Three 'mad' pictures from the White House in 24 hours | James O'Brien

This is a beautiful, this is almost a poem, isn't it?This diplomatic comment in response to Trump's nonsense about the King agreeing with him regarding Iran.A spokesman from Buckingham Palace, or a spokesman for the King, said, Donald Trump this morning has already posted a picture of himself in sunglasses under the title No More Mr. Nice Guy.I'll share the detail of the text with that picture with you shortly, but it is evidence that we weren't exactly dealing with what you might call a sensible or stable individual.Iran can't get their act together, he wrote.They don't know how to sign a non -nuclear deal.

Barack Obama would have something to say about that.Because, of course, they signed one when he was president, but Donald Trump elected to tear it up and is now complaining that they won't sign something which will be almost by definition inferior.They better get smart soon!President DJT.You know, there is a problem in the United States of America with guns and the ease with which they're accessed.as was demonstrated on Saturday night in Washington.

But of course, when you've got the President glamorising them, it suggests that they're unlikely to get their act together on that front any time soon.Glamorising violence as well, of course, not just the use of guns.So, what was the other one?There's another one as well that was in...Oh, the White House posted a picture of Donald Trump with King Charles under the headline, Two Kings.

I mean, and, and...Yesterday I saw a photograph, can you guess which one it was?

Something posted from the Donald Trump regime and I looked at it and I thought, oh no, this one is a fake, this one has been doctored, this one is a, you know, a joke, a hoax, a parody, this one can't possibly be real, but it was real.Somebody called Kid Rock, who was sort of briefly a rock star,star, a successful rock star, addressing, and you might want to sit down for the next two words that I'm going to say to you, someone called Kid Rock addressing the Pentagon, the Pentagon.

I mean, what was that?That would be the equivalent of what?I don't even know.Justin Hawkins out of the darkness, popping into the Ministry of Defence to run through tactical operations in the Strait of Hormuz.And that's not fair on Justin Hawkins out of the darkness.He's always struck me as a really lovely bloke.

But also, he'd have the wit and the modesty, I presume, to say, I think you might have phoned the wrong guy.I don't know that I am qualified to turn up at the actual Pentagon and start lecturing military leaders on anything, really, unless some of them are seeking to become second -rate rock stars, in which case I could probably give them a few pointers, but they look a little bit old, frankly, to be embarking upon a new career like that.In the space of 24 hours, the idea of a ridiculous former rock star addressing the actual Pentagon is the third daftest image to emerge from that regime.You can choose between the daft, well the daft isn't even strong enough, well the most ridiculous, the most troubling, no more Mr Nice Guy, Donald Trump touting a machine gun, complaining that Iran won't sign a nuclear deal when everybody knows that they did.And then you've got the two kings.I'm not American.

Spoiler alert.

If anyone is labouring under the illusion that I am, then you now know that I'm not Chico.You're just sending me faded rock stars now and asking me to imagine them turning up at the Ministry of Defence to deliver a speech on tactics.

I don't think Morrissey would expect...Oh, well played.James Blunt.James Blunt could.James Blunt literally could provide a few pointers on matters military to some people.actually involved in such matters.

But yeah, given the state of this country, it'll probably be right said Fred soon.

But anyway, you look at these three little events and you are reminded of the...What is the word for something that is simultaneously ridiculous and disgusting?Because sometimes the ridiculousness dilutes the disgustingness, doesn't it?I don't know what the word would be.I don't know how you would describe that or indeed how I would describe it.The idea that you find something...

I mean, it's laughable until you remember how serious it is.You know, this is a man who boasts about how delighted he is that people have died and who insults the dead or who wishes death upon his political enemies and then pretends that other people have done the same to him and insists that they get sacked by their television station or get indicted.We'll get on to James.relationship between mystery hour and the indictment of the former was it the former FBI chief or James Comey anyway one of the sort of Top thorns he wasn't even a particularly sharp thorn in Donald Trump's side, but one of the people against him he nurses enormous resentment.What is the relationship between the former head of the FBI James Comey and mystery hour and and the events of the last 24 hours.That's not even a hook and tease.

You probably know it already.My Blue Sky account was pinging.Who'd have thought, you said to me, who'd have thought that Mystery Hour would provide me with a helpful insight into the latest madness to emerge from Donald Trump's White House.But there it is.Mystery Hour, truly, and it'll be back tomorrow at 12.Sometimes we pause it for the news.

We postpone it or cancel it if the news is really big.But now that Mystery Hour is actually equipping us with the knowledge that we need to understand the latest madness coming out of the White House, maybe we should be doing more Mystery Hours in order to come to a better understanding of the latest madnesses coming out of the White House.So Mystery Hour will be with us at 12.And it involves the meaning of the phrase 86, which we discovered last Thursday, but which apparently the White House is determined to pretend they don't actually understand the meaning of.

I said rock stars, not the wife of dead rock stars, recently dead rock stars.So unfortunately, she doesn't get onto the team sheet for this question, although she would otherwise be a plausible suggestion.10 minutes after 10 is the time.So these madnesses remind us that the king was making his way into, and this is where I was struggling to find the right word, because you want to say a viper's nest or a rat's nest, but that doesn't accommodate the ridiculousness.That only accommodates the depravity, the moral bankruptcy.

It doesn't accommodate the absurdity of it.The best thing you can do with these people is laugh at them, but then they arrest you.

That is reminiscent of an ideology that begins with F. It's actually quite a good phrase that, isn't it?The best thing you can do is laugh at these people, and that is why they arrest you, or they seek to get you cancelled.Jimmy Kimmel, the late night talk show host, for a perfectly innocuous and not brilliant joke, now facing all sorts of calls from the most powerful man in the planet for silencing and cancelling.and James Comey, the former head of the FBI, being indicted for the most ridiculous of reasons.If you laugh at them, they hate you even more than they do if you criticize them.Isn't that funny?

It's one of those old adages, isn't it, that the best thing you can do with these people is laugh, but it's very hard to laugh when they... arrest you or threaten you with professional oblivion if you lead the laughter.So that's the reminder, and you can help me out with those words, that idea of something that is hideous but also hilarious.

I've never stumbled into that before.Something that's hilarious and hideous at the same time.Is that what tragicomic means?I don't think it is, is it?It's not really what tragicomic means.You know what I'm talking about.

You look at this picture of him in his shades with a machine gun and you just think that is so pathetic.That is the most beta male, to coin a phrase that's popular on the internet.And look at me, I'm so tough.You know that he couldn't punch his way out of a wet paper bag.He couldn't knock the skin off the rice pudding.

But he poses, or he loves these images of him that sort of cast him as Rambo or as some sort of tough guy.He dodged the draft of Vietnam five times.He's got the courage of a bowl of cornflakes.But somehow, as with all deeply narcissistic weirdos, he's desperate to believe that he's tough and people surrounding him are desperate to pretend that he is too.So it is hilarious, right?It is objectively hilarious.

But it's also hideous because Iran signed a non -nuclear deal with Barack Obama's administration and Donald Trump ripped it up.So the assault upon truth is absolutely clear.10 .13 is the time.So what do we think of the King?I had a caller yesterday, I don't know if you were listening.I, if you want, I want a letter from your mum by the end of break today, explaining why.

I had a call yesterday and I said to him, I said, do you know, because the first thing he said when he came on was, I feel, and I thought, I've called it wrong, because I very nearly came on air yesterday and said, how do you feel about all this?How do you actually feel about all this?This visit from Prince Charles, King Charles even.I just demoted him then, my apologies, Your Highness.And the reason why I didn't do it yesterday was because it hadn't happened yet.Do you see what I mean?

It hadn't actually happened and settled.We hadn't had the images.the footage.We'd had the handshake.

We'd had this bizarre moment when he appeared to try to impose himself on the king by doing a handshake.But you know what his handshake will be like.

And that's why I didn't ask you yesterday how you feel about it all.You can guess what's coming next.So I think I'll ask you today, because I really want to feel upbeat about this.As someone who wants the best for his country, I really want to feel upbeat about this.I kind of have this weird little... inner voice almost that still thinks it's worth trying to appease this toddler, it's worth trying to keep him sweet, it's worth trying to keep him on side.And yet, this is the same person, me, who has spent the best part of a year explaining to you why it's a complete waste of time.

We're building a new dictionary today.What's the word for that?Is that cognitive dissonance?Is that when you hold two thoughts in your head at the same time?There is absolutely no point in trying to appease this prune.But it's very important that we try to appease this prune.

There we go.We got there in the end.That is kind of where I am.I don't know why.I don't know how you detach yourself from that.When we described him accurately some time ago now as a deranged liar, everything slotted into place.

It makes life much easier.But then when these moments come around, you kind of feel yourself slipping back from that confidence and that certainty and falling once again into the sort of naive, rose -tinted hope that the King has done some excellent work, he's poured oil on very choppy waters.Why is this?Is this some sort of psychological conditioning?We can never fully accept the bleakness of a situation, we have to cling on to hope.Like that brilliant line in

the John Cleese film.It's not the despair that gets you.I can deal with the despair.It's the hope.You can never completely give up hope.It's worth trying to keep this character sweet.

Normality can be restored.Decency can be brought back.And yet you know it can't.minutes before I'd even sort of decided what we were going to talk about on air, that picture is posted of him with a machine gun.It's pathetic, right?But it's also significant.

And the two kings thing.I'm not American.Sorry, I got distracted by my monologue.I'm not American.So I don't know how offensive that is.They're celebrating the 250th anniversary of the successful defenestration of the king.

They got rid of him.That's what they're celebrating.American independence.No more kings is a phrase that runs through some forms of American political consciousness, like the word Blackpool runs through a stick of rock.No more kings.And yet they post a picture from the White House of Donald Trump with an actual king under the phrase two kings.

And I don't know what that does, what that means, I don't know how significant it is, I don't know what it upsets, which apple cart it upends, but it is just yet more evidence of that word that I don't think exists.The word that describes something that is simultaneously hilarious and hideous.Hidarius?Hilius?Hildarius?So that's what I'm going to ask you.

I think the King's done well.I'll play you some little clips after this and then you can tell me what you think.What are we going to do together today, do you think?Are we going to kind of collude in a mass delusion?

Are we going to collude in an exercise in pointless optimism?We're going to sit here telling each other that.it's all gone very well and I'm very proud and good for the king and we're just going to ignore the fact that within 24 hours Donald Trump would have defecated all over any goodwill or any decency that has been established as a consequence of this visit.Or are we actually going to find some scintillae of hope and optimism to cling to?Three thoughts, right?The king and his people, especially the person who wrote that statement, his diplomatic masterclass in amelioration.

The king is naturally... because Trump is lying.There's no earthly way that King Charles has said, yes, I completely agree with you, Donald Trump.You know that, I know that, he knows that, everyone knows that.They can't say that because it would involve calling the US president a liar.So instead, they release this.This makes me proud to be British.

The king is naturally mindful of his government's long -standing and well -known position on the prevention of nuclear proliferation.It's a chuffing masterclass, that, isn't it?

It's basically saying, the president is...His pants are aflame.He is a big fat liar.

But we can't possibly say that, so we will say, the king is naturally mindful of his government's long -standing and well -known position on the prevention of nuclear proliferation.So the king and his people have played an absolute blind.Keir Starmer got it completely right.It was worth sending him, he says, clinging desperately to the fraying scintilla of hope.Is it scintilla or scintilli, Keith?What would be the plural of scintilla?

Scintillas?Thank you.Keith says yes.Clinging to the fraying scintilla of hope.that we can return to some sort of semblance of sanity or stability or decency, never mind any sort of special relationship, and knowing, even as I say the words and ask you the question, that I'm indulging in a collective delusion that Donald Trump will now behave differently from how he has behaved for his entire life.entire life, even before the suspected dementia kicked in.

He will now behave with decorum and modesty and treat the United Kingdom with the respect that it so obviously deserves.But I can't shake the good feelings.I'm glad he went.I'm glad he went.He's done a cracking job and it might have achieved something.