Donald Trump was thrilled. The Secret Service had just squirrelled the POTUS away from Turkey in a clandestine caper straight out of a spy thriller after an assassination threat from Iran.In an elaborate ruse, the wannabe super spy boarded Air Force One when leaving Turkey after the NATO summit on July 8. Then he was shuttled to a smaller plane in an airport catering truck, effectively making the presidential plane a “decoy.”Amid an uproar from unaware journalists left aboard — with several staffers and two cabinet ministers — for being taken on a risky ride, the meme maker-in-chief did not for once toot about his capricious caper. But it did fuel a fanciful flight of AI-generated memes imagining the president squeezed into everything from a catering cart to a laundry bin.A parody account calling itself the Associated Fress posted an image of Trump poking his head out of a McDonald’s truck parked beside Air Force One. Another AI-generated meme showed the president being whisked away in a laundry cart, his head emerging from a heap of towels.Iran’s state media too seized on the caper, turning it into a running joke about presidential fear, with one meme depicting a catering truck painted in Air Force One’s colours and bearing the presidential seal. “American coward-n-chief, Donald Trump, sneaks out of Turkey aboard Food Truck One,” the caption read.Back in Washington, amid a stalemate over the war with Iran, Trump threatened to declare the strait of Hormuz as “a territory of the United States.”“After we finish defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated, pretty soon I’ll be declaring the Hormuz strait a territory of the United States,” Trump declared grandiosely in a speech at a police academy in New York.In the season of ruses, he also declared tubas, trombones, trumpets and French horns a national security threat simply to expand his terrific tariffs on aluminium, steel and copper products.Trump was stretching the national security justification a bit too far, charged critics with Wayne Winegarden, a senior fellow in economics at the Pacific Research Institute, cited by the Washington Times, saying, “I keep thinking of the ’Music Man’ song, ’76 trombones’ are invading.”In another quirky move, after nearly a decade of loudly complaining about modern U.S. aircraft carriers’ ‘complicated’ digital systems to launch jets, Trump ordered the Pentagon to redesign one using old-fashioned steam catapults instead. “It’s very complicated, you have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out,” Trump had complained to Time magazine in 2017.His order to redesign USS Doris Miller, a Ford-class aircraft carrier, that would likely cost billions of dollars, came amid reports of an intensifying mental health crisis on board the USS Abraham Lincoln, as the carrier’s 5,000 sailors and Marines endure a record-breaking deployment.Trump, however, dismissed such concerns saying the vessel had not been at sea for too long. “Not nearly enough.” But he also confirmed that the ship would now be replaced by another aircraft carrier.In yet another ruse, the Trump-appointed Kennedy Centre board voted to partially close the iconic arts centre for up to two years for renovations and to re-add the President’s name to the building’s facade, saying “Restored and Renovated” by Trump.After an almost two-hour Zoom meeting, the board voted 20-3 to change the name of the building to “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump” and the physical location to “President Donald J. Trump Plaza.” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick proposed the name change, NBC reported.The move in apparent defiance of a judge’s May order to remove Trump’s name from what was intended as a “living memorial” for an assassinated president is bound to face legal challenges. Truth Social’s sale of fast access to Trump’s posts too is also raising legal and ethical questions, with a new lawsuit alleging that Truth API is unconstitutional.But that’s par for the course for the Trump White House, which has faced over 80 lawsuits challenging his second-term agenda in just over 18 months, far outpacing the 121 filed in the 2017-21 first term.Trump team then went on appeal to the largely friendly Supreme Court to allow construction of his big beautiful ballroom, arguing that it was ‘vital’ for national security and that halting construction will leave Trump ‘much less safe.’Challenging an appeals court ruling blocking the above-ground construction of the ballroom without Congressional approval, it argues that “every part” of the project is “an integrated whole geared toward remedying security deficiencies and bringing critical improvements to the White House”.Given the recent attempts on the President’s life, including a shooting at the White House correspondents’ dinner in April, stalling the “vital construction” of the ballroom will leave Trump “much less safe” and ultimately risk “future presidents’ safety,” government lawyers argued.Meanwhile, citing records reviewed by it, The Washington Post reported that Trump is set to spend at least $900 million on White House construction, far higher than previously reported.Renderings of the ballroom, according to the Post, show Trump plans to put gold-colored presidential seals on the exterior of the building — a stark departure from the original vision of the White House as a restrained “People’s House” that eschewed signs of royalty.But it’s not just the top dogs who have a day in the top court. The apex court received an unlikely emergency appeal from a dog named Bruce that a California judge found to be “vicious.”But the poor dog was euthanised by Ventura County Animal Services (VCAS) before Justice Elena Kagan, who oversees emergency applications in the Ninth Circuit, could weigh in, ABC News reported. — proving that, like humans, all dogs are not created equal!(By arrangement with The American Bazaar)
