Donald Trump is coming to town. He’s making a list and he’s checking it twice… Trump’s MAGA minions — at least the remaining ones who are not fed up with his constant lying — still believe Santa Claus is coming to town. The rest of us are trying to move on.
We’d like to have a country where our politicians are sensible adults and free of brain worms, where they aren’t pedophiles, extortionists, thieves and other assorted criminals, or racists, misogynists and people who worship at Six Flags Over Jesus. Those who attend the Church of the Waving Hands are also suspect.
We’d love to live in a united country where we aren’t forced to have regional responses to serious health problems because our federal government denies science. We’d love to have a country that supports free speech, offers universal health care and free education through college, taxes the rich appropriately and truly supports families and workers.
There is nothing unique or radical in those requests from a government that is supposed to be of, by and for the people. They are only a sticking point for would-be kings and despots who successfully deceive and subjugate the masses.
Speaking of Trump, he certainly isn’t Santa Claus, no matter how white his hair gets or how wide his waist becomes. But he isn’t dead either. The idiots who thought he was dead — or dying — this weekend certainly got played. They were singing “Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead,” while he most certainly was (and is still) screaming “I’m not dead yet.” He is, however, at least slightly better dressed than a peasant screaming invectives in a whiny British accent.
Trump also will never resign. That speculation, which went around social media before Tuesday’s press conference, was pulled straight from someone’s nether regions who has neither access to accurate information nor common sense.
Donald Trump consumes power to survive. He’s a black hole of a human being who will never willingly give up the presidency unless someone offers him the title and power of world leader. Should he ultimately be impeached and convicted — fat chance of that — Trump would have to be pried from the Oval Office with a crowbar after being given a fistful of muscle relaxers.
What we actually saw this past week was merely business as usual for Trump: Deflection for a variety of reasons. His health is poor. His hand bruises, swollen ankles, thinning hair, widening waist, raspy voice, lack of energy, slovenly attire and seemingly incoherent speech is reason enough for him to avoid anyone but the mostly favorable press pool — and on an increasingly limited basis at that.
What we actually saw this past week was merely business as usual for Trump: Deflection for a variety of reasons. His health is poor. His hand bruises, swollen ankles, thinning hair, widening waist, raspy voice, lack of energy, slovenly attire and seemingly incoherent speech is reason enough for him to avoid anyone but the mostly favorable press pool — and on an increasingly limited basis at that.
But Trump also wants to avoid speaking about Jeff Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, any of their victims, Russia, China, India, North Korea, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., violence against immigrants, a possible government shutdown, the Posse Comitatus Act, recent federal court decisions that mock him and his administration, his ostentatious White House renovations, the Smithsonian, the Kennedy Center, Congress, the 2026 election — and everything else including but not limited to his marital status. The only way he will address any issue is if he can control the narrative and the questions.
So why not play golf? Three rounds in three days, and in the down time, they can prep him on all those issues and keep the press guessing. Then, issue a press guidance that he will be making an announcement on Tuesday and watch the tongues wag.
That is exactly, I’m told by a few close Trump sources, what happened during the long Labor Day weekend. God forbid Trump should just say he was on vacation. Instead, media reports indicate that he has spent 29% of his current term at his own golf courses, presumably having his caddy make favorable drops for him whenever the balls are out of sight. (Insert your own punchline here.)
For Trump, getting the tongues wagging is the key. As one of his strategists told me, “You use whatever you can. It’s an anything-that-will-stick-to-the-wall,” strategy. This tactic isn’t new in Puff Donny’s world, but it is worth remembering: Trump is an attention w***e, and as his advisers and staffers are well aware, he demands absolute fealty and flattery. You never give him bad news, and you keep him away from those who do.
For the believers, Donny Claus is still coming to town. And for everyone else, whatever raw meat that is required to spare Trump is grist for the mill. Monday’s alert about a last-minute presidential announcement isn’t unusual. He’s done it several times before to keep you watching. It’s his standard cliffhanger — just stay tuned and thank you for your attention to the matter.
So while the naysayers bleated out the idea that Trump might resign, or planned to turn into a unicorn in front of our very eyes, we all waited patiently for the president to declare that he was moving U.S. Space Command headquarters from Colorado to Alabama — because Colorado allows mail-in ballots. The sneer was only implied. Trump’s announcement seemed like a letdown after all the conjecture, but it served its purpose; another day passed without him addressing the Epstein case.
Interestingly, though, Trump’s weekend apparently included several conversations about Vice President JD Vance. The veep has tried to increase his visibility recently by going on vacation wherever he can still get a room and service, and he’s desperate to seem vital. His constant demand for gratitude has garnered international attention, but it isn’t covered much inside the U.S.
Instead, some Trump insiders who don’t get along with Vance and his staff laugh at “South Park” portraying the vice president as “Tattoo,” the sidekick from “Fantasy Island.” Some have even apparently imitated Hervé Villechaize shouting “Da plane, boss, da plane,” as they refer to Vance, though I’m told “discretion is advised” when and where such jokes are made. I just find it funny that anyone in Trump’s orbit even understands, much less exercises discretion.
Vance was even called “Alexander Haig” after he recently announced he was ready to fill in should a “terrible tragedy” befall the president. After Reagan was shot, it was Haig who stood in the press briefing room and declared he was in control.
If this were a mob movie, all sorts of nefarious thoughts would come to mind. But in this case the speculation is limited to removal by the 25th Amendment — not likely — a sudden malady that will compromise the president or Vance just wanting to signal to MAGA supporters that he, at least, was not comatose. Some members of Trump’s staff believe the vice president “overstated things” to make himself seem vital. Trump himself said little about it, choosing to focus instead on Vance’s comment that Trump was in great shape.
Vance has a natural insecurity about his job. John Adams, the nation’s first vice president, declared the position to be “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived, or his imagination conceived.” Just over a century later, Teddy Roosevelt said of the vice presidency, “I certainly do not want to hold a position of titular dignity and of no earthly practical importance for four years.”
Vance was never the first choice for even that obsequious role. That coveted position belonged to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the man who wears at least four hats in the current administration. But the money men, along with the Project 2025 crowd, liked Vance.
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Recently, Trump told Rubio he should never run for anything else. But Rubio has always coveted the living arrangements at the White House, and he would still love to replace Trump at the top of the ticket in 2028 — if Trump doesn’t end up on the ballot himself. Vance wants that spot too. But he isn’t as skilled a politician as Rubio, and he isn’t as adept at bending his knee.
Across town on Wednesday, as Epstein and Maxwell’s victims lined up on Capitol Hill and told the world that the dead sex offender often bragged about having the Don on speed dial, Trump was at the White House entertaining Karol Nawrocki, the right-wing president of Poland, and threatening to invade Chicago.
Vance, meanwhile, was in Minneapolis, backpedaling. “I mean, look, there are no immediate plans,” he said, “but the president has said he has the legal authority to protect American citizens, whether that’s in Chicago or Washington, D.C. Obviously, as the president said, we want the governor to be a partner here.” In the Oval Office, Trump made it sound like he was calling out the National Guard first thing in the morning.
“What was that all about?” former Tea Party Congressman Joe Walsh asked me on Wednesday. “He says he’s ready for the presidency? He’s ahead of his skis and he isn’t that popular.”
A MAGA insider told me that Vance is nothing more than a “whiny little b***h.”
At the Epstein press conference, six of the dead felon’s alleged victims held a press conference and urged the president to come forward with every single document in the Epstein files, some 100,000 pages.
Trump responded by again calling the Epstein case a “Democratic hoax.” He said, “Really, I think it’s enough,” making it clear he wants nothing to do with it.
“But if it’s all ‘a Democrat hoax,’ as Trump maintains, then why wouldn’t he release it?” some of my MAGA sources said.
That’s why this issue remains of interest to his MAGA minions, as Walsh noted, because “he told them this was the deepest of deep state cover-ups. So why doesn’t Trump release it all? That’s why he’s facing trouble with some of his supporters.”
That’s why this issue remains of interest to his MAGA minions, as Walsh noted, because “he told them this was the deepest of deep state cover-ups. So why doesn’t Trump release it all? That’s why he’s facing trouble with some of his supporters.”
A member of the Republican Party in Waco, Texas, told me this week that’s why Trump shouldn’t “absolutely count” on getting additional seats in Texas — even with the recent gerrymandering legislation endorsed by Governor Greg Abbott was signed into law. “If there is a reasonable conservative Democrat,” this person said, “they could get elected, except in the deepest of red districts, and even that could change.”
The problem, of course, is what constitutes a “reasonable conservative Democrat.” Or, in the words of many Republicans who voted for Trump once but now find him abhorrent, “I’m not given many choices. I don’t like Trump. He’s destroying the country. But I don’t think the Democrats can put it back together.”
Democrats face a hefty challenge: They must convince enough people that they have a better plan than a guy who wants to destroy the Constitution — and they must keep him from fixing the elections in 2026. Meanwhile, Trump’s people tell me it’s “all-hands on deck” to keep the plates spinning and convince the masses who are growing more disgusted with Trump that he “may be bad, he may be a tyrant, but he’s better than a Democrat.”
To that point, Trump is increasingly worried about California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who continues to successfully troll and frustrate the president by merely imitating him. Only “South Park” has gigged Trump better than Newsom. “He hates Newsom. He hates his hair. He hates everything about him. But it isn’t the insults,” I was told. “It’s the fact that Newsom is getting better audience reaction.”
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Once again, Donald Trump is trying to lead a reality show. But what should concern him isn’t the Republicans who no longer like him or the Democrats who have trouble beating him. No, it’s the meeting of the leaders of China, Russia, India and North Korea last weekend. That’s the buddy-buddy club Trump wants to join. And they were having fun merely toying with him.
Perhaps that’s why, in addition to his health concerns, he simply refused on Thursday to be seen much in public — opting instead to limit himself to saying in a late dinner with fellow oligarchs that he’s unhappy with Putin. Trump repeated an oft-told lie to reporters, claiming he had “stopped three wars” — down from his usual claim of six or seven. But Putin is proving to be tougher than he realized.
Former President Barack Obama, while eulogizing Arizona Sen. John McCain in 2018, referred to the United States as the “indispensable nation.” While he and McCain were miles apart on many policies, they agreed on the essential need for a democratic nation, “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all [people] are created equal.”
Trump has turned the indispensable nation into a country where he claims people want a dictator. And those who are left supporting him don’t see a dictator — they see Santa Claus coming to town.
But Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Senate testimony on Thursday let everyone know that Santa isn’t coming — it’s the Grim Reaper, urging us to bring out the dead.
