John Rachal's Blog

Real Fake News Special Report

Los Angeles

The long-running game show Jeopardy hosted Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Matt Gaetz in a “celebrity-politico” game which aired last Tuesday. All three contestants had pledged their winnings to a charity of their choice: The MAGA Foundation for Victims of Unfair Elections (Trump), The Ladies’ Auxiliary of The American Society for the Propagation and Preservation of the Insane (Greene), and The National Association for Eyebrow Awareness and Promotion (Gaetz). Despite questions deemed by regular Jeopardy enthusiasts to be absurdly easy (“My four-year-old could have answered every one of them,” complained one former five-time champion), all three contestants were deeply in the hole at the end of Double Jeopardy. Normal rules would have excluded each of them from Final Jeopardy since they had no money to wager. However, since this situation had never arisen before, Jeopardy management conferred and allowed each of them to wager up to $1000 for Final Jeopardy.

The category was U. S. Presidents, and all three contestants wagered their full $1000. The final question seemed at first to perplex two of the three contestants: “He cut down a cherry tree, led American troops in the Revolutionary War, became the first president, retired to Mt. Vernon, and is on the one dollar bill.” Mr. Trump quickly wrote his answer, Arthur Lincoln. After a quizzical stare into space, Ms. Greene seemed to be humming the Jeopardy jingle, confident that the answer had to be a Georgian, and scribbled Jimmy Carter; while Mr. Gaetz, after raising his eyebrows even higher while peeking to try to see Greene’s answer, jotted down Benjamin Franklin just as the jingle ended. Management again conferred and decided to give all three $1000 each. After the game, a Real Fake News reporter asked Mr. Trump about his performance, and the former president complained to a small crowd that the whole game was rigged against him and he was planning to sue the company and talk with the Proud Boys about a protest, adding, “I’ll be standing in their way when these Jeopardy vermin try to come after you.”