Donald Trump's post-presidency is exactly as weird as you thought it would be
That's the question a tuxedo-clad Donald Trump asked a group of wedding-goers in what appeared to be an impromptu speech at Mar-a-Lago over the weekend.
Trump also railed on the Biden administration's handling of China, the situation at the southern border and, yes, the 2020 election. "We did get 75 million votes, nobody's ever gotten that," Trump told the wedding crowd. Then, as an afterthought, he offered this: "I just wanted to say, it's an honor to be here, it's an honor to have you at Mar-a-Lago, you are a great and beautiful couple."
The former President of the United States, ladies and gentlemen!!!! There he goes!
Trump's wedding toast called to mind nothing so much as an over-the-hill baseball player hocking signed memorabilia at a trade show in the Catskills -- a sort of why-the-heck-is-he-doing-that moment that has become the rule rather than the exception in the early days of his post-presidency.
Another example: As part of his newly launched post-presidential website (45office.com), Trump is offering personalized greetings for "your special occasion." Just fill out the web form and wait six-ish weeks! Also, important note: "Due to the volume of greeting requests President and Mrs. Trump receive, we will not provide status updates."
If Trump prided himself on breaking all norms and conventions of being president ("My use of social media is not Presidential - it's MODERN DAY PRESIDENTIAL," he tweeted in 2017), the first few months of his time as a former president suggest he remains committed to acting like no man who has held the office before.
Aside from the wedding toast and the special occasion greetings, Trump is also using a series of fiery statements attacking a variety of public figures to keep busy.
On Monday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the highly respected director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was Trump's chosen target. Aside from making a series of untrue attacks about Fauci's role in the development of the vaccine, Trump also saw fit to add this: "[Fauci], who said he was an athlete in college but couldn't throw a baseball even close to home plate, it was a 'roller,'" in reference to the doctor throwing out the first pitch of the Washington Nationals 2020 season. (This is the sort of drivel Trump once tweeted out with regularity. That option is no longer available to him as he has been permanently removed from Twitter.)
He's also taken the time to dabble in politics -- mostly to settle scores against Republicans he believes wronged him over his final days in office.
In early March, Trump released a statement blasting Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski. "She represents her state badly and her country even worse," Trump told Politico. "I do not know where other people will be next year, but I know where I will be -- in Alaska campaigning against a disloyal and very bad Senator."
Later in the month, while hosting a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago, Trump pitted the four Republicans seeking the Ohio Senate nomination against one another in a scene that evoked -- whether intentionally or not -- the boardroom from his reality TV days.
And, of course, he's stoked chatter about his own possible future presidential candidacy. "Who knows? Who knows? I may even decide to beat them for a third time, OK?" Trump told the Conservative Political Action Conference crowd in February. "For a third time." (Important side note: Trump lost the 2020 election.)
Taken as a whole, the post-presidential actions of the 45th president have been weird, outsized, graceless and self-serving. Or put more simply, Trumpian.
