Donald Trump considers himself a very funny guy. His rallies, back when he was capable of holding them, were long, boring exercises in his putative stand-up comedy. Many of his tasteless outbursts, like his mockery of reporter Serge Kovaleski’s congenital joint condition, are his attempts at so-called jokes.
He was at it again Thursday, when he hosted Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi in the Oval Office. After a series of questions about the current conflict in Iran, a Japanese reporter asked Trump, “Why didn’t you tell U.S. allies in Europe and Asia and Japan about the war before attacking Iran?”
Trump replied, to some nervous laughter, “One thing, you don’t want to signal too much, you know, when we go in, we went in very hard and we didn’t tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise. Who knows better about surprise than Japan?” Then he dropped his rhetorical bomb, “Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor?” Well, you weren’t born, for starters.
The laughter died, and Takaichi reacted with obvious discomfort. Considering that most Westerners smell bad to the Japanese, one can only imagine how she sat that close to Trump without gagging in the first place. I doubt he’ll be getting any invitations to visit the country. Unlike Tom Waits, he’s not big in Japan.
“Big in Japan” is the lead track on Waits’ 1999 LP “Mule Variations.” The album won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album and became the best-selling album of his career.
