Think Trump’s hamburger buffet was weird? You can bet his chat with the American football team was weirder

‘No government of the people, by the people, for the people… until I get the money for my beautiful wall’

In the almost two centuries since the invention of the camera, there cannot have been a more exquisitely revealing photograph than the one taken last night at the White House. It has the flavour less of a still photo, in fact, than one of those allegorical Renaissance masterpieces that festoon the walls of the Louvre.

At its centre stands Donald Trump, red power tie resting on Filet-O-Fish paunch, tiny mitts extended a la jazz hands, smugly savage psych evaluation patient grin on florid face.

Arrayed on silver salvers in front of him rest hundreds of Big Macs and other fast food favourites, not to mention sachets of ketchup. Above and behind him, in an oil portrait cameo framed by gilded chandeliers, sits Abraham Lincoln.

The bulbous old sweetheart with his fast food bounty (White House)

Understandably enough, Honest Abe can’t bring himself to look at a successor unlikely to purloin his nickname. A suitably quizzical Lincoln averts his gaze to the right.

At first glance, the purpose of the golden circular loop above Lincoln’s head is a mystery. On second glance, its resemblance to a noose hints that his proximity to the latest Republican president is driving the first of them to contemplate suicide.

If a time capsule archivist was forced to choose a single photo to encapsulate the political age, this would surely be the one. Like the snap of Dubya gazing blankly down on Katrina-ravaged New Orleans from Air Force One, or the shot of Lyndon Johnson being sworn in beside a white faced, trauma-riven Jackie Kennedy, this is the stuff of instant iconography.

For the benefit of the post-apocalyptic generation that digs it up (in the exceedingly distant future, preferably; though with those stumpy-Trumpy fingers on the button who’d bet the farm on that?), the explanation for this eccentric State Dining Room banquet is as follows.

Thanks to the record-breaking government shutdown he’s facilitated in pursuit of congressional funding for his Mexican border wall, White House kitchen staff are on enforced leave. So when the bulbous old sweetheart entertained a trophy-winning college sports team, their Commander-in-Chief had to send out for their supper.

You could question the choice of cuisine for health conscious young sportsmen. Then again, McDonald’s has been an Olympic “partner” for yonks, and there may be grander questions about his judgment than this. So let’s simply congratulate him on being true to his culinary tastes, and move on.

What Trump told the line backers and wide receivers of the Clemson Tigers American football team has yet to be reported. The precise wording may never be known, but it’s a safe guess he didn’t garnish his thoughts with any Russian secret sauce about why the FBI was concerned enough about him being a Kremlin asset to investigate.

As Robert Mueller nears the end of his marathon enquiry, Trump is content to restrict the commentary to the familiar rage-tweeting about Fake News and Witch Hunts, and such credible assertions as Saturday’s “I have been FAR tougher on Russia than Obama, Bush or Clinton. Maybe tougher than any other president.” How true that is, as Ronald Reagan would attest. How very, very true.

Perhaps the quarterback of the free world treated his young guests to a masterly detailed analysis of current US relations with Iran. On the weekend, it emerged that John Bolton, the national security adviser with claims to be an even stabler genius than his boss, recently asked the Pentagon for military strike options.

So far as Tehran, Bolton is a huge fan of regime change, the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld policy which, as deployed in neighbouring Iraq, so colossally strengthened Iran in the first place.

Historically, wars in the region have fallen prey to the law of unintended consequences. But Trump wouldn’t appear to be a summa cum laude history student. If his deranged vendetta against Obama wasn’t satisfied by withdrawing from the nuclear deal, and if Mueller’s report threatens his survival, bombing Iran is precisely the kind of Hail Mary he might throw as a weapon of massively dangerous distraction.

If he was too modest to dazzle the Tigers with his geopolitical smarts, he may at least have educated them about the one known precedent for this unlikely feast. In Kingsman: The Secret Service, Samuel Jackson’s comically insane billionaire and wannabe global overlord invites Colin Firth’s 007 pastiche for dinner. The menu choice is between a Quarter Pounder (or Royale with Cheese as Samuel L preferred it in Pulp Fiction) and a Big Mac, served as convention demand on sterling silver platters. As with Monday’s banquet, there was no sign of a nearby microwave to warm it up.

Even if the teetotal Trump didn’t follow the Kingsman blueprint to the letter by serving a magnificent Lafite with the cold, congealing food, for the Tigers and their president (if not for poor old Abe) this was no doubt a happy meal.

Whether or not it was also an inspirational one for the footballers, you have to hope Trump himself was inspired by Lincoln’s presence to conclude the Get Us Burgers Address with: “No government of the people, by the people, for the people … until I get the money for my beautiful wall.”