Donald Trump‘s address to the nation last week was supposed to be a big rah-rah moment, his chance to rally Americans behind his war on Iran. Instead the president sounded like a whipped dog, barely able to summon the energy to make false promises about ending the war “very shortly.” Thick layers of make-up were unable to make Trump come across as anything but a tired old man, even though the speech centered heavily on his two favorite topics: inflicting violence from afar and whining about how everyone misunderstands his unique genius.
Seeing him in such a defeated posture came as no surprise. The president was having a no-good, very bad week. On the morning of his speech, Trump had been at the Supreme Court in what appeared to be an elaborate effort to intimidate the justices into ruling in favor of his demand to end birthright citizenship. From the first few minutes of argument it was already becoming apparent that even this far-right court doesn’t seem ready to simply nullify the 14th Amendment, and a mere 13 minutes into the defense of birthright citizenship, Trump left in a huff.
