WASHINGTON — Watching former Donald Trump adviser Sam Nunberg perform his televised exercise in self-destructive and Trump-destructive behavior this week, I wondered: Is there nothing President Trump can do to stem the daily tide of bad news?
The next day brought more of the same: Economic adviser Gary Cohn was resigning from the White House in protest, causing worry on Wall Street, and porn actress Stormy Daniels was suing Trump and claiming the hush agreement she has with him is invalid.
Then it hit me. There is an easy solution for Trump to end all this unpleasantness. He should borrow from Xi Jinping, the Chinese president for whom Trump expressed admiration last week when Xi decided to abolish term limits on himself. Like the Chinese authorities, Trump needs to ban all use of the letter N.
The Chinese government barred N last week, apparently because this troublesome letter was being used to ridicule Xi’s abolition of his two-term limit as president, expressed mathematically as n (greater than symbol) 2. As I noted earlier this week, China’s N ban was just temporary. But Trump needs to call for a total and complete shutdown of the letter N entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.
Instantly, his problems vanish — in a nanosecond, or “aosecod,” as it will now be called. Nunberg becomes the unknown Uberg, and nobody cares what he says. Same for Stormy Daiels, the por actress, and the paymet of hush moey she allegedly received. Gary Coh? Never heard of him — and who even knows what the Dow Joes idex is, anyway?
It turns out that virtually all of Trump’s problems have been brought to you by the letter N, at least in a supporting role. Robert Mueller is a lot less menacing without the ability to indict or convict. Nobody has to answer a subpoea from the idepedet cousel, much less an idictmet or covictio. We would all have to agree with Trump that “there is no collusion.” There is only collusio — with a harmless guy named Puti — and you don’t have to resig because of that. I guarantee Trump would be free to fire Jefferso Sessios without concern about being labeled a Machuria Cadidate — or my name isn’t Daa Milbak.
No longer a threat: Orth Korea’s Kim Jog U and his uclear weapos. Same goes for Ira’s.
So what if Democrats are favored in the polls? Electios don’t matter. Nor does anybody care whether the president is uhiged, uglued or ufaithful.
Tax cuts are much easier to afford if, instead of borrowing, you merely take loas from Chia. And nobody would be the wiser if the ecoomy isn’t growing as fast as forecast.
Best of all: The fake-news media disappears. CNN is cut by two-thirds, to C. Nobody watches MSBC or reads the Washigto Post or the Ew York Times. But Fox remains, even if Sea Haity loses some serious consonants.
Never again would Trump have to worry about the Clitos, or Joe Bide, Elizabeth Warre, Berie Saders or Oprah Wifrey. There is zero chance Republicans replace him with the unknown Mike Pece.
Jared Kushner can’t get a security clearance, but Jared Kusher would have a clean slate. Nobody would notice if Trump is criticized by a former adviser named Steve Bao (or Athoy Scaramucci) or has nice things to say about some eo-Azis in Charlottesville. And a frequent Trump target at the State Department will be automatically replaced — by Rex Tillerso.
There remains one obstacle: How to substitute for all those words taken out of usage by the N ban? But here, too, a solution is at hand: These things can be named for Trump.
One such idea has been offered by Rep. Mike Noel, a Utah Republican henceforth to be known as Cogressma Oel. He has proposed to thank Trump for shrinking two Utah national monuments by renaming a road that goes through Utah’s national parks the “Donald J. Trump Utah National Parks Highway.” This sceic road wids through Zio Atioal Park, amog others.
Of course, it would have to be the “Doald” Trump highway, but this is a small sacrifice. Roald Dahl had a brilliant career even though born without an “n” in his Christian name. Mr. Presidet, ba the efarious, ettlesome N. It’s your last chace: ow or ever.
Dana Milbank is a columnist for The Washington Post. Email him at danamilbank@washpost.com.