This week, Vice News reported that President Donald Trump receives a “special” folder consisting of approximately 20-25 pages of documents twice daily.
“These sensitive papers, described to VICE News by three current and former White House officials, don’t contain top-secret intelligence or updates on legislative initiatives. Instead, the folders are filled with screenshots of positive cable news chyrons (those lower-third headlines and crawls), admiring tweets, transcripts of fawning TV interviews, praise-filled news stories, and sometimes just pictures of Trump on TV looking powerful,” reported Vice.
Cue Stephen Colbert.
Last Friday, the Late Show host accused Trump’s “real news” program of being a “state-sponsored propaganda” operation, and this Friday, the late-night host dedicated a big chunk of his opening monologue to this “special” folder.
“The President, he spends a lot of time on the frowny farm, but he receives a folder full of positive news about himself twice a day. Positive news about Trump twice a day? Man, he should really share that with the rest of the world,” cracked Colbert, citing the Vice News story.
“The folder is a 20-25-page packet of praise-filled news stories delivered around 9:30 a.m. followed by a follow-up around 4:30 p.m. So: once after breakfast, once again after lunch, and if he’s still cranky by bedtime they put up his mobile of Breitbart stories.”
According to the Vice News piece, “One White House official said the only feedback the White House communications shop, which prepares the folder, has ever gotten in all these months is: ‘It needs to be more f*cking positive.’”
“More positive?” asked Colbert. “If he loves himself any more, he’ll go blind.”
The White House officials quoted in the Vice News story confessed how some in the Trump administration have begun to “ruefully refer to the packet as ‘the propaganda document.’”
“Now, hold the phone, Chuck,” said Colbert. “Propaganda is supposed to brainwash the citizens into loving the leader, not brainwash the leader into loving himself!”
