Donald Trump is the "reality television" despot, the Gong Show strongman, feeding the remnants of the Constitution through a shredder for the most puerile, narcissistic, absurd reasons.
The First Amendment mutilation we discussed last night. It was over a story the Washington Post ran that, when I saw it in the news headline feed, I shrugged and ignored because (1) it sounded like harmless tabloid trash and (2) there are so many serious take-downs to be written about the millionaire slumlord that I didn't wish to waste my time on it. Apparently there was an instance back in 1991 where Trump, evidently out of boredom or just to prove that he could, impersonated a fictional publicist named "John Miller" on a telephone interview/conference call.
Big deal, right? Who cares, yes? That blurb is so many courses in front of even the appetizers that the media has in store for Trump over the next six months that he should take it in stride and be preparing for the bleepstorms that he has to know are coming, correct?
Indeed. But this is Donald Trump we're talking about. His cosmic narcissism takes nothing in stride.
Although when a question about this story came up during a campaign conference call with reporters yesterday, Il Douche didn't erupt into a YUUUUUGE tirade (he did that on Fox News Thursday evening), but instead....flusteredly hung up:
Then, Friday afternoon, Washington Post reporters who were forty-four minutes into a phone interview with Trump about his finances asked him a question about Miller: “Did you ever employ someone named John Miller as a spokesperson?”
The phone went silent, then dead. When the reporters called back and reached Trump’s secretary, she said, “I heard you got disconnected. He can’t take the call now. I don’t know what happened.”
So....is this a tacit admission that he made up "John Miller" a generation ago? Does that mean he'd be impersonating his own White House press secretary at daily media briefings? Or simply do them himself in an effort to "save taxpayer money"? Does anybody care about this besides Trump? What's the point of it? Sounds like something he and we could all have a good, "unity"-building chuckle about and move on if he'd just admit it. Heck, you'd think it'd be a form of self-deprecation that his cosmic narcissism could handle.
But no. Apparently he does care about "the truth coming out"....so much so that he may have leaked the story himself:
MEGYN KELLY: So who else would have had a copy of the tape?
SUE CARSWELL: Donald Trump.
MEGYN: Wait a minute, so you’re suggesting, you’re suggesting Trump leaked this to the Washington Post?
SUE: Yeah. Yes.
MEGYN: Why?
SUE: You got me. He’s done stranger things.
MEGYN: Because he loves publicity?
SUE: Yeah.
MEGYN: So you’re suggesting that he may want us talking about this right now because it generates a news cycle, perhaps?
SUE: Hello, Donald.
I don't think it's just that. Trump is going to be at the center of attention for the next six months anyway. He's not going to have to gratuitously troll for press coverage. I think this is a matter of him trying to control which stories about him are drawing the most hype. And between a story about Trump making up a fake publicist during the Bush41 Administration versus his obstinate, outrageous, disqualifying refusal to release any of his tax returns before the November election, on which do you suppose he'd rather have We the People obsessing?
Of course, his cultists will love it - "Our LORD and Savior f***ed the media again! Hooray!" - but, this time, there is some method to his madness....for one twenty-four-hour news cycle, at least.
Only 150 more to go.
No comments:
Post a Comment