There are so many awful things about Trump and his coterie of dipshits, scumbags, and malcontents that it is hard to narrow down what the worst part about them might be. In just a few short years they have amassed a record number of sins against decency, morality, and the law, both big and small, and every aspect of their existence simply appalls me. But still, every now and then, they do something that just sets me off and just makes me berserk. Things like this:
Donald Trump and his entourage reportedly failed to eat a single item of a special vegetarian feast prepared for him during his trip to India.
The American president and his wife, Melania, were presented with the menu during their visit to Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad, one of the former homes of the Indian independence hero.
In an effort to please the famously carnivorous tastes of the president, the chef — a well-known award-winning chef called Suresh Khanna — adapted a number of famous Indian delicacies to make them more recognisable for their guests and even included more familiar items such as chocolate-chip cookies and apple pie.
But neither Mr Trump nor the First Lady touched anything from the special high tea menu.
“Some food items were arranged for the members of the visiting delegation, but neither the US President nor the First Lady had anything during their visit to the Ashram,” one of the Ashram’s trustees, Kartikeya Sarabhai, told the PTI news agency.
Mr Trump is infamous for enjoying a classically American diet, featuring cheeseburgers, Diet Coke, well-done steak and ice cream among his favourite dishes.
I just want to scream. I would absolutely kill to experience this. The top chef in India preparing a personally designed meal for me?
Everything about these fucking lowlifes is awful. They have no taste, no class, no sophistication, no appreciation of the actual finer things in life. Just horrid. I know we are supposed to all be rending garments about the debate performances tonight (I did not watch), but fuck it all I’d do anything to have any fucking one of them replace Trump. Even god damned Bloomberg.
I know this is a minor thing considering everything they have done, but if I am still alive in 50 years (I won’t be. God, I hope I won’t be unless they do find a cure for aging) this will be one of the things I am still salty about and will remember every time the name Trump is brought up.
Morzer
Which scared Trump more – the presence of vegetables or the fact they were prepared by a person with brown skin? My bet is on the second choice.
mrmoshpotato
That pie? They should’ve let him have it.
Noskilz
It is baffling how they manage to be so comprehensively and cartoonishly awful. I assume none of his flunkies would eat lest it make him look bad.
mrmoshpotato
@Noskilz: And yet think they’re all high class and shit.
Morzer
@Noskilz: Power reveals – and what it reveals in Trump is the mean-spirited, small-minded, dishonest, abusive bigot that anyone who was paying attention knew that he was from the get-go.
hells littlest angel
He is a small, shitty man.
opiejeanne
@Noskilz: BINGO!
No one in the entourage touched a single thing, not a bite of dried apricot, nor even a cookie.
sanjeevs
It seems well-done steak became part of the classically American diet over the Trump years.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
I know, right? Remember when fast food was served last year to college sports teams visiting the WH? Fast food that was likely not very fresh from sitting out for a long time? When Trump had a fucking hotel a few blocks away with a restaurant that he could have had cater the events?
And yet morons still fucking defended it! Oh, you don’t think fast food should be served at the WH? You’re just an out of touch elite! Christ almighty!
He’s a fucking tasteless moron who was too cheap to use his own money to cater the WH dinners during the shutdown and just kept using fast food (that cost what, a few grand at most?) because he’s never wrong and that’s his idea of what young men like to eat
His supporters really are a cult. I’ve read reports of some that think the COVID-19 outbreak is being used by the media to try hurt Trump’s reelection chances and think it’s being overhyped.
Let me disabuse anybody of that notion. The CDC has already said that Americans should begin to make preparations for “significant disruptions” to daily life and that spread is inevitable. The hospital floor (Telemetry Med-Surg) that I have clinical on has stocked up on N95 respirators and other PPE. I noticed this just a few days ago for the first time in the clean supply rooms that hold most of the medical supplies for the unit.
The professionals are taking this seriously. I just wish Trump and his moronic cronies at the appointee levels were as well.
To his supporters, Trump is never wrong. It’s always someone else’s fault. He has no agency of his own, except when he does
Ruckus
trump has
All the class of a lanced boil.
All the nuance of a straight pipe HD at full throttle, that has louder radio, in a hospital zone at midnight.
All the subtlety of the Marine Corp band, at a Veterans Day parade.
All the humanity of a scientology barker on a street corner.
NotoriousJRT
no taste, no class, no sophistication, no appreciation of the actual finer things in life.
NO MANNERS.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It’s worse, the White House has a full commercial kitchen.
Dan B
Cultural faux pas like this are probably the talk among the world’s elite and power brokers.
The tut tuts heard round the world.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Really? Pathetic. During the shutdown he had a fig leaf, I guess, since the kitchen staff was furloughed at the time. That’s when he could’ve either gotten shit catered from his DC Hotel or borrowed some chefs from it to work in the WH kitchen. But hey, that would’ve probably cost more than a grand tops and more importantly cost him more money from his own pocket.
The whole “snooty liberal elites” thing doesn’t hold up. The DC Hotel most definitely has restaurant burgers and fries, much better than 30 min old fast food from Mickey Ds
If it was me, I’d love to have lobster and caviar at the WH, a once in a lifetime opportunity, than something I could have anytime. It’s supposed to be a special moment and it’s one none of those college players will get back
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Dan B:
It just comes across as very rude. Like, you could at least try some of the shit that a world-class chef made especially for you, y’know? It’s being respectful
mrmoshpotato
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Yeah! Dump could literally have pork chops at 3AM like Homer Simpson wanted.
Be BernieAPOSTROPHEs Valentine
You get to eat it now.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): There’s a Mickey D’s on 17th Street, less than a block from the White House across from the New Executive Office Building(I’ve eaten there).
Geoduck
I’ve seen the theory put forth that the Shiatgibbon is so far gone with dementia (or some medical condition) that he doesn’t dare eat anything in public anymore. And so of course all of his flunkies follow his lead.
Sab
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): He is not capable of showing respect for other people. He is a toxic narcissist. Everything that shows respect or consideration for others diminishes him. He only shows consideration for others as a means of manipulating them.
Narcissists are horrible human beings but also very simple.
I am glad you haven’t had to deal with one in your life yet. Hopefully you never will.
We should pity them because they are so horrible inside their heads, but it is difficult to do so because they are so horrible, and they cause such havoc in the lives of everyone around them.
Anya
I want to stab myself in the heart whenever I see some wingnut talk about how Malenia brought class back to the White House, or every time I think about how half of this country lost their minds because a classy, intelligent and decent black man and his equally awesome family were living in the WH.
We literally elected the complete opposite, in every way, of our last president. I think about that a lot and it blows my mind. I grief for our country. Sadly, this is who we are now. This crass oaf and his vacuous daughter, and his equally loathsome wife are our representatives.
TS (the original)
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
The White House has chefs that can cater such events – although in the age of trump anyone of any merit has probably left.
Barb 2
Someone called Trump’s followers – clinically insane. To vote for a non empathetic, uncaring creep to be president – there has to be something wrong with vast numbers of humanoids.
Ethnocentric – that’s what he is as well as the third wife. Every time I think he has hit rock bottom in manners and human empathy – he finds a way to go lower. He has no respect for others. Just simple respect – he does he have it.
Apparently the stable genius has declared a pandemic was not happening here and that there are only 10 cases and they are getting better. It sort of sounds like he thinks his white (orange) skin will protect him. He goes lower and throws out science.
Alaska Reader
What’s worse than Trump’s denial to sup with his hosts?
The fact that he went to India to fluff Modi in the first place.
Trump and Modi are both the embodiment of evil.
prostratedragon
@Ruckus: In defense of the MC band, they may not be subtle in their Vets’ Day repertory, but at least they’re crack instrumentalists. As opposed to being just cracks.
I agree with John and pretty near everyone else, he is fractally horrendous, so that in the smallest things one sees every single repugnant element of what’s wrong with him as President, or any other kind of public person. Unscalable hideousness. And of course those who surround and toady up to him necessarily become just as awful.
prostratedragon
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I remember reading that such receptions are more often held well after the sporting event, so it could easily have been at a convenient time later when the kitchen was back up and running.
There’s a Wiki article on the executive chef, naturally. The current chef, since 2005, is Cristeta Comerford. Her duties: “The Executive Chef is responsible for planning and preparing all menus and meals for the First Family and for all entertaining (informal, formal, and state dinners) served by the White House, either away or on-site.” In yet another sign of how far we’ve fallen, the article mentions that the first guest chef for a State occasion was Marcus Samuelsson, brought in by Mrs. Obama to organize a dinner for former PM Singh of India.
Narya
It’s the dementia. He hasn’t been seen eating in months, likely only ingests soft purées and it’s likely messy; the tongue issues when speaking are part of it. @tomjchicago has been documenting thoroughly.
rikyrah
They have NO HOME TRAINING???
Geminid
Not surprised Trump passed on the buffet. He is notoriously phobic. And it may be he is also having physical eating problems. That the rest of his party passed shows not just bad manners but also slavishness, and/or collective psychosis.
Gvg
Of course it is rude and shows no class, but it doesn’t hit my buttons like kids in cages or laws McConnel gets passed.
i hate strange food. I don’t actually like fancy food or taking time to prepare meals. People obsessing over food bores me and one reason I would hate to be President is I know it would be my duty to go to a lot of dinners and eat a lot of foreign food while making my face and body project enjoyment. That is politeness and a responsibility towards my country. I knew that for years before Trump came along. It is annoying that Trump is such an irresponsible boor. Still kids in cages is kidnapping to me, and attacks on my rights and those of fellow citizens not to mention giving a green light to tyrants to murder out side our country and a host of other things are so serious….I am probably not even going to remember this in 10 years.
schrodingers_cat
Allow me to be the contrarian in this amen chorus.
Modi and BJP has used food to brow beat people. People have been lynched for the mere suspicion of eating beef. Its good that they got a taste of their own medicine from their favorite bigot.
It is day #4 now of the anti-Muslim pogrom carried out by the BJP and its supporters in the nation’s capital. 13 people have died. Mosques have been torched, Muslim businesses raised to the ground. Modi has repeated what he did in Godhra in 2002.
Our President has lent legitimacy to this murderous regime by going to India and praising Modi for religious tolerance.
What keeps me up at night is knowing that the worse is still to come in India. This is just the beginning.
I don’t think I would eat anything served by the butcher of Godhra (and Delhi) either,
schrodingers_cat
@schrodingers_cat: Death toll in Delhi is 20 and climbing.
RandomMonster
What also astounds is the incompetence of whoever planned this mission. They know Trump has issues with food, so why sign off on a dinner in the first place? Why not plan some other event, somewhere else, not at mealtime?
schrodingers_cat
Also the “hi tea” menu was kinda shitty. I looked
Broccoli and corn Samosa- WTF
Canned Juice and tetra pack coconut water: Pretty pedestrian
Assorted cookies (These are mass market commercially available not so wonderful cookies like oreos and saltines)
Fruit and Dried fruit
I have put more thought into my parties and served better food. Hell, I can do better than this if you show up at my house unannounced.
ETA: Traditional Gujarati farsan (light fare between meals) is scrumptious. This menu, not so much.
Cameron
But Trump does have his fans in India: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/indian-man-worships-donald-trump-statue-1782381
Cameron
@schrodingers_cat: Maybe the chef was showing what he really thought of The Stable Genius.
schrodingers_cat
@Cameron: Or the chef at Sabarmati ashram is giving a middle finger to NM whose organization RSS assassinated M. K. Gandhi
Cameron
@schrodingers_cat: I didn’t know that – maybe he got a two-fer. One usually doesn’t get an opportunity to take a potshot at two heads of state simultaneously. I sure hope that was so.
Honus
Way to sugarcoat constantly eating garbage like fast food and diet coke by calling it a “classically American diet”. That’s an insult to the entire country to insinuate that americans prefer processed food to the many types of diverse, nutritious and truly toothsome cuisine prepared by families here for centuries. And on Fat Tuesday no less.
zhena gogolia
No time to read whole thread, so I’m sure somebody has said this, but I’ll just say — remember Obama eating with Bourdain?
randy khan
@schrodingers_cat:
You have principled objections – ones that would have kept you from going in the first place if you were President. Trump and his entourage don’t have any of those objections – they’re just uncultured louts who don’t understand that they’re insulting their hosts by not eating anything.
(Apropos of your post on the menu – I read that the broccoli and corn samosas were made specially in an attempt to appeal to Trump’s tastes, although I’d think the more traditional potato/pea combination would be closer than something with broccoli in it.)
blackcatsrule
John, I am so glad you posted this. I am feeling the same way…I am not surprised at the boorish behavior of these subhumans but was very disappointed in the fact that the chef is getting flak for the menu. Anyone who enjoys cooking wants their guests to feel comfortable and welcomed, and that is what he was trying to do. Broccoli samosa doesn’t even sound that bad!
I just kept hearing that line from Temple of Doom…”you’re insulting them, and you’re embarrassing me.” Pretty much sums up this maladministration.
I
blackcatsrule
@schrodingers_cat: Oh I like this, hope that was what actually happened.
jonas
Trump is famously germ-phobic and I’m sure when he’s not sucking up to Modi he thinks India is a typical shithole country that will make him sick or something. Another possibility — as several people have already mentioned — is that he *can’t* eat solid food any longer as his frontotemporal dementia progresses. Trump doesn’t just avoid ethnic food. Reporters say they haven’t seen him touch food in public for months. (OTOH, if he were subsisting on a liquid or pureed diet at this point, you think he’d have at least lost some goddamn weight.)
Whatever the case may be, why the hell did the WH advance team not just tell Modi’s people that the president would prefer not to eat? They let a star chef roll out a big state dinner and then he just looks at it and walks away? WTF? Callousness and incompetence all rolled into one — on the part of everyone in that fetid administration, not just Trump.
Shana
These people are like the ones who reluctantly go along with the group to a chinese restaurant and will only order beef with broccoli. Which can be tasty but doesn’t really give you a sense of the variety and flavor of chinese cuisine.
whomever
So depressing. I got to go to India a few years ago (and it was a business trip so Business Class! Yay!) and truly loved the food there. My friend who is spent a lot of time there says “just pick the thali place with the longest line and you won’t go wrong”.
drunkenhausfrau
Imagine if the Obamas had done this… I know this is a cliche at this point, but seriously. Screaming headlines and talking heads tut tutting about how they had embarrassed the USA by a display of bad manners and being ungracious guests, etc.
Bill Arnold
@Morzer:
I’m betting (like 65%) that they were/are afraid of getting an intestinal infection. Probably on prophylactic antibiotics too. Rudeness if so would be a side effect of fear.
schrodingers_cat
@jonas: It was not quite a state dinner, it was some pathetic snacks including cookies you could get at any corner store.
Here is the menu
Bill Arnold
@Narya:
Thanks the Tom Joseph twitter ( https://twitter.com/tomjchicago ) re DJT dementia is pretty interesting. I think he might be reading the right leg drag wrong; there may be underlying right side hip pain from e.g. arthritis, perhaps with some sort of block plus attempts at masking. Hard to tell from short clips.
Bundle of dysfunctions, for sure.
ziggy
@Narya:
This. He no longer eats in public. Does anyone recall the choking scene he enacted at one of his last rallies? Too realistic. I went through this with my mother, where it becomes dangerous and unattractive to eat normal food. I’m sure Melania passed on the food to “normalize” the affront.
Ruckus
@prostratedragon:
I did not say they aren’t good, which they aren’t. They are great. Not my cup of tea if you will but they are very, very good at it. But subtle? A marching band is not subtle and as one, if not the best marching band, subtle is not their forte. Nor should it be, their job is to shout to everyone who they are and why. And that is why the shitgibbon is like them, his job is not to shout at everyone about him. He’s not subtle like say the last man to hold the job, he’s in your face with his bullshit and bluster and makes it obvious why he should never be allowed to be, hell, out in public, let alone president.
I wasn’t comparing him to the Marine band, only that he’s loud and obnoxious, stupid and demanding, and worth not one word of his constant need for people to stick their heads where his sun doesn’t shine.
stinger
I can understand a person not being adventuresome in regard to food — rudeness toward the chef and the culture and one’s host aside.
What I don’t understand is not caring for fine food at all, or for music of any kind, or for the performing arts, or classic or popular films, or books, or children, or dogs or cats or goldfish or gardening or watching team sports or stamp collecting or…. These people have no hobbies or interests, the women touring a museum now and then only to pose awkwardly in their ugly, expensive clothes.
Remember In Performance at the White House? The last such event was in 2016. We can’t all be a Barack or a Michelle, but every previous First Family for 60 years has hosted more cultural events than this one. Who wouldn’t take advantage of the position to bring in all sorts of people and talent and entertainment? I just don’t get it.
JaneE
I don’t know what Trump does, but I thought the former presidents had people to coordinate dietary preferences when they made visits. Rudeness is totally unnecessary. Trump seems to think that being an a$$hole is macho or something. It isn’t.
JimV
I enjoyed the post, as usual, but then I had a passing thought, which way against my better judgment I am going to share:
There have been some “picky- eater” children in my family (every few generations) and I was one of them. When the rest of the large family was having tuna casserole or meatloaf for supper, I had a hamburger (no bun, just a small burger). I couldn’t eat the meatloaf because my mom put green pepper in it. One such night, I took my first small bite of the burger, grimaced, and blurted out, “This tastes of green pepper!” The next instance I was filled with shock, fearing that I had just gone crazy. Finally my mother admitted, “I put a tiny bit of green pepper in it, like I do in the meatloaf, because I didn’t believe you could actually taste it.”*
A few years ago, I learned on the Internet that this condition is known as being a “super-taster” and that it results from having twice as many tongue papillae as normal. There was a test for it (answering questions like, “Do you ever drink coffee?”) (no, way too bitter) which I passed. So I got that going for me. Which isn’t nice.
So I wonder, could Trump possibly be a super-taster. I know I would have been intimidated by a bunch of spicy Indian food.
That said, I would probably have manned-up and tried to eat some of it.
* (footnote): if I could do a couple things over in my life, one of them would have been to reply, “Well, if you can’t taste it, don’t put it in the meatloaf and we can all eat it.”–which I didn’t think to say at the time.
dww44
@drunkenhausfrau: Yep. Maybe a cliche at this point, but one still worth pointing out. By now, Obama would have long since been removed from office.
Olivia
I wonder if trump would refuse to eat food that putin offered at a similar dinner or a dinner at the Russian embassy.
TheronWare
@zhena gogolia: Yes, in Vietnam! That was truly one of his best shows.
jonas
@schrodingers_cat: Thanks for the clarification — I had been under the impression it was a bit more formal. And yeah. Broccoli corn samosa? What the hell is that?
jonas
Well, he did have Kanye and Kid Rock for photo ops in the Oval Office, so there’s that….
SWMBO
I would like to bring up the Trump is a germophobe trope. This is bullshit. It is, like most things Trump, a bald faced lie. Michael Che on Weekend Update said that he finds it hard to believe that a true germophobe would raw dog porn stars. I think it’s more of the Trump brand instead of how he really feels about germs. He’s more of a middle school “they got cooties!” kind of germophobe than fearing actual germs.