Donald Trump topped the A.W.I. voting handily for the second straight week (51 percent), riding his customary wave of democracy-destroying initiatives and sheer ghastliness, plus additional points for preening amid the pomp of his U.K. trip. Otherwise, only F.B.I. decimator director Kash Patel and Disney, which led (and later abandoned) the cancel-culture charge by dropping its corporate anvil on a late-night comedian, polled significant numbers—they tied for second place with 17.9 percent each.
But what’s this—another poll? First:
“We understood a lot more than a lot of people who studied it.”
—Donald Trump on his and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s research into autism
The nominees in this week’s edition of the Attention-Whore Index Poll are …
1.
DONALD TRUMP
Grocery prices are skyrocketing; half the U.S. ambassadorships are vacant; most Americans disapprove of the administration’s tariffs, oppose its vaccine policy (even though Trump says, “Nothing bad can happen, it can only good happen”), believe he is engaged in a Jeffrey Epstein cover-up, and consider him generally “corrupt.” Yet Trump remains focused: “Whatever happened to the very highly overrated David Letterman, whose ratings were never very good, either? He looks like hell, but at least he knew when to quit. LOSER!!!”
Used the Charlie Kirk memorial to advance his own agenda. (“One of the last things he said to me is ‘Please, sir, save Chicago.’”) Leaned on the attorney general: “Pam.... What about Comey, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell.... We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!” (He soon got his Comey indictment.) Announced an unproven—except in the wormy mind of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—link between autism and Tylenol. His remarks at the United Nations—“I ended seven un-endable wars.... Everyone says that I should get the Nobel peace prize.... I’m really good at this stuff. Your countries are going to hell.... [Climate change is] the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.... Stupid people.... I guess they want to kill all the cows,” etc.—captured the attention of the assembled, of the world, and of mental-health professionals everywhere.
2.
SARAH FERGUSON
An e-mail from 2011 resurfaced this week showing that, shortly after the Duchess of York disowned Jeffrey Epstein (“What he did was wrong and for which he was rightly jailed.... I abhor paedophilia”), she apologized directly to him. “As you know, I did not, absolutely not, say the ‘P word’ about you but understand it was reported that I did,” the duchess wrote. “I know you feel hellaciously let down by me. You have always been a steadfast, generous and supreme friend to me and my family.” That e-mail, according to her spokesman, followed Epstein’s threat “to ‘destroy her’” (“He had a Hannibal Lecter-type voice. It was very cold and calm and really menacing and nasty.”) Seven charities (and counting) dropped her as a patron or ambassador.
3.
KASH PATEL
Lest anyone (or everyone) think the F.B.I. director is in over his head—“The full weight of America’s law enforcement agencies are actively following the evidence.... We are examining every facet of [the Kirk] assassination. We are meticulously investigating theories and questions … ”—take heart also in knowing that Patel believes in Patel. Cameras at his recent congressional grilling caught him holding notes “written in blue pen in Patel’s own handwriting on personalized stationery labeled ‘Director Patel’,” reported the Daily Mail. “Good fight with [Representative Eric] Swalwell,” he reminded himself, his note sounding more than a little Stuart Smalley–ish. “Hold the line. Brush off their attacks. Rise above next line of partisan attacks.’”
4.
Melania Trump
It’s never too early for a Trump to enjoy some seasonal grifting. The First Lady announced the “Celebrating America” collection—the 250th anniversary approaches, if the nation makes it that far—of “limited-edition, handcrafted Christmas ornaments” ($75 to $90, not a penny of which was announced as earmarked for charity) that, reported The Hill, includes “versions of the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore, as well as patriotic symbols such as a star and an American flag.” In case you were hesitating: each item features Melania’s engraved signature.
5.
Nicolas Sarkozy
The former president of France is (essentially) Bastille-bound, sentenced to five years in prison for criminal conspiracy: attempting to finance his 2007 campaign in a “Faustian corruption pact” with Libya’s ruler, Muammar Qaddafi. Sarkozy appeared in court with his wife, the model-chanteuse Carla Bruni, and later posted on X, “I have no intention of complaining. But I am not prepared to accept the profound injustice done to me. I hope these proceedings will result in France being condemned.” He is the first French president to be incarcerated, although three unelected heads of state also served time: Louis XVI, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Philippe Pétain. Quite the fraternité (if not the liberté).
6.
SHANE JETT AND DANA PRIETO
Hitherto unknown in the A.W.I. universe, and perhaps most other places, these two Republican state senators from Oklahoma caught the attention of The Guardian when they introduced legislation “that would require every public university in the state to construct ‘a Charlie Kirk Memorial Plaza’, with a statue of the assassinated Republican activist and a sign calling him a ‘modern civil rights leader’, or pay monthly fines.”
7.
TIM BURCHETT
Similarly, this representative from Tennessee isn’t a household name … yet. In January, on Matt Gaetz’s show, Burchett revealed that “something’s moving at hundreds of miles an hour underwater … as large as a football field…. This was a documented case and I have an admiral telling me this stuff,” according to CBS News, which noted that Burchett is “known for claims that the U.S. government is hiding existence of UFOs and other alien activity.” Earlier this month, Burchett was involved in a “physical altercation on Capitol Hill” with a demonstrator. And now making the rounds is a video of him discussing “five or six” sightings in “deep water areas” of “entities that are here on this earth, that have been on this earth for who knows how long, and we think they’re coming from way out.” Yes. Way, way out.
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
