The Stream

Al’s Afternoon Tea: A Changed Man?

By Al Perrotta Published on July 16, 2024 •

Al Perrotta

Welcome back in for Al’s Afternoon Tea, our chance to serve up the latest news and musings.

Trump Brings Tears in RNC Appearance … and Surprising Tenderness

Barely two days after being shot, former President Donald Trump made a brief appearance last night at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. A visibly — and unusually — emotional Trump, his right ear bandaged, walked out to thunderous applause and more than a few tears. It almost appeared as if some of those tears were his own.

No doubt many watching at home also had the waterworks going. Were you among them?

As he sat with running mate J.D. Vance and his family, Trump heard Teamsters President Sean O’Brien declare “that is one tough SOB.” (Yes, a Teamsters president spoke at the Republican National Convention? That’s 2024 for ya! Strange days, indeed. Most peculiar, Mama.)

While no one can doubt Trump’s toughness (or the likelihood that “One Tough SOB” is already stenciled onto T-shirts being readied for sale somewhere), last night his face showed something one usually does not associate with the construction titan from Queens: tenderness and grace.

“Look at Trump’s face,” Rod Dreher said on X, “at the softness, the humanity. It’s almost like he faced a horrible death, and lived. What a transformation.”

Here’s one moment from the night we had to share. It’s not what anyone expected, but as someone said, it’s what we needed. From Pastor James Roemke of Messiah Lutheran Church in Kenosha, Wisconsin:

Again, “Look at Trump’s face.”

Something has changed in him. We’ve seen glimpses that he was becoming the man so many were praying (and prophesying) that he would be — but now it seems those prophecies are coming to pass before our very eyes, and at the speed of light.

I’m thinking of a Trump rally on behalf of Sen. Marco Rubio days before the 2022 election, when a massive downpour struck as the former president was nearing the end of his remarks.

He would end the speech by looking upward and blowing a kiss to God.

When that happened, I texted our publisher, James Robison, who is a former member of Trump’s faith council: “That Trump wins reelection in a landslide.”

After Urging Americans to Tone Down Rhetoric, Biden Refuses to Tone Down Rhetoric

At this point, we have to assume that Joe Biden has no idea what he is saying from one minute to the next. That’s the kindest interpretation we can give it. In the wake of the assassination attempt on his rival, Biden called on Americans to “lower the temperature.” Perhaps he thought he was talking about climate change, because in an interview with NBC News’ Lester Holt last night, Biden went right back to declaring Trump to be a “threat to democracy” and a “danger to the country,” stoking the flames of those who are upset that the would-be assassin missed striking the former president squarely in the skull. 

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Holt challenged him, saying, “Have you taken a step back and done a little soul-searching on things that you may have said that could incite people who are not balanced?”

After some defensive muttering, challenging Holt over whether he’s not supposed to talk about Trump being a threat just because it might offend somebody, the man who has for years called Trump “a danger,” “a terrorist,” and “an insurrectionist” and compared him to Hitler actually said, “I have not engaged in that rhetoric.”

Biden did admit it was a “mistake” to use the word “bullseye” when urging donors to focus on Trump. Sort of. He twice insisted he didn’t say it was time to put him in the “crosshairs.” Oh. Big difference.

Plus, since this was yet another effort by Biden to undo the damage of the debate, it’s worth nothing that he blew the year he was made vice president; he only missed it by 12 years.

More amazing, given the hot topic of the hour, is that it appears he doesn’t know the director of the Secret Service is a female.

Secret Service Director Says the “Buck Stops With Me” … But Won’t Resign

Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle was also on damage control duty. She went on ABC News to declare that what happened Saturday was “unacceptable,” and admitted “the buck stops with me.”

Yet she also insisted that she is not resigning — even as the magnitude of the security failure grows exponentially by the day. It’s getting harder to write it off as mere incompetence.

WPXI reports would-be assassin Thomas Crooks was spotted by a cop 26 minutes before the shooting; the cop called it in and also took a photo of Crooks. Another law enforcement officer spotted Crooks as a suspicious person, then an officer checked the grounds but didn’t find him.

Secret Service agents were inside the building Crooks was using to set up his attack. But not on the roof itself? Yes — and Cheatle said that was intentional.

That building in particular has a sloped roof at its highest point. And so, you know, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof. And so you know, the decision was made to secure the building, from inside.

So some geeky 20-year-old who made Steve Urkel look like The Rock could easily manage it, but the best of the best couldn’t prevent this from happening? Or maybe Cheatle is no longer hiring the best of the best, but is only the best at checking off boxes for diversity, equity, and inclusion intersectionality points.

Or maybe she’s just lying.

Cheatle needs to be gone.

In related news, the FBI finally managed to get into Crooks’s phone, but claim that thus far they haven’t found anything indicating a motive. Do you believe the FBI can conduct a fair investigation? Remember, these are the same people who helped set up the Trump-Russia collusion hoax with Crossfire Hurricane, raided Mar-a-Lago, set up the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping, and were smack dab in the middle of J6?

I couldn’t trust a report out of the FBI any farther than I could throw Jerry Nadler. But perhaps they’ll prove me wrong.  

The Attacks on J.D. Vance Begin

Talk of toned-down rhetoric is already being ignored. The attacks on J.D. Vance began the minute he was announced as Trump’s running mate. CNN’s Van Jones led the way, warning that Vance is a “much more dangerous virus” than Donald Trump. Which is bizarre, because how are you more dangerous than someone being called Hitler? Does this make him Mussolini? Or Mephistopheles?

What Jones is basically saying here is that Vance will be effective. But calling him a dangerous virus? In the wake of an actual virus that killed millions? It smells of desperation — and that’s a familiar smell. 

Let’s put some perspective on his comments. Van Jones was an integral part of the 2008 Obama campaign. He also has a habit of sometimes actually telling the truth.

Years after the election, Jones spilled the beans. He told CNN’s Don Lemon, “People forget, [John McCain’s running mate Sarah Palin] had the Democratic party shaking in our boots in 2008. She came out and she gave that speech at the convention. That was hands down one of the best convention speeches, not by a woman, by anybody in 2008. People were running for the hills.”

“Now it can be told,” a laughing Jones says. “People were scared!”

Obama saw what a tremendous communicator she was, how powerfully she was going to connect with the “hockey moms” and “mama bears.” How much energy and fight she would bring to the tired McCain campaign. She was dangerous to Obama’s election chances, and thus had to be destroyed. Since she was unknown nationally, the Left had to move quickly to label her.

So they invented the idea that Sarah Palin was stupid. They launched a full-court press to depict her as an ignorant rube from the wilds of Alaska. And it worked.

And so they’re trying again. Sure, J.D. Vance is a bestselling author, his story made into a movie. But he’s not yet a national fixture. So they have to label him as dangerous — and fast. But we don’t have to wait years to know why. He’s a candidate who can reach people in the heart of the Rust Belt and help hand Trump Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan has them “shaking in our boots.”

Then again, as The Babylon Bee notes, they would have gone after any Trump pick.

On the Stream Menu

Speaking of the VP pick, John Zmirak gives J.D. Vance his thumbs up in “J.D. Vance is a Fitting Heir to the Resolute Desk.”

 

Al Perrotta is The Stream’s Washington bureau chief, coauthor with John Zmirak of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration, and coauthor of the counterterrorism memoir Hostile Intent: Protecting Yourself Against Terrorism.

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