Hold The Pickle

Let’s go back to a nodal moment in Circe d’ La Trump, circa 2013. The place: Moscow. The event: The 2013 Miss Universe Contestant.

Trump is in heaven surrounded by the people he is most happy with: beautiful women and Russians. This was the opening he was looking for. All those failed attempts at being a real estate player in Moscow- so this was his chance to fulfill his fantasy of Trump Towers standing tall next to the Kremlin. Now that would be a coup, wouldn’t it?

Can’t you visualize it? The contestants readying themselves while The Don, next door, nervous as them, is pimping (oops, I meant primping!) himself in anticipation of meeting his “new best friend” Putie. After all, it’s so important to make a good first impression.

Miss Universe was one of The Don’s crowning achievements. Can’t you imagine him popping those Tic Tacs, thinking: “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 are a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.” Perhaps he even fondly reminisced about the time he walked in to the dressing room of undressed Miss Teen Universe contestants because, you know, they like that kind of thing, right?

The Don was a bit deflated that Putie didn’t show, but he did extol his experience in Moscow: “I call it my weekend in Moscow. I was with the top people, both oligarchs and generals and top of the government people. I can’t go further than that, but I will tell you that I met top people and the relationships were very extraordinary.”

There was a bon voyage lunch at The Ritz Carlton with Emin, the pop star and his real estate oligarch father Aras, which was followed by his tweet: “I had a great weekend with your family. You have done a FANTASTIC JOB. TRUMP TOWER-MOSCOW is next! EMIN was WOW!”

GREAT! WOW! EXTRAORDINARY! JUST LOVE, LOVE, LOVE THOSE OLIGARCHS AND TOP RUSSIANS!

By the time The Don departed, there was a letter of intent from oligarch Aras for a Trump Tower to be built in Moscow. The Don put Don Jr. in charge of the project and even sent Princess Ivanka to Moscow to look for building sites. Don Jr. must have been so pumped that he was going to build his daddy’s dream tower in Jr.’s “favorite city in the world.” Finally his daddy wouldn’t think he was a loser.*

Enter Rob Goldstone, the music promoter of Emin, the WOW. He wrote the email and brokered the deal between Don Jr. and Natasha, the Russian lawyer, on behalf of Emin. Goldstone made Jr. an offer he couldn’t refuse offering “very high level and sensitive info, but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”

I have to pause and say: just how stupid do you have to be to write an email like that? No spy novel would ever have that in it. What happened to encrypted messages? Something like: The sky has that vulnerable look today but if we eat Blini we will be well and the lady will be lost in the tower. And what about Don Jr.’s response: “I love it,” like he just got finished watching a McDonald’s commercial where drugged actors sing “I’m loving it.”

 And then the day of the meeting Goldstone posts on his face book page that he is heading out to the meeting like he is going out for a quart of milk? Now that I think of it, it would have been clever encryption: Hey all, going out for some milk.

It all seemed so perfect. Music promoter of son of Russian real estate Mogul, who wants to build Trump Tower in Moscow, sets up meeting with Russian lawyer (operative) to give opposition research on Hillary Clinton. Don’t you just love, love, love it!

Jr. was so excited he invited two of his besties Jared and Paulie, the Manafortie to the playground, where they talked about bots and adoption. Then there was Natasha, the lawyer, a translator and Goldstone himself. And just when you thought the play- group was closed, a Russian counter-intelligence agent named Arnat, known for his work in chyorny, a.ka.a, the dark arts of public relations snuck in through the backdoor. How did they get all those people in the room? Must have been a hellava big sand box.

And who ever thought you would need to bring so many people together to discuss adoption? It sounds like a meeting at a Social Service Agency, unless, they were working on plans to illegally traffic Russian babies. Maybe that’s why Jared was working on that back channel operation with the Russians? Wow, I knew he would sell his soul for money, but babies? Have you no shame, Jared?

But then this nothing burger of meeting was exposed and the nothing burger turned in to a Whopper, “Have it your way” turned into “Oops, We Got Caught With Our Pickle Exposed”. All I can say about this menagerie is: “I’m lovin’ it”.

 

*To understand Don Jr’s need for approval you need to understand The Don. The Don’s lack of empathy, need to devalue others, and inability to form real connections to people, are a function of his own upbringing. (Read my piece About Trump-which appears at the top of the blog- for more details about the psychology of The Don.) The Don views everything as an extension of himself. His capacity to understand a child’s vulnerability is nil. Read the below conversation with The Don and Don Jr. that he related to a reporter from Mother Jones Magazine that he remembered from when he was 4 years old:

“Don’t Trust Anyone. Ever. And, you know, he’d follow it up two seconds later with, So do you trust me? I’d say, of course, you’re my dad. He’d say What did I just –You know, he  thought I was a total failure. He goes You know my son’s a loser, I guess. Because I couldn’t understand what he meant at the time. I mean, it’s not something you tell a four-year-old, right?” (Mother Jones, Max Rosenthal, September 1 , 2016)

Imagine how rejected and devalued a four-year-old would feel from this experience. Could you imagine saying this to your child? A child that is made to feel like a failure by his parent is driven by the need to make themselves worthwhile to that parent in order to feel validated. Their attachment to that parent is insecure and they need to prove themselves worthy. They also develop and harbor great resentment toward that parent that is often buried because they fear that its expression will be met with frightening retaliation. So who knows, did Don Jr. meet with the Russians to get daddy’s approval or on a deeper level, did he do it because he wants to exact revenge from the humiliation he experienced at the “little hands” of The Don and bring his larger than life father down to size?