Trump rambles about coal, Elton John and politics in confusing calls to kids at Christmas

The coverage leans hard on “confusing” and “rambling,” as if an imperfect phone call is a civic crisis. That framing is convenient: it invites readers to sneer at tone and personality instead of asking what public moments with kids are supposed to be, and who gets to police them.

Conservatives don’t need every offhand comment to be polished. What matters is public trust and whether leaders can speak plainly without every sentence being litigated into scandal. Media outlets that demand constant performative neutrality tend to miss a basic truth: politics is already in the air, and pretending otherwise is its own kind of messaging.

If there’s a standard to enforce, it should be fairness, institutional stability, and the rule of law, not aesthetic outrage. The principle at stake is whether our civic life is governed by substance, or by curated indignation.