I watched a few minutes of the speech, and like CNN reports, he stuck to the script.  But what they don't say is that his delivery was even worse than usual when he teleprompts it, not just sing songy, but very reminiscent of 8th grade. At the same time, the part I saw, I noted that the writer(s) were 8th-grade savvy, among a list of great Americans they had him list: not just Betsy Ross but also Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass! and he did so like a good little 8th-grade boy  in the same sing songy tone as the rest....as if he didn't recognize all the names, which no doubt was the case. As far as spectacle, supposedly comparable to like, France, I was not impressed in the least. He makes a very poor master of ceremonies.

Frum @ The Atlantic:Trump's Recessional

The president’s speech existed only to provide a reason why he needed to stand in one place long enough for five waves of warplanes to cross the sky.

July 5, 4:55 PM ET

[...] It was as if the whole ceremony fulfilled Rudyard Kipling’s foreboding of how empires end:

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose

Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe …[....]