Ex-White House Staffer Says Trump Hates 'South Park,' But Not As Much As He Hates The News
Donald Trump seems to love both filing petty lawsuits and rage-posting about pop-culture, be it a late night talk show host or the relationship status of the stars of Twilight.
But the president remains oddly silent about the most recent season of South Park, even though the show regularly portrays him as a petty dictator with genitalia small enough to inseminate Satan.
What’s the deal with Trump’s conspicuous silence on the matter? An online gossip site claimed that Trump is secretly “fuming” about the show and is “is determined to punish” Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Comedian Patton Oswalt recently speculated that perhaps Trump hasn’t lashed out at South Park because it makes big money and gets huge ratings, two things that Trump has historically respected.
Well now, Trump’s former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci just floated his own theory. Scaramucci, who was famously fired by Trump after just 10 days on the job, continues to exploit his 15 minutes of fame for all its worth. Sometimes that means discussing the president in interviews, other times it means starring in the Kirkland Signature version of Shark Tank.
On a recent episode of The Daily Beast Podcast, host Joanna Coles asked Scaramucci about Parker’s recent statement to The New York Times in which he argued that “there’s no getting away” from Trump because politics has become pop-culture.
“I agree with that,” Scaramucci noted. “But that's a cop out by that kid that created South Park. He's trying to give you an alibi.” The 61-year-old went on to explain that the 56-year-old “kid” Parker is “going after Trump with South Park because he hates Trump. He’s trying to expose through humor the hypocrisy and the meanness and the viciousness, but then also this like crazy Christian orthodoxy that doesn’t fit with the lifestyle, right?”
When the interviewer asked Scaramucci about why Trump hasn’t gone on the offensive against South Park like he did with the Paramount-owned CBS News, Scaramucci bluntly responded, “I can explain that. They want to control the news and they care less about the satire.”
“Trump does not find it funny. Trust me, he hates it,” Scaramucci said of South Park. “But his attitude is he wants to go after the news. And if they're putting him on 60 Minutes, and they've muted all of these left-leaning journalists that attack him, that's okay. (But) if they've got some joker make animation videos of him and Vance in bed with each other – which was really funny by the way – what's the big deal?”
While Scaramucci obviously has a point about Trump’s attempt to control the news media, it’s hard to believe that the president doesn’t care at all about satire. In addition to regularly targeting comedians that hurt his feelings, Trump reportedly tried to use the Department of Justice to prevent Saturday Night Live “from making jokes at his expense” during his first term.
And Alec Baldwin’s pouty face wasn’t nearly as harsh as that cartoon micropenis.