If the recent performance of our dominant political party, and its titular head, have not given you the deep-down dismals yet, you should get a load of the (three-hour!) interview given by the president* to The Wall Street Journal. Holy buggered Baal, this is like something you hear when you’re trapped in a subway car at midnight. Let us start with the braggadocious part:

"I created maybe the greatest brand."

"I was always the best athlete, people don't know that."

"And then people say oh, is he a smart person? I'm smarter than all of them put together, but they can't admit it."

1) Coca-Cola? GE? Swedish Fish?

2) Except for those pesky bone-spurs that kept cropping up at the draft board. Another great career lost to injury.

3) “I have a great brain. You want to see it? Let me just loosen these lugnuts here.”

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Then, there’s the part where he accuses an FBI agent of treason. I am not kidding.

And what went on with the FBI, where a man is tweeting to his lover that if [Hillary Clinton] loses, we’ll essentially go back to the — we’ll go to the insurance policy, which is — if they lose, we’ll go to phase 2, and we’ll get this guy out of office. I mean, this is the FBI we’re talking about. I think that is — that is treason. See, that’s treason right there ... By the way, that’s a treasonous act. What he tweeted to his lover is a treasonous act.

“What he tweeted to his lover is a treasonous act” is the first line of a novel when Allen Drury comes back from the grave.

Then, there’s the mystery solved of why NBC hates him so much.

I then go into, in addition to that, part-time, like five percent a week, I open up a television show. As you know, "The Apprentice" on many evenings was the number one show on all of television, a tremendous success. It went on for 12 years, a tremendous success. They wanted to sign me for another three years and I said, no, I can’t do that. That’s one of the reasons NBC hates me so much. NBC hates me so much they wanted — they were desperate to sign me for — for three more years.

Somebody at NBC is going to hell for this.

"And then people say oh, is he a smart person? I'm smarter than all of them put together, but they can't admit it."

Then, he took us through, again, the long, hard and miraculous path he took to get where he is. Pro Tip: Buckle up, because he corners at top speed on two wheels here.

Don’t forget, I had vanquished 17 governors, senators plus a couple of very smart people, like Ben [Carson] and Carly [Fiorina] and others. I had vanquished them easily — easily. I won every debate based on the polls. You know, they do polls — seven or eight polls. Time Magazine — Time Magazine’s not a fan of mine. Drudge, Time Magazine they have seven polls. I don’t think, I may be wrong — I don’t think you’ll find one poll that I ever lost in any of the 14, 15 debates. Including the presidential debate, you know with her, the three . . . You’ve been doing it longer, OK? That’s the other thing. I’ve only been doing this for two years, two and a half years, OK? You know, it’s pretty good. When they said Jeb Bush was off his game; Trump killed him in the debate. Jeb was off his game because he hasn’t been governor now. He’s been out of politics for eight years. Oh, really? I’ve been out of politics for — I was never in politics.

So, sort of interesting, but when I won against the 17 people, you can’t then say that oh, gee, somebody comes in two months after I won, and he gives me new policy, new idea. I can’t change those ideas, those ideas are wedded.

Dude, you were wedded. Twice. New ideas never stopped you there.

He also shared some thoughts about James Comey—if, by thoughts, you mean the products of the dying sparks of sputtering synapses.

Comey. Comey has proven to be a liar and a leaker. Proven. He tries to act like a choir boy. What he did with Hillary Clinton is outrageous. He saved her life, because all of those charges—I call it “Comey one, two, and three,” all of those charges and Comey won, she was guilty of. She should have been taken out of the campaign and been on trial. He didn’t do that. He saved her life. But here’s the way you look at Comey. Everybody hated Comey, and Comey—by the way, the FBI, say what you want, go back to look at the day around Hillary—the FBI was in turmoil. Everybody hated Comey. The Democrats wanted him fired. Everybody wanted him out. You look at what Schumer said about him, you look at what everybody said. As soon as I fired him they said, “oh, he’s wonderful—he’s wonderful, how could you do that.”

It’s true. I was there. HRC fell into the Manchester River and Comey leaped in and pulled her out, revealing his true identity as Superman.

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Luckily, though, he’s clear on most of the vital issues.

There’s a lot of—there’s a lot of—there’s a big difference—first of all, there’s a big difference between DACA and Dreamers, OK? Dreamers are different. And I want American kids to be Dreamers also, by the way. I want American kids to be Dreamers also. But there’s a big difference between DACA and Dreamers. And a lot of times when I was with certain Democrats they kept using the word dreamer. I said, “Please, use the word DACA.” You know it’s a totally different word.

Yes, and “dolt” and “dumbass” are totally different words, too. Work on it.

And, finally, I’ll let him write his own ending.

White House official: Excuse me, I just—we have about two or three minutes left and you’ve got to go to a meeting.

Mr. Trump: Oh I do?

…and a great voice cried out from heaven and said, “It is done.”

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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