PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN

John Miller really admired Donald Trump – and I mean, really admired Donald Trump. You could hear it in his voice.

In 1991, when People Magazine reporter, Sue Carswell placed a phone call to Donald Trump to get a scoop on an upcoming story, she lucked out when John Miller returned her call. John Miller said he was “sort of handling PR.” For a sort of handler of PR, he had an awful lot of information to share about Donald Trump’s very public personal life.

If you listen to the tape recording of the phone call or read the transcript, you will see that John Miller did not sound smooth, prepared or professional. For a publicist, he was surprisingly inarticulate and rambling.

But he did have very clear intentions.

He wanted to set the record straight on the breathtaking love life of his employer, Donald Trump.

The People Magazine story should tell readers that in divorcing his wife, Ivana, Donald Trump had been very generous, even though he didn’t have to be so generous. She and her lawyer were clearly trying to get around the terms of his prenuptial agreement. And the judge was helping them.

But Donald prevailed. Donald Trump always prevailed.

It was also important for readers to know that Ivana wanted to get back together with him, even though she had recently said the exact opposite in an interview with Barbara Walters. That falsehood needed to be set straight.

And now he had broken up with Marla Maples, but that didn’t have anything to do with her. It was just that it was “too soon after his divorce” for him to “be making a commitment.” But he was going to be very good to Marla. And everyone should know that the ring he bought her was definitely “never an engagement ring,” even though it was being falsely reported that way in the press.

Even back in those days, the press was often unfair to Donald Trump, but in this case, that was okay because Donald Trump was “immune” to bad press. In fact it was better than okay because if he had gotten a lot of good press, Ivana and her lawyer would have known that Donald had weathered his financial set-backs and was now “doing well financially and in every other way,” and it would have cost him more to settle his divorce, because Ivana would have held out for a better deal.

So, the press played right into his hands, and it all worked in Donald Trump’s favor.

And to set the record straight on his supposed engagement to Marla, the next time he goes into a jewelry store to buy a gift for a woman, he will not make the mistake of buying a ring, because of how that can be misinterpreted, presumably by lawyers, judges, and future girl friends as being a marriage commitment.

He was capable of learning from his mistakes.

And about his budding relationship with model, Carla Bruni, “she is very beautiful,” “they are great friends,” and her father is “one of the richest men in Europe.”

But we should not expect to see an exclusive relationship develop with Carla because, as publicist, John Miller explained to Sue Carswell:

“…I think he’s got a whole open field really. A lot of people really. A lot of people that you write about…really are, I mean they call. They just call. Actresses, people that you write about just call to see if they can go out with him and things.”

Oh, and Madonna wanted to date him, but he really wasn’t interested. We should know that. We should! Stop rolling your eyes!

And one more piece of bad reporting, depriving the public of an important truth, was a story that Donald wanted to go out with Madonna, when in reality, Donald Trump wasn’t interested in Madonna. Got it?

To truly understand the mind of Donald Trump (and who doesn’t?), you have to appreciate its complexity. And this historically important interview about the man and his women, gives us a glimpse of that complexity – especially this, according to John Miller:

 “[Carla] is a very successful model, etc., etc. But again, he didn’t leave Marla for her. He just wants [indiscernible], he does things for himself. He leaves for himself, he does things for himself. He, when he makes the decision, that will be a very lucky woman. But he’s not going to do that until he makes the decision. You know, when he makes the decision. He’s very capable of total commitment when he makes the decision. But he felt it’s too soon. Off the record, he probably felt Marla wasn’t the right one, or whatever, but he just felt it was too soon.”

 If you do not know how this interview turned out, it might have hit you by now that the rather scattered delivery of John Miller is strangely similar to the very scattered delivery of Donald Trump.

And the reason for this similarity is that John Miller actually was Donald Trump pretending to be the completely fictitious John Miller, speaking on behalf of Donald Trump.

When presidential candidate, Donald Trump was confronted with the tape of this fascinating, but disturbing, phone interview from his past, he of course set the record straight:

“…it doesn’t sound like my voice at all. I have many, many people that are trying to imitate my voice and then you can imagine that, and this sounds like one of those scams, one of the many scams – doesn’t sound like me.”

So, are you going to believe him or your lying ears?

I blew past my two minutes. Sorry, I just had to.

Hear the John Miller Interview

Read the transcript of the interview

NO ROOM FOR DESSERT!

It is really not fair when spectacularly encouraging news happens within a few days of other spectacularly encouraging news. Before you are finished celebrating and savoring the first mood booster, you have another and maybe even better one to begin digesting. Think of when the waiter ruined your perfect dining experience by bringing your amazing entrée while you were still enjoying your amazing appetizer.

So, you find out that the FBI raided the office, home, and hotel room of Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal attorney. Holy cow! Did anyone see that coming? What incriminating treasures are now in the hands of America’s lawmen?

And then, Paul Ryan, the most powerful enabler in government announces his retirement, making that promised blue wave look even bigger and bluer. At another time, this story would be huge, and there would so much to talk about, but living as we do in a 3-ring Trumpian circus, it can be difficult to keep your eyes on the fire-eater, while another performer is sticking his head in a tiger’s mouth.

Like I said, it’s not fair.

But, back to the Cohen treasure chest.

Michael Cohen, the self-proclaimed fixer, was apparently doing much more fixing than lawyering.

Fortunately for us, he is a very sloppy fixer.

He missed getting his client’s signature on the Stormy Daniels non-disclosure agreement, possibly nullifying the NDA. Oops!

Now we know that he brokered a $1.6 million hush-money deal for Elliott Broidy, RNC deputy fundraising chair who made the completely understandable mistake of impregnating a Playboy Playmate, who was also not his wife. Did the fixer really think this would stay fixed?

So Broidy was forced to resign, following in the equally creepy footsteps of former RNC fundraising chair, Steve Wynn. But that is not the priceless, museum quality treasure unearthed in the raid on the president’s sloppy fixer.

Nope! There is something bigger and much more precious.

There just might be solid evidence that Michael Cohen lied about a very important matter – a matter of Russian collusion in the 2016 presidential election.

The famous Christopher Steele dossier claimed that Michael Cohen was in Prague in late August or early September of 2016 for the purpose of meeting with Russian hackers to discuss paying for their services without leaving a trace of those payments.

Michael Cohen reacted immediately to this report, by stating: “I have never been to Prague in my life.” He even showed a picture of his passport to prove it. Does the Mueller team have proof that he was in Prague? Do they have proof that he met with Russian hackers? Do they have proof that payments were made?

And will Michael “the Fixer” Cohen do as he once bragged by “taking a bullet” for Donald Trump?

Or will Michael Cohen, decide not to spend the rest of his life in prison and do what mobster, Sammy “the Bull” Gravano did to his boss, John Gotti, and testify against Donald Trump?

That would truly be a Fantasy Flip!

I can’t believe my two minutes are up, and I haven’t even mentioned the name, Comey.

THE FANTASY FLIP

If you are using up far too much time, energy, and optimism trying to survive Trump, then you are of course rooting, along with me, for the Trump presidency not to survive. The day has long passed when we had some hope that the man would grow in office. Of course, he has grown – grown more reckless, more childish, more thoughtless, more vindictive, and more frightened of being caught, exposed, prosecuted, and punished.

We now know that this will get worse before it gets better. It is as though he has shifted into a gear we didn’t know he had.

I do not know when or how he will completely unravel, but when he does it will probably be at breath-taking speed.

You can bet that we will eventually see the tax returns. We will see proof of his businesses running on secret Russian loans and laundered Russian rubles. We will see him for the criminal that he has always been, rather than his self-constructed myth of the shrewd businessman, whose success was due to his supposed “brilliance,” and his mastery of the art of the deal.

No! Success came from selling his empty soul to a Russian devil.

We all will see him pay.

Al Capone did not get locked up for murder, extortion, or bootlegging. He went to prison for the victimless crime of tax evasion. I am sure that some of his victims and their family members felt that justice had not been served. But Capone died in prison, where he had begun to lose his mind due to syphilis – an acceptable happy ending for most ordinary, decent members of society.

A modern day and equally infamous mob boss, John Gotti, aka: the Dapper Don, also died in prison. He became boss of the Gambino crime family by murdering Frank Castellano, the man who was then occupying that position.

Gotti’s other  nickname was the Teflon Don, for his success in swaggering out of court rooms after juries would fail to convict him for crimes he had obviously committed.

That changed when Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, Gotti’s underboss, enforcer, and confidant, decided that rather than spend the rest of his life in prison, he would testify against his boss in exchange for a sweetheart deal – a very controversial sweetheart deal.

Sammy the Bull had murdered nineteen people, leaving nineteen circles of angry family members and friends who would see their justice denied. There would be justifiable blow back. Signing off on that deal would take an individual who would not be swayed by anything standing in the way of locking up the arrogant, defiant, "you will never convict me" mob boss.

The man who would not be swayed was the U.S. Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice -- the quiet man, Robert Mueller.

For all those driven to see John Gotti put behind bars, Sammy the Bull was their Fantasy Flip – a Fantasy Flip turned into reality.

So my fellow Trump survivors, who would be your Fantasy Flip?

If you don’t already have one, I suggest you put it near the top of your to-do list. It just might help you stay positive, while you are waiting for justice.

I will tell you my Fantasy Flip, but that will have to wait until my next two minutes.

A QUICK SEX SCANDAL REVIEW OF THE PARTY IN POWER

There is a lot to cover here, and because I am limited to two minutes, I will have to talk fast. So please pay attention.

Number One on The Hit Parade: Stormy Daniels, Of Course!

Thanks to her never-letting-up lawyer, Michael Avenatti, who keeps his client under the spotlight, with legal maneuvers and schoolyard taunts of the Orange Man and the Orange Man’s hatchet man, Michael Cohen, Stormy’s smiling face (and other famous parts) are just about inescapable. Avenatti is having fun with this. Stormy is having fun with this. Donald Trump, not so much.

The Best Trophy Girlfriend Award: Playboy Model, Karen McDougal.

For ten months, until she says that she broke it off, she was his mistress. Normally, it’s bad P.R. for a married man to be traveling around with a woman who is not his wife, instead of with the woman who is his wife. Fortunately, this president makes his own alternative P.R. -- which is just fine for those who enjoy alternative facts.

The Unappreciative Apprentice Award: Summer Zervos.

She says that Donald Trump didn’t just say, “You’re fired!” he made unwanted sexual advances. He says she’s a liar. Now, she is suing for defamation of character. The courts said the suit can proceed. When it does, there will be a discovery phase. When Paula Jones sued Bill Clinton, it was the discovery phase that led to Monica Lewinski’s icky dress. And that is what led to Bill Clinton’s impeachment.

The Bizarre Hypocrisy Award: Tim Murphy.

This Pennsylvania Republican, a vehemently anti-abortion lawmaker, was forced to resign after it was revealed that, upon learning that his mistress was pregnant with his child, he tried to coerce her into having an abortion. Apparently, abortion had its place, when it came to protecting his own self-important backside. The special election to fill his seat resulted in a shockwave win by Democrat, Conor Lamb.

The “That is Definitely Not My Job Description” Award: Trent Franks.

This Republican Arizona lawmaker was forced to resign after it was revealed that he approached  female staff members with a request that one of them agree to act as a surrogate by carrying his child – presumably utilizing the fun method of impregnation. 

The “I Really Thought This Was Part of My Benefits Package” Award: Patrick Meehan.  

Compared with the other members of this club, it might not seem like such a big deal that this Republican lawmaker settled his sexual harassment claim brought by a female aide by paying her off with taxpayer money (which the House kept secret until House women forced open the closet door), but he made the list because he had to resign his position on the House Committee on…wait for it…wait for it…The House Committee on ETHICS! He will not be seeking re-election.

The Creepiest Judge in History Award: Roy Moore.

He almost made it to Congress as Alabama’s replacement for Jeff Sessions. I think when you get thrown out of a shopping mall for having a history of stalking young girls, you probably shouldn’t go to Congress, or ever have presided over a trial, or ever be allowed within twenty feet of an elementary school.

Of course there have been some recent sex-related scandals in the Democratic Party. But, none of them possess the entertaining weirdness of those on this special list. Democrats will take back the House in November. And some of them will behave badly. Let’s not forget to skewer them when they do.

But, until then, I just need to survive Trump.

My timer just sounded. It was set for exactly two minutes.