Well sure: I do not think this is going to be the last photo of the Trump presidency that we are going to dive deeply into. There is the photo of President Trump firing an M16 carbine into the white heat of a desert training range (Nov ’17). President Trump getting his dick caught in a White House issued paper shredder (March ’18). President Trump spilling a gallon jug of Diet Coke over the nuclear control panel, his lips curling round in the shape of a dental dam while he destroys Canada (Jan ’17). There are, we can all agree, going to be a lot of pictures.
This is the first picture:
Videos by VICE
(Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais AP/Press Association Images)
Yesterday, president-elect Trump met President Obama for the first time (this is a picture of that). On the surface it doesn’t look like a whole lot: Trump’s doing his usual the-dude-in-the-locker-room-who-has-to-use-doctor-prescribed-deodorant-describes-sex-he-definitely-did-with-a-French-girl-but-she-doesn’t-go-to-this-school-you-wouldn’t-know-her hand loop, and Obama’s doing his I-can’t-believe-she-got-with-him-straight-after-me pining-yet-brave ex-boyfriend look, and yeah, everyone’s playing more or less to form.
There’s a video of the press conference they did below: the two spoke for an hour-and-a-half in private before meeting the press, and I can only assume by the shellshocked look on Trump’s face throughout that Obama showed him Some Extremely Gnarly Area 51 Shit, or the blood ritual room, or something. Gently led him to a basement where he has Osama Bin Laden, still alive and trussed by the nuts to a car battery, begging in fractured US English for the sweet release of death. That sort of thing.
But let’s not think about Osama Bin Laden’s testicles twitching softly in slow pulsing time with what’s left of his heartbeat. Let’s instead look closer at the five key flash points which I think really tell the story of this picture. Siri, analyse:
DONALD TRUMP’S AMERICA BADGE
Is this the most American badge it is possible to get? Unless there is an enamel pin of a bald eagle dropping some slow-cooked pork into the mouth of Honey Boo Boo (Etsy, wys?), then yes, almost definitely. This is merch. This is merch that says: “I am the most American person in America.”
Which makes me think: what sweet merch do you get for being president? First day at VICE I got a bunch of sweet merch: a pen, embossed notebook, a load of printed out HR codes of behaviour, a tote bag, business cards, a business card holder, stickers. And I’m not even important, both in the grand scheme of the universe and here at this company. Imagine what the president gets. He gets a million dollar armoured tank of a car as standard. He gets his own jet with a cool nickname. That’s just the stuff we know about. Does Donald Trump get silk, American flag bedsheets now? A €100,000 pen for signing important documents? What about tiny soaps? What is the tiny soap selection at the White House like? Does he get a little tied-with-a-ribbon plastic sachet of decorative fudges and chocolates, like you get in nice hotels? Did he get that just now? Did he have a cheeky fudge or chocolate, or did he save the packet to take home to his kid, like every other dad on Earth? I have to know these things. I have to know what the presidential merch situation is like.
OBAMA’S HANDS
I do this hand gesture in those weird last eight minutes of a meeting that everyone knows is over and it’s time to go to lunch but the person leading the meeting keeps idly questioning into the ether “is there anything we forgot to mention?” and shuffling papers and saying stuff like “oh yeah: actually, no, you know what, I’ll send a follow up e-mail” and asking simple pointless questions like “so we’ll do this again next… Tuuuuuesday?” and waits for someone to audibly say “yes” before they go “OK” and get up to leave, and so essentially what Obama is doing here, with his hands, is very politely and quietly resisting the urge to punch himself and then Trump.
TRUMP’S HANDS
This is the exact hand gesture of a clown who has wobbled off the rails and made a giant balloon animal penis at a kid’s party that makes so many children cry it gets in the local paper. This is also apparently the hand gesture of the president now. I don’t think people pay attention to Trump’s hand gestures enough. This is your auntie describing a really good pasta plate she had at Jamie’s Italian this weekend. This is the hand gesture I do to my barber when he’s fucked up my undercut but I’m too polite to tell him. This is an assassin pulling a wire of floss taut between his fingers before yanking it through the neck of a political rival. Trump doing a double-OK leers me out like no other gesture on earth.
OBAMA FACE
If I have learnt anything from anime, based on that temple vein alone Obama is about to yell for about 60 straight seconds and then shoot a beam of light out of his two balled up fists before executing a perfect Ryu kick-attack that takes Trump’s K.O. bar to zero in front of a crowd of men nestled around barrels.
TRUMP’S EXTREMELY FUCKED UP TIE, OH MY GOD
MOTHERFUCKER HOW BIG IS YOUR TIE
WHO TIES A TIE LIKE THIS
YOU ARE THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND YOU TIE YOUR TIE WORSE THAN THE ONE TIME A YEAR I HAVE TO TIE A TIE FOR A WEDDING
IT TAKES ME SIX GOES TO TIE A TIE AND I STILL TIE IT BETTER THAN THIS
BRO WHAT THE FUCK MAN DO U GET YOUR TIES ESPECIALLY MADE
‘HELLO CHINA? I WANT THE MOST FUCKED UP TIE IN THE WORLD. YUGE TIE. FANTASTIC MASSIVE MENTAL TIE.’
‘TIE LIKE A WALL BETWEEN MY DICK AND MY MOUTH’
‘THE TIE MUST TOUCH THE DICK. MUST. ABSOLUTELY IMPORTANT THAT MY TIE FLOPS IDLY AGAINST MY DICK.’
‘PLEASE EMBROID THE WORDS “TRUMP’S DICK TICKLER” IN THE BACK OF THE TIE SO THAT I KNOW THIS ABSURD EXTRA LARGE TIE IS MY OWN.’
HE DOESN’T EVEN KNOW TO UNBUTTON HIS SUIT JACKET WHEN HE SITS DOWN
YOU VOTED FOR THIS
YOU VOTED FOR A GUY WHO HASN’T READ ‘GQ’ EVEN ONCE
HE MAKES A $6,000 SUIT LOOK LIKE AN EXTREMELY HARROWINGLY AGED CHILD WEARING A MOSS BROS HIRE SUIT TO PROM
SOME ROBIN WILLIAMS JACK (1996) SHIT
SINGLE CONDOM IN HIS BREAST POCKET
€50-PER-HOUR LIMO RIDE BUT NO FRIENDS TO GO WITH HIM
SLOW DANCING ALONE, LEANING HIS LEGS FROM ONE SIDE TO THE OTHER, HANDS CLICKING SLIGHTLY OUT OF TIME
CRIES IN THE TOILETS TWO ENTIRE TIMES THROUGHOUT THE NIGHT
TELLS THE TEACHER ABOUT SOME OTHER KIDS, COOLER KIDS, FURTIVELY SMOKING POT
BARELY DISGUISED ERECTION AGAINST THE BAND OF HIS PANTS WHEN HE SEES TWO GIRLS CHASTELY HUG
WET LOOK HAIR GEL COMBED THROUGH HIS FRINGE AND NOWHERE ELSE
HAS TO GO TO HOSPITAL AFTER A SINGLE PLASTIC BEAKER OF PUNCH
THIS
THIS IS YOUR PRESIDENT
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