Linda's Transcript
Andy Borowitz
Watch The New Yorker Festival | Andy Borowitz: The End of Trump | The New Yorker Video | CNE
We’re here tonight at the New York Society for Ethical Culture to talk about Donald Trump which by the way is the first time Donald Trump has been used in the same sentence as ethical… or culture…or society.
During the campaign, there was a lot of talk about populism. What an amazing movement populism was, and the media was enthralled by this whole concept of populism. Well, tonight I’m going to launch my own movement—I call it elitism. I think it’s a good brand. And here’s the thought behind my movement—very simple—I think that the President of the United States should be smarter than I am. That’s it; very simple. Because if you think about the job, the president has to deal with a lot of tricky stuff. Right? Like health care. Who knew health care was so complicated? Fucking everybody knew.
It is a tough job, and you need a smart guy to do that job. And it seems like we had a guy like that. Very recently. Like for eight years. And now…when I think about those eight years, they seem like a hallucination. It’s like we had a guy in the White House who knew stuff and read books and possessed impulse control. Was I on mushrooms? Did that really happen?
The problem is that we were so excited in 2008 when Barak Obama was elected we did not attach enough significance to something else that happened that year. A very, very ominous development—the advent of Sarah Palin. Because Sarah Palin was the gateway idiot that led to Donald Trump. She lowered the bar flush to the ground. And he oozed right under it.
In fact, I remember the pivotal moment in this whole shitshow. It was in 2008 when she was being interviewed by Katie Couric. And Katie Couric asked her—name one Supreme Court decision that you disagree with. And Sarah Palin drew a blank. And she said “I’ll have to think about that. And I’ll get back to yah.” OK, now, dude, one Supreme Court decision. You’ve got to pull something out of your ass at that point. I mean Ali vs. Fraser—just say something.
The Republicans have gone from Abraham Lincoln to Sarah Palin to Donald Trump. No wonder they don’t believe in evolution. Look, I don’t expect Donald Trump to be like a total Brainiac like Barak Obama—that’s not fair. But I do think it would be nice if he could spell words like “heel” and “tap.” Words that would be insulting if they appeared on a first grader’s spelling test. The first grader would be like “Heel? Tap? What is this shit? Don’t patronize me.”
Our country used to be smart. Our country used to be smart. Five decades ago, we put a man on the moon. Now, granted we did that with the help of Werner von Braun…who was a Nazi. But that’s my point—even the quality of our Nazis has gone down. Our Nazis used to be rocket scientists! Now they’re marching morons with tiki torches. Our Nazis are a disgrace.
A couple of ground rules for the evening. At no point tonight will we chant “Lock him up.” We’re not going to do that. No…no…no…because you are better than that, New Yorker Festival audience. You are—because you understand that we live in a nation of laws. Alright? And for Donald Trump to be locked up, he would first have to be legally removed from office and then put on trial, and then found guilty by a jury of his peers. In other words, 12 malignant narcissists.
However, all that would have to happen legally, and so tonight, no matter how much we despise Donald Trump and everything he stands for and everything he’s doing, we’re not going to indulge in a bunch of grotesque revenge fantasies. BUT, if all that were to happen, legally, here’s how I would like to see it play out. I would like the impeachment to be a pay-per-view event. It would just totally wipe out the national debt—just like that. And as long as we are being fiscally responsible, I want to do Mike Pence at the same time.
I would like to see Trump Tower turned into an Islamic cultural center. And ‘I would like to see Mar-a-Lago converted to free housing for Puerto Rican refugees. Now, as for Ivanka and Jared and Don Jr. and Eric and Paul Manafort and Mike Flinn and Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan—have I left anyone out? There are so many—I see one, massive Nuremberg-style trial presided over by a Supreme Court justice chosen at random…let’s just say Ruth Bader Ginsberg. That’s good, but as for Mike Pence, I want to send him to women’s prison.
And last but not least Donald Trump. What are we going to do with him? Well, I want him guarded for the rest of his life exclusively by transgender troops. And he does not get his own prison cell. I want him to share a prison cell with Mexican drug lord El Chapo. In that prison cell, for the rest of his life, I want, playing on a loop, the audiobook of The Audacity of Hope read by Barak Obama. Are you with me on this? America has spoken!
Watch The New Yorker Festival | Andy Borowitz: The End of Trump | The New Yorker Video | CNE
