Uh Oh, Donald Trump Classing Up The White House Again Some More
Aw jeez.
Donald Trump just can’t stop “improving” the White House to make it look more and more like one of his failed Atlantic City Casinos. He even demolished the East Wing of the White House to make it look like the bankrupt Trump Plaza casino after it was imploded.
Early this week the executive mansion added a handsome new “The Oval Office” sign in fancy gold letters, printed out on three sheets of letter-sized paper like a homemade “Garage Sale” sign. (Fierce debate raged over whether the paper was letter or legal sized, but it was definitely not that funny foreign A4 stuff.)
In an impressive feat of investigative journalism, Fast Company determined that the font used for the golden sign was “Shelley Script,” created by “famed type designer Matthew Carter” for Linotype in 1972. “It’s been used for everything from winery websites to book covers, according to Fonts in Use, and it’s a go-to choice for wedding invitations.”
Fast Company also consulted type historian Paul Shaw, who said that the typeface itself “is perfectly fine,” but added, “The problem is not the fit, but the idea of even slathering the phrase ‘The Oval Office’ on the exterior. It looks like part of a theme park.”
That goes double for another “improvement” we had so far missed, the addition of a grand new golden sign on the West Colonnade, which leads from the residence to the West Wing. That’s where Trump classed up the White House even further in September by adding a collection of framed portraits and photos of all the presidents, but instead of a photo of Joe Biden’s face, there’s a photo of an autopen, haw haw haw.
But to prove that this is one classy joint, the Colonnade now sports its own golden sign — this time in actual three-dimensional gold letters attached to the wall — proclaiming it the “Presidential Walk of Fame.”
The Colonnade also is covered in a fuckton of those ugly gold wall appliqués that have been slathered all over the Oval Office. The things are apparently reproducing like gilded tribbles, and may soon cover every surface of the White House, making ingress and egress impossible. We can dream, at least.
Inside the part of the Dementia Care Unit labeled 𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓦𝓮𝓼𝓽 𝓦𝓲𝓷𝓰 Thursday, The Great Man held a press event to announce price reductions — for some Medicare patients at least — on GLP-1 weight-loss drugs. Trump is fond of calling the meds “the fat drug” or the “fat shot,” and reminded everyone that’s what he calls them, because even a good thing must be accompanied with some shame. While Eli Lily CEO Dave Ricks was giving his spiel about the deal, one of the guests at the meeting fainted.
Trump appeared to be nodding off himself at several points during the speeches. (No, he was resting his eyes, is all!) But the commotion among the people behind him did at least rouse him enough that he stood up, and after briefly watching the drug execs and White House staffers help the guy, Trump turned away and went into standby mode, as press aides shooed reporters from the room. The image of Trump standing impassively while others helped the human being in distress became instantly iconic.
Don’t worry, folks, plenty of people in the replies on Bluesky pointed out that their cats have far more empathy than Donald Trump has ever demonstrated in his entire life.
MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell put it aptly:
He looked and then turned away. […] And then Donald Trump, a person without a single sympathetic instinct, stood staring straight ahead, as if pretending that whatever suffering the man behind him was experiencing wasn’t happening.
Lots of people were reminded of that time when Barack Obama helped a woman who fainted while he explained that the bugs in the Affordable Care Act website were being fixed. Notice how he doesn’t at all look like a zoned-out weirdo here.
Predictably, the White House has made at least some flailing gestures toward insisting that Trump cared very deeply, despite his blank stare. As Newsweek reports, Dr. Mehmet Oz insisted in a video released by the White House that Great Leader was a secret hero, at least once the cameras were gone.
Oz said that he somehow managed to get the wife of the poor man on the phone within moments of the guy collapsing. And then this 100 percent true story actually happened, no way would Oz make this up just because he’s a veteran snake oil salesman.
“I wanted to speak to the wife to let her know what was happening, but also comfort her. The president saw me in the corner and said, 'Who are you talking to?' I said, sort of sheepishly, I was talking to the wife. And he said give me that phone,” Oz said.
“And he talked to her and got her much calmer than I could have ever done. And I just think he's just a wonderful human being that he would take time. He could have gone off and done ten other things. But he actually cared that the wife of a man who he has never met before felt in a safer place.”
“He remembers the forgotten folks,” Oz added.
Oz prefaced the story by insisting it “speaks loudly to the kind of person the president is,” and we agree: He can never be seen as anything but heroic, so he has his lickspittles make up bullshit stories about how he’s the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being they’ve ever known in their lives.
[Fast Company / MSNBC / Newsweek / Dan Diamond]
Yr Wonkette is funded entirely by reader donations. If you can, please become a paid subscriber, or if you’re in more of a one-time donation mood, here’s that button, though you’ll have to imagine the letters are gold:
"The president saw me in the corner and said, 'Who are you talking to?' I said, sort of sheepishly, I was talking to the wife. And he said give me that phone,”"
SURE, JAN.
Mostly-forgotten cartoonist Scott Adams offered this take on Trump's brave noninterference:
"President Trump stands and faces the situation with the seriousness and respect it deserves.
But he knows this is not his moment. He's in charge of the room, and the country. The doctors are in charge of the patient, and that's the highest priority.
I might be biased because these are some of the same men who supported me as I was medically "collapsing."
Later in the day, I was just catching up with the story, and reading about how Dr. Oz jumped in, and my phone rings. It was Dr. Oz, just following up to make sure I was getting everything I needed from my doctors. (I am.)
Incredible."
And then everyone applauded.