By Bob Gaydos

Trump ( center) is led out of the hotel after the sounds of shooting.

It was fast.

Government officials were still semi-scrambling over their wives to get out of the room, hotshot White House correspondents were still on their knees under tables turning on their phones and the older gentleman with glasses seated up front was still munching on his salad when reports started popping up on social media that the latest assassination attempt on Donald Trump was, like the first one, a fake.

Just as quickly came the response from the MAGA crowd and the too-cool-to-take-sides crowd that people should stop spreading conspiracy theories about such a serious occurrence.

Fine.

I happened to be on my phone when the news was thrust upon me. I was not watching the White House Correspondents Dinner because I didn’t want to listen to a half hour or more of Trump rambling and berating the press while they sat there in their tuxedos and gowns pretending to laugh as he dumped all over them as he has for the last 10 years.

The group lost my respect when it agreed not to have a comedian roasting the president at the dinner, as was the custom, but rather let Trump be the only roaster. That’s the only grounds on which he would agree to be there. Capitulation for the sake of access. No guts, no glory, no sense that this man had indeed made them his enemy many years ago.

That’s fact one on my list of why conspiracy theories sprung up so quickly. It was so convenient.

Then there’s the fact that someone apparently managed to get into the Washington, D.C. Hilton, where the president, vice president and assorted top Cabinet officials were assembled in one room and get off a bunch of gunshots (reportedly ten) before being stopped by the Secret Service. How could this even happen if the first two reported attempts on Trump’s life were legitimate?

And then, back in the safety of the White House and looking none the worse for wear, Trump praises the security detail and then immediately invokes whatever happened as a reason for the construction of his gaudy ballroom where the East Wing of the White House used to stand because it will include a secure bunker.

Huh?

The Hilton ballroom holds about 3,000; Trump’s proposed ballroom would hold about 1,000. Also, is this to suggest that all future presidents would never venture out of the White House to events? That’s ridiculous. The fact is that a judge had recently ordered construction of the ballroom stopped because of a lawsuit claiming it was illegal and the only option the judge offered to let the construction continue was that it was deemed to be a necessary secure site. How convenient.

Trump did not talk about the need to tone down the political dialogue. No talk about there being no place for violence in politics. No talk about that because, well that’s the way Trump always talks. Anger, insult, retribution, accusation and blame. It’s his whole game.

And of course, referring back to that first “attempt” in Pennsylvania, in which an innocent bystander was killed, we have the miraculous healing of Trump’s right ear and the virtual disappearance of any mention of the shooter, motive, etc. Gone with the wind.

Pack all this up with Trump’s addiction to lying, his background in television and his love for theater and staged events, creation of conspiracy theories about what happened in Washington was, in my opinion, inevitable.

Now, as for the facts. The so-called “manifesto” of the shooter, which was reportedly released by two unidentified law-enforcement officials not authorized to do so, says he was surprised that no one bothered to check his baggage when he checked into the Hilton the day before the scheduled event with his guns and knives. Seems like a flaw in the security arrangement.

Also, he managed to get within one floor of the ballroom before being stopped by security, but not before firing about 10 shots. The manifesto suggests the accused shooter was aware security officers will be wearing bulletproof vests and hoped they worked. The one person who was shot was indeed wearing such a vest. It worked.

These could easily be interpreted as failures of security or part of a script to save a ballroom.

One part I’m sure was not in any script was Norah O’Donnell on “60 minutes” Sunday night reading from the so-called manifesto in which the alleged shooter, in explaining his actions, said he was no longer willing ”to let a pedophile, rapist and traitor coat my hands with his crimes.”

O’Donnell asked Trump what he thought about that. Predictably, he called her “horrible people” for reading it and said, “I’m not a rapist. I didn’t rape anyone. I’m not a pedophile.” To which she replied, “Oh, do you think he was referring to you?“

Since Trump’s buddy now owns CBS, Nora’s job may well be on the line for that little bit of legitimate journalism. But let the White House Correspondents Association take note.

By Bob Gaydos

Donald Trump talks to the press from the roof of the White House. Really.

  In a Trumpian world in which a week (at least it seems like a week) starts with the woman in charge of providing the monthly labor statistics being fired because Trump didn’t like the numbers and ends with Trump wandering around the roof of the White House shouting answers to questions from reporters down on the ground, it’s good to have Jimmy Breslin’s approach to the news available.

   So …

— Maybe it’s just me, but: Really? He fired Erika McEntarfer, commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, just because the July jobs report was disastrous and he’s been lying to us constantly that everything was rosy? I mean, how did he keep any employees at all his businesses with this approach? The casino, the Plaza, the airline, the college … oh, right, they all went bankrupt and he fired everybody. Guess he likes to say, “You’re fired!” And blaming others for his failures. This one is especially unhinged and, considering his hiring philosophy and penchant for lying, it will be anyone’s guess as to whether to believe the next monthly report.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: The Smithsonian Institution quietly removing any mention of the two impeachments on Trump’s record was particularly disappointing. Erasing history is a hallmark of fascist societies. The secret removal left Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton as the only presidents to be impeached, if one believed the Smithsonianian. People didn’t. They complained. Publicly. The Smithsonian, to its credit, was properly embarrassed. It reinstalled the Russia meddling and the Ukraine meddling impeachment stories, making history accurate again. It’s history. Trump was impeached twice. It still pays to speak out.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: It’s hard for me to get too worked up when Trump reacts to a former Russian president trolling him on social media by noisily ordering “two nuclear submarines” (his words) into waters somewhere around Russia. “I have ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions,” Trump announced, scarily (at least to major media). First of all, all U.S. submarines are nuclear-powered. Second of all, submarines that have nuclear missiles are already in waters around the globe and capable of striking Russia. Third of all, Trump’s old buddy Putin wouldn’t let Dimitri Medvedev, a former political ally, get him into another war, which he pretty much said after Trump rattled his subs.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: Bulldozing Jackie Kennedy‘s Rose Garden and announcing plans for a grand, gauche, golden ballroom that will dwarf the White House is Donald Trump to a “T.” Tacky. No class. Also, I think, illegal, since the White House is an official government building. He might need to get a permit, which would probably mean a bribe. He has lawyers apparently willing to do that. Stay tuned.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: Announcing plans to put a nuclear reactor on the moon in five years, as the acting head of NASA did recently, seems to be at the very least, highly optimistic. For starters, the reactor is intended to support a small colony of humans on the moon, but there are as yet no plans to put such a colony on the moon. Cart before the horse? Then there are the 700° daily changes in temperature on the moon, which has no water or air. The timeline, the-out-of-the-blue announcement, the supposed assurance of senior NASA officials serving in a Trump administration that this is not “science fiction,” might lead a skeptic to conclude that this is basically “news” that doesn’t involve Jeffrey Epstein.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: Putting a Fox News drunk in charge of the Pentagon seemed at first to be just the typical Trumpian spiteful, narcissistic need to have sycophants around him. Apparently it’s just policy. If Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is looking for a female drinking buddy, he now has one – former Fox News loose cannon and Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro was confirmed by the Republican majority U.S. Senate to head the federal prosecutor’s office in Washington, D.C. Pirro, a sycophant’s sycophant where Trump is concerned, is a conspiracy theorist whose  constant lies about the 2020 election being stolen from Trump contributed to Fox News having to pay $800 million plus in damages to settle a lawsuit. So, nothing new here.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: That same skeptic mentioned above might conclude that moving Ghislaine Maxwell from a maximum-security prison in Florida to a minimum security prison/spa in Texas was an attempt by Trump and his disciples to erase Maxwell’s memory of Donald’s relationships with teenage girls in Epstein‘s Lair. Whatever she says, it won’t work. She’s a known liar facing a 20-year prison sentence. Interview the victims. The story is not going away.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: The roof thing. What the hell was that? Surrounded by Secret Service, Trump appeared on the roof of the White House one morning apparently to survey the changes he has made and plans to make. Like the ballroom he says he and his supporters are going to pay for. Reporters spotting him up top shouted questions. Trump was asked what he was going to build. He said, “Nuclear missiles.” Chuckles. Well at least he didn’t have to stand at a real press conference and try to come up with real answers to real questions. Just another “normal” day at the Trump White House and no one mentioned Jeffrey Epstein.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: If I’m going to keep doing this, I think I’m going to have to come up with a rating system on the absurdity (an all-inclusive, non-profane word for all the negatives imaginable) of news stories emanating from the White House. On a scale of one to five, five would be the most absurd. I’ve got the labor statistics commish and Jeanine Pirro at five. Everything else is at least a two. Feel free to put your ratings in the comments below. Whew.