Batch files

Trump's throwing everything he can at the Epstein thing and Received Opinion is (IN) ON IT

BOLT UPRIGHT: Good evening, I’m Bolt Upright and this is Received Opinion!

[Audio aneurysm. On the screen behind UPRIGHT: A limited action cartoon showing a smiling DONALD TRUMP holding leashes attached to two teenage girls in bikinis with one hand and quickly throwing, frisbee-style, document pages with the other. Caption: YOU WANT FILES? I GOT YOUR FILES RIGHT HERE!]

Has it really been two weeks since Pam Bondi told us that, contrary to what Pam Bondi had been saying for months, there were no Epstein files? And it’s been a trending topic ever since. But leave it to Donald Trump to take control of the conversation in his usual way — by yelling gibberish, or its documentary equivalent: He has gotten Bondi to order the release of the 2016 Hillary Clinton emails files, and then the Martin Luther King assassination files, and he’s gotten Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to seek indictments of former president Barack Obama and others for the 2016 Russian election influence investigation, and — (touches earpiece) hang on, I’m being told he’s ordered the Judge Crater files. Ha, kidding, a little humor for our geriatric viewers, who I understand make up 90% of our audience.

[Background switches to “Received Opinion” logo.]

Speaking of senior citizens, we have a special guest with us tonight — Democratic strategist James Carville!

[UPRIGHT walks a short distance to a small table at which CARVILLE, wearing an LSU hoodie and chinos, is seated.]

Greetings, James!

CARVILLE: Thanks, Bolt, always good to see you.

UPRIGHT: Saw your op-ed in the Times, where you said of Zohran Mamdani’s nomination, “The Democratic Party is steamrolling toward a civilized civil war. It’s necessary to have it. It’s even more necessary to delay it.” Can you explain?

CARVILLE: Clear as a June bug on a coneflower, Bolt. Ev’ybody hates this dang ol’ budget bill, includin’ Republicans. So we gawt ‘em on the run, and this ain’t the time fo’ division an’ inner-necine scraps an’ fisty-cuffs. We gawt to git together an’ lick these fellas in the midterms.

UPRIGHT: I see. So you’d advise Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to finally endorse Mamdani?

CARVILLE: Wa-aal nah hold awn, there, I said no sech a-thing. Thet Mamdani, he oughta apologize fo’ his antisemitic remarks.

UPRIGHT: What antisemitic remarks are those –

CARVILLE: Nah, Bolt, don’t you go twistin’ mak words! Ah’m tawkin’ unity, an’ lahk I say we gawta hold t’gethah fo’ the same o’ the country.

UPRIGHT: I see. So Mamdani should apologize, but are there any concessions that moderates should be making to —

CARVILLE: Dang hell, Bolt, yuh gawt ta meet the votahs way they ah! Ain’t nobody goin’ fo’ them pronouns an’ whatnawt. Whut we need is to unite behin’ some charismatic figger — lahk Elon Musk. Y’all know he spoke against this bill, an’ he know how t’ talk to people.

UPRIGHT: This is Elon Musk from Tesla that we’re talking about?

CARVILLE: Nah don’t you git all wokey-dokey awn me, Bolt! Politics is the aht o’ compromise.

UPRIGHT: Thank you, James. [To the camera] I’m going to walk to the Decision Desk now, and maybe by the time I get there I’ll calm down.

[Sound of marching band fed to a car crusher. UPRIGHT goes to the Decision Desk where he is greeted by regulars PEONI DOYENNE in a blue and white Carolina Herrera floral print dress and Prada purple leather pumps, and CHAFE DRAMATURGY, wearing a Thom Browne gray seersucker suit with the jacket buttoned, a white crew-neck t-shirt, and white Keds.]

Oof. OK, Peoni, I guess the question is, how is Donald Trump going to wriggle out of this one?

DOYENNE: Bolt, Donald Trump is a once-in-a-lifetime generational talent. And I hate to say it but he reminds me of my beloved Ronnie Reagan. I mean nothing sticks to him.

UPRIGHT: Got to push back a bit there, Peoni. With Reagan, people didn’t believe he did bad things. But with Trump they know he does and they don’t care.

DOYENNE: I don’t like to overintellectualize these things, Bolt. You ever have it or you don’t!

UPRIGHT: [Sighs, wanly points finger at DRAMATURGY] Over to you, Chafe.

DRAMATURGY: [Eagerly] Do you think Elon Musk would really consider running as a Democrat?

UPRIGHT: [Touches earpiece, looks at camera] OK, I’m told, and this is not a joke, that Trump has reacted to the sentencing of an officer in the police raid that killed Breonna Taylor to 33 months in prison by saying… well, I’ll have to double check this quote, folks, because it seems racist even for him, but he does say he intends to overturn the verdict and believes he can do it by what he calls a “super executive order.” And hold on, I hear the President has also reacted to the reversal of the conviction in the 1979 Etan Patz child murder case and claims Patz was murdered by Bill Clinton in what Trump calls “the REAL pedophilia” and Pam Bondi is issuing a warrant for the former president’s arrest. Well, time will tell if we’re really in Epstein Who territory, but it’s good news for our advertisers. Speaking of which, when we come back, we’ll be talking to Howard Lutnick who swears this will all be over in two weeks.

[Sound of civilization collapsing.]