A couple of weeks ago, at the latest White House Cabinet meeting, a reporter asked Attorney General Pam Bondi a question about the Jeffrey Epstein case, and Donald Trump was incredulous. “People still talking about this guy, this creep?” the president interjected. “That is unbelievable.”
To hear Trump tell it, with all that’s going on in the world, asking about the Epstein scandal was an example of media professionals taking an interest in meaningless trivia. These are serious times, which means serious people should focus on matters of national and global significance.
You know, like “South Park.” Variety reported:
Donald Trump‘s White House has responded to Wednesday night’s explosive ‘South Park’ Season 27 premiere, which portrayed the president begging for sex from Satan and featured a Deepfake-assisted PSA where Trump goes fully nude.
In a written statement, a White House spokesperson said, among other things, that the show’s creators are lacking in “authentic or original content.”
“This show hasn’t been relevant for over 20 years and is hanging on by a thread with uninspired ideas in a desperate attempt for attention,” the statement continued, dismissing the program as a “fourth-rate show.”
Oh. So, two weeks after Trump dismissed the Epstein scandal as trivia, the White House turned its attention to … a Comedy Central cartoon.
In fact, as it turns out, the president and his team have become enthusiastic comedy critics lately. Trump has repeatedly lashed out at “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert, and the Republican has also taken aim at a variety of other late-night hosts and comedians, including Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Jon Stewart and Seth Meyers.
What’s more, Trump has obsessed over NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” for nearly a decade, repeatedly condemning the show, and even suggesting that the program face official governmental investigations for airing jokes he considered to be political “collusion.”
Part of the problem here is that Trump still doesn’t fully appreciate the nature of the American presidency.
Soon after he left office, Lyndon Johnson was asked about the mockery he received from the Smothers Brothers, who hosted a popular comedy show on CBS at the time. “It is part of the price of leadership of this great and free nation to be the target of clever satirists,” LBJ said, adding, “May we never grow so somber or self-important that we fail to appreciate the humor in our lives.”
Other presidents adopt similar postures under similar circumstances. John F. Kennedy joked about Vaughn Meader’s impression of him. Gerald Ford was mocked mercilessly on “SNL,” but he was a good sport about it. George H.W. Bush actually became friends with Dana Carvey after seeing the comedic actor’s unflattering impression of him. They each seemed to understand a simple truth: Being president of the United States not only makes a person one of the highest-profile individuals on the planet, it also makes him/her the target of jokes. Trump may hate the idea of becoming the subject of public ridicule, but it’s simply a part of the job. But just as notable is the degree to which the president and his White House team come across as crybabies and snowflakes every time they invest attention in comedy at odds with their delicate sensibilities. The more the president and his team are rattled by satire, comedians and cartoons, the more they appear weak and pathetic. For all of Trump’s efforts to convince the world that he’s some kind of strong colossus, his whining about comedy makes him look tiny. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
Latest Post
Recommended
