He manhandled the World Cup trophy, showed off a “nice” photo of Putin and threatened to invade Chicago. Here’s everything you need to know about a genuinely odd day in Trump World
Donald Trump goes on a lot about “Trump derangement syndrome” – where people are so consumed with hatred for the man that they’re willing to believe anything bad about him.
I’d argue the more common affliction is Trump Fatigue.
It’s when there’s just SO MUCH Trump every day, that you become a bit numb to everything. It certainly affects me from time to time, and I suspect you, dear reader, also.
So despite there not being the threat of nuclear war at the end of it, I think it’s important to recognise that last night’s Oval Office press conference was one of the weirdest he’s ever delivered.
In it, he did the following things:
- Manhandled the World Cup trophy
- Threatened to send the army into Chicago
- Hinted he’s going to declare a national emergency to get around guard-rails designed to limit the powers of a despotic president
- Showed off a “nice” picture of him and ruthless dictator Vladimir Putin
- Denied all knowledge of an FBI raid on a prominent critic’s home
And that’s not even all of it.
Here’s a roundup of the truly unhinged things that happened in Trump World in the last 24 hours. Try to keep up.
1. He manhandled the World Cup
So the mystery announcement held in the Oval Office last night was that the draw for the World Cup would be done in the Kennedy Centre.
And presumably picked by Trump, because why would the head of state not be involved in a football tournament?
Anyway, Gianni Infantino, the boss of Fifa and clearly a kindred spirit, brought the real Jules Rimet Trophy with him, saying the only people allowed to touch it are him and winners.
“Since you’re a winner,” he said, as if he was speaking to a toddler… “of course you can touch it.”
Trump then asked if he could keep the trophy, and said it would go well with the raft of gaudy gold trinkets he’s scattered across the Oval.
So it all started well…
2. Then he showed off a “nice picture” of “respectful” Putin
Later in the deeply unusual press conference, Trump stood up and showed the room a printed photograph of him and Putin at their half-baked Alaska summit the other week.
“I was just sent a picture from somebody who wants to be there very badly,” he said.
“He’s been very respectful of me and our country but not so respectful of others. But he’ll – I’m gonna sign this for him. But I was sent one.
“That’s a man named Vladimir Putin, who I believe will be coming.”
3. He says he’s going to invade Chicago next
During the Q&A, Trump threatened to expand his militarisation of Washington DC to other cities, notably Chicago. And this time, he said, it could include the regular military as well as the National Guard.
“After we do this, we’ll go to another location,” he said.
“We’ll make it safe, we’re going to make our cities very, very safe.
“Chicago is a mess. You have an incompetent mayor, grossly incompetent, we’re going to straighten that out.
“Probably that’ll be our next one after this, and it won’t even be tough.”
Turning Round to JD Vance, standing grinning behind him, Trump went on: “And the people in Chicago, Mr Vice President, they are screaming for us. They’re wearing red hats.”
And then it got even weirder.
He went on: “They’re wearing red hats. African American ladies, beautiful ladies are saying ‘Please President Trump, come to Chicago, please.”
Shudder.
4. He claimed rules don’t apply to him because he can just declare a national emergency
Trump indicated that once the 30-day limit on his militarisation campaign in DC runs out, he plans to declare a “national emergency” allowing him to do more or less whatever he wants.
“I don’t know if there is a deadline,” he said, “because if I declare a national emergency – which this was – that ends the deadline.”
To be clear, there wasn’t even a local emergency, let alone a national one.
“I keep seeing about a 30-day deadline of which we’ve got about 22 days left or something. If I think we’re in great shape here, that’s one thing. But if I don’t, I’m just going to just say it’s a national emergency, and if I say it’s a national emergency I can keep the troops there as long as I want.”
5. And he claimed the Oval Office was ‘dirty’ when he arrived
As well as his usual boasting about all the tacky gold leaf he’s added to the White House, he added some new scorn for the Oval Office.
Trump has always hated the White House. He reportedly declared it a “real dump” in his first term.
And last night he made a claim about the Oval Office, which is maintained and cleaned by an enormous team of probably quite low paid workers.
He began: “You see the way this is looking. I can’t tell you how much that gold costs… A lot of money. This beautiful office needed it. It needed to be representative.”
But then his tone changed, and he raised his voice.
“When we took it over it was dirty,” he claimed, barely credibly.
“Not clean. I immediately changed the chair and had this beautiful desk renovated…but this was not appropriate for the Oval Office, what I took over.”
6. Ghislaine didn’t see nothing, no sir
Not long after the Press Conference, the Department of Justice dropped the transcripts and tapes of Ghislaine Maxwell’s chats with Todd Blanche, the Deputy Attorney General.
So a few things to know before we get on to what she said.
- Ghislaine is serving 20 years for sex trafficking. She was found guilty of finding young girls to be abused America’s most notorious paedophile, Jeffrey Epstein. She has always denied this, including in her interview with Blanche.
- Ahead of her sentencing in 2021, federal prosecutors said of her: “In short, the defendant has lied repeatedly about her crimes, exhibited an utter failure to accept responsibility, and demonstrated repeated disrespect for the law and the Court.”
- Before Todd Blanche was Deputy Attorney General, he was Donald Trump’s personal defence lawyer.
- She is openly seeking a pardon from Donald Trump.
- A few days after the interview, Ghislaine Maxwell was moved to a lesser security prison. One so cushy in fact that it’s been nicknamed “Club Fed”.
Now we’ve got that out of the way, what did the entirely credible witness have to say?
- The Epstein “client list” doesn’t exist.
- She didn’t witness any inappropriate conduct by Donald Trump.
- She didn’t even think Trump and Epstein were close friends.
- She couldn’t recall Trump sending Epstein a 50th birthday note.
- She didn’t introduce Epstein to Prince Andrew.
- She said allegations of Prince Andrew having sexual relations with an underage girl in her home were “mind-flowingly not conceivable”.
- She said the photo of Andrew and Virginia Giuffre was “fake”
Well there we go then. Nothing to see here.
7. People ‘shouldn’t be hurt’ by Epstein files release
Trump was asked about the Epstein files that were sent to the House Oversight Committee yesterday.
He claimed to be totally open to them being released, as long as innocent people mentioned in the files aren’t “hurt”. People like, if you believe a word Maxwell says, him.
“People shouldn’t be hurt but I’m in support of keeping it totally open. I couldn’t care less,” he said, definitely not referring to himself.
“You got a lot of people that could be mentioned in those files that don’t deserve to be people because he knew everybody in Palm Beach.”
8. You sure you’re alright, buddy?
Trump’s health is under the spotlight again, after a large smear of makeup was spotted on his hand.
The President, 79, has been covering bruising on the back of his hand with makeup that doesn’t match his skin tone for some time now.
But yesterday a large spread of makeup could be seen on the back of his hand Friday that appeared more pronounced than usual.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said Trump’s hand bruising is “consistent” with irritation from his “frequent handshaking and the use of aspirin.”
He had been out of the public eye for several days following his summit with Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday and meetings with European leaders on Monday.
He was only seen in a single photograph, and gave only radio interviews until Thursday night, when he addressed law enforcement officers in Washington DC during an hour-long visit in an otherwise minimal schedule.
And in his Oval Office appearance last night, he didn’t wear a tie and wore his hat the whole time – both very unusual.
9. He claimed he knows nothing about Bolton raid
Trump insisted a number of times yesterday that he knew nothing and had nothing to do with the FBI raid on the home of former National Security Advisor-turned-fierce Trump critic John Bolton.
“I haven’t spoken to Pam and the group yet but I will be,” he said.
“I saw that just like everybody else. I try and stay out of that stuff, I’m allowed to be and I’m chief law enforcement officer, believe it or not, you know I don’t like to go around saying that but I am that’s a position, but I purposely don’t want to really get involved in it.
“I’m not a fan of John Bolton I thought he was sleaze bag actually.
“And he’s suffers major Trump derangement syndrome, but so do a lot of people and they’re not being affected by anything we do.”
10. But Vance said “we” did it
Earlier, though, in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, Vance gave a slightly different reflection.
“We’re in the very early stages of an ongoing investigation into John Bolton,” he said – with the “we” presumably acknowledging that this was something ordered by the Administration, rather than originating with the Justice department.
He went on: “If we think Ambassador Bolton committed a crime, of course eventually prosecutions will come … there’s a broad concern about Ambassador Bolton.”
Asked if it was retribution, Vance replied: “Well, who has said it looks a lot like retribution? A lot of people who tried to throw Donald Trump in prison for completely fake charges that were thrown out by different courts.”
That’s not strictly true. He was convicted on 34 felony counts, after one court decided the charges were very far from fake.
And the court case relating to Trump’s stash of classified documents at Mar a Lago wasn’t thrown out because the charges were fake, it was because the court disagreed with the method by which the special counsel was appointed.
In fact, a grand jury was set up to decide if the charges had merit, and they decided they did – otherwise it would never have made it to court.
Vance went on: “I suspect that if the media and the American people let this case actually unfold, if they let the investigation unfold as it’s currently doing, they’re gonna find out that what we’re doing is being very deliberate and driven by the national interest.”
Why would the Vice President be so curiously well-briefed on an FBI investigation? Weird.