Time asked about the war, the debt and gas at $4.50. Nobody asked what he sealed the marble with. I spent three years in flooring, so I’m asking.
On my lunch break I watched a former CNN guy named Chris Cillizza go through the Trump Time interview, which I don’t normally do with former CNN guys. Even a broken clock, though. Out of 75 minutes he picked one line, and he reads it the church way: “You haven’t asked me one effing positive question.” Time printed the real word, which Denise doesn’t allow in the house.
Cillizza says it shows a cornered president who wants reporters telling him he’s doing great, and he seems to think that’s a problem. The White House already pulled press passes over coverage it didn’t like, so nobody can say the man wasn’t clear. I read the whole transcript looking for the positive question. The president’s right. They asked why a war he said would take weeks is in its seventh month, and about $4.50 gas, 7 percent mortgages, a $40 trillion debt and his polls. All negative.
Nobody Asked About the Floor
Cillizza also posted 37 lines he calls the wildest. I got through five before it asked for money, and none was the floor. Late in the interview the president asks the two reporters, “You’ve seen the white marble floor, right?” He says very few people can do one like it. Neither reporter followed up. Not ONE question. Before long they were on to pardons.
For three years I was assistant manager of a regional flooring distributor, and I know a man who wants to be asked about his floor. We got one every Saturday. You know what we did? We asked. Most of what I moved was laminate and sheet vinyl, I’ll grant you. Marble came through once, a pallet for a dentist in 2018, and it arrived in more pieces than we shipped. So I know how hard it is.
The Trump Time Interview, Asked Correctly
I wrote the questions Time wouldn’t, eleven of them, on the back of a grout color chart from the hardware store where I consult. Is it honed or polished, sir? What did you seal it with? How does white hold up with that many reporters walking on it? Would you call it the best floor any president ever had? By question nine I was asking if he’d come look at mine. They all count.
Denise has asked me not to mention our kitchen floor, which I installed myself in 2017. Three planks by the dishwasher have lifted since. That’s the house settling. I read all eleven questions to Ronnie in plumbing, and he said, “That’s a lot of questions about a floor, Brent,” and went to help a customer. There wasn’t a customer. I looked.
Time also fact-checked the Trump Time interview, a dozen claims, swing states and NFL ratings and Iranian inflation. The floor isn’t one of them. In my experience, when nobody checks the floor, the floor is fine. Nobody checked mine at the distributor either, right up until 2019.
Before Anybody Starts on the Helipad
Before anybody starts: yes, the president told Time that Lockheed paid for his new helipad, close to $10 million, because the helicopters it sold the government tear up the lawn. That’s a warranty claim. A carpet-pad rep bought me lunch at Applebee’s every quarter for three years and nobody called an ethics office. Lockheed is also on the ballroom donor list and builds the administration’s Patriot missiles. In sales we call that a relationship. You want to follow the money, start with Hunter Biden. I always do, and I never get any further.
Time’s editor wrote that five weeks before the midterms the president’s chosen subject was dirt, and that he has now been on 56 covers and liked 17 of the first 55. I did the math on the grout chart: 31 percent. The new AP poll Cillizza cites has 31 percent of the country approving of him. Coincidence? I think not. A man who likes his covers exactly as much as America likes him is a man in touch.
The president sat through the entire Trump Time interview waiting on one positive question. I’ve got eleven, a grout chart and Saturdays free if he wants them in person. That’s called positivity. And I’m full of it.
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