In a scorchingly sarcastic column titled, "Why can’t we use nuclear weapons against bedbugs?" Washington Post contributor Dana Milbank excoriated President Donald Trump for trying to pretend after the fact that everything that he faces criticism for was just a joke.
"Trump has told his subordinates to seize private land and disregard environmental rules as they build a border wall, offering to pardon them for breaking the law. The White House response? Trump is joking," wrote Milbank. "Hahahahahahaha. My sides are totally splitting. That was almost as funny as the time when — stop me if you’ve heard this one — Trump told Russia to hack into Hillary Clinton’s emails. 'He was joking,' the White House said."
As Milbank noted, it is hard to recognize when Trump is "joking," because first of all, he sounds deadly serious, and second of all, he has said, "Politicians think we’re joking. We don't joke."
Other things Trump has "joked about," Milbank said, include ordering former FBI Director James Comey to shut down the Flynn investigation, demanding a loyalty pledge from his rally audience, threatening to fire former HHS Secretary Tom Price, expressing his love for WikiLeaks, accusing Democrats who didn't applaud his State of the Union speech of treason, thanking Vladimir Putin for expelling U.S. diplomats, wishing he was "president for life," and calling himself the "chosen one."
Milbank offered Trump a sarcastic suggestion: Joke about using nuclear weapons to fix all his problems.
"After dropping one in the eye of Hurricane Dorian, he could use another one to deforest the Amazon, thereby eliminating the threat of future forest fires," wrote Milbank. "A string of nuclear explosions along the southern border would prove a more effective deterrent than a wall. Nuclear fallout would swiftly eliminate the alleged bedbug infestation at Trump’s Doral club in Florida. Nuking Greenland would likely bring down the purchase price. There’s hardly a problem Trump couldn’t eliminate with a controlled nuclear detonation. He could nuke his tax returns, nuke the Fed, nuke Obamacare, nuke the federal debt, nuke 40 pounds of body fat, nuke rare steaks, nuke opioid stockpiles, nuke measles outbreaks, nuke Democratic precincts and nuke the leech with three jaws and 59 teeth just discovered in Washington."
"In the unlikely event anything were to go awry, Trump has a well-tested excuse for pressing the button: I was just joking," concluded Milbank.