President Baby Hands Attends NFL Game, Gets Booed Harder Than On His Wedding Night
At least one good thing happened on Sunday.
Let’s just say it flat-out: Sunday sucked. It rained. The Senate Democrats caved so hard on the shutdown that you might have thought a sinkhole had opened in their caucus meeting room. Anyone who took the Panthers or the Bills got cleaned out. (Alternately, if you for some reason had the Saints or the Dolphins covering or winning outright, congrats. Can we borrow a few bucks?)
On the other hand, Donald Trump went to a football game and got booed worse than we’ve seen any politician ever get booed at a sporting event, or possibly anywhere. Worse than he got booed at Game 5 of the World Series in 2019. Worse than when he attended the Super Bowl last February. Worse than Vice President Tattoo — sorry, Vice President JD Vance — got booed when he showed up at a symphony concert at the Kennedy Center a few months ago. Worse than Mr. Burns at the Springfield Film Festival.
Trump attended the Washington Commanders game on Sunday, the first president to attend a regular season NFL game since Jimmy Carter in 1978. Trump was supposedly invited to the game by the Commanders’ owner, who is trying to get a new stadium built in Washington DC and needs Trump’s approval. (He might also need to promise to put Trump’s name on the stadium, about which more in a moment.)
First, let us enjoy Trump being booed twice. The first time was when he was shown on the stadium scoreboard late in the first half. The second, much louder booing came during halftime, when he took the microphone to administer a swearing-in oath for new members of the military:
That is some booing. We haven’t heard booing like that since our bar mitzvah. Also, look at those adorable, tiny hands. He can barely hold that binder up.
Trump at least managed to get through the oath without reacting to the crowd’s booing. Of course, he’s so out of it half the time that it’s an open question whether he was aware the crowd existed or not.
Almost as funny is the expression on Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s face while all this was going on. Look at that stern visage! The tight lips! The furrowed brow! Hegseth was plainly mad that the crowd wasn’t being more respectful to America’s WARFIGHTERS AND THE WARFIGHTER MENTALITY GRRRR ARRGGGGGH FART.
Or possibly Hegseth was sober and really mad about it. He strikes us as the sort who would have much preferred to be in the stands, ripping off his shirt to show off his Nazi tattoos and pouring several tallboys down his throat at once while other fans chanted Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug! (Hey, remember that time he tried to Griddy?)
There was a time when a scene like this would have been embarrassing for a president’s handlers. We even wondered aloud what genius thought it was a good idea to put him in front of 75,000 residents of the heavily Democratic city and its surrounding environs in the middle of a government shutdown for which he was getting the majority of the blame, according to the polls. (Lucky the Senate Democrats bailed him out. Way to go, guys.)
But this is Trump, who revels in people hating him. And the scene gives his MAGA sycophants the opportunity to cast Trump and the rest of the right as the victims of a crowd of rude liberals.
Because the game was on Fox, Trump also got to go to the broadcast booth to yammer with the broadcast announcers, Kenny Albert and Jonathan Vilma. He even got to call a play. It was the third quarter, the Commanders were down by 22 points and had the ball inside the Lions’ 10-yard line. And here is our president calling it at around the 4:19 mark in this video with his customary insight:
“I think this is a very important couple of plays. Second and seven, let’s see what happens. Whoa. Not bad.”
John Madden wept.
Trump’s visit occurred the day after ESPN reported that he is pushing the Commanders to name a new stadium after him. And because he has some authority over the federal agencies that have to approve various parts of the project, in theory he has some leverage:
Sources say Trump is not seeking to buy naming rights or have a private donor do so. He wants the stadium to carry his name as a tribute, similar to Chicago’s Soldier Field or Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
His gold ballroom, the Kennedy Center ... Maybe it would be easier in the future to name all the buildings in DC that Trump is not trying to name after himself.
How much of a possibility it is that this happens is very debatable. The Commanders have the option of selling the naming rights to a corporation, which is usually worth between $10 and $20 million a year to a team. Trump already tried to blackmail the owners into changing the team name back to the Redskins before he would approve the deal. But that idea fell by the wayside right quick.
And there is the obvious problem that the Trump name is mud to anyone outside of MAGA. We can absolutely see fans boycotting games because they want nothing to do with Donald J. Trump Stadium.
If the team wants to name something at the stadium after Trump, we can think of a few other options more appropriate to his legacy as a terrible human being and the nation’s worst president. A toilet stall. A dumpster. A grease trap in the kitchen of a concession stand. The laundry cart the players all toss their jockstraps into after a game.
Or just put stickers of his face on all the urinals. That seems most appropriate.
OPEN THREAD.
[Guardian / YouTube / YouTube / Guardian]
Wonkette survives thanks to your generosity, so we don’t have to sell our naming rights.
It has been snowing off and on all day. So pretty.
Following Fukui's advice (yeah I know! but it was good) I have started my second joint while i watch it snow.