by Johnny Bananas

Coming to you from the late, great state of Calexico the Republican Party held its second installment of seven people all competing for the least popular job in America.  The scenic environs of the Ronald Reagan Library where a replica of Air Force One hung as if in a perpetual state of about-to-crash, symbolic of both the party and nation’s economy, set the stage for that evening’s backyard valley brawl. 

Fox News hosts included Dana Perino, who is rumored to be the love child of Barbie and Mike Pence, alongside Stuart Varney there to represent the Anglo-American Establishment who will ultimately decide who wins.  Varney emceed the event and got off to a shaky start as he introduced Ilia Calderon of Univision, a Spanish speaking anchor there to translate the evening’s dialogue for most of California.  

The frenemy combatants were introduced by polling popularity with Ron Desantis occupying center stage as the first runner-up to eventual winner Donald Trump, followed by linguistic magician Vivek Ramaswamy and alpha-female Nikki Haley.  The remaining also-ran-their mouths included New Jersey Governor Christ Christie, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, former Vice President Mike Pence and that guy Doug from North Dakota. 

The questions came fast and furious, just like the candidates ability to not answer them directly or in a meaningful way.  Tim Scott set a land speed record for changing the subject to the border crisis faster than a Venezuelan crossing the Rio Grande.  The unanimity among the candidates for the need to stop the influx of illegal immigrants was met with a smattering of applause by the mostly legal audience members with the camera’s awkwardly panning to senorita Calderon for an uncomfortably long time as she avoided translating the answers.  

Turning to the topic of parental rights as it relates to the recent trend of castrating one’s child to make them more popular at school the candidates were asked whether or not they would push for a federal ban on the ghastly trend.  The seemingly obvious answer of “what a stupid question Dana, of course I would” was difficult to verbalize as the field of hopefuls seemed more concerned with delivering their rehearsed epic talking points building to a crescendo with Tim Scott holding court for a solid seven minute rendition of “God Bless America”, after which there was hardly a dry eye in the place.  We later learned this was due to smoke coming from forest fires just outside the building.  

This segued nicely into a brief discussion over climate change which none of the candidates seemed comfortable addressing in front of the crowd of climate believers, save for Doug who reminded the audience of his war on EVs in the state of North Dakota where the roads are littered with abandoned Priuses that couldn’t make it from the state’s lone charging station back to their destination.  

The war in America’s recently adopted fifty-first state of Ukraine was discussed at some length with most of the candidates lamenting the high cost of laundering money for the Biden family and Ukranian oligarchs.  However Scott, ever the optimist, reminded everyone that the money was a loan to the NATO countries with an interest rate just north of nine percent which would be paid back once we had a president with the cojones to collect it, namely Donald Trump. 

Friendly fire was a running theme throughout the evening as super-duper-uber Christian Mike Pence avoided invoking his tight relationship with the Almighty instead honing his righteous indignation on Ramaswamy who he has grown fond of reminding the audience would need “on the job training”.  In a hilarious exchange Ramaswamy off-handedly referred to Pence as “Vice President Flanders” then launched into a impassioned reminder of why we need to restore American values.  Still stinging from his slights one debate earlier Nikki Haley couldn’t help stating “after listening to you Vivek we all get dumber” which led to Ramaswamy’s plea to the other “bought and paid for” candidates to “avoid personal attacks”.   Pence seized the opportune moment by reminding Ramaswamy “you made your bed and now you get to like in it Apu”.  The reference was lost on all but the few undercover Democrats in the audience who immediately requested he be cancelled from all social media for violating community standards, only to find out he’s not on any.  

Not to be outdone Governor Christie put the Donald Trump flavored cherry on top by reminding the audience his nemesis was not there, not because of his insurmountable lead nor for being under indictment, but that the deep state bandit was “afraid” of answering for his mutli-trillion dollar deficit spending.  Employing the dramatic pause he and his public relations team had been perfecting Christie then launched the scud missile of all puns pointing out Mr. Trump’s ducking the confrontation so he’s going to be called “Donald Duck”.  The pregnant looking Christie sustained an even more pregnant pause waiting for the multi-lingual crowd to break out in the universal language of laughter only to be disappointed as his attempt at a takedown saw a seventeen point jump in Trump’s approval rating putting him at one hundred and eleven percent.

Following the evening melee embattled Governor Gavin Newsom was seen backstage where he was fresh off his first starring role in a major motion picture.  The new release American Psycho 2: San Fran-psycho is expected to hit theaters next month where the governor will be playing himself.  

An exit poll was taking from the studio audience asking “After this evening’s debate which candidate do you favor to win the presidency?” Not surprisingly the results came back: 

• 3% for Chat GPT
• 27% for Donald Trump
• 70% for El Donaldo Trumpo

Johnny Bananas is the nom de plume of a fake news reporter living in Vermont. Nothing he reports ever actually happened. This is satire, folks.