MS NOW's Rachel Maddow kicked off Monday night's broadcast with a devastating round of mockery for President Donald Trump's recent celebrations to himself.
She set the scene by covering an episode she had already reported on in Philadelphia, where the Trump administration tried to take down memorials to enslaved people at the President's House, only for locals to sue and stop him — but then the National Park Service only restored half the memorials, leaving the entire site looking obviously unfinished.
That, said Maddow, is a perfect metaphor for the half-realized festivities Trump is putting on to honor himself and, ostensibly, the country.
"I know you've heard all about Trump kind of botching the celebrations that are planned for the 250th in Washington, right?" said Maddow. "Putting a cage match on the lawn of the White House, sponsored by what multiple state gambling authorities widely considered to be an illegal gambling operation?" This was further botched by a disastrous marketing campaign for Trump's car race in D.C., where he sold white T-shirts that said "One Nation, One Race," that had to later be taken down.
Meanwhile, Maddow continued, "Trump now has called for the cancellation of a concert that he had tried to plan in Washington for the 250th after, again, a melange of celebrities and former celebrities they thought they had persuaded to come perform" ended up dropping out amid backlash. As a result, she said, Trump "has announced that he himself should be the headliner instead. So, okay, that'll be great."
This, she said, is already shaping up to be a rerun of Trump's inaugurations. The first one's musical performances were "poorly organized, poorly attended, and sort of sadly underwhelming when it came to star power. The vibe was like cut-rate wedding DJ and desultory junior varsity marching band." This is why, she said, Trump probably found it "kind of a relief when his second inauguration came around and had to be moved indoors for poor weather."
Many more of these flops abound, said Maddow, from Trump's smaller-than-planned birthday military parade, to the utter flop of the right-wing alternative Super Bowl halftime show where "Kid Rock kind of just lost the thread trying to lip sync and gave up halfway through."
Ultimately, she concluded, all of this can be easily symbolized by what Trump left at the President's House in Philadelphia: "This half there, half not there, half taken down mess thanks to Donald Trump."
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