Next: even more Trump fantasies

By BRUCE LOWITT

Transcript of a conversation at Mar-a-Lago involving President-elect Donald Trump, soon-to-be deputy chief of staff to President Trump Stephen Miller, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and Trump campaign speechwriters Vince Haley and Ross Worthington. The recording was provided by a former Mar-a-Lago employee who insisted on total anonymity because he also helped Trump’s valet and body man Walt Nauta move classified documents in white bankers’ boxes from the ballroom stage, a bathroom and shower, and a storage room at Trump’s resort and residence in Palm Beach, Florida, and load them onto a private jet at a nearby West Palm Beach airport.

Trump: “Well, that went well.”

Miller: “Yeah, but what about the next time?”

Trump: “What are you talking about? The case is over. No fine, no jail time, no …”

Miller: “I’m not talking about that. I’m referring to your next news conference. Your next speech. We’ve got more than a week to go before the inauguration, then there’s the swearing-in itself, after which you’re going make weekly campaign appearances in …”

Gingrich: “What campaign?”

Miller: “Twenty twenty-eight – assuming we even have to run another election. But I’m thinking about this year. Greenland. Canada. The Panama Canal. The Gulf of America. Pure genius. The media got so tangled up with that bullshit that they haven’t asked about the economy, about health care, about anything that actually matters.”

Trump: “That’s because I still don’t have any answers for …”

Miller: “Exactly. That’s why we have to keep throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. Vince, what’ve you got?”

Haley: “How about Iceland?”

Gingrich: “Nobody gives a fuck about Iceland.”

Worthington: “How about anyplace else with ‘land’ in it? Poland? Finland? …”

Trump: “Even I don’t give a fuck about them.”

Worthington: “… England? Scotland. Ireland? Oooh, I know. Switzerland.”

Trump: “Good. Good. I throw out another country every few weeks. Fucking NATO will have a shitfit trying to …”

Gingrich: “Well, yeah, but that’s still just one thing, taking over countries. I was a one-issue guy with my ‘Contract with America’ when I shut down the government a few times and eventually pissed off enough …”

Miller: “We don’t need a history lesson over how you lost your job, Newt. Now what else can we use to distract …”

Trump: “Windmills!”

Haley: “You’ve worn that out. Also whales and sharks and electric boats. And trotting out the border wall? Forget it.”

Worthington: “Abortion? You could say it’s a states rights thing, then say women have the right to decide what’s best for them, then say it should be a national law, then say women are too emotional about it, then say if the pope’s against it we should be, too, then say …”

Haley: “And how about saying the drug companies are robbing us blind, then that they need protection to invest in research. And hospitals charge too much, then it’s the fault of the doctors, then the nurses’ unions have too much power, then it’s the insurance companies that are the problem, then it’s the personal injury lawyers …”

Miller: “Hold on. The whole country’s already fighting over that stuff. Everyone’s made up their minds. We need new things for people to take up sides. Like the Panama Canal thing.”

(Forty seconds of silence)

Haley: “Cats cause cancer.”

Miller: “Wait. What?”

Trump: “I knew it!”

Worthington: “Yeah, and we’re going to set up camps where they’ll have to be tested and deported if they’ve got, I dunno, some sort of germ we’ll make up.”

(Thirty-five seconds of silence)

Worthington: “No more north and south. Just Dakota. Just Carolina. This way when we add Puerto Rico and D.C. … Wait. Screw them. When we add Greenland and, uh, Guam? Or … what’s that place Matt Gaetz gets his girls from? Oh, yeah, the Virgin Islands. As soon as we add them as states we don’t have to change the flag.”

Haley: “But what if we also add Canada?”

Worthington: “Then, uh, um … Oh, I got it. Then no more West Virginia. Just a bigger Virginia.”

Haley: “How about coal-powered cars. No more of this electric-car crap. Elon’ll go for it if we let him buy the Powder River Basin of Montana and Wyoming, where so much of our coal comes from.”

Worthington: “And railroads.”

Miller: “What about them.”

Worthington: “Get rid of them. Nobody rides trains. And they’re always hitting cars. Pull up the tracks and pave over where they were. More highways. More trucks and cars. Fucking trains. Their horns and whistles and clickety-clack keep me up at night.”

(One minute of silence)

Haley: “No more separate Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and all those other branches. Too confusing. Too many different rules and uniforms. Just one big American Force. Give me some time and I’ll figure out the ranks.

Trump: “I dunno. I kinda like my Space Force.”

Miller: “Okay, guys. We’ll talk next Friday. Let me think about what we’ve …”

Haley: “You’ll be President-General Trump.”

Trump (shouting): “I LOVE IT!”

(Recording ends)