Like many before him, Cole had discovered that Donald J Trump has a neck like Mike Tyson and it is 100% brass. He simply doesn’t do embarrassment. A strange mix of hypersensitivity and shamelessness, he will just carry on regardless. It’s quite a gift. Indict him, convict him, stage a walkout in Congress, pack the National Mall with protesters, hire a plane and trail an insult across the skies, he will not blush.
There is only one occasion when he nearly succumbed, and that was when President Obama teased him mercilessly at the 2011 White House Correspondents' dinner. Some say this was the moment Trump decided to run for president. Others dispute the claim. He certainly looked furious to a degree not seen in public before or since.
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This general unwillingness to blush is something protesters will need to bear in mind as they prepare for the presidential visits - one to Scotland at the end of this month, and the other, an unprecedented second state visit, in September. The Stop Trump Coalition are already running ideas up the flagpole, though they will have to go some to beat the 20ft inflatable “angry orange baby” used in previous protests. “Keep your eyes on the skies,” said one organiser.
The trip to Scotland is unusual in that it is meant to be private but will have public aspects, including meetings with First Minister John Swinney and Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
John Swinney has, as ever, been lucky with the timing. After the Oval Office mugging of Ukraine’s president Zelenskyy, the First Minister floated the idea of cancelling the state visit. Now that Zelenskyy is back in favour and Putin is out - for now, anyway - Mr Swinney’s objections are no longer valid. The First Minister’s task now is to take the meeting wearing a look of long suffering, as if the president is some distant relative nobody invited and who has now overstayed their welcome.
Keir Starmer is in a trickier position. Never the most commanding of presences, he treats Trump like a grizzly bear that’s wandered into the family photo. The prime minister looks terrified, fluffs his lines, tries to placate the creature with a shiny invitation from the palace. He all but runs away when the meeting is over.
After a dreadful first year, Labour backbenchers will be in no mood to see their leader be too pally with the president. Meanwhile, the authorities at Westminster have been at their silky best in ensuring the state visit happens during recess, thereby avoiding a Trump address to both houses of parliament that would surely have prompted a demonstration or boycott.
John Swinney will meet Donald TrumpJohn Swinney will meet Donald Trump (Image: free) The Trump that Starmer and Swinney will meet is a very different president to the ones that visited before. He arrives here as a second-term victor, a president in command of all the branches of government he surveys. Whatever his opponents said he wouldn’t do, from deporting migrants to imposing tariffs, he has done. The economy is powering along, albeit with jitters about inflation. Internationally, he achieved the seemingly impossible in getting Nato members to pay a fairer share. Compared to other leaders, he’s golden.
It is precisely because he is racing through his to-do list that protesters will be turning out in force. With little effective opposition to Trump at home, particularly from the still-in-disarray Democrats, some here might think they have to remind America how it is done.
Though their complaints might be similar, it would be wrong to think of the protesters as a single, homogenous unit. If the polls are right - 71% of the Scottish public have an unfavourable opinion of the US president, 57% across Britain (Ipsos) - the turnout could be huge. The closest comparisons would be the 2003 demonstrations against the war in Iraq. When reporting on those it was clear that many marchers were first-timers. I lost count of the number of people, young and old, who had never done anything like it before.
Whatever the numbers, it is still going to cost us a fortune, with 5000 police expected to be on duty at a potential cost of more than £5 million. So much for a private visit.
Any protests will make for a fascinating snapshot of modern Scotland. Who will turn up? Will there be MPs and MSPs among them? Will anyone take up the placard of the late and much missed Janey Godley? Since the Greens are so disgusted at Mr Swinney meeting the president, can we take it that Ross Greer or Patrick Harvie might do the honours, or come up with a memorable sign of their own?
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While asking around, I’ve been struck by the number of people who say they would like to protest but are worried about doing so. It’s not just the fear of trouble, though that’s understandable, but what the consequences might be. More than one was concerned they wouldn’t get into America again. These otherwise rational people had visions of photos and names being taken and being pulled aside one day at US passport control. Perhaps messrs Swinney and Starmer would care to comment on that?
The president’s recent behaviour won’t do a lot to alleviate such concerns. Having said he might “take a look” at the US citizenship of South African-born Elon Musk, his latest target is the comedian Rosie O’Donnell, who left the US for Ireland in protest at Trump’s policies. He wrote on his Truth Social: “She is a Threat to Humanity, and should remain in the wonderful Country of Ireland, if they want her.”
Long Island-born O’Donnell, whose feud with Trump goes back decades, said she was delighted to still be living “rent-free in that collapsing brain of yours”.
The fight continues. Since she’s not that far away, perhaps O’Donnell might like to pop over when the president visits Scotland. All are welcome, as long as they come in peace.
Alison Rowat is a Herald columnist and feature writer