A sneak preview of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s visit this afternoon to the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor …
Hello, Bangor, Maine! Great city … great city. Portland? Not so much. But Bangor? I love you people. I mean it. You’re terrific!
So I want to thank my good friend Governor Paul LePage for being here today. That’s right … c’mon up here, Paul. This guy is my kind of people, don’t you agree?
(Wild applause.)
In fact … in fact … I might just have to steal Governor LePage from you once I start putting together my Trump administration. I have big plans for this guy, I’m telling you, big plans.
Tell me if I’m wrong, but I’m thinking Paul LePage would make an excellent Secretary of Discount Shopping, don’t you agree? Am I right? I mean not everyone can afford Trump wine and Trump steaks, and if my buddy Paul knows one thing, it’s how to Make America Great Again on the cheap. So whaddya say, Paul? You on board?
(LePage salutes and takes a deep bow. The crowd roars.)
So I’m driving in here this afternoon and I see this huge, I mean huge, statue of Paul Bunyan sitting there outside and I’m thinking these people up here in Maine, they have a lot in common with me. They like to think big, am I right?
Now, we recently hired a campaign researcher and he tells me that unfortunately, there’s more to this Paul Bunyan guy than he let on back in the day. And if it weren’t for me, Donald Trump, you people would go right on thinking Paul Bunyan is some kind of All-American hero like John Wayne or Ronald Reagan or me, Donald Trump.
Well, folks, here’s the real deal. My campaign has it on good authority that Paul Bunyan was not born here in Maine.
(The audience gasps. In the back, a few people start to boo. Trump holds up both hands.)
No, no. It’s true. And he wasn’t born in Minnesota or Michigan, either.
(More booing.)
The truth is … the truth is … that Paul Bunyan snuck over the Canadian border when he was a 10-year-old kid and passed himself off for a couple of years as a high school varsity basketball player at, what was it here, Valley High School in Bingham. Then he got so big that the other schools finally got suspicious and demanded to see his birth certificate. That’s when they found out he was an illegal … French … Canadian … alien!
(The crowd lapses into stunned silence. “No!” calls a teenage girl high in the VIP section.)
So what does Bunyan do? He heads for the woods and starts chopping down trees with one swing, using logs for toothpicks and rescuing little babies from floods until everyone forgets about the birth certificate and starts treating him like some kind of hero. Kind of like Obama, only Bunyan’s a white guy, which is a good thing because he’s in Maine and big black guys don’t go over too well up here in Maine because all they do is impregnate white girls – am I right, Governor LePage?
(LePage, nodding emphatically, gives a thumbs-up. Trump reaches into his jacket pocket, pulls out a sheet of paper and waves it in the air.)
I have it right here, folks. The birth certificate. Paul Bunyan was born Lucky LaChance in St.-Joseph-de-Beauce, Quebec. My people are handing out copies as I speak.
(Murmurs ripple through the audience as copies of the birth certificate, stamped “100 percent authentic,” circulate throughout the auditorium. Reporters in the press pen hunch over their laptops, furiously Googling “Paul Bunyan” and “St.-Joseph-de-Beauce.”)
So it looks like we’re going to need another wall. But because the Canadians, to the best of my knowledge, are not all rapists and murderers like the Mexicans, I’m not going to make them build it.
I’m told you have fabulous forests right here in Maine, I mean fabulous. So what we’re going to do … what we’re going to do … is take down a bunch of those trees – starting with the state and federal parks because the timber there is absolutely terrific, absolutely terrific – and put you people to work putting up your own log wall between Maine and Canada.
And I’m not just talking any wall, folks. I’m talking a wall so tall that not even Paul Bunyan can get over it!
(A small disturbance breaks out in a far corner of the auditorium. The crowd begins to chant, “Trump! Trump! Trump!”)
Oh, boy. Look what we got now. My people told me they might be busing the Crooked Hillary crowd up from Portland and sure enough … GET ‘EM OUTTA HERE! Don’t hurt them, now, they’re Mainers too …
Say what? I stand corrected. Governor LePage tells me Portland is actually in Northern Massachusetts, which just goes to show that even Donald Trump learns something new every day … Yeah, right. I love you too, Portland. GET ‘EM OUTTA HERE!
So what was I talking about? Oh yeah, golf.
So I’m flying up here in my Trump jet and I’m looking down at all of your terrific trees and your fantastic coastline and I’m saying to myself … because I’m really the only person I like to listen to … I’m saying, “Why don’t they have more golf courses up here?”
Now, if you’re a conventional thinker – meaning if you’re a loser – you’re going to say it’s because Maine is too cold to support a year-round golf industry.
But if you believe in global warming like I do – meaning if you look at something catastrophic and instinctively find ways to make money off it – you know that it won’t be long before Maine is the new South Carolina, that I can tell you.
So here’s my promise to you, Bangor. If Scotland can get a new, fabulous, first-class Trump golf resort, so can you!
(The crowd rises to its feet, cheering.)
If Arizona and Texas can get a wall, so can you!
(“Make America Great” hats wave in the air.)
If Donald Trump can handle the truth about Paul Bunyan, then so can you!
(“Trump! Trump! Trump!”)
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! God bless you, Maine, and God bless Donald Trump!
Bill Nemitz can be contacted at:
bnemitz@pressherald.com
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