Impromptus

Pope Don, &c.

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President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House, April 29, 2025. (Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)
On Trump and the GOP; capitalism and imperialism; the Epstein case; notable centenarians; and more

‘If Obama had said that . . .” “If Obama had done that . . .” We often heard those lines during Donald Trump’s first term as president. The lines had grown tiresome by March 2017 or so (a couple of months into that term). But they regularly applied.

I thought of them last week. A reporter asked Trump whether he had a rooting interest in the papal election. The president answered, “I’d like to be pope. That would be my number-one choice.” A few days later, Trump circulated this:

“Can’t you take a joke?” people say. “He’s such a kidder! You gotta love him! Chill out, dude.” Okay. But if Obama had done that? If Biden had done that? If any Democrat had done that?

The truth is, Trump is held to standards different from the ones that other presidents have been held to — lower standards, or none at all.

Did you get your invitation, by the way? I will quote it:

HAVE DINNER WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP
The most EXCLUSIVE INVITATION in the World.
Only for the TOP 220 $TRUMP Meme Coin Holders

Don’t you think that if a Democratic president did this — if he milked the presidency for profit this way — Republican politicians would be calling for his impeachment? Don’t you think the Republican media would be echoing this call, loudly?

I do. (I’ve been in this business since the previous century.)

How about this?

A new private membership club in Washington, D.C., co-founded by Donald Trump Jr., is charging a $500,000 membership fee — and there’s already a waiting list.

The club, called Executive Branch, held a launch party on Saturday night that included at least a half dozen members of President Donald Trump’s administration . . .

Swampy is as swampy does.

Let’s keep playing, for a while. In an interview ten days ago, Trump said,

We’re a department store, a giant department store, the biggest department store in history. . . .

. . . I am this giant store. It’s a giant, beautiful store, and everybody wants to go shopping there. And on behalf of the American people, I own the store, and I set prices . . .

If a Democrat evinced such an economic understanding — and such an understanding of the presidency — do you know what Republicans would say? I do. (I’d be saying it along with them.)

In another interview, Trump said, “I run the country and the world.” The Republicans I knew, pre-2016, would have screamed bloody murder over this.

Let’s keep playing. Justifying his tariffs, and their effects, Trump said, “Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know?” He subsequently said, “They don’t need to have 250 pencils. They can have five.”

Five pencils! How generous of him.

During the 2016 presidential primaries, on the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders said that America doesn’t need 23 kinds of deodorant or 18 kinds of sneakers. Republicans hooted. Rightly.

We Republicans (I was one then) thought that the atmosphere around Barack Obama was a little culty. We had seen nothing yet.

Check out this cabinet meeting (with a MAGA hat at each place?):

Have some more, if you can stomach it:

And here’s a little Fox:

Partisanship is a powerful force. It can be viewed as the political expression of tribalism — and there is almost nothing more powerful than tribalism. (This has roots in evolutionary biology, people argue, persuasively.)

My party is for free trade? Then so am I. Now it is protectionist? Then so am I. My party believes in standing up to dictators and standing for democratic values? Then so do I. Now my party has reversed itself? Then so will I. My party says that candidates should be of decent moral character? Yes! My party now says that this is prudish baloney? Yes!

You know how it goes.

The hold that Donald Trump has on Republicans, and the Right generally, is astounding. In a recent column, Dan Hannan wrote,

Something that astonished me in Washington last week was the tone that conservatives would adopt when disagreeing with — not even criticizing, simply disagreeing with — the president. They would glance around and lower their voices, the way dissidents used to do in the Soviet bloc.

• Let’s turn to music — but music tinged with politics. I will explain. Here is my “New York chronicle” published in the May New Criterion. I wish to quote a passage:

Before a note was played, or sung, the pianist faced the audience and talked. “Hey,” he began. The voice recital to follow, he said, would bring “colonial perspectives” and “indigenous perspectives.” Ah. There is a lot of that around. Our program notes began, “There is no easy way to confront the legacies of imperial control.” They further informed us that capitalism is “an often-overlooked form of imperialism.” Did you know that?

I have heard capitalism called many things — by leftists, rightists, populists, nationalists, socialists, et al. I don’t think I had ever heard it called “imperialist.” In reality, capitalism empowers individuals and nations. Economic freedom is part and parcel of freedom overall.

My chronicle continues,

At the end of his remarks, the pianist, to his great credit, said something like this: “You can absorb the political or historical points of the program. Or you can simply enjoy an evening of good music, taking from it what you will.” Excellent.

• An obituary begins,

Virginia Giuffre, a victim of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring who said she was “passed around like a platter of fruit” as a teenager to rich and powerful predators, including Prince Andrew of Britain, died on Friday at her farm in Western Australia. She was 41.

Ms. Giuffre (pronounced JIFF-ree) died by suicide, according to a statement by the family.

Reading about this woman’s life made my blood boil. She was wronged from a very young age — and those who did it to her . . . well, my thoughts toward them are not exactly merciful, to put it mildly.

In 2002, New York magazine published a profile headed “Jeffrey Epstein: International Moneyman of Mystery.” One paragraph reads,

Epstein likes to tell people that he’s a loner, a man who’s never touched alcohol or drugs, and one whose nightlife is far from energetic. And yet if you talk to Donald Trump, a different Epstein emerges. “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,” Trump booms from a speakerphone. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”

That whole atmosphere is repulsive. Makes my blood boil.

• Let me turn to something better. “Odile de Vasselot, Teenage Aristocrat in the French Resistance, Dies at 103.” That obit is here. “One had to do something,” she later said. “One never has the right to just sit there and do nothing.” What a woman. I’m glad to know about her, even after the fact.

• I’m glad to know about Ethel Caterham too. She is still with us, at 115. An Englishwoman, she is now the world’s oldest living person, apparently. I will quote from a news report:

“Never arguing with anyone, I listen and I do what I like,” she said from her nursing home in Surrey, southwest of London, on the secret to her longevity.

I thought of Eubie Blake, our jazzman, who died at 96. His recipe was: “Be grateful for luck. Pay the thunder no mind — listen to the birds. And don’t hate nobody.”

• It rained like billy hell in New York on Saturday night. I don’t think I had ever seen, or heard, such ferocious rain here. It was like Niagara, pouring straight down (with a lightning show to boot). I thought, “At least it’ll clean the streets.” And when I went out on Sunday morning, bright and early — yes, the streets had seldom looked cleaner.

• Here is a shot of Riverside Park:

And maybe one for the road — I like this color, quite a bit:

Thank you for joining me today, my friends. See you later.

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