On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks said that the State of the Union Address was President Trump’s “most effective speech as president.” And that running on a strong economy is the president’s “best campaign.”

Brooks stated, “I actually thought it was his most effective speech as president. He had some of the stuff he has always had, which is, these bogus stories of crimes that immigrants have committed. But if you go back to his campaign in 2016, it was an American carnage campaign. It was all crime. It was all fear. It was all division. But now he has turned — and I think he’s done a little bit of — as — the best he can do with his character, morning in America, just bragging on the economic success we’ve had as a country over the last years, which he’s absolutely correct about. … And if he can run a campaign as, hey, you don’t have to like me, but I can deliver a good economy, that, to me, is his best campaign. And he then follows it up with gracelessness. But if his approval rating stays at 49, people seem to be willing to tolerate gracelessness.”

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