By Joel H. Cohen
NEW YORK — Imagine for a moment that, reluctantly, President Trump has listened to the advice of daughter Ivanka and agreed to meet with an anger management specialist.
He enters the office of the specialist, Dr. Mensch, who invites him to take a seat, and starts right in:
“People say you’re a very angry man.”
“That really ticks me off, ” Trump comments. “I’m the coolest, calmest guy you’ll ever meet.”
“But though your ancestors, wife and in-laws, emigrated here on rules you’d abolish, you’ve got a short fuse with people seeking asylum on our southern border.”
“Any true American would, Trump counters. “You know they don’t send us their best people. Drug lords, rapists…”
“Four- and five-year-olds?” Mensch asks in disbelief.
“They mature early in those countries.”
Mensch says: “You became pretty incensed when a football payer exercised his right to protest peacefully and knelt during the playing of the National Anthem. And the fuss you made about that first player led to scores of others doing the same thing”
Trump: “What true patriot – and I’m not talking about the pro team of that name – what true patriot wouldn’t be steamed when spoiled millionaires playing a kid’s game disrespect our great country? That really got my goat.”
“And revoking clearance of major intelligence officials?” Mensch asks.
“When people abuse their clearance to make fake comments about what’s none of their business, believe me, it really rocks my boat.”
Mensch: “Doesn’t it bother you that scores of Intel officials have openly criticized you? The heroic Navy Seal, so important in the capture of Osama Bin Laden, asked in protest that his clearance be revoked, too.”
“They’re all phonies, has-beens and never-was, and that Navy Seal? I never heard of him. A nobody.”
“You seem to delight in punishing opponents. How happy did revoking John Brennan’s clearance make you feel?
“Like I just had two Big Macs…oh, you people don’t eat them; well, a pastrami on white bread.”
When Mensch asks whether granting pardons gives him particular pleasure, the president replies: “You bet. These people were shafted by a corrupt so-called justice system. The Sheriff, a wonderful guy, didn’t coddle prisoners, so they said he’s bad”
Mensch asks how Trump feels about being considered a racist, especially with calling an African-American former staffer a “dog.”
Trump: “Believe me, I’m not a racist, nothing could be farther from the truth. I love all people. And when I’m teed off at somebody, calling that scum a name, I’m not thinking of race or religion. For instance, you’re Jewish right?”
“”Yes.”
“Well, if I call you as shmo, it’s not because you’re Jewish, but because you’re a shmo.”
“That’s very comforting.”
Turning to another subject, Mensch comments, “You’ve been pretty harsh with the press.”
“Corrupt media? They make me see red. Vladi doesn’t have to deal with fake news. Why should I? I love the media – “Fox and Friends,” Sean Hannity…”
“You also seem to have a vendetta against war heroes and their families, even though you’ve never served.”
“I tried very hard, many times, to get into the military, but was turned down. I would have made a marvelous soldier, actually, a commanding officer, but they kept me out.”
Wanting to turn the conversation to matters positive, Mensch asks:
“Do you have a happy place?”
“Many — Mar-a-Lago, golf courses and hotels I own…”
Mensch explains he doesn’t mean a physical happy place, but a spiritual one – “where good memories make you feel happy and you feel good about yourself., about life.”
“I do, Trump says. “I think of the people I’ve crushed. I learned early: somebody hits you, you hit ‘em back, knock ‘em to the ground, kick em. He won’t hit you again.”
But, Mensch reminds him, “Remember, when you insult someone, give a terrible nickname or hold a grudge, it hurts you more than your target. Sometime he or she isn’t even aware of it.”
“You’re kidding, right? My targets know it, believe me.”
The session over, the therapist says, “I think we have to talk more. This is a multi-session task.”
Back at the White House, Trump tells Ivanka to look up whether a president has the power to strip an anger management professional of his license.
“That guy teed me off.”
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Readers who are new to freelance writer Joel Cohen’s “Just Kidding” columns are advised that they are satirical and should not be taken seriously
Not far from the truth, from what I see and hear and know of that NYr without a heart or a soul.
He managed to get his name on the US Embassy because ONLY he relocated the building in spite of what it might do to the Peace Process.