The Buzz: Has Trump been told of Heaven’s membership fees?
Published 1:30 am Friday, August 22, 2025
By Jon Bauer
Herald Opinion Editor
It used to be that reporters got their scoops from shadowy figures in parking garages or in hushed and cryptic phone calls. Now they only need wait to be included in on group chats or hang out at hotel businesses centers. In other unexpected revelations this week:
So, we’re no longer calling him “Pootie-Poot”? Some additional details into last week’s Alaska summit between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin were learned when documents left in an Anchorage hotel’s printer showed an itinerary, contact numbers for some U.S. officials, a seating chart and the menu for a luncheon that was ultimately canceled when the summit was cut short. The document also provided handy pronunciation guides for some of the Russian officials, including for President “POO-tihn.”
No such help with the Americans’ names was offered, but we’ll oblige: Special Envoy Steve Witkoff (Wit-COUGH), Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick (Nut-LICK) and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (SNOW-flake).
Heaven can wait: President Trump, during a call into “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday revealed one of his motivations in seeking a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. “I want to try and get to heaven, if possible,” he explained. “I’m hearing I’m not doing well. I am really at the bottom of the totem pole. But if I can get to heaven, this will be one of the reasons.”
Trump is hearing he’s not doing well? That he’s at the bottom of the totem pole? Wait; did St. Peter mistakenly include Trump on a Signal group chat and let slip that Trump’s camel needs to lose a few pounds before it can get through the eye of a needle? If true, then we recommend that Trump start listening more often to the little angel on his right shoulder, rather than the little Laura Loomer who sits on his left.
Not really helping your case, Mr. President: Following his recent order that several of the Smithsonian Institution’s museums would be required to adjust displays that the administration objects to in “tone, historical framing and alignment with American ideals,” President Trump emphasized his concerns this week: “The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future,” Trump said in a social media post. “This Country cannot be WOKE, because WOKE IS BROKE. We have the ‘HOTTEST’ Country in the World, and we want people to talk about it, including in our Museums.”
So, in the future you can expect to see displays at Smithsonian museums that show the brighter side of slavery, including how cool the Confederate flag looked on the top of those Duke Boys’ General Lee, how successful Harriet Tubman was in starting a railroad underground long before the New York subway and the culinary contributions of great Americans like Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben and Little Black Sambo.
Making the job his own: Vice President J.D. Vance told Fox News that he warned Voldomyr Zelensky to “behave,” as he escorted the Ukrainian president into a meeting with President Trump and several European leaders on Monday. “Mr. President, so long as you behave, I won’t say anything,” Vance said he told Zelensky, whom was scolded by Vance in a February meeting for not thanking Trump sufficiently during the meeting.
The vice presidency has long been recognized as an inconsequential office, once compared to a “warm bucket of spit,” but is tacking on the responsibilities of preschool teacher really adding to Vance’s sense of accomplishment?
Just hen house is fox guarding: Russia’s top diplomat, Sergey Lavrov (Laav-rof, if you were wondering), in acknowledging Ukrainian and other European leaders’ demands for security guarantees in any peace deal with Russia, suggested that Russian troops, not Western forces, be given the role of assuring security in Ukraine.
“Is not somethink with you need bother,” said Lavrov’s spokesman, B. Badanov. “Why you vaste your time in Ukraine vhen Russian troops, already near by, they can keep Ukraine safe from inwasion. Right, Natasha?”
You don’t sing me love songs, anymore: Users of ChatGPT have complained to its maker, OpenAI, that the chatbot’s most recent update, GPT-5, has become more aloof and less warm and effusive in its responses. One user told The New York Times that the bot showed more interest in his queries and his childhood traumas before the update. But now? “It’s like, ‘OK, here’s your problem, here’s the solution, thank you, goodbye.” OpenAI said while it works on a fix it will restore access to GPT-4o, known for being cloyingly sycophantic, but only to subscribers paying $20 a month.
That tracks; if you want the full Girl Friend Experience, it’s always extra.
Hey, it must be Infrastructure Week, again: Along with threatening to send in National Guard troops to the nation’s largest — and bluest — cities to combat crime, President Trump now is promising to fix the roads. “We’re going to replace the medians that are falling down all over the road, we’re going to replace the potholes,” Trump said, continuing: “You shouldn’t have medians falling down into the roadway, median, you know, the metal things that are always, somebody had a great, a great lobbyist, because I’ve never seen them look good. I’ve been looking at these things with the little, right? They’re always broken and bad.”
Guardrails, Mr. President. The word you’re looking for is guardrails. Medians are the strips of land between highways. Guardrails are what are used to keep cars from crossing over medians and into oncoming traffic. But you’ve crashed through so many of democracy’s guardrails that we’re not surprised you’re confused by them.
Email Jon Bauer at jon.bauer@heraldnet.com. Follow him on Bluesky @jontbauer.bsky.social.
