Donald Trump trying to use speaker phone. Photo: CBSN

Time to fake a cough and leave work early, because you’re going to need to devote the next several hours to doing exactly what I’m doing: watching, on repeat, the new clip of President Donald Trump struggling to figure out how to use speakerphone on live television.

Trump just tried to use speakerphone on live TV.



It did not go well. pic.twitter.com/ZJRgxOxWUD — jordan (@JordanUhl) August 27, 2018

In a harrowing video that I can’t, and absolutely won’t, stop watching, Trump attempted to put Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto on speakerphone in front of a group of reporters assembled in the Oval Office. The goal, apparently, was to talk about a new trade agreement between the U.S. and Mexico, but the outcome was an unforgettable clip that will forever be etched in our brains.

And really, this video has everything you could have ever possibly dreamed of and more:

• It has Trump pressing a button on his phone, waiting a moment, and then saying “Enrique?”

• Then, there’s more silence, followed by Trump telling someone off camera, “You can hook him up.”

• That is then followed by more silence — Trump says “Tell me when” to that mysterious off-camera person — and then more and more silence.

• “It’s a big thing, a lot of people waiting,” Trump says.

• He presses more buttons, says “Hello?” multiple times.

• He suggests people “be helpful,” and then someone comes over to help.

• The other person, miraculously, is able to properly set up the speakerphone and the call begins.

Thankfully, we have also been blessed by the transcript of this moment:

I’m dying laughing at this log of Trump trying to use the speaker phone with Nieto. Laughing so hard. pic.twitter.com/q2KDm1sXp4 — Lauren Peikoff (@laurenpeikoff) August 27, 2018

But the icing on the cake, I must say, is how Trump ended the call: by saying to the Mexican president, “A hug from you would be very nice.”

Today on "Veep": “A hug from you will be very nice,” the president said as he repeatedly tried to hang his own phone up. — Katie Rogers (@katierogers) August 27, 2018