It's wafer-thin, sir.
Thanks toTreasuryCommerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, we now have an important new insight into that night a month ago when Donald Trump launched that great big missile-boner attack that slightly inconvenienced a Syrian airfield. Turns out it wasn't only the debut of Trump's important new policy initiative of bombing stuff to marginally improve his approval rating, it was also a lovely entertainment spectacle for visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping, as Ross explained Monday at the "Milken Institute Global Conference" in Beverly Hills:
“Just as dessert was being served, the president explained to Mr. Xi he had something he wanted to tell him, which was the launching of 59 missiles into Syria,” Ross said. “It was in lieu of after-dinner entertainment.”
As the crowd laughed, Ross added: “The thing was, it didn’t cost the president anything to have that entertainment.”
Sure, it cost the USA a few tens of millions of dollars, but Trump wasn't personally on the hook for a penny of it. It was not clear at press time whether Trump was charged a cancellation fee for sending home the clown and trained poodles who were originally scheduled but bumped in favor of a military extravaganza.
At least now we have a partial explanation of that bizarre photo the administration released the next day, showing Trump and whoever happened to be at Mar-a-Lago the night of the attack. It was a strange parody of the famous Obama Situation Room photo the night of the bin Laden raid, except with a lot of people in it who have nothing to do with national security, like SILOTUS Jared Kushner and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross:
It's truly one of the great images of the Trump Years, especially when you notice that everyone is staring intently at the TV monitor except Jared Kushner, who's gazing adoringly at the man who always needs an adoring gaze. And now it's clearer why Wilbur Ross was there: He was strategically placed so a month later he could say the dumbest thing possible about the Syria raid, erasing everyone's memory of Donald Trump rhapsodizing about how great the chocolate cake was. Or maybe reminding everyone of that, too.
Now it's only a matter of time until someone in the Trump administration leaks the news that Trump's 2017 tax return -- which he won't release next year because it's already under audit -- will include a deduction of the full cost of the missile strikes as a business entertainment expense.
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[ Variety via Chris Geidner on Twitter]
Thanks for the laugh
I broke out the cheap stuff (J&B) on November 8th.