The world never lacks for Donald Trump news, each and every day bringing with it an embarrassment of creative ways in which he’s made the world worse. But sometimes there’s so much Trump news that some of it slips through the cracks. To wit, on the first day of September — in which he already inspired a meme involving the 1997 action film Con Air — there surfaced video from the last day of July. In it, as per Second Nexus, the president of the United States held a round table with the National Association of Police Organizations Leadership — a pow-wow that included a lengthy and not terribly coherent rant about soup.
Trump in July: And you have people coming over with bags of soup and the anarchists… start throwing it at our cops… And if it hits you, that’s worse than a brick because that’s got force… And when they get caught, they say, “No, this is just soup for my family.” pic.twitter.com/xs9tcY9aA5
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 1, 2020
Trump was talking about the makeshift weapons being hurled at police — not weapons like guns, but frozen bottles of water, even cans of soup. Here’s what he said:
“And you have people coming over with bags of soup — big bags of soup. And they lay it on the ground, and the anarchists take it and they start throwing it at our cops, at our police. And if it hits you, that’s worse than a brick because that’s got force. It’s the perfect size. It’s, like, made perfect.
“And when they get caught, they say, ‘No, this is just soup for my family.’ And then the media says, ‘This is just soup. These people are very, very innocent. They’re innocent people. These are just protesters. Isn’t it wonderful to allow protesting?'”
Granted, there hasn’t been too many reports about soup being wielded by protesters or even the far-right agitators who have routinely slipped into their midst and exacerbated situations.
There followed what has become a familiar pattern: The news is relentlessly and increasingly grim and, to blow off steam, people online glom onto something ridiculous Trump or someone near him has said and, whoomp, everyone’s making variations on the same joke. Or everyone winds up making the same joke.
In this case, Trump’s soup rant had everyone thinking about a certain Seinfeld character: the fearsome “Soup Nazi,” who reigned over Season 7.
Trump is the dark, gritty reboot of the Soup Nazi American didn't need https://t.co/ceVTvyygyn
— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) September 1, 2020
The Soup Nazi.
Seriously, listen to him rant delusionally about soup. https://t.co/qQ314gT9k3
— Jed Shugerman (@jedshug) September 1, 2020
He's the Soup Nazi now. https://t.co/GkIa25oxNu
— Leslieoo7 (@Leslieoo7) September 1, 2020
Donald Trump is the Soup Nazi.
— TheDaily (@StopTheCriminal) September 1, 2020
https://twitter.com/concit1USA/status/1300942773290491904
It happened.
donald is literally now “The Soup Nazi”.
Do your thing, twitter verse. Lay down the Seinfeld score.pic.twitter.com/8aa9ZeUG8H pic.twitter.com/RsdSoBjgIl— Stephanie "LB" 🟧 (@LincolnsBible) September 1, 2020
Some took an extra minute to really think about the logic of what he was saying.
https://twitter.com/striderno9/status/1300938453325148161
Some tied it in with a meme from earlier in the day, when it was wildly speculated that the president may have suffered a stroke.
OK: #Strokeahontas or the Soup Nazi?
Discuss.pic.twitter.com/Iym6Wfa7Yi
— BrooklynDad_Defiant!☮️ (@mmpadellan) September 1, 2020
Some dug up the time a couple years back when Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross used a can of Campbell’s to defend a controversial tariff policy.
I found director of the ANTIFA https://t.co/2sx5yaVLR5 pic.twitter.com/9IDrS6pMe4
— Comfortably Numb – @ygalanter.bsky.social (@YGalanter) September 1, 2020
And some just thought it all sounded like BS.
I stopped carrying mace yrs ago. I now carry a can of Progresso cream of mushroom soup to defend myself. It packs a whollop. https://t.co/lyqWmxZSyz
— Just Carmen (@Carmen50) September 1, 2020
Finally, the best Trump impressionist of all weighed in.