This is a story I wrote two years ago, back when things were a little less crazy on Pennsylvania Avenue. I thought about developing the story further, as the idea is interesting, but ultimately never did as the subject is a depressing one, even when wrapped in fantasy.
Well, without further ado, here’s the story. (Cover and all).
A Conversation With the President
by Kenneth Buff
"For those just tuning in, today I'm speaking with the President of the United States. How are you doing today, Mr. President?"
"I'm doing quite well, Terry. How are you?" the president says.
"I'm doing well, thank you." Terry clears her throat. "So, I was told by your news press secretary I heart-Huckabee-Scaramucci-Spicey that you were here to discuss something they called a 'recent change of heart.' Could you explain what I heart-Huckabee-Scaramucci-Spicey meant by that?"
The president smiles. "I've decided to give up the character."
"Give up the character?"
"Yes."
"Oh...What do you mean by that?"
The president laughs. "This is why I wanted to come here first, Terry. You're a national treasure, I hope you know that. Colbert, Stewart, all those other guys, they don't hold a candle to you. I can already hear the late night jokes. 'Trump goes on national radio to tell the world he has no character,' but that's actually the opposite of what I'm doing. I'm hear to tell you that this whole thing has been a lie."
Terry dips her head. "It's been fake news?"
"In a way, yes. My whole presidency has. My whole life in fact. It all started when I was a boy. Growing up rich, having everything, it...it gets boring. The world at your finger tips. I wanted to know that I was capable of more than just telling the minders my father hired to raise me what to do. I wanted to know if I had any raw talent."
"So you went into real estate?
"I did, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the lie, Terry. The character. It was born out of boredom. Born out of a desire to prove my worth, if only to myself."
"There's that word again, 'character.' Could you define what it is you mean by that, Mr. President?"
The president takes a deep breath. "That's why I'm here. I'm here to tell you, Terry, and the American people, that the Donald Trump they've come to know and love and hate, is not the man that I am. He's a character. A fabrication. And I fear that I've done such a good job at playing him that I've played the whole country for a fool. And lost my soul in the process."
There is a long silence. Then Terry says, "Mmmhmmm...let me get this straight, Mr. President. You're saying that the man we've seen on television and Twitter for the last 40 years isn't the same man that's sitting before me?"
"He's a creation of my imagination. I guess that makes me sound crazy, but not any crazier than the actions I've done as the character Donald J. Trump." He laughs awkwardly. "It's amazing to me that anyone would believe it. The insults, the anger, the unbridled hypocrisy, how could any man be that pitiful and un-selfaware?"
"So, Mr. President--you're saying all your actions as president, and your public appearances before, have been nothing more than elaborate theater?"
"That's a good way to put it. Growing up in New York, I knew people that lived secret lives. They were mostly gay, some were sociopaths. Lots of rich people are. Not sure if that's a causation or a correlation, but I knew that these secret lives interested me. Being one person with people you trusted, and another with the public. It was like being Clark Kent and Superman. Only when I finally decided to throw caution to the wind, and just do it, I decided to go the other way. To be as bombastic and inappropriately off the cuff as I could. As time went on the 'off the cuff' attitude turned to poison, as I think you're probably comfortable enough to admit now, Terry. None of what I did as this guy was good."
Another long pause. "Have you ever told anyone this? Were you this way with your family, the character, or were you yourself?"
"Very few people know the real me. I took this very seriously. Really the only people still alive who know the truth are my family with Mona, and my brother Robert."
"You're family with Mona?"
"Oh, yes. The supermodel thing was only for Donald J. Trump. John, the name that I go by, has a real family with Mona Terinsky. She's from New Jersey. We have a home together out in the country. She's kept me sane all these years."
"I'm sorry, you'll have to excuse my confusion, are you saying Mr. President that you have a secret family?"
The president nods. "It's only a secret to the public. All the Trump children know as do Donald J. Trump's ex-wives, and Melania knows."
"So they know that your bizarre behavior is an act?"
"Not the Trumps. To them, this is the real me. That's how elaborate and deep this all went." He sighs. "I never meant for it to get this twisted. I just wanted an exercise for my mind, for my skills that my father wouldn't let me practice."
"Acting skills?"
"Yes. I wanted to be on Broadway, but instead I sold apartments off it. That wasn't the life I wanted, but it was the one handed to me. And at a certain point it was too late to turn back, but it wasn't too late to be someone else. That's where my Clark Kent came in. Or, my Joker really."
"There have been internet memes depicting you as Heath Ledger's Joker. One of the most famous ones was on the Daily Show with Trevor Noah. We have a clip of it here."
"David, I know you're a sophisticated guy. The world is a mess. The world is as angry as it gets. What? You think this is going to cause a little more anger? The world is an angry place."
"That was your voice, speaking about Russian Prime Minister Putin, equating his policies to that of the United State's. What do you think of that clip?" Terry asks.
"I'm ashamed. I really am."
"I have another one I want to play. This one is probably your most famous quote."
"Yeah that's her. With the gold. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I'm automatically attracted to beautiful--I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything."
"Whatever you want."
"Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything."
"Locker room talk?" Terry asks.
The president shakes his head. "I did a lot of bad things as this guy. It almost became like a disease. I did it for so long that I actually would forget that it wasn't real. That this was a creation of my own. At times Robert would be my only lifeline to the real world. Until I met Mona in 2012, I had no one to keep me grounded."
"The allegations against you, Mr. President. 17 women alleged to have been sexually violated by you. You've said that these women were lying. That they were trying to hurt your campaign. What do you have to say about them now?"
He leans forward his hands wiping at his eyes. "He was a monster. I was a monster. All of it's true. I've read the accounts, and some of them read milder than how they actually were. Some of it would qualify as rape, I'm sure."
Terry takes a deep breath. "Why did you decide to come forward with this now?"
"Being this way, this unnatural way, is a huge burden. It weights on you until you no longer feel like you can move. It's turned me into a insomniac. Some would say a sociopath. My character certainly was. Donald J. Trump was. I don't know about John. I'm trying to give him room to breath."
"Why didn't you stop sooner? If all this was an act, Mr. President, and if it was such a burden for you, why did you keep going? No one was forcing you to act this way."
"I honestly don't know. I think at a certain point the Donald just took over. To act like him became comfortable, not in the sense of emotional comfort, but in a physical way. The behavior became who I was with anyone who wasn't one of my brothers."
"Your older brother, Frank, who died in the '80s. He was also aware of this difference in your personality?"
"In my character, not my personality. But no, Frank wasn't alive long enough to see it really take hold of me. He died in '81, but he knew I was playing around with different voices when I was alone. He knew I wanted to be someone else, and I talked to him about those feelings a lot."
"So, if all of this was, as you said, a fabrication, why pursue the presidency as this fictitious man? Why not run as yourself?"
"After 40 years living as another person, Terry, it wasn't possible for me to be myself with anyone who didn't already know. I didn't have the strength to break out of the shell. The mania, some of it wasn't pretend. When you force feed yourself into a situation, the adrenaline starts to take over. And when it did, the part of me that was having fun with it, would push things further. Saying something more ludicrous than I did the day before. I never expected to win this thing. That's why my character said the election was rigged."
"You could only lose if it was rigged, is what I believe you said."
"Exactly. Donald J. Trump said that. And even that whole 'rigged' line was just something I stole from Bernie. I looked at him and saw the politician I wish I could have been, in another life maybe. So I took what I thought would work for the angry crowd I was pandering to, and morphed it to what suited the fake platform we were creating."
"We?"
"Me and Paul Manafort."
"Was Manafort aware of what you were doing? That it was an act?"
"No one in the campaign, or in my cabinet was aware. Only my brother and my real family knew before this. They all thought I was just crazy, which is what I wanted them to think. I really didn't think anyone would keep buying that it was real for so long."
"There has been a lot of suffering caused by your presidency. Let me list off a few of them. Families separated from one another after the DACA repeal. Trans military members no longer being able to serve. Delayed aid to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. You've insulted gold star families, you said John McCain wasn't a war hero, you told a grieving mother of a fallen soldier that her son 'knew what he signed up for.' You said there were fine people marching with neo-Nazis in Charlottesville. You're administration has defunded Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, the EPA, NASA, Pail Grants, and the list goes on. What do you have to say for your actions as president, that have had real negative consequences for Americans across the country, and for the countries across the world who have been affected negatively by your decisions?"
The president wipes his eyes. "Terry, there's nothing that I can say that could make this better. No apology that can set any of this right."
"What do you plan to do now?" Terry asks.
He laughs. "There's only one thing I can do." He takes a breath. "Go away. It goes without saying that the character, Donald J. Trump, is retired. The buildings with his name embroidered across the sides of them will be taken down. All the money that's been made through breaking the emoluments clause will be returned to the American people. The payments to the Trump kids will stop. It all has to be deconstructed. Every bit of it."
"So you're resigning then? As President of The United States?"
"Oh, Terry, I was never president. I just occupied space in the halls that Lincoln used to roam. Where he stood with the weight of the country on his shoulder I held the weight of my phone in my hands. I don't think you could call what I did anything more than extreme role playing, and I did it poorly. Or tremendously, depending on how we want to measure it. But it's inarguable that the results have been catastrophic. I only wish that I could have ended it sooner. I wish I had had the strength."
"I think we all do. Thank you for coming forward with this admission, Mr. President."
"Please, call me John."
"Thank you, John. It's been...enlightening."
"Thank you, Terry."