My lunch with a DC MAGA kingpin

Did you know your humble servant once enjoyed an impromptu lunch date with a Trump inner circle member? Here's how it went down.

It was late 2017, and my calendar is doing me no favors right now because I cannot find a more specific date. But I was changing planes at Denver International Airport with a couple hours to spare, and so was luncheoning at some random airport bar, enjoying a bland $38 sandwich and an inadequate $26 Scotch from the well.

The bartender and I were getting on well. I had overheard him mention some canon item from the Denver Airport Conspiracy (Skeptoid #194) and for me, of course, that’s the cue to jump right on into the conversation. He knew a bit about it, but as I’d done a whole show on it, I had a lot of details that were new and amazing to him.

For the uninitiated: The Denver Airport Conspiracy is a wide-ranging set of claims about DEN. Such as:

• It was built by the Illuminati as a base from which to launch Global Genocide by typing the code on a special keypad (actually the Braille interpretive sign at a civic time capsule)

• It has mysterious underground tunnels, therefore aliens. (Actually they are from an automated underground baggage handling system)

• It has alien writing inlaid into the floors. (Actually it’s Navajo)

• Also inlaid are Au Ag, short for Australia Antigen, the poison the New World Order plans to use to kill all of humanity. (Actually it’s a reference to Colorado’s mining history of silver and gold)

• The giant creepy blue horse sculpture with glowing red eyes, nicknamed Blucifer, fell on its sculptor during its creation and killed him. (OK that one’s true)

So we were jamming about this shit when two dudes rolled in and scored the barstools next to me. From their conversation, it was clear that they wanted everyone in the room to know what an amazing golf weekend they’d just had. But it took only a minute or two before they tuned into the conversation I was having with the bartender.

The maddening thing here is that I instantly recognized the guy sitting immediately next to me. I knew his face and voice and mannerisms as well as I’ve ever known any best friend. But I couldn’t place his name nor where I knew him from! He was super engaged in the airport conspiracy stuff. He’d heard bits and pieces but never given it any thought, and seemed quite excited to have all the blanks filled in. He was warm, friendly, cheerful, curious, and bought every other round of drinks, as did I. Every little mannerism, turn of phrase, flash of eye, and tone of speech reinforced that I was completely familiar with this unknown stranger in a random airport bar.

His plane left before mine. Three minutes after he left, I realized who he was.