Reality TV can make or break a politician (unless you’re Donald Trump)

Welcome to Declassified, a weekly humor column.

Living in Belgium is a giant reality TV show, albeit one designed by people on the strongest of psychedelic drugs.

But actual reality television proved too much this week for Georges-Louis Bouchez, leader of the French-speaking Reformist Movement political party, who quit Flemish reality show “Special Forces: Who Dares Wins” after just two episodes. Bouchez’s performance had come under fire because of a perceived lack of team spirit and effort — which sounds exactly like every party’s performance in every Belgian coalition government formation talks but was clearly too much for a bit of telly.

“I take responsibility. If the group is punished because of me every time, I can’t continue,” Bouchez said, which also sounds like something a party leader would say after the collapse of Belgian coalition government talks.

While we’re on the subject of politicians on reality TV, all eyes during the coronation in the U.K. were on Penny Mordaunt (some eyes were of course on King Charles and a few eyes were making sure Prince Andrew didn’t get up to any unpleasantness).

Mordaunt carried an important constitutional symbol, the sword of state, into Westminster Abbey as part of the procession for the coronation of King Charles III.

The sword of state is important for two reasons: it represents the king’s authority, and it is also meant to stop Boris Johnson from staging a coup in a desperate attempt to cling to relevance.

Back in 2014, Mordaunt was a contestant on a celebrity diving competition called “Splash!” and her excellent work at the coronation will have done her chances of one day being British prime minister no harm at all. If she’d dropped the sword, however, it could have been the end of her ambitions of reaching high office — and if she’d dropped the sword on an important member of the royal family (basically anyone above Prince Edward in the pecking order) she’d be in the Tower of London.

But some people are bulletproof. We’re now in the midst of a debate as to whether being legally branded as a sexual predator — as reality TV’s Donald Trump was this week after a New York jury found that he sexually abused the advice columnist E Jean Carroll in a department store changing room 27 years ago — will affect his chances of again becoming U.S. president. Spoiler alert: It won’t.

Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina (who, to borrow a joke from Saturday Night Live, Trump definitely calls “Joe Tapioca”) said the ex-president is “firm in his belief … that he cannot get a fair trial in New York City based on the jury pool.” The population of New York City in 2021 was 8.4 million and every single one of them hates him!

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Paul Dallison is POLITICO‘s slot news editor.