The year is 2018, and the QVC-grade, cubic zirconium kleptocracy being staged by America’s reality show host turned president, though buffeted by vocal support from Roseanne Barr and Kanye West, faces its most tangible threats in the form of a porn star, the unpaved Ground Zero of Rudy Giuliani’s mouth, and now, Roseanne’s ex-husband, Tom Arnold. As Vice recently announced, Arnold will star in a new investigative series on its cable network, in which the comedian will scour the globe searching for the “pee tape,” as well as other potential smoking, peeing guns from the rumored treasure trove of incriminating Trump videos. Yes, our only hope for salvation from the endless soul-grind of this, our Dumb Civil War, rests almost entirely on the stupid company Donald Trump keeps and the star of The Stupids, and this is what our history books shall record, presumably written in ketchup. What a time to be alive and, preferably, blackout drunk.
In The Hunt For The Trump Tapes With Tom Arnold, Vice says, he’ll “draw on his high-profile network of celebrity friends, entertainment executives, and crew members he’s met over more than 35 years in showbiz to dig for evidence on Trump’s most incriminating moments.” Arnold has hinted at this “evidence” before, saying he’s watched outtakes from The Apprentice where Trump “says every bad thing ever, every offensive, racist thing ever,” even reportedly saying he had those tapes in his personal possession. He later asserted that he couldn’t release them over fear of retaliation against his family and other people who worked on the show, then claimed the footage was sent to him with a “limited time” password.
In short, there is still much hunting to be done for this footage Tom Arnold has been sounding off about for a couple of years now, talking it up as a potentially regime-toppling revelation should he ever decide to put country before caution and selflessly, heroically unearth it. And now it seems that time has come, along with his very own TV show.
Of course, even Arnold has acknowledged that a video of Donald Trump “using the N-word, using the C-word, calling his son retarded” is unlikely to sway his base, for whom that sort of name-calling just means you’ve been released from the politically correct mind prison of not behaving like an eighth-grade asshole. So, as he tells us, Arnold is also seeking a veritable greatest-hits compilation of damning Trump footage: backstage tapes from the Miss Teen USA and Miss Universe pageants; video of Trump and Charles Kushner with “young Russian hookers” in Florida; a tape involving billionaire and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein; what Arnold has called Trump’s “version of the Ray Rice elevator tape;” assorted “Howard Stern tapes;” and, most obviously “The Pee Pee Tape,” essentially the Brian Wilson’s Smile of collector’s-item Trump footage.
While some have suggested not even the sight of Trump glowing like a horny jack-o-lantern while Russian prostitutes pee on a bed is enough to bring an end to this, the noble belief here is that the sheer volume of all this videotaped evidence of Trump, caught behaving like a racist, exploitative sexual predator, will prompt a nationwide moral reckoning that should, uh, really do something this time. Surely this time.
But hey, the investigation into years of deceit and decrepitude from the highest echelons of American power doesn’t have to be all serious! As Vice reminds of Arnold’s show, “being a comedian and all, he’ll have a little fun along the way.” Because why shouldn’t this little sideshow tent lit by the ashy embers of dulled public outrage, presided over by the guy from True Lies, also show us a fun time while it’s kind of, sort of attempting to legitimize those longstanding allegations that our president is morally corrupt? The year is 2018 and the search for some semblance of normality is now on par with the hunt for ghosts and Bigfoot. Grab some snacks.