Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

President Trump has tweeted that, among other things he’s best at, he is ‘the greatest hostage negotiator in the history of the United States’. He was supposedly quoting his special envoy for hostages, but then there was no record of the envoy ever voicing this precise opinion, so it was really just the usual Trump boasting. But that doesn’t mean he’s wrong. Trump really does seem to care about hostages. He certainly likes the Oval Office photo ops with Americans he’s helped to free, bathing in their gratitude and nodding along to the stream of compliments that such visits guarantee. He seems willing to do a deal with almost anyone, even ‘shithole countries’.

There are a few scenes from the Trump presidency which belong in the pantheon of great American political imagery. There is of course Kanye West donning Trump’s trademark red MAGA hat for an Oval Office meeting. There is President Trump posing delightfully in front of a long dining table with every kind of fast food imaginable, like a presidential Willy Wonka, as he welcomes the Clemson Tigers football team with their Golden Tickets. And today, the American public and the world were (finally) introduced to Conan, the United States special forces Belgian Malinois credited with chasing down Isis mastermind Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, outside the White House.

Bright eyes, burning like fire Bright eyes, how can you close and fail? How can the light that burned so brightly Suddenly burn so pale? Bright eyes. It seems poignant that this was the song playing on my Spotify playlist when I watched Donald Trump’s vulgar and insensitive speech announcing the tragic probable death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. It’s so like Trump to find the death of a minority something to celebrate. ‘Something very big has just happened!’ he had tweeted an hour before, in the same way a child would announce to their parents they’d gone poopy in their potty for the first time. I dared to hope that perhaps he had accidentally impeached himself, but no such good fortune was to be forthcoming.