Deconstructing Jokes, Trump, and the Reflecting Pool

Rick Rosner explains joke deconstruction by contrasting Johnny Carson-era comedy with today’s information-heavy monologues. Scott Douglas Jacobsen asks how the Reflecting Pool controversy becomes comedy. Rosner outlines the setup: repairs, algae, sealant issues, Trump’s claims of leftist sabotage, and protesters mocking the situation. He distinguishes observations from jokes, tests angles involving “Everything Trump touches dies,” and concludes that the simpler “deflecting tool” pun has stronger late-night potential.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How can a joke be deconstructed?

Rick Rosner: There are a couple of approaches. During Johnny Carson’s time on The Tonight Show, people had a lot less information. Carson’s information came from newspapers and wire services. They probably bought all the major news—or at least the major New York and Los Angeles newspapers. And they had a teletype, which was a machine with a little electric typewriter setup and a scroll of paper that would spit out AP news stories all day: breaking news. That was the source material.

They did not have people looking at TV as a source of material. They were looking at the news, at what people knew. The writers would write jokes off of that. And the jokes were easy and familiar, like Elizabeth Taylor putting on weight. Stuff that people already knew, because you could not count on people having a lot of information. The information just was not available in the same way.

Also, people maybe were not used to having shit explained to them. They were not used to getting the news from the monologue. Though things changed. Millions of people got the news from Jon Stewart during his heyday as host of The Daily Show.

So one way of doing jokes is to go off what everybody already knows. Another way is to explain what is going on, and then do jokes based on what you just told people. That is much more of a current style.

Anyway, the first step in deconstructing the Reflecting Pool story is to make sure you have all the pertinent information about the Reflecting Pool. It is about 100 years old. Does that matter? Maybe not. It has had leakage problems. That might be pertinent. Recent reporting says Trump first described the work as costing about $1.8 million, but later reports put the resurfacing or renovation costs around $14 million to $15 million, with a separate $1.7 million no-bid contract for a water-cleaning system.

The contract issue is not how this would normally be expected to work, and reporting has tied some of the work to Trump-connected or Trump-supporting figures. There have also been jokes about the contractor’s appearance—people comparing him to the Penguin from Batman or to an extra from Guys and Dolls. The guy looks like a mafia piece of shit.

This is the guy involved with work on the Reflecting Pool, which is about 2,028 feet long. It is a huge, long thing. It ranges from about 18 to 30 inches deep.

Jacobsen: Yes, I have been there. I have been there a couple of times, walking along it.

Rosner: You probably did not measure the depth.

Jacobsen: No, but you realize how big it is once you are there.

Rosner: It is enormous. Trump himself made the point that, if it were standing on end, it would be much taller than the Empire State Building.

Anyway, they drained the pool. This mafia-looking pool guy put in this fairly deep-blue pool sealant, which is important because the darker the color, the more heat it absorbs, and the hotter the pool gets. Another thing I have seen reported, though I have not independently verified it, is that the pool surface is stone or concrete with prior sealing and repair work. That matters because some sealants do not adhere well to surfaces that have already been sealed.

There are pumps underneath the thing. It must be a massive pump system to circulate the water.

Also, after the sealant was laid down, Trump drove his motorcade along the bottom of the pool. He got into his SUV, which is extremely heavy, and drove along the base of the pool. That probably was not great for the sealant either.

So, the pool supposedly gets fixed. Then it fills with algae. They try to fix it, in part, with hydrogen peroxide and other water-treatment measures. But given the size of the pool, it would take a serious treatment regime to solve the problem. Then either the heat, the hydrogen peroxide, the sealant failure, or some combination of things caused the sealant or coating to peel away and come up in the water. It started waving in the water or floating up in chunks.

People were curious. They might reach into the water and touch a chunk or pull a chunk up. Trump used this as an excuse to say that leftists were vandalizing the pool, pouring algae or other shit into the pool, or cutting away the sealant. There is no solid public evidence for that as the main explanation, but MAGA seems to be supporting that point, which is disturbing because this is one of the stupidest lies Trump has come up with.

He has National Guard or law-enforcement personnel stationed around the pool. If anybody puts a hand in the water, they risk being treated as if they are vandalizing it. There may even be undercover officers or plainclothes law-enforcement people posing as tourists. There is video of a young woman dipping her hand in the water. Some guy comes along, talks to her, and tells her to come over. Then there are cops and National Guard, and they take her away. It is all fucking ridiculous.

So that is your setup. If there is a topics person working on a show, either you come up with your own topics or the head writer suggests topics. I have been following this because I do not have a job and I have too much time on my hands. Not really—I just waste too much time. So I know more about this than maybe most late-night writers.

I would use my knowledge base to try to come up with something new about this situation. The one thing I can say is not a joke, exactly. It is just an observation: this is one of the craziest, stupidest things Trump has claimed, that leftists are sabotaging the pool.

There are protesters out there making fun of it and wearing Team Algae shirts. Trump is saying they hate America, that this is a beautiful monument, and that they are cheering for it not to be beautiful. No. They are cheering for Trump to stop being such a fucking asshole.

The thing I said is that Trump getting away with obvious lies about leftists and antifa sabotaging the pool, without significant pushback from his base, means he will feel free to make even crazier lies as needed. Though even if he did get pushback, he would still tell crazier lies whenever he wanted.

Is that a joke? No. It is just a principle.

I did another joke a couple of days ago based on Rick Wilson, a former Republican strategist who is now a Never Trumper. He came up with the principle, “Everything Trump touches dies.” Everything Trump gets involved with works out disastrously for all involved.

In this case, it is not true. This is an exception. Trump got involved with the Reflecting Pool, and algae thrives. Algae lives.

So it is also: Trump got involved with Iran, and Iran lives. Iran may be strengthened, depending on how the deal and regional situation play out. There have been claims about major funds, investment, or relief connected to Iran, and claims about tolls or pressure around the Strait of Hormuz, but those claims need careful verification.

So Trump touched Iran, and Iran may be revitalized. Is that a decent joke? No, because it is not very funny. It also takes a lot of explaining about the principle that everything Trump touches dies.

Would a host desperate for a new angle on the Reflecting Pool go this far to get to that not-really-jokey joke? Probably not. Somebody else, some other writer, would submit something funnier and more succinct.

The “deflecting tool” line might make it through as a quick pun. It made you laugh.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is a blogger on Vocal with more than 200 publications on the platform. He is the Founder and Publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978–1–0692343; 978–1–0673505) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369–6885). He writes for International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN, 0018–7399; Online: ISSN, 2163–3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), Humanist Perspectives (ISSN: 1719–6337), A Further Inquiry (SubStack), Vocal, Medium, The Good Men Project, The New Enlightenment Project, The Washington Outsider, rabble.ca, and other media. His bibliography index can be found via the Jacobsen Bank at In-Sight Publishing, comprising more than 10,000 articles, interviews, and republications across more than 200 outlets. He has served in national and international leadership roles within humanist and media organizations, held several academic fellowships, and currently serves on several boards. He is a member in good standing in numerous media organizations, including the Canadian Association of Journalists, PEN Canada (CRA: 88916 2541 RR0001), Reporters Without Borders (SIREN: 343 684 221/SIRET: 343 684 221 00041/EIN: 20–0708028), and others.