Many have forgotten how deranged Trump’s first term was. My new book, Trumpworld Begins, publishing February 5, aims to remind us how all the present chaos started. One of the great miscreants of Trump 1.0 was Tom Price, then head of HHS. From the book: I did a little frivolous dialogue with Tom back in 2017 just before he resigned.
When First-Class Isn’t Good Enough
9/30/2017
We’re in Tom Price’s office in the anteroom, overhearing the HHS secretary explaining to Charmaine Yoest, his PR person, why he needs another charter flight.
“Hefner just died and I want to fly out to L.A. for the funeral. We might come back via Oklahoma City to see my friends and supporters. Book it with some bogus healthcare conference, and on the way back I also want to have lunch with my son in Nashville.”
“Will do. John Goodman, the old music critic from Playboy, is here for his interview with you.”
“Jeezo Peezo, I don’t want to talk to him. He was washed up a long time ago; now he’s sticking his big nose into politics.”
Charmaine doesn’t hear this and brings Goodman in. “Good to see you, Mr. Secretary. I won’t take up much of your valuable time. The big question is: what the hell were you thinking of, spending over $400,000 of taxpayer money on over two dozen charter flights? And yesterday we hear that you took military flights to Africa, Asia and Europe costing over $500,000.”
“Listen, my friend, the optics don’t look good but I have a bad back and those first-class seats in most planes make it worse. Besides, too many passengers start asking me questions and are listening in to my private phone calls. I have very special dietary requirements and my service dog often travels with me in the cabin so sometimes military flights are required. And, of course, flying charter makes me feel important and gives me energy to talk up our anti-healthcare programs.”
“Hmm. At least for the phone calls you could follow Scott Pruitt, your EPA compadre, and install a secure a $25,000 telephone booth in your office to frustrate the snoopers and preserve self-importance. He’s sending taxpayers the bill for that and over $58,000 he too booked in charter or government flights. What is it with you guys? Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, munching on caviar, asked for a $25,000-an-hour government plane for his honeymoon in Europe. He couldn’t get that when he worked at Goldman Sachs.”
“The problem is, John, that we are all trying to follow the Trump lifestyle of entitlement and grandiosity. Being good Republicans we want to pass that cost on to those who can least afford it. Look at our legislation on healthcare. By the way, did you ever meet Hefner when you wrote for Playboy? He was a dear friend though we didn’t agree much on politics. I put him into some really good healthcare stocks.”
As we left, the secretary was on the phone to his broker. We scuttled out of there without asking him when he planned to charter a plane to Puerto Rico.
Late-breaking news: We won’t have Tom Price to kick around anymore. He resigned as EPA secretary late Friday afternoon.
Ah, the good old bad old days!
I still say that your humorous stuff belongs in Shouts and Murmurs.
Very funny, and I don’t remember ever seeing it the first time around. Or remember the story(ies) about Price. Trump’s dollar-poor Repub appointments will never be able to keep up with him now! Just the crypto dough is enough to keep him on top.