Inside a secure room in the Whitehouse, Washington, a security guard looks at his watch impatiently. The room is painted a cold white. The only decoration is a photograph of the Whitehouse hung on one wall. The Stars and Stripes stands still over an impeccable lawn. Suddenly the door is flung open and the President enters;

‘Is this it?’

A panel of three psychiatrists sit behind a wide table.

‘Come in Mr President and please take a seat?’

‘I hope this won’t take long.’

‘As you are aware, each and every President undergoes a routine psychiatric assessment every six months…’

‘Yeah, yeah…what a complete waste of everyone’s time – most of all mine!’

Beady eyes stare out accusingly under a unlikely ski jump hair style.

‘We will be recording this session and presenting a confidential report to the Senate Committee of Internal Governance.’

She lifts up a sheet of paper and reads out loud.

You have a right to not answer questions if you wish although inference may be taken from any such silence. The answers you may give can not be used in a court of law and are for clinical evidence only.

‘Can we start?’

‘My name is Doctor Kladinsky and I will be presenting the questions. What we are focusing on in this session is the ability, your ability, to distinguish between fact and fiction.’

‘The assistant at the back of the room will be operating the standard so called Lie Detector with a view to simply establishing highly emotional responses, not incorrect statements.’

‘You will know WHEN I AM EMOTIONAL okay?!’

‘What is your name?’

‘Are you kidding me? I’m the fucking President of the United States and A~MERICA and you don’t know my…’

‘These are control questions to establish patterns for the Lie Detector. Please be patient Mr. President.’

‘Donald. The Donald Trump. The most successful business man America has ever see and the greatest…’

‘Please just answer the question.’

A series of nine control questions follow which are sometimes answered simply, sometimes not. The President is sitting awkwardly in his chair with one large hand placed upon the table in front of his interrogators. The Presidential ring sits upon a finger as a badge of office and perhaps, thinks one Doctor, superiority.

‘Why did a highly successful businessman declare his companies bankrupt six times?’

‘Rotten people in the system. My so called “employees” who cannot be trusted to feed the fucking office cat. Rotten people, who I would never employ again. Should have got rid of them sooner, that was my only mistake.’

‘Do you ever feel you are acting out your fictional role from the television series The Apprentice, in your presidential duties?’

‘Is it hot in here or is that just me? You people are weird do you know that?’

‘It’s a simple question…’

‘No I do not! I DO NOT act like an overbearing buffoon like I am sometimes accused off by people who frankly should know better with all your god dam degrees that don’t mean squat!’

‘So the answer is, you do not feel that way.’

‘That’s what I just said.’

‘What do you believe is the function of the free press and media outlets in the United States of America?’

‘To type out a load of shite that they basically MAKE UP.

You must have heard me on this subject many times and I have been nothing if not, consistent. There is not one newspaper editor I am friendly with or in regular communication with. They want fake news and they get it from anywhere – particularly if it makes me look stupid. That they love. I know their game and it is very bad. They are bad people.’

‘What about Fox News?’

‘Oh, you mean TV as well? Obviously Fox News is one organisation that takes trouble to check out it facts before presenting them.’

‘How does it check it’s facts?’

‘They ring me up and I tell ’em. Simple. I get on really well with most of them. Good people.’

‘You have your finger, so to speak, on the Nuclear button.’

‘Oh do I? Excuse me. I didn’t see it there!’

He lifts his ring-heavy hand and holds it above the desk, examining both sides.

‘I said, so to speak. It was a metaphor.’

‘Joke! Gee, you guys have not got a sense of humour.’

‘About nuclear war and your ability to start one?’

‘Oh do I have a red button? I didn’t know. Wow. Wait until Little Kim Rocket Boy hears about this? I wish someone had told me before. Okay, okay, I will be serious. Yeah, I’d push it if America needed protecting from some mad man, not that I think Kim is mad. I know he is.’

‘And risk the mass deaths of American citizens?’

‘Tough job, tough decisions. That’s why they made me President and not you.’

‘How would you know that another country had a ‘madman’ as you put it, as a dictator.’

‘I guess they wouldn’t make sense most of the time. You know, always changing their mind one minute to the next. Some nut who thinks he’s better than everyone else and has his own pet interests and ideas at heart rather than world peace and prosperity. You know, the type of nutter who sacks half his staff and surrounds himself with people who he knows are going to agree, rather than argue. Even then he’s probably not going to listen to them – let alone other sections of government such as the Senate and House of Representatives because his ego is so big he cannot be content unless his ideas and his ways of doing things are followed – even if good science, practical likelihood, economic imperatives and history say the opposite. Oh, yes and I guess he, or she, is going to have no understanding on any subject, just ridicule objectors by announcing they are phoney fakes like I used to in the classroom in school.’

At the end of the longest and most succinct response in the interview, he looks across the table with a stare of simple realisation. In a quiet voice, almost a whisper the President says;

‘Hey, that all sounds rather like me, doesn’t’ it?

‘We have no further questions Mr President. Thank you for giving up your valuable time today.’