Trump Weekly: Field Notes from the Surreal Presidency—Europe, Prom, and Punchlines

This week, Donald Trump announced that European leaders jokingly call him "the president of Europe." Last week we covered his international incidents, and I guess this week he decided to just take over the whole continent. The main event, though, was the rescheduled White House Correspondents' Dinner. You know, the big journalism prom. The one he spent four years boycotting, calling the attendees "the enemy of the people." So naturally, he was the keynote speaker. He gets up there and his first question is, and I am not making this up, "What do we do here? Is this supposed to be fun? Am I supposed to be serious? Am I supposed to be a comedian?" Buddy. You are ALL of those things. At the same time.

It's a problem. He then proceeds to give a one-hour speech that was part roast, part hostage video. He's calling NBC and ABC "fake news" and says their licenses should be revoked. Then, minutes later, he's shaking hands with reporters from those same outlets as they get awards. The whiplash is incredible. It’s like firing your plumber and then asking him to fix one more leak on his way out. And then we get the classics. The deep cuts. He turns to CNN's Kaitlan Collins and tells her, "You should smile more." He's bringing back his greatest hits! It's 2026 and we're still getting notes on our facial expressions from a man who has ONE. It's like seeing a band on a reunion tour and they only play the song you hate.

But the grand finale... the pièce de résistance of this whole cursed dinner party... was the hat. After an hour of this, he puts on a red cap that says "Trump 2028." Two-thousand-twenty-eight! He’s joking about a third term, which is, you know, just a little bit unconstitutional. The entire room is full of people who are supposed to report on the sanctity of American democracy, and the guy in charge is turning the 22nd amendment into a punchline. So what does it all add up to? You get a guy who treats a state dinner like an open mic night, and then you see how he treats actual statecraft. Just a few days later, he’s on Air Force One talking about the war in Iran. And he tells reporters he has "a lot of patience." Patience.

This is a man who gets into a Twitter war with the weather. He says there’s a "good chance" for a ceasefire. He says it with the same casual energy he used to demand a reporter smile for him. It’s all just material. It’s all just part of the act. At the dinner, he said, "the show must go on." He was talking about the event, but he may as well have been talking about the entire country. The show goes on, whether we're the audience or the punchline.