Watch Out! There's a Horse in the Hospital Again!

John Mulaney's routine re: Trump's first term gains even more relevance for Trump 2.0. Plus: a new single from Neil Young and our usual cartoons.

Greg Mitchell is the author of more than a dozen books including “The Tunnels” “Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady” and “The Campaign of the Century” and now writer/director of three award-winning films aired via PBS, including “Atomic Cover-up” and “Memorial Day Massacre.” You can still subscribe to this newsletter for free:

Okay, a mix of things today. First, I covered at my “other” Substack the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moving the hands on their famous Doomsday Clock a bit closer to midnight today.

Neil Young has a rocking new single called “Big Change” but I can’t make heads nor tails of what he is suggesting, with all the flag waving, but perhaps calling for hot action to combat MAGA? Or the opposite. You tell me!

Someone on social media posted the brilliant John Mulaney “horse loose in the hospital” analogy to Trump taking office for his first term a few years back, which I viewed a long ago—but totally forgot about it. So it was fresh for me anew. If you have never seen it, or also losing your marbles, here it is, with most of the text below.

I’ve never really cared about politics. But then, last November, the strangest thing happened…..

Here’s how I try to look at it, and this is just me, this guy being the president, it’s like there’s a horse loose in a hospital. It’s like there’s a horse loose in a hospital. I think eventually everything’s going to be okay, but I have no idea what’s going to happen next. And neither do any of you, and neither do your parents, because there’s a horse loose in the hospital. It’s never happened before, no one knows what the horse is going to do next, least of all the horse. He’s never been in a hospital before, he’s as confused as you are.

There’s no experts. They try to find experts on the news. They’re like, “We’re joined now by a man that once saw a bird in the airport.” Get out of here with that shit! We’ve all seen a bird in the airport. This is a horse loose in a hospital.

When a horse is loose in a hospital, you got to stay updated. So all day long you walk around, “What’d the horse do?” The updates, they’re not always bad. Sometimes they’re just odd. It’ll be like, “The horse used the elevator?” I didn’t know he knew how to do that. The creepiest days are when you don’t hear from the horse at all. You’re down in the operating room like, “Hey, has anyone…Has anyone heard–” [imitates clopping hooves] Those are those quiet days when people are like, “It looks like the horse has finally calmed down.” And then ten seconds later the horse is like, “I’m gonna run towards the baby incubators and smash ’em with my hooves. I’ve got nice hooves and a long tail, I’m a horse!” That’s what I thought you’d say, you dumb fucking horse.

And then… then… then you go to brunch with people and they’re like, “There shouldn’t be a horse in the hospital.” And it’s like, “We’re well past that.”

And then, for a second, we were like, “Maybe the horse-catcher will catch the horse.” And then the horse is like, “I have fired the horse-catcher.” He can do that? That shouldn’t be allowed no matter who the horse is. I don’t remember that in Hamilton.

Sometimes, if you make fun of the horse, people will get upset. These are the people that opened the door for the horse. I don’t judge anyone. But sometimes I ask people. I go, “Hey, how come you opened the door for the horse?”

But when people say, “How come you were never mad at the last guy?” I say, “Because I wasn’t paying attention.” I used to pay less attention before it was a horse. Also, I thought the last guy was pretty smart, and he seemed good at his job, and I’m lazy by nature. I’m lazy by nature, too. So I don’t check up on people when they seem okay at their job. You may think that’s an ignorant answer, but it’s not, it’s a great answer. If you left your baby with your mother tonight, you’re not going to race home and check the nanny cam. But if you leave your baby with Gary Busey..…

And now there’s Nazis again. When I was a kid Nazis was just an analogy you would use to decimate your child during an argument at the dinner table. Now there’s new Nazis. I don’t care for these new Nazis and you may quote me on that. These new Nazis, “Jews are the worst, Jews ruin everything, and Jews try to take over your life.” It’s like, “You know what, motherfucker? My wife is Jewish. I know all that, how do you know all that?”

Tooning Up