PHOTOGRAPH BY T. J. KIRKPATRICK / REDUX

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—A broad majority of Americans do not believe that they have heard the real reason for Steve Bannon's abrupt removal from the National Security Council but desperately hope that, when that reason ultimately emerges, it will not involve a sex tape.

The snapshot of a nation praying for Bannon's exit to be explained by anything but a sex tape was captured by a poll taken late on Wednesday, in which more than ninety per cent of Americans expressed their anxiety about such an outcome.

When poll respondents were asked about the real reason for Bannon's removal, forty-two per cent said that they hoped it would involve a financial scandal, thirty-one per cent said that they hoped it would somehow relate to Russia, and zero per cent said that they hoped for a sex tape.

The terror inspired by the thought of a Bannon-based sex tape cut across party lines, with Democrats calling the idea slightly more traumatizing than Republicans did.

Finally, when asked how they would react if Bannon's sudden departure did, in fact, turn out to involve a sex tape, an overwhelming majority "strongly agreed" with the statement "Please, please, please, God, no."