It’s no secret that I’m not a personal fan of former president Donald Trump – but through the years I feel I’ve been mostly fair to him, his presidency, his accomplishments and his failures. Something, though, dawned on me during his friendly Fox town hall with Sean Hannity on Thursday night, which wasn’t really a town hall, due to not being live and no audience questions until the last ten minutes of the hour. I’ve been critical of Trump and have praised him, but I’ve rarely ever been bored by him – and that was my impression coming away from his first real sit-down with Iowa voters.
What struck me about this ‘2024-facing’ version of Trump is how he cares about telling stories from the past, and his past presidency, and is not wrapped up in the current conversations happening throughout the country. There is a path for Trump to run on the ‘Do you miss me yet?’ platform, but he couldn’t stay focused long enough even during this hour to say what he would do going forward.
If Trump hopes to succeed, he will have to do more than think it’s his turn again to sit around and tell more stories
The audience interview was more of a rehash of Trump’s greatest hits, past conversations with world leaders like Putin and Xi Jinping, the killing of Qasem Soleimani, the election of 2016.
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