In HBO’s Game of Thrones, the character of Arya Stark famously had a “death list”—a list of names she recited before going to sleep of people she wanted to kill. And now it appears that Donald Trump also has a death list, a list of people he’s ready to see dead for the “treason” of not supporting Trump.
Everything about Donald Trump’s Thursday afternoon appearance at which he announced a new payoff for farmers was a disaster. Not only did Trump fumble around the fact that he was shelling out more than the inflated cost of an aircraft carrier to put a small Band-Aid over a gaping wound he caused, and not only did his talk devolve into a name-calling session directed at Nancy Pelosi, and not only did Trump go around the room to solicit from each of his staffers confirmation that he was oh, so “calm,” there was … this.
Reporter: The Constitution says treason is punishable by death. You’ve accused your adversaries of treason. Who specifically are you accusing of treason?
Trump: Well, I think a number of people. And I think what you look is that they have unsuccessfully tried to take down the wrong person. You look at Comey. If you look at McCabe. If you look at people … probably people higher than that. If you look at Strzok. If you look at his lover, Lisa Page, his wonderful lover. The two lovers, they talked openly … should she lose we’ll have an insurance policy and we’ll get this guy out of office. That’s what they said and that’s what they meant. That’s treason. That’s treason.
James Comey. Andrew McCabe. Peter Strzok. Lisa Page. And “people higher than that.” That’s quite a start to a list of people Trump is ready to see dead. But it’s not the end.
Arya Stark was a traumatized child on the run in a desperate situation when she formed her list. Trump only acts like a child. Also, Arya Stark is a fictional character. Donald Trump is, sadly, real.
But just Trump handing out a few names on his death list isn’t all the chaos, or threats, or jaw-dropping wrongness that’s embedded into this single answer to a single question. Here’s what Trump actually said in full.
Trump: Well, I think a number of people. And I think what you look is that they have unsuccessfully tried to take down the wrong person. You look at Comey. If you look at McCabe. If you look at people … probably people higher than that. If you look at Strzok. If you look at his lover, Lisa Page, his wonderful lover. The two lovers, they talked openly. You know, they didn’t use their private server because they didn’t want to get caught, so they used the government server. That was not a good move. Uh, he talked about the insurance policy just in case crooked Hillary loses, and that didn’t work out to well for them. So, you look at them, and uh … they want an insurance policy, so that should she, for any reason lose, remember, 100 million to one. Maybe he said 100 million to nothing. But should she lose we’ll have an insurance policy and we’ll get this guy out of office. That’s what they said and that’s what they meant. That’s treason. That’s treason. They couldn’t win the election, and that’s what happened. And that’s what’s happening right now—without the treason word, I guess—but that’s what’s happening now. They don’t feel they can win the election, so they’re trying to do the 1,000 stabs. Keep stabbing. Let’s do the financial. And if you look, for $40 million I would think seriously that Bob Mueller and his group of 18 killers have gone over my taxes, have gone over my financial statements to a level that they have never been gone over before, and they were not discussed, even. They were not discussed or brought up. I have great statements.
“Bob Mueller and his group of 18 killers.” It sounds like Trump’s list could get very long, very fast. Suddenly, Richard Nixon’s “enemies list” seems rather cozy and quaint.
Also … what is Trump’s obsession with Lisa Page? Does it really bother him that much that someone else was successfully having sex? Because the way he says “lover” and “lovers” over and over is seriously disturbing.
And finally, it’s “death by a thousand cuts” not “a thousand stabs.” It doesn’t take nearly that many stabs. Check with Caesar.