Donald Trump grinned from ear to ear as he took the gold medal that had been offered to him and placed it around his own neck.
He had finally claimed his peace prize.
Not the Nobel Peace Prize, mind you. Trump didn’t win that one this year, despite openly campaigning for it since returning to power ten months ago and embarking on a non-stop series of peace overtures meant to bring about the end to long-running, if obscure, world conflicts.
Instead, he had strode onto the stage at the Kennedy Center Opera House to accept an entirely new honor that had been made up by the head of the world soccer governing body after he was snubbed by the Swedish Nobel Committee in favor of Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado.
It was the FIFA Peace Prize, which the international football association had never awarded in its 121-year history, that Trump was there to accept at the start of a star-studded ceremony to determine the draw for the quadrennial tournament, which the U.S. will jointly host with Canada and Mexico next year.
Infantino, who has become an inexplicably constant presence in the Oval Office over the last ten months, praised Trump as “a dynamic leader who has engaged in diplomatic efforts that created opportunities for dialogue de-escalation and stability” before awarding him the large gold trophy and the gold medal he now wore proudly as he basked in applause from the crowd of football-related bigwigs.
Trump then participated in an ersatz draw ceremony alongside Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, with whom he was later seen laughing and clapping in the presidential box as the draw continued in earnest.
Your correspondent, who was there to witness the goings-on in Washington as The Independent took its’ turn in the White House press pool rotation, packed up and joined colleagues from Agence France-Presse, NPR and other outlets as we made our way down to the first level of the Kennedy Center building to head back to the White House, where the president was set to resume his day, presumably attending to matters of state.
But it was not to be.
Instead, we were informed that Trump was having a good time and wanted to stay longer.
And stay he did.
He returned to the presidential box in the Opera House, where he, Carney and Sheinbaum took in the splendid scene of the FIFA World Cup draw hosted by Kevin Hart and Heidi Klum.
He watched as ex-British footballer Rio Ferdinand, ex-hockey great Wayne Gretzky, basketball icon turned ubiquitous pitchman Shaquille O’Neal and baseball star Aaron Judge — plus former NFL quarterback Tom Brady — drew balls with little pieces of paper in them to set the field for next year’s tournament.
And all eyes were on Trump several hours later as the ceremonies wrapped with a performance by one of his faves, The Village People, whose iconic gay anthem YMCA has been the traditional closing song at Trump events since a series of rallies he held to drum up support for his effort to remain in office after losing the 2020 election.
The leader of the free world, a consummate entertainer, gave the people what they had come to see by engaging in his signature awkward arm-pumping dance.
It was an exciting day out for the 79-year-old chief executive, who has appeared to fall asleep during multiple White House events in recent weeks, after he’d started his day on Friday with an intelligence briefing, no doubt heavy with details on the unauthorized war his administration has been levying against so-called “narcoterrorists” on the high seas over the last three months.
It’s a weighty matter, in no small part because of the sprawling controversy enveloping his hand-picked Pentagon boss, ex-Fox News weekend presenter Pete Hegseth, who reportedly ordered American forces to fire upon the capsized hulk of what was once a speedboat before a U.S.-made missile exploded upon impact after being fired from a drone operated by the Joint Special Operations Command on September 2.
The second missile hit, which reportedly killed two survivors of the first missile hit who were clinging to their wrecked vessel in hopes of avoiding a grisly death by drowning, appeared to violate prohibitions against firing upon the shipwrecked that date back more than a century, and are explicitly spelled out in Pentagon manuals that instruct service members on how to comport themselves during combat.
Members of Congress are clamoring for Hegseth to testify before the House and Senate armed services committees, and at least one Republican member, a former Air Force general, is calling for his head.
But whatever the content of his highly-classified briefing, Trump didn’t spend his day wrestling with such things. Instead, he boarded his armored limousine for a five-minute ride to the iconic arts center on the banks of the Potomac River, where he had named himself chairman of the center’s board upon his return to the presidency.
Hours later, as the ceremonies approached their end, your correspondent and his colleagues were then ushered back to the lobby and to the bespoke media vans used to ferry the “press pool” about Washington when the president leaves the White House.
It had been expected that Trump would then return to the White House to resume his official duties after a brief trilateral meeting with Carney and Sheinbaum, presumably to discuss plans for their joint hosting effort.
But it was not to be.
Instead, we sat. And waited. And waited some more.
Was Trump attending to one of the many crises enveloping his administration?
Could he be discussing with aides the problem posed by the underfire Secretary of Defense?
Was he wrestling over how the Republican Speaker of the House is losing support from members of his razor-thin majority, some of whom are predicting that the GOP could have to cede control of the chamber long before next year’s midterm elections?
Or, on the heels of receiving the made-up FIFA Peace Prize, was he huddling with advisors to address indications that Russia has no interest in seeking a peace deal with Ukraine despite his months-long efforts to force Kyiv to accept a one-sided pro-Moscow settlement?
Perhaps he was consulting with his political team to address why his approval ratings — and those of his party — have never been lower as Americans continue to grapple with high prices as a result of the sweeping tariffs he has imposed by fiat on most of the country’s trading partners.
A reasonable observer of American politics might assume that with just ten months gone in his second term, Donald Trump would have spent the next few hours hard at work on addressing the pressing political and geopolitical problems with which voters entrusted him when they returned him to power despite multiple criminal indictments against him — to say nothing of the riot he fomented after losing the 2020 election.
Surprisingly — or not, depending on who you ask — such an assumption would be dead wrong.
After two and a half hours of sitting in a van outside the Kennedy Center, your correspondent inquired with White House officials as to what pressing affairs of state were keeping Donald J. Trump from returning to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
After a brief interval, the official responded with an answer.
The president, they said, was “looking at Kennedy Center improvements” with Ric Grenell, the former U.S. Ambassador to Germany and acting Director of National Intelligence who serves both as Trump’s “Special Presidential Envoy for Special Missions” and the Kennedy Center’s interim president.
Trump had boasted to the press pool hours earlier about the “really great renovation” that had been done on the iconic building since his hostile takeover of it ten months earlier. He wanted to see more of it.
Approximately 20 minutes later, the motorcade stirred as Trump returned to his armored limousine for the short trip back to the White House.
He went directly to the Oval Office, where your correspondent spotted his personal attorney, Boris Ephsteyn, waiting for him.
After all, there was a single executive order to sign and other matters to discuss.
And just a few hours until Bocelli would sing for him and his guests once more.
For the leader of the free world, the play — with some work squeezed in — never ends.
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