CLEVELAND — Chaos reigned as the Republican National Convention stretched into its third week, with delegates still in shock over the revelation that Donald J. Trump is not actually dead.
Mr. Trump, the real-estate developer and former reality TV star who electrified the nation with his plainspoken style and bombastic rallies, released a prerecorded video message from an undisclosed location yesterday stating that the apparent crash of his TrumpAir jet was “a fake.”
The nation’s attention has been riveted to the Caribbean since Mr. Trump’s plane disappeared from radar early on July 4. CNN has devoted 24/7 coverage to the missing Gulfstream, but choppy waters off the coast of Bermuda, coupled with a series of radar malfunctions that that the Federal Aviation Agency called “inexplicably bizarre,” hindered the search-and-rescue mission.
It appears that Mr. Trump, with the help of a group of former cast members of the NBC television show “The Apprentice,” faked his own death in order to avoid being nominated as the Republican candidate for president of the United States.
Meanwhile, despair was palpable on the convention floor as delegates rejected the compromise ticket of Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. A rival ticket of Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina and former senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania also failed to win a majority. After 257 ballots, no candidate has garnered the required 1,237 votes needed to secure the nomination.
There was a moment of panic on the convention floor when former Texas Gov. Rick Perry appeared to be brandishing a six-shooter. Mr. Perry was quickly subdued by a crowd of Kasich delegates. A Perry spokesperson later clarified that the weapon was “merely ceremonial.”
A full transcript of the recording released by Mr. Trump is below:
Melania, what time is it? What? The whaddyacallit, zone, is different. Yes! No, no—oh, okay.
Good evening, my fellow Americans.
Well, I am sure everyone is really happy to see that Donald J. Trump is not dead. I’m looking at Twitter and a lot of people are pretty sad. Sad!
So let me just say no, I’m not dead. And that’s a good thing, folks!
Listen, guys—it was all a fake, okay? It just was. I didn’t want to do it, but frankly…well, you all left me no choice.
You see, here’s the thing—it’s pretty funny, and I think we’re all going to have a big laugh about this once the whole mess blows over—which it will, trust me, okay?—the running for president thing—well, I never actually wanted to win!
I know I know, it sounds a little bit, well, a little cuckoo, but just hear me out.
Look, I’ve been very successful in life, okay? Very successful. My businesses, I mean—hey, I went to Wharton, which is a fantastic school, I made a lot of money, I have a beautiful wife—in fact I’ve been with some of the most gorgeous women in the world, I mean we all know that the Miss Universe pageant…[STATIC]
…I just wanted to have a little fun. Just a little fun. It wasn’t just about the money, okay? Okay, we sold a lot of hats, and these are great hats, let me tell you. People are always coming up to me and saying, “Mr. Trump, this is a great hat, I bought one for myself and one for my father, and he fought in Korea!” So, I love the troops, I do. Honest injun!
And it wasn’t about getting power. Listen, I have plenty of power. If I wanted more power, I would have run against that bozo, whatshisface, De Blasio, in New York—and I would have won, okay? Because people in New York, they love me, they really do.
And, honestly, who would even want to be president of America? I mean, to be perfectly honest with you, it’s a lousy job. A whole lot of grief, and for what? Bupkis! I mean, you don’t even get paid that much—I had my people look into it, and listen to this—the president only gets paid four-hundred K a year. It’s nuts!
So why did I decide to run for president? Well, I wanted the attention! The media—listen, the media, they’re just losers. Losers! There are some very good people in the media, I have a lotta friends in the media, but eighty percent of them are dogs, just absolute dogs.
And I know how to deal with these morons, because I’ve been doing it for forty years.
So we had a little deal going, me and the media—a win-win deal. I’d give a speech—a great speech—and the media would be there, and everyone would watch, because everyone wants to know, ooooh, what’s Donald going to say next, what’s going to happen next, we gotta watch, you know—and so cable news got really great ratings. I put on the greatest show on Earth, my friends. And everyone either loved me or hated me—so they had to keep watching.
One thing I learned from this whole deal is I figured out that the media needs me more than I needed them! Listen, a lot of vacation homes were renovated on the North Fork because of Donald J. Trump, believe you me.
And you remember that musical, “The Producers”? With Nathan whatever? That was a great show, I went right after it opened—I mean, it sank a little after Nathan and that other guy, with the wife, left—but it gave me a lot of ideas. A lot of ideas! I could actually could win by losing—on purpose. It makes sense if you think about it. I mean, I know that Mexico won’t pay for the wall. I’m no fool, folks.
And the funny thing is, well, what I didn’t exactly count on at the start of my plan here was that the people I was running against would turn out to be such a giant bunch of losers. I mean, Jeb? Little Marco and Lyin’ Ted Cruz? Whatshisface, the black one—Ben Carson?
And these freaks and fools were supposed to be the Republican A-Team. It just makes me laugh. [Laughs.] If I was still on “The Apprentice,” I would have fired the whole lot of them on the first day!
Okay, so here’s the pretty crazy part—once this whole thing got out of hand, I started trying as hard as I could to throw in the towel. To stick a knife in my own back, I mean. But the dumdum Republican primary voters wouldn’t let me! Remember what I said right before the Indiana primary? “Ted Cruz’s dad killed JFK.” I mean, we all know that’s just nutso. But guess what happened? I won and Lyin’ Ted dropped out the next day! You can’t make this stuff up, folks! It’s nuts, just totally wacko nuts, I’m telling you.
So really I had no choice, friends. You all just left me no choice. I didn’t want to fake my own death, but you all really left me no choice, okay? No choice.
Alright, Melania over there is telling me it’s time to wrap things up. Here’s the deal. There’s a lot of money to be made in the news business, but most of the people who run these channels are morons—I mean, Al Gore, that guy, he bought a cable channel and sold it to some Arab for half a billion dollars. We are talking real money here, folks! So I got some really great ideas for what to do when this whole thing blows over.
Here’s what’s gonna happen. I’ve just put together a really special deal with Fox News. Something that’s technically called a “hostile takeover.” It’s gonna be named TrumpTV, and it’ll launch January 20, 2017. Listen—it’s gonna be huge.
Folks, that’s all I got! God bless you. God bless you. God bless America. Okay? Melan—[END OF TRANSMISSION]
AryehCW 