Although he’s been stripped of his intergalactic overlord powers, i.e., he was “inspired” to sell the pageant after landing in hot water, Donald Trump is still emotionally invested in the Miss Universe proceedings. The proto-Biff Tannen (and hateful answer to the question no one asked) watched the 2015 ceremony on Sunday night, which saw host Steve Harvey erroneously proclaim Miss Colombia, Ariadna Gutierrez, the winner of this year’s title. But Harvey, who was possibly drunk on power after finding his way out of backwater Family Feuds and his own rambling talk show, was very, very wrong. After declaring Gutierrez the winner, Harvey was pulled aside by producers, who then sent him back on stage to clarify his error and name the correct winner, Miss Philippines Pia Wurtzbach. Naturally, the cringe-inducing moment has been saved and shared for posterity.
Harvey took full responsibility for his gaffe, telling the shrieking crowd that he’d read Gutierrez’s name, which was listed as first runner-up, by mistake. Then Gutierrez stood onstage with as much dignity as could be mustered in a scene that wouldn’t have been out of place in Miss Congeniality as the crown was removed from her head and placed on Wurtzbach’s while everyone else scrambled to salvage the event’s remaining dignity. Harvey later botched his Twitter apology, misspelling the names of both of the countries involved in the snafu, and probably went to bed wondering how he’d bounce back from this.
Well lucky for Harvey, Trump just happened to follow up his Democratic debate-denouncing to presumably hate-watch his former pageant, and he’s come up with a solution that he was all too happy to share with Today host Matt Lauer on Monday morning. First and foremost, Trump noted that this blunder would never have happened on his watch, presumably because he intends to keep our nation’s beauty contests safe. Trump thinks the people of Colombia are probably “devastated” by the pageant’s take-backsies, so he’s suggesting that Gutierrez and Wurtzbach share the title just this once. “I would recommend that they have a beautiful ceremony, which is good for the brand and Miss Universe, and do a co-winner, and I think something like that can work,” Trump told Lauer, in a move that probably did not reveal his intentions for the presidency should we see a repeat of previous presidential election controversies. But “co-Commanders-In-Chief” certainly has a nice ring to it.
[h/t USA Today]