Self-obsessed xenophobe and human falafel ball Donald Trump tweeted out a picture today in celebration of Cinco De Mayo, featuring himself eating a Mexican taco bowl from Trump Café. (As Vox has already noted, a previous review from Eater calls the “tacos fiesta” meal option “so devoid of flavor, it rendered an insult to Mexicans every bit as profound as Trump’s previous pronouncements.”) Of course, Trump incorrectly claimed the food was from Trump Tower Grill, not the Café, because he can’t even bite into refried beans without managing to blur the truth somehow.
Still, a tweet from Trump is both a Pavlovian bell for inside-the-beltway media pundits to begin furiously cranking out the latest think-pieces on what this means, and a trigger for internet fun. The latter got a big boost from Benny Johnson, as the creative director for Independent Journal discovered a delightfully weird piece of pop-culture detritus just beneath the Donald’s latest insult to Mexico.
Let’s just zoom in on these photos, shall we? Ahem:
Hmm, that does look suspicious. Enhance:
Wait. Is that seriously a picture of his ex-wife in a bikini? The woman he divorced almost 17 years ago? That can’t still be on his desk randomly, can it?
We guess it can be, actually.
There are all sorts of questions raised by this, but frankly, here at The A.V. Club, our pop-culture radar was much more attuned to this photo of Trump tweeted out fewer than 48 hours earlier by Patrick Cotnoir:
This is the real mystery. What sort of Trump-Dinosaur alliance was discussed at this table? Is Maples secretly signaling Earl for help? Did the giant-sized food offend Trump and his Muppet Baby-sized hands? Is… is that why Dinosaurs was cancelled? Washington media, we know we usually criticize you for your hilariously overabundant coverage of one of the most absurd presumed Republican front-runners in American history, but you dropped the ball on this one. A Trump-Sinclair conspiracy is afoot, one that—should the election go Trump’s way—can rightfully be called “a nefarious plot that goes right to the highest office in Washington.” Get to work. In the meantime, we’ll let Nathan Fielder have the last word.
(UPDATE: Sorry, Nathan, but Timothy Burke, editor at Deadspin, has cracked the code: The picture of Maples discussed below is from a recent People magazine spread all about The Donald. So, while it’s not exactly news that Trump spends his time reading stories about himself in People, it’s definitely still hilarious.)