If Donald Trump were a normal human being, which of course he is not, he would have announced the next G7 will no longer be held at his own hotel and moved on to more pressing issues, like the grease fire he started in Syria, the Democratic impeachment inquiry, and the general business of running the country. Instead, because he’s a pathological narcissist who thinks it’s so unfair that he received some bad press for selecting his for-profit resort for a giant intergovernmental summit of world leaders, he’s quite obviously going to spend the next several months—if not longer!—complaining about the whole thing. The never-ending bitching and moaning will likely go down on Twitter, in press conferences, during rallies, and, if we had to guess, while visiting wounded soldiers at Walter Reed or the parents of children lost to gun violence. The long monologues will undoubtedly touch on “PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT,” during which obvious lies will be prominently featured, and on Monday, we got a taste for what he’s got in store.
Speaking at a cabinet meeting that was intended to be a discussion about the administration’s “successful rollback of the abuses and the high cost of the bloated regulatory state,” the president almost immediately moved to air his grievances. After ranting about the negative reaction to his catastrophic decision to pull out of northern Syria and give Turkey the greenlight to invade, which has led to our once-Kurdish allies being slaughtered and the escape of ISIS prisoners—“I’m the one who did the capturing,” Trump insisted—he moved onto the most important issue of the day. “I’m very good at real estate,” he said, talking up his Miami resort that he claims needs no promotion, adding that the summit “would have been the best G7 ever,” if only people had been cool with him collecting millions from foreign leaders, which is the actual definition of an Emoluments Clause violation, a Constitutional ban he described as “phony.”
Trying to make the argument that he in no way profits from the presidency, even though he 100% does and then some, Trump reminded the group assembled that he gives away his presidential salary, naturally botching the history of his predecessors. “They say George Washington may have been the only other president to do that,” he rambled. “See whether or not Obama gave up his salary. See whether or not all of the other of your favorites, your other favorites gave up their salary. The answer is no.” In fact, George Washington was paid $25,000 for his presidential duties, while Herbert Hoover and John F. Kennedy both donated their paychecks to charitable causes.
Later, Trump insisted that him collecting bags of cash from six other foreign governments was the same thing as Barack Obama being paid by U.S. publisher and movie studio after he left office. “Obama made a deal for a book. Is that running a business?” he said. “I’m sure he didn’t even discuss it while he was president. He has a deal with Netflix. When did they start talking about that?” Then he claimed that Obama had tried and failed 11 times to secure a meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, which of course, never happened at all.
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