[13] Viewership, rightly or wrongly, get's hyped and if there had been a huge viewership & DT beat the Dem response, you can bet he'd push it.

I have to get to the gym before the good treadmills are taken and the humidity gets unbearable.

Catch you later...

I don't think the live viewership means all that much in 2019. As I noted earlier, I believe his reason to go onto TV is to get the speech into YouTube and from YouTube onto social media. Trump believes viral distribution and targeting of snippets will rile up his social media base and remind Republican Representatives they could be subjected to an unwanted primary battle. This is basically an extension of his Twitter Game.

With incoming from all directions the smartest thing Blotus could do, I think, is to try to cut a deal NOW. (Will his instinct for self-preservation trump his ego? In time? We'll see.)

Rod Rosenstein is bowing out soon, which many are interpreting as a signal that Mueller's going to make it safely to conclusion and doesn't need Rod's protection anymore.

Hope they're right.

Like I said, just another land war in Asia. What could possibly go wrong with that?

Trump's biggest fear should be that he is vulnerable on so many fronts. If THE WALL is his Alamo, he must also contend with:

Presidential Inauguration Cash (his Bay of Pigs?)

Conspiracy with Russia (his Stalingrad?)

Conspiracy with non-Russian entities (his collision between HMS Victoria & HMS Camperdown)

The Trump Hotel (his Waterloo?)

The Trump Foundation (his Pickett's Charge?)

Hush Money (his Little Big Horn?)

This is not an exclusive list of Trump expeditions that threaten to turn into full scale, Presidency terminating debacles. Trump's political career is beginning to look like just another Land War In Asia. ;-)

The response by Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer has slightly larger preliminary numbers than the president's address.

The quarter hour (9-9:15 p.m. ET) containing the president's speech drew a combined 28.1 household rating in metered markets on ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, CNN, Fox News and NBC. The following 15 minutes, including analysis and the Pelosi-Schumer rebuttal, averaged 29.3 across those same networks, a bump of about 4 percent.

Complete ratings for the speech and response will be available later in the day.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/trump-primetime-speech-tv-ratings-tuesday-jan-8-2019-1174810?utm_source=twitter&utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=referral

I was reminded yesterday about the BIG SPEECH he announced during his campaign in which he was going to reject birtherism. He opened with: "Obama was born in the United States" or something similar and immediately moved on to promoting his new hotel in the Old Post Office (I think it was that one.)

Reportedly he knew the address was going to land with a thud and didn't want to do it - that was the "energy" he brought to his appearance.

Nancy & Chuck came across as VERY SERIOUS. As TV performances it may be they could have done "better" but as a response to a loon they were fine with me.

I was geared up, to an extent, for the sound and fury that would erupt if he had declared a national emergency and was relieved he didn't.

I think it's quite possible that's the way this criminal presidency concludes - everyone bracing for chaos when, in the end, DT sidles out the back door in the dead of night. Maybe after they turn off the water as, reportedly, the WH hasn't paid their quarterly water bill due to the shutdown. That would be hilarious. Unlikely of course.

FWIW: in here: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/01/trump-aides-fear-the-wall-will-be-his-alamo

The shutdown has pushed the Russia investigation out of the news cycle. But Trumpworld knows it hasn’t gone away. Rudy Giuliani recently told a friend that he expects Mueller’s report to be “horrific,” a person briefed on the conversation said (Giuliani did not respond to a request for comment). “You’re already hearing people speculate Trump could do a deal and resign.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment

The speech was a tissue of Trump Border Wall Lies, almost certainly crafted by professional writers researching earlier off-the-cuff Tump-isms. Trump read this familiar sounding script with few flubs, which actually seems to put to rest the notion that he can't read.*

A large segment of professional political news commentators will point out all the lies in Trump's speech, and a smaller number of professionals will promote the lies as truth. The speech and the commentary will be committed to YouTube, where it will be cloned and will never die and drift endlessly thru social media.

The speech was a political commercial. Nothing more. Commercials are the offspring of the notion that there is no such thing as bad publicity. Trump is hoping he can win the fight by dominating public opinion and hoping enough Republican politicians will go along with that. This strategy may work, but I think it's a risky bet.

There is an old Flintstones gag where a critter under the sink serves as a biological garbage disposal. "It's a living." says the critter. Whenever I see a run-of-the-mill commercial I think of that critter, and my uncle who made a pretty good living as an NYC ad man. I thought of that critter last night.

*It doesn't mean Trump likes to read, or that he can read for comprehension, or that he reads very much, or very deeply.

That was very well said - couldn't agree more!

I heard someone say tonight that the symbol of America should remain the statue of liberty and not a border wall.

good analysis, though i also don't recall donald ever before suggesting that democrats wanted a steel barrier, and he would magnanimously comply. yes, donald told all his usual lies, but he did make it through ten minutes of speech without going off-script, which for him is an accomplishment. i'm sure fox news called it "presidential."

chuck and nancy chose "facts over fear" which in my mind is a losing argument. voters don't vote with facts, they vote with emotion. the democratic response would have been better off focusing on the steps the trump administration has taken to make the situation worse, like separate families at the border, kidnap the children, deport the parents and not bother to keep any records of who belonged to whom. 2600 children in cages would be hyperbole if it weren't true, and now he wants six billion dollars to build a monument to his own cruelty, and is holding almost a million american citizens' paychecks hostage until he gets it? the NERVE of this guy!.

JL

:-)

-CW