The Return of… The Formula!

Full of hummus

[The Throne Room at Mar-a-Lago. TRUMP is wearing his extremely fluffy white robe with gold trim, a paisley cravat, and slippers made to look like alligator shoes. Former national security advisor/Nazi STEPHEN MILLER wears a slim-fitting brown suit, brogans, and a very thin tie on which a pattern of Wehrmacht emblems is, for all but the first few rows of the audience, difficult to make out. They are seated on the Supplicant’s Bench. Creepy pseudo-Secret-Service AGENTS, as seen in “Backup Plan,” prowl the periphery.]

MILLER: Sir, this is something to celebrate! The Biden people have been made to look like fools at best and perhaps drug users.  

TRUMP: Steve, you’re a smart man but you have what they call, what’s the word, that professor told me about it, Johanson, Greek, he said, what’s it — hummus? When you overreach yourself?

MILLER: Hubris?

TRUMP: Pretty sure it was hummus. That’s you. You’re full of hummus and Nazi pep, it’s beautiful. But you don’t know how slick these people are.

MILLER: Sir, you have been out of the White House for three years. Surely no one will connect you with —

TRUMP: [A little more unfriendly] Hey. You told me nobody cared about the boxes. Now look. I got a goddamn Nazi Hunter on my trail. No offense.

[MILLER looks down. Pause.]

That fucking Bornstein. He had it in for me ever since I shook down his office. I know he went to work for Biden. He did something with the formula, tuned it up so’s Biden could take it. They got him all hopped up now. That’s the only reason he can even stand up. Without that shit they’d have to bring him out in a dog bed.  

[TRUMP pulls an inhaler out of the pocket of his robe, takes two big sniffs.]

MILLER: I see you still suffer from allergies, sir.

TRUMP: [Gesturing with inhaler] See, I can handle this stuff, but I took that shit Biden’s taking? I’d be foaming at the mouth. Nah. I figure it’s a set-up. They’re gonna connect me.

[Pause. TRUMP gives himself one more snort.]

No. No, I got the files. It’s bullshit. They can’t connect me. [Beat] But what they can do —

[TRUMP stands, unsteadily; MILLER stands too.]

Whoa — what they can do is fuck with my formula. Sneak someone in here and fuck with it.

[TRUMP looks at his inhaler, then at MILLER; then he takes another snort and then gestures again with the inhaler.]

Now this shit — this shit is good, right, this is alright, this is, it’s actually better than ever. I told him that, I said, Ronny, this shit is the best —

[Beat. TRUMP looks at the inhaler.]

Holy shit. He’s ramping it up. He’s working my tolerance. He’s juicing me, he’s ramping it up!

[TRUMP takes another snort. MILLER looks around nervously. TRUMP nods.]

Son of a bitch! Fuck!

[TRUMP throws the inhaler. It skitters away. Pause. He points at it; to MILLER:]

Pick that up!

[MILLER, taking a handkerchief out of his pocket, picks up the inhaler and brings it to TRUMP, who is not paying attention.]

We’re gonna see, though. We’re gonna see —

[A golf cart driven by a FLUNKY speeds in, carrying RONNY JACKSON, former White House physician and current Texas Republican Congressman and TRUMP factotum. As JACKSON debarks we see he’s wearing an Indochino Sailsbury green linen suit with a light sage green shirt and pearl grey tie and Allen Edmonds brown penny loafers. He’s very cheerful, even ebullient.]

JACKSON: Hey, Mr. President! How are you today, sir? Hiya, Steve! I’m great myself, boy. Just loving life at Mar-a-Lago in the great state of Florida! You know what they sent to my room last night? Let me tell you —

TRUMP: [Calls to his pseudo-Secret-Service] Hey boys, over here.

[Three of them approach. TRUMP walks up to JACKSON.]

You’re using, Ronny.

JACKSON: [Still smiling, with a little gasp] I — ha ha, say what, Mr. President?

TRUMP: Don’t gimme that. You got into the formula.

JACKSON: [Still cheerful] Well, Mr, President, I admit some of it may have got on my hands when I was mixing your medications, and, it being less than perfectly sterile lab conditions I may have inhaled just a smidge.

[JACKSON titters, then notices the AGENTS.]

Oh, hello, fellas, how are you doing.

TRUMP: Get him, boys.

[The AGENTS grab JACKSON’s arms.]

Alright, Dairy Queen, listen up. We know they got to you, we know they —

[TRUMP looks at an extremely uncomfortable MILLER, thrusts his hand out.]

Gimme!

[MILLER slinks up and gives the inhaler to TRUMP, who returns his attention to JACKSON.]

We know you’re fucking with the sauce. Trying to gimme a heart attack or a stroke.

JACKSON: [Bug-eyed and terrified] Sir! Sir no sir! Nothing of the sort! I —

TRUMP: Don’t gimme that!

[TRUMP takes a particularly big, juicy snort.]

The stuff is too good! It’s too good!

[TRUMP rolls his head and his eyes like a mook’s idea of a crazy person.]

Ungh gungh gungh gungh gungh!

JACKSON: Please, Mr. President, please, I can make it weaker! Please!  

TRUMP: No! I got a better idea!

[TRUMP walks in a little circle like what he thinks Hercule Poirot does. As he does he takes little snorts, like he’s vaping.]

We got people in Meatball’s crew. We’re gonna set it up like you’re turning traitor, right. Yeah. Back channels, all that shit. They’ll go for it. They’re stupid. They’ll set up a meeting. He won’t say he wants it. But he knows! He knows without the shit he ain’t got the moxie! You insinuate. Act like you’re pals. Stroke his dick! Bide your time! Then one day he says, Doc, I need a little lift.

[TRUMP thrusts his face at the terrified JACKSON.]

That’s when you start feeding him. Only you’re gonna step it up with him like you tried to do to me!

[TRUMP then wheels around, throws his head back and wanders, shaking his fists in front of him like Bruno Ganz in Downfall.]

Fucking Biden tried to fuck me! Fuck that cocksucker! I’m gonna fuck Meatball, I’m gonna fuck Biden, I’m gonna fuck ‘em all, all of them, I’m gonna, I’m gonna, I’m —

[Suddenly TRUMP simply collapses. MILLER and the AGENTS, including those holding JACKSON, seem confused, unsure of what to do; certainly none of them are imbued with compassion.]

JACKSON: Hey, fellas? I’m a doctor. Let me go to him.

[The AGENTS seem unsure.]

You know it’ll look real, real bad if, you know —

[The AGENTS step back. JACKSON goes to the prone TRUMP, rolls him so he can see his face, takes his pulse, pushes up his eyelids so he can see his pupils.]

OK, he’s OK. Who here can take him back to his room?

[No one reacts. JACKSON sighs, takes out an iPhone, calls.]

Kari? Ron. Big man’s down. Yes, same thing.  Yeah, they’ll be here. OK.

[JACKSON puts away his phone. To the AGENTS:]

Ms. Lake is coming. Try not to embarrass yourselves.

[To MILLER:]

And you, why don’t you find a synagogue to — ah, forget it.

[JACKSON hops on the golf cart and the FLUNKY drives him away; at first MILLER looks as if he’ll try to hop on, but he stops, then walks briskly off in another direction. Left alone, the AGENTS stand uncertainly around TRUMP; then one of them spits on him. The others surreptitiously giggle. CURTAIN.]