'Puppet Theatre': A One-Act Play

Former congressman Devin Nunes, now the chief executive officer of Trump Media and Technology Group, enters Donald Trump’s office at Mar-a-Lago.

NUNES: Ta, da! Triumph!

TRUMP: Yeah, two prosecutors quit from the Manhattan’s DA’s office. A thing of beauty. The new guy doesn’t care. Ha, ha. Those stupid accountants who dropped me, if they’d only waited. Wait this out, that’s the thing. They’ll get lost in the numbers.

NUNES: Yes, Boss. But I mean Truth Social.

TRUMP: They kicked me off Twitter. Now you’re supposed to put them out of business. Get me out of Twitter jail with our own app. Love that instead of tweets it’s going to be “truths.” Retweets, “retruths.” Perfect. Not alternative facts—truths. But—what the fuck?—the launch, thirteen hours outage, 300,000 people couldn’t get on.

NUNES: Yes, Boss. We’re building it from scratch. If you build it, they will come. And up and working, Don, Jr.’s tweet is out there. “Get Ready! Your favorite President will see you soon!” Sorry, I don’t mean tweet. Truth.

TRUMP: Melania won’t even use it to sell the NFT of her eyes and her hat. You’re killing us, Devin.

NUNES: Yes, Boss. But we’re rolling. Big news. I blocked my first account.

TRUMP: Now you’re talking. Block them just like they block us. Who’d you ban, Mitch McConnell? Keep the Old Crow from reaching our base.

NUNES: Check this out. “Your account @DevinNunesCow has been banned.”

TRUMP: Turn him into a Trump Steak. But we need this app to get out of the barnyard. We’ve got a big agenda.

NUNES: Yes, Boss.

TRUMP: We’re finally going to get what we need out of Ukraine. That’s why we need Truth Social, to get the truth out about it. We’re going to get the goods at last. Putin’s a genius, he’s savvy. You know what this invasion is really about, don’t you? I mean, really.

NUNES: No, Boss.

TRUMP: When Putin takes over, we’ll be proven right all along. Putin should have invaded a long time ago. I’d still be president. No question. Ukraine is at the bottom of it all. A lot of it had to do, they say, with Ukraine. It’s very interesting. They have the server, right? From the DNC, Democratic National Committee. The FBI went in, and they told them, ‘Get out of here, we’re not giving it to you.’ They gave the server to CrowdStrike, or whatever it’s called, which is a company owned by a very wealthy Ukrainian, they say he’s not, but I say he is, and I still want to see that server. You know, the FBI has never gotten that server. Deep state, out to get me. That’s a big part of this whole thing. Why did they give it to a Ukrainian company? See, it wasn’t Russia that hacked the DNC. It was Ukraine. And Putin will find that server and deliver it to us. That’s what the word is.

NUNES: Genius.

TRUMP: When we get that server from Ukraine, then after the Republicans get control of the House after the midterms—guess what?—we’ll get that impeachment, the first one, wiped away. I want you to call Jim Jordan.

NUNES: Yes, Boss.

TRUMP: Zelensky, that’s what I asked him, that’s what the phone call was about. That's what I asked actually in my phone call, if you know. I mean I asked it very point blank, because we’re looking for corruption. There’s tremendous corruption. We're looking for—why should we be giving hundreds of millions of dollars to countries when there’s this kind of corruption? I asked for the server. And the investigation into Biden. I would like you to do us a favor. Perfect phone call.

NUNES: Yes, Boss.

TRUMP: If Zelensky had done the right thing, Biden would have been toast. Election, easy. No January 6^th. No second impeachment. We’d have had the server. No first impeachment. Zelensky caused all this trouble. Zelensky didn’t cooperate. Now Putin will deal with him. Putin knows what Zelensky did. Zelensky will have to answer to Putin for what he did to me. Perfect phone call.

NUNES: When do we get the server, Boss?

TRUMP: It’s there. It’s in Kyiv. Some basement. Once Putin gets there, he’ll get it. And all the information on Biden is there. Promise. You’ll see, Rudy will be off the hook. Sent him to Ukraine to get the proof on Biden. If Putin gets to it soon enough, we’ll get it to Rudy, and he can bring it to that phony January 6^th Committee, and they’ll have to shut down. Putin’s a genius. Stand back and stand by.

NUNES: How will Putin get it to us, Boss?

TRUMP: There’s going to be a new president of Ukraine. Zelensky is a fraud, a hoax. Putin will put in the right guy who should have been there from the start. Maybe Paul Manafort can go back to advise him. The pardon was perfect.

NUNES: Savvy, Boss.

TRUMP: I’ve got it all worked out. The right guy in place, think about this, Trump Tower Kyiv.

NUNES: Perfect.

TRUMP: It begins with the server. And then Biden will be gone like Zelensky. The House will impeach him. Just make that call to Jim Jordan. And we’ll put a stop to all these investigations. Puppet, puppet, who’s the puppet?

Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln:A Self-Made Man,Wrestling With His Angel ,andAll the Powers of Earth. His play This Town, about a scandalous White House dog, was produced in 1995 by LA TheatreWorks. This is the thirteenth in his "Trump Cycle" series of one-act plays published in The National Memo, including The Pardon, Epstein's Ghost, Ivanka's Choice, Sunset Boulevard, The Exclusive, The Role Model, A Modest Proposal, The Exit Interview, The Hitler Gospel, Father Knows Best,The Gold Medal Winner, and All I Want For Christmas Is Melania’s Non-Fungible Token.