Donald Trump woke up this morning on his way to Dublin, for a couple of days watching the golf. And honestly, from the look of him at yesterday's 9/11 commemoration in Washington, he seems like he could use the break.
It's been a busy week for Trump. He spent a couple of days trying to calm his fractured party down at a poorly attended "midterm convention". We can only assume they booked the Dallas arena before the polls started suggesting the Republicans might lose both the Texas Senate seat and Governor's mansion in November's midterms.
Qatar Force One suffered from premature inflation
Trump was delayed in setting off for the Texas convention, due to an embarrassing technical issue. Seems the US economy isn't the only thing suffering from rampant inflation - the emergency slide on Qatar Force One - the luxury jet that was a gift of the Emir - was too. Apparently it was triggered accidentally by military staff. Trump later insisted the plane was perfectly safe to fly in.
He tried to buy the Midterms
The first night of Trump's ill-advised, poorly attended convention in Dallas saw him literally try to buy votes - promising every American a fat cheque if his party holds on to the House and the Senate.
"If the Republicans win, you win with us, and you get $5,000," he said. "It will be called the Trump Dividend."
I mean, you could call it that. The other thing you could call it is a bribe. And a costly one - estimated to stiff the Treasury for somewhere between $1.3 and $1.6 TRILLION. That's trillion. With a T.
He growled at a reporter who questioned his bung
So while it's probably not illegal, there are a number of ethical questions that should be asked about this promise of cash-for-reeleciton. First of which is: If it's a "dividend", and has nothing to do with the election, why not just...give out the cheques now?
Second of which is the perfectly pertinent question asked on Wednesday night by Rachel Scott, a reporter for ABC News. "If your economic policies are working, why do you need an incentive for people to turn out to vote?" she asked during a gaggle on the airport tarmac before boarding Air Force One.
Trump did not like this, not one little bit. "I didn't do it for turning out to vote," he fumed. "I'm doing it as a reward for people having to put up with five years and four years of a horrible situation caused by Biden."
Scott tried to ask a follow up question and...well, this happened. Now, I'm not saying Trump is only rude to female reporters, or to female reporters of colour. But he does seem to be extra rude to female reporters that aren't blonde, pale and sycophantic.
He told his supporters to cheat in the election
Trump did one of his funny bits a the end of his second speech at the Convention. But it's one of those "funny bits" that you kind of suspect...isn't that far off what he really thinks.
First of all, he asked the crowd to raise their right hands and pledge allegiance not to the flag, or the country, but to him. Which is more or less what he demanded from James Comey in his first term.
Anyway, the pledge went thus: "I pledge to the greatest president in the history of the United States. That loves us so much he can't even breathe. That I will go out with my family, my friends, I'll do it any way... I don't care if I'm registered or not, I'm going to try to cheat like hell like they do."
He looked awfully like he was asleep at the 9/11 commemoration
Unlike every other living former President, Trump skipped the main 25th anniversary memorial at Ground Zero in New York. Instead, he chose to attend a ceremony at the Pentagon in Washington, DC - where he would be allowed to make a speech.
During the solemn ceremony, the names of those killed in the deadly attack on the Pentagon were read out, each one marked by the chime of a solitary bell. For some of this deeply moving moment, Trump looked like a bored toddler whose mother had taken him somewhere he did not want to be. Fidgeting, looking at the sky, making weird faces.
But for most of it, he appeared to be asleep. He will no doubt claim he was simply resting his eyes, or in thoughtful repose. But if he was resting his eyes, he was also resting his mouth, because that got pretty slack and droopy too.
And it's not at all surprising. He's 80 years old. He's not the man he was when he first came down the golden escalator a decade ago. But if Joe Biden had been caught in a single one of the dozens of embarrassing poses he displayed on Friday morning, he'd have been monstered on Fox News for a week.
His speech was staggeringly inappropriate
After Trump apparently dozed through the solemn event it was time for Pete Hegseth to say a few words. And his speech was every bit as tone deaf as we've come to expect from him.
He gushed about his boss, and he bragged about how amazingly well America was doing in... the Iran War. He said the US "controls the strait", which it clearly does not, and boasted about how many Iranians planes and boats they'd sunk. He also said the US was "sending tankers to the bottom of the ocean, where they belong". Which is just a weird thing to say.
It completely missed the tone and came across as crass and cheap. But surely Trump wasn't going to make the same mistake, right?
Wrong. Trump's speech was, for the most part, bumbling and poorly delivered. As if he was reading it from the teleprompter for the first time.
And then he started crowing about how his military are going to ensure the "ISLAMIC Republic of Iran" - with the emphasis on ISLAMIC, as if that gave it some kind of relevance to the day - "will never, ever have a nuclear weapon." Then he waited for the applause. It came eventually, but it was late and it was light.
And look who else was there... That's right. That's Natalie Harp on the front row at the event, alongside most of the Cabinet. An unusual case of her and Melania being in the same place at the same time.
It will be interesting to see if she accompanies Trump on his trip to Dublin this weekend.
