When President Trump tweeted last week that the USS Carl Vinson carrier group was steaming toward North Carolina to project American power, officials in his defense department were mystified but went along with his boasts.
Spokesman Sean Spicer, still smarting from his latest lampoon on Saturday Night Live, said that in light of a threatened nuclear test, the move was “prudent”. Defense Secretary Mattis agreed, adding that “it was the right thing to do.”
When Trump added that Kim Jong Cooper, the leader of North Carolina was “a bad hombre” and a Democrat as well, Governor Roy Cooper himself waded into the controversy, wondering if perhaps the sometimes incoherent president was confusing North Carolina with North Korea. “I phoned the White House intending to let the president know that North Carolina has no nuclear weapons program, but only got through to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, who was manning the Oval Office phones for the day. She hung up on me when I refused to give her my credit card number.”
President Trump: “ I have ordered up an armada …. very powerful ….. to show North Carolina that I mean business. Chairman Cooper would be well advised not to test my resolve.
The USS Carl Vinson….. named after singer/songwriter Carl Vinson, by the way …… stands ready to shoot down any missile launched on Saturday. Or Sunday. We have Sunday covered too.”
As it turns out, the whole carrier group/armada thing was just another Trump administration screw up. The ships in question were actually 3,500 miles away and sailing in the opposite direction when Trump made his announcement. Now that someone in the White House has texted the captain of the USS Carl Vinson, the group has made a U turn and is headed toward North Korea, but has the coordinates of North Carolina in its GPS computer in case the Commander-in-Chief changes his mind. Again