Chapter 42
President Strump was unaccustomed to the shock and humiliation he felt when his Secretary of Defense, Attorney General, and a general refused to follow his orders. He looked around the empty Oval Office and questioned the loyalty of everyone who worked for him.
This lens is a godsend. Now I can see who is lying to me.
He pressed the button on his phone and summoned his personal secretary. The president was many things, some good, some bad. He considered everything he did to be good, because whatever he did was the best decision. He was perfect—at least he considered himself such.
“Ms. Waterhose, I am wearing a special contact lens that lets me read people’s thoughts.”
“How is that possible, Mr. President?” she said.
As usual, you are full of crap. I’ve had enough of your insanity, and your leering, lying, bullying, and bullshit, you creepy degenerate, disgrace of a human being.
“You’re fired, you non-believing, confused, bitch.”
Ms. Waterhose made no effort to hide her glee from the second most powerful person in the world. She collected her things from her desk and left the White House.
Every person that the president had talked to since he put in the thought-reading contact lens had been fired.
The president called his Chief of Staff, Chet Jeffries, into the Oval Office.
“Use any means necessary to find two guys, Jon Stone and Gary Danders. Call the Secretary of Defense’s aide and find out the particulars.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Guess what? I am wearing a special contact lens that lets me read people’s thoughts.”
One of the aspects of the chief of staff’s job is to tell the president when he is wrong. With this president, Jeffries phrased his comments such that the president’s hare-brained ideas were rephrased to emphasize the opposite of what was said. Once when Strump tweeted that President Putin of Russia was the ‘best friend anyone could have’, Jeffries had to explain how 99.9% of earth’s people would interpret the remarks, and he tweeted that the president meant ‘in a fight’, not that Strump supported a thug. The president didn’t care if Putin was a thug or not. He loved him. He threw the chief of staff a bone by letting him post that “clarifying” tweet. Unfortunately, the only times Jeffries got to discuss how the president should get his message across was after the message was out.
“You already know what I’m thinking, Mister President, without the lens. Seriously, there is such a thing?”
The president was happy. He saw that Jeffries’ remarks were what Jeffries was thinking.
“I’m glad I don’t have to fire you. Even I need someone to talk to. Maybe it’s an emotional thing, I don’t know. To have someone to listen to you is a basic human need. The thing is, I don’t care what you think about anything I say, because what I say is always correct. I just like to have someone hear it. And don’t think for one minute that I give a shit about what anyone has to say to me, because they are always wrong, unless they agree with me. I know these things because I am the chosen one.”
Jeffries knew the president believed these things, so his thoughts did not belie his words.
“You are always correct, Mr. President, except when you are too correct for the rest of the world and you have to clarify by retraction, like the comment about Mr. Putin being the best friend anyone could have. Remember that?”
The president liked this guy.
“You’re cool. But as far as I know, no one else in my administration is. Do you think I should interview all of the Cabinet members to find out their true loyalties?”
“No, Mr. President, I don’t. First, none of them have displayed disloyalty to you. Maybe not everyone agrees in total all the time, but that’s human nature. Not everyone has your infallible ability to think correctly. Besides, the people in your administration are puppets; at the slightest hint of disagreement or disloyalty you get rid of them.”
The president, in spite of his gift of intellectual perfection, was an emotional, insecure man.
“Whatever, I still want to interview them. Set things up. Today. I want to see them today. All of them.”
“The Secretary of State is in South Korea for what you called ‘crucial talks’ when you sent him there yesterday. Shall I have him stop what he’s doing and come home?”
“No. Yes. No. Yes. No.”
“I’ll take care of it, Mr. President.”
“Yes.”