Donald Trump showed the range that’s made him the Attention-Whore Index force to be reckoned with: sleeping through an Oval Office meeting, slapping his name on a football stadium and his profile on a commemorative coin, pardoning Rudy Giuliani. It’s the kind of versatility that earns 56.8 percent of AIR MAIL readers’ votes, and that the endlessly striving Meghan Markle (second place, 20.6 percent) can but aspire to.
On to this week’s poll, but first:
“[I have] created the ‘HOTTEST’ Country anywhere in the World from being a DEAD Country just 12 months ago (and so much more!).”
—donald trump
The nominees in this week’s edition of the Attention-Whore Index Poll are …
1.
RUSSELL BRAND
When you sense the spotlight moving away—Brand hasn’t appeared in A.W.I. since April—why not consider baptizing a couple of people in a Florida zoo’s penguin pool? It worked for the actor-comedian, who, finding himself in an unhappy publicity lull between his own baptism in the Thames (last year) and his trial for rape and sexual assault (next year), posted a video of the submergings, which The Times of London said took place at the Emerald Coast Zoo, “a ‘Christian-focused’ park.” Brand noted, “If you baptize someone in a zoo, then you have to walk around the zoo soaking wet, not just in regular water but in penguin water.”
2.
DONALD TRUMP
Reversed himself on the Jeffrey Epstein files (“I DON’T CARE!”). Upped his threatened BBC lawsuit to $5 billion. Defended Tucker Carlson’s chummy interview with the white nationalist, racist, anti-Semitic Trump dinner companion Nick Fuentes. Scolded a female reporter with “Quiet, Piggy!” Turned on “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Green … all I see ‘Wacky’ Marjorie do is COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN!” Still found time to congratulate Kentucky Republican congressman Thomas Massie—who’d wanted the Epstein files released—on the occasion of his wedding: “Have a great life Thomas and (?). His wife will soon find out that she’s stuck with a LOSER!” And especially to welcome Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, to the White House: U.S. intelligence might have concluded that “MBS” ordered the death and dismemberment of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but in Trump’s determination, “he knew nothing about it,” plus “a lot of people didn’t like that gentleman” anyway—the one who was murdered—and, hey, “things happen.” Things might happen to Democratic lawmakers who urged military and intelligence officials to disobey illegal orders. “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL,” Trump screeched on Truth Social. “An example MUST BE SET.” Such as? “Punishable by DEATH!” Reversed himself on Zohran Mamdani.
3.
MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE
The Georgia representative, whose rebranding is in progress, stoically endured Trump’s attacks. “The most hurtful thing he said … is he called me a ‘traitor’ … those are the types of words used that can radicalize people against me and put my life in danger,” Greene told CNN, adding that she was “committed, and I’ve been working on this a lot lately, to put down the knives in politics.” She’s got a lot of work to do: over the years Greene has called Joe Biden a “criminal,” Mike Johnson a “traitor,” Republicans who make deals with Democrats “the biggest traitors,” as well as supporting social-media posts that called for the assassination of Nancy Pelosi.
4.
PETE HEGSETH
Defense secretary Hegseth caught flak over the mission name for Homeland Security’s Charlotte, North Carolina–based “criminal illegal aliens” crackdown: “Operation Charlotte’s Web.” Notably from Martha White, granddaughter of Charlotte’s Web author E. B. White and his literary executor, who told CNN that her grandfather “certainly didn’t believe in masked men, in unmarked cars, raiding people’s homes and workplaces without IDs or summons. He didn’t condone fearmongering.”
5.
Larry Summers
The former Harvard president, onetime secretary of state, and devoted pen pal of Jeffrey Epstein—they e-mailed for a long time after Epstein’s sex-trafficking conviction—announced that he was “deeply ashamed” about that last item, that he would be “stepping back from public commitments,” and that he’d be going on leave from teaching (only after Harvard said it would be investigating his Epstein connection).
6.
ANDREW MOUNTBATTEN-WINDSOR
Farewell, “Andrew M. Windsor”: the hyphen is restored! (Per a long-ago decision made by Queen Elizabeth II regarding her descendants.) Otherwise, it was still open season on the ex-duke, who, according to a new book covered in the Daily Mail, was described by a childhood playmate as a “tiresome little s**t” and by Princess Diana as “very, very noisy and loud”—although Jeffrey Epstein, in yet another unearthed e-mail, found him “great fun.” (Epstein correspondent Boris Nikolić, a venture capitalist and then adviser to Bill Gates, replied, “I heard that he is not that fun, but I trust your judgement.”)
George Kalogerakis, a Writer at Large at AIR MAIL, worked at Spy, Vanity Fair, and The New York Times, where he was deputy op-ed editor. He is a co-author of Spy: The Funny Years and a co-editor of Disunion: A History of the Civil War
