The Weekly WTF: America won its holy war so now Epstein is back
Plus, JD Vance endorses poverty and corruption, and Iran makes a funny
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This stuff actually happened:
Trump revives Epstein scandal. Melania Trump, that is. The First Lady gave a six-minute statement to reporters at the White House on April 9 to clarify that “numerous fake images and statement about Epstein and me … are completely false.”
Huh? It’s well known that Donald Trump was an Epstein pal for years, and that he and Melania socialized with Epstein in the early 2000s. But of all the people linked with the dead pedophile’s crimes and depredations, Melania Trump isn’t one of them.
Or is she? What don’t we know?
The rumors Melania is referring to might be social-media speculation that Epstein somehow procured Melania Knauss, as she was known when she came to the United States in 1996, for Trump. But if so, who cares. Knauss was 26 when she moved from Slovenia to New York. She couldn’t have been one of Epstein’s underage victims, unless it was abroad in the 1980s, and there’s no evidence of that.
Trump, the president, told a reporter after Melania’s performance that he didn’t know she was planning to make such a statement. Do they ever speak? Bounce things off each other, like old married couples typically do?
Epstein sleuths think Melania might know that some Epstein publicity bomb is about to drop, and be preemptively distancing herself from her husband to escape the damage. She might also just be loony or paranoid. Or insulted to be likened to a prostitute on social media. Who knows.
It’s still the case, however, that Donald Trump’s name is conspicuously absent in the Epstein documents, and it’s pretty obvious that a politically compromised Justice Dept. run by Trump cronies has airbrushed his name from the public files. There are probably still some Epstein secrets and Melania may have an inkling what they are.
Iran trolls Trump. After Trump announced an April 7 ceasefire with Iran, Iranian media posted an AI-generated video on social media showing Trump descending the steps of Air Force One sheepishly bearing a white surrender flag. Conciliatory, huh?
The ceasefire looks very shaky, largely because it’s not clear Iran will agree to any kind of concession. Instead, it’s asserting what could be permanent control over tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz, which would be an astonishing degree of new leverage gained by a nation that survived 39 days of bombing by two of the world’s most powerful militaries. The Iranian regime took a beating and may be cowed privately, but its public stance toward the United States is still, up yours, Trump.
[See 5 huge problems with the Iran war ceasefire]
War Bunny. Trump addressed the Iran war on April 5 while emceeing the annual White House Easter Egg roll from a balcony at the White House, with the Easter Bunny standing to his left. The audience below was mostly kids there for the egg event. “I don’t think it gets more hostile than Iran,” Trump told the kids, while the Easter Bunny looked out with a reassuring permagrin. “You don’t mind when the enemy is weak, but that enemy is strong, not so strong like they were about a month ago,” Trump explained to the captivated egg rollers. Like a good soldier, the Easter Bunny remained inscrutable.
Vance touts poverty and corruption. Vice President JD Vance took time out of his busy schedule (?) to fly to Hungary and campaign for Europe’s worst leader, Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who looks likely to lose an April 12 reelection bid. “Trump loves you, and so do I,” Vance told Orban in a public meeting on April 7.
[See the economic toll of the Iran war, in 8 charts]
During 20 years in power, Orban has transformed Hungary from a fragile democracy into a corrupt autocracy that is Europe’s poorest country. Among his claims to shame, Orban is widely viewed as a lapdog for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. Bloomberg recently published a transcript of a phone call in which Orban said to Putin, “In any matter where I can be of assistance, I am at your service.” So of course the American president sent his lackey to gush over Orban.
If Orban loses the April 12 vote, it’s not clear he’ll relinquish power. That could put Trump and Vance in the position of supporting a crook trying to overturn a legitimate election. Vance and Trump might be backing Orban so that if he loses, they can call it a rigged election and use it as a template for overturning any results that might go against them in US elections this year or in 2028. God bless America.
Vance’s other crappy job. Trump also assigned Vance to head the ceasefire negotiations with Iran. The starting point for that is the US and Iran have each listed a separate set of demands, with almost no common ground. Iran thinks it has the upper hand because Trump can’t stand the pain of US gasoline prices heading toward $5 per gallon. The Iranians think they’ve won by merely surviving the US assault, so Trump may be setting Vance up for failure.
[Trump’s inflation immolation]
Iran’s new leverage over oil shipments is unnerving, but Vance’s comeuppance is entertaining for anybody disgusted by his transmogrification from the insightful author of “Hillbilly Elegy” to a rage-baiting culture warrior who cozies up to some of the world’s most loathsome people.
Easter miracle in Islamic country. While describing the rescue of a downed aviator in Iran on Easter Day, April 5, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, “Flown out of Iran as the sun was rising on Easter Sunday, a pilot reborn. All home and accounted for. A nation rejoicing. God is good.”
At least 13 other Americans have died in the Iran war. God has not been so good to them, if survival is the measure of goodness. Hegseth’s divine accounting seems woefully incomplete.
Hegseth is a weirdo who laces war briefings with biblical verse and seems to think God intervenes in wars that humans wage on each other. During a March prayer breakfast, he asked God for “overwhelming violence” against Iran. He later made a public plea to all Americans to pray for victory “every day, on bended knee … in the name of Jesus Christ.”
Jesus Christ hasn’t said how he feels about this, but Pope Leo said in a recent homily that that some so-called Christian causes are “distorted by a desire for domination, entirely foreign to the way of Jesus Christ.” But what does the pope know.
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Social Media and, NAZI Philosophy will be the downfall for our country.Oh! don't forget our constant desire do make ourselves rich. I am just here to try an please God because, my spirit and, soul mean something .Love your neighbor,s even if they are the enemy.You'll get along a lot better.
Another great list of WTFs!! These have been some really productive weeks for this column. Sometimes you have to pinch yourself until it actually hurts to make sure you're awake (bc what if you were pinching yourself in a dream, er, I mean a nightmare, and it didn't hurt but you only thought it hurt and so you thought you weren't dreaming, although you were actually dreaming -- now my head is also hurting as I think thru this, so I must clearly be awake). This stuff is beyond Veep and parodies like it.
I love the way Andy Borowitz comes up with satirical press releases that kinda ring true... They have a quality similar to "truthiness", the term coined and first described by Stephen Colbert on his old Comedy Central show two decades ago.