The video is embedded in the previous post, along with some comments from last night's open thread. I watched a little, thought Trump looked a lot better than usual, theorized that he'd used that classic beauty trick to reduce puffiness, then clicked it off when he said:

Year after year, leaders have stood on this stage to discuss what we can do together to protect our heritage, to promote our culture, and to defend our freedom.

Here's what I said out loud (to my audience of one): "That's a dog whistle. White power." Questioned, I said, "heritage... culture... freedom..." Even freedom? "Yes, in context with our heritage, our culture, and then our freedom. Our freedom."

I switched to the transcript (here, at Vox). I'll live-blog my reading of it, with excerpts and commentary. Trump forefronts his judicial appointments, presumably because this is the place where he can claim and successfully vaunt* conservative credentials:

We have confirmed a record number, so important, of circuit court judges and we’re going to be putting in a lot more. And they will interpret the law as written and we have confirmed an incredible new Supreme Court justice, a great man, Neil Gorsuch. Right. 

He admits no doubt here. Conservative = doing it right = Gorsuch. I won't slow this post down to lawprofsplain what's specious about all that.

Trump himself swiftly moves on to his second-best accomplishment, taxes:

We have passed massive, biggest in history, tax cuts and reforms. I don’t use the word reform...

I didn't just say what I said.

... there was a lot of reform too, very positive — I don’t use it. And when we were first doing it I told everybody, everybody gathered, I said, just talk about tax cuts. People don’t know what reform means. They think reform might mean it is going up. And I said, do tax cuts....

So, he lets doubt leak in all over the place there, but he needs them to believe he's a tax cuts guy. Despite all the "reform" talk. Ah, it's just a word, "reform." People don't even know what it means, he says.

To say that less crudely, that is, to use a Democrat's words, he's chattering about "framing." Republicans want to say "cuts" (even when some taxpayers may pay more) and Democrats want to say "reform" (to assure you that the right people will have to pay more — their fair share — and the good people will get relief).  But even though they bandied the word "reform" about...

We didn’t have one Democrat vote and I think that’s going to cost them in the midterms. I know that whoever wins the presidency has a disadvantage for whatever reason in the midterms. You know what happens? I’m trying to figure it out. Historically, if you win the presidency, you don’t do well two years later. And you know what, we can’t let that happen and I know what happens. Finally figured it out. Nobody has been able to explain it. It just happens.

That's some fantastic Trumperish — Trump jibberish. Has he figured it out or does nobody know why it happens? It sounds nonsensical, and it's said so simply that you feel he's just jabbering without thinking, but he does make sense of it:

Statistically, almost all of the time, for many years, what happens is you fight so hard to win the presidency. You fight, fight, fight. And now only two years, that’s a very short period and by the time you start campaigning, it is a year. And now you got to go and fight again. But you just won. So nobody has that same drive that they had. So you end up not doing that well, because the other side is going — they’re crazed, and, by the way, they’re crazed anyway, these people. They are really crazed. Right.

He figured it out: The other side has more motivation to fight. The losers maintain their drive.

So I kept trying to say, why is this? But it is just there. So the great enthusiasm, you know, you’re sitting back, you’re watching television...

You're like him, lying around watching TV.

... maybe I don’t have to vote today, we just won the presidency, and then we get clobbered and we can’t let that happen. We get clobbered in ’18, and we can’t let that happen. 

I'm sure that works better in the audio version, that adherence to the present tense: "We get clobbered in ’18."

Only because we are so happy, we pass so many things, honestly, and I’ll say — I’ll use the word, my administration as opposed to me, my administration, I think, has had the most successful first year in the history of the presidency. I really believe that. I really believe it. I really believe it....

He really believes it.

See the word really is complacent. People get complacent. It is a natural instinct. You just won, and now you’re happy and you’re complacent. Don’t be complacent. Don’t be complacent.... 

Get the message? Don't be complacent.

If they get in, they will repeal your tax cuts, they will put judges in that you wouldn’t believe, they’ll take away your Second Amendment, which we will never allow to happen, they’ll take away your Second Amendment. Remember that. They will take away — thank you. They will take away those massive tax cuts, and they will take away your Second Amendment. By the way, if you only had a choice of one, what would you rather have, the second amendment or tax cuts? Second Amendment, tax cuts? Second Amendment? I’m going to leave it at the Second Amendment. I don’t want to get into that battle. All right.

Man, he is a repetition machine. So soon after that school-shooting empathy theater and his seeming openness to gun control, he's scaring people about losing the right to bear arms. Note the locution: your Second Amendment.

Trump denounces the "very crooked media... very, very crooked media." They won't give him credit for his accomplishments.

He moves on to the subject of health care:

Obamacare is just being wiped out. The individual mandate essentially wipes it out. I think we may be better off. And people are getting great health care plans and we’re not finished yet. But, remember, one person walked into a room, when he was supposed to go this way, and he said he was going this way, and he walked in and he went this way and everyone said, what happened? What was that all about? Boy, oh, boy, who was that? I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t want to be controversial, so I won’t use his name. Okay. What a mess....

Mmm. I don't know. Maybe prepare your speech? Man, that got me thinking of a song I hadn't thought of in 50 years, "Did You Ever See a Lassie?" ("Go this way and that way/Go this way and that way/Did you ever see a lassie/Go this way and that?")

So, you know, the fake news always — if I say something a little off, next day headline, he misrepresented — I have to be careful. But in the history of presidents, no president, and I’m saying no president, maybe they’ll find if I was off by two, but we’re here one year, no president, I read it in lots of good papers, actually, but they’ll change the story when I say it. No president has ever cut so many regulations in their entire term. Okay.

The news is fake because they point out errors that, in his view, are really no big deal. That's not fake. That's just picky. And — to the extent that they weren't equally picky about Obama (when Obama was equally unpicky about accuracy) — biased.

We have ended the war on American energy... [I]t is amazing how many people understood the Paris accord because it sounds so good. It is like some of the environmental regulations that I cut. They have the most beautiful titles. And sometimes that’s — look, I’m going to close my eyes and sign this, because, you know what, I’m going to get killed on this one. I get so much thanks. The country knows what I’m doing....

In other words, the things he's signing may look bad — even as the things with "the most beautiful titles" looked good — but people know it's for the best.

We couldn’t build, we couldn’t farm. If you had a puddle on your land, they called it a lake for the purposes of environmentals. It is crazy. It is crazy. And I signed certain bills, I would have farmers behind me and have house builders, home builders behind me.... They couldn’t do what they had to do. We gave them their property back, we gave them their dignity back. By the way, you don’t mind if I go off script a little bit? It is sort of boring. It is a little boring. 

Heh. "Dignity." Booorrringg!

Beautiful speech, everything is wonderful. But a little boring. We have to, you know — but we gave them their dignity back. And that’s why our country is doing record business. We’re doing record business. We’re doing business and you have to look at the fundamentals. Companies are pouring back into this country, pouring back.....

Dignity is boring. He wants to talk about business business business. Pouring pouring pouring.

I used to get the greatest publicity. 

Uh oh. Back to the fight with the media.

Friend of mine said, you used to be the king of getting great publicity. What happened?....

We know what happened. It's a rhetorical question.

So, thank you, everybody. You’ve been amazing. You’ve been amazing....

That sounds like he's coming in for a landing. But there's much much more. Even though he just expressed his concern about being boring. He reminisces about the time he gave a CPAC speech in 2011. Then it's on to the story of how he won the election.

You need the electoral college, which, by the way, is much tougher than the popular vote. The popular vote would be so much easier. You go to three or four states and you just go and you just do a great job. Hillary forgot that, you know. She went to the states. What is she doing? Why does she keep going back to California? Crazy....

He gets around to the military ("Our military was going to hell") and foreign policy ("Kerry may be the worst negotiator I’ve ever seen") and Israel ("Every president campaigned on we’re going to recognize Jerusalem as a capital of Israel... every other president really lied....") and the vets ("We have been doing a good job on the vets") and foreign aid ("We rebuild other nations, and give a lot of money. And we don’t ever say, hey, you got to help") and infrastructure ("we’re rebuilding our nation") and values ("all of us here today are united by the same timeless values") and the police ("We support the incredible men and women of law enforcement") and... has he forgotten anything?

You’re getting the wall. Don’t worry. I heard some — getting the wall.

I hear you. It's like he only brought up the wall because someone yelled it out as he was going through a laundry list.  He says "we’re going to have the wall," but "We have a problem. We need more Republicans." The Democrats "always vote in a bloc," and the next election is coming. He's off the subject of the wall as fast as he can, and without going through the usual words about illegal immigration. Having begun the speech with abstract words that triggered my aversion to xenophobia, he's completely avoiding any specifics in the zone of xenophobia. [ADDED: so far!!] He gets right back to his favorite topic, business:

You saw Apple just brought $350 billion in, Exxon brought in $50 billion. So we’re going to be fighting. We need more Republicans to vote. We want to get our agenda... We need more Republicans. That’s why you have to get out and you have to fight for 18, you have to do it. 

Business and the next election. And that sounds too down and dirty, so let's launch abruptly to the heights:

We salute our great American flag, we put our hands on our hearts for the pledge of allegiance. And we all proudly stand for the national anthem.

But what about those immigrants? We're not talking about the immigrants. Look! The flag! Quick! Put your hand on your heart! Stand up! Proudly! There's only an implication of disrespect for those people — those black people —  who don't want to stand for the national anthem.

More loftiness needed. Take us higher:

Above all else, we know that faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, are at the center of American life. We know that. Because in America we don’t worship government, we worship God.

God!!!!

Our nation’s motto is “In God we trust.” This week, our nation lost an incredible leader. Who devoted his life to helping us understand what those words really mean. Leader. He was a leader, a great man. We will never forget the historic crowds, that voice, the energy, and the profound faith of a preacher named Billy Graham....

Oh, my, I'm just seeing that Billy Graham will lie in state in the Capitol rotunda. He will be the 4th private citizen given this honor. The last one was Rosa Parks.

Trump goes on to "the evil massacre" in Parkland, Florida. The families "have suffered beyond anything that I have ever witnessed." He frames the problem in terms of mental illness — "this was a sick person. Very sick. And we had a lot of warning about him being sick." And the solution is mostly better defense of the schools:

Well trained, gun adept teachers and coaches and people that work in those buildings, people that were in the Marines for 20 years, and retired, people in the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Coast Guard, people that are adept, adept with weaponry, and with guns, they teach.

Not the inept. Not cowards like that one guard who "turned out to be not good." And not making the place look all militarized:

I mean, I don’t want to have 100 guards standing with rifles all over the school. You do a conceal carry permit. And this would be a major deterrent, because these people are inherently cowards. If they thought like if this guy thought that other people would be shooting bullets back at him, he wouldn’t have gone to that school. He wouldn’t have gone there....

This goes on for quite a while, and then he is on to the subject of illegal immigration I'd said he was avoiding:

I’ll tell you what, when you deal with ms-13, the only thing they understand is toughness. They don’t want anything. All they understand is toughness. If that ICE agent or border patrol agent is tougher than them, they respect him. We have the toughest guys you’ve ever seen. We got tough. They don’t respect anything else. And they shouldn’t be in our country. They were let in for years, they shouldn’t be. And we’re getting them out.... These are animals. They cut people. They cut them. They cut them up in little pieces, and they want them to suffer. And we take them into our country.... And you meet with Democrats and they’re always fighting for the criminal....

And, by the way, the Senate Democrats and the House Democrats have totally abandoned DACA.... To secure our country, we are calling on Congress to build a great border wall to stop dangerous drugs and criminals from pouring into our country....

Ah, this shows he planned to talk about immigration and the wall, but he previewed it a bit earlier because someone called out.

But when I walked in today, did anyone ever hear me do the snake during the campaign? Because I had five people outside say, could you do the snake?

Oh, no, he's going to do the snake! There's a big lead up, then the entire performance — She wrapped him up all cozy in a comforter of silk/And laid him by her fire side with some honey and some milk etc. etc.

And that’s what we’re doing with our country, folks. We’re letting people in. And it is going to be a lot of trouble. It is only getting worse....

Man, this is long!

So I just leave you with this. We have to fight Nancy Pelosi. Want to give your money away....

The next election.

The Democrats are trying to figure out who they are because they want to get you back. But you were people, we had people that never voted. But they’re great patriots, but they never saw anybody they wanted to vote for. Then they go to the election, they have trump, pence, trump, pence, hats, all sorts of things, trump over here. Make America great again, hats....

Hats hats hats.

He gets so inflated he says, "Even the media, the media will absolutely support me, sometime prior to the election." Oh, but it won't be because they'll realize that what he's doing is right. It's because "if somebody else won, their ratings would go down, they all would be out of business. Nobody would watch. They all would be out of business."

_______________________

* I originally wrote "flaunt" and put so much thought into changing to "vaunt" that I'm going to write a separate post on the topic. By the way, this is the first time, in the 50,000+ posts on this blog, that I have used the word "vaunt."