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.

By Bob Gaydos

Vice President Kamala Harris waves as she is introduced during the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc.’s Grand Boulé,in Indianapolis.

    Much as the politicians and those whose job it is to write about them think there is nothing else worth writing and reading about in the world, they’re wrong. But they can dominate the news coverage through sheer persistence and repetition, as witness the recent non-stop “reporting” on how Joe Biden was slipping mentally as well as physically and was too old to serve another term as president and needed to step aside as a presidential candidate for someone — anyone — younger.

     Donald Trump, nearly as old, clearly slipping and never close to Biden in terms of intellect and knowledge of how stuff actually works (never mind moral compass) pretty much got a pass through all this because the media had already decided what the storyline was.

     Well, Biden flipped the story on them when they were napping on a Sunday afternoon. He apparently caught Republicans napping, too, because all they had been talking about for weeks and had highlighted at their crowning of Trump at their nominating convention was beating “Old Joe.”

     No mo. Joe’s out, Kamala’s in it to win it and much of the media is now busy trying to come up with a storyline on why the vice president just can’t beat Trump.

      Hotshot political writer talking to a colleague working at a desk close by: “Harris? Really? I mean she’s too … well, she’s not … well, you know, she doesn’t … and isn’t she too … well, yes, as you say, Democrats are acting weird and rallying behind her. Like, all of them, even the lefties. Wow! How’d they do that? And they seem excited. And she’s getting lots of positive social media reaction outside of the MAGA sites. And she’s raising a ton of money already. A lot! Of course, she is smarter and much younger than Trump. Then there’s the abortion issue that Trump bragged about … but Republicans are now trying to hide that. And there’s the women’s vote, the black vote, the black women’s vote, the young people’s vote. Heck, the Asian-American vote. … You know, despite what our polls say, Trump might actually have a problem beating her because, well, you know how he talks about women and Harris won’t put up with it. After all, she’s a former prosecutor and he’s a convicted felon and a sexual offender and she’s sent a lot of them to prison. She also went after phony, for-profit colleges, like the one Trump ran. And, really, he did take all those documents. And he does lie constantly and isn’t too bright and rambles a lot. Plus, she keeps talking about preserving democracy the way Biden did and a lot of people like that and Trump has called us “fake news” in the past. A lot. Remember? And now Republicans are whining that Biden tricked them? No fair! That he should be forced to run because he said he was? Are they kidding? How would that work? Or that he should now step down as president? But he never said he couldn’t do the job and no one else did, just that he’s too old for four more years. Which you could also say about Trump, right? You ever see him walking down a ramp? Scary. And Trump’s been talking about sharks and electric boats and abandoning NATO and Ukraine and having the Justice Department go after his “enemies,” which doesn’t sound good. And that J.D. Vance he picked to run as his vice president? He once called Trump “America’s Hitler”! Now he’s acting like Trump’s new Rudy Giuliani. He’s changed his name three times. Forget George Santos. Is there a bigger phony around? Maybe we should recheck Vance’s “hillbilly” story. …

     “I mean, Biden has done a good job and he’s a proud man with a long record of service who has suffered a lot of personal loss in his life and it takes a lot of humility, especially because people think you’re too old, to step aside, to pass the torch to ‘a younger generation,’ as he said. To finish the job. To preserve democracy, as he also said. After all, Harris can run on his record because it’s their record, right? And it’s a good one. Economy? Foreign policy? All good. He even worked out a bill — bipartisan — to address the Mexican border issue, but Republicans killed it because Trump told them to. He didn’t want Biden to have it as a campaign issue. How cheesy, right? And Trump’s got nothing real to offer but revenge. That and tax breaks for rich people. I mean, did Mexico ever build that wall? Did we ever see his ear? And he’s already attacking Harris personally. Calling her crazy. Mispronouncing her name. Petty. … So, whaddya think? At this point, it looks like Republicans are really stuck with Trump, right? I mean, he’s got all his MAGAs, but that’s not enough to get elected without cheating and the guy is really old and showing signs of slipping, isn’t he? I mean, he never really was all there, anyway, right? And Old Joe really set Kamala up great, like overnight, didn’t he? Slick. She’s got a lot of positive energy going. Money rolling in. And she is the VP.  Hmmm … Hey, thanks for listening … 

          “Hey, boss! I think I’ve got a new angle on a storyline for Kamala. …”

rjgaydos@gmail.com