On Jan. 14, Donald Trump sat in the Oval Office and explained to the nation that “whole milk” starts with a “W.” Yes, that was his message while signing the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act into law.
On Wednesday, Trump signed a law that most Americans had never thought about and even fewer had ever asked for. He reversed Obama-era restrictions on milk fat in the National School Lunch Program. Under the old rules, public schools could only serve low-fat or fat-free milk. Now, cafeterias can offer whole milk and 2% milk back alongside existing choices.
But Trump’s theater-of-the-mundane moment came as he began reading out his signing speech to the press. With a carton of milk on his desk, he began speaking and delivered what he clearly thought was a poignant policy point:
“With this legislation, schools will finally be able to expand their offerings to include nutritious whole milk. It’s actually a legal definition, whole milk. And it’s whole with a W, for those of you that have a problem. Most of the media will get that.”
Whether he was imagining Twitter critics, late-night jokes, or was really confused over how to spell a basic word, nobody knows. But Trump took a beat to clarify “whole” as if the entire country had just learned the word. But the problem isn’t that he tried to make a joke and failed. It’s the joke itself.
“Whole” without a “w” reads “hole.” And “hole milk” isn’t the most innocent wordplay to joke about with little kids around. Yet, Trump cloaked it as a jab at the media or critics and thought it was a brilliant talking point. However, social media had even better ideas than he did. One bluntly wrote, “He was reminding all his pedo friends they weren’t talking about holes today.”
One recurring comment from multiple users was, “He definitely just learned it’s not ‘hole milk’ 5 minutes ago.” Another reasoned, “Whenever he has to correct people preemptively, it means he was already corrected for the same thing.” While several saw it as an embarrassing ordeal, one suggested to Trump that it’s “time for another cognitive test.”
And then, the thing Trump was trying to avoid just happened. Late-night comedians like Jimmy Kimmel had a field day mocking Trump’s tangent on “hole milk” versus “whole milk.” He asked, “Does he think that we think that milk comes from a hole?” Before jabbing, “if there’s milk coming from your hole, you either need to get to a doctor or a farm and quit.” (via The Daily Beast)
In all honesty, why Trump’s brain even goes there is hard to explain. His clarification didn’t make whole milk more defensible. It made the entire moment absurd. It was the kind of thing that forces everyone watching into an involuntary face-palm.
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