President tells a closed-press Easter lunch, 'they call me king,' on the day of a primetime war address.

OK. Hon. Pay attention. The Wednesday before Easter. The President of the United States, at a White House Easter lunch, with handpicked Christian leaders, in a room designated closed press, delivered a speech that was also, by accident, livestreamed on the White House YouTube channel for long enough that the Democratic National Committee and several reporters downloaded the file before the building noticed and took the video down.

In the speech, while telling the story of Jesus entering Jerusalem, in the part where Jesus is greeted as a king, the President paused, looked at the room, and said, quote, they call me king. Now, do you believe it.

Buddy. They call me king. In the Easter story. On Holy Week. In a closed-press lunch with Christian leaders.

The they in the they call me king is a reference to the No Kings protests, which are the recent street demonstrations organized by the people who object to the expansive use of presidential power. The President took the No Kings slogan and, on Holy Week, in the Easter narrative, on White House property, in front of Christian leaders, turned it around, flipped it, and said, quote, they call me king. Connecting himself, in the narrative, to Jesus. On Palm Sunday week.

I have been in real estate. I have been in the casino business. I have bartended on the Boardwalk. I have seen a man take a risky line. I have never seen a man, on the afternoon of a primetime address about a foreign war, in a closed-press setting on the White House grounds, during the Easter lunch, lean into the No Kings slogan and flip it. That is the kind of bit you workshop with a guy at the bar and the guy at the bar says Frank, do not do that.

And the White House livestreamed it. By accident. For long enough that the DNC and the reporters got the file. And then the White House, on the YouTube channel, deleted the file. Which, on the internet, is not how deletion works.

The same evening, the President went on primetime television and gave a twenty-minute address on Operation Epic Fury, the Iran war. That speech was, by all accounts, the same speech he had been giving for thirty-three days. No new announcement. No escalation or de-escalation. The night’s news, therefore, was split between the war that wasn’t moving and the Easter lunch that the building tried to delete.

You ever notice how the King-of-Kings line is supposed to describe Jesus, not the speaker.

Funny how that works.