Ari Fleischer Shreds Trump’s ‘Not Reassuring’ Speech: Looked Like He’d ‘Barely Seen it’ Before Reading it Live

Former George W. Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer, seldom a critic of President Donald Trump, ripped the commander in chief’s Wednesday night Oval Office address.

Appearing on The Story with Martha MacCallum Thursday night, the Fox News contributor expressed his strong disapproval of Trump’s remarks.

“I regret to say that I thought the president’s speech to the nation last night was not reassuring,” Fleischer said. “The manner in which the president read that speech, it appeared to me, Martha, as if he barely had seen it before he read it off the TelePrompTer. And that was reflected in the lack of emotion, the lack of connection, as he read that important speech. So I think the president fell short of that mark last night.”

New reporting from both The New York Times and the Washington Post indicates that the White House was working on the address until just minutes before Trump went on the air. Those reports were published after Fleischer’s appearance on Fox. Nonetheless, the former White House press secretary had already reached a similar conclusion.

“It just struck me that he got the speech pretty late, he didn’t really have time to internalize it, to look through it,” Fleischer said. “Clearly, there were some things in there needed to be better vetted before read it. That makes me wonder how far and wide it was shopped among the agencies. I think it was all too rushed.”

Watch above, via Fox News.