--- title: Simpsons Takes on Trump in a tale of two trumps short description: In “A Tale of Two Trumps” Trump proves he's no Ebeneezer Scrooge canonical: https://time.com/5215423/simpsons-tale-of-two-trumps/ author: Melissa Locker article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-03-26T15:44:16.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:51:37.805Z og:title: The Simpsons Give Donald Trump The Christmas Carol Treatment og:description: In “A Tale of Two Trumps” Trump proves he's no Ebeneezer Scrooge og:url: https://time.com/5215423/simpsons-tale-of-two-trumps/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcb3716e9ffec4d4d/69892bffab6d7768426b2375/simpsonstrump.jpg?branch=production&width=1102&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1102 og:image:height: 620 og:image:alt: SimpsonsTrump og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Simpsons Give Donald Trump The Christmas Carol Treatment twitter:description: In “A Tale of Two Trumps” Trump proves he's no Ebeneezer Scrooge twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcb3716e9ffec4d4d/69892bffab6d7768426b2375/simpsonstrump.jpg?branch=production&width=1102&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # _The Simpsons_ Give Donald Trump His Own _Christmas Carol_ Awakening > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Mar 26, 2018 3:44 PM UTC  by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Mar 26, 2018 3:44 PM UTC _The_ [_Simpsons_](http://time.com/5205438/homer-simpson-driving-license/?iid=sr-link1) writers seem to have been reading some Charles Dickens lately. In a new three-minute film, released over the weekend, President Donald Trump has an awakening straight out of the _A Christmas Carol_ playbook. In “A Tale of Two Trumps”, Trump takes a long hard look at himself in the mirror and reconsiders a few of his life choices_._ “You’ve been acting like a narcissistic sociopath and 64 percent to 67 percent of the people hate you!” he tells himself. While Ebeneezer Scrooge had his self-realization thanks to the visits of three Christmas spirits, Trump’s moment seems to have been triggered by headlines like “Jared Loses Access to Ivanka”, “[Trump](http://time.com/5215331/us-expels-russian-diplomats/?xid=homepage) Tweets Actual Fact By Mistake”, and “Putin Names Self U.S. Secretary of State”. While _Simpsons’_ Trump vows to do better, it may be too late to save his marriage to Melania, who is shown reading both Michael Wolff’s tell-all book _Fire and Fury_ and a book on pre-nup law. Like in Dickens’s _A Christmas Carol_, though, Trump soon awakens from his nightmare and realizes that it was all a dream. While Scrooge took the lesson to heart and went to share Christmas dinner with the Cratchit family, in the video, Trump rises from his bed to “tweet what’s deep in \[his\] heart” and all he can manage is—“Alec Baldwin wears a hairpiece. Sad!” Because _The Simpsons_ [predicted](http://time.com/4667462/simpsons-predictions-donald-trump-lady-gaga/) Trump’s presidency (and many [other news stories](http://time.com/5174912/olympics-2018-simpsons-curling-usa-prediction/?iid=sr-link8)), the events portrayed in “A Tale of Two Trumps” could always come true. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5215423/simpsons-tale-of-two-trumps/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5215423/simpsons-tale-of-two-trumps/"},"headline":"The Simpsons Give Donald Trump His Own Christmas Carol Awakening","datePublished":"2018-03-26T15:44:16.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:51:37.805Z","description":"In “A Tale of Two Trumps” Trump proves he's no Ebeneezer Scrooge","url":"https://time.com/5215423/simpsons-tale-of-two-trumps/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Television","The Simpsons","Donald Trump"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcb3716e9ffec4d4d/69892bffab6d7768426b2375/simpsonstrump.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Melissa Locker","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcb3716e9ffec4d4d/69892bffab6d7768426b2375/simpsonstrump.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"SimpsonsTrump","caption":"","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5215423/simpsons-tale-of-two-trumps/","name":"The Simpsons Give Donald Trump His Own Christmas Carol Awakening"}}]}] ```