Mr. Trump Goes to Washington

Meanwhile, in Donald Trump’s White House…

The next President of the United States surveys the Oval Office, and he immediately begins demanding changes. “I want the Red Phone back,” Trump says.

White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus shifts into his trying-to-not-sound-condescending voice and says, “Mr. President, the Red Phone wasn’t actually real. That was just in the movies.”

“It was real. I saw it in a documentary.”

“That was Dr. Strangelove, Mr. President. It’s a mov—“

“I want the Red Phone back, Reince. Today.” Trump points to the bust of Martin Luther King Jr. that President Obama had in the Oval. “Get this ugly statue-thing outta here. Who is that anyway? My father called them ‘darkies,’ but you can’t say that anymore, have to be politically correct. What horseshit.”

To replace Dr. King, Trump pulls a Vladimir Putin bobblehead from a parcel with Russian markings on it. A Hallmark card with a kitty on it is included with instructions on where to place the bobblehead. The card specifies the figurine is to be pointed at the Resolute desk, with no electronics around it that can interfere with the signal. The bobblehead’s left eye is a pinhole camera that beams surveillance video directly to the Kremlin.

George Henry Story’s portrait of Abraham Lincoln is taken off the wall of the Oval Office and put in a closet. In that masterpiece’s place, Michael Israel’s painting of Trump himself is hung. That work of art was purchased with $20,000 dollars of charity money and resided at Mar-a-Lago, in Florida. The resort sent the painting to the White House on “permanent loan.”

Also stuffed in the closet is Edward Hopper’s Cobb’s Barns, South Truro, and Childe Hassam’s Avenue in the Rain. A — as the President puts it — “really bitchin’” poster of a Lamborghini Countach with a babe in a thong crawling on the hood is put on the wall of the hallowed office. And the classic Kelly LeBrock in a half-shirt poster from Weird Science. Whenever anyone asks about the poster, President Trump holds his tiny index finger and thumb an inch apart and brags “I came this close to stuffing Kelly’s box in the shitter at the Russian Tea Room, 1988. So close. So close.”

Aesthetic changes are happening quickly all around the White House. Steve Bannon insists that a print of Baphomet by Eliphas Levi be placed in the Palm Room. In the Red Room, Gilbert Stuart’s 1804 painting of Dolley Madison is replaced with a nude of Melania Trump by Thomas Kinkade entitled Spread Eagle on Fur.

Every morning at Trump’s new White House begins the same way. From the Truman Balcony, Ted Nugent emerges in a loincloth, his hairy beer belly sagging over the front, to provide a solo twenty-one gun Trump-salute with an AR-15. This has occurred so far without incident except for last week when one of the twenty-one rounds fired into the air clipped a hobo on Constitution Avenue. The bullet hit the gentleman in the neck and he later died in the emergency room of George Washington University Hospital. It was suggested not using live rounds anymore and switching to blanks, but President Trump shot that suggestion down as “for total pussies.”

Following the twenty-one gun salute, Nugent stands in front of a stack of Marshall amplifiers and plays “The Star-Spangled Banner” on a guitar with the Confederate Flag painted on it. The American flag is raised on the roof of the White House, followed by the newly-created Trump flag. Commissioned by the president, the Trump flag is a black background with TRUMP in bold letters using thread with actual gold in it. Also in gold thread, is the Trump family coat of arms, that doesn’t go back to Scotland as he claims. Trump created it and pretends its real. Small detail that can only be seen up close shows gold dollar signs running along all four sides of the flag.

Ted Nugent turns to Trump and asks, “Ready, Mr. President?”

Trump scrunches his face and nods. “Ready. Play it.”

To end the morning ceremonies, Nugent plays “Cat Scratch Fever,” Trump’s favorite song. Trump awkwardly sways back and forth, not on rhythm, and only sings one line:

Well, I make the pussy purr 

with the stroke of my hand,

they know they’re gettin’ 

it from me

The President of the United States wipes a tear from his eye and says, “I really love poetry. Not the faggy stuff, though, am I right? No homo, guys.”

An effort from the White House Communications Office to persuade professional sports teams to play “Cat Scratch Fever” following the National Anthem has so far been ignored.

Chief Strategist and Senior Counselor to the President Steve Bannon declined a prestigious West Wing office, preferring a workspace hidden in the basement of the White House. In a former storage closet, tucked behind the heating and air-conditioning control center. Bannon consulted the same security firm that installed the alarms to Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch bedroom to alert him when someone was approaching while he, uh … “entertained” young male guests. When anyone approaches Bannon’s basement office, a ding that sounds like when you walk into a 7-Eleven is heard and a red light above the door flashes. That signal gives Bannon enough time stop jerking off to 8mm footage of the Nuremberg rallies and get ready for a meeting. There’s also time to put a wrinkled sport coat on to cover the antique Nazi armband Bannon wears daily. The armband once belong to Heinrich Himmler and was purchased at auction for an undisclosed amount.

Strangely, less than week after Bannon set up shop in his dank and musty office, a family of Mexican long-nosed bats moved in and they reside hanging from the ceiling in the Northeast corner. The bats are mostly polite tenants, but they sometimes act up and heckle the Chief Strategist for what they view as “some racist bullshit.”

A placard rests on Bannon’s desk that reads “ONCE YOU HAVE THEM BY THE BALLS, THEIR HEARTS AND MINDS WILL FOLLOW.” Next to the sign is the control panel for all the hidden cameras and listening devices that have been planted in every room of the White House. Steve Wynn donated a security system identical to the one used at his Las Vegas casino. An enormous bank of flatscreen televisions shows the activity of every staffer and cabinet member. Also from his desk, Bannon can talk directly to Trump through an IFB earpiece that is in the president’s ear at all times. Two days ago, Bannon provided every answer to a Sean Hannity interview through the earpiece and Trump repeated them like Cyrano de Bergerac getting lines to seduce the lovely Roxanne. The president was as close to making complete and coherent sentences since assuming office and it was decided every interview from now on would employ the same procedure.

Sean Spicer, the White House Press Secretary, tries his absolute best to spin the draining of the White House swimming pool on the South Lawn and converting it into an alligator pit. Spicer tells CNN’s Poppy Harlow “Look, ‘drain the swamp,’ okay, that’s what Mr. Trump said he was going to do and that’s what he has been doing.”

Poppy Harlow is momentarily stunned by the absurdity of that statement. She stares blankly into the camera.

Spicer continues, “What we did on the South Lawn was empty that elitist swimming pool — real Americans in flyover country, in true red states, don’t have fancy swimming pools — and bring water up from near Mar-a-Lago to symbolically represent ‘draining the swamp.’ It’s a metaphor, okay? The alligators promote conservation in the Everglades and other wetland areas in the United States. People love it. They love the symbolism. We’ve heard nothing but positives from people about the alligators.”

Indeed, the Trump administration had partially “drained the swamp.” Not in the way promised on the campaign trail, but by transporting 7,000 gallons of Everglades water from the environs around the Mar-a-Lago property in Florida. Along with the water comes a truck with seven fully grown alligators. The gators all measure between eleven and twelve feet from snout to tail, except for one enormous bull that measures nineteen feet, three inches long. Trump names the alpha alligator Caligula and loves to show him off to visitors to the White House. His favorite trick to have Caligula perform is to toss him some of his Big Mac and chicken McNuggets and have the beast snatch them out of the air like Ken Griffey Jr. snagging a fly ball.

The alligator pit on the South Lawn is given the benefit of the doubt by the American people at first, but after New York Times reporter Frank Bruni “fell into” the gator’s confines and is eaten alive, skepticism has set in. The White House press office releases a statement expressing their “great sorrow for this tragic accident” and Trump himself Tweets to Bruni’s family they are in his “thoughts and prayers.”

Foul play is suspected. Leaks from the White House indicate Caligula was given first crack at Bruni and tore both his legs off with one bite and a thrashing motion. Mother Jones is reporting Steve Bannon is pressing for the gator pit to be used as a deterrent for protesters. Those reports have not been confirmed.

News of Frank Bruni’s tragic demise is not announced from the Press Briefing Room podium as is tradition. That room, normally full of buzzing reporters, has been eliminated and is in the process of being converted into the “Eric and Don Jr Tannery and Taxidermy Trading Post.” (More on this in our next installment.) All the animals the Trump boys kill on their pampered expeditions are to be brought to the Tannery and crafted into high-priced souvenirs. The ivory combs have been selling out as fast as they can be made.

In place of the standard press corps making daily inquiries about the President and his policies, there are now three faux-golden chairs that sit in the hallway between the Cabinet Room and the Roosevelt Room. Brass nameplates on each chair specify spots for Breitbart News, InfoWars.com, and Stormfront. All other “mainstream media” hang out in the Juan Valdez Cafe on 19th and F Street where there’s free wifi and monitor Trump’s Twitter feed for any announcements from the White House.

Weird goings-on are happening at Donald Trump’s White House. Strange days are ahead.

After Ted Nugent’s Onanistic fanfare from the Truman Balcony, Reince Priebus slowly makes the short walk from the Chief of Staff’s office to the Oval. He takes a deep breath, enters, and greets the President of the United States of America.

“Good morning, Mr. President, shall we continue?”

“Fuck it, I guess. Hang on, I want to hear this. They’re talking about me. They used a good picture. Look at the beauty. Great picture.”

Ten minutes later, after some pleading and bribing with a Sausage, Egg & Cheese McGriddle, President Trump finally mutes Fox and Friends, sits at the Resolute desk and feigns paying attention. Priebus has rounded up a handful of social studies books from Washington D.C. middle schools. The goal that was decided from the senior staff is to get the President to sophomore-level knowledge of American history by the end of 2017.

Trump pretends to care as he flips to the dogeared page of “United States History Beginning to 1914,” for grades 6-8. Ivanka chose that book for her father because it has a choo-choo on the cover.

“Okay, Mr. President, the Civil War was from 1861 to 1865. The main causes for the war were— Sir? Sir, are you paying attention?”

“Sure, sure, tremendous stuff, Reince, tremendous,” Trump says as he fills in the pattern of a basset hound with a banjo in his “Creative Haven Dazzling Dogs” adult coloring book.

Illustration by mikeymbm3

Read episode 2: Trump’s New Rules