What They Voted For: Trump Family Values

#familyvalues | #WhatTheyVotedFor

Ah! scandal! Or, via Page Six:

Years before Vanessa Trump filed for divorce from Donald Trump Jr., their marriage was rocked when—around the time she was pregnant with their third child—he cheated on her with a contestant from “The Celebrity Apprentice.”

Page Six has exclusively learned that Don Jr.—then a so-called “adviser” on the NBC show—fell for busty Danity Kane star Aubrey O’Day while filming “Celebrity Apprentice” in 2011.

Sources say that Vanessa—who filed for divorce from President Donald Trump’s eldest son last week after 13 years of marriage—was devastated when he told her that he planned to leave her for O’Day.

Vanessa was pregnant with their third child, Tristan, around that time.

That was yesterday; the New York Post gossip team rolls on, today asking, “Is Aubrey O’Day’s song ‘DJT’ about Donald Trump Jr.?”

What will the post-presidential reality show be called? Trump Family Scandals? Trump Shore? The Real Assholes of Manhattan? The Ballad of “Donny Smalls”?

Additionally, it is worth noting that apparently we now must give a damn about who Aubrey O’Day is. That is to say, branded celebrity is easy enough to avoid until it isn’t, and the crossing of such thresholds ought to count for something.

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Image note: Donald Trump, Jr. (Photo: Manish Swarup/AP Photo, File)

Bacardi, Francesca. “Is Aubrey O’Day’s song ‘DJT’ about Donald Trump Jr.?”. Page Six. 20 March 2018.

Coleman, Oli and Carlos Greer. “Donald Trump Jr. romanced Aubrey O’Day during marriage to Vanessa”. Page Six. 19 March 2018.

Trashy Schizophrenic Drudgery (Bannon Booty Mix)

#DimensionTrump | #WhatTheyVotedFor

“The book does seem to be a collection of stuff Wolff heard. How much of that stuff is actually true is a different question—one that’s much tougher to answer.”

―Andrew Prokop

The idea that Andrew Prokop should be explaining anything about the “gossipy new Trump book” he has not read might seem somehow inappropriate, but everything we might survey about the tome is a matter of reputation, and in that the Vox writer gives reasonable enough consideration:

The excerpts from it out so far tell a mostly familiar big-picture story of chaos during the presidential transition and in Trump’s early months in the White House. Wolff spruces things up, though, with new quotes, anecdotes, and purported personal details—many of which are eye-popping and unflattering.

Indeed, some of the things Wolff describes in the excerpts sound so outlandish—and also happen to be so hazily sourced—that there’s already a vigorous discussion in the political world about how, exactly, this book should be interpreted. As fact? As “trashy tabloid fiction,” as the White House argues? Or as something in between?

And while there is plenty about the reputation of author Michael Wolff, we might consider the idea of Matt Drudge calling Steve Bannon “schizophrenic”, and for better reasons than two assholes fighting for headlines, or noting this or that about once upon a time, the competition, and who counts as the establishment journalist. Remember that Steve Bannon told Michael Wolff precisely what news consumers want to hear from their favorite talking heads.

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Image notes: Top — Composite featuring Donalds père and fils, protest image of Vladimir Putin. (Credits: Sam Hodgson/New York Times; anonymous.)  Right — Steve Bannon (Photo by Carlo Allegri/Reuters).

Edison Hayden, Michael. “Matt Drudge criticized ‘schizophrenic’ Steve Bannon”. Raw Story. 3 January 2018.

Prokop, Andrew. “The controversy around Michael Wolff’s gossipy new Trump book, explained”. Vox. 4 January 2018.