(This “Saudi” article is Part-1 in a series. For “Saudi” Part-2, click here.)
Three days ago, Donald Trump, riding in the back of a limo inside the sprawling grounds of his Palm Beach Mar-a-Lago resort, reached for his car phone and called Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto head of state of Saudi Arabia.
I’ve been expecting your call, Donald.
Mo, how are you?
No complaints. Still pushing that crazy vaccine of yours?
I was just reading a Wikipedia page and thought of you, Mo. Listen to this. “On May 20, 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia's Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud signed a series of letters of intent for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to purchase arms from the United States totaling US$110 billion immediately, and $350 billion over 10 years. The intended purchases include tanks, combat ships, missile defense systems, as well as radar, communications, and cybersecurity technology.”
You offered, Donald, and we paid. Value for value. But I’m guessing you want a favor now.
As President, I didn’t have to make that arms deal, Mo. But I did. Because of our long-standing friendship. And what you paid didn’t even put a small dent in the Saudi Investment Fund.
Well, Donald, we did invest in your son-in-law’s start-up. Remember that.
Yeah. Anyway, I see you’ve made some strong moves with this new LIV Golf Tour of yours. Did you really pay Phil Mickelson 200 million just to sign on?
Ballpark figure, yes. And Dustin Johnson. We wrote him a check for 125 mill. We offered Tiger Woods 900 million, but he turned us down.
Tiger’s car accident must have scrambled his brain.
You want in, Donald?
You bet. I want to host a few of your tournaments. I’m prepared to build a new golf course on one of the Florida Keys. I’m calling it The Island Miracle.
Sounds interesting.
Meanwhile, I’m thinking my courses in Dubai and Aberdeen would be perfect for your events.
Well, there’s a problem. The whole point of this new golf venture is papering over our human rights record. Half of America thinks you’re a racist and a woman hater. You don’t mesh with our agenda.
And you don’t mesh with American values, Mo. You guys murdered that dissident journalist, Khashoggi. You give out lashes to women accused of adultery when they’re actually raped. Not a sterling record, kiddo. But let’s not get into accusations. The point is, I’ve got lots of ideas on how you can parlay this golf tour into something fantastic. And I’ve got the PR pros who can make your dreams materialize.
Is that right? Still blowing smoke after all these years?
For example, suppose you create a women’s golf tour.
You’re kidding, right?
You offer the pro women golfers big-time money to join your tour, and you prove you’re serious by bankrolling women’s rights groups and LBGT groups.
I’m not sure we can do that.
Of course you can.
How?
You write checks and you keep writing checks. People will show up. Women will come on board. Gradually. For every dollar you pay out to players on the women’s golf tour, you donate a dollar to women’s rights.
My people here at home would go crazy. They’d tear me to pieces.
Not if you write THEM big enough checks. Spend half your Investment Fund if you have to. You can always build it back up again.
So you’re suddenly a social reformer, Donald?
I’m a businessman, Mo. You want credibility in the West, I’m telling you how to get it.
You’re overestimating the power of the dollar, Donald. My country is full of people who’ll never give in. They live in another century.
Here’s the secret, Mo. All these Western groups who are shouting and screaming for recognition and power and trying to cancel anybody who disagrees with them? They’ve overreached. Their day is coming to an end. Regular people aren’t going to support them. It’s all going to die a slow agonizing death. So your money won’t make any difference. But while these movements last, climb on the bandwagon. Show your support. Change your image.
Well, you’ve given me something to think about.
And meanwhile, schedule a few golf tournaments at my courses.
I’ll think about that, too.
I’m going to send you a short list of women influencers, Mo. You write them each a check for, say, 30 million, and pledge a hundred million more to their favorite causes, and let’s see what happens.
You think they’ll walk through the door and give us some props?
Money moves mountains, Mo. You know, I suggested that slogan to the 3M Corporation years ago. They wouldn’t take me up on it.
Trump. He never stops dealing.
Life is a series of deals. You win, you lose, but if you keep making new deals, you stay ahead of the hounds snapping at your heels.
You’re a riverboat gambler.
I’m just a guy who’s talking right now to an old friend, and I’ll say whatever I have to, to get him to schedule a tour event at one of my golf courses.
Right back at you, Donald. I’m just a guy talking to an old friend, too. And I always say whatever I have to, to get what I want.
We’re two old hustlers working the street.
Trump clicked off and put the phone back in the cradle.
—The limo moved slowly through the acreage of Mar-a-Lago. Trump sat back and looked out the window. He thought, “The curtain is coming down on this country. Unless somebody does something, it’s coming all the way down.”
He imagined crowds of angry people in streets screaming at him. He imagined crowds at outdoor arenas cheering wildly for him.
He closed his eyes and dozed off.
A dream spread out before him.
He was sitting in a conference room at the end of a long table. His friend Mo was at the other end briefing an assassination team, who were about to embark on a short trip, to take out the dissident journalist, Khashoggi.
And then for a minute, Trump BECAME the Crown Prince, Mo. He was giving instructions to his assassination team. He felt robes of power around him. The room opened up and he was outdoors. Money was radiating in the earth and sky. It was hammering men into submission. It was an engine in his belly.
The trillions of dollars in the Saudi Investment Fund were nothing. Nothing, that came into existence only through his blood.
It was an arrangement.
It was a corporate adjustment in accounting books.
It was a fabrication that reminded him of the US Federal Reserve.
It was soaring above him, vanishing into the sky.
There was no money. No money at all.
There was only a period of waiting, waiting for a man to snap his fingers. And then the money would appear again.
Now he was sitting in a small, dingy, dirty cellar apartment. He was sitting at a small table, and a book of blank pages was open before him. An old priest was standing at his side. The priest was going to tell him what to write on the page. And then there would be money.
He flinched. He was startled. He heard voices from an adjoining apartment. He couldn’t make out what they were saying. It was a family. They were arguing.
Soldiers came into the room. He didn’t recognize their uniforms. One of the soldiers gestured to him and he stood up.
The soldier said, “We’re building a prison for you.”
The prison would be built out of long lost money, money from history moved forward from a great crime. His prison cell would look like the Pope’s car, and it would float from city to city across the world, and he would sit in it and raise his hand to crowds. Crowds programmed to love or hate him.
He was taken by the soldiers to a construction site. Workers were scaling a tower. He stood there and watched.
The site was in the desert. Planes were flying low and dropping large bags that thumped into sand dunes. He ran to a dune and lifted a bag and it opened and thousands of letters spilled out.
He sat down and started reading them. They were from soldiers and civilians who were about to die in a war. They were writing to their loved ones.
He saw an envelope. He reached for it. He opened the letter.
“Dear Mr. President, I’m a girl they would have called a flower of youth in the old days. I was given a vaccine, and now I’m sitting alone in my room trying to understand what happened to my brain. I’m still very smart, inside, where I’m writing this, but I can’t speak. For some reason, I don’t want to look at people or touch them. You were there, in your apartment in New York, and you decided you would investigate what happened to me and countless other children, but then you let go of the idea. I can see the money that moved from offices to companies who make these injections. This is war money…”
He opened his hands and stared at them.
He heard a phone buzzing.
He picked it up.
“Hello, Donald?” the voice said. “I’ve been thinking about your ideas. Getting women involved might work. Getting EVERYBODY involved who needs something, who wants something. The money is unimportant. We can always get more. But if we just keep paying it out, people will support us. Anyone who has a cause, a need, we pay. It doesn’t matter what it is. We just keep pouring money into the world. More and more every day. Money keeps people on our side.”
And then everything was quiet.
Trump had never heard a quiet like this.
It was dawn. He was looking at a summer green golf course laid out in the sunrise. The leaves on the trees were filled with dew. Not one drop was falling. A few players were standing at the first tee. They were absolutely still.
They were waiting. They would never play unless money arrived.
-- Jon Rappoport
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