Speaking briefly to a press gaggle aboard Air Force One, President Trump suggested a return to whale oil as an alternative energy source.
<transcript begins>
<reporter> Mr. President, are you looking at alternative energy sources during this crisis?”
<Trump> Yes, uh..<inaudible> Did you know….I was just told this yesterday, I couldn’t believe it, but, did you know the US used to lead the world in whale oil production, millions of barrels a year. Heating, fuel, lights, everything. Beautiful American whale oil, the best, everybody says it.”
<reports (several)> Mr. President, are you suggesting a return to hunting —
Trump: Very profitable, and that was with harvesting methods that were thought up by a stupid person. They would just float around the ocean for months, and if they finally saw a whale, they’d go into little rowboats and throw spears at it like idiots. Very low IQ. Any pictures you see….well paintings, they didn’t have photographs, I think….Karoline?
Leavitt: I’ll get that data, but photography was certainly very rare before the Civil War.
Trump: Yeah…..well…..the paintings, they all have these whales just kicking the crap out of these poor rowboat guys <laughter> they are just flying left and right in all these paintings, like 100 feet in the air.
<reporter> Won’t environmentalists say that whale populations —
Trump: Anyway, even with all that, it was still very profitable, the American whale oil business……today, with our satellites and Apache fleet…..we’ll have much lower costs. Pete is working up some numbers. Drones may be cheapest.”
<reporter> Won’t environmentalists say —
Trump: Yes, yes, of course they will blah blah blah. But this is really a very environmental thing to do, maybe the most environmental thing any president has ever done. That is what they are saying. Is there a Novel Prize for Environment?
<Leavitt> Not specifically, but there is a Nobel thing called “The Tyler Prize For Environmental Achievement” that we are aiming for.. ..
Trump: But, that’s not really like getting the prize, right?……..<sighs> anyway…..
<reporter> How does killing whales help the environment, Mr. President?
Trump: Stupid question. In every way, that’s the way. You know what we have now? The windmills? I call them murderwheels. Murderwheels, they kill over billion birds a year. Is that total, Karoline? Or per murderwheel?
Leavitt: that is total, worldwide. We estimate.
Trump: Birds…..and whales! I talked about this two years ago, they all said I was crazy. The generator signal thing on the ocean murderwheels whacks out the brains of whales, look it up. There are scientific studies. It makes them insane, they go die on the beach somewhere. Barrels and barrels of whale oil wasted. Actually, probably polluting the beach. What goes through their fritzed out brains, I wonder.
Leavitt: Let’s wrap this up…..
Trump: So, to take just one type of whale, the rude and glutonous blue whale. The biggest of them all, right?
Leavitt: Correct.
Trump: So …. I wrote these numbers down, hold on, I couldn’t believe it. …ok, so, 25,000 of these blue whales exist now. That is up from a manageable worldwide population of 200-300 blue whales when at optimal efficiencies back in the 1960s. An adult blue whale may eat as much as 16 tons of food a day. So 16 tons a day is almost 6,000 tons of food a year. Times 25,000……that is 140 million tons a year….are those the tons that are 1000 pounds or the ones that are 2000 pounds, Karoline?
Leavitt: Tons are either 2,000 or 2,240 pounds I believe, sir. I’ll check.
Trump: And why are there two different weights of tons? That is the stupidest thing ever, two different sizes. This has got to stop……it’s probably a British thing, right Karoline?
Leavitt: I’ll set up a call.
Trump: Let’s say 2,000. So these fat gross blue whales are all over the globe eating, what was it? 2.9 TRILLION pounds each year. And do you know what they eat, Karoline?
Leaviitt: Krill, it is this tiny type of —
Trump: SHRIMP. Freakin’ shrimp, can you believe it? I love shrimp. All my restaurants are famous for their shrimp. Everybody talks about it. And if we had 2.9 trillion pounds of it? 8 billion people on earth. That is 365 pounds of shrimp per person on earth per year. I think that’s right. A pound a day. World hunger? So, there you have it. Fish, birds, whales……all precious lives lost because of this fringe anti-whale oil nutjobs.
