On behalf of the US administration, the American embassy in London has published a notice advising the UK government not to ban social media for the under-16s. Thanks, but … we didn’t ask? Or perhaps that’s uncharitable. It’s actually a privilege to take child protection lectures from a country where the leading cause of death in children and adolescents is gunshot wounds. Are we allowed to suggest a surprisingly obvious way to help with that grimly perennial problem – or is international advice just a one-way street?
Either way, lectures from Donald Trump’s administration have not been in short supply in recent days, with the US defence secretary deciding that a D-day commemoration address was a seemly moment to dump all over Europe. It’s always painful to be reminded of Pete Hegseth, with his fundamentalist “body art” and Mr Whippy hair – primarily because it dilutes the purity of one’s loathing for JD Vance. (Who, it won’t have escaped you, was also on the international lecture circuit last week.) But standing at the podium in Normandy, Hegseth had just phoned in some stuff about how wars are won, when he got to the needle-scratch subject-change you sensed he’d made the transatlantic journey for. “Sadly,” began this here-it-comes moment, “today, different European beaches are stormed by different, dangerous ideologies. Beaches in Spain, Italy, Greece and Bulgaria, boats and men arrive.”
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Bring back Nazis to fight them off, please! Reverse Operation Dragoon! Build the wall – the Südwall! Again: sorry, I can see I’ve been uncharitable. Pete simply couldn’t have paid more moving and respectful tribute to the last surviving second world war veterans present there in Normandy than by using a commemorative address to make excruciating category errors about one of his hobby horses, then thinking it’s enough to fig-leaf that with a bit of pointed stuff about allies turning up for each other “when it matters”. Or as we call it in Europe, 1939-1941.
Back in Washington, meanwhile, Pete and JD’s boss has finally almost delivered on a political construction project. This is the 4,500-seater UFC arena now completely obscuring the front elevation of the White House, at the centre of which is an octagon in which “the most historic sporting event of all time” will commemorate the Declaration of Independence this coming Sunday. Yes, it’s a big, beautiful state cage fight, in which one of the evening’s contenders has already risen to the occasion by promising another fighter he isn’t even facing that he will give him “a golden shower”. “I’m not just going to win,” Josh Hokit explained of Alex Pereira, “I’m going to piss on him.” Go on. “This guy’s the baddest guy on the planet. Look at how I speak to him. Like my dog, like my bitch. Fuck you!” All promises that you’ll recognise from many of Britain’s state occasions. Indeed, one of Hokit’s pledges – “I’m going to chama on your mama” – appears to be a straight lift of something King Charles opined to Trump at one point during the pageantry of the president’s most recent visit to Windsor.
So, much to look forward to on Sunday. Other details of proceedings remain tantalisingly under wraps, but since the event is also – in a remarkable instance of synchronicity – a celebration of Trump’s 80th birthday, you’d hope that there would be some kind of celebratory military element too. Spitballing here, but how about Trump being presented with a Purple Heart for not getting syphilis (as far as we know) in 1980s Manhattan? A period that the president has, of course, described as “my personal Vietnam”.
Yet what about beyond Sunday? Well, Trump loves his new testosterone gazebo so much that he is considering keeping it up on the White House lawn after UFC Freedom 250, as the event is known. He has pointed out that the French set that precedent with the Eiffel Tower, having originally planned to dismantle it after the 1889 World’s Fair. “We’re building something in front of the White House that’s quite attractive to a lot of people,” the president claimed last week. “And I’m looking at it and maybe we’ll never, ever take it down.”
Since transatlantic suggestions seem to be the order of the day, might I make one?
So long and strong is this US administration in what pro wrestling calls “heels” that it seems a shame for such a majestic arena not to get maximum use. Surely – surely! – the various hardmen of Trump’s circle of appointees should be made to fight each other in the White House octagon for Treasury resources, or for glory, or simply for the right to laugh most uproariously in the Oval Office human backdrop next time the president makes a joke at a press conference.
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Why not? Think of the ratings. If Trump can make them all slop around on the world stage in shoes that don’t fit, he can surely order the likes of Hegseth and Vance to fight – or at least wrestle – in his Craposseum. What’s putting him off? Not morals, certainly, or a lack of total and utter obsequiousness in his henchmen. Maybe the president is experiencing a form of ringmaster’s stage fright. Let’s hope he gets over it. One day, ideally, this could be expanded into a dual competition in which cabinet members must competitively dance in Trump’s planned ballroom before finishing off in the Octagon. Quite the biathlon. Nothing could feel more logical for this administration, or more befitting of its relationship with dignity. Just a suggestion, of course – but if friends can’t make them, who can?
