Trump loves the Oscars. It was clear for most of the 2000s that he desperately wanted to host the ceremony, which is pathetic even by his standards. But the most pathetic thing about Trump is that he was also an Oscars recapper. This video from 2012 is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen, partly because Trump appears to be reading his insane hot take off of cue cards.
Still, ranting about how he wishes Sasha Baron Cohen got beat up and sent to the hospital, saying that the Oscars’ security guards should go to security guard school, and making the unbelievable claim that “many people are asking me about the Academy Awards”—this is some 🔥🔥🔥 shit. If you’re going to recap the Oscars, come out with guns blazing.
But Trump largely stayed quiet about last night’s Academy Awards, presumably because Reince Priebus shoved his phone down his pants or perhaps because he was promised a blackened, catsup-covered steak (or maybe a hairless cat?) if he could be a good boy and not tweet for 16 hours. (This is not as damning or as telling as Trump’s silence on other issues but it seems clear that Trump’s inner circle has grown very, very tired of his tendency to create unnecessary distractions.)
That changed on Monday afternoon, however, when Trump told former livejournal/current Tiger Beat of the white supremacist set Breitbart that he was not impressed with the Oscars. “I think they were focused so hard on politics that they didn’t get the act together at the end,” Trump told the website, referring to the screw-up that will define it forever. “It was a little sad. It took away from the glamour of the Oscars. It didn’t feel like a very glamorous evening. I’ve been to the Oscars. There was something very special missing, and then to end that way was sad.”
This is very funny! For one thing, Donald Trump is complaining about missing glamour—from an award show that four years ago kicked off with a song called “We Saw Your Boobs.” But it’s hard to get over just how sad this is. Donald Trump loved the Oscars more than anything, but now that he’s president, the Oscars are all about talking about how bad he is. This is Trump’s version of his favorite movie Citizen Kane—he got what he wanted most in the world, but in the process lost the thing he loved the most.