A professional clown of 24 years isn’t joking when he says it’s time to stop calling President Donald Trump a clown. He wrote a Washington Post op-ed that criticizes the president and insists that real clowns bring “joy to the world, not chaos to Washington.”
Tim Cunningham, the chairman of the board of the nonprofit Clowns Without Borders, argues Thursday that while “allegations that President Donald Trump is a clownish figure are not hard to come by,” lumping Trump in with clowns diminishes Cunningham’s “joyful work.”
“I’m here to set the record straight,” Cunningham writes in the op-ed, headlined “Donald Trump Is Not a Clown. I Should Know.”
The Post has been grappling with an exodus of top talent and growing financial troubles. The paper lost more than 250,000 subscribers in a boycott after owner Jeff Bezos in October blocked the editorial board’s planned endorsement of then-Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. Even before the mass boycott erupted, the Post had been struggling financially for several years and was on track to lose $77 million in 2024.
Cunningham in his op-ed urges his readers to “find a better metaphor to despise and depose fascism.”
Trump has drawn Democratic ire over his nationwide crackdown on illegal immigration, anti-Semitism on college campuses, and DEI initiatives. The president has also worked to overhaul the federal bureaucracy and banned biological men from competing in women’s sports.
