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WAUKESHA, WI - MAY 1st: Former president Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally on Wednesday May 1st, 2024.  (Photo by Sara Stathas for the Washington Post)

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The more that comes out about <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/donald-trump/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Donald Trump</a>’s post-presidency conduct, the clearer it becomes that the real challenge was not prying confidential information out of Trump but avoiding <i>receiving</i> confidential information.

I think I see the problem. Donald Trump has two modes of conversation. He is either ranting about all the things he intends to do <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/07/18/trump-presidential-powers-consolidate-satire/" target=_blank>when he becomes dictator</a> of the country — so many rights to strip away! so much vengeance to extract against his enemies! so many guardrails to dismantle! — or he is volunteering classified information. Those are really it. If you don’t want one, you have to buckle in for the other.

Analysis: Trump's classified documents problem goes nuclear -- again

Which brings us to the news from special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation that Donald Trump <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/10/06/trumps-classified-documents-problem-goes-nuclear-again/" target=_blank>apparently shared</a> sensitive information about U.S. nuclear submarines with an Australian billionaire. You might be wondering: Is this a private party, or can anyone play? Yes! All you have to do is pay money to be around Donald Trump by, say, attending a fundraiser or joining Mar-a-Lago, the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/08/31/trump-net-worth-inflation/" target=_blank>most valuable golf club</a> on the planet, valued at approximately $6 billion more than the sun, and you, too, can take the Trump Top Secret Challenge! See how long you can go without having Donald Trump just hand you some classified information.

Do you see all these people <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/06/26/donald-trump-audio-recording-iran-documents/" target="_blank">getting sensitive information from Trump</a> — book researchers, foreign moguls, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-shares-potentially-revealing-image-of-iranian-missile-site-on-twitter/2019/08/30/4820db10-cb5e-11e9-a1fe-ca46e8d573c0_story.html" target="_blank">random users of the site formerly known as Twitter</a>, Philippine <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-submarines/trump-tells-duterte-of-two-u-s-nuclear-subs-in-korean-waters-nyt-idUSKBN18K15Y" target="_blank">President Rodrigo Duterte</a> — and wonder, Gee, how long can a person go in his company without hearing something they are not supposed to know? Is it measured in seconds, or in hours? Days seems too long. Fortunately, to answer this question, there’s the Trump Top Secret Challenge! Almost anyone can play! It’s not just for donors, although it is definitely for donors. The only objective is that you spend 24 hours around Donald Trump without learning any classified information.

Analysis: How Trump has flaunted sensitive information -- a history

Anyone can try! If you win, they give you a T-shirt (printed all over with state secrets), but nobody has won it yet. Somebody came close, once, because she was at Mar-a-Lago during a weekend when Trump was absent, but she made the mistake of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/06/10/trump-classified-documents-path-bathroom-indictment/" target=_blank>visiting the wrong bathroom</a> and — boom! Nothing but <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/interactive/2023/see-trump-classified-documents-mar-a-lago-path-storage-bathroom/" target=_blank>boxes of classified documents</a>. Now she knows all our sources and methods. She wasn’t even interested in the sources and methods, but she hadn’t brought her phone into the bathroom with her, and she needed something to read.

Presumably<b> </b>the Australian billionaire who reportedly learned about our nuclear submarines was also trying to do the Trump Top Secret Challenge. He thought he had a shot. Here he is, a foreign national, a cardboard magnate, with no obvious interest in naval warfare. (Usually, you can tell if a man has interest in naval warfare. That is one of the first things you know about him, usually.) Going into the challenge, his fear was that, knowing his passion for cardboard, Donald Trump was going to rush him <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/06/13/trump-bathroom-door-gop/" target=_blank>to the bathroom</a> and start showing off his collection of boxes, asking for his opinion on their absorption power and shape stability, and he might accidentally glimpse a secret that way. He had girded his loins against that possibility. What he was not prepared for was the fact that Donald Trump, any time there is a lull in conversation, will just tell you how close our nuclear submarines can get to a Russian submarine without detection.  (Duterte made the same rookie mistake back in 2017.)

Other noteworthy losers include Russian officials (<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-revealed-highly-classified-information-to-russian-foreign-minister-and-ambassador/2017/05/15/530c172a-3960-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html" target=_blank>in the Oval Office in 2017</a>), random social media users who <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/11/18/1137474748/trump-tweeted-an-image-from-a-spy-satellite-declassified-document-shows" target=_blank>looked at Twitter at the wrong moment in 2019</a> and got to see a classified photo taken by a classified satellite, and a pigeon that got too close to Air Force One at a critical moment.

It is one thing to walk into a meeting in the Oval Office and, say, be Russian. Everyone knows that Donald Trump loves to impress Russia. The odds were heavily against them. But researchers working on a book about somebody else mistakenly thought they had a shot. They weren’t even at Mar-a-Lago. That seemed promising. But no! Moments into the conversation at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., and the former president is waving classified documents at them. “Secret,” said Donald Trump. “This is secret information. Look, look at this!” <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/09/politics/trump-tape-didnt-declassify-secret-information/index.html" target=_blank>Those are actual quotes. </a>

This game is hard! But if you are willing to pay for proximity to the ex-president, you can play as many times as you like! Eventually, you’re bound to lose!

National Press Club Angele Gingras Award for Humor Writing 2016, Shorty Award 2016, Forbes 30 Under 30, Fifty Funniest People Right Now (Rolling Stone)

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Alexandra Petri is a Washington Post columnist offering a lighter take on the news and opinions of the day. She is the author of  <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Alexandra-Petris-History-Important-Documents/dp/1324006439/">"AP's US History: Important American Documents (I Made Up).</a>  

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