By BEN R. WILLIAMS
Much like the comedy career of Rob Schneider, the White House correspondents’ dinner has transformed from something fun and entertaining into a bitter, joyless slog.
The rescheduled event took place on Friday and offered many surreal moments. It was bizarre to watch the team from the Wall Street Journal that broke the story on President Donald Trump’s disgusting birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein be recognized for their work while Trump literally sat on stage scowling and smirking, especially considering that Trump’s lawsuit against those very same reporters is still ongoing.
When Trump took the dais, he did the thing he does best: boast about his imagined accomplishments, complain about the unfair treatment he has received, ramble endlessly, and mock his various enemies, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Chris Christie, Bruce Springsteen, and, of course, Rosie O’Donnell. He also reserved some ire for Kaitlan Collins of CNN, saying that she shouldn’t have received the Award for Excellence in Presidential News Coverage under Deadline Pressure. He then made a gross transphobic joke about Collins and, in an incredible impression of the worst dad interacting with a server at Outback Steakhouse, repeatedly commented that she should smile more. Classy!
The highlight of Trump’s speech came near the end. Here’s the full quote:
“I’m pleased to announce my intention to, and this is a somewhat of a scoop, my intention to run for a fourth term as President of the United States. I will be doing that. I will be having an official, in fact, I think I have, yeah. I won, I won three times. Now I’m gonna do it again. Thank you. I’m gonna do it again. It should be easy. I’m getting very good at running for president. Now, I won three times. Did very well the second time, by the way. It’s a rigged election, but we don’t have to talk about it. You know, it’s interesting, when you come back and you do a good job like we did, and you don’t care about it so much, but we do have to tighten up these elections because they really are in seriously bad shape.”
If you look up any articles about this quote, the majority will describe it as “a joke.” Trump’s supporters also say it was just a joke. After all, he said it at the White House correspondents’ dinner, an event that was once known for being fun and light-hearted instead of depressing and ominous.
Now, I like to think I know a thing or two about jokes, so let’s pretend for a moment that this WAS a joke and examine it critically.
First off, it didn’t get any laughs; those usually follow a successful joke. Maybe it’s all in the delivery, but I don’t think the late Mitch Hedberg himself could have made that one work.
Secondly, what exactly is supposed to be the joke here? Is the idea of Trump running for a third term supposed to be wacky and outlandish? He’s been threatening it for years. You can buy the same “TRUMP 2028” hat that he wore onstage on the official Trump Store website. It costs $55, but you probably get a discount if the box contains a finger from the Chinese boy they have shackled to the hat-making machine at the sweat shop.
Third, if you’re a guy who famously contested the results of a fair election so hard that you fomented a violent insurrection at the United States Capitol that resulted in several deaths, maybe you don’t make a joke about illegally running for a third term.
Now, if I were forced to write jokes for Trump — something that’s not outside the realm of possibility if I ever become a political prisoner — I could easily write an actual joke about Trump running again. Just have him say that he’s announcing his candidacy for 2032 because he already knows he has 2028 in the bag. Maybe add in a line about how he’s already asking the White House chef to look into some exciting new tapioca pudding recipes he can enjoy in his late 80s.
Is that funny? Not really. But it’s an actual joke, and it would play off of Trump’s braggadocio while also revealing a sliver of humanity, so of course he would never approve it.
Trump is incapable of joking because he has no sense of humor, least of all about himself. I’ve never seen the man genuinely laugh; he can only produce a tight-lipped smirk at a bit of cruelty that particularly delights him. His idea of a joke is to call someone he dislikes fat or ugly or stupid. His humor is unsophisticated by the standards of second-graders arguing on the playground.
Mark these words and hold them against me if I’m proven wrong: if Donald Trump is physically able to run for a third term, he absolutely will. There’s no question. He is not planning to ever leave the White House.
“But doesn’t the 22nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prevent a President from serving more than two terms?” you ask. Yeah, but who cares? The rules don’t apply to the wealthy and powerful, just us poor bums.
When Trump runs again, the Republicans won’t fight it because they’re all either in on the grift or beholden to him. The corporate Democrats won’t fight it because they’re cowardly invertebrates. The Supreme Court will allow it because the majority of justices are bought and paid for. And through a combination of voter disenfranchisement and plain old corruption, there’s a very good chance that the votes Trump needs will once again miraculously appear, despite the fact that he’s wildly unpopular outside of unincorporated communities that have a population size roughly equivalent to the lineup of the Polyphonic Spree. Even in his “joke,” Trump mentioned how we have to “tighten up these elections” and complained/projected about election rigging. The GOP has been laying the groundwork for this moment for years now.
It’s difficult to say whether our nation as we know it will survive the remainder of Trump’s current term. Everything is getting more expensive, we’re about a month away from effectively emptying the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (by Trump’s own recent admission, no less) due to the endless, needless war with Iran, and our reputation on the global stage is in shambles.
To paraphrase the late Senator Lindsey Graham, if we let Trump serve a third term, we will get destroyed, and we will deserve it.
