A TRUMPIAN BLIND-TRUST CHRISTMAS
Small talk about emoluments around gold plates on a gold-plated table
Some Americans may fear that their next president has other things on his mind, besides being the leader of the free world and earth’s most influential 70-yearold Twitter user. But don’t you worry. “America First!” wasn’t just a slogan of Trump’s campaign or his second marriage. It will be as much a guiding principle of his administration as “Illegals cost me the popular vote!”
If you don’t believe Trump understands how “visually important” it is to remove all suggestions of conflict of interest and demonstrate he understands his historic role as the first birther president, imagine Christmas this year at Mar-a-Lago:
Even Don King stops talking and chewing as the presidentelect rises from his gold-plated Santa throne at the head of the gold-plated table covered with gold-plated gold plates to address family, friends and Fabio.
“First, I must address my oldest children, Ivanka and the other two, who together almost make up one replacement me, OK?”
An explosion of applause and the man who will be the 45th president of the United States turns to face a smaller gold-plated table to his right.
“Don’t think of this as kids’ table, OK? Think of it as a blind trust. A tremendous, very wonderful blind trust. Everyone is saying it’s the blindest trust ever. So blind. Even Stevie Wonder complimented it.”
FANTASTIC PROJECTS
Ivanka, Donald Jr., Eric and their spouses all nod as one.
Their dad continues: “Some people said that if I could only fully focus on the presidency if I put my great businesses in the hands of people I have absolutely no contact with. That would require something very drastic — like putting Tiffany in charge.”
Fabio leads the crowd’s generous guffaws and applause as Trump turns to wink at Tiffany, who is sitting alone at her own gold-plated table.
“Look, the press is going to be unbelievably unfair to me. But I’m trying to make sure everything is, as my friends at Goldman Sachs say, kosher. When Ivanka and I met with the prime minister of Japan — great guy, very Japanese — we never brought up Ivanka’s deals there, which are terrific, even better than the surrender of Imperial Japan.”
Everyone applauds Ivanka, who pauses from her daily four- minute meditation on the evidence behind climate science and paid parental leave to smile.
“When we were talking to Argentina’s president or the president of Turkey, did I use my time to even mention the construction of the fantastic Trump Towers that have been stalled there? No, never. How the permits for both fantastic projects suddenly sped up? It’s one of those mysteries that will never be solved — like how Ted Cruz’s dad killed JFK or how I claim Chris Christie as a tax deduction.”
Eric Trump tries to chant “Lock her up!” but Donald Jr. clamps his hand over his mouth.
“The very dishonest media is saying that I’ll violate the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution as soon as I’m sworn in, which sounds like it was made up by someone with a terrible cleft palate. Did Honest Abe ever have to worry about emoluments? Have you ever heard of that one, Don?”
FANTASTIC KIDS
Don King shrugs as he throws his butter knife into the air behind him, narrowly missing two servers.
“Anyway, I want to be unpredictable. They want a safe little Marco Rubio president, but that’s not me. It’s not what the people want. I know. I saw them at my rallies. I smelled them. So I may even call Taiwan if I get bored. We won’t even bring up how badly they need some fantastic new hotels near the airport in Taipei.”
Ivanka catches his eye, slices her finger across her neck.
“Anyway, who cares? It’s not like Paul Ryan will take a break from nuking Medicare to bother. My fantastic kids will take care of my great business — and after Jan. 20, I won’t ever think anything but ‘America’ and ‘great’ — unless some terrible terrorist has other ideas for one of my properties. In that case, we’ll bomb the sh-t out of them. Merry Christmas, everybody! And only Merry Christmas, unless you want to end up on the other side of the wall, or fence, or vicious rivers.”
The president-elect smiles, revealing teeth so rich and white he almost offers them a Cabinet position.
“Wait. Fabio, did I just hear a Happy Holidays? Oh … That was for Ivanka. OK. Happy Holidays, too. But only for Ivanka. She’s Jewish now, like Jesus. Great guy, very good with the wine.”