Welcome to California, Mr. President. We are Beginning our Final Descent.

Karen Breslau
5 min readMar 12, 2018

On March 13, Donald Trump made his first presidential visit to California, one week — and a political light year — after Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the administration will sue California for interfering with federal immigration laws. Trump labeled Mayor Libby Schaaf of Oakland, where I live, as a “disgrace” for tipping off residents to upcoming immigration raids. As a former White House correspondent for Newsweek, I tagged along on many previous presidential visits to California. They start like this:

Aboard Air Force One — entering California airspace

Are we there yet?

Goddamn Wi-Fi is down. Did Rex get my tweet? Hope’s not here to fix it. That very fine wife beater guy is gone too. They perp-walked my body guy from the White House to the re-elect campaign. General Bossy Pants put Kellyanne on timeout and is making her do a Hatch Act webinar, whatever that is. Melania missed the plane. How does THAT happen?!

What’s with a foreign trip to California, anyway? I want to save myself for Little Rocket Man. Besides, I sent Mr. Magoo out there last week to sue those losers for not policing the border and to grab that refugee-loving Oakland Mayor by the -

Huh? Ok, I’ll fasten my seatbelt. Whatever. Is this when I put on the flak jacket for the corkscrew landing?

I can’t believe that nitwit Jared sent me to Beverly Hills to raise money for 2020. It’s way too Stormy. Why can’t I meet with aluminum workers?

My pocket schedule says, “POTUS stops in Otay Mesa, a San Diego suburb, to view prototypes of border wall. (This will allow OMB to bill the trip as official business, before POTUS proceeds to fundraiser.)

What do those California Whackos want from me, anyway? They got 30 million illegals to FAKE vote for Crooked Hillary. Then that hot commie chick who runs Oakland tips off her MS-13 thugs that ICE agents are coming to round them up and what does Magoo do? He has to stand on tiptoes just so anyone can see him and he says, “How dare you?”

And then she’s all back in his face and then that weirdo Governor Sunbeam starts trashing ME and wanking about climate change and the Russia HOAX. Bad!! They better not be on the tarmac when I get there.

I guess I can thumb through my briefing binder until this crate lands. I like it better since they made it a coloring book. Who runs this shithole country, anyway?

Let’s see, start at the purple porcupine. “Governor Edmund “Jerry” Brown, Jr.” Christ, he looks like someone swapped his Colgate for Preparation H!

“A pioneer in renewable energy policy and urban development, Brown, is a fiscally conservative Democrat who trained as a Jesuit scholar as well as at a Zen monastery. He is the son of former California Governor Edmund “Pat” Brown, Sr., now completing his record fourth term as governor, capping a 50-year career in public service that included stints as mayor, attorney general and a three-time U.S. presidential candidate.”

Since when does California have a swamp I need to drain?

Now, follow the green dinosaur. “Attorney General Xavier Becerra. California’s chief law enforcement officer is the son of Mexican immigrants.” And where was my Beautiful Wall? “Becerra’s father shined shoes and canned tomatoes so that young Xavier could be the first in his family to attend college, before working his way through Stanford Law School.”

OK, so X-rated, or whatever his name is, is making burritos and mowing lawns while going to law school on the side. Magoo knows more about the Constitution than this guy. Or do I have to borrow a copy from that nasty Muslim guy from the Democratic convention?

“California State Senate President pro Tempore Kevin de León is the son of an immigrant housekeeper. He was the first in his family to graduate from high school. Before entering into politics, Senator de León served the public as a community organizer.”

What does being a ‘community organizer’ qualify anyone for?

This isn’t so hard. The blue whale says look here. “California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye is the daughter of migrant farm workers who from came to California from the Philippines.”

That’s where you get to shoot drug dealers.

Oh look, a fun fact just for me: “Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye worked her way through law school as a blackjack dealer in a Reno casino.”

OK, she’s kind of hot.

Now, turn to the orange squirrel, it says. “Californians have elected two women to represent them in the U.S. Senate.” They must be bleeding from their whatevers all the time. “Senator Dianne Feinstein is the daughter of Jewish immigrants from Russia.”

Wait, is that near Norway?

“Senator Kamala Harris is the daughter of an Indian medical researcher and a Jamaican economist who met as graduate students at U.C. Berkeley.”

Some pretty horny radicals, if you ask me!

Hey, I remember these two! The old Jewish one is 95, but she sure perked up at my White House meeting the other day when I pretended I’d take another look at the assault weapons ban she’s been shoving down everyone’s throat since World War II. I saw her on Twitter doing a happy dance in her chair next to me. Disgusting!

And the foxy brown one, wait, what’s this? “Senator Kamala Harris is a freshman, but is widely believed to be preparing for a presidential run in 2020. Many in California consider her ‘the female Obama.’” WTF?!

Next page. “Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom.” Hey, he’s a good-looking white guy with weird hair, super white teeth, a big family business and a passel of kids. Like me! What’s this? “As Mayor of San Francisco in 2004, Newsom ordered the city clerk to issue marriage licenses to homosexual couples, contravening California law at the time.”

Why didn’t they Lock Him Up? Where’s Pence?

Almost done. “California currently has a $6.1 billion budget surplus. In 2011, the state had a $27 billion deficit. The unemployment rate is 4.3 per cent, the lowest it has been since 1976. Last year California posted gains of 366,000 new jobs, accounting for 36% of all U.S. job growth.”

Sound like Fake News to me. Imagine what Trump would have done if those Democrats weren’t such crazy spenders!

Last page is classified Top-Secret (don’t tell Jared!) “Sensitive Content Warning: U.S. History.” Ivanka told me what that means, but I forget.

“During your viewing of the wall, there may be protests. Be advised that many Californians question the ability of the Trump Administration, in particular, its attorney general from Alabama, to competently secure the border where Californians have lived, worked, traveled and traded for centuries. Long before there even was a border.”

How dare they?

How come Putin gets to poison people and I don’t? Watch, it’s going to be like Puerto Rico and I’m going to have to listen to all this, “Sir, these are U.S. citizens, yadda yadda,” before I get to toss them rolls of paper towels. I better fire the State Department pantywaist who wrote this crap. Oh wait, I think I did.

Karen Breslau is a narrative strategist and former White House correspondent for Newsweek. She lives in Oakland.

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Karen Breslau

Relapsing journalist, midlife rebel, home renovation addict.