanwhile, First Lady Melania Trump, usually a demure and soft-spoken presence at her husband’s side, broke with form by reciting the Lord’s Prayer to begin the event, before issuing a scathing rebuke of his enemies and her critics.
“Let us pray,” she began, before reciting the well-known Christian prayer.
She then launched into an uncharacteristically strident defence of her husband — and her own brief tenure as first lady. “I will always stay true to myself and be truthful to you, no matter what the opposition is saying about me,” the first lady said.
Several hundred protesters, some holding “Resist” signs, lined up across the street. “Watch out, snowflakes,” yelled one man who wore a black vest with a “DJT 45” patch as he mocked the demonstrators. “It’s warm out here. You might melt.”