Remove Donald Trump from the equation—as we did last week in order to focus on his potential running mates—and suddenly you have yourself a footrace. Competition for that unenviable slot on the ballot, and consequently for Attention-Whore honors, is stiff, but it’s impossible to deny how hard Elise Stefanik has been going for it and how deserving she is of the win you gave her, with 26.4 percent of the vote. Stefanik was trailed by Tim Scott (20.8 percent) and Nikki Haley (20.1 percent, although officially Haley is still angling for the top of the ticket). Vivek Ramaswamy placed a respectable fourth, with 13.9 percent. These are thrilling times we’re living in!
With that little digression behind us, we once again throw open the A.W.I. to all comers.
The nominees in this week’s edition of the Attention-Whore Index Poll are …
1.
FANI WILLIS
In this instance, the traditional please-let-this-stay-under-the-radar Friday-afternoon announcement didn’t help: when the D.A. prosecuting the Georgia election-interference case against Trump finally admits to a “personal relationship” with the prosecutor she appointed, it’s going to get some attention. Does it change the fact that the revelation has little relevance to the racketeering evidence against Trump? No. Is it true that, as Willis claimed, her relationship with the prosecutor, Nathan Wade, didn’t begin until after he was hired and that there was no financial impropriety? Maybe. But: was it perhaps a tad unwise to allow even the slightest impression of inappropriate behavior, given that a certain defendant will use it to try to tear down a strong case against him? You bet.
2.
RUSSELL BRAND
Interviewed by Tucker Carlson. The actor/comedian/conspiracy theorist, facing several charges of rape and sexual assault, defended himself to the ex–Fox News host on X: “I reject the allegations in the strongest possible terms. I am aware I have put myself in an extremely vulnerable position by being very, very promiscuous.”
3.
TUCKER CARLSON
Interviewed Russell Brand (see above). At the Kremlin, interviewed Vladimir Putin, which is to say he sat and listened like a mute, taxidermied journalist while the Russian leader delivered a two-hour infomercial. (Brand, Putin … who’s next for Carlson? If only Pol Pot were still alive.) Bonus points for having attended a performance of the Bolshoi Ballet.
4.
BRYAN JOHNSON
The tech billionaire immortality buff, already deep into exploring gene-therapy-based possibilities of never aging, announced on X that he’d injected Botox into his penis, with satisfying results, claiming that his penis has already grown by one centimeter and that the injection had improved “erection hardness,” “peak systolic velocity,” “end-diastolic velocity,” and “sexual health satisfaction.” Johnson declared the unorthodox move was part of a “double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled prospective comparative study” involving 70 patients. By the end of the week, Johnson’s X post had logged more than 600 comments, 1,000 re-tweets, and 1,200 bookmarks, as he continues to go where no man has gone before.
5.
ERIC ADAMS
New York’s fun-loving mayor, who has said migrants will “destroy” the city, “put on a bulletproof vest with a Fendi scarf tucked underneath it on Monday and accompanied an early-morning police raid in the Bronx, tied to a major robbery ring where many of the participants were believed to be recent migrants,” reported The New York Times. “Generals lead from the front,” Adams, a former N.Y.P.D. police captain, said after the raid, during which 22 stolen cell phones were seized. The mayor’s most recent approval rating was 28 percent.
6.
SARAH PALIN AND TED NUGENT
This pair went to Dripping Springs, Texas, to support a “Take Our Border Back” rally of truckers. The former governor of Alaska and, we need to be reminded now and then, onetime Republican vice-presidential candidate accused the federal government of “treason” and of “sanctioning … a foreign invasion.” In his own remarks, the aging rock guitarist noted, “This devil scum snake thinks he’s the commander in chief of the United States of America.” (Not clear whom he was referring to.)
7.
The G.O.P.
So needy of late, so insistent on calling attention to itself. The party’s attempt to impeach the homeland-security secretary over his handling of immigration along the country’s southwestern border failed embarrassingly. Their presumed nominee for president torpedoed a bipartisan agreement to address that very issue. The same candidate’s bid for presidential immunity was rejected by a federal appeals court. That candidate’s most prominent opponent, still surging in place in the polls, finished second again, this time in the Nevada primary, 63 percent to 31 percent—she lost, handily, to “none of these candidates.” A Republican-led bill for $17.6 billion in aid for Israel also failed. And the chair of the Republican National Committee offered to resign. Busy week!
8.
DONALD TRUMP
On Truth Social, posted an image of half his face spliced with half the face of the onetime “King of Rock ’n’ Roll” and the comment: “For so many years, people have been saying that Elvis and I look alike. Now this pic has been going all over the place. What do you think?” What they thought, according to Business Insider: “Donald Trump is Fat Elvis … WITHOUT THE TALENT!!!” and “delusional, cognitively impaired, and utterly weird.” One anti-Trump group of Republicans simply quoted the Mayo Clinic’s definition of narcissistic personality disorder.
9.
Joe Biden
President Biden avoided the attention that a Super Bowl interview would have brought him. Unfortunately, that vacuum was more than filled by his hastily assembled news conference. It was intended to demonstrate his mental sharpness, in the wake of an alarming special counsel’s report that questioned his memory—but things did not play out as he had hoped. Even his most fervent supporters would have to admit it was not a great time for him to confuse Egypt with Mexico. Time to duck under the radar again? —George Kalogerakis
George Kalogerakis, a Writer at Large at AIR MAIL,worked for Spy, Vanity Fair, and The New York Times, where he was deputy op-ed editor. He is a co-author of Spy: The Funny Years and a co-editor of Disunion: A History of the Civil War