Nap Time

Bogus Gold Award

The trophy-obsessed president has been awarded another meaningless prize.

Speaker Mike Johnson announced the inaugural "America First" award as a "token of appreciation" for the president's leadership.

“Tonight we have created a new award,” Johnson told attendees at the lavish dinner. “We are going to do something we’ve never done before. We’re going to honor him with a new award that we will present annually from this point forward. He is the suitable and fitting recipient of the first-ever America First award. We can think of no better title for what that is.”

In addition to accepting manufactured awards, the president has sought to seize awards earned by others, most notably the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Venezuelan opposition leader Mariá Corina Machado.

Reactions:

--  MS NOW host Jen Psaki: “Little Mike Johnson and all those Republicans have just created yet another participation trophy to give their very special boy in the White House to make sure he feels good about himself.” She went on to say: “Trump's many awards are like the EGOT for insecure man-baby presidents.”

--  U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor: More gold statues for Donald Trump while TSA agents wait for paychecks?! How very out of touch.

--  Ahmed Baba: Trump's team is briefing him daily with 2-minute montages of only the successful Iran strikes. The Republican Party is making up fake awards to glaze him. This wartime president's fragile ego is being managed like he's a child, and we're supposed to pretend this is normal?

Slimeball

A slimeball describes a person who is considered extremely unpleasant, dishonest, immoral, or untrustworthy. It implies that someone is sleazy, sneaky, or despicable in their behavior and character.

Robert Mueller was a man who served and sacrificed for his country. He was the only FBI Director to be unanimously confirmed twice by the U.S. Senate and also be nominated by presidents from two different political parties, 98-0 in 2001 for the George W. Bush Administration and 100-0 in 2011 for the Barack Obama Administration.

Michael Steele, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, wrote about Trump, "You are a vile disgusting man. Petty and pathetic, you are a hypocrite who reeks of weakness and insecurities with no moral core. Regardless of the politics, the American people should be embarrassed and ashamed for ever having entrusted you with leadership."

Rick Wilson, a political strategist and co-founder of the Lincoln Project, described Mueller as a "hero" and warned Trump: "When you die, Americans and people around the world will dance in the streets for weeks because you're a low, degenerate, criminal fraud who left a full state on the presidency.

Alex Vindman, a Democrat running for Senate and a military veteran, posted "Draft-dodger saying this about a Vietnam combat vet and career public servant. Despicable and disqualifying in any other decade."

But Chuck Schumer, the Democratic minority leader in the Senate, suspected that Trump's constantly shocking provocations have a political motive. "The cruelty is the point. Trump's goal is to distract you from rising gas prices, his aimless war, ICE abuses, and the Epstein files. Don't give him what he wants. And may Rober Mueller, a US marine and lifelong public servant, rest in peace."

Learn to Spell

"It's Strait, not Straight. This dude doesn't even know that! Such a disaster," wrote one person.

Another said, "I think he's actually mad that it's curved and not in a straight line. Because he has the critical thinking ability of a 5-year-old."

A third person said, "Somebody please tell Trump that his use of scare quotation marks and random capitalization makes him even less credible."

While someone else said, "OMG, it's just unbelievable that we have a president that is this stupid."

The typo itself might have been minor, but given how quick Trump is to tease and mock people, social media was not about to let him live this down.

Big Liar

What is wrong with him? He has got to know that making a statement about recently talking to a former president is easily fact-checked. He must have a huge imagination. Or he's just a liar who cannot stop.

Twice on Monday, President Donald Trump said he’d wrangled a confession of sorts from an Oval Office predecessor who he said had expressed regret in a private conversation about not attacking Iran the way Trump has been doing for more than two weeks.

But there’s just a little problem: Representatives for the four living former presidents — three Democrats and one Republican — said none have been in touch with Trump recently.

Trump declined to name the former president when reporters asked who it was, saying he didn’t want to “embarrass him.”

The Republican president first told the story during extended remarks about the Iran war as he opened a meeting of the board of trustees of the Kennedy Center. Trump is chairman of the board and held the meeting at the White House.

He repeated that Iran had been a threat to the United States for decades but said he is the only president who had the courage to do something about it.

“Look, for 47 years, no president was willing to do what I’m doing, and they should have done it a long time ago,” he said. “It would have been a lot easier. There’s no president that wanted to do it.

“And yet every president knew. I’ve spoken to a certain president, who I like, actually, a past president, a former president. He said, ‘I wish I did it, I wish I did,’ but they didn’t do it. I’m doing it,” Trump continued.

Asked which former president he’d spoken to, Trump said: “I can’t tell you that. I don’t want to embarrass him. It would be very bad for his career, even though he’s got no career.”

Representatives for each of former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden said they had not spoken with Trump recently. The individuals spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the former presidents’ private conversations.

(To be fair, I suppose it is possible the "representatives for each former president" may have spoken inaccurately.)