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Did everyone watch the debut of the new horror show on ABC last night? David Muir should have stepped out from behind a potted plant in the lobby of Trump Tower and begun his broadcast, "Submitted for your approval…"

Holy mother of god.

The only demonstrable difference between Muir's conversation with Donald Trump and Katie Couric's legendary encounter with Sarah Palin is that Trump actually is the President* of the United States. He actually has the nuclear codes. He actually is enacting actual policies that will affect actual people. He actually did happen to the oldest self-governing republic on Earth, and now we actually have to live under an actual government formed by someone who actually said this on television while the cameras were rolling, about his controversial visit to CIA headquarters last week.

That location was given to me. Mike Pence went up before me, paid great homage to the wall. I then went up, paid great homage to the wall. I then spoke to the crowd. I got a standing ovation. In fact, they said it was the biggest standing ovation since Peyton Manning had won the Super Bowl and they said it was equal. I got a standing ovation. It lasted for a long period of time. What you do is take—take out your tape—you probably ran it live. I know when I do good speeches. I know when I do bad speeches. That speech was a total home run. They loved it. I could've ...

Where do you begin? First of all—and I can't believe I'm asking these questions on the merits—what appearance by Peyton Manning is he talking about? Did Peyton Manning address CIA personnel at some point after winning the Super Bowl? (Trump may have burped up with the name because Manning is going to join him at the GOP retreat in Philadelphia this week. I'm just guessing here. Who the fck really knows?) And who are "they" who are devising the metrics to determine the "biggest standing ovation"?

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Outside of JFK's speech alerting the country to the dangers of the Cuban Missile Crisis, I don't know if I've read a more terrifying transcript of a presidential television appearance. Here he is, suggesting a war crime.

TRUMP: We should have taken the oil. You wouldn't have ISIS if we took the oil. Now I wasn't talking about it from the standpoint of ISIS because the way we got out was horrible. We created a vacuum and ISIS formed. But had we taken the oil something else would've very good happened. They would not have been able to fuel their rather unbelievable drive to destroy large portions of the world.

DAVID MUIR: You've heard the critics who say that would break all international law, taking the oil. But I wanna get to the words ...

(OVERTALK)

DAVID MUIR: ... that you ...

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Wait, wait, can you believe that? Who are the critics who say that? Fools.

DAVID MUIR: Let, let me ...

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I don't call them critics. I call them fools.

And here he is, suggesting some more war crimes:

TRUMP : I don't want people to chop off the citizens or anybody's heads in the Middle East. Okay? Because they're Christian or Muslim or anything else. I don't want—look, you are old enough to have seen a time that was much different. You never saw heads chopped off until a few years ago. Now they chop 'em off and they put 'em on camera and they send 'em all over the world. So we have that and we're not allowed to do anything. We're not playing on an even field. I will say this, I will rely on Pompeo and Mattis and my group. And if they don't wanna do, that's fine. If they do wanna do, then I will work for that end. I wanna do everything within the bounds of what you're allowed to do legally. But do I feel it works? Absolutely I feel it works. Have I spoken to people at the top levels and people that have seen it work? I haven't seen it work. But I think it works. Have I spoken to people that feel strongly about it? Absolutely.

And here he is, talking about how the Chicago P.D.—yeah, this Chicago P. D.—is hamstrung by…wait for it…

You know, in my speech I got tremendous—from certain people the word carnage. It is carnage. It's horrible carnage. This is Afghanistan—is not like what's happening in Chicago. People are being shot left and right. Thousands of people over a period—over a short period of time. This year, which has just started, is worse than last year, which was a catastrophe. They're not doing the job. Now if they want help, I would love to help them. I will send in what we have to send in. Maybe they're not gonna have to be so politically correct.

And here he is, complaining once again, about non-existent voter fraud and how he really would have won the popular vote if he'd tried to:

MUIR: Do you think that that talking about millions of illegal votes is dangerous to this country without presenting the evidence?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, not at all.

(OVERTALK)

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Not at all because many people feel the same way that I do. And ...

DAVID MUIR: You don't think it undermines your credibility if there's no evidence?

(OVERTALK)

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, not at all because they didn't come to me. Believe me. Those were Hillary votes. And if you look at it they all voted for Hillary. They all voted for Hillary. They didn't vote for me. I don't believe I got one. Okay, these are people that voted for Hillary Clinton. And if they didn't vote, it would've been different in the popular.

And here he is, complaining once again that nobody else but him noticed the gigantic throng that came to Washington to celebrate his inauguration:

TRUMP: Not you personally but your network—and they tried to demean the speech. And I know when things are good or bad. A poll just came out on my inauguration speech which was extraordinary that people loved it. Loved and liked. And it was an extraordinary poll.

DAVID MUIR: I guess that's what I'm getting at. You talked about the poll, the people loving your inaugural speech and the size of your ...

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, because you bring it up.

DAVID MUIR: I'm asking, well, on day one you ...

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, you just brought it up. I didn't bring it up. I didn't wanna—talk about the inauguration speech. But I think I did a very good job and people really liked it. You saw the poll. Just came out this morning. You bring it up. I didn't bring it up.

DAVID MUIR: So, polls and crowd size and covers on Time, those still matter now that you're here as president.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, you keep bringing it up. I had a massive amount of people here. They were showing pictures that were very unflattering, as unflattering—from certain angles—that were taken early and lots of other things. I'll show you a picture later if you'd like of a massive crowd.

Excuse me for a moment. I have to check the wardroom icebox. There seems to be a quart of strawberries missing.

OK, I'm back.

And here, finally, is some tasty word salad with liquid meth dressing:

The world is a mess. The world is as angry as it gets. What? You think this is gonna cause a little more anger? The world is an angry place. All of this has happened. We went into Iraq. We shouldn't have gone into Iraq. We shouldn't have gotten out the way we got out. The world is a total mess. Take a look at what's happening with Aleppo. Take a look what's happening in Mosul. Take a look what's going on in the Middle East. And people are fleeing and they're going into Europe and all over the place. The world is a mess, David.

I wish the biggest problem with the new president* was that he doesn't know what he's talking about, and that what he is talking is insane ragtime from a campaign that, in his mind, never has ended. However, the biggest problem is that, while he's out talking the insane ragtime, truly retrograde policies are zooming into place from people with their own private agendas.

The more stringent "gag rule" on abortion that Trump signed into place with his executive order is pure Mike Pence. While Trump is blathering on about crowd size and Peyton Manning, Paul Ryan is as close as he's ever been to his golden dream of dismantling the social programs that, in his mind, stopped serving a useful purpose when they got him through college. The country's environmental programs are being handed over to people who would frack their grandmother's old gray head if they thought there was a buck to be made in doing it.

They need a front man who is both unintelligent enough not to get in the way, and enough of a freak show to distract the public from what they're really up to. Luckily, we hit the jackpot for them.

The world is a mess, David.

And we're part of it now.

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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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