Laurie Roberts

The Arizona Republic

Well, that didn’t take long.

On Monday, President Donald Trump called for the country to come together in the wake of Charlottesville.

"A wound inflicted upon a single member of our community is a wound inflicted upon us all," he said. "When one part of America hurts, we all hurt. And when one citizen suffers an injustice we all suffer together."

So naturally, on Tuesday, Trump signaled that he’ll be pardoning Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio — a guy who for years targeted people because of the color of their skin and then for 18 months ignored a federal judge’s order to cut it out.

“I’ll make prediction,” Trump told a Phoenix Convention Center crowd jam packed with cheering supporters. “I think he’s going to be just fine, OK? But I won’t do it tonight because I don’t want to cause any controversy. Is that OK? But Sheriff Joe can feel good.”

As for the rest of us, we can only feel … amazed, astonished and downright astounded by our president’s performance in Phoenix.

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One in which he led the nation to believe that no more than a few dozen misfits were protesting his appearance rather than the thousand or more Americans who took to the streets.

One in which he talked about his growing support in Arizona, never mind a recent poll that shows his support has slipped to 42%.

One in which he spent nearly a half hour trying to rewrite history about Charlottesville, as if he never said that "both sides" were to blame — the people who stood for white supremacy and the people who stood against it.

One in which he spent 90 minutes massaging America’s biggest ego … his own.

He said nothing new. Announced no new initiatives.

Instead it was a red meat ranting, fragile ego stroking stream of consciousness preached to an adoring crowd of supporters.

It was dishonest media … blah blah blah… drain the swamp … blah blah blah … build the wall … blah blah blah … Barack Obama …. blah blah blah ... make America great again.

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And the crowd LOVED it.

All in the all, a great campaign speech by our unifier-in-chief and just in time.

Trump is up for re-election, after all, in just 1,168 days.

I have no idea how much taxpayers shelled out so that Trump could return to Arizona to get the adoration therapy he clearly craved after the toughest week of his presidency. But I’m wondering.

Next time, couldn’t we just send him a warm, fuzzy security blanket?

Laurie Roberts is a columnist for The Republic/azcentral.com, where this first appeared. Follow her on Twitter: @LaurieRoberts

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