With the world facing a viral pathogen with no vaccine or proven effective treatment, people are understandably on edge.
Hoping to give people a smile or a laugh, lawyer and fiscally conservative Republican—and Donald Trump adversary—George Conway decided to give folks the set up for an old joke with a new twist.
Taking to Trump's favorite forum, Conway posted on Twitter:
"The following is a quarantine crowdsource joke-writing exercise."
"How many people does it take to screw in a lightbulb for Donald Trump?"
He added the hashtag:
#trumplightbulb
Conway got things rolling with his own response.
And no, the answer isn't “None, because he doesn't do that kind of screwing."
— George Conway (@gtconway3d) April 7, 2020
The tweet quickly racked up almost 5,000 likes and over 1,000 responses.
Q. How many people does it take to screw in a lightbulb for Donald Trump?
A. Three. One to screw in the bulb, the second to bill the Secret Service $20k for security lighting, and the third to appear on Fox News to claim Obama left the country in the dark.#trumplightbulb
— IP (@InfPhnm) April 7, 2020
1) No one knows, he's always in the dark.
Or
2)We've yet to find out because he's fired all the competent people & the rest just keep telling him the light is on.#trumplightbulb
— Dr. J. Montoya (@airwayjedi) April 7, 2020
Trick question. He doesn't use light bulbs since, like windmills, they cause cancer. In fact, once Jared is done curing the virus he's gonna head up a task force to find an alternative to light bulbs. I hear hydroxychloroquine may work. #trumplightbulb
— Scott Wryn (@scottwrynn) April 7, 2020
1 Electrician
1 lawyer to draft NDA
1 "Scientist" to confirm trump invented bulb
23 fox contributors to attest it's the best ever
1 press Secretary to say it's the Democrats fault that they ordered the wrong size#TrumpLightBulb
— Conan (@Con_Far) April 7, 2020
54.
One to do it and 53 GOP Senators to acquit him of keeping America in the dark.#trumplightbulb
— Steve (@shortcomment) April 7, 2020
And more importantly, who pays the lightbulb $130,000 while Michael Cohen is otherwise occupied? 🤔🤔🤔 #trumplightbulb
— David Reiss, M.D. (@DMRDynamics) April 7, 2020
The answers took a variety of paths.
Conway highlighted his personal favorites.
He also offered suggestions to improve the punchline.
Some worked just fine as is.
Some even channeled a Trump briefing...
A tremendously large amount that the world has never seen before and I alone can fix it. But it's a fake light bulb. You know it is. You're nasty for asking the question. You are Fake News! #trumplightbulb
— MegabyteMedia (@MegabyteMedia) April 7, 2020
That's such a nasty question. Why do you always have to ask getcha questions? You should say “This administration has done so great with lightbulbs, better than anyone in the history of lightbulbs. What are you doing that's so right?" #trumplightbulb
— Alf Artigan (@AlfArtigan) April 7, 2020
My people are working incredible hard on replacing the bulb but nobody knew how complex it was. Someone said 'Sir; we found a beautiful bulb'. But you know these democrats. Pelosi, holding it up. The bulb will be changed in the next short period of time.#trumplightbulb
— Jim Drumheller (@JimDrumheller) April 7, 2020
The story that my lamp needs a light bulb is fake news... have you seen my Facebook stats? #trumplightbulb
— Ben Braddock (@YoungBraddock) April 7, 2020
...while others pointed to the pass the buck federal pandemic response.
Speaking of passing the buck...
#trumplightbulb My gut says 2, but maybe not. Who knows? It could be 5 or even 9. It depends. And anyway, I'm not responsible for the bad lighting—Obama PURPOSELY installed lights that would fail when I became president.
— George Silberman (@quentinrd) April 7, 2020
Two.
One to screw in the lightbulb but give Trump credit.
Another to blame #Obama for having lightbulbs that make #Trump look bad.#TrumpLightBulb
— Dread Pirate Roberts Mueller (@DreadMuller) April 7, 2020
But one person thought the answer was zero.
And had a good reason why.
Aside from the jokes, Conway wanted to pass on an important message to remember as the 2020 presidential election approaches.
Sharing the timeline before the Trump administration stopped calling the global pandemic a hoax and decided to take any form of action, Conway shared a Washington Post cover with the caption:
"70 days."
"That interval should be burned into the mind of every American voter."
"Tweet it, say it, whenever you can, to whomever you know. Those days cost lives."
"70 days."
As of Tuesday, April 7, the 2020 election is 209 days away.
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