As the Oscars were handed out last night, away from the glitz and glamour of the red carpet, another awards ceremony was taking place, at the White House.
As Donald Trump walked up to the podium with his penis-substitute red tie doing a creditable impression of a red carpet, I wondered from the back of the room what I’d done to be covering this instead of the Oscars. What had I said wrong to my editor? Oh well, it was too late to worry about that now, so I buckled down with the task in hand.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the assemblificated press,” he began. “Welcome to the the inaudible – uh, no, inedible – uh, first, that’ll do, first annual Trumpet Awards Ceremony.”
Indeed the letters TAC were behind him on the wall, and I couldn’t help but wish this was taking place in Kentucky, thus giving them reason to put KY at the end. It would have been more accurate.
“I have with me the envelopes containing the winners’ names,” Trump went on. “And I will read them all out to you one at a time.”
Well I wasn’t expecting him to do them all at once, although as it turned out, that would have been perfectly possible and saved a lot of time.
“The first award,” he announced, “for Best President, goes to . . . Donald Trump!” he said in mock surprise as he opened the envelope and read out the name on it. He handed himself a trophy from one side of the podium and put it on the other.
“You know, some people say the Oscars go to the wrong movies,” Trump said as a form of acceptance speech, “but there’s no danger of that here. Justice has been done today.”
There was a shower of cheers and laughter from his supporters in the front seats, and it didn’t take long for everyone to guess where all this was going. I looked knowingly at my colleagues, who had all guessed the exact same thing.
Sure enough, the second envelope was opened, and Trump announced, “the second award, for bigliest brain, goes to . . . Donald Trump!”
And so it continued for the next four hours. Every award, he gave to himself, another trophy got moved from one side of the podium to the other, he made another joking acceptance speech about how clever the people voting for these awards were, and the self-satisfied grin that is always present on his face when he talks about himself was there in full force.
There were times he wasn’t even looking to see which trophy he was handling. But then why should he? He knew they were all going to the same person, nobody else was close enough to read any inscriptions, so it hardly mattered.
Until finally we got to the final award. Given that he’d already started with best president, and mispronounced his way through most inspirational leader, I wondered what it could be. I was in for a shock, but so too, it turned out, was the Donald.
“And the final category, for sexiest person of all time,” he announced, grin still in place, as he opened the envelope and read out it contents, “goes to . . . Don-what? Ivanka Trump?”
I don’t know who tampered with the contents of that envelope, or how – probably Ivanka herself judging by the speed at which she came up to the podium, shake her father’s hand, say, “oh daddy, thank-you!” and retreat back into the audience before the shocked expression on Donald’s face could resolve itself into anything – but it was the highlight of the evening.
Seeing the shocked expression still there, one of his advisors rushed up and whispered something in his ear. Trump nodded, turned back to us, and said, “she gets it from her dad, you know.”
That got a laugh from the crowd, but also a shudder.
He quickly wrapped things up after that, and we left, still bemused at what had happened.
The Trumpet Awards are set to become an annual event, although doubtless Donald will be blowing his own trumpet every chance he gets. However wildly out of tune it may be.
