Vanity Fair UK - 12.2019

doctors to even scratch the surface of

what is wrong with him.

And yet, everything that preceded

the multiweek, reactor 4–level

meltdown—which will more than likely

still be going on by the time you read

this, unless they’ve taken away all the

sharp objects—turned out to be but

a preview of the batshittery that was to

come. Since news broke of a whistle-

blower’s report that he’d pressured

the president of Ukraine to investigate

Joe and Hunter Biden, tying nearly

$400 million in suspended military aid

to the ask—all of which was confirmed

by the readout of the infamous

July 25 phone call released by the White

House—Trump has exhibited all

the symptoms of someone who was

recently bitten by a rabid raccoon

one night after getting lost between

Marine One and the Oval Office.

He’s suggested that the whistle-

blower’s sources are spies who should

be executed like “we used to do in the

old days.” He’s warned of a second Civil

War if he’s impeached. Like a crazed

sub-Redditor laying out an 80-point

post about how the government

controls our minds through the fluoride

in drinking water, he told followers,

of a process laid out in the Constitution:

“As I learn more and more each day,

I am coming to the conclusion that what

is taking place is not an impeachment,

it is a COUP, intended to take away the

Power of the People.” One day, he

screamed about Representative Adam

Schiff, who is leading the impeachment

charge, and jockstraps, while a terrified

Finnish president made a mental note

to treat every day like a gift if he escaped

unharmed. Later, he berated a Reuters

reporter for mentioning Ukraine,

yelling “Did you hear me? Did you hear

me?” and demanding the guy “ASK.

THE. PRESIDENT. OF. FINLAND. A.

QUESTION” like he was an extra

in GoodFellas. He’s openly admitted to

trying to unmask the whistle-blower

and, one day, sent a tweet that simply

read #FakeWhistleblower! He wants

Nancy Pelosi sued and Schiff tried for

treason. He can’t go an hour without

calling a conversation in which he tried

to extort another country for his

personal gain alternatively “beautiful,”

“a 10,” and, most frequently, “perfect,”

deals, his call for China to help smear

one of his rivals came literal seconds

after commenting, of trade war

negotiations: “I have a lot of options

on China, but if they don’t do what

we want, we have tremendous power.”

(Making it abundantly clear what

Trump was getting at, an ally informed

Chinese government officials,

“Investigating corruption is an easy

way to earn goodwill with Trump.”)

Then there was the night he just came

out and said it, tweeting “As the

President of the United States, I have

an absolute right, perhaps even a

duty, to investigate, or have investigated,

CORRUPTION, and that would

include asking, or suggesting, other

Countries to help us out!”

He believes these things because

he’s two parts crazy, one part stupid,

but also because he’s been engaging

in corruption his entire life, to the

point that it’s second nature. It’s not

so much that he doesn’t understand the

difference between right and wrong,

it’s that corruption is his first instinct,

and the only course of action in his

mind. His brain, like a compromised

immune system, was defenseless

against the infection that is Rudy

Giuliani and the bottom-feeding,

unsubstantiated conspiracy theories

about the Bidens. The other issue

is that, having run for office basically

as a ratings play, Trump moved into the

White House with a toddler’s idea of

what it actually means to be president,

just like he had a toddler’s idea of

what it meant to be a rich person

(gold everything) and played that out.

Of course he was going to use the full

weight of the federal government to go

after insane rumors about his political

bringing to mind a dimly lit, Soviet-era

cell and the words “my perfect phone

call” scratched into the wall by

someone whose brain unhooked itself

from reality some time ago.

For all his short-circuiting, though,

for all the evidence that the last

remaining synapse in his brain, tangled

up in ground beef and stolen office

supplies, is flashing a warning signal

that he’s in peril, it’s still obvious that

Trump believes he’s done nothing

wrong. We know this because not only

is he not trying to cover up his

crimes—only panicked White House

staffers tried to do that—he’s providing

investigators with evidence—and

continuing to openly commit the same

crimes that got him here in the first

place. Believing it would clear his

name, he released a rough transcript

of his call with Ukrainian President

Volodymyr Zelensky and continues

to labor under the assumption

that it proves his innocence, despite

the fact that it’s a less subtle version

of O.J. Simpson’s If I Did It, if If

I Did It included Polaroids of Simpson

standing over the bodies holding

the murder weapon. One day after

Democrats launched an official

impeachment inquiry, he sat next to

Zelensky at the United Nations and

told reporters the Ukrainian president

must do “whatever he can do in terms

of corruption,” and then laid out all the

(thoroughly debunked) reasons why

Biden is corrupt. A week later, he stood

on the South Lawn of the White House

and told the press that not only should

Zelensky investigate the Bidens, but

China should too. Driving home that

Beijing’s efforts would be rewarded, in

one of those nifty quid pro quo–type

The transcript is like O.J. Simpson’s

“If I Did It,” if it had Polaroids

of Simpson standing over the bodies

with the murder weapon.

DECEMBER 2019 VANITY FAIR 59