When Georgy Met Donny: A Satirical Tête-à-Tête Between 43 and 45

43: Just wanted to call and say thanks, dude!

45: Oh brother! (45 lets out a big sigh)… Thanks for what, George?

43: Dude, you are makin’ me look like a genius.

45: Really? Everyone thought you were a buffoon and the media might hate me, but the people think I’m the smartest president ever!

43: Dude, dude, duuude… (43 pauses for effect)… get your head outta your dumb ass! You… (45 cuts him off)

45: Excuse me, excuse me, George!  First of all… I’d never do that to my hair… also, I’m, like I said, a smart person.

43: Donald, get a grip?  You’re being a major a*@hole – big time, like my Veep Dick would say… (45 cuts him off)

45: Why, George, why?

43: The Muslim ban – even I thought you were showboating during the primaries!  But seriously, you put Iraq on the list?  Do you even know that our soldiers are still in Iraq? That we are about to retake Mosul?

45: George, don’t get me started on Iraq – WMD… gimme a break!  You took us into Iraq, which I warned about back then many, many times… it’s on tape, check it out?  Anyway, you started a war in Iraq because you wanted to one up your Dad… and in doing so, you f$%&*d up the entire Middle East!

43: Listen dude, I made a big mistake listening to Dick’s cabal and their BS… (43 pauses to let 45 take it in)… but then why are you messin’ with Iran… and what’s “puttin’ Iran on notice” mean anyway?  Is that like Obama’s redline, he-he… (45 cuts him off)

45: Very funny, George!  You’re the guy who put Iran on an “axis of evil” – and let them just remain there… now Obama has given them a sweetheart deal like you did with North Korea, the other member of your axis!  Coddling doesn’t work, George!

43: But you keep telling the world I made a big mistake in Iraq and you want to repeat that in Iran?

45:  I’m not going to war with Iran, OK?  But nothing is off the table… can we change the subject?

43: To what… Australia?  He-he… (45 cuts him off)

45: Not funny, George, do you want me to hang up on you like I did with that Aussie?

43: Dude, just chill, would ya?  Listen to your Veep – that Pence fella, he is a good egg!  He’s done such a great job in Indiana… it’s become just like it was in the good old days… (45 cuts him off)

45: George, I got this.  The American people voted for me in record-breaking numbers because they wanted a winner.  They got a winner, there is going to be so much winning, they’re gonna get tired of winning… (43 cuts him off)

43: Look dude, you didn’t win the popular vote – Hillary did! In fact, you even got less overall votes than Mitt!  So you’re a loser there, Donny boy, he-he!

45:  George, you know I could have won the popular vote but for a massive fraud of 3 to 5 million votes in Hillary’s states?

43: Yeah, sure… I lost the popular vote by only ½ million and even I didn’t make such a horseshit claim, Donny!

45: Whatever, George… that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.  Look, I built the most successful business enterprise on the planet and I am gonna do the same for America.  I am going to make America… (43 cuts him off)

43: Save it, dude!  That’s a great slogan but looking at the first two weeks, I’d say you’ve just made America a bit worse! 

45: Whoa! Look who’s talking – remember that “big time” turd you left behind and had Obama clean up?  Now Barack cleaned up your mess all right, but he’s a liberal p@#$y and all he wanted was more government, more regulations, and healthcare for all… that’s no way to grow the economy!  You should know that, George?

43: So dude, you think by imposing tariffs on Mexican goods, mis hermanos mexicanos, you are going to grow the economy?

45: WTF George… (45 lets out loud groan) I don’t understand Mexican, OK?

43: He-he… Look dude, the Wall is a terrible idea and Mexico will never pay for it! 

45: We’ll see about that George?  It’s all because of that lousy NAFTA deal your Dad negotiated way back when… (43 cuts him off)

43: Look dude; keep my Pappy outta this, OK?  How about your badly executed Muslim ban… (45 cuts him off)

45: George, stop calling it that… I am not banning Muslims!

43: Hey, smarty-pants, you’ll learn soon enough that inside the beltway, perception is all that matters.  Perception is reality in Washington D.C.!  If the mainstream media is calling it a ban, it is a ban. Period.  He-he! (long pause) Anywho, Hannity and Fox cannot change that – wake up, smell the fresh hummus waftin’ from the food trucks on Pennsylvania Avenue, and lift the ban.

45: George, it’s not gonna happen… but tell me, not that I care… (45 pauses briefly) what do you think of Neil Gorsuch?

43: Hey, I put Neil on the Appeals Court; he’s a good guy!  But the Dems are pissed because of Mitch’s shabby treatment of Merrick.  You gotta throw ’em a bone, Donny… talk to ’em like I used to.  Chuck and you go a long way; give him a call…

45: Chucky is a monster and a fake!  He can, as Dick said, “Go f%*& himself!”  

43: Big mistake, dude… but like I said you’re makin’ me look good, so whatever. Ciao!

45: Hey, George… let me tell you something – you can never look good, so I’ve got nothing to worry about… (43 hangs up, but 45 continues)  Do me a favor and tell low-energy Jeb, “I did insult my way to the presidency! So there, Loser!  And, I’m going to insult my way, all the freakin’ way, through it as well!”

(45 slams the phone into its cradle for dramatic effect and his staff bursts into applause.)

Moscow on the Potomac

Background:

When I first submitted my op-ed, “Moscow on the Potomac,” on December 20, 2016 to The Washington Post, I had no idea that the Trump-Russian connection was about to explode into the headlines with the CNN/BuzzFeed exposé?  Three weeks ago, I believed I had put together a rather cogent analysis on the possible repercussions of what seemed to be a rather strange, yet cozy, Trump-Putin relationship.  In fact, I went on to submit my op-ed to several other publications without much success.  Now, given some of the shocking political developments this week, I would first like to present my original take on what I thought was a disconcerting situation even back then before Christmas.  Following my op-ed, I have listed in a postscript all of the startling events that unfolded this week and have been reported in various national media.

Moscow on the Potomac:

In December 2016, we marked the 25^th anniversary of the Western world’s victory over the Soviet Union in a metaphorical “Cold War” that spanned much of the second-half of the 20^th century.  But this seminal victory might turn out to be pyrrhic, if President-elect Trump refuses to recognize that Russia, which emerged from the ruins of the Soviet Union, is no longer akin to a friendly western ally that its then President Boris Yeltsin wanted it to become?

U.S. intelligence agencies, including the FBI and the CIA, have concluded based upon a preponderance of evidence that the Russians clearly interfered in this year’s U.S. presidential elections, which are a quintessential part of our democracy.  In fact, the DNI’s “intel” consensus was that Russian President Putin directly approved of cyber efforts to help “Comrade Trump” win the White House.  With Trump in the White House, Putin believes that his dream of returning Russia to the heyday of the Soviet Union will be given a new impetus. 

In fact, and more ominously, with Trump’s appointment of “Comrade Tillerson” as U.S. Secretary of State, Putin must sense that the resurrection, of what then President Reagan so derisively called the “evil empire,” will gain momentum.  In all likelihood, Putin will be allowed to keep Crimea and Secretary Tillerson might even choose to turn a blind eye to Eastern Ukraine.  Putin would then be free to re-deploy his 2008 Georgian annexation (Abkhazia and South Ossetia) “you don’t ask, we don’t tell” model in Eastern Ukraine without any further badgering by the West?  Thus, the resurrection of a new “evil empire” will have begun – with Putin’s “near abroad” strategy firmly taking hold in the first year of the Trump presidency. 

It won’t be too long before Putin’s tentacles start spreading to the Baltics and Eastern Europe, especially if Trump restructures NATO to deemphasize its post-Cold War members.  Mother Russia with her enormous natural gas and oil reserves remains Putin’s “trump” card.  With rising energy prices, Putin could then resume playing this trump card to pressurize Western Europe into lifting sanctions against Russia.  If “Comrade Tillerson” sides with Putin on this critical issue, which can be quickly determined by the Trump administration’s policy on Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, the sanctions regime would immediately collapse.  Putin’s “near abroad” strategy will then enter a more penetrative “further abroad” phase.  

In choosing to bring Russia closer to the United States, Trump is simultaneously seeking to distance us from China.  It appears to be a foreign policy strategy based on economic power, in which Trump views China’s economic strength as a threat, but does not see Russia’s military strength in the same vein.  More distressingly, Trump seems completely unfazed by the cyber threat Russia poses against the West.  Many American pundits believe that Trump will change his tune after taking office and when the linkage between his presidential victory and the role played by Russian cyber espionage begins to fade in the American public’s memory. 

But the political opposition, anti-communist patriots, and the news media are not likely to let go and there will be ongoing questions about whether we have a “Moscow on the Potomac” situation at home?  However, unlike in the 1984 movie, “Moscow on the Hudson” – in which a Russian Robin Williams is trying to defect in a New York Bloomingdale’s department store – this won’t be a laughing matter!  In our current real life situation, Democrats and Reagan conservatives alike will wonder whether we have an American president in the Oval Office kowtowing to the Kremlin?  Trump might not want his presidential victory to be tainted by claims of Russian interference, but he simply cannot place the integrity of our intelligence agencies below that of Putin’s cyber thugs.  After all, these selfsame agencies will be critical to the success of his presidency – they might have flubbed on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, but they also helped President Obama nail Osama bin Laden!

Sadly, to use a Trumpian term, ignoring Russia’s cyber threat in this highly and hyper connected world could cause the West to lose the Cyber War – a more sophisticated 21^st century version than its metaphorical 20^th century cousin, the Cold War, which took us almost five decades to win.  The Cyber War’s devastating impact could cripple western economies, which are so dependent on the Internet, without any physical WMD being actually deployed?  So it is imperative for President Trump to understand that the Cyber War is a war that no president can afford to lose.  He must begin by acknowledging the problem – Putin has his cyber sights set on the West and the interference into our 2016 elections was only a sampler battle; the bigger war is yet to come!

***

Post Script:

1.     CNN online report, datelined January 10, 2017, with the headline, “Intel chiefs presented Trump with claims of Russian efforts to compromise him”:

 

“A salacious 35-page document, a summary of which was presented to President Barack Obama and President-elect Trump last week, included allegations that Russian operatives claim to possess “compromising personal and financial information” on Trump, CNN first reported, citing multiple U.S. officials.”

2.     Senator Marco Rubio asked Rex Tillerson, Trump’s Secretary of State nominee, at his January 11, 2017 confirmation hearing: “Is Vladimir Putin a war criminal?”

Mr. Tillerson replied: “I would not use that term.”

3.     David Ignatius revealed the following in his January 12, 2017 Washington Post op-ed online, “Why did Obama dawdle on Russia’s hacking?”:

“According to a senior U.S. government official, Flynn phoned Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak several times on Dec. 29, the day the Obama administration announced the expulsion of 35 Russian officials as well as other measures in retaliation for the hacking.”

4.     Matthew Miller in his January 13, 2017 Time magazine report online, “James Comey Cannot Be Trusted With a Trump-Russia Investigation”:

“It was always going to be difficult for FBI Director Jim Comey to oversee an investigation into ties between President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign and the Russian government. Thursday’s announcement that the Department of Justice’s Inspector General will investigate Comey’s conduct during last year’s presidential election makes it impossible.”

5.     On late Friday evening January 13, 2017, NBC News reported:

“The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said it will conduct a bipartisan inquiry into possible Russian intelligence agencies' involvement in the U.S. election, and the probe's scope includes interviewing officials in the Obama and Trump administrations.”

Moscow might have tried to soft land on the Potomac, but unfortunately it has been caught making a big splash – the consequences of which are yet to be fully determined!

Trump - I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends

On December 30, 2016 I penned this ode to DJT. With apologies to the Beatles, whose classic album “Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band” celebrates it’s 50^th anniversary in 2017, here's the Trump version of “With A Little Help From My Friends”:

Oh I get by with a little help from my friends

Putin, the GRU and 400-pound Russians sitting on bed ends

I asked them to find Hillary Clinton’s 30,000 lost emails

So they hacked into the DNC and Podesta’s GMails

From Russia with love… it’s how I became Mr. President!

Now I think we ought to get on with our lives

Because I won the greatest electoral landslide

Obama said that he thinks he would have won against me

But my friends in the Kremlin simply don’t agree

They would’ve faked news about his countless Muslim ties  

I can’t understand why the Democrats are so bitter

It might help if they learned how to use Twitter

I’m just trying to make America great again

By letting Putin back into the superpower pen

I’ll counter cheating China by making Russia fitter

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends.

Mmm, I'm gonna try with a little help from my friends.

Oh, I get high with a little help from my friends.

Yes, I get by with a little help from my friends,

With a little help from my friends. Ah.