It has been a tough week, after weeks of tough weeks, so I decided to call my friend Kilroy to see if he was up to a serious Olive Therapy session. We met at the River Grill. Not a fancy place but an establishment that is generous with the pour and famous for bartenders who don’t engage in small talk.

After two Chopin Martinis, six blue cheese stuffed olives and forty-five minutes of listening to me list the indignities perpetrated by the Trump administration this week, he turned to me and with a wicked grin said in mildly slurred speech “What if this is a very elaborate episode of ‘Punk’d.’ Imagine this…

“Karoline Leavitt stands at the podium and in her best “‘Bride of Chucky”’ manner introduces Ashton Kutcher. He steps up to the podium and after tapping the microphone says, with a large shit-eating grin, “‘America, you have been Punk’d.”’

“With the complete support of this administration, who felt the country was not taking our FAFO policies with the correct sense of humor they are all intended, we launched an elaborate series of practical jokes in the hopes of “‘Making America Laugh Again.”’ Or MALA.”

“While we don’t have time to go into all the practical jokes that this administration has played on the American people during its term in office, I would like to mention just a couple of recent “‘Punk’d”’ moments that seem to have caught the public’s attention. We believe how they were received by the press and how they have been vilified on social media proves President Trump’s allegation that immigrants, the radical left, Democrats and non-MAGA women have destroyed our national sense of humor.” 

At this point, Karoline Leavitt steps back up to the podium and says “Excuse me, Ashton, but the Jokester in Chief has just texted me. It says: ‘We used to live in a country where we could tell jokes about Jews being cheap, Polacks being dim-witted, Irish as hopeless drunks, Blacks as lazy and immigrants eating neighbors’ pets. Most people thought these jokes were hilarious. It allowed people to feel good about themselves at the expense of others. These people can’t take a joke anymore. Really, not smart people. Like radical Democrats and women. We need to bring those days back to make America laugh again regardless of how many people are insulted or made to feel less than. These people, they can’t take a joke anymore. Very sad. Very weak. Let’s Make America Laugh Again.’”

The reporters begin shouting questions to the Bride of Chucky. “What about the jokes about marrying men old enough to be your father? Are those still funny?” Karoline shoots the reporter a glance, inadvertently giving the world a glimpse of the character she was modeled after, and turns the podium back over to Ashton Kutcher.

“Thanks Tiffany, I mean Karoline. The President was insistent that we start off the MALA campaign with a bang, and he strongly suggested we begin it with a meme of him as a divine healer. He thought it would be so off brand that, in his words, “‘people will go crazy over it.”’ We suggested a number of Christian artists to him but he was insistent that we call his buddy Sam Altman at ChatGPT and have them create an illustration directed by Paula White-Caine because ‘between her three divorces and the Senate investigations into her finances’ she really gets me.

“When we saw the finished image we all thought it was hilarious. No one would take it seriously. How could they? We would let it build for a couple of days and then hold a press conference announcing “‘America, you just got punk’d.’”

Kutcher paused. “Unfortunately, this particular joke went over just about as well as when Zach Braff beat up a kid. Which is surprising because I thought you, the press, would get the joke.”

“Ashton, Peter Doocy, Fox News. Was it your idea or the President’s to claim that he thought the image was of him being a doctor? I thought that was hilarious.”

“That was the President being a brilliant ad-libber.”

“I thought so. It had his wit smeared all over it.”

“Ashton, Megyn Smelly, Influencer News Network, first-time questioner and a big fan of your work. I mean making Justin Timberlake cry. Classic. Did you work with the Vatican to have the Pope issue the statement about ‘the Prince of Peace is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs’? It seemed so perfect for the President and gave him a real opportunity to express his hysterical remarks about the Pope.”

“No. No. If you’ll excuse the pun, it was just divine intervention. By the way, let’s give props where props are due — JD Vance’s suggestion that he knew more about Catholic religious teaching than the Pope…wow. It was gold.”

Ashton waits while the White House Press Corps, now balanced with MAGA bloggers and influencers, murmur positively about JD Vance’s keen sense of religious humor. When it quiets down he adds “Which is a perfect segue into our next prank. With the President’s ‘huge’ success of our first prank of the week we decided to continue on with our religious theme and prank the god of war, I mean Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth. The Prankster in Chief thought he would make a perfect victim not only because he has the sense of humor of a frat boy doing keg stands but because he often cites Bible quotes when he is considering carpet bombing schools and civilian infrastructure.”

Kash Patel — a huge fan of Quentin Tarantino’s vibe of nonlinear retribution and “rules don’t apply to me” — suggested we send GI Bro an email from one of his commanders that pretends to be a Bible verse, but is actually the made-up verse from Pulp Fiction. Kash, who is no stranger to bro humor, thought it would work in two ways. If the chief Crusader read it and realized it was a made-up quote he would know he had been pranked and we could all laugh about it at the next cabinet meeting. Our laughter might even wake Dozing Don. But wouldn’t it be fucking hilarious if he read it in front of his non-mandatory/mandatory worship services at the Pentagon.

Well, we all know what happened. I mean, classic Punk’d. It’s only sad that there were no cameras around when Hegseth caught up with Kash. Let’s just say that the banter and physical humor were no worse, in the opinion of Markwayne Mullin, than many of his MMA fights.

Ashton asked “We have time for a few questions. You over there in pink Lululemon.”

“Thank you, Morgana from Facebook. Will the secretary get his next prayer service reading from Reservoir Dogs or go straight to Kill Bill?”

“You will have to ask War Dawg about that directly. But after this Punk’d we are going to be laying off him for a couple of days.”

The bartender returned with two fresh martinis and a side of blue cheese olives as a nutritional supplement. I took a sip and turned to Kilroy and said, “So what your saying is we are being Punk’d and the Jester Chief is off in some bunker surrounded by a battery of screens aughing so hard he soils his Depends.”

He smiled and said, “That about it.”

“But if that is the case, they why aren’t we laughing. Shouldn’t we be laughing?”

Kilroy took a big gulp of his Martini and says “Ever notice he people getting punk’d never laugh.”

“Well there is that.”