In a way, it might have been fun to be a double-agent Trump adviser, but it would have been practically impossible to undermine him more than his own loyalists did. I mean, the guy retained Rudy Giuliani as his lawyer. Seriously, at this point in Rudy’s career you’d get better legal advice from two tweaking spider monkeys fighting over an Etch-a-Sketch—which proves that it actually is possible not to get your money’s worth from a guy you haven’t paid.
But Rudy’s not the only pea brain in the pod, apparently. MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace interviewed ABC News chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl Tuesday, who’s been making the rounds with the latest in a long line of “oh, fuck me sideways on melba toast, Gertrude—can you believe this shit actually happened?!?!?” media tell-all books. And it’s called Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show.
Judging by the wall-to-wall coverage Karl has garnered lately, there’s a lot of bonkers stuff in this latest shit-my-drawers-in-retroactive-panic account, and while the following story isn’t nearly as concerning as Trump’s attempts to, you know, end America, it speaks to the kind of incompetence and stupidity that permeated TrumpWorld throughout his misrule:
KARL: “There was a sense from most of the staffers that this was, at the very least, a political disaster. There was one big exception, though. Kayleigh McEnany was, as you know, the press secretary and Trump was having a meeting with this political team in the Oval Office and was being presented with numbers—this was in the spring—showing that his reelection chances were looking grim, primarily because of what was happening with COVID. And he said, 'No, no, no, bring in Kayleigh! Bring in Kayleigh.' And Kayleigh comes in, and he says, 'Kayleigh, tell them what you were just telling me.’ And Kayleigh McEnany tells the president of the United States, 'I think you're going to win, sir, and I think you're going to win because of COVID.' And then she explained that the biggest weakness that they had in the midterms was health care, and now with COVID dominating the news, the Democrats wouldn’t be able to talk so much about health care. Health care would be less of an issue. So, I mean, you have to get your head around this, but she was saying was that because of the greatest public heath crisis of our time, of the last century, they wouldn’t have to talk so much about health care, and therefore he was going to win.”
WALLACE: “We made an editorial decision early in the Trump administration never to air whatever it is … that happened at the podium, and you just gave the best defense for a decision that was at times difficult to defend. Thank you for that.”
So it’s unclear whether McEnany was just telling Trump what he wanted to hear because there was a Hot Pocket with her name on it waiting in the microwave, or if she really is this callous. Does it matter? Telling your boss that he’s going to win because of COVID-19 is—well, I’d say malpractice if it was at all clear that McEnany was doing anything resembling a job.
But, yeah, Trump hires only the best people … who tell him not to sweat the biggest crisis he or, indeed, any president had been forced to confront in decades. How did that work out for him?
Of course, if Trump ever somehow finds his way back into the White House, it will get far, far worse. Expect the job of Diet Coke gofer to be elevated to a Cabinet position. And while the soda secretary is there with a Diet Coke, he might as well weigh in on planned drone strikes against Arby’s after they forgot the extra Horsey Sauce one too many times.
Will it happen? Well, not if we stop it, right?
It made comedian Sarah Silverman say, “THIS IS FUCKING BRILLIANT,” and prompted author Stephen King to shout “Pulitzer Prize!!!” (on Twitter, that is). What is it? The viral letter that launched four hilarious Trump-trolling books. Get them all, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.