Live free and die

A meeting at the White House

© 2020 Becker1999, used via a Creative Commons license

[The Oval Office. TRUMP sits at his desk, playing with his phone. What looks like a giant sneeze-guard — a slab of lucite seven feet high and ten feet wide, supported at each end by a steel pole on wheels like a clothes rack — has been placed in front of the desk. MIKE PENCE stands a few feet to TRUMP’s side, staring off in some kind of bland prayer trance. White House Chief of Staff MARK MEADOWS sits on a sofa looking at his phone, which suddenly buzzes.]

MEADOWS: [Getting up] Okay, they’re here, Mr. President.

TRUMP: The protesters?

MEADOWS: Yes, sir.

[MEADOWS goes to the side of the desk opposite PENCE. TRUMP puts away his phone.]

TRUMP: Okay, Mike, come in close.

[PENCE snaps out of it, starts sidling.]

That’s enough.

[PENCE stops.]

Okay, everybody ready?

PENCE and MEADOWS: Yes sir.

[Small pause.]

TRUMP: Is Fauci coming?

MEADOWS: No, sir.

[Interior door opens. Five Americans, dressed as if for a springtime stroll on the Washington Mall, enter with a White House MARINE — the only person in the room wearing a mask. They are TOMMY, 42, a car salesman with thinning blonde hair and a mustache; LAINIE, his wife, 37, Karen-haired, a Yankee Candle store manager; MORGANA, an aerobics instructor/motivational podcaster, 29, fit, hair dyed black and in Pauley Perrette pigtails; LESTER, 50, light commercial construction contractor, very short, has not removed his Tom Ford sunglasses; and MERLE, a retired realtor, 52, spiky hair dyed black, strong Parrothead vibe, the only one carrying a cardboard sign, the front of which is not visible to the audience. All make quiet noises of pleasure and awe.]

MEADOWS: Welcome, folks! Welcome, all! Stand a little back from the glass, please.

TRUMP: How you doing, how are you.

PENCE: Hello, great to see you.

MEADOWS: We’re sorry about the glass, folks.

TRUMP: Yeah, Vice President Pence doesn’t feel so hot, and we don’t think it’s anything really but we want to be careful because we know if you guys get sick the fake news media will say it was this virus thing.

TOMMY: We get it, Mr. President!

LAINIE: We know it’s all fake news!

[General assent.]

TOMMY: It’s great you’re standing by your vice-president, sir!

TRUMP: How’s that?

TOMMY: That you’re standing by your vice-president even though he’s sick.

TRUMP: Oh yeah, well, I never get sick, don’t believe in it, so it makes no difference to me. My father didn’t get sick either and neither do my kids. You may not know this but the genetics people say we’re some kind of a miracle in the world of genes. No sickness. Ivanka, when she had her kids she didn’t even feel it. She thought maybe she dropped something.

MEADOWS: Isn’t that something? No pictures please, Miss.

[MEADOWS directs this to MORGANA, who has her iPhone over her head and is taking pictures. The MARINE approaches her and holds out his gloved hands.]

Miss, the Marine needs your phone so he can remove the contraband photos. Sorry, White House security rules.

MORGANA: They didn’t say anything about that!

MEADOWS: Well, we did, Miss, when we sent you your —

MORGANA: [Holding the phone back from the MARINE] No you didn’t, you didn’t either! What the hell!

TRUMP: Sweetheart, sweetheart, listen, what’s your name?

MORGANA: Morgana Stenham, Mr. President.

TRUMP: That’s a beautiful name, Morgana, and you’re a very beautiful girl. Listen, let the Marine take the pictures away, and you and I will get a very nice picture together later.

MORGANA: Oh, of course, sir! They didn’t tell me is all.

[She gives the MARINE her phone.]

TRUMP: I’m sure they didn’t.

MEADOWS: Folks, the President wants you to know how much he appreciates what you did last weekend with your protests against social distancing, and he wants you to know that while he respects the experts like Dr. Fauci —

LAINIE: Booo!

MERLE: Jew bastard!

MEADOWS: — he also knows that the experts don’t know everything, and he wants you to know that —

TRUMP: Yeah yeah, if I may, Mark — this is Mark Meadows, by the way, my Chief of Staff, great man, brilliant man, knows a lot about what’s going on — you guys are, if I may say so, the real America, and I have so much respect for your opinions, in fact to me they’re not opinions, to me they’re facts, and if it were up to me I’d get rid of all these Poindexters and just let you run things, but I gotta tell you, politics, it’s a tough game, very tough, and sometimes you have to do things that maybe you don’t exactly want to do so you can fool the people you want to fool, because we can’t say everything we know, you know, you can’t say the words, but you all know the words —

MERLE: [A little loud] “We must secure the existence of our people —”

MEADOWS: Shhh!

TRUMP: Yes, okay, hear me out, we appreciate everything you say and we’re with you one hundred percent and we’re going to take care of everything. Sir, you have a sign back there, I can’t see it, can you show me your beautiful sign?

[MERLE holds up his sign, which says SOCIAL DISTANCING = COMMUNISM. The visitors all applaud and cheer. ]

Now that’s a very American way to look at things, so wonderful, and I want to tell you, if I could feel shame, and I can’t, don’t believe in it, but if I did I’d be ashamed that I couldn’t say it with you. But you have to trust me. You have to trust because I was called by God. God is working with me and telling me this is how we have to do it —

[LAINIE suddenly ululates.]

Now what’s this?

PENCE: She’s speaking in tongues, sir.

TRUMP: Oh Jesus. [Loud, to LAINIE] Hey, hey tongue lady, can you hold off on that for a second please? President speaking.

[LAINIE stops.]

Okay, so, bottom line, you have to trust me because God. You can ask Mike here, he’s very tight with God, he knows what’s going on between God and me, don’t you, Mike?

PENCE: The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.

TRUMP: Want what?

MEADOWS: Folks, we promised you photos, and here’s how it’s going to work. We’re going just down the hall [Points] to a room where you’ll pose in front of a green screen, and later on we’ll put the President in the picture with technology, and this will show your friends and the whole world that you were with the President today.

LESTER: I thought the President was going to take a picture with us?

MEADOWS: The President is taking a picture with you, sir, but not at the same time. Technology allows us to do this, and you’ll all have photos with the President.

LAINIE: That’s great! Thank you, Mr. President!

[The visitors applaud.]

MORGANA: I didn’t get my phone back!

MEADOWS: You phone is coming back, Miss.

MORGANA: I didn’t get my phone back!

[Another MARINE, wearing a mask, opens the door and the first MARINE herds the visitors out the door.]

TRUMP: [Waving] Goodbye, thank you, great to see you, goodbye, thank you, make America great.

MORGANA: My phone! My phone!

[They are almost gone; TRUMP calls to the first MARINE who is bringing up the rear.]

TRUMP: Hey doughboy! C’mere.

[The MARINE approaches TRUMP, who holds out his hand.]

Gimme the phone.

[The MARINE does so.]

Now get out of here.

[The MARINE does so. TRUMP looks through the phone.]

MEADOWS: We can take care of that, sir.

TRUMP: [Looking at the phone] Oooh, videos. [Pause] Holy shit, ha ha, hey, Mike, Mike, get a look at this.

[TRUMP shows the phone to PENCE, who recoils and wanders away.]

I bet Mother doesn’t know how to do that. Actually I wouldn’t be surprised.

MEADOWS: I can get that phone back to her, sir.

[Pause; TRUMP finally hands back the phone.]

TRUMP: Okay, you can tell her I’m gonna give her that photo I talked about after they’re done in there. In fact maybe we’ll make a video.

MEADOWS: A video? Mr. President —

TRUMP: Relax, we won’t get my face in the shot.

MEADOWS: [Lowering his voice] Sir, our experts tell us there’s a very good chance all these people are infected. That’s why we put up the screen!

TRUMP: I’ll chance it. It’s not like I have to worry about reelection. [To PENCE] Hey, Mike, you want to go to the Eiffel Tower?

[PENCE, facing away, falls to his knees and prays. CURTAIN.]