There’s a surprising amount of evidence behind the theory that Donald Trump is unable to read, but in reality, literacy is one of few incredibly low bars that he does manage to get over.
That doesn’t mean he’s good at reading, though. The former Apprentice host and current plaintiff in a number of legal cases involving crimes ranging from campaign finance violations to run of the mill business fraud, famously hated having to read while he was president. This might go some way to explaining why he was so incompetent.
After leaving court today, Trump convincingly read aloud from a prepared statement in which he compared his legal troubles to the famous early 2000s hit television show Punk’d:
“This case is a joke. Ashton Kutcher is going to pop and left [sic] to tell us we’ve been punk’d…I think I know what that means.”
Leaving aside the fact that Trump clearly misread what was written on the page (or wasn’t able to…), it’s clear the team around him is devoid of ideas. While Punk’d was a huge cultural phenomenon in its heyday, nowadays most people would consider it a dated reference. Then again, a large chunk of Trump’s voter base hasn’t been able to get over the fact the Confederacy lost the Civil War a century and a half ago, so early-noughties MTV is probably quite a modern concept to them.
Kutcher is also hardly an underground name, either. Aside from Punk’d, he was also in the incredibly popular That 70’s Show, and cult classic films like Dude Where’s My Car and The Butterfly Effect. In the 2010s he was even considered to have enough star power to replace Charlie Sheen on Two and a Half Men, which at the time was one of the biggest shows on network television.
Nowadays, Kutcher is probably best known for his advocacy work in ending child sex trafficking via the organization Thorn, which he founded with his ex-wife Demi Moore. However, he was also recently in the news for an altogether more disappointing reason, as he and Mila Kunis wrote a letter of support for their former That 70’s Show co-star Danny Masterson while the latter was in court facing charges of rape. Masterson was convicted, and Kutcher and Kunis apologized, with Kutcher even stepping down from his role of chairman of Thorn).
It has been a rough few months for Trump, who seems to be losing even more than usual. Fresh from yet another rise in the amount he has to pay E Jean Carroll for defamation (she successfully sued Trump in civil court for rape, and then took him to the cleaners again as he couldn’t stop publicly attacking her character), his most current case has seen him dragged over the coals in a thoroughly embarrassing manner.
This particular bit of legal trouble relates to an affair that Trump had with the adult film actress Stormy Daniels. The extramarital dalliance was alleged to have taken place while Trump’s present wife, Melania, was pregnant with their son, Barron.
While that is all morally repugnant and grossly unethical, it isn’t actually illegal. Where the former president and failed insurrectionist messed up was via the funds he used to pay for Daniels’ silence to increase his chances of winning the 2016 election, which he raised by falsifying business records.
The payments in question were made through Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, who has admitted to this crime and to several others, and has been testifying in the case against his old boss. Cohen has already been convicted of a number of crimes that relate to his time as a Trump employee.
One of the most ironic things about all of this is that a large chunk of Republican voters are so deep into the Trump cult that his affair being public knowledge would have likely had little bearing on the election. After all, Trump won 84% of the white evangelical protestant vote in the 2020 election, despite all of this being widely known. And who can forget, his supporters are now proudly proclaiming that “Real Men Wear Diapers,” as the advanced state of Trump’s incontinence issues are becoming public.
Sadly, it seems Kutcher is not going to pop out from behind the scene and tell us we’re all being punk’d, but there is no doubt that Trump continues to be a joke — albeit a dangerous one.