Jonathan Capehart rocks Westminster Forum with a powerful litany on Trump

Wow.

For years now, I’ve been a huge fan of the Westminster Town Hall Forum. I’ve covered many of its talks, which are almost always thrilling. On Tuesday, it hosted Jonathan Capehart, a Washington Post opinion writer. I meant to attend, but something got in the way. Instead, I took advantage of the Westminster website, where the talks remain available, and listened to Capehart.

Wow. He rocked the room and got a standing ovation. He deserved it. I transcribed his opening and will pass it along below. If you want to listen to it yourself, it’s here.

The local angle is that Capehart attended Minnesota’s own Carleton College, which he talked about during the Q and A. But if, like me, you often feel that the experience of the Trump presidency has already dragged on for about nine years too long (I know, I just said it feels like nine years), you will find that Capehart’s opening remarks seem to have been lifted from that primal scream trying to get out of your soul. The assigned topic was “A Bold Look at Today’s Headlines.”

Here goes, all said by Capehart:

I know I’m supposed to deliver a bold look at today’s headlines. Right? But let’s be honest. In Trump’s America, today’s headlines are exhausting.

Has he fired anyone by tweet, again? Has he attacked House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff again? Or House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler again? Or former FBI Director James Comey, again? Or Hillary Clinton, again? Or Democrats, again? Or immigrants, again? Or asylum seekers, again. Or the press, again.

Has he diminished our standing in the world, again? Has he attacked our allies, again? Has he attacked the small-d democratic institutions that have helped make this world relatively safer for almost seven decades, like NATO, again? Has he talked about the love letter from North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, again? Has he taken Russian President Vladimir Putin’s word over that of U.S. intelligence leaders, again? Has he praised the strong-arm tactics of Duterte in the Philippines, again? Has he coddled white supremacists abroad and here at home, again? Has he made yet another bold declaration to close the U.S. border with Mexico, or to oppose background checks for gun purchasers, or to create a “bill of love” to protect Dreamers again?

Or has he reversed course, as if he never said what he said, again? Has he rendered meaningless the orthodoxy the Republican Party spent generations creating and preaching, again? Has he trampled the Constitution, again? And at an average of 22 falsehoods or misleading claims a day, according to the Washington Post Fact-Checker, has President Trump lied again?

Has he? No, seriously, someone check Twitter. Has he? That litany I just recited only underlines how absurd things are today. And it barely scratches the surface of all the deplorable things President Trump has done, is doing and will do while in office.