This morning, president-elect Donald Trump formally named former Texas Gov. Rick Perry as his Secretary of Energy.
During the vitriolic 2016 GOP presidential primaries, when nobody in her or his right mind thought that a brash billionaire who had never run for public office could insult his way to the presidency, Perry was the first Republican presidential candidate to come out against Trump, callingTrump’s candidacy “a mix of demagoguery, mean spiritedness and nonsense, and a cancer on conservatism.”
Perry, the longest-serving governor in the history of the Lone Star State, also ran for president in 2012, but when famously (or infamously) asked, during a November 2011 debate, which three federal agencies he would abolish, he stated that he would eliminate the Departments of Education and Commerce, but he could not remember the third, feebly sputtering “Oops.” From then on, Perry’s candidacy for the presidency was doomed. Later, he said that the third agency he wanted to eliminate was the Department of Energy — and all the political savants knew that that was what he struggling to say at the debate.
If Perry is confirmed as Secretary of Energy — a job to which he feels entitled because Texas produces more energy from petroleum and natural gas than any other state — he will soon be leading a vast federal agency which is in charge of our energy production. The Department of Energy is responsible for the safe handling of all US nuclear materials. With an annual budget of nearly $28 billion, it has 12,944 direct federal employees and 93,094 contract employees.
Perry was a Methodist until he and his wife joined Lake Hills Church, an evangelical megachurch near Austin. While running for president in 2016, he famously led a prayer service in Houston for 30,000 people.
Here at Apocryphal Press World Headquarters, we have appointed associate solitary reporter Jeremiah Martin to cover Perry.
Martin found Perry energetically celebrating his nomination at Times Square Church, an inter-denominational church close to Trump Tower. “Governor,” Martin began, “now that you are likely to run the Department of Energy — the agency you wanted to eliminate — how do you propose to do that?”
“Jeremiah, that’s a great question. Within that vast, bloated gummint department, I will establish a small unit of fewer than four people, and it will be reporting directly to me. I’m gonna call it the OOPS unit (Out Of Political Sensibility, or maybe Office Of Prevention of Science). With all the nukes that the Department of Energy and the Pentagon have, we’re gonna nuke the whole agency. There won’t be nothin’ left of it — I’m gonna destroy the whole thing, buildings and all, but I’ll let my employees walk away from the nuclear exposion if they agree to join the Republican Party, if they’re not already with me on that score. After I get that done, I’ll go back to Texas to launch my campaign to unseat Ted Cruz, the least popular member of the United States Senate, in 2018. I am so much better lookin', and so much more popular, than Ted, that I’ll have the time of my life beatin' him.”
Martin contacted Cruz’ office for comment about Perry’s plans to run against him in 2018. He was told by spokesman Geer McGhee that “There is absolutely no way that Senator Cruz can be defeated by anybody, let alone Rick Perry. Senator Cruz almost beat Trump, and after Senator Cruz wins re-election in 2018 with 90 percent of the vote, he’s going to run against President Trump. If you think the 2016 presidential election was exciting, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet."
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