DALLAS — President Donald Trump walked a tightrope this week, awkwardly balancing the political with the solemn. By the end, it all seemed too much, even for America’s ultimate political scrapper.
Trump spent two days here in full campaigner-in-chief mode in front of an adoring audience inside the American Airlines Center in Dallas, headlining both nights of the first-ever Republican midterms convention. He bashed Democrats as communists, begged Texas voters to make state Attorney General Ken Paxton a U.S. senator and even made his loyalists pledge an oath to him that they would vote in November.
But his role as chief executive seeped into what Trump and his team had planned as a week focused heavily on November’s midterm elections and Republicans’ efforts to retain their House and Senate majorities.
The morning after a highly partisan Wednesday speech of nearly two hours before a sometimes-raucous crowd, Trump’s motorcade sped along Interstate 30 to nearby Arlington for a few hours at the National Medal of Honor Museum. He met with medal recipients and toured the somber facility, delivering remarks that included a salute to the honorees.
“Those honored in this museum did more than answer the call. They stormed into hellfire and crushed America’s enemies. They had bravery like few people could even think of having,” Trump said, glancing at a binder on his lectern as he appeared to read from a prepared text. “They carried the wounded out of battle and, their own backs, they carried them, back and forth.”
