President Donald Trump used his address to a joint session of Congress to brag about his supposed accomplishments, attack his critics and spread misinformation about everything from Social Security to immigration.
As is typical of a major speech like this, he sprinkled in a fair number of applause lines for his faithful followers in the now-unrecognizable Republican Party. But one stood out to me in particular:
"As you've heard me say many times, we have more liquid gold under our feet than any nation on Earth, and by far. And now, I fully authorize the most talented team ever assembled to go and get it. It's called drill, baby, drill."
You've probably heard Trump says this before. He's tweeted it dozens of times, used it throughout his three presidential campaigns and even repeated it in his inaugural address in January. Yes, "drill, baby, drill" is quite a crowd-pleaser. I should know. I coined it in a speech to the Republican National Convention on a September night in 2008 to raucous applause.
And I'll be the first to say that the president is using it wrong.
This is a preview of Michael Steele's latest article. Read the full column here. For more thought-provoking insights from Michael Steele, Alicia Menendez and Symone Sanders-Townsend, watch "The Weekend" every Saturday and Sunday at 8 a.m. ET on MSNBC.
