Trump smirked and shrugged as the crowd started to chant

The Post chronicles Trump’s long, rambling, distracted Speech last night in dear old ‘Bama.

Trump praised Alabama for sheltering “17 million people” displaced by recent hurricanes, a number that seemed high given that the state has fewer than 5 million residents and that nearby Florida has 20.6 million residents. He promised that the country will “win all the time,” just like Alabama’s beloved football teams — and he repeated his attacks on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“We can’t have madmen out there, shooting rockets all over the place. And by the way: Rocketman should have been handled a long time ago,” Trump said, as the crowd erupted into its loudest cheers of the night. “… This shouldn’t be handled now, but I’m going to handle it, because we have to handle it. Little rocketman.”

Which is funny, coming from him. Big rocketman? He’s at least as mad as Kim is, and probably a lot stupider.

He is, of course, not going to “handle it,” because it’s not that simple. If it were simple, someone less stupid than he is would have handled it before now. It’s not.

Trump ominously warned that North Korea could explode a “massive weapon” over the Pacific Ocean, resulting in “tremendous, tremendous calamity where the plume goes.” Then he told everyone not to worry about that.

“Maybe something gets worked out and maybe it doesn’t, but I can tell you one thing: You are protected. Okay? You are protected,” Trump said. “Nobody’s going to mess with our people.”

That, again, is just empty boasting. We’re obviously not protected, and Trump doesn’t have any supernatural powers to change that fact.

Trump shared a “quick, crazy story” about health-care reform that he said explains why he likes Strange. But first he name-dropped McCain, prompting loud boos from the crowd, and said that he might have moved to Alabama or Kentucky if he lost the 2016 election because “it’s nice to go to where people love you and you love them.” He added that he has accomplished a lot as president but doesn’t get credit for it.

“We have a Supreme Court justice, Judge [Neil M.] Gorsuch, who will save — how about a thing called your Second Amendment,” the president said. “Right? Okay, remember that? If Crooked Hillary got elected, you would not have a Second Amendment, believe me. You’d be handing in your rifles. You’d be saying: ‘Here, here they are.’ ”

The president then stepped away from the lectern to act out how his supporters would have handed over their rifles to Democrat Hillary Clinton, who never called for rounding up all of the rifles in the country. Trump smirked and shrugged as the crowd started to chant: “Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!” A small group of young men sitting close to the stage, dressed in blazers and red campaign hats, kept the beat by pumping their fists into the air.

Lies and threats. What more could we want?

He eventually returned to this quick, crazy story. Basically, the president said, several Republican lawmakers would consider voting for the legislation only if the president had dinner with their various relatives.

“Pictures all night, everything,” Trump said. “Brutal. Brutal. You know what that is, folks, right? It’s called brutality.”

Christ almighty. He goes to a rally and complains about how much he hated meeting the families of a bunch of his colleagues. The meanness of the man is just astounding. I don’t generally have a whole lot of sympathy for Republicans but I’m imagining being one of those “various relatives” and I’m cringing.

Then he talked about his wife’s shoes, and chatting with Senator Shelby about who in Congress is smart and who is not so smart. (How would Trump know?) He talked about needing a wall you can see through in case someone is over there throwing a 50 pound bag of drugs onto someone’s head.

Trump said Strange has the same “American values” as everyone in the arena that night. And that brought him to the topic of football.

“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a b—- off the field right now. Out. He’s fired. He’s FIRED!’” Trump boomed.

As the crowd burst into cheers, the president threw his hands into the air and shook his head. For the fourth time that night, the crowd began to chant: “USA! USA! USA!”

“That’s a total disrespect of our heritage,” Trump said. “That’s a total disrespect of everything that we stand for. Okay? Everything that we stand for. And I know we have freedoms, and we have freedom of choice and many, many different freedoms, but you know what? It’s still totally disrespectful.”

A disrespect of our heritage? But our heritage includes slavery. We get to disrespect that – we have to disrespect that. Slavery is one of the things we stand for, and we get to disrespect it, including by not groveling to the flag.

As for totally disrespectful, he could try respecting other people. That’s more urgent than respecting the damn flag.

Trump added that the NFL “ratings are down massively,” which he attributed to his own popularity, referees “ruining the game” to impress their wives watching at home and players taking a knee during the national anthem to protest police brutality and racial inequality. The crowd booed in agreement.

“Not the same game anymore, anyway,” Trump said, before riffing on religious liberty, the Second Amendment and supporting law enforcement officers — comments that he seemed to be reading off his long-forgotten teleprompter.

“These are Alabama values — I understand the people of Alabama. I feel like I’m from Alabama, frankly,” the president said. “Isn’t it a little weird when a guy who lives on Fifth Avenue in the most beautiful apartment you’ve ever seen, comes to Alabama and Alabama loves that guy? I mean, it’s crazy. It’s crazy.”

Oh that’s so far from being the most beautiful apartment I’ve ever seen. So far.

Trump marveled at the full arena and said that there were “thousands of people outside who can’t get in.” Several arena employees who were outside at the time said that a couple hundred people could not get in after the doors closed, and they tried to watch the rally on a big screen outside but there was no audio, so they left.

“Thousands,” Trump said. “We’ve got thousands of people outside.”

And that was just the beginning. He went on and on. He went on so long that a lot of people left.

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