The Trump Years! There's a Horse! In a Hospital!

When the Trump era ends next January – if some of us make it through – our descendants will want to know what we knew about this guy that convinced us to put up with his reeking malicious incompetence.
 
But time is short and we may need to set up a time capsule. I would search for the Paul Revere moment when somebody rode through the countryside crying, “The sociopath is coming! The sociopath is coming!”
 
I would pay homage to the great reporting and snarky social media and legislators who tried to reign him in, but I would make sure the time capsule included three videos of John Mulaney, making us laugh, and cry.
 
To be honest, I never heard of Mulaney until he materialized as the host of “Saturday Night Live” in 2018. He has since made two more appearances, both hilarious, both biting.
 
Mulaney’s evolution on the Trump issue began with a guest appearance on Nov. 19, 2015 with Seth Myers, who prodded him about the strange New Yorker threatening to run for president.
Mulaney, who lives in New York, had been paying attention to Trump as poseur billionaire builder and ham reality show host, and pronounces him "an odd person." 
Well, we can’t say we weren’t warned. (see above video, the first few minutes.)
 
By June 9, 2017, Trump had been president for five months, beginning his regime by exaggerating – lying, really – about the size of the Inauguration crowd, and going on from there. 
By now, Trump is something more than an "odd person," which is clearly on Mulaney’s mind as he danced through his interview with Stephen Colbert. 
 
The first 7:20 are fine late night chatter but you can skip through it. Then it gets good as Colbert prods him about this strange phenomenon in the White House.
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The thing is, Mulaney ponders, it’s almost like….you know….there’s a horse…in a hospital. Some in the audience start to titter as they start to get it, which encourages Mulaney to keep tossing out fragments of thoughts about this horse…in a hospital….and soon people are applauding...and then are roaring, wanting to hear more….but there is no more.

Was it spontaneous combustion? I don’t know. Comedians have their creative ways, always trying stuff out. 
 
I only know that by February of 2018, Mulaney is on tour as Kid Gorgeous, appearing in Radio City Music Hall.This  By now this slim and strangely graceful comic has the horse routine down, choreographed, informed and anxious, emphasizing the punch lines at high decibels, exhaling hard for each “H” in “Horse” and “Hospital.”
 
He prances and points, he pauses and resumes.
And he has saved two marvelous punch lines for the end.
 
And remember: this show was two full years before the present Covid-19 plague, when Trump shows not the slightest grasp of details, only wanting to goose stock prices, claiming he drinks an untested substance to ward off the virus, at danger to anybody who still believes anything he says. 
 
Trump belittles scientists and doctors in front of them, on live television. He shows no ability to organize anything (No wonder he tapped out on his daddy’s money.)
 
John Mulaney had it right. Years ago. "Odd." 
In this medical crisis: There’s a horse! In a hospital!
(Now, check out the video below)