On his way back to the US from the Philippines, President Trump tweeted:

This is what he told the media on the flight from the Philippines to the US (emphases mine):

Q Can you say what you might announce on Thursday, or Wednesday, at the White House?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think we’re going to go into details of what I said. Were you there before, when I — I think we’ll be going into some more details as to what we’re doing, as to what we accomplished. But, specifically, deals, concepts. And we’ll be pinpointing things.

But, you know, it’s minimum $300 billion, and that’s going to be very quickly over a trillion dollars, that in itself. And I would say that’s the least significant thing that we accomplished. I think one of the things we really accomplished big is relationship, and also letting people know that from now on, things are going to be reciprocal. We can’t have trade deficits of $30, $40, $50 billion; $300 billion in the case of China. We can’t do that. We have to have reciprocal trade. What’s good for them is good for us.

Q Why are those relationships so important? And is there a risk of getting too close to President Xi?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, relationship is always important. It doesn’t mean it’s necessarily close. It’s really a relationship based on respect. To me, a relationship based on respect is much more important than anything else, including friendship. Because this is really something — they have to respect our country. And they have not respected our country for a long period of time.

Thank you all very much. Have a good time. Thank you.

Two things had already happened.

The first involved China and North Korea:

The second was that China released three UCLA basketball players arrested on suspicion of theft:

The players finally thanked him but it took longer than it should have.

Trump spoke at 3:30 p.m. ET on Thursday, November 16 (short video here).

The White House posted the transcript. If you have been reading my posts over the past week, you won’t find anything new, except for this bold pronouncement:

My fellow citizens: America is back. And the future has never looked brighter.

Perhaps overseas. The domestic fractures badly need mending. Cartoonist Ben Garrison depicts the national scene perfectly.

This is how the media reacted:

Even worse, they had a go at him for reaching for a bottle of water. White House staffers who set this up should be given a checklist of what to have behind the podium, including a glass of water:

This is what many Trump supporters were waiting for in terms of a ‘major announcement’:

Stuart Varney explains everything in just under 90 seconds long.

Sean Hannity put up this helpful graphic during his eponymous show:

Hillary disagrees:

Former Trump adviser Dr Sebastian Gorka pointed out:

That said, is the Storm happening or not?

Something is going on, a nationwide bust of some sort, possibly involving children or human trafficking:

In other areas, approval ratings show that Americans are slowly coming around to President Trump:

Even informal polls — such as this one — show a shift, which Trump acknowledged. This was BLM’s attempt, which well and truly backfired:

Oh, the irony!