A Close Reading of Trump’s Statement on Attending His Son’s Wedding

Donald Trump’s funniest habit is inflicting occasional insults on his courtiers. His recent response to a question about Donald Trump Jr.’s marriage may, depending on how deserving one judges Trump’s abused eldest son to be – poor Don Jr. was, after all, born into Trump’s life – be considered his most hilarious riff ever.

The scene is the Oval Office, today at noon. A reporter asks Trump if he plans to attend Don Jr.’s wedding to Palm Beach socialite Bettina Anderson this weekend. Here is the president’s full response:

Um, he’d like me to go, but it’s just going to be a small, small private matter, and I’m going to try to make it happen. I’m in the middle – I said, “You know, it’s not a good time for me. I have a thing called Iran and other things.” Um, this is an issue I can’t win on. If I participate in it, I’ll get killed. If I don’t participate, I get killed by the fake news, of course, that I’m talking about. No, but he’s a very, uh, person that I’ve known for a long time, and I hope they have a great marriage.

Now let’s analyze.

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Trump immediately confides that his son wants him to attend the ceremony, but he won’t commit at this point, even though the wedding is only days away. He first throws out the explanation that it will be “just a small, small private affair”, as if there might not be room in the party for him, the groom’s father – who, we have already established, wants him to attend.

Trump then invokes a new excuse: he is waging a war against Iran. That conflict, while serious, has not stopped the president from engaging in activities such as marathon social media posting sessions, regular golf outings and an event two weeks ago to promote an upcoming UFC fight at the White House. (“It’s going to be the biggest event we’ve ever had,” Trump told reporters at the time. “The White House doesn’t really do sporting events for the most part.”) Well, a cage fight at the White House only happens once in a lifetime, but Don Jr.’s wedding count is about to hit two and comes with exciting prospects for such occasions in the future, given the groom’s relative youth and family history.

The most morbid and hilarious part of Trump’s response was his explanation that he might stay away from the ceremony for fear of attracting negative publicity from “fake news.” First of all, this is blatantly false. Although journalists may question many of Trump’s activities on the grounds that they violated the line between personal interests and official duties, attending his child’s wedding is not one of them.

Moreover, the idea that Trump would refrain from doing anything for fear of a “fake news” backlash is belied by almost every choice he has made in his political life. Just this week, he courageously created a taxpayer-funded slush fund for his supporters and flatly refused to rule out giving money to insurrectionists who beat cops, then got the IRS to agree not to audit his taxes. Imagine creating a new standard of hypersensitive caution to avoid attracting the most stubborn media criticism, then applying it for the first time to your son’s wedding.

Most absurd of all is the idea that Trump is specifically worried about being seen as engaging in wartime frivolity. He spent much of the war in Iran campaigning tirelessly for a plan for a lavish new ballroom at the White House, and even explained to visitors and the media the tedious details of his design choices. He expanded this campaign to demand a new triumphal arch in Washington, DC. As Trump explained his reluctance to attend the wedding, the Fox News chyron describing Trump’s remarks read TRUMP: THE ARCH OF TRIUMPH WILL BE BEAUTIFUL.

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This doesn’t sound like the behavior of a man so paranoid about being seen as distracted from his wartime duties that he can’t take a few hours to attend his son’s wedding. This sounds more like the thought process of a man who, according to his first wife’s memoir, initially responded to the idea of ​​naming his son Donald by saying, “You can’t do that! What if he’s a loser?”

The tacit possibility that Trump might skip this edition of Don Jr.’s nuptials and attend the next one is suggested by his nuanced assessment of the prospects of Wedding No. 2 (“I hope they have a big wedding”). The same hesitation comes through in his disappointing summary of the bride: “She’s, uh, a very, uh, person that I’ve known for a long time.” This description notably did not cite any positive qualities of his future daughter-in-law – unless you consider knowing Donald Trump a compliment – ​​or even mention her name.

To be fair, Trump has been more expansive in private, albeit slightly. According to a “political source” who spoke to People magazine, “the president is happy with Bettina’s appearance and wants his son to be satisfied with his next companion.” If any of these comments provide any insight into the content of the president’s wedding toast, Don Jr. might be better off if his father skipped the event.

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