Trump Derails His Christmas Speech to Ramble About Snakes

Guests at the White House Christmas reception fell silent Sunday as President Donald Trump veered way off topic to deliver a cozy holiday tale about … poisonous snakes?

“Tale” is probably giving him too much credit. During his address, 79-year-old Trump turned his attention to Peru, which he said “is known to be a rather rough place in terms of physical creatures crawling around.”

“Twenty-eight thousand people die a year from a snake bite, a certain snake. It’s a viper. It’s said to be the most poisonous snake in the world,” Trump said. “But the venom rarely works, it’s so powerful, the snake. It’s said to be the most poisonous. That, the black mamba, the brown mamba, and the viper from Peru.”

Trump tried to explain that he was telling this “story” because his son Donald Jr. was sitting in the audience, but he didn’t end up telling any story at all.

“And so, he’s being read his rights and his—this is, they thought he was dead three times, three different times, they carried him out, feeding him the anti-venom, and over a period of months he was unconscious for a long time, many weeks, and he made it. I asked him, ‘How ya doing today?’ And he said, ‘Is it perfect?’” the president rambled incoherently.

Suddenly, Trump seemed to notice that he’d lost his audience.

“Look how quiet everybody is,” the president said. “You know, it’s funny when you talk about snakes and things like that, people find it interesting.”

Interesting? No. Deeply concerning? Yes.