President Donald Trump may have dropped a hostile and antagonistic tone in his well-received first Address at the Joint Session of Congress yesterday but there was no way he could have escaped one huge reality and therefore he had to be truthful. As it was also very much an address to the American public as much as it was to Congress, the President had to provide context so he outlined the extent and magnitude of the mess he inherited from the previous administration, no thanks in large part to the failures of Barack Obama for eight crucial, long years.
The President mentioned how the middle class has shrunk as the country has exported jobs and wealth to foreign countries. He also lamented how the U.S. built so many global projects but unfortunately ignored the fates of our children in the inner cities. The country under the past leadership has also defended the borders of other nations while leaving the U.S. borders wide open, Trump said, for everyone to cross, and deplorably for illegal drugs to pour in at an unprecedented rate. The President also spoke how the U.S. spent billions of dollars overseas while sadly infrastructure back home has so badly crumbled.
President Trump had to give the devastating data that would be such an immense challenge for his administration to overcome and turn around. Trump mentioned the grievous reality that he had to take over a government that finds 94 million Americans out of the labor force, with 43 million people living in poverty and with the similar number of people surviving merely on food stamps. Trump also stated that the country had to grapple with the worst financial recovery in 65 years. There was also no denying that in the last eight years under Barack Obama, the past administration put on more new debt than nearly all other Presidents combined. There were also the massive manufacturing jobs lost and the great trade deficit we had with other countries. And of course, one of the biggest failures of the past administration: the disastrous ObamaCare.
Because the Americans felt and suffered excruciatingly with the direct and concrete impact on their lives of Obama's failures, it resulted in a kind of " earthquake" in terms of the desire for change leading to the repudiation of Obama's leadership and the resolve to rally behind Trump in making America great again.
Such was the huge failure of the Obama presidency, yet Obama along with wife and former first lady Michelle following the example of their friends- the discredited Clintons- would still have the audacity to be "rewarded" for such failures by cashing in on lucrative book deals.
The Obamas have reportedly signed perhaps the most lucrative book deals for White House memoirs with Penguin Random House with the figures pegged astoundingly at a low of $30 million to a high of $ 65 million for both books.
Barack Obama's book is expected to be sort of a behind the scenes account of his eight years in office as the 44th President of the U.S. Michelle Obama, on the other hand, will most likely write a book that promises to be inspirational for young people that will draw upon her life story, according to a report by the Associated Press.
While there is no confirmation yet both from the publisher's side and the Obamas on the exact amount of the book deal, insiders of the publishing world agree the price is superbly lucrative and record-breaking indeed.
The Obamas, surely, are good at selling and in asking for their price. It remains a question, however, how truthful they will be - especially the former president- in discussing the huge failures of the Obama presidency that Trump has unfortunately inherited and will be hard pressed to transform into victory.
opportunistic obamas!