The White Home is stuffed with a lot wealthy historical past and custom — it helps inform the story of America itself. And it’s an extremely spectacular and intimidating venue for facilitating worldwide diplomacy.
As Michael Douglas’ President Andrew Shepherd says in “The American President,” “The White Home is the one best dwelling courtroom benefit within the trendy world.”
President Trump understands the worth of first impressions, even (and particularly) in the event that they’re not portray an correct image. He could have put gold leaf in his NYC bogs, however he additionally inflated the worth of his properties and his personal internet price for years. He famously pretended to be his personal spokesman to look extra established. He’s offered the whole lot from luxurious ties to luxurious homegoods, most of which had been made cheaply in China.
For Trump, you’ll be able to overlook if it’s real or not — it simply has to look wealthy.
So nobody ought to be shocked that on his second-go-round at president, he determined the White Home — the individuals’s home — wanted the Trump contact, too. Not identified for subtlety, Trump’s already made noticeable adjustments, portray over fixtures within the Oval Workplace a garish gold, and festooning the place with gold vases, trophies, and coasters.
And now he’s constructing a brand new ballroom, very like the one he makes use of at Mar-a-Lago to host his company and political buddies.
The brand new ballroom will price $250 million, and Trump insists that it’s being solely funded by personal donors. Together with his penchant for deceptive about his personal expenditures, I suppose we’ll simply must take his phrase for it.
However as America watches aghast that the White Home East Wing is being torn up, Trump is reveling within the destruction…er, building. At a Tuesday press convention he moaned, “You in all probability hear the attractive sound of building to the again. You hear that sound? Oh, that’s music to my ears. I like that sound. Different individuals don’t prefer it. Once I hear that sound, it jogs my memory of cash.”
It’s not exhausting to see why. Trump’s used the workplace of the presidency to rake within the money, boosting his private internet price by a report $3 billion simply since 2024.
In accordance with Forbes: “No president has used his place of energy to revenue as immensely as Trump.” He’s primarily achieved that with a crypto enterprise he introduced final September named World Liberty Monetary, and a memecoin, all of which he helped make attainable by rolling again laws and signing favorable laws. How handy.
However that’s not all.
He’s introduced a brand new “Arc de Trump,” a construction that can be constructed throughout from the Lincoln Memorial to commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary. We don’t know the way a lot it is going to price or who’s paying for it.
He’s refurbishing a $400 million Qatari aircraft he was “gifted” in Might, which is estimated to price taxpayers greater than $1 billion. Trump says he’s donating the aircraft to his presidential library basis.
A New York Occasions report this week alleged Trump is asking the Justice Division to pay him $230 million personally, over its investigations into him, an concept he later defended.
That is all taking place whereas the federal government is shut down, and costing taxpayers $15 billion every week. And it’s taking place as Trump simply handed Argentina a $20 billion bailout whereas American farmers undergo below his dumb commerce struggle. And it’s taking place whereas 22 U.S. states are both in a recession or on the brink. Trump doesn’t care.
In fact, fleecing the American individuals isn’t new for him.
Final yr, the Home Oversight Committee revealed Trump was charging greater than a thousand bucks an evening on the taxpayers’ bank card in order that Secret Service brokers defending his household might keep at Trump motels.
After mendacity in regards to the outcomes of the 2020 election, he fleeced his personal supporters, encouraging donations to assist “Cease the Steal,” donations which he then used to pay his personal authorized payments and Melania’s stylist.
From golden sneakers to Trump Bibles, he’ll get his palms on People’ cash any method he can.
However Trump is caught within the Eighties — each when it comes to his gaudy inside design aesthetic and his assumption of the place the American financial system is. He could study within the midterms that greed isn’t pretty much as good because it was for Gordon Gekko when his voters can’t afford gasoline or groceries.
Or possibly he’s caught within the 1780s, his faux-French “Arc de Trump” a fond homage to the courtroom of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, whose lavish spending whereas their individuals starved prompted an precise revolution.
Will People tire of Trump’s extra as they wrestle to satisfy primary wants whereas he shrugs and says, “Allow them to eat crypto?”
S.E. Cupp is the host of “S.E. Cupp Unfiltered” on CNN.
