It is too early to say whether Zohran Mamdani will fill the void left by Jeffrey Epstein and become Donald Trump’s closest friend, but 69 post-coital thoughts will be registered here:

1)  Unlike Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who was turned off by what she called their “bromance,” I am intrigued because it was the first time the FCC apparently permitted oral sex on broadcast TV;

2)  Only the stupid were surprised these two got along so well;

3)  Those, i.e., the stupid, were discussed in HL 193 “Votes for Trump and AOC? Of Course” 11/18/2024;

4)  Donald and Zohran reported discussing a store on Hillside Avenue in Queens where Trump’s dad shopped, most likely while on his way to a Klan rally;

5)  The boys should have invited Sean Combs and made it a threesome, especially after accusations by Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones against Diddy recently surfaced;

6)  They also should have invited Vance;

7)  Which one?

8)  Both;

9)  Why?;

10)  J.D. because he also frequently fellates Trump publicly;

11)  And Cy, because but for him Trump would likely be in jail – See HL 132 “Cy Vance – Yer So Bad” 3/20/2021;

12)  Trump told the press that Mamdani had defeated “smart people”;

13)  He was referring to Andrew Cuomo, Eric Adams and Curtis Sliwa;

14)  Andrew was really smart for thinking he could win a Democratic primary five years after quitting his job as governor;

15)  Andrew is even smarter for not noticing how well that worked for Eliot Spitzer, who also got clobbered in a citywide primary five years after he quit his job as governor;

16)  And whiz kid Eric Adams, who threw away his career for some Turkish Towels & Taffy;

17)  Curtis Sliwa looks especially “smart” in his Raspberry Beret – “the kind you find in a second-hand store”;

18)  A trio of really smart people, both individually and collectively;

19)  Not merely doubly but triply smart because they ignored the fact that one of them might have won had the other two dropped out and endorsed early;

20)  A highlight of the Trump/Mamdani press avail was their mention of Jessica Tisch.  Trump praised her and Mamdani confirmed she would stay on as NYPD Commissioner;

21)  To induce Jessica to stay on Mamdani had to further distance himself from his “defund the police” mantra;

22)  Trump understands and explained campaign 180s with reference to Elise Stefanik (Kathy Hochul, who Stefanik is trying to unseat, calls them “evolutions”);

23)  Stefanik is conducting her campaign to unseat Hochul using a Mamdani is a Jihadist punchline;

24)  Trump is turning on Stefanik, though not as overtly as he just turned on what’s her name from Georgia;

25)  Oh yes, Marjorie Taylor Greene, soon to join George Santos in the Republican House alumni association.  Trump actually started to sabotage Stefanik early this year by withdrawing her nomination for U.N. ambassador;

26)  But back to Tisch, with Mamdani not only giving the NYPD a “refund” but abandoning his promise to replace thousands of cops with social workers;

27)  In doing that he rejected The Jets recommendation to NYPD Officer Krupke in West Side Story[1], maybe because he discovered that Bernstein, Sondheim and Robbins were all Jewish;

28)  Mamdani is also promising to keep the NYPD headcount at 35K;

29)  Causing me to wonder how many more about faces and umbrella steps he will make to keep Jessica as Police Commissioner;

30)  Mamdani’s fancy footwork impressed Trump;

31)  Being of an age it did not impress but reminded me of Gerald Ford’s first press avail as President, when to calm the public he told us that Henry Kissinger would stay on as Secretary of State;

32)  The Tisch retention reveals that Mamdani is walking away from and eating much more of his shit than previously reported;

33)  Jessica is Tisch the Younger;

34)  Jessica is daughter to Tisch, The Elders – James and Meryl.

35)  They are very accomplished, powerful and wealthy. The type of wealth that Mamdani said he wanted to tax much higher in the already highest tax city in the country.  The type of wealth that makes Donald’s money pile look Lilliputian;

36)  Even after Donald has greatly increased the size of his pile during his two kleptocracies;

37)  Jessica’s mom, Meryl Tisch is the protégé of former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver;

38)  That puts Mamdani at only three degrees of separation from a pol with ideological differences far greater than Zohran’s with Donald’s – since Trump really cares about nothing other than that pile and his other basic appetites;

39)  Looking closer there are really only two degrees separating Mamdani and Silver.  Bridging them is 74-year-old Dean Fuleihan, Mamdani’s choice to be First Deputy Mayor;

40)  Fuleihan ran Shelly Silver’s shop in Albany and as First Deputy Mayor he will run the City, day to day;

41)  If as seems likely, Fuleihan’s and Tisch’s power in the Mamdani administration is pervasive, the waves of disillusionment from Democratic Socialists and AOL clones will inundate the islands of New York City well before global warming gets a chance to do its thing;

42)  Tisch and Fuleihan, who share little ideologically with Mamdani; are like many first term Trump appointees;

43)  People like James Mattis, John Kelly, Rex Tillerson and even Jeff Sessions, who patriotically served a man they neither like or respected and grew to despise;

44)  People like that do damage control or at least try to;

45)  Trump and Mamdani were asked whether they consider Zohran the “leader of the Democratic Party”;

46)  Neither answered, but here it was another occasion to thank “the framers”;

47)  But my gratitude to the framers requires its own framing;

48)  It is almost impossible these days to be leader of the party out of the Whitehouse unless one is a contender for future occupancy;

49)  This was not true when the Article I branch exercised the powers the framers gave them;

50)  But for 50+ years Congress has been relinquishing those powers;

51)  Under Trump 2 that relinquishment has gone into freefall, most obviously with respect to the war power, granted in Article I, Section 8, Clause 10;

52)  For that reason, Mamdani can’t become, let alone already be, the leader of any party, except a block party on Jackson Avenue, where I always take tea during the U.S. (tennis) Open;

53)  He can’t and not because of that age 35 requirement in Article II, Section 5 – as he will have attained that age next time it counts;

54)  But because Mamdani is neither a natural born U.S. citizen nor was he a citizen in 1789, like another immigrant, Alexander Hamilton, for whom that proviso was most specifically inserted in our Constitution;

55)  The press avail was fun for me until Trump did something which resulted in an episode of cognitive dissonance;

56)  Often I am asked the same question we all have been asked many times, and most often by and to ourselves, “isn’t there anything good about Trump – you must admit that when he did. . . . . . that was good?”; I always respond that “Trump is utterly without redeeming social value” using the phrase that the “Warren Court” used to define pornography;

57)  That is when SCOTUS wasn’t using Justice Potter Stewart’s pornography description, i.e., “I know it when I see it”;

58)  Twice during the last fortnight Trump has displayed perfect comedic timing.  First, when he asked Syrian terrorist/President Ahmed al-Sharaa how many wives he had, while gifting Sharaa some cologne.  Second, when he skillfully ran interference for Mamdani when Zohran was asked about calling Trump a “fascist”;

59)  Is Trump, with that much comedic talent, devoid of “redeeming social value?”;

60)  Though, as noted, the question is troubling, I stick with my initial verdict;

61)  Furthermore like Justice Stewart, I know it when I see it.

62)  During the week after their mano a boyo Trump made no apologies to his followers, who forgive and embrace anything he does – even though many, like Stefanik, are campaigning with the “Mamdani is a jihadist” punchline and are passing House resolutions condemning socialism;

63)  For his part Mamdani had to constantly explain and spin what had happened;

64)  While doing that Mamdani continued his march toward becoming the “law and order” mayor, with frequent bouquets for the 35K NYPD cops – his new favorite number;

65)  To his credit, Mamdani did not deny he had sex with Trump;

66)  Nor did he say that he liked the guy or the sex;

67)  Mamdani’s attitude was factual and calmly confessional;

68)  It reminded me of what Stormy Daniels said about her sexual experience with Trump, i.e., that it happened, it was consensual and generic;

69)  In the period after the Trump/Mamdani spectacle, the former has more than justified our absolute zero rating.  But with Mamdani we can hope and take a modicum of comfort from the aforementioned appointments and policy reversals.

[1]   “Officer Krupke, you’re really a slob this boy don’t need a doctor, just a good honest job.  Society played him a terrible trick and sociologically he’s sick. . . Hey, I got a social disease!  So take him to a social worker.” “Gee, Officer Krupke” from West Side Story