WASHINGTON – Comedy experts have been placed on red alert following the surprise candidacy announcement of Donald Trump, upon whom America depleted its entire stockpile of Trump-related jokes, sketches, and zingers during the 2012 campaign.
“The last Trump candidacy was touch-and-go until the end,” said said General Amos Stryker of the United States Department of Jokes. In a hurried press conference outside the DOJ office, he elaborated: “With the birth certificate demands, the use of his presidential campaign to promote his reality show, the just, just pointedly terrible hair–we had to throw everything we had at him to meet the threat. In September 2012 there were approximately 53,909,752 unique Trump jokes told in the US alone–that’s over 20 jokes per second.”
He added, exasperated, “How do you make another joke about his hair? We did all of them.”
Historians recall the valiant efforts of America’s joking forces in neutralizing the Trump menace through a sustained barrage of non-stop, laugh-out-loud hilarious jokes. This volume was made possible by Donald Trump’s own cartoonishly outsized personality, utter disdain for facts, lack of self awareness, and clown-like personal appearance. President Obama himself even pitched into the joke effort, rolling up his sleeves and delivering several critical and devastating jokes to Trump himself at the 2011 White House Correspondent’s Dinner.
Although the surge of Trump jokes appeared to have neutralized the reality show star, his recent threats to run again reveal he has been merely laying dormant since his 2012 defeat. “We thought our 2012 strategy had extinguished the threat for good, but it is clear now that our victory only gave rise to further unrest in the Trump camp, paving the way for an even more terrible uprising.”
Humor experts concur that Trump has timed his announcement strategically, so as best to disrupt the American comedy landscape. “He waited until we were most vulnerable,” said General Stryker. “Letterman is finished, with Colbert months away. SNL is on summer hiatus – heck, even Jon Stewart will be gone in August. Who do you think’s gonna protect us, Kimmel? Fallon?”
“The sick bastard knew exactly when to hit us.”
Facing an unprecedented shortage of new, viable Donald Trump jokes to weaponize, the DOJ has announced Scrap Joke Drives, where Americans will be asked to write their own Donald Trump jokes on scraps of paper and donate them in their hometown square. “Normally we counsel compassion and understanding for everyone,” explained drive organizer Mary Wallin, a deacon at Albany Presbyterian Church. “However we truly believe that giving our all to humiliate Donald Trump is exactly what Jesus would do if he were here.”
In addition, the DOJ will be calling on independent joke contractors such as the renowned Blackwater Improv Troupe, and experimenting with new alternative forms of jokes. Unnamed sources in the DOJ have suggested that military brass will consider using “nuclear option jokes” – lampooning not just Trump’s “cotton candy machine hair”, but all men’s hairstyles in a “scorched Earth” offensive.
Despite the dire situation, Stryker’s tone was firm and resolute as he concluded the conference. “He launched a vodka line and we thought we were out of jokes. He became Muammar Quaddafi’s landlord and we thought we were out of jokes. And now, he announces plans promise to build a “great, great wall” to keep out “Mexican rapists”–and will we run out of jokes? No, I say, we will not!”
