President Donald Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. standing in the West Colonnade of the White House in Washington, DC. Michael Brochstein/ZUMA Press
Donald Trump has made it known far and wide that, as president, with the weight of the world on his shoulders, he’s too busy to attend his son Don Jr.’s second wedding to Florida influencer Bettina Anderson in the Bahamas this weekend.
Earlier this week, the president said that with “a thing called Iran” and “other things,” the timing of the nuptials was “not good.” He added with his trademark tact, family feeling, and care for choosing his words, “If I do attend, I get killed. If I don’t attend, I get killed—by the fake news, of course, I’m talking about.”
As the wedding weekend began, the president continued to express his regrets on TruthSocial, saying that “circumstances pertaining to Government, and my love for the United States of America” did not allow him to attend. Thus far, those “circumstances” have involved the president posting a volley of weird stuff on TruthSocial, including a bunch of AI-generated images and some general seething at Stephen Colbert.
The president’s public schedule for the Memorial Day weekend is light, with a great deal of “executive time” on the docket. On Friday evening and Saturday morning, Trump devoted that time to posting several photographs of himself on TruthSocial, followed by an AI-generated image reading “GOLDEN DOME FOR THE WHITE HOUSE,” with a dome bathed in celestial light and surrounded by a clutter of satellites. He followed that up with a poorly Photoshopped image of himself looming like a harvest moon over a countryside dotted with houses and a mountain range, Trump’s fingers grasping one of its peaks. “Hello, Greenland!” the image read. (Apparently liking that image tremendously, Trump posted it again the following morning.) He also found time to post a tribute to late WWE wrestler Hulk Hogan, whom he mistakenly termed “the Huckster.” (Hogan was usually known by the nickname “the Hulkster,” but “huckster” might be a term Trump is more familiar with.)
The president, who is, again, reportedly very busy, followed these important insights with a tribute to NASCAR driver Kyle Busch, who died unexpectedly last week, followed by an AI-generated video of himself throwing former Late Show host Stephen Colbert into a dumpster. Colbert, who has been an outspoken critic of Trump, hosted his last show on Thursday. CBS said last year that it would end Colbert’s contract and retire the Late Show franchise entirely, a decision the network improbably claimed was “purely financial.” It’s one of several recent TruthSocial posts Trump has posted about Colbert in recent days. On Friday morning, around 2 a.m, the president dubbed him a “total jerk,” adding at 9:37 a.m. that his “firing” was, as he put it, “the ‘Beginning of the End’ for untalented, nasty, highly overpaid, not funny, and very poorly rated Late Night Television Hosts. Others, of even less talent, to soon follow. May they all Rest in Peace!”
One could argue that these are not the actions of a man who’s too busy to attend his son’s wedding, or really, a man who’s busy at all. But given his recent, worryingly combative stance towards the Cuban government, his leering interest in Greenland, and a reported possibility that Trump will once again attack Iran, it is perhaps in everyone’s best interest that the president seems to be, for now, very, very busy posting on his phone.
