With the Bezos-Sánchez nuptials fast approaching, Donald Trump knew he had to make hay and claim the spotlight while he could. And he did, winning last week’s A.W.I. poll with 37 percent of your votes. Sending troops into a major American city on the flimsiest of pretexts, along with the usual clutch of garden-variety Trumpian offenses, certainly helped. Second place went to the Sussexes, a strong showing (31.5 percent) that AIR MAIL analysts feel had less to do with that delivery-room twerking video (which, tragically, we’ll never be able to unsee) than the public’s simple, abiding hope that the couple would at this point just … go … away.
Third place belonged to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., busier than ever promoting his MACA agenda—Make America Contagious Again—with 10.2 percent. And it’s gratifying to confirm multiple votes for “multiple”—in fact, that linguistic plague outpolled even Elon Musk. (Note to the temporarily chastened billionaire: licking your wounds is fine, but it won’t get you far in A.W.I.)
Who’ll get far, and farthest, this time out? Time to vote! But first:
“I do a lot, and never get credit for anything, but that’s OK, the PEOPLE understand.”
—Donald Trump
The nominees in this week’s edition of the Attention-Whore Index Poll are …
1.
DAVID BECKHAM
Finally got knighted, having supposedly come close in 2014 when “a ‘red flag’ involving his taxes ultimately nixed [it] … leaving him furious,” according to the Daily Mail. This week, Sir David seized the moment (Honours List, Father’s Day) and attempted some family fence-mending regarding a reported rift between the Beckhams and their son Brooklyn and his wife, Nicola Peltz, a feud that has attained what the BBC called a “soap-opera-like tone.” What could be more constructive than letting your children know just what they mean to you? “My most important & favourite job in life is being a dad… I’m so proud of all of you,” Beckham told them. On Instagram, naturally.
2.
DONALD TRUMP
Took a break from slashing veterans’ benefits to preside over the $45 million birthday present he forced taxpayers to give him, an underattended military parade of armored tanks, helicopters, and 6,000 ambling soldiers. The same day an estimated five million Americans showed up at more than 2,000 “No Kings” events across the country, protesting his administration’s policies. “We’re not a king at all,” Trump said, somehow unpersuasively. Marked the 10th anniversary of his ride down the golden Trump Tower escalator to announce his candidacy. Attended the G7 meetings in Canada, where he complained about Russia having been expelled from the group, dumped on France’s President Macron (“Emmanuel always gets it wrong”), said, “The UK is very well protected. You know why? Because I like them, that’s why. That’s the ultimate protection,” and promptly left to dither about the Middle East. Ignored Juneteenth, except to complain about “too many non-working holidays.” Launched Trump Mobile, a $499 smartphone-and-mobile service. Next, Trump CBD gummies?
3.
THE SUSSEXES
“Sussexes Part Ways with Six More Staff” (The Telegraph) is about as benign a headline as the hapless quasi-royals can manage these days. The latest departures: their deputy press secretary, European communications director, both the head of operations and the director of communications for their Archewell Foundation, a personal assistant, and the duchess’s social-media manager. But that’s just business as usual for what the newspaper dryly described as the Sussexes’ “ever-evolving team.” Enough people have already left their employ to start, oh, a decent-size preserves-packaging business, or field a half-dozen polo teams.
4.
PETE HEGSETH
Things we learned the defense secretary would not rule out: invading Greenland; war with China; defying the Supreme Court if it determined that Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles was unlawful (he later reversed himself, but maintained, “I don’t believe district courts should be setting national security policy.”) And a profile in New York magazine reported that while at first Hegseth “demonstrate[d] a healthy curiosity about the job he had miraculously acquired,” after the Signalgate fiasco he became “more prone to anger and less likely to be clean-shaven in the morning. He seemed reluctant to make decisions; scared of doing the wrong thing, paralyzed as he awaited orders from the White House.” Currently, “‘Pete is playing secretary,’ a source says. ‘He’s not being secretary.’ In a sustained crisis … there will be no one with experience to lead.” Like, say, right now?
5.
MAGA vs. MAGA
Tucker Carlson: “Who are the warmongers? They would include anyone who’s calling Donald Trump today to demand air strikes and other direct US military involvement in a war with Iran. On that list: Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Rupert Murdoch, Ike Perlmutter and Miriam Adelson. At some point they will all have to answer for this, but you should know their names now.”
Donald Trump: “Somebody please explain to kooky Tucker Carlson that IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!”
Marjorie Taylor Greene: “[Tucker Carlson] unapologetically believes the same things I do…. He unapologetically believes the same things I do…. And foreign wars/intervention/regime change put America last, kill innocent people, are making us broke, and will ultimately lead to our destruction. That’s not kooky.”
Ted Cruz: “Tucker has gone bat crap crazy.”
Lindsey Graham: “Those Republicans who are opposed to supporting Israel against Iran, you could literally put in a phone booth.”
Alex Jones: “Trump attacking @TuckerCarlson for not supporting a new WORLD WAR is not something any sane person should support! This is the stuff NIGHTMARES are MADE of…”
Donald Trump: “I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do.”
To be continued?
6.
JEFF BEZOS AND LAUREN SÁNCHEZ
In a matter of days, the (attention-)happy couple—strutting Daumier caricatures come to life—and hundreds of their guests will descend on Venice for their wedding. City leaders are thrilled about the anticipated revenue; residents aren’t thrilled about any of it. “The days-long shindig … will be the biggest wedding held in Venice since George Clooney married Amal Alamuddin,” The Guardian reported, but this one “has been met with much more antipathy”—protests, posters, a banner with BEZOS crossed out hanging from the San Giorgio basilica, where, rumor has it, the couple will exchange their vows. One opponent of the festivities told the newspaper, “This wedding is causing much friction, especially because it is happening at a time when Venice, already invaded by uncontrolled tourism, is completely worn out.” Us, too.
7.
THE LOUVRE
Speaking of overtouristed spots risking permanent toxicity, staff at the museum spontaneously walked out on Monday “in protest over unmanageable crowds, chronic understaffing, and what one union called ‘untenable’ working conditions,” the Associated Press reported, leaving “thousands of stranded and confused visitors, tickets in hand.” French president Emmanuel Macron has already announced an $800 million renovation, but that will take years, and, notes the Associated Press, “the Louvre’s annual operating subsidies from the French state have shrunk by more than 20% over the past decade — even as visitor numbers soared.” Some 20,000 people a day squeeze into just one room for the privilege of seeing [phones and cameras and hordes of people posing for selfies in the general vicinity of] the Mona Lisa.
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
