Some rare good economic news this morning: The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported an annualized inflation rate last month of 2.7 percent, a slower rise in prices than the 3.1 percent rate economists had projected. The data-collection gap caused by the recent government shutdown makes it hard to put this number in context, and other indicators, like the jobs market, are still indicating a worrying economic slowdown—but perhaps we can hope that slowdown won’t continue to be accompanied by punishing inflation after all. Happy Thursday.

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Can We Get Those 18 Minutes Back?

by William Kristol

What to think of Donald Trump’s speech from the White House last night?

I’m with Tim Miller: “I was embarrassed. It’s really unbelievably stupid that we’re here, that this person is the president, and that that was real—that was not a spoof.”

I’d only add that it’s unbelievably stupid that we’re stuck with this person as president for three more years. And we’re stuck with apologists like Newt Gingrich, once a formidable figure. Last night, Newt made this unbelievably stupid statement: “Some day, people will say it was one of the most important speeches of his career . . . I think it’s a very, very important speech.”

No, it wasn’t a very, very important speech. It wasn’t even a slightly important speech. It was a pointless speech. It was a waste of 18 minutes of prime time.

But it also left me with a sense of relief. Only perhaps temporary relief, to be sure—but still, you take what you can get these days.

Why?

Because Trump didn’t use the network prime time he’d requested to announce we were going to war in Venezuela. After all his bellicose rhetoric, after all his bluster in press gaggles, Trump had a chance to make his case for war to the nation. He failed to take it. He didn’t even mention Venezuela.

I suppose Trump could still launch an attack soon. He surely doesn’t think a president has some kind of obligation, if he’s going to use military force, to explain the rationale to the public—let alone to get authorization for it from the people’s representatives in Congress. Perhaps he’s just waiting until Congress is out of town next week, so there’s less chance of effective pushback.

Still, the idea of a war with Venezuela is already unpopular. It’s hard to see why it’s going to get any more popular. Perhaps Trump will continue to bluff rather than fight. So maybe we’ll be spared an unauthorized and unjustified foreign war.

Which would be good.

There’s another reason for my sense of relief. Last night’s speech reveals Trump has no sense of how he might save his foundering presidency, or even much of an inclination to try to do so. Indeed, yesterday’s Republican meltdown in the House in the face of increased health insurance costs, a faltering economy, and the deadline for the release of the Epstein files tomorrow—all of these suggest a rough holiday season for the administration.

Which is good. A weaker Trump administration is better for America.

One more point. A normal president, speaking after this past week—in which two U.S. soldiers were killed in Syria, after the shooting of the students at Brown, after the terrible attack on Jews celebrating Hanukkah in Sydney, and after the horrible murder of Rob and Michele Reiner—would have said something about how we mourned these tragedies. He might have asked for prayers for victims and their families in this holiday season.

Of course, this never even occurred to the pathological narcissistic we have as our president. Indeed, I doubt people thought he’d bother mentioning this at all: The soft bigotry of low expectations.

In any case, Trump is an embarrassment. And he will be a failed president. The question is how much more damage he’ll be able to do to our polity, our society, and our country.