Kevin Pollack was a rude, pompous jerk, and David Alan Grier annoyingly disinterested, but most of the other comedians I’ve worked with were fantastic people. Way more fun than singers or athletes — and a lot smarter, too.
I think it’s because they write their own material. They’re not just performers; they’re writers, too.
Ben Bailey (best known as the host of Cash Cab) told me that he’ll sometimes think of a clever one-liner… for a woman, an Asian, or anyone but him. The trick to being a successful standup isn’t just learning how to write funny, original jokes — but funny, original jokes that fit your on-stage persona.
Other than a hodgepodge of singer-songwriters, most pop stars are unencumbered by that burden. They simply pay a third party for the material, and then try their best to perform it.
And some are great at it. But even the greatest of the greats will have moments where there’s an obvious disconnect between the performer and the material: Something is off.
You can always tell when someone doesn’t really believe what they’re saying.
Even if the singer is a Grammy winner. Even if she sings like an angel. Even if everything else looks and sounds tone-perfect.
We all have an innate bull[feces]-detector that warns us when someone’s words and emotions are out of whack. Somehow, we can sense when a speaker is saying something because someone told them to — and not because it’s something they genuinely believe.
You see this a lot in D.C.: How many times have you heard a politician give a speech, and you could instantly tell that someone else wrote it?
Political speechwriters are the D.C. equivalent of Hollywood breast implants: Pretty much everyone who needs ‘em uses ‘em, but pointing out the composition of speeches and/or breasts before the paying public is considered unseemly.
You’re spoiling the illusion!
That’s one of the secret ingredients to Donald Trump’s success: He’s a political singer-songwriter. Sure, he’ll use speechwriters (and occasionally, even follow a teleprompter), but for the most part, he performs his own material. You wind him up, hand him the microphone, and let him go.
Good or bad, he’s always authentic.
Authenticity is worth its weight in gold in PR, because it’s associated with trust and honesty. They’re not exactly the same — an authentic liar is still a liar — but it demonstrates a higher degree of prima facia transparency.
Donald Trump knows who he is, warts, strengths and all. And nobody’s better at writing for Donald Trump than Donald Trump!
Peggy Noonan was a splendid speechwriter and Ronald Reagan was a generationally gifted performer. The two of them were one helluva one-two punch. Reagan was skilled enough to make any material work — but when his material was great, so was his performance.
He’d rise to reach the rhetoric.
I wouldn’t want Donald Trump to recite a Peggy Noonan speech because it wouldn’t work. It would come across as phony and weird.
Audiences would know right away: That’s not Trump’s voice.
Politician, know thyself. The key to being authentic is authentically knowing who you are — and who you’re not.
It’s probably the most underrated skill in American politics. And in the 2024 presidential race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, the difference was glaring.
Republican voters would be wise to keep this in mind during the 2026 midterms — and select nominees accordingly.
PRedictions: Donald Trump is many things; some good, some bad. But among the good is his creativity. From Greenland to tariffs to the Gulf of America to making Canada our 51st state, he’s a highly creative problem-solver.
That’s what scares his enemies, both domestically and abroad: You can’t strategize for an outside-the-box thinker like that.
I guarantee you, when Justin Trudeau visited to Mar-a-Lago to kiss Trump’s ring, his advisors prepped him with all kinds of talking points, and they strategized for all sorts of Trumpian behavior. But they didn’t anticipate, “What do we do if Trump says Canada isn’t a real country and ought to be the 51st state?”
Before Trump said it, it didn’t even occur to them!
For the Republican Party to prevail in the 2026 midterms, we’re gonna need Trump at his most creative — and thus, his most unpredictable.
I assume he knows it. Furthermore, I’ll betcha he already has some ideas up his sleeves, and as we get closer to Nov. 2026, those ideas we’ll grow in number. That’s usually how the minds of creative people work: The longer they focus on a problem, the more creative solutions they develop.
Which is why anyone who’s making 2026 midterm predictions before the end of 2025 is predicting the outcome of a strategy that they don’t even know yet.
If we wanna talk trajectory, that’s fair. Trajectory is based on our current direction. It’s trackable and mappable. And, alas, the current GOP trajectory is lousy: From Miami to Virginia to New Jersey to New York, we clearly have a lot of work to do.
But in politics, a body in motion doesn’t stay in motion indefinitely. Trendlines aren’t absolute; by definition, the pendulum swings in more than one direction.
I’m curious to see Donald Trump’s strategy. My prediction is, it’s gonna be something nobody else has thought of yet.
PRojection: One of the funniest examples of Donald Trump’s creativity is in the new $1 coin, which — according to CNN — will bear Trump’s likeness.
Wait: You might be wondering, “Aren’t there laws that prohibit living people from appearing on U.S. currency?”
There are. And the Trump administration has just found an unusual loophole.
[…] US law prohibits images of living people on the backs of coins. The US Mint told CNN there is no such restriction on the front of coins, though it’s been US law since 1866 that living people can’t be on paper currency.
Wait… what?!
It’s a coin. It only has two sides! Who’s to say which one is the front and which one’s the back?!
(Well, I guess the Trump administration will.)
What a silly, pointless distinction!
It reminds me of the old Steven Wright joke:
My buddy got busted for counterfeiting. He was making pennies. They caught him because he was putting the heads and tails on the wrong side.
PRaise: To a Muslim man named Ahmed al Ahmed, who rushed to aid the Jewish victims of the Bondi Beach Hanukkah terrorist attack in Australia, where 12 were killed and 29 were injured.
Watch the video. I don’t know how Ahmed moved so quickly, with balls that big:
The hero who risked his life to grab the weapon off one of the terrorists during the Bondi Beach terror attack is a 43 yr old Ahmed al Ahmed, His cousin Mustafa revealed while speaking outside the hospital that his cousin was shot twice and is currently undergoing a treatment. https://t.co/eunbniEZPT pic.twitter.com/qdM78JdLMz
— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) December 14, 2025
He was shot twice, had no weapon of his own, and still subdued and disarmed a violent terrorist. The guy’s a hero.
Thank God he was there.
PRedators: Have you heard? The Democratic Party is spitballing a new marketing slogan. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is a huge fan of it:
“Strong floor, no ceiling.”
What do we fight for as Democrats?
— Hakeem Jeffries (@RepJeffries) August 14, 2025
Strong Floor. No Ceiling. pic.twitter.com/I0cQo9X67H
Rep. Eric Swalwell is also a booster:
What do Democrats believe in? I think @OliverBLibby nails it. In America, if you work hard and play by the rules, you deserve a Strong Floor to stand on and No Ceiling on how high you can rise.
— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) November 16, 2025
Alas, the Democratic Party’s house organ, a.k.a. MS Now (formerly MSNBC), isn’t exactly impressed:
Try to contain your excitement. Not only will nobody have any idea what that means unless it’s explained, it doesn’t even describe well what Democrats ought to want.
[…]
Nobody is going to proudly wear a “Strong floor, no ceiling” hat; it will never be the equivalent of Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again,” one of the most effective slogans in American political history.
[…]
Democrats need to speak to people’s hopes and their anger. They need to explain who they’re for and who they’re against. They need to identify heroes and villains. They need to show what they won’t compromise on, and why. If they can do all that, voters might start believing in them again. But if “strong floor, no ceiling” is the best slogan they can come up with, they’ll likely be better off without one.
I hope the Democrats run with it, because the counternarrative writes itself: You know who else has a “strong floor and no ceiling,” eh?
The homeless guy living on the sidewalk.
Good luck with that.
