Tag: Andy Borowitz

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Reaching the opposite conclusion of many of their committee peers, Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee said on Tuesday that the Japanese did not meddle in the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. “After an exhaustive investigation, we have come to the conclusion that there was no attempt by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service to influence the outcome of Pearl Harbor,” Rep. Mike Conaway, a Republican of Texas, said. “Any suggestion to the contrary amounts to nothing more or less than a witch hunt.” Conaway said that while there were Japanese bombers in the vicinity of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, their role in the attack there has been “blown out of proportion.” “Is it possible that some of their planes were flying in places they shouldn’t have flown and dropping some things that they shouldn’t have dropped, by accident?” Conaway said. “Absolutely. Does that prove that there was intent to meddle in Pearl Harbor? Absolutely not.” The House Republican praised his fellow G.O.P. committee members for “finally putting the controversy of Pearl Harbor to rest.” “December 7, 1941, is a day that will live in a big misunderstanding,” he said.

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Furious about her treatment on the CBS news-magazine program on Sunday night, Betsy DeVos spoke to reporters on Monday, and called “60 Minutes” a “total waste of a half hour.” “I had never watched ‘60 Minutes’ before, but I can tell you this, I will never watch it again,” the Education Secretary said. “I have better things to do with a half hour of my time.” Calling her interviewer, Lesley Stahl, a practitioner of “gotcha journalism at its worst,” DeVos said that it was “very unfair of her to ask me so many questions about education.” “She asked me one thing about schools, and then another, and another,” she said. “If I had to answer every question she had about schools, I would have had to bone up on education for a month.” DeVos said that she was “frustrated” that Stahl neglected to ask her about any of her “really good ideas” for the nation’s schools, such as “purchasing guns for teachers with money that is currently being wasted on books.” “If a bear comes into your classroom, throwing a book at him will only stun him momentarily, at best,” DeVos said.

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Just days after losing his top security clearance at the White House, Jared Kushner could soon be eligible to enter another high-security government facility, legal experts believe. According to Davis Logsdon, a law professor at the University of Minnesota, Kushner could be on the verge of obtaining “long-term clearance” at this separate facility, which, like the White House, is owned and operated by the federal government. Logsdon said that, although such a facility lacks some of the prestige of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Kushner would have access to government benefits there that far exceed what he has received as an unpaid adviser at the White House. “All of his meals and housing would be fully paid for by the taxpayer,” Logsdon said. “And, if things play out the way some believe they will, Jared Kushner could be receiving these benefits for decades to come.” While gaining entry to another government facility so soon after losing security clearance at the White House would represent an extraordinary comeback for Kushner, it would not come without a price, the law professor warned. “Jared Kushner might have to put his plans to bring peace to the Middle East on hold,” he said.

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—The White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said on Wednesday that she was organizing a “Million Liars March” to support her co-worker Hope Hicks. Calling on “American liars from every walk of life” to march, Sanders said that she had already received commitments from hundreds of liars in the White House, the Cabinet, and Congress. “These people realize what’s at stake,” she said. “It’s not just Hope Hicks’s career—it’s the lying life style itself.” “White lies like Hope’s were the lies of a promising beginner,” she said. “If Hope had been allowed to grow as liar, I have no doubt that someday she could have been as consistent a dispenser of ginormous whoppers as I am.” She said that, if Hope Hicks is villainized, “where will the next generation of liars come from?” Sanders said that the Million Liars March would address other issues of importance to the nation’s liars, such as a ban on lie detectors and a mandatory waiting period before statements can be fact-checked. At the end of her announcement, Sanders appeared to choke back tears as she swore loyalty to her embattled colleague. “I believe in the mendacity of Hope,” she said.

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a moment of high drama at the White House on Tuesday morning, Donald J. Trump dove under his desk after a can of Diet Coke opened with an unexpectedly loud sound. Moments earlier, Trump had pressed a button on his desk, summoning Vice-President Mike Pence to the Oval Office to serve him the frosty beverage. According to one aide, when Pence opened the can, it made “an unusually loud noise,” sending Trump ducking under his desk in a millisecond. At a news conference, minutes later, the press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, attempted to tamp down speculation that Trump had acted in a cowardly manner during the Diet Coke incident. “The President prudently repositioned himself under his desk in an aggressive crouch,” she said. “He was ready for anything.” Pence agreed with her assessment. “The President was putting himself in a position where, if need be, he could defend the entire country against an attack,” he said. “I, for one, am honored to serve a man of such valor.” The White House physician, Ronny Jackson, also had high praise for Trump. “He has the ability to flee a loud noise of a man half his age,” the doctor said.

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Shortly after he declared that he would have run into a Florida high school unarmed to thwart a mass shooting, Donald J. Trump announced that he was planning a parade in Washington, D.C., to celebrate his hypothetical act of heroism. “Anyone can act with bravery in the moment,” Trump told reporters in the White House. “But it takes a very special kind of hero to tell people about the incredibly brave thing he would have done weeks after the thing happened.” He added that it was one of his greatest regrets that bone spurs prevented him from serving in the Vietnam War, “because the really courageous things I would have done during that war would have been off the charts.” “As soon as the Tet Offensive happened, I would have run unarmed right into that mess,” he said. “We probably would have won the war right after I did that.” Trump said that the parade he was ordering would honor not only him but all of America’s “last responders.” According to a new poll, Trump’s assertion that he would have run into the Florida high school unarmed was believed by his daughter Ivanka.

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—With Jared Kushner losing his top security clearance, Donald J. Trump is concerned that there will be no one to read classified documents aloud to him anymore, White House aides have confirmed. The aides, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Kushner’s recitation of top-secret documents had become something of a bedtime ritual for Trump. “Jared would kind of tuck him in and then start reading aloud a document about, say, North Korea’s nuclear program or whatnot,” one aide said. “It got to be something that the President would look forward to.” Whenever Kushner was away on business trips to the United Arab Emirates, China, or other foreign countries, other members of the White House staff would try to fill in for him at bedtime, but Trump would always petulantly reject them. “He’d be, like, ‘You’re no good. I want Jared,’ ” the aide said. According to the aide, Kushner had a “special way” of reading classified documents to Trump, “very slowly and leaving out any long words.” “He’d read in kind of a high, whispery voice that the President found soothing,” the aide said. “Within seconds, he was fast asleep.”

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Donald J. Trump was reportedly “furious” on Wednesday morning after a purge of right-wing bots by Twitter left him with a total of fourteen remaining followers, aides have confirmed. Rising at 3 A.M. to engage in one of his trademark early-morning tweetstorms, Trump was incensed to discover that his Twitter following had plummeted from more than forty-eight million to a little more than a dozen. At Twitter headquarters, in San Francisco, a company spokesman confirmed that Trump had indeed lost 48,076,920 followers in the bot purge. “It turned out that over forty-six million of the President’s followers came from a single troll farm in Macedonia,” the spokesman said. As of Wednesday, Trump’s fourteen remaining Twitter followers included his daughter Ivanka; his sons Eric and Donald, Jr.; several White House aides; and someone named Heinrich Himmler III. “We’re praying that Heinrich is a real person,” a White House aide said. “The President can’t afford to lose another follower.”

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a televised event that many deemed unnecessarily cruel, millions of Americans were briefly reminded on Monday that they once had a President. Unsuspecting Americans who turned on cable news Monday morning were suddenly assaulted with the memory of a time when the country’s domestic affairs, international diplomacy, and nuclear codes were entrusted to an adult. CNN, one of the networks that televised the event, immediately said that it regretted doing so, and acknowledged that reminding Americans that they recently had a President had caused widespread bereavement and distress. “CNN deeply apologizes for the error,” a network statement read. “It will never happen again.” Compounding the cruelty of the televised event, the networks lingered unnecessarily on a speech that only served to remind viewers that the nation once had a President who rigorously obeyed rules of grammar and diction. Finally, the reminder that the country recently had a chief executive who loved and respected his wife was deemed “too much” by many viewers, who felt compelled to change the channel. “It was horrible,” Carol Foyler, a viewer who was traumatized by the broadcast, said. “It’s like when you stumble on a photo of an ex on Facebook and they unfortunately look amazing.”

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—The Pentagon has turned down Donald J. Trump’s request for a grand military parade in Washington, D.C., citing a sudden outbreak of bone spurs that would prevent men and women in uniform from participating. Harland Dorrinson, a Pentagon spokesman, said that, within an hour of Trump’s request, more than a hundred thousand military personnel complained that they were suffering from acute cases of bone spurs that would make marching in such a parade a painful ordeal. “In the history of the U.S. military, we have never experienced a bone-spur epidemic of this magnitude,” the spokesman said. “Regrettably, however, we have no choice but to issue thousands of deferments.” A statement from the bone-spur sufferers said that they would continue to valiantly serve their country around the world in a non-marching capacity, and offered an alternative to their participation in Trump’s proposed pageant. “President Trump is welcome to march in the parade all by himself if he would finally like to enlist,” the statement read.