Rex Huppke: Trump’s crazed address was as unnerving as Biden’s debate

Folks, the cheese has officially slid off our president’s cracker.

In what was technically a prime-time address to the nation, President Donald Trump spent about 20 minutes on Wednesday night yelling into a camera, hollering red-faced about how incredibly great everything is, when things in America are decidedly not great.

It was a torrent of lies and exaggerations – about the economy, about prices, about immigrants –that must have caused dozens of fact-checkers to spontaneously combust.

The lies in Trump’s address were no surprise, but he sounded like a maniac.

The lying, of course, is to be expected from Trump. But what stood out was his frenetic, angry delivery. It was like he had somewhere to be and was hacked off that he had to deal with some speech thing. The 79-year-old seemed incapable of pacing himself and sounded, frankly, like an angry, unhinged old man.

The untrue pablum – “we have achieved more than anyone could have imagined,” “we have broken the grip of sinister woke radicals in our schools,” prices are “all coming down and coming down fast” –flew from his mouth with a raised voice and a snarl. This was not an unpopular president seeking to calm voters and assure them that better days are coming. This was an angry loon, a street corner ranting nonsense with the cadence of someone reading possible side effects at the end of a pharmaceutical commercial.

Trump is angry and unpopular, and he sounds like he’s spiraling

Trump accepted no blame for high prices or pending Affordable Care Act premium increases, grousing: “It’s not the Republicans’ fault. It’s the Democrats’ fault!” That ignored the reality that Republicans are in charge of everything right now.

He lied that turkey prices were down 33% this Thanksgiving. The New York Times fact-checked: “But wholesale turkey prices actually rose this year, according to data from the Agriculture Department and a Purdue University report.”

He promised U.S. soldiers would be getting a $1,776 bonus check thanks to his tariffs, but he doesn’t technically have the power to issue such checks. That’s the job of Congress.

Are we really the “hottest country anywhere in the world”? Really?

The Associated Press noted the address was “less of an address and more of a rant.”

“One year ago, our country was dead. We were absolutely dead!” Trump blustered. “Our country was ready to fail –totally fail! Now we’re the hottest country anywhere in the world.”

Trump’s manic address was akin to Biden’s debate performance

I’ve watched Trump for years on end, and this was him at his most bonkers and most transparently out of control. Things are not going well, his poll numbers are in the toilet and he doesn’t appear to have a solution – other than yelling into a camera.

But what should worry all of us after his brief-but-disturbing address is this: Is Trump OK? Because he appeared very much not OK. Watch the speech for yourself and ask if he seems like a man of sound mind.

President Joe Biden’s halting, disjointed debate performance during the 2024 presidential campaign was a moment that led many Americans to question his cognitive ability. Trump’s defensive, dishonest and ornery address wasn’t halting. But it was at least as worrisome as what we saw from Biden.

I posted on social media as Trump’s address ended: “What … did we just watch?” It’s a question all of us should be asking.

The man running our country is not well.

Follow USA Today columnist Rex Huppke on Bluesky at @rexhuppke.bsky.social and on Facebook at facebook.com/RexIsAJerk