Great television, according to Donald Trump

“This is going to be great television.” From Trump’s terrifying ambush of Zelenskiy at the White House last Friday, the statement that struck me most was the one at the top of this column. And there was plenty to choose from. Trump made that assessment at the end of the meeting. That was his conclusion, after cornering the president of a country at war that has lost over 40,000 lives. While he humiliated the leader of Ukraine, Trump was known to be concerned about the quality of the show. The leader of the free world, or a candidate to win Big Brother? With apologies to Big Brother contestants.

Trump has more experience in television than in politics, if experience is a grade in this case. His 11 years as host and producer of The Apprentice are almost three times as much as he has spent in the White House. He is also a remarkable viewer. John Bolton, his former national security adviser, said of his first term: “I think that if you could clock the amount of time he spent actually in the Oval Office versus the amount of time he spends in the little dining room off the Oval Office with the cable news networks in one form or another on, it would be a very interesting statistic.” And his aspirations in show business, of which he was on the inside as a member of the Screen Actors Guild until 2021, are well known. He only failed to challenge Zelenskiy actor-to-actor, and to boast about his cameos in Home Alone 2 and Sex and the City. I wonder how many times since Friday he has watched himself telling Zelenskiy: “You are gambling with the lives of millions, with World War III.”

“Yesterday, President Trump hosted Ukrainian president Zelenskiy at the White House, and it went really, really well. Everyone who watched felt at ease and thought ‘the world is now a safer place.’ Here now is a replay of their historic press conference,” said a voiceover at the beginning of Saturday Night Live, giving way to a sketch in which the meeting was parodied. Quite a feat considering that not even 30 hours had passed between one and the other, and another minor detail: that we have glimpsed the end of the world geopolitical order as we have known it for the last 80 years. Trump is difficult to parody because he already parodies himself, but from comedy we must look on the bright side: it is worse for the world.

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