“Who’s next?” asks Mr Trump. 

The speech balloon from his deputy contains various derogatory references to Micheál Martin, more or less ribald or obscene depending on which versions you have received.

The visit of the Taoiseach to Washington on Wednesday week assumes an increased order of difficulty after the staged ambush of Zelenskyy on Friday. 

Martin is seasoned enough to play the role in which he is cast but he may face provocative questions about Ireland’s tax regime, the balance of trade, and the EU’s attitudes towards technology companies.

Many would like Martin to raise concerns about Gaza alongside Ukraine. 

It is sadly inevitable that doing so will achieve nothing for the besieged Palestinians, for whom Israel yesterday banned all humanitarian aid.

Our Taoiseach is unlikely to fail the wardrobe test but he must beware the pack of attack dogs who are now invited into proceedings as part of the DC press corps. 

In the distractionary ridicule about Zelenskyy’s dress sense, it is worth noting that the question came from a Maga-supporting journalist who also happens to be the boyfriend of Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. 

At the end of the embarrassing meeting in the Oval Office, Trump shared an observation which gave a firm clue as to how he viewed the whole matter. “This is going to be great television,” he remarked.

We should not be surprised that a leader who made his name fronting a reality TV show views life through a prism where ratings are more important than honour and decency.

Trump is also a man who enjoys a soundbite. 

He will be familiar with one that is perhaps the most famous in the history of his nation when Franklin D Roosevelt, spoke about “a date that will live in infamy”.

In that case, his illustrious predecessor was referring to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. 

But the 46th occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (George Washington never resided there) is initiating his own list of dark days.

An early example came last Monday at the UN which, like Nato, now teeters on the edge of an existential crisis.

When the UN Security Council came to mark the third anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s bloody invasion of Ukraine, America’s acting ambassador, Dorothy Camille Shea, raised her hand with Russia and China to support an anodyne three-paragraph resolution without a scintilla of criticism or condemnation of the Kremlin. 

In the General Assembly, the US contribution was even more astonishing as a range of its allies including Nato states, Australia and Japan, co-sponsored a resolution denouncing the “devastating and long-lasting consequences” of Russia’s aggression.

Even China and Iran decided to abstain rather than oppose. 

But America lined up not only with Russia, but with North Korea and Belarus, to vote against.

It is often said that you can take the measure of someone by the company they keep. 

It appears that, for the first time in memory, we have a US administration which prefers the companionship, and values, of rogue states. 

Mr Martin has been warned. Fairness, consistency, and common sense may be in short supply. He will have to rely on his own.

Decline and fall of great industry

For many students of change, the British miners’ strike, which ended 40 years ago today, was the nearest that country has come to civil war in modern history. 

A bloody, year-long dispute concluded with the breaking of a powerful union and the collapse of a crucial industry which had for decades symbolised a nation.

The conflict was personified by the powerful oratory and pugnacious spirit of the president of the National Union of Mineworkers, ‘King Arthur’ Scargill, born and raised in the West Riding of Yorkshire, where he still lives a reclusive existence at the age of 87.

Mr Scargill was a key leader in two successful miners’ strikes in 1972 and 1974, the second of which brought down the Conservative government of Ted Heath. 

Heath foolishly fought on a campaign slogan of “who governs Britain?”, only for the electorate to tell him “not you”. 

His defeat led to his replacement as party leader by Margaret Thatcher.

In 1983, Scargill split his strike support by refusing to ballot his membership, preferring instead to rely on secondary picketing to prevent access to pits. 

Thatcher almost certainly lied about the extent of her government’s plans to close mines.

At its height, in 1920, Britain’s coal industry employed 1.2m people. 

When Scargill was president in 1982, the union boasted 250,000 members. 

Now it represents fewer than 90. New mining licences are banned under net zero legislation.

It is a stunning example of once unimaginable decline, and how quickly things can change in relative terms. 

Today, millions throughout the world, and many in Ireland, rely on technology for employment in ways which were inconceivable four decades ago. 

With the acceleration of AI and machine-based learning, we may see those go the same way as pick and shovel jobs, and sooner than we think.

Age old advice

There is often an indefatigable quality about people who have endured great hardship. It’s what makes them “survivors”.

Rose Girone, the oldest person — at age 113 — to be a victim of the Holocaust died in Long Island, New York, last week.

While eight months pregnant, Rose escaped from Breslau (Polish name Wroclaw) in 1938 when her husband was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp. 

She travelled to Singapore, but lived in a bathroom in a Jewish ghetto for seven years before settling in the US. 

Here, she rented whatever she could find and supported her daughter with knitting jobs.

There are about 245,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors alive around the world. 

Rose would often say “aren’t we lucky”, telling friends that the secret to longevity was “dark chocolate and good children”. 

Advice worth noting.