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Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
National
Michael Sneed

Will this be Donald Trump’s moment of reckoning?

A combatic Donald Trump in 2018, when he still was president. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images))

Oh, what drama!

The Donald’s TRAUMA Drama.

The toil and turmoil of the Trumpster promising “death and destruction” in advance last week of his becoming the nation’s first former U.S. president criminally indicted.

The last time Trump called me from the campaign trail he asked: “So, Mike. What do you think?” His numbers were soaring.

En route to snagging his party’s nomination, he told me he would consider a woman as his running mate.

It was on CNN news in a matter of minutes.

He won. Then he lost. Now he is in deep doo-doo.

Questions. Questions.

Will this be Trump’s moment of reckoning or reasoning?

Or Trump’s way of recklessly handling things?

It is a reminder of the way a younger Trump once handled the New York tabloid press; disguising himself as a spokesman for himself; pitching and defending himself to the press.

Will he resurrect his personal “impersonators?

Will “John Barron” resurface?

Or “John Miller?”

Or “David Dennison?”

It’s a sure bet we will see a continuation of Trump’s brilliant bully boy “name game,” assigning derisive monikers to new enemies on both sides of the political aisle since his indictment.

It’s akin to a theater ticket wait to see whom Trump decide to add to a list that now includes Gov. Ron “DeSanctimonious” DeSantis;  Jeb “Low Energy” Bush, “Lying” Ted Cruz, Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren and “Crooked” Hillary?

Sing along with me?

Is Sneed lost in the land of Nod?

Why can I still recite word for word the song of “Tom Terrific,” a cartoon segment of the 1950s top TV children’s show “Captain Kangaroo?”

And why do I think it would be a terrific Trump campaign song?

Check it out.

“I’m Tom (Trump) Terrific

Greatest hero ever

Terrific is the name for me

‘Cuz I’m so clever.

I can be what I want to be …

When there is trouble

I’m there on the double

From Atlantic to the Pacific

They know Tom (Trump) Terrific!”

And may we ascribe Tom Terrific’s “Mighty Manfred” wonder dog ostensibly as a fill in for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy?

The baby’s ballot box …

   Wink. wink.

      It’s not just election day on Tuesday in the household of mayoral candidate Paul Vallas.

      It’s also the birthday of Paul’s wife, Sharon … and “she won’t tell me what she wants,” Vallas tells Sneed.

   Wink wink: “It has now become a running joke on the campaign trail among my staff that my wife won’t tell me what she wants for her birthday,” Vallas tells Sneed, jokingly regretting he ever told them.

     

Mayoral candidate Paul Vallas with his wife, Sharon. (Provided)

“My campaign staffers think it’s funny,” he chuckled.

     Vallas figures his wife really wants to spend her birthday with their only grandchild, Kostantinos, who arrives this weekend from Texas with “our son, Gus, and his wife, Leslie, who is of Mexican descent,” he said.

     “It’s pretty apparent my wife has her priorities straight — family first,” added Vallas, who claims his bilingual, 6-month-old-plus grandson, who babbles in English and Spanish — is variously called “Kostas” and “Tino” by his parents.

   “I suspect Greek will always be Greek to him,” he added.

Fun in the land of Feud!

     Dateline: Fantasyland: Holy Cow! The late Cubs showman Harry Caray won “re-election” as “Mayor of Rush Street” during the 50th annual Worldwide Toast to Harry at his signature Navy Pier eatery last week.

  • Beer in hand:
Ald.-elect Bill Conway, (left) impersonating Harry Caray, is joined by former Cubs pitcher Ryan Dempster. (Provided)

Ald.-elect Bill Conway, who will now head the newly created West Loop’s 34th Ward, showed up in full Caray gear.

  • Dead man out! Winning 94% of the 1,000 votes cast, Caray beat out his many times deader-than-a-rusty Chicago doornail opponent, “Captain Streeterville,” who operated a den of iniquity on a boat stuck on landfill in the late 1800s.

     Be still my tongue.

Sneedlings…

     Royal jewels: England’s new Queen Consort Camilla is now wearing the late Queen Elizabeth’s diamond necklace. … Only in America: Goop product queen Gwyneth Paltrow’s courtroom ski glasses went viral shortly before she won her courtroom battle over a ski accident. … A Remembrance: Vietnam War Veterans Day last week honored the brave American soldiers who fought and died (58,000) for their country — who returned sadly to little fanfare. …

Saturday birthdays: Asa Butterfield, 26; MacKenzie Davis, 36; and Susan Boyle, 62.

Sunday birthdays: Pedro Pascal, 38; Michael Fassbender, 37; and Christopher Meloni, 62.

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